Daily Dose - 030415 - TRIPLE FILTER TEST, THIS is TRUE, person's age, DDL, Rotten News

TRIPLE FILTER TEST

In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about your friend?"

"Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. "Before telling me anything I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

"Triple filter?"

"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and..."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him, but you're not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though, because there's one filter left: the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?"

"No, not really."

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?"

This is why Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.

It also explains why he never found out his best friend was screwing his wife.

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THIS is TRUE......

7% SOLUTION: Police in Queensland, Australia, say a 37-year-old woman decided she was too drunk to drive, so she told her 5-year-old son to steer while she worked the pedals. "The five-year-old was on her lap steering the car," an investigator says, when it went off the road, hit a tree, and ended up in a field. The woman, the boy, and another son were all injured in the crash. (Australian AP)
...Alcohol abuse: the line between thinking and thinking clearly.

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ALL THE RAGE: B.J. Justin Lundin, 20, of Poolville, Texas, was tailgating another motorist. Stephen Thomas Manley Jr. tapped his brakes to ask Lundin to back off, which apparently sent him into a rage, says Cpl. Roger Smith of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Lundin passed Manley and then screeched to a halt, blocking Manley's car. Lundin jumped out of his car, started throwing rocks at Manley, and was kicking and hitting Manley's car when another car drove by and ran Lundin over, killing him instantly. (Ft Worth Star-Telegram)
...Justice delayed is justice denied.

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LIFE LESSON: Jaime Rodriguez, a schoolteacher in Chicago, Ill., was named as the worst offender on the city's list of employees with unpaid parking tickets. After checking into things, he discovered it was actually his 26-year-old son, also named Jaime, who had run up $11,040 in unpaid tickets. Rodriguez Sr. paid off the 109 citations, though, to clear his name. "My stupid kids," he said later. "They get the tickets and throw them away, and they're thinking they are going to go away." (Chicago Sun-Times)
...And sure enough, they did.

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SUBTLETY IS A VIRTUE: A security guard at a grocery store in Sandnes, Norway, noticed a woman in a motorized wheelchair put several items into a bag, and then drive past the registers. He told her to stop, but she powered her chair right through the glass door, sending glass shards flying. Another store employee grabbed the chair's handles, "but could only hang on for 100 meters or so. I fell off and couldn't take any more." They chased her for more than a kilometer, but she got away. Police later tracked her down and raided her apartment, where they found a still and 41 liters of moonshine. She was charged with shoplifting, property damage, assault, and may face hit-and-run charges for running over a 3-year-old boy during her escape. "She admitted crashing through a glass door at the store," a police spokesman noted, "but said she didn't mean to do it." (Aftenposten)
...Which is to say, it hurt a lot more than she expected.

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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU COME UP WITH AN EXCUSE FOR THE COPS ON THE SPOT, RATHER THAN THINKING IT OUT IN ADVANCE? "Man Blames Reckless Driving on Martians"
-- Reuters headline

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An Irishman went to London for a visit to the circus. While there, he saw a man with an elephant act. The man claimed the elephant could look at a person and tell that person's age.

The Irishman was very skeptical and said so, in no uncertain terms.

The man had the elephant look at a small boy and the elephant stamped its foot 9 times.

"Is that right?" he asked the boy.

"Yes, I'm nine!" the boy said.

The Irishman continued his loud heckling, still not believing that this was true. The man asked the elephant to tell the ages of several other people, and each time the elephant stamped his foot and the people said he was correct.

The Irishman got even louder and more abusive toward the man. Finally the man could take it no longer and wagered the Irishman that the elephant could look at him and tell him his age. The Irishman took him up on the wager.

The elephant looked real close at the Irishman, turned around, raised his tail and cut wind like you wouldn't believe. Then he turned back around, knocked the Irishman to the ground with his trunk and then stomped on him twice.

The Irishman, crumpled and bleeding, staggered back to his feet and with a sound of disbelief in his voice cried,

"Mother of Mary, he's right! Farty-two!"

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Deep in his bunker 20 thousand feet under Baghdad, temporary President Saddam Hussein sits talking with his Minister of Information.

A message is delivered addressed to Saddam from George W & Tony:

370HSSV-0773H 'I don't understand it' says Saddam passing it across the table.

The Minister of Information does what he has been doing for the past two weeks, turns the message upside down, then it becomes quite clear.

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DDL

A modern cinegraphic emporium
Is not just a super-sensorium
When the mood is terrific
It's an ultra specific
Mutual masterbatorium.

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Why in America do we have a general in charge of the post office, and a secretary in charge of defense?

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They say that love makes the world go around, but then so does a good swallow of tobacco juice.

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Sign seen on a plastic surgeon's window: "Come in and pick your nose!"

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You know you are a college student when you collect Taco Bell sauce to use as "salsa" on your chips and frozen burritos.

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Rotten News.... (true)

Oops I digit again

By ROBIN PERRIE

DAFT Keith Sanderson lost the end of his thumb in a guillotine at work — then chopped off a finger showing his boss how he did it.

His supervisor had run over and asked what happened when the 25-year-old workman screamed as the automated machine sliced through his thumb.

Keith put his other hand in, severing half his index finger.

Surgeons repaired his thumb, but could not save the other digit.

Magistrates heard Keith is still off work five months after the accident at Macy Panel Products in Newcastle upon Tyne, which makes kitchen work surfaces.

Prosecutor Dr Stephen Britton explained: “Mr Sanderson had probably fiddled with the controls. He decided to investigate and touched a sensor with his hand, with the result that the guillotine activated.

“When asked what he had done, he thrust his other hand into the machine.”

Paul Nelson, a director at the firm which employs 20 workers, told North Tyneside court: “The first incident caused little damage to Keith’s thumb.After a couple of days in a plaster he would probably have been able to return. But unfortunately the second incident caused him great discomfort and now he has only nine and a half digits. He is still employed by us but is convalescing.”

He added: “Although the circumstances are a little baffling, ultimately we have to accept responsibility.”

The firm admitted failing to take effective measures to prevent access to dangerous equipment and was fined £1,500 plus £970 costs.

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Man Fakes Choking to Get Women's Attention
Fri Mar 7, 3:32 PM ET Add AP - Feature Stories to My Yahoo!

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. - A short, dumpy man has been going around town faking choking episodes, apparently to get attention from women.

He flails his arms, coughs and sputters. After a woman rushes over to help, he showers her with gratitude, hugs and kisses.

The sheriff's office has gotten about a half-dozen calls about the Choking Man, as the Charlotte Sun Herald dubbed him. So far he has not committed any crime, though a woman on Monday went to the hospital with an anxiety attack after an encounter.

It dawned on people that he was faking it after the newspaper ran a story earlier this week about a woman in a restaurant rescuing an anonymous choking man. The paper started getting calls from women saying they, too, had had encounters with a man who matched the description.

Mary Welcher said she noticed the man outside a hospital in January, flailing his arms, gasping and turning red.

"I knew the Heimlich maneuver from having done it on one of my children," Welcher said. "I ran around and grabbed him around the waist. A piece of apple came out. He'd been eating an apple before he started choking."

As in the other reported encounters, Choking Man was gushing with gratitude.

"He was crying, sweating, hugging us and saying, `Thank you, you saved my life!'" Welcher said.

She and other women who have "saved" him described him as being in his mid-30s, 5-foot-6 and 245 pounds, with a bald spot and a mustache.

"There's been no crime. Our hands are kind of tied here," sheriff's spokesman Bob Carpenter said Friday.

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20 Mar 2003 12:35
Kuwaitis party on frontline farm as war breaks out

By Michael Georgy

KUWAIT/IRAQ BORDER, March 20 (Reuters) - A group of wealthy Kuwaitis celebrated what they hope will be Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's downfall by partying through the night at a farm on the Iraqi border.

Over jam sandwiches and warm camel milk, they began a nightlong vigil from their luxury frontline lookout as the countdown to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq ticked closer.

"Saddam will crack under the pressure of the bombs," said one of the guests.

Twelve years after Iraqi troops invaded this tiny Gulf state, Kuwaiti hopes are running high that Saddam will finally fall.

Most citizens of the tiny Gulf state are sitting out the war at their homes in Kuwait City, about 120 km (80 miles) south of the border. Some have left the country.

But a few hardier souls drove north through checkpoints for a surreal night out at the farm, located in a closed military zone.

Dressed in flowing white robes and chequered headdresses, friends gathered for a "diwaniya", a centuries-old traditional informal gathering.

Sipping syrupy tea under a full moon obscured by a gritty sandstorm, they listened for the sound of action while munching snacks. For most of the night, the groaning of the farm's camels was the loudest sound that could be heard.

"They are going to blast Saddam," said Mutlaaq al-Mutairi, who entertained the gathering with bawdy impersonations of the Iraqi leader rallying his troops.

Those gathered share bitter memories of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

As the deadline for the U.S. ultimatum neared, they gathered nervously around the satellite television, flicking through Arabic channels and twirling prayer beads, hoping that U.S.-led forces would secure a swift victory in Iraq.

Some wondered whether Saddam would fire his alleged chemical weapons at Kuwait, while others predicted all of the region's problems would end once the Iraqi leader was ousted.

If the heated rumours and speculation were not enough, a barrage of telephone text messages from other friends fuelled the speculation.

Outside, desert winds whipped across an empty road leading to a hole carved in a sandwall, a reminder that U.S. tanks would soon rumble across the border towards Iraq.

After artillery fire rumbled across the desert as dawn broke, and Saddam delivered a televised speech wearing a military beret, the Kuwaitis hurled insults at the Iraqi leader.

"Actually Saddam is here in Kuwait. He is in the farm next door," said one of the men. "The neighbours named the dog Saddam."