Martin World News

ITEM:  The first thing I hit was really good news for us Judith Durham fans.  The voice of the Seekers,  Judith had suffered a cerebral hemmorage on the first stop of their 50th anniversary Australian tour.  But, it was just announced that she's gotten the green light to go back on the road starting in November, and is sounding better than she did on the first leg of the tour, according to member Bruce Woodley.

"There's a new world somewhere, they call the Promised Land..."  But she'll be fine in this one a bit longer.

ITEM:  A National Academy of Science reports says that Big Balls may be great if you're an AC/DC fan, but not if you are a dad;  seems the desire to be a good father, and do nurturing things for your child, is directly proportional to testicle size.  The smaller the cajones, the more likely to be a good father.  But, is it the nut that makes the dad, or the dad that makes the nut?  Scientists aren't sure...

The exact nature of any link is not clear.

The researchers believe the size of the testicles, probably through the hormone testosterone, is affecting behaviour. But it is not clear if the process of having a baby may have some effect on the father.

"We know, for instance, that testosterone levels go down when men become involved fathers," said Dr Rilling.

Hmmm... almost as if the drive is required for sex, but once the sex brings offspring, it shouldn't be as necessary... IF the man is doing his job.  Like someone designed it that way.


ITEM:   A British education watchdog named the world's best universities, and the news world was alit with the results.  While Russia was happy with 18 in the top 800, the highest being Moscow State (I kid thee not) at #120, Taiwan was overjoyed with National Taiwan University making 82nd.  The most complete list (and more than what I needed) gave the top 20- 12 from the US of A, 5 from the UK, and one each from Switzerland, France and Canada.  The US list were led by MIT (#1), Harvard (2), Stanford (7), Yale (8), the U of Chicago (9), Cal Tech and Princeton (tied 10th).  In local interests, here is the Big Ten and Notre Dame:

Michigan-22
Northwestern 29
Wisconsin 37
Illinois 56
Purdue 99
Minnesota 102
Penn State 107
Ohio State 113
Michigan State 171
Notre Dame 224
Iowa 236
Indiana 240
After 400, they start putting them in groups as to not hurt their feelings...
Nebraska 491-500.  Ouch.  But with 800 universities worldwide ranked, not as ouch as some.  Notables in the "701 +" category included Auburn, Baylor, Clemson, BYU, and Arkansas.  I thought to look up the university of Liberia, where those 24,000 would-be students failed the entrance exam, but it seems their African examination only covered South Africa and Egypt.

ITEM:  And as that exhausts the world shaking news out there (unless you think Obama's speech tonight will change the world), I thought I might share something that got caught by my comment moderation the other day.  It might not be so amusing, had it not been on a post I called, "Naked Women! Dancing! Beer!" 

Some pоsts сause you tο
giggle, sοme poѕts leаve you feеlіng sаd, this paгticulaг onе makes me think, ωhiсh
is what I like the bеѕt.

And yet, it links with a porn blog.  Go figure.

And then there was yet another failed attempt at a scam e-mail the other day.  Went like this:

I am Stephanie Otavy,dear friend,I will like to Invest in your Country. I inherited fund from my late father business. Can you help me out as my foreign representative? write me So I can give you more details.Ms,Stephanie Otay




Okay, let's go over the list of what's wrong here.  First off, this was cribbed from other (read: less lazy) scammers going under the name of Stephanie Otavy Toure, the "only daughter of the late Chief Otavy Karim Toure and his wife", who was a "reputable cocoa merchant " from the Ivory Coast; or just plain Stephanie Otavy, a "God-fearing woman" who's inherited money from her late husband and wants help in spending it "for God's work".  (There's also a "Stephanie Otavy" on FaceBook, although it's hard to tell if this is any relation.

I dunno... don't look much like a Chief's daughter to me...

Going on, we can see by the use of Fund rather than funds and father rather than father's that she has a fear of the letter s- so I'm a bit surprised she doesn't go by Tephanie Otavy.  Which brings up point #3- her last name.  It is OTAVY all the way to the sign off, when it suddenly becomes OTAY.

"Otay, Spanky!"  Is this her long-dead father, the chief?

 

Throw in the grammar and punctuation issues, and we have 9 glaring errors in a 43 word e-mail, one for every 5 words.  It usually takes me a full post and part of the next to hit nine.

ITEM:  I am having mercy upon those of you non-conversant in football.  If you look between the top banner and Nixon, on the far right you'll see a new page link.  That's right, our fantasy football league has it's own page this season.  So if you want to see how your favorite team is doing this year (the KCAs got clobbered this week, BTW), just click up there, and I won't bother you with it here.  (All bets are off if the KCAs win another Super Bowl!).  However, I am still making good my threat to bore you with share with you my love for international hockey right here.  Today, the Slovakian Extraliga kicked off its season with Dukla Trecin  squeaking past the Slovakian Under 20 team- not a ringing endorsement of how their season will go, I think.  In the spirit of picking one team from each league to root for  I've got to go for the MHC Mountfield team out of the town of Martin.  (Get it?  I'm a Martin, and... yeah, you get it.) 

Now, you might say, didn't you mention a Mountfield team in the CZECH league?  Yep.  Mountfield is Europe's version of Toro or John Deere, and sponsors a buttload of teams in several sports throughout eastern Europe.

ITEM:  September 1-7 was Burgerweek in Canada (no lie), as over 100 burger places in four cities (Montreal, Quebec City, Vancouver, and Winnipeg) competed to see who could make the best specialty burger for the occasion.  Vancouver's rather simple winner, from Tera V Burger was called the No-Bull Specialle and is a burger topped with red onions, lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup, mustard, vegan mayo (on a beef patty- makes sense), topped with cheddar (one requirement of the contest was that it had to have cheese.  Winnipeg's winner was from Unburger, which gets nothing but all natural, local ingredients.  Their winner, the Shang-Awesome, was a free-range beef patty, local goat cheese, Asian slaw, spicy mushrooms, and a sweet chili aioli.

Montreal and Quebec pulled out the stops on theirs.  Quebec's Rideau Rogue came up with the BW Special- a 6-oz. patty stuffed with mild cheddar, wrapped with bacon, topped with grated sharp cheddar, tomato fried in beer, lettuce, and flamed Ardberg Scotch ($66 a bottle), on a rosemary bun.

Montreal came up with the Cheesus burger from Diablos BBQ.  A chicken-fried beef patty, topped with a white wine cream drizzle, smoked ketchup (I didn't even know you could roll ketchup, much less light it), bacon, and a cream cheese-sour cream-coriander sauce.  The topper is, there is no bread- the "bun" is two slices of baked Halloumi cheese (a goat and/or sheep milk unripened cheese from Cyprus).

A bun made of cheese... hmmm....