Humour VI

At http://www.aofonline.org/audio-a-music.htmlIt's the classic tape by the late 1980's by sci-fi author Orson Scott Card (eg, Ender's Game) performed in fire-and-brimstone style. A must-hear.-------------------------------------------- The first commandment of secular humanism is, "Thou Shalt Think!{Those holy fundamentalists} want to reach out and take hold of the reigns of power. And in that moment, they lose all their holiness, all their holiness! Can you hear me? Am I talking loud enough?(chorus from the story of Creation):
And the strong nuclear force holds tight.
The weak nuclear force hangs on.
The electro-magnetic force shines so bright as if to say, "It is good."
And gravity ... it just sits and sucks.Can you hear me? Am I talking loud enough?

Na, interessant. Aber was soll das bedeuten?

Actually, I remember that as a bumper sticker from half a decade ago:

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If God hadn't intended us to eat animals, then why did He make them out of food?

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The other bumper sticker of that time is:

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I still miss my ex-wife ... but my aim is improving.

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In college (1970 to 1974) a friend was from Yugoslovia -- don't know from which side, since Tito was still in power, but she remembered from elementary school having to run off and hide in the hills because of attacks from the other side.One of the jokes then was that Yugoslavians weren't allowed to swim in the Adriatic because it would leave a ring. That was demonstrated by sprinkling pepper, representing Italians, into a glass of water, then a drop of detergent to represent Yugoslavs that made everybody else get out of the water.Offered in the spirit of good humor.

And, as an outsider, I don't know. That's one of the problems about ethnic jokes, you have to be emmersed in the culture to understand them. In 1970, those of us in the USA were completely ignorant of all that.May I supplant that with a Polish-Irish joke? Polish jokes were popular around 1970, kind of like Germany's Ostfriesland jokes later on.My father who had lived through the USA Great Depression taught me that the key to survival through any kind of financial difficulty was to be willing to do the work that nobody else wanted to do. His shining example of that was the "honey-dipper", the guy who cleaned out the outhouses (IOW, the one who emptied all the shit out of the pits that the outhouses were built over). If you are willing to do what nobody else wants to do, then you can still make a living regardless of economics.He then told me the story of two honey-dippers, one Polish and the other Irish (my family is almost half-Irish, the other half Scottish, FWIW). The customer noticed that each and every time that team came to clean out his outhouse pit, it was always the Polish worker who went down into the pit and filled the bucket with his bare hands while it was always the Irishman who raised the bucket and kept his own hands clean. Finally, after years of observing this, the customer took the Polish worker to the side and asked why he always did the dirtiest work. "What!?! Are you kidding me?!?!?!? I'll never take no shit from no Irishman!"PS
Two Ostfriesland jokes from German commedian, Otto.Waving a handkerchief: "The Ostfriesland flag! White eagle on a white field!"Soccar match between Bavaria and Ostfriesland. The Ostfriesland players hear the whistle and think the match is over, so they leave. A half hour later, Bavaria scores its first goal!

In terms of vacation time, yes, we are really at the back of the line. Two weeks per year is normal. I have seniority, so I get three weeks, though as a newly single I usually just get that paid out to me.When I was in university as German major (neh, nicht Germanistik), I worked two summers, 1973 & 1974, in Germany steuerfrei als Werkstudent. As I understood what was happening around me (being at that time the "stupid Mexican" who just smiled a lot), the regular German workers had two 3-week vacations per year, one in the winter and the other in the summer. In both the summer and the winter, German industry had a period of reduced productivity as half of its workers present acted as a cadre for training and supervising the unskilled labor force of students who worked tax-free (steuerfrei) as a means of supporting themselves through the next semester at university.Is it still that way?

Lovely joke from later on the TV series, M*A*S*H, after Trapper John had been replaced by that American aristrocrat, Charles Winchester something. The operating room was having problems with post-op infections. So Hawkeye remarked, "This floor is just like you, Charles. Full of culture and breeding."

Why else do you think they're called "shave tails"?Working with mules or horses, you shave the tails on the ones that kick. To warn everybody else who has to work around them.

In his youth (1930's), for a short time my father did some driving for a local bootlegger. They were in a dry county and the bootlegger supplied that dry county with booze. Whenever a vote would come up for making the county wet, the biggest supporter for keeping it dry was the bootlegger. Legally available booze would be bad for business.

Another true customs on a European train story.My first summer in Europe, I was travelling by train from Germany to Switzerland. At the border, the train stopped and the German customs agent identified himself as "Passkontrol" (passport control) and checked our passports. Friendly cheerful type, even kidded me a bit about my new beard that wasn't on my passport photo (my electric razor could handle the 240V voltage, but not the entirely different power sockets).He continued to work his way through the other compartments in the car and moved on to the next car. Then some jerk entered our car from the other end and kept complaining loudly, "Scheiepasskontrol!" (shitty Passkontrol, the common German way of cursing something) over and over again. What was that guy's problem? Then just before he got to our compartment, I could finally hear that he was saying, "Schweizer Passkontrol!" (Swiss Passkontrol).

Actually, that's not true. For example, there are the songs written by Dan Barker, former fundamentalist minister and songwriter, now "America's Leading Atheist" and co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). I once heard his "You Can't Win with Original Sin" on the radio (back when Atheists United still had their 15 minutes of air-time once a week); as I recall, it ends with something like "If your god can damn me, then he can damn you just as easily too." I also found one of his songs on YouTube, It's Only Natural.Here's the list of his songs on Dan Barker's FFRF bio page -- two of the songs are available for free download:

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"The Battle of Church & State" [free download]
"We, The People"
"Friendly, Neighborhood Atheist"
"Just Say NO To Religion"
"Nothing Fails Like Prayer"
"Beware of Dogma"
"Salt Lake City Blues" (with Steve Benson) [free download]
"God-Less America" (with Steve Benson, music Irving Berlin)
"Sunday Morning Blues"
"The Freethinker Blues"
"Why BSA?" (co-written with Steve Benson)
"None of the Above"
"My Father's House"
"Lucifer's Lament"
"Freedom From Religion"
"You Can't Win With Original Sin"
"Blood Brothers"
"I Don't Need Jesus"
"No Hurry To Die"
"Life Is Good!"
"Higher Mind"
"Promise of Dawn" (co-written with Juanice Charmaine)
"The World Is My Country" (based on Thomas Paine)
"No Gods, No Masters" (tribute to Margaret Sanger)
"Love" (words by Robert G. Ingersoll)
"God's Grandeur" (words by Philip Appleman)
"Summers of Love" (words by Philip Appleman)
"The Time To Be Happy Is Now" (based on Robert G. Ingersoll)
"The Trinity" (words by Robert G. Ingersoll)
"The World's Need" (poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox)
"Solstice Tribute" (new lyrics to "Little Town of Bethlehem")
"Benediction" (poem by Sherry Matulis)
"Adrift on a Star" (lyrics by Yip Harburg)
"Somewhere Over the Paper Moon" (lyrics by Yip Harburg)
"In a Dark Time" (lyrics by Philip Appleman)

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Dan composed and produced "The Stay-Away Pope Polka," a protest song played by radio stations and sung by protest groups across the country when the pope visited America in 1987 and 1993. His 2007 song "It's Only Natural" won a spot on the Madison-Made Project for the Homeless compilation CD.

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As for Steve Martin's line of "atheists watch football ... " Nope, sorry, hell no! I'm not a believer!

You poor guy! That must be like watching Kent Hovind seminar videos; you can only watch so much before your stomach can't take any more.But at least Bachman is easier on the ears than Palin, who keeps reminding me of the Weivoda Carpet Girl, TV spokesperson (and, I think store owner's daughter) of a carpet store in Grand Forks, ND. Shrill voice chattering away with a lot of nonsense going on. Enough to drive a person insane.

Disregarding questions of lack of accredidation and extremely lax degree requirements including but not limited to his piss-poor "dissertation" that violates all the rules and standards of academia, his PhD is in Christian Education. Similarly, his Masters in Christian Education was from the same non-accredited Patriot University, but his Bachelor of Religious Education was earned from an actual college, Baptist and non-accredited.His only study of science was two years in community college (which can provide a very excellent lower-division education) and the 13 years (though he claims 15 years) that he taught high school math and science in private Christian schools, one of which was his own. I wonder if anyone has ever done a follow-up study on those students to ascertain the damage he had done them.Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.