Fun_People Archive
29 Mar
Miscellaneous Hilarity

Date: Tue, 29 Mar 94 21:15:30 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: Miscellaneous Hilarity

Forwarded-by: cate3@netcom.com (Henry Cate)
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Black holes are where God is dividing by zero...

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Oxymorons from a contest in OMNI Magazine:

I don't believe in astrology.  But, then, I'm an Aquarius, and Aquarians don't
believe in astrology.

We are not anticipating any emergencies.

Those who forget this sentence are condemned to reread it.

It's not an optical illusion.  It just looks like one.

Act natural.

"This report is filled with omissions."

I can't remember having a more memorable time.

No one goes to that restaurant anymore--it's always to crowded.

"This paper fills a much-needed gap in the theory."

By definition, one divided by zero is undefined.

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	Quips and Comments

The illegal we do immediately.  The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
	-- Henry Kissinger

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be
taken seriously.
	-- Hubert Humphrey

Newpaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then
print the chaff.
	-- Adlai Stevenson

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough
to take it all away.
	-- Barry Goldwater

If the ends don't justify the means, then what does?
	-- Robert Moses

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	Performance Appraisal Time...

The scene:  in a vast desert, a cowboy faces his horse.

Cowboy:  "Well, you've been a pretty good hoss, I guess.  Hardworkin'. 
Not the fastest critter I ever come acrost, but..."

Horse:  "No, stupid, not feed*back*.  I said I wanted a feed*bag*.

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	General Laws

From: the New York Times, June 9, 1986:

    Buried within the [Senate tax reform] bill, which weighs well over five
pounds, are 174 items known as transition rules, special provisions that
exempt particular companies, communities and individuals from specific
conditions that would otherwise apply.

    The transition rules are written in such Delphic prose that, in most
cases, no one can interpret them except the author, the taxpayer involved and
the auditors at the Internal Revenue Service.

    For example, one rule would give a Rochester company, Praxis Biologics
Inc., an exemption from an extra tax that would otherwise be imposed on
royalties it earns from selling vaccines to pharmaceutical companies. This is
how the rule is described in the bill:

    "In the case of a taxpayer which was incorporated on Feb. 17, 1983, and
    the five largest shareholders of which are doctors of medicine, any
    royalties of such taxpayer from products resulting from medical
    research shall be treated in the same manner as royalties from computer
    software are treated."

    A staff member who worked on the transition rules said he did not know
why they were written in such an obscure way except that "it's always been
done that way."

["Yes, and that's why, in this great country of ours, we live by the rule of
law.  One law for ALL people.  It doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor,
black or white, ... what?  ...  Oh.  Sorry - wrong speech"  -psl]

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	Stupid Criminal Tricks

...Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, may have violated the rights of a
suspect by attaching a metal colander to his head and connecting the
colander to an office photocopier with metal wires.  A message reading
"HE'S LYING" was placed in the copying machine.  Each time the interrogators
got an answer they didn't trust, they pushed the copy button -- and out
would come the message.  Convinced the jerry-rigged polygraph was accurate,
the suspect confessed.

(NR Aug 15, 1986)

© 1994 Peter Langston