Saturday, May 24, 2008

Funny

The story behind the letter below is that this guy in Newport, RI, named Scott Williams, digs things out of his backyard and sends the stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute, labeling them with scientific names,

This guy really exists and does this in his spare time! Anyway... here's the actual response from the Smithsonian Institution. Bear this in mind next time you think you are challenged in your duty to respond to a difficult situation in writing.

Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Mr. Williams:
Thank you for your latest submission to the institute, labeled "93211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline...Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago.

Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety that one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be "Malibu Barbie." It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings.

However, we feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:

1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.

2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.

3. The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

a. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.

b. Clams don't have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon-dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record.

To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon-dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results.

Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science the scientific name Australopithecus spiff-arino. Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated and didn't really sound like it might be Latin.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a Hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work
you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly.

You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institute, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your Newport back yard.

We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it.

We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structura matrix that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,
Harvey Rowe
Chief Curator - Antiquities

Robin Willams - "The Plan"



The Plan!



Robin Williams, wearing a shirt that says "I love New York" in Arabic.

You gotta love Robin Williams ... Even if he's nuts! Leave it to Robin Williams to come up with the perfect plan. What we need now is for our U.N. Ambassadors to stand up and repeat this message. Robin Williams' plan ... (Hard to argue with this logic!) "I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's a plan."

1) "The U.S. will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those "good ole boys," we will never "interfere" again.

2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world. They don't want us there. Therefore, we will
station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.

3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are. They're illegal!!! France will welcome them.

4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.

5) No foreign "students" over the age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home baby!

6) The U.S. will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.

7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10.00 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we will go someplace else. They can go some-where else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to their army. The people who need it the most get very little, if anything.

9) Ship the U.N. Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH ... learn it .... or LEAVE. Now, isn't that a winner of a plan?


"The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'you want a piece of me?' "

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Welcome

Hello! We would like to welcome you to the newest segment of Kingman-AZ.com, our blog. It was created so that locals and tourists alike can have a place to comment on Kingman and the surrounding area. Please share with us places you like to visit, funny short stories, or other adventures involving an area or activity in northwest Arizona.

If your club, group or organization is planning a function, you are invited to post the information in a post.

Have fun with this and as always, make it a great day.

Fred