Martin World News

ITEM:  Before I forget them yet again, a couple of semi-amusing spam comments on the blog I saved...

First one wins a prize for actually matching the post subject:

curtis03 Lewis has left a new comment on your post "Chris and Laurie's Valentine's weekend":

That is really nice dear. I am so pleased to watch all these photographs from this nice valentine's celebrations. This year we also celebrated Valentine’s Day at one of the prettiest venues in Los Angeles and it was great. 


Of course, "venue" was a hyperlink that went untouched.  Thanks, darling!

Second, this one also wins a first.  Not for the message itself, but for the fact that it was repeated SIX times...

Greetings to the general public, i want to inform you about what i can do to assist you in getting a real good sugar mummy in Nigeria.

Note: If you really want a sugar mummy and you also believe that you can handle it very well kindly call me on 08169207857.There are so many Nigeria women who are desperate in getting a guy that we satisfy them.

contact me today on my mobile phone number via 08169207857 for more information s thanks..
Mr. James Umaru.

Try googling "Nigerian Sugar Mummy."  I did, and my opinion is they were all a little heavy on the sugar at one point.

ITEM:  I have so many things in the box, I'm gonna just go down the list rather than hunt a theme.  First up is an article about the 10 most ridiculous things ever said about women, not surprisingly from HuffPost Women.  Surprisingly, though, some of them actually were fairly ridiculous.  To wit:

"The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities; we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness."- Aristotle.

In a similar vein we have one of those oft-quoted Catholic Church Fathers, Thomas Aquinas:

"... A female is deficient and unintentionally caused. For the active power of the semen always seeks to produce a thing completely like itself, something male. So if a female is produced, this must be because the semen is weak or because the material [provided by the female parent] is unsuitable, or because of the action of some external factor such as the winds from the south which make the atmosphere humid."

There you have it.  Girl babies occur when the stork is buffeted by humid south winds.


Rome's Pliny the Elder thought there was some bad mojo associated with a woman's period.  Not the bad moods, etc, that we joke about, either:

"On the approach of a woman in this state, must will become sour, seeds which are touched by her become sterile, grafts wither away, garden plants are parched up, and the fruit will fall from the tree beneath which she sits. Her very look, even, will dim the brightness of mirrors, blunt the edge of steel, and take away the polish from ivory. A swarm of bees, if looked upon by her, will die immediately."


And now you know what's really causing the worldwide bee crisis.  Moving on...


Cato the Elder (these senile Roman old men, eh?) said women were wild, uncontrollable animals, and thus fought for laws controlling their dressing and behavior...

Plutarch thought they should give up their own feelings and emotions at the altar, and copy the husband's views.  Why am I sensing I'm gonna get a buncha comments?

Nietzsche was of the opinion that women were so weak, they needed a religion "that would glorify weakness as divine."  How did this guy get more dates than me?

Finally, let me close with James Joyce:

"Men are governed by lines of intellect -- women: by curves of emotion."

So I guess asking for comments with the line, "Ladies, be straight with me" is out of the question.


ITEM:  And while it would behoove me to defend women at this point, the prosecution first would like to present exhibit A, one Amanda Schweickert, 28, of Sardinia, NY.  She had already had her licence suspended, and had no insurance.  She also didn't have a licence plate, but ten minutes and a box of sharpies later...

ITEM:  The animal kingdom speaks out on nuclear power:

An operator at a nuclear power plant says bird poop may be to blame for a shutdown the plant experienced in mid-December.

Entergy Corp. says bird “streaming,” the technical name for our bird waste, likely caused a disturbance on outdoor electrical transmission lines and led to the shutdown of a nuclear reactor. The company sent a report on the shutdown at the Indian Point reactor to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in February, CBS News reports. The reactor is on the Hudson River, 50 miles north of New York City.

An Indian Point spokesperson later in the article mentioned that they usually confine their problems to squirrels...

ITEM: Sexism in food?  Again, it's HuffPost that pulls the sexism lever on packaged cheese snacks...

...apparently, only the reduced fat offerings have the "girl cheese."  Which would prolly be at the suggestion of Thomas Aquinas...


ITEM:  This one explains why you should make sure you have the driver pass the driving test before allowing them behind the wheel...

Customers at a Minnesota gas station were in for a surprise Friday when they saw a golden Labrador retriever drive a semi-truck up onto a curb and into a tree.

"Well, if we didn't need so many fricking GEARS..."

ITEM:  Well, maybe the dog got distracted...

A naked woman dancing atop the cab of an 18-wheeler slowed traffic in the Houston area for about two hours before she was coaxed off the truck.

Emergency responders used a fire truck ladder to reach the unidentified woman Monday morning and get her to stop the bizarre public display.

Authorities aren't sure why the nude woman was on top of the cab or whether she had been inside the big rig before a three-vehicle traffic accident nearby.

Your honor, Cato the Elder has more evidence...

(Man, I am going to get so killed over this post...)

ITEM:  Wow, the box is REALLY full, and I might just do a second MWN post later.  But let me close this one with a story on last year's Martin World News MVP, North Korea's own Kim Jong Ugh.  NBC News published a list of his worst insults, and most of them weren't even fit to print here.  But as he was easier on the former First Witch, I thought I'd share this one in closing:


In 2009, then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton was travelling around Asia to build support for a tougher stance on North Korea's nuclear weapons program. While in Thailand, Clinton quipped that countries would be best served by ignoring North Korean threats of retaliation, in the same way one would ignore young children who act out.

The North was not best pleased.


"We cannot but regard Mrs. Clinton as a funny lady, as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community," the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement, according to the New York Times. "Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping."


Heavy on the pensioner IMHO.