Dear Dr. Boli: Why doesn’t Ireland have snakes? I mean, I know the story about St. Patrick, but come on. —Sincerely, An Inexpressibly Bored Professor of Herpetology at the University of Dublin.

Dear Sir or Madam: Centuries of British domination deprived the Irish of many of the luxuries of life. Until recently, Ireland was simply too poor to afford a decent snake population. In recent years, periods of prosperity have largely eliminated the former poverty of the Irish nation, but successive short-sighted governments have seen fit to spend their money on fripperies like health care and transport, rather than on things of clear benefit to the population at large, such as an adequate supply of snakes. Whether anything can be done about the problem depends on you, the voters. Write to your representative in the Dáil and say that your vote in the next election will depend on whether the herpetological inadequacies of the Irish Republic have been addressed with prompt effectiveness by the current government.

Dear Dr. Boli: I heard a lot of people talking about “irrational numbers” today for some reason, and I started to get worried. My whole business model depends on my numbers behaving in a rational and predictable manner. How do I know when a number is starting to get irrational? —Sincerely, The Guy Who Runs the Numbers Racket Out of the Final Cut Barber Shop.

Dear Sir: Numbers do not become irrational all at once. In general, you will see warning signs. One day they will start telling you that this is the year the Pirates win the pennant, or that raising defense spending and cutting taxes will balance the federal budget, or that it’s perfectly reasonable for a college education to cost $35,000 a year, and then you will know that your numbers are beginning to lose their grip on reality. Aside from giving them a cup of soothing chamomile tea, there is really little you can do for them other than protect them from their own poor decisions.