Facts and Factoids for the Start of Fall 2011

Today, I'm taking a break from my daily blog (http://joesquicknews.blogspot.com/) to bring vital information to the attention of those who have nothing better to do but read my blogs.  Believe it or not, there are a few of you out there who read these blurbs and some actually feel the need to needle me about stuff I publish.. and I love you for it.  And to those in China and Japan who send me comments.. thank you.. however, I am, as of yet, unable to read Chinese or Japanese, but I enjoy gazing at the written characters.

1.  Burning Question

Elaine and I were in the Elkton, Maryland area the other day, and we remembered that a few years ago, lots of "Northerners" took trips to Elkton to get a "quickie marriage."  The reason given was because Maryland did not require a blood test with a waiting period before getting a marriage license and Elkton was just over the Mason-Dixon line.. and a short hop for New Yorkers and other Yankees.

Question:  Why did some States require the results of a recent blood test before granting a marriage license?

My reading of information found on the Internet tells me this:

Blood tests were instituted to ensure that the parties did not have syphllis.  Only Mississippi and Montana still require blood tests.

In a Supreme Count case: Meister v. Moore (1877).. it was "ruled" (?) that it is illegal for any state to mandate any form of marriage license or ceremony, and (technically) all states must recognize "common law marriage."

Interesting.. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if I'm interpreting this information correctly or not.

2.  It was a very good year..

Y'all know that I'm an old dude.  I was born in 1934.  Imagine that!

The famous movie star, Alan Ladd, graduated from Hollywood High School in 1934.

Mr. Ladd was 5'7" and when he played parts with tall leading ladies, he had to stand on an overturned box.  He was also blond. I related to Alan because I was also 5'7" and blond.  However, not being a movie star, I didn't have to stand on a box when kissing my tall girl friend.

One of my favorite Alan Ladd movies is: Shane!  If you haven't seen it.. see it!  It's great fun.

3.  More on 1934..

In a Public Auction Notice from 2009.. as part of a list of household items being auctioned off:

"1934 bedroom suit with chair, stool, night stand and dresser used about 50 times"

I'll bet there is an interesting story there.

4.  Don't forget hubby...

IKEA has announce a "Play Place for Men".. this is a location near the front of the store, where ladies can drop off their husbands or boyfriends, while they shop without distraction.  The ladies are outfitted with a buzzer system, which will go off if they try to exit the store without their male companions.

5.  The Great Satan!

Yesterday, Iran's (also short) President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his expected United Nations rant against the United States and it's allies.  Remember last year, he accused the U.S. of staging the 9/11 attacks to support Israel's survival in the Middle East.

I wonder if he mentioned Iran's latest wonderful accomplishment:  the banning of squirt guns.

6.  Dick Cheney's Book

I'm reading Dick Cheney's book In My Time.  I'll be giving my opinions about the book in a future blog entry.. but for now, just let me cite a 1970's quote by California Congresman Don Edwards, as reported in The Nation magazine:

"Congress...must be vigilant to the perils of the subversive notion that any public official, the president or a policeman, possesses a kind of inherent power to set the Constitution aside whenever he thinks the public interest or "national security" warrants it.  That notion is the essential postulate of tyranny."

7.  Not Torture?

The Week magazine reported in 2008 that a Utah salesman sued his former employer for waterboarding him during a team-building exercise.  The boss is alleged to have said to his salesmen:  "You saw how hard C... fought for air.  I want you to go back inside and fight that hard to make sales!"

8.  No more fat mice...

Georgetown University researcher Zofia Zukowska reported back in 2007 that by injecting an NPY-blocking agent into the fat bellies of mice, the mice started to become skinny again... she said:  "It just melts the fat!"  Apparently the stuff called NPY* increases fat deposits.. so anything that blocks NPY would be a good thing.

I've tried to read some of the voluminous current Internet entries for Zofia, but I'm still not sure yet how far she has gone with her work on fat mice, and how it applies to humans.  Wouldn't it be nice if we could just take our fat buns down to the Doctor's office, get our injections and not have to worry about diet anymore?

*(Internet sources say, kind of, that NPY  or Neuropeptide Y,  is a 36 amino acid peptide neurotransmitter found in the brain and the autonomic nervous system.  It causes increased food intake and  decreased physical activity, and it stores energy as fat.)

9.  Factoid #1.  Suicide

Over 300 people have jumped to death from the top of Notre Dame in Paris.  I guess these would be very religious people, otherwise they would be jumping off of the much higher Eiffel Tower.

10.  Factoid #2.  Make nice nice

That marvelous radio show Wait Wait Don't Tell Me reports that sharks can be taught to cuddle!

11.  Factoid #3.  Baby Blues.

Blue Whale babies get a ton of very rich milk every day which helps them grow at a rate of 90 pounds a  day.  The 3 tons of krill that they eat each day also helps in that growth.

BTW: the tongue of a full-grown blue whale weighs the same as an African elephant!

12.  GBS was right.

Just as speech purists deride the outrageous use of "like and "I mean"  and "you know" .. another unwanted phrase has entered into everyday American English. 

For years, when one said "Thank You!", the proper response was "You're Welcome!"

Now, you are just  as likely to hear "No Problem!"  What is this world coming to!  Call the speech police!   H.L. Mencken must be rolling over in his grave.

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Summer 2010 is here and we're still crazy.

Another dozen:

01. Communication. One young man sitting near me said to his friend: "I was like, well, I mean, you know." His friend nodded, so I guess he knew.

02. Another fatwa: An Iranian Ayatollah has condemned the keeping of dogs as pets, because they are not clean and cause some people to love them more than people in their family. (What about cats, gerbils or hermit crabs?)

03. Eat your veggies! The garden on our deck has now produced:

6 bags of lettuce
lots of dill
2 5" zukes
2 8" zukes
4 red tomatoes

Hey! We're farmers!

04. Another young terrorist. A 7-year old was kicked out of a Rhode Island second grade class for having toy soldiers with guns glued to his hat! (When will those gangsters learn to stop breaking the law!)

05. Das Vaterland. I heard on the radio that Homeland Security was named as a joke that stuck, even though Americans don't refer to the U.S. as their "homeland."

06. Appropriate name: A lady calling a radio talk-show was named Patience Waite.

07. Carry on luggage? Airport workers in Arkansas found a bunch of human heads when they inspected a package. Police reported that they were just being sent to a medical company and that was ok. (Was Bin Laden's head one of them?)

08. Got trolls? I heard that a movie is about to be filmed about those little trolls from the '70's, so if you haven't thrown them out, you might want to keep them as an investment. (What about "my little ponies?")

09. Important information: The fruit (or vegetable) with the most fiber is the avocado. (I didn't know that!) And the name comes from the Aztec word for testicle, "ahuacatl."

10. Can't women let men have anything of their own? Fibanserin is a drug that is being called "the female viagra." (I wonder how the FDA is testing it.)

11. Hayabusa recall. The Japanese have successfully retrieved a geological sample from the Itokawa asteroid! (Think about that for a while!)

12. A new terrorist ploy? Bedbugs have invaded Goldman Sachs offices in Jersey City. (Serves them right!)

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News and a Plea

Today is another of those August news days.. some good stuff, some bad stuff, some ridiculous stuff.. but all of it interesting, at least to me. Let's see:

01. Bill Clinton brokered some kind of deal to get the two lady journalists released in North Korea. I never thought that I would ever see "five foot nothing" Kim Jong-Il in the same picture with "six foot five" Bill Clinton. Regardless of his short stature, Kim has made himself a very tall pain in the butt to the whole world. Whether or not he set the Clinton visit in motion, I am very glad that the ladies have been released and are at home with their families again.

02. That snake, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has just been sworn in as Iran's President for a second 4-year term. He will now have to form an acceptable government. The opposition candidates, Mir Hossein Mousave and Mehdi Karroubi, continue to contest the results. Unfortunately, this reminds me of the Arab saying: The dogs bark, but the caravan continues on.

03. Brazilians are being urged to conserve water by urinating in their showers.

04. A U-tube video of a seven year old driving a car at speeds from 25 to 40 mph is causing a stir in Canadian police circles. The main problem seems to be that the child is not wearing his seat belt! A short time ago another seven year old drove off in his father's car to avoid having to go to church.

05. Al Franken is about to give his "maiden" Senate speech. I hope he does "schtick".

06. A waddling Eastern European man was found to be trying to smuggle 22 pairs of pants by customs. He was wearing them.

07. The Postal Service is losing money again.. even after raising the price of stamps. So, it is about to close a lot of Post Offices, including possibly five in the Baltimore, Maryland area. Online bill paying is a problem now. Also, advertisers have cut down on junk mail because of the expense. (That is sad for me, because I love junk mail, and look forward to it each day. Recently, very little enters my home mail box, and the junk mail entering my Post Office Box has dwindled to a trickle.)

Can anyone remember when we had twice a day delivery? I do.

08. Listen to this one: A drunken 36-year old New York mother, smoking marijuana, caused a wrong-way crash that killed her, her 2-year old daughter and six others. Her blood-alcohol level was .17 at the time of the crash.

09. The "cash for clunkers" program will probably get another boost this week. My 2002 Toyota Camry is about to fall apart, but I could not qualify because it doesn't technically fit the description of a "clunker".. that is, if I want to spend two grand, I could proabably get it fixed like new.

In a few weeks, we leave for three weeks at the ocean and Elaine, being a woman, needs to take half of the household items, plus food and clothes for six months. To say that it does not fit easily into my Camry, is a great understatement. And yet, somehow, we manage to squeeze it all in.

The problem comes when it's time to come home. Somehow, we always manage to accumulate new items. Once again, it all gets squeezed in.. but it sure is not fun driving a car as though you are in an army tank with a very small opening for the eyes... also, it is not as safe as it should be. So, this is the problem.. to get a car that is not an SUV, yet is big enough to carry all this stuff with room left over, and still maintain the low gas usage that my Toyota enjoys.

10. The Senate is about to vote on Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. Some of the "big hitter" lobbyists are pushing for a "no" vote and most of the Republicans say they will not vote for her because "empathy is not wanted in a Supreme Court Justice"... huh? I realize that the main function of a Supreme Court Justice is to interpret the case in terms of the Constitution, and I am convinced that she would do what she has to do. Her record shows that.

As an Independent voter, I get to pick on Senators on both sides of the aisle. Today I am picking on a Republican. I was amazed to read that Arizona Senator John McCain said that he would not vote for her. Doesn't his state have lots of people whose mothers were "Latinas"? Doesn't he want to get reelected?

I expect that Judge Sotomayor will be easily confirmed and then it should be a lot of fun watching the Court in action during their next term.

And now, my plea to any of my EMAIL senders who might be reading this. I've said this many times before: Because much of the email messages that are forwarded to me recently have not been subjected to the "truth test".. I am no longer going to open any email message that has "fwd" in the subject line.

I love you all, but it causes me to have a knot in my stomach to read the garbage that is being forwarded all over the Internet by people who think that a lie, if told over and over and spread about, will become the truth. Look at what happened during the Nazi regime. Herr Hitler and Herr Goebbles believed that if you tell a big enough lie, most people will believe it. Amazingly, in spite of the usual intelligence of the German people, that worked for a few years.. and look at what happened to the Nazi regime.

I like to think that such a situation would not happen in the U.S., but these messages worry me.

Thanks for listening.