(Some of these, as one of my contributors put it, are not so much howlers as simply mad. Still, I hope that they all make you howl.)

Student & Admissions Howlers

The Ancients

• In the 5th century BC sceptics did not study philosophy for very long. They saw no point in continuing as it did not contribute in any way to their social lives. At that point they became Sophists, and Socrates' worst nightmares.
• metaphorically their [ancient people's] selves could be seen in the buildings which stood around them such as the Polis.
• This in itself could be seen as a risk of hippocracy, as Protagoras was apparently enthusiastic in justifying the democracy.
• If Aristotle had meant `happiness' by `eudaimonia' he'd have said so.
• The early Britons made their houses of mud, and there was rough mating on the floor.
• Sparta protested, saying all the cities' fornications in Greece should be dismantled.
• ...the meteorological rise of the Mycenean ruling class...
• When Plato wrote his theory he did so in the form of a diologue [sic] which was supposed to have been said by Socrates, another infamous philosopher.

Descartes

• Descartes wanted to escape the confines of the intellectual establishment and instead enrol in the school of life.
• In the First Meditation Descartes abandons his body.
• Descartes believed that he was the creator of god.
• In the objections and supplies section of the Meditations...
• Like Plato, Descartes thought the immorality of the soul was established on a priori [...] grounds...
• [Descartes] can have half a body, but to exist he needs a whole mind.
• Descartes was frequently visited by the natural light.
• Gassendi makes a pert objection...
• Yet Descartes still needed to find a single indubitable truth upon which he could base a foundation for knowledge, like the an allergy which he draws with the single fixed point in the universe to move the entire Earth, as Archimedes once did.
• Bernard Williams' book: Descartes: A Product of Pure Enquiry

Mill

• Mill said that the higher pleasures are mental, but the lower pleasures are sensational.
• [Mill] substantiates that happiness is desirable by claiming that the only way of showing that anything is desirable is that it is itself desired -- that the desirability is visible.

Ethics

• If I am not mistaken, there is debate about euthanasia in the Netherlands right now. Opponents want the law rebuked.
• I can argue that it is perfectly permissable for the pesant to trample me to death if I get in his way, because I know that, surrounded by my courtesans it will not be me personally who gets in the way, and anyway the pesant does not ride a horse.
• Williams' next argument seems to be that an egoist would have a "cognition failure" (which Williams thinks follows from Wittginstein).
• [Kant's g]ood will is good in itself because the nature of our bodies is that we have specialised organs in our bodies that produce the best results in their operations - this applies to mental life as well.
• Telephone message from the University of Manitoba Library:
  "Moral knowledge is available for pick-up at reference desk." (from Michael Feld)

Philosophy of Religion

• For instance, even atheists recognise that having a rite to practice religion is ultimately important.

Philosophy of Logic & Language

• "All husbands have heads" is synthetic and "All wives are married" is analytic. We never see a husband without a head. However, it is possible for us to imagine a husband with no head. He may be being kept alive by a system of tubes and motors and was able to marry. This man would still be a man like any other, but headless.

Admissions howlers

[there were two questions on death in the general paper this year -- they provided the best howlers, in my opinion]
 
• Going to a boarding school for the first time, most people are a little apprehensive about leaving the care of your parents and facing life on your own. Death is the same...
• Death is the end of life as we know it.
• Some may say that it is irrational to fear an exam -- in the end you will still be able to walk out at the end.
• [x] wished to die. However this request was denied & a judge ruled a gastronomy should be used to keep him alive.

Howlers from the Outside World

Favourite Recipes

• Husk fresh corn; spread ears lightly with peanut butter. Place on grill, turning until done - about 10 minutes. Or let everyone grill his own ears, using long skewers to do so.
• Marinade the steak in the sauce for at least two hours, then cook a hot grill, basting with the sauce at frequent intervals. Alternatively, pour off sauce after marinading, heat separately, and let your guests pour it over themselves.

Found on Packets

• Cyprus Village Macaroni - Try it, and try to forget it!
• This packet of ready-made pastry will make enough for four persons or twelve tarts.

Published Apologies & Corrections

• A correction In a caption in last night's Evening Gazette, Dorothy Duffney, conductor of the Cleveland Musical Society, was described as Mrs Vera Beadle. She is, of course, Mrs K. Atkinson, of Hartburn Lane, Stockton.
  (Evening Gazette)
• In last month's issue we published an article by Mr Patrick Burns, in which he intended to state `...there is one area in which the health service can still make huge savings and that is by prescribing drugs generically. The difference in price between the expensive branded product and its generic equivalent can be massive, and yet many doctors continue to prescribe the expensive brand long after the patent has expired and the product has been available as a generic.'
  Unfortunately at the printing works (just as the form was about to be printed) the word patent was wrongly `corrected' to patient.
  (Hampshire - The County Magazine)
• NOTE In some of our copies the article The Power of the Papacy described the Pope as `His Satanic Majesty'; this should read `the Roman Antichrist'.
  (Protestant Telegraph)
• There were a few mistakes to the copy of the meditation article in as much as it read "By isn't I mean everything that you can see and hear, touch, or smell, isn't means everything that is," and it should have read "By isn't I mean everything that you can see and hear, touch, or smell, means everything that is." Hopefully this will now be clear.
  (New Age [as if you hadn't guessed])
• Retraction: The 'Greek Special' is a huge 18 inch pizza and not a huge 18 inch penis, as described in an ad. Blondie's Pizza would like to apologize for any confusion Friday's ad may have caused.
  (correction printed in The Daily Californian)

Political Speeches

• I want to make sure everybody who has a job wants a job
  (George Bush, during his first Presidential campaign)
• This is a great day for France!
  (Richard Nixon, while attending Charles De Gaulle's funeral)
• For seven and a half years I've worked alongside President Reagan. We've had triumphs. Made some mistakes. We've had some sex ... uh... setbacks.
  (George Bush)
• I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy. But that could change.
  (Dan Quayle)
• I am honored today to begin my first term as the Governor of Baltimore - that is Maryland.
  (William Donald Schaefer, first inaugural address)
• The caribou love it. They rub against it and they have babies. There are more caribou in Alaska than you can shake a stick at.
  (George Bush, on the Alaska pipeline)
• If I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough I would be convinced that we're in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we've got to do something about the unemployed.
  (Ronald Reagan)
• My fellow Americans, I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.
  (Ronald Reagan, about to go on the air for a radio broadcast, unaware that the microphone was already on)
• Now we are trying to get unemployment to go up and I think we're going to succeed. (Ronald Reagan)
• Walter Mondale: George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize.
  Bush: Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time.

Howlers from Literature

Jane Austen

Such was Catherine Morland at ten. At fifteen appearances were mending; she began to cut her hair and long for balls...

from Northanger Abbey

Charles Dickens

No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time, without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart.

from Little Dorrit

After having given vent to this beautiful reflection, Mr Pickwick proceeded to put himself into his clothes; and his clothes into his portmanteau.

from Pickwick Papers

Henry James

Next after that slow-coming, slow-going smile of her lover, it was the rusty complexion of his patrimonial marbles that she most prized.

from The Last of the Valerii

Howlers from Usenet Newsgroups

• Not withstanding the vagueries of quantum mechanics
• In Christiananity God recognizes that man can't live up to his standards. That is what the crucifixation of Jesus had to do with.
• (This is from the Usenet group alt.magic:)
  • > Es wuerde mich interessieren zu lernen wie viele
    > Deutsch-Sprachige Zauberkuenstler es schon hier gibt.
    > Eine menge, glaube ich!
    > Richard Hatch
    > Humble, Texas
    
    you may be more likely to get assistance on whatever it is you're asking if you posted it in English.
• I'll take the chance that I've just lamblasted him or her without cause.
• I run a small site and I would like to know if there is a way to print all of the HTML pages in one fail swoop, rather than viewing each page and then printing them one at a time.
• I'm a 20 yr. old who has an overbearing passion for philosophy. Despite my ardent desire to understand the many faucets of philosophy, my overall knowledge of some areas is very general.

Children

• My six-year-old daughter Judy ran inside a few minutes ago, and stormed into my office. "I'm mad at my neighbour-friends. They treat me like an object!"
  (long pause)
  "Daddy, what's an object?" (from Joel Rosenburg)
• While attending a recent baseball game with my 7-year old daughter, she asked me how many people I thought were there. I replied: "About 27,000".
  She looked around for a moment, then turned to me and asked: "Are you counting yourself?" (from Holt Mebane)

General

• He was a paragon of vice
• Complaint to Bicycle Guide:
  • I was disturbed by the cover of your July issue. The first thing I noticed, of course, was the woman's breasts. Now, I am as fond of a well-endowed male in a pair of bicycle shorts as most men are of an attractive woman in a bicycle jersey. But I see the whole person, which is not what your cover does. You use the woman's breasts simply to sell the issue, which I find offensive if only because you never exploit a man's anatomy in the same sexist manner. (Anne Leighton, Hawaii)
  • Our July cover model was actually a male staff member who wishes to remain anonymous and who didn't anticipate the effect of the photographer's lights on his Nautilus-enhanced pectorals. (Bicycle Guide)
• Harley also employed Defoe to write the Review, and St John had his own organ in the Post Boy. (from R.W. Harris, England in the Eighteenth Century)
• Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall and it rolls off! It's rolling all the way back to second base! This is a terrible thing for the Padres!
  (Jerry Coleman, Padres radio announcer)
• We pray for MacArthur's erection.
  (sign erected by Japanese citizens in Tokyo, when MacArthur was considering a run for President)
• Seen on the packaging of a Bic lighter: "Bic lighter with Child Guard! (Keep away from children)."
• My wife told me of her experience in the grocery store while shopping with our twin 10 month old daughters:
  Patron: Are they twins?
  Wife: Yes.
  Patron: Are they both yours?
• Business name on a truck spotted in New Haven, CT: CONFIDENCE EXTERMINATING SERVICE
• Sign seen in Hawaii: DODO MORTUARY
• some scientists think that the sun may have something to do with global warming. (from ITV News at Ten)

Thanks to: Stephen Blamey, Andrea Christofidou, Anne Larson, David Levene, and Andrew Wright for their contributions.