BARLEY SERVICES: no ordinary plumber

Reader’s Digest (April ’05, p. 168) reprinted this from Outside magazine:

Q: How did elephants come to have trunks?

A: Scientists believe that the trunk developed through natural selection. As Hezy Shoshani, a biology professor at Eritrea’s University of Asmara explains, elephants grew bigger as they evolved. Of course, as they grew away from the ground, they still had to reach down for food. So the trunk was born–probably emerging from the upper lip and nose, to ultimately become the tool elephants use for browsing.

I’m taller than my father was. My son is taller than I, and he will marry this summer. I fear for his children. Since my boy is farther from the ground than I or his grandfather, but his kids will still have to tie their shoes every day (just as he, I, and my father did), Prof. Shoshani’s highly scientific rejection of creationism indicates that my grandchildren should have the beginnings of a trunk emerging from the nose and upper lip. 🙁

You missed it. “We had an amazing turnout. Everyone really enjoyed themselves.”

A common slogan I’ve never understood is “diversity is our strength.” It sounds to me more like a faith assumption or a desperate wish. Honestly, would you rather your football team be half female? Would your brain surgeon do a better job if half of his training was in Pakistan?

Would your neighborhood be a richer place if your neighbors married their children to dogs? Well, that certainly goes on among diverse people.

Show me a department of philosophy and religion at a liberal school who wants to diversify their staff by hiring a Fundamentalist who believes all of the Bible. Hah! I may represent typical American Christianity, but there’s no way they’d diversify their faculty that far.

A snake might be in your toilet. 😥

Namibia, formerly known as South West Africa, has been reduced to abject poverty and chaos since the white minority regime was replaced by the communist South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO). This workers’ paradise (by Marxist standards) now has so much wealth, they can occasion this news story:

WINDHOEK. When outgoing Namibian president Sam Nujoma hands over power to his successor, Hifikepunye Pohamba, on March 21, he will reportedly receive a retirement package consisting of the same monthly salary as the new leader of the country, plus an extra gratuity equal to a year’s salary amounting to just over $71 000 dollars, plus a Mercedes Benz S500 (which currently retails locally for about $146 000), plus a four wheel drive station wagon, plus a light truck ten security personnel, plus three drivers, two private secretaries, two personal assistants, two office attendants, three domestic workers, three gardeners, two cooks, two waiters and two laundry persons to run Nujoma’s household, plus an office equipped with computers, telephones, furniture and other materials as may be determined by the cabinet, plus medical cover, first class seats on international flights and local travel – as well as entertainment, water and electricity expenses. All of the money will be tax-exempt.

Tsk, tsk. Kinda makes you nostalgic for the good old days, eh Namibians?

For people who have more money than brains, behold the Hatbox Toilet.

Here’s how you can tell that the Chinese are destined to rule the world.

I’m a right-wing extremist. Rush Limbaugh couldn’t even hold my flashlight while I’m formulating a conservative opinion of something.

But I also enjoy immensely learning what others believe and why, so I’m an avid listener to Air America, which recently began polluting the airwaves of Memphis. On Tuesday, the Al Franken Show played a most amazing clip of Bill O’Reilly claiming to have been an astronaut, and telling Buzz Aldrin that he (Aldrin) was the first man on the moon.

When Aldrin corrected him and said that Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon, O’Reilly responded that Aldrin was mistaken. Eventually he hung up on Aldrin and said that it’s too bad when a guy is the first man on the moon and therefore thinks that he knows everything.

Here’s an interesting web site: Discover the Network is dedicated to identifying the Left, who often try to pass for “moderate.”

At about 6:30 this evening I and a coworker finished up a big job. It involved removing an electric water heater and installing two gas ones in its place. We probably spent twenty four man-hours on it if you include the time it took to hunt down various necessary components.

I tallied up the receipts tonight. It looks like we cleared $210. My coworker will get $200, since it was my job and he was helping me. It isn’t his fault that I underestimated the job.

The customer got a bargain. I got a lesson in careful estimating.