Reflections of a stormy petrel

...I am sure You remember my various and loud complaints about one Jonah Goldberg, a journalist in the USA.( Read more... )

...is worse than you think. http://carbonelle.livejournal.com/184280.html. Just hold on to something.

An Italian newspaper published a story about a video that is supposed to be doing the rounds of the Net, showing a French air stewardess stripping for the captain and first mate of a long-distance flight. Well, of course this confirms ancient rumours we had all heard. But, as I said, I would not normally have touched it, except that it reminded me of a great Jewish joke I read long ago.

The flight has taken off. The Captain has done his communications over the public speaker system, then has taken the controls, taken the plane up, and settled it into its route. He is not aware that the speaker system is still on. He lies back contentedly and says: "Well, now we can have a cup of coffee, and then I'll have a screw with that gorgeous stewardess, Leah." Of course, his words ring out across the aisle. The hostesses look up, horrified. One of them rushes towards the cabin, to warn the Captain about the speaker system - but a little old man in a side seat sticks out his cane and trips her.

"Don't be in such a hurry, Leah," he says. "Let the man finish his coffee."

An al Qaeda guerilla, desperate for water, was plodding through the desert...
( Read more... )

"'Even if [The Da Vinci Code] is just fiction,' a student opined, 'it's still interesting to think about.'

"To which another student replied: 'Your mother's a whore.' And then, to the first student's stunned incredulity, he added, 'And even if that's just fiction, it's still interesting to think about....'"

Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic?

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Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

"First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.

Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:

If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.
So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true...Thus, hell is exothermic."

The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day.

"In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative.

However," he pointed out, "there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah. Right."