Just a few totally useless facts...

Did you know that:

·         If you screamed for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would produce enough energy to heat a cup of coffee? (Hardly worth the effort.)

·         If you break wind  continuously for 6 years and 9 months it will produce enough gas to effectuate a nuclear bomb? (Now we’re talking!)...

·         When your heart pumps blood around your body, the pressure is so strong it can squirt 914,40 cm? (Oh My God!)

·         A pig’s orgasm lasts for 30 minutes? (In my next life I want to be a pig!)

·         A cockroach can live for 9 days without its head before it dies? (Creepy!)

·         If you bang your head in the wall you use 150 calories an hour? (Don’t try this at home. At work, perhaps...? It might help...)

(Still not over that thing with the pig!)

·         The male stick insect can not mate while its head is still attached to the body. The female takes initiative to sex by tearing the male’s head off? (Honey, I’m home! What th....?!)

·         A flea can jump as far as 350 times the length of its body? That corresponds to a human jumping the length of a football field.

(30 minutes... lucky pig. Can you even imagine that?!?)

·         The catfish has more than 27 000 tastebuds? (What can possibly be that tasty on the sea bed?)

·         Some lions mate more than 50 times a day? (I would still like to be a pig in my next life – quality before quantity.)

·         Butterflies taste with their feet? (Always wanted to know that!)

·         The strongest muscle in your body is your tongue? (Hmmmmmm.....)

·         Right-handed people live, in average, 9 years longer than left-handed? (Which is good for me!)

·         Elephants are the only animals which can’t jump? (OK, makes sense...)

·         A cat’s urine illuminates under black light? (Wonder who came up with the idea to pay someone to do the research?)

·         An Ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain? (I know a few people with the exact same problem)

·         A starfish has no brain? (I know a few people like that as well...)

·         Polar bears are left-handed? (If they change hand, will they live a lot longer?)

·         Human beings and dolphins are the only two species which have sex for the fun of it? (What about the pig??????)

For more useless facts:
( Fun Facts, Do Fish Drink Water?, Amusing Facts, Encyclopedia Britannica, Caplex, side2.no)

How to speak up?

So very often, when I read or watch the news, I just find myself in a state of open mouthed incredulity.

It is not so much the news itself which startles me, I know the human race inhabit evil and that we are really good at being selfish. The way some people  gang up and join the cruelty happening around us is strikingly ominous. It is so beyond belief that people lack that kind of compassion, to allow the kind of suffering we see many must endure in different ways... it makes me wonder if they do so out of pure relief it is not happening to themselves.

 Projects turn into a question of personal, political or religious prestige and cruelty is condemned, in words, but not acted upon... and if it is acted upon it is because there are financial issues involved.

I get so buffled and disappointed when I see how we react to what is wrong, bad and unjust.  I don’t know why, it is not as if I myself really do anything, but.....  let’s take an example. Only today I received 2 sms, telling me to support the case by sending in forward, and 3 links on facebook, wanting me to support the case by sharing the link.

It is all good, and very worthy causes, but.... my protest and disgust and support does not really show anywhere, does it? Where do these shared messages end up? They are locked in silence in phones and computers and end up as a random number somewhere, but to no annoyance to those responsible, sharing the messages, without knowing how they can make an impact or a change, turn out to become a breeze of good consience washing over my own ego.

We have numerous really great organisations which work for a better world, I only hope they keep up their work the old fashion way and do not fall into the neutralizing trap of sms and facebook. We really need their voices, and we need to hear it loud and clear, and people need to speak out loud.

A famous Norwegian author said that «You cannot permit it! You dare not, at all.
Accepting that outrage on all else may fall!»

Arnulf Øverland:  Du Må Ikke Sove,  Translated by Lars-Toralf Storstrand: Dare Not To Sleep!

http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/2005/06/30/436130.html

One of the cases which upset me and that I found so incredibly repulsive last night. I can not even imagine how alone, scared and resigned she must have felt. http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/09/world/asia/afghanistan-public-execution/index.html?hpt=hp_c2