Koosay, Eebay, and Ooday

You’ve probably noticed that there are many different spellings of Arabic names depending on which news source you are reading. The truth is that there is no consensus how to write Arabic words in English. If we are going to investigate Arabic names we must therefore use phonetic spellings. Saddam’s sons then become Koosay, Eebay, and Ooday.

Now if we translate those names from Pig Latin back into English we have Skoo Bee Doo. Is this a veiled reference to the cartoon dog from the 1970s, Scooby Doo? Can it be anything but that?

Well consider this. Scooby Doo’s final year of first-run shows was 1977. It was also in 1977 that Saddam Hussein came to power in the ruling Baath Party.

Coincidence? You decide.

Bernard Slattery

(via Glenn)

TPS Syndrome

Am I suffering from TPS: TypePad Snobbery? You know it, baby! ;)

Common symptoms discovered so far:

Alaska Jack

Concurrently with today’s announcement that Alaska Airlines has contracted with Jack Nicholson to act as spokesperson for the airline in all of their television and print advertising in 2004, the airline also revealed an upgrade to the traditional and distinctive Alaska Native image on the tail of their jets:

Alaska Jack

Tribal leaders and Mr. Nicholson’s representatives have so far declined to comment on the announcements.

(Image found in this mindblowing Worth1000 Photoshop contest. Pesudo-‘news’ dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the dingy corners of my brain.)

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Plato: For the greater good.

Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.

Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken’s dominion maintained.

Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas.

Jacques Derrida: Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!

Thomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I’ll find out.

Timothy Leary: Because that’s the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

Douglas Adams: Forty-two.

Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.

B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own free will.

Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: The possibility of “crossing” was encoded into the objects “chicken” and “road”, and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence.

Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

Aristotle: To actualize its potential.

Buddha: If you meet the chicken on the road, kill it.

Howard Cosell: It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of history. An historic, unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurence.

Salvador Dali: The Fish.

Darwin: It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.

Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death.

Epicurus: For fun.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn’t cross the road; it transcended it.

Johann Friedrich von Goethe: The eternal hen-principle made it do it.

Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.

Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.

David Hume: Out of custom and habit.

Jack Nicholson: ‘Cause it (censored) wanted to. That’s the (censored) reason.

Pyrrho the Skeptic: What road?

The Sphinx: You tell me.

Mr. T: If you saw me coming you’d cross the road too!

Henry David Thoreau: To live deliberately…and suck all the marrow out of life.

Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Molly Yard: It was a hen!

Zeno of Elea: To prove it could never reach the other side.

Lie Clocks

Donald Rumsfeld died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St.Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him. He asked, “What are all those clocks?”

St.Peter answered, “Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on Earth has a Lie-Clock.Every time you lie the hands on your clock will move.”

“Oh,” said Rumsfeld, “whose clock is that?”

“That’s Mother Teresa’s. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie.”

“Impressive,” said Rumsfeld. “And whose clock is that one?”

St.Peter responded, “That’s Abraham Lincoln’s clock. The hands have moved twice,telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life.”

“Where’s Bush’s clock?” asked Rumsfeld.

“Bush’s clock is in Jesus’ office. He’s using it as a ceiling fan.”

(via Anders Jacobsen)

Go Tigers!

2003/07/graphics/tigers

Dad just sent me this a few minutes ago, figuring it tied in with the Filler and That’s it, I’m moving posts.

Now that’s a fashion statment.

I have to admit, though, my first thought on seeing this was just wondering if this (of all things) should become a trend and make its way here to the states. I think if I’m ever walking down the street in Seattle and see some cute young thing walking along with Ichiro‘s face staring at me — twice — from her chest, it’ll be questionable whether I can turn around before I bust out laughing.

Of course, it might also be the first time I have to resist the impluse to give Ichiro a big ol’ kiss. ;)