Animal Augury Department

Punxatawney Phil is the groundhog who is famous for predicting the weather on Groundhog Day. (He also starred alongside the less-famous commedian, Bill Murray, in the movie Groundhog Day.)

You may have heard about Oscar the cat, who lives in a Rhode Island nursing home, and appears to be able to sense when death is imminent for the home’s residents.

People have long observed that some animals seem to have advance warning of events. For example, there are many documented cases of dogs, cats, and other animals acting strangely before earthquakes.

Here are a few lesser-known cases of animals with unexplained predictive powers:

• Eugene, a Polled Hereford steer owned by Wilfred Longacre of Pekin, North Dakota, has successfully predicted the winner of the European Cup for the last 12 years. The night before the match, Eugene will lay down in his stall facing the direction of the winning team. For example, prior to the 2009 championship match be Barcelona and Manchester United, Eugene was facing south, indicating a Barcelona win. Prior to the 2001 match between Bayern Munich and Valencia, Eugene was facing east, predicting a German win.
• Vivian Stanlowe of Puddleby-on-Marsh, England, owns a pair of budgerigars named Gwendoline and Rupert who predict the movement of the coffee futures market by the tunes they whistle. Twelve hours before the prices begin moving up, they whistle “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.” Before prices begin falling, they switch to the 3rd movement of Chopin’s Piano Sonota Number 2. When prices are steady, they stick with a repertoire of Gilbert and Sullivan tunes.
• Rugger, an English Bulldog owned by Duke Avington of Culver City, California, drags his hindquarters across the carpet in front of the television three minutes and fifteen seconds (plus or minus eight seconds) before Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning throws an interception.

Continuing Education Department

I’m beginning to think that Al Gore has taken classes at the Joe Biden Memorial School of Plagiarism and Just Making Up Crazy Shit.

Not Exactly Cognitive Dissonance Department

Browsing in a discount store yesterday, I spotted this snowglobe/music box:

Yes, it has a dreidel in it, and the base is decorated with a menorah.

And what tune does it play?

No. Not the Dreidel song. (“Oh, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel…”) That would make sense.

It was, rather, Ludwig Van Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” Granted, for a music box, it was a lovely rendition of the song. But not quite in keeping with the rest of the Hanukkah-theme of this particular tchotchke.

Made in China, of course.

What Happens In Bethel Department

I never noticed this Bible verse before:

Go to Bethel and sin… Amos 4:4

Huh. Shouldn’t that be Vegas instead?

Update on Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 04:19PM by Roy M. Jacobsen

One of my cousins sent me the following:

I went to Bethel (Alaska) on a job once. Don't know if it relates or not but while there I bought a tee-shirt that said, "When I die, I know I'm going to heaven, 'cause I've already been to Bethel." - or something like that - tough town it was.

Dither A Little Slower Now Department

At the gym this morning, I heard some talking head on CNN (talking about President Obama’s long-delayed decision on an Afghanistan strategy) say this:

“I don’t care how long he takes to make his decision, as long as it’s a wise decision.”

Sorry, you’re wrong. But thanks for playing!

The wisest possible decision, made too late, is a disastrous decision.

Keep An Eye On That Lot Department

Jonah Goldberg explains how l'affair Polanski has been illuminating:

It all boils down to the fact that Polanski is famous and talented and an Olympian artist, living above the world of mortals. Indeed, if he didn’t rape that girl — and he did — Polanski would still be considered a pig in most normal communities. This is the man who, after all, started dating Nastassja Kinski when she was only 15 and he was in his 40s. His taste for teenage girls is an established fact.

His defenders don’t care. They are above and beyond bourgeois notions of morality, even legality.

And that’s the main reason I am grateful for this controversy. It is a dye marker, “lighting up” a whole archipelago of morally wretched people. With their time, their money, and their craft, these very people routinely lecture America about what is right and wrong. It’s good to know that at the most fundamental level, they have no idea what they’re talking about.

If That’s Not In The Dictionary, It Should Be Department

For your edification, a pair of newly coined portmanteau words:

aberratchik (noun): an aberrant apparatchik

apparatchic (noun): stylish and fashionable Communist Party official uniforms

Update: I knew I had seen a commercial with a Soviet style show it it, and here it is:

Now that’s apparatchic!

The New NewSpeak Department

That tax is not a tax.

Increased competition is not increased competition.

Maybe it’s not newspeak; maybe it’s surrealism.

How Stupid Can A Major Corporation Be Department

I’m due for a new phone. My old LG has served me well, but it is time to move on, to move up.

Out of curiosity, I went to Apple website to see if I could get one of them purdy iPhones, and what it would cost me. But after plugging in my address information, I was confronted with this message:

(Click to view full-size image.)

It says “AT&T does not yet offer wireless service in the area you specified. Please try again using a different address where you will use your phone.”

That is stupid. I live and work at the  address I plugged in. “Please try again with a different address?” Am I supposed to enter somebody else’s address?

Does anybody actually read these error messages before they plug them into their system?

Stupid Things You Get In The Mail Department

Editor’s Note: Yesterday, my wife received a stupid chain letter; a variation of the same stupid chain letter that’s been floating around for years, promising wealth untold if you send twenty copies of the stupid chain letter to your friends within three days. You have to be in some way stupid to fall for stupid things like that.

So I dug out something I wrote in response to the last stupid chain letter I received, dusted it off a bit, and I offer it here for your edification:

THIS LETTER HAS BEEN SENT TO YOU FOR GOOD LUCK. MINE. The original has been sent to recycling. It has now been around the office once or twice. The luck has now been sent to you. You will receive luck within four days of receiving this letter, provided you do something. Or don’t do something. It doesn’t matter.

This is no joke. You will receive good luck via carrier pigeon. Send no cash (money orders, cashier’s checks and traveler’s checks acceptable), send copies to people you think are as gullible as you are. Send money as fate has no price, but I do. Do not keep this letter; it must leave your hands within 96 hours or before Haley's Comet returns, whichever comes later.

Michael Jackson didn’t get this letter and he’s dead.

John McCain might be president today if he had followed this letter’s instructions. Then again, maybe not.

While vacationing in Chula Vista, CA, John Smurfett didn’t win the California lottery six days after he received this letter. He had failed to circulate this letter. However, before not winning the lottery, he was not struck by any falling satellite debris.

Please send twenty copies (handwritten in crayon on white butcher paper) and see what happens in four days. The chain comes from Terra del Fuego and was dictated by Elvis to the seventh son of a seventh son who wrote it in Magic Marker on the margins of the Book of Kells on Friday the 13th under a full moon. Since the copy must tour the world but can’t afford the airfare, you must make twenty copies and send them to soon-to-be-former friends and total strangers. After a few days, you will get a surprise, but since you’ll be expecting it, it won’t be a surprise anymore, will it? This is true even if you don’t believe that everything published in the Weekly World News has to be true or they wouldn’t print it, would they? (Batboy Lives!)

Do note the following:

• Renfrew Zetts received the chain in 1990. He asked his secretary to make twenty copies and send the letters out. A few days later, the Twins won the World Series.
• Guido Zamboni, a disgruntled postal worker, received this letter and forgot it had to leave his hands within 96 hours. He lost his job (and later his life in a gun battle with a SWAT team). Later, after his widow found the letter and mailed 20 copies, she was paid $2,000,000 for the television rights to her husband’s story.
• Lola Vavoom sent twenty copies with insufficient postage, so they never reached the right addresses. She was investigated by the U.S. Post Office for perpetuating a chain letter scheme.
• A barking dog never bites until it quits barking. Then, watch out, ‘cuz those teeth are HUGE!
• Half of the population is of below-average intelligence. Guess which half you’re in?

Remember, do not send cash (money orders, cashier’s checks and traveler’s checks acceptable). Do not ignore this. If you circulate this letter, something will happen to you, unless you die first. And that’s something, isn’t it?

Who loves ya, baby?