http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26407576-5013016,00.html
Flatulent pig sparks gas leak fears
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November 26, 2009 11:00pm
A PIG with flatulence triggered a minor emergency near Bendigo this week when smells wafting from the 120kg porker sparked fears of a potentially dangerous gas leak.
Two Country Fire Authority tankers and 15 firefighters turned out in darkness to search the source of the leak at a property at Axedale, east of Bendigo. But the likely culprit was soon sniffed out, the pet sow startled from slumber in the dead of night."She got very excited when two trucks and 15 firies turned up and she squealed and farted and squealed and farted," said fire chief Peter Harkins.
"I haven't heard too many pigs fart but I would describe it as very full-on."
Mr Harkins said the family had done the right thing by calling 000 to report a suspected gas leak: "It's all bottled gas up here and a leaking cylinder could pose a major fire risk.
"It was because we took it so seriously that 15 volunteers still managed to attend the call out at 10.30 on Tuesday night."
Mr Harkins said the day had been both wet and warm, as well as slightly humid.
"Smells are always exacerbated in those conditions. We got to the property and we could smell a very strong odour in the vicinity.
"It didn't take us too long to work it out because we could both smell and hear her."
The pig, a family pet, was lying low yesterday, her embarrassed owners refusing media requests for a photograph of their porker.
She is believed to be a friendly and docile animal, a much loved children's pet, possibly in need of a change of diet.
Folks,
In flying, there's a condition called a stall where the airflow over the wings is so fragmented that the aircraft can no longer achieve lift.
In this situation, the aircraft will first yaw and if left uncorrected, will roll on its side and result very quickly in an autorotation, which is basically a spinning dive to the ground.
Methinks the Liberal Party is this morning somewhere between a late yaw and the start of a spinning dive. Just goes to show how shallow their talent pool is... and if Abbott does get the numbers next week, can you imagine HIM being the alternative PM of Australia? We're scraping up rotting road-kill here.
Ninja
So John Coates thinks it is un-Australian not to increase funding by $100 million to "elite sports". Well, as John Howard would say, can't get much more Australian (greatest Australian who ever lived I think Mr Howard believed) than Donald Bradman, who famously practiced his cricket by batting with a cricket stump instead of a bat and bouncing the tennis ball off a corrugated iron water tank. At very little cost indeed. And Keith Miller, arguably a greater cricketer than Bradman, used to famously turn up to play cricket after a night on the town. Herb Elliot ran barefoot up sandhills. Marjorie Jackson trained, in second hand running shoes, on a country grass oval lit by car headlights . Footballers used to work all week as garbage collectors. And ... well, you get the idea.
I think John Coates is so un-Australian that he doesn't understand Australians. He was going on about how the public would be disappointed if we didn't win everything, and, heaven forbid, slipped down the Olympic medal table to tenth, beaten, oh the shame, even by Britain. I don't reckon Australians really give a stuff about that, although whichever television network is showing the event, at enormous cost, will pretend that we do. And I don't think we are too impressed by the well known fact that you can, essentially, buy your medals - that the number of medals won is directly proportional to the money spent. Nor do I think we really like the idea that someone has won because they have had all the best equipment, best facilities, all the best coaching from overseas. Instead we like the idea of the battler from the bush who turns up with no running shoes and beats the rich kids. We really do, even now, in spite of all the propaganda from the Olympic Committee, support the underdogs. Remember the film Chariots of Fire? Change a few names, a few accents, and that could have been any rag tag bunch of Aussies turning up to take on the might of the Americans or East Germans. But that didn't mean we wanted to become Americans or East Germans, and that is where Mr Coates has got it wrong.
And then there are those other Ausssie battlers from the bush - the country hospitals with crumbling walls, the country schools ditto, the poor transport facilities, and, yes, indeed, the country sports ovals with no grass, and the pools with no water. There are so many things you could spend $100 million dollars a year on that didn't involve buying Olympic medals. Indeed, bearing in mind that this was just the EXTRA $100 million dollars that bitter tears were being shed over, how about we look at removing pretty much all the money from "elite sport" (a term itself an invention of people like Mr Coates in just the last few years, because elite sport of course must get elite money)?
Let's start a new program in the kind of country towns that produced Bradman and Jackson, let's try to develop elite hospitals, and elite schools, and elite railways, and elite ovals for local football clubs.
Say no to elite sport - elite sport is so un-Australian. Say hullo to battler sport.
You can't eat gold medals.
All David Horton's writing is on The Watermelon Blog.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Today's the day to be with family, stuff yourself senseless on turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and a variety of vegetables and desserts. Well, it's that day for all of you. As for me, I'm celebrating my success with 1/8 of a cup of cream of wheat this morning, and hoping I do all right with a spoonful or two of mashed potatoes and some mashed up turkey. But hey, 'tis the season to be thankful of everything that we have, so screw food. I'm all about family, because that's what matters most. ♥
Folks,
Been noticing a drop in my level of enthusiasm for flying lately... and it's because I can't find the time to get up there or the school hasn't got a slot for me. It's always one barrier or another that gets in the way.
But I have to keep watching this fella in the clip and I guess if he can persevere building his RV4 for a decade, I can wait a bit longer to earn my licence.
Ninja
Anyone come across this bug in Eudora? Write an email. Add bits. Click save. Send email.
Email that goes across is the version before the save.
I am so pissed off right now at Eudora, which has generally been reliable, but this was an important op–ed sent to The Dominion Post. Without my changes, it makes me look like a self-serving dork. Great way to pimp the mayoral profile to a journo.
Long my favorite holiday, in 20 years as an ex-pat, I've run the gambit: coming home for Turkey-day, trying to re-create the whole fete here, and blowing it off altogether.
Returning is the best, but a huge expense. Organizing a "business trip" that just happens to coincide with the last Thursday in November is risky, as French bosses know perfectly well that nobody's working for half that week in the US. Last year, had a wonderful, warm Thanksgiving with my fiance's family on Long Island, but in the context of having rushed home for my dad's funeral. I celebrated his life with my brother, sister, and relatives the week before, then celebrated love with the in-laws-to-be.
Re-creating Thanksgiving over-seas has never paid off. What makes the whole thing great is the gathering of friends and family, without the pressure of presents, and (for once in America) everybody lingers around the table for hours, really talking together... If you don't have extended family to come visit, it always feels a bit sad just doing a small turkey with the people you'd be eating with anyway.
So, we tend to blow it off here... kids are in school anyway; there's no hoopla in the stores to remind us of what we're missing.
Reading some of your posts, including Patty's fabulous menu (http://patty.vox.com/library/post/thats-the-plan-anyway.html?_c=end1) I remember one Thanksgiving dinner when, in one of my vegetarian phases, I piled my plate high with vegetables, wild rice, and all the trimmings, and had a perfectly wonderful meal. (Turns out, the pilgrims did NOT have turkey, and although some cod may have been de-salted, they probably had a meal sans-viande as well.)
Just to make the point that it's not all about the bird, folks.
And that family and wine make the meal, as long as both are taken in moderation.
Have a nice one.
The
following was developed as a mental age
assessment
by
the School of
Psychiatry at
Harvard University
..
Take
your time and see if you can read each line
aloud without a mistake.
The
average person over 40 years of age cannot do
it!
1.
This is this cat.
2.
This is is cat.
3.
This is how cat.
4.
This is to cat.
5.
This is keep cat.
6.
This is an cat.
7.
This is old cat.
8.
This is fart cat.
9.
This is busy cat.
10
This is for cat.
11
This is forty cat.
12
This is seconds cat.
Now
go back and read the third
word in each
line from
the top down.
I
betcha' cannot resist passing it
on.
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