Q. I’m redoing my twin sons’ small (2x2x3 meters) bedroom to make it more livable for them. I’ve repainted and bought new wood furniture including bunk beds. My question is, what kind of rockets should I put in the room? The boys, aged 8, have fired off all their old Kassams, which they liken to flying car mufflers, and are begging for the powerful Raad missiles that they saw on Al-Manar, even though they understand Raads are hard to come by. The master bedroom and living room both contain Katyushas, and I’m wondering if I should stick with the Katyusha motif for the kids.

A. As a rule of thumb, the shorter-range armaments are the more practical and economical. If you already have Katyushas in your other rooms, you should stick with them. Tell your sons that they will be as the claws of a mighty lion with the tested and true Katyushas by their sides, and that the Raad is much too big to fit in their room. Katyushas come in several decorator colors, by the way, and fit in well with any motif.

Q. I’m building a garage for my old truck, clearing the ground of rocks and brush and gathering materials. Do you recommend a wooden or a stone structure?

A. It only matters that your garage is wide and tall enough to conceal a truck-mounted multiple rocket launcher. The ten-barrel launcher for small rockets, a simple device that can be mounted on even the oldest truck, is a welcome addition to any garage.

Q. My basement takes in water after rains fall in the rocky slopes behind my house. It’s nothing serious, just a damp floor and some mildew, but my young daughter sleeps down there with our Fajr-3 mid-range missile. I’ve moved the Fajr-3 upstairs and covered it to look like a sofa to avoid water damage to its circuitry, but now my little girl can’t sleep without her beloved missile by her side and cries pitiably through the night. Any tips on waterproofing my basement so that I can give my baby back her missile?

A. An outside retaining wall with a row of drainage tile along the base may solve the moisture problem, but you may still be leaving your loved ones exposed to Daisy Cutters. With simple but clever construction, you can easily turn your basement into a rock-solid bunker that’s also waterproof. Iranian stonemasons are particularly ingenious at this type of work, and I’m sure there are many in your town whom you may contact.

Q. I’m thinking of redoing the interior of my study. The faux oak fiberboard I have in place now doesn’t do justice to my hanging portraits of Khalil Gibran and won’t even stop a tank shell. Any suggestions?

A. I’d go with interlocking concrete bricks reinforced by 10 cm-thick sheets of solid steel. These are wonderful backdrops for Gibran and will block penetration by either tank or jet-launched projectile.

Q. My entire home was flattened recently during a bombardment, and I’d like to prevent this from happening again. My wives have picked out a Cali Bamboo privacy fence, but I’m thinking I need something more. I mean, our problem is not that we’re on a Pacific island and beset by Peeping Toms. We’re getting bombs dropped on our heads. Can you recommend anything that will keep us concealed while we dig ourselves out of the rubble and rebuild?

A. The safest thing is to wear blue UN helmets while you work. But nothing is foolproof except G-d.

Before I tackle the tough questions on evolution sent in to me here at Lonesome Pine Science Review Online, let me remind my readers that there are essentially two evolutionary problems. I call them the hard problem and the soft problem. The hard problem is how life got started at all. The soft problem is how it kept going after that. I have given endless thought and work to the hard problem in particular. Every morning I wake up and confront the hard problem. Let’s ignore the obvious joke coming up here, if it’s not too late, and jump straight to your questions.

A talented young lady writes us: What good is an appendix?

Not much these days, dear, but in the Pleistocene Era when Nixon was president, the organ actually hung outside the stomach like a lizard’s tail, and could be broken off and devoured as a delicious, quick protein pick-me-up. Usually you broke off and devoured your own appendix, but it was perfectly acceptable for a family member or close friend to reach over and snap off your appendix and devour it, too. After all, they were with you in the hard game of survival, and a timely appendix treat during a dangerous hunt or exhausting berry roundup provided a real boost. Modern man has lost this characteristic due to the advent of convenience stores, and the appendix has retreated into the interior of the abdomen, out of reach. Man still hungers for appendix but now can only get it on Thursdays at Ponderosa.

An immature boy writes: Why do men have nipples?

Same reason women do, son. Sure, it’s a thin, tasteless gruel that dad produces, and prehistoric fathers nursed only in the most hardscrabble times, but male breasts can come through in a draught or if mom goes hysterical and dries up. Even today, in the library or supermarket, I’ve seen mateless male parents pull out their flat chests and, by squeezing and grunting, produce a dusty, weak meal for junior to suck down. It isn’t clear if the law in all states permits nursing pops to do so in public, but I was in Ohio, a hotbed of decency, and it’s OK there. Tell you what, though. After seeing what dribbled out of an hombre’s teat one day last week in an Ohio Target store, if I were a kid I’d prefer a woman every time.

A conscientious objector writes: We humans only use around 10 to 15 percent of our brains. On the job I have — recycling discount coupons for a grocery store chain — I use maybe only 2 to 3 percent of that. So that’s about three or four pounds of useless gray matter I’m carrying around in my oversized skull, and the same goes for everybody. What’s the point, according to evolutionary theory? Why lug excess brain and head around, when we only need brains the size of tater tots and heads not much bigger? Without all that extra brain and bone, we might be able to jump farther or dive better or something else useful.

No mystery here, guy. Man needs a good-sized head to keep his eyes apart. Next question.

A free spirit writes: What’s the point in being conscious? It seems to me that I do most of my worrying and fretting conscious, and most of the pain and nausea I feel is a result of my being conscious, so why did nature do this to me?

You’ve put your finger on it, friend. The main function of the brain is to turn all sensory input of any kind into shocking, revolting fear. Fear so bad you shake all over and sweat at night. All visual, auditory, and tactile sensations — raw feels, as we scientists call them — are but the beginnings of outlandish, unavoidable, irreducible terror and fear. Fear of everything, terror at all! Once you understand that, you can begin to relax.

Now, it is true that a very, very small part of our brains gives rise to the incredibly profound and abstract thoughts that separate us from the beasts. I mean such deep ratiocinations as “Electric fences make good neighbors,” and “What’s Jennifer Aniston up to right now?” Yet even these profundities cause suffering. In fact, I’m just about worried to death over Jennifer, and if I don’t see her in ten movies and on six magazine covers a week, I can’t hold down my food.

An uncut cowboy writes: How did language evolve, and why?

Well, pard, consider a guy I know named Ralph. Ralph uses language every time he opens his mouth, unless he’s chewing his cud. Roughly, this is what goes on with Ralph. There are two areas in Ralph’s brain, Broca’s area and Werneicke’s area, both named after Swiss physiologists who meant it when they said “Let me pick your brain.” In effect, Wernneicke’s area goes first, offering up a rough draft of what Ralph wants to say, and then Broca’s rewrites it and hands a polished version to Ralph to read out loud. The two areas split the joint fee that Ralph pays them fifty-fifty.

Now, one day Ralph’s Werneicke’s area wanted to say “Marriage is between a man and a woman.” It also wanted to say “Pairs figure skating is between a man and a woman,” since it knew Ralph was running for office, and it wanted to help Ralph poll well. But Ralph’s Broca’s area refused to go along with these statements, since it secretly supported a gay rights amendment to the Constitution. In fact, the two areas of Ralph’s brain belonged to different political parties. The areas exchanged words, and then things got ugly. Broca’s area enlisted Ralph’s right arm to sock Ralph right in the Wernicke’s area, and Wernicke’s area persuaded Ralph’s left arm to slug Ralph right in the Broca’s area. The US Supreme Court is now hearing the case, the areas having decided to sue each other over assault and marriage issues. It’s impossible to say how the court will rule, due to Kennedy’s swing vote and Roberts’s recusal.

To generalize, Werneicke’s area allows you to shoot off your mouth with your foot in it, and Broca’s area allows you to shoot yourself in the foot every time you open your mouth. Thanks to this, man has survived as a species.

That’s all I have space for today. Be sure to email me your questions for next week’s topic: Hearsay on the Heuristics of Hermeneutics.

Franklin did the trick with his hands where his thumb appeared to separate at the joint.

“Pshaw pshaw pshaw pshaw pshaw pshaw!” laughed Jefferson, slapping his thigh and then wiping spittle from his grinning mouth. “That’s as funny a sight as a mule wearing slippers, Ben.”

As usual, the two philosophers were the center of attention at the Peacock and Hen.

Now it was Jefferson’s turn to crack wise. “Do you know, Ben, that I hold certain truths to be self-evident, namely life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?”

“Har har har har har har har! Oh har har har-dy har har!” laughed Franklin, as ale shot ballistically from his nose. “What a poke at the Tories, Tom!”

Lincoln picked up an apple from the table before him, removed a large knife from the table drawer, and in under a minute had peeled the skin from the apple in a continuous spiral.

“Ta ta ta ta ta ta tee tee tee tee ta ta ta tah!” laughed his somewhat demented wife Mary Todd, who never failed to be amused by this. “Oh Abe, you’re funnier than a bad haircut.”

“Now listen to this,” Lincoln told her. “Four score and seven years ago…”

“Ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta tee tee tee ta tah!” Merriment filled Mrs. Lincoln’s crossed eyes with tears. “Four score? Criminy, Abe. Who’d you get that from, Artemus Ward?”

Lighting a fresh Blackstone panatela in his Schenectady lab, Steinmetz displayed his latest invention to Edison. “This will alter civilization, Tom.” Reaching into a desk drawer, the German-born engineer pulled out a metal coil that he set at the top of some steps. He tipped it over, and an amazed Edison watched it cascade down the flight a step at a time.

“He he he he he woo woo woo woo ha ha ha!” laughed Edison, delighted by the toy.

“Here’s another,” said Steinmetz. Throwing a switch, he stunned and blinded his co-inventor with a flash of artificial lightning.

“Ho ho ho ho he he he he woo woo woo ha!” the reeling but tickled Edison burst out once more. “Lordy, Charles, I haven’t laughed so hard since my aunt Gertie scorched her hand on one of my white-hot tungsten filaments.”

Fermi finished telling a joke to Oppenheimer at Los Alamos. “…and so the priest said to the rabbi, ‘How did I know pork had a half-life of ten years?'”

Oppie removed the cigarette from his mouth. “Haw haw haw haw ho ho ho he he he!” he snickered. “You slay me, Enrico.”

“And get this,” said Fermi. “Back at my Chicago lab, I’ve created the world’s first self-sustaining nuclear reactor.”

“Haw haw haw haw haw haw! Ah ah he he he hoo!” Oppie chuckled until he started coughing. “That one nearly did kill me,” he said, lighting another cigarette. “Listen, the other day I came across something really hilarious in the Bhagavadgita…”

After the war FDR, Churchill, and Stalin swapped yarns at Yalta. “I have one!” said the Soviet Supreme Leader, who liked a joke as much as the next tyrant. “Guess what is this.” Pulling up his jacket and shirt, he placed his hands on either side of his deep navel and made it open and close rhythmically by squeezing and then releasing the surrounding plump flesh. To the stumped expressions of the two democratic world leaders he then cried out, “It’s a female hurdler seen from below, comrades!”

FDR cracked a smile, removed the cigarette holder from between his lips, and began laughing. “Tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut!” He was so contorted by mirth that he almost stood up from his wheelchair.

Churchill, catching the mood, also laughed freely. “A-ha ha ha, a-ha ha ha, a-ha ha ha.” Then, it being the Prime Minister’s turn to amuse, he said with a serious expression, “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

Stalin’s face froze. FDR relit his cigarette. Had Churchill gone too far? But then the Man of Steel’s face split into a huge grin and he shook like a bear. “Wa wa ha ha wa wa ha ha wa wa ha ha wa wa ha! That’s good, Winston! Hey, vodka!”

Plath sat on the arm of the sofa upon which Hughes reclined. When he looked up at her over the edge of his book, he saw that she had suspended a teaspoon from the end of her nose.

“Woo woo woo woo woo woo wah wah wah!” came Ted’s peculiar English laugh, his body shaking.

“Is there no way out of the mind?” Sylvia posed.

“Woo woo woo woo woo woo wha wha woo!” Ted helplessly sprayed saliva onto his book and began pounding the sofa cushions with his fist. For all her manic depression Sylvia sure had a socko delivery.

“Who am I?” said John Watson to Francis Crick, putting on a fake nose and bushy eyebrows mask.

“La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la!” giggled Crick, dropping a test tube. “By the way,” he said, calming a bit, “have you seen Rosalind’s X-rays? It’s a double helix.” He burst anew into giggles.

“A double helix! A-ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ha ha ha ho!” Watson doubled over, laughing. “Oh Francis, working with you here at the Cavendish lab is like sharing the stage with Jack Benny.”

Dewey, Garry, and Dan, having just formed the rock trio America, were in the studio composing songs.

Dewey, smiling, strummed his guitar and sang, “I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no mane…”

“A-ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho hoo hoo hoo!” laughed Gerry. “A bald horse!”

His face straight, Dewey said, “A horse with no name?”

“A-ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho hoo hoo hoo ha!” laughed Dan. “An anonymous horse! That’s even stupider!”

“A-ho ho ho ho ha ha ha ho ho ho haha ho ha! That’s a take!” said the producer, convulsed.