Humor
The Empire Strikes Barack
It’s difficult to imagine what campaigning would look like in a Galaxy Far Away (video below the fold)…
Steering by idiocy
HeliSoft
A helicopter was flying around Seattle when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft’s electronic navigation and communications equipment.
Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter’s position. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, and held up a handwritten sign that said “WHERE AM I?” in large letters. People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said “YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER.”
The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely. After they were on the ground, the copilot asked the pilot how he had done it.
“I knew it had to be the Microsoft Building because they gave me a technically correct, but completely useless answer.”
(Hat tip to A Normal Backyard, who has been photographing the Spring return of migratory birds to his yard)
What would Dr. Seuss say?
In an episode of Third Rock From The Sun, visiting alien John Lithgow discovers Theodore Geisel, AKA “Dr. Seuss”, and exclaims; “This man is a genius!!!”
And he was. I think every time you read a Dr. Seuss poem or book to a child, a million or so new brain cells are created (probably in both reader and child). But with the exception of the animated Grinch, movies based on Geisel’s books are a dismal failure. What if the beloved poet could see what we are doing to his work?
Courtesy of The Onion, what would Geisel say?! How about
Stop making movies of my books!
Did you learn all but squat from The Cat In The Hat?
Please tell me you fired the prick who made that.
I would have stopped writing, maybe sold Goodyear tires.
If I knew one dark day I’d costar with Mike Myers…
Go read the whole thing! Enjoy!
A less serious frame on “Expelled”
If you’ve been following the Expelled kerfluffle (in which a notorious biology professor was pre-emptively kicked out of a screening of a creationist propaganda film to which he was invited) this should bring you up to speed:
Dawkins as Eminem? (maybe - it’s not like I have a comprehensive knowledge of rap stars)… The dancing Darwin at the end was my favorite part.
The good outcome from all this is that it seems to have been cathartic for the biology professor in question; he’s writing good stuff again like he used to a couple years ago. Oh, he’s still a jerk, that hasn’t changed. But it does seem to have blown the carbon off the valves for him.
Gay scientists close to isolating “Christian gene”
This has been making the rounds and it gave me a chuckle…
Homer Simpson if he wasn’t a toon
I love this, but it freaks Phil Plait the hell out
Talk like a physicist day
Missed “Talk like a pirate day”? It’s Talk like a physicist day!!! Here are a few examples to get you started:
Any actual personal experience becomes “empirical data.” i.e. a burn on your hand is empirical data that the stove is hot.
You’re not being lazy, you are in your ground state.
A semi-educated guess is an extrapolation
You aren’t ignoring details, you are taking the ideal case
When I read the list, I realized how geeky our house is…
Tip ‘o the hat to Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles
Update: I am pleased to note that today is also Pi day! Will have to celebrate by having a piece of pie today. Pies, after all, are round… Oh what the hell, do I really need an excuse? MrsDoF just called to say she is bringing a homemade rhubarb pie home from the Mennonite Relief Sale.
This is why “Experience” is more important than “Change”
Saturday Night Live: It’s 3 AM… who answers the phone?
Now how am I going to enjoy the election-night suspense?
Doh! Diebold accidentally releases results of 2008 election early. Our voting machine overlords should be more careful.
I wouldn’t worry except this particular news source has shown amazing accuracy before.
“If you stare into the Google…”
Look away! Zoom out! Zoom out! Zoom out!!!
Science of the paranormal
It’s no wonder that paranormal studies don’t receive any respect: not enough sciencitifical-looking equipment. Well here is the remedy: Look Around You… Ghosts!
But watch out when employing ghosts in the la-bor-atory… they can be naughty! Also, I’d like to know; is that a plutonium crucifix?
My son sends me bible verses
I have a nasty cold today, which takes the edge off weekend fun. So it is the perfect day to post a link one of my sons sent to me, for
The Nine Most Bad-Assed Bible Verses Of All Time. Here’s a sample:
If the Bible had been written by King Leonidas and the rest of the Spartans from 300, it would probably read pretty much the same as it does now. It turns out, the Bible is already chock full of ass kicking. Here are the verses that make us want to take to the streets and put some unbelievers to the sword.
#9; Exodus 2:11-12Sure, Moses was a great leader, an emancipator of his people and a prophet. Most people don’t know that he also was the Biblical equivalent of Splinter Cell’s Sam Fisher--a well-honed killing machine, able to slay from the shadows without pity or remorse. Martin Luther King may have had a dream, but Moses had a body count.
You can almost picture the scene: An Egyptian soldier is wailing on a hapless Hebrew when Moses, clothed in head-to- toe black, drops down from the ceiling. Moving with cat-like grace, he sneaks up behind the soldier and, taking his head in his hands, snaps the man’s neck with one savage twist. As the lifeless body slumps to the ground, Moses lights up a cigar. “Well,” he quips, “looks like someone bit off more than he could Jew.”
(I’m going straight to hell for linking to this, aren’t I?)
But almost any bible verse can be made more bad-assed with a little tweaking. Take Ezekial 25:17 and misquote it significantly. Put it in a pointlessly violent Quentin Tarantino movie (yes, I know that is a tautology). And have Samuel L. Jackson perform the 9-minute scene while holding a 9mm pistol in a robber’s face. Presto!… the restaurant scene from Pulp Fiction.
(Please note both of the links above have, uh, some profanity. If that bothers you.)
What do Brad Paisley & William Shatner have in common?
They’re both (in) ”So much cooler online!”
(Yes, I said William Shatner. Prove me wrong.)
Since you cannot see me, I am thirty years old, six-foot-three with a six-figure income, full luxuriant hair, chiseled good looks, and drive a red Porsche. (Full disclosure: the foregoing statement may contain some apparent distortions of fact).
Three things that made me laugh today
First, a joke from those two knuckleheads on Car Talk, discussing a book called Philomedy, which explains philosophy by telling jokes:
Aristotle, Plato and Descartes are on a plane. The flight attendant comes by to take their drink orders. She asks Aristotle if he’d like a beverage. Aristotle says, “I’ll have a ginger ale.”.“And how about you, Mr. Plato?”
Plato says “Diet Coke, please.”
She says, “and Mr. Descartes, anything to drink for you?”
Descartes says, “I think not,” and disappears.
Second thing: Do you know what cigarette your doctor smokes? - a great collection of TV cigarette commercials with commentary by a surgical oncologist with a wry sense of humor.
Third thing is no funnier than giant corporations selling addictive carcinogens with happy jingles, but still mining a rich vein of dark humor: How ‘bout them 350,000 names on the no-fly list? I could imagine an Al-Queda mole undermining the effectiveness of the list by making sure it has 350,000 names on it.
UPDATE: Maybe that no-fly list really isn’t funny, since according to Leonard Boyle, director of the FBI’s terrorist screening center, it can be used for hiring too. With that many names it is a given that most are “false positives” and they may find their employment prospects curtailed.
Nokia Dementia
Chris Clarke at Creek Running North relates a little episode from his day:
I possess rank prejudice against people who use cell phones while driving, and people who speed on mountain roads in SUVs, and he was both of those things, so I eased up on the gas as he passed.So I was only doing about 50 when he fishtailed and spun his ass-end into my lane about seven lengths up, and then
just
stopped.
In my lane.
We were in lane number two, and the lane to our right was empty. I made a lane change. This lane change involved a Δv perpendicular to the axis of the Tacoma, which Δv was significantly in excess of the recommendations of both the Toyota Motor Corporation and the National Traffic Safety Board.
Which means I did a little fishtailing myself. I managed not to hit the Nokia Dementia sufferer in the Escalade…
There’s more - it’s a humorous look into the human mind when faced with death and careless drivers…





