Starting today I am not going to do any posting on Saturday or Sunday. I had already stopped posting on Sunday, so now I'll have the weekend off. Just didn't want anyone to worry, ya know?
Have a great Saturday...
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Friday, June 7, 2019
Just Like The Nursery Rhyme...!
Once in a great while, life does seem to follow a nursery rhyme. In this case, I think the farmer involved was making a statement that just happened to involve sheep. It was pretty cool, though.
In 2019, French parents heard that a class at a local school might shut down due to dropping student numbers. They were understandably upset. After all, the “drop” was small. For some reason, the national education authority decided it would be the best move after numbers went from 266 to 261.
The primary school, located in the French Alps, served the village of Crets en Belledonne. One of the village’s farmers took his flock of sheep and went to the school. He had a plan.
After arriving at the school, he produced birth certificates for 15 sheep and enrolled them as students. In most other places, the act would have caused a legal incident, a call to the police or animal welfare, or perhaps a psychiatrist.
However, in this case, the woolly students were signed up during a ceremony watched by the school’s staff, children, and the kids’ parents. Although the sheep never sat through a history lesson or received homework, the initiative worked. The class stayed open.
Seems like the showy demonstration did the job. All without violence or fighting...COOL!
Coffee in the kitchen again this morning. More rain expected.
They Go To School
Photo credit: dailyhunt.in
In 2019, French parents heard that a class at a local school might shut down due to dropping student numbers. They were understandably upset. After all, the “drop” was small. For some reason, the national education authority decided it would be the best move after numbers went from 266 to 261.
The primary school, located in the French Alps, served the village of Crets en Belledonne. One of the village’s farmers took his flock of sheep and went to the school. He had a plan.
After arriving at the school, he produced birth certificates for 15 sheep and enrolled them as students. In most other places, the act would have caused a legal incident, a call to the police or animal welfare, or perhaps a psychiatrist.
However, in this case, the woolly students were signed up during a ceremony watched by the school’s staff, children, and the kids’ parents. Although the sheep never sat through a history lesson or received homework, the initiative worked. The class stayed open.
Seems like the showy demonstration did the job. All without violence or fighting...COOL!
Coffee in the kitchen again this morning. More rain expected.
Thursday, June 6, 2019
A Common Household Poison...!
Have you ever noticed just how many everyday things we have around the house that could be poison to us? Here is one that might surprise you.
You may have never noticed the poison warning that the FDA requires on every tube of toothpaste. This is largely because a staggering 95 percent of toothpaste in the United States contains fluoride.
While the severity of effects ranges in tandem with the amount consumed, the FDA urges you to contact a poison control center if you consume even just a bit more than used for brushing. The Fluoride Action Network explains that the dental community has “failed to educate the public about the dangers of swallowing too much fluoride toothpaste.”
Shockingly, most toothpastes suggest using only a pea-size amount. However, advertisements depict much larger portions, which can be dangerous. This can be especially harmful to children, who may not accurately gauge the amount of toothpaste needed or even overindulge because of artificial flavoring.
The FDA originally required the aforementioned poison warning because overconsumption of fluoride toothpaste in children can result in acute fluoride poisoning and even death. Another major risk factor of toothpaste is dental fluorosis, which is a side effect that attacks tooth enamel and can result in severe reactions.
Toothpaste, ironically intended to keep us hygienic and healthy, can ultimately be deadly.
Trying to keep up with the list of things that could be bad for us is becoming a full time job.
Coffee inside cause it's raining on the patio.
Toothpaste
You may have never noticed the poison warning that the FDA requires on every tube of toothpaste. This is largely because a staggering 95 percent of toothpaste in the United States contains fluoride.
While the severity of effects ranges in tandem with the amount consumed, the FDA urges you to contact a poison control center if you consume even just a bit more than used for brushing. The Fluoride Action Network explains that the dental community has “failed to educate the public about the dangers of swallowing too much fluoride toothpaste.”
Shockingly, most toothpastes suggest using only a pea-size amount. However, advertisements depict much larger portions, which can be dangerous. This can be especially harmful to children, who may not accurately gauge the amount of toothpaste needed or even overindulge because of artificial flavoring.
The FDA originally required the aforementioned poison warning because overconsumption of fluoride toothpaste in children can result in acute fluoride poisoning and even death. Another major risk factor of toothpaste is dental fluorosis, which is a side effect that attacks tooth enamel and can result in severe reactions.
Toothpaste, ironically intended to keep us hygienic and healthy, can ultimately be deadly.
Trying to keep up with the list of things that could be bad for us is becoming a full time job.
Coffee inside cause it's raining on the patio.
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Some Killer Weather...!
As bad as we think the weather is locally, there have been sme rather disturbing cases where the weather, namely smog, was responsible for deaths. Here is a case from the folks at Listverse.
Killer smog sounds like the plot of a horror movie, but this was the real thing. For five days in December 1952, a smothering cloud descended on London, killing thousands.
December 5 was a cold day, and as Londoners woke, they stoked their fireplaces and lit their coal stoves, sending plumes of black smoke into the air. Smoky diesel-fueled buses carried people to work, and factories belched tons of pollution into the air.
Unfortunately, on this day, an inversion set in, trapping pollutants on top of the city. With no wind to clear the air, the smog had nowhere to go. By noon, it had turned a sickly yellowish brown and began to smell like rotten eggs. Parents were warned to keep their children home from school, for fear they might become lost in the vaporous haze. The air was so thick that people couldn’t see their feet, and river traffic was halted on the Thames. Birds died when they flew into buildings, and livestock suffocated. People suffered similar fates.
It is estimated that as many as 12,000 people died of respiratory ailments related directly to the sulfurous air. Finally, after five nightmarish days, a fresh breeze blew in and whisked the killer smog out to sea. It was not until 1956 that a clean air act was finally passed.
Makes the weather in my area seem pale in comparison, ya know?
Coffee out on the patio until the rain starts.
London’s Killer Smog
December 5, 1952
Photo credit: N.T. Stobbs
Killer smog sounds like the plot of a horror movie, but this was the real thing. For five days in December 1952, a smothering cloud descended on London, killing thousands.
December 5 was a cold day, and as Londoners woke, they stoked their fireplaces and lit their coal stoves, sending plumes of black smoke into the air. Smoky diesel-fueled buses carried people to work, and factories belched tons of pollution into the air.
Unfortunately, on this day, an inversion set in, trapping pollutants on top of the city. With no wind to clear the air, the smog had nowhere to go. By noon, it had turned a sickly yellowish brown and began to smell like rotten eggs. Parents were warned to keep their children home from school, for fear they might become lost in the vaporous haze. The air was so thick that people couldn’t see their feet, and river traffic was halted on the Thames. Birds died when they flew into buildings, and livestock suffocated. People suffered similar fates.
It is estimated that as many as 12,000 people died of respiratory ailments related directly to the sulfurous air. Finally, after five nightmarish days, a fresh breeze blew in and whisked the killer smog out to sea. It was not until 1956 that a clean air act was finally passed.
Makes the weather in my area seem pale in comparison, ya know?
Coffee out on the patio until the rain starts.
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
Is This The Grail...?
As far back as I can remember, folks have been talking about finding the Holy Grail. Did it actually exist? Where could it be? Does it really have healing powers? So many questions and so few answers. From Listverse, here is an interesting look at a cup fragment that is worth looking at.
The Nanteos Cup, considered by some to be the Holy Grail, is a wooden cup (or, more precisely, the remains of what used to be a wooden cup). Originally kept at Strata Florida Abbey in Wales, the cup is now on permanent display at the National Library of Wales.
The cup has long been believed to have the power to heal. The cup’s poor condition is probably due to the habit of lending it to the sick, the lame, and the dying. No charge was made for the loan of the cup, though borrowers were required to leave their most valuable asset as a deposit to ensure its return.
The cup was stolen in 2014 but returned safely via an anonymous source a year later. It is not known whether the thieves took the cup for its mystical properties, though police might have considered investigating anyone who had recently made a miraculous recovery.
I guess it would be nice if this legend would come true, but I fear there would be fighting and war over ownership. Maybe we should leave it alone in the museum.
Coffee out on the patio this morning.
The Nanteos Cup
Photo credit: National Library of Wales
The Nanteos Cup, considered by some to be the Holy Grail, is a wooden cup (or, more precisely, the remains of what used to be a wooden cup). Originally kept at Strata Florida Abbey in Wales, the cup is now on permanent display at the National Library of Wales.
The cup has long been believed to have the power to heal. The cup’s poor condition is probably due to the habit of lending it to the sick, the lame, and the dying. No charge was made for the loan of the cup, though borrowers were required to leave their most valuable asset as a deposit to ensure its return.
The cup was stolen in 2014 but returned safely via an anonymous source a year later. It is not known whether the thieves took the cup for its mystical properties, though police might have considered investigating anyone who had recently made a miraculous recovery.
I guess it would be nice if this legend would come true, but I fear there would be fighting and war over ownership. Maybe we should leave it alone in the museum.
Coffee out on the patio this morning.
Monday, June 3, 2019
What Are These Spheres...?
That question has been asked by many folks a lot smarter than I, believe me. I'm not sure if we will ever know what they are. Here is the story from Listverse.
Early this year, a woman named Geraldine Vargas and her husband were walking through the desert near their home in Tucson, Arizona, when they came across a phenomenon that, so far, has completely baffled scientists. They discovered a large patch of land covered in strange, purple spheres with no perceivable explanation for what they were or how they came to be.
They appear to be a jelly-like fungus, but botanists in Arizona have so far been completely stumped as to their cause or composition. The spheres ooze a liquid substance and some people have speculated that they must be of an extraterrestrial origin considering nothing like them has ever been seen in the area, and no one has the slightest clue how they came to be there in the first place.
Whatever these things are, they are very pretty to me.
Coffee out on the patio.
Purple Spheres of the Arizona Desert
Early this year, a woman named Geraldine Vargas and her husband were walking through the desert near their home in Tucson, Arizona, when they came across a phenomenon that, so far, has completely baffled scientists. They discovered a large patch of land covered in strange, purple spheres with no perceivable explanation for what they were or how they came to be.
They appear to be a jelly-like fungus, but botanists in Arizona have so far been completely stumped as to their cause or composition. The spheres ooze a liquid substance and some people have speculated that they must be of an extraterrestrial origin considering nothing like them has ever been seen in the area, and no one has the slightest clue how they came to be there in the first place.
Whatever these things are, they are very pretty to me.
Coffee out on the patio.
Saturday, June 1, 2019
A Trip To The Past...!
Today I want to do something a bit different. On this video is some of the important and memorable inventions of the time, and the year they were first introduced. Boy, I'm getting old!
Remember any of these?
Coffee out on the patio this morning.
Remember any of these?
Coffee out on the patio this morning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
