______ __
/ ____/___ _____/ /___ ______ ___
/ /_ / __ \/ ___/ __/ / / / __ \/ _ \
/ __/ / /_/ / / / /_/ /_/ / / / / __/
/_/ \____/_/ \__/\__,_/_/ /_/\___/
Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor:
People are always available for work in the past tense.
Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs.
Fortune's nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful
Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan. During an
impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster and
clam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following
exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan.
DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are
having to artificially propagate oysters and clams.
HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters?
DINGELL: They may or may not be natural. The simple fact of the matter
is that female oysters through their living habits cast out
large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large
amounts of fertilization ...
HOFFMAN: Wait a minute! I do not want to go into that. There are many
teenagers who read The Congressional Record.
This fortune is inoperative. Please try another.
You will lose your present job and have to become a door to door
mayonnaise salesman.
I don't want to alarm anybody, but there is an excellent chance that
the Earth will be destroyed in the next several days. Congress is
thinking about eliminating a federal program under which scientists
broadcast signals to alien beings. This would be a large mistake.
Alien beings have nuclear blaster death cannons. You cannot cut off
their federal programs as if they were merely poor people ...
-- Davy Barry, "THE ALIENS ARE COMING, THE ALIENS ARE
COMING!"
New Year's Eve is the time of year when a man most feels his age, and
his wife most often reminds him to act it.
-- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary
Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the
Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats
in their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the
moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter -- for they had a machine, a
dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every
respect. And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside
it, for it was all they had -- first they saved up all their atoms,
then they put them all together, and if one didn't fit, why they
chipped at it a bit, and everything was just fine ...
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
Tuesday, 10 March 2026 Michael J. Chappell Contact me at:
mcsuper5@freeshell.org
