The Antarctic is a continent surrounded by ocean, the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by continents.

The annual mean temperature at the South Pole is -58°F, at the North Pole, a balmy 0°F.

If Antarctica’s ice sheets melted, the world’s oceans would rise by over 200 feet.

Antarctica contains 90% of all the ice on the planet and between 60 and 70% of all of the world’s fresh water.

The antarctic gave birth to one of the largest icebergs on record. With roughly 183 by 23 miles of it above water, it was comparable in size to Connecticut.

The one thing women don’t want to find in their stockings on Christmas morning is their husband.
- Joan Rivers

Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it.
- Richard Lamm

I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark.
- Dick Gregory

I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included.
- Bernard Manning

I was Christmas shopping and ran into a guy on the street. I noticed his watch and said that it runs slow. He said, “So does the guy I stole it from”.
- David Letterman

The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn’t for any religious reasons. They couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin.
- Jay Leno

Roses are reddish
Violets are bluish
If it weren’t for Christmas
We’d all be Jewish.
- Benny Hill

For the last few months we’ve been excerpting the Devil’s Dictionary. Next week we’ll explain why. Stay tuned.

UGLINESS, n. A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility.

ULTIMATUM, n. In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions.

UN-AMERICAN, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.

UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house.

VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions.

VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

I don’t know how we went a whole year without covering the immensely quotable Mae West, but here you go…

His mother should have thrown him out and kept the stork.
- Mae West

I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.
- Mae West

I believe that it’s better to be looked over than it is to be overlooked.
- Mae West

I didn’t discover curves; I only uncovered them.
- Mae West

A dame that knows the ropes isn’t likely to get tied up.
- Mae West

A hard man is good to find.
- Mae West

A woman in love can’t be reasonable – or she probably wouldn’t be in love.
- Mae West

All discarded lovers should be given a second chance, but with somebody else.
- Mae West

Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.
- Mae West

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.
- Mae West

Opportunity knocks for every man, but you have to give a woman a ring.
- Mae West

I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond.
- Mae West

I’ve been in more laps than a napkin.
- Mae West

I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
- Mae West

I’m no model lady. A model’s just an imitation of the real thing.
- Mae West

Say what you want about long dresses, but they cover a multitude of shins.
- Mae West

She’s the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.
- Mae West

It was said that the witty Gentleman from Arizona was too funny to be president, so that’s what he called his autobiography. In 1976, Senator Udall managed to finish second in almost every presidential primary he entered. True to his jolly form, by the campaign’s end he would regularly greet crowds with “Hello, I’m Ronald Reagan”.

Lord, give us the wisdom to utter words that are gentle and tender, for tomorrow we may have to eat them.
- Mo Udall

I have learned the difference between a cactus and a caucus. On a cactus, the pricks are on the outside.
- Mo Udall

The ability to change one’s views without losing one’s seat is the mark of a great politician.
- Mo Udall

For those of you who don’t understand Reaganomics, it’s based on the principle that the rich and the poor will get the same amount of ice. In Reaganomics, however, the poor get all of theirs in winter.
- Mo Udall

If you can find something everyone agrees on, it’s wrong.
- Mo Udall

The more we exploit nature, The more our options are reduced, until we have only one: to fight for survival.
- Mo Udall

Yesterday, a friend reminded me of one of the most evil of all brain teasers, which is the question:

“Physiologically speaking, what is a thought?

It’s interesting that as happy as one might be to provide a smarty-pants, toss off answer like “it is a set of biochemical interactions in the brain“, this would in fact not be correct.

Feel free to provide the correct answer below; we’ll be back next Friday with an explanation.

Okay, okay, we’re almost done! See previous entries here.

TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.

TELEPHONE, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.

TRIAL, n. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.

TRICHINOSIS, n. The pig’s reply to proponents of porcophagy.

TRUCE, n. Friendship.

TRUTH, n. An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.

TWICE, adv. Once too often.

It’s strange that if your search for quotes about one of the most momentous days in American history, the only ones you’re likely to find are the ones mindlessly cut-and-pasted over and over by numbnuts who probably aren’t even reading them. Because if you look at the attributions on this oft-repeated list, you’ll notice all the quotes were either from the movies Tora! Tora! Tora!, Pearl Harbor, or one of the people who made the latter. Here’s all we came up with. Feel free to share if you know of others.

First, the reason it’s referred to as the “day of infamy” is because Franklin D. Roosevelt said:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live on in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

And interestingly, the brilliant quote often attributed to the Fleet Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy – Isoroku Yamamoto – was only uttered by his character, first in the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! as:

I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.

And in an abbreviated form in the movie Pearl Harbor as:

I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant

Personally, I think the sentiments of the day were summed up many years before it actually occurred:

Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced and the inconvenience is often considerable.
- Jane Austen

Roosevelt might feel right at home in today’s world, with its economies damaged by greed and corruption, its high unemployment, its nascent labor movements, and sense of impending doom. He was also a Democrat who was handed a legacy created mostly by the Republican administrations before him. Interesting. Here’s to you, Franky.

Instructions for making a speech: Be sincere; be brief; be seated.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

If you treat people right they will treat you right… ninety percent of the time.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Don’t forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all national deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough to those who have little.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

If Jack’s life was any indication, the secret to getting moving is to never stop!

Forget about what you used to do. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for.
- Jack LaLanne

Of course I have fears. But what good is thinking or talking about them? Billy Graham is about the hereafter. I’m for the here and now.
- Jack LaLanne

If you want to change somebody, don’t preach to him. Set an example and shut up.
- Jack LaLanne

You’ve got to satisfy you. If you can’t satisfy you, you’re a failure.
- Jack LaLanne

If you lose a couple of inches off your stomach, your business down there will look an inch longer.
- Jack LaLanne

I can’t afford to die. It’ll wreck my image.
- Jack LaLanne

And if you’ve never seen this thoughtful pep talk from Jack, take the three minutes to watch it. You won’t regret it.