S THERE A SANTA CLAUS?

As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research help from that renowned scientific journal SPY magazine (January, 1990) - I am pleased to present the annual scientific inquiry into Santa Claus.

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 1 in the world. BUT, since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding, etc.

This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.


4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

Merry Christmas.

1: Under no circumstances may two men share an umbrella.
2: It is OK for a man to cry ONLY under the following circumstances:
(a) When a heroic dog dies to save its master.
(b) The moment Angelina Jolie starts unbuttoning her Blouse.
(c) After wrecking your boss's car.
(d) When she is using her teeth.
3: Any man who brings a camera to a stag night may be legally killed and eaten by his friends.
4: If you've known a guy for more than 24 hours, his sister is off limits forever unless you actually marry her.
5: Moaning about the brand of free beer in a mate's fridge is forbidden. However complain at will if the temperature is unsuitable.
6: No man shall ever be required to buy a birthday present for another man. In fact, even remembering your mate's birthday is strictly optional. At that point, you must celebrate at a strip bar of the birthday boy's choice.
7: In the mini-bus, the strongest bladder determines pit stops, not the weakest.
8: When stumbling upon other blokes watching a sporting event, you may ask the score of the game in progress, but you may never ask who's playing.
9: You may fart in front of a woman only after you have brought her to climax. If you trap her head under the covers for the purpose of flatulent entertainment (commonly known as a Dutch oven), she's officially your girlfriend.
10: It is permissible to drink a fruity alcohol drink only when you're sunning on a tropical beach ... and it's delivered by a topless model and only when it's free.
11: Only in situations of mortal and/or physical peril are you allowed to kick another guy in the nuts.
12: Unless you're in prison, never fight naked.
13: Friends don't let friends wear Speedos. Ever. Issue closed.
14: If a man's fly is down, that's his problem, you didn't see anything.
15: Women who claim they 'love to watch sports' must be treated as spies until they demonstrate knowledge of the game and the ability to drink as much as the other sports watchers.
16: A man in the company of a hot, suggestively dressed woman must remain sober enough to fight.
17: Never hesitate to reach for the last beer or the last slice of pizza, but not both, that's just greedy.
18: If you compliment a guy on his six-pack, you'd better be talking about his choice of beer.
19: Never join your girlfriend or wife in discussing a friend of yours, except if she's withholding sex pending your response.
20: Never talk to a man in a bathroom unless you are on equal footing i.e., both urinating, both waiting in line, etc. For all other situations, an almost imperceptible nod is all the conversation you need.
21: Never allow a telephone conversation with a woman to go on longer than you are able to have sex with her. Keep a stopwatch by the phone. Hang up if necessary.
22: The morning after you and a girl who was formerly 'just a friend' have carnal, drunken monkey sex. The fact that you're feeling weird and guilty is no reason for you not to nail each other again before the discussion occurs about what a big mistake it was.
23: It is acceptable for you to drive her car. It is not acceptable for her to drive yours.
24: Thou shall not buy a car in the colours of brown, pink, lime green, orange or sky blue.
25: The girl who replies to the question 'What do you want for Christmas?' with 'If you loved me, you'd know what I want!' gets an Xbox 360 End of story.
26: There is no reason for guys to watch Ice Skating or Men's Gymnastics. Ever.
27: It is not permissible to make eye contact when watching porn with your mates. Furthermore, this is only one of two circumstances under which it is allowed to have an erection with friends in the room, the other being when you are 'spit roasting' a woman.
28: We've all heard about people having guts or balls. But do you really know the difference between them? In an effort to keep you informed, the definition of each is listed below:
* 'GUTS' is arriving home late after a night out with the guys, being assaulted by your wife

. Having an erection lasting more than ten hours and not calling your doctor.

158. For Him.

157. Drowned in A toilet.


157 - Not only do you drown but it smells too156. Death by dying.

155. Reading entire list backwards.

154. Being deep fried alive. You would burn and eventually you would have to open your mouth to inhale, letting in the burning oil and deep frying your lungs.

153. Go to the time displacement chamber travel back to the year before you were born, and kill your mother!

152. By looking at this:

151.

150. Being banned from Uncyclopedia and Encyclopedia Dramatica at the same time.

149. Staying in an infinite loop that you can't get out of.

148. Clicking this link.

147.

146. Being told to sit in the corner of a round room.

145.5 Being forced to hit F5, then look at 145.5 again.

145. Being Super Freaked'.

144. Snapping your back during an intense session of autofellatio and choking on you dick during your orgasm, sperm oozing down your windpipe.

143. Getting run over by an ambulance.

142. Death by safety scissors and eating all the glitter glue .

141. Being Aborted.

141. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWgBA...

141. Making out with a hyeana or rabid wolverine.

140. Being raped and decapitated by a teddy bear with a thirst for blood and man flesh. Mmm, crispy.

139. Sacrifice yourself for someone when he/she will also die in 1 minute after your death.

138. Cracking open a egg and finding a fully formed chicken --- And then cooking it into your omelet anyway --- and then choking on its tiny bones... but you then find out out they were scales...eww.

137. Accidentaly drinking that milk that you had left in the cupboard for the last month or so.

136. Sitting on your mom then getting sucked in! >>(i)<< i=u

135. Nibbled to death by a ninja turtle.

134. Being run over by a trailer ---- seven times.

133. Waking up a dead person, and then realizing that they are dead, makes you have a heart attack, and then THEY wake YOU up dead.

132. Waking up dead.

131. By teasing Prof. Snape about his greasy hair, and them him telling you that, "What do you think we cook your chips in?!"

130. Eating a funny whelk.

129. Being a vampire and sucking out someones blood and after they yell "haha, I have AIDS!!".

128. Realizing that 127 is true.

127. Realizing that 128 is false.

126. Reading this list .

125. Talking too much leet, for example: 101 1 m 73 1337 1 p\/\/N u n008.

124 1/2. trying to figure out what 125 says ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

124. Attempting to solve hunger by not eating.

123. Eyes melting due to watching way too much television.

122. "This time for sure!"

121. Ultimate World of Warcraft Marathon.

120. Trampled by fluffy kittens who were fluffy.

119. Signing up for Battle Royale for fun.

116. Relazing that 3 numbers are missing --- oh, wait! 20-16= hmmmm! that's not three! oh well.

115. Mind explosion related to to much minesweeper.

111. A massive potato blight.

110. "In Soviet Russia, food eats you!"

109. Being stabbed to death by a small Filipino with a plastic spork from taco bell

108. Over-exposure to Redundancy.

107. Over-exposure to Redundancy.

106. Anything related to MySpace.

105. Super AIDS

104. Fatal case of Saturday night fever.

103. Over-exposure to Redundancy.

102. Murdered for being really fucking annoying.

101. Papercut inflicted by Giant Paper.

100. Death by snoo-snoo! --- YAY!

99. Autopsy Results: Subject was alive while at the start of the autopsy. *cough* We have rectified that accordingly.

98. Razor blades and rubbing alcohol.

97. Getting birthday punches when you turn 100.

96. Bigpox.

95. Refering to football hooligans as soccer hooligans.

94. Alien lays eggs inside your chest (---- and dying of hunger: how are you meant to eat them there?!? i mean, for go