Another Hot Week

Even though this was another hot and muggy week, with violent thunder storms, it was a "cool" week for the Social Security Alumni Association in Maryland.

A nice group met at Bullock's Rt 32 for the Carroll County Social Security Alumni Chapter on Monday.

A larger than usual group met at the Windsor Inn for the Baltimore Chapter on Tuesday.

On Thursday, I represented the Social Security Alumni Association as its President for the opening of the Social Security Museum and the festivities for the 75th Anniversary of the Social Security Act. I'll be writing about this in my SSAA Blog.

Meanwhile, let me mention a few "interesting" things that I heard or read about recently.

01. By the book: Efficient New York City traffic workers would not allow a King Tut's tomb artifact, namely, an ancient vehicle, to enter the city.. because.. it did not have a "vehicle identification number."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyid=128973450

02. A lot to learn: Researchers say that we have 250,000 known species and another 1,000,000 unknown species in the world's oceans. (Not counting the one billion unknown bacteria species.) The richest areas to look for these unknown non-bacteria species are thought to be around Australia and Japan, and many species probably live in mud or on reefs.

A recently found "unknown" is called a "Dragon Fish" which has teeth on it's tongue.

03. That little squirt! A 28 year old Maryland resident has finally been caught after squirting sperm on several persons in Gaithersburg grocery stores and malls. Maybe he thinks he's an unknown species of fish.

04. Methuselah? A global warming expert stated this week: "...a rate of (animal) extinction that we haven't seen for millions and millions of years." Does he have a Hubble-type telescope with very close resolution?

05. Another opportunity for short people. The French Gendarmerie (police) have started to hire people under 5'3". Was this a change because they wanted to hire more females.. although in the US, females seem to be usually taller than that these days. Or, maybe it is another boon to short people that has been pushed by Sarkozy?

I've mentioned before.. researchers have determined that Napoleon might have been 5'6"... the same height of Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini.

By the way, new documents have been found in Scotland that indicate in 1919 a Scotsman saved a young Hitler from being stomped to death by a mob. !

06. Sarah quote: I hadn't heard about this one until I read it this week. "When are they going to ramp up drilling?" Did she really say that? Was it before the BP spill?

07. Mad man? The advertising guy who gave us "Don't squeeze the Charmin" is now pushing for "Meatless Mondays". He feels that it will be a healthful move for our obese society. I believe he has already gotten Johns Hopkins University interested in the concept, and some Baltimore schools are removing meat from their menus for Mondays.

http://www.meatlessmonday.com/

08. Brains. Someone showed me an article from 2008 that mentioned that two pygmy sperm whales got caught up in a low water pool in New Zealand and couldn't figure out how to get out of it... before they could become beached, a local bottlenose dolphin, named Moko, found a deep water part of the pool and guided the whales through it and out into deep water.

09. Scandinavian criminals? JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association has an article about common sense sunbathing that tries to show that blonds and people from northern countries with minimal sun may develop criminal tendencies when they move to high sun areas. Since I am not an MD, I may have misread the article.

10. Self-mutilation: Some of you may have seen a picture of Elaine Davidson who is reputed to be "the most pierced woman in Scotland"... and from the looks of it, probably the world. Check it out.

http://www.elainedavidson.co.uk/

11. Seinfeld? A piece of the Peterman Glacier broke off this week. It is four times the size of Manhattan. Doesn't that add any credence to the Global Warming theory? How many ice cubes would that make? Perhaps one of the Arab leaders could get it towed to their land.. wasn't that done once before? Or did I read that in a story by Mark Twain?

http://open.salon.com/blog/rick_spilman/2010/08/07/huge_ice_island_calves_from_greenlands_peterman_glacier

12. Not Here! The Museum of Tolerance has stated that they do not want the Ground Zero mosque to be built.

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