The Defenestrations of Prague

On July 30, 1419, Czech priest Jan Želivský was leading his congregation through the streets of Prague to protest corruption in the Catholic church when someone threw a stone at him from the window of the town hall. His followers stormed the hall and threw 13 members of the town council from a high window, killing them.

Remarkably, the same thing happened again in 1618, when King Ferdinand dissolved the Protestant estates in Bohemia. Aggrieved Protestants confronted Catholic officials in the chancellory and threw several of them from a third-floor window. All three survived — Catholics contended that they had been saved by angels, Protestants that they had landed on a dunghill. (Or, a reader suggests, “the Czechs bounced.”)

Reaching the end of a job interview, the Human Resources Officer asks a young engineer fresh out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
"And what starting salary are you looking for?" The engineer replies, "In the region of $125,000 a year, depending on the benefits package."
The interviewer inquires, "Well, what would you say to a package of five weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, company matching retirement fund to 50% of salary, and a company car leased every two years, say, a red Corvette?" The engineer sits up straight and says,"Wow! Are you kidding?" The interviewer replies, "Yeah, but you started it."

Bertrand Russell was giving a lecture in logic to a group of students. He was explaining why a contradictory statement cannot be true.

"If you accept a contradiction", he said, "it follows that absolutely anything you can think of, no matter how ridiculous, can be proved true".

"All right", said one disbelieving student, "prove that if 1+1=3, you are the Pope".

"Well", said Russell, "subtract 1 from each side of the equation. Then 1=2. Therefore, 2=1. Now, I and the Pope are two people; but 2=1, so I and the Pope are one. Therefore, I am the Pope!"