Seemingly Random Thoughts

The following are thoughts and observations, none of which are interesting enough to be an essay by themselves. They are like the leftovers that accumulate in my mental fridge, a bit stale and in small portions. I'm reheating them to see if I can get one good meal out of them.

• Never ask a woman about her pregnancy unless you are SURE she is pregnant. Surety is construed from statements such as "Guess what? I'm pregnant!" Eventually a baby-shaped belly bulge will fool you, and you'll get a glare that will render you temporarily impotent.

 

• The world owes an enormous debt to the slothful. The power saw, roto-tiller and dishwasher are not the inventions of a men who like to cut wood, hoe the garden and scrub dishes.

 

• Never give a toddler more fluid than you are willing to clean up.

 

• From Webster online. Note especially the usage graf:

  nau·seous
  Pronunciation: 'no-shes, 'no-zE-es
  Function: adjective
  1 : causing nausea or disgust : NAUSEATING
  2 : affected with nausea or disgust
  - nau·seous·ly adverb
  - nau·seous·ness noun

Usage: Those who insist that nauseous can properly be used only in sense 1 and that in sense 2 it is an error for nauseated are mistaken. Current evidence shows these facts: nauseous is most frequently used to mean physically affected with nausea, usually after a linking verb such as feel or become; figurative use is quite a bit less frequent. Use of nauseous in sense 1 is much more often figurative than literal, and this use appears to be losing ground to nauseating. Nauseated is used more widely than nauseous in sense 2.

To all whom I have vexed by scolding them, insisting that "I am nauseous" indicates that you are causing nausea in others, my apologies.

 

• If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, you got yourself a mess of duck al'Orange if you have a shotgun and some al'Orange handy.

 

• If a politician writes a law or regulation, but is unable to explain the merits and consequences of that law or regulation to a panel of ten high-school graduates of voting age, he should not try to forward said law or regulation. A politician who submits, votes for or fails to veto such a thing should be given a vigorous wedgie for each day the law is in force.

 

• Michael Moore is not stupid, he is wicked. Moore is every bit as wicked as Eugene McCarthy, using his talents and skills to accomplish different ends by identical means. Under the same standard of evidence Michael Moore uses in Fahrenheit 9/11, Bill and Hillary Clinton are at least as involved with the death of Vince Foster as George W. Bush is in the World Trade Center attacks.

 

• Before we shoot the rich and eat their carcasses, let's remember that poor people only create jobs for bureaucrats.
  

• An exchange:

  Frenchman: You Americans are so arrogant, throwing your mighty hegemony all over the world

  American: Can you speak German?

  Frenchman: No

  American: You're Welcome
  

Tim McNabb