MikeL

Know your history... In 1272, the Arabs invented the condom using a goat's lower intestine. In 1873, the British refined the idea by taking the intestine out of the goat first.

Thanks for sharing the article, Pavel. Government is always in crisis in the US and Linz provided a clear view of why that is. That hasn't always been the case...not when we had a good war to fight. Then everyone pulled together. WWII comes to mind. But, it's been a while since we fought a good war. Certainly war isn't the best answer to democracy's ills. Linz has some interesting suggestions, but American politicians have their vested interests and won't be accommodating change any time soon.

"I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out." ~ Rodney Dangerfield I'm not making light of your subject, Steve. All sports can be dangerous. A bright young NFL quarterback can be taken out for half a season by a questionable hit. A baseball to the side of the head can end a career for a batter or pitcher. Those are risks of the game; not fights. Certainly, football has its scuffles after the whistle. Baseball has its rare rhubarb. Only hockey has out and out fist fights with any regularity. It's a rough game, unnecessarily so. I like hockey. I would like it more without the fights. New rules and good enforcement are all it would take. Ejections work.

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Zhou Enlai?

It's 3:43 am CDT here and I'm thinking I should go back to bed.

A surgeon went to check his patient after an operation. She was awake, so he examined her. "You'll be fine," he said. She asked, "How long will it be before I am able to have a normal sex life again doctor?" The surgeon seemed to pause.... which alarmed the girl. "What's the matter Doctor? I will be all right, won't I?" He replied, "Yes, you'll be fine. It's just that no one has ever asked me that after merely having their tonsils out"

Another conductor?

Q: What does it mean when a man is in your bed gasping for breath and calling your name? A: You did not hold the pillow down long enough.

YAY!

The New York Times Sunday Review has an interesting opinion piece on baseball titled Is the Game Over.

One day my housework-challenged husband decided to wash his sweatshirt. Seconds after he stepped into the laundry room, he shouted to me, 'What setting do I use on the washing machine?' 'It depends,' I replied. 'What does it say on your shirt?' He yelled back, ' MICHIGAN STATE !' And they say blondes are dumb.

When a serious actor meets a comedian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sKGtb1t9iVw Jack Webb and Johnny Carson

I have a collection of quotations from famous football players and coaches. If interested, watch my status updates over the next five weeks or so.

End-of-Ramadan rush hour in Bangladesh:

Libraries and schools are still banning Huckleberry Finn for it's use of the "n" word. The fact that Twain used authentic, contemporary dialogue in his novels to great effect escapes many people. My wife taught English, including Twain's masterpiece, to high school freshmen for many years and took a lot of grief each year from each new batch of ignorant parents. To her credit, she explained the historical significance of the book so well to her students that they all told their parents to cool it. There are many reasons to ban a book. Chief among them is ignorance.

Credit to thebrinkoftime for mentioning this in my status update.

A conductor?

Podga is a sweetheart. I thought I knew who it was, but when I looked up the name, the pictures were obviously someone else. So, I seek a clue. Did he have something to do with music?

Tombstones (with translation from the original Spanish)

An elderly lady was invited to an old friends home for dinner one evening. She was impressed by the way her lady friend preceded every request to her husband with endearing terms such as: Honey, My Love, Darling, Sweetheart, etc. The couple had been married almost 70 years and, clearly, they were still very much in love. While the husband was in the living room, her lady friend leaned over to her hostess to say, 'I think it's wonderful that, after all these years, you still call your husband all those loving names'. The elderly lady hung her head. ''I have to tell you the truth,'' she said, ''his name slipped my mind about 10 years ago, and I'm scared to death to ask the cranky old asshole what his name is.''

iPhone 5NSA commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=oSJqBJ1TF-E