Larry Elliott, Charlotte Denny and Jon Henley in Paris
Friday September 8, 2000
The Guardian
Bill Clinton last night won a pledge from the world’s biggest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, to halt the relentless rise in the price of crude which yesterday brought France to a halt and prompted fears of a global recession.
As UK petrol firms responded to the 10-year-high in oil prices by putting up fuel prices by 2p a litre, crown prince Abdullah said Saudi Arabia would raise production by 700,000 barrels a day in an effort pressure on the west.
However, oil experts said the 3% increase in output would not be enough to bring crude oil prices to below $30 a barrel and motoring organizations warned that British drivers could soon expect to pay J4 for a gallon of petrol.
Speaking at the UN millennium summit in New York, President Clinton said he had put pressure on Saudi Arabia to take action ahead of Sunday’s meeting of Opec – the 11-member oil producers’ cartel.
“I told him I was very concerned that the price of oil is too high, not just for America but for the world,” said Mr Clinton after his meeting with the crown prince. “If it was to cause a recession in any part of the world that would hurt the oil producing countries.”
Large parts of France ran out of fuel yesterday as hauliers and farmers, more determined than ever to win big fuel tax cuts from the government, continued their four-day blockade of oil refineries and depots.
Angry farmers, already active on most of the 120 blockades up and down the country, successfully blocked the entrance to the Channel tunnel with their tractors, triggering scuffles with British tourists.
Around 50 British holidaymakers mounted a counter-blockade by blocking a lane being used by the authorities to allow French cars to trickle past the barricades, and threatened to cut off the main A16 motorway if they were not allowed to get through the blockade and go home. Under police escort, a convoy of British cars and coaches was eventually allowed through in the late afternoon.
A British police sergeant, who was part of the convoy but asked not to be named, said: “It seems we managed to outmaneuver them with a bit of British courage and some cunning. We played them at their own game and it worked. In the end it was quite a fun victory for all.”
Another convoy member, Frank Davidson, 49, said: “This was as sweet a victory as Wellington over Napoleon at Waterloo. They didn’t like it when we put up a fight.”
While talks resumed late in the afternoon between the French transport minister, Jean-Claude Gayssot, and the two main hauliers’ federations, the government reiterated that it would go no further than the 15% tax cut, worth J100m, it offered on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the European commission threatened legal action if the free movement of goods within the EU was disrupted.
As the protest spread, the hauliers, farmers, ambulance drivers and coach firms were joined by thousands of taxi drivers in massed “go-slow” processions that brought traffic to a halt in a dozen cities and caused motorway tailbacks.
At least three regional airports reported they would be out of aviation fuel by this morning. Wholesalers at the main Rungis market outside Paris said supplies of fresh fruit and vegetable were beginning to be affected and 80% of the country’s petrol stations were either dry, subject to rationing of J15 per vehicle, or had been requisitioned for emergency service use only.
In the financial markets yesterday, the price of a barrel of crude oil eased back from a peak of $34.50 to $33.91. However, dealers said that most of the Saudi production increase had been anticipated by the markets and that prices were not likely to fall markedly.
They said Saudi Arabia was the key player in the crisis because it was the only Opec nation with the spare capacity to pump the extra oil needed to bring prices under control. But it can expect opposition from other Opec members who are enjoying extra revenues from the price surge from under $10 a barrel at the start of last year.
Lawrence Eagles, oil analyst at the City firm GNI Securities, said a harsh winter could boost demand by an extra 500,000 barrels a day, pushing prices still higher.” You can’t rule out $40 a barrel if Opec aren’t prepared to act,” he said.
· Copyright Guardian Media Group pic. 2000
Appendix 3
Be prepared!
Five-year phase-in plan for “EuroEnglish”
The European Commission have just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU, rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As par of the negotiations, Her Majesty’s government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phase in plan that would be known as “EuroEnglish”.
In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump for joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of the “k”.
This should klear up confusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.
There will be growing public enthusiasm in the second year, when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with the “f”.
This will make words like “fotograf” 20% shorter. In the third year, public akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent “e”s in the language is disgraceful, and they should go away.
By the 4th year, people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords containing “ou” and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer combinations of leters. After zis fifz year, v evil hav a realy sensible riten styl. zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand each ozer ZE DREAM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!
The English Langauge
There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple or pine in pineapple. And while no one knows what is in a hotdog, you can be pretty sure it isn’t canine.
English muffins were not invented in England nor French fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, two meese?
Is cheese the plural of choose? One mouse, 2 mice. One louse, 2 lice. One house, 2 hice?
If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Why do people recite at a play, and play at a recital?
Ship by truck or car and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
How can the weather be hot as heck one day and cold as heck another? When a house burns up, it burns down. You fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm clock goes off by going on. You get in and out of a car, yet you get on and off a bus. When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?
English is a silly language … it doesn’t know if it is coming or going !!!
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Facts
It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride’s father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the “honey month” or what we know today as the “honeymoon.”
In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It’s where we get the phrase “mind your P’s and Q’s.”
_________________________
Some rules
1. Make sure each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
2. Just between you and I, the case of pronoun is important.
3. Watch out for irregular verbs which have crope into English.
4 Verbs has to agree in number with their subjects.
5. Don’t use no double negatives.
6. Being bad grammar, a writer should not use dangling modifiers.
7. Join clauses good like a conjunction should.
8. A writer must be not shift your point of view.
9. About sentence fragments.
10. Don’t use run-on sentences you got to punctuate them.
11. In letters essays and reports use commas to separate items in series.
12. Don’t use commas, which are not necessary.
13. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
14. Its important to use apostrophes right in everybodys writing.
15. Don’t abbrev.
16. Check to see if you any words out.
17. In the case of a report, check to see that jargonwise, it’s A-OK.
18. As far as incomplete constructions, they are wrong.
19. About repetition, the repetition of a word might be real effective repetition – take, for instance the repetition of Abraham Lincoln.
20. In my opinion, I think that an author when he is writing should definitely not get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words that he does not really need in order to put his message across.
21. Use parallel construction not only to be concise but also clarify.
22. It behooves us all to avoid archaic expressions.
23. Mixed metaphors are a pain in the neck and ought to be weeded out.
24. Consult the dictionery to avoid mispelings.
25. To ignorantly split an infinitive is a practice to religiously avoid.
26. Last but not least, lay off clichés.
By George L. Trigg
_________________________
Overworked!
For a couple years I’ve been blaming it on lack of sleep and too much pressure from my job, but now I found out the real reason:
I’m tired because I’m overworked.
The population of this country is 237 million.
104 million are retired.
That leaves 133 million to do the work.
There are 85 million in school, which leaves 48 million to do the work.
Of this there are 29 million employed by the federal government, leaving 19 million to do the work.
2.8 million are in the Armed Forces, which leaves 16.2 million to do the work.
Take from the total the 14,800,000 people who work for State and City Governments and that leaves 1.4 million to do the work.
At any given time there are 188,000 people in hospitals, leaving 1,212,000 to do the work.
Now, there are 1,211,998 people in prisons.
That leaves just two people to do the work.
You and me.
And you’re sitting at your computer reading jokes.
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Top 13 Signs Your CAT is Planning to Kill You!
1. Seems mighty chummy with the dog all of a sudden.
2. Unexplained calls to F. Lee Bailey’s 900 number on your bill.
3. He actually _does_ have your tongue.
4. You find a stash of “Feline of Fortune” magazines behind the couch.
5. Cyanide pawprints all over the house.
6. You wake up to find a bird’s head in your bed.
7. As the wind blows over the grassy knoll in downtown Dallas, you get a faint whiff of catnip.
8. Droppings in litter box spell out “REDRUM.”
9. Catch him with a new Mohawk looking in the mirror saying, “Mew looking at me? Mew looking at me?”
10. Takes attentive notes every time “Itchy and Scratchy” are on.
11. You find blueprints for a Rube Goldgerg device that starts with a mouse chased into a hole and ends with flaming oil dumped on your bed.
12. Has taken a sudden interest in the wood chipper.
13. Ball of yarn playfully tied into a hangman’s noose.
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Room Service in Asia: Tendjewberrymud
Room Service: “Morny. Ruin sorbees”
Guest: “Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service”
RS: “Rye.. Ruin sorbees.. morny! Djewish to odor sunteen??”
Guest: “Uh.. yes.. I’d like some bacon and eggs”
RS: “Ow July den?”
G: “What??”
RS: “Ow July den?. Pry, boy, pooch?”
G: “Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled please.”
RS: “Ow July dee bayhcem… crease?”
G: “Crisp will be fine”
RS: “Hokay. An San tos?”
G: “What?”
RS: “San tos. July San tos?”
G: “I don’t think so”
RS: “No? Judo one toes??”
G: “I feel really bad about this, but I don’t know what ‘judo one toes’ means.”
RS: “Toes! Toes!... why djew Don Juan toes? Ow bow signlish mopping we bother?”
G: “English muffin!! I’ve got it! You were saying ‘Toast’. Fine. Yes, an English muffin will be fine.”
RS: “We bother?”
G: “No.. just put the bother on the side.”
RS: “Wad?”
G: “I mean butter… just put it on the side.”
RS: “Copy?”
G: “Sorry?”
RS: “Copy… tea… mill?”
G: “Yes. Coffee please, and that’s all.”
RS: “One Minnie. Ass ruin torino fee, strangle ache, crease baychem, tossy singlish mopping we bother honey sigh, and copy… rye??”
G: “Whatever you say”
RS: “Tendjewberrymud”
G: “You’re welcome”
_____________________________
A young man saw an elderly couple sitting down to lunch at McDonald’s. He noticed that they had ordered one meal, and an extra drink cup. As he watched, the older gentleman carefully divided the hamburger in half, than counted out the fries, one for him, one for her, until each had half of them.
Then the old man poured half of the soft drink into the extra cup and set that in front of his wife. The old man then began to eat, and his wife sat watching, with her hands folded in her lap.
The young man decided to ask if they would allow him to purchase another meal for them so that they didn’t have to split theirs.
The old gentleman said, “Oh, no. We’ve been married 50 years, and everything has always been and will always be shared, 50/50.”
The young man then asked the wife if she was going to eat, and she replied, “Not yet. It’s his turn with the teeth.”
______________________________
The main problem with old age is that you don’t grow out of it.
_______________________________
Oops
A young executive was leaving the office late one evening when he found the CEO standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand.
“Listen,” said the CEO, “this is a very sensitive and important document here, and my secretary has gone for the night. Can you make this thing work?”
“Certainly,” said the young executive. He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button.
“Excellent, excellent!” said the CEO as his paper disappeared inside the machine. “I just need one copy.”
_____________________________
A man’s perspective
One night a wife found her husband standing over their newborn baby’s crib.
Silently she watched him. As he stood looking down at the sleeping infant, she saw on his face a mixture of emotions: disbelief, doubt, delight, amazement, enchantment, skepticism. Touched by this unusual display and the deep emotions it aroused , with eyes glistening she slipped her arms around her husband.
“A penny for your thoughts,” she whispered in his ear.
“It’s amazing!” he replied. “I just can’t see how anybody can make a crib like that for only $46.50!”
______________________________
A Quote
“The other thing we have to do is to take seriously the role in this problem of older men who prey on underage women. … There are consequences to decisions and …one way or another, people always wind up being held accountable.”
-Bill Clinton, June 13, 1996, in a speech endorsing a national effort against teen pregnancy (As quoted in U.S. News and World Report)
Microsoft Patent
REDMOND, WA – In what CEO Bill Gates called “an unfortunate but necessary step to protect our intellectual property from theft and exploitation by competitors,” the Microsoft Corporation patented the numbers one and zero Monday.
With the patent, Microsoft’s rivals are prohibited from manufacturing or selling products containing zeroes and ones – the mathematical building blocks of all computer languages and programs – unless a royalty fee of 10 cents per digit used is paid to the software giant. “Microsoft has been using the binary system of ones and zeroes ever since its inception in 1975,” Gates told reporters. “For years, in the interest of the overall health of the computer industry, we permitted the free and unfettered use of our proprietary numeric systems. However, changing marketplace conditions and the increasingly predatory practices of certain competitors now leave us with no choice but to seek compensation for the use of our numerals.”
A number of major Silicon Valley players, including Apple Computer, Netscape and Sun Microsystems, said they will challenge the Microsoft patent as monopolistic and anti-competitive, claiming that the 10-cent-per-digit licensing fee would bankrupt them instantly.
“While, technically, Java is a complex system of algorithms used to create a platform-independent programming environment, it is, at its core, just a string of trillions of ones and zeroes,” said Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, whose company created the Java programming environment used in many Internet applications. “The licensing fees we’d have to pay Microsoft every day would be approximately 327,000 times the total net worth of this company.”
“If this patent holds up in federal court, Apple will have no choice but to convert to analog,” said Apple interim CEO Steve Jobs, “and I have serious doubts whether this company would be able to remain competitive selling pedal-operated computers running software off vinyl LPs.”
As a result of the Microsoft patent, many other companies have begun radically revising their product lines: Database manufacturer Oracle has embarked on a crash program to develop “an abacus for the next millennium.” Novell, whose communications and networking systems are also subject to Microsoft licensing fees, is working with top animal trainers on a chimpanzee-based message-transmission system. Hewlett-Packard is developing a revolutionary new steam-powered printer.
Despite the swarm of protest, Gates is standing his ground, maintaining that ones and zeroes are the undisputed property of Microsoft. “We will vigorously enforce our patents of these numbers, as they are legally ours,” Gates said. “Among Microsoft’s vast historical archives are Sanskrit cuneiform tablets from 1800 B.C. clearly showing ones and a symbol known as ‘sunya,’ or nothing. We also own: papyrus scrolls written by Pythagoras himself in which he explains the idea of singular notation, or ‘one’; early tracts by Mohammed ibn Musa al Kwarizimi explaining the concept of al-sifr, or ‘the cipher’; original mathematical manuscripts by Heisenberg, Einstein and Planck; and a signed first-edition copy of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being And Nothingness.
Should the need arise, Microsoft will have no difficulty proving to the Justice Department or anyone else that we own the rights to these numbers.”
Added Gates: “My salary also has lots of zeroes. I’m the richest man in the world.”
According to experts, the full ramifications of Microsoft’s patenting of one and zero have yet to be realized.
“Because all integers and natural numbers derive from one and zero, Microsoft may, by extension, lay claim to ownership of all mathematics and logic systems, including Euclidean geometry, pulleys and levers, gravity, and the basic Newtonian principles of motion, as well as the concepts of existence and nonexistence,” Yale University theoretical mathematics professor J. Edmund Lattimore said. “In other words, pretty much everything.”
Lattimore said that the only mathematical constructs of which Microsoft may not be able to claim ownership are infinity and transcendental numbers like pi.
Microsoft lawyers are expected to file liens on infinity and pi this week.
Microsoft has not yet announced whether it will charge a user fee to individuals who wish to engage in such mathematically rooted motions as walking, stretching and smiling.
In an address beamed live to billions of people around the globe Monday, Gates expressed confidence that his company’s latest move will, ultimately, benefit all human kind.
“Think of this as a partnership,” Gates said. “Like the ones and zeroes of the binary code itself, we must all work together to make the promise of the computer revolution a reality. As the world’s richest, most powerful software company, Microsoft is number one. And you, the millions of consumers who use our products, are the zeroes.”
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Getting in
Three guys are trying to sneak into the Olympic Village in Atlanta to scoop souvenirs and autographs. The first says, “Let-s watch the registration table to see if there’s a crack in the security system that we can utilize to scam our way in.”
Immediately, burly athlete walks up to the table and states, “Angus MacPherson. Scotland. Shotput.” He opens his gym bag to display a shotput to the registration attendant.
The attendant says, “Very good, Mr MacPherson. Here is you packet of registration materials, complete with hotel keys, passes to all Olympic events, meal tickets, and other information.”
HOT DOG! The first guy grabs a small tree sapling, strips off the limbs and roots, walks up the registration table and states: “Chuck Wagon. Canada. Javelin.”
The attendant says, “Very good, Mr. Wagon. Here is you packet of registration materials, hotel keys, passes, meal tickets, and so forth. Good luck!”
The second guy grabs a street utility manhole cover, walks up the registration table and states: “Dusty Rhodes. Australia. Discus.”
The attendant says, “Terrific, Mr. Rhodes. Here is you packet of registration materials, hotel keys, a full set of passes, and meal tickets. Enjoy yourself.”
They scamper in, but suddenly realize the third guy is missing. They groan – OH NO. He’s a simpleton from the hills of Vermont. They forgot to make sure he doesn’t do something stupid and blow their cover stories.
They spot him walking with a roll of barb wire under his arm. He walks up the registration table and states: “Foster Bean. Hardwick, Vermont. Fencing.”
________________________
The Root of All Evil!
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18the century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
5. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.
6. Bread is often a “gateway” food item, leading the user to “harder” items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.
7. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
8. Newborn babies can choke on bread.
9. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.
10. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.
_________________________________
Financial Worries
Fresh out of business school, the young man answered a want ad for an accountant. Now he was being interviewed by a very nervous man who ran a small business that he had started himself.
“I need someone with an accounting degree,” the man said. “But mainly, I’m looking for someone to do my worrying for me.”
“Excuse me?” the accountant said.
“I worry about a lot of things,” the man said. “But I don’t want to have to worry about money. Your job will be to take all the money worries off my back.”
“I see,” the accountant said. “And how much does the job pay?”
“I’ll start you at eighty thousand.”
“Eighty thousand dollars!” the accountant exclaimed. “How can such a small business afford a sum like that?”
“That,” the owner said, “is your first worry.”
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The FDA is considering additional warnings on beer and alcohol bottles, such as:
13. WARNING: consumption of alcohol may make you think you are whispering when you are not.
12. WARNING: consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like a jerk.
11. WARNING: consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell the same boring story over and over again until your friends want to SMASH YOUR HEAD IN.
10. WARNING: consumption of alcohol may cause you to thay shings like thish.
9. WARNING: consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe that ex-lovers are really dying for you to telephone them at 4 in the morning.
8. WARNING: consumption of alcohol may leave you wondering what happened to your pants.
7. WARNING: consumption of alcohol may cause you to roll over in the morning and see something really scary (whose species and or name you can’t remember).
6. WARNING: consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burns on the forehead.
5. WARNING: consumption of alcohol may create the illusion that you are tougher, handsomer and smarter than some really, really big guy named Chuck.
4. WARNING: consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe you are invisible.
3. WARNING: consumption of alcohol may lead you to think people are laughing WITH you.
2. WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may cause an influx in the time-space continuum, whereby small (and sometimes large) gaps of time may seem to literally disappear”.
1. WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may actually CAUSE pregnancy.
_______________________
Diet Rules for Cheaters
1. If you eat something and no one sees you eat it, it has no calaries.
2. If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are cancelled out by the diet soda.
3. When you eat with someone else, calories don’t count if you don’t eat more than they do.
4. Food used for medicinal purposes NEVER count, such as hot chocolate, brandy, toast and Sara Lee Cheesecake.
5. If you fatten up everyone else around you, then you look thinner.
6. Movie related foods (Milk Duds, Buttered Popcorn, Junior Mints, Red Hots, Tootsie Rolls, etc.) do not have additional calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one’s personal fuel.
7. Cookie pieces contain no fat – the process of breaking causes fat leakage.
Exception: Cookies sold by TEXAS D’LITES distributors. Great “Meal Replacement” with little or no FAT content, low in calories, lots of fiber, protein, and other nutritional ingredients.
8. Things licked off knives and spoons have no calories if you are in the process of preparing something. Examples are peanut butter on a knife making a sandwich and ice cream on a spoon making a sundae.
9. Foods that have the same color have the same number of calories.
Examples are: spinach and pistachio ice cream; mushrooms and white chocolate.
NOTE: Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other food color.
10. Foods that are frozen have no calories because calories are units of heat.
Examples are ice cream, frozen pies, and Popsicles.
___________________________________
Bad News
A man has to leave the country on business and he entrusts with his best friend the job of keeping an eye on his wife. If anything out of the ordinary should occur, he was to be notified immediately. After about a week of no news the business man received a telegram: “The man who comes to visit your wife every night didn’t show up yesterday…”
_________________________
Similarities between Santa Claus and System Administrators:
1. Santa is bearded, corpulent, and dresses funny.
2. When you ask Santa for something, the odds of receiving what you wanted are infinitesimal.
3. Santa seldom answers your mail.
4. When you ask Santa where he gets all the stuff he’s got, he says, “Elves make it for me.”
5. Santa doesn’t care about your deadlines.
6. Your parents ascribed supernatural powers to Santa, but did all the work themselves.
7. Nobody knows whom Santa has to answer to for his actions.
8. Santa laughs entirely too much.
9. Santa thinks nothing of breaking into your HOME.
10. Only a lunatic says bad things about Santa in his presence.
Why Men Can’t Win
If you work too hard, there is never any time for her.
If you don’t work enough, you’re a good-for-nothing bum.
If she has a boring repetitive job with low pay, it’s exploitation.
If you have a boring repetitive job with low pay, you should get off your butt and find something better.
If you get a promotion ahead of her, it’s favoritism.
If she gets a job ahead of you, it’s equal opportunity.
If you mention how nice she looks, it’s sexual harassment.
If you keep quiet, it’s male indifference.
If you cry, you’re a wimp.
If you don’t, you’re insensitive.
If you make a decision without consulting her, you’re a chauvinist.
If she makes a decision without consulting you, she’s a liberated woman.
If you ask her to do something she doesn’t enjoy, that’s domination.
If she asks you, it’s a favor.
If you try to keep yourself in shape, you’re vain.
If you don’t, you’re a slob.
If you buy her flowers, you’re after something.
If you don’t, you’re not thoughtful.
If you’re proud of your achievements, you’re an egotist.
If you’re not, you’re not ambitious.
If she has a headache, she’s tired.
If you have a headache, you don’t love her anymore.
___________________
Perfect?
Once upon a time, a perfect man and a perfect woman met. After a perfect courtship, they had a perfect wedding. Their life together was, of course, perfect. One snowy, stormy Christmas Eve, this perfect couple was driving their perfect car (a Grand Caravan) along a winding road, when they noticed someone at the side of the road in distress. Being the perfect couple, they stopped to help.
There stood Santa Claus with a huge bundle of toys. Not wanting to disappoint any children on the eve of Christmas, the perfect couple loaded Santa and his toys into their vehicle. Soon they were driving along delivering the toys.
Unfortunately, the driving conditions deteriorated and the perfect couple and Santa Claus had an accident.
Only one of them survived the accident. Who was the survivor?
The perfect woman. She’s the only one who really existed in the first place.
Everyone knows there is no Santa Claus and there is no such thing as a perfect man.
Women, end here. Men, keep scrolling.
So, if there is no perfect man and no Santa Claus, the perfect woman must have been driving.
This explains why there was a car accident.
By the way, if you’re a woman and you’re reading this, this brings another point: women never listen either.
______________________
Walking into the bar, Harvey said to the bartender, “Pour me a stiff one, Eddie. I just had another fight with my wife.”
“Oh yeah,” said Eddie. “And how did this one end?”
“When it was over,” Harvey replied, “she came to me on her hands and knees.”
“Really? Now that’s a switch! What did she say”?
Before Harvey had time to answer, his wife entered the bar and swiftly interjected: “I said: ‘Come out from under that bed, you gutless weasel’”.
_______________________
A young man in a bar leans over to the guy sitting next to him and says, “Hey buddy, do you wan to hear a “redneck” joke?”
The second guy replies, “Before you tell that joke you should know something. I’m 6’ tall, 200 lbs. … and I’m a redneck. See my friend over there? He’s 6’2, 225 lbs. … and he’s also a redneck. And see that big fella next to him? He’s a redneck too.
So, do you still want to tell that joke?”
To which the young man answers, “Nah. I don’t want to have to explain it three times.”
_________________________
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
_________________________
An old retired man goes to his wife one day, and says to her, “I don’t know how to tell you this dear, but the stock market crashed, and I’m afraid we’re broke.”
The wife says, “No, we’re not. Let’s go for a drive into town.”
Husband replies, “Our savings are all gone and you want is to go for a drive? Oh well, whatever. I guess you’re crazier than me.” So off they go into town.
When they get there the wife points and says, “See that office building? We own that.”
Husband thinks his wife is nuts so he mumbles something unintelligible and drives to the next area of the city, which just happens to be the richest part of town.
Wife says again pointing, “See those five houses? We own those.”
Husband is now sure his wife is certifiably crazy so he says, “What makes you think we own all this property?”
Wife replies, “Remember when we first got married and for jokes you would give me $5.00 every time we had sex? Well, I kept the money and invested it and 20 years later this is what has become of it all. Not bad, eh?”
Husband says, “Dammit woman, if I’d known you were this good with money I’d have probably given you all my business.”
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A man came into a pet shop carrying a parrot in a bird cage. “I want to return this bird,” he said.
The owner sighed at the prospect of facing yet another this-bird-won’t-talk complaint. “Sir”, he said, “we guarantee that all our parrots can talk. However, we can’t guarantee when they will talk. It’s all spelled out on your sales receipt.”
“No, no, you don’t understand,” the customer said. “The bird talks. I just don’t like his attitude.”
Puzzled, the store owner said, “You’re right. I don’t understand. Explain it to me.”
“I bought the bird a week ago,” the customer said. “Every morning, I’d stand in front of his cage and ask ‘Can you talk?’ I did the same thing every evening. For six days, I got no response. Then, this morning, I shouted at the bird, ‘CAN YOU TALK, YOU STUPID CREATURE? CAN YOU TALK?’”
The customer glared at the parrot. The owner asked, “So, what happened?”
“That bird looked at me,” the customer said, “and said, ‘I can talk, all right. Can you fly?’”
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Weill and Mahoney had started with only five hundred dollars between them, but they had built up a computer business with sales in the millions. Their company employed over two hundred people, and the two executives lived like princes.
Almost overnight, things changed. Sales dropped sharply, former customers disappeared, and the business failed. Weill and Mahoney blamed each other for the troubles, and they parted on unfriendly terms.
Five years later, Weill drove up to a decrepit diner and stopped for a cup of coffee. As he was wiping some crumbs from the table, a waiter approached. Weill looked up and gasped.
“Mahoney!” he said, shaking his head. “It’s a terrible thing, seeing you working as a waiter in a place like this.”
“Yeah,” Mahoney said, curling his lip. “But I don’t eat here.”
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Giuseppi walks into work, and he says, “Ey, Tony! You know who’s – a George Washington?”
Tony says, “No, Giuseppi, who’s-a George Washington?”
He says, “Hah! George-a Washington’s the first-a President of a United States. I’m-a go to night school, learn all about-a United States, and became-a U.S.-a citizen.”
A couple of days later, Giuseppi walks into work and says.
“Ey, Tony, you know who’s-a Abraham Lincoln?”
Tony says, “No, Giuseppi, who’s-a Abraham Lincoln?”
He says, “Hah! Abraham-a Lincoln is-a sixteenth President of-a the United States. I’m-a go to night school, learn all about-a United States, and become-a U.S.-a citizen.”
A guy in the back of the shop yells, “Yo, Giuseppi… you know who Fishlips Lorenzo is?”
He says, “No. Who’s-a Fishlips Lorenzo is?”
The guy yells, “That’s the guy who’s bangin’ your wife while you’re in night school.”
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A newly married sailor was informed by the navy that he was going to be stationed a long way from home on a remote island in the Pacific for a year. A few weeks after he got there he began to miss his new wife, so he wrote her a letter.
“My love,” he wrote “we are going to be apart for a very long time. Already I’m starting to miss you and there’s really not much to do here in the evenings. Besides that we’re constantly surrounded by young attractive native girls. Do you think if I had a hobby of some kind I would not tempted?”
So his wife sent him back a harmonica saying, “why don’t you learn to play this?”
Eventually his tour of duty came to an end and he rushed back to his wife. “Darling” he said, “I can’t wait to get you into bed so that we make passionate love!”
She kissed him and said, “First let’s see you play that harmonica.”
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A man in a state of excessive inebriation rolled up at a fairground rifle range booth and threw down the necessary money. The booth operator at first refused to let him have a turn, considering that his inebriated state would endanger the public. But the drunk insisted and was given a gun.
He aimed unsteadily in the general direction of the target and after tying to focus, pulled the trigger three times. The booth owner, on inspecting the target, was astonished to see that he had scored three bull’s-eyes. The star prize for the evening was a large set of glassware, but the showman was certain that the drunk wasn’t aware of what he had done, and gave him instead a consolation prize, a small, live turtle. The drunk wandered off into the crowd.
An hour or so later he came back, even more drunk than before. Once again the showman demurred, but once again the drunk insisted, and once more scored three bull’s-eyes and was given another turtle.
Eventually the drunk rolled up again and insisted on a third attempt. Once more he picked up the rifle, waved it around in the general direction of the target, and pulled the trigger three times. Once more he had scored three bull’s-eyes. But this time there was an onlooker with good eyesight. “That’s fantastic”, the man said. “Hasn’t he scored three bulls?”
The showman, cursing his luck, made a show of going over to the target and inspecting it closely.
“Yes, sir!”, he announced to the crowd. “This is fantastic! Congratulations, sir, you have won the star prize, this magnificent 68-piece set of glassware!”
“I don’t want any bloody glasses”, the drunk replied. “Give me another one of those little crusty meat pies!”
One of my friends works in the customer service call center of a national pager company. He deals with the usual complaints regarding poor pager operation, as well as the occasional crank caller demanding to be paged less often, more often, or by more interesting people. The best call came from a man who repeatedly complained that he being paged by “Lucille”. He was instructed that he would have to call her and tell her to stop paging him.
“She don’t never leave no number, so I can’t call her back,” he said. After three such calls, someone thought to ask how he knew it was Lucille if she didn’t leave a number.
“She leaves her name” was the reply.
After establishing that the customer had a numeric-only pager, the light bulb came on. “How does she spell her name?” the service rep asked.
“L-O-W C-E-L-L”
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Armando went to his neighbor and asked, “Hey Carlos, do you like a woman who has a beeg stomach steeking oll the way out?”
“No,” says Carlos.
Armando asks, “Do you like a woman whose teets hang almost to her knees?”
“No,” says Carlos.
“Well, Carlos, would you like a woman whose heeps are so mucho grande?”
“Caramba! No, amigo!” Carlos replied.
“Then tell me why,” asked Armando, “do you keep screwing my wife?”
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The little sexy housewife was built so well the TV repairman couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. Every time she came in the room, he’d near about jerk his neck right out of joint looking at her.
When he’d finished she paid him and said, “I’m going to make a … well … unusual request. But you have to first promise me you’ll keep it a secret.”
The repairman quickly agreed and she went on. “Well, it’s kind of embarrassing to talk about, but while my husband is a kind, decent man – sigh – he has a certain physical weakness. A certain disability. Now, I’m a woman and you’re a man…”
The repairman could hardly speak, “Yes yes!”
“And since I’ve been wanting to ever since you came in the door…”
“Yes yes!”
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“Would you help me move the refrigerator?”
Tower: “Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on 124.7” Eastern 702: “Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure… by the way, as we lifted off we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway.”
Tower: “Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on 124.7… did you copy the report from Eastern?”
Continental 635: “Continental 635, cleared for takeoff… and yes, we copied Eastern and we’ve already notified our caterers.”
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An older couple, living apart, had been dating for a number of years. One day Elmer says to Betsy, “We should stop this nonsense. We are paying two rents, two car insurance payments, buying separate foods and cooking separate meals. We should move in together.
Betsy: Whose house would we live in?
Elmer: Mine, it is paid for.
Betsy: Whose car would we keep and pay insurance on?
Elmer: Yours, it is newer and runs better than mine.
Betsy: Who would do the cooking?
Elmer: You cook and I’ll do the dishes.
Betsy: What about sex?
Elmer: Infrequently.
Betsy: Is that one word or two?
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It’s graduation day, and everybody’s going to get their diploma but Jon. At the assembly, the entire senior class stands up and shouts “Let Jon graduate, let Jon graduate!”
The principal agrees to give Jon one last chance. “If I have five apples in my right hand and five in my left hand, Jon, how many apples do I have?” he asked.
Jon thought long and hard and then said: “Ten.”
And the entire senior class stood up and shouted “Give Jon another chance, give Jon another chance!”
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A guy is walking up to the doctor’s office when a nun comes running out screaming and crying.
The guy walks in and says, “Doc, what’s with the nun?”
The doctor says, “Oh, I just told her she’s pregnant.”
The guy says, “The nun’s pregnant?”
The doctor says, “No. But it certainly cured her hiccups.”
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A man takes his wife hunting, and impresses on her again and again that “If you shoot a deer, don’t let someone else claim that they shot it also and that since they killed it… it’s their deer!”
So … he’s in his stand hardly for 10 minutes when he hears his wife shooting nearby. He rushes over to her stand to find her pointing her gun at a man who is loudly disclaiming…
“It’s your deer lady… It’s your deer… Just lemme get my saddle off it!!!!”
A nursery school teacher was delivering a station wagon full of kids home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog.
The children fell to discussing the dog’s duties.
“They use him to keep crowds back,” said one youngster.
“No,” said another, “he’s just for good luck.”
A third child brought the argument to a close.
“They use the dogs,” she said firmly, “to find the fire hydrant.”
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Facts
Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. “Wet you whistle,” is the phrase inspired by this practice.
In Shakespeare’s time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes… when you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. That’s where the phrase, “good night, sleep tight” came from.
The term “the whole 9 yards” came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the Pacific.
When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got “the whole 9 yards.”
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Wise Words
Smart man + smart woman = romance
Smart man + dumb woman = pregnancy
Dumb man + smart woman = affair
Dumb man + dumb woman = marriage
Smart boss + smart employee = profit
Smart boss + dumb employee = production
Dumb boss + smart employee = promotion
Dumb boss + dumb employee = overtime
A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn’t need.
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
A successful man is one who makes more money that his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot & not try to understand her at all.
Married men lived longer than single men, but married men are a lot more willing to die.
Any married man should forget his mistakes, there’s no use in two people remembering the same thing.
Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
Women somehow deteriorate during the night.
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, and she does.
A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.
There are 2 times when a man understands a woman – before marriage and after marriage.
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Last Rites
The priest was preparing a man for his long day’s journey into night.
Whispering firmly, the priest said, “Denounce the devil! Let him know how little you think of his evil!”
The dying man said nothing.
The priest repeated his order.
Still the dying man said nothing.
The priest asked, “Why do you refuse to denounce the devil and his evil?”
The dying man said, “Until I know where I’m heading, I don’t think I ought to aggravate anybody.”
A lonely frog telephoned the Psychic Hotline and asked what his future holds.
His Personal Psychic Advisor tells him: “You are going to meet a beautiful young girl who will want to know everything about you.”
The frog is thrilled, “This is great!”
“Will I meet her at a party?” he croaks.
“No,” says the psychic, “in biology class.”
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If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.
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A man dies and finds himself standing third in line at the Pearly Gates.
The Angel explains that admission requirements are now a bit more strict, as a few slum landlords and con artists have managed to slip into Heaven without being detected.
He queries the first candidate: “What was your annual salary, and what was your profession? “I made $150,000 as an Attorney” comes the reply. “You may enter,” says the Angel.
Second candidate, same question. “I made $95,000, I was a realtor.”
He is also permitted to enter. Now it is the third man’s turn.
“My annual salary was $8,000.” “Cool!” replies the Angel, “ and what instrument did you play?”
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Bigamy is having one wife too many.
Monogamy is the same.
-Oscar Wilde
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