I Don't Believe It

There is a new site, on the order of Snopes that allows you to find out if the web page you are reading is disputed by other sources and what the alternative points of view are.

As you browse, Dispute Finder looks for disputed claims. If it finds any then it highlights them. Clicking on a disputed claim brings up evidence for and against that claim found by other users of Dispute Finder. It allows you to mark new disputed claims and see what disputed claims have been marked by other users.

It is from Berkeley and beta, and somewhat biased from what I have seen so far, (You know how those damn academics are) but still might be fun to try. One example about Global Warming being a scam - it offers government data that shows the Earth's average surface temperature has increased by about 1.2 to 1.4ºF in the last 100 years. Take off your clothes, another thousand years or so and this place will be about eleven degrees hotter. For those that use Firefox, there is a Dispute Finder extension. I use it and it seems stable.

San Diego Border

The border station is now the busiest on earth. It has a whopping 24 lanes of northbound traffic for those traveling through from Tijuana to San Diego and another 6 southbound lanes for those going the other way.

Every day up to 50,000 vehicles pass through this gate, plus another 25,000 people on foot, and that's just into the United States. Plus it's in the process of expansion.

Hmmm! Maybe the idea should be to reduce it to 6 lanes north and make the 24 lanes south.

Quotable

One difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.

Shoefiti

The fine old game of flinging shoes over wires or trees. A shoe tree, not to be confused with the shoe-preservation device of the same name, is a tree or a powerline pole or other wooden object that has been festooned with old shoes.

Shoe trees are generally located alongside a major local thoroughfare, and may have a theme, such as high-heeled shoes. There are currently at least seventy-six such shoe trees in the United States, and an undetermined number elsewhere. There have been many explanations why this happens, but no one really knows for sure. They do make an interesting, though weird, artistic statement.

Quotable

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

Knit Graffitti

Equally interesting as the shoe trees and equally weird art are the the knitters that encircle everything from trees to posts to park benches. Examples can be found all over the world. Keep your eyes open and you might be surprised.

OK - that's enough art for today.

Quotable

We might knit that knot with our tongues that we shall never undo with our teeth.

Tobacco Smoke Enema

True - From about 1750 to about 1810 the tobacco enema was used to infuse tobacco smoke into a patient's rectum for various medical purposes, primarily the resuscitation of drowning victims.

A rectal tube was connected to a fumigator and bellows that forced the smoke towards the rectum. The warmth of the smoke was thought to promote respiration, but doubts about the credibility of tobacco enemas led to the popular phrase "blow smoke up one's a$$."

Quotable

"As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake." Mark Twain

Wombat Wonders

Did you know that Wombats were once as big as rhinos, way back in time? Now they are are only up to almost 4 feet and up to 80 pounds when adults.

Wombats are marsupials found in and around Australia, with a distinction - Their pouch is backward from kangaroos or koalas. They dig underground and the babies would be covered with dirt if the pouch faced forward. No, they are not badgers, which are carnivores, and related to the skunk family.

Wombats are herbivores with typical food digestion lasting 14 days, which allows them to extract every bit of nutrients to help live a desert existence. I believe the wombat is the only animal of any kind that has a perfectly square (cubic) feces. Wombats lifespan in the wild is around 5 years, but can live to the ripe old age of 25 in captivity.

Although they look cuddly, they have an extremely strong bite an would rather chew through things than walk around. They can run up to almost 25 miles an hour when threatened.

Did You Know

GM sold only about 25% of its vehicles in the United States during the first quarter of 2009 and it just signed a new partnership with eBay that will allow buyers in California to bid on vehicles, the way they do for other vehicles. With the government owning over 60% of GM, maybe we are seeing the beginning of something - like selling healthcare services on eBay.

Perfume Alternative

Hey girls, want to grab a man's heart and save some money too? Try this bacon soap.

Be clean and smell like bacon.

What man can resist this combo?

Counting Calories

A study, started in 1989 involving rhesus monkeys has provided the first strong evidence that caloric restriction slows the aging process in primates.

A diet that's nutritionally adequate, but provides 30 percent fewer calories than normal has been shown to extend life span and delay the onset of age-related diseases in other animals, including flies, worms, and rodents. Because studies on primates take much longer, the benefits had not yet been demonstrated. Researchers at the National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison report in July 2009 that in rhesus monkeys that had a caloric restriction diet begun in adulthood reduces risk of the most common age-related conditions, like diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and brain atrophy, by 30 percent.

The research involved 76 monkeys, half of them on the diet. The 33 surviving monkeys have reached old age. Thirty-seven percent of the monkeys on a normal diet have died of age-related diseases, compared with just 13 percent of the monkeys on the restricted diet. Reminds me of the Jack Benny line when asked, "Your money or your life?". . . "I'm thinking about it."

Bottled Water Ban

A rural town in Australia has voted overwhelmingly to ban the sale of bottled water over concerns about its environmental impact. They say huge amounts of resources are used to extract, package and transport bottled water.

Only one resident voted against the ban, along with a representative from the bottled water industry, ABC news reported.

Campaigner John Dee said local opinion had been incensed when a drinks company announced plans to tap an underground reservoir in the town. "The company has been looking to extract water locally, bottle it in Sydney, and bring it back here to sell it," he said.

New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees has backed the cause, ordering government departments to stop buying bottled water and use tap water instead.