Date: 15 Feb 89 16:17:53 PST (Wednesday) Subject: Life 4.7 ------------------------------ The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. -Thomas Paine, 'Age of Reason' ------------------------------ Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. - Roger Bacon ------------------------------ Moral principles can never be compromised; they can only be abandoned. J.G.H. ------------------------------ It is with regret we learn of the sudden death of Donald Everett, of Durris, and wish him an early and complete return to full health. ----- Aberdeen Evening Post ------------------------------ I'm surprised no one mentioned Letterman's top ten list from the evening in which this dogfight happened. It was great! I can only remember the last two (#1 and #2 in the list) but they were the funniest. The list was entitled: Top ten Libyan Mig pilot excuses: Number 4: I was trying to pour myself a Pepsi. Number Two: [drum roll] We only know how to highjack planes, not fly them. And the number one Libyan Mig pilot excuse: We didn't think a kinder, gentler nation would blow us out of the sky. ------------------------------ In the Navy they're referring to the incident as "landing two Libyan MIGs on a Libyan aircraft carrier." ------------------------------ Q: Why does the new Libyan Navy have glass bottom boats? A: So they can look at the old Libyan Navy. ------------------------------ Q: What goes plop-plop fizz-fizz? A: Libyan Jets ------------------------------ Q: What's the difference between an American and an Iranian war plane? A: Pieces of Iranian war planes float easily. American war planes don't have to. ------------------------------ Reminds me of the one where the professor is droning away in the huge lecture hall when he notices a student sleeping way up in the back row. The professor shouts to the sleeping student's neighbor, "Hey wake that student up!" The neighbor yells back, "You put him to sleep -- you wake him up!" ------------------------------ According to the American Facsimile Association, more than half the calls from Japan to the U.S. are fax calls. ------------------------------ Yep, it was something like that. I remember a few years ago some Lebanese friends of mind told me a joke that was popular in Lebanon at that time. Q: Why does President Assad give his Syrian Air Force Jet Fighters 5 dollars before he sends them off to fight the Israelis in Lebanon? A: So they can get a taxi home. ------------------------------ They also remember hiding in the Bekka Valley, where a lot of the dogfights took place, and counting over 100 Syrian Soviet MiGs downed by the Israeli Air Force. ------------------------------ Overheard in a Chicago French restaurant: woman #1: "I don't know any French! How am I going to order?" woman #2: "Don't worry, I took French in high school. I should able to fake my way through it." the waiter approaches the table Immediately, woman #2 begins ordering........... The waiter waits patiently while she speaks, and when she finishes says: "I'm sorry, but I don't speak French. Do you understand English?" ------------------------------ dear doctor Both my wife and I are sterile. Is there any possibility that we will pass this on to our children? ------------------------------ dear doctor My husband and I have 2 children and would love to have another. But I read that every 3rd child born is chinese. Do you think we should take that chance? ------------------------------ dear doctor Please send me some more birth control pills, they help me sleep better. madame, birth control pills cannot help you sleep better. dear doctor, But they do. You see, I put one in my teenage daughter's orange juice every morning and I sleep much better. ------------------------------ dear doctor You gave my wife a note saying it was bad for her to sleep with her mouth open. Could you give her one for the rest of the day also. ------------------------------ Oh, well, you can always tell a Harvard man, but you can't tell him much. ------------------------------ "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young!" "Why, what did she tell you?" "I don't know, I didn't listen!" -- Douglas Adams, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" ------------------------------ "I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top." --English Professor, Ohio University ------------------------------ Q: What's dumber than a pompous Berkeley poly-sci student? A: A committee of pompous Berkeley poly-sci students. ------------------------------ A SCOTTISH SOLUTION The Scots have a reputation for prudence and frugality. They are not the sort of people who make a habit of losing their wallets. But it does happen. The following announcement appeared in the Glasgow Herald recently:- 'Lost in Sauchiehall Street, a black leather wallet containing family photographs, identity documents and five hundred pounds in notes. The finder is asked to keep the photos and documents, but to return the money to which I am attached for sentimental reasons.' ------------------------------ Once evening in a restaurant in Edinburgh a man stood up and exclaimed: -I've just lost my wallet. There's a hundred pounds on it. I'll give five pounds to the person who finds it and returns it to me. From the other side of the restaurant a man in a kilt called out: -I'll give six ------------------------------ Dust was the color of the sky. Dust was the color of the town. The young sheriff moved toward the railway platform, pausing only to wipe his moist palms on his holsters. He watched the Union Pacific engine hurtle around the bend and screech to a clanging, hissing stop. Silently, the Dalton boys swung from the train onto the station platform. Suddenly the sheriff found himself staring down the barrels of three shotguns. The street behind him was empty but for the dust. There was no turning for help. As his hands crept slowly toward his gun belt he knew he had to say it now or forever hold his peace. A crooked smile played about the corners of his mouth, as he drawled, "Boys, I want you to hear me and hear me good. Just remember, that Xerox is a registered trademark of Xerox Corporation and, as its brand name, should be used only to identify its products and services." ------------------------------ Just heard on the news: Marvin Moss, a Hollywood agent, started off poor and made it big. When he died 2-3 years ago he left several million dollars to the college he attended for fun. No academics, they have to spend the $$$ on recreation and other things that are fun for the students. What a way to go. And its tax deductible. ------------------------------ April 1, 1988: The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by physicists at Turgid University. The element, tentatively named Administratium (Ad), has no protons or electrons, which means that its atomic number is 0. However, it does have 1 neutron, 125 assistants to the neutron, 75 vice-neutrons, and 111 assistants to the vice-neutrons. This gives it an atomic mass number of 312. The 312 particles are held together in the nucleus by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles called memoons. Since it has no electrons, Administratium is inert. However, it can be detected chemically because it seems to impede every reaction in which it is present. According to Dr. M. Langour, one of the discoverers of the element, a very small amount of Administratium made one reaction that normally takes less than a second take over four days. Administratium has a half-life of approximately 3 years, at which time it does not actually decay. Instead, it undergoes a reorganization in which assistants to the neutron, vice-neutrons, and assistants to the vice-neutrons exchange places. Some studies have indicated that the atomic mass number actually increases after each reorganization. Administratium was discovered by accident when Dr. Languor angrily resigned from the chairmanship of the physics department and dumped all of his papers into the intake hatch of the university's particle accelerator. "Apparently, the interaction of all of those reports, grant forms, etc. with the particles in the accelerator created the new element." Dr. Langour explained. Research at other laboratories seems to indicate that Administratium might occur naturally in the atmosphere. According to one scientist, Administratium is most likely to be found on college and university campuses, near the best-appointed and best-maintained buildings. ------------------------------ Are we approaching the point (or have we reached it already?) where truth is, for all practical purposes, whatever the computer says it is? Where what is accepted as truth is easily manipulated by those who are privileged to have access to the digital keepers of truth? Recently, in an archeological excavation in the middle east, a large stone tablet was unearthed. Scholars determined that it was an ancient audit report, complaining about the use of papyrus scrolls by the scribes. It was clear that such scrolls lacked the evidential integrity of stone and clay tablets. As recently as when I got into data processing, auditors were complaining that punched cards lacked the integrity of ledger cards. I had to work very hard to convince the auditors that the new batch controls were equal to the transaction-by-transaction controls to which they were accustomed. There is a cruel irony to the fact that I am still here to hear them complain about the passing of batch controls and the return to transaction controls. The more things change, the more they stay the same. What goes around, comes around. Those who fail to heed the lessons of history, are doomed to repeat them. ------------------------------ The same computers that enable us to manipulate records, also enable us to make so many copies that no one person can alter them all. The same computers that enable us to digitize an analog record (e.g. a photograph), manipulate it, and return it to analog, also enable us to create digital signatures to make any such tampering obvious and the absence of such tampering equally obvious. ------------------------------ In the nineteenth century wills and contracts were expected to be hand written. When the typewriter came along, they continued to be hand written for some time for reasons of admissibility as evidence. Today, a hand written will is suspicious. Even though digitally signed wills and contracts are orders of magnitude more difficult to forge than typewritten ones, type written documents will like survive, even be preferred, for two more decades. There was a time when the testimony from memory of the elders was preferred to written records. In this context, it is interesting to note that a vanishingly small number of transactions are disowned. Almost none are litigated. A single forgery hardly ever carries the day. Hardly ever is the record of the contract at issue; it is almost always the intent. ------------------------------ "You're just the sort of person I imagined marrying, when I was little.....except, y'know, not green......and without all the patches of fungus." ------------------------------ "Do you think there's a God?" "Well, SOMEbody's out to get me!" ------------------------------ The heart, the liver, the spleen, the pancreas. All these miraculous organs work in total darkness! ------------------------------ "It's classified. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." ------------------------------ "The good thing about drawing a tiger is that it automatically makes your picture fine art." ------------------------------ "...just when I had you wriggling in the crushing grip of reason, too..." ------------------------------ "Where do we keep all our chainsaws, mom?" ------------------------------ "The world bores you when you're cool." ------------------------------ "The living dead don't NEED to solve word problems." ------------------------------ "Then you admit confirming not denying you ever said that?" "NO!...I mean Yes! WHAT?" "I'll put `maybe.'" ------------------------------ "Kirk may be a swaggering, overbearing, tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood, but he's not soft." ------------------------------ "You'd better ask yourself `Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?" ------------------------------------------------------------ The Clean comments from Rodney Dangerfield: I come from a stupid family. during the civil war my great uncle fought for the west! ------------------------------ When I was born, the doctor came out to the waiting room and said to my father, "I'm sorry, we done everything we could but he pulled through." ------------------------------ My father carries around the picture of the kid who came with his wallet. ------------------------------ Once when I was lost, I saw a policeman and asked him to help me find my parents. I said to him, "Do you think we'll ever find them". He said, "I don't know kid, there are so many places they can hide." ------------------------------ On Halloween, the parents send their kids out looking like me. ------------------------------ A travel agent offered me a 21 day special. He told me I would fly from New York to London. Then from Tokyo back to New York. I asked him, "How am I suppose to get from London to Tokyo ?" He told me, "That's why we give you 21 days." ------------------------------ He told me to jog 5 miles a day. I phoned him up two weeks later I said, "Hey doc I'm 70 miles from my house." ------------------------------ I once had food in a Chinese restaurant. I opened up my fortune cookie. Inside was the guys cheque next to me. I said to him, "Hey buddy, I got your cheque!" He said, "Thanks." ------------------------------ My kid scotch tapes worms to the sidewalk then watches the birds get hernias! ------------------------------ Once a guy pulled a knife on me. I could tell he wasn't a professional, there was butter on it. ------------------------------ I once asked a policeman how far is it to the subway. He said, "I don't know, no one has ever made it." ------------------------------ The other night a mugger took off his mask and made me wear it ------------------------------ I bought a new Japanese car, I turned on the radio ... I don't understand a word their saying! ------------------------------------------------------------ 1995 Copyright by Henry Cate III All Rights Reserved The above collection can be forwarded for non commercial use as long as the signature file below is included The individual entries of the Life Collection are owned by the individual contributors who should be contacted if you wish to forward their entry. -- Henry Cate III [cate3@netcom.com] To learn how to get a MS Windows 3.1 Application with 15,000 jokes from the Life Humor collection, send E-Mail to life@netcom.com with "Info" in the Subject. Or check out http://www.offshore.com.ai/lifehumor
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