BOSTON (CBS) — A Framingham, MA pharmacy linked to a deadly nationwide
meningitis outbreak used dozens of fake names like “Bud Weiser,”
“Jennifer Lopez” and “Filet O’fish” on prescriptions to defraud the
federal government and avoid regulations, officials allege.
Fourteen people who worked at the New England Compounding Center
were charged for their alleged role in the outbreak on Wednesday.
Tainted steroids manufactured by the pharmacy were blamed for a 2012
outbreak that killed 64 people, and sickened hundreds more.
“Harry Potter,” “Baby Jesus” and “Chester Cheeto” were just some of the fake names used, according to investigators.
“All names must resemble ‘real’ names… no obviously false names!” an
email from co-founder Barry Cadden in May 2012 reads, according to the
indictment.
U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said in a statement that NECC “routinely dispensed drugs in bulk without valid prescriptions.”
“It was further part of the conspiracy that defendants Cadden, Carter
and Stepanets used and caused others to use the names of celebrities,
fictional characters, doctors and medical staff to create fraudulent
prescriptions for drugs,” the indictment read.
Other fake and sometimes misspelled names on the list included Cyndi
Lopler, Alex Baldwin, Diana Ross, Chris Rock, Fat Albert, Wonder Woman,
Freddy Mercury, Silver Surfer, Dick Van Dike.
Source: CBS Boston ---------- Damien's note: I'm not surprised they were caught. Everyone knows that the proper spelling is Filet O'Fish, with two capital Fs.
Quirky in-flight catalog SkyMall is in jeopardy after its parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported. An auction is scheduled for March.
Both SkyMall LLC and its parent company, Xhibit Corp., petitioned the
U.S. Bankruptcy Court for a supervised sale of their assets.
“With the increased use of electronic devices on planes, fewer people
browsed the SkyMall in-flight catalog,” acting Chief Executive Scott
Wiley said in court documents.
More airlines offer Internet access and changes to flight safety rules
allow passengers to keep their tablets and smartphones on during takeoff
and landing. Both of those factors mean fewer people are perusing the
catalog, Wiley explained. --------------- Damien's note: You don't think people may have finally figured out they don't need any of that junk? No, what am I saying? This is America! Junk good!
Reports out of Cleveland question Johnny Manziel’s maturity, preparation and work ethic, claiming he’s more committed to nightlife than to the NFL.
One player told ESPN that, throughout the entire 2014 season, Manziel
was “100 percent joke.” But it turns out the joke is on the Browns,
only they’re not laughing.
ESPN.com spoke with almost 20 Browns sources, and other league
personnel sources for a damning story on the hard-partying quarterback.
The same story kept cropping up, that Johnny Football wasn’t ready and
prepared when he got his first start against in-state rival Cincinnati,
and that his lifestyle clearly hurt his play.
Manziel got drafted No. 22 overall, giving his ubiquitous “money”
sign (below) on draft night as he sauntered upstage to meet NFL commissioner
Roger Goodell. The pick nearly broke Twitter with breathless gushing;
but now Cleveland’s quarterback situation is broken, with the Browns’
owner and front office clearly not sold.
“We’ve got to get a quarterback and got to get it fixed,” Browns
owner Jimmy Haslam said Thursday night at a greater Cleveland sports
award dinner.
“We’re not sure if our starting quarterback is in the building or
not,” new offensive coordinator John DeFilippo said Thursday. “If he is,
great. If he isn’t, great too.’’
That DeFilippo has the job should tell you a little something about
how things went offensively in Cleveland. Offensive coordinator Kyle
Shanahan resigned with two years left on his deal, and quarterbacks
coach Dowell Loggains got fired.
When the team turned to Manziel as a starter, he was awful in nearly
six quarters and got fined for going AWOL on the last Saturday of the
season when he was supposed to be receiving treatment on his hamstring.
Manziel was actually absent the morning before the Dec. 28 season
finale at the Ravens, so off the grid as the Browns were packing up to
head to Baltimore that team security had to drive to his house to check
on him. When they finally found him, two team sources told ESPN that
security though he’d partied hard the night before, and one defined him
as “drunk off his a–.’’
While the Browns labeled him as late, players said he wasn’t there at
all in the morning and they never saw him until the charter was getting
ready to take off in the afternoon. He sat in the locker room during
the game, with one source summing up “Johnny’s his own worst enemy.’’
Manziel texted Loggains on draft night saying he was going to “wreck
this league” in Cleveland. But now more than one of his teammates joked
with ESPN that the text should’ve said “wreck this team.’’ Yes, it’s that bad.
Source: New York Post --------------------- Damien's note: Not a football fan, but even I had thought Mr. Manziel had shown himself to be a perfect ass when he was prancing around Texas A&M, thinking he was God's gift to the world and exempt from the usual behavioral expectations. Too bad Michael Sam is not a quarterback. He seems to know how a professional athlete is supposed to behave. Odd that professional football can't find a place for him but can make lame excuses for someone like Manziel.
A
quote about respect for military veterans that had been attributed to
George Washington and displayed prominently at the Deschutes County
Courthouse (Oregon) has a new credit: "Unknown." Although
politicians, veterans and others have often attributed the quote to the
first president, nobody has been able to document when and where he is
supposed to have used the words, Washington scholar Edward Lengel of the
University of Virginia told The Bulletin newspaper.
The
monument has been in place since 2005. It reads, "The willingness with
which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how
justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the
veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation."
Local
veterans proposed using the quote and agreed to change the attribution,
said the county's property and facilities director, Susan Ross.
At
the time the monument went up, Ross said, a quick Google search turned
up no reason to think the quote wasn't from Washington.
"A quote that's been around for a very long time, you just assume that it's a good quote," she said. [Emphasis added by Damien, with alarm]
Ross
told the Bulletin this week that the $700
repair was cheaper than the $4,000 estimated cost of replacing the quote
with a new one.
Lengel said in an email last fall
that the quote, attributed to Washington, has appeared in books, the
Congressional Record and the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain.
He said the origin of the passage isn't clear, nor is it clear how it
came to be attributed to Washington.
He said that
attribution is different from stories about Washington, such the one
about cutting down a cherry tree as a youngster.
"Yarn-spinning
is part of the human condition," he wrote. "But while I have no problem
with storytelling, I do not think that the use of unproven 'facts' in
political debate or in public forums is ever innocuous." [Emphasis added by Damien with approval]
Damien's note: The truly queer thing about this story is not so much the incorrect attribution as the fact that the folks from Fox News found no irony in including the quote about the use of unproven 'facts' in political debate or in public forums.
Why not do the classy thing and cover them in glitter? Ship Your Enemies Glitteris an Aussie company happy to do it for you and the victim, er, recipient need never know who sent it -- although a note explaining why they are getting the glitter treatment will be included in the shipment. Is it real? What is reality, anyway, but an annoyingly persistent illusion ...
Lee Wachtstetter, an 86-year-old Florida widow, took her daughter’s
advice. She sold her five-bedroom Fort Lauderdale-area home on 10 acres
and became a permanent luxury cruise ship resident after her husband
died
Mama Lee, as she’s known aboard the 11-year-old Crystal Serenity, has
been living on the 1,070-passenger vessel longer than most of its 655
crewmembers — nearly seven years.
“My husband introduced me to cruising,” she recalled. “Mason was a
banker and real estate appraiser and taught me to love cruising. During
our 50-year marriage we did 89 cruises. I’ve done nearly a hundred more
and 15 world cruises.” What she misses most is her family, but manages to keep in touch with
her three sons and seven grandchildren with her laptop computer. “I
hear from one of them every day, and visit with them whenever we dock in
Miami. Last year we docked in Miami five times.”
“The day before my husband died of cancer in 1997, he told me, ‘Don’t
stop cruising.’ So here I am today living a stress-free, fairy-tale
life.”
She estimates living the good life on the Serenity this year will
cost her $164,000. That’ll cover costs of her single-occupancy seventh
deck stateroom, regular and specialty restaurant meals with available
lunch and dinner beverages, gratuities, nightly ballroom dancing with
dance hosts and Broadway-caliber entertainment — as well as the captain’s frequent cocktail parties, movies, lectures, plus other scheduled daily activities.
Three other women live on Crystal vessels but none nearly as long as
Mama Lee, according to Hubert Buelacher, Serenity’s hotel director.
“She’s just an amazing woman, one of a kind.”
Intel showed off experimental designer Anouk Wipprecht's latest Spider Dress.
"Fashion and tech are merging at the moment, beyond blinking dresses or cute skirts, she said. 'I'm showing how fashion can be thought provoking, something that pushes people to think and share their feelings."
The 3D-printed experimental dress crowned at the collar with robotic spider legs which move.
"Spider Dress acts as the interface between the body and the external world," said Wipprecht. "It uses technology and the garment as a medium of interaction."
The so-called animatronic arachnid limbs on the Spider Dress know exactly when someone is invading the wearer's personal space. They extend to suggest boundaries.
Damien's note: Yes, because if the robotic legs didn't move, we would all be rushing over to be as close as possible to the person wearing this, right?
Having in the recent past discovered that the head of my own school is an Archdruid, I have been looking for more information. You might find this animated introduction useful.
VALLEY, Ala. — A middle school principal in eastern Alabama wants to
stockpile cans of food such as corn and peas in classrooms so that
students could hurl them as weapons in a last-resort confrontation with a
school intruder.
In a letter January 9, W.F. Burns Middle School
Principal Priscella Holley asked parents to have each student bring an
8-ounce canned item.
"We realize at first this may seem odd;
however, it is a practice that would catch an intruder off guard," she
wrote in the letter, published by WHNT-TV in Huntsville.
"The
canned food item could stun the intruder or even knock him out until the
police arrive," Holley wrote. "The canned food item will give the
students a sense of empowerment to protect themselves and will make them
feel secure in case an intruder enters their classroom."
The school is in Valley, Alabama, part of the Chambers County school system.
The
letter was sent after school employees received training from Auburn
University's Department of Public Safety, Chambers County Schools
Superintendent Kelli Hodge said January 13.
The food cans would be stored in classrooms and students wouldn't be carrying them around school, Hodge said.
Using cans or other items as weapons would be a last resort for students unable to evacuate, Hodge said.
Teachers
are taught to barricade classroom doors if an intruder is in the
school, but if that fails, the cans and items such as textbooks could be
used, she said.
"If somebody is going to force their way through,
then as the last resort you would start throwing any objects you could
get your hands on," Hodge said.
Damien's note: I'm sorry, but a country that is unwilling to do anything about access to firearms thinking it can save children by handing them canned corn to hurl at the crazy person shooting at them has watched too many stupid cartoons.
When I shared this story with Daniel, his immediate lawyerly response was, "Well, the only thing that can stop a bad man with a gun is a six-year-old with a can of corn." It reminds me of the days when I was in school and we were seriously taught that if we hid under our desks, the nuclear bombs exploding outside wouldn't hurt us.
Masha, a long-haired tabby cat, saved the life of a baby abandoned in
the streets of Russia — after she climbed into the box he was discarded
in and kept him warm, health officials said.
“The baby had only been outside for a few hours and thanks to Masha …
he was not damaged by the experience,” a hospital spokesman told
Central European News.
The whiskered hero even meowed to get the attention of a passerby.
“She is very placid and friendly, so when I heard her meowing, I
thought that perhaps she had injured herself,” said Obninsk city
resident Irina Lavrova. “Normally she would have come and said hello to
me. You can imagine my shock when I saw her lying in a box next to a
baby.”
Masha is a communal cat who is looked after by local residents. When
she found the baby — who appeared to be in great shape — she immediately
took to him as if he were her own, according to CEN.
“Clearly her mothering instincts had taken over and she wanted to
protect the child,” Lavrova explained. “He was well-dressed with a
little hat, and whoever left him here had even left a few nappies and
some baby food.”
The baby was immediately rushed to a local hospital, where he was
given a checkup and declared fit and healthy, officials said. Since the
child was found, Masha has been hailed as a hero by local residents
— and she’s been reaping the benefits.
“Everyone in the block is very proud of her,” Lavrova said. “We have all spoiled her rotten by giving her her favorite food.”
Source: New York Post Damien's note: You may need to click on the photo of Masha to see it, but on her forehead the marks look a bit like a capital letter M. According to legend, when the Child Jesus lay in the manger, a tabby cat crawled in with him to keep him warm. Mary blessed the cat and all tabby cats now bear the mark of her initial on their foreheads.
These things were widely advertised in newspapers during the early 20th
Century, promoted as a "guaranteed cure" for just about everything, but
particularly for piles and constipation. As the American Journal of Gastroenterology notes, they do actually have some legitimate medical uses. But in 1940
the federal government sued the Dr. Young company for making misleading
claims, and after that the ads stopped appearing in newspapers.
This is one of the most famous ghost photos of all time. It supposedly
shows the "Brown Lady" who haunts Raynham Hall in Norfolk, England.
The image was taken by Captain Provand and Indre Shira (a pseudonym), two photographers on assignment for Country Life
magazine. According to their later testimony, the pair saw an ethereal
form descending the staircase and quickly snapped a picture.
Skeptics argue that the photo does not show a ghost, but rather was the
result of mundane causes such as camera vibration, afternoon light from
the window above the stairs catching the lens of the camera, and double
exposure. What is not known is whether these effects were produced
purposefully, or if they were the accidental result of a faulty camera.
Source: Museum of Hoaxes ----------------- Damien's note: My friend Michael told me that when he was the religious superior at a Catholic shrine in the Midwest in the early 1990s, a woman came to him with a Polaroid photograph she had taken of the surrounding countryside outside the church a few days before. There, very clearly, in one of the trees was an image of the Virgin Mary, very similar in appearance to a popular statue. It was obvious that the image had not been intentionally faked, but he was also unconvinced that it was a miraculous image. Polaroids were notorious for creating such images through cracks in the case. He listened to the woman and asked her what she thought it meant. When she said she thought it was to reassure her about someone who had recently died, he said that he thought that was as good an explanation as any and that she should be grateful for the relief it brought her. She was disappointed he did not get more excited, but she went away somewhat satisfied.
So it's not Friday the Thirteenth and there's nothing to worry about. Right?
For some cultures, it's not Friday the 13th that they're worried about. It's Tuesday.
Tuesday is considered, by many Greeks, to be the unluckiest day of the week. It was on Tuesday, May 29th, 1453 that the city of Constantinople was besieged and taken by the Ottoman Turks. The loss of life was considerable.
Conversely, Greeks consider the number 13 (on its own) to be good luck. Reasons for this vary, including the belief that having 12 apostles of Christ made Christ the 13th of the group. The ancient philosophy of Numerology considers 13 to be "the most selfless of all" and "love for the world revolves around" thirteen. The Celts also considered the number 13 to be related to good fortune. [Damien's note: Go Celt ancestors!]
However, the combination of Tuesday and 13 as Tuesday the 13th of the month is considered a very unlucky day in Greek culture.
Spanish-speaking cultures fear Martes Trece, Tuesday the 13th. It's bad luck to have a wedding or board a ship on a Tuesday. Martes, the word for Tuesday -- think Mardi Gras for the more familiar French version -- comes from the word Mars, the Roman god of war. And war is widely considered a bad or unlucky thing to happen to a person.
The 13 reference goes back to Christianity again, but this time it refers to Christ in a bad way as the 13th in the group with 12 apostles. 13 is also linked to Judas, the 13th apostle. [Damien's note: Judas was not the 13th apostle but was clearly counted in the Gospels among those referred to as The Twelve. He only became the thirteenth if one replaces him with Matthias, who did replace him in the list after the suicide of Judas. But that makes Matthias the thirteenth apostle, not Judas.]
The Antichrist appears in chapter 13 of the Apocalypse in the Bible, and some people -- for whatever reason or no reason at all -- think that Adam ate the apple on a Tuesday.
Sorry to be late mentioning this one. Have to put it in the calendar for next year so I can give advance notice and you can line up your kisses!
The closest I ever came to being a ginger was my senior year in high school. I was in the senior play and played a difficult younger brother to the lead. In order to make me more obnoxious, the faculty director decided I needed red hair. She didn't want to do anything too extreme, however, and the results were barely noticeable to the audience. When I went to get a haircut the day after the performance, however, the barber asked hesitantly if I was coloring my hair. Not something a guy did in the Deep South back then!
The right-wing National Review
today slammed potential 2016 presidential candidate and Tea Party
darling Ben Carson for hawking a line of so-called "glyconutrients"
whose maker claims will cure cancer, heart disease, autism, and pretty
much everything else.
In 2007, three years after Carson’s
first dealings with Mannatech, Texas attorney general Greg Abbott sued
the company and Caster, charging them with orchestrating an unlawful
marketing scheme that exaggerated their products’ health benefits. The
original petition in that case paints an ugly picture of Mannatech’s
marketing practices. It charges that the company offered testimonials
from individuals claiming that they’d used Mannatech products to
overcome serious diseases and ailments, including autism, non-Hodgkins
lymphoma, and life-threatening heart conditions.Separately, the
suit alleges that the company sold a CD entitled “Back from the Brink”
that “provided example after example of how ‘glyconutrients’ (i.e.,
Mannatech’s products) cured, treated, or mitigated diseases including
but not limited to toxic shock syndrome, heart failure, asthma,
arthritis, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, Attention Deficit Disorder, and lung
inflammation.”
According to one investigative report, sales reps for Mannatech even claimed that their product could cure AIDS. ---------------- Damien's note: Well, he is certainly not the first snake oil salesman to run for president -- and to gain lots of support for peddling hot air.
I know you will find this hard to believe but men who take more selfies have higher than average traits of narcissism
[No! Surely not!] and psychopathy, a study from academics at Ohio State University has
found.
The research, published in the journal of Personality and Individual
Differences, looked at 800 men between the ages of 18-40 who completed
an online survey about how many photos they posted on social media, and
another questionnaire looking at their personality traits.
It also found men who edited their selfies before posting them were more
likely to have traits of narcissism but editing selfies was not linked
to psychopathic traits. Full story here!
Damien's note: Okay, it is no surprise that guys who post tons of photos of themselves are, shall we say, a wee bit narcissistic. The psychopathy bit is more disturbing, since that is traditionally defined as a personality disorder characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, diminished empathy and remorse, and disinhibited or bold behavior. But two points -- which is the reason one should read the entire article or study and not be misled by headlines -- are important. One, the mere fact that one posts all those photos (especially the racier ones) is clearly "bold behavior" and lets you fall within that definition. More importantly, two, the study notes that while some of the men in the study had higher than average traits of these
characteristics, they all scored within normal ranges of human
behavior. In other words, no actual axe murderers.
And since posting selfies is all the rage, that falls well within the normal -- if not necessarily desirable -- range of human behavior. And what about people who post other people's selfies on their blog? That is a sign of singular and purely scientific interest in the quirks of the human person -- especially of the hot human person.
I know this will be only of academic interest to the two people who regularly read this blog, but a study published last year by the University of East London
indicated that almost 80% of boys had seen people having sex by age of
16, and some estimates put the volume of Internet traffic devoted in one
way or another to sex as high as 50%.
Click on image to enlarge
A study published earlier this year in the peer-reviewed medical journal JAMA Psychology, was conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Human
Development in Germany and used MRI scans to map the brain structures of
64 men, ages 21–45, who possessed a broad spectrum of pornography
consumption habits (from zero to 19.5 hours a week, with the average
being about four). Researchers measured the men’s reactions to both
pornographic and nonpornographic images. They found a correlation
between the amount of pornography subjects consumed in a week and
smaller volumes of grey matter in a part of the brain associated with
motivation and reward processing; less activity in a brain region
associated with sexual stimulation; and a decrease in connectivity
between the reward center and the region of the brain integral to
setting and achieving goals.
The researchers believe that, taken together, the data support
their theory that “pornography exposure might lead to wearing and down
regulation of the underlying brain structure, as well as function, and a
higher need for external stimulation of the reward system and a
tendency to search for novel and more extreme sexual material.” In other
words, regular porn consumption creates a negative spiral in which more
novel and extreme images are required to achieve the same results.
But don’t throw away that dirty DVD collection just yet. [Damien's note: Again, I realize that my visitors have no such dirty DVD collection, unless they mean dusty DVDs of Masterpiece Theater and such.]
The researchers presented a solid theory that elegantly explains
their findings and fits neatly with existing models of brain
architecture. But this study can’t tell us whether watching porn causes
changes in the regions of the brain involved in sex and motivation, or
whether some individuals are born with brains prewired to need extreme
reward and sexual stimulation, driving them to watch more porn.
Though the data do indicate a connection between porn consumption
and grey matter volume, it isn’t very strong. On a scale of zero to one,
the correlation ratio for porn hours and smaller grey matter clocks in
at an inconclusive 0.432. Furthermore, the study recruited relatively
few men (64, hardly representative) and relied on the subjects to
self-report their porn consumption habits — a notoriously unreliable
method of data collection when it comes to questions about sex.
More studies will be required if we want to fully understand the
long-term effects of sexually explicit material on the human brain.
Until that day comes, practice moderation; nothing pleasurable in life
comes without some kind of cost, so why would we expect porn to be any
different?
Source: The Advocate [surely an unbiased place to find out about porn]
In
this episode, worlds collide. One world is a monastery in New Mexico,
where monks strive to remain tranquil in all circumstances. The other
world is United Airlines, which is designed to test the patience of
monks who strive to remain tranquil in all circumstances.
Or
so it seems. Because it is easy to keep a steady pulse in the splendor
and isolation of a desert. But on the phone with United? That is much,
much harder.
Our tale begins with a flight taken in late November by a Brother John Baptist of the Monastery of Christ in the Desert,
in Abiquiu, N.M. (The monks requested that their monastic names be
used, for privacy reasons.) He had flown to his native Malawi in
southeastern Africa to visit his sick mother in late November, on a
round-trip ticket bought by the monastery for $2,489. Though some of the
travel would be on another carrier, United sold the ticket.
Soon
after he arrived in Malawi, he realized that he needed to stay longer.
So the monastery called United to reschedule his return trip, adding a
few weeks to his stay.
That’s
when the trouble started. A monk at the monastery, Brother Noah, called
United and said he was told that the company never received payment for
the ticket. This sounded insane, given that Brother John Baptist had
already used the outbound portion of the itinerary. United’s rep then
said something a little contradictory: Brother John Baptist actually had
credit for a return flight, but he could not use this credit because of
suspicion that the original transaction was fraudulent.
The
best idea, the rep suggested, was for the monastery’s leader, Abbot
Philip, to visit the United desk at the airport in Albuquerque, a
three-hour drive away.
Brother Noah asked for a supervisor.
“I
spoke to a Mark,” Brother Noah told the Haggler. “He took full
responsibility and said that he was reissuing the ticket. He said we’d
receive it via email. We waited two hours. It never came.”
Brother
Noah called again and provided the original confirmation number,
passenger name and so on. The customer service rep couldn’t find it. So
he asked again for a supervisor.
“This
was the most frustrating call of the day,” Brother Noah said.
“Everything became our fault. There was no evidence that Brother John
Baptist had been placed on a new return flight. No record of the
conversation with Mark. I really struggled to remain calm and
charitable. My monastic life is about staying peaceful in all
circumstances. I failed during this call.”
The Haggler was intrigued. What exactly does a livid monk sound like, anyway?
“I said to her something like: ‘Thank you for speaking. God bless you. I will pray for you. But you have not been helpful.’ ”
Whoa, Brother Noah! Dial back the rage there, fella. You’re going to pop a vein.
When the Haggler noted that this outburst didn’t really sound like an outburst, Brother Noah laughed and then elaborated.
“It was my tone of voice,” he said. “I know that it manifested anger.”
Abbot Philip decided that it was time go high-tech. The monastery posted an open letter
on its website — what, a monastery can’t have a website? — explaining
the predicament to online visitors and asking for help. The post
included a rebuttal to United’s claim that the round-trip ticket was a
fraudulent purchase.
“The
credit card belongs to the monastery, and I made the reservation
personally,” Abbot Philip wrote. “In any case, canceling a return flight
without notice and stranding a passenger abroad is not a reasonable
first step to resolve concerns about possible fraud.”
Dozens
read and responded to this post, and one person forwarded it to the
Haggler. But before the Haggler became involved, someone else connected
the monastery to a person with clout at United. Brother John Baptist’s
ticket was quickly reinstated.
What
had gone wrong? The first explanation was that the monastery’s
credit-card company, MasterCard, had canceled the ticket. Brother Noah
said a customer rep told him, “We have a significant amount of fraud for
transactions in this region of the world, and it is the responsibility
of the card holder to confirm payment directly to their credit-card
company.” (Brother Noah said he typed detailed notes during the call.)
That
answer sounded implausible to Brother Noah, as it would to all sentient
beings, because MasterCard had processed the transaction and never
issued a fraud alert.
A
few days after this unsatisfying explanation, the Haggler contacted
United. And a few days after that, United called the monastery and
offered a $350 credit for future use and, for the first time, an
apology.
“We
really appreciated this,” Brother Noah wrote in an email to the
Haggler, “because it was the first time someone had said it wasn’t the
monks’ fault!”
So what really went awry?
A rep in corporate customer care told Brother Noah that United had recently hired a third-party fraud-detection company.
“They
got a bit overzealous,” this rep told Brother Noah, according to his
notes. “I can’t even say what I want to say about it. It has gone up the
chain. One of our senior V.P.s was involved and knew about it. I don’t
think they’ll be making this mistake again.”
To
the Haggler, United was a bit more vague. “We incorrectly marked the
charge for the ticket as fraudulent,” wrote a spokeswoman, Jennifer
Dohm, “which is what prevented the customer from making a change and
ultimately prevented the reservations agents he spoke to from resolving
the issue.”
So
United, and the rest of the world, have learned a valuable lesson: Do
not mess with the monks of the Monastery of Christ in the Desert.
Because, when wronged, they will seek justice, and they will use methods
far more effective than yelling.
The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints takes no official stance on this, but some members believe
that the legendary Sasquatch or Bigfoot is Cain, the firstborn son of Adam and Eve and murderer of his younger brother, Abel.
The main source that
usually is used to back this theory is the reminiscence of Abraham Smoot
of a story from one of the Church's first apostles, David W. Patten.
Patten claimed that in 1835 he encountered Cain walking along the side
of the road. He wrote: "He walked along beside me for about two miles.
His head was about even with my shoulders as I sat in my saddle. He wore
no clothing, but was covered with hair. His skin was very dark."
We can see how someone could get Bigfoot from that
description. The Smoot/Patten story was also quoted in Spencer W.
Kimball's book, The Miracle of Forgiveness. In the 1980's,
there was a Bigfoot sighting in South Weber, Utah and many members used
this story to explain how and why these sightings occurred.
Extract from Miracle of Forgiveness by the Prophet Spencer W. Kimball
On the sad character Cain, an interesting story comes to us
from Lycurgus A. Wilson's book on the life of David W. Patten. From the
book I quote an extract from a letter by Abraham O. Smoot giving his
recollection of David Patten's account of meeting "a very remarkable
person who had represented himself as being Cain.'
'As I was riding along the road on my mule I suddenly
noticed a very strange personage walking beside me… His head was about
even with my shoulders as I sat in my saddle. He wore no clothing, but
was covered with hair. His skin was very dark. I asked him where he
dwelt and he replied that he had no home, that he was a wanderer in the
earth and traveled to and fro. He said he was a very miserable creature,
that he had earnestly sought death during his sojourn upon the earth,
but that he could not die, and his mission was to destroy the souls of
men. About the time he expressed himself thus, I rebuked him in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ and by virtue of the holy priesthood, and
commanded him to go hence, and he immediately departed out of my sight…"
(Miracle of Forgiveness, Spencer W. Kimball, (1969) p 127
Damien's note: While I imagine there is no historical or causal connection with Spencer Kimball's quoting of this story about a man whose "skin was very dark," he is remembered as the man who, while serving as President of the Church in 1978, had a revelation (or oversaw a group revelation to the Church's leadership) that resulted in the Mormons extending membership in the priesthood to male members of African descent, something that had been forbidden from the late 1840s.
Oh, just look him up. I don't even know where to begin on the absurdity of this one. One quote will have to do:
“I talked to a retired FBI agent who said that one of the things they
were looking at were terrorist cells overseas who had figured out how to
game our system. And it appeared they would have young women, who
became pregnant, would get them into the United States to have a baby,”
said Gohmert. “They wouldn’t even have to pay anything for the baby. And
then they would turn back where they could be raised and coddled as
future terrorists. And then one day, twenty, thirty years down the road,
they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life. ‘Cause
they figured out how stupid we are being in this country to allow our
enemies to game our system, hurt our economy, get set up in a position
to destroy our way of life."
I don't need to point out that Mr. Gohmert represents to the nth degree what is already happening in this country because we "allow our
enemies to game our system, hurt our economy, get set up in a position
to destroy our way of life."
On November 30, 2014 an allegedly
intoxicated Dwayne Fenlason, 48, drove his pickup truck into a ditch in
Pomfret, Vermont, bringing a DUI citation -- and then subsequently drove
an SUV to the scene to pull the truck out (earning a second DUI), and
then an all-terrain vehicle to the scene (and a third DUI).
Source: WCAX-TV (Burlington), December 7, 2014
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
32,719 people died in traffic crashes in 2013 in the United States
(latest figures available), including an estimated 10,076 people who
died in drunk driving crashes, accounting for 31% of all traffic deaths
that year.
The good news is that efforts to fight drunk driving have resulted in a 52 % decrease in deaths due to drunk driving since 1982 when the NHTSA started keeping records of alcohol-related statistics.
Chupacabra vs. The Alamo is a 2013 made for TV movie about a pack of Chupacabra
that use a tunnel to escape from Mexico to San Antonio, Texas. In their
travels, however, they engage in many violent attacks. They begin to
kill local residents and various drug cartel members.
The film stars Erik Estrada and Julia Benson as the protagonists. It was directed by Terry Ingram with the story [Damien's note: Story? Really? Story?] by Peter Sullivan and Jeffrey Schenck. The movie was released in the U.S. and Canada initially and then later in Brazil and Germany under the titles Chupacabra and Chupacabra - Angriff der Killerbestien.
In the climax, Carlos [Estrada] enlists the aid of his son's gang and leads the Chupacabras to the Alamo, where a battle takes place. In the end, they kill all the Chupacabras by blowing up the Alamo.
Damien's note: The brief description on the television guide ended with the appropriate word: Horror.
So does a movie in which American drug agents and a gang of Hispanic kids blow up the Alamo to destroy monsters who are killing drug cartel members ... I mean, does this send mixed signals, or is it just me? Peter Sullivan, one of the screenwriters, recently directed the Hallmark original movie Christmas Under Wraps, starring Candace Cameron Bure. Christmas Under Wraps was the highest rated telecast in Hallmark Channel history and the second highest rated cable movie in 2014. Want to talk about Horror!
From the incompetent criminals file: Back in
1974, 20-year-old Kenneth Lutz of Grand Terrace, California thought he
had found an easy way to scam his parents. He kidnapped himself. He did
this by attaching a note to his parents' front door demanding $5000 in
$20 bills for his return, with instructions that the money be "put out
when you go to work Wednesday," and signed the note, "the kidnaper".
Then he went into hiding.
However, he didn't hide very well. When the police arrived a few hours
later they found him sitting at a desk in a camper van behind his
parents' home. He promptly confessed that he had written the note, and
that no one else was involved in the scheme, explaining, "I wanted the
money and it sounded like something that could be done."
A detective said that the circumstances of the case had immediately
aroused his suspicions because, "You tell me one kidnapper that signs
his name 'kidnaper' at the bottom of a note."
Damien's note: Five thousand dollars in 1974 would be equivalent to almost twenty-five thousand dollars today. But there is something of "The Ransom of Red Chief" about this whole thing. Maybe the parents suggested the idea to him and then planned not to pay any ransom. Given that photograph, I am still unsure why they even reported anything to the police.
For months, publishing giant HarperCollins has been selling
an atlas it says was “developed specifically for schools in the Middle
East.” It trumpets the work as providing students an “in-depth coverage
of the region and its issues.” Its stated goals include helping kids
understand the “relationship between the social and physical
environment, the region’s challenges [and] its socio-economic
development.”
Nice goals. But there’s one problem: Israel is missing.
There’s Syria. There’s Jordan. There’s Gaza. But no mention of Israel. The story was first reported by a Catholic publication, the Tablet.
On
Wednesday, HarperCollins was backtracking fast. “HarperCollins regrets
the omission of the name Israel from their Collins Middle East Atlas,”
HarperCollins UK said
on its Facebook page. “This product has now been removed from sale in
all territories and all remaining stock will be pulped. HarperCollins
sincerely apologizes for this omission and for any offense it caused.”
It apparently caused quite a bit. On Amazon, the atlas has 39 reviews. Every reviewer gave it one star.
“It’s incredibly sad and sickening how one of the world’s largest publishers has failed to recognize Israel,” one reviewer wrote,
calling it a “travesty and international shame.” “Failing to recognize
its existence is horrifying and it’s a shame that in 2014, such nonsense
still goes on.”
How did this happen? Collins Bartholomew, a subsidiary of HarperCollins that specializes in maps, told
the Tablet that it would have been “unacceptable” to include Israel in
atlases intended for the Middle East. They had deleted Israel to satisfy
“local preferences.” [Emphasis added by Damien]
Strangely, however, the West Bank is
clearly marked on the map, but not Israel. Nobody can quite seem to
grasp quite what HarperCollins was thinking. “The publication of this
atlas will confirm Israel’s belief that there exists hostility toward
their country from parts of the Arab world. It will not help to build up
a spirit of trust leading to peaceful co-existence,” a British bishop
named Declan Lang, who chairs a conference that first highlighted the
omission, told the Tablet.
Others were less diplomatic. “What a piece of inaccurate garbage!” one reviewer said.
Source:The Washington Post
------------- Damien's note: One assumes HarperCollins had also been preparing maps of the United States that they will market in Texas and the Deep South, maps which will not show Washington, DC -- or perhaps anything north of the Mason Dixon line. Because local preferences.
The day was Sunday, September 1, 1675 and King Philip's War
was raging. The Wampanoag tribe was advancing upon Hadley,
Massachusetts after creating a diversion, luring colonial troops away
from the town. Hadley residents were in church (because they were
Puritans and that's what Puritans did all day on Sunday) when an old man
whom no one had ever seen burst in. The man had long white beard, white
hair, and was wearing outdated English clothing. He warned the
townspeople of the attack and then organized and led a successful
defense against the Wampanoags. After the battle, the man disappeared
and was never seen in Hadley again. The townspeople believed that God
had sent an angel to rescue their town.
John
Russell, the pastor in Hadley at the time, told the truth about the
Angel on his deathbed. The Angel of Hadley was actually Willam Goffe,
one of the judges who sentenced King Charles I to death in 1648. When the
monarchy was restored in 1660, Goffe fled to America and one of his
hiding places was a secret room in the home of John Russell in Hadley.
The more interesting truth behind the Angel of
Hadley legend is actually very surprising. It never happened. The legend
was started by Ezra Stiles, former President of Yale University, in his
book A History of Three Judges of King Charles I. Several authors
have since used the legend in one way or another, including Nathaniel
Hawthorne.
Damien's note: In the usually (ahem!) reliable way of Wikipedia, this tale is accounted "possibly apocryphal." Ya think?
One thing I always wonder about stories such as this, in which God intervenes by sending an angel or some such to lead people into battle, is why God didn't simply stop the attack by leading the attackers in a circle and never into battle at all. But then, I'm not God, so what do I know about the divine wisdom in choosing to lead people into battle instead of leading them into peacemaking.
Zachary Taylor, twelfth president of the United States, had never voted when he was elected to the highest office of the land. As a military man, he moved around and never established residency and had never registered to vote. He did not vote for himself because he did not vote for anyone.
He served from March 4, 1849 until his death on July 9, 1850. On July 4, 1850, Taylor reportedly consumed raw fruit (probably
cherries) and iced milk after attending holiday celebrations and a
fund-raising event at the Washington Monument, which was then under construction.
Over the course of several days, he became severely ill with an unknown
digestive ailment. His doctor, according to biographer John S. D. Eisenhower, "diagnosed the illness as cholera morbus,
a flexible mid–nineteenth-century term for intestinal ailments as
diverse as diarrhea and dysentery but not related to Asiatic cholera,"
the latter being a widespread epidemic at the time of Taylor's death. Rumors spread that he had been poisoned, but tests done on the remains in 1991 indicated no evidence of poison and instead confirmed that he had died of acute gastroenteritis. These results have been questioned by those who prefer a mystery to a solution.
At any rate, he was succeeded by Vice President Millard Fillmore who went on to make such a name for himself for obscurity that he is, alas, no longer obscure. Perhaps Fillmore's biggest claim to fame is to have been the last president affiliated with neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party, having been a Whig like his predecessor.
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This is one of the most famous ghost photos of all time. It supposedly
shows the "Brown Lady" who haunts Raynham Hall in Norfolk, England. 
I know this will be only of academic interest to the two people who regularly read this blog, but a study published last year by the University of East London
indicated that almost 80% of boys had seen people having sex by age of
16, and some estimates put the volume of Internet traffic devoted in one
way or another to sex as high as 50%. 
The
best idea, the rep suggested, was for the monastery’s leader, Abbot
Philip, to visit the United desk at the airport in Albuquerque, a
three-hour drive away.
