Daily Dose - 020108 - Lester's Collection
Today's collection is from Lester...
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured. Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr, noted that the British, General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months. John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.
Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates. Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education.
They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. "They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never told you a lot about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't fight just the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government! Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn't.
So, take a few minutes while enjoying your freedom and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid.
__________________________
Doctors and Guns
Interesting: Some Startling Statistics:
Number of physicians in the US = 700,000
Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year = 120,000
Accidental deaths per physician = 0.171
(U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services)
Number of gun owners in the US = 80,000,000
Number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups)= 1,500
Accidental deaths per gun owner = 0.0000188
( U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms)
Therefore, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
Taken from the Benton County News Tribune on the seventeenth of November, 1999. Please pass this on - you may surprise a
lot of your friends!
__________________________
Bad Canadianism's
My name is Bob, and I am Canadian.
(Apparently written by a frustrated Vancouverite. Quite funny until you realize how much of it is true.)
My name is Bob, and I am Canadian.
I am a minority in Vancouver, Banff, and every casino in this country.
I was born in 1972, yet I am responsible for some Native's great great grandfather who screwed himself out of his land in the 1800's.
I pay import tax on cars made in Ontario.
I am allowed to skydive, drink and smoke, but not allowed to drive without a seatbelt.
All the money I make up until mid July goes to paying taxes.
I live and work among people who believe Americans are ignorant. These same people cannot name this country's new Territory.
Although I am sometimes forced to live on Kraft Dinner and don't have a pot to piss in, I sleep well knowing that I've helped purchase a nice six figure home in Vancouver for some unskilled Chinese refugee.
Although they are unpatriotic and constantly try to separate, Quebec still provides my nation's Prime Ministers.
95% of my nation's international conflicts are over fish.
I'm supposed to call black people African Canadians, although I'm sure none of them have ever been to Africa, or east of Halifax for that matter.
I believe that paying a 200% tax on alcohol is fair.
I believe that same tax on gasoline is also fair.
Even if I have no idea what happened to that old rifle my grandfather gave me when I was 14, I will be considered a criminal if I don't register it.
I DO know Jeff from Toronto. And Mike from Canmore.
I often badmouth the United States, and then vacation there three times a year.
I'm led to believe that some lazy ass unionized broom pusher who makes $30 an hour is underpaid and therefore must go on strike, but paying $10 an hour to someone who works 12 hour shifts at forty below on an oil rig is fair.
I believe that paying $30 million for 3 stripes (The Voice of Fire) by the National Art Gallery was a good purchase, even though 99% of this country didn't want it, or will ever see it.
When I look at my pay stub and realize that I take home a third of what I actually make, I say "Oh well, at least we have better health care than the Americans"
I must bail out farmers when their crops are too wet or too dry, because I control the rain.
My national anthem has versions in both official languages, and I don't know either of them.
Canada is the highest taxed nation in North America, the biggest military buffer for the United States, and the number one destination for fleeing boat people.
I am not an angry white male. I am an angry broke taxpayer.
My name is Bob, and I am Canadian
____________________________
Redheads...
Q: How do you get a redhead to argue with you?
A: Say something
Q: How do you get a redhead's mood to change?
A: Wait 10 seconds
If you love a Redhead, set her free.....if she follows you everywhere you go, pitches a tent in your front lawn and puts your new girlfriend in the hospital, she's yours.
Q: What's safer: a redhead or a piranha?
A: The piranha. They only attack in schools.
Q: How do you know a guy at the beach has a redhead for a girlfriend?
A: She has scratched "stay off MY TURF!" on his back with her nails.
Q: What do you call a Redhead with an attitude?
A: Normal
Q: What do you call a woman who knows where her husband is every night?
A: A redhead!
Q: How do you know when a redhead has been using a computer?
A: There's a hammer embedded in the monitor.
Q: How do you know when your redhead has forgiven you?
A: She stops washing your clothes in the toilet bowl.
__________________________
HANDY ENGINEERING CONVERSIONS:
Ratio of an igloo’s circumference to its diameter: Eskimo Pi
2000 pounds of Chinese soup: Won ton
1 millionth of a mouthwash: 1 microscope
Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement: 1 bananosecond
Weight an evangelist carries with God: 1 billigram
Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour: Knot-furlong
16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone: 1 Rod Serling
Half of a large intestine: 1 semicolon
1000 aches: 1 kilohurtz
Basic unit of laryngitis: 1 hoarsepower
Shortest distance between two jokes: A straight line (think about it for a moment)
453.6 graham crackers: 1 pound cake
1 million microphones: 1 megaphone
1 million bicycles: 2 megacycles
2000 mockingbirds: two kilomockingbirds
10 cards: 1 decacards
1 kilogram of falling figs: 1 Fig Newton
1000 cubic centimeters of wet socks: 1 literhosen
1 millionth of a fish: 1 microfiche
1 trillion pins: 1 terrapin
10 rations: 1 decoration
100 rations: 1 C-ration
2 monograms: 1 diagram
8 nickels: 2 paradigms
3 statute miles of intravenous surgical tubing at Yale University Hospital: 1 I.V. League
100 Senators: Not 1 decision
_____________________________
Subject: Roe vs. Wade
Pres. George W. Bush was asked how he felt about Roe vs. Wade.
He said it was the most important decision George Washington had to make before crossing the Delaware
______________________________
Life in the 1500's
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and were still smelling pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the b.o.
Baths equaled a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water".
Houses had thatched roofs. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the pets... dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs."
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. So, they found if they made beds with big posts and hung a sheet over the top, it addressed that problem. Hence those beautiful big 4 poster beds with canopies. I wonder if this is where we get the saying Good night and don't let the bed bugs bite
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors which would get slippery in the winter when wet. So they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed at the entry way, hence a "thresh hold".
They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They mostly ate vegetables and didn't get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been in there for a month. Hence the rhyme: peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."
Sometimes they could obtain pork and would feel really special when that happened. When company came over, they would bring out some bacon and hang it to show it off. It was a sign of wealth and that a man "could really bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food. This happened most often with tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes... for 400 years.
Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers - a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating off wormy trenchers, they would get "trench mouth."
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the "upper crust".
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake".
England is old and small, and they started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take their bones to a house and re-use the grave. In reopening these coffins, one out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on their wrist and lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night to listen for the bell. Hence on the "graveyard shift" they would know that someone was "saved by the bell" or he was a "dead ringer".