Book Recommendation

Do you think clean energy is good for the environment? That the rise of agriculture was intentional? Or that technological progress has any potential for solving the current ecological crisis? Well, YOU ARE WRONG!

To find out why, as well as learning a variety of fascinating information on the important role of decomposition in healthy ecosystems, humanity's misguided attempts to harness nuclear energy, and the striking parallels between human and insect agriculture, read "The Spherical Mind," by Adam Oswald.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-spherical-mind/6347669

How to Trick the Strategist of A Rival Warlord Into Joining Your Side

The following story is excerpted from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a famous Chinese novel about warlords struggling for dominance over the nation following the fall of the Han Dynasty (about 200 CE).

Liu Bei and Cao Cao are two rival warlords vying for dominance in central China. Liu Bei is good and Cao Cao is evil (Moral ambiguity is not one of the novel's strong suites) Unfortunately, Cao Cao is way stronger. He has like 300,000 soldiers and Liu Bei has like a tenth that many.

So Liu Bei wises up and decides to even the odds by finding himself a good strategist. One day when he is out in the fields, some kid riding on a water buffalo tells him about a super smart guy named Xu Shu who lives in the area.




Liu Bei decides to go and persuade him to join the fight against Cao Cao. Unfortunately, Xu Shu is living somewhere off in the boonies precisely because he doesn't want to be pestered by warlords into joining their squabbles. Liu Bei finds him and pesters him to him join the squabble, to such an extent that he can no longer stand it and finally gives in.

Before long he is hatching and devising ingenious plans and strategies left and right. Cao Cao sends his subordinate general Cao Ren with a 50,000 man army to attack Liu Bei. This army gets totally owned due to the help of Liu Bei's newest strategist.

Cao Ren runs home and cries. Cao Cao is hella pissed. He captures Xu Shu's mom and asks her, nicely, to write a letter to her son persuading him to come over to Cao Cao's side. Xu Shu's mom responds by calling him bad names and throwing the ink tablet at him. Cao Cao is so pissed he almost orders her to be beheaded, but then he gets a better idea. Instead, he places her under house arrest and then tells his friend to go every day to her house with presents, pretending to pity her plight.

Every time she gets presents, she writes thank you notes, and after awhile Cao Cao and his friend have gathered enough thank you notes that they are able to imitate her style of calligraphy and thereby fabricate a letter from mom to Xu Shu telling him to come rescue her.

A distraught Xu Shu receives the letter and tearfully bids farewell to his new master, who is equally distressed to see him go. As they are parting for the final time, Liu Bei watches Xu Shu's horse disappear around the bend and angrily declares something to the effect of: "How I wish I could obliterate this forest, just to be able to keep Xu Shu in my line of vision for that little bit longer." It is a very moving scene.

Instead of being relieved to see him, mom is furious with Xu Shu for being duped by Cao Cao's tricks. She chastises him for believing a fabrication and abandoning a virtuous warlord for an evil one. The next day she hangs herself.

The End

The Old Man Under The Moon

During the Tang dynasty there is a dude named Wei Gu. By the ripe old age of 16 or so, he's supposed to be getting married, but he's too picky and keeps turning up his nose at all the eligible 14-year-old bachelorettes in town (when the average life span is 30, you gotta start pumping 'em out early).

One day a leering haggle-toothed matchmaker shows up at his door and starts showing him portraits of beautiful potential wives, but he will have none of it.

Portrait 1: "Her mouth is too big"
Portait 2: "Her eyes are too narrow"
Portrait 3: "I want someone literate"*

Anyway, Wei Gu is pissed about the matchmaking ordeal so he goes off for a walk to get that off his mind, and winds up somewhere outside the city, where an old dude with a big package on his back is sitting under the moon, reading a book.

Wei Gu's like, "What is that book?" and the old dude's like, "This is the marriage book. The names of everybody and who they will marry are written down here." Then he reaches into the package, pulls out a big bundle of red string, casts the string into the air, and lassoes Wei Gu around the left ankle as he's trying to walk away. He says, "Whenever a man and woman get lassoed by this red string, they will inevitably be destined to get married, no matter what." He goes on to inform Wei Gu that his future wife is the daughter of a vegetable seller outside the city.

Wei Gu visits the vegetable seller to see his future wife; unfortunately, she is a screaming, revolting three-year-old described as having "disheveled hair and an unkempt face" (peng tou gou mian). He gets so pissed that he pulls out his sword and slashes the toddler in the forehead.

Fourteen years later, Wei Gu is still unmarried because he's too picky. Some rich dude is like "Wei Gu you should marry my daughter" and Wei Gu is stoked because the guy is rich so he says yes but when he sees his new bride for the first time even though she is hot he is surprised because she's wearing some kind of flower ornament over her forehead, so he asks her why she's wearing it and she's like "cuz some horrible man slashed my forehead with a sword when I was 3" and suddenly Wei Gu recalls his terrible deed and confesses all to her and because she is a fictional product of the imagination she forgives him.

Later, Chinese people think that the story is really romantic and they decide that the old guy from the beginning of the story is actually the god of matchmaking, who they call "The Old Man Under the Moon" (Yue Xia Lao Ren).

I hope you have learned something today.

*I didn't make that part up*

Yet Another Blight in the History of the Whites

Well, I was aware that due to the racism, it was customary in the 1950s and 1960s for white singers such as Pat Boone to perform covers of music originally created by black people. But I just discovered this, which takes it to a whole new level:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzY28Unb3v0

How dare that Chuck Berry plagiarize the Beach Boys! Oh wait, this came out 20 years earlier, which would mean that...

Sigh...yet another blight in history of the whites.

(at least Chuck Berry successfully sued them)

Sensible Priorities

Members of the US government have been hemming and hawing for months over whether to reform health care, but they seem unanimous that we all need faster Internet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21sun1.html?hp

A Love Poem

Penned to one Courtney Swanson-Mellich:

Oh comely maiden
Fine and fair
A splendid jewel
How precious rare

Bubbly eyes
And lustrous hair
Your legs so smooth
Do you use Nair?

Like fire's her gaze
And ice her glare
At my heart strings
You gently tear

The misty air
Or a fragrant pear
Could ne'er compare
To the love we share

Potential Onion Article Headlines

It's no secret that I'm a great fan of The Onion. In fact, I've gone as far as trying to come up with my own potential Onion headlines:

Area Woman Not Just Another Pretty Face, Gorgeous Body, Incredible Hair, Stunning Curves

Nations Announce They're Tired of Providing Aid

Children These Days Don't Know How Hard They Have It

Personal Judgment Of Acquaintance Made Based On His Choice of Email Service Provider

All Forms Of Human Contact Being Saved For Marriage

5-Year-Old No Longer The Person He Was At 3