Marvellous Answer (A Doctor and Mechanic Conversation)

A Doctor and Mechanic Conversation

A mechanic was removing the cylinder heads from the motor of a car when he spotted the famous heart surgeon in his shop, who was standing off to the side, waiting for the service manager to come to take a look at his car.

The mechanic shouted across the garage,"Hello Doctor!! Please come over here for a minute." The famous surgeon, a bit surprised, walked over to the mechanic.

The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked argumentatively, "So doctor, look at this. I also open hearts, take valves out, grind 'em, put in new parts, and when I finish this will work as a new one. So how come you get the big money, when you and me is doing basically the same work?"


The doctor leaned over and whispered to the mechanic
.
.
.
.
.
.
He said: "Try to do it when the engine is running".

He Rescues The Birds

He Rescues The Birds

Once, while riding through the country with some other lawyers, Abraham Lincoln was missed from the party, and was seen loitering near a thicket of wild plum trees where the men had stopped a short time before to water their horses.

"Where is Lincoln?" asked one of the lawyers.
"When I saw him last," answered another, " he had caught two young birds that the wind had blown out of their nest, and was hunting for the nest to put them back again."

As Lincoln joined them, the lawyers rallied him on his tender-heartedness, and he said: -- " I could not have slept unless I had restored those little birds to their mother."

Growing Older

Growing Older

When the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was well along in years, his hair was white but he was still a vigorous man. Someone asked him why this was so.
The poet pointed to an apple tree in bloom and said, " That tree is very old, but I never saw prettier blossoms on it that it now bears. That tree grows new wood each year. Like that apple tree, I try to grow a little new wood each year".

Why Men Wear Earrings?

Why Men Wear Earrings?

I have often wondered how this trend got started, I now have the answer. A man is at work one day when he notices that his co-worker is wearing an earring. This man knows his co-worker to be a normally conservative fellow, and is curious about his sudden change in "fashion sense."

The man walks up to him and says, "I didn't know you were into earrings."
"Don't make such a big deal, it's only an earring, "he replies sheepishly.

His friend falls silent for a few minutes, but then his curiosity prods him to say, "So, how long have you been wearing one?"
"Ever since my wife found it in my car."

:)

Be A Better Person

Be A Better Person

A Young student approached the famous French scientist and philosopher, Blaise Pascal, and declared, " If I had your brains, I would be a better person."

Pondering the depth of that statement, Pascal paused momentarily before replying, " Be a better person, and you will have my brains."

Morning Thought

Morning Thought

Start you day with good thought. 

If you want something you never had, do something you have never done.

Don't go the way life takes you.

Take life the way you want to go.

And remember you are born to live

And not living because you are born.

Husband and Wife

Husband and Wife

Wife : You always carry my photo in your handbag to the office. Why ?

Hubby : When there is a problem, no matter how impossible, I look at your picture and the problem disappears.

Wife: You see, how miraculous and powerful I am for you?

Hubby: Yes, I see your picture and say to myself, "What other problem can there be greater than this one?"

(hehehe... :D )

Hearing Problem

Hearing Problem

An elderly gentleman had serious hearing problems for a number of years. He went to the doctor and the doctor was able to have him fitted for a set of hearing aids that allowed the gentleman to hear 100%.

The elderly gentleman went back in a month to the doctor and the doctor said,"Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased that you can hear again."

The gentleman replied, "Oh, I haven't told my family yet. I just sit around and listento the conversations. I've changed my will three times!"

Learning Part
Hearing aid = A sharp point at the leaf or stem
Will = a legal document declaring a person's wishes regarding the disposal of their property when they die

Installing a Carpet

Installing a Carpet

A carpet layer had just finished installing carpet for a lady. He stepped out for a smoke, only to realize he'd lost his cigarettes. In the middle of the room, under the carpet, was a bump.

'No sense pulling up the entire floor for one pack of smokes,'' he said to himself.  He proceeded to get out his hammer and flattened the hump.

As he was cleaning up, the lady came in. ''Here,'' she said, handling him his pack of cigarettes. ''I found them in the hallway.''
''Now,'' she said, ''if only I could find my parakeet.''

Divorce Lawyer

Divorce Lawyer

A guy walks into a post office one day to see a middle-aged, balding man standing at the counter methodically placing "Love" stamps on bright pink envelopes with hearts all over them. He then takes out a perfume bottle and starts spraying scent all over them. His curiosity getting the better of him, he goes up to the balding man and asks him what he is doing.

The man says "I'm sending out 1,000 Valentine cards signed, 'Guess who?'"
"But why?" asks the man.

"I'm a divorce lawyer," the man replies.

Traveller In The Far East Ordering Breakfast

Traveller In The Far East Ordering Breakfast

Note: this story is about how two people using the English language build up a fine example of miscommunication. Read it aloud to yourself, pronounce it just the way this text is written.

Room Service: "Morny, ruin sorbees"
Guest: "Sorry, I thought I dialled room service."
RS: "Rye..ruin sorbees..morny! Djewish to odor sunteen?
G: "Uh..yes, i'd like some bacon and eggs"
RS: "Ow July den"
G: "What?"
RS: "Ow July den?..pry, boy, pooch?"
G: "Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled, please"
RS: "Ow July dee baychem...crease?"
G: "Crisp will be fine"
RS: "Hokay. An San tos?"
G: "What?"
RS: "San tos. July san tos?"
G: "I don't think so"
RS: "No? Judo one toes?"
G: "I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo one toes' means"
RS: "Toes! Toes!...why djew Don Juan toes? Ow bow singlish mopping we bother?"
G: "English muffin!! I've got it! You were saying 'Toast'. Fine, yes, an English muffin will be fine"
RS: "We bother?"
G: "No, just put the bother on the side."
RS: "Wad?"
G: "I mean butter...just put it on the side"
RS: "Copy?"
G: "Sorry?"
RS: "Copy...tea...mill?"
G: "Yes, coffee please, and thats's all."
RS: "One minnie. Ass ruin torino fee, strangle ache, crease baychem, tossy singlish mopping we bother honey sigh, and copy...rye?"
G: "Whatever you say"
RS: "Tendjewberrymud"
G: "You're welcome."
And now with subtitles, just to be sure...

Room Service (RS): "Morny. Ruin sorbees"
Room service Translation (RST): "Morning, room service"
Guest (G): "Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service"
RS: "Rye..Ruin sorbees..morny! Djewish to odor sunteen??"
RST: "Right! Room service! Do you wish to order something?"
G: "Uh..yes..I'd like some bacon and eggs"
RS: "Ow July den?"
RST: "How would you like them?"
G: "What??"
RS: "Ow July den?...pry, boy, pooch?"
RST: "How would you like them? Fried? Boiled? Poached?"
G: "Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry. Scrambled please."
RS: "Ow July dee bayhcem...crease?"
RST: "How would you like the bacon? Crisp?" [=kross]
G: "Crisp will be fine."
RS: "Hokay. An San tos?"
RST: "OK. And some toast?"
G: "What?" RS:"San tos. July San tos?"
RST: "Some toast. Would you like some toast?"
G: "I don't think so"
RS: "No? Judo one toes??"
RST: "No? You don?t want toast?"
G:"I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo one toes' means."
RS: "Toes! Toes!...why djew Don Juan toes? Ow bow inglish mopping we bother?
RST: "Toast! Toast! Why do you don?t want toast [!!] ? How about an English Muffin with butter?"
G: "English muffin! I've got it! You were saying 'Toast.' Okay, fine...Yes, an English muffin will be fine."
RS: "We bother?"
RST: "With Butter?"
G: "No, just put the bother on the side."
RS: "Wad?"
RST: "What?"
G: "I mean butter...just put it on the side."
RS: "Copy?"
RST: "Coffee?"
G: "Sorry?"
RS: "Copy...tea...mill?"
RST: "Coffee? Tea? Milk?"
G: "Oh,yes.. Coffee please, and that's all."
RS: "One Minnie. Ass ruin torino fee, strangle ache, crease baychem, tossy singlish mopping we bother honey sigh, and copy ... rye?"
RST: "One minute. That's room twenty-three, scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, toast and english muffin with butter on the side, and coffee. Right?"
G: "Whatever you say"
RS: "Tendjewberrymud"
RST: "Thank you very much"
G : "You're welcome"

Good or bad, Hard to tell

Good or bad, Hard to tell  

Once upon a time, there was a great king. He has a smart henchman and always take him along eveywhere.

One day, the king got bitten by a dog giving him a severe wound. He asked the henchman "Is this some kind of bad luck?" The henchman said "Good or bad. Hard to tell."

Finally the king lost his finger. He asked the henchman again "Is this some kind of bad luck?" Same reply by the henchman "Good or bad. Hard to tell."

The King got very angry and order to put him in the jail.

Few days later, the king went out for hunting and got caught by barbarians. They wanted to sacrifice the king. Fortunately, they found that the king's fingers are not complete so they decided to release the king because he's not a complete human anymore.

The king went back to the castle and immedietly order to release the henchman. He is now understand what the henchman said about "Good or not. hard to tell." Something which seem to be good can be bad later on and, likewise, something which seem to be bad can be good finally.

He apologized to the hunchman but the hunchman wasn't angry with him at all. He told the king "If you didn't put me in jail I would have to go with you and the barbarians would sacrifice me instead after they found that your fingers are incomplete."

Truely, good or bad depends on how we look at it. If we understand this inconsistency we will live in the world vey happily.

Smartphones Etiquette at Work Place

Career Couch - New York Times 10 March 2012

Smartphones Etiquette at Work Place

By EILENE ZIMMERMAN

Q. Your company allows employees to bring their own portable electronic devices — like phones and tablets — to the office. Does that mean you should feel free to use them whenever you see fit?

A. Although these devices help keep you accessible to colleagues and clients, they should be used with discretion and in ways that help you do your job, not for things like playing games or updating your Facebook status, says Anna Post, etiquette expert at the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vt.

As much as possible, give your full attention to those with whom you're speaking or meeting, rather than allowing your attention to wander to a ringing cellphone or a new text message. "The jury is still out on whether or not we can multitask effectively," Ms. Post says, "but the perception of you when you are typing on a device is that your attention is divided."

Q. During meetings, you like to take notes on your tablet, smartphone or laptop. Is that acceptable?

A. Smartphones and tablets are a fairly new presence in meeting rooms, and unlike laptops, they are usually associated with games, texting and other nonwork activities. That can send a message that you aren't paying attention, says Matt Eventoff, owner of Princeton Public Speaking, a communications training business in Princeton, N.J. "As soon as you take the device out, tell the other attendees, 'I use my iPad or phone to take notes.' That way, no one will question if you're paying attention," he says.

If you like taking notes on your laptop, keep in mind that it can be a barrier between you and others. "The screen often blocks part of the other person's body or face," Mr. Eventoff says. "That's why I think a tablet or phone is actually the better way to take notes."

Q. Is there any harm in discreetly reading personal e-mails or text messages on portable devices while in the office and among co-workers?

A. Even if you are discreet, it's easy to get caught up in reading and answering messages. You may wind up spending so much time hunched over your device that you miss important social cues and signals that can only be picked up face to face, says Rachel Weingarten, a business etiquette expert and president of Interrobang, a marketing strategy firm in New York.

Q. What about answering your cellphone while at work?

A. If you must take a personal call, find a private place to talk — not the hallway or areas where you can be overheard, says Ms. Weingarten, author of "Career and Corporate Cool."

If you are in a meeting, take only urgent calls. Let others in the meeting know that you're expecting the call, set your phone to the vibrate mode and leave the room to answer it, Mr. Eventoff says.

Don't wear your Bluetooth or other wireless headset, says Mark A. Gilmore, president of Wired Integrations, a consulting firm in San Jose, Calif. "No one wants to stare at your blinking blue light during their presentation," he says. "It's rude."

Q. If you are running a meeting or a presentation, how do you make sure that attendees pay attention to the speakers and not to their phones and tablets?

A. Before the meeting, set ground rules for using the devices, Ms. Post says; ask everyone to turn off phones or tablets in order to give full attention to the presenters. "Good manners are really concerned with social expectations," she says, "and when you make those expectations clear, it's easier to raise an eyebrow if someone picks up a phone."

Q. Although the mobile devices are yours, the Wi-Fi network you are using belongs to the company, as does some of the information you view and store. What precautions should you take to protect your company and yourself from liability if you lose your phone or tablet?

A. First, find out whether your company already has an "acceptable use" policy for mobile devices. If it doesn't, put your own protections in place, says Kieran Norton, a principal in the security and privacy practice of Deloitte, the professional services firm.

"Make sure a PIN number is required to unlock your device and if possible enable auto wipe, which allows you to remotely wipe all the information if the device is lost or stolen," he says. You may need help from the manufacturer, your wireless carrier or your company's information technology department to do that, and to encrypt the data on your device so it can't be read if it falls into someone else's hands, Mr. Norton says.

A monster lurks within every soul

A monster lurks within every soul

The question isn't why someone snaps but how the rest of us refrain from our darkest urges.

It's always interesting to read the quotations of people who knew a mass murderer before he killed. They usually express complete bafflement that a person who seemed so kind and normal could do something so horrific.

Friends of Robert Bales, who is accused of massacring 16 Afghan civilians, have expressed similar thoughts.

Friends and teachers describe him as caring, gregarious and self-confident before -- in the vague metaphor of common usage -- he apparently "snapped." As one childhood friend told the New York Times: "That's not our Bobby. Something horrible, horrible had to happen to him."

Any of us would be shocked if someone we knew and admired killed children. But these days it's especially hard to think through these situations because of the worldview that prevails in our culture. According to this view, most people are naturally good, because nature is good. The monstrosities of the world are caused by the few people (like Hitler or Idi Amin) who are fundamentally warped and evil. This worldview gives us an easy conscience, because we don't have to contemplate the evil in ourselves. But when somebody who seems mostly good does something completely awful, we're rendered mute or confused. But of course it happens all the time. That's because even people who contain reservoirs of compassion and neighborliness also possess a latent potential to commit murder.

David Buss of the University of Texas asked his students if they had ever thought seriously about killing someone, and if so, to write out their homicidal fantasies in an essay. He was astonished to find that 91 percent of the men and 84 percent of the women had detailed, vivid homicidal fantasies. He was even more astonished to learn how many steps some of his students had taken toward carrying them out.

One woman invited an abusive ex-boyfriend to dinner with thoughts of stabbing him in the chest. A young man in a fit of road rage pulled a baseball bat out of his trunk and would have pummeled his opponent if he hadn't run away. Another young man planned the progression of his murder -- crushing a former friend's fingers, puncturing his lungs, then killing him.

These thoughts do not arise from playing violent video games, Buss argues. They occur because we are descended from creatures who killed to thrive and survive. We're natural-born killers and the real question is not what makes people kill but what prevents them from doing so. People who murder often live in situations that weaken sympathy and restraint. People who commit massacres, for example, often live with what the researchers call "forward panic." After having endured a long period of fear, they find their enemies in a moment of vulnerability. Their fear turns to rage, and, as Steven Pinker writes in "The Better Angels of Our Nature," they "explode in a savage frenzy."

Serial killers are often charming, but have a high opinion of themselves that is not shared by the wider world. They are often extremely conscious of class and status, and they develop venomous feelings toward people who do not pay them sufficient respect. In centuries past, most people would have been less shocked by the homicidal eruptions of formerly good men. That's because people in those centuries grew up with a worldview that put sinfulness at the center of the human personality.

John Calvin believed that babies come out depraved (he was sort of right; the most violent stage of life is age 2). G.K. Chesterton wrote that the doctrine of original sin is the only part of Christian theology that can be proved. This worldview held that people are a problem to themselves. The inner world is a battlefield between light and dark, and life is a struggle against the destructive forces inside. The worst thing you can do is, in a fit of pride, to imagine that your insecurity comes from outside and to try to resolve it yourself. If you try to "fix" the other people who you think are responsible for your inner turmoil, you'll end up trying to kill them, or maybe whole races of them. This earlier worldview was both darker and brighter than the one prevailing today. It held, as C.S. Lewis put it, that there is no such thing as an ordinary person. Each person you sit next to on the bus is capable of extraordinary horrors and extraordinary heroism.

According to this older worldview, Robert Bales, like all of us, is a mixture of virtue and depravity. His job is to struggle daily to strengthen the good and resist the evil, policing small transgressions to prevent larger ones.

If he didn't do that, and if he was swept up in a whirlwind, then even a formerly good man is capable of monstrous acts that shock the soul and sear the brain.

-------
David Brooks' column is distributed by the New York Times News Service

An interesting article from the star dated 19 March 2012 for our consideration. (admin)

An end to modern medicine?

GLOBAL TRENDS By MARTIN KHOR

A warning by the head of WHO that antibiotic resistance is so serious that it may lead to an end to modern medicine should alert health authorities to contain this most serious health crisis.

LAST week, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) sounded a large alarm bell on how antibiotics may in future not work anymore, due to resistance of bacteria to the medicines.

Antibiotic resistance has been a growing problem for some time now. From time to time, there will be news reports of the outbreak of diseases, old and new, that cannot be treated because the bacteria have grown more powerful than the antibiotics used against them.

And experts have been warning about how the wrong use of antibiotics has given the bacteria the opportunity to develop resistance, enabling them to become immune to the medicines. What is needed, of course, is a multi-prong strategy to prevent the abuse and wrongful use of antibiotics. Drug companies should not over-market their products. Doctors should not over-prescribe. And antibiotics should not be used on animals that are not sick but to fatten them and thus enable higher profits.

Now, the Director-General of the WHO has given a big warning that the growing threat of resistance may mean an end to modern medicine, and the entry of the post-antibiotic era. Speaking at a meeting of infectious disease experts in Copenhagen last week, Dr Margaret Chan said there was a global crisis in antibiotics caused by rapidly evolving resistance among microbes responsible for common infections that threaten to turn them into untreatable diseases. Every antibiotic ever developed was at risk of becoming useless.

"A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common as strep throat or a child's scratched knee could once again kill. For patients infected with some drug resistant pathogens, mortality has increased by around 50%," she said.
"Some sophisticated interventions, like hip replacement, organ transplants, cancer chemotherapy and care of pre-term infants, would become far more difficult or even too dangerous to undertake."
Dr Chan called for action to restrict the use of antibiotics in food production. "Worldwide, the fact that greater quantities of antibiotics are used in healthy animals than in unhealthy humans, is a cause for great concern," she said.

She called for measures — doctors prescribing antibiotics appropriately, patients following their treatments — and restrictions on the use of antibiotics in animals. These actions have, in fact, been suggested for many years, including by the health group REACT, based in Sweden, by health networks such as Health Action International, and locally, by the Consumers' Association of Penang.

The WHO itself has the scope to do much more in alerting health authorities and in building the capacity, especially of developing countries, to act.

There are forms of TB that have become untreatable because of multi-drug resistance. The TB pathogen has become immune to many antibiotics. This has resulted in a resurgence of the deadly disease. The story is the same for many other pathogens causing other diseases.

As Global Trends reported in June 2011, a worrying development is the discovery of a gene, known as NDM-1, that has the ability to alter bacteria and make them highly resistant to all known drugs, including the most potent antibiotics.

In 2010, there were reports of many such cases in India and Pakistan and in European countries. At the time, only two types of bacteria were found to be hosting the NDM-1 gene – E coli and Klebsiella pneumonia.

But it was then feared that the gene would transfer to other bacteria as well, since it was found to easily jump from one type of bacteria to another. If this happened, antibiotic resistance would spread rapidly, making it difficult to treat many diseases.

These concerns have been proven to be justified. In May 2011, the Times of India published an article based on interviews with British scientists from Cardiff University who had first reported on NDM-1's existence.

The scientists found that the NDM-1 gene has been jumping among various species of bacteria at "superfast speed" and that it "has a special quality to jump between species without much of a problem".
While the gene was found only in E coli when it was initially detected in 2006, now the scientists have found NDM-1 in more than 20 different species of bacteria. NDM-1 can move at an unprecedented speed, making more and more species of bacteria drug-resistant.

Since there are very few new antibiotics in the pipeline, when the resistance grows among the whole range of bacteria to the existing drugs, human beings will be more and more at the mercy of the increasingly deadly bacteria.

In May 2011, there was an outbreak of a deadly disease caused by a new strain of the E coli bacteria that killed more than 20 people and affected another 2,000 in Germany.

They were affected by a new strain of the already rare 0104 type of E coli. There are other common types of E coli which normally cause only a mild ailment. The WHO said the variant had "never been seen in an outbreak situation before".

Although the "normal" E coli usually produces mild sickness in the stomach, the new strain of E coli 0104 causes bloody diarrhoea and severe stomach cramps, while in some of the more serious cases so far, it also causes haemolytic-uraemic syndrome (HUS), which damages blood cells and the kidneys.
A major problem is that the bacterium is resistant to antibiotics. Eradication of these kinds of bacteria is impractical partly because they are able to evolve so rapidly, according to medical experts.
Now that the WHO chief has sounded the alarm bell, health authorities should redouble their efforts to contain the crisis. An "end to modern medicine" and a "post-antibiotic era" are predictions too horrible to imagine.