Fun Rat Facts

     Unless you have a pet rat, they probably aren't your favorite animal and you don't want them in or even around your home, but in spite of their bad reputations, rats are pretty interesting creatures. 
     Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. “True rats” are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are Rattus rattus, the black rat and Rattus norvegicus, the brown rat. 
     Black rats have a slender body about 6 1/2 to 8 inches long. They weigh about 6 to 12 ounces. Their color varies from black to brownish-gray. Their underside varies from gray to white. Their nose and muzzle are pointed, their eyes are large and prominent and their ears are large and cover the eyes if bent forward. They have a hairless tail which has a uniform color and is longer than their head and body. 
     Brown rats or Norway rats have a heavy and thick body about 7 to 10 inches long. They weigh about 10 to 17 ounces. Their color may vary from grayish-brown, a pure gray to a blackish- or reddish-brown. Their underside is gray to yellow-white. Their nose and muzzle are blunt, their eyes are small and their ears are close to the body and won’t cover the eyes if bent forward. Their tail is dark on top with a lighter underside and shorter than their head and body. 
     Most rats live in communities, in which they groom each other, sleep together and even play. However, they are territorial, so they can turn aggressive toward unfamiliar rats. A group of rats is called a mischief, a pack or a swarm. They also have a powerful social chain of command in which the largest and strongest rats get the best food. 
     Rats very lovable animals. They love being in the group of their own species or humans. They like playing collectively and love to sleep curled up together. They take care of the injured and sick rats in their group. And they can even become lonely, depressed, anxious and stressed. Rats are more intelligent than rabbits, hamsters, mice, gerbils and guinea pigs and have excellent memories. Once rats learn a direction-finding route, they never forget it. Rats are curious and will choose to run away rather than confront a potential threat. 
     Rats have been used throughout history as food for people and pets, religious icons, laboratory animals, pets, mine detectors, animals used in sports and some have even been trained to drag wires through walls making some electricians’ jobs go much faster. 
     Rats have very poor eyesight and are colorblind and most are right-handed. Rats have been proven to make a laughter-like noise when tickled and dream while sleeping. You'll never hear one laughing though because it is inaudible to the human ear.  An adult rat can squeeze into your home through a hole as small as the size of a quarter. 
     They can live for up to 18 months, but most die before they are one year old. According to the Guinness Book of World Records the longest lived domestic rat died at seven years and four months of age. 
     Rats have strong teeth that allow them to chew through glass, cinder block, wire, aluminum and lead. Their incisors continuously grow throughout their life. Their teeth can grow up to 5 inches per year so they have to chew on things to wear them down. Rats do not have the ability to vomit which is they way some rat poisons work. It makes them puke, but since they can't, the choke to death. 
     For some people rats make good pets. They are a very clean, spending several hours a day grooming them and they are highly intelligent, affectionate, loving and very loyal and they are very trainable. 
     A rat's hairless tail can be used to regulate their body temperature. Rats don’t sweat nor do they pant to relieve the heat like a dog. Rather, rats control their body temperature by expanding and contracting the blood vessels in their tails. Their tails are also used to provide balance and to communicate with each other. They have scent glands on the bottom of their feet that mark territories and help them retrace their footsteps. 
     Ancient Romans considered rats to be a sign of good luck and ancient Egyptians and Mayans worshiped rats. A temple dedicated to Hindu goddess Karni Mata in northwest India is home to more than 15,000 rats. They are worshiped and protected, and human devotees of the temple believe that when they die, they will be reincarnated as rats. 
     Rats are prolific breeders. A female can reproduce every three weeks or so. And when she gives birth, the litter typically contains six to 10 pups. These pups become sexually mature when they’re three to four months old and can begin spawning their own broods. 
     Rats can swim extremely well. Some types of rats can tread water for up to three days and hold their breath for three minutes and some species can swim over a mile. Stories about rats popping up in toilets is no urban legend because they can easily make their way up sewer pipes. 
     The types of rats most people are used to seeing are small compared to some of their more massive rodent relatives. The Sumatran bamboo rat, for example, can weigh up to 8.8 pounds and measure 20 inches in total length. That’s the size of a small housecat. While not as heavy at 3 pounds, the Gambian pouched rat can measure as long as 3 feet from nose to tail. 
     One of the most well-known facts about rats is that they can carry germs that spread diseases that can affect humans. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rats and mice can spread over 35 diseases. 
     And, if you have read this blog you'd know that rats are considered by some people to be delicious.  See my post Rat Meat.

Pee Dancing

     An average adult bladder can hold up to about 2 cups (about half a liter) of urine before your brain starts telling you it's time to relieve yourself. Could waiting to pee actually cause your bladder to burst? 

     The answer is a qualified yes. Trauma, surgery or radiation can cause a bladder to become injured, retain urine and burst. Another newly documented danger is binge drinking. A report in the British Medical Journal found that alcohol-induced bladder rupture has sent a number of women to hospital emergency rooms. 

     Physicians found that men and women were equally at risk for bladder ruptures, but that more women were now drinking large quantities of alcohol. In the cases of three women admitted to a hospital in England, they complained of lower abdominal pain after drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and doctors discovered that women's bladders had burst. Alcohol increases urine output, while simultaneously dulling the urge to empty the bladder.

     These effects, coupled with mild trauma, such as a fall, greatly increase the risk of rupture.  If the bladder bursts it releases urine into the abdominal cavity which results in lower abdominal pain. The treatment involves a procedure in which a catheter is inserted via the urethra to drain the urine. There's usually a surgical procedure required to repair the bladder and clean the abdominal cavity. 

     Most people don't need to worry about holding their pee until their bladder bursts, though. The more likely scenario is that you'll pee your pants long before your bladder ruptures. Draining your bladder frequently and completely is good for your health because it helps avoid infections brought on by bacteria buildup. 

     A full bladder can be agony and you can even experience diminished focus and cognitive abilities plus a lot of squirming. Nobody in the pee world business has been able to conclusively identify what causes this behavior, but there are a few theories. 

     Bouncing up and down while clenching your legs together could perhaps both lighten the load on the bladder sphincter and help you feel a little more in control. It's probably not very effective, but it might fool your brain into thinking things aren't so bad. Another idea is that when we're in a tough psychological situation, we look for solace in anything outside of the pain we're in. Squirming can help temporarily override the discomfort. 

     The most likely theory is a psychological one...rhythmic displacement behavior. When faced with conflict, it's in our nature to move in a rhythmic way. When we're faced with two strong but contradictory urges, anxiety can cause us to perform little repetitive movements like nail biting, head scratching and pee-pee dancing. We experience this conflict in the form of the urge to pee right now and the necessity of waiting.

Verizon Wireless (Lack of Customer) Service

    About two weeks ago I lost my new cell phone and called Verizon Wireless to report it. The customer service rep turned on the Family Locator which showed it was located in an apartment building a half mile down the street. As there was no chance of getting it back I had the phone deactivated and my credit card was charged $265 to pay for the lost phone and at the same time an order was put in for a replacement to be shipped via UPS.
     The next morning when I went out back of the house to feed the birds there was the phone lying on the deck; it was not a half mile away. I called Verizon to cancel the order, but the phone had already been shipped. Somehow Verizon contacted UPS and had the phone shipped back to the warehouse which received it about 5 days later.  
     Initially I was informed by customer service that it would take 24-48 hours after they got the phone back for the charge to be removed from my credit card, but when that didn't happen I called back and was told it would take 3-4 days and when that didn't happen I was told it would take 5-7 days.
     Finally, after two weeks my credit card was credited for only $16. That generated another call to Verizon and I was informed they had used the $265 to pay off my current phone and the refund was for an installment payment for the new phone that I had already made! I carefully explained that was not what I wanted. I wanted the $265 removed from my credit card and I would continue to pay for the new phone by monthly installments.
     Customer service informed me the change would be made and to give it 2-3 days to to show up as a credit on my credit card. When I told the rep that was what I was told last time and it didn't happen, she said it could take 4-5 days. When that didn't happen I made another call and was told give it 5-7 days. When that didn't happen, in another call customer service told me it might take one or two billing cycles!! Not happy with that answer, the customer service person straight up told me she did not have the authority to do anything except write it up.  She also advised that if the charge didn't come off my credit card “in a few days” visit the Verizon store and maybe they could help.
     So, that's where I'm at now, still waiting. If the charge shows up on my credit card bill next month I will write a letter to the credit card company and dispute the charge. Verizon wireless customer service people have all been very nice people, but they don't know what they are doing and they have absolutely no power to actually do anything.   

     No matter how good a company’s products or services may be, if employees are not given authority to make decisions, the company will have serious problems. This is especially true if instead of giving general direction, the company micromanages its employees.
     Micromanaging is a method of management in which an individual closely observes or controls the work of an employee. The result is that efficiency, creativity, trust, communication, problem-solving, and the company’s ability to reach its goals are all hampered. I know. I worked for a company that micromanaged. The solution is to hire/train competent people and let them do their job without constantly looking over their shoulder. 

3-6 Followup. Eventually I talked to a very nice lady at Verizon customer service who agreed that I should not be having so much trouble resolving this issue. She promised to take care of it and volunteered to be my point of contact so I would not have to deal with a different customer service representative every time I called. She also promised to followup on my complaint and even supplied me with her e-mail in case there were problems or questions and advised me to give it 5 days.

At the end of 5 days the $265 was still on my credit card, but my Verizon bill showed my account was credited for that amount. As a result, I did not owe them anything for the month and the balance would be applied to my bill the following month. i.e. instead of paying Verizon for the next couple of months, I pay the credit card company.

That is not the solution I was looking for, but it works. I am happy to report that Verizon has at least one customer service representative that actually provides service. I emailed her back thanking her and requested she supply me with her supervisor's email so I can make sure she gets credit for a job well done.

How High Can Airplanes Fly?

      All airplanes have a maximum altitude. The highest certified altitude of an airliner was Concorde's 60,000 feet. The record altitude for a jet plane is 123,520 feet, set by Alexandr Fedotov in 1997 in a military Soviet MiG-25M. 

     Today some of the corporate jets can fly at 51,000 feet, but most commercial airliners are limited to 45,000 feet or less. If a plane were to climb beyond its ceiling limit then the engines would eventually lose the ability to produce enough thrust to continue the climb.         

     The optimum altitude is also linked to the weight of a commercial jet and heavier planes fly lower, and lighter higher. Light aircraft do not have pressurized cabins and must remain below 10,000 feet. Any higher and the pilot is required to wear an oxygen mask to remain conscious.

      One of the main reasons behind aircraft altitude is that, as the air gets thinner with altitude, planes can fly more easily and therefore faster and burn less fuel, which saves money. Normally commercial flights fly between 35,000 and 42,000 feet.

     At these higher altitudes aircraft avoid much of the bad weather. The troposphere, the layer closest to the ground, is where most of the world's weather occurs. Usually measured up to 36,000 feet, this is where clouds are most likely, as well as heavy rains and high winds. Aircraft prefer life in the stratosphere, which means less turbulence. 

     In case of an emergency, say engine failure, aircraft at 35,000 feet, allows for much more time to deal with the situation. It also means that if all engines fail, the glide distance is much further.

     There are minimum altitude restrictions, but they apply much more to light aircraft than airliners. It is illegal to fly below 1,000 feet over a built-up area or 500 feet over any person, vehicle or structure. There are also vertical distance restrictions.

     The elite group of 35-50 of the world's U-2 pilots routinely fly at 70,000 feet are subject to altitude-induced decompression sickness which is known by its common name, the bends. This is the same condition suffered by divers who rise too quickly from the high pressure at depth to the lower pressure near the surface.

     U-2 pilots are especially at risk, not just because of their extreme altitude but also because their cockpits are only partially pressurized. The pressure in a U-2 cockpit is equivalent to the atmosphere at 29,000 feet, as high as Mt. Everest so U-2 pilots breathe pure oxygen for an hour before their flight and wear a pressurized suit. 

     Pre-breathing oxygen helps purge nitrogen from their bodies. If any nitrogen remains and the pilot climbs to altitude, just like when you open a can of soda, the thin atmosphere will cause the nitrogen dissolved in the body’s blood and tissue to boil which can cause extreme pain, bruising, brain damage and without treatment death.

     In 2006, one U-2 pilot several hours into a combat mission started experiencing symptoms of knee pain and over the next five hours, an intense headache, nausea, and extreme fatigue. At one point he also hallucinated that his plane was in a steep bank and be began to feel disoriented and almost like he was intoxication, at one point even falling asleep. 

     It progressed to the point that he had essentially forgotten how to fly the plane. After vomiting into his pressure-sealed helmet he had to take it off he could see, but that exposed him to he much lower pressure which only made matters worse. He tried setting the autopilot for home, but he had forgotten how to use the device. It took three hours of careful instruction from his squadron commander to talk him back home because all he could remember was how to perform only the most basic tasks.

     Landing was critical because he had developed several blind spots in his vision and could not even see the landing gear handle, but had to fumble for it in the area where he knew it was. Warnings were going off, but he couldn't remember what they meant. The pilot had no recollection of the last 45 minutes of his flight and during landing he was flying towards structures on the ground. It wasn't until a couple of jet fighters were launched that he was able to be guided towards the runway. 

     When he finally managed to land after blacking out at least one, his limp body had to be dragged out out the aircraft. But, he wasn't out of the woods. The nitrogen gas had caused havoc with his body. Normally the bends is treated early on when the symptoms begin. He was placed in a pressurized room where a gradual shift from low to high pressure gives nitrogen gas time to dissolve back into the blood. In this pilot's case, he was in and out of the room for several days as he was in a haze and could not remember how to simple, routine tasks. He fully recovered, but there are on his skin that was caused by bubbling nitrogen gas.

However, in many cases symptoms don't show up until hours, or even days, later and there can be long-lasting or permanent brain damage. Some pilots have reported the sensation of free-falling, being completely awake, but unable to move. Additionally some have experienced problems with short-term memory and reasoning. 

     U-2 pilots fly for longer stretches and so seem especially susceptible because their flights can last up to 12 hours. There is also another reason...a study found that even mild exercise, including motions used in flying, can increase the risk of getting the bends. Another factor is stress. In the old days U-2 pilots essentially did nothing more than fly over a target and take pictures often times leaving the plane on autopilot, they could even snooze. Today they must quickly react to threats from missiles etc, act as relay for communications and serve as an eye in the sky for troops on the ground.

     The problems for U-2 pilots saw a significant increase during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because of the long missions and the stress. The military has taken some act, but in typical fashion, has not moved very fast to solve the problem. 

     The Northrop Grumman Global Hawk, an unmanned, remotely piloted drone, can fly almost as high and do almost everything a U-2 can do, but the Pentagon cut back on the program because U-2s are cheaper and, as all military personnel know, people are expendable.

Fun And Interesting Stuff To Do On Your Laptop

 Cartoon yourself  
Just upload a picture and select the type of cartoon you want and in a few seconds you'll have a neat cartoon-like picture 

World Wide Internet TV  
This site is an independent guide to streaming media available on the web that allows users of personal computers and other consumer electronic devices to find and access streaming media content over the Internet. i.e. watch television from all around the world on your laptop. 

Trace an email automatically  
When you're worried that an email isn't what it claims to be, you should inspect the headers, which give chapter and verse on where it came from, but that can be difficult. This site does it for you. IP-address.com. 

Wonder How To  
Hacks for all kinds of things, even how pick locks if you need to. 

Weather Around the World 
Super accurate, and helpful for your local area weather as well as around the world. Also future predictions. Current for my location Thursday at 3:30PM 
Wind: 14 mph out of the South 
Humidity: 79% 
Dew Pt: 33 degrees 
UV Index: 1 
Visibility: 7 miles
Pressure: 1033 mb 
38 degrees Mostly Cloudy. Feels Like: 30 degrees 
Low: 32 degrees
High: 39 degrees 
Light rain tomorrow morning. 

Use It As A Media Center 
A laptop can easily become the media center of your home. By connecting it to your TV, you can suddenly play your Blu-rays, DVDs, stream your favorite TV shows and listen to your playlists. Connect some Bluetooth peripherals and you can do it all from the comfort of your own couch. Just Google for information on how to connect a laptop to a TV.

Make Some Fun Music  
Incredibox is a fun musical app in which you can quickly and easily create a mix by running a band of beatboxers. 

How Cold Is It?

     Nunavut is the newest, largest, and northernmost territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the boundaries had been contemplatively drawn in 1993. The creation of Nunavut resulted in the first major change to Canada's political map since the incorporation of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1949. And, up there in Bear Lake, Nunavut in Canada it's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey as they used to say. Either way you measure, Celsius or Fahrenheit, it's 40 below. 
     Sailing ships had to have cannon for protection and the cannonballs had to ready for instant use so the story goes that cannonballs used to be stored aboard ship in piles on a brass frame or tray called a 'monkey'. 
     The cannonballs were stacked up in a square based pyramid next to the cannon. The top level of the stack had one ball, the next level down had four, the next had nine, the next had sixteen, and so on. Four levels would provide a stack of 30. The problem was how to keep the bottom level from sliding out from under the weight of the higher levels. To do this, they devised a small brass plate called a brass monkey with a round indentation for each cannonball in the bottom layer. Brass was used because the cannonballs wouldn’t rust to the brass monkey. 
     In very cold weather brass contracts faster than iron and as it got cold and the indentations in the brass monkey would get smaller than the iron cannonballs they were holding. If the temperature got cold enough, the bottom layer would pop out of the indentations spilling the entire pyramid over the deck. Thus it was, quite literally, “cold enough to freeze the balls off a “brass monkey.” 

     A nice explanation, but it's not true. The Oxford English Dictionary doesn't even record a usage of “brass monkey” like this. References to “brass monkeys” started appearing in print in the mid-1800s and cannonballs weren't mentioned. It was cold enough to freeze the ears off a brass monkey or the tail off a brass monkey or the nose off a brass monkey. On hot days it was hot enough to scald the throat of a brass monkey or singe the hair off a brass monkey. 
     Besides, warships didn’t store cannonballs, or round shot as it was known, on deck all the time. Space was a precious commodity and decks were kept as clear as possible in order to allow room for sailors to perform all the tasks necessary for ordinary ship’s functions. Also, storing cannonballs on deck presented a hazard...they might break free in high seas and start rolling around deck, possibly even going over the side. Cannonballs were only brought on deck when action was a possibility. 
     Gunners were also persnickety about their cannonballs. Gun crews kept the balls polished to remove imperfections in the belief that smooth shot would fly truer. And, like all military men everywhere, rust is a bad thing. Back in my day in the Marine Corps, rifles were stored in a gun rack in the squad bay and one day the Platoon Sergeant walked by and started picking out rifles to inspect. He found a spec of rust on one, pulled out his notebook and checked the serial number to see who it belonged. It wasn't mine; I carried a Colt 1911 A1 Government Model .45 caliber pistol. The rusty rifle belonged to one of the squad leaders who was summoned and in a few choice words instructed to clean his rifle. Rust is an enemy that won't be tolerated. 
     Nobody really knows where the term “freeze the balls off a brass monkey” comes from, but it's probably another version of brass monkeys having their nose or ears or tails frozen off. Now you know.

Real Heroes vs. Ersatz Heroes

     Sorry sports fans, but honestly, I am getting g kind of tired of the Olympic coverage because it's kind of boring. To me, bobsledding, ski races, ice dancing, etc, etc all looks pretty much the same, the only difference being a few hundredths of a second or a nuance here and there that I am unable to pick up on. 
     For me the real heroes are those who participate in the Paralympic Games. These are people with a wide range of disabilities who participate in sporting events. People with things like paraplegia, quadriplegia, muscular dystrophy, post-polio syndrome, spina bifida, amputations or various congenital disorders such as leg length difference, short stature, central nervous system disorders, lack of voluntary coordination of muscle movements, abnormal muscle contractions, vision impairment and intellectual impairment. 
     A hero is someone who can be looked up to for their actions and courage is usually their biggest trait and they have usually overcome huge obstacles. And these are people who have overcome a lot more, both physically and emotionally, than the healthy kids and young adults participating in the Olympics have ever overcome and that makes them the real heroes. 
     As actress Mary Tyler Moore said, "You can't be brave if you've had only wonderful things happen to you." And, General Norman Schwarzkopf wrote, “It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle” Certainly the title “hero” belongs to those who participate in the Paralympic Games. 
     But, it's the same everywhere.

Was Abraham Lincoln REALLY Honest?

     With all the nastiness of politicians that's going on today I wondered how they compared to one of the greatest of all American Presidents, Honest Abe Lincoln. Was our 16th president a paragon of honesty or was he a shrewd politician who was not above stretching the truth if it served a political goal? 
     A professor of history at Columbia University, Eric Foner, claims that Lincoln was essentially honest, but while he acquired his "Honest Abe" nickname long before he ran for president, Lincoln and his supporters also realized it was a valuable label.  Forner dubbed Lincoln as a consummate politician. 

     Maybe he didn't tell outright lies, but he certainly stretched the truth when the occasion suited it. And, like all politicians of today, Lincoln held private and public positions. For example, in 1865 the House was debating the 13th Amendment which says, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction and Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” rumors had reached Washington that negotiations with the Confederacy were about to begin. 
     Lincoln was afraid this would derail the amendment, so he issued a statement saying that no Confederate commissioners were on their way to Washington. While that was technically true, Confederate commissioners were actually on their way to Hampton Roads, Virginia where Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward then met with them. This reminds me of the time during the Vietnam war when we were watching the news on television in the company rec room and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the main architect of the futile Vietnam war,  announced that no troops were being sent to Vietnam. Technically that was true, but half the company had received orders to Okinawa FFT. That FFT meant “For Further Transfer.” Guess where? 
     Lincoln did not keep a diary, and he and his wife destroyed their personal letters, but historians have combed the many pieces of correspondence left behind that basically confirm his reputation as Honest Abe. One Lincoln scholar has confirmed that Lincoln really did work to pay for a book he borrowed that had been damaged by water. He did pay off the debt accumulated by his failed New Salem store. And, even as a young man he was often recruited to judge horse races and wrestling matches. 
     Of course, as a Republican and northern candidate, Lincoln didn't get a single vote in the southern states and according to Lincoln historians, he was quite capable of changing his position on things like emancipation or race relations as conditions changed. At the same time it's pretty much agreed that one of Lincoln's best qualities was that he was open-minded and willing to learn. That quality right there puts him way, way ahead of the buffoons in the government today! 
     During the famous Lincoln vs. Stephen A. Douglas debates during the llinois Senate campaign of 1858 where Lincoln challenged Douglas' bid for a third term, the seven 3-hour debates were full of political zingers just like today. On one occasion, Douglas accused Lincoln of hypocrisy on the issue of temperance, charging that he had once operated a grocery store that sold hard liquor. Lincoln drawled that if that was so, Douglas was his best customer. During the Senate race Douglas encouraged votes by providing liquor to those who supported him. 
     When Douglas claimed Lincoln was two-faced on the slavery issue, Lincoln shot back, "If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?" 
     For his part, Lincoln argued that Douglas violated the spirit of the founding fathers by denying blacks their inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and in fact was part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to make slavery national and permanent.
     Lincoln organized support among western state Republicans by secretly buying a German-language newspaper to sing his praises to immigrant voters who might tilt such swing states as Illinois and Indiana. 
     All this involved a senate seat, not a presidential race. During the presidential race, politics were tumultuous, but the candidates did not campaign directly for the White House and did not face each other in undignified debates. During the 1860 presidential campaign Lincoln stayed home and did not say a thing while Douglas made one half-hearted campaign trip under the guise that he needed to visit his ailing mother. 
     That's not to say that getting the Republican Party's nomination in 1860 and then defeating Democrat Stephen Douglas didn't involve a little dirty politicking and cunning political moves by Lincoln's election team. Lincoln relied on his aides to do the ruthless dirty work and cut deals. 
     Prior to the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Lincoln's campaign team met with delegation leaders, sometimes promising Cabinet positions in exchange for support for Lincoln. Lincoln's campaign aides even printed out 5,000 counterfeit tickets to the Republican convention to pack the halls with his supporters. 
     Lincoln was firmly against slavery, but his position on what should happen to freed slaves wasn't so clear and it took him a long time to figure out exactly what should be done and he waivered considerably. His historic Emancipation Proclamation, which he delivered as President in 1863, stopped short of granting citizenship or any other rights to African-Americans. Instead he only stated that freed slaves should be paid reasonable wages for their work and should be allowed to serve in the US military.
     In fact, in an 1854 speech he advocated sending them back to Africa. And in the debate with Douglas during the 1858 Senate race, Lincoln said, "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races." That statement was repudiated by the Emancipation Proclamation, but did Lincoln's personal views really change? Up until September 1862, the main focus of the Civil war had been to preserve the Union, but with the War not going well and the population becoming more and more disgruntled over it, the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation declaring freedom for slaves became a legitimate war aim and drew people's attention away from its cost, both in money and lives. 
     The bottom lines seems to be that Lincoln was about an honest a President we ever had, kept his personal opinions to himself and if there was any dirty work to be done, he let his staff handle it.

Tobacco Smoke Enemas

    Tobacco smoke enemas were administered by medical practitioners in the 18th century to treat everything from colds to cholera. 
     In England around 1774 Drs. William Hawes and Thomas Cogan formed The Institution for, you aren't going to believe this, affording immediate relief to persons who were apparently dead. 
     The treatment for "apparent death" was warmth and stimulation. Anne Greene, a woman sentenced to death and hanged in 1650 for the supposed murder of her stillborn child, was found to be still alive. She was revived by pouring hot cordial down her throat, rubbing her limbs and extremities, bleeding her, applying heating plasters and a "heating odoriferous Clyster to be cast up in her body, to give heat and warmth to her bowels." After placing her in a warm bed with another woman, to keep her warm, she recovered fully and was pardoned. 
     The Institution later became the Royal Humane Society. In the 18th century, the society promoted the rescue of drowning people, and paid 4 guineas (about $160 today) to anyone who successfully brought a drowning victim back to life! In the process they began began the practice of a unique type of holistic medicine. 
     It was around this time that tobacco had been imported to England from Virginia in the United States that was intended to be inhaled, chewed, smoked (usually in a clay pipe), or smoldered as what were known as bum cigars. 
     Native Americans (American Indians as they used to be called) used tobacco as a medicine and pioneered the use of tobacco smoke enemas. Word of this treatment made its way to England and medical assistants with Hawes and Cogans's society began to use the procedure to treat half-drowned London citizens who were pulled from the Thames River.
     An enema tube with rubber tubing attachments was inserted into the victim and smoke was blown into the rectum. It was thought to accomplish two things; first, warming the drowned person and second, stimulating respiration. Artificial respiration was used if the tobacco smoke enema failed. 
     Soon, along with bloodletting, tobacco smoke enemas were all the rage. Practitioners offered the practice as a treatment for headaches, respiratory failure, colds, hernias and abdominal cramps. In the case of cramps the enema was administered simultaneously with feeding chicken broth by mouth.  Tobacco smoke enemas were used for treating typhoid fever and cholera outbreaks, during what was referred to as the “stage of collapse” and death. Liquid tobacco enemas were often given to ease the symptoms of a hernia. 

an early enema kit

     There were enema kits, but before bellows were included the results could be disastrous to the tobacco smoke blower. If the practitioner inadvertently inhaled then some stools of cholera victims could be aspirated and swallowed with with the result that the practitioner himself became infected. The introduction of bellows and a variety of rectal tubes spared practitioners from this horrible fate. The enemas were also purported to be good for the treatment of hemorrhoids and carbuncles. In 1811, English scientist Ben Brodie discovered that nicotine was toxic to the heart and it soon became unfashionable to prescribe tobacco smoke enemas. 
     The effects of smoke was not unknown to European medical practitioners because incense has been used since antiquity and the effects of burning hemp seed was well known by the Scythians and Thracians. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates recommended the inhalation of smoke for "female diseases" and Pliny the Elder recommended it as a cure for coughs. 
     Native Americans used the leaf for a variety of purposes, including religious worship, but Europeans soon became aware that they also used tobacco for medicinal purposes. The French diplomat Jean Nicot used a tobacco poultice as an analgesic and Nicolas Monardes advocated tobacco as a treatment for a long list of diseases, such as cancer, headaches, respiratory problems, stomach cramps, gout, intestinal worms and female diseases. 
     Tobacco was thought to work because of its ability to soak up moisture, to warm parts of the body, and to therefore maintain the equilibrium that was considered so important to a healthy person. In an attempt to discourage disease tobacco was also used to fumigate buildings. 
     In 1686 a fellow named Thomas Sydenham described its use to cure iliac passion. First the patient was bled, then after an hour or two the patient was caused to puke by administering “a strong purging glyster.” He knew of nothing better than tobacco smoke. This was accomplished by the smoke being “forced up through a large bladder into the bowels by an inverted pipe, which may be repeated after a short interval, if the former, by giving a stool, does not open a passage downwards.” 
     By the 19th-century Danish farmers are reported to have used the enemas for horses that needed laxatives and it has also been reported that in the United States Catawba Native Americans also treated their horses using the technique. 
     Artificial respiration was not unknown, but blowing smoke into the lungs (or the rectum) was thought to be useful, but the smoke enema was considered the most potent method, due to its supposed warming and stimulating properties. 
     The Dutch experimented with methods of inflating the lungs, as a treatment for those who had fallen into their canals and apparently drowned. Patients were also given rectal infusions of tobacco smoke, as a respiratory stimulant. 
     One of the first to recommend tobacco smoke enemas to resuscitate victims of drowning was Richard Mead in 1745. His name is associated with one of the earliest documented cases of resuscitation by the tobacco smoke enema. In 1746, a woman who looked to be drowned had, on the advice of a passing sailor, the stem of the sailor's pipe inserted into her rectum. The bowl was covered with a piece of perforated paper and smoke was blown hard into her rectum; she recovered. Who did the inserting and blowing and what subsequently happened to the sailor's pipe is not known. 
     In the 1780s the Royal Humane Society installed resuscitation kits, including smoke enemas, at various points along the River Thames and by the turn of the 19th century, tobacco smoke enemas had become an established practice in Western medicine, considered by Humane Societies to be as important as artificial respiration. 
     By 1805, the use of tobacco smoke enemas was so established as a way to treat constrictions of the alimentary canal that doctors began experimenting with other delivery mechanisms. In one experiment, a concoction of about 30 drops of tobacco in four ounces of water was used as an enema in a patient suffering from convulsions. The convulsions ceased, but the patient suffered vomiting, and profuse perspiration. 
     Such enemas were often used to treat hernias. A middle-aged man was reported in 1843 to have died following an application, performed to treat a strangulated hernia and in a similar case in 1847 a woman was given a liquid tobacco enema, supplemented with a chicken broth enema, and pills of opium and and an oral dose of a purgative. Somehow she recovered. 
     An 1827 medical journal reported on a woman who was treated for constipation with repeated smoke enemas, with little apparent success, but according to a report of 1835, tobacco enemas were used successfully to treat cholera "in the stage of collapse". 
     Early in the 17th century King James I offered a scathing attack on the practice writing, of its effectiveness, writing "[it] will not deigne to cure heere any other than cleanly and gentlemanly diseases." Others claimed that smoking dried out the "humours", that snuff made the brain "sooty" and that old people should not smoke as they were "naturally dried up anyway". 
     Some beliefs about the effectiveness of tobacco smoke to protect against disease persisted until well into the 20th century, but the use of tobacco smoke enemas in Western medicine declined after 1811, when animal experimentation demonstrated that nicotine is a cardiac poison. 
     The point of all this is to inform readers that if someone accuses you of blowing smoke up their a** now you know where the term came from.

Sleeping Cats and Flatulence

      Cat farts are especially annoying, but one big question that even stumps vets is, do they make a sound?

      Cats often show owners their butt and when they do, they're making themselves very vulnerable and by doing so, they're saying they trust you and know you won't do anything to hurt them. Another sign of trust is when they fall asleep on you.

      Cats can sleep up to 16 hours a day, and older cats spend even more, as much as 20 hours a day sleeping. In the wild, cats have to hunt in order to eat and all that stalking, chasing and killing of prey burns a lot of energy so they conserve energy between meals by sleeping. 
     But cats aren’t always sound asleep...about three quarters of their sleep is what might be called snoozing; they are getting their rest, but are still alert enough to spring into action at a moment’s notice. As a cat dozes it generally lies with his head raised and paws tucked beneath them. Sometimes they actually sleep sitting up, in which case their muscles stiffen to hold them upright. Again, they are ready to spring into action. Here's a little secret to know if a cat is in a light, snoozing sleep: their ears will twitch and rotate toward noises and their eyes will be open a tiny bit.

      When they are not in the snooze mode they are in a deep sleep. Except for older cats; they're in deep sleep 30-40 percent of the time. Signs that a cat is in a deep sleep are they are usually curled up with their eyes tightly closed. Sometimes they might even have their tail over their face. Deep sleep is critical for their health and it's also the time they dream.         
     You can tell they are dreaming because their whiskers and paws twitch. Sometimes they also snore. The airway is obstructed by extra skin from the soft palate and is likely to happen when a cat is relaxed.

      When the cat transitions from light into a deep sleep, their body relaxes and they stretch out and roll to one side. Their brain patterns change and become smaller and closer together and are very similar to their waking patterns. However, they are hard to awaken during deep sleep. This phase usually lasts only about five minutes and the cat then returns to slow-wave sleep and thereafter alternates between the two until they finally wake up. Kittens fall directly into deep sleep without this alternating pattern until they're about a month old.

      The cat's senses continue to record sounds and scents during up to 70 percent of sleep, so the they can awaken quickly at the squeak or smell of a mouse.  Slower wake-up times are characterized by a predictable pattern of blinking, yawning and stretching. First the forelegs, then back, and finally rear legs each, in turn, are flexed. Most cats also groom themselves briefly upon first awakening. Sleep time increases on cold, rainy or cloudy days. For house cats, their sleep time is usually modified to fit in with their owner's habits.

     And, what about that nasty flatulence cat's often have? Dr. Mickila Collins DVM, when asked about farting in cats, said she never heard a cat rip one but that doesn’t mean they don’t; she thinks they could. Personally, I have had three cats and certainly smelled them, but never heard one. I can also tell you that when a cat lets one loose, the smell can sometimes cause bile to come up in your throat!

      Diet itself is frequently to blame because the filler found in many cat foods may include such hard-to-digest ingredients as soybeans, beans, peas, corn or other carbohydrates. Food that’s spoiled, table scraps, milk products, especially cow’s milk, high-fat diets and spices all create gas in cats.

      Worm infestation, signaled by stomach upset, diarrhea and foul-smelling gas is is a sign of of a problem. Cats with excess gas need to be examined so vets can diagnose or rule out any illness. Excessive gas or signs such as a bloated tummy, vomiting, diarrhea and loss of appetite are cause to consult a vet immediately. Never ever give any cat a human medicine designed for gas relief.

      Other causes can be a diet high in fiber, eating too fast and swallowing excessive amounts of air, consuming spoiled food or garbage, hairballs and dietary changes, especially ones that aren’t gradual. Don't feed a cat dairy products. Their digestive tract isn’t designed to process it properly.