"Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy"
“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
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Time to relax for the weekend.
Here are a few funny animal fotos to help.
Some are natural shots, others have been helped a little with human input but I hope you find most of them amusing.
Enjoy.
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Foreclosure!
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“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
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Yesterday’s post was a bit heavy going. So today, a little bit of light relief for you.
I’ve mentioned a few times before that I am very fond of dogs. They are great loyal companions and usually very protective of their family.
I have a strong preference for German Shepherds which are well known as being courageous, intelligent, watchful, confident and alert. I would argue that they not only have these attributes, but are also highly intelligent AND also look quite elegant as well.
But there are a multitude of different breeds out there and they all have their followers.
I wonder can the owners of these breeds say the same thing?
Enjoy.
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“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
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Another alliteration and another bunch of fascinating fun facts.
Throw a few of these out when you get the opportunity and dazzle you friends with your new knowledge.
Well, you’ll probably get one of those odd quizzical looks at least.
Enjoy.
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A 75 year old person will have slept about 23 years.
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The word “set” has the most number of definitions in the English language; 192
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Hong Kong has more Rolls Royce cars per capita than any other city.
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The longest name in the Bible is Mahershalalbaz.
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In a survey of 200,000 ostriches over 80 years, not one tried to bury its head in the sand.
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Elephants have the longest pregnancy in the animal kingdom at 22 months.
The longest human pregnancy on record is 17 months, 11 days.
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Possums have one of the shortest pregnancies at 16 days.
The shortest human pregnancy to produce a healthy baby was 22 weeks, 6 days
– the baby was the length of a ballpoint pen.
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In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world’s nuclear weapons combined.
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Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was born on and died on days when Halley’s Comet can be seen.
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Benjamin Franklin was the fifth in a series of the youngest son of the youngest son.
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The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan.
There was never a recorded Wendy before it.
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One in ten people live on an island.
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Humphrey Bogart NEVER said “Play it again, Sam” in Casablanca
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Our eyes are always the same size from birth but our nose and ears never stop growing.
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Jim Henson first coined the word “Muppet”.
It is a combination of “marionette” and “puppet.”
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Arabic numerals are not really Arabic; they were created in India.
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The word “maverick” came into use after Samuel Maverick, a Texan who refused to brand his cattle.
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Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
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A “quidnunc” is a person who is eager to know the latest news and gossip.
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Chrysler built B29′s that bombed Japan.
Mitsubishi built the Zeros that tried to shoot them down.
Both companies now build cars in a joint plant called Diamond Star.
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In the last 4000 years no new animals have been domesticated.
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Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word “criminal.”
The second? William Jefferson Clinton
It can’t be a coincidence, it really can’t!!!
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The country code for Russia is “007″.
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“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
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Today we have a selection of fabulously fascinating facts.
Grateful gentlemen readers may send a donation if they so desire.
Enjoy.
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Just twenty seconds’ worth of fuel remained when Apollo 11′s lunar module landed on the moon.
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Lemon sharks grow a new set of teeth every two weeks! They grow more than 24,000 new teeth every year!
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Los Angeles’s full name is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, LA
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A fully loaded supertanker travelling at normal speed takes a least twenty minutes to stop.
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John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in a theatre and was found in a warehouse. Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and was found in a theatre.
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A cow produces 200 times more gas a day than a person. (Speak for yourself!)
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100 years from now Facebook will have the accounts of 500 million dead people.
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Rain has never been recorded in some parts of the Atacama Desert in Chile.
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A Koala is the only animal that has finger prints.
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The average person spends two weeks of their lives waiting for a traffic light to change.
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A Blue whale’s tongue weighs more than an elephant.
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A whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound.
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There are 500,000 detectable earthquakes in the world each year.
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Back in 1924, a monkey was convicted in South bend of the crime of smoking a cigarette and sentenced to pay a $25 fine and trial costs.
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Nearly 50% of all bank robberies take place on Friday.
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Babies are born without kneecaps. They don’t appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years.
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The Sears Tower in Chicago contains enough steel to build 50,000 automobiles.
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The population of the American colonies in 1610 was 350.
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Termites outweigh humans by almost ten to one.
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Stephen Hawking was born exactly 300 years after Galileo died.
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Sex is the safest tranquilizer in the world. It is 10 TIMES more effective than Valium. So you have a headache? GREAT!!!
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“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
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Yes, time to put the fears behind us. This is the final selection of curious and sometimes amusing fears and phobias that affect some people. Irrational but very real to them. Irrational and very silly to the rest of us.
So here we go, ‘T’ thru ‘Z’.
Enjoy.
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Tachophobia ……….fear of speed.
Taijin Kyofusho ……….a phobia which occurs most typically in Japan, is the fear of offending others by one’s inappropriate social behavior or appearance
Taeniophobia or Taeniophobia ……….fear of tapeworms.
Taphephobia Taphophobia ……….fear of being buried alive or of cemeteries.
Tapinophobia ……….fear of being contagious.
Taurophobia ……….fear of bulls.
Technophobia ……….fear of technology.
Teleophobia ……….fear of 1) definite plans; 2) religious ceremony.
Telephonophobia ……….fear of telephones.
Teratophobia ……….fear of bearing a deformed child or fear of monsters or deformed people.
Testophobia ……….fear of taking tests.
Tetanophobia ……….fear of lockjaw, tetanus.
Teutophobia ……….fear of German or German things.
Textophobia ……….fear of certain fabrics.
Thaasophobia ……….fear of sitting.
Thalassophobia ……….fear of the sea.
Thanatophobia or Thantophobia ……….fear of death or dying.
Theatrophobia ……….fear of theatres.
Theologicophobia ……….fear of theology.
Theophobia ……….fear of gods or religion.
Thermophobia ……….fear of heat.
Tocophobia ……….fear of pregnancy or childbirth.
Tomophobia ……….fear of surgical operations.
Tonitrophobia ……….fear of thunder.
Topophobia ……….fear of certain places or situations, such as stage fright.
Toxiphobia or Toxophobia or Toxicophobia ……….fear of poison or of being accidently poisoned.
Traumatophobia ……….fear of injury.
Tremophobia ……….fear of trembling.
Trichinophobia ……….fear of trichinosis.
Trichopathophobia or Trichophobia ……….fear of hair. (Chaetophobia, Hypertrichophobia)
Triskaidekaphobia ……….fear of the number 13.
Tropophobia ……….fear of moving or making changes.
Trypanophobia ……….fear of injections.
Tuberculophobia ……….fear of tuberculosis.
Turophobia ……….fear of cheese
Tyrannophobia ……….fear of tyrants.
Uranophobia or Ouranophobia ……….fear of heaven.
Urophobia ……….fear of urine or urinating.
Vaccinophobia ……….fear of vaccination.
Venereophobia ……….fear of catching a venereal disease.
Venustraphobia ……….fear of beautiful women.
Verbophobia ……….fear of words.
Verminophobia ……….fear of germs.
Vespertiliophobia ……….fear of bats.
Vestiphobia ……….fear of clothing.
Virginitiphobia ……….fear of virgins.
Virginitiphobia ……….fear of rape.
Vitricophobia ……….fear of step-father.
Vokephobia ……….fear of returning home.
Walloonphobia ……….fear of the Walloons.
Wiccaphobia ……….fear of witches and witchcraft.
Xanthophobia ……….fear of the color yellow or the word yellow.
Xeniaphobia ……….fear of foreign doctors, usually having to do with strong foreign accents making it difficult to understand their English. Also, if travelling in a foreign country, the fear that doctors may have inadequate medical skills.
Xenodochiophobia ……….fear of foreign hotels that could include the fear that there won’t be soap, the kind of toilet paper that you like, clean towels, or good maid service.
Xenoglossophobia ……….fear of foreign languages.
Xenonosocomiophobia ……….fear of foreigners who are pick-pockets.
Xenophobia ……….fear of strangers or foreigners.
Xerophobia ……….fear of dryness.
Xeroxophobia ……….fear of using anything made by Xerox, or fear of office equipment in general.
Xylophobia ……….fear of 1) wooden objects; 2) Forests.
Xyrophobia ……….fear of razors.
Zelophobia ……….fear of jealousy.
Zemmiphobia ……….fear of the great mole rat.
Zeusophobia ……….fear of God or gods.
Zoophobia ……….fear of animals.
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“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
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You lucky people!
Yes, for today let’s forget about politics and the looming fiscal cliff toward which we all now seem to be heading and do something a little unusual for this blog – look at some photos.
I like to take photos, and I’m not the worst photographer in the world but I’m not the greatest either, not by a long way, and I don’t seem to often find myself in ‘the right place at the right time’ to get award winning shots.
Other people, however, do. And I collect some of them and use them as wallpaper on my computer screen.
Here’s a selection of my favorites, some to make you smile, some to make you cry, but all of them impressive in their own way. Unfortunately I don’t know the source of most of these otherwise I would happily acknowledge them.
Hope at least some of them are new to you and that you like them too.
Enjoy.
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“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
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No, I’m not tilting at windmills, not just yet anyhow. And despite the play on words in the title, nor am I referring to Cervantes character Don Quixote. This post actually does concern a donkey, though. In fact animals in general.
It is a little known fact that donkeys kill more people than plane crashes. And at the end of August I read about a small town Texas mayor who was killed in an attack by his own donkey. He was Bill Bohlke and he was Mayor of Hollywood Park in Atascosa County, Texas.
That unfortunate event set me thinking of a number of things.
First I asked myself how the heck you pronounced his surname.
Then I wondered if Mayor Bohlke was a Republican or Democrat and how macabre it would have been if the donkey had done away with his elephant man rival.
And then I thought about the amazing and different ways people find to leave the mortal coil. I bet, like most of us, the last thing Mayor Bohlke thought was that some day he would meet his end from an attack from a randy donkey!
And then I marveled at how so many people, for no logical reason, have a romantic fantasy notion that animals are not inherently dangerous. They are.
And this is true for people who work with them every day and should know better.
For example, when I was growing up I would spend time at my uncle’s farm. He had a herd of one hundred or more dairy cows and every evening when I was there my cousin and myself would be sent out to the fields to bring the cows in for milking.
We had a couple of great little collie dogs to help us, not that much help was needed because the cows had a routine and once they heard us calling for them they made their way to the field gate and up the lane to the milking parlor, glad no doubt that they were about to be relieved of their burden once more.
With them came the bull. A huge brute of an animal and unbelievably strong. But he was docile enough, walked up with his herd of ‘wives’ and while they made their way into the queue for the milking machines he would usually lie down in the hayshed and munch on some of the hay.
As innocent (dumb) kids we would sometimes sit down beside him, even using him as a prop to lean against. He didn’t seem to mind a bit, we thought he was glad of the company perhaps.
Then one day as the herd was being ushered back out to the fields Mr Bull totally out of the blue decided he would like to kill my uncle.
Luckily us kids had our chore done in bringing the herd in to get milked. When the time came to take them back out again we were engaged on other vital business, I can’t remember exactly what but I’m sure it involved football, playing cowboys and Indians, fending off some galactic foe who was attacking earth that day, or some such vital stuff. But we could hear the commotion in the distance.
Furious about something, only he knew what, the bull roared angrily and ran towards my uncle who had been leading the way. With his head lowered he hit my uncle between his lower back and his knees and threw him up into the air like a rag doll – and my uncle was a BIG man. Very fortunately the bull tossed him into the air with such force that he went clean over the raised fence and hedge on the right hand side of the lane and ended up in one of the fields.
The crazy bull then tried to go after him but couldn’t get up the steep embankment on which the fence had been constructed. Another cousin, quite a bit older than us, saw the attack. He was in a tractor and he immediately had the presence of mind to use that to take the bull’s attention away from my uncle. The distraction seemed to work, because as suddenly as it had started it was over and things were back to normal.
But my uncle had learned a valuable lesson. Animals can be dangerous.
So had I, even though I wasn’t there at the time, but from then on I haven’t been a fan of bulls – not in Chicago or Wall Street either come to think of it.
Unfortunately Mayor Bohlke wasn’t so lucky with his donkey.
I wonder if it happened something like this???
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‘Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
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Family Fortunes is a bit of a goldmine for a blog like this. Nowhere does stupidity become more apparent than when a bit of pressure is added to the mix, in these cases the time constraint of trying to answer a question as quickly as possible.
Hope this selection makes you smile this weekend.
Name a measurement of liquid:
“Paint..”
Name a famous Dick:
“Carrot..”
Name something that comes in 7′s:
“Fingers..”
Name a vocalist known by only one name:
“Michael Jackson..”
Name something you hide in your socks when you go swimming:
“Your legs..”
Name a place you would keep a pen:
“A zoo..”
Name something associated with rain:
“Water..”
Name something you make into a ball:
“Eggs..”
Name a game that uses a black ball:
“Darts..”
Name a popular TV soap:
“Dove..”
Other than ‘carrier’, name a type of bag:
“Horse..”
Name something you might find in a garage:
“a grand piano..”
Name something a Frenchman would say
“On Garde..”
Name something that has a shell:
“Batman..”
Name something a policeman might say:
“Spread ‘em..”
Name a non-living object with legs:
“A plant..”
Name a sign of the Zodiac:
“April..”
Name an animal associated with a nursery rhyme:
“Andy Pandy..”
Name a mode of transport that you can walk in:
“Your shoes..”
Name an animal with big ears:
“A bear..”
Name something you do on water:
“Wallpaper..”
Name a musical instrument you can play in the bath:
“A drum kit..”
Name something associated with Egypt:
“Cigars..”
Name a part of your body you only have one of:
“Your big toe..”
Name something you pull:
“A potato..”
Name something you open other than a door:
“Your bowels..”
Name something people might be allergic to:
“Skiing..”
Name an occupation where you need a torch:
“A burglar..”
Name a dangerous race:
“The Arabs..”
Name some famous brothers:
“Bonnie and Clyde..”
“Fight Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
One of my best friends is a farmer. Or was, he sold up a few years ago, tired of the long hours in all sorts of inclement weather. But he did it for many years and has a host of good stories about incidents that happened during that time.
He was a dairy farmer for a good part of his farming career. As a result he has a healthy respect, but also more than a little contempt for cows. In fact he says they are probably the stupidest animal he has ever come across. (He hasn’t met our dog that thinks it’s a cat yet!)
He says that a cow is probably the only animal that is stupid enough to get stuck behind a open gate. Actually I’ve seen this happen myself. If a field gate is partially open at least one of them will get between it and the hedge or fence and they don’t seem to be able to figure out how to reverse and take a new route out of the field.
If you’re having a laugh at that, good. It’s even funnier when you see it in person I assure you. But there’s something even stupider than the cow I fear. That is people, some people! Take this lady in the video below.
All she has to do is reverse her car out of the garage.
Simple?
Of course not!
Have a look (I’m not sure I would like her driving my kids around, would you?)
(Acknowledgements and thanks to Pradeep for finding this one)
“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
Only very occasionally these days do I use a travel agent. I prefer to organize things myself online. But then I am a fairly experienced traveler. For many other people, particularly the intellectually challenged it seems, the travel agent is their first and last port of call when organizing a vacation.
The following are actual stories provided by travel agents. Since I read these I’m wondering if there should be some kind of proficiency test before one is allowed out of the house let alone venture into another county or country.
That’s one for the bureaucrats to ponder over, but it probably won’t happen, after all most of them couldn’t pass it, and they all like their little trips at our expense.
As usual, I hope you enjoy.
What the travel agents said:
I had someone ask for an aisle seat so that their hair wouldn’t get messed up by being near the window.
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A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawaii.
After going over all the cost info, she asked, “Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?”
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I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown.
I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information when she interrupted me with “I’m not trying to make you look stupid, but Cape Town is in Massachusetts.”
Without trying to make her look like the stupid one, I calmly explained, “Cape Cod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in Africa.”
Her response… click.
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A man called, furious about a Florida package we did.
I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando.
He said he was expecting an ocean-view room.
I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state.
He replied, “Don’t lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state.”
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I got a call from a man who asked, “Is it possible to see England from Canada?”
I said, “No.”
He said, “But they look so close on the map.”
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Another man called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas.
When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had a 1-hour lay-over in Dallas.
When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, “I heard Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive between the gates to save time.”
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A nice lady just called.
She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am.
I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she could not understand the concept of time zones.
Finally I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that!
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A woman called and asked, “Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to who?”
I said, “No, why do you ask?”
She replied, “Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I’m overweight, is there any connection?”
After putting her on hold for a minute while “I looked into it,” ( I was actually laughing) I came back and explained that the city code for Fresno is FAT, and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.
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I just got off the phone with a man who asked, “How do I know which plane to get on?”
I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, “I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them.”
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A woman called and said, “I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola on one of those computer planes.”
I asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane.
She said, “Yeah, whatever.”
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A business man called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China.
After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him he needed a visa.
“Oh no I don’t, I’ve been to China many times and never had to have one of those.”
I double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa.
When I told him this he said, “Look, I’ve been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express.”
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A secretary called in looking for hotel in Los Angles.
She gave me various names off a list, none of which I could find I finally had her fax me the list.
To my surprise, it was a list of hotels in New Orleans, Louisiana.
She thought the LA stood for Los Angles, and that New Orleans was a suburb of of L.A.
Worst of all, when I called her back, she was not even embarrassed.
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A woman called to make reservations, “I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York.”
The agent was at a loss for words.
Finally, the agent asked, “Are you sure that’s the name of the town?”
“Yes, what flights do you have?” replied the customer.
After some searching, the agent came back with, “I’m sorry, ma’am, I’ve looked up every airport code in the country and can’t find a Hippopotamus anywhere.”
The customer retorted, “Oh don’t be silly. Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!”
The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, “You don’t mean Buffalo, do you?”
She replied, “That’s it! I knew it was a big animal!”
Hippopotamus, New York
