Quotage and geekage, all at once!

From the SUS paper, under the headline: Bush Declares Canada Un-American

..."Canadia," Bush continued, "has eluded our detection by cleverly altering our maps to stop at the 49th parallel. Our intelligence has determined that our country not only extends past that parallel, but is being occupied by the Canadians!... and then it goes on about "Operation Free Beaver." snerk.

Not nearly so amusing as, for example, the article on parking tips, but you'd have to go here to get it.

But now I want to eventually watch Canadian Bacon, which occasionally I see in a rental store. (Does anyone know if it's worth it?)

My favourite physics prof. quote this week was "Photons are not nearly so smart as you might think," until today, when he said, "Well, we're out of time, but I'm sure you can derive the rest [of Schrodinger's equation] in your head," which is almost as amusing.

Also, I think I've fallen for math again. There were a few rough months in our relationship, as partial derivatives give me a headache and for a while that's all that seemed to do together. But now it's all about the multivariable derivation, tracing the illusory play of shadow between peaks and valleys of lazy quadratics and elegant polynomials, imagining supple curves which writhe into the infinity of spacetime.

(And there are radii larger than the circumference over 2pi, if you know where to draw the circles, and infinite shapes that can be held in a hand with enough dimensions...

Terry Pratchett occasionally writes about things in his universe like, perfect triangles with three right angles, and it's rather unnerving to realize that they could exist in our own.)

They say the universe is written in math. I've always found that vaguely frightening.

And this is real news. ..

Fox nearly sued itself over 'Simpsons' parody...

NEW YORK (AFP) - Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel threatened to sue the makers of "The Simpsons" over a parody of the channel's right-wing political stance, the creator of the hit US television show has claimed.

In an interview this week with National Public Radio, Matt Groening recalled how the news channel had considered legal action, despite the fact that "The Simpsons" is broadcast on sister network, Fox Entertainment.

According to Groening, Fox took exception took a Simpsons' version of the Fox News rolling news ticker which parodied the channel's anti-Democrat stance, with headlines like "Do Democrats Cause Cancer?"

"Fox fought against it and said they would sue the show," Groening said.

"We called their bluff because we didn't think Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself. So, we got away with it."



...Seriously, you can't satirize the American media any more. There's really no point, they're at the point where they write their own punchlines.