Wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas!
Whoops!
Wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas!
Category: Humour
The good old flying days!
Lovely story courtesy of Capt. Robert Derham
The scene is sometime in the old era when cockpits had round dials plus flight engineers and navigators.
The crusty old-timer captain is breaking in a brand new navigator.
The captain opens his briefcase, pulls out a .38 and rests it on the glare panel. He asks the navigator, “Know what this is for?”
“No, sir,” replies the newbie.
“I use it on navigators that get us lost,” explains the captain, winking at his first officer.
The navigator then opens his briefcase, pulls out a .45 an sets it on his chart table. “What’s THAT for?” queries the surprised captain.
“Well, sir,” replies the navigator, “I’ll know that we’re lost before you will.“
Political leanings!
A rather funny interpretation of political leanings as in the UK.
[Sent to me by John Lewis]
I asked my friend’s little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up.
She said she wanted to be Prime Minister some day.
Both her parents – staunch Labour supporters – were standing there, so I asked her, ‘If you were Prime Minister what would be the first thing you would do?’
She replied, ‘I would give food and houses to all the homeless people.’
Her parents beamed and said, ‘Welcome to the Labour Party!’
‘Wow! What a worthy goal’ I told her.
I continued, ‘But you don’t have to wait until you are Prime Minister to do that. You can come over to my house, mow the lawn, pull the weeds, sweep my drive and I’ll pay you £25. Then I can take you over to the shop where the homeless man sits outside, and you can give him the £25 to use towards food.’
She thought over this proposition for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ‘Why doesn’t the homeless man come over and do the work and you can just pay him the £25?’
I smiled and said, ‘Welcome to the Conservative Party.’
Her parents were dumbstruck.
A wise old bird.
Another wonderful guest post from Chris Snuggs on the back of his popular piece last Friday.
An elderly man in Florida had owned a large farm for several years. He had a large pond in the back. It was properly shaped for swimming, so he fixed it up nice with picnic tables, some orange and lime trees.
One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn’t been there for a while, to look it over. He grabbed a five-gallon bucket to bring back some fruit. As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee.
Coming closer, he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end.
One of the women shouted to him, ‘We’re not coming out until you leave!‘
The old man frowned, ‘I didn’t come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked.. ‘
Holding the bucket up he said, ‘I’m here to feed the alligator.‘
But really the Irish are no fools!
Ever wondered how the Irish bailout really works?
I posted a rather tongue-in-cheek item on the Irish situation yesterday. Anyway, a good friend, Peter M, sent the in following to illustrate both the complexity and, in the end, the delightful simplicity of the Irish bailout. Read on.
It is a slow day in a damp little Irish town. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.
On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the town, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.
The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel. The guy at the Farmers’ Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the pub. The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him “services” on credit.
The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note. The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything.
At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town!
No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.
Thanks Peter – a wonderful tale!
By Paul Handover
A little bit of old Irish!
Sorry, dear readers, a bit squeezed for time today so apologies for republishing a few bits and pieces that have caught my eye about the Irish situation.
First, who would want to be Irish Prime Minister?
The Irish Republic‘s prime minister (taoiseach) is facing parliament for the first time since agreeing to borrow 85bn euros ($113bn; £72bn).
Brian Cowen is answering questions in the Dail as the opposition Labour Party argues that the EU/IMF rescue will ruin the country.
Ireland faces four years of austerity to reduce its deficit from a record 32% of GDP to the eurozone limit of 3%.
Who else thinks that it would make so much more impact on folk if ‘bn’ was replaced with zeros. If that was the case then the first sentence would read,
The Irish Republic’s prime minister (taoiseach) is facing parliament for the first time since agreeing to borrow 85,000,000,000 euros ($113,000,000,000; £72,000,000,000).
Ouch!
In 2009 the World Bank estimated the Irish population to be 4,450,000. So this little borrowing for their country is the equivalent of 19,101 euros for every man, woman and child.
Is there an alternative? Yes, according to a suggestion from a reader of Yves Smith’s fabulous Blog, Naked Capitalism.
This suggestion on the Irish mess from an irreverent Commonwealth reader:
The UK conquest of Ireland began in 1169.
It’s time to finish the job.
All they have to do is offer the following:
Ireland converts all its public debt to sterling.
The UK Treasury takes over the responsibility for all of Ireland’s existing public debt.
(Ireland gets a clean start with no Irish govt. debt and not interest payments)
Ireland taxes and spends in sterling only and has a balanced budget requirement.
Ireland can borrow only for capital expenditures.
The UK Treasury guarantees all existing insured euro bank deposits in Irish banks.
Only sterling deposits are insured for new deposits.
Ireland runs a mirror tax code to the UK and keeps all of its tax revenues.
The UK agrees to fund Ireland’s with a pro rata/per capita share of any UK deficit spending.
St. Patrick’s Day is declared a UK national holiday and everyone over 21 gets a beer voucher.
No comment from me required!
By Paul Handover
You all be careful out there!
International security alerts – in case you are traveling over the holidays.
(Sent in by a good friend! Warning, the following is very politically incorrect!)
The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats, and have therefore raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved”.
Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross”.
The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940, when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance”. The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.
The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards”. They don’t have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.
The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide”. The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender”. The rise is precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country’s military capability.
Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing”. Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides”.
The Germans have increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs”. They also have two higher levels: “Invade a neighbor” and “Lose”.
Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.
The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.
The Americans meanwhile, and as usual, are carrying out pre-emptive strikes on all of their allies “just in case”.
Canada doesn’t have any alert levels.
New Zealand has raised its security levels – from “baaa” to “BAAAA”. Because of continuing defense cutbacks, New Zealand has only one more level of escalation, which is “I hope Australia will come and rescue us”.
Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from “No worries” to “She’ll be all right, mate”.
Three more escalation levels remain: “Crikey!”, “I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend” and “The barbie is cancelled”. So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.
Happy holidays and safe travels!
Just a garage door!
This is a very cool idea!
Big thanks to Blog reader, Bill Wells, for sending me details of this rather jazzy idea for sprucing up your garage door!
Yes, that’s what I wrote. Learning from Dogs wishes to promote how you might want to redecorate your garage door.
Try this ….
The Lonely Hearts Advert
A guest post from Chris Snuggs…..
SUPER-FIT and ATTRACTIVE SINGLE BLACK FEMALE seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I’m a very good girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips, cozy winter nights lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. I’ll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me … Call 01272-6420 and ask for Annie, I’ll be waiting …..
Luckily, we were later able to obtain a photo of this georgeous prospect, enough to make any man slaver ….
Off topic!
Just a little distraction for today!
“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”
Woody Allen (1935 – ), My Speech to the Graduates
Read a few days ago on Baseline Scenario and I couldn’t resist using it. Not the first time, I’m sure, you have read this dear readers but still well worth another airing.
Plus it gives me a chance to remind people that Baseline really is a Blog worth following.
by Paul Handover
Learning from Dogs 