The expression “You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh” was, I believe, first made in reference to the death scene in Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit. Well, via the Knuckledragger comes a scene which made me laugh so loudly I woke up the neighbor’s baby. Go ahead and watch it — but stuff a hanky in your mouth first. Read more
Category: Good Stuff
Applause, Please
Tell me that you haven’t felt this way about corporate (or government-) intransigence at least once in your life, and I’ll call you a liar.
Bereaved relatives confronted staff at an insurance company with the body of their loved one after the firm refused to pay out until they proved he was dead.
Two women were filmed carrying the corpse inside a branch of the Old Mutual financial firm somewhere in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, this week after their claim on a funeral policy was initially rejected.
Horrified bank staff watched on as the women took the body inside, having driven it to the branch from the morgue, and demanded a payout.
Alongside the corpse the women handed over paperwork for the man’s life insurance claim along with his ID and death certificate, local media reports.
Witnesses said the ladies told staff they would not leave the branch until Old Mutual paid out the death claim in full.
After hurried discussions between Old Mutual management and phone calls to head office, it was decided to agree to honour the insurance claim – as long as the ladies removed the dead body.
The witness said: ‘As soon as the ladies were promised they would be paid they marched back inside the office and in front of the counter grabbed an end each and carried the corpse back out. Two men went to their aid and helped them manoeuvre the body bag into the boot of the car that they brought the body in and people were just watching open mouthed as all this was played out. The women said a loved one was inside the body bag and that bringing him to the Old Mutual office seemed to be the only way to prove their claim to them that he had actually passed away’ he said.
But before you start applauding, there’s this:
Responding to the viral video on Twitter, Old Mutual said that the incident was ‘most unsettling’ and they insisted that they were ‘sympathetic towards the family during this difficult time’.
I’ll bet you were “sympathetic”, you pencil-pushing motherfuckers, which is why these poor people had to resort to such an extreme measure. I hope you were so “upset” that you have nightmares for a week.
Now y’all can applaud.
Say No More
Now this is what I call Good News:
“High cholesterol, particularly LDL cholesterol, has been demonized for allegedly bringing on heart attack deaths. But an intriguing analysis of data published at Medium.com seems to show that total mortality risk is reduced by high cholesterol levels, even LDL cholesterol.”
The point Medium.com’s P.D. Mangan makes is that even if lower cholesterol is associated with reduced heart-disease incidence, this is more than offset by an increase in low-cholesterol-associated health risks.
As Mangan puts it, from “a public health standpoint, it seems a mistake to focus on changing something that lowers the risk of death from one cause only to raise that risk from another.”
Now as we all know, next week will see the publication of yet another study which completely contradicts this wonderful news.
In the meantime (via C.W., thankee):
In Texas, that combination of the four major meat groups (ribs, pulled pork, sausage and brisket) is known as the “Four Riders Of The Apocalypse”.
Actually, that’s not true. In Texas, that’s either regarded as a well-balanced meal, or else as “Git outta mah way, Elmer!”
See y’all later.
Whole Lotta Ifs
Stay with me on this one.
If I were many years younger, and if I were not married, and if I lived in Colorado; and if this woman wasn’t already married, and if I happened to meet her, and if she wasn’t utterly repulsed by me to the point of shooting my fat ass — if all that, then I’d give her a big kiss on the cheek.
Which woman? This one.
And I bet I’m not the only man who thinks this.
Envious
I didn’t write the text for this fabulous speech, but I which I had. Watch the video in the presence of children, especially if they’re supporters of that tiresome child Greta Thunberg. (Found at Diogenes’ Middle Finger, thankee Squire.)
Old Times, Good Times
From Mr. Free Market comes this observation:
As I pointed out to him in my reply, it goes deeper than that. In the old days, people used to leave their back doors open so the deliveryman could check the supplies of milk, butter and eggs in the fridge, and refill as needed.
I leave it to everyone’s imagination as to what would happen should such a service be reintroduced in Britishland today. (Or, for that matter, in any urban center in the U.S.A.)