The Connecticut Court of Appeals upheld the kidnapping-robbery convictions of Michael Carter, thus rejecting his claim that witnesses’ identification of him should have been suppressed at his trial. At the time of arrest, according to New Haven police officer Dario Aponte, Carter had proclaimed his innocence but resisted being returned to the scene of the crime so witnesses could see him, asking Aponte, “How can they identify me? I had a mask on.”
David Posman, 33, was arrested recently in Providence, R.I, after allegedly knocking out an armored car driver and stealing the closest four bags of money. It turned out they contained $800 in PENNIES, weighed 30 pounds each, and slowed him to a stagger during his getaway so that police officers easily jumped him from behind.
Clever drug traffickers used a propane tanker truck entering El Paso from Mexico. They rigged it so propane gas would be released from all of its valves while the truck also concealed 6,240 pounds of marijuana. They were clever, but not bright. They misspelled the name of the gas company on the side of the truck.
The judge rose from the bench. “Madam, I have waited years for a schoolteacher to appear before this court,” he smiled with delight. “Now sit down at that table and write ‘I will not pass through a red light’ five hundred times.”
A judge in Louisville decided a jury went “a little bit too far” in recommending a sentence of 5,005 years for a man who was convicted of five robberies and a kidnapping. The judge reduced the sentence to 1,001 years.
We should all thank these geniuses for helping to make law enforcement easier.
As I’ve stated on many occasions, I am not a religious person. But as I do my homework for this blog, I discover many things that I didn’t know before about religion. While I disagree with most organized religions that currently exist, I found that there are a few that I had no knowledge of at all and that being said, I thought I’d pass along their information to all of you.
The first group is the Universe People. They live in and around the Czech Republic and believe that ancient non-earthly beings operate a fleet of spaceships orbiting the earth. The Universe People followers are waiting to be transported into another dimension. I hope they have a really nice trip!
The second group is named after Bhagwan Shee Rajneesh. This gentleman was an India-born mystic who settled in Oregon in the 1980s. The group’s claim to religious fame is that Rolls-Royce’s are a sign of holiness. He owned dozens of them. He also tried to poison nonbelievers by introducing salmonella into the salad bars of several Oregon fast-food restaurants. Take no communion wafers from these folks.
The third group is called the World Church of the Creator. It’s a white separatist movement advocating a white-only religion called Creativity. Ironically, despite their name, group members do not believe in God. They are atheists! They are also idiots, pure and simple.
Number four is called Nuwaubianism. It’s a loose term referring to the religion founded by Dwight York, a black supremacist leader and convicted child molester (currently serving a 135-year prison sentence). These people believe all humans have seven clones living on different parts of the planet. Humans were bred on Mars as part of a Homo erectus breeding program gone awry, and famed scientist, Nikola Tesla, was born on the planet Venus. Let’s have a big AMEN here!
Number five is one I’ll only mention briefly because they’re all dead. And that was Heaven’s Gate. A cult founded by Marshall Applewhite, whose followers believed that once they were free of their earthly bodies, a spaceship would take them away to a celestial paradise. In 1997 with the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet they were assured their spaceship had arrived. In March of that year all 36 members of the cult were found dead in a mass suicide. Problem solved!
What more can I say about organized religions. My only
comment is that “You just can’t make this shit up.”
I just found out that the White House appears to be haunted and has been for some years. I love thinking about the Carters, Clintons, and Bushes being visited in the wee hours. Oh, if it were only true. Here are a few reported incidents that truly tickle my funny bone.
You as we’ve learned in our history lessons in school, Pres. William Henry Harrison became ill at his inauguration and died from pneumonia on April 4, 1841, just one month after taking office. Harrison’s translucent ghost has been seen throughout the White House but primarily in the residential areas. It appears to be looking for something and walks through closed doors.
If you like to hear about a happier ghost, go to the Queen’s bedroom the White House where President Andrew Jackson’s ghost can occasionally be seen. Since in life he was known as quite the ladies’ man, the Queen’s bedroom at that time was reserved for female guests of honor.
During World War II that same Queens bedroom was called the Rose room and was where Winston Churchill once stayed. He encountered the ghost of Abraham Lincoln standing in front of the fireplace with one hand on the mantle, staring down at the hearth. Always a quick wit, Churchill said, “Good evening Mr. President, you seem to have me at a disadvantage”. According to Churchill, Lincoln smiled at him and disappeared.
When Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands stayed in the Queen’s bedroom in 1945, she was awakened by noisy footsteps in the corridor outside her room. When the Queen finally opened her door, she was face-to-face with the specter of Abraham Lincoln. She said he looked very much alive and was dressed in travel clothes including top hat and coat. The queen gasped, and Lincoln vanished.
It appears that Abraham Lincoln refuses to leave the White House. His apparition has been seen clearly by hundreds, including Eleanor Roosevelt’s maid, sitting on a bed, removing his boots. Calvin Coolidge’s wife saw Lincoln’s face reflected in the window in the Yellow Oval Room. I thought it was tough to get rid of the Clintons but Lincoln’s just being ridiculous.
Abigail Adams did her laundry and hung it out to dry in the White House’s East Room. Her ghost appears regularly and is wrapped in a shawl.
Dolly Madison was the designer of the Rose Garden. When Woodrow Wilson’s second wife Edith, ordered gardeners to dig up the garden for new plants, Dolly’s apparition appeared and allegedly insisted that no one was going to touch her garden. You should know that to this day those roses remain exactly as they were when the Madisons lived in the White House in the early 1800s.
Well, all of these entries should tell you something but I’m not quite sure what. The White House is either filled with dozens of ghosts that refuse to leave or everybody that hangs out in the White House is delusional. I’m not a big believer in ghosts but to hear all these stories makes me wonder more than I usually do about politicians and their vivid imaginations.
HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE FOR HILARY TO RETURN? . . . OOOOOOH, SCARY!
I’m still contemplating whether to post those extremely lewd limericks I’ve been talking about for weeks. At some point I’ll be forced into a decision but not just yet. How about a few that aren’t quite as disturbing. Here are a few prizewinners about virgins.
There was a young virgin named Alice
Who thought of her puss as a chalice.
One night, sleeping nude,
She awoke feeling lewd,
And found in her chalice a phallus.
😏😏😏
A lisping young lady named Beth
Was saved from a fate worse than death.
Seven times in a row,
Which unsettled her so
That she quit saying “No” and said “Yeth”.
😜😜😜
There was a young fellow named Biddle
Whose girl had to teach him to fiddle.
She grabbed hold of his bow
And said, “If you want to know,
You can try parting my hair in the middle.”
🤣🤣🤣
A girl named Alice, in Dallas,
Had never felt of the phallus.
She remained virgo intacto,
Because, ipso facto,
No phallus in Dallas fit Alice.
😘😘😘
That should keep you limerick lovers calm for a while until I make my final decision. I’ll probably have to come up with some kind of a warning paragraph with flashing lights to ensure no children read the wrong limericks. I’m still working on that and trying to keep my better-half from kicking my ass. She’s a bit of a prude.
I thought for this post I would reintroduce Number Freaking. If you like statistics and far out and freaky explanations of numbers, this is it. I posted about it a number of months ago and the response was excellent. It just goes to show how many freaky people are hanging around out there reading this blog. Enjoy!
WEATHER
On average there are 40-60 flashes of lightning somewhere in the world every second. 1.58 billion lightning flashes are estimated to occur each year on this planet.
At any given moment there are an estimated 2000 thunderstorms occurring worldwide.
There are an estimated 5,844,000 thunderstorms that occur each year.
It is estimated that 695,000,000,000,000 (trillion) gallons of water are unleashed by thunderstorms annually. To put that into a better perspective, Lake Michigan contains 1300 trillion gallons, Lake Huron 935 trillion, and Lake Ontario 433 trillion.
TELEVISION
One of the most expensive pilot shows on American TV was Lost, costing $12 million and the plane that provided the wreckage on the beach cost the production company $200,000.
The total running time of the TV series Friends was 99 hours and 10 minutes (238 episodes). The final episode recorded 52.5 million viewers which is somewhere between the populations of South Korea and Italy.
And for those of you who love The Simpsons their total running time amounted to 139 hours and 35 minutes.
ANT INVASION
The total number of ants on earth is estimated to be in the area of 826.8 billion tons.
It is estimated that there are 300 million trillion ants on the earth (that is 300 quintillion – followed by 20 zeros).
The highest estimate of the total number of insects on earth is at six septillions. That’s 6 trillion trillion – followed by 24 zeros).
MISCELLANEOUS
Money depreciates in value over time. Allowing for inflation a dollar from 1867 was worth about $12.50 in 2005, and a dollar from 1624 at least $20.41.
In 1867 Alaska cost the United States, $7.2 million. In modern dollars this would amount to $90 million.
In 1624 the island of Manhattan was purchased from the Indians for $24. In modern dollars that would convert to $489.84.
Isn’t “Number Freaking” just the best. Its definition explains everything simply and it’s easy to understand. “Number Freaking is something we do because we have a brain, it’s jazz math, the accountancy of the absurd, forensic speculation, surreal calculation, the art of playing with numbers just because we can.”
A few weeks ago, I posted about some language oddities called malaprops. To quote a reader who responded to that post, “Those things are like fingernails on a blackboard to me.” So, I thought today would be a good day to run some fingernails over that same blackboard, just for the fun of it. This time I’ll give you a list of malaprops written by grade schoolers, high schoolers, and a few college geniuses. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis.
The walls of Notre Dame Cathedral are supported by flying buttocks.
Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients.
People have sex, while nouns have genders.
Christmas is a time for happiness for every child, adult, and adulteress.
Most words are easy to spell once you get the letters write.
The bowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.
The climate of the Sahara Desert is so hot that certain areas are cultivated by irritation.
The United States Constitution was adopted to secure domestic hostility.
A few weeks ago, I promised you limerick lovers some really bawdy and rude limericks. I have quite a collection of those, but I hesitate to post them because it would be really bad if any children were to read them. I recently bought a book from an online thrift store which contains 1001 of the rudest limericks I’ve ever seen. I’m still considering whether to post any of them or at least try to find a few that are a little less objectionable.
Just to give you some idea what I’m talking about I thought I would regale you with an erotic poem written by the author of the book, Mr. Ronald Stanza. This little ditty was copied directly from the rear page of his book cover. Good luck.
❤️
Here now is a steamy collection
Of limericks rare. Each selection
Will run for five lines,
Contain marvelous rhymes –
Detailing sex acts of subtle complexion.
🤤🤤🤤
Though often the rhyming is coarse
And the meter is ragged, or worse.
Positions are randy
The sex is jim-dandy
In this book of libidinous verse.
😋😋😋
Some readers may think that it’s crude
To offer for sale what is lewd
But if you’re offended
By what is appended.
We’ll say what you are: you’re a prude!
😏😏😏
For others the thought of an organ
Of sex is a scream. And it’s sure fun
To peep and to poke
And make sex a joke.
If a fault, it’s delightfully human!
🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆
The more I read this little ditty the more I like it. A special thanks goes out to Mr. Ronald Stanza for his fine work. I’ll let you know about the final decision on the week of lewd limericks in a few days, but it isn’t looking good.
“Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
I’ve come to the conclusion over the last few years after talking to a lot of my former and late friends, that after you’re labelled a Senior Citizen at age 50, you begin to think more about death than before. That’s a pretty depressing thought but in most cases I think it’s true. Today’s posting concerns death from a number of different angles and in my opinion, it makes for an interesting and depressing read.
You are 14% more likely to die on your birthday, compared to any other day of the year.
On average, more than 135,000 people will die on your next birthday and 360,000 will be born.
Wednesday by far is the most popular day to commit suicide.
More people die in New York City from suicide each year than from murder.
San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge is the most popular “suicide bridge” in the United States.
There are approximately 150 people killed each year from being struck on the head by a coconut.
Mosquitoes, human beings, and snakes are the three most deadly animals in the world in that order.
Each year more people are killed by hippopotamuses than by lions, sharks, and elephants combined.
THE BLACK DEATH
The Black Death is history’s most deadly verifiable plague. It swept through Europe and Asia Minor in the 1340’s and 50’s, killing an estimated 25 to 60 percent of Europe’s population.
THE SPANISH FLU
The Spanish Flu was a very virulent strain of influenza that spread through Asia, Europe, and North America in the spring of 1918. Healthy adults were especially hard hit. The global death toll is estimated between 25-100 million.
That should be enough depression for today. The Covid-19 pandemic is frightening but the numbers from the Black Death and Spanish Flu are even scarier. Glad I wasn’t around for either of them.
I love sharing quotations with you and I have more of them than I have limericks. I know that’s hard to believe but it’s true. Most quotations are meant to offer up some sort of truth or to pluck at our sentimental heartstrings. Those are all fine and good but really not the ones I like best. I love celebrity quotes because most of them are humorous, and they help to humanize celebrities that always need a little humanizing. Here are a few I discovered.
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas A. Edison
“Music should strike fire from the heart of man and bring tears from the eyes of woman.” Ludvig von Beethoven
“Middle age is when you’ve met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else.” Ogden Nash
“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.” Sir Paul McCartney
“I’ve done the calculation and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not.” Fran Leibowitz
“There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you’re busy interrupting.” Mark Twain
“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.” Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
LET’S HOPE THEY NEVER STOP REGALING US WITH THEIR WISDOM
I’m sure some of you know the definition of a malaprop. If not, here it is. A malaprop is the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar sounding one, often with unintentional amusing effect. I really didn’t know the definition or the word myself but while posting yesterday I noticed two entries that amused me. After digging around in my books I discovered the term malaprop and a number of examples I thought you might find interesting and hopefully amusing. Here they are . . .
Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope.
Although the patient had never been fatally ill before, he woke up dead.
William Tell shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son’s head.
The book was so exciting I couldn’t finish it until I put it down.
The difference between a king and a president is that king is the son of his father and a president isn’t.
The four seasons are salt, pepper, mustard, and vinegar.
The Magna Carta provided that no freemen should be hanged twice for the same offense.
Most of the houses in France are made of plaster of Paris.
The spinal column is a long bunch of bones. Your head sits on the top, and you sit on the bottom.
He saw three other people in the restaurant, and half of those were waiters.
Now you know what malaprops are. As I read them, I realized that I’ve seen samples of them many times before but never heard anyone use the term. I’m ambivalent about knowing it now and I’m almost sorry I made you aware of it. I may revisit this subject in the future or maybe not.
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