HELPFUL MECHANIC
Sally told her
friend,
"I was worried that my mechanic might try to rip me off, so I was
relieved when he told me all I needed was blinker fluid."
Qualifying Exam for Income Tax Form
Designers
Read each question thoroughly. Answer all questions. Time
limit is four hours.
1. HISTORY
Describe the history of all
religions from their earliest origins to the present day. Prove which is best
in a manner that will convince all other religions.
2. MEDICINE
You will be provided with a razor
blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of scotch. Remove your own appendix. Do
not suture until your work has been inspected. You will have fifteen minutes.
3. PUBLIC SPEAKING 2500 riot-crazed aborigines will be turned loose in
the classroom with you. Calm them. You may use any ancient language except
Latin or Greek.
4. BIOLOGY Create life. Estimate the differences in
subsequent human culture if this form of life had developed 500 million years
earlier, with special attention to the probable effects on our next election.
Show who would have been our next President and why.
5. MUSIC Write a
piano concerto. Orchestrate it and perform it with flute and drum. You will
find a piano under your seat.
6. PSYCHOLOGY Based on your knowledge of
their works, evaluate the political stability, degree of adjustment, and
repressed frustrations of each of the following: Alexander of Aphrodisias,
Ramsesall, Gregory of Nicoa, and Hammurabi. Support your evaluations with
quotations from each man's work, making appropriate references. It is not
necessary to translate.
7. SOCIOLOGY Estimate the sociological problems
which might accompany the end of the world. Construct a full-scale experiment
to test your theory.
8. MANAGEMENT SCIENCE Define management. Define
science. How do they relate? Why? Create a generalized algorithm that can be
used to optimize all managerial decisions. Design the systems interface and
prepare all software necessary to program this algorithm on whatever computer
may be selected by the examiner.
9. ENGINEERING The disassembled parts
of a high-powered rifle will be placed on your desk. You will also find an
instruction manual, printed in Swahili. In ten minutes a hungry Bengal tiger
will be admitted to the room. Take whatever action you feel appropriate. Be
prepared to justify your decision.
10. ECONOMICS Develop a realistic
plan for refinancing the national debt. Trace the possible effects of your plan
on the wave theory of light and on the overcrowding of citizens band radio
channels.
11. POLITICAL SCIENCE Pick up the phone on the desk beside
you and start World War III. Report at length on its socio-political effects,
if any.
12. EPISTEMOLOGY Take a position for or against the truth.
Prove the validity of your position.
13. PHYSICS Explain the nature of
matter. Include in your answer an evaluation of the impact of mathematics on
science, plus the possible effect of electromagnetic radiation on global
pollution and on the love life of radar operators who spend long periods in
that environment.
14. PHILOSOPHY Sketch the development of human
thought; estimate its significance. Compare this with the development of other
kinds of thought.
15. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE Describe everything you know in
detail. Be objective and specific.
16. EXTRA CREDIT Define the
universe. Give three examples.
REPUBLICANS VS
DEMOCRATS
From a document submitted and published in the
Congressional Record on October 1, 1974, by Representative Craig Hosmer
[R-California]. The author chose to remain anonymous.
Democrats buy
most of the books that have been banned somewhere.
Republicans form
censorship committees and read them as a group.
Republicans consume
three fourths of all the rutabaga produced in this country.
The remainder
is thrown out.
Republicans usually wear hats and always clean their
paint brushes.
Democrats give their worn out clothes to those less
fortunate.
Republicans wear theirs.
Republicans employ
exterminators.
Democrats step on the bugs.
Democrats name their
children after currently popular sports figures, politicians, and entertainers.
Republican children are named after their parents or grandparents,
according to where the money is.
Democrats keep trying to cut down on
smoking but are not successful.
Neither are Republicans.
Republicans tend to keep their shades drawn, although there is seldom
any reason why they should.
Democrats ought to, but don't.
Republicans study the financial pages of the newspaper.
Democrats
put them in the bottom of the bird cage.
Most of the stuff alongside
the road has been thrown out of car windows by Democrats.
Republicans
raise dahlias, Dalmatians, and eyebrows.
Democrats raise Airedales, kids,
and taxes.
Democrats eat the fish they catch.
Republicans hang them
on the wall.
Republican boys date Democratic girls.
They plan to
marry Republican girls, but feel that they're entitled to a little fun first.
Democrats make plans and then do something else.
Republicans follow
the plans their grandfathers made.
Republicans sleep in twin beds--some
even in separate rooms.
That is why there are more Democrats.