Amazing Dozen

Since I won't be attending Chelsea Clinton's wedding, I should have time to write my weekly blog entry. I was disappointed that President Obama was not invited, so I decided not to go, even though I had looked forward to seeing those $15,000 Port-A-Potties.

http://refinery29.com/chelsea-clinton-wedding-budget.php


01. Who are you looking at! I went on a tour of NASA's Goddard Space Center with my Men's Club on Friday. Amazing place. I was mainly interested in the Hubble space telescope and it's remarkable pictures which were posted over all the walls.

I probably should have known this, but I didn't. The Hubble will be replaced around 2014 by the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope).

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/about.html

Hubble takes picture of the universe as it was over 13 billion years ago and is an orbit 350 miles above the earth. JWST will be in orbit one million miles above the earth (4 times as far as the moon) and will take pictures older than Hubble's, if that's possible. . Some of the comments of my fellow men's club members:

"Will they be looking over the edge of the universe.. like Columbus?"

"Suppose they take a picture of a big eye?"

"This whole thing doesn't make sense. Don't they read the Bible?"

I just hope that I can make it to 2014.. for the launch, and then through however long it takes to transmit pictures back to earth from a million miles up.

My great grandson, Cameron, should see a lot of interesting space pictures during his lifetime, if crazy people don't blow us up soon and make us just another burned out rock on the screen of some alien's space telescope.

02. This cracks me up. A Court ruling says that a man lowering his pants and showing underwear is protected by the first amendment and can't be prohibited .. huh? This comes under "freedom of speech?"

(It may be that I have mixed this up with an English ruling a few months ago. I thought it was an American case. Instead of "first amendment".. such a prohibition would instead violate "young {British} men's human rights.")

03. Gives new meaning to "giving one the finger." The petrified middle finger of Galileo is on display in Florence, near the Uffizi Gallery, at the Museo Galileo: Instituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza.

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/finger.html

04. No money-pit? The Carroll County Times (Maryland) reports that Baltimore has recommended no-cost spaying and neutering programs for "Pit Bills".

(Reminds me of President Harding. Some have said that the President rented a row-house in DC, where a deep pit was built so that people wanting favors from his Administration could toss their contributions without fear of disclosure.)

http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/warrenharding.html

05. Round-up? Some 99 cents stores in the U.S. have changed their prices to $ 0.9999 cents, which I'm told causes the register to record it as $1.00. This, of course, allows them to make one penny on each sale.. and this equates to lots of profit on millions of sales.

(At one point, the Government decided to "round down" the amounts in Social Security checks.. imagine how much money that has made for the Government. I hope it went into the Social Security Trust Fund......)

06. The Great Bell, California uprising of 2010. As I reported in my last entry, city officials in Bell, California were making astronomical wages. Well, as soon as the people in that city learned about these wages (no, not from my blog), they erupted in anger and the officials involved have had to resign. The question is: how did it get to this point? Doesn't the city have open meetings where things like officials' salaries are discussed? Guess not.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100723/ap_on_re_us/us_bell_salaries

07. Birth control? Scientists have discovered that there is a gene found in all creatures in the line from fish to man that controls the generation of sperm. This is called the Boule Gene. Would controling that gene be an acceptable method of birth control? Probably not.

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/3356

08. Hot lawyers? Once, when Abraham Lincoln was staying at a tavern on a very cold night, he noticed that there were a lot of other attorneys hugging the pot-bellied stove. As Lincoln neared the fire, the host addressed him: "Pretty cold tonight."

Lincoln replied: "Colder than hell."

One of the lawyers turned to Abe and said: "You've been there too, have you, Mr. Lincoln?"

Lincoln replied: "Yes, and the funny thing is that it's much like it is here.. all lawyers are nearest the fire."

http://www.rickwalton.com/lincoln/linc001.htm

009. Star track? I read where Bill Shatner is about to debut an interview show.. where he will interview "notorious personages".. Will our Captain Kirk make this into a "slightly naughty" show like Boston Legal? The first interviewee is slated to be the "Subway Vigilante." Should be interesting.

http://movieactors.com/actors/williamshatner.htm

010. Prison for dummies. An Argentine prison was low on money, so they posted a dummy in a guard tower. Some prisoners were not the dummies that the warden thought they were and escaped.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10706626

011. Here's your sign. The inhabitants of Shitterton, England, not wanting to change their town's name and tired of constantly replacing their town sign.. chipped in to buy a boulder with the name carved into it. "Let's see those 'low-lifes' steal this one!" (I'm sure that people smart enough to fool the public about crop-circles for years, will have no problem in removing this big stone, at night, by the light of a full moon.)

012. Use your napkin and sit up straight, Fido! Hammacher Schlemmer is selling a "Pet High Chair".. which they say "promotes more refined behavior." (As reported by Consumers Reports.)

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