Oddities and Humor

If some members had their way, I would stay away also.

Yeah, but lets not give them their way......☘️

I'm retired. I got no place to be, but here, lots of times.

I'm retired also Ed, we've outlasted a ton of insufferables....I'm not going anywhere.

Not humorous, but definitely odd.

Traces of Texas

On Sept. 15, 1896, two trains collided in a pre-arranged collision at a site three miles south of current-day West, Texas. The trains, moving at approximately 50 mph, were the main attraction at a publicity stunt created by a man named William George Crush, general passenger agent of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, who conceived the idea in order to demonstrate a staged train wreck as a public spectacle. No admission was charged, and train fares to the crash site were offered at the reduced rate of US$2 from any location in Texas. It is believed that 40,000 people showed up to witness the event, making it temporarily the second largest city in Texas. Things went horribly awry because the violence of the collision was far worse than anticipated. The boilers exploded, sending huge chunks of metal hurtling through the air. Two or three people were killed and many more wounded. Of of the wounded was the man who took this photograph at the moment of collision. He was a photographer named Jarvis Deane, and an instant after he snapped this photo, a bolt struck him in the eye, blinding him in that eye. For the rest of his life he was known as "One-eyed Deane."

Now that truly is the definition of a train wreck.

Traces of Texas
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The Texas quote of the Day is a good one. This comes from Poodie Locke, Willie Nelson's longtime road manager, and is describing a scene involving guns and shooting in the parking garage outside the Birmingham Coliseum (Alabama) in 1979. There's some cussing, so I edited it out:

“All of a sudden we hear ‘Kaboom! Kaboom! It’s the sound of a .357 magnum going off in the parking garage. The echoes sound like howitzer shells exploding. It’s kind of semi-dark, and this guy comes blowing through this parking deck. Now here comes this woman with a *#$*#@ pistol. ‘Kaboom!’ She’s chasing this #*$H#$#$&@!$*. It sounds like a war.”

At the time, Willie Nelson and most of his band and road crew carried pistols as a matter of habit. The scene became chaotic as the shooting happened right as the crowd from the show was filing out into the parking garage.

“People are piling out of the show and they start scattering,” Poodie continues. “Here come the cops from every direction. They’re flying out of their cars, hitting the parking deck, spread-eagling the whole crowd ’On the deck, #*$&@*&^$#%!@#! Because the cops don’t know who is shooting at who. All these cops are squatting down in the doorjambs, turning people over, frisking them, aiming guns at everybody, just waiting for the next shot to be fired.

And here comes Willie. He walks off the bus wearing cutoffs and tennis shoes, and he’s got two huge Colt .45 revolvers stuck in his waist. The barrels are so long they stick out the bottom of his cutoffs. Two shining #*$&#@*!*#&$%! pistols in plain sight of a bunch of cops nervous as can be. Willie just walks over and says, ‘What’s the trouble?’ Well he’s got some kind of aura to him that just cools everything out. The cops put up their guns, the people climb off the concrete, and pretty soon Willie is signing autographs.”

----- Poodie Locke talks about life on the road with Willie Nelson, "Willie: An Autobiography" with Bud Shrake

https://betterme.guru/10808-according-a-theory-people-rh-negative-blood-dont-earth/#?utm_source=0af8a584d3774826c0de977d5084a2b9&utm_campaign=partnership

People with rh negative blood are not of this Earth
>Please. It's science<

A well-known American researcher of paranormal phenomena, Brad Steiger noted an interesting feature: people who have a negative Rh-Negative blood are not quite ordinary. The fact is that, according to the laws of genetics, we can inherit only those properties that our ancestors possessed, if, of course, we are not talking about a mutation.

This means that if a man and a monkey have descended from one ancestor, then their blood should be compatible. However, all primates have Rh-Positive blood. It was also noted that the highest percentage of carriers of Rh-Negative blood, about 30%, is among Spanish Basques.

Their origin, by the way, is still a mystery. Also, Israeli Jews of Eastern origin, Samaritans and Ethiopian black Jews are among these thirty percent. The number of such people barely reaches 1% among other nations. Most mediums, healers, people with unusual mental abilities also have Rh-Negative blood.

As we know, there are only 4 blood groups. All of them differ in composition, or more precisely in the presence of various proteins in blood cells that fight bacteria in the body. Most people have these proteins, and they are Rh-Positive.

Why do some people have no such proteins? This is a mystery! Scientists believe that the first people on the Earth with a negative Rh factor appeared 35,000 years ago. How? No one knows. The most popular theory is precisely the extraterrestrial origin of the DNA of these people.

Here are some common characteristics for people with Rh-Negative blood:

- They have a higher IQ than Rh-Positive people;

READ MORE: 8 common signs that the body may be stressed

- Usually they have a lower body temperature than the rest;

- Mentally and emotionally, these people are much more stable;

- They often have red hair;

- They are very sensitive to heat and do not like the cold.

- Most often they have blue, green or light brown eyes.

It is known that it is impossible to clone people with Rh-Negative blood. Moreover, if a pregnant mother has Rh-Negative blood, the immune system of her body will attack the fetus, perceiving it as a foreign body. That's why such women are asked to take special medicines during pregnancy, which suppress immunity.

Why does their own body attack their own children? Why does it perceive them as strangers? This puzzle does not have a clear answer, but it definitely works in favor of the theory of the alien origin of such people

I have great faith in NASA.

Fifty Years in a Time Capsul

The article is pretty interesting but I have my concerns about the conclusions (alien origin). Not sure how or why they went that way. Also, I wonder about that business of not being able to clone the blood cells of Rh neg individuals.

Googling away..
OK, here's the excerpt that sheds some light on the subject:

"There are over 30 human blood group systems, out of which two are the major ones- ABO system and Rh system. A blood group system basically refers to a group of proteins (antigens) whose presence or absence on an erythrocyte (red blood cell) is used in classification of a person’s blood type. For e.g. If you have A antigen on your red blood cells, your blood type is A; if you have B antigen on your RBCs your blood type is B. If a person has both A and B antigens then his/her blood type is AB and absence of both means O blood type.

The Rh blood group system is used in addition to the ABO system as a suffix i.e. presence of Rh factor in an individual of A/B/AB/O blood type means that individual is A+/B+/AB+/O+. Absence of the Rh factor is denoted by A-/B-/AB-/O-.

The ‘Rh factor’ was first discovered around 1939 when Drs. Levine and Stenton first talked about hemolytic blood transfusion and hemolytic disease of the newborn. These terms refer to the agglutination reaction that occurs between Rh+ and Rh- blood types. Since the Rh factor had still not been recognized by then, the doctors conducted experiments and the results showed that the blood sample ( Rh-) showed agglutination reaction with more than 80% of the blood samples present. This study along with Landsteiner and Weiner’s in 1940 on rabbits immunized with RBCs of Rhesus monkeys was able to corroborate presence of a factor that was responsible for the agglutination reaction. Landsteiner and Weiner named this factor as Rhesus factor because of the se of RBCs of Rhesus monkeys.

Further studies on human blood cells and immunized rabbit blood cells revealed that the antigens found on human RBCs are serologically similar to the Rh factor in monkeys, but not identical. However, by then the name had stuck. Hence the term Rh factor was used to denote antigens while anti-Rh referred to antibodies against those antigens.

Naming of the Rh protein and genes associated with it proved to be more complicated. There are two nomenclature procedures that are most widely followed. The Fischer-Race nomenclature is on the basis of the hypothesis that 3 genes produce proteins for the blood group system and multiple proteins are involved in the CDE system where presence of D antigen gives Rh+ blood and absence of it ( d state) gives Rh- blood. Another system is the Weiner system which is based on the hypothesis that there is one gene producing multiple proteins. However, on analysis it was found that neither of these hypotheses is fully correct. Results of the study indicated that two genes are involved- a single gene-single protein system and a single gene- multiple protein system.

The structural difference between an Rh positive and an Rh negative individual is polymorphism of gene responsible for D antigen. As it was established, 2 genes are responsible for the Rh blood group system- one gene codes for D antigen and another codes for C, c, E, e proteins. The latter gene is present in all individuals irrespective of their phenotype.

The phenotypic differences arise due to polymorphism of the first gene or the RhD gene. The RhD gene is present in Rh + individuals and lacking in Rh- individuals. Mouro et al’s paper on the structure of the RhD polypeptide showed that the RhD mRNA gives rise to 417 AA polypeptide ( D antigen) with a molecular weight around 45500 Da. The Cc/Ee polypeptide is similar to the D polypeptide with variations in only 36 amino acids.

Scientists have successfully cloned the RhD gene and on studying the expression product it was found that the mRNA gave rise to RhD and RhCcEe proteins. The mRNA produced showed no relation to RhD negative individuals. Further attempts at cloning the RhD negative gene showed that though the RhCcEe gene can be cloned, it is unstable without the RhD gene and doesn’t survive. Due to the lack of success in cloning experiments and the need for RhD- blood, scientists have developed RhD- blood derived from animals and have even developed methods to convert Rh+ to Rh-."

That's why my article was placed in a humor thread. I didn't expect anybody to accept the conclusions.

Fanny pack, snigger.