My Band Name For Today

Face it, your aunt (or other aged relative) thinks that email is a pretty neat newfangled gizmo. She doesn't write much herself, but she often sends you reams of emails that look like this:
>>>>> a minister was
>>>>> visiting an elderly patient. . .

She also sends you scores of “funny” but “heartwarming” “stories”. She sends you every outdated virus alert and maudlin plea to pray for a deaf child with spinal meningitis who saw the image of Jesus in spaghetti the night his parents died in a horrible grease fire.

Well I say enough! It’s called “glurge” and I’m here to rebut it. You know…"Rebut”. Refute. Disprove. Deny. Show to be false. Invalidate.

–And you thought all I did was make up band names.

Mark Rebuts your Aunt: Phase 1
The list of “Facts”

Any list of “true facts” your aunt sends you will be filled with lies, half truths and outright prevarications. See the wikipedia entry for Sturgeon’s Law. It certainly applies here. (and then march down to the library and check out as many Theodore Sturgeon books as they’ll let you. You’ll thank me.)

Look at the misinformation in this short email from my “aunt”


Know Everything???
(This article was e-mailed to me)

Amazon*The Amazon rain forest produces more than 20% the world's oxygensupply.

Antarctica*Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by anycountry.

Brazil* Brazil got its name from the nut, not the other way around.

Canada* Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined.*

Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village."

Chicago* Next to Warsaw, Chicago has the largest Polish population in theworld.

Detroit* Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan carries the designation M - 1,named so because it was the first paved road anywhere.

Los Angeles* Los Angeles's full name is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina delos Angeles de Porciuncula. *

* There is a city called Rome on every continent.

* The actual smallest sovereign entity in the world is the SovereignMilitary Order of Malta (S.M.O.M.). It is located in the city of Rome,Italy, has an area of two tennis courts, and as of 2001 has apopulation of 80, 20 less people than the Vatican. It is a sovereignentity under international law, just as the Vatican is.

Spain* Spain (Espana) literally means 'the land of rabbits.'

St. Paul Minnesota* St. Paul, Minnesota was originally called Pigs Eye after a man namedPierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant who set up the first businessthere.

Texas* The deepest hole ever made in the world is in Texas. It is as deep as20 empire state buildings but only 3 inches wide.

United States* The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile in every fivemust be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips intimes of war or other emergencies.

* The water of Angel Falls (the World's highest) in Venezuela drops3,212 feet (979 meters). They are 15 times higher than Niagara Falls.


I call baloney sauce on this list:

First of all, who claims to "Know everything"? It's like the anti-Socratic method or something.

>> * The Amazon rainforest produces more than 20% the world's oxygen
>> supply.

Where was this author educated? Public school?

Once and for all. ALL the trees and plants IN THE WORLD produce a FRACTION of our oxygen.

The big producer IS and ALWAYS WAS blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) and other bacterium. That's right. Domain Eukaryota is defeated as oxygen source once and for all. Print this out on a tree carcass to celebrate. The winnah and still champeen: Domain Eubacteria!

Yet for some reason you don't see Hollywood starlets moving into colony of streptococcus to protest anti-bacterial soap. Go figure.

Television will not tell you this. Public school seems unable to teach this. Get it straight for yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae


* Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country.

Unlike France, which is owned by whoever decides to waltz across the border and set a fire---HAIYOOOO!!!

>>* Next to Warsaw, Chicago has the largest Polish population in the world.

And yet they have only one light bulb between them.

Detroit* Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan carries the designation M - 1,named so because it was the first paved road anywhere.

Even so, its enough to rattle the bell-housing off any UAW-built car built on a Friday. (Also, I'm sure the Romans would be quite amused by this anachronistic little "fact". There's a reason for so many cities named Rome...and it has to do with pavement.)

>>* Los Angeles's full name is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula

See? This is what happens when you allow Catholics to baptize your city.

>> * There is a city called Rome on every continent.

Ironically, Rome, Antarctica belongs to France.

>> * The actual smallest sovereign entity in the world is the Sovereign
>> Military Order of Malta (S.M.O.M.). It is located in the city of
>> Rome, Italy, has an area of two tennis courts, and as of 2001 has a
>> population of 80, 20 less people than the Vatican. It is a sovereign
>> entity under international law, just as the Vatican is.

And yet it still has more black guys than all of North Dakota.

>> * Spain literally means 'the land of rabbits.'

And Germany really means "Get out of our way every 40 years or so."

Canada* Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined.

And “Canada” is an Indian word meaning Parlez-Vous Français?

>>* St. Paul, Minnesota was originally called Pigs Eye after a man named Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant who set up the first business there.

Yet somehow Nostradamus failed to predicted this.

* The water of Angel Falls (the World's highest) in Venezuela drops3,212 feet (979 meters). They are 15 times higher than Niagara Falls.

SO PLEASE stick to the rivers and lakes that you're used to (I know that you're going to have it your way or nothing at all). I hear Canada has a lot of lakes, or “cours d'eau” as they call them.

Brazil* Brazil got its name from the nut, not the other way around.

As fate would have it, this is the identical situation with Dick Van Dyke.

>>* The deepest hole ever made in the world is in Texas. It is as deep
>>as 20 empire state buildings but only 3 inches wide.

Well, it’s really how you use it that counts.

>> * The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile in every
>> five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as
>> airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.

It also requires road crews to have a 2/3rd ratio of guys standing around to guys leaning on something.

---

Now that we’ve got that unpleasant business out of the way, here are you band names:

• Loud Hailer
• Toy Cow

The Coast Guard really has a device called the loud hailer. Makes me giggle to think about a routine exchange: "Captain, they are refusing to acknowledge our hail. Permission to use the loud hailer?"

"Denied! Give it five more minutes on the whisper-quiet hailer, mister!"