A Little Knowledge of History is a Dangerous Thing

Found this on McSweeney's. It is pretty hillarious.

CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN FAMOUS PEOPLE AS IMAGINED BY SOMEONE WITH AN AMERICAN PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION WHO DIDN'T PAY TOO MUCH ATTENTION IN SCHOOL BUT WHO DID JUST ENOUGH TO PASS THE EXAMS

Richard Nixon and Winston Churchill
NIXON: Hello, I see you're smoking a cigar and wearing a large hat.
CHURCHILL: So I am, young chap. Could I interest you in a cigar?
NIXON: Sure, I think I smoke cigars ... maybe ... I don't know.
(CHURCHILL hands a cigar to NIXON, who bites off the tip and lights it.)
NIXON: We were probably alive at the same time.
CHURCHILL: Indeed, my boy, indeed. I had something to do with World War II and I think maybe you fought in it.
NIXON: I'm not sure if I did.
CHURCHILL: There's not that much more about me that everyone knows.
NIXON: I once held up my hands and formed two peace signs. I was either about to get onto a plane or get off of one.
CHURCHILL: I have seen the photo, because I think there were cameras when I was alive.
NIXON: And what about Watergate? I did that.
CHURCHILL: Margaret Thatcher is someone else from England. She was leader after me.
NIXON: People can buy masks of my face.

Abraham Lincoln and Hitler
HITLER: Kill the Jews.
ABE: Free the slaves.
HITLER: Kill everyone, especially the Jews. Nazis are the best.
ABE: Emancipation Proclamation.
HITLER: Mein Kampf.
ABE: Four score and seven years ago.
HITLER: Kill all Jews!
ABE: I was shot in the head at a play, because the Civil War made people from the South angry.
HITLER: I created Nazis.

Presidential Celebrity Doppelgangers

Okay... this is what happens when you have too much time on your hands. I ran George Washington's picture through a face recognition program that claims to match pictures up to their celebrity look-alikes. The results were surprising. Apparently the celebrity that most looks like Washington is Takeshi Kitano - the 5' 5" Japanese actor and director. Who would have guessed?



Of course, once I got started down this path I couldn't just stop with Washington. Therefore, I loaded up a picture of Abraham Lincoln into the face recognition program and what do you know - out popped Jean-Michel Jarre - the French composer and music producer. Yuck.



I decided to give it one more shot and put in a picture of Warren G. Harding - reputedly one of America's best looking presidents - and imagine my surprise to discover that if Yitzhak Rabin and Madonna had ever had a child, he would look a lot like Harding.

I would also like to know what Bill Clinton and John Ashcroft would think about being 68% celebrity matches for Harding.