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Matt, the NY Times will give you the widest perspective if you are limited to one paper. Why not get a one-month trial subscription? Alternatively, if you want to get the flavor of the paper, sign up for "free" viewing on their website.
The NY Times Sunday paper is nice, but you need the time (and interest) to go through it.
Maybe it's worth a trip to your local library to have a look at various publications and see what catches your interest.
AK
The writing is unquestionably original. Unfortunately I have no idea who the author is. The recognition the unnamed author will have is eternal recirculation in cyberspace.
AK
Obits...
Don't usually pass on sad news like this, but sometimes we need to pause and remember what life is all about. There was a great loss recently. Larry La Price, the Detroit native who wrote the song "Hokey Pokey", died last week at age 83. It was extremely difficult for the family to keep him in the casket. They put his left leg in and.....well, you know the rest.
Newspapers:
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they should run the
country.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country
but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like
their smog statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the
country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave
L.A. to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the
country and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's
running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a sea
on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the
country either, as long as they do something really scandalous,
preferably while intoxicated.
9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there
is a country, or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they
oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the
leaders are handicapped minority feministic atheist dwarfs, who also
happen to be illegal aliens from ANY country or galaxy as long as they
are democrats.
10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country,
but need the baseball scores.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the
grocery store.
12. The St. Paul Pioneer Press is read by those who don't care if the
paper tries to promote it's home town or not.
CCMP. Zeev, I did not find any news from today. What news are you referring to? Thanks, AK
http://www.nytimes.com/
Click on "Home Delivery" in the lower left margin to get rates.
AK
Zabuta, thanks for the explanation on your alias. Phonetically I thought it had something to do with Italian shoes or boots, and, sad to say, it brought to mind an old immigrant story. Enjoy.
AK
=============
Bocceli Shoes
Giorgio is in this country for about 6 months, he walks to work every day and passes a shoe store. Each day he stops and looks in the window and admires a certain pair of Bocceli leather shoes.
After about 2 months he saves the $300.00 the shoes cost and purchases them. Each Friday night the Italian community gets together at a dance at the church basement, so Giorgio seizes the opportunity to wear his new Bocceli leather shoes to the dance. He asks Sophia to dance and as they dance he asks her " Sophia, do you wear red panties tonight?"
Sophia, startled, says " Yes, Giorgio, I do wear red panties tonight, but how do you know?"
Giorgio replies, "I see the reflection in my new $300.00 Bocceli leather shoes, How do you like them?
Next he asks Rosa to dance, after a few minutes he says to her "Rosa, do you wear white panties tonight?"
Rosa answers, " Yes, Giorgio, I do , but how do you know that. He answers " I see the reflection in my new $300.00 Bocceli leather shoes. How do you like them?"
Now the evening is almost over and the last song is being played. Giorgio asks Carmella to dance. Mid way through the dance his face turns red. He says "Carmella, stilla my heart, please, please tell me you wear no panties tonight, please, please, tella me this true,"
Carmella answers, " Yes, Yes Giorgio, I wear no panties tonight.."
Giorgio gasps and says ..
"Thanka God... I thought I had a CRACK in my $300.00 Bocceli leather shoes. How do you like them?????
Churak, I'm honored to have been bestowed with your last post for just now, so much so I have this special story for you. The punch line seems apropos. AK
===============
An Indian chief was feeling very sick, so he summoned the medicine
man. After a brief examination, the medicine man took out a long,
thin strip of elk hide and gave it to the chief, instructing him to
bite off, chew and swallow one inch of the leather every day. After
a month, the medicine man returned to see how the chief was feeling.
The chief shrugged and said, "The thong is ended, but the malady
lingers on."
Hi Zabuta, welcome! Just because some of us "visit" the Jail does not mean we are "in" the Jail. It's occasionally great entertainment, at least for those of us from the punatentiary <g>. If you click on the poster's name you can see their profile, and there is an icon if you are in jail.
If you have any punny stuff, let's hear it!
AK
Matt, if you are interested in modernizing the jail this N.Y. Times article might give a few ideas. Be sure to check out the last two paragraphs. AK
============
Japanese Masters Get Closer to the Toilet Nirvana
By JAMES BROOKE
NARA, Japan — Japan's toilet wars started in February, when Matsushita engineers here unveiled a toilet seat equipped with electrodes that send a mild electric charge through the user's buttocks, yielding a digital measurement of body-fat ratio.
Unimpressed, engineers from a rival company, Inax, counterattacked in April with a toilet that glows in the dark and whirs up its lid after an infrared sensor detects a human being. When in use, the toilet plays any of six soundtracks, including chirping birds, rushing water, tinkling wind chimes, or the strumming of a traditional Japanese harp.
In a Japanese house, "the only place you can be alone and sit quietly is likely to be the toilet," said Masahiro Iguchi, marketing chief for Inax.
This may be one explanation for the ferocious toilet research going on in Japan. This is a nation famously addicted to gadgetry of any variety, and the addiction clearly extends to the bathroom. Another factor stimulating toilet research is the fact that Japan's population is peaking and the number of households is expected to start declining by the end of the decade. Some money can be made by exporting toilets to countries with comparatively primitive toilet cultures, like China and Vietnam. But in Japan the real sales growth will be found by adding exotic toilet features.
Matsushita, for example, introduced in May a $3,000 throne that not only greets a user by flipping its lid, but also by blasting its twin air nozzles — air-conditioning in the summer, heat in the winter. Patting this Cadillac of toilets, Hiroyuki Matsui, chief engineer here, said, "You can bring a bathroom temperature down by 7 degrees Celsius in 30 seconds."
Then in June, Toto, Japan's toilet giant, came out with WellyouII, a toilet that automatically measures the user's urine sugar levels by making a collection with a little spoon held by a retractable, mechanical arm.
Whether a home medical center or a Zen space for meditation, the toilet of the future will probably emerge from laboratories like the ones here at the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company — workshops so secretive and competitive that a visiting reporter and photographer were not allowed inside.
Americans should prepare for more than that simple 20th-century choice: to flush or not to flush. Users of the Matsushita toilet can program it to pre-heat or pre-cool a bathroom at a specific time at a set temperature. For owners who might not be so regular, this toilet allows users to set the temperature and pressure of a water jet spray used to wash and massage the buttocks, an enormously popular feature in Japan.
Toilet jet sprays, which sometimes confuse foreign visitors with disastrous results, are now in nearly half of Japanese homes, a rate higher than that of personal computers.
To some, this is a sign of a nation gone perilously soft. They worry that the cosseted Japanese youths of the future, sitting dreamily on air conditioned thrones, will be no match for their squat-toilet neighbors — the worker bees of industrial China or the spartan soldiers of North Korea.
Hideki Nishioka, a 90-year-old retired professor who chairs the Japan Toilet Association, a private group, says he always recommends that new schools in Japan contain "at least one or two of the old-style squat toilets."
But they increasingly look like relics. Talking toilets are on the horizon. Equipped with microchips, these models would go beyond music, greeting each user with a personalized message, perhaps a recorded word of encouragement from Mom or a kindergarten teacher. In return, people will soon be able give their toilets simple verbal commands.
"The voice sensor — `open sesame' and the lid opens — that will be on the market in two years," predicted Ryosuke Hayashi, manager of product engineering for Toto, a company that holds 60 percent of Japan's commode market. "It really is not difficult to make it responsive to a human voice. If you tell the machine, `I want hotter water,' or `I want stronger spray pressure,' the machine will automatically respond."
Attacking a perennial issue, Toto sells a deodorizing toilet that "chemically neutralizes odor." Inax sells bathroom tiles billed as "odor absorbing."
But in a country with the demographics of Florida, the real growth will be medical toilets linked to the Internet.
"You may think a toilet is just a toilet, but we would like to make a toilet a home health measuring center," Mr. Matsui, the Matsushita engineer, said in a lecture here in Nara, near Osaka. "We are going to install in a toilet devices to measure weight, fat, blood pressure, heart beat, urine sugar, albumin and blood in urine."
The results would be sent from the toilet to a doctor by an Internet-capable cellular phone built into the toilet. Through long-distance monitoring, doctors could chart a person's physical well-being.
"We will have this within five years or so," said Harry Terai, director of home appliances research for Matsushita.
With nursing homes largely full in Japan, the number of older people under home care is rising fast, jumping by nearly one quarter just last year.
"In Japan, most people see the doctor after they become ill," said Hironori Yamazaki, a Toto engineer. "With an eye to our demographic change, we are setting out to make the toilet a space for the early discovery of disease."
But some civil libertarians are having nightmares about "smart toilets" running amok, e-mailing highly personal information hither and yon. There are also Big Brother nightmares about master computers monitoring millions of bowel movements, checking around the clock to see who is constipated, who is not eating his peas and who is drinking too much.
"I assume the records that come out of my toilet will have the same degree of protection as records that are generated when I take a medical exam," said Lawrence Repeta, a director of the Japan Civil Liberties Union. "There will be police investigators who see this as a great tool to find people who use illegal substances."
Churak had been good before release and posted some sick pun jokes...
Original, I beg to differ. The puns were not "sick"; it was the food recipes...AK
Original, you got shortchanged by your cartoonist. There should be a 4th monkey, with his hands clasped in his lap. <g>
AK
Matt, I think you misunderstood me. I was merely commenting on Churak's verbose writing style, whereas you said, "I am charging you with violating your parole and general incompetence."
My point is that a message can be diluted with too many words, and had Churak left off the last sentence a reader would be allowed to come to his own conclusion as to the motivation of the writer Churak was responding to, and this would have been more effective.
But instead of all of us second guessing Churak, why not give him the opportunity to re-read his post in this context, and to comment accordingly?
JMHO, AK
I am charging you with violating your parole and general incompetence.
HAHAHAHAHA...selling pressure?...grand total of 3900 shares traded ie 1 trade for 2000 shares & 1 for 1900 shares. Price down 20%. 30% spread between bid/ask. ROTF!!! C'mon pumper clown...work harder...
Judge Fred presiding?
Matt, I'm not so sure about the "general incompetence" stuff. I think Churak simply needs a writing refresher class, and Fred can do that privately with him. Churak makes his point much stronger by not having the last line in.
Here's a notable quote, FWIW:
"People are going to have views of others. It's the American way."
AK
Prose and Cons
Original, that happens to be a very good book. If you have not read it yet, you can pick up a copy at the gift shop here:
http://emporium.turnpike.net/~mystery/tmg/san_quentin.html
"How do we leaf the competition behind" in your cartoon is not particularly punny. Try this:
A famous Viking explorer returned home from a voyage and found his
name missing from the town register. His wife insisted on
complaining to the local civic official who apologized profusely
saying, "I must have taken Leif off my census."
my feet smell terrible
Matt, checked your shoes? Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.
Will this be "opt in" or "opt out"? Would it be a good idea to take a survey on survey format first? <g> AK
Might the port lock-out also affect their ability to have inventory in the stores?
Fred, about Churak, did you have something to do with his getting released, or was Matt worried that the Jailhouse would become the punatentiary? <g>
p.s. You are correct. The fern thing didn't translate. So, how come you didn't use the edit to simply delete the post? <vbg>
Fred, Churak got released? How 'bout that! Here's a story for you. AK
================
A skeptical anthropologist was cataloging South American folk
remedies with the assistance of a tribal brujo who indicated that
the leaves of a particular fern were a sure cure for any case of
constipation. When the anthropologist expressed his doubts, the
brujo looked him in the eye and said, "Let me tell you, with fronds
like these, who needs enemas?"
Hey Fred, where were you today? I coulda used a little help. I've got precious little material left, although I did pick up some new things today, but with Bob Z's search engine, can't use it on iHub. Maybe as part of Churak's terms of release you can make him post on the Joke thread regularly. That place needs a little help. If Churak doesn't get out, The Jailhouse is gonna become the Joke thread.
Oh, did save one gem from today. Couldn't find the right place to use it, so this one's just for you:
Shotgun wedding: A case of wife or death.
AK
Some of us didn't want that grub <g>. See #msg-527084
Thanks for thinking of me <g>. Just had chile, as befits being out West. I'm so glad I didn't read your recipe before dinner.
Is Happy Hour over yet?
Aahhh, such fond memories....(gag)
Jailhouse menu: Saturday lunch is latkes.
(Latkes: Potato pancakes fried in castor oil and lightly seasoned with balsa wood. Smells like old boxer shorts.)
Oh, we were told the name, but who knew what it was used for? Ugh!
Uhh, would that be a schmeckel??
Not to me!! And don't ask me what my mother served that had that texture, but she didn't tell us what it was!
But we have genuine New York deli's here!
Churak, heard the jailhouse cook is making kugel for breakfast, and Matt is bringing KKD too!
Kugel: A yummy blend of overcooked noodles, raisins, and curds of ripe cheese. Not fun to look at. When slathered with sour cream makes an excellent artery hardener.
Not really. Putz: The male reproductive member, primarily used for urinating and solitary amusement. Larger than a schmeckel. Similar to a schmuck. A common term for male in-laws.
No borscht?
Borscht: A purple soup made from beets and ammonia. Often eaten by elderly Ashkenazic Jews who slurp noisily and have protruding nose hair. Which is helpful, because it stinks to high heaven.
Let's see what the dictionary says for "schmuck":
Yet another term for the male member, most often used to describe a man with an attitude of arrogant stupidity. Nice logic there, if you think about it. A common term for former male in-laws and business partners.
Churak, ain't it gettin' near dinner time in that thar jail? Heard Matt hired a Jewish cook, and you are having K'naidlach tonight.
(For the uninformed, also referred to as matzo balls. Made with styrofoam and sponges. There isn't a laxative in the world strong enough to counteract them.)
Vay iz meer
An expression which closely resembles "Woe is Me", and is cried out by
Jewish mothers every 15 minutes. An anthem of true suffering.
Wow Churak, you sure are dredging up old material. Try this.
Two vultures board an airplane, each carrying two dead raccoons.
The stewardess looks at them and says, "I'm sorry, gentlemen, only
one carrion allowed per passenger."
Did you hear that NASA recently put a bunch of Holsteins into
low earth orbit? They called it the herd shot 'round the world.
These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they
opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked
to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town
thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to
close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars
to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh
MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade"
them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store,
saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they
did so, thereby proving that: Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent
florist friars.