As Syndromes Go, I Have A Good One Today. Enjoy The Facts.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

.

There seems to be syndromes for just about anything these days/

Maybe that would make a good post on its own.

For today however you will have to be content with just one, mixed in with a lot of other facts too.

.

.

.

Apparently in San Francisco

it is illegal to dry your car

with used underwear.

.

.

Since the Space Shuttle electronics were

so outdated and nobody made them anymore,

NASA actually resorted to buying spare parts

on websites like eBay

.

.

Only about 226,000 underwater marine species

have been identified and scientists estimate that

there could be up to 25 million marine species

living in the oceans.

This means less than 1% of all underwater

marine life has been discovered.

.

.

Machu Picchu, the Incan citadel set high

in the Andes Mountains in Peru,

was so high in the mountains that it

wasn’t discovered until 1911.

.

.

If it were a country,

McDonald’s would be the 90th richest

country on Earth.

.

.

In the 80’s Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu

had the game of scrabble banned and described it

as “overly intellectual” and a “subversive evil”.

.

.

Discovered in 1852 and named after

the Greek mythological figure Psyche,

16 Psyche is a one of the largest metal asteroids

in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Unlike most of other metal asteroids,

Psyche shows no sign of the presence of water

and is believed to have a purely iron-nickel composition.

.

.

After falling asleep in class and being awakened

by a teacher smacking her palm down on his desk,

a 16 year old’s parents decided to sue the

Connecticut Board of Education

for the hearing loss he suffered.

.

.

The thing that is always used

to measure your foot at the shoe store

is called a Brannock Device.

.

.

Heart attack guns exist.

According to disclosures by the CIA in 1975,

there is such a thing as a ‘heart attack gun’.

It fires a bullet made of ice, dipped in shellfish toxin

that immediately induces a heart attack.

.

.

The first solo person to circumnavigate the globe

using only human power

was Erden Eruc of Turkey who

walked and rowed right around the world!

.

.

Paris Syndrome is a real psychological syndrome

that affects mostly Japanese people when they realize

that Paris isn’t as great a place as they thought it would be.

The Japanese embassy in France even has a

special hotline that tourists can call.

Symptoms include nausea and headaches.

 

 

.

====================================

.

 

Anyone Feel A Chill?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

.

The Sunday Sermon

I know the summer is coming to a close, but the chill I’m talking about in this post is the one coming from the Cold War.

You remember it?

The thing that we though we had got rid of in 1992 when Daddy Bush said, “A world once divided into two armed camps now recognizes one, sole and pre-eminent power, the United States of America.”

That ended the Cold War and everyone was happy. America had won.

So why did it start again? And why did our politicians not have the gumption to avoid it?

Two pretty good questions, I think.

I suppose the answer is that it all started again because America desperately needs a bogey man – a global one, not some terrorist organization like Al Qaeda or ISIS.

It gives them a reason to keep the war machine going which is good for the economy.

It gives them the chance to tell the world that the choice they have to make is between America and Russia (in other words, between ‘good’ and ‘bad’).

And indeed it used to be that way, when the Russian regime was hell bent on imposing their failed communist philosophy on the free world.

The problem is that America wasn’t content with winning. For some reason it felt it needed to win again.

This time it is trying to do so by bribing and coercing former Soviet satellite states into joining an economic and military (EU/NATO) alliance against Russia.

That has, understandably and predictably, provoked the Russians into once again flexing their muscles, the result of which we are starting to see in the Ukraine.

And so the Cold War begins again.

But it won’t be the same as the last one. Some things are very different.

This time America is bankrupt, not Russia, which on the contrary has massive wealth at its disposal. This time America is being perceived by the rest of the world as dithering and incompetent.

And, thanks to the arrogance of organizations like the NSA, this time it is America, not Russia, who is perceived by the rest of the world as untrustworthy and untrusting of its allies. That’s quite the reversal of the old Cold War when it was the Russians who were notorious for listening in on conversations, bugging hotel rooms and the like.

In addition Russia is not currently bound to an outdated and failed communist dogma.

Despite all the bogus posturing of President Obama, who it seems can’t make up his mind to do anything, Russia will not allow NATO to set up shop in its backyard.

America has made a huge tactical mistake interfering so close to Russia. They are leaving Putin with little alternative but to do his own bit of posturing. The only difference is he means it.

When a bear is sleeping, poking it with a stick is never a wise move. Neither is trying to force it into a corner.

This time it may well bring consequences that none of us will like.

.

===============================================

.