An old priest got sick of everyone in his parish confessing adultery.
During one Sundays sermon he told them, If one more person confesses to adultery, Ill quit!
Since everyone liked him, they decided to use a code word: fallen.
From then on, anyone who had committed adultery said they had fallen.
This satisfied the old priest and the parishioners, and everything was fine for years, until finally the old priest passed away at the ripe old age of 93.
Shortly after the new young priest settled in, he paid a call on the mayor. The priest was quite concerned. You have to do something about the sidewalks in this town, Mayor. You cant believe how many people come into the confessional talking about having fallen!
The mayor started to laugh, realizing that no one had explained their code word to the new priest.
But before the mayor could explain, the priest shook his finger at the mayor and said –
I dont know why youre laughing; your wife fell three times last week!
A hindu priest, rabbi and a lawyer were driving down the road, when the car breaks down. Fortunately finding a farmhouse nearby, the farmer informed them that he had only one spare room, and that it had only two twin beds.
They were welcome to it, but one of them had to sleep in the barn. After much discussion, the hindu volunteered to go to the barn. A few moments later, a knock on the bedroom door, and the hidu explained that there was a cow in the barn, and cows are sacred and he could not possibly sleep in the barn with a cow.
Annoyed, the rabbi volunteered. A few moments later, a knock on the door. The rabbi explained that there was a pig in the barn and that he, being very orthodox, could not possibly spend the evening in the barn with the origin of pork.
Finally the lawyer said that he would go to the barn. A few moments later there was a knock on the door. It was the cow and the pig!
Jon John, the worlds worst basketball player, was arrested and charged
with brawling in a public place. He pleaded guilty and threw himself at the
mercy of the court…. and missed.
A Frenchman, an Englishman and a New Yorker were captured by a fierce back-country tribe during the colonial times in the United States.
The tribal chief comes to them and says, The bad news is that now that weve caught you were going to kill you, and then use your skins to make a canoe. The good news is that you get to choose how to die.
The Frenchman says, I take ze poison. The chief gives him some poison extracted from local berries. The Frenchman says Viva la France! and drinks it down.
The Englishman says, A pistol for me, please. The chief gives him a old pistol. He points it at his head, says, God save the queen!, and blows his brains out.
The New Yorker says, Gimme a fork. The chief is puzzled, but he shrugs his shoulders and gives him a fork. The New Yorker takes the fork and starts rapidly jabbing himself all over his stomach, his ribs, his chest, his backside, everywhere. Theres blood gushing out all over, its a horrible sight.
The native chief is appalled, and screams, What are you doing?
The New Yorker looks at the chief and says So much for your damn canoe, jerk
Q: How many socialists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One to petition the Ministry of Light for a bulb, fifty to establish the state production quota, two hundred militia to force the factory unions to allow production of the bulb, and one to surreptitiously dial an 800 number to order an American light bulb.
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, Microsofts 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 wed 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 Microsofts 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 Sartres 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. Im the richest man in the world.
According to experts, the full ramifications of Microsofts 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 companys latest move will, ultimately, benefit all humankind.
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 worlds richest, most powerful software company, Microsoft is number one. And you, the millions of consumers who use our products, are the zeroes.
From The Onion, March 25, 1998
http://www.theonion.com/onion3311/microsoftpatents.html
© Copyright 1998 Onion, Inc., All Rights Reserved. View masthead for more information.
(This came from The Washington Spectator.)
Politics has long been the answer to the wits prayer.
Examples:
Politics –the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and
campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the
other. (Oscar Ameringer)
Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen
tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the
ability afterwards to explain why it didnt happen. (Winston
Churchill)
Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be President, but they
dont want them to become politicians in the process. (John F.
Kennedy)
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing
between the disastrous and the unpalatable. (John Kenneth Galbraith)
A statesman is a politician whos been dead 10 or 15 years. (Harry
S. Truman)
The quotes are excerpted from The Penguin Dictionary of Modern
Humorous Quotations.
I dont know who to credit this to, but it was cute so I am posting it.
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was slightly grey.
It didnt have a father,
Just some borrowed DNA.
It sort of had a mother,
Though the ovum was on loan.
It was not so much a lambkin
As a little lamby clone.
And soon it had a fellow clone,
And soon it had some more.
It made the children laugh and sing,
The teachers found it droll;
There were too many lamby clones
For Mary to control.
No other could control the sheep
Since their programs didnt vary,
So the scientists resolved it all
By simply cloning Mary.
But now they feel quite sheepish,
Those scientists unwary.
One problem solved, but what to do
With Mary, Mary, Mary?
You might be a redneck if… Your boat has not left the driveway in 15 years.
You might be a redneck if directions to your house include Turn off the paved road…