Category Archives: Science

Quote o’ the Day: John Maynard Keynes on the nature of authority

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Never Forget

 

‘The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood,’ Keynes wrote in 1936.
‘Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.
Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.’

John Maynard Keynes via Comment is Free

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Chop-Chop

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The following is, apparently, and example of something I am NOT supposed to post on my new blog. Who saw that coming?

Canadian

Decapitated kid much better now!

Hey, it takes a lot to stop a Canuck! In this case, having had his head chopped off back in July hasn’t stopped 11-year-old Ryan Ooms of Saskatoon from starting school right on time.

Ryan Ooms EMTsOoms spent just 2 1/2 weeks in a hospital where doctors fused the vertebrae and inserted titanium pins and rods. On Aug. 23, five weeks after the July 17 accident, Ooms and his family paid an unexpected visit to the firehall to thank his rescuers.”When he walked in I recognized him but there was this disbelief,” said McNair. “His recovery rate has been phenomenal.”

McNair was one of the first EMTs on the scene of the accident. He helped paramedics remove Ooms from the crushed minivan then stayed at the boy’s side in the ambulance.

Once Ooms was in the care of trauma specialists, McNair thought of the boy’s parents being told about their son.

But there was Ooms, on Aug. 23, smiling and cracking jokes and climbing on the fire trucks. The only indication of his injury was a brace hugging his wounded and tender neck, keeping it steady.

You’d better believe this kid has a patron saint (is it Nearly Headless Nick?). Yes, us Canadians are a fearsome breed, seemingly descended from the unhallowed love match of Odin and Laura Secord, with a bit of Sasquatch thrown in there for good measure. Given that decapitation has hardly slowed this Canuck down, what do you imagine it would take to stop Celine Dion?

Really, tell me. The sooner the better; I hear Mariah Carey’s offering cash.

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mouldy oldies: why did the chicken cross the road

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Subservient Chicken crosses the road if you tell her to!

Stolen from the Silliness.org blog, which got it from god-knows-where, same place we all got it from: the email hole.

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

DR. SEUSS
Did the chicken cross the road?
Did he cross it with a toad?
Yes! The chicken crossed the road,
but why it crossed, I’ve not been told!

ERNEST HEMINGWAY
To die. In the rain.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

GRANDPA
In my day, we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

PAT BUCHANAN
To steal a job from a decent, hardworking American.

ARISTOTLE
It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

KARL MARX
It was a historical inevitability.

SADDAM HUSSAIN (this used to be Hitler, then Qadaffi)
This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

RONALD REAGAN
What chicken?

CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK
To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

FOX MULDER
You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross before you believe it?

FREUD
The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossing the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

BILL GATES
I have just released chicken 99, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook-and Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of chicken.

EINSTEIN
Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken?

BILL CLINTON
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by chicken? Could you define chicken please?

GEORGE W. BUSH
I don’t think I should have to answer that question.

JERRY FALWELL
Because the chicken was gay! Isn’t it obvious?
Can’t you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the “other side.” That’s what “they” call it, the “other side”.
Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like “the other side.” That chicken should not be free to cross the road. It’s as plain and simple as that.

LOUIS FARRAKHAN
The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed the “black man” in order to trample him and keep him down.

THE BIBLE
And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, “Thou shalt cross the road” And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

COLONEL SANDERS
I missed one?

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The Dairy Continuum

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Camel cheese does not relate to this in any way, shape or form; to repeat, this has nothing whatsoever to do with camel cheese.Cheese diaries

Now, I’m not sure where this comes from. It could be something I vaguely remembered from a PJ O’Rourke book, from back when he was funny. That would put it in the mid Eighties, I think. Or it could be something I read in an Eighteenth Century French manuscript, or maybe Cotton Mather. Then again, perhaps cave inscriptions…who knows?

All I know is, dairy is immortal. It simply mutates into more expensive forms of dairy.

  • Spoiled milk is buttermilk
  • spoiled buttermilk is yogurt
  • spoiled yogurt is cottage cheese
  • spoiled cottage cheese is cream cheese
  • spoiled cream cheese is … cheese
  • spoiled cheese is … more expensive cheese
  • and so on…

This makes total sense to me, if not to my clean-living roomie.

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and now a word from our sponsors…

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Grimshawe’s Decimal Underwear

Stolen from Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Magazine.

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