Toilets no longer a threat, a relieved Congress hears

[Dave (imported)]

>>My thanks to Emily of the Post for providing this vital information

>>

>>

>>that was sarcasm, BTW.

>>

Posted at 07:00 AM ET, 11/07/2011

Toilets no longer a threat, a relieved Congress hears

By Emily Heil

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in- ... _blog.html

Americans can sleep a little sounder knowing that toilets are officially off the U.S. controlled-weapons list.

Unclear how or why toilets were ever on the U.S. Munitions List, but once on, it likely took much time, scrutiny and endless meetings to scrub them.

And despite the removal of the johns from the list that includes nukes, firearms and chemical weapons, please don’t let your guard down: as two federal workers learned last year, toilets can still be very dangerous.

By Emily Heil | 07:00 AM ET, 11/07/2011

[DeaconBlues (imported)]

Many years ago, I read something by Mark Twain, "The Dangers Of Lying In Bed." It was a short bit of writing, just meant to poke fun at all the newspapers that were at that time, reporting, over-reporting, re-reporting, and redoubling their compounded efforts to over-exagerate and redundantly report all over again, anything dangerous about travel on the railroads. At that time, rail travel was what air travel is today. Mark Twain's view was that the railroads were efficient transport, and that some accidents would simply come with the territory of efficient mass transit, and that the newspapers made too much of every single thing wrong with the railroads while ignoring other newsworthy items. So he wrote an amazing piece on all the people who die in bed! How horribly dangerous those beds were! Killing so many people, many of them elderly or seriously injured... and then while they are asleep, the evil bed does its horrible deed, it kills the victim! So many unsuspecting people dying in those deceptively safe looking beds!

So now, I wonder. Did some career politician read a JOKE and not recognize that someone is joking when they say things like "Get rid of the career politicians by pulling the 'flush' handle and send them where they belong!" Did someone write something like Mark Twain's piece on dangerous beds, only suggesting that toilets are the best way to be rid of politicians?

[Arab Nights (imported)]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in- ... _blog.html

The same thing happened to a motel handyman in Salome, AZ decades ago. The pressue built and built and built like an expanding balloon waiting for a pin prick. The pin prick came when the poor guy flushed while still seated and the resulting gusher sent him sailing into public with his pants still around his ankles.

You know how people will tell you not to worry about a gaffe because people will not remember it a week later. Don't believe it. To this day you can go to the inappropriately named International Motel in Salome and hear about the day the toilet put the handyman on pubic (dang, typo - public) display.

Guess it only proves that rural Western folks and capital city sophisticates face the same dangers from which the appropriate regs can save them.