Prince takes staff down a peg
19 November 2004
SERVANTS these days just do not know their place, according to Prince Charles. He blames the modern education system and the scourge he condemns as "social utopianism".
COME BACK ...
trying to bridge the gap ....
" LIFE ON PLANET CHARLES "
Microsoft's Gates Is World's Most 'Spammed' Person
Nov 18, 9:49 AM (ET)
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - E-mail users inundated with unsolicited "spam" messages have reason to hope Microsoft Corp. will develop better tools for tackling the problem: Bill Gates is suffering more than anyone.
Gates, Microsoft's chairman, gets 4 million e-mails a day and is probably the most "spammed" person in the world, his Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said Thursday.
However, only a few junk e-mails gets through to Gates's inbox thanks to anti-spam technology that filters his messages, Ballmer said at a Microsoft event in Singapore.
Spam e-mails touting everything from aphrodisiacs to home loans are believed to account for over 80 percent of Internet traffic.
msolga wrote:SCoates wrote:Looks more like Madonna to me.
The OTHER Madonna
Could you please explain this mystifying comment, SCoates? Like, what does this mean?
Thank you, Lady J! Some one has to do this job till CM returns! :wink:
Should our dear Col Man not return very shortly, I'm afraid I'm just going to have to continue with these little oddity stories .... but there's nothing stopping the rest of you posting in the same spirit!
I was commenting on the grilled cheese. It looks more like Madonna, the singer.
That's funny. I even wrote Bill Gates once, and told him that if he sent me a check for lots of money, I just might send him one too.
He didn't fall for it.
Thanks for explaining that, Scoates.
And thanks for posting, hamburger! It takes a lot of us to perform the Col Man function!
Any sightings yet, by the way?
No sightings, but apparently in Sydney the earth moved:
Ground 'Moves' as Cane Toads Invade Park
Nov 19, 9:21 AM (ET)
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of poisonous baby cane toads invaded an Australian national park Friday, hopping around in such numbers that the ground seemed to move, an ecologist said.
The ugly amphibians moved into the Arakwal National Park near one of the country's famous surfing meccas, Byron Bay, following an explosion in toad numbers after recent rains.
"You should see the ground down there, it is just black and it is just moving, it is a seething mass of young cane toads, it looks like the ground is moving," local ecologist Steve Phillips told Australian radio.
Park officials plan to destroy as many of the toads as possible before they grow into adults, hoping that once numbers are reduced the threatened wallum froglet and wallum sedge frog populations will pick up.
Cane toads are one of Australia's worst environmental pests.
They were introduced to Australia from Hawaii in 1935 to stop the French Cane Beetle and Greyback Cane Beetle from destroying sugar cane crops in the northeastern state of Queensland.
The biological warfare experiment backfired as the beetles could fly and escape being killed.
The toads thrived, meanwhile, and quickly multiplied.
With females laying up to 35,000 eggs a year, the amphibians -- some as big as dinner plates -- have now spread out from Queensland west into the Northern Territory and south into New South Wales, threatening the unique Australian fauna in their path.
While cane toads will eat anything and appear easy prey for larger animals, they possess highly poisonous sacs behind their heads which kill predators quickly.
<I mean really...maybe it was 1935, but what were they thinking??>
cavfancier wrote:..Cane toads are one of Australia's worst environmental pests.
They were introduced to Australia from Hawaii in 1935 to stop the French Cane Beetle and Greyback Cane Beetle from destroying sugar cane crops in the northeastern state of Queensland.
The biological warfare experiment backfired as the beetles could fly and escape being killed.
The toads thrived, meanwhile, and quickly multiplied.
With females laying up to 35,000 eggs a year, the amphibians -- some as big as dinner plates -- have now spread out from Queensland west into the Northern Territory and south into New South Wales, threatening the unique Australian fauna in their path.
While cane toads will eat anything and appear easy prey for larger animals, they possess highly poisonous sacs behind their heads which kill predators quickly.
<I mean really...maybe it was 1935, but what were they thinking??>
They were STOOPID, Cav! Wouldn't you just love to know the names of the folk responsible?
In the meantime, should we be concerned about margo & Mr Stillwater's safety? Should they evacuate before the big cane toad invasion of Sydney?
I think they'll be okay, msolga. I have a vision of the normally abrasive Stilly tromping over the toads to rescue a completely capable margo and her cats, and margo yelling "I can take care of myself" but somehow it all works out in the end, and they escape the evil toads with ease. I believe I referred to Stillwater AS a cane toad, so he knows their ways. I may change my mind. Maybe he's more of a funnel-web spider.
Oh, I love the idea of Stilly attempting to rescue margo from marauding cane toads! That's hilarious, cav!
This cements my views about Australia, even the frogs 'll kill yaa.
These aren't your ordinary, run of the mill frogs, famerman!
Colonel's ketchup scam
November 22, 2004
An Indian army colonel claimed a gallantry medal after pouring tomato ketchup on civilians and passing them off as slain militants.
Colonel H.S. Kohli, in charge of an artillery regiment in north-eastern India, was dismissed after a court martial over the fake gunfight, the Hindustan Times newspaper quoted army officials as saying.
The army said Kohli and a major paid two civilians to pose as dead militants in the insurgency-hit state of Assam in 2003.
They splashed them with ketchup, took photographs and claimed a bravery award.
The fraud was discovered when Kohli's gallantry award claim was being processed, the report said.
Kohli was the first army officer to be dismissed for a fabrication of this nature. He was suspended for five years.
Army officials said there was a need to review the policy of evaluating officers on the basis of the number of terrorists they capture or kill.
DPA
They aren't frogs at all, they're toads. I expect farmerman was referring to the French.
They will kill you, well, plan to kill you, then surrender.
yeh but you cant hardly find a place to safely sit down with the funnel webs and taipans and brown snakes and jellyfish that give you less than 10 seconds to live and 70 foot crocs, and now frogs . Jeezus, how do you guys have a picnic? do you carry antivenins with you when you go shopping?
THIS MUST BE DONE IN DIALECT
QUARTERMASTER-Manmohaann, do you not think that we are having an inordinattely high requisition for Ketchup in ASSAM?
LEFT TENANT-Yes sir , I am standing here beside myself trying to figure out where all this ketchup is going
QUARTEMASTER-manmohaan, You will also look into the increased requisittions for medals of bravery . I am thinking that these seemingly unrelated requisitions are riding their horses together.
LEFT TENANT-Sir
We're just very tough & very brave, farmerman. And most of us live in cities. :wink:
