The world’s oldest recorded joke has been traced back to 1900 BC and suggests that toilet humor was as popular with the ancients as it is today. It is a saying of the Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern Iraq and goes: “Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.”
It heads the world’s oldest top 10 joke list published by the University of Wolverhampton on Thursday.
A 1600 BC gag about a pharaoh, said to be King Snofru, comes second — “How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish.”
The oldest British joke dates back to the 10th Century and reveals the bawdy face of the Anglo-Saxons — “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before? Answer: A key.”
“Jokes have varied over the years, with some taking the question and answer format while others are witty proverbs or riddles,” said the report’s writer Dr Paul McDonald, senior lecturer at the university. “What they all share however, is a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion. Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humor can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research.”
The study was commissioned by television channel Dave. The top 10 oldest jokes can be viewed at www.dave-tv.co.uk.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has decided, after months of under the cloud of scandal, to step down after his Kadima party choses a new leader in September. The hope is to form a new government under the new leader and revive the party until next spring’s elections. Otherwise, Olmert could stay on until then.
Likud party leader and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leading all candidates by a wide margin in a new Haaretz poll.
When those polled were asked to pick between Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak for future prime minister, 36 percent said they preferred Netanyahu, as opposed to 24.6 percent who chose Livni. Barak was chosen by 11.9 percent of respondents, significantly less than the fourth choice “none of the above,” which garnered 19 percent.
Netanyahu scored higher when Livni’s name was replaced by Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz in the survey, with 36.6 percent of respondents picking him, over 14.8 percent for Barak, 12 percent for Mofaz, and 27.4 percent for “none of the above.”
Netanyahu looked like a pretty fair bet to win last time, too, until Ariel Sharon reshuffled the deck. That’s not going to happen again, though.
Dateline Earth: “Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet.”
Former vice president Al Gore—who for the past three decades has unsuccessfully attempted to warn humanity of the coming destruction of our planet, only to be mocked and derided by the very people he has tried to save—launched his infant son into space Monday in the faint hope that his only child would reach the safety of another world.
“I tried to warn them, but the Elders of this planet would not listen,” said Gore, who in 2000 was nearly banished to a featureless realm of nonexistence for promoting his unpopular message. “They called me foolish and laughed at my predictions. Yet even now, the Midwest is flooded, the ice caps are melting, and the cities are rocked with tremors, just as I foretold. Fools! Why didn’t they heed me before it was too late?”
Al Gore—or, as he is known in his own language, Gore-Al—placed his son, Kal-Al, gently in the one-passenger rocket ship, his brow furrowed by the great weight he carried in preserving the sole survivor of humanity’s hubristic folly.
“There is nothing left now but to ensure that my infant son does not meet the same fate as the rest of my doomed race,” Gore said. “I will send him to a new planet, where he will, I hope, be raised by simple but kindly country folk and grow up to be a hero and protector to his adopted home.”
I’ve been involved lately in a little issues advocacy regarding card-check. Card-check involves a union being able to use a card that workers sign to compel a firm to recognize the union as the sole bargaining agent of the entire shop. My first post on the subject included Congressional testimony by a former union organizer.
A “card check” campaign begins with union organizers going to the homes of workers over a weekend, a tactic called “housecalling,” with the sole intent of having those workers sign authorization cards. Called a “blitz” by the unions, it entails teams of two or more organizers going directly to the homes of workers. The workers’ personal information and home addresses used during the blitz was obtained from license plates and other sources that were used to create a master list.
In most cases, the workers have no idea that there is a union campaign underway. Organizers are taught to play upon this element of surprise to get “into the door.” They are trained to perform a five part house call strategy that includes: Introductions, Listening, Agitation, Union Solution, and Commitment. The goal of the organizer is to quickly establish a trust relationship with the worker, move from talking about what their job entails to what they would like to change about their job, agitate them by insisting that management won’t fix their workplace problems without a union and finally convincing the worker to sign a card.
…From my experience, the number of cards signed appear to have little relationship to the ultimate vote count. During a private election campaign, even though a union still sends organizers out to workers’ homes on frequent canvassing in attempts to gain support, the worker has a better chance to get perspective on the questions at hand.
Now that would seem to be enough for most people to decide we should keep private ballots, but unions have been pushing the Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act, which would make card-check the law of the land. (Employers could agree to recognize a union on the basis of cards now if they choose, but are not compelled.) So the group organized in Minnesota, of which I am chair of its steering committee, started running news ads. This sufficiently infuriated the local Democratic leadership that they filed a complaint with the Minnesota elections board accusing the two groups and me personally. Yesterday, that suit was thrown out. They may refile the complaint against us; we’ll see.
The point remains that a major push for Democratic candidates this year is coming from gobs of union cash — some of it compelled under threat of financial penalties from their locals — and their top goal is to eviscerate the rights of workers to have a secret ballot by which they can decide whether they want to be represented by a union. They don’t like the heat from Johnny Sac calling them out for what they’re doing. For more, read here.
Turkey’s Constitutional Court has decided not to ban the ruling AK Party, accused of undermining the country’s secular system.
But the judges did cut half the AKP’s treasury funding for this year.
That’ll show ‘em! (I honestly have no idea which funds or what they are used for–and the story does not elaborate.)
In all seriousness, this is a healthy result for Turkish democratic development as well as a positive move for all who would like to see a functional example of democracy in an Islamic society.
Still, the overall situation is not at healthy as one might like:
At least seven of the 11 court judges would need to vote in favour for the party to be banned. But six judges wanted a ban and five did not want to do so.
Being one vote shy of being banned is escaping by the thinnest of margins.
The flack department at HuffPo emails to tout Isabel Wilkinson’s post, “A Week In John McCain’s Shoes — His $520 Ferragamo Loafers, That Is.” It documents, in extensive detail, McCain’s wearing of a pair of black calfskin Salvatore Ferragamo ‘Pregiato’ Moccasins, which retail at Nieman Marcus for $520.
Apparently, this goes to show that McCain doesn’t buy his shoes at WalMart. And is a hypocrite?
In response to Barack Obama’s foreign tour, McCain spent much of his energy last week emphasizing his focus on domestic issues. What better way to show his American pride than to tour the country in Italian leather?
No word on what shoes Obama wears. I’m guessing, given that he’s a youngish millionaire with a sense of style, that he’s wearing expensive shoes, too. At any rate, while Allen-Edmonds and other American manufacturers make some nice shoes, I can’t imagine many Americans will be upset that an elderly gentleman who can afford it wears comfortable Italian loafers.
Fashion-wise, I prefer lace-ups, including Allen-Edmonds, with a suit. I do, however, own a pair of chocolate suede Ferragamo bit loafers (perhaps Nirvanas, but I’m not positive) that I bought last summer in Florence for substantially less than $520.
