ID: 6105
News / Politics
Barbara Walters of 20/20 did a story on gender roles in Kabul several years before the Afghan conflict. She noted that women customarily walked about 5 paces behind their husbands.
She returned to Kabul recently and observed that women still walk behind their husbands, but now seem to walk even further back and are happy with the old custom.
Ms. Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, "Why do you now seem happy with the old custom that you used to try and change?"
"Land mines," said the woman.
MORAL: BEHIND EVERY MAN IS A SMART WOMAN
ID: 15153
News / Politics
On Cows and Government
FEUDALISM
You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk
PURE SOCIALISM
You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.
BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM
You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and as many eggs as the regulations say you should need.
FASCISM
You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.
PURE COMMUNISM
You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
RUSSIAN COMMUNISM
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.
DICTATORSHIP
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
SINGAPORE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed animals in an apartment.
MILITARIANISM
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
PURE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair "Cowgate".
BRITISH DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. You feed them sheep's brains and they go mad. The government doesn't do anything.
BUREAUCRACY
You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
ANARCHY
You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors kill you and take the cows.
CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
HONG KONG CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the Feng Shui is bad.
ENVIRONMENTALISM
You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
FEMINISM
You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.
TOTALITARIANISM
You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
You are associated with (the concept of "ownership"is a symbol of the phallo-centric, war-mongering, intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.
COUNTER CULTURE
Wow, dude, there's like... these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk. Far out! Awesome!
SURREALISM
You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
JAPANESE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. You give the milk to gangsters so they don't ask any awkward questions about who you're giving the milk to.
EUROPEAN FEDERALISM
You have two cows which cost too much money to care for because everybody is buying milk imported from some cheap east-European country and would never pay the fortune you'd have to ask for your cows' milk. So you apply for financial aid from the European Union to subsidise your cows and are granted enough subsidies. You then sell your milk at the former elevated price to some government-owned distributor which then dumps your milk onto the market at east-European prices to make Europe competitive. You spend the money you got as a subsidy on two new cows and then go on a demonstration to Brussels complaining that the European farm-policy is going drive you out of your job.
EASTERN EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. You sell the milk (diluted with some water) at a high price to the neighbors or to anyone at the open-air market. If somebody asks for receipt, you charge for a two times higher price, so nobody will request an invoice. For concerned families with small babies you claim that the milk is "bio", though you collect the grass for feeding at the side of the highway and you keep the milk in plastic barrels used previously as containers of dangerous chemicals. Later, your neighbor or anybody from town will steal the cows and will buy their meat for a high price, and if you ask for a receipt, you will be charged for a two times higher price.
FINNISH SOCIALISM
You have two cows. Soon you have to kill one of them because in the Netherlands there is an overproduction of milk and the European Union rules say so. When you do so, you realize that it was not necessary, only the system was too slow in getting you the up-to-date news. From the stress, you get an ulcer in your stomach so you go to a doctor. The doctor realizes that this ulcer is a serious one, so you need an urgent treatment. Therefore, you soon get a call to the local hospital. The call's date is for 3 months later, because there is a queue with more urgent cases. Then your ulcer becomes even more serious because you remember that 40 percent of your income is taken for social tax.
ID: 2459
News / Politics
Two Tough Questions
Question 1:
If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?
Read the next question before looking at the answer for this one.
Question 2:
It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three leading candidates.
Candidate A -
Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two Mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.
Candidate B -
He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.
Candidate C -
He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional
beer and never cheated on his wife.
Which of these candidates would be your choice? Decide first, no peeking, then scroll down for the answer.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Candidate B is Winston Churchill.
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.
And, by the way, the answer to the abortion question:
If you said yes, you just killed Beethoven.
Pretty interesting isn't it? Makes a person think before judging someone.
Never be afraid to try something new. Remember: Amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic and in case you never saw this one...
Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:
* 29 have been accused of spousal abuse
* 7 have been arrested for fraud
* 19 have been accused of writing bad checks
* 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
* 3 have done time for assault
* 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
* 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
* 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
* 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
* 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year
Can you guess which organization this is?
Give up yet?
It's the 535 members of the United States Congress. The same group of idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.
ID: 14728
News / Politics
This last weekend I was reminded at the pace we are converting to metric. I was on I-75 in Ohio when I saw a sign that said:
All signs metric - Next 20 miles.
ID: 14797
News / Politics
Four teenagers were arrested in the parking lot of a large mall in Lakeland, Fla. just before Christmas. In an attempt to steal an automobile at random, they tried to break into a police van containing three officers on a stakeout.
ID: 2393
News / Politics
A young gay man calls home and tells his Jewish mother that he has decided to go back into the closet because he has met a wonderful girl and they are going to be married. He tells his mother that he is sure she will be happier since he knows that his gay lifestyle has been very disturbing to her.
She responds that she is indeed delighted and asks tentatively, "I suppose it would be too much to hope that she would be Jewish?"
He tells her that not only is the girl Jewish, but is from a wealthy Beverly Hills family. She admits she is overwhelmed by the news, and asks, "What is her name?"
He answers, "Monica Lewinsky."
There is a long pause, then his mother asks, "What happened to that nice Catholic boy you were dating last year?"
ID: 818
News / Politics
Microsoft Vs. General Motors
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,
"If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would the be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release
stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut
off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue.
For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive-but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask, "Are you sure?", before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again, because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.
ID: 3567
News / Politics
The Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. this Christmas. This isn't for any religious constitutional reason.
They simply have not been able to find three wise men and a virgin in the Nation's capitol.
There was, however, no problem finding enough asses to fill the stable.
ID: 17753
News / Politics
"Leonid Ilyich!..." / "Come on, no formalities among comrades. Just call me 'Ilyich' ".