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Last updated on August 5th, 2017 at 08:53 am

• Google “swallowing numerous camels” and this article appears; not only work-safe, but actually very good.

• Reader Apparatchik detects evidence in Canberra of a certain entity’s continued global expansion:
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• Al Gore’s planet-saving Live Earth gaiapalooza concerts are sponsored by Chevrolet.

• Apologies for this, but your Globey Doomsday Clocks needs adjusting again. The world won’t die in 2042, 2012, or 2016; according to some big-deal scientist, we’re checking out in 2060.

• “Scientists call it global warming. We call it Earth Mother getting angry.” I call it Alvin.

• A memorial was dedicated in Washington this month. If you hit no other link in this post, hit this one.

• Antony Loewenstein appears to have fallen out of a clue tree and hit a few clue sticks on the way down.

• The Vatican has finally issued its Ten Commandments for drivers.

• “Thou shalt learn to drive a manual car,” is not one of the Commandments. Might’ve helped these Miami kids: “Two teenage robbers spent valuable getaway time Monday night trying to drive off in a stolen car – but gave up, police said, when they realized they couldn’t navigate a sedan with manual transmission.” It would have been a close contest if James Bond had been chasing them.

• And finally:
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Posted by Tim B. on 06/20/2007 at 09:35 AM
    1. If I’m really lucky, I’ll check out well before 2060.

      I’m still betting on Apophis.

      Elizabeth
      Imperial Keeper

      Posted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 06 20 at 10:38 AM • permalink

 

    1. Two weeks ago the Special Libraries Association hosted their annual conference in Denver. Al Gore was keynote speaker.
      3 days after Gore spoke Denver broke a record for low temperature for that date.

      Scott Adams gave a breakfast speech a few days later. Adams mentioned to the crowd that he’ll trust Gore’s computer models when they can reflect past events accurately.

      Posted by Some0Seppo on 2007 06 20 at 10:51 AM • permalink

 

    1. Today’s Dilbert is priceless as well.  Dilbert 6/20/2007

      Posted by John in NH on 2007 06 20 at 11:13 AM • permalink

 

    1. From the article, Indians speak forcefully on climate: “The Mohawk Indian, along with members of five other Native American tribes, was preparing for a sacred ceremony by the river to pray for ‘Earth Mother.’ He said the planet was reacting to the overwhelming amount of pollution humans have produced that caused changes around the globe, even in the river at his doorstep.”

      What? A Mohawk? I thought we had seen the last of those guys.

      The article also has this bit of maudlin tripe: “Those who study Native American culture believe their presence in the debate could be influential. They point to ‘The Crying Indian,’ one of the country’s most influential public-service TV ads.

      In the spot, actor Iron Eyes Cody, in a buckskin suit, paddles a canoe up a trash-strewn urban creek, then stands by a busy highway cluttered with litter. The ad ends with a close-up of Cody, shedding a single tear after a passing motorist throws trash at his feet.”

      Yep, even gotta use a fake Indian to get the rubes interested. Who’s going to play the fake Indian for the public service commercials on global warming? This guy?

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 11:14 AM • permalink

 

    1. Oh, no, wait. That was Mohicans we supposedly had seen the last of.

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 11:15 AM • permalink

 

    1. I see the Canberra minions of a certain international mogul show exquisite taste in cars.  The gun-metal grey XR6 is my own conveyance of choice too.

      Well done, that team!

      Posted by Olrence on 2007 06 20 at 11:18 AM • permalink

 

    1. #6: Thanks, Olrence. One of my Australian executives was on his way to see the PM about an exciting new PACO product: combination lifts and hair restorer. Mr. Howard will thus acquire a more commanding presence and become more youthful. That ought to give him an edge over the opposition!

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 11:28 AM • permalink

 

    1. #7. Combination lifts and hair restorer?

      Won’t that just give him hairy feet?  Some (more unkind than I) might suggest our esteemed PM is already Hobbit-like enough.

      Posted by Olrence on 2007 06 20 at 11:32 AM • permalink

 

    1. Not the Mohawks again!!! I thought we’d fixed that little glitch from that time wronwright lost his Black Flag CD from the Tardis on our little Let’s mess with the Lewis and Clark Expedition, it’ll be a hoot mission? Remember when we got back and found all those punk rockers had suddenly begun sporting a new hairdo?  I say let’s go back just one more time and try countering the Black Flag effect with an equal balance of Donny Osmond. That should level the continuum, right?

      Posted by Texas Bob on 2007 06 20 at 11:37 AM • permalink

 

    1. Fess up, Paco.  You’re really bigger than Disney and Wal-Mart put together, aren’t you?

      And what’s happened to Loewy?  Did he contract some dread disease and now he’s trying to get right with God, or something?

      Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 06 20 at 11:45 AM • permalink

 

    1. Warning! Thread Hijacking in Progress!

      Feel free to ban me after this, Andrea, it’s egregious changing of the subject. It’s just that lives are at stake.

      Regular readers here might know that I’m Transsexual/Intersexed. Changed from a mostly male to a mostly female appearance anyway, mainly through natural causes.

      Due to the fact that my change wasn’t the standard issue one, and the fact that we don’t intend divorcing (we have a small son, he wants us together, and we still love each other), I’m officially a pariah, and not entitled to an Australian passport. I managed to circumvent the problem, I travel on my UK one, as I was born overseas.

      But there’s a woman in Western Australia whose life is ebbing away. You see, in order for her to get a passport in whatever gender, she must have a new birth certificate. But the WA gender board president’s term ran out in May, and they may get around to advertising the position any year now. The board can’t meet without a president, so no BCs are being corrected in WA for the foreseeable future, and haven’t been for some time. Whether this is malign neglect, or deliberate bastardry is debateable.

      She’s dying of surgical complications. Now the overseas surgeon she saw is the best in the world, he gives a lifetime guarantee, even though the op is never risk-free. All she needs to do is get there. No-one here will do the work, it’s specialist stuff.

      But without a passport, she’s stuck here. She’s been informed by officials that people like her – people like me – are not fit to possess a passport. It is “unnecessary or undesirable” to give us one. Despite being able to pass a gynecological examination as being female, she’s classed as “transgendered”, as a person “of one sex living as the other sex”  because her documentation isn’t in order. I’m in the same boat, BTW. We’re in the same category as wanted criminals, terrorist suspects, deportees, passport traffickers, and those being extradited.

      She’s dying. I’m trying to convince her not to messily and publically suicide, but as various officials want her to FOAD – literally – I’m running out of good arguments why she shouldn’t. She’s dying anyway, she figures a public act like that may just help others.

      I don’t know what to do. Readers of my blog will know that there’s not a scintilla of good faith or reasonability shown by the Australian Passport Office in such cases. Maybe the Tele will light some fires, Maybe the story will be picked up by a reader of Tim’s. It may not work, but I’m running out of ideas. If both Labor state and Liberal federal government’s policy is that we should just die and not bother them, then at least this should be publicised.

      I’ve got no intention of dying BTW, and after my own surgical complications are healed (I told you it was risky), I’m going to be a thoroughgoing nuisance to both major parties. Not pressing for change, just publicising the official persecution and the sometimes fatal consequences.
      We now return you to our normal programming.

      Posted by Zoe Brain on 2007 06 20 at 12:04 PM • permalink

 

    1. #8: A common misconception, Olrence. The chemicals are absorbed from the lifts, through the feet into the blood stream, but only affect scalp hair due to the very precise genetic engineering. Of course, hairy feet would remove the necessity of socks, but I guess this wouldn’t be good for the wool industry.

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 12:08 PM • permalink

 

    1. But won’t decomposing emit a bunch of GHGs?

      Posted by aaron_ on 2007 06 20 at 12:21 PM • permalink

 

    1. #10 I thought Disney and Wal-mart were wholly owned subsidiaries of Paco Enterprises.

      Posted by rbj1 on 2007 06 20 at 12:27 PM • permalink

 

    1. On a serious note.

      Condolensences to the families of the three Canadian soldiers who lost their lives in Afghanistan today.

      Posted by yojimbo on 2007 06 20 at 12:30 PM • permalink

 

    1. Zoe: no need to worry, OT comments are allowed under special circumstances. I’m sorry to hear about your friend—bureaucracy really sucks. I suppose I can see the passport office’s reasoning for most circumstances but you would think that for special situations there would be some sort of rider that would allow you to get a passport. (And you’d think they’d welcome the chance to generate even more red tape!)

      Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 06 20 at 12:30 PM • permalink

 

    1. Fess up, Paco.  You’re really bigger than Disney and Wal-Mart put together, aren’t you?

      It’s all that Cuban food.

      Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 06 20 at 12:31 PM • permalink

 

    1. Jeez Zoe, what a shocking state.  Has your friend tried enlisting the aid and support of WA Independent Giz Watson?  She’d be the WA pollie I’d judge most likely to take up the cudgels on a matter like this.

      Best wishes and good luck on this one.
      Keep us posted.

      Posted by Olrence on 2007 06 20 at 12:32 PM • permalink

 

    1. Wronwright was obviously out joy riding in the Tardis instrad of taking care of business at home.

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 12:42 PM • permalink

 

    1. Zoe: That’s a tragic example of how bureaucracies can actually endanger lives. Is that the equivalent of a state board or commission that is holding up the works, or is it a federal agency? It just strikes me as inconceivable that there wouldn’t be a back-up mechanism in place to cover the possibility of a vacant, but key, position.

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 12:48 PM • permalink

 

    1. #19: “Instrad”? Oh, no! My keyboard is asserting its independence again!

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 12:49 PM • permalink

 

    1. #17: It’s all that Cuban food.

      If only. I sure miss that stuff.

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 12:50 PM • permalink

 

    1. *Wednesday morning, Q Branch*

      “Oh sit down, Detective Paco!

      This is not about your attitude or literary latitude, or any sort of… poetic license!

      Good God man! We haven’t even checked your license to drive a manual transmission sports car or a Harrier jet fighter since January!

      What’s important is your double “O” designation. Your faithfulness to Her Majesty’s Service.

      Your license to kill!”

      Posted by splice on 2007 06 20 at 01:07 PM • permalink

 

    1. Jeez, Paco, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. You mean no arroz con pollo? No sopa de garbanzos? No caldo gallego? No frijoles negros con arroz? No platanos? No Cuban sandwiches?

      I guess even with all that wealth and power one can’t have everything.

      Posted by ErnieG on 2007 06 20 at 01:12 PM • permalink

 

    1. #23 Unfortunately, Splice, with advancing age, Detective Paco now only has a license to wound.

      #24: Did you have to do that, ErnieG? (Returns, dejectedly, to lunch consisting of banana and coffee-flavored yogurt)

      My favorite Cuban dish is boliche – pot roast stuffed with either ham or sausage – with a heapin’ helpin’ of moros y cristianos (black beans on white rice – What’s that noise?!? Did I just hear Tim Palmer growl?), and plátanos maduros, washed down with a batido de mamey.

      (Scowls at yogurt – throws it in the trash can.)

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 01:25 PM • permalink

 

    1. Uh oh. The Ten Commandments for Drivers.

      Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned . . .

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 01:35 PM • permalink

 

    1. Not sure whether this is a sin, or just bad taste.

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 01:42 PM • permalink

 

    1. Didn’t mean to be mean, Paco. I just got to thinking about Cuban food and got carried away. By the way, my favorite meal is almost the same as yours except for the entree: Lechón Asado (roast pork Cuban style) with a side of moros y cristianos and some plátanos maduros.

      Posted by ErnieG on 2007 06 20 at 01:43 PM • permalink

 

    1. #28: Lechón Asado . . . mmmmmm! I also like ropa vieja (“old clothes”, for you non-spanish speakers) – shredded beef (usually in a tomato sauce) served over rice. And the bread!

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 01:47 PM • permalink

 

    1. #29

      If you would get on with that Pacozon IPO you wouldn’t have to resort to eating your old wardrobe.  You would be able to give it to the Salvation Army or Goodwill like we do.  So there.

      Posted by yojimbo on 2007 06 20 at 04:23 PM • permalink

 

    1. #30: What?!? Give my old suits to the Salvation Army? Can you imagine a platoon of homeless fellows arrayed in my 100% wool, pinstriped finery, asking for handouts? Passersby would be trying to put the bite on them for spare change and cigarettes! They would only despair and turn their faces to the subway wall. Where’s your compassion, man?

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 04:55 PM • permalink

 

    1. #4 & 5

      No, no, yes, it WAS Mohawks.
      Or were they just renovated?

      Posted by kae on 2007 06 20 at 05:59 PM • permalink

 

    1. #11 Zoe

      Do you have contact addresses for email for “the powers that be”? or are they posted at your site?

      Posted by kae on 2007 06 20 at 06:04 PM • permalink

 

    1. #29 mmmmm bread
      I haven’t had bread since April.
      Or potatoes.

      Oh and

      PACO = ubiqitous

      Posted by kae on 2007 06 20 at 06:07 PM • permalink

 

    1. It would be a most displeasing development if Loewenstein suddenly starts talking sense.

      Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 06 20 at 06:36 PM • permalink

 

    1. Antony Loewenstein appears to have fallen out of a clue tree and hit a few clue sticks on the way down.

      Ah, that explains why he didn’t find some way to blame it on the Jews. Temporarily stunned.

      Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 06 20 at 07:52 PM • permalink

 

    1. #36

      Seen Australians who Reject Antony Loewenstein yet?

      Posted by Dan Lewis on 2007 06 20 at 08:19 PM • permalink

 

    1. “Thou shalt learn to drive a manual car.” is and has always been the Eleventh Commandment.

      Posted by Baby M on 2007 06 20 at 08:25 PM • permalink

 

    1. I have seen photos of Paco.  He is a Chihauhau in Perth who keeps a librarian as a pet.

      Posted by ellen on 2007 06 20 at 09:52 PM • permalink

 

    1. #39 Ellen: I daresay you meant to say “chihuahua”. I know exactly the one you’re talking about.

      “Chihauhau” was the Aztec god of practical jokes, who would frequently pull tricks during the human sacrifice season. For example, he would sometimes substitute a rubber knife for the obsidian blade used by the priest for cutting the hearts out of living victims, so that when the priest brought down the knife on the victim’s chest, it would bend uselessly, causing everyone, including the victim, to laugh immoderately (the latter, of course, would quickly regain his composure once the real thing was produced). Another favorite joke of Chihauhau was to substitute a life-size blow-up doll for one of the victims, so that when the priest struck home, the “victim” would pop like a giant balloon. This was always good for for a laugh among the junior clergy and the Aztec altar boys.

      Posted by paco on 2007 06 20 at 10:22 PM • permalink

 

    1. Would the real PACO allow his name to be displayed on the rear-end of a miserable FORD?

      Posted by Lew on 2007 06 21 at 01:24 AM • permalink

 

    1. Apparatchik, that looks like Yamba Drive at Launceston Street.  That means Paco lives around the Woden area.  I think he’s a Farrer type of guy.

      Posted by craigo on 2007 06 21 at 01:43 AM • permalink

 

    1. Craigo, no, it is Canberra Avenue, just near the Monaro Hwy overpass.

      Which means that PACO is either from Queanbeyan; or just on his way back from Fyshwick.  Hmmm….

      Posted by Apparatchik on 2007 06 21 at 03:00 AM • permalink

 

    1. #24 Kae
      “And the bread!” Surprised that anyone would go Mmmm over bread? Paco is talking about Cuban bread, which is definitely Mmmmmm.

      Posted by ErnieG on 2007 06 21 at 06:42 AM • permalink

 

    1. #44
      I’ve been on a low carb diet for two months. No bread, no spuds.
      I love fresh, crusty bread with lashings of butter.
      Oh, face it, I love food.
      I’ve now lost 7.7kg.

      Posted by kae on 2007 06 21 at 07:02 AM • permalink

 

    1. Al Gore’s planet-saving Live Earth gaiapalooza concerts are sponsored by Chevrolet.

      Must mull this over while driving my Corvette to work….

      Posted by Apostic on 2007 06 21 at 09:39 AM • permalink

 

    1. #43 It must have been late afternoon, the glare has blotted out the Monaro Hwy overpass.  I should have guessed better, I come that way to work when traffic’s bad on Lanyon Drive.

      Seeing he was in Fyshwick, maybe PACO has taken over Adult World or Adam and Eve’s Megastore.

      Posted by craigo on 2007 06 21 at 06:26 PM • permalink

 

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