Archive for the ‘Laughing Matters’ Category
You! Rocket Scientist! Move Away…
…from the dotted hole and no one gets hurt! Not long ago some creative googler arrived here, at this blog, by searching for these words: how do you get the rocket scientist to move away from the dotted hole One of the few things guaranteed to pique my interest and confuse me to atoms is […]
Bob Park Speaks
Herewith two items from Bob Park's What's New, issue for Friday, 6 July 2007: 2. SCIENCE ADVICE NOW: GEORGE W. BUSH IS LOOKING FOR ANSWERS. A front-page story by Peter Brown in the Washington Post on Monday says the meetings are never listed on the president’s public schedule, and remain unknown to many on his […]
In: All, Current Events, Laughing Matters
Pnk-Pistol-Totin' Dykes
Here's one for the Will Rogers scrapbook — file under "you can't make this stuff up". Do you lie awake at nights worried about violent, roving gangs of pink-pistol-totin' lesbians out to recruit your ten-year old daughters? Neither do I. However, some people with over-heated imaginations apparently do. I suspect that merely giving you the […]
In: All, Laughing Matters, Will Rogers Moments
Against Garlic's Savour
My friend Richard writes with this historical tidbit: "Sir John Harrington, the man credited with inventing the WC, was Queen Elizabeth's cousin. He also left behind this kitchen poem." If leeks you leake, but do their smell disleeke, eat onions And you shall not smell the leek. If you of onions would the scent expel, […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Laughing Matters
Today's Best Googlettes
Today, within the space of an hour, two different people arrived at my blog with these googlettes: grinch eyebrow song interactive dildo game Can there be any greater recommendation than that? NB: These are emphatically not the most bizarre googlettes I've seen recently. However, some of the most diverting are definitely not fit for general […]
APS Openness
Today in Bob Park's What's New (9 March 2007 edition) was this tidbit: OPENNESS: THE MARCH MEETING OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY. The commitment of physicists to the principle of openness was tested this very morning in Denver at the APS March meeting, as it has been every year for 108 years. Roy Masters, author […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Laughing Matters
President Search
I was reading this blog entry* about how the author thinks maybe we shouldn't elect another Clinton, because that would mean just too many years with the White House controlled either by a Bush or a Clinton. A good point. He also said this: Surely, in a country of more than 300 million people we […]
In: All, Eureka!, Laughing Matters
Fruitcake Metaphysics
I have never much cared for fruitcake. Regardless of the generally low esteem in which fruitcakes have generally been held for as long as I can remember, I was always willing to give them a try but never found them very satisfying. The reasons, I think, are several, among them that I don't much care […]
In: All, Food Stuff, Laughing Matters
The Secret Liberal Agenda
Thanks to Boing Boing ("The Right was Right about the Left."), I now know that all the secrets of the hidden liberal agenda for the new congress have now been exposed (The Right was Right). Ah well, it's too late now, so let's get on with it! There are twenty-five action items. I doubt that […]
Gay Prostitutes & Evangelical "Leaders"
This is a wholly gratuitous quotation: Now that Haggard has been outed by a gay prostitute for having sex with him and buying meth, and has resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, I wonder what it will take for the good people in the pews to call ["]leaders["] like Haggard, Jerry Falwell, […]
In: All, Current Events, Laughing Matters
Wait! Wait! Stay the Course!
I am horrified all of a sudden. I am reading here and there how the Army Times, the Air Force Times, the Navy Times, and the Marine Corps Times are all publishing their editorials this next Monday — oh my goodness! it's the day before the election! it must be politically motivated! — calling for […]
Fairy-Tale Astronomy
In a way it's hardly worth the bother to describe the background to this tidbit, which is a headline to a "Search and Discovery" item in this month's Physics Today.* The story concerns type Ia supernovae, which are white dwarf stars that make their startling brightness by accreting enough mass to ignite the fusion of […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Laughing Matters
A Finger in the Dyke
Demonstrating the extent to which The Gay Agenda has, um, penetrated the American Psyche, Alec Baldwin wrote* in a blog piece: Gore has been standing there with his finger in the dyke for some time now, patiently and insistently exhorting us to come to the aid of the ailing planet. One suspects, of course, that […]
In: All, Laughing Matters, Such Language!
May Days are Gay Days (NPG IV)
Oh, I forgot about this fascinating bit of Americana until I looked at the notes I keep in my pocket. Again it was something seen at the National Portrait Gallery, this time in a exhibit of "Folk Art". The displayed work was a year's worth of pages taken from a large-format promotional calendar (the year […]
Three New Things
Three items in this week's issue of "What's New", by Bob Park,* amused me enough to share. That I found these amusing may tell you more about me than anything.# 1. ABC PRIMETIME: WAKE UP ABC, IT'S THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY! Here's the scene: Adam Dreamhealer is a normal 19 year-old, who wears an earring, has […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Laughing Matters
Still Valid after all These Years
I'm afraid I can't really help myself. This remarkable little googlette came my way: Is the Uncertainty Principle still valid? Were this a joke, the obvious punch line would be: Not sure. I know, I know — perhaps later we'll have a learned essay on the Uncertainty Principle — I've got notes someplace. But, I'm […]
The English-Minus Plan
Sometimes it's like shooting fish in a barrel; do comedians need writers when we've got the Bush administration? From a Reuters story:* He [Attorney General Gonzales] said Bush has instead [of making English the "official" language of America] long supported a concept called "English-Plus," believing that it was good to be proficient in more than […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Laughing Matters
Trolling for Phone Sex?
…last Thursday the country experienced an uncomfortable moment when the President of the United States reassured us that the government['s collecting phone records] was not "trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans." Apparently W's speech writing staff doesn't know that trolling is slang for an older gay man cruising for anonymous sex […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Laughing Matters
Don't Need No Science Advisor
Sometimes Bob Park, who writes What's New (for physicists and others), is just too funny for words (except his own) — at least to his fellow physicists who, it must be admited, are not reallly noted for their outrageous senses of humor. Anyway, from today's edition (Friday, 14 April 2006): DOE: SECRETARY OF ENERGY BODMAN […]
In: All, Laughing Matters, Speaking of Science
Four Treasure Frog
Although the english-language descriptions of the menu selections at our favorite Chinese restaurant (that would be Grace's Fortune, in gracious downtown Bowie, Maryland, USA) are generally idomatic and non-poetic in the way that some creatively translated menus can be, it does have it's moments. Our favorite describes a unique and delicious dish called "Tibetan Lamb", […]
In: All, Food Stuff, Laughing Matters