Collage 181               H u m o u r N e t               21 NOV 95

Well, the "Louie News" keeps coming in ... Apparently, a university
(unspecified in the message as to *which* university) has used
digitally-enhanced photographs from Louie Farrakhan's four-hundred-
thousand-man march to perform an accurate count.

You might recall that Louie was threatening a lawsuit against the
recently-unfurloughed U.S. Park Service to help them see that Lou
(et al.) can count mall crowds more accurately than they. The Park
Service Claimed 400,000, while Louie & Co. were claiming more than
one million--all so that he wouldn't have to buy new stationery for
next year's march. ;-)

And the revised number? Eight-hundred thirty-seven thousand--still
under a million. Clearly, a racist estimate.

Okay, I've really been picking on Louie in my "four-hundred-thousand-
man march" openers--primarily because there really should not exist
a sanctioned voice of racism, anti-semitism, and sexism in the U.S.
(or anywhere, for that matter). But I really need to cut Lou some
slack. According to top-secret information illicitly retrieved from
computers at the National Enquirer's editorials department, at least
one million men fully *intended* to attend the march. Problem was,
600,000 of the *men* planning to attend the march somehow got lost
along the way--and refused to stop and ask for directions.

Clearly, had Louie invited women instead of men, he would easily have
met the "million-chick" mark. :-) No need for lawsuits. And no need
for high-tech, digitally-enhanced, noise-reduced, eigenspace-based
person-counting methods. ("Digitally-enhanced"? Really? Probably just
scanned the picture into Photoshop and ran an unsharp mask ....)

Nevertheless, here at HQ HumourNet, we have chosen to celebrate the
ultra-high-tech revised count by issuing a "High-Tech Humor" Collage!
The pieces in this Collage have been making the 'Net rounds recently,
and are finally making their HumourNet debut as Collage 181 ...

Many thanks to JD for the "Urban Archaeology" piece, and to Cindy
for the very entertaining "NASA Press Release." Two good pieces to
close out a pretty good year.

Speaking of which, tomorrow will be a big day for HumourNet--in
several ways. Most importantly, it's our one-year anniversary (well,
it's really one year on Thursday, but somehow I don't think I'll be
inclined to send out a Collage on Thanksgiving :-). And, to celebrate
our first anniversary, we have a pretty awesome Collage lined up. :-)

Stay tuned ...

- Vince Sabio
  HumourNet Moderator
  HumourNet@telephonet.com
____________________________________________________________________
          Opener (above) Copyright 1995 by Vincent Sabio
  Permission is hereby granted to forward or post this "Collage";
  please observe the guidelines stated at the end of the message.
____________________________________________________________________

SUBJ: Urban Archaeology

Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Sir:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled
"211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. 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 one
of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "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 do
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 Foundation's Phylogeny
Department with the concept of assigning your specimen 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 Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily
on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have
discovered in your 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 expound on your theories
surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a
structural 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
Curator, Antiquities

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

SUBJ: NASA Press Release

SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR BABBIT ANNOUNCES HISTORIC COOPERATIVE
AGREEMENT BETWEEN NASA AND THE U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE.

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 5, 1995. Secretary of the Interior Bruce
Babbit called a press conference today to announce the implementation
of a new cooperative agreement between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Secretary Babbit called the agreement an historic step toward
successful implementation of Reinventing Government, Stage II, that
has been developed by the Clinton Administration.

Under the terms of the new agreement, packs of wolves, imported from
Canada, will be introduced into several NASA centers. In particular,
the NASA research and spaceflight centers at Goddard (Greenbelt,
MD), Marshal (Huntsville, AL), Johnson (Houston, TX), and Ames
(Moffett Field, CA) have been targeted. "Wolves are an endangered
species that need special protection to allow their populations to
increase," said Babbit. "Private landowners have objected to
releasing wolves in National Parks, fearing that they will wander
onto private lands and attack livestock. This agreement represents
an innovative compromise that will allow the wolves to prosper in
areas where the public will have no objection to their presence."

The Administrator of NASA, Daniel Goldin was present at the
Department of Interior press conference. When asked for his
reaction to the plan, Goldin said, "NASA is undergoing unprecedented
downsizing in response to the desire on the part of the Clinton
Administration and the U.S. Congress to reduce the size and cost of
the Federal Government. This agreement with the Fish and Wildlife
Service will introduce ecologically sound management practices that
will replace the 'business as usual' approach to personnel issues at
NASA. Federal-agency work forces are no different than overpopulated
herds of deer or elk in our country today. We, too, need to thin the
herds," said Goldin.

Secretary Babbit interrupted Mr. Goldin to reassure NASA employees
that the vast majority of them would be unaffected by wolf pack
predation. "Keep in mind that wolves tend to prey mostly on the
weak and slow," Babbit said. "Most NASA employees can move pretty
fast and stay out of harm's way. If you keep alert and show no
fear, chances are the wolves will leave you alone. Our wildlife
experts tell me that 95% of the NASA employees will be unaffected by
wolf predation in an average year."

An information brochure, entitled "Adapt or Die," will be
distributed to all NASA employees. The brochure explains the
ecological basis for this new management policy. It also points out
that there are severe penalties for harming endangered wolves, even
in self-defense.

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