The people who lived on a legendary island first mentioned by Plato, may have been the ancestors of dolphins.

Dolphins used to have two legs and a couple of arms in place of fins. They lived side by side with the people of the Stone Age.

Research into the human DNA and that of marine mammals, using comparison as a method of study, found that the dolphin was the nearest relation of the human being. The dolphin may have parted company with Homo Sapiens some 250 thousands years ago.

A dolphin brain is much larger that that of a human being. And dolphins use a very complex language while communicating. Dolphins have an inexplicable attachment to humans. There are dozens documented accounts about dolphins saving people who suffered shipwreck. At a time when they lived on land, their intellectual development was probably even higher than that of the people from whom modern humans descended.

 The discovery helps us see the Golden Age myths in a new light. Almost every nation of the world had a myth of the Golden Age. The myth centers on a civilization whose members controlled the world in days of old. A great civilization of Atlantis, an island that is said to have existed in the Atlantic Ocean and to have sunk beneath the sea, is mentioned in the works of Aristotle and other scholars of ancient Greece.

Professor A. Portman at the Basel-based Institute of Zoology (Switzerland) came up with a scale for measuring intellect. A human being (214 points) was found to be the smartest creature of all. A dolphin was a runner-up with 195 points. An elephant (150 points) was rated as No 3. An ape arrived fourth with 63 points.

The following fill the slots at the bottom of the scale: a zebra (42 points); a giraffe (38 points); a fox (28 points). A hippopotamus scored only 18 points, and therefore was classified as the stupidest creature under the sun.

See, no wonder I have a weird attachment to the Dolphins.  I still hope to one day swim with them *wink wink*, because I find them so fascinating.

So read the full story, here's the link!  

Oh my goodness, this is a good read (or propaganda, if you will).  It says,  Muslim terrorist Ramzi Yousef  who bombed the World Trade Center for Allah, has now found Jesus and has converted to Christianity. 

Is this a new form of torture?  Making terrorists convert?  Oh, and he's now eating pork too.  Pure blasphemy....!  He's also given up the Koran and shaved his beard, allegedly.

"If Yousef is playing Christian convert, "He's playing a game with someone"."

I don't know how I find this stuff, I just do....I'm drawn to the odd and weird stuff.  I found this tonite.  It's a Wiki list of unusual deaths.  I think 2005's Kenneth Pinyan takes the cake...The list includes:

458 BC: The Greek playwright Aeschylus was killed when an eagle dropped a live tortoise on him, mistaking his bald head for a stone.

64 - 67: St Peter was executed by the Romans. According to many sources, he asked not to be crucified in the normal way, but was instead executed on an inverted cross. This is the only recorded instance of this type of crucifixion.

1305: Scottish patriot Sir William Wallace was stripped naked and dragged through the city at the heels of a horse. He was hanged, drawn and quartered—strangled by hanging but released while still alive, emasculated, eviscerated and his bowels burnt before him, beheaded, then cut into four parts.

1655: Pope Innocent X died and was hidden in a corner for three days by his sister-in-law and probable mistress Olimpia Maidalchini while she searched and robbed the papal palace of various treasures. Only when she had completed her search was the body allowed to be found.

1899: French president Félix Faure died of a stroke while receiving oral sex in his office.

1943: Critic Alexander Woollcott suffered a fatal heart attack during an on-air discussion about Adolf Hitler.

1911: Jack Daniel, founder of the Tennessee whiskey distillery, died of blood poisoning six years after receiving a toe injury when he kicked his safe in anger at being unable to remember its combination.

1981: Carl McCunn, in March 1981, paid a bush pilot to drop him at a remote lake near the Coleen River in Alaska to photograph wildlife, but had not arranged for the pilot to pick him up again in August. Rather than starve, McCunn shot himself in the head. His body was found in February 1982.

1993: Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee, was shot and killed by a prop .44 Magnum gun while filming the movie The Crow. A cartridge with only a primer and a bullet was fired in the pistol prior to the scene Brandon was in; this caused a squib load, in which the primer provided enough force to push the bullet out of the cartridge and into the barrel of the revolver, where it became stuck. The malfunction went unnoticed by the crew, and the same gun was used again later to shoot the death scene, having been re-loaded with blanks. However, the squib load was still lodged in the barrel, and was propelled by the blank cartridge's explosion out of the barrel and into Lee's body. Although the bullet was traveling much slower than a normally fired bullet would be, the bullet's large size and the nearly point-blank firing distance made it powerful enough to severely wound Lee. It was not instantly recognized by the crew or other actors; they believed he was still acting. Interestingly, the incident was almost an exact replica of a scene in his father Bruce Lee's last film "Game Of Death", during the filming of which Bruce Lee also died. Even more bizarrely yet; the plot of Game Of Death revolved around Bruce Lee's character, a kung-fu actor, faking his own death - by pretending to have been hit by an accidentally fired real bullet while filming a scene where hundreds of blanks were fired at him.

2005: Kenneth Pinyan of Seattle died of acute peritonitis after submitting to anal intercourse with a stallion. Pinyan had done this before, and he delayed his visit to the hospital for several hours out of reluctance for official cognizance. The case led to the criminalization of bestiality in Washington.^[37] His story was recounted in the 2007 documentary film Zoo.

2007: A naked man and woman in Columbia, South Carolina, died after falling off the roof of a local restaurant during, apparently, a sexual encounter. Their bodies were found by a cab driver.

"Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlours without an apology, is in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses."  Ralph Waldo Emerson.  

Take me to a mountain top to live in a little cabin where I have my own vegetable garden and I could be quite content.   I feel I could easily be a minimalist.  Enjoying ole Mother Nature's bounty and beauty.

Lately, it's come to my attention I have a fixation on money, or the lack there of, when it comes to retirement or my kids college fund.  I've been told recently,  I get a "gleam" in my eye when I talk about money.  I didn't like hearing that.  Doesn't everybody want more money?  I felt insulted, as if I was a money hungry fool.  I live a simple life and I am happy, so why do I wish for lots and lots of money?  Security?

Yep, that's it, security.  I want security.  I'm twenty months today shy of my 50th birthday.  I have absolutely nothing saved for my own retirement, separate from my husband.  I picture living in a van down by the river....which still sounds such fine with me, as long as it was a Winnebago van.  But I worry, needlessly, about not having enough to survive on when I'm old and decrepit.  Social Security is just a pittance.  Don't get me wrong, hubby has a retirement acct. and we have life insurance.  But I've just realized I'm starting to obsess about this.

So here I sit here googling the "psychology of Money", trying to find out if I'm normal.  I like what I read here: 

"While it is difficult to generalize, in many cases the more financial security people have, paradoxically, they experience less emotional security. Their external life may appear solid and well furnished, but inside, they frequently harbour debilitating concerns about family conflicts, self worth, fears, failure, inadequacy, responsibility, and ironically even survival. Society's assumption that material success guarantees happiness merely exacerbates these concerns."

I think after reading that paragraph, I'd rather stay broke! I've also learned only 30% of people save for retirement.

I haven't been working lately since my foot issues have me unable to drive (very long, it's my driving foot) or walk well yet.   I've also worked since I was 15.  And have never had a problem getting a job.  My job lately is raising my daughters.  I'm lucky my husband makes a decent wage, so I can stay home with the kids.  Staying home is not an issue, except  for feeling like I'm not going to have enough to live on when I get old.

This all came about recently because of my birth mother.  She tries to taunt me with promises of giving my kids a college fund, only to pull it away, because I didn't do this or I didn't do that.  She's a true narcissist.  She tries to use her money as a power trip or a carrot to dangle in front of me, but I won't let her.  I totally reject her and tell her, I don't ever want your money.  It has too many strings attached. 

One time in particular, was when I was working downtown Chicago.  I had a window office over looking the  famous water tower and the John Hancock building.  If I pushed my face up against my window, I could even see Lake Michigan between a couple of buildings.  I was the Travel Manger of an Ad Agency.   She had offered to pay for college, but ONLY if I moved to Texas.  She completely ignored my accomplishments without a college education. 

She also, recently, found out (she 'googled' me) I was looking for my family history in Yorkshire, England on the Genealogy website.  I stated on there, she I hadn't seen each other in years and she's never been open about her background and that my dad got custody of me in their divorce, so I'd love to find out more about my heritage.

She had to email me  this weekend, after she saw that to say, your father didn't get custody of you, we thought it was in your best interest for you to be with your dad.  You could've pushed me over with a feather.  When is it EVER the best decision for a little girl to grow up without her mom.  (but now, I'm so glad, oh so very glad, my dad *DID* have custody of me)  Then of course it was all about her money again, and how I wasn't going to get any.  Plus she totally ignored the fact, again, about my interest in my heritage.  Makes me wonder what skeletons she has in her closet.  I also think she needs to read that paragraph from that article above too.  She's become so emotionally insecure, although she's financially secure.

No wonder I have issues over money.  It's always been held over my head my whole life.  Maybe that's why I want to live a simple life away from monetary means, because it can be so corrupt.  I just want to have enough to survive comfortably, that's all.

Now my dad was/is no better.  Birthday cards have money, Christmas gifts of money, or any other thing, here ya go, here's some money.  A friend pointed out to me, maybe I equate love, with money.  If it's not given, I'm not loved. I don't want to think that's true, but I remember when my dad forgot my birthday, I felt unloved.  But really, I think that was about his acknowledgment, not the money....I dunno. 

What I've also learned through my readings is that we humans are of two minds. The calculating, cognitive, most advanced parts of the brain like the prefrontal cortex are hard at work computing and weighing options about money.  But when we opt for spending money now, instead of saving it for later, something else happens. The more primitive limbic system, common to all mammals and associated with emotion and quick reactions, lit up as if it smelled dinner. 

You have to think of the limbic system as having evolved at a time when many or all important goods were perishable. It was the, use it or lose it, mentality. Then along came the higher brain, with which humans were able to devise such clever preservative innovations as beef jerky, refrigerators, and inflation-indexed bonds. The lower, mammalian brain was clearly not designed for this environment, and it has been acting up ever since.

So, how do you all feel about this taboo subject of money?  Am I being irrational?  Do you have "security" for the future?  I'm sure the reason I've been dwelling on this issue is because I'm not working and sitting home on my duff.  

Oh and here's a real corker, I just got off the phone with my foot doc, my CT scan says I'm not healed after two months, he wants me off of it  pronto (I've already been semi-mobile doing partial weight bearing with crutches).  I have an appt. at 2:30 today....he said he may want to put me back in a CAST....yippppppeeee, NOT!