Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
--Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915)
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Genre: Bar & Drinking Jokes

There was a man sitting at a bar, and he looks over at the gentleman sitting next to him and says,
"Hey, you look familiar.Are you from around here?" The man answers, "Yeah, I live down the street."

"No kidding?" says the first man, "Well, so do I. And hey, you look about my age. Where did you go to high school?"

"Oh I went to Francis Lewis over on Utopia. Graduated in '66.
How 'bout you?"

"Get out. I went to Francis Lewis. And I graduated in '66, too." "Where'd you go to college?"
"Beloit, in Wisconsin."

"No way! I went to Beloit too. What dorm?"

"Kevin Sullivan dorm."

"Sullivan? You're not going to believe this . . ."

Joe the bartender walks over, and the first guy says, "Joe, you won't believe it in a million years. This guy went to the same high school as me, graduated the same year I did, and went to the same college. We were even in the same dorm. Isn't that amazing?"

Joe looks at them both and says, "Yeah, that's just plain amazing."

A third man comes in and says, "Hey Joe. What's new?" Joe says, "Not much. The Johnson twins are drunk again."
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Inside the mind of Saddam Hussein
Lorraine Passchier, CTV News, January 3, 2003

The ultimate fate of Saddam Hussein, the world's most notorious control freak, may ultimately be decided by U.S. President George W. Bush, the son of an old foe.

Both men's biographies and narratives are the stuff of mythology, but the conflict between these two men -- and their countries -- is seen by many experts as almost tribal, on some levels. [...]

... The Iraqi president was born in 1937 in the small village of al-Awja just outside Takrit. Hussein's own father either died or abandoned the family. His stepfather repeatedly beat him, and forced the young boy to work on the small family farm.

There were no close bonds, no one he could count on, and no one he could trust. Spurned on by a desire to become literate, Hussein ran away when he was 10 to live with his uncle Khayrallah Tulfah.

His uncle, a firebrand who spent five years in jail for his nationalistic leanings, introduced Hussein to a new world. The young man was soon steeped in Arab history and his uncle's tales. Chosen heroes were drawn from the far past: Saladin (famous for having recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in the 12th century) and Nebuchadnezzar
(considered the most powerful of all the Babylonian kings, whose army made a similar conquest of Jerusalem in B.C. 598).

Hussein gravitated into politics as a teen and joined the socialist Baath party at 19. Three years later, he participated in the 1959 assassination attempt against Iraqi Prime Minister Abudul Karim Kassim. Even though he was shot during the botched assassination, Hussein was not deterred.

In 1968, Hussein was part of the revolt that brought the Baath party to power under General Ahmed Hassan Bakr. He assumed the post of vice president and built a network of secret police to root out and murder dozens of government officials suspected of disloyalty. Eleven years later in 1979, Hussein moved into the top spot when he toppled Bakr.

A brutal life in politics: When his country was at war with Iran in the 1980s, he asked his cabinet ministers to give their advice. His Harvard-trained minister of health suggested that Hussein should temporarily step aside until peace was restored. Hussein reportedly thanked him and then ordered his arrest.

When his wife begged for his return, her husband's body was chopped into small pieces and delivered to her in a canvas bag. That was in 1982 and few inside his inner circle have challenged him since. [...]

The narcissistic borders of Hussein's world are legendary. A 600-page hand-lettered copy of the Koran on display in a Baghdad museum was written with Hussein's blood, which was donated a pint at a time. He plastered the streets with massive portraits of himself when he ousted Bakr.

The six-week Gulf War left his country in ruins. Sewage systems and telephone lines were out, electrical grids were down, and Hussein found himself in an underground bunker. He emerged from the ruins convince he had won the war.

When his old foe, the senior George Bush, lost the 1992 presidential election, Hussein stood on the palace balcony and fired his gun in celebration. [...]

Hussein usually begins his days by swimming laps. At six foot two, he remains an imposing figure although he now walks with a limp. Dye keeps his hair jet black and his former lover says he enhanced their sexual encounters with Viagra. In recent years, he has replaced his military uniforms with well-cut suits.

Like Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, he has spent most of his political life sleeping in a different location each night. He drinks warm milk with honey, eats plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, and prefers fish to meat. But details of his living habits have failed to crack the code that dictates his thought process. [...]
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 8:30 pm