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George Carlin
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The society we live in --
Things to think about Short takes -- Driving -- Breaking news |
Things we take for granted:
There are a few expressions I believe we take for granted.
Legally drunk. Well, if it's legal, what's the problem? "Leave me alone, officer, I'm legally drunk!"
The greatest thing since sliced bread. So this is it? A couple thousand years…sliced bread? What about the Pyramids?
The Panama Canal? The Great Wall of China? Even a lava lamp, to me, is greater than sliced bread. What's so great about
sliced bread? You got a knife, you got a load of bread. Slice the fuckin' thing!! And get on with your life.
In your own words. Do you have your own words? Personally, I'm using the ones that everyone else has been using. Next
time they tell you to say something in your own words, say, "Nigflot blorny quando floon."
What year is it?
The major calendars disagree by thousands of years. To the Chinese, this is 4699; the Hebrews think it's 5762; the Muslims
swear it's 1422. No telling what the Mayans and Aztecs would say if they were still around. I guess their time ran out.
Remember, folks, these are calendars we're talking about, instruments specifically designed to keep track of time. And
they'll all different. And they're not off by a couple of weeks, this is thousands of goddamn years we're talking about.
How did this happen?
Our current (Georgian) calendar is such an amuature show that every four years we have to cram in an extra day just to make
the whole things work. We call it February 29. Personally, I don't believe it. Deep down, I know it's really March 1. I mean
it just feels like March 1, doesn't it?
But even that simple quadrennial adjustment doesn't fix things, so every 100 years we suspend that rule and dispense with
the extra day. Unless, of course, the year is divisible by 400, in which case we suspend the suspension and add the extra day.
But that's still not quite enough, so every 4000 years we suspend that rule to, and back comes February 29!
Here's how we got into this sorry state: The Julian calendar was introduced in 46B.C., the Roman year 709, but it was off
by eleven minutes a year, so by 1582 there was an accumulated error of ten days. Accordingly, that year Pope Gregory XIII
decreed that the day following October 4 would be called October 15. They just skipped ten days. Threw them out.
Officially, in 1582, no one was born in France, Italy, Spain or Portugal during the period of October 5 through October 14.
Weird, huh?
But even weirder, Britain didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar till 1752, where they dropped 11 days out of September. Since
this also applied to the American colonies, officially, no one was born here from September 3 through September 13, 1752.
Except Indians. By the way, during that same year New Year's Day was moved from March 25 to January 1.
That was it had been
handled before, for example that was March 24, 1750, would be followed by March 25, 1751. Pretty fucked up, huh? And you
thought that big millennium party you went to was being held right on time.
The society we live in --
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