All Posts Tagged With: "Provocations"
Top Ten Thought Provocations
•1. As if California’s budget problems weren’t bad enough, California taxpayers may now have to dig $388 million deeper into their pockets. The Bee’s Steve Wiegand reported over the weekend that a Las Vegas man has successfully sued the state’s tax collection agency for “invasion of privacy.” The state was going after inventor Gilbert Hyatt for a $7.4 million tax bill that has grown to $49 million with interest and penalties. But Hyatt won a $138.1 million award in a Nevada court last week for “emotional distress,” followed up by $250 million in punitive damages. The case has already cost the state more than $8.8 million in audit and legal fees
2. Louche (loosh) adjective: Of questionable character; dubious; disreputable. From French louche (cross-eyed), from Latin lusca, feminine of luscus (one-eyed).
3. Lawsuit says man got 9-foot tapeworm after eating undercooked salmon at Chicago restaurant
4. Currently 1.2 billion people live in countries classified as developed by the United Nations, compared with 5.5 billion in less developed regions, PRB said in its annual Population Data Sheet, released Monday. By 2050 there will be 9.3 billion people on Earth 84% will be in less developed countries. Some time this year more people will live in cities than in rural areas.
5. When it comes to saving lives, God trumps doctors for many Americans. 57 percent say God’s intervention could save a family member even if physicians declared treatment would be futile. But, nearly three-quarters appear to hedge their bet saying patients have a right to demand such treatment.
6. Clochard (KLOH-shahr) noun: A beggar; vagrant. From French clocher (to limp), from Latin clopus (lame).
7. A 17-year old got more than he bargained for when he broke into an 85-year-old Pennsylvania woman’s she pulled her revolver and calmly ordered to call police while she kept him in her sights until the police showed up.
8. A Puerto Rican man has been granted his wish to remain standing _ even in death. A funeral home used a special embalming treatment to keep the corpse of 24-year-old Angel Pantoja Medina standing upright for his three-day wake. Angel stood in the corner for the entire wake.
9. An Ohio high school student, who has been taking practice tests since sixth grade, has received perfect scores on both the SAT (2400) and ACT (36) college entrance exams. Officials say 269 of the 1.5 million students who took their test last year achieved a perfect score. ACT says 177 of the 2.2 million students who took that test during the 2006-2007 school year. Nobody seems to know if anyone else has aced both.
10. Police in Denver are getting ready for the Democratic Convention in Denver. They’re ordering the stun guns, the barbed wire, the plastic handcuffs . . . and that’s just for Bill Clinton’s room.
Ten Thought Provocations
1. If America stopped using gasoline and diesel fuel it would still consume 5 billion barrels of oil a day to be converted into thousands of industrial and consumer products, including PLASTICS, paints, RUBBER, fertilizers, detergents, dyes, TEXTILES, cosmetics, asphalt, and solvents.
2. An Italian trap shooter won a silver Medal in Beijing. Now Italy’s socialist government wants the winner to pay tax on the value of the medal.
3. Fugacious (fyoo-GAY-shuhs) Lasting a very short time. From Latin fugere (to flee) which also gave us other words such as fugitive, centrifugal, refuge, and subterfuge.
•4. Gasoline, on a constant dollar basis, is cheaper today than it was in 1960 when John Kennedy was President.
5. Whoever painted a pigeon violet and turned it loose in a Queens Playground is in trouble with the ASPCA for abuse let alone visual pollution.
•6. Seattle taxpayers are relieved to be rid of five high-tech self-cleaning toilets that cost Seattle $5 million - but sold online for just $12,549. After a failed first attempt, when a $89,000 minimum failed to attract a single bid, the city revised its strategy in hopes of sparking a bidding free-for-all. There were only 148 bids cast. A South Sound race track owner bought all of them and will use two at the track and seel the others.
•7. A Poulsbo, Washington woman was jailed after being accused of beating up her fiance at their prenuptial party. The woman’s 12-year-old son told her he saw her fiance kissing one of her women friends early Thursday morning. The woman, 31, gave her friends the boot, and then punched his lights out.
•8. Two Ogden neighbors got into a fight after a minor league baseball game that ended with one them biting off the other’s ear.
•9. U.S. military is paying scientists $4 million to study ways to read people’s thoughts. The hope is that the research could someday lead to a gadget capable of translating the thoughts of soldiers who suffered brain injuries in combat or even stroke patients in hospitals.
•10. A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert. The discovery is providing clues to two civilizations who lived there, a thousand years apart, when the region was moist and green.
Seven (Un)lucky Thought Provocations
- Mervyns becomes the latest merchant to become a casualty of the harsh retail environment and has filed
for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections. It operates about 175 locations in seven states, primarily in California. - Saturday, Mick Jagger will be entitled to a basic state pension of just under 91 pounds ($180) a week. Saturday, Mick Jagger will be entitled to a basic state pension of just under 91 pounds ($180) a week.Saturday Mike Jagger will be 65-years old and can collect his $180 a week old age pension in England. Jagger is said to be worth a half billion dollars so he probably won’t need it.
- John McCain met with the Dalai Lama. It was pretty amazing. The man whose belief goes back to the seventh century standing next to the Dalai Lama. - Leno
- A 44-year old Romanian immigrant has given birth to her 18th child in British Columbia, making her the province’s most prolific mother in 20 years. The 7 pound 12 oz girl is reportedly healthy joining 9 sisters and 8 brothers ranging in age from 23 years to 23 months.
- If Obama is elected, “change” will be the only thing left in the pockets of American taxpayers — Harris Kaufman, Toronto, Canada
- The average nationwide price of a gallon of gasoline is down 12 cents to $3.96 Americans drove 40,000,000,000 miles less so far this year causing some in Congress to suggest raising federal gasoline taxes.
- Popinjay (POP-in-jay) noun: Somone who indulges in vain and empty chatter. Via French and Spanish from Arabic babbaga (parrot). The last syllable changed to jay because some thought the word referred to that bird instead of a parrot.
Ten Less One Thought Provocations
A disconnected ramble of the peculiar, impractical, just plain silliness and hypocritical that surrounds us all.
- California will be the first state to ban trans fats in restaurants and bakeries under legislation signed Friday by the governor. New York City already bans trans fats.
- Los Angeles wants to ban certain “fast food” restaurants in “fat” neighborhoods mostly in heavily ethnic South LA. But, while one brand may be banned its competitor may not.
- Orthoepy (or-THO-uh-pee, OR-tho-ep-ee) noun: 1. Study of the pronunciation of words. 2. Customary pronunciation of a language. Via Latin from Greek ortho- (correct) + epos (word), ultimately from the Indo-European root wekw- (to speak) that also gave us voice, vowel, vouch, vocation, evoke, revoke, advocate, and epic.
- Sixty-eight percent of Californians say their state is off on the wrong track and only 40% approve of the job Governor Schwazenegger is doing and just 27% give a positive nod to the legislature confidence is low that wiether will do what is right to resolve its $15-20 bilion deficit according to a new Field Poll. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger laughingly is threatening to sign an executive order next week that will reduce pay for more than 200,000 state workers to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour to preserve cash in the midst of a month-long budget standoff.
- Parapraxis (par-uh-PRAK-sis) noun: A slip of the tongue (or pen) that reveals the unconscious mind. Parapraxis is a fancy word for the Freudian slip. It’s derived from Greek para- (beside, beyond) + praxis (act).
- Rhode Island State police say they arrested a 43-year old man early Tuesday whose blood alcohol level was 0.491 percent - the highest ever recorded for someone who wasn’t dead. The legal limit in Rhode Island is 0.08. A level of 0.30 is classified as stupor, 0.4 is comatose and 0.5 is considered fatal.
- A pet rabbit is credited with saving a couple from a fire that swept through their home in the southern city of Melbourne, Australia. The family pet, named “Rabbit,” scratching at the couple’s bedroom door half an hour after they had gone to bed awakened they discovered a fire in another part of the house and fled the flames.
- In Santa Barbara, California Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) President Diana Hull is calling for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco to take over the triple homicide case allegedly committed by illegal alien MS13 gang member Edwin Ramos and a released illegal alien who plead not guilty to the triple Ak-47 murders.
- Dr Edgar Mitchell, 77, a NASA veteran and member of the of the Apollo 14 mission - has stunningly claimed aliens do exist and it has been known and covered up for sixty years. He says the supposedly real-life ET’s were similar to the traditional image of a small frame, large eyes and head. “…(W)e’ve been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomena is real,” Dr Mitchell said during a radio interview aired in Australia. Mitchell holds the record for the longest ever moon walk, at nine hours and 17 minutes following their 1971 mission.
Thought Provocations
1. Three out of five Americans think the U.S. Constitution is fine as is, but 39% fear it doesn’t place enough restrictions on the government, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey
2. Linctus (LINGK-tuhs) A syrupy liquid medicine, especially for treating coughs. From Latin lingere (to lick). Ultimately from the Indo-European root leigh- (lick) that is also the source of lichen (apparently from the way it licks its way around a surface), and lecher, but not lingerie (which is from the root lino: flax).
3. Watermelons contain an ingredient called citrulline that can trigger production of a compound that helps relax the body’s blood vessels, similar to what happens when a man takes Viagra, said scientists in Texas, one of the nation’s top producers of the seedless variety.
4. Pollster John Zogby: “Obama is in the driver’s seat right now, especially where it really counts - in the electoral votes. Bob Barr could really hurt McCain’s chances. Monday Obama posted a lead of 44% to 38% lead over Sen. John McCain. Newly minted Libertarian former Congressman Bob Barr get 6% almost entirely out of McCain’s hide while Ralph Nader gets less than 2% mostly from Obama. Obama has a significant lead in Electors.
5. Voyager I & 2 are whizzing away from the Sun in opposite directions at 35,000 and 39,000 MPH respectively nearing the very edge of the Solar system. Both are the most distant manmade objects from Earth which, unless they hit something could continue on into eternity. Each carries a message about their original and the sort of life form that sent them. Distances are so vast Voyager 1 will take 40,000 year and 2 300,000 years before even nearing another star.
6. Thirty-two percent (32%) believe African-Americans face more discrimination and 31% believe women do. Thirty-eight percent (38%) are not sure. Before Hillary Clinton dropped out of the Presidential race, more voters (37%) believed African-Americans were discriminated against than women (27%).
7. Three out of four Americans are proud of their country’s history, and nearly as many feel the world would be a better place if more nations were like ours.
8. Seventy-two percent (72%) say that students should be required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in class each morning, although 19% disagree.
9. It’s official Obama will make his Democratic Presidential Nomination acceptance speech in the Nuremberg-like setting of a Denver football stadium.
10. Brian “Young Gun” Krause has out-spit his father to claim his seventh championship at the International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship. Krause’s winning spit on Saturday was 56 feet, 7 1/2 inches. He bested his Dad by six and one half inches.
Thought Provocations
1. President Lincoln was in deep sleep when a wannabe awakened him to announce the Postmaster General had just died and to inquire if he might take his [lace. Rolling over to return to sleep Lincoln answered, “If it’s OK with the UNDERTAKER IT’S OK with me.”
2. One of the remaining questions in the 2008 Presidential race is when Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama. In 2000 Powell scolded the Republican national convention and has generally been suspect or persona non grata since.
3. A drunken 78-year old Swede stole a dinghy in Denmark and tried to getA drunken 78-year-old Swede stole a dinghy after a night out in the Danish town of Helsingor and tried to row back to Sweden, but fell asleep halfway, Danish police said on Monday. home to Sweden but fell asleep and had to be towed back to shore to be arrested for stealing the boat and RUI (rowing under the influence.)
4. On July 14, the NEVADA Supreme Court will take up the issue of whether the state’s 12-year term limit for state and local officials is constitutional. If the court over turns it a group has already declared it will pass a new term limit amendment
5. Costive (KOS-tiv) adjective: 1. Slow to act or speak. 2. Stingy. 3. Constipated. Via French from Latin constipare (to cram together), from com- (together) + stipare (to pack or crowd).
•6. A Delano, Florida man was charged with battery after he hit his mother in the head with a three-pound package of Polish sausage. Mom was not badly hurt and did not have to go to the hospital. The so was arrested and admitted he and his mother had been arguing and he lobed the sausage at her.
7. Walter Scott, 24, put his soul up for sale on New Zealand Internet auction site TradeMe, and so far has received more than 100 expressions of interest. With $189 bid so far. The successful bidder will receive a framed deed of “soul ownership,” Scott said.
8. The latest CNN/ORC survey shows Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr at 3 percent and Independent Party candidate Ralph Nader at 6 percent. Obama gets 46% and McCain 43%.
9. Faced with ever-increasing gasoline prices, 65% Americans are planning to keep travel and other spending at a minimum during this long 4th of July weekend a Zogby poll found.
10. Fifteen camels, two zebras and several llamas and pot-bellied pigs escaped from a circus visiting Amsterdam early Monday, police suspect a giraffe kicked open a pen, and led the escape. All the animals were quickly rounded up.
Thought Provocations
- Roborant (ROB-uhr-uhnt) adjective: Strengthening. noun: A tonic. From Latin roborare (to strengthen), from robor- (oak, hardness). Ultimately from the Indo-European root reudh- (red) that also gave us red, rouge, ruby, ruddy, rubella, robust, corroborate, and rambunctious
- General Wesley Clark’s and Senator Jay Rockefeller (D) WV joint attacks on Senator John McCain’s military service and judgment on Sunday and Money respectively were simply stupid provoking another Barack Obama Sgt Shultz-like “I Know Nothing, I See Nothing” disclaimer was again disingenuous. Clark tried to save any chance for an Obama VP slot on GMA Tuesday morning but failed.
- UTAH Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. (R) last week ordered several state agencies to go to a 10-hour, four-day work week to cut costs and save commuting expense. Bureaucrats will work Monday through Thursday from 7AM to 7PM.
- An obscure group called Reform MICHIGAN Government could collect sufficient signatures by Fall to: cut lawmakers pay by 25 percent, reduce the number of state senators from 38 to 28 and the number of representatives from 110 to 82, and eliminate two seats on the Supreme Court and seven seats on the Court of Appeals. People are cranky there after being dissed by the Democrats and being beaten again by Ohio State’s football team.
- On July 14, the NEVADA Supreme Court will take up the issue of whether the state’s 12-year term limit for state and local officials is constitutional. If the court over turns it a group has already declared it will pass a new term limit amendment.
- Whackadoodle Minister Jeremiah Wright calls Thomas Jefferson a pedophile because he impregnated a 15-year old black slave girl which admittedly is a pretty good argument for that title.
- Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch says about the state of politics in New York. We are a national disgrace and laughingstock. Our state legislature has been called the most dysfunctional in the country. Newly-re-elected state comptroller, Alan Hevesi, for using state resources to provide assistance for his wife. State senate majority leader, Joe Bruno quit to stop law enforcement from investigating his business practices, and more. Koch calls it a zoo-like atmosphere.
- A 42-year-old chimpanzee who is toilet-trained and can eat with a knife and fork is believed to be at large in a Southern California forest after escaping his cage.
- Mississippi’s Jackson State University tried to buy her 800 square foot bungalow for $8,000 and she said “No, thanks.” But, when she returned to her home she found it razed to the ground including antique furniture, handmade quilts and everything else. School officials blames pranksters for the mistaken demolition. She’s not laughing and wants $30,000.
- A London meat company has been branded Dickensian after forcing its employees to clock-off every time they go to the toilet, and angering the labor union.
Rose Bowl War Time Adjustments
DUKE and OREGON played in the 1942 ROSE BOWL on January 1, 1942. But it was NOT in Pasadena but in Durham, North Carolina because people feared that a Japanese invasion of the west coast was imminent following the December 7, 1941attack on Pearl Harbor.