EURO SPEAK
The
European Union commissioners have announced that
agreement has been reached to adopt English as the
prefered language for European communications, rather
than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government
conceded that English spelling had some room for
improvement and has accepted a five year phased plan for
what will be known as Euro English (Euro for short).
In the first year, "s" will be used instead of
the soft "c". Sertainly sivil servants will
resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c"
will be replaced with "k". Not only will this
klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less
letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond
year, when the troublesome "ph" will be
replaced by "f". This will make words like
"fotograf" 20 persent shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptense of the new spelling
kan be expeckted to reach the stage where more
komplekated 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 silent "e"s in the
languag is disgrasful, and they would go.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such
as replasing "th" by "z" and "w"
by "v".
During ze fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl.
Zer wil b no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun wil
find it ezi tu undewrstand ech ozer.
ZE DREM VIL
FINALI KUM TRU!
JAPAN
Upon
hearing of the inability of Americans to get an election,
particularly the electile dysfunction in Florida, the
Government of Japan is sending 20,000,000 units of Viagra
to the United States.
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WASHINGTON DC
MR. INTERNET
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How
Government works
Once upon
a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle
of a desert. Congress said "Someone may steal from
it at night.". So they created a night watchman
position and hired a person for the job.
Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his
job without instruction?" So they created a planning
department and hired two people, one person to write the
instructions, and one person to do time studies.
Then Congress said, "How will we know the night
watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they
created a Quality Control department and hired two people.
One to do the studies and one to write the reports.
Then Congress said, "How are these people going to
get paid?" So they created the following positions,
a time keeper and a payroll officer, then hired two
people.
Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all
of these people?" So they created an administrative
section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer,
Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.
Then Congress said, "We have had this command in
operation for one year and we are $20,000 over budget, we
must cutback overall cost." So they laid off the
night watchman.
One
campaign consultant says he doesn't approve of political
jokes. He's seen too many of them get elected.
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IRELAND&IRAQ
Saddam
Hussein was sitting in his office wondering who to invade
when his telephone rang. "Hallo! Mr. Hussein,"
a heavily accented voice says. "This is Paddy, up in
County Kildare, Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that
we are offically declaring war on you!"
"Well Paddy," Saddam replies, "this is
indeed important news! Tell me,how big is your army?"
"At this moment in time," says Paddy after a
quick calculation, "there is meself, me cousin Sean,
me next door neighbor Gerry and the entire dominoes team
from the pub. The total is eight!"
Saddam sighs. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 1
million men in my army waiting to move instantly on my
command."
"Begorra!" says Paddy. "I'll have to ring
you back!"
Sure enough, the next day Paddy rings back. "Right
Mr. Hussein, the war is still on! We have managed to
acquire some equipment!"
"And what equipment would that be, Paddy?"
Saddam asks.
"Well, we have 2 combine harvesters, a bulldozer and
Murphy's tractor from the farm."
Once more Saddam sighs. "I must tell you, Paddy,
that I have 16 thousand tanks, 14 thousand armored
personnel carriers, and my Army has increased to 1 1/2
million since we last spoke."
"Begorra!" says Paddy "I'll have to ring
you back!"
Sure enough, Paddy rings again the next day. "Right,
Mr. Hussein, the war is still on! We have managed to get
ourselves airborne! We've modified out Ted's ultra light
with a couple of rifles in the cockpit and the bridge
team has joined us as well!"
Saddam is silent for a minute, then sighs. "I must
tell you, Paddy, that I have 10 thousand bombers, 20
thousand Mig-19 attack planes, my military complex is
surrounded by laser guided surface-to-air missile sites,
and since we last spoke, my Army has increased to 2
million."
"Faith and begorra!" says Paddy, "I'll
have to ring you back."
Sure enough, Paddy calls again the next day. "Mr.
Hussein, I am sorry to tell you that we had a chat and
have had to call off the war."
"I'm sorry to hear that," says Saddam. "Why
the sudden change of heart?"
"Well," says Paddy, "we've all had a chat
and there's
no way we can feed 2 million prisoners."
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