Great Reason to Drink Beer

A herd of buffalo can move only as fast as the slowest buffalo, and when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular culling of the weakest members. In much the same way the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, we all know, kills brain cells, but naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker braincells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers.

Why, How, and Ifs?

• Why do you need a driver's license to buy liquor when you can't drink and drive?
• Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?
• Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?
• Why are there flotation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes?
• Why are cigarettes sold in gas stations when smoking is prohibited there?
• Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
• How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work in the mornings?
• If 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the doors?
• If a cow laughed, would milk come out her nose?
• If nothing ever sticks to TEFLON, how do they make TEFLON stick to the pan?
• If you tied buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropped it from a height, what would happen?
• If you're in a vehicle going the speed of light, what happens when you turn on the headlights?
• You know how most packages say "Open here". What is the protocol if the package says, "Open somewhere else"?
• Why do they put Braille dots on the keypad of the drive-up ATM?
• Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
• Why is it that when you transport something by car, it's called a shipment, but when you transport something by ship, it's called cargo?
• Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down the volume on the radio?
• You know that little indestructible black box that is used on planes, why can't they make the whole plane out of the same substance?

How Specs Live Forever

The US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.
Why did the English people build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Okay! Why did the wagons use that odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagons would break on some of the old, long distance roads, because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.
So who built these old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Thus, we have the answer to the original questions. The United State standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. Specs and Bureaucracies live forever.
So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war horses.