I RECEIVED THIS IN E-MAIL AND THOUGHT I'D PASS IT ON.
Our Yearly Dementia Test-- only 4 questions
It's that time of year for us to take our annual senior citizen test.
Exercise of the brain is as important as exercise of the muscles. As we grow older, it's important to keep mentally alert. If you don't use it, you lose it!
Below is a very private way to gauge how your memory compares to the last test. Some may think it is too easy but the ones with memory problems may have difficulty.
Take the test presented here to determine if you're losing it or not - The space after each question separates the answer so you are not tempted to peek..
OK, relax, clear your mind and begin.
1. What do you put in a toaster?
Answer: 'bread.' If you said 'toast' give up now and do something else..
Try not to hurt yourself.
If you said, bread, go to Question 2.
2. Say 'silk' five times. Now spell 'silk.' What do cows drink?
Answer: Cows drink water. If you said 'milk,' don't attempt the next question. Your brain is over-stressed and may even overheat. Content yourself with reading more appropriate literature such as Auto World.
However, if you said 'water', proceed to question 3.
3. If a red house is made from red bricks and a blue house is made from blue bricks and a pink house is made from pink bricks and a black house is made from black bricks, what is a green house made from?
Answer: Greenhouses are made from glass. If you said 'green bricks,' why are you still reading these? If you said 'glass,' go on to Question 4.
4. Without using a calculator - You are driving a bus from London to
Milford Haven in Wales. In London, 17 people get on the bus.
In Reading, 6 people get off the bus and 9 people get on.
In Swindon, 2 people get off and 4 get on.
In Cardiff, 11 people get off and 16 people get on.
In Swansea, 3 people get off and 5 people get on.
In Carmathen, 6 people get off and 3 get on.
You then arrive at Milford Haven ..
Without scrolling back to review, how old is the bus driver?
Answer: Oh, for crying out loud!
Don't you remember your own age?
It was YOU driving the bus!
Oh well, I got 100% wrong. At least I can name three departments of government I'd like to get rid of: let's see, there is the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Energy the Department of .......let me see.........somebody help me........I will remember it later. the Ol'Buzzard
I know that people don’t care to sit down and read long post. Like everything else in this time of computers, twitter and cell phones, people want to read a few paragraph from a blog they are following, make a comment and then move on to the next post.
For this reason I have decided to breach the subject of DEATH in two or even three installments.
"The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens and nothing is esxpected of you."
STIFF, by Mary Roach
I recently attended the funeral of my wife’s aunt. It is not the first funeral I have attended, but the first commercial funeral I have attended in a long time. That funeral and my approaching birthday (no. 72) have me rethinking about death; and how death is handled by different cultures and how it is perceived by different individuals. As I have said before: Death is the final debt we owe to nature for our time alive on this earth – but that’s bull shit. I don’t question so much why I must die; but the real question seems to be why have I lived?
The only answer I can surmise seems to be that at some random point in time, one of the millions of sperms in one of my fathers random ejaculations (who ever the hell he was) happened to connect with a random egg passing through my mothers uterus. The whole thing seems perfectly random: I am here via the butterfly effect described in the Chaos Theory. I am a random male, that had a random birth, that has made random choices in life, that has led me to be a random old man, expecting a random death at sometime in the random future.
Without getting any more metaphysical than that, in the following post I will write about how death is handled in our culture, and how it differs from the death rituals I experienced while living in the Indian and Eskimo villages of Alaska.
But first a little background.
From the earliest times death has been feared and misunderstood by man. Early humans left their dead for the animals and the environment to consume, as evident by early archeological finds. Early man was fearful of the unknown, fearful of death and fearful of the dead; and somewhere along his cognitive development the idea of gods and ghost and an afterlife evolved.
Early Neanderthal burial vaults have been discovered that contained weapons and personal artifacts, evidence of a belief in an afterlife. Pharoses of Egypt were entombed with riches, personal belongings and even slaves. Michael Crichton describes a Viking funeral pyre in his book Eaters of the Dead in which all preparations were made for the Viking chief’s journey to Valhalla. (Though fiction, Crichton researched his material thoroughly.)
Now we have the advent of major religions and their drive to take control of death
Ars Moriendi (The art of dying), a Latin text dating about 1415, contains woodblock prints presenting the Christians’ dilemma at the time of death.
The dying man is surrounded on one side by the demons of hell and on the other side by saints and angles. A battle is in progress for the dying man’s soul. The only chance this man has is for the last rites to be administered in order to purify his soul so that he might be received sinless by the body of angles. Early Catholics feared the prospect of sudden death because dying unconsecrated could result in being abducted by demons into the inferno of hell.
The early Catholic Church, with its doctrine of purgatory, was able to manipulate huge financial benefit from the policy of priest receiving money to pray to the saints for the deceased’s speedy trip through purgatory. The more someone paid the more prayers the priest would offer – thus insuring the rich man a prominent place in the heavenly realm.
(Side note: even today the Catholic Church is one of the biggest individual owners of funeral homes in the city of New York – again profiting from death.)
Notice the early church was all about men going to heaven – the Christian church has never be overly concerned about women, other then to pose them as wanton, temptresses, debasers of men and the cause of original sin.
The image of The Church as the protector from death was lain bare during the mid-14th century when the Black Death swept through Europe, killing perhaps half the Continent’s population. During that time traditional burial customs collapsed as most victims were consigned to mass graves. It has been claimed that not only the dead, but also the dying were buried in public pits in an attempt to stem the contagion.
Today death is a big business. Funeral homes are never short of business and they prey on the grief of surviving family members to sell the biggest and most elaborate death ritual the family can afford. Cemetery lots increase the value of land from cost per acre to cost per square foot. Massive cemeteries blanket our country and tie up valuable land from productive use for the many centuries to come.
The dead in our culture are feared and considered an unnatural macabre spectacle to be endured, avoided and dispensed with as fast as possible. Death is a damn profitable business, and the major recruiting tool for religions of the world.
I know reading a post about death is a bummer - but maybe it can help you
With all the financial, social and political problems facing the United States, Congress finally decided to act: this week they passed a resolution, with only seven dissenters, confirming that the country’s motto is still IN GOD WE TRUST.
What ever happened to, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” This, by the way, is part of the first amendment of our Bill of Rights.
We worry about terrorism, global warming and the financial melt down; but the real threat to this country is creeping Jesus. Systematically and covertly Christian fundamentalist are moving our country toward a Christian theocracy.
In Mississippi there is a law proposed to define human life as existing from the time of conception. This law has been proposed and championed due to the fundamentalist influence that permeates Mississippi and the rest of the south. Besides outlawing abortion under any circumstances the law would also make the use of some popular birth control methods a crime; and could result in a woman using identified birth control methods being charged with murder.
At this time oral and anal sex between consenting adults is a crime in thirteen states. The religious right regularly edit our school books and in many states have passed laws insisting their religious metaphoric creationism be taught in place of, or as an alternative to, the hard science of evolution. Touting pious morality the amoral Christians have been successful in limiting aides and stem cell research. They regularly attempt to ban books and movies and they would like to censor the viewing of sexual material on the World Wide Web.
A Christian theocracy would move our country back into a new dark ages; a time of repression, ignorance and inquisition. Christian fundamentalist must have identified enemies to unite and motivate their flocks. Moslems, atheist, dead soldiers and homosexuals are their present bitter enemies. In Maine the Catholic church of Portland was the prime organizer and fund raiser that defeated the Maine Legislature’s Equal Rights Amendment. Fanatical fundamentalist populated the balcony at the State House and screamed obscenities and scripture verses at the people appearing before the legislature who testified in favor of the amendment.
To paraphrase George Carlin: The Christians are coming and they are not very nice people.
Every once in a while you have to blast off at something that really bugs you. I have no problem with the Wall Street protesters calling themselves the 99%. However, I am not optimistic that they will actually accomplish much in the way of reform – without leadership and direction they remind me more of a techy-Woodstock gathering. (Unfortunately I missed Woodstock - I was in Viet Nam at the time.)
Here’s what bugs me: the mega-rich that have manipulated the economy for their own gain at the expense of the rest of us being called the 1%.
The 1% is an outlaw biker symbol.
In 1947 the Wild Bunch rode through the southwest and took over Hollister.
In 1957 Sonny Barger started the Hell’s Angles.
About 1961 outlaw bikers were termed by the American Motorcycle Association as the 1% of bike riders.
The 1% patch doesn’t belong to any one club, but in the tradition of Easy Rider it is a symbol of someone who rides against the wind: a non-conformist; someone who resents authority and chooses to live a life of free choice, regardless of social restraints; someone who lives to ride a motorcycle.
It pisses me off to hear the people controlling the world banks; the people that raped the world economy; the people who manipulate and control our government (Big Brother) being called the one-percent.
I am a 1%er. My bros are 1%er.
Fuck you manipulators of our government and fuck you Congress for the whores that you are.
I received this in an e-mail from a friend (yes - i do have a friend) and damn if it doesn't sound right to me. I have always said (and posted) that term limits on Congress would be the way to insure the elected worked for the country and not for their own re-election.
Buffett's solution
Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best
quotes about the debt ceiling:
"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law
that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all
sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election. The 26th
amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months
& 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in
1971...before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc. Of the 27 amendments to
the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the
land...all because of public pressure.
Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of
twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do
likewise.
In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the
message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.
*Congressional Reform Act of 2011*
1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office
and receives no pay when they are out of office.
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All
funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security
system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system,
and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for
any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans
do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay
will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the
same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American
people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective
1/1/12.
The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen
made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor,
not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours
should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.
If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take
three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Maybe it is
I am a science buff with eleven undergraduate hours in physics. It is not the same as being a nerd, because I don’t carry a cell phone or an i-pad, and I am not cognitive of or concerned for the latest electronic gismos.
Most of my interest in theoretical physics, however I am always intrigued by science technology developed to real world uses.
I have recently run across a book Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the Twenty-first Century by P.W. Singer. It is a fascinating book that covers Predator Drones and robotics that has been developed for the military.
Under President Obama our drone strikes have been surgically precise and deadly. We hear occasional mention of them and most lately they were highlighted in the takedown of Kadafi. However, there are hundreds of strikes and surveillance flights that have taken place in the Middle-East and in Africa that we never hear of.
The Predator Drones are remarkable. The newer ones can take off and land by themselves. They can see through clouds and even operate in total darkness; and they can remain airborne for hours or even days over selected targets.
These unmanned Predator Drones are the weapon of the future and presently the Air Force is training more drone operators than conventional pilots.
The U.S Customs service is beginning to use UAV’s (unmanned airborne vehicles) and within the next few years we can probably expect to see them as tools of civilian police departments.
Drown warfare is no longer a figment of science fiction. The U.S. army has a number of mechanical soldiers on the drawing board and presently they are testing some versions in the field.
The DOG in a mechanical quadruped designed to help soldiers transport heavy loads across difficult terrain.
The BEAR is a somewhat humanoid track vehicle that is capable of gently lifting and carrying loads of up to 500 pounds across extremely difficult terrain.
The SWORD is a small track vehicle with telescopic eyesight that can be armed with a 50 caliber machine gun, ground-to-air rockets or anti-tank rockets. In all test this super deadly killing machine has scored 100% in accuracy.
Even more intriguing are the micro-drones. The old adage of “a fly on the wall” has become a reality, for a micro-drone could be programmed to fly into a room and attach itself to a wall or ceiling, and broadcast video and audio.
There is even speculation about micro-micro drones that could each be programmed for a specific reconnaissance objective and flown in a swarm, sharing information like a hive. The possible uses of these mechanical insect clouds are limited only by the imagination.
It is not only land and air, for the Navy is developing unmanned submarines, and surface vehicles capable of protecting surface ships, tracking enemy submarines or being used for search and rescue at sea.
I find all this interesting, but also a sad comment on our nation: can you imagine what we could accomplish if our priorities were to channel federal money into technology and research for the benefit of human kind rather than for war and killing.
Well hell, for what it’s worth the Ol’Buzzard is back.
Perhaps it's what all bloggers go through – like mid-blog crisis – it seems you’ve said it all and it’s a repeat of the same old shit. You’re sick of the same political crap – it just rehashes and becomes the same theme with different names. Nothing changes and nothing is going to change.
Facts we must live with:
1) All senators and congresspersons are primarily interested in reelection – the only way to truly move the government toward serving the people would be TERM LIMITS…and it ain’t going to happen. Just as there is a test for teachers, lawyers and doctors, there should be a test for political office – most would never pass it.
2) Education is the only way to seriously address the long term unemployment crisis – and the government doesn’t have a clue how to do it. If you truly want to know how to effectively educate the population: ask a teacher. A one size fits all policy and standards for a diverse population is ludicrous. However, government will never relinquish education to the educators – it is to good of a platform to run for reelection on. (never end a sentence with a preposition – fuck it.)
3) One half of the American population falls on the back side of the intellectual bell curve, and one quarter of the population is functional but borderline retarded.
4) Education credentials are not an indicator of intelligence: look at the Republican Presidential candidates.
5) Religion is the archenemy of civilization: It is the base of almost all intolerance and bigotry. Religion would choose to move civilization backwards toward the dark ages and away from science and enlightenment.
6) Gender equality doesn’t exist. Males and females are two alien creatures that must exist in a symbiotic relationship; but, we don’t have the same aggressive tendencies, the same emotions, the same physical abilities, the same sex drives, the same outlooks or the same priorities.
7) Growing old doesn’t suck. It is just the expectation of disability and death that sucks. The main problem with growing old is that young women don’t want to fuck you any more.
