The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Joke: The Mermaid

After a year at sea, a sailor returns to his home port and walks into his favorite bar, and everyone turns to stare at him because his head has shrunk to the size of a grapefruit. Finally, one of his oldest friends asks him what has happened. And the sailor tells this story:

"We were at sea, and it was fine weather with a fair wind, and there wasn't much to do that day, so I decided to do a little fishing. I felt this immense tug on the line, and when I reeled in my catch, what had I caught but the most beautiful mermaid in all the seven seas! "And she said to me, 'Mr. Sailor, sir, please, won't you let me go! I am a magical mermaid, and I can grant you your very fondest wish if only you'll release me.'

"And so I said to her, 'Well, Miss Mermaid, ever since I went to sea, I've had only one dream: to make love to a mermaid. So if we can go below...'

"But she interrupted me, and said, 'Alas, Mr. Sailor, I'm sorry, but that's the one wish I can't grant, because as you see, I'm a woman from the waist up, but I'm a fish from the waist down.'

"And so I said to her, 'Well, that's OK, Miss Mermaid. Why don't you just give me a little head?'"

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Two sports videos

Via Microsoft's Raymond Chen, a real-life example of how a batter can get three strikes on one pitch:

Chen explains:

During his plate appearance, Vinnie Catricala was not pleased with the strike call on the first pitch he received. He exchanged words with the umpire, then stepped out of the batter's box to adjust his equipment. He did this without requesting or receiving a time-out. The umpire repeatedly instructed Catricala to take his position in the batter's box, which he refused to do. The umpire then called a strike on Catricala, pursuant to rule 6.02(c). Catricala, failing to comprehend the seriousness of the situation, still did not take his position in the batter's box, upon which the umpire called a third strike, thereby rendering him out.

But before I could watch that video, YouTube served up this one, which made me laugh out loud:

I'll poll some of my friends to find out if it's as funny to people in the UK as it is to us Americans.

Yes, automation is key

Earlier I surmised that automating the process of extracting my old jokes from the ancient braverman.org site would take less time than hand-copying them. Well, duh. It only took two hours to write the script, lint the very few entries that needed it, and push the lot up to The Daily Parker.

So, for those of you who have missed all the jokes—there are just under 200 of them, all published from May 1998 to November 2004—start here, then skip to here, and then keep clicking the calendar control.

I'll call out my favorites once I re-acquaint myself with them. This one goes at the top of the list.

Now, programming trance ended, I am off to bed.

More ancient content

After a short experiment yesterday at lunch, in which I put up three original braverman.org posts from 1998, I've added all the content from May 1998.

A couple of things came up during this process:

1. dasBlog, whose open-source project has ceased active development, won't display any of the entries for a particular day if any one of them has any errors in its HTML. That is really annoying.

2. In frustration, I started looking for other blog engines, and came upon Orchard. I'm intrigued. The extension model seems like it would work really well for me, it's in active development, and it's cool. I have a little time this weekend to play with it.

For now, enjoy the jokes from 15 years ago.

Marriage equality and Passover

Something about the Seder I went to last night and the marriage equality cases currently before the Supreme Court got me thinking along these lines:

The wise son asks, "What are the statutes, the testimonies, and the laws that the Constitution has commanded you to do?"

To the wise son, you say: The 14th Amendment gives every citizen equal protection under the law. The 10th Amendment reserves powers to the States that aren't specifically granted to the Federal Government. And the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a national religion.

The wicked son asks, "What does this mean to you?"

By saying "you," he separates himself from the rest of the United States, and its rich tradition of liberty and tolerance. You say to him,

JUSTICE SCALIA: When did it become unconstitutional to ban same-sex marriage? Was it 1791? 1868?

TED OLSON: When did it become unconstitutional to ban interracial marriage?

JUSTICE SCALIA: Don’t try to answer my question with your own question.

Or, more succinctly, "Sod off, Tony."

The simple son asks, "What is this?"

Explain to the simple son that the founders of the United States created a system in which things that hurt no one are generally tolerated, so unless there is a rational basis for legislation, and the benefits of the legislation outweigh the harms, it must be overturned.

What about the son who is too stupid to ask a question?

In this case, just ignore him. He's a partisan hack without sufficient intellect, curiosity, or temperament to serve as a justice of the peace in South Podunk, let alone the highest judicial body in the country. And you know how he's going to vote regardless of the facts or law anyway.

Now go learn.

White House petition response of the Millenium

Via TPM, the White House has responded to the petition to build a Death Star:

This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

  • The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
  • The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
  • Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

Perhaps the previous administration would have been more amenable?

"The Wally Government"

Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams finds a comparison for Congress:

I've never wanted to run for Congress until now. The job looks boring, but I'm attracted to a system that punishes total strangers for my bad performance. I assume this is some sort of "best practice" that our government is borrowing from a successful system elsewhere. So starting today, if you tell me you don't like my blog, I will pay a stranger to kick another stranger in the nads. If Congress is right about the trigger concept, you should see a big improvement in my blogging performance. I'm all about incentives.

There's a Wally-esque genius to this budget trigger concept. It actually solves Congress' biggest problem, namely that doing anything that is balanced and appropriate for the country renders a politician unelectable. Republicans can't vote for tax increases and get reelected while Democrats can't cut social services and keep their jobs. But don't cry for Congress because this isn't the sort of problem that can thwart a building full of lawyers. They put their snouts together and cleverly invented a concept - called a trigger - to take the blame for them. This way, both sides can screw their supporters while still blaming the other side. No one has to take responsibility for anything.

He might have a point.