Eric Rasmusen’s Weblog

How can you get experience of recreational sailing even if you live in Kansas City?

Put on casual clothes and take a broom into a shower stall. Turn on the cold water and start ripping up $20 dollar bills. Every five minutes, hit yourself over the head with the broomstick. Continue until you’re unconscious or out of money.

Here are the best (in some cases reworded) from GARY C. RAMSEYER’S FIRST INTERNET GALLERY OF STATISTICS JOKES, which is not so selective: (more…)

A good question. One might ask it about many cultures. This article in the American Spectator talks about it, not very usefully, but I’m glad it raised the question. Judaism and Christianity have humor even in the Scriptures, and the Vikings, Greeks, and Romans did. I’m not sure about ancient China, but certainly modern China does. How about the Mahabharata? Traditional Africans joke. People living under Communism joked. American Indians joked. Puritans and monks joked. (I of course do not mean that people don’t object to certain kinds of humor. Hardly anybody likes jokes made at their own expense. The question is whether *any* humor is allowed.) It would be amazing if Moslems, even Wahabis, did not joke, but maybe Islamists do try to suppress humor, as it seems feminists do, perhaps fearing it will be used against them.

What I liked best from the American Spectator article was this joke:

When I first saw the T-shirts and bumper stickers featuring Islamic Rage Boy and the caption “My child beheaded your honor student,” I got a chuckle out of it.

This is funny because one can imagine an Islamist wearing such a t-shirt proudly and without realizing the grim humor. Perhaps it would be “My children will behead your honor student,” though. Or, if I wanted to make a demographic point, it would be “My ten children will behead your honor student”.

I got this joke from href="http://volokh.com/posts/1173037843.shtml">The Volokh
Conspiracy.

Proof that a ham sandwich is better than complete happiness in
life:

1. Everyone agrees that nothing is better than complete happiness
in life;

2. A ham sandwich is better than nothing.

t these jokes from The Volokh Conspiracy and then improved them. (more…)

I got these jokes from The Volokh Conspiracy and then improved them. (more…)

I came across this at the Rutgers auctions conference (more…)

Mark Kleiman has a good post, Tanakh Notes: 1 Samuel 28 from a UCLA faculty Bible study.

The group, now called the Hirshleifer Tanakh Study Group after the much-lamented Jack Hirshleifer, a great economist and for many years our guiding spirit and note-taker, embraces a mix of disciplines and levels of textual, linguistic, and traditional knowledge; occasionally we are joined by the learned and great-souled UCLA Hillel rabbi, Chaim Seidler-Feller. As the least learned in the group, I have somehow become the replacement note-taker.

I wish I’d had a chance to participate. Jack Hirshleifer was a wonderful person to talk to, and one of UCLA’s best features was the weekly poli-sci discussion group with him and Jeff Frieden.
(more…)

Crooked Timber, amazingly, published these good jokes:

Al Qaeda fathers chatting about their suicide-bomber sons. One says wistfully to the other, “Kids blow up so quickly these days.”

The Irish Alzheimer’s Disease Society used to have the slogan

“Remembering those who can’t”.

I’ve always been partial to the slogan “Stamp Out Landmines!”

And for real, there was the Aus telcom company Optus annoucing in one of their first ads that their dedicated customer focus would “make you feel like the only person in the world with a phone.”

I found a good series of jokes in an article on jokes under Communism:

Three prisoners in the gulag get to talking about why they are there. “I am here because I always got to work five minutes late, and they charged me with sabotage,” says the first. “I am here because I kept getting to work five minutes early, and they charged me with spying,” says the second. “I am here because I got to work on time every day,” says the third, “and they charged me with owning a western watch.”

(more…)

At a Pizza Parlor I observed a man ordering a small pizza to go. He appeared to be alone and the cook asked him if he would like it cut into 4 pieces or 6. He though about it for some time before responding. “Just cut it into 4 pieces; I don’t think I’m hungry enough to eat 6.”

1 + 2 = 4,

for sufficiently large values of one.

(or sufficiently small values of 4)

1. Teaching Math In 1960
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of
production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

2. Teaching Math in 1970
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost
of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

3. Teaching Math In 1980
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost
of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

4. Teaching Math In 1990
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of
production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the
number 20.

5. Teaching Math In 2000
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish
and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the
preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of
$20. What do you think of this way of making a living?

6. Teaching Math In 2010
Un hachero vende una carretada de maderapara $100. El
costo de la produccion es $80.

A friend sent me this correspondence about some missing student course evaluations at Harvard Law School. “The dog ate my homework” comes to life. (more…)

The songs below are from an old Law and Economics Center summer camp in which law professors learned economics. (more…)

James Taranto comments on William Shotts’s 1997 Cartoon Laws of Physics, e.g., “Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation.”

Via Marginal Revolution I found a wonderfully scathing review of Revenge of the Sith in The New Yorker. It is a florid style, and communicates at least three things to us: 1. Revenge of the Sith is a silly movie. 2. Some names are well chosen and some are not, and skill at choosing is an indication of the worth of the story. 3. Striking sentences ought to be mixed with tamer ones, to extract their full effect. Too many punch lines in a row is like a drink of 180 proof whisky. (more…)

Kenneth Boulding’s poem, “Man’s March to `The Summit’”, appeared in the August 1955 issue of the Population Reference Bureau’s Population Bulletin. Here it is–

(more…)

Here are some good jokes from “Phyllis Diller: Live and at Home” Joanne Kaufman. Wall Street Journal. Apr 5, 2005. pg. D.10.

At age 87, the woman who for almost five decades kept them laughing — “You know you’re getting old when your blood type’s been discontinued” — has earned the right to keep them waiting.

“Oh, that man is so stupid,” went one early bit. “He was stranded for six hours on an escalator when the power failed.”

“I do dinner in three phases. Serve the food, clear the table, bury the dead”

Wagnerian mothers-in-law. “We had a civil ceremony — his mother didn’t come.”