Today is the shortest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere anyway) and cause for a secular celebration for us pagans. Of course, don't forget to celebrate Sir Isaac Newton's 356th birthday this Friday--he was born December 25, 1642.

For great gift ideas check out www.skeptic.com and click to our online store. We are rushing orders out this week in time for Newtonmas this Friday. We get the orders immediately. The system is completely secure. You can also subscribe to Skeptic through the store as well.

In honor of the winter solstice I thought I'd pass along the following light- hearted skeptical humor items.

With all the recent discoveries about inflationary cosmology with a virtual infinity of other bubble universes, all with slightly different laws of nature, surely there must be one bubble universe in which time flows backwards. In that case, a human life might go something like this:

You should die first, get it out of the way.
Then you live in an old age home.
You get kicked out when you're too young.
You get a gold watch, then you go to work.
You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement.
You have children.
You get married.
You date your future spouse.
You date lots of people until you find the right one.
You graduate from college.
You go to college and study a bunch of stuff you will never use again.
You do drugs, alcohol, you party--this is called high school.
You go to middle school, then grade school, and learn to read, write, and, for the first and last time, you learn how government works.
You become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities--life is great.
You become a little baby, you go back into the womb.
You spend your last nine months floating in this blissful environment.
You finish off your life as an orgasm.

Here are the winning entries from a recent contest for new scientific theories sponsored by Omni magazine.

4th Runner-Up
The earth may spin faster on its axis due to deforestation. Just as a figure skaters rate of spin increases when the arms are brought in close to the body, the cutting of tall trees may cause our planet to spin dangerously fast.

3rd Runner-Up
Communist China is technologically underdeveloped because they have no alphabet. The lack of an alphabet means the Chinese cannot use acronyms; thus, they cannot communicate their ideas at a faster rate.

2nd Runner-Up
The Why Yawning Is Contagious Theory: You yawn to equalize the pressure on your eardrums. This pressure change outside your eardrums unbalances other peoples ear pressures, so they must yawn to even it all out.

1st Runner-Up
If an infinite number of rednecks riding in an infinite number of pickup trucks fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds at an infinite number of highway signs, they will eventually produce all the worlds great literary works in Braille.

HONORABLE MENTION:
The quantity of consonants in the English language is absolutely constant. If consonants are omitted in one geographic area, they turn up in another. When a Bostonian pahks his cah, the lost rs migrate southwest, causing a Texan to warsh his car and invest in erl wells.

THE GRAND PRIZE WINNER:
When a cat is dropped, it ALWAYS lands on its feet; and when toast is dropped, it ALWAYS lands with the buttered side down. Therefore, I propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat. When dropped, the two will hover, spinning inches above the ground, probably into eternity. A buttered-cat array could replace pneumatic tires on cars and trucks, and giant buttered-cat arrays could easily allow a high-speed monorail to link between New York with Chicago.

Carl Zwanzig: "Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together...."

Douglas Adams: "There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

Albert Einstein: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

Unknown: "Astronomers say the universe is finite, which is a comforting thought for those people who can't remember where they leave things."

Edward P. Tryon: "In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time."

John Andrew Holmes: "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."

Max Frisch: "Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it."

Kilgore Trout: "The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest."

Woody Allen: "I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown."

Douglas Adams: "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

William J. Broad: "The crux... is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing."

Rich Cook: "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."

Fred Hoyle: "There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for."

Ray Bradbury: "We are an impossibility in an impossible universe."

Christopher Morley: "My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed."

Edward Chilton: "I'm worried that the universe will soon need replacing. It's not holding a charge."

Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson): "The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

On the 12th day of the Eurocentrically imposed midwinter festival, my Significant Other in a consenting adult, monogamous relationship gave to me:

TWELVE males reclaiming their inner warrior through ritual drumming,

ELEVEN pipers piping (plus the 18-member pit orchestra made up of members in good standing of the Musicians Equity Union as called for in their union contract even though they will not be asked to play a note),

TEN melanin deprived testosterone-poisoned scions of the patriarchal ruling class system leaping,

NINE persons engaged in rhythmic self-expression,

EIGHT economically disadvantaged female persons stealing milk-products from enslaved Bovine-Americans,

SEVEN endangered swans swimming on federally protected wetlands,

SIX enslaved Fowl-Americans producing stolen non-human animal products.

FIVE golden symbols of culturally sanctioned enforced domestic incarceration,

(NOTE: after members of the Animal Liberation Front threatened to boycott Kwanzaa, Christmas, and Chanukah and Ramadan, the calling birds, French hens and partridge have been reintroduced to their native habitat. To avoid further Animal-American enslavement, the remaining gift package has been revised.)

FOUR hours of recorded whale songs.

THREE deconstructionist poets.

TWO Sierra Club calendars printed on recycled processed tree carcasses and...

ONE Spotted Owl activist chained to an old-growth pear tree.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Good Kwanzaa, Blessed Ramadan, Cheerful Newtonmas, and Honored Winter Solstice.