One might claim that oftentimes, hilariousness and truth are to be found on different ends of the same spectrum. It might therefor not be the easiest task to write something that is both hilarious and true.

Fortunately, in the last decade or so there was a drastic change in the way American politics work, hence enabling people like David Javerbaum at the New York Times to publish articles like “A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney“.

“Probability. Mitt Romney’s political viewpoints can be expressed only in terms of likelihood, not certainty. While some views are obviously far less likely than others, no view can be thought of as absolutely impossible. Thus, for instance, there is at any given moment a nonzero chance that Mitt Romney supports child slavery.”
…
“Entanglement. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a proton, neutron or Mormon: the act of observing cannot be separated from the outcome of the observation. By asking Mitt Romney how he feels about an issue, you unavoidably affect how he feels about it. More precisely, Mitt Romney will feel every possible way about an issue until the moment he is asked about it, at which point the many feelings decohere into the single answer most likely to please the asker.”

So Good.

“We regret that food from other venues, firewarms and bare feet are not allowed. Dress code smart-casual.”

4Quay in Cape Town – actually a very nice and not overly overpriced Seafood restauraunt at the Waterfront.

Liechtenstein has 36.000 inhabitants – and a monarch. The political system is a bit complicated, but essentially they hold a lot of referenda, because it’s quite simple to use direct democracy with only a few people.

The Monarch, however, can overrule any referendum if he so pleases. In fact, he can also ignore anything the parliament decides, which, quite frankly, is a bit odd for a central European country in 2012. The prince also has the right to dissolve government and dismiss parliament.

Two days ago, Liechtenstein held a referendum: do we wish to curtail the monarch’s power? Nearly 80% went to the urns, and 76% voted against the proposal. They wish to keep expressing their opinion in nationwide ballots, but also want the prince to be able to overrule referenda.

It’s the silliest thing I’ve heard in a while. I could not find out yet why this referendum could have not been overruled by the prince (the news ignore that obvious paradox).

Some people argue that the ties to the royal family are very intricate within Liechtenstein, and that voting in favor of the proposal would have made a lot of people risk their jobs. I don’t find that plausible, because these people would not vote at all, instead of voting against it.

“People live in a world of ambiguity where the same stimulus can evoke different responses in a variety of contexts. A stimulus such as the number 42 might be responded to as even, lower than 50, the product of 6 and 7, a double-digit number, or possibly the answer to life, the universe, and everything (Adams, 1979).”

The first two sentences of the “Selecting a response in task switching: Testing a model of compound cue retrieval” paper by Schneider & Logan, 2009.

(via Jana)

(via Anja M.)

Business, from busy-ness:
The etymology of “business” relates to the state of being busy either as an individual or society as a whole, doing commercially viable and profitable work.

See also: business time, flight of the conchords.

Clearly the most hilarious song I’ve heard in the last year: “Whorehoppin’ (Shit, Goddamn)” by Eagles of Death Metal.

(If you haven’t figured out yet how the internet works: google “mediafire” and the songname. Arr!)

A great documentary about people with superior autobiographic memory:

“Do you remember every movie you’ve ever seen?”
- “Sure!”
“And you remember when lots of television shows started?”
- “Anything.”
“60 minutes?”
- “Tuesday September 24th ’68, the first Sunday show was September 19th, ’71.”

And they are not simply one-trick ponies – knowing what weekday was at a given date, or television shows. They remember nearly everything they did and that happened to them in their lives, down to the age of about 10.

“It really makes you wonder why we aren’t the normal ones, but they are. I mean, they can remember barely anything.”

(The six subjects that have been studied so far are not autistic.)

Must see. I mean it.