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The Ultimate Rejection Letter

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 13:13:27 GMT

clipped by: haraya

Herbert A. Millington
Chair - Search Committee
412A Clarkson Hall, Whitson University
College Hill, MA  34109

Dear Professor Millington,

Thank you for your letter of March 16.  After careful consideration, I
regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me
an assistant professor position in your department. 

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually
large number of rejection letters.  With such a varied and promising field
of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals. 

Despite Whitson's outstanding qualifications and previous experience in
rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at
this time.  Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor
in your department this August.  I look forward to seeing you then. 

Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.

Sincerely,
Chris L. Jensen

Tags: rejection, letter, humor, funny, wit, application, jobs, people, joke, entertainment

Things to Say when You're Stressed

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 20:55:36 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator

Clip Source: www.caughtatwork.net

Things to Say when You're Stressed

"Okay, okay! I take it back. Unscrew you"

"You say I'm a bitch like it's a bad thing"

"Well this day was a total waste of make-up"

"Well aren't we a bloody ray of sunshine?"

"Don't bother me, I'm living happily ever after."

"Do I look like a people person?"

"This isn't an office. It's hell with fluorescent lighting"

"I started out with nothing and still have most of it left"

"Therapy is expensive. Popping bubble wrap is cheap. You choose"

"Why don't you try practicing random acts of intelligence and senseless acts of self-control?"

"I'm not crazy. I've been in a very bad mood for 30 years."

"Sarcasm is just one more service I offer."

"Do they ever shut up on your planet?"

"I'm not your type. I'm not inflatable"

"Stress is when you wake up screaming and you realize you haven't gone to sleep yet"

"Back off!! You're standing in my aura."

"Don't worry. I forgot your name too."

"I work 45 hours a week to be this poor."

"Not all men are annoying. Some are dead."

"Wait...I'm trying to imagine you with a personality"

"Chaos, panic and disorder ... my work here is done."

"Ambivalent? Well yes and no."

"You look like shit. Is that the style now?"

"Earth is full. Go home."

"Aw, did I step on your poor little bitty ego?"

"I'm not tense, just terribly, terribly alert."

"A hard-on doesn't count as personal growth."

"You are depriving some village of an idiot."

"If assholes could fly, this place would be a freaking airport."

Tags: things to say when you're stressed, funny

Iraq: The 2% Truth

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 00:05:11 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: marccooper.com

Beyond the fulminations and whimpers of the Bushies over a biased media, it seems that if anything the American press has been too polite in describing the catastophe underway in Iraq.

Check out this hair-raising piece in Editor and Publisher based on a talk by veteran NYTimes war reporter Dexter Filkins who says that the anarchy and bloodshed sweeping Iraq has placed 98% of Iraq "off-limts" to reporters. Asked his advice he would offer a reporter heading to Iraq, he simply said "don't go."

Don't go, because you can hardly report anything at all. Even gettting out of a vehicle puts the life of a Western reporter at risk. Just to get what news from Iraq that the NYT currenty collects requires the hiring, literally of a small army:

According to Filkins, the New York Times is burning through money "like jet fuel" simply to securely maintain its operations in the country.

Tags: iraq, fubar, civil-war, marc cooper, media, journalism

The Seventh Sense

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 19:52:22 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes

Clip Source: www.damninteresting.com

The Seventh Sense

Posted by Zack Jordan on September 16th, 2006 at 6:23 pm

From childhood, we are taught that the human body has five senses. I'm sure we can all recite them: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. This list has remained unchanged since the time of Aristotle. To most people, a "sixth sense" refers either to one outside the realm of the scientific, or one that simply does not exist in most humans.

However, ask a neurologist how many senses the human body has, and you might get a surprising answer. Many identify nine or more senses- some listing as many as twenty-one. The first category of senses is the "special" senses, including the familiar sight, hearing, taste, and smell. The second category is made up of the somatic senses, which we usually lump under "touch"- including our perception of pressure, heat, and pain. The third category, however, is not nearly as well-known. These are the interoceptive senses- those that deal with data originating in the body itself.

Tags: senses, perception, science, sacks, proprioception, sense, biology, body, psychology, brain

Gravity is only a theory

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 00:33:02 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.bringyou.to

First of all, no one has measured gravity for every atom and every star. It is simply a religious belief that it is “universal.” Secondly, school textbooks routinely make false statements. For example, “the moon goes around the earth.” If the theory of gravity were true, it would show that the sun's gravitational force on the moon is much stronger than the earth's gravitational force on the moon, so the moon would go around the sun. Anybody can look up at night and see the obvious gaps in gravity theory.

Tags: satire

The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 22:38:33 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: www.thenation.com

Beat the devil by Alexander Cockburn

The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts

[from the September 25, 2006 issue]

You trip over one fundamental idiocy of the 9/11 conspiracy nuts in the first paragraph of the book by one of their high priests, David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor. "In many respects," Griffin writes, "the strongest evidence provided by critics of the official account involves the events of 9/11 itself.... In light of standard procedures for dealing with hijacked airplanes...not one of these planes should have reached its target, let alone all three of them."

The operative word here is "should." One central characteristic of the nuts is that they have a devout, albeit preposterous, belief in American efficiency, and hence many of them start with the racist premise that "Arabs in caves" weren't capable of the mission. They believe that military systems work the way Pentagon press flacks and aerospace salesmen say they should work. They believe that at 8:14 am, when AA Flight 11 switched off its radio and transponder, an FAA flight controller should have called the National Military Command center and NORAD. They believe, citing reverently (this from high priest Griffin) "the US Air Force's own website," that an F-15 could have intercepted AA Flight 11 "by 8:24, and certainly no later than 8:30."

They appear to have read no military history, which is too bad because if they had they'd know that minutely planned operations--let alone responses to an unprecedented emergency--screw up with monotonous regularity, by reason of stupidity, cowardice, venality and other whims of Providence.

Tags: 9/11, conspiracy, alexander cockburn