Freebsd Fortunes 2

A meeting is an event at which the
minutes are kept and the hours are lost.

A memorandum is written not to inform the reader,
but to protect the writer.
                -- Dean Acheson

A method of solution is perfect if we can forsee from the start,
and even prove, that following that method we shall attain our aim.
                -- Leibnitz

A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed
on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new
game.  Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the
pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly
along it at the water's edge.  Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their
heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn
around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite
direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match.  Then, the
paper reports "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin
colony and overfly it.  Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins
fall over gently onto their backs.
                -- Audobon Society Magazine

2001-02-02, from http://news.bbc.co.uk:

For five weeks, a team from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS)
monitored 1,000 king penguins on the island of South Georgia as
Lynx helicopters passed overhead.

"Not one king penguin fell over when the helicopters came over,"
said team leader Dr Richard Stone.

"As the aircraft approached, the birds went quiet and stopped
calling to each other, and adolescent birds that were not associated
with nests began walking away from the noise. Pure animal instinct,
really."

The conclusion, said Dr Stone, is that flights over 305 metres
(1,000 feet) caused "only minor and transitory ecological effects"
on king penguins.

A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.
                -- Ogden Nash

A mind is a wonderful thing to waste.

A modem is a baudy house.

A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery,
is the most tremendous object in the whole creation.
                -- Goldsmith

A Mormon is a man that has the bad taste and the religion to do what a good
many other people are restrained from doing by conscientious scruples and
the police.
                -- Mr. Dooley

A mother mouse was taking her large brood for a stroll across the kitchen
floor one day when the local cat, by a feat of stealth unusual even for
its species, managed to trap them in a corner.  The children cowered,
terrified by this fearsome beast, plaintively crying, "Help, Mother!
Save us!  Save us!  We're scared, Mother!"
        Mother Mouse, with the hopeless valor of a parent protecting its
children, turned with her teeth bared to the cat, towering huge above them,
and suddenly began to bark in a fashion that would have done any Doberman
proud.  The startled cat fled in fear for its life.
        As her grateful offspring flocked around her shouting "Oh, Mother,
you saved us!" and "Yay!  You scared the cat away!" she turned to them
purposefully and declared, "You see how useful it is to know a second
language?"