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POPE FRANCIS HAS joked that he did not have to “take drugs” when questioned by a journalist as to the secret of his energy during a whirlwind tour of three Latin American countries.
The 78-year-old pontiff delivered about two dozen speeches and said several masses during a weeklong trip to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay.
“You would like to say that I take drugs,” he said, speaking from the plane flying him back to Rome from Asuncion, Paraguay’s capital.
“Mate is what helps me,” he said, referring to a traditional caffeine-infused beverage popular in the pope’s native land Argentina.
“I have never tried coca. That should be made clear,” he said, smilingly after Bolivian authorities said they did not exclude him when others were chewing coca leaves to deal with the altitude in La Paz, perched 3,600 metres above sea level.
Coca is native to western South America and is known throughout the world for its psychoactive alkaloid cocaine. Chewing the leaves or drinking coca tea does not produce the intense high people experience with cocaine.
The pope’s visit, his ninth trip abroad, has been notable for a number of historical pronouncements.
The pontiff decried the scourge of corruption as the “gangrene of a people,” railed against ideologies, called for an end to poverty and lamented today’s consumerist society.
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This was no accident. Those pigeons were radicalised.
Journal its called a bird strike..
@Paul: The pendants are out in force already.
@Seamus Mc Meel: Sorry,pedants!
@Seamus Mc Meel: or idiots…
Why didn’t they land safely in the water and make a movie about it???
I was in Naples & Capri few years ago & it was fabulous….dine daily wine daily and merry!
@Thosj Carroll: thanks for that.
@Thosj Carroll: Well Done.
Were Dick Dastardly and his co-pilot Muttley flying the plane?
@O Swetenham: Well if they were flying it they more than caught the pigeons this time round..
Coo L
Flocking hell.
They’d only been flying for 20 minutes? How high were those pigeons supposedly flying, if they were hit 20 minutes after take off?!!
@The Thinker: Must be a hoax so
@Matty kinevan: Not saying it’s a hoax of course. But badly described, or some information is missing.
Airports have a variety of bird control techniques to reduce these types of incidences. Noise machines, gun sounders etc.
@Paul Foot:
Not planes I hope ;o)
Glad all are safe.
@Paul Foot: cats would be good
I was flying back home from Edinburgh last October. Huge swarms of migrating geese were right over the airport. I think they sent flares up to divert them.. but as a nervous flyer I was bricking myself. Thank god the entire crew forgot to turn up and the flight was delayed…by the time the pilot turned up the geese were visiting the Sassenachs. Ryan Air, what can you do.
Some poor lad had his racing coup wiped out anyway…. few hundred/ thousand euro gone…
Does anybody know did the pigeon die?
@Shawn Rahoon: It’s fair to assume that they did
A flock of seagulls – ba doom tisss…
@Craig De Barra: Are you having a stroke?
@Matty kinevan: nope – you’re probably a bit young to understand that comment, or bereft of a sense of humour
Sully, is that you?
Wishing I had a photograph of that…
@Oisin Conroy: There are videos on YouTube of tests for this scenario being conducted. They fire frozen chickens out of cannons into the running engines. It’s pretty spectacular.
@Matty kinevan: I have to ask, why are the chickens frozen?
@Rui Firmino: Don’t know I never asked :-) I presume to keep them from just flying apart upon exiting the cannon
@Rui Firmino: So they won’t go off,duuh!
I suppose the HSE are buggered now saying that, (more or less demanding that,) we all get the FLU vaccine.? AIR LINGUS will be on strike next now, demanding a pay-rise for their expertise in dealing with bird flu contamination.!
@Michael Kelly: How about learning to spell the name of the company before trying to go on some pointless rant?
Any news on how the birds are doing?
Northside pigeons awful trouble makers.
@Ní Maith Liom Eva: swing and a miss
have your say