Pointless Stories

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PsYcHo
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Pointless Stories

Post by PsYcHo »

Sometimes something happens that you want to talk about, but it's just not worth starting a discussion thread for.

So I'm making this thread to fill the demand!

Feel free to post anything here that you find interesting, or others may find interesting, that you may or may not want to have a discussion about. I'm not big on "rules", so post whatever, reply to whatever, or just lurk.

I'll start- :D


I live next door to a police officer. I'm Libertarian, so I'm not a fan of the police in general, but I'm also realistic so I accept that they(cops) may just be working a job. My work takes me away from home sometimes for months at a time, but I recently came back for a while.

I had a few stiff drinks, and my wife and I decided to sit on our front porch while I smoked a cig. I had a good buzz going, and we noticed our neighbor coming outside to go to his car. (his car is in our driveway; we have a double driveway and one car, he has a single drive way and three cars, so we let him park his cruiser in our driveway- the best security system is a cop car in your driveway, fyi :roll: )

Now at this point, I've had about five good drinks, so I'm not trying to make it obvious I'm highly buzzed while my officer neighbor is about. But, as I look over at my neighbor who is going through his cruiser trunk, I notice something...different.

My cop neighbor, is going thru his trunk,... in his boxers and a t-shirt.

Now I'm drunkish, but I'm on my property and my neighbor and I get along well, so I make my presence known, and my cop neighbor says hello back. I ask (in a general way, so....what's going on?) and he responds "I'm looking for my second Glock"(handgun for those that don't know). While he was looking for his Glock, he removed a .223 rifle, and a box of ammunition that makes my multi-hundred round cache seem minuscule. In his boxers.

We made some small talk, but A- he didn't find his Glock B- He was handling a high powered rifle and looking for another gun in his underwear. To be clear, I don't care about the handling of the firearms, but I am querulous about why the hell he was unabashedly in his underwear outside. And what the hell was/is he planning if he finds the second Glock??
Alcohol may have been a factor.

Taxation is theft.
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Red
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Re: Pointless Stories

Post by Red »

Here's an old story my German friend told me.
Eulenspiegel journeyed to Cologne, where he stayed at an inn for two or three days without letting anyone know who he was. During this time he noticed that the innkeeper was a rogue, and he thought, "The guests will not be well off where the innkeeper is a rogue. You should find another place to stay."

That evening he told the innkeeper that he would be looking for another place to stay. The latter showed the other guests to their beds, but not Eulenspiegel, who then said, "Sir, I paid just as much for my lodging as the others did, but you showed them to their beds. Am I supposed to sleep here on this bench?"

The innkeeper said, "Look! Here is a pair of sheets!" and he let a fart. Then he let another one and said, "Look! This is your pillow!" Then for a third time he let one, until it stank, and he said, "Look! Now you have an entire bed! Use them until morning, and then lay them in a pile for me, so I can find everything together!"

Eulenspiegel said nothing, but thought, "Look! Take note that one rogue deserves another rogue." And that night he slept on the bench.

Now the innkeeper had a nice folding table. Eulenspiegel opened up the leaves, shit a large pile on the table, and then closed it up again. He got up early in the morning, went to the innkeeper's room and said, "Sir, I thank you for the night's lodging." Then letting a large fart, he said, "Those are the feathers from your bed. I laid the pillow, the sheets, and the covers all together in a pile."

The innkeeper said, "Sir, that is good. I will look after them as soon as I get up."

Eulenspiegel said, "Do that! Just look around. You'll find them all right!" And with that he left the inn.

The innkeeper expected many guests for the noon meal, and he said that they should eat at the nice folding table. When he opened up the table, an evil stink flew up his nose. Seeing the dung, he said, "He gives what was earned. He paid for a fart with shit."

Then the innkeeper sent for Eulenspiegel, because he wanted to get to know him better. Eulenspiegel did indeed come back, and he and the innkeeper appreciated one another's tricks so much, that from this time forth Eulenspiegel got a good bed.
Learning never exhausts the mind.
-Leonardo da Vinci
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cornivore
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Re: Pointless Stories

Post by cornivore »

If you're ever in Tehran, watch that first step, it's a laboozy!
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Re: Pointless Stories

Post by cornivore »

Hungry for wealth...

Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard was an infamous fraud and a crook. She was known for her starvation “cure.” Dr. Hazzard purported fasting was the only cure for disease under the theory all illnesses were borne of impaired digestion.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of Hazzard’s patients died slow, miserable deaths. These patients also had a weird habit of signing over their estates to Dr. Hazzard shortly before dying. What’s even more surprising? The ill continued to undergo fasting treatment despite her fairly well-known pattern.

Hazzard abandoned her children when her first husband disappeared at a young age. She then married Sam Hazzard, who eventually spent a couple years in prison for bigamy because he also abandoned his family, but didn’t bother to file for divorce. Yes, we’re dealing with a couple real winners here.

Hazzard studied with Dr. Edward Hooker Dewey, who pioneered starvation therapy. She opened her first starvation clinic in Minneapolis in 1902. She started fast. After catching wind of a suspicious death, the coroner asked the county prosecutor to bring charges against Hazzard. Since she was not a licensed practitioner at the time, she was not held accountable.

Following at least nine deaths and Sam’s prison release in 1907, the couple moved to Washington. They settled in Kitsap County on a large property in the town of Olalla, where she dreamed of building a sanitarium.

Through a ridiculous loophole in the system that grandfathered in alternative-medicine providers without scrutiny, the state of Washington issued Hazzard a license to practice medicine, so she was officially a doctor despite a relative lack of medical training and no medical degree.

Since building a sanitarium would take years and lots of money, she “treated” patients in the many cabins on her property. In addition to starvation, she gave patients enemas that lasted for hours and a notoriously rough massage treatment, which could probably be more accurately described as boxing. After many weeks, this regimen guided people into insanity. Along the way, they would either insist on continuing, assumedly out of desperation, or they would attempt escape—and usually fail.

She also did business in Seattle, commuting to the city and seeing patients for whom she did not have room on her property. She put them in hotels and went through the same routine as the cabin cases.

In 1908, Daisey Haglund died after a 50-day fast. She left behind a three-year-old son, Ivar Haglund, who went on to found Seattle’s famous Ivar’s restaurants.

Hazzard conducted her own autopsies most of the time. She never reported the cause of death as starvation; it was always something else. Whenever another doctor was able to handle the autopsy, the cause of death was indeed determined to be starvation. Shocking.

Seattle’s health director said he could not intervene. Hazzard was a licensed doctor and her patients sought her treatment willingly. Never mind that the estates of the deceased always mysteriously wound up under Hazzard’s power of attorney.

Finally, Hazzard messed with the wrong family.

In 1911, two rich, dim-witted and hypochondriac sisters thought starvation therapy sounded fun, so they subscribed to the treatment. Once they realized this was a bad idea, they tried to duck out. They were talked out of it, then they changed their mind, then they were physically prevented from leaving. Physically restraining someone who hasn’t eaten in weeks is not difficult. The kicker: They never told any family members they were entering treatment because they knew their family would try to talk them out of it.

The girls’ childhood nanny received a telegram in Sydney, Australia advising her to visit the sisters. Five weeks later, the nanny showed up, not knowing much about what was going on. One of the sisters was dead by this time, and the surviving sister weighed less than 70 pounds. Hazzard refused to release her patient, as she was now the legal guardian and had power of attorney over her estate. The nanny summoned the girls’ uncle from Portland, who came at once and negotiated a ransom.

This family went on to fund Hazzard’s prosecution after Kitsap County cited lack of funds when asked to go after her. She was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison. There was a surprising public backlash demanding her release, claiming her incarceration was a great loss to the medical field. A group in New Zealand petitioned for her release, and in 1915 — after serving only two years — Governor Lister pardoned her on the condition she move to New Zealand.

Hazzard found wild success in New Zealand. Patients died left and right, and estate after estate was inherited by the Hazzards. Eventually she made so much money, she went back to Kitsap County, where she built the sanitarium she always wanted. She was no longer allowed to practice medicine, so she called the sanitarium the “School of Health.”

Her facility received an unreal amount of business. The school lasted way too many years before it poetically burned down in 1935. Nobody has any idea how many people starved to death under Hazzard’s supervision. Some believe the grounds where it stood still contain remains.

In 1938, Linda Burfield Hazzard died. Want to guess how? She underwent her own treatment and starved to death.
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cornivore
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Re: Pointless Stories

Post by cornivore »

Speaking of treatment, I was going for the silent treatment, so I looked up what kinds of beans might be mildest to digest, and someone listed "mayocoba". Oddly enough, I hadn't heard of them, but mysteriously there they were, beside all the others (as if those were under my nose the whole time), and indeed they're pretty good. Another story explains to some extent why I hadn't heard of them sooner.
In April 1999 Larry Proctor, a United States citizen and owner of a seed company, won a patent at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), claiming a Mexican yellow bean. The patent conferred Proctor exclusive rights over a bean variety he called “Enola.” That decision is one of the most outrageous examples of biopiracy in the history of intellectual property systems. The bean for which Proctor was granted a patent is a farmers’ variety, originally from Mexico and in the public domain for centuries. The bean is consumed throughout Mexico and by Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the US who know it by the names Mayocoba, Canario, or Peruano. Although the bean variety existed in publicly available seed collections, it took ten years, hundreds of thousands of dollars, massive protest by farmers and civil society, the intervention of international agencies, and five consecutive legal decisions before the USPTO finally annulled the patent in July 2009. By then, Proctor had exercised a complete monopoly over the production, distribution, and marketing of the bean for more than half of the patent’s lifespan. The story began in 1994, when Proctor purchased a bag of beans in Mexico. He planted the beans, selected seeds from the same plants, and planted them again, repeating the procedure two more times. In late 1996, after barely two years, he stated that he had invented a “unique” variety, and applied for a patent. As soon as Proctor was awarded the patent, he sued two importers of the yellow beans, demanding that they pay royalties. Although the importers knew that Proctor’s invention was ludicrous (because they had been importing the bean from Mexico for years), they had no choice but to accept the patent’s legality, causing 22,000 Mexican farmers and their families to lose 90% of their export incomes in just the first year...
Then I saw some at an Asian market too, so I guess they've been pretty popular for a while since. It's like one of those things I'd never see unless I looked for it—usually kind of pointless—it could always amount to a hill of beans...
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PsYcHo
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Re: Pointless Stories

Post by PsYcHo »

I assume BrimstoneSalad reads all posts, so I'll ask why are all the x's highlighted in yellow? Not a problem, I'm just curious and pointing it out. To my story now...
Alcohol may have been a factor.

Taxation is theft.
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cornivore
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Re: Pointless Stories

Post by cornivore »

Image

Can you spot the tuba player in this picture? Over by the trumpet players... :lol:
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Re: Pointless Stories

Post by brimstoneSalad »

PsYcHo wrote: Fri Sep 28, 2018 10:59 pm I assume BrimstoneSalad reads all posts, so I'll ask why are all the x's highlighted in yellow? Not a problem, I'm just curious and pointing it out. To my story now...
They aren't for me. What is the URL that you see for this? Or maybe something on your end with the find feature bugging out.
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Re: Pointless Stories

Post by cornivore »

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Can people not just enjoy those white teeth? :mrgreen:

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