I am highly conflicted on this issue. When I was a grad student, I happened to see a flyer for a scholarship aimed at an underrepresented minority group. Initially, I felt offended that people who were not as well-qualified as I were eligible for extra help.

On further reflection, I decided that I was being an idiot.

I had lived a comfortable middle-class life in a stable household, with parents who encouraged me to study. They also sacrificed many of their own comforts to provide books, magazines and time for this study. I cannot claim personal merit for my qualifications.

Would I rather trade a childhood of encouragement and opportunity for a one-shot scholarship at the end of my educational life? I had had the greater advantage given to me, or forced on me, when it counted the most: in my childhood. How can I begrudge anyone their small consolation prize?

An extra 140 points? Feh. My kids could do that in their sleep!

Y'know, even the Mary Celeste is not so much a mystery. The Wikipedia, at least, states that the ship "took on board a cargo of 1,701 barrels of commercial alcohol". A very reasonable theory is that the ship's crew, fearing explosion and fire from vapors accumulating in the hold, the crew may have removed a leaking barrel, and then vented the hold to clear the vapor. Rather than wait on top of a powder keg, they would have taken refuge on a tethered lifeboat. If the lifeboat became loose, though, the crew would have had no way to catch up to their ship, leaving it derelict and moving.

Raining blobs? Um . . . a tornado effect could suck up a bunch of water from a pond, and release it over another location to rain down. If the season is right, it could have frog egg masses, as was shown in the illustration (gelatinous mass with little oval bits inside). Frogs, like other amphibians and reptiles, have blood cells that contain their nuclei, unlike the red cells of mammals, leading a sloppy investigator to conclude that they are human white blood cells; the only nucleated blood cells in mammals. The source of water and frog eggs could be a cesspool, sewage treatment pond or leach field, and so would be full of bacteria; including E. coli, which is found in humans. Breathing the atomized water droplets from this release would make everyone sick with fever, diarrhea, etc.

It is not unknown for water to be transported in this way. The rest is not so mysterious.

My rule of thumb comes from Jesus' statement about the day of his return. He said that nobody would know the day or hour (even he didn't know). Thus, if anyone claims to know it will be on a certain date, that date is ruled out!

In the '80s I read several times that bow ties were coming back. Naturally, I went to Nordstroms and bought several silk bow ties. I earned the handle "the guy with the bow ties" at work. No luck. Bow ties didn't make a comeback. It was just me and that economics correspondent for CBS News.

I won't be getting enthusiastic about monocles until I see more of them on the streets.

I'd have to work on getting a Heidelberg scar to complete the picture.

I'm afraid "Smarterthanyou" is correct. It has the sound of "gasoline pills" and other such scams. There is no way to make such a thing work. It reminds me of the idea that one can repeatedly use PKZip to compress a file until it is only one byte long.

I am disappointed that the Times of India ran such a story.

The gas is generated by the bacteria that live in their rumen. A good approach would be to change the mixture of bacteria living there so they will not produce gaseous waste.

Methane is a common end-product of anaerobic bacteria, though. This implies that the part of the rumen that produces methane lacks sufficient oxygen to bring about a more complete breakdown of the food into carbon dioxide. A tough problem.

Not to mention the 'Russian-English Dictionary and Holy Bible' issued to bomber crewmen in "Dr. Strangelove"

Is that guy going to shoot his own hand through someone's head?

Here is a quote from the NY Times article linked in the post:
[quote]
Greg Gianforte, the founder and chief executive of RightNow, a customer service software company, and the person who organized the meeting, said he was sorry to hear what happened to Mr. Carroll, even if it made for a livelier meeting.

“We were thrilled to have Dave come here,” Mr. Gianforte said. “But since United was the only carrier he could take from Canada to Colorado Springs, in a certain sense, we’re responsible.”
[end quote]

I guess they are the only carrier with a direct flight. I imagine he should book indirect flights with a different carrier.

I will *never* look at an accordion the same!

What? A Capybara doesn't taste good? They're about the size of a dog!

See "Eating Guinea Pigs in the Name of Science" at SFGate.com

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/31/TR9A13N22P.DTL

. . . and the dust was so disorienting that they were driving on the wrong side of the street!

I have a similar curve that applies to caffeine levels