Futility Closet

"What luck for rulers that men do not think." — Adolf Hitler

Countries with compulsory voting:

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Congo, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Fiji, Greece, Honduras, Lebanon, Libya, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mexico, Nauru, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela

Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz served as an infantry squad leader during World War II.

Every year on June 6 he used the comic strip to memorialize his comrades who fell at Normandy.

Temperature palindromes:

16° Celsius ≅ 61° Fahrenheit

28° Celsius ≅ 82° Fahrenheit

Ornithological nouns of assemblage:

• a murmuration of starlings
• a desert of lapwing
• a parliament of owls
• a gulp of cormorants
• a pitying of doves
• a murder of crows
• an exaltation of larks
• a charm of finches
• a stand of flamingoes
• a watch of nightingales
• a rafter of turkeys
• a committee of vultures
• a descent of woodpeckers
• an unkindness of ravens
• a convocation of eagles

Who comes up with these? They're wonderfully poetic. Also: a sleuth of bears, a shrewdness of apes, a flutter of butterflies, an intrusion of cockroaches, a bask of crocodiles, a skulk of foxes, a smack of jellyfish, a leap of leopards, a crash of rhinoceroses, a scurry of squirrels, a streak of tigers, a shiver of sharks.

Carhenge is a replica of Stonehenge constructed of vintage American automobiles spray-painted gray. The heel stone is a 1962 Cadillac.

Who says Americans have no taste?

hipparchy
n. rule or control of horses

"The French, however wretched may be their condition, are attached to life, while the English frequently detest life in the midst of affluence and splendour. English criminals are not dragged, but run to the place of execution, where they laugh, sing, cut jokes, insult the spectators; and if no hangman happens to be present, frequently hang themselves."

– Memoirs of Lewis Holberg, quoted in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, July 28, 1827

Hurricane Katrina, seen from the inside. It was the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded, and the costliest in U.S. history. Total damages are expected to reach $75 billion.

Bill Gates gets 4 million spam messages a day.