What's the latest classified information on the Taliban?

AFGHANISTAN -- Yes, the Taliban appear to be on the move again. I was informed today, during my morning briefing by highly unreliable D.O.D. sources that after stiff overnight resistance, the Taliban have pushed hard and finally taken Cascara. The Pentagon had not yet released this information because they doubt Omar's forces can hold it for very long. "The strain on their rear is tremendous," said one unnamed CIA source currently on the Pakistani border.

UN forces have captured several Taliban soldiers trying to evacuate along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Taliban now appear to be attempting a maneuver involving the release of noxious gas. They have tried to suppress the reports, but it leaked out and the several CIA agents in the area got wind of it. Our espionage agents are among the best, and I suspect those Taliban guerrilla fighters are beginning to realize the value of even a single scrap of paper.

Where do deleted e-mails go?

Sorry folks! I am ever so late in maintaining my blog. Someone e-mailed me this questions a few days ago, but I had deleted it. I found it today, so I guess I can answer it.

Deleted e-mails (let's call them "dead" e-mails, ok?) actually remain for years. They are like the wind, and water and in-laws -- once created, 99.749% keep hanging around. Of course you should all remember that 74.56% of the statistics we read today are made up, and another 8.2% of those remaining are incorrect, but that's another subject.

Where was I? Oh yes, dead e-mails. When you receive an e-mail, it arrives at your computer (or Blackberry, iPhone or whatever little clever new device you are trying to figure out how to work); you read it, and then you usually delete it. Deleted e-mails, are not yet dead. They are sort of like in a coma and their puny life is being maintained by an e-mail life-support system. On a Macintosh, this area is called the "Trash," but on a PC, it has many confusing names, and Microsoft legal will not allow me to tell you what they are. After a few years of collecting dead e-mails, you will discover your computer is full, and you will contact someone technical, and they will tell you that you should have double-deleted your comatose deleted e-mails long before now, and then they will give you all the secret codes and spells to do so.

Once you have deleted your deleted emails, they are now officially dead. BUT they can still be resurrected by any run-of-the-mill hexideci shaman. They will begin to decay, slowly (the e-mails, not the shaman) -- usually they lose their soft tissues first, like their vowels. The harder consonants are the last to go, and they can remains for hundreds of years.

In some places, like California, many people recycle their emails -- sorting the different letters into plastic containers. Once full, they take them to their local Safeway grocery store and empty them into bins. Despite these efforts, the world is still running short of many characters -- commas and the numerals 3 and 7 are still in abundant supply. Many people in third-world countries do not have enough letters to even make a complete sentence, and their children are sent out in to the filthy streets to gather up discarded letters and symbols. A single clean @ sign can often be sold for enough money to feed a family of 4.6 people until they are hungry again. If everyone would recycle e-mail, the whole world would benefit, and we could go back to forwarding all our friends as many virus threats and naughty jokes as we wanted.

Only in America

No one asked me a question today, so I must resort to providing you with some unsolicited facts.

I'm sure that some of these facts are so strange and incredible, you will sit in awe and silently wonder right outloud, "could these honestly be true?"

Who says no two snowflakes are alike? A snowflake found in Denver, Colorado in 1979, by Henry Togg was EXACTLY like a snowflake found by his grandfather in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1907.

Freaky Nature: A wild South American variety of marijuana was found growing in a plastic pot inside a double-locked closet on the 52nd floor of an exclusive high-rise apartment in New York City.

Times Two: Levy Heladei, Beloxi, Mississippi, received his late grandfather's Boliva wristwatch in 1963. It stopped working exactly sometime the following year, yet it has mysteriously shown the correct time (5:34) twice a day, ever since.

Italian Waiter: A large pepperoni and green pepper pizza ordered "to-go" from Antonio's Italian Villa, on Chicago's far-east side, more than 13 years ago, STILL HAS NOT BEEN PICKED UP.

Third Degree: A pair of pants worn by M.I.T. geometry professor Dr. Horatio B. Tutuwon, has a small tear on the left buttocks that is in the shape of perfect isosceles triangle.

A Mother's Place: In Fargo, North Dakota, every single resident of Norwegian ancestry has a mother who had parents with at least one daughter.

Single Mint: In 1996, Gumbolt "Gummy" Rapper, Baton Rouge, Lousiana, received a stick of Wrigley's Doublemint gum, and discovered it only contained a single pleasurable flavor and was only fun, once.

Pedaflop: In Towanda, Illinois, Kenny Abaker built a unicycle with only one pedal. To date, he has only been able to ride it for a very short distance, but intends to keep practicing.

Now, let's send in some more questions, my friends.

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

This is an old, old question debated for centuries by countless theologians and students of philosophy (see Thomas Aquinas). Part of the problem is determining how large or small an angel might be, and what sort of dance is to be performed. Obviously a dance such as the Jitterbug would require more room than say a waltz. However, in reality, angels do not Jitterbug.

Assuming the dance is no more than a mere Foxtrot, the correct answer is 23.

What is the largest number known to man?

Oh, for crying out loud! This question is nearly impossible to answer. I do know the answer, but as soon as I post it here, some wise cracker from someplace like Des Plaines, Illinois will add one, or even two to it, and BINGO, he/she will now have a larger number. I will tell you this, it begins with a nine, and no, it dosen't have ANY zeros in it. So, it isn't one those "followed by a zillion zeros" numbers.

It was an exciting time when numbers were first being invented. The current (base 10) Arabic numbers we use today, were not all invented at the same time. The three (3) was the first number to be created, then the 1, then the 8 and so on. People had little use for them until someone finally decided to put them in numerical order. After that, nearly everyone was using numbers, and they were the big rage. People would walk around counting everything they saw, and saying things like, "I've been using numbers for 4 days," to their friends.

The zero was very difficult to even comprehend back then let alone invent a way to represent it. Several early mathematicians did grasp the concept of zero, but they chose to represent it using nothing. The rest of the people never noticed it, so it wasn't until someone drew a "0" that it became a real number representing nothing. Nowadays, using modern computers, we can raise the lowly "0" to a value equal to that of a "1." Zeros can also be divided now, so one can have half-zeros, and quarter-zeros, but they are still of no real value.

Numbers almost became our alphabet, too. Numbers were created before letters (with the exception of "R" which was created by sheer accident during an alchemy experiment involving sodium carbonate, zinc and a chicken's foot), and were often used to represent words. For instance, the number 4 was used to represent the word souffle' until the early 1100's.

Roman numbers were actually slightly larger than our current Arabic numbers. A Roman numeral VIII (8) is actually worth 8.000021 Arabic. This has nothing to do with deflation after the fall or Rome. It is due to their inability to understand fractions, and that forced them to just round off each Roman numeral as it was created.

There is one very large number that is considered extremely risque by mathematicians who understand such complex numbers. I'm afraid I can't type it out here, because my blog would soon be shut down by the authorities, but I encourage you to search for it, if you like such things. I can't tell you exactly where to find it, but I will let you know it is fairly near 51,904,274,917,887,025,287,009,246,141.3290080034.

One last thing, if you read Dan Brown's book, for goodness sake, get on the internet and start Googling "phi" ( better known as the "golden ratio"). I guarantee you will learn more than I can teach you (today).

Do electric eels shock themselves?

What a great question, especially this time of year. As you know, prior to the days of Tom Edison, Electric Eels were only able to stun their prey by hitting them with wet sticks, but nowadays, they use electricity. Electric eels do not actually shock themselves, because electricity follows the path of least resistance, and over the years, eels have learned to resist shocks. In the rapidly dwindling rain forests around Kansas, where the few remaining 440-volt, 3-phase, Great Prairie Eels still live, it is illegal to carry one in your pocket during Happy Hour.

Also, on an unrelated note, I find it quite ironic that Sir Isaac Newton's brain is encased in a jar of formaldehyde, and currently used as a PAPERWEIGHT. Go figure! Next, I suppose we will see Darwin endorsing a fitness center.

Did the Masons really influence the design of Washington DC?

Despite what you may have read, seen on TV, or in movies such as National Treasure, the fraternity of Ancient and Accepted Masons did not conspire to design the layout of the streets of our nation's capitol, nor did they hold any other influence over the government buildings and monuments, except for a few very secret areas. No one, outside of the Masons actually knows about these places, until now. As a Mason in reasonably good standing, I was told of these secrets during the period I was being raised from the subliminal degree of "Junior Potent Tater" into the beautiful level of the super-simile degree of "Senior Game Warden." At the risk of breaking my sullen oath and suffering the punishment of having my epiglottis torn out by its roots and cast upon the boughs of an Acadia tree (which would then forever prevent me from being able to properly generate the secret handshake), I will now divulge the the true Masonic influence over the United States of America.

The entire design of the sewer system buried under Washington, DC was laid out by the Masons. If all the land was removed, and the sewer pipes were viewed from the air, anyone would be able to see that it is in the shape of Pablo Picasso's famous painting "Nude Descending a Staircase." Picasso himself was a 33-1/3 Mason (the ones with the very small holes), and as you probably know, much of his work was influenced by his 6th grade art teacher Mrs. Torrets. If the entire DC sewer system were laid end to end, it would reach a very, very long distance, and equally surprising, if it had been laid out in the exact shape of the sewer system in Boston, nearly all of the government buildings would have to be relocated.

The entire design was based on a dream that Thomas Jeffererson had where an angel sold him the painting nearly 200 years before it had even been painted. Of course Jefferson knew an unpainted painting would be virtually worthless, so he spanked the angel severely. After he woke he remembered the dream in detail, and he and Ben Franklin used the concept for the outline of the sewers.

Only one other U.S. national landmark was influenced by Masonic intervention. That was the carving of Mount Rushmore. Many Masonic symbols are hidden within this great monument. Among them are the secret words "owahh tagoo siam" blended carefully into Lincoln's hairline, as well as the actual street address for Solomon's temple, which is cleverly hidden in Roosevelt's eyebrow. In addition, many masonic artifacts were used in the construction, and many of these were buried within the rubble of granite at the base of the mountain. Some of these Masonic tools are the "Broken Hammer," several of the "Fallen Plumb Lines," "Measuring Sticks," and probably the most numerous of all are the small angular chips of rocks that Masons so dearly love. In one particularly popular Masonic ceremony, these rocks are placed on a blindfolded candidate's shoulder and then knocked off by the Least Worshipful Tyler.

Within easy view of Washington's right nostril there is a super-secret hidden cavern which leads deep into a natural passage which extends to Wind Cave National Park, a good 40 miles away. Roughly about four hundred feet and three inches inside this opening, the Mason's have hidden an ancient copper classroom note that contains positively unreliable proof that Mary Magdalene had a school-girl crush on John the Baptist.

Does the name "Pavlov" ring a bell?

Surprisingly, yes it does. Ivan Pavlov (originally spelled p a v l o v) spent years trying to prove his theories regarding stimulus-response. He had little success until he began using dogs. His famous papers, which were published in "Harper's Bizarre Stories" in 1887, proved to the world that living organisms such as Harvard beets, *okra and even mushrooms do not salivate when you ring a bell, but dogs do.

* Not to be confused with Okra Winfry, who often salivates when she hears bells. Wait, that's not right -- I was thinking of someone else. Never mind!

Can you tell me the secret receipe for Kentucky Frid Chicken?

Yes, I can, but I also know something I think you will find much more fascinating. The eleven secret herbs and spices used in the Colonial Sander's original recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken, is exactly the same secret ingredients as those used by Procter & Gamble to manufacture "Oil of Olay." I know, I know, its hard to believe, but it is true. Not only is the chicken "finger licking good" but it will remove age spots.

Is the U.S. government seriously considering relocating the state of South Dakota?

Despite how absurd it sounds, currently, there is a bill before congress to relocate South Dakota. It is based solely on massive cost cuts suggested by President Obama.

Few people outside of South Dakota appreciate the contributions it has made, and what it is capable of offering in the future. Probably the most interesting thing about South Dakota is the way its county borders are arranged. Look at any detailed map of the state, that shows the counties, and you will easily see that there is virtually no wasted space between adjacent counties.

Much of what South Dakota offers the rest of the world is hidden from view. For instance, the entire sewer system of Rapid City is fed west through a series of underground caves, and empties into Yellowstone National Park. If it weren't for this engineering marvel, there would be no Old Faithful, bubbling mud pits, or water for campers.

In agriculture, South Dakota Master Gardener Toby Olsen is credited with developing the popular boneless variety of cabbage that we all enjoy today. South Dakota, famous for it's Bolivian cheeses also produces several types of toast, as well as the only buffalo in the world known to have been raised by a family of prairie dogs.

Like an iceberg, much of South Dakota's landmass lies beneath the surface. The land is rich with minerals, and dirt and sand. The sand is needed every year by the people up in Fargo (that's in North Dakota) for flood control as well as playgrounds and litter boxes. Last year alone, more than $3,500 worth of sand was exported to North Dakota, and a portion of that money found its way into the US economy.

To relocate South Dakota would require more trucks than are currently registered in the entire state, and where would the vast prairie state even fit comfortably? Some members of congress have suggested it be auctioned off on ebay, but I see serious problems with that, especially figuring shipping costs to foreign countries. Do we really want some country like Holland in charge of parking and consessions at Mount Rushmore?

I say, leave South Dakota where it is, and if we truly need to cut our budget, may I suggest we simply give North Dakota to the Canadians.

Was the sock really invented by an ancestor of Garth Brooks? My husband and I have a lobster dinner riding on this.

This is another great question, because many people believe it to be true. Actually, the common sock was invented by a shepherd boy in 4233 B.C. Despite its clever design, it did not become a popular clothing addition until many years later, when someone invented the other sock. Despite a few early gaps in Garth Brooks lineage, it does not appear that either of these two sock inventors were related to the famous Country and Western Singer. I'd say, "Myth Busted!"

On a related clothing issue: Many people have asked me recently why the buttons on a man's shirt are sewn on the right side, and the buttons on a woman's blouse are on the left. While I should think it would be obvious, apparently the answer eludes many. Buttons on the right for men, and on the left for women makes perfect sense, and once the logic is explained, it just might save you from an *embarrassing faux pos. You see, with the buttons arranged in this manner, it is very easy to tell the gender of the person to whom you are addressing, by a simple glance at the chest. Buttons on the right, it's a guy -- on the left, a gal. In the old days, you could tell gender by hair length, or makeup, or skirts vs pants, etc., but today this simple trick is one of the few remaining ways to be absolutely sure whether the person is male or female.

* Yes, I know it's redundant, but it's MY blog.

How does a television work?

That's a great question. In its infant stage, television did not work very well. However, today, most TVs work exceptionally well. One of the reasons for television's current success has to do with the introduction of the transistor (circa 1960's). The transistor is a semi-conductor and was named after its inventor -- a part-time train conductor and the half-sister of a transvestite. What the transistor actually does is something far short of a modern-day miracle. The fact it even works under the current laws of physics, as we understand them today, is insignificant.

Older television sets were much different from the new models we see today. This was mostly due to their age. Today, you can buy a 65 inch, high-definition television set with a flat screen, and surround-sound sound, but so can other people. Some units offer "movie theater sound," which basically incorporates a stereophonic audio-mixer to add sounds like noisy kids in the balcony, doors opening and closing, romantic moans, and my favorites the projector and popcorn machine.

In the future, televisions may offer features we can't even imagine. So there is no way to tell you about them, yet.

Next question, please!