Saddam Hussein was sitting in his office wondering who to invade next when his telephone rang.
"Hallo! Mr. Hussein," a heavily accented voice said. "This is Paddy up in County Cavan, Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you!"
"Well, Paddy," Saddam replied, "this is indeed important news! Tell me, how big is your army?"
"At this moment in time," said Paddy after a moment's calculation, "there is myself, my cousin Sean, my next door neighbor Gerry, and the entire dominoes team from the pub-that makes 8!"
Saddam sighed. "I must tell you Paddy that I have 1 million men in my army waiting to move on my command."
"Begorra!" said Paddy, "I'll have to ring you back!"
Sure enough, the next day Paddy rang back. "Right Mr. Hussein, the war is still on! We have managed to acquire some equipment!"
"And what equipment would that be, Paddy?" Saddam asked.
"Well, we have 2 combine harvesters, a bulldozer and Murphy's tractor from the farm."
Once more Saddam sighed. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 16 thousand tanks, 14 thousand armored personnel carriers, and my army has increased to 1 and a half million since we last spoke."
"Really?" said Paddy "I'll have to ring you back!"
Sure enough, Paddy rang again the next day. "Right Mr. Hussein, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne! We've modified Ted's ultralight with a couple of rifles in the cockpit and the bridge team has joined us as well!"
Saddam was silent for a minute, then sighed. "I must tell you Paddy that I have a thousand bombers, 500 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!" said Paddy, "I'll have to ring you back."
Sure enough, Paddy called again the next day. "Right Mr. Hussein, I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the war."
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Saddam. "Why the sudden change of heart?"
"Well," said Paddy "We've all had a chat, and there's no way we can feed 2 million prisoners."
He noticed a police officer walking back and forth between the lines of cars, so he rolled down his window and asked, "Officer what's the hold up?"
The officer replied: "The Prime Minister is just so depressed about all the fuel blockades and that his whiter than white image has been tarnished, that he stopped his Jag in the middle of the motorway under protest, and he's threatening to douse himself in petrol and set himself on fire. He says that everybody hates him and he will lose the next election and he doesn't have the money to pay for a new house. So we're taking up a collection for him."
The tax payer said: "Oh really? How much do you have so far?"
"About three hundred gallons, but a lot of folks are still siphoning."
In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
WASHINGTON, DC - At a Pentagon press conference Monday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld touted the military's upcoming "Gulf War II: The Vengeance" as "even better than the original."
"If you thought the first one was good, just wait until you see the sequel," Rumsfeld said of "Gulf War II", scheduled to hit Iraqi theaters of operation March 22. "In the original, as you no doubt know, we defeat Saddam Hussein, only to let him slip away at the very end. This time, we're going back in to take out the trash."
Rumsfeld said the soon-to-be-unleashed war will feature special effects beyond anything seen in the original.
"Gulf War I was done 11 years ago, and war-making technology has advanced tremendously since then," Rumsfeld said. "From the guns to the planes to the missile-guidance systems, what you'll see in this one puts the original Gulf War to shame."
"The budget for Gulf War II: The Vengeance is somewhere in the neighborhood of $85 billion," Rumsfeld continued. "And every penny of it is up there on your screen."
Waged in 1991 at a cost of $61 billion, the first Gulf War was a major hit, making household names out of stars Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf, and Wolf Blitzer. Asked who would star in the sequel, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was coy.
"I don't want to give away too much, but let's just say you're likely to see a few familiar faces pop up," Myers said. "I will say that the son of one of the key characters in the first one, back then just a boy, is now all grown up and ready to take his rightful place at the head of the alliance."
Myers did confirm that the plot revolves around the Rebel forces' efforts to capture arch-nemesis Hussein, whom they believe is building a weapon of mass destruction somewhere deep within the mysterious and forbidding No-Fly Zone.
"Obviously, Saddam will be back," Myers said. "He's the perfect villain: ruthless, efficient, and sinister. It would be an affront to all the fans not to include him. Beyond that, what's going to happen is anybody's guess. One thing, though, is guaranteed: We're going to have more action, more danger, and definitely more kill power than the first time around."
"We've already started preliminary shooting," Myers said, "and so far, what we've got is unbelievable."
In addition to a major PR push, Gulf War II will be accompanied by a major merchandising campaign. Pentagon has secured the commitment of Topps for a series of cards supporting the effort. It has also brokered a first-look deal with CNN, guaranteeing the network full access to the front lines, as well as first crack at interviewing the men and women behind the scenes. The Pentagon has also signed Dan Rather to a two-cry deal.
In the 11 years since the original Gulf War, few conflicts have come close to matching the level of support and press attention generated by that operation. "We were disappointed by our numbers in Bosnia," Rumsfeld said. "That particular conflict played primarily to an art-house crowd. Your mainstream audiences didn't connect with the complexities of the centuries-old ethnic clash you had going there. But this time, we feel we've got something very accessible that will play in Peoria. I mean, how can you go wrong with an 'Axis of Evil'?"
Though Gulf War II does not open fire for another two weeks, it has screened for select audiences in Los Angeles. Ain't It Cool News, the popular website run by Harry Knowles, recently leaked an anonymous review of the conflict. "The battle sequences are even better than Black Hawk Down," Knowles wrote. "And Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, while only given a little action, exudes a Tarantino cool."
Pentagon officials, meanwhile, are already thinking about a third
instalment. "There's no reason this Iraq thing can't be a franchise
for us like those wars with Germany or the Communists used to be,"
Rumsfeld said. "The public loves it, the soldiers love it, the
media love it. And even if the U.S. wins at the end of the second
one, there are still plenty of possibilities for a third: Saddam could
be destroyed, only to be replaced by an even greater evil. Then,
of course, there's the prequel set in the Stone Age, the era we bomb
Iraq back to at the end of the third one. As far as we're concerned,
this thing is just getting started."
What Is Politics?
This little boy goes to his Dad and asks, "What is Politics?"
Dad says, "Well, son let me try to explain it to you this way... I'm the breadwinner of the family, so let's call me "Capitalism". Your mom, she is the administrator of the household, so we'll call her the "Government". We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the "People". The nanny, well she works hard all day for very little money so, we'll consider her "The Working Class". Your baby brother... we'll call him "The Future". Now, think about that and see if it makes sense."
So, the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what his Dad said. Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying. So he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parents' room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks into the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed.
The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now."
The father says, "Good son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about."
The little boy replies, "Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working
Class, the Government is sound asleep, the People are being ignored
and the Future is in deep shit..."
Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?