Category Archives: Scribbles

Eat right, exercise, die anyway

Posted on December 6, 2007 | Comments Off on Eat right, exercise, die anyway

Scott, The Fat Guy, is lamenting his newly-acquired healthy change of life. It sounds awful, especially the colds, the headaches and the insensate right hand. I did the diet already, I didn’t drink to begin with or gamble, but I was steeling myself to start exercising again, take cholesterol-reducing pills and quit smoking. Maybe the last three require a rethink.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Scribbles

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The War of Jenkins’s Ear

Posted on December 6, 2007 | Comments Off on The War of Jenkins’s Ear

Some Brits still insist that the thousands of American dead on 9/11 were no reason to invade Iraq to unseat a dictator well known to be supporting terrorism. They seem to have forgotten their own history, in which they went to war with Spain over a ship captain’s severed ear:

"In 1738, before a committee of the House of Commons, Jenkins reported the incident and exhibited his [pickled] severed ear. In this report, he said that his ear was ‘cut off in April 1731 in the West Indies by Spanish coast guards who had boarded his ship, pillaged it and then set it adrift.’"

Parliament promptly declared war. Obviously, it all depends on whose ear has been severed. 

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Posted in Scribbles

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Fred Quixote

Posted on November 30, 2007 | Comments Off on Fred Quixote

Even conservatives think the presidential campaign of Fred Thompson is all but dead. His well-researched issue solutions such as tax reform have sunk out of sight within days after they were first floated.

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Helping players wee-wee

Posted on November 28, 2007 | Comments Off on Helping players wee-wee

Hard as it is to imagine a football coach saying "wee-wee," that’s the legend of how the popular (nay, ubiquitous) sports drink of Gatorade came to be, according to its inventor, Dr. J. Robert Cade, who died yesterday in Florida. He was 80. The first concoction wasn’t so good, though. Native Texan Cade, who graduated from UT Southwestern medical school in Dallas, vomited.

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Posted in Obituaries, Scribbles

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The season of bloat

Posted on November 27, 2007 | Comments Off on The season of bloat

Miss Cellania has some funnies that capture the ongoing season of bloat far better than pictures of colored lights and dry slices of leftover turkey. Hey, look on the bright side: fat people are hard to kidnap.

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Global baloney

Posted on November 27, 2007 | Comments Off on Global baloney

Anything Al Gore, Hollywood, the United Nations and the European Union agree on must be a crock.

UPDATE:  At least Gore’s web site is good for something, i.e. hawking pharmaceuticals. 

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Scribbles, Weather/Climate

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Online shopping delays

Posted on November 25, 2007 | Comments Off on Online shopping delays

I’ve been having trouble accessing Amazon all weekend. I was beginning to think it was my net connection, but I see here that many of the online retail sites are cratering under demand pressure. Not good, with Cyber Monday just a few hours away.

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Posted in Scribbles

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