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UMS Guest
Posts: 1938
   
Location: United Kingdom | Interesting Facts And Figures
- Gold is the only metal that does not rust, even if it is buried in the ground for thousands of years.
- Glass takes one million years to decompose. This means it never wears out and it can be recycled an infinite amount of times!
- The tongue is the only muscle in our body that is attached at only one end.
- When our body becomes dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off. So, if you ever stop getting thirsty, you need to get some water quickly and drink it.
- Zero is the only number that does not exist in Roman numerals.
- Kites were used in the American Civil War to deliver letters and newspapers.
- The song, Auld Lang Syne, is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the new year.
- Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by sixty-one percent.
- Peanut oil is used for cooking in submarines because it doesn’t smoke until it is heated above 450 degrees Fahrenheit or 232 degrees Celsius.
- The roar we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the sound of the ocean, but that of our blood surging through the veins in our ear.
- Nine out of every ten living things of the Earth are found in our oceans.
- The banana cannot reproduce itself. It can only be propagated manually.
- Airports at higher altitudes require longer airstrips because of the lower air density in these places.
- The University of Alaska spans four time zones.
- The tooth is the only part of the human body that cannot heal itself.
- In ancient Greece, tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage. If a girl caught it, she accepted.
- Warner Communications paid twenty-eight million dollars for the copyright of the song Happy Birthday.
- Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair than less gifted ones.
- A comet’s tail always points away from the Sun.
- The Swine Flu vaccine in 1976 caused more death and illness than the disease it was intended to prevent. I find this hardly surprising. Recommended Reading: ‘Reflections On The Swine Flu’
- Caffeine increases the effects of aspirin and other painkillers. That’s why it is found in some medicines.
- The military salute is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armour raised their visors to reveal their identity to each other.
- If you climbed into the bottom of a well or a tall chimney and looked up, you would be able to see see stars, even in the middle of the day.
- When a person dies, hearing is the last sense to go. The first one is sight.
- In ancient times strangers shook hands to prove to each other that they were unarmed.
- Strawberries are the only fruits whose seeds grow on the outside.
- Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at one hundred and sixty-seven calories per hundred grams.
- The Moon moves about two inches away from the Earth each year.
- The Earth gets one hundred tons heavier every day because of space dust falling onto it.
- Because of Earth’s gravity it is impossible for mountains to be higher than 15,000 meters.
- Mickey Mouse is called Topolino in Italy.
- Soldiers do not march in step when going across bridges because this could set up a vibration that could be sufficient to knock the bridge down.
- Everything weighs one percent less at the equator.
- For every extra kilogram carried on a space flight, 530 kg of excess fuel are needed at lift-off.
- The letter J does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements.
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Edited by Aquarius 10/29/2014 2:02 PM
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Veteran
Posts: 205
Location: Republic of Cascadia http://zapatopi.net/cascadia/ | Warning! I am coming down there, kids! lulz Actually I am headed further south to do some classified stuff... Well, it has something to do with Apples I heard...
Edited by alpha+omega 11/7/2014 9:45 PM
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UMS Guest
Posts: 1938
Location: United Kingdom | The True Story Of Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer Depressed and broken-hearted, a man named Bob May one chilling December night sat staring from his drafty apartment window. His four year old daughter Barbara sat on his lap and was quietly sobbing. Her mother, Evelyn, was in hospital dying of cancer and the little girl couldn’t understand why she would never come home again. Looking up into her Dad’s eyes she asked: ‘Why isn’t my mummy like everybody else’s? Why can’t she be here with us?’
Bob’s jaw tightened and his eyes were welling with tears. Barbara’s question flooded him with waves of grief and also of anger. It had been the story of Bob’s life that he was different and never fitted in anywhere. As a child he had often been bullied by the other boys. He was too small to compete in sports and his companions often called him names he would rather forget.
He completed college, found a loving wife and was grateful to get a job as a copywriter at Montgomery Ward during the Great Depression. Then the Universe blessed their loving union with a little girl. But their happiness was going to be short-lived. Evelyn’s cancer had stripped them of all their savings, so that Bob and his daughter had to take refuge in a two-room apartment in the Chicago slums.
Evelyn died just days before Christmas in 1938. Bob struggled to give hope to his child, although he couldn’t even afford to buy her a Christmas gift. Well, if he couldn’t buy a gift he was jolly well going to make one and the idea for a storybook came to him about an animal character, whose story he told Barbara to comfort her and give her hope. Time and again, Bob told her the tale and with each telling he embellished it a bit more.
Who was the character and what was the story all about? In fable form Bob told the story of his own life – it was an autobiography. It’s main character was a small reindeer with a big and shiny nose which made it a misfit and an outcast, just like Bob had always been. The book was finished just in time for Christmas and he presented it to his little girl.
However, our story doesn’t end there. Somehow the general manager of Montgomery Ward got to know about Bob’s story and offered him a nominal fee to purchase the rights for printing it in book form. They called the book ‘Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ and it was handed out to the children who came visiting Santa Claus in their stores. By 1946 Wards had printed and distributed more than six million copies of this book.
That same year, a major publisher wanted to purchase the rights from Wards to print an updated version of the book. In an unprecedented gesture of kindness, the CEO of Wards returned all rights to Bob May and the book became a best seller.
Many toy and marketing deals followed and Bob May, now remarried with a growing family, became wealthy from the story he had once created to comfort his grieving daughter.
And still the story doesn’t end with this. Bob’s brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, wrote a song about Rudolph. In spite of the fact that it was turned down by singers like Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore, the singing cowboy, Gene Autry, performed the song ‘Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer’. It was released in 1949 and became a phenomenal success that sold more records than any other Christmas song, with the exception of ‘White Christmas.’
This is how the gift of love that Bob May once created for his daughter kept on coming back to him, to bless him over and over again. And this is how life itself taught Bob May the invaluable lesson that being different isn’t so bad after all and that for those who work with it and do the right thing, when their heart tells them to do so, their differentness can indeed turn into a great blessing.
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to each one of you.
Aquarius
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UMS Guest
Posts: 1938
Location: United Kingdom | The Wonderful Healing Qualities Of The Mistletoe
The name mistletoe was originally applied to Viscum album, the European mistletoe, of the family Santalaceae in the order Santalales, the only species native in Great Britain and much of Europe. European mistletoe is readily recognised by its smooth-edged oval evergreen leaves borne in pairs along the woody stem, and waxy white berries in dense clusters of two to six. It is a poisonous plant that causes acute gastrointestinal problems including stomach pain and diarrhoea along with low pulse. The genus Viscum is not native to North America, but Viscum album has been introduced to California.
Did you know that Iscador, the homeopathic preparation of mistletoe, is the most commonly prescribed oncological drug in Germany? Actually, according to Wikipedia some 60% of all oncological treatments in central Europe include some form of mistletoe. You probably didn’t know that. Any inconvenient truths are suppressed by the US medical mafia and their media allies. They cling here to the feeble obsession that the US way is the ‘only way’ and by inference, therefore the correct way. Of course this has more to do with protecting profits than any subsumed moral or scientific right. But it’s curious, isn’t it, that all humble and inexpensive treatments are ‘bad’, ‘unproven’ or even ‘dangerous’!
Iscador was originally introduced by German philosopher, educationalist and healer Rudolph Steiner (1861- 1925). Steiner went on to found a whole healing system called anthroposophic medicine, literally ‘human-loving’. Iscador is actually a lactobacillus-fermented extract of the European mistletoe plant, Viscum album and is available here in the USA, by prescription, as the drug Iscar. None of what is written here applies to the American mistletoe, Phoradendron serotinum (we just don’t know).
Mistletoe’s Colourful History
Do you know why we kiss under the mistletoe at Christmas? Millennia ago, in the days of the Druids in Europe, Yule was a highly celebrated event (it survives as our Christmas, which has nothing to do with Jesus’ supposed birthday). The drink and partying went on for days. So did the wild promiscuous sex! Mistletoe was the chosen contraceptive. A decoction of this sacred plant taken by women gave them a few days in which they could make whoopee, without the inconvenience of becoming pregnant. Fast forward 3,000 years or more and today we settle for a coy little kiss under a sprig of mistletoe. My, how times have changed!
Other Uses Of Mistletoe
Mistletoe has been known medicinally since the earliest times. The Druids were well aware of its fabulous healing properties and called it ‘All-Heal’. Mistletoe growing on oak trees was especially prized. A Bronze Age burial found in England contained a skeleton covered with oak branches and mistletoe. The two plants have been associated with one another and held sacred in Britain since prehistoric times. Mistletoe is very toxic and needs caution in use. It acts on the central nervous system: causing numbness, slowing of the heartbeat and is a specific against epilepsy: small doses stop spasms and convulsions. It is also prescribed as a diuretic, for high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries and chilblains. Definitely not recommended as a contraceptive, even if it does work!
Anti-Cancer Properties
The tumour-fighting possibilities of mistletoe have been known for centuries. As I reported, the use of mistletoe is still widespread in Europe, where it does not need to prove itself. Many cancer patients use natural supplements in conjunction with cytotoxic chemotherapy, but little is known about their potential interaction.
One survey showed that over 60% of all German cancer patients used mistletoe in some form, frequently in conjunction with standard cancer treatments such as radiation, chemotherapy, or surgery.
From the Alternative Doctor’s blog, where you can find out more about the mistletoe, as well as other alternative healing methods.
Please follow the link below:
‘The Alternative Doctor’
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Good tidings we bring to you and your kin.
Good tidings for Christmas and a Happy New Year.
To you and your loved ones.
Aquarius
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Edited by Aquarius 12/25/2014 7:29 AM
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The Public Awareness Thread
