Limerick Contest Winner!

The polls are closed. WC thanks all who participated, either by composing a limerick or by voting on the efforts of those who did. There is a winner.

With 72% of the votes cast, Contestant #3, dorkgirlak, is the overwhelming favorite. She wins the prize, a 12-week introductory subscription to the New York Times on-line edition. Here’s the winning limerick:

There once was a guv’nor dubbed Zero
Who considered himself quite a fine hero
To make Big Oil stay
He gave billions away
Fiddling on as though he were Nero

Well done, dorkgirlak. Thanks again to all who participated.

The Limericks, the Captain and the Contest

WC’s readers will recall that there was a contest. There were entrants. Here they are:

Contestant #1

Alaska’s own Governor Parnell
Had a mantra he thought rather swell
Let’s “drill baby drill”
And hope nobody will
Remember what happened with Shell

Contestant #2

There was a man named Sean Parnell
Whose piles began giving him hell.
He said, “Sitting’s what did it”
And vowed he would quit it.
Now he claims he’s out “standing” — hard sell!

Contestant #3

There once was a guv’nor dubbed Zero
Who considered himself quite a fine hero
To make Big Oil stay
He gave billions away
Fiddling on as though he were Nero

Now you get to vote. Pick your favorite by number. Then click on the link below to vote for your favorite:

Limerick Contest Poll

Voting is open until Midnight on May 10, 2013.

Limerick and Defamation Contest, with a Valuable Prize

The New York Times has given WC a gift subscription. That is, WC can give twelve weeks of very nearly unlimited digital access to the Times  to anyone WC wants.

This calls for a contest. WC will award the free 12-week subscription to the person submitting the best limerick involving our very own Governor Sean “Captain Zero” Parnell. Limericks may be scurrilous but may not be obscene; only profits may be obscene around Captain Zero. WC will be the sole judge of the submissions.

Put your entry in a comment to this post. And you’ll have a chance to win twelve weeks of the Grey Lady for free.

Rules:

1. You may enter as many times as your muse allows.
2. If you include obscenities your entry will be deleted.
3. You accept the risk that the Times will fill your email in-box with pleas to subscribe.
4. You accept the risk that you will waste hours reading the Times (especially the Sunday edition) instead of doing productive stuff.
5. You agree that WC and anyone else may publicly comment upon your efforts.
6. You agree that the value of the prize is worth every penny that WC has paid for it.
7. The contest closes at noon ADST Sunday, May 5, 2013.

Ladies and gentlemen, start you limericks.

Americans and Conspiracies: Your Chance

A few readers took WC to task for his examples of conspiracies used in his post on the subject last week. It’s difficult to give examples, WC supposes, without treading on someone’s favorite conspiracy theory.

But while researching a recent blog essay, WC stumbled across an entry that seems to conflate in an alogical sprawl the largest number of classic conspiracy theories yet. David Allen Rivera’s post, titled “The Federal Income Tax – Final Warning: The New World Order,” seems to have them all: the Illuminati, the illegality of the 16th Amendment, the unconstitutionality of the federal government and the New World Order, all in a single post mashup of false premises, non-sequiturs, misquotes and logical flaws. Of course, the article ends with an advertisement for credit repair, which sort of undercuts a challenge to the national monetary system, but a foolish consistency, after all, is the hobgoblin of small minds (Emerson, of course).

The Challenge:

So here’s WC’s challenge to his readers for the new year: Find a single blog post on the Web that claims a conspiracy theory and contains more logical flaws and non-linear arguments than Mr. Rivera’s essay. Essays you write will not count, although WC may sponsor a similar contest. WC is looking for genuine crackpot theories, not ones his readers invent for themselves. To put things in the right mood, the contest will close at 11:11 AM ADT on January 11, 2011.

Entries should be submitted in comments that include a link to your candidate. Essays by Dave Barry are ineligible.

If there is a sufficient response, WC will submit the real zingers to a poll here for your vote. The winner will have 15 minutes of very-nearly-fame.