|
|
|
The Book of General Ignorance
Think Magellan was the first man to circumnavigate the globe, baseball was invented in America, Henry VIII had six wives, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain? Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong again. Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British bestseller. Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more, The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha” compendium of how little we actually know about anything. It’ll have you scratching your head wondering why we even bother to go to school. Revealing the truth behind all the things we think we know but don’t, this book leaves you dumbfounded about all the misinformation you’ve managed to collect during your life, and sets you up to win big should you ever be a contestant on Jeopardy! or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Besides righting the record on common (but wrong) myths like Captain Cook discovering Australia or Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone, The Book of General Ignorance also gives us the skinny on silly slipups to trot out at dinner parties (Cinderella wore fur, not glass, slippers and chicken tikka masala was invented in Scotland, not India). Thomas Edison said that we know less than one millionth of one percent about anything: this book makes us wonder if we know even that much. You’ll be surprised at how much you don’t know! Check out THE BOOK OF GENERAL IGNORANCE for more fun entries and complete answers to the following: How long can a chicken live without its head?
About two years. What do chameleons do?
They don’t change color to match the background. Never have; never will. Complete myth. Utter fabrication. Total Lie. They change color as a result of different emotional states. Who invented champagne?
Not the French. How many legs does a centipede have?
Not a hundred. How many toes has a two-toed sloth?
It’s either six or eight. How many penises does a European earwig have?
a)Fourteen b)None at all c)Two (one for special occasions)
d)Mind your own business Which animals are the best-endowed of all?
Barnacles. These unassuming modest beasts have the longest penis relative to their size of any creature. They can be seven times longer than their body. What is a rhino’s horn made from?
A rhinoceros horn is not, as some people think, made out of hair. Who was the first American president?
Peyton Randolph. What were George Washington’s false teeth made from?
Mostly hippopotamus. What was James Bond’s favorite drink?
Not the vodka martini..
Price: $11.13
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Greenspan's Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve
No matter who you are-investor, trader, homeowner, 401(k) holder, or CEO-you are bound to feel the impact of Alan Greenspan's �Age of Ignorance� for years to come. . . According to MSN Money columnist William A. Fleckenstein, Greenspan's nearly 19-year career as Federal Reserve Chairman is even worse than anyone imagined Labeled �Mr. Bubble� by the New York Times, Greenspan was nothing less than a serial bubble blower with a long history of bad decision-making. His famous �Greenspan Put� fueled the perception of a Goldilocks economy-but, as this explosive expos� reveals, the bear has finally caught up with Goldilocks. . . Using transcripts of Greenspan's FOMC meetings as well as testimony before Congress, this eye-opening book delivers a timeline of his most devastating mistakes and weaves together the connection between every economic calamity of the past 19 years: . . - The stock market crash of 1987.
- The Savings And Loan crisis.
- The collapse of Long Term Capital Management.
- The tech bubble of 2000.
- The feared Y2K disaster.
- The credit bubble and real estate crisis of 2007.
. Fleckenstein explains just how far-reaching Greenspan's mess has been flung, and presents damning evidence that contradicts the former Fed chief's public naivet� concerning shifts in the market and economy. He also points to a disturbing fact, that throughout his career, Greenspan not only made costly mistakes, but made the same ones-over and over again. And not only was he never able to recognize or admit to those mistakes, he constantly rewrote his own history to justify them. . . Greenspan's Bubbles offers a lock-stock-and-barrel portrait of a flawed but fascinating man whose words and actions have led a whole generation astray, and whose legacy will continue to challenge us in the years ahead. . . ..
Price: $11.68
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
The Book of Animal Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong
Fast on the heels of the New York Times bestseller The Book of General Ignorance comes The Book of Animal Ignorance, a fun, fact-filled bestiary that is sure to delight animal lovers everywhere Arranged alphabetically from aardvark to worm, here are one hundred of the most interesting members of the animal kingdom explained, dissected, and illustrated, with the trademark wit and wisdom of John Lloyd and John Mitchinson. Did you know, for instance, that • when a young albatross takes wing, it may stay aloft for ten years • vampire bat saliva—unsurprisingly, when you think about it—is the source of the world’s most powerful blood thinning drug, appropriately called draculin • bombardier beetles fire a boiling chemical spray out of their rears at 300 pulses per second • a bald eagle’s feathers weigh twice as much as its bones • a giant tortoise recently died at the documented age of 255 • octopuses are dexterous enough to unscrew tops from jars • spider silk is so light that a strand long enough to circle the world would weigh as much as a bar of soap? So meet the water bears that can live in suspension for hundreds of years, the parasite carried by your cat that makes men grumpy and women promiscuous, and the woodlouse that drinks through its bottom. Marvel at elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and woodpeckers that have ears on the ends of their tongues. If you still think a pangolin is a musical instrument, that hyenas are dogs, or that sheep are pointless and stupid, The Book of Animal Ignorance has arrived just in time..
Price: $11.00
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider's Tale of Greed, Fraud, and Ignorance
Former subprime lender Richard Bitner once worked in an industry that started out helping disadvantaged customers but collapsed due to greed, lack of financial control and willful ignorance. In Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider's Tale of Greed, Fraud, and Ignorance, he reveals the truth about how the subprime lending business spiraled out of control, pushed home prices to unsustainable levels, and turned unqualified applicants into qualified borrowers through creative financing. Learn about the ways the mortgage industry can be fixed with his twenty suggestions for critical change..
Price: $10.54
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
The Way of Ignorance: And Other Essays
The continuing war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the political sniping engendered by the Supreme Court nominations, Terry Schiavo — contemporary American society is characterized by divisive anger, profound loss, and danger. Wendell Berry, one of the country's foremost cultural critics, addresses the menace, responding with hope and intelligence in a series of essays that tackle the major questions of the day. Whose freedom are we considering when we speak of the “free market” or “free enterprise?” What is really involved in our National Security? What is the price of ownership without affection? Berry answers in prose that shuns abstraction for clarity, coherence, and passion, giving us essays that may be the finest of his long career. .
Price: $6.85
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Ignorance is Blitz: Mangled Moments of History From Actual College Students
Now in chunky format, the funniest book ever written about the history of Western Civilization. Originally published under the title Non Campus Mentis, this book made four national bestseller lists— The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, and BookSense; has 200,000 copies in print; and garnered praise from across the country: "Glorious . . . equal-opportunity idiocy for every era."— Philadelphia Enquirer. "A horrifically hilarious compendium . . . knitting together errors, assumptions, and creative fact-making that are shocking and hysterical."— Associated Press. "You'll laugh until you cry, shedding tears for the state of American education."— Baltimore Sun. Compiled by Professor Anders Henriksson from the term papers and blue book exams of students who clearly made it to college before the advent of "No Child Left Behind," Ignorance Is Blitz is unput-downable. You won't believe what you just read, and won't want to wait to see what's coming next, from the Virgin Mary's Immaculate Contraption to Pericles' greatest erection, the Parthenonon to Custard's Last Stand to Hitler shooting himself in the Bonker and Martin Luther King's ground-breaking speech, "If I Had a Hammer." And who knew: Caesar was assassinated on the Yikes of March, when he is reported to have said, "Me too, Brutus." Rasputin was a pheasant by birth. Victims of the black plague grew boobs on their neck. Judyism had one big God named Yahoo. Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize for inventing the radiator. And "During the Dark Ages, it was mostly dark.".
Price: $1.25
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Ignorance: A Novel
|
|
The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge (Culture of the Land)
Human dependence on technology has increased exponentially over the past several centuries, and so too has the notion that we can fix environmental problems with scientific applications. The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge proposes an alternative to this hubristic, shortsighted, and dangerous worldview. The contributors argue that uncritical faith in scientific knowledge has created many of the problems now threatening the planet and that our wholesale reliance on scientific progress is both untenable and myopic. Bill Vitek, Wes Jackson,and a diverse group of thinkers, including Wendell Berry, Anna Peterson, and Robert Root-Bernstein, offer profound arguments for the advantages of an ignorance-based worldview. Their essays explore this philosophy from numerous perspectives, including its origins, its essence, and how its implementation can preserve vital natural resources for posterity. All conclude that we must simply accept the proposition that our ignorance far exceeds our knowledge and always will. Rejecting the belief that science and technology are benignly at the service of society, the authors argue that recognizing ignorance might be the only path to reliable knowledge. They also uncover an interesting paradox: knowledge and insight accumulate fastest in the minds of those who hold an ignorance-based worldview, for by examining the alternatives to a technology-based culture, they expand their imaginations. Demonstrating that knowledge-based worldviews are more dangerous than useful, The Virtues of Ignorance looks closely at the relationship between the land and the future generations who will depend on it. The authors argue that we can never improve upon nature but that we can, by putting this new perspective to work in our professional and personal lives, live sustainably on Earth. (20071128).
Price: $36.00
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources. .
Price: $9.95
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
|
|
|