Beware of elephant?

Elephant chews on finger

November 9, 2004

AN Australian man’s holiday of a lifetime has ended in agony when an elephant bit off his finger outside a bar in Thailand.

Although still in pain, Greg Black, of Sunrise Beach, said yesterday he could still manage to see the funny side of the freak pachyderm mauling which happened in the resort town of Pattaya last month.

Mr Black said it all began about midnight on October 17 after he’d had about 10 beers in a Walking St bar. “A man came by with a young elephant and I paid 20 baht [40c] to feed it,” he said.

Mr Black said as he pulled his hand from the animal’s mouth he saw his right little finger had been shredded.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE THE REPUBLICAN

From a forwarded email, original source unknown:

Joe gets up at 6am and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and they work as advertised. All but $10 of his medications is paid by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought theiremployers for paid medical insurance – now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his workday. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union member fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get workers compensation check because some stupid liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of a temporary misfortune.

It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the country would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe forgets that in addition to his federally subsidized student loan, he attended a state funded
>university.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the taxpayer funded roads.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking cheese eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that the liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day and takes for granted today.

Joe agrees: We don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.

Like something out of Scooby Doo…

“But I didn’t know until this day that it was Barzini all along…” …?
“You meddling kids!” …?

No, apparantly The Votemaster of Electoral-Vote.com has finally come out publically with his identity.

Who are You?
My name is Andrew Tanenbaum. I am one of the 7 million U.S. citizens living abroad. I am a professor of computer science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Most of you have never heard of me but in an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny corner of the universe I have done enough stuff that Google has somehow managed to dig up 10,000 pages referring to me.

(from his site)

For all I know this page has been there all along, but dang it, this is news to me. Cool, though. What I really want to know is what Linus thinks about it and the election…

(Post without title)

Arguments in favor of Oregon’s anti-gay marriage iniative 36 include such wonderful tidbits as:

“Oh, by the way, although Jesus never said a single word condemning homosexuality, if heterosexuals can’t get married, homosexuals shouldn’t be allowed to marry either—well, unless they’re too weak-willed to abstain. Sissies!”

(from Daily Dish)