The Four Cats...

Sent to me by my mom, who knows my taste in humor:

Four men were bragging about how smart their cats were.

The first man was an Engineer, the second man was an Accountant, the third man was a Chemist and the fourth man was a Government Employee.

To show off, the Engineer called his cat. “T-square, do your stuff!” T-square pranced over to the desk, took out some paper and pen and promptly drew a circle, a square, and a triangle. Everyone agreed that was pretty smart.

But the Accountant said his cat could do better. He called his cat and said “Spreadsheet, do your stuff!” Spreadsheet went out to the kitchen and returned with a dozen cookies. He divided them into 4 equal piles of 3 cookies. Everyone agreed that was good.

But the Chemist said his cat could do even better. He called his cat and said “Measure, do your stuff!” Measure got up, walked to the fridge, took out a quart of milk, got a 10 ounce glass from the cupboard and poured exactly 8 ounces without spilling a drop into the glass. Everyone agreed that was pretty darned good.

Then the three men turned to the Government Employee and said “What can your cat do?” The Government Employee called his cat and said “Coffee Break, do your stuff!” Coffee Break jumped to his feet and...
...ate the cookies,
...drank the milk,
...shit on the paper,
...screwed the other three cats,
...claimed he injured his back while doing so,
...filed a grievance report for unsafe working conditions,
...put in for Worker's Compensation,
...and went home for the rest of the day on sick leave!

The first thing I thought after reading this was “John Murtha”…

Puzzler...

Well, the last puzzler apparently wasn't all that puzzling: everybody who answered was at least close. If you're interested in the story of the cargo ship SS Mayaguez, you can read about it here.

Meanwhile, here's a new puzzler:

As long ago as the late 1600s, Europeans were using a straight piece of material (usually wood, sometimes ivory or brass) much like a ruler with special markings to make all sorts of calculations, including multiplication, division, trigonometry, and logarithms. This device was normally used in conjunction with a pair of dividers (a compass with two metal points). It was as ubiquitous amongst the engineers and scientists of the day as computers and calculators are today – but today it is virtually unknown and unheard of. What was this device called?

Quote of the Day

Simon M. sent me a link to this article. The comments to it contain my quote of the day, by someone going by the handle “Billy Bob Henry”:

Anyone that thinks global warming is flase needs a lobotomy..

Ignoring the misspelling and the amputated ellipsis for the moment, the commenter encapsulates quite nicely the philosophy – and the “science” – of the true believers of the anthropomorphic global warming faith. We're supposed to blindly believe their high priests (Gore and Hansen) and the climate models. At the same time, we're supposed to dismiss all the actual evidence that questions the assumptions and conclusions that go into those models. Oh, and we're supposed to throw away common sense as well – so that when someone points out that (for example) the polar bear population is actually higher now than ever before in recorded history, so using their declining population as evidence of the impact of global warming is, well, bogus – we're supposed to dismiss that as the ravings of some sort of lunatic fringe.

Otherwise, we need a lobotomy.

I think it's more like this: those who blindly keep faith with anthropomorphic global warming while ridiculing its critics are anti-scientists who are acting like they've already had a lobotomy. I say “anti-scientists” because the very essence of science includes skepticism and debate (along with evidence and verifiable tests or predictions). Listen to Jim Hansen and his crowd, and you see precious little of anything I can recognize as science – and a whole lot of self-serving fear mongering that I believe is carefully calculated to increase their funding…

More Feasting...

Debbie and I went a little crazy with the cooking this year. For four successive days we've feasted on some luscious dishes...

We had about a pound of lobster meat left over after our Thanksgiving Day meal, so on Friday I made lobster rolls. For those of you who may be (sadly) unfamiliar with lobster rolls, this is a traditional American dish from the northeast (especially Maine). Many people believe this is the very best way to enjoy lobster. There are almost as many recipes for lobster rolls as there are people who make them; about the only things I can see in common between them are these: (1) it's all about the lobster; other ingredients are kept to a minimum, and (2) they need to be on toasted rolls.

Being on the West Coast, we can't just go down to our grocery and buy lobster rolls in the bakery section of the grocery store. Hot dog buns are just not good enough. So we made a “San Diego substitution”: we used Dudley's potato bread, grilled in butter to toast them. The filling I made by roughly chopping the lobster meat into about 1/2” pieces, then adding some finely chopped celery and chives (not much of each), a little mayonnaise, and some chopped tarragon. I wanted to use fresh tarragon, but we were out – so I rehydrated some dried tarragon in a little lukewarm water, and it did quite nicely (you have to have the dried tarragon that's in little pieces, not the powdered type, for this to work). That's it! We just mixed those ingredients, piled it high between a couple slides of grilled potato bread, and feasted. My oh my, that was good!

On Saturday we roasted a small turkey. Debbie made a fine white gravy with the giblets and drippings, and we had open-faced roast turkey sandwiches, on toasted potato bread, with gravy. Yum! And then on Sunday I made broth from the leftover turkey bones, and Debbie turned it into tlapeno (a traditional Mexican soup) made with turkey instead of chicken. She's made this dish quite a few times, and this was her best yet – a simple, clear-broth soup redolent of turkey, full of tasty ingredients with a great texture. Naturally, being Debbie, she made vast quantities of the stuff – we could have fed a significant number of Marines with it! But it was just the two of us, so now there's a wonderful, giant-sized container in the refrigerator chock full of this delectable stuff.

I suspect we're both going to take a few days off from cooking…