The Pastor's Ass

[A modern-day parable, sent along by Mimi. Author unknown.]

The Pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won.

The Pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the
race again and it won again.

The local paper read:

PASTOR'S ASS A WINNER

The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the Pastor not to enter the donkey in any more races.

The next day, the headline in the local paper read:

BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR’S ASS

This was too much for the Bishop so he ordered the Pastor to get rid of the donkey. He decided to give it to a Nun in a nearby convent.

The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline the next day:

NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN

The Bishop fainted.

He informed the Nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10. The next day the paper read:

NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10

This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the Nun to buy back the donkey and turn it loose on the prairies.

The next day the headlines read:

NUN SAYS HER ASS IS NOW WILD AND FREE

The Bishop was buried the next day.

The moral is that being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery, so stop worrying about everyone else's ass. You'll be a lot happier, and might even live longer.

Have a nice day!

Here to stay, I guess

Things I learned this week

I learned that:

• There's an upgrade for everything in the U.S., even death. The affluent can select a burial plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA starting at around half a million bucks. Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx is popular for the rich and famous. Prices there run to $3.5 million for an historic private mausoleum. And Donald Trump has announced that he is considering building a 1.5-acre cemetery next to his high-end golf course in Bedminster, NJ. No prices disclosed, but you can bet that good lies won't be cheap.

• The common belief that women have a higher pain threshold than men may be hokum. A Stanford study found that women tend to report much more severe pain than men, no matter the source of the pain.

• Transplanted human embryonic stem cells have improved the vision of two British women who had been registered as blind due to advanced macular degeneration. This is the first peer-reviewed scientific report showing that such cells can be transplanted safely.

• Guitarist Eric Clapton’s son, Conor, died at the age of four years old after falling from a full wall window that had been removed by a janitor to let fresh air in while he worked.

• A U.S. government-contracted lab has created a self-guiding bullet that is capable of hitting a target located a mile away. Using small fins to make in-flight corrections, it is capable of guiding its way to a target that is “painted” with a laser.

• Students from Yale University discovered a new type of fungus while on an expedition to the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. It eats polyurethane, millions of tons of which are used annually for everything from garden hose to paint to packaging, and therefore it may help solve a major environmental problem in landfills.

How about that?

Bottled sunshine lights homes

Simple, inexpensive innovations sometimes make amazing differences in the quality of people's lives. Here's how plastic bottles diverted from landfill, and some human ingenuity, are lighting dark corners for Manila's poorest citizens.

Signs of the times

[Thanks to Libby for sending this along. Author unknown.]

You know you are living in 2012 when...

1. You accidentally enter your PIN on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen, and every plumber has one on the side of his van.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't even have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.

11. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

Wake up Canada!

In this short video, Ann Cavoukian, Ontario's Privacy Commissioner, warns of about-to-be-introduced "lawful access" legislation that will result in Canadians' loss of personal freedom, and the potential for misuse of information by government, law enforcement, and huge media companies.

A National Post editorial calls it "a bill that violates the privacy rights of law-abiding citizens, while leaving criminals easy ways to avoid it entirely."

This is the most recent in a string of legislation and international agreements (Bill C-11, ACTA, TPP) that have implications for the ways the internet is regulated in Canada.

Some claim that such moves are also likely to stifle entrepreneurial Canadian innovators in their efforts to offer new services and build online businesses --- the very initiatives that we need if we are to diversify our economy and create jobs in the information age.



If this resonates with you, please click here for more information and a way to voice your concern.

Frosty's grandpa

You think you can make a snowman? Pfshaw! Your snowmen are mere snowchildren.

This is a snowman, constructed in 1902, on a mountain, in Oregon.

[Found on Endless Geyser of Awesome]