Category Archives: Humor

First A Purple Cow

…and now this:

Dr Mike Edwards, an English teacher at Meoncross School in Stubbington, Hants, first spotted the squirrel outside his classroom window.

He said: ‘I was sitting in my classroom and looked out the window and saw it sitting on the fence. I had to do a double take.

‘Since then it’s been a bit of a regular at the school – everyone’s seen it.

‘We thought it might have been paint or something but then when you look at it up close, it’s an all-over coat, not in patches like you’d expect if it had been near some paint.

‘Its fur actually looks purple all the way through. It’s an absolute mystery.’

But I can tell you any how, I’d rather see than be one.

The Latest Bailout

Just in time for the holidays. Congress has to step in to keep the North Pole from going under:

“These are grim economic times for everyone, but even more so for non-profit toy manufacturers in the Snow Belt,” said Kringle. “Our accountants have indicated that we are on track to exhaust our reserves of cash and magical pixie fairydust by December 23. Oh deary me.”

Kringle and UET union president Binky McGiggles presented a draft emergency bailout plan to the committee calling for US $18 trillion in federal grants, loan guarantees, and sugarplum gumdrops that they said would keep the company solvent through December 26.

“We believe this proposal shows that management and labor can work together to craft a reasonable, financially responsible short-term survival plan,” said McGiggles. “After the new Congress is seated in January, we would be happy to return to present a long-term package to get us through April.”

Kringle warned that failure to approve the plan would have dire global economic consequences.

“Oh goodness,” said an emotional Kringle, fumbling with his glasses, “think of all the children who will wake up sad and angry and confused on Christmas morning, with nothing in their stockings. Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be their parents. Or a someone answering your switchboards on December 26.”

Where will the madness end?

Of course, if Santa isn’t too big to fail, who is?

If Mike Griffin Had Been Columbus

Perhaps Mark Whittington is right. We should have followed the path blazed by the early Iberian explorers:

Toledo, New Castille. March 1492.

Today Don Miguel de Grifo, the head of the Royal Transatlantic Exploring Administration, made the eagerly awaited announcement as to how the Administration would pursue Their Majesties’ Vision for Transatlantic Exploration. To the disappointment of some, he turned down the suggestion of the Italian explorer Columbus that the program utilize already-existing, commercially-available caravels staged from the Canary Islands. “The Administration has no means of Atlantic-rating these craft safely. Spanish lives are too precious to be wasted in this endeavor. Furthermore,” he added, “the idea of staging the voyages in the Canary Islands is too complicated, and I fear that constructing the necessary docks and shipyards in the Canaries might become too expensive, even though they would then enable further voyages more cheaply.”

Advocates protested, saying “If you’re in the Canaries, you’re halfway to anywhere in the Atlantic,” citing the favorable winds prevailing from that spot. de Grifo responded “That is true, and someday we will build docks in the Canaries. But for now, we must sail directly from Spain to China, and the ships must be large enough to carry all supplies needed for the entire voyage.”

Rather than going with the commercially-available caravels, de Grifo announced that the Royal Galley Arsenal of Barcelona would build an existing design of a large war galley. “Galleys are a tried-and-true technology that has worked for centuries.” He denied that the Count of Barcelona had demanded that the Arsenal be used to provide the ships for the expedition as a price of political support for the plan in the Cortes. “We are doing this because it is technologically the right thing to do. Simple. Safe. Soon.” Questions about what had caused his change of position versus his previous support of caravels several years prior went unanswered.

Barcelona, Aragon. July 1494.

Administrator Don Miguel de Grifo announced today that the Erís transatlantic vehicle program was in fine shape, but that some revisions would have to be made. It is now apparent that the galley design selected, although effective in its original role in Mediterranean warfare, would be too small to carry the needed supplies for crew and galley slaves for a full transatlantic voyage to China. Therefore, the shipyard workers would be instructed to cut the hull in half and insert a new, lengthy section equal to a fourth of the galley’s original weight. According to de Grifo, it was an easy modification and would not affect the ship’s seaworthiness. It would, however, delay the start of the program by several years, and increase the cost by several hundred million maravedis.

Barcelona, Aragon. August 1498.

The troubled transatlantic program of Ferdinand and Isabella has run into further problems as Administrator Don Miguel de Grifo announced that the agency would require more time and money to fix several minor technical issues that had arisen in the development of its China galley. Simulations have suggested that the galley, originally designed for Mediterranean seas, would be shaken to pieces by the heavier waves of the Atlantic. Also, the insertion of the extra hull section has altered the seaworthiness of the whole design, leading to fears that the craft would snap in half in heavy seas. “Nothing a little more time and money would not cure,” said de Grifo.

Toledo, March 1500.

The Spanish court was today shaken by news arriving from Lisbon that a Portuguese navigator had accidentally discovered a vast new land in the Western ocean, when his ship had made an unexpectedly wide turn in rounding the horn of Africa. The land, which he dubbed “Brazil” after the island of mythology, appeared to be a new continent. Additionally, word arriving from Rome suggested that the Pope was about to issue a bull declaring this new continent exclusive property of Portugal, and off limits to other nations without a license from the Portuguese king.

Toledo. April 1500.

Today Their Majesties formally terminated their transatlantic program, which was now pointless in the wake of the Pope’s monopoly on Atlantic voyaging. The galley under construction in Barcelona is to be broken up for firewood, as it was in any case unlikely to be seaworthy for any purpose.

[Attribution to Jim Bennett]

Epic Fail

That’s what Iowahawk says that his five-year plan was:

I started this blog with a simple goal in mind: to attract gullible millions into a worldwide online cult and then bilk them of their life savings. Five years, 450-odd posts and almost that many pageviews later, my actual market appeal has proven somewhat more selective. Extremely more selective. Still, it’s much more than I deserve, and I’d like offer my very sincere thanks for your patronage. I sure hope you had 1% of the fun reading the junk I post here as had typing it, even if (especially if?) you don’t see eye-to-eye with me politically. If any of it annoyed you I hope that deep down, were also a tiny bit amused.

I (and I suspect many others) disagree (and I say this as someone who was beating on him to get a blog via email for many months prior to its inception). His top-twenty-five hits are spectacular, and somehow, I had missed the liberal elevator pitches, which are hilarious (as are some of the reader contributions in comments).

Here’s to at least another five years of the unexcellable Hawk.

Whale In A Barrel

Meet Tim Blair, with his fisking atomizer.

[Late morning update]

Mark Steyn piles on:

I’d certainly like him to fix my toilet, and would be willing to chip in the Greyhound fare up to New Hampshire. Given the amount of lead in his prose, Mr Egan would seem to be a natural pipe fitter.

In related news: Chicago Trib seeking to avoid bankruptcy; Miami Herald’s principal asset is the lot the building is on; S&P downgrades New York Times to junk.

Much of the media certainly deserve to die, notwithstanding that even quality publications can’t hold off the onslaught of the Internet, but I still long for the days when a New York Times was worth reading.

[Early afternoon update]

We knew this was coming: a proposed federal bailout for writers. I agree with Mark Steyn:

But what about the legions of American satirists about to be laid off because fellows like Pinsky are writing stuff like this for real?

To paraphrase Lili Tomlin, no matter how satirical I get, I can’t keep up.

[Bumped to the top]

BCS Declares Germany Winner Of WWII

This is pretty funny.

“Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work — including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule — our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking.”

The US came in fourth, with only two victories — Germany and Japan.

It reminds me of the old joke that college football is the only sport where the champion is determined by drunks arguing in bars. Which is why they brought in the computers, I guess.