Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they
did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good,
politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no
concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the
real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will
expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You
won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents
had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine
about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are
now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and
listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you
save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try
delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life
HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll
give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't
bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off
and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do
that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have
to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

"
On Sep 21, 1862, Lincoln summoned his Cabinet to the White House for a special session. "The President was reading a book and hardly noticed me as I came in," Secretary of War Stanton wrote later.

"Finally he turned to us and said: "Gentlemen, did you ever read anything of Artemus Ward? Let me read a chapter that is very funny." Lincoln then read aloud something by humorist Ward entitled "A High Handed Outrage at Utica."

"Furious at what he regarded as "buffoonery" on Lincoln's part, Stanton almost got up and left. But Lincoln read on until the end of the piece and then laughed heartily. Everyone else was silent.

"Gentlemen," said Lincoln disappointedly, "why don't you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I do."

Then he reached into his tall hat on the table and pulled out the Emancipation Proclamation.
"

"
The two most prolific pulp writers of all time, as best as I have ever
been able to determine, are Max Brand (Frederick Faust) and H. Bedford
Jones. As best I can tell, Brand wrote around 43,000,000 (43 million)
words in a career that ran from approximately 1916-1938. Much of that
time he spent in Hollywood as a script writer being paid $5,000 a week.
And he drank like a fish until he went on the wagon in 1938 and became
a world-class tennis player. A fascinating person who never allowed
any of his pulp stories in his home, only his poetry, which was mostly
self-published and uniformly awful.

I believe Brand's total is somewhat over 600 novels, of which around
250 have made it into hardcover or paperback. He had one basic plot -
a good man turns bad, and a bad man turns good. He just knew how to
write the idea a lot of different ideas.

Brand had a lot of years where he wrote over 2 million words in a year.

once Gardner hit the big time with Perry Mason, he cut back on his
writing time and enjoyed life. He still produced 3-4 books a year,
just a mere 250-300,000 words a year. During his more prolific period
in the pulps in the early 1930's, he was turning out around 2 million
words a year just about all of the stories featuring series characters.

When I retire in the distant future, I intend on publishing a book on
the great pulp writers, covering guys like Gardner, Brand, Jones,
Gibson and a bunch of others. Some of these guys lead incredibly
interesting lives along with writing so much. Gibson for example one
year wrote 28 Shadow novels instead of 24 because he wanted to prove he
could write more than required (and he wanted to take a two month
vacation!).
"

Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother's womb. Shortly thereafter he grew a beard.

Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.

Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.

There is no chin behind Chuck Norris' beard. There is only another fist.

Scientists used to believe that diamond was the world's hardest substance. But then they met Chuck Norris, who gave them a roundhouse kick to the face so hard, and with so much heat and pressure, that the scientists turned into artificial Chuck Norris.

Contrary to popular belief, Chuck Norris, not the box jellyfish of northern Australia, is the most venomous creature on earth. Within 3 minutes of being bitten, a human being experiences the following symptoms: fever, blurred vision, beard rash, tightness of the jeans, and the feeling of being repeatedly kicked through a car windshield.

For good measure, he added: "British intelligence was quite right to say that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Niger. That you can look up."

To which a peacenik screamed: "F- you!"

"Shut up," Hitchens retorted. "You're rude and silly. And ugly."

Afterward, a deeply satisfied Hitchens smoked a cigarette. "I know how to hurt their feelings because I know what they're going through. ... I have a real relish for inflicting pain on them."