They switched sides in 1943, so technically he’s at least partially right. And the Italians really weren’t into the whole war as it was- Mussolini dragged them into it, but the Italians had no quarrel with, well, anyone really. They would have been quite content to sit the whole thing out, if it wasn’t for those meddling Fascists…
I just remembered another gem - a now-retired coworker went on and on one day about the Winston-Salem witch trials. :rolleyes:
This reminds me of a story DH told me about the church his parents started attending when he was a pre-teen. It was one of those “only about 5 members don’t belong to the preacher’s immediate family” places to begin with - about a half-step removed from speaking in tongues and handling snakes, according to DH.
Anyway, the preacher got on this kick about divorce, and decreed that if you’re divorced, the only way to save your soul from hellfire and damnation was to remarry your first spouse. DH made the mistake of wondering aloud where that would leave his dad. His dad is his mom’s second husband, but his mom is his dad’s first wife. So if Mom divorces Dad to remarry her first husband, where does that leave Dad, since Mom’s it for him? Is Dad going to hell? Does Mom have to become a bigamist to save everyone’s souls, or what are the logistics here?
He was sent to his room and got a stern talking-to about his “attitude,” which apparently wasn’t sufficiently “Pastor Bob said it, I believe it, end of story.”
I wish DH remembered the fallout of this, or possibly there just weren’t that many divorced/remarried couples, since from what he remembers, “Preacher Bob” was a Fred Phelps-style control freak who kept the family on a tight leash, and there were only a few non-family members.
I wouldn’t ascribe this part to stupidity, though. As far as I know, most men who fought in the Pacific were ingrained with a similar attitude that lasted the rest of their lives. I’m not sure that I wouldn’t have felt just the same way had I been through that.
On Friday, the talk turned to politics in the office. A cow-orker stated “I became a Republican because of Clinton!” She actually blamed 9/11 on him, but that’s neither here nor there. I said “but you don’t have a problem with being lied to for eight years? Even a lot of Pubs have given up on this clown and can’t wait for him to go.” Says she: “Well, count me in with 'em. He’s an idiot!” Says I, with a sweet smile: “So when are you converting back to being a Democrat?” “mumblemumblemumble”
Actually, I would likely have responded the same way, but it doesn’t mean what you think it means. To me, it is a polite way of saying, “I don’t believe you, but since I don’t want to call you a liar I wont press the issue.” After all, you could be that one white guy that was born to caucasian parents in China.
I just recalled another one. Years ago when I first moved to the sunshine state from NY, a coworker asked me what the time difference was.
How is that stupid?
Also, Larry Mudd, what is the purpose of salt in boiling water?
It seems to suggest that they were nearly at death’s door from starvation because all they had to eat was cough drops and aspirin. Who eats aspirin for nourishment after two days?
Here’s one - my mother-in-law wanted to give some kids that she didn’t know well some gifts this Christmas. She bought a box of glowsticks.
The kids arrived, and she handed them a glowstick each. “You just bend it, and it glows,” she told them. The kids duly did this, but nothing happened. The kids were somewhat disappointed.
“I don’t know what happened,” she exclaimed. “I tested each one out when I bought them last week, and they worked fine then.”
I believe it’s flavor.
I had been told that it changes the boiling point, allowing the water to get hotter.
But Larry says that that’s what he was told too, and then
I did a search for his name and “pasta” and “salt.” Found a thread in which he alluded to having discovered this obvious (to him!) answer, but the link to the relevant previous thread is now defunct. So I still don’t know what salt does, if it does not change the boiling point.
Read his wording more carefully. “Why do we do this?” as opposed to “what does salt do?”
The answers being, respectively, because someone told us it changes the boiling point, and nothing.
Er… I think.
I doubt very seriously that their survival was due to the ingestion of two cough drops and six aspirin. The same two women in the same situation would have survived just as well without two cough drops and six aspirin, which have, AFAIK, no nutritional value at all. Maybe a few scant calories if the cough drops are made with sugar, but anyone who is one cough drop away from starving to death is probably in a coma.
What they survived on was air.
You just have to be really quick.
That same ex-girlfriend also fell for a pyramid scheme before I knew her, and called me to when she was on the verge of falling for another scam later when I was dating her.
I dunno… That little thing doesn’t look like it had enough juice to animate a Frankenchicken corpse.
Or adopted.
My FIL (now long gone) and my MIL would NEVER even try Chinese food. The reason? We fought those “dirty Japs” in Korea, and now they’re all here opening Chinese restaraunts… 
Sorry! To clear this mystery up:
We add salt to water for pasta because it… makes the water salty.
(Thanks, folks… I feel a little less sheepish about this now.)
…and salty water makes for tastier, less “flat” (tasting) pasta. The water brings the salt into the pasta with it as it cooks. Boiling pasta in plain water and adding salt after is yuck - the salt sits on top of the pasta and is quite disagreeable.