[Alandriel (OP)]

..... that is......... gross!!!

LOL


But some (many!) oddities are definitely man's doing. Just have a look at these laws




- Minnesota:  It is illegal to mock skunks.

- Ohio:  It is illegal to sell beer while wearing a Santa Claus suit, even if you are a dog.

- Seattle, Washington:= It is illegal to sell lollipops. Suckers are fine.

- Virginia:  All bathtubs must be outside, not in the house.

- Toronto, Canada: It is illegal to ride a streetcar on Sunday after eating garlic.

- Arizona:  It is illegal to hunt camels.

- Kentucky:  It is illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your pocket.

- Christiansburg, Virginia: It is illegal to spit. (China is trying to make that legislation stick too)

- Texas: It is illegal to milk another person's cow (but it's ok to ride it)




And some more from the UK




- No cows may be driven down the roadway between 10 AM and 7 PM unless there is prior approval from the Commissioner of Police.

- Since 1313, MPs are not allowed to don armor in Parliament.

- With the exception of carrots, most goods may not be sold on Sunday.

- All English males over the age 14 are to carry out 2 or so hours of longbow practice a week supervised by the local clergy. get to it then, lads   []   

- London Hackney Carriages (taxis/cabs) must carry a bale of hay and a sack of oats.

- Any person found breaking a boiled egg at the sharp end will be sentenced to 24 hours in the village stocks (enacted by Edward VI).

- Picking up abandoned baggage is an act of terrorism


watch it    [] []

[JimBob]

Alaskan?

These are the state flowers of TEXAS !!!!

They are Bluebonnets - but then they are lupines as well

ALASKA

Oh, I guess these are sort of purple.....

BELOW ARE REAL BLUEBONNETS - F.Y.I. - those are cows in the background. We have a lot of them here in Texas.



Bluebonnets
Scientific Name: (Lupinus texensis)
Definition: Bluebonnets, the official state flower, blanket large portions of the state in early spring. Their peak blooming season is in late March and early April. Bluebonnets depend on abundant winter rains and warm spring weather.

They are part of the Blancoan Flora and Fauna left over from the last glacial age coolness here in Texas ~ 15,000 YA. NOW THERE IS A LITTLE KNOWN FACT !

[Alandriel (OP)]

it's just a flower........



here's are some


Daffodils - the national flower of Wales

Here we have, to be precise,  Narcissus obvallaris, a species only growing wild around Tenby.
In Wales it is traditional to wear a daffodil on Saint David's Day (March 1).

The Egyptians used bunches of the flowers in funeral wreaths, and the Romans raised the plants in greenhouses for the decoration of patrician homes and to add grace to banquets.
The name Narcissus is from the Greek narkissos, which was derived from narkao, meaning to be stupefied. The inspiration for the name is thought to come from the poisonous or narcotic effects of the bulbs -- or from the myth about a boy of the same name who drowned while stupefied with admiration of his own reflection in water. Take your pick.
 

[Bored chemist]

In fairness, this law " London Hackney Carriages (taxis/cabs) must carry a bale of hay and a sack of oats" made perfectly good sense when it was drawn up. What else were you suposed to feed the horse with?
 

[kdlynn]

ok... so i can see why we ohioans don't want santa sellin beer... but a dog santa selling beer? now how did that become part of that law i wonder? lol

[Karen W.]

Alaskan?

These are the state flowers of TEXAS !!!!

They are Bluebonnets - but then they are lupines as well

ALASKA

Oh, I guess these are sort of purple.....

BELOW ARE REAL BLUEBONNETS - F.Y.I. - those are cows in the background. We have a lot of them here in Texas.



Bluebonnets
Scientific Name: (Lupinus texensis)
Definition: Bluebonnets, the official state flower, blanket large portions of the state in early spring. Their peak blooming season is in late March and early April. Bluebonnets depend on abundant winter rains and warm spring weather.

They are part of the Blancoan Flora and Fauna left over from the last glacial age coolness here in Texas ~ 15,000 YA. NOW THERE IS A LITTLE KNOWN FACT !

Yes indeed I know them as Lupins also! We have tons of them wild around here I love the them ..

[Bass]

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.

"Almost" is the longest word in the English language are in which all the letters in alphabetical order.

There is a city called Rome on every continent.

Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.

[JimBob]

Did you know I have my own space station? (between my ears)

Until the nineteenth century, solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia!

A car uses 1.6 ounces of gas idling for one minute. Half an ounce is used to start the average automobile!

[Alandriel (OP)]

randomness rules..... [^]



The Eiffel Tower stands 6 inches taller in the summer, than it does in the winter because steel has the ability to expand and contract depending on the temperature.


The second biggest reason for beaver's deaths is by being crushed by the trees they chop down.


The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable".



The Largest Iceberg ever was sighted in the South Pacific Ocean in 1956. It was about the same size as Belgium.




.... and with that happy thought I wish you happy holidays
*this* penguin is over and out till after the New Year

[Karen W.]

Happy Holidays Alandriel!

The only food that does not spoil is Honey!

[Alandriel (OP)]

.... and dates  []

and no, I'm not really here, I'm a fiction of your immagination.
Life's gone a bit pear shaped.... sorry for the long absence



Cats, camels and giraffes are the only animals in the world that walk right foot, right foot, left foot, left foot, rather than right foot, left foot.  yeah.... you dizzy now too?


At 40 Centigrade a person loses about 14.4 calories per hour by breathing.  There you go. No need to diet, just book a desert trip[/i]


Offered a new pen to write with, 97% of all people will write their own name.  Now that you know, do the unusual next time - write some graffiti[/size]


.... and one for the boys....


Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave. And so do eggs - now don't be nasty to Mom!Or at the very least use one of those lid-thingies[/size]

 []Happy Tuesday

[Karen W.]

Nice to see you Alandriel.. Interesting facts.. I can't remember but I think if you pierce the egg with a couple needles it won't explode but I will have to recheck my moms notes.. she was an expert microwaver.. LOL She took many many microwave cooking classes! HEE HEE..

[Bored chemist]

"The only food that does not spoil is Honey!"
Sugar?, salt?
"There is a city called Rome on every continent."
I wasn't aware that Antarctica had any cities, called Rome, or otherwise.

[paul.fr]

.... and one for the boys....


Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave. And so do eggs - now don't be nasty to Mom!Or at the very least use one of those lid-thingies[/size]

Not quite, a grape may or may not explode. It depends on how the grape is placed in the microwave and if anything is done to the grape. This should not be done by anyone not knowing what they are doing or why things happen.

What you are doing is creating a bright burning plasma, which is very hot and has the potential to damage the oven and person watching, not to mention possible health risk due to ionised o3.

As for the egg, just pri,ck a hole with a needle. I think there are numerous ways to cook eggs without them exploding in the microwave.

Cats, camels and giraffes are the only animals in the world that walk right foot, right foot, left foot, left foot, rather than right foot, left foot.  yeah.... you dizzy now too?

what about humans?

[Karen W.]

Humans don't have two sets of feet! They have to walk right left where as those animals have two left feet and two right feet. so it is back left and right left then front right and back right! something like that!

[paul.fr]

ever seen a drunk on walk?

[Karen W.]

Yep Lots of them! LOL! You mean on a crawl don't you... usually on the way to the loo to visit the porcelain GOD!!

[Alandriel (OP)]

Thanks Karen. Hope you're well. It's nice to be back and a bit more in the swing of things again. I just hope it will last a while

Not quite, a grape may or may not explode. It depends ....

That's the magic. It always depends  []

Sugar?, salt?

Yep - you're very right of course.
But you see, as a 'foodie' I don't consider salt and sugar foods, I consider them ingredients only  [)]

... and since you hark back on Rome and the Romans, that just brings *this* to mind .....



THE IMPORTANCE AND FAR REACHING CONSEQUENCES OF HORSES BACKSIDES  

yes - that's right, just read on....




The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.


That's an exceedingly odd number.


Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.


Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.


Why did "they" use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.


Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.


So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.


And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.


Bureaucracies live forever.
 []




So the next time you are handed a Specification/ Procedure/ Process and wonder "What horse's ass came up with it?" you may be exactly right.   Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)


Now, the twist to the story: 


When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains.   And the SRBS had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.


So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important?


Ancient horse's asses control almost everything.... and CURRENT Horse's Asses are controlling almost everything else!!





YAY !  []

[Vcoolspice]

Here are ten very weird science facts that you never knew about. (Some are disturbing Beware!!!)

1.) You can Hypnotize Chickens

A chicken can be hypnotized, or put into a trance by holding its head down against the ground, and continuously drawing a line along the ground with a stick or a finger, starting at its beak and extending straight outward in front of the chicken.

If the chicken is hypnotized in this manner, it will remain immobile for somewhere between 15 seconds to 30 minutes, continuing to stare at the line.

2.) You can have an erection once you're dead
A death erection (sometimes referred to as "angel lust") is a post-mortem erection which occurs when a male individual dies vertically or face-down – the cadaver remaining in this position. During life, the pumping of blood by the heart ensures a relatively even distribution around the blood vessels of the human body. Once this mechanism has ended, only the force of gravity acts upon the blood. As with any mass, the blood settles at the lowest point of the body and causes edema or swelling to occur; the discoloration caused by this is called lividity. Sorry, no photo for this one!

3.) Your hand can have a life of it's own

Alien hand syndrome (or Dr. Strangelove syndrome) is an unusual neurological disorder in which one of the sufferer's hands seems to take on a life of its own.

AHS is best documented in cases where a person has had the two hemispheres of their brain surgically separated, a procedure sometimes used to relieve the symptoms of extreme cases of epilepsy. It also occurs in some cases after other brain surgery, strokes, or infections. The HAND is after you!

4.) Don't laugh too much, it can kill you
Fatal hilarity is death as a result of laughter. In the third century B.C. the Greek philosopher Chrysippus died of laughter after seeing a donkey eating figs (hey, it wasn't THAT funny).

On 24 March 1975 Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King's Lynn, England, literally died laughing while watching an episode of The Goodies. According to his wife, who was a witness, Mitchell was unable to stop laughing whilst watching a sketch in the episode "Kung Fu Kapers" in which Tim Brooke-Taylor, dressed as a kilted Scotsman, used a set of bagpipes to defend himself from a psychopathic black pudding in a demonstration of the Scottish martial art of "Hoots-Toot-ochaye". After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and expired from heart failure. His widow later sent the Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell's final moments so pleasant.



5.) A weapon could make you Gay
Gay bomb is an informal name for a potential non-lethal chemical weapon, which a U.S. Air Force research laboratory speculated about producing.

In one sentence of the document it was suggested that a strong aphrodisiac could be dropped on enemy troops, ideally one which would also cause "homosexual behaviour". So that's how they got Saddam!

6.) It's true, Men can breastfeed
The phenomenon of male lactation in humans has become more common in recent years due to the use of medications that stimulate a human male's mammary glands.

Male lactation is most commonly caused by hormonal treatments given to men suffering from prostate cancer. It is also possible for males (and females) to induce lactation through constant massage and simulated 'sucking' of the nipple over a long period of time (months).

7.) Bart Simpson's Tomacco (half tomato, half tobacco) was possible
A tomacco is originally a fictional hybrid fruit that is half tomato and half tobacco, from the 1999 episode "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)" of The Simpsons; the method used to create the tomacco in the episode is fictional.

The tomacco became real when it was allegedly produced in 2003. Inspired by The Simpsons, Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon successfully grafted a tomato plant onto the roots of a tobacco plant, which was possible because both plants come from the same family.

8.) It's OK to have a third nipple
A supernumerary nipple (also known as a third nipple) is an additional nipple occurring in mammals including humans. Often mistaken for moles, supernumerary nipples are diagnosed at a rate of 2% in females, less in males. The nipples appear along the two vertical "milk lines" which start in the armpit on each side, run down through the typical nipples and end at the groin. They are classified into eight levels of completeness from a simple patch of hair to a milk-bearing breast in miniature.

9.) You can die on the Toilet
There are many toilet-related injuries and some toilet-related deaths throughout history and in urban legends.

In young boys, one of the most common causes of genital injury is when the toilet seat falls down while using the toilet.

George II of Great Britain died on the toilet on 25 October 1760 from an aortic dissection. According to Horace Walpole's memoirs, King George "rose as usual at six, and drank his chocolate; for all his actions were invariably methodic. A quarter after seven he went into a little closet. His German valet de chambre in waiting heard a noise, and running in, found the King dead on the floor."

10.) Picking one's nose and eating it might be healthy

Mucophagy (literally mucus-eating, also referred as picking one's nose and eating it) is the consumption of the nasal mucus, boogers, and other detritus obtained from nose-picking.

Some research suggests that mucophagy may be a natural and even healthy activity, which exposes the digestive system to bacteria accumulated in the mucus, thereby helping to strengthen the immune system.

[Andrew K Fletcher]

More Laws from Rip Off Britain

It is illegal to smoke in a pub or club but perfectly legal for the law makers to smoke in the House of Commons.

It is illegal to drive into London without paying Pay as You Go Tax

It is illegal to own a television without Paying BBC Television Tax even if you don't watch their utter garbage.

Margaret Milk Snatcher Thatcher sold the most basic life giving free and abundant resource (Water)Which she nor the government owned to Private Water Companies who now charge more for water than any other country in the world. Britain is surrounded by water, deluged by water, impregnated by water and has river, streams and brooks like veins running through every part of the land. Yet these money making cartels are incompetent enough to Poison people Living in Corwall by emptying Aluminium waste into Camelfords Drinking Water causing agonising long lasting life threatening complications for the residents who had the misfortune to drink water from their taps. (Once A perfectly normal thing to do)And to add insult to injury, we frequently have hosepipe bans while the shareholders of these Rip Off Companies give themselves a coronary while gorging themselves on the pockets of the downtrodden and once Great British Public.