I found myself completely stripped of everything that impeded the movement of my own will to do as it pleased. I imagined that I was free. And it would take me five or six years to discover what a frightful captivity I had got myself into.

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exaulted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy ... neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

A guy arrives at the pearly gates, waiting to be admitted. St. Peter is reading through the Big Book to see if the guy's name is written in it. After several minutes, St. Peter closes the book, furrows his brow, and says, "I'm sorry, I don't see your name written in the Book." "How current is your copy?" he asks. "I get a download every ten minutes," St. Peter replies, "why do you ask?" "I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I was always the stubborn type. It was not until my death was immanent that I cried out to God, so my name probably hasn't arrived to your copy yet." "I'm glad to hear that," Pete says, "but while we're waiting for the update to come through, can tell me about a really good deed that you did in your life?" The guys thinks for a moment and says, "Humm, well there was this one time when I was drivin' down a road and I saw a giant group of biker gang members harassing this poor girl. I slowed down, and sure enough, there they were, about 20 of 'em torturing this poor woman. Infuriated, I got out my car, grabbed a tire iron out of my trunk, and walked up to the leader of the gang. He was a huge guy; 6-foot-4, 260 pounds, with a studded leather jacket and a chain running from his nose to his ears. As I walked up to the leader, the bikers formed a circle around me and told me to get lost or I'd be next. "So I ripped the leader's chain out of his face and smashed him over the head with the tire iron. Then I turned around and yelled to the rest of them, "Leave this poor innocent girl alone! You're all a bunch of SICK, deranged animals! Go home before I really teach you a lesson in PAIN!" St. Peter, duly impressed, says "Wow! When did this happen?" "About three minutes ago."

If you want to go to Hell for stealing minnows, I'll furnish the minnows. -Miz Tackett (Sign over unattended minnow tank, Red River County, Texas)

A seaman meets a pirate, and they take turns recounting their adventures at sea. Noting the pirate's peg-leg, hook, and eye patch the seaman asks, "So, how did you end up with the peg-leg?" The pirate replies, "We was caught in a monster storm and a giant wave swept me overboard. Just as they were pullin' me out, a school of sharks appeared and one of 'em bit me leg off." "Blimey!" said the seaman. "What about the hook?" "We were boardin' a trader ship, pistols blastin' and swords swingin' this way and that. In the fracas me hand got chopped off." "My word!" remarked the seaman. "And how came ye by the eye patch?" "A seagull droppin' fell into me eye," answered the pirate. "You lost your eye to a seagull dropping?" the sailor asked with amazement. "Well," said the pirate, "it was me first day with the hook . . .

One sagging electrical line near Cleveland, Ohio, connected with a tree branch at 3:32 p.m. on August 14, 2003, beginning a chain of events which led to the largest blackout in American history. According to the most comprehensive study yet, the failure of this single transmission line caused a utility company in southern Ohio to overload and seal itself off from the now infamous power grid. To the north, this created a huge need for power, and Cleveland began sucking an unsustainable amount of electricity from Michigan and Ontario…knocking out more transmission lines and generating plants. When the need for more power reached New York, power plants there sealed themselves from the grid in order to protect their own systems. This, however, created a new problem when New York, ironically, had too much electricity and overloaded its own system. The result: history's largest shutdown. Similarly, seemingly small actions and choices can end with devastating personal consequences. Sin often starts with one small choice, but the end result is ruined families, ruined churches, ruined lives. Citation: Robert Daneker, Jr., Allentown, PA

Massive cow manure mound burns for third month Friday, January 28, 2005 Posted: 7:59 AM EST (1259 GMT) MILFORD, Nebraska (AP) -- Urban dwellers who enjoy dining on filet mignon at five-star restaurants would probably just as soon not know about David Dickinson's dilemma. Bad for the appetite, you know. But Dickinson, who makes his living in the cattle business, has an environmental problem on his hands that is vexing state officials: a 2,000-ton pile of burning cow manure. Dickinson owns and manages Midwest Feeding Co. about 20 miles west of Lincoln, which takes in as many as 12,000 cows at a time from farmers and ranchers and fattens them for market. Byproducts from the massive operation resulted in a dung pile measuring 100 feet long, 30 feet high and 50 feet wide that began burning about two months ago and continues to smolder despite Herculean attempts to douse it. While city folks might have trouble imagining a dung pile of such proportions, they are common sites in rural states. In July, crews fighting a blaze in a three-acre manure lagoon at a dairy farm in Washington smothered the flames with more of the same -- a blanket of wet cow manure. In December, Montana officials ordered the owner of a horse feedlot to extinguish a large manure fire that sent a stench over a nearby town. The Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality has informed Dickinson that his smoldering dung pile violates clean-air laws and is working with him to find the best solution to extinguish it, said agency spokesman Rich Webster. Simply dumping water on the heap is not the answer, Webster said, because of concerns about runoff to any nearby water source. Dickinson first tried using heavy equipment to spread out the smoldering pile and extinguish the fire. "But the problem was, it started in another spot," he said. "We've also had the fire department out a couple of times." And still it burns. No one is sure how the fire started, but a common theory is that heat from the decomposing manure deep inside the pile eventually ignited the manure. Wilma Roth, who manages a restaurant along Interstate 80 about a mile north of the feedlot, said her customers have complained about the smoke, which wafts for miles. "I'd just as soon forget about it," she said. Dickinson said the smoke is not particularly malodorous -- although that comes from a man who works full-time around manure. "I guess it's just all perspective," he said. "To me, it just smells like smoke. I really don't know how to describe it." Decades ago, most farmers and ranchers kept their own cows and pigs until they were shipped to market and slaughtered into filet mignon, hamburger, pork chops and bacon. And with all those animals spread far apart at thousands of farms, it was easier to dispose of the manure. But huge feedlots -- where animals are shipped to fatten on a high-grain diet for their last several months -- have become commonplace. Dickinson has an average of 12,000 animals on hand, each eating about 25 pounds of feed daily, resulting in as much as nine pounds of manure a day per animal -- some 54 tons every 24 hours. Most big feedlots spread the manure over farm fields or compost it to spread later or sell commercially to gardeners. Farmers in several states are experimenting with using the methane gas from livestock manure to produce electricity. The manure is heated and produces methane gas as it breaks down. The gas is collected and used to power a generator, which sends electricity onto a power grid. Dickinson acknowledged that while some folks see the humor in his predicament, he takes the fire seriously. "It's a nuisance, and obviously we are trying to get it resolved," he said. "Everybody's been really patient."

How much more grevious are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

What Goes Around Comes Around

During one riot in Michigan, one woman sold stones to rioters. . . . Small stones went for $1, larger stones brought in $5 a piece. Most of the rocks were thrown at police. . . . The woman claimed that she collected about $70 from her efforts, but she stopped when she was hit by a rock herself.