Subject: Daily Dose - 070513 - epiphany, THIS is TRUE, history lesson, DDL, Rotten News

I watched an ant climb a blade of grass this morning. When he reached the top, his weight bent the blade down to the ground. Then, twisting his thorax with insectile precision, he grabbed a hold of the next blade.

In this manner, he traveled across the lawn, covering as much distance vertically as he did horizontally, which both amused and delighted me.

And then, all at once, I had what is sometimes called an "epiphany"; a moment of heightened awareness in which everything becomes crystal clear.

Yes, hunched over that ant on my hands and knees, I suddenly knew what I had to do... Quit drinking before noon.

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THIS is TRUE...

BETTER OFF RETIRED: Frank Cappel is 81 years old, but that doesn't keep him from being a security guard at the Tanning Research Laboratories in Ormond Beach, Fla. He was just getting off duty when a woman crashed her car into a pond, and Cappel ran to help. Witnesses were shouting at the woman to get out of the car before it sank, but "She was right on the edge of being hysterical," Cappel said. Sinceno one else was doing anything, he jumped in and pulled her out before it was too late. "I was glad I could help that woman," who was an employee of Hawaiian Tropic, the suntan lotion company that runs the lab. "He's an amazing guy," said the company's admiring owner, Ron Rice. "We bought him a steak dinner and left it for him at the plant." (Daytona Beach News-Journal)
...Reward, or punishment -- you be the judge.

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BETTER OFF WALKING: When Calvin McDonald pulled into the Suffolk County, N.Y., jail to visit a friend, the officer at the security booth asked for his driver's license for identification. "I have no license," McDonald said. "It's suspended." The officer, who apparently saw him driving, asked, "It's suspended?" McDonald replied, "Yeah. A lot." A check found that was true: he had 31 suspensions on his record. He was arrested on charges of driving without a license. A check of his passenger, Donnitta Coffey, 21, turned up a warrant -- for "aggravated unlicensed operation of a vehicle." (New York Newsday)
...Suspend their driver's licenses again -- surely that'll teach them.

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BETTER OFF DEAD: Robert Hudson, 72, and Neal Shafer, 56, both lived in a hotel in Akron, Ohio. The two men got in a fight over Shafer refusing to move his car, which was parked in front of the hotel, so the city snow plow could clear the street in that spot. The fight got physical: Hudson was treated at a hospital for a split lip and a punch in the eye. When he got out they fought again, and Shafer went to the hospital with a laceration to his nose. When he got out they fought again -- and this time, police say, Hudson stabbed Shafer to death. He has been charged with murder. The car is still parked in front of the hotel. (Akron Beacon Journal)
...The car is still there? Then the dead guy won.

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BETTER OFF AT K-MART: John Page, 41, was shopping for potted plants at a Wal-Mart store in Rockledge, Fla., when he was bitten by a rattlesnake. Page says Wal-Mart should do more to protect customers from such freak occurrences: his attorney found seven cases of snake bites at Wal-Marts nationwide over the past 20 years. "What I would like is to have Wal-Mart acknowledge this is an ongoing travesty," he said at a news conference called by his attorney. "When the floor is wet, they put up a cone [saying] that it's slippery and to use caution," he said. "But there are no signs trying to prevent this from happening again." (Orlando Sentinel)
...They tried that, but the darned snakes just ignored the signs.

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BETTER NOT MOVE! "German Police Rescue 91-year-old Man Glued to Roof"
-- Reuters headline

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The teacher was giving her class of seven-year-olds a natural history lesson.

"Worker ants," she told them, "can carry pieces of food five times their own weight. What do you conclude from that?"

One child was ready with an answer: "They don't have a union."

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DDL

A fellow who lived on the Rhine,
Saw some fish on which he wished to dine.
But how to invite them?
He said, "I will write them!"
He sat down and dropped them a line.

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"I thought it would be nice to get a job at a duty-free shop, but it doesn't sound like there's a while lot to do in a place like that."
--George Carlin

***

"What insight could you possibly hope to gain from a man whose I.Q. wouldn't make a respectable earthquake?"
--Diane Chambers (Shelley Long), CHEERS

***

"The whole reason you watch a TV show is because it ends. If I wanted a long, boring story with no point to it, I've got my life."
--Jerry Seinfeld

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"[Bush] was working on some trade issues down there. We have a big dispute with Canada about tariffs on softwoods. I don't know what softwoods are, but I know they were never a problem when Clinton was president."
--Bill Maher

***

"It's been rainy and windy here in New York City. And I hate that here because everywhere you go there's that wet King Kong smell."
--David Letterman

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Rotten News....  (true)

Group Knits Sweaters For Dolphins

POSTED: 2:29 pm EST March 1, 2007

BREMERTON, Wash. -- Sweaters for dolphins?

Some people in Washington state are knitting hats, mittens and sweaters for dolphins.

It's their way of needling the U.S. Navy.

The knitters are protesting the Navy's plans to use dolphins from warm San Diego to guard a Trident submarine base in cold Washington.

The Navy insists the dolphins won't get the chills.

Officials said the animals will patrol for only two hours apiece before returning to their heated enclosures.

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March 1, 2007 

Police dog a college graduate?

FOSTORIA, Ohio (AP) - The city's police chief and police dog have degrees from the same online school, according to a defence lawyer challenging the chief's authority.

The issue gives "one pause, if not paws, for concern" about what it takes to get a degree from the school, based in the Caribbean, Gene Murray wrote Monday in a motion seeking to have the dog introduced as evidence. Chief John McGuire and Rocko - listed as John I. Rocko on his diploma - are graduates of Concordia College and University, according to copies of diplomas that are part of Murray's motion.

Murray did not say how he knows the criminal justice degree is for the dog or how Rocko supposedly enrolled in the college.

No one immediately responded to an e-mail sent by The Associated Press to an address on the college's website, which did not appear to list a phone number.

Dean Henry, McGuire's lawyer, said the department had the dog before McGuire was hired.

"My client had absolutely nothing to do with any animal getting a degree from an institution of higher learning," Henry said. "The whole thing is bizarre."

Murray argues that a drug charge against his client should be dismissed because McGuire was not legally employed and had no authority as an officer.

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Children in India cheaper than buffaloes: report

Tue Apr 3, 2007 10:23AM EDT

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Traffickers are selling children in India for amounts that are often lower than the cost of animals and most of them end up working as laborers or commercial sex workers, activists said on Tuesday.

"Children are purchased like buffaloes," said Bhuvan Ribhu of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement), quoting a study that is due to be released later this year.

"While buffaloes may cost up to 15,000 rupees ($350), children are sold at prices between 500 and 2,000 rupees ($12 and $45)," he told Reuters.

For instance, two brothers in Bihar were recently given away for 250 rupees ($6) each by their parents and trafficked out of the state in connivance with police, Ribhu said.

The group estimates that children account for 40 to 50 percent of all victims of human trafficking. They are sold to work as domestic laborers, or in the carpet industry, on farms or as commercial sex workers.

The traffickers-police connection was so strong in some parts of the country that traffickers scout freely and children rescued from brothels and bonded labor were often victims again, he said.

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Artists erect giant pink bunny on mountain

An enormous pink bunny has been erected on an Italian mountainside where it will stay for the next 20 years.

The 200-foot-long toy rabbit lies on the side of the 5,000 foot high Colletto Fava mountain in northern Italy's Piedmont region.

Viennese art group Gelatin designed the giant soft toy and say it was "knitted by dozens of grannies out of pink wool".

Group member Wolfgang Gantner said: "It's supposed to make you feel small, like Gulliver. You walk around it and you can't help but smile."

And Gelatin members say the bunny is not just for walking around - they are expecting hikers to climb its 20 foot sides and relax on its belly.

The giant rabbit is expected to remain on the mountain side until 2025.