Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader) Read online

  Applicant: Molly, a Basset Hound

  Story: In 2012 KHOU-TV in Houston, Texas, began investigating companies that use a state law meant to prevent discrimination against homeschooled kids to hand out high school diplomas to just about anyone who pays the hefty fee. KHOU sent one such company, Lincoln Academy, an application in the name of Molly—a dog belonging to one of their cameramen—and found that in addition to the fee, Lincoln required all applicants to pass a test. Sample questions: A triangle has how many sides? and The president lives in the White House—true or false?

  Result: Molly got an e-mail that read: “Dear Molly, You have truly reached a new milestone in your educational career. Sit back and enjoy your new life of being a high school graduate from Lincoln Academy.” KHOU aired their report, along with the story of a young lady who got a similar diploma—for $600—believing it would allow her to fulfill her dream of joining the U.S. Navy, only to have a Navy recruiter tell her the diploma was no good. (Lincoln Academy is still in business; Texas legislators still haven’t fixed the law that allows such companies to operate.)

  One billion years ago, days were only 18 hours long.

  MR. BASEBALL

  After a lackluster baseball career, Bob Uecker became an actor, sports broadcaster, and TV personality. And he’s funny about it all, too.

  “I helped the Cardinals win the pennant. I came down with hepatitis.”

  “I signed with the Milwaukee Braves for $3,000. That bothered my dad because he didn’t have that kind of dough, but he eventually scraped it up.”

  “When I came up to bat with three men on and two outs in the ninth, I looked in the other team’s dugout, and they were already in street clothes.”

  “I go to a lot of Old Timers games, and I haven’t lost a thing. I sit in the bullpen and let people throw things at me. Just like old times.”

  “I led the league in ‘Go get ’em next time.’”

  “If a guy hits .300 every year, what does he have to look forward to? I always tried to stay around .190, with three or four RBI. And I tried to get them all in September. That way I always had something to talk about during the winter.”

  “I knew when my career was over. In 1965 my baseball card came out with no picture.”

  “The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. Struck out three times. Gosh, I was proud.”

  “When I looked to the third-base coach for a sign, he turned his back on me.”

  “I had slumps that lasted into the winter.”

  “The highlight of my career? In ’67 with St. Louis, I walked with the bases loaded to drive in the winning run in an intersquad game in spring training.”

  “I won the Comeback of the Year Award five years in a row.”

  “I set records that will never be equaled. In fact, I hope 90 percent of them don’t even get printed.”

  Seeing the color red can make your heart beat faster.

  THE DEATH OF GERALD BULL

  Who killed the Canadian “Boy Rocket Scientist” who grew up to design a gun for Saddam Hussein?

  BACKGROUND

  Gerald Bull (1928-1990) was born in North Bay, Ontario. He graduated from the University of Toronto at the age of 20, got a master’s degree at age 21, and a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering (and a job heading the aerospace division at the Canadian Armament Research Development Establishment) at age 22. While at McGill University in 1962 he designed an artillery shell that hit a predetermined altitude and then fired a second rocket. Magazines called him “Boy Rocket Scientist.” His dream was to use artillery to launch satellites into space.

  Bull tried to sell his ideas to Western governments, but the United States wasn’t interested. (NASA wanted to focus on rockets, not weapons.) So, feeling abandoned and insulted, Bull started the Space Research Corporation in 1967 and sold his gun-making expertise to anyone in the world market. This included a 1980 sale of 30,000 artillery shells to South Africa, which violated an American arms embargo and led to a six-month prison term. Not long after his release, he was asked to lead Iraq’s “Project Babylon.” Saddam Hussein is reported to have personally invited Bull to design a Supergun, a howitzer with a 32-inch diameter barrel capable of sending 1,200-pound packages 600 miles into space. This meant that Hussein would be able to bomb targets thousands of miles away from Iraq.

  MYSTERIOUS DEATH

  On March 22, 1990, in Uccle, a suburb of Brussels, Bull opened his apartment door to find a gunman hiding in the shadows. The killer fired five bullets into the inventor’s head. Gerald Bull was 62.

  There were many suspicious facts. For one, Bull had $20,000 in cash in his pocket when he was shot. The killer didn’t take it. For another, in the weeks following his murder, British Customs impounded eight steel “petroleum pipes” bound for Iraq. The pipes matched Bull’s early designs for an enormous gun. Over the next two weeks, five other components were found across Europe. And finally—Project Babylon’s chemical-warfare expert, an American named Steven Adams, had discovered Bull’s body. Later that day, Adams vanished.

  Let’s move there! In Italy, you can buy fresh-baked pizza from vending machines.

  CONSPIRACY THEORIES

  So who assassinated Gerald Bull? No one wanted to see Hussein with a Supergun, so every country is a suspect.

  • Theory #1: The British did it. Did Margaret Thatcher dispatch MI-5 operatives to assassinate Bull to eliminate competition with British interests in the black-market weapons trade? A week after Bull’s murder, British journalist Jonathan Moyle was found dead in Santiago, Chile, with a pillowcase over his head. He’d been researching a story on British ties to Iraqi weapons buyers.

  • Theory #2: The Iraqis did it. Saddam Hussein wanted to keep the Supergun a secret. A week before Bull was killed in Brussels, the Iraqis executed an Iranian-born British journalist named Farzad Bazoft, who was asking questions about Bull and Adams. Sources say the Iraqis sent a jet to get Adams out of Brussels, but the Belgian defenses intercepted it. It’s also possible the Iraqis thought the two were spying for the United States.

  • Theory #3: The CIA did it. The U.S. was no friend to Saddam Hussein, and no friend to weapons consultants who helped him. Remember, the United States put Bull in prison in 1980 for violating an arms embargo. Bull’s son Michael initially blamed the CIA, but later changed his opinion to…

  • Theory #4: The Israelis did it. And he’s not the only one. Two years after Bull’s murder, a British engineer named Christopher Crowley testified before the House of Commons that he and Bull regularly supplied Western intelligence agents with information about the Supergun. In the 1980s, Israel was quick to respond to any threats from Iraq, so Crowley believes Israeli intelligence (the Mossad) had the gun’s inventor eliminated.

  So who murdered Gerald Bull? The case remains officially unsolved.

  Four out of 10 workplace dating relationships result in marriage.

  ODD VODKAS

  Vodka is practically tasteless, which means that distilleries can add whatever bizarre flavors they want to it. For example…

  • GRASS: Polish company Bak makes Bison Grass vodka. It’s not bison-flavored—it’s grass-flavored (and bison eat grass). The grass infusion leaves a small amount of coumarin, which is a main ingredient in rat poison and leads to liver damage (but then, so does vodka).

  • HORSERADISH: Sputnik, a Russian distillery, makes a vodka flavored with “pure organic horseradish.” Wasabi, another kind of horseradish, gives Green Geisha from Oregon’s Hard Times Distillery its distinctive flavor (and burn).

  • PORK: Bakon vodka is infused with the flavor of pork fat. The bottle is bacon-shaped, too.

  • PICKLE: Another Russian distillery, Vodka Garant, makes a pickle-and-garlic vodka. If that’s not to your taste, American distillery Naked Jay makes a pickle-flavored vodka. No garlic.

  • PEANUT BUTTER: Van Goh produces a PB&J vodka, while NutLiquor makes on
e free of jelly, just peanut butter. Both are, surprisingly, free of peanut products.

  • BUBBLE GUM: A company called Three Olives makes this vodka.

  • SYRUP: Birch syrup is a sweetened tree sap, similar to maple syrup and widely used in Alaska. Alaska Distillery makes a birch syrup vodka. (They also make rhubarb vodka and their most challenging flavor: smoked salmon vodka.)

  • DESSERT: Pinnacle manufactures a line of dessert-inspired vodkas, including cotton candy, cupcake, cake batter, and whipped cream.

  • ARACHNID: Skorppio-brand vodka doesn’t have any particular extra flavor, but it does come with a real, de-poisoned scorpion, much like a worm comes in a bottle of mescal.

  In Japan the number 4 is unlucky (it sounds like the Japanese word for death).

  MICHIN SAEKKI!

  Translated into English, these international insults may sound silly, but trust us: do not say them in their native lands!

  GOSPOD ODIN DA TA PRATI!

  (Bulgarian)

  Meaning: “Go to h*ll!”

  Literally: “God sends you to the fire!”

  FANTONG!

  (Mandarin)

  Meaning: “Useless!”

  Literally: “Rice bucket!”

  BACHE SHEYTOON!

  (Farsi)

  Meaning: “Grow up!”

  Literally: “You Satan child!”

  CON COMME LA BALA!

  (French)

  Meaning: “Very stupid!”

  Literally: “Stupid like a broom!”

  GROZNI SI KATO SALATA!

  (Bulgarian)

  Meaning: “You’re ugly!”

  Literally: “You look like a salad!”

  NAMEH TEN-NO!

  (Japanese)

  Meaning: “You want to fight!”

  Literally: “What are you licking?”

  DRECKSCLEUDER!

  (German)

  Meaning: “Potty mouth!”

  Literally: “Dirt slingshot!”

  YA NA’AL!

  (Hebrew)

  Meaning: “You idiot!”

  Literally: “You shoe!”

  MICHIN SAEKKI!

  (Korean)

  Meaning: “Nutcase!”

  Literally: “Crazy animal baby!”

  GEWADEE MASTAWCHI!

  (Kurdish)

  Meaning: “Sleazebag!”

  Literally: “Yogurt pimp!”

  NI SHI SHENME DONGXI!

  (Mandarin)

  Meaning: “You’re inhuman!”

  Literally: “What kind of object are you!”

  SUTKI PALA! (Polish)

  Meaning: “Chill out!”

  Literally: “Your nipples are burning!”

  AIZVER ZAUNAS!

  (Latvian)

  Meaning: “Shut up!”

  Literally: “Close your gills!”

  When heated, 2 Tbsp. of water convert into enough steam to fill a 12-gallon container.

  ARMAGEDDON OUTTA HERE!

  One of the nice things about the world not coming to an end when the doomsayers predict it will (aside from not dying) is that the rest of us get to have a few laughs at their expense.

  Doomsday: September 11–13, 1988

  Predicted by: Edgar Whisenant, a retired NASA engineer and author of 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988

  End Times: Whisenant used biblical passages to calculate the day of “Rapture,” on which some Christians believe they’ll be taken bodily up to heaven. His calculation: It would occur during the Jewish New Year, which fell on September 11–13. An estimated 4.5 million copies of 88 Reasons were sold or distributed by Whisenant’s publisher; the company closed its offices on the 11th so that employees could be with their families.

  Moment of Truth: September 11 came and went. So did September 12 and September 13. No Rapture.

  Aftermath: Whisenant announced that his calculations were a year off. (The Gregorian calendar doesn’t have a year zero.) His new date: September 1, 1989. This time he was sure. “Everything points to it. All the evidence has piled up,” he said.

  After-aftermath: September 1, 1989, also passed without incident. “I guess God doesn’t always do things the way man thinks He will,” Whisenant said afterward. He apparently calculated a third date, but kept that one to himself. “There’s evidence all around, but ol’ Ed Whisenant just can’t name it,” he told reporters. “My job is done.” He died in 2001.

  Doomsday: April 1990 (OK, it’s a doomsmonth)

  Predicted by: Elizabeth Clare Prophet, spiritual head of the Church Universal and Triumphant, a New Age religion that’s a blend of Christianity, Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Kabbalah, metaphysics, and anti-communism

  End Times: In the mid-1980s, Prophet claimed to receive messages from spirits called “Ascended Masters” who told her the world was moving from the old Age of Pisces into the new Age of Aquarius, a difficult period of transition that would culminate in a Soviet nuclear attack against the United States in April 1990. At Prophet’s urging, some 2,000 of her followers quit their jobs and moved to the church’s 28,000-acre Montana compound. There they built giant underground bomb shelters, each large enough to hold 750 people, and packed them with food, vehicles, fuel, guns, ammunition, clothing, medical supplies, and other items they’d need in the post-apocalyptic world. How did they pay for all that stuff? With their life savings, and additional money they raised by taking loans out against their homes. Prophet assured her followers that the money would never have to be repaid, since the banks were going to be destroyed in the nuclear war.

  Introduced by Columbus, turkeys were being raised domestically in England by 1530. Result: The Pilgrims were familiar with turkeys before they reached the New World.

  Moment of Truth: As Prophet’s followers huddled in the bomb shelters, April 1990 came…and went. No nuclear attack.

  Aftermath: When the world didn’t end, many church members left Montana and returned to their homes, either because they’d become disillusioned or because they had to find jobs and start repaying all those bank loans. Prophet’s reputation never recovered: Her fourth marriage collapsed, her church went into decline, and her children abandoned her ministry. In 1998 she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She died in 2009.

  The Church Universal and Triumphant is still around, though it’s smaller than it used to be, and it’s still headquartered at the Montana compound (what’s left of it—most of the land was sold). And the church still owns the bomb shelters, which, at last report, were still filled with supplies, along with 20,000 hours of Prophet’s teachings on video and audiotape…just in case. “Our church has everything in place if we ever need it. At some level, that puts us all at ease,” a church member told the Salt Lake Tribune in 1998.

  Doomsday: September 10, 2008

  Predicted by: Opponents of the $8 billion Large Hadron Collider, located on the French-Swiss border near Geneva

  End Times: Built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the Large Hadron Collider is used to accelerate subatomic particles called protons to 99.99 percent the speed of light so that they can be smashed into each other during high-energy physics experiments. The giant machine is housed in a 17-mile circular tunnel, more than 300 feet underground. As construction neared completion in the spring of 2008, opponents of the collider filed suit in a U.S. federal court to block it from being started up, out of fear that doing so might create planet-wrecking subatomic particles called “strangelets,” or a black hole that would swallow the Earth in as little as four minutes (or as long as four years).

  Moment of Truth: Case dismissed—the judge ruled that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over European research facilities. (Apparently the opponents’ understanding of the law is as shaky as their grasp of high-energy physics.) The Large Hadron Collider was fired up on September 10, 2008. No strangelets—at least none that did any damage—and the Earth wasn’t devoured by a black hole, either.

  Aftermath: Though the collider was turned on in Sep
tember 2008, it wasn’t cranked up to full power or anything close to it. That isn’t scheduled to happen until 2014 at the earliest. CERN says not to worry: “There is no basis for concerns about the consequences of new particles or forms of matter that could be produced by the collider,” the agency said in a 2008 safety report. (But they would say that, wouldn’t they?)

  * * *

  DUEL THE RIGHT THING

  In Kentucky, whenever a politician takes office, he or she must recite an oath that was written in 1847, which reads, in part:

  I, being a citizen of this state, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within this State nor out of it, nor have a sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person, thus offending, so help me God.

  In 2012 State Rep. Darryl Owens proposed a law that would delete the outdated dueling provision from the oath. His reason: “Every time we get to that part of the ceremony, laughter erupts.” The bill failed.

  Members of Led Zeppelin had a standing invitation for front row seats at any Elvis concert.

  GREEN GIANTS

  Think the “natural” products you buy are made by crystal-clad hippies living on a goat commune? Think again.

  WESTBRAE NATURAL

  Grass Roots: In 1970 Bob Gerner and Kristin Brun opened a retail grocery store in the Westbrae neighborhood of Berkeley, California. According to the company website, they offered their customers “homemade granola, organic vegetables from Bob’s garden, organic fruits from local farmers and whole-grain baked goods using Kristin’s recipes.”

  Green Giant: Ten years later, they sold the Westbrae Natural brand to a group of investors, who closed the store and moved the company to Southern California, then sold the Westbrae line to international conglomerate Hain Food Group in 1997. Hain owns several other natural-food brands, including Celestial Seasonings and Rice Dream, and is worth nearly $1 billion. Westbrae remains one of their biggest earners.