That's a lot of ...

You know all those horses pulling wagons and buggies and coaches through the streets of towns and cities in the nineteenth century? And all those folks riding into town and through town on their horses?

Each horse produced about 40 pounds -- yes, 40 POUNDS -- of manure daily. And they did not wait until they got out of town to let it go, so to speak.

Fortunately, folks did not have to rely on civic-minded neighbors to clean the streets. Stable owners and others collected the manure and sold it to farmers for fertilizer.

Now if only there were some way to capture gasoline fumes and recycle that.

What was going on in 1955?

Click on image to read text.

Spirit of Carmel?

Michael sent me a link to a fitness app that he uses to track his exercise and food intake. (He is a wee bit compulsive, but you didn't hear that from me.) At any rate, he used to be a Carmelite friar, and at one time in their monastery in Milwaukee, they had a license to sell a cure-all by the name of Karmelitengeist. They needed a license because of the alcohol content -- 75%. Although it had been popular in Bavaria, where the friars had come from to Wisconsin, it did not become a big seller in Milwaukee. It was not, in other words, the drink that made Milwaukee famous.

The strange thing is that Michael ran across the nutritional information for the stuff on the database on his fitness app: 
 

Calories in Regensburger Karmeliten Geist 75% Alkohol Klostergeist Aus Kräutern Und Gewürzen -nach Uraltem Rezept

Nutrition Facts

Regensburger Karmeliten Geist - 75% Alkohol Klostergeist Aus Kräutern Und Gewürzen -nach Uraltem Rezept

1. Servings:

Calories	42	Sodium	0 mg
Total Fat	0 g	Potassium	0 mg
Saturated	0 g	Total Carbs	6 g
Polyunsaturated	0 g	Dietary Fiber	0 g
Monounsaturated	0 g	Sugars	0 g
Trans	0 g	Protein	0 g
Cholesterol	0 mg
Vitamin A	0%	Calcium	0%
Vitamin C	0%	Iron	0%

*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs. 

The German says that it is made from herbs according to an ancient recipe. A serving is about two teaspoons.

Not, I think, a real health drink. 

For more information, however, visit the Austrian Carmelite home page: Karmel

 

Quite an undertaking

This calendar was released as a one-off thing in 2008 in order to raise money for a breast cancer charity.

Sociological Images posted an article about how the calendar could be seen as an attempt to "humanize funeral directors."

Damien's note: The guy with the horse looks happy, but the hunks in the cover photo look pretty, dare I say, grave?

Bang, Bang!

In the face of a declining military budget, the Defense Ministry of the Netherlands issued confidential instructions to commanders in July that during training exercises, to preserve dwindling ammunition, soldiers should simply shout “Bang Bang” instead of firing their weapons. Said a soldiers’ advocate, “Even if you have no bullets, you [still] have to train with your weapon.”

Source: Reuters via RT.com (Moscow), 8-3-2015

Damien's note: Whereas in the good old US of A, armed civilians have been showing up at military recruiting offices armed to the teeth. You know, to prevent crazy people with guns from shooting up the military. 

Cher's hit song, by the way, was released in 1966. It was one of her biggest hits of the decade. Ironically, all things considered, it was written by then-husband Sonny Bono, whom she divorced in 1975, not shooting him down so much as freeing him up for a political career.

If I only had a ...

Daniel is mentoring a young man who is a nice enough guy, divorced with three children, one in high school already. You would think such a person would have a modicum of common sense, but of late this has been in doubt. He calls Daniel to ask for advice on the most trivial of matters and then goes off on his own and essentially falls for variations on the Nigerian-prince internet scam without consulting anyone.

Now he is in a dither because he keeps running into the number 666.

As you most likely know, thanks to bad movies and worse Christian preachers, the Number of the Beast (Greek: Ἀριθμὸς τοῦ θηρίου, Arithmos tou Thēriou) is a term in the Book of Revelation, of the New Testament, that is associated with the Beast of Revelation in chapter 13. In most manuscripts of the New Testament and in English translations of the Bible, the number of the beast is 666. In critical editions of the Greek text, such as the Novum Testamentum Graece, it is noted that 616 is a variant.

I suggested that Daniel mention this to his friend and see if he had been running into the number 616 all the time. He thought, with better knowledge of his friend's quirks, that this would simply add to the list of anxieties.

Anyway, next time someone tells you that 666 is the number of the Beast, and then proceeds through elaborate manipulations of the alphabet in Hebrew, Greek and Arabic, to prove that the Beast is therefore Barack Obama/Donald Trump/Sarah Palin/Pope Francis, just mention that everyone knows that the real number is 616, and that the number 666 has been perpetrated on unsuspecting believers so that they will not recognize the Beast when that being arrives on the scene.

You may wish to create a schema of manipulated alphabets and numerological systems to prove that the Beast is, in fact, Christopher Hewitt, snotty star of television's Mr. Belvedere. Hewitt is alleged to have died in 2001 from diabetes. But the truth is otherwise! Just look into his eyes ...

I can't understand this

The Welsh language is such a severe mutation of the original English spoken in the Middle Ages that, to the inexperienced eye, it is barely distinguishable from, say, Klingon. 

In fact, in July, the Welsh government, responding to queries about a possible UFO sighting near Cardiff airport, playfully issued its galaxy-friendly response in Klingon -- “jang vlDa je due luq,” meaning that further information will be provided. 

In Welsh, for example, “I cannot understand Welsh” is “nad oes modd i ddeall Cymraeg.”

Recently, in Swansea, Wales, alleged drug dealer Dwaine Campbell, 25, adamantly refused to leave his cell for a court hearing because he feared being judged in Welsh--until authorities promised to transfer the case to Campbell’s native England.

Source: Wales Online 

Damien's note: The red Welsh dragon's sign says, "I'm speaking Welsh."