During the first Bush administration — GB Sr. — when we feared Japan’s economic power, I heard the following joke:

Pres. Bush is in a car crash and is in a coma for six months. When he wakes up, VP Quayle is at the bedside. “Tell me how the country is doing,” asks a worried Pres. Bush. “Start with, say, education, because, as you recall, I am the education president.”

“It’s going great,” says Quayle. “Our math scores are up. Scores among the poor have caught up with the rich. More kids in college. All good.”

“That’s fantastic news. How about foreign policy?”

“Even better news, Mr. President. Peace in the Middle East. Justice in Africa. New global partnerships around the world.”

“Wow! I’m almost afraid to ask, but how’s the economy?”

“It’s doing fantastic. For example, you know that little French restaurant you and I sometimes go to? I was there yesterday. I had the full three course meal, with a decent glass of wine, and a cheese platter to finish, and the whole thing cost me just … um, yeah, it was just 2,000 yen.”

Search and replace on the old Bush for the new Bush, Cheney for Quayle…and yuan for yen. [Tags: humor bush jokes]

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The Onion lists and discusses 12 surprisingly controversial topics at Wikipedia. [Tags: wikipedia onion]

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Here’s the society for all you Puerto Rican Danes and Danish Puerto Ricans. Heck, it’s even got its own refrigerator magnets. [Tags: puerto_rico denmark everything_is_miscellaneous]

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Gene Koo points to the possible effect Vista’s increased energy requirements — it really wants you to upgrade to an energy-sucking graphics card — on the environment… [Tags: vista climate_change gene_koo]

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Xeni Jardin has an op-ed in the NY Times pointing out that US companies are arming repressive regimes with censorship software. She suggests that such companies be required to register, just as weapon manufacturers do. I have no idea if that’s the right solution, but I’m glad she’s pointed it out as as problem. [Tags: censorship xeni_jardin]

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To be a Most Annoying Nitpick, a comment has to be obvious, predictable, and unimportant.

For example:

“You know, in space an explosion wouldn’t make any noise.”

Runners up include:

“Jeesh. Dinosaurs were dead for hundreds of millions of years before humans came along.”

“Computer viruses are operating-system specific, so one of ours couldn’t infect an alien computer.”

“In the original comic book, he couldn’t fly, just jump.”

In fact, I’d be willing to consider any nitpick that begins with the phrase “In the original comic book” as a candidate for the Most Annoying.

[Tags: doep puzzle cliches nitpicks ]

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I bought a pamphlet from 1936 about the operation of Jacquard looms. Here’s an illustration from it:

It shows the huge stack of loom cards (2,000 are not a lot for a Jacquard) that control the pattern being woven. Histories of information frequently point back to Jacquard loom cards as a precursor of Hollerith’s punch cards. (Clearly they were an inspiration for Hollerith, but I think “precursor” is too strong a connection, for reasons that are not yet clear to me.) [Tags: jacquard_loom information hollerith]

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