Still No Title

In celebration of Tim's new teaching position, Mike, JoAnn, Tim, Michelle, and I went out for dinner Sunday night at The Irish Pub and the food was delicious.

After a splendid appetizer of Irish Nachos (that tasted like a loaded baked Irish potato) I thoroughly enjoyed a main course of supposedly-authentic Fish & Chips (beer-battered cod) -- which is one of my favorite meals. The others shared stuffed jalapenos and shrimp cocktail for appetizers, but my aged stomach knows from experience that such spicy fare is a thing of the past for me.

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Technological Marvels

Some Startling News from Japan, which seems obsessed with high-tech toilets: a toilet that displays a network-enabled health monitor version that checks blood sugar, BP, BMI, and urinalysis, all stored for a year for a family of four. Plans for the next version of the $5,000 marvel include communicating the measurements directly to physicians.

What next?

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The Laying On Of Hands

In a video at Cleveland.com you can view nurses and other medical personnel receiving a blessing by the pastoral care team at MetroHealth Medical Center. Hands were washed, anointed with lavender oil, and participants also received a bookmark along with a lavender plant. Divine intervention? The placebo effect? Unexplained powers of the human mind?

Who knows? If it works and harms nobody, why not do it?

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MIAMI, Aug 30 (Reuters) --
Hurricane Earl battered the Northern Leeward Islands in the Caribbean on Monday and was poised to become a major Category 3 hurricane that could swipe the U.S. East Coast in the next few days, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Even though I no longer live in Florida, some members of my family are still there, so I try to keep abreast of the latest hurricane warnings. In fact, as soon as I upload this, I am going to check on Earl's progress.

Update: I saw a TV weather report that indicates the track for Earl is tending toward the Northeast which means that Florida is probably safe from the worst effects of this hurricane, but in the past it's been noticed that accompanying outlying hurricane winds sometime produce power outages and such irritants.

Remember . . . you should never discount Mother Nature.

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Here is a photo I liked but neglected to display yesterday along with the others.

Notable Contrast of Industry with Nature

(Click the pic for a larger view)

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Germany has very generous parental leave policies. Women get a full year of paid maternal leave, which they can extend to three years of “educational” leave. Employers are mandated to retake these working mothers in the same position after they leave.

So says The Daily Dish anyway.

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I read a short, emotional moving essay about pets, copied it, and posted it on my website -- if you read it, please tell me what you thought of it. There is more about the author here in case you are interested.

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President Obama says that he is a Christian

According to PZ Myers, "...you can't trust Christians ... because behind the polite and friendly mask ... is the brain of a drooling idiot." which seems to me to be a rather harsh and generalized judgment.

But, of course, "Who am I to refute the highly-esteemed PZ Myers?"


Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
--Unknown