The Greeks Can’t Afford To Bear Gifts These Days

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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I used to love listening to George W Bush when he talked about the ‘Grecians’. He was an idiot, but unlike some holders of his post I think he secretly knew it.

But, enough of that, let’s concentrate on the Grecians.

Their financial crisis is deepening and they’ve shut down all their banks. They’ve also imposed what are called ‘capital controls’, in other words what you can and cannot do with your own money –  assuming you could get to it in the first place.

Several Western countries, including the US and Britain, have issued travel warnings for Greece. Not a warning about the place being very dangerous, just a warning to have enough cash to be able to pay for things now that the banks are shut and presumably their ATMs as well.

This recent activity by the Greek government is because of the breakdown of talks between Athens and the European Union concerning the Grecians’ enormous debt that they clearly can’t afford to pay back. EU finance ministers rejected Athens’ request to prolong a financial assistance program.

It is also about a bit of timely government blackmail.

The Greek government has so far been unable to formulate any meaningful plans to curtail their spending significantly. The Greek people likewise have become used to living beyond their means and are reluctant to tighten their belts. The people are blaming the government and the government is blaming the people and nothing is really getting resolved.

So Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, shut the banks and said they would stay shut until July 6, conveniently the day after a nationwide referendum on whether to accept the bailout terms proposed to Greece by its creditors.

Some commentators also think that the banks may have been shut because they don’t have enough cash left. The Greek people think the same and are panicking to get their money out of the banks. Runs on banks inevitably lead to disaster.

As Greece is part of the Euro zone it does not have control of its own monetary system. In other words, unlike America which can simply print more money if and when it needs it, the Grecians have to rely on the European Central Bank giving them cash. and it has refused to give them any more Euros.

That decision could prompt Greece to default which would probably lead to it being kicked out of the Euro zone and possibly out of the EU itself, which would be an historic first and something that would be done very reluctantly.

The rulers of the EU are in what is known as a ‘tight spot’. If they don’t take a tough line on the Grecians they can be sure other poor countries in the EU will follow suit. If they do take a tough line, then the upheaval will undoubted have an impact on the Euro currency.

A Greek default would also be another kick in the greedy teeth of the big financial institutions who own a good part of the massive €300 billion debt – you see there are positives in every situation if you look hard enough.

So it looks like emergency meetings and frantic discussions all over the place in Europe.

Despite the fact that Dubya is long gone from the political scene, I don’t think we’ve heard the last about the Grecians just yet.

By the way, Happy Independence Day to all my American visitors, bet you’re glad you’re not part of Europe these days.

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“I Think,” Said The Sweet Potato, “Therefore I Yam.”

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”
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Well today I yam the poster of more puns.
Keep your groans handy, you might need ‘em.
Enjoy or endure.
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You can say what you like

about freedom of speech.

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I would love to dance at a metric party,

but I have two left 0.305 meters.

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Waiters are good at multiplication

because they know their tables.

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I accidentally grabbed a

live electric cable yesterday.

It really Hertz.

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Capital punishment.

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I used to work at a car garage

that had a jet wash.

It was pointless,

there was nowhere for them to land.

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I got a 24 hour clock from

a garage sale for only 10/c.

They’ll be so mad,

it’s lasted far longer.

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I’m in court accused of the murders of

Dracula and Monte Cristo.

I’m pleading guilty to both Counts.

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There’s a Muslim in the street carrying a gun.

Police say he’s Ahmed and dangerous.

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My ex girlfriend text to say that

she’d made a voodoo doll of me.

I think she’s pulling my leg.

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I used to have a job in the police force,

in which I’d break into secure

computer files to uncover criminal activity.

That was until I was met by one system

that proved I wasn’t up to the job.

I just couldn’t hack it.

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Driving home, I noticed I had a

police car right up my ass.

Must have a word with my nephew

about leaving his toys lying around.

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I’d been worrying about my

geography exam for a long time.

When I sat down to take it,

the first question read;

“What is the correct term for any wind that

blows between 4 and 30 miles per hour?”

I don’t know what I was worried about.

It was a breeze.

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I was so nervous when I met my

future father-in-law that i blurted out,

“Sir, May I have your daughters

hole in handy matrimony?”

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What do you call a bunch of

kleptomaniacs with musical instruments?

A Steal Band.
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“Never Underestimate The Power Of Stupid People In Large Groups.”

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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I read a sign recently that said “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”

I knew exactly what it meant.

I’ve said it before on this blog – stupid people are dangerous. Sure they are amusing some of the time, and annoying all of the time, but they are also dangerous a lot of the time too.

Whether it be the stupid idiot who gets drunk and thinks it makes him a better driver, or someone in a company who has been promoted well beyond his or her level of ability just because the number of years of service he or she has accrued, or one of those despicable ‘jobs-worth’ morons you inevitably find in bureaucratic government non-jobs, their stupidity poses a danger to the rest of us.

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If you were a real optimist you might be forgiven for hoping that where you put two stupid people together there would be a chance that the stupidity would halve, but in fact quite the reverse is true, it doubles – and then some!  

And where stupid people accumulate in even larger groups the danger they pose is even greater.

I have witnessed mob violence and believe me it’s a scary thing, always dangerous and often lethal. That’s bad enough.

But what if the large groups of stupid people are given the power to dictate to the rest of us?

That’s an even scarier prospect because it isn’t just spontaneous and fleeting, it is planned and long term.

It’s something that you would think the rest of us would be smart enough not to let happen. Yet that’s exactly what we have allowed to happen.

In the modern world, whether it be the western democracies or the eastern dictatorships, for one reason or another smart people have abdicated their responsibility to ensure that we are governed sensibly and have instead allowed a bunch of morons to take charge.

A lot of the time the idiots get away with it without anyone noticing much. The smart people get on with their lives and quietly accept the interference of the stupid.

But recently the idiots have been steadily encroaching on our private lives, into things that are clearly none of their business and things that pose no danger to society at large or to any individual within it.

The idiots want power. They don’t know what to do with it when they get it. But they want it, and more and more of it.

My own theory is that at heart, although they try to appear superior, the idiots know they are idiots and actually feel inferior to normal people. Thus their mania to have control over those they know are better than they are.

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We know that when they get control they try to dumb down society to their level. The most talented individuals are frowned upon and made to develop at the same speed as the dumbest.

We’ve been through the NSA fiasco when they were outed by a former employee. We know they look at our emails, listen to our telephone conversations, probably even snoop in our mail or scrutinize our blogs (gosh!) and that they have built a humungous new data storage center to keep information on everyone.

We know they start wars and cause the needless deaths of many people sometimes for no other good reason than to distract from the obvious shortcomings at home.

And we are currently in the midst of one of the most idiotic standoffs in Washington with Obama, the Senate and the House of Representatives seeing who can balance on one leg the longest while the country becomes the laughing stock of the rest of the world.

Yes folks, never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups to destroy society and drag the rest of us down along with them.

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A Hair Raising Hare Raising – Or Tales Of The Unexpected!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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This is a story about the unexpected. It is set in a military context because that is how it actually happened. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, or perhaps in this case, to hide their embarrassment. But the story is true.

It happened many years ago in a land far, far away.

To set the scene, six men had managed to infiltrate into enemy territory and so were operating behind enemy lines. It was a dangerous place to be, of that there was no doubt. Any trace of them being uncovered would have meant capture by the opposing forces and at the very least a spell in prison – and probably a lot worse.

So the underlying tension was real and obvious. Everyone was on edge, always ready for the unexpected.

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Of course, when I say, ‘always ready for the unexpected’, as well as being a bit of cliché, it is also a silly expression.

What you are really ready for when you think you are ready for the ‘unexpected’, are things that you ‘expect’ may happen. In this case that might have meant a civilian passing by ‘unexpectedly’, or an unscheduled enemy military patrol suddenly surfacing in the vicinity.

All of these things were the ‘unexpected’ that they were expecting might possibly happen and were ready for in so far as they had contingency plans made.

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Back to the story.

The six men were split into three groups of two. They were dressed in civilian clothes, as workmen, so as not to look out of place should anyone see them when they were traveling to and from their destination.

Their task was to rendezvous at a certain predetermined point, groups two and three liaising with two sets of local people who they would lead to the meeting point. The task of the first group was to check out and secure the meeting place, and to open an entry point for the others.

The area that had been chosen was in a large fenced and gated complex that had been more or less abandoned. The lead group, who had acquired a non descript car, went directly there to check out the area and then to open a way in for the others who needed to be able to drive straight in and out of sight of the road when they arrived at the appointed hour.

The two men in the lead group arrived in good time and without challenge or incident. They made sure there was nothing out of the ordinary in the general area and then proceeded to the entry point.

As a cover for what they were really doing, one of the men started to prepare a lunch – just coffee and sandwiches – that he had brought with him. Carefully, and where anyone could see them, he laid out the lunch boxes on the roof of the car, along with a flask and two plastic cups. They were simple workers who had stopped for a bite to eat and anyone passing by would be able to see clearly what they were doing. Nothing out of the ordinary or suspicious about that. 

The other guy in the team, using the cover of the parked car, was busy removing the lock and chains from the gate, which he managed to do quickly and without any difficulty.

Although the whole thing had an air of calm and normality, the two men knew where they were and the risks involved and were therefore suitably tense as a result.

The guy drinking the coffee and eating the sandwich was doing so whilst keeping a careful watch on everything happening around him, including how his colleague was fairing with the gate.

Then the unexpected, unexpected unexpectedly happened.

As his colleague opened the gate it made a few creaking noises, but it opened okay and he began to push it back to leave the way open for the others who would soon be arriving in their vans.

Just as the gate reached 90 degrees from its closed position, suddenly, without any warning whatever, there was a loud rustling noise in the long grass behind it.

The guy standing beside it froze.

The unexpected he had been trained to expect was an enemy soldier secreted in the long grass waiting to ambush him and his colleague. But this was something else.

Again before he had time to react, whatever it was bounded out of the grass, first directly towards him and then making an almost instant left turn and disappearing. The suddenness of the movement towards him made him start. He lost his balance and fell backwards on to the ground, his unusual movement startling his colleague at the car.

There was coffee everywhere but in the cups, and sandwiches everywhere but in the lunchbox, as guy number two instinctively abandoned his meal and took cover behind the car, reaching for his weapon at the same time.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” the man at the gate told him urgently, but in a loud whisper, scared that he would open fire and alert anyone within hearing distance.

“WTF is it?” the man at the car asked back, equally urgently, in an equally loud whisper.

“I don’t know, an animal, just an animal,” came the reply. “I think it was a hare or something like that.”

“FFS you idiot, you scared the shit out of me, and I damn nearly shot at whatever it was. How could you fall on your ass because of a hare?”

There was no reply. None was needed. Time was pressing and they soon gathered their wits again – and what was left of the sandwiches.

Soon the others arrived. The rest of the mission, whatever it was, went without further incident and when it was done they all left as if they had never been there.  

Even the best trained men and the best laid plans can never cater for the truly unexpected, unexpected.

And in case you are wondering, the answer is ‘Yes’, from that day on the poor bloke was subjected to ‘hare on his ass’ jokes – which I suppose was to be expected! 

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Don’t Join Dangerous Cults: Practice Safe Sects! – Yes, More Puns!!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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What could be better than a bit of sound advice mixed with a little pun?

Appearing today probably to mixed reviews, here is another of puns, bad jokes or word plays, whatever you like to call them.

Enjoy!

(BTW, the last one is a classic!)

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Did you know that every two in one people are schizophrenic?

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I hear that the credit crunch is even affecting fairgrounds.

My friend’s a dodgems operator and he lost his job this morning.

He’s suing for funfair dismissal.

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Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table,

because he only recognizes the element of surprise

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I got a new anorexic girlfriend.

It’s not going too well.

These days, I’m seeing less and less of her.

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I went into the hardware store yesterday.

I went up to the counter and asked the bloke for some nails.

He said, “How long do you want them?”

I said, “I want to keep ’em.”

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My late mother-in-law was a clairvoyant and a contortionist.

As a result she was able to foresee her own end

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Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

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Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet.

He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath.

Mary Poppins said  he was a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

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Could you say a gossip is someone with a sense of rumor?

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Why was the ink drop sad?

Because her dad was in the pen and she didn’t know how long the sentence would be!

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My mate is addicted to brake fluid.

But he reckons he can stop at any time.

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When you dream in color, it’s a pigment of your imagination.

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How do you kill a circus?

Go for the juggler.

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What do you call a French man in sandals?

Phillippe Flop

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Donkey Hokey

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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No, I’m not tilting at windmills, not just yet anyhow. And despite the play on words in the title, nor am I referring to Cervantes character Don Quixote. This post actually does concern a donkey, though. In fact animals in general.

It is a little known fact that donkeys kill more people than plane crashes. And at the end of August I read about a small town Texas mayor who was killed in an attack by his own donkey. He was Bill Bohlke and he was Mayor of Hollywood Park in Atascosa County, Texas.

That unfortunate event set me thinking of a number of things.

First I asked myself how the heck you pronounced his surname.

Then I wondered if Mayor Bohlke was a Republican or Democrat and how macabre it would have been if the donkey had done away with his elephant man rival.

And then I thought about the amazing and different ways people find to leave the mortal coil. I bet, like most of us, the last thing Mayor Bohlke thought was that some day he would meet his end from an attack from a randy donkey!

And then I marveled at how so many people, for no logical reason, have a romantic fantasy notion that animals are not inherently dangerous. They are.

And this is true for people who work with them every day and should know better.

For example, when I was growing up I would spend time at my uncle’s farm. He had a herd of one hundred or more dairy cows and every evening when I was there my cousin and myself would be sent out to the fields to bring the cows in for milking.

We had a couple of great little collie dogs to help us, not that much help was needed because the cows had a routine and once they heard us calling for them they made their way to the field gate and up the lane to the milking parlor, glad no doubt that they were about to be relieved of their burden once more.

With them came the bull. A huge brute of an animal and unbelievably strong. But he was docile enough, walked up with his herd of ‘wives’ and while they made their way into the queue for the milking machines he would usually lie down in the hayshed and munch on some of the hay.

As innocent (dumb) kids we would sometimes sit down beside him, even using him as a prop to lean against. He didn’t seem to mind a bit, we thought he was glad of the company perhaps.

Then one day as the herd was being ushered back out to the fields Mr Bull totally out of the blue decided he would like to kill my uncle.

Luckily us kids had our chore done in bringing the herd in to get milked. When the time came to take them back out again we were engaged on other vital business, I can’t remember exactly what but I’m sure it involved football, playing cowboys and Indians, fending off some galactic foe who was attacking earth that day, or some such vital stuff. But we could hear the commotion in the distance.

Furious about something, only he knew what, the bull roared angrily and ran towards my uncle who had been leading the way. With his head lowered he hit my uncle between his lower back and his knees and threw him up into the air like a rag doll – and my uncle was a BIG man. Very fortunately the bull tossed him into the air with such force that he went clean over the raised fence and hedge on the right hand side of the lane and ended up in one of the fields. 

The crazy bull then tried to go after him but couldn’t get up the steep embankment on which the fence had been constructed. Another cousin, quite a bit older than us, saw the attack. He was in a tractor and he immediately had the presence of mind to use that to take the bull’s attention away from my uncle. The distraction seemed to work, because as suddenly as it had started it was over and things were back to normal.

But my uncle had learned a valuable lesson. Animals can be dangerous.

So had I, even though I wasn’t there at the time, but from then on I haven’t been a fan of bulls – not in Chicago or Wall Street either come to think of it.

Unfortunately Mayor Bohlke wasn’t so lucky with his donkey.

I wonder if it happened something like this???

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