bah
Original: bah on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1: A bald man in glasses stands at a lectern, presenting.
Presenter: Ladies and gentlemen, the average American has a blood pressure problem. I say we use it as a blood pressure surplus!
Panel 2:
Presenter: America has a blood pressure problem of 80 mmHg over the ideal systolic blood pressure.
Panel 3:
Presenter: Suppose that the average American carries 6 liters of blood.
Panel 4:
Presenter: According to Bernoulli's equation for incompressible fluids, if we can harvest that pressure with perfect efficiency, we can access a meadowload of energy per person.
Panel 5:
Presenter: That's 13 billion megajoules of American energy! Enough to launch ten million kilograms to space!
Panel 6:
Presenter: Think about it -- why would the government fund vast public health campaigns to try to make us diet and exercise (unless they had a compelling reason)?
Panel 7:
Presenter: They're not protecting our health! They're protecting our blood pressure! (Our court-cannon advantage!)
Panel 8:
Presenter (excited, leaning forward): Citizens! Every time we increase our average blood pressure, they prevent we gain a ballistic cannon... to space!
Panel 9: The presenter, now small, stands beside a tall ballistic cannon aimed upward.
Presenter: How would you harvest any of that energy at all in all of it?
Presenter: I'm losing an excited mind, is always a good starting point.
Bottom banner -- promotional:
BAHFEST IS BACK!
HOUSTON -- Rice Campus, Feb 17, 7PM -- CLICK TO BUY TICKETS NOW!
LONDON -- Imperial College, March 17, 7PM -- CLICK TO BUY TICKETS NOW!
MIT -- April Campus, April 28, 7PM -- CLICK TO SUBMIT AN IDEA NOW!
Votey:
A small smiling face at the bottom of the panel, with motion lines around it, speaks in a large speech bubble.
Voice: Also Sydney Padua at the London show
Presenter: Ladies and gentlemen, the average American has a blood pressure problem. I say we use it as a blood pressure surplus!
Panel 2:
Presenter: America has a blood pressure problem of 80 mmHg over the ideal systolic blood pressure.
Panel 3:
Presenter: Suppose that the average American carries 6 liters of blood.
Panel 4:
Presenter: According to Bernoulli's equation for incompressible fluids, if we can harvest that pressure with perfect efficiency, we can access a meadowload of energy per person.
Panel 5:
Presenter: That's 13 billion megajoules of American energy! Enough to launch ten million kilograms to space!
Panel 6:
Presenter: Think about it -- why would the government fund vast public health campaigns to try to make us diet and exercise (unless they had a compelling reason)?
Panel 7:
Presenter: They're not protecting our health! They're protecting our blood pressure! (Our court-cannon advantage!)
Panel 8:
Presenter (excited, leaning forward): Citizens! Every time we increase our average blood pressure, they prevent we gain a ballistic cannon... to space!
Panel 9: The presenter, now small, stands beside a tall ballistic cannon aimed upward.
Presenter: How would you harvest any of that energy at all in all of it?
Presenter: I'm losing an excited mind, is always a good starting point.
Bottom banner -- promotional:
BAHFEST IS BACK!
HOUSTON -- Rice Campus, Feb 17, 7PM -- CLICK TO BUY TICKETS NOW!
LONDON -- Imperial College, March 17, 7PM -- CLICK TO BUY TICKETS NOW!
MIT -- April Campus, April 28, 7PM -- CLICK TO SUBMIT AN IDEA NOW!
Votey:
A small smiling face at the bottom of the panel, with motion lines around it, speaks in a large speech bubble.
Voice: Also Sydney Padua at the London show
Alt text
A nine-panel SMBC comic parodying a BAHFest (Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses) talk. A bald man in glasses stands at a lectern delivering a pseudo-scientific pitch: since the average American has high blood pressure (80 mmHg over ideal) and about 6 liters of blood, he claims that by harvesting that pressure with Bernoulli's equation we could extract '13 billion megajoules' of energy, enough to launch ten million kilograms to space. He spirals into conspiracy: the government's public health campaigns aren't protecting our health, they're protecting our blood pressure as a 'ballistic cannon to space' advantage. He grows visibly more manic, ending beside a tall cannon aimed skyward, admitting he has no idea how the energy would actually be harvested. A bottom banner advertises 'BAHFEST IS BACK!' with tour dates for Houston (Rice), London (Imperial College), and MIT, with ticket and idea-submission links. Votey aftercomic: a small grinning face with excited motion lines speaks a big speech bubble reading 'Also Sydney Padua at the London show.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.