Terrorism Alert Level--International Humor

[Stalins Organ]

It seems the Brits & Australians can relax.

Press Release: Union Negotiations

Muslim suicide bombers in Britain are set to begin a three-day strike

on Monday in a dispute over the number of virgins they are entitled to

in the afterlife. Emergency talks with Al Qaeda management have so far

failed to produce an agreement.

The unrest began last Tuesday when Al Qaeda announced that the number

of virgins a suicide bomber would receive after his death will be cut

by 25% next January from 72 to only 60. The rationale for the cut was

the increase in recent years of the number of suicide bombings and a

subsequent shortage of virgins in the afterlife.

The suicide bombers' union, the British Organization of Occupational

Martyrs (or B.O.O.M.) responded with a statement that this was

unacceptable to its members and immediately balloted for strike action.

General secretary Abdullah Amir told the press, "Our members are

literally working themselves to death in the cause of Jihad. We don't

ask for much in return but to be treated like this by management is a

kick in the teeth."

Mr. Amir accepted the limited availability of virgins but pointed out

that the cutbacks were expected to be borne entirely by the workforce

and not by management. "Last Christmas Abu Hamza alone was awarded an

annual bonus of 250,000 virgins," complains Amir. "And you can be sure

they'll all be pretty ones too. How can Al Qaeda afford that for

members of the management but not 72 for the people who do the real

work?"

Speaking from the shed in the West Midlands where he currently resides,

Al Qaeda chief executive Osama bin Laden explained, "We sympathize with

our workers' concerns but Al Qaeda is simply not in a position to meet

their demands. They are simply not accepting the realities of modern-

day jihad, in a competitive marketplace. Thanks to Western depravity,

there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife. It's a

straight choice between reducing expenditure and laying people off. I

don't like cutting wages but I'd hate to have to tell 3,000 of my staff

that they won't be able to blow themselves up." He defended management

bonuses by claiming these were necessary to attract good fanatical

clerics. "How am I supposed to attract the best people if I can't

compete with the private sector?" asked Mr. Bin-Laden.

Talks broke down this morning after management's last-ditch proposal of

a virgin-sharing scheme was rejected outright after a failure to agree

on orifice allocation quotas. One virgin, who refused to be named, was

quoted as saying "I'll be buggered if I'm agreeing to anything like

that........it's too much of a mouthful to swallow".

Unless some sort of agreement is reached over the weekend, suicide

bombers will down explosives at midday on Monday. Most branches are

supporting the strike. Only the North London branch, which has a

different union, is likely to continue working. However, some members

of that branch will only be using waist-down explosives in order to

express solidarity with their striking brethren.

Spokespersons in the North of England , Essex and the entire Australian

continent stated that this would not affect their operations as "There

are no virgins in their areas anyway".

[SSgt Viljuri]

Terrorists are so yesterday. British and German persons exhibiting their inner desires as tourists, oh dear...

Brits alone cause more financial damage in a year than all of the World's terrorists combined in hundred years.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

]... cut by 25% next January from 72 to only 60

My math gives thumbs down to that.

PS

WTF is up with the formatting of that post, anyway? I think it may be a crime in some nations. Seriously, press quote to see what I mean.

[Michael Emrys]

He obviously copied and pasted it lock, stock, and barrel including formatting from some website or other.

How vapid.

Michael

[Bongokid]

Hello,

I'll take advantage of this thread to enquire about the French 'surrender' jokes.

Although I am French, I am not offended at all by these mentions, its humor after all, but I feel really curious about where this came from in the first place.

Did it all started with the refusal to participate to 2nd gulf war ? or was something else.

Thanks for any insight !

Bongokid, a French fry emigrated to Kanuckland

[Stalins Organ]

He obviously copied and pasted it lock, stock, and barrel including formatting from some website or other.

From an email actualy

How vapid.

Michael

Better than being a humourless old goat

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Yeah, 2nd Gulf War seems to have triggered it. Special extra credit goes to Groundskeeper Willy from The Simpsons for the phrase "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys". Ofcourse that whole tribes of people now think this is a valid view on French history is a tad depressing.

[Bongokid]

Thanks Elmar,

This is recent then. Its funny it became so widespread so quickly.

Very funny initial post by the way

Bongokid

[Bigduke6]

I think the funny part is how a substantial portion of a major nation now views an important facet of own history, through the prism of a cartoon.

[Affentitten]

I would have said the French surrender thing stemmed from 1940 and their rapid capitulation despite quite reasonable numerical odds, followed by the Vichy collaboration.

[Michael Emrys]

I would have said the French surrender thing stemmed from 1940 and their rapid capitulation despite quite reasonable numerical odds, followed by the Vichy collaboration.

I think the funniest line to come from that branch of humor was a faux ad that read: "For sale: French army rifle. Never fired, dropped once."

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

I think the funny part is how a substantial portion of a major nation now views an important facet of own history, through the prism of a cartoon.

True, true...

Michael

[dieseltaylor]

Having seen the WW1 cemeteries all over France I can actually sympathise with the view that war is folly - another victory like WW1 would have beeen truly Phyrric.

Population 40 million - military losses 1.4m so a similar percentage to the German Empire [pop.64M] however the number of wounded at 4.2M each shows that proportionally France suffered more. Furthermore if half your population is women and of the male half are under 16 and over 50 then those injured and dead come from a small pool. Fag packet calculation suggests of the military age group every other man was wounded.

Wounded in this context I take to mean as suffering in some way however some analysis of the term is probably wise. I can say that wounded who died within 6 months of the war end were included in the wartime death results.

You wonder how many countries would have been gung-ho having suffered so badly previously. The Franch death rate was the highest percentage of all nations in WW1 if one excludes Serbia, Rumania, and the Ottoman Empire.

[Bongokid]

I think the funniest line to come from that branch of humor was a faux ad that read: "For sale: French army rifle. Never fired, dropped once."

Michael

Excellent one

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Having been to France a couple of times I've seen the village squares and their monuments. And no matter how small the village, there always is one and it's list of names is always longer then you would think possible.

Hence I find those jokes not all that amusing.

[Sergei]

Excellent one

Except it's taken from Full Metal Jacket in reference to ARVN, so not very original.

Of course the funniest thing is that prior to Gulf War Deux the US gub'nment was begging for the French to participate like they had in 1991 or at least to sanctify it in the UN security council, but after the frogs said non they went all "oh we'd never trust your help anyway, bah humbug and here's some Freedom Fries."

It's like a teenage boy who is turned down by the girl of his dreams, Tweeting afterwards: "I didn't want to date her anyway, she's a butt ugly butter troll and whoring around with the school's basketball team!"

I just wonder what they'd called the Brits if God didn't order Blair to support GWB's intentions?

[Elmar Bijlsma]

It's also funny to note that Germany who stood by France during that time escaped censure. Turns out the German war record was a good thing. :confused:

[Sergei]

Germany is not a permanent member of the UN security council, though, so it didn't matter as much.

[dieseltaylor]

In 1921 the New York Times* was reporting that German population growth was three times faster than the French. A cause for concern to the French. Their 1921 population was less than in 1881.

The beginning of systematic action in favour of the development of pronatalist and pro-family instruction in schools can be dated back to 1920 [3]. During that year, Fernand Boverat proposed a revision of education programmes to the Minister for Public Instruction that would include population issues at every level of schooling. On the basis of an evaluation of the demographic consequences of the war, the main representatives of large family leagues, such as Auguste Isaac, argued that an education programme was needed (De Luca, 2004a). The Alliance immediately mobilized its network to take charge of the matter. The presence of André Honnorat, an Alliance member, as Minister for Public Instruction also explains these first steps. What did the Alliance suggest through Boverat? For primary school pupils it recommended including questions on the population of France in programmes leading to the school certificate, and displaying posters illustrating depopulation on schoolroom walls. For secondary education, it suggested adding a course in the curriculum on the birth rate and death rate in France as compared with other European powers. These topics would also be studied in history, geography, philosophy, and mathematics, and were to be included in baccalauréat exams. For young girls, a dozen lectures on child-care were considered sufficient to awaken their interest in children. It seems that the Alliance took up the issue rather late, since in 1920 the Conseil supérieur de l’instruction publique (Senior council for public instruction) had already made significant progress on the reorganization of school curricula [4] (AN F17 13658 and 13670).

from

http://www.cairn.info/revue-population-english-2005-1-page-11.htm

*http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9400E0DE1E3CE533A25755C2A9649C946395D6CF

[Michael Emrys]

Having been to France a couple of times I've seen the village squares and their monuments. And no matter how small the village, there always is one and it's list of names is always longer then you would think possible.

Hence I find those jokes not all that amusing.

I have spent much of the last 54 years in the study of warfare, concentrating largely on the WW II era, and one thing that has struck me over and over is the tremendous investment of blood, treasure, and energy our species has demonstrated in the pursuit of mutual mayhem. The occasional raid for plunder, yeah, I can see a rationale for that. But the mutual destruction and wholesale dislocations of whole societies that have occurred for at least the last two millennia increasingly exceed my credulity.

Michael

[Stalins Organ]

Not just over there - in these parts there are small memorials in every town & "locality" initially put up in the 1920's mostly - the WW1 names are often on the front the WW2 ones added later!

I while back I was driving along & noticed a small "bridge to nowhere" just off the side of the road - it was named "ANZAC Bridge", might once have been part of the highway before it changes path. It listed 5 or 6 names of farmers from the area killed in WW1 - it was obviously still maintained - painted and with a little bit of old road maintained as access and a picnic area.

[Affentitten]

Having been to France a couple of times I've seen the village squares and their monuments. And no matter how small the village, there always is one and it's list of names is always longer then you would think possible.

Hence I find those jokes not all that amusing.

And those names are often just the dead. I was struck by the monument near my wife's home village that has a few dozen names "Mort pour la France". But then I think that there was probably at least 3 times as many wounded. And it's a fishing town. So that's an awful lot of guys who probably couldn't work any more. Hard to work in an Atlantic storm with only one leg. And extrapolating further, hard for a one-legged guy with no hope of a decent job to find a bride....

Imagine the ongoing cost to their society.

[Blackcat]

Bongokid,

Jokes from the English about French miltary prowess are nothing new. The current flavour as per the original post are mostly based on WWII, but they go back a lot further than that.

A few weeks ago the Daily Telegraph (a serious English national newspaper) carried an article about a medieval manuscrpt that has recently been disovered. It dates from about 1185 and is a 396 line poem of anti-French propaganda. The themes of cowardice, idleness and arrogance featured heavily - just as they do today.

Then again the French have their own set of joke themes about the English (my favourite anti-English joke cannot be repeated here, youngsters might read it).

It isn't surprisng as the English and French have been enemies for 1000 years and I don't suppose anything will change soon. Well, not until France restores Acquitain and Normandy.

[gunnergoz]

Our Russian friend Ivan has just heard that the President of Russia has drastically cut back on vodka production. Very agitated, he rushes home and guzzles down all the vodka left in the house. He's sitting, teary-eyed at the kitchen table with the old Makarov pistol pointed at his head, when his wife walks in and starts laughing hysterically at the sight.

"Go ahead and laugh, woman" says Ivan; "You're next."

[Sergei]

And those names are often just the dead. I was struck by the monument near my wife's home village that has a few dozen names "Mort pour la France". But then I think that there was probably at least 3 times as many wounded. And it's a fishing town. So that's an awful lot of guys who probably couldn't work any more. Hard to work in an Atlantic storm with only one leg. And extrapolating further, hard for a one-legged guy with no hope of a decent job to find a bride....

Come on, you know how most 17th century sailors had peg leg and a hook for a hand. And eye patch.

My grandfather lost both his legs in 1941. For a farmer that of course was tough, but he made a living as a taxi driver(!) and it didn't stop him from making two more sons after the war. But it took the support of my grandmother and other family and the society at large to do that. And while the experience must have been traumatic, he was lucky to overcome it. Back in the day knowledge and treatment of PSTD was still fledgling. Disability due to mental trauma was unlikely to get recognized by military doctors, and even then access to competent therapy was unlikely. And it must have been even worse in Europe right after WWI, what with all the economic and political turmoils in Germany etc.

But hey, without WWI we wouldn't have all the advances in prosthesis engineering or military psychiatry!