Old and New Jokes

Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

Nothing matters very much, and very few things matter at all.

One who asks if the kids would care to order dessert.

An anonymous source in the Democratic Party has revealed that the sweeping landslide victory of the Republicans in November may have been due to an obscure bug in the Intel Pentium computer chip.

Upgrading the nationwide vote counting system to the latest technology was one of Vice-President Al Gores Reinventing Government initiatives. This change was meant to reduce costs and streamline operations, however, the computer glitch may have cost the Whitehouse dearly.

A spokesman for the Democratic Party denied the rumor that several thousand Power-PCs had been purchased as part of a vote recount effort.

When questioned about the news Senator Bob Dole (r) commented that he believed the Intel Pentium chip was far better than anyone had thought. A short statement released by Newt Gingrichs office indicated that the Democratic party has always sought to divide America and that this discovery of an FDIV bug in the Intel Chip was clear evidence of the moral decay of our society.

At a Motorola Plant in Austin, Texas Ross Perot told an angry crowd that according to his new calculations the deficit is actually 14 times larger than the government has been telling us. He praised his staff for staying up all night and performing the calculations by hand.

In late breaking news today legal briefs were filed in Chicago by former senator Dan Rostenkowskis attorneys which claimed that the irregularities at the House Bank and the House Post Office were actually due to Pentium chip calculation errors. Sources in Attorney General Janet Renos office reveal a furious behind the scenes effort to reload the whitewater investigation spreadsheets in order to double check the results.

Heres another non-offensive ethnic joke to add to the collection. Gregory Peck told this one during a TV interview.

Seems a Jewish gentleman and two Arab businessmen found themselves seated three-abreast on an Air France flight to the United States.

The Jew, wishing to demonstrate he supported the new spirit of cooperation, mentioned to the Arabs that he was going to the washroom and could he get them something while he was up.

In keeping with the gracious tone of the gesture, the Arabs said yes, they would each like an orange juice.

Moments after the Jew had left, the plane began its descent and the pilot announced that they would soon be landing. One Arab noticed that the Jew had removed his shoes during the flight and that they were still right there on the floor. He nudged his friend and suggested that they spit in the shoes. And they did, one large goober in each shoe.

The Jew returned with the juice, which the Arabs drank down in a gulp.

The Arabs thanked him profusely and then suggested that he put on his shoes since the plane would soon be landing. Moments after he had slipped his feet into his shoes, he felt the slime ooze over the soles of his feet.

He sat quietly for a minute, and then he turned to his Arab neighbours, who could barely restrain their laughter, and he said in a soft, sorrowful voice: When will it all end – the hatred, the vengance, the killing, the spitting in the shoes, the pissing in the orange juice!

A blonde was playing Trivial Pursuit one night. When it was her turn, she rolled the dice and she landed on Science & Nature.

Her question was, If you are in a vacuum and someone calls your name, can you hear it?

She thought for some time and then asked, Is it on or off?

To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of them absent.

CHAUFFEUR

French for a heater. Originally this term was used for a particularly nasty breed of robbers, who broke into houses, seized the occupants, and then tortured them by burning their feet in the fireplace until they disclosed where they had stashed their valuables.

Later, the word was applied to stokers of steam engines, including the early steam powered automobiles. Finally, chauffeur came to mean the driver of any car.

DIPLOMAT

Greek for folded twice. A diplomat dealt in matters so secret that the documents required this special precaution.

LORD

In Old English the head of the house was called the hlafweard: loaf warden, or master of the bread. This approached the 1960s slang bread for what most people called money.

On the way to lord it passed through many intermediate forms, such as hlaford and louerd.

Similarly, a lady was originally the bread-kneader, hlaefdige, before become levedi, levdi, and finally, in the 14th century ladi.

A retainer, in Old English, is a hlafeta, bread-eater.

PONTIFF

Pontiff comes from the Latin pontifex, bridge-builder. Once a year in ancient Rome the pontiffs, led by their chief, the pontifex maximus, or chief bridge-builder, solemnly threw 23 straw dolls called argei into the Tiber. This was to compensate the river-god for the drowned travelers he had forgone as solid bridges replaced leaky rowboats.

With time, the Pope succeeded to the title: in English Supreme Pontiff. In recent years, however, he has neglected his duty to throw the dolls into the river.

John Trains Remarkable Words with Astonishing Origins should be blamed for most of this text, although the typing is mine alone.

Bosses of a publishing firm are trying to work out why no one noticed that one of their employees had been sitting dead at his desk for FIVE DAYS before anyone asked if he was feeling okay.

George Turklebaum, 51, who had been employed as a proof-reader at a New York firm for 30 years, had a heart attack in the open-plan office he shared with 23 other workers. He quietly passed away on Monday, but nobody noticed until Saturday morning when an office cleaner asked why he was still working during the weekend.

His boss Elliot Wachiaski said: George was always the first guy in each morning and the last to leave at night, so no one found it unusual that he was in the same position all that time and didnt say anything.

He was always absorbed in his work and kept much to himself.

A post mortem examination revealed that he had been dead for five days after suffering a coronary.

And the moral of the story: Dont work too hard. Nobody notices anyway.

Two nuns are ordered to paint a room in the convent, and the last instruction of the Mother Superior is that they must not get even a drop of paint on their habits.

After conferring about this for a while, the two nuns decide to lock the door of the room, strip off their habits, and paint in the nude.

In the middle of the project, there comes a knock at the door.

Who is it?, calls one of the nuns.

Blind man, replies a voice from the other side of the door. The two nuns look at each other and shrug, and, deciding that no harm can come from letting a blind man into the room, they open the door.

Nice tits, says the man, where do you want these blinds?