Offbeat Humor

Is that why a dollar will only get you 70% of what it did last year? https://t.co/8Hhud9StsC

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) June 21, 2022

 

Data Talks

"32 percent of the Forbes 400 in 2011 belonged to very rich families, down from 60 percent in 1982... 69 percent of those on the list in 2011 started their own business, compared with only 40 percent in 1982." https://t.co/exIc21YZWa

— Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) June 20, 2022

 

The Readers, 1914 by Theresa Bernstein (Polish/American, 1890 - 2002)

The Readers, 1914 by Theresa Bernstein (Polish/American, 1890-2002) 

Click to enlarge.

Contingency planning

Hardly any of the claim is true but it is funny anyway.

Most men have thought some about what they'd have to do to pull it off if it suddenly became important to move to Mexico tomorrow in a white Bronco. It drove guys crazy that Thelma and Louise didn't have the faintest plan for getting away to Mexico and fell into the Grand Canyon.

— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) July 26, 2022

 

Merck toch hoe sterck

"Merk toch hoe sterck" with variations played by Hans Otto Cor Kee, organist.  The English translation is Notice How Strong.

"Merck toch hoe sterck" (Middle Dutch: transl.  Notice how strong) is a Dutch war song and sea shanty, written around 1626 by Adriaen Valerius (who adapted the "Wilhelmus", the national anthem of the Netherlands). The music is based on an Elizabethan lute song written by Thomas Campion in 1606 (What if a Day or a Month).

Written in the context of the Eighty Years' War.

There are short passages which call to mind, both in Campion's original lute music, but particularly in this Dutch version, the musical refrain from Manfred Mann's Earth Band's The Road to Babylon.

By the waters of Babylon

We lay down and wept and

Wept for these I am

We remember, we remember, we

Remember these I am

Double click to enlarge.

Merck toch hoe sterck

by Adriaen Valerius

Notice how strongly he puts himself to work

Who has ever fought against our freedom

See how he slaves away, digs and marches with force

For our goods and our blood and our cities.

 

Hear the Spanish drums beat!

Hear the Moorish trumpets!

See how he comes over

to occupy Bergen.

Berg op Zoom stay faithful,

Stem the Spanish hordes;

Let our land's trees and its streams

be loyally guarded!

The courageous, bloody, wrathful sword

It shone and it clanged such that the sparks flew from it.

Quaking and shaking, upheaval of earth,

Wonder and thunder, what was below is now above;

Through all the mines and the gunnery,

That one could hear all day,

Many a Spaniard in his cabin

choked on his own blood.

Berg op Zoom stay faithful,

Stem the Spanish hordes;

Let our land's trees and its streams

be loyally guarded!

He of Orange came to oppose the Spanish,

From the field he repelled their violence as a hero;

And as soon as Spinola heard it,

He beat a fast retreat with all his lords.

Cordua soon crawled forth,

He failed to win there

Don Velasco was disturbed

There was nothing he could do

Berg op Zoom stay faithful,

Stem the Spanish hordes;

Let our land's trees and its streams

be loyally guarded!

 

Jackson decided to invade Florida.

From The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and America's First Military Victory by Robert V. Remini.  Page 20.

Now convinced that the British planned their invasion through Mobile with Pensacola as a base of operation, Jackson decided to pursue the retreating British marines and Indians and invade Florida. Such an action would disrupt British plans, punish the Spanish for violating their neutrality, and put an end to the Indian war in the south. Although he admitted in a letter to the new secretary of war, James Monroe, that “I act without the orders of the government,” still he said he felt “a confidence that I shall stand Justified to my government for having undertaken the expedition.”

But he needed additional troops for such an expedition. Fortunately, his friend General John Coffee started southward from West Tennessee with more than two thousand cavalry and even picked up several hundred more troops along the way. When he learned of Coffee’s approach and the size of his force, Jackson wheeled out of Mobile on October 25 to rendezvous with him. By the time the combined force reached Pensacola the American army comprised over 4,000 men, including 1,000 regulars and several hundred Choctaw and Chickasaw allies.

Groaning Oldies

From Friar's Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by Barry Dougherty.

Paul Putney had planned a trip to Paris for a very long time, and the day after his retirement, he was on a plane. When he returned, his old friend Herb met him at the airport, and asked, “Well, Paul, how was Paris?”

“Oh, it was fine,” replied the weary traveler, “but I wish I’d gone twenty years ago.”

“When Paris was really Paris, eh?” said Herb, sympathetically.

“No,” he admitted, “when Paul Putney was really Paul Putney.”

History

The first organism to circumnavigate the world twice was a goat on Cook's ship who was previously on another ship. pic.twitter.com/cqmRNXp7nr

— Weird History (@weird_hist) June 18, 2022

 

An Insight

I don't think any evidence will ever convince the people who champion that kind of programs because Clarence Thomas is right that diversity and inclusion measures are less about improving outcomes for minorities than achieving a certain aesthetics. https://t.co/z62dADeZuf https://t.co/gseNE84Yzy pic.twitter.com/JHNOLTtXgM

— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) June 20, 2022

 

I see wonderful things

Precision.. 👌 pic.twitter.com/3PknhGH5mB

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) June 22, 2022