Futility Closet

Senior job titles in the U.S. federal government, from among 49 compiled by Paul C. Light, public policy director for the Pew Charitable Trusts, for testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, Feb. 11, 1998:

• Deputy Secretary
• Deputy Administrator
• Associate Administrator
• Assistant Under Secretary
• Deputy Associate Deputy Secretary
• Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
• Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary
• Principal Associate Deputy Secretary
• Deputy Chief of Staff to the Secretary
• Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary
• Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary
• Deputy Associate Deputy Administrator
• Chief of Staff to the Associate Administrator
• Principal Associate Deputy Under Secretary
• Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
• Chief of Staff to the Associate Assistant Secretary
• Principal Deputy to the Deputy Assistant Secretary

“At my last count in 1994, there were sixteen layers of supervisors between the President of the United States, who is the ultimate chief executive of the [IRS], and revenue agents far below. Most agents report to a district group manager who reports to a branch chief who reports to an assistant chief of their division who reports to the assistant district director who reports to the assistant regional commissioner who reports to the regional commissioner who reports to the chief of staff to a deputy assistant commissioner in Washington who reports to the deputy assistant commissioner who reports to the assistant commissioner who reports to the chief operating officer who reports to the deputy commissioner of the IRS who reports to the commissioner who reports to the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury who reports to the Secretary who finally reports to the president (assuming that the White House deputy chief of staff and chief of staff don’t get in the flow).”

Solution to The Mail Plane:

The motorcyclist would have taken 20 minutes to go from where he met the horseman to the airport and back. Thus he was 10 minutes from the airport when he met the horseman. These 10 minutes plus the 30 minutes the horseman had been riding before they met makes 40 minutes the plane was ahead of schedule.

From B.A. Kordemsky, The Moscow Puzzles, 1956.

moonglade
n. the reflection of moonlight on a body of water

A motorcyclist was sent by the post office to meet a plane at the airport.

The plane landed ahead of schedule, and its mail was taken toward the post office by horse. After half an hour the horseman met the motorcyclist on the road and gave him the mail.

The motorcyclist returned to the post office 20 minutes before he was expected.

How many minutes early did the plane land?

(Solution)

OPERAS is the plural of OPERA, which is the plural of OPUS.

If you’re looking for a challenge, see if you can reach 82°06′S 54°58′E — it’s the most inaccessible point in Antarctica, the farthest from the ocean and the coldest place in the world.

You’ll know you’ve arrived because you’ll find a bust of Lenin peering weirdly across the ice toward Moscow.

Dig down 20 feet and you’ll uncover a pair of locked doors. Get those open and you can enter an old Soviet research hut, now completely entombed in snow.

And inside the hut is a golden visitors’ book to sign.

(Image: Wikimedia Commons)

A 12th-century version of the liar paradox:

Socrates swears that he will speak only falsehoods about you.

Then he says, “You are a stone.”

This shows that a man can lie and speak the truth at the same time.

“Where there’s a will there’s a won’t.” — Ambrose Bierce

This is clever — in 1895, Henry Latimer Simmons invented ramp-shaped railroad cars:

“When one train meets or overtakes another train, one train will run up the rails carried by the other train, and will run along the rails and descend onto the rails at the other end of the lower train.”

See? With good design, everybody wins.

Fielding positions in “Who’s on First?”:

• First base: Who
• Second base: What
• Third base: I Don’t Know
• Left field: Why
• Center field: Because
• Pitcher: Tomorrow
• Catcher: Today
• Shortstop: I Don’t Care

When Dodgers shortstop Chin-Lung Hu singled in a 2007 game against the Padres, announcer Vin Scully said, “And Hu’s on first.”