forgive me

Before reading any further, you need to remove all sharp objects from your immediate vicinity; I'd hate to find out that you put a pencil through your eardrum on my account.

Courtesy of Pajamas Media, I give you The Worst Xmas Song Ever. Don't give up after the first few seconds. It gets so much worse. So, so much worse.

them long words are hard

Last night at the KC Chiefs fantasy camp event I sat through a 15 minute Q-and-A session with one of the PR reps for the KC Chiefs. I about fell out of my chair when he described all of the back-office administration activities: "You really don't see it, but there's always something matriculating behind the scenes". Oh the irony...

Yeah, yeah, I use words out of context all the time. It's still funny, though.

Hitch

Christopher Hitchens is funnier than a woman.

I'm fairly certain that I'm going to get in trouble for linking to this.

Which, I think, proves the point.

Which is a joke, not that women will think it (or I) am funny.

Must. Stop. Digging.

the funniest thing I read today

Mark Steyn on the Iraq Study Group's recommendations for engagement with Syria and Iran:

Of course, Syria “should” do this and Iran “should” do that and, if they were Sandra Day O’Connor, I’m sure they would. But they’re not.

good bye, self respect, you'll be missed

A couple of months ago a friend of mine showed me a book he had recently obtained--a 19th century 1st edition by a notable author, if I recall correctly. My thoughts went back to that book as I was unpacking some of my own books last night. I picked up an old book, took note of the decrepit binding and yellowed pages and thought to myself "I wonder if this is an early edition?"

I'm ashamed to admit that it took me at least five seconds to remember that I was holding a copy of a work by Aristotle. Yeah, I'm brilliant. But at least I give me something to laugh at.

chillin'

The furnace repairs are underway, finally. A second HVAC guy came out this morning to replace a control unit and quickly discovered that the problem wasn't in the control unit, but in a gas valve. So the original guy who mis-diagnosed the system on Saturday brought over a new valve and he's working on installing it. Here's hoping he doesn't blow up my house.

In the mean time, here are a couple of links that kept me warm while I was chillin' on the couch last night:

• Books are "for to be to get you dead".
• If I buy a new blender I can have myself a delicious cochicken smoothie.

when it hurts to lose

They say that sex is all over TV because sex sells. I guess this show must mean that in Japan, pain sells. It's a simple gameshow concept--say a tongue-twister without errors, you win a prize. Make any mistakes, you get a consolation prize--the sudden ability to sing an octave higher.

The funniest thing I read today

Michael Schaub via Tyler Cowen: "it sucks that the publishing industry has given up on some great work from some great authors, while books like M is for Murder and N is for No, Seriously, Murder and O is for Oh My God Someone Just Got Murdered are readily available at every chain bookstore in the land."

Update:

I suppose I should have titled this post: "The funniest thing I read yesterday", since I'm technically just 30 minutes into a new day. That's not a lot of time in which to find funny reading material.

words worth reading

Peter Schramm on becoming an immigrant to America:

My mother tells me, though I don’t remember saying this, that I told my father I would follow him to hell if he asked it of me. Fortunately for my eager spirit, hell was exactly what we were trying to escape and the opposite of what my father sought.

"But where are we going?" I asked.

"We are going to America," my father said.

"Why America?" I prodded.

"Because, son. We were born Americans, but in the wrong place," he replied.

Peter Schramm on being a book lover:

There is something special about owning and reading your own books. I never liked to use libraries. Perhaps it is a natural reaction to the communist propaganda of my youth, but I think that some things just shouldn’t be shared. At least not with just anybody. I like to smell and fondle books, keep them, set them back on their shelf, sometimes to just let them fall open to where they may and read into them again. I fancied that these books became friends, and I just couldn’t bear to part with them.

Cicero on the nature of the limits of American and Israeli power:

A friend of mine said yesterday that he believes Israel and the United States have reached the limits of their power. He believes the battle is joined, is highly asymmetric, and has ground American and Israeli forces to a halt. He wasn't gloating, but was hypothesizing.

He might be wrong. Having power assumes a monopoly of violence. As we restrain our power to appeal to our allies and win friends on the ground, Islamicists do everything they can to monopolize violence through random acts of terror. They're quite unrestrained in that pursuit, and on that level, we are neck-and-neck with them for control on the ground. The battle for the monopoly of violence is symmetrical in this war because we restrain ourselves from unleashing our full fury. My friend assumes that we will restrain ourselves indefinitely, and so we have reached the limit of our power.

My friend will be right -- that the Israelis and Americans have hit their wall -- only if we continue self-restraint. We've made war with our seat belts on. There's no guarantee that things can't get to a point where further self-restraint makes no sense.

Smash on conversing with hunger-striking leftist protestors:

I wasn't in uniform (I only have to wear it for ceremonies), so maintaining strict military bearing wasn't an issue. Also, a heavy blanket of humidity had descended on D.C., so the half-dozen or so remaining hunger strikers had retreated deeper into the park, laying in the shade of a couple of magnolia trees. Their banners were strewn across the grass alongside one of the brick walkways. They didn't appear to be holding up very well with the hunger and the heat.

The same man from Friday saw me approaching, and staggered his way over to engage me. If he recognized me from before, he showed no sign.

I paused in front of the banners, and pulled a big juicy apple out of my lunch bag.

"Day seven of a hunger strike..." the man muttered.

I looked him in the eye, took a bite of my apple, and shrugged.

He turned away, and retreated back to the shade of the magnolia. I took another couple bites out of my apple before continuing my stroll around the park.

I give 'em about a week before they break camp.

The Da Vinci Code: an alternate ending (UPDATED)

Robert Langdon: "So, you're the last living decendent of Christ?"

Sophie Neveu: "Yeah, I guess so... What should I do now?"

Robert Langdon: "Well, it seems to me that the most important thing is to make sure that the bloodline continues."

Sophie Neveu:

Robert Langdon: "You know, biological clocks, and so forth."

Sophie Neveu:

Robert Langdon: "Speaking of which, I'd be more than happy to take one for the team, as it were."

-----
Update:

Sophie Neveu: "So, I can't walk on water, but I can call down fire from heaven. The sequel ought to be very interesting..."

Protein Wisdom

I've added Jeff Goldstein's Protein Wisdom to my blogroll. He's sometimes profane, often profound, frequently funny and always bizarre. Or he's all four at once.

His thoughts on the constitution prompted me to make the addition.

I must say, the steamed dumpling has a point, there at the end.

billy madison

If bankruptcy judges get to do this, I want to be a bankruptcy judge. It's the funniest footnote since footnote four.

via Ace of Spades

So, Guy Walks Up to the Bar, and Scalia Says...

The New York Times reports on cutting edge legal research:

Justice Antonin Scalia's wit is widely admired, and now it has been quantified. He is, a new study concludes, 19 times as funny as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Don't take this as proof that conservatives are funnier than liberals though--apparently Clarence Thomas never makes anybody laugh at all.

Idaho votes for pedro

As New Sisyphus says, "Representative democracy...is vastly superior...to any other system". The evidence? Idaho votes for Pedro.

we are not worthy

Some people have a knack for art. Others have the kind of rare skill that can fill a gallery with masterpieces. But only one generation in a hundred is blessed to have its very own Michelangelo.

(via Vodkapundit)

good jobs and bad jobs

Megan McCardle quotes Scott Adams:

Yet another "third highest ranking al-Qaida leader" has been killed, this time by a rocket attack from an unmanned drone. There are a lot of jobs that I wouldn't want, and "third highest ranking al-Qaida leader" is right at the top. But I can tell you for sure that if I ever got that job, the first thing I'd do is narc out one of the top two guys so I could move up a notch. Apparently one of the perks of being in the top two is having a really, really good hiding place. The number 3 through 10 leadership guys are pretty much scurrying between mud huts and looking at the sky a lot.

. . .

Maybe it's just a "guy thing" but the idea of blowing up a mud hut by remote controlled drone sounds like the most fun thing I can think of. And if the number 3 al-Qaida leader happens to be inside, that's a bonus. It certainly makes your story sound less nerdy afterwards.

I find it interesting that the guy with the best job in the world gets to blow up the guy with the worst job in the world. That's really rubbing it in. But I guess it's not so different from a CEO downsizing the auditing department. It's one of those recurring themes in life.

When a cartoonist is cracking jokes about the death rate for terrorist leaders, something must be going right in the War on Terror.

crows do not sell drugs

Heh.