A Hodgepodge of Headlines

Have you ever wondered about words like hodgepodge? According to the dictionary hodgepodge means "a confused mixture". It is a variation of the original word -- hotchpotch, which referred to "a mutton stew mixed with vegetables". Hodgepodge came about because Hodge was a nickname for Roger (a typical name for uneducated farm workers back then) and was intended to be a dumbing down or lower class version of hotchpotch or "a mixture of unpleasant or ill-selected things."

Today's hodgepodge is brought to you by the letter H.


Mount Hood Rescue Aided by Dog -- GOVERNMENT CAMP, Ore. - Trevor Liston saw one friend, then a second, then a third disappear over an icy ledge on Mount Hood. A black Labrador mix plunged over as well. That left Liston and four others wondering what had happened to their companions — two women and a man. They used a rope to lower one of their climbing party over the edge, trying to spot the trio. But there was no sign of the three.

Thus begins another saga of Man versus Nature, another Media Feeding Frenzy, and another chapter of The Dog is the Smartest One on the Mountain.

What the hell is wrong with these people. Didn't they hear about the dead guys in the same place last December? I am sure these people's egos are bigger than their brains but why drag a dog into it . . . and a taxpayer funded rescue team . . . and 17,256 news reporters . . . and that guy with the soup and sandwich truck in the parking lot.

The ego and stupidity of these climbers is astounding. If they think that they are so capable that they have to do something this stupid, they should take the consequences of their own actions and not expect other people to put their lives at risk in mounting a dangerous rescue effort.

Why doesn't the government just put up a "Closed for the Season" sign and, when the weather clears, come in and sweep up the bodies? There would be less danger for other people, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper and we'd have a few less idiots to deal with.



New Footage of JFK in Dallas Released -- DALLAS (Reuters) - Previously unreleased footage of John F. Kennedy's fateful motorcade in Dallas moments before he was gunned down was released on Monday, a surprising new detail in a saga that has gripped the United States for four decades.

The silent 8mm film shows a beaming Jacqueline Kennedy close up in vivid color waving to the crowd.

A group of excited bystanders -- women sporting big 1960s hairstyles -- waves to the cameraman shortly before the motorcade sweeps past.

Every time the Democrats are losing on an issue, or get too strident when they are winning, or need to distract the public from their actual lack of a plan for anything that doesn't involve running away from responsibilities or raising taxes, they drag out JFK.

They mistakenly believe that some kind of nostalgia for Camelot will soften the voters will to resist their social engineering efforts. The rest of us have History in perspective and see this lame attempt for what it is. More liberal bullshit.



U.N. Urged to Take Action on Asteroid Threat -- SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An asteroid may come uncomfortably close to Earth in 2036 and the United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission to deflect it, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists said on Saturday.

Astronomers are monitoring an asteroid named Apophis, which has a 1 in 45,000 chance of striking Earth on April 13, 2036.

So, we're not supposed to think that a group of scientists from San Francisco essentially saying, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" isn't funny?



Math Anxiety Saps Working Memory Needed to Do Math -- SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Worrying about how you'll perform on a math test may actually contribute to a lower test score, U.S. researchers said on Saturday.

Math anxiety -- feelings of dread and fear and avoiding math -- can sap the brain's limited amount of working capacity, a resource needed to compute difficult math problems, said Mark Ashcroft, a psychologist at the University of Nevada Las Vegas who studies the problem.

"It turns out that math anxiety occupies a person's working memory," said Ashcroft, who spoke on a panel at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco.

Is San Francisco the home of every nutjob in the country?

How about, if you do your homework and study for the test, you won't have to use the "anxiety otherwise filled the part of my brain that I was going to use to ace the test" excuse?

People used to take responsibility for their actions. And tests were designed to find out what we know. How is this any different than the Farside cartoon where the kid in class raises his hand and asks to be excused because his "brain is full"?

Gimme a break!

.