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Water Jasmine

Water Jasmine
Originally uploaded by Priory.

I found this on Yahoo News this morning, off the AP. Yahoo description:
"Malaysian Kuah Mershel, daughter of a bonsai cultivator, holds the smallest of her miniature bonsai at her residence in Kuala Lumpur August 24, 2005. These miniature bonsai from a local species known as 'water jasmine' measure 22mm. Picture taken late August 24, 2005. REUTERS/Kamarulzaman Russali"

Cool Welsh site

I don't remember if I already posted this, but BBC - South East Wales Weird - Ghostcam - Llancaiach Fawr Manor is a really cool GhostCam website. Fun! And who knows? Maybe it's for real...

Stolen from Chandira

Shamelessly stolen from Chandira's blog

The Minds of 6th Graders
The following were answers provided by 6th graders during a history test. Some of the best humor is in the misspelling...

1. Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert. The climate of the Sarah is such that all the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.

2. Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.

3. Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.

4. The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.

5. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.

6. In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits, and threw the java.

7. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be king. Dying, he gasped out "Tee hee, Brutus."

8. Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was canonized by Bernard Shaw.

9. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen". As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted, "Hurrah!"

10. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Guttenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.

11. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies and hysterectomies all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couple. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by Juliet.

12. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote "Donkey Hote". The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote "Paradise Lost." Then his wife died and he wrote "Paradise Regained."

13. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backward and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

14. Abraham Lincoln became Americas greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by on of the actors in a moving picture show. They believe the assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.

15. Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian and half English. He was very large.

16. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

17. The nineteenth century was a time of great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of hundred men. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbits.Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the "Organ of the Species." Madman Curie discovered the radio. And Karl Marx became the first of the Marx Brothers.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Love the Pres or hate him, this is kinda cool, especially for those of us with a wee drop of Irish blood in our veins:

Irish-American Heritage Month, 2005
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

The story of the Irish in America is an important part of the history of our country. This month, we pay tribute to Americans of Irish descent who have shaped our Nation and influenced American life.

Long before the great wave of Irish immigration in the 1840s, people of Irish ancestry were defining and defending our Nation. Charles Thomson, an Irishman by birth, served as Secretary of the Continental Congress and helped design the Great Seal of the United States. Irish-born Commodore John Barry fought for our country's independence and later helped found the United States Navy.

Irish Americans have been leaders in our public life, and they have retained a proud reverence for their heritage. In June 1963, President John F. Kennedy spoke to the Parliament in Dublin and told the story of the Irish Brigade, a regiment that fought valiantly for the Union and suffered terrible losses during the Civil War. Two decades after President Kennedy's visit, President Ronald Reagan returned to his great grandfather's hometown in County Tipperary, Ireland, and greeted the crowd in their own Irish language.

The industry, talent, and imagination of Irish Americans have enriched our commerce and our culture. Their strong record of public service has fortified our democracy. Their strong ties to family, faith, and community have strengthened our Nation's character. The Irish are a significant reason why Americans will always be proud to call ourselves a Nation of immigrants.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 2005 as Irish American Heritage Month. I call upon all Americans to observe this month by celebrating the contributions of Irish Americans to our Nation.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fourth day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty ninth.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Teachers

Why is it that public school teachers--such as the one who reduced my youngest daughter to tears on Friday--feel that they are all-powerful beings? This whole thing with Ward Churchill has made me re-evaluate some things in my life, and now I have a teacher making my daughter cry. Oh, but that isn't the best part--when my daughter went to a school counsellor to complain about this teacher, she was told that the counsellor "applauded" this teacher's "teaching methods." Bear in mind that said teacher at one point told a student (not my daughter, but a friend of hers)--these are middle-schoolers--that the student would just have to wet their pants as they weren't going to be allowed to go to the bathroom. This was the "teaching method" that was "applauded" by the so-called counsellor.

Hey, I know utter and abject humiliation is one "teaching method" I sure "applaud!" (insert intense sarcasm...)

It's time the school system in this country stopped being an integral weirdo little world unto itself. If I had the $$$, my daughters would be in parochial schools.

The nerve of some people

ROME (Reuters) - A man given six months to live by his doctors has been told by an Italian court to come back in 14 months to hear the outcome of his demand for insurance damages.

Now wouldn't it be funny if his family could actually take him back in 14 months? Gross and sacriligeous, but these judges would deserve it...