Arms manufacturing moves to granny’s kitchen
HUGE AMOUNTS OF MILITARY funds are being diverted from the nuclear arms race to finance a new, terrifying weapon: Mrs. Baruah’s curry sauce.
It’s true. Literally thousands of families in Assam, a state in the northeast of India, are growing a food crop to sell to the British army for use in weapons.
Specifically, they are growing a type of chili known as bhut jolokia. A few drops “could make you senseless” an expert told the UK Guardian newspaper recently.
Having consumed this sort of thing quite a lot, I wouldn’t say it makes you senseless. Indeed, it leaves you sharply alert as you race to the hospital to beg surgeons to remove your tongue.
Now if you are anything like me, you are thinking: Hmm, does this mean I can use that jar of chili powder in the back of my kitchen cabinet for other uses?
Sure. Asia has seen several cases of bank robberies and muggings using spices. “Hand over all your money or I will season you with this extra-piquant condiment.”
How can bank staff defend themselves? I reckon the answer lies in Sri Lanka or Bangladesh, where curries are often one notch hotter. One of my earliest memories is being in a back yard and suddenly having breathing problems. I turned to see my mother in the kitchen (40 meters away through a glass window) unwrapping a packet of extra hot seeni sambol, a Sri Lankan condiment which should really be marked “weapons grade” and delivered by men in full-body radiation suits. (Perhaps it is.)
Had that stuff been delivered to Nagasaki airmen to drop on US cities, the course of world history would have been very different.
Earlier report on chili use in weapons
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TECHNOLOGY CAN be dangerous. A wife was seen sharing this on Twitter:
“I am only a couple more apps from never having to speak to my husband again.”
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PRESSING THE “like” button on an abusive Facebook article can get you sent to prison under a new law in the Philippines. That action makes you “legally recognized as a publisher”, Manila lawyers said last week.
Cool. So now I can tell people I am a professional publisher working for the world’s biggest social media organization. On the downside, so is everyone else.
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YET ANOTHER news organization has just reprinted a spoof news story from The Onion, a comedy website. The Fars News Agency of Iran took seriously a joke saying US voters wanted Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to replace Obama.
Asian newspapers which have made similar mistakes include the Beijing Evening News, The Daily Manab Zamin and the New Nation.
I don’t blame them. When real news items say things like as “Stephen King Impersonator Steals 5,000 Lobsters”, who needs made-up ones?
Look at our earlier discussions of that subject on this site for proof:
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ANGRY MOTORISTS have been shooting guns at road-side speed cameras in the US. So the authorities have okayed the purchase of cameras to keep an eye on the cameras, according to a Maryland news report sent in by a reader. What about cameras to watch the cameras watching the cameras? This could be a long game.
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FROM TWITTER: You know you’re going to have a bad day when the boss says: “My assistant is out today. Any of you know how to do everything?”
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NO NEWS YET of the Mr Jam books, which have been printed in China but failed to make it through the border crossing to Hong Kong, from where they are due to be distributed.
No doubt they are being kept under lock and key as dangerous subversive materials. How did they know?
Or perhaps it is something to do with the fact that the book contains the real name of Lift Lurker?
Will keep you posted.
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MEANWHILE, we should all go and work for Grandpa. He just posted a picture of his home:
