True Story* from Michigan, USA.

This guy buys a brand new Grand Cherokee for some 30 thousand dollars and has 400+ dollar monthly payments. He immediately gets a hold of his friend and they go do some male bonding. They go duck hunting and of course all the lakes are frozen. These 2 Atomic Brains go to the lake with the guns, the dog, the beer and of course the new vehicle. They drive out onto the lake ice and get ready.

Now, they want to make some kind of a natural landing area for the ducks, something for the decoys to float on. Remember, it's all ice and in order to make a hole large enough to look like something a wandering duck wants to fly down and land on, it is going to take a little more effort than a ice hole drill. Out of the back of the new Grand Cherokee comes a stick of dynamite with a short, 40 second fuse. Now these 2 Rocket Scientists do take into consideration that if they place the stick of dynamite on the ice at a location far from where they are standing (and the new Grand Cherokee), they take the risk of slipping on the ice when they run from the burning fuse and possibly going up in smoke with the resulting blast. So, they decide to light this 40 second fuse and throw the dynamite which is what they end up doing.

Remember a couple of paragraphs back when I mentioned the vehicle, the beer, the guns AND THE DOG? Yes, the dog. A highly trained Black Lab used for retrieving, especially things thrown by the owner. You guessed it, the dog takes off at a high rate of doggy speed on the ice and gets the stick of dynamite with the burning 40 second fuse about the time it hits the ice all to the woes of the 2 idiots yelling, stomping, waving arms and wondering what the hell to do now.

The dog, well it is happy and heads back from where it came from moments before, with the stick of dynamite, only to the mounting woes of the 2 bozo's now really waving their arms, yelling even louder and jumping to new heights than ever before. Now one of the guys decides to think, something that he has never done before this moment, grabs a shotgun and shoots the dog. The shotgun is loaded with #8 duck shot, hardly big enough to stop a Black Lab on its appointed rounds. Dog stops for a moment, slightly confused and continues on. Another shot and this time the dog, still standing, becomes really confused & of course scared, thinking these 2 Nobel Prize winners have gone insane and takes off to find cover, with the now really short short fuse burning on this stick of dynamite. The cover the dogs finds? Underneath the brand new Grand Cherokee 30 some thousand dollar 400+ monthly payment vehicle sitting on the lake ice.

BOOM !

Dog dies, and it and the brand new Grand Cherokee 30 some thousand dollar 400+ monthly payment vehicle sink to the bottom of the lake leaving the 2 candidates for Co-leaders of the Known Universe standing there with this "I can't believe this happened" look on their faces. Later, the owner of the vehicle calls his insurance company which tells him that sinking a vehicle in a lake by illegal use of explosives is not covered. He had yet to make the first of those 400+ a month payments.

Can somebody verify if this actually happened?

Sh?tty Sh?tty Bang Bang

The whole Shilpa Shetty incident is hilarious, to put it mildly. Of course, it's a disgrace to the nation, and my sympathies to her and all of that, but still, the way the media and two governments are treating this topic is just amazing! My, what patriotic fervour! I sincerely believed our government had slightly higher priority issues to discuss and comment on.

And Shilpa Shetty herself is surprisingly quiet in all of this. She has not come out to the media, never let herself be seen talking on this issue. The whole thing looks a bit dubious to me. Firstly, that she was there on that program to show-case 'Indian Culture' sounds incredulous to me. Now, we all know how excellent a forum to show-case your culture, a reality TV show is. A reality show, in reality is a cheap, trashy program that pays money to cheap, trashy has-been-in-the-limelight C-grade celebrities and wannabes of questionable talent and achievement (Note: I am not commenting on the character of the persons) to reveal how truly bitchy, dirty and foul-mouthed they are to a voyeuristic population that apparently laps up any shit that's thrown to them in the name of entertainment. Come on, we've seen this filth ourselves in our reality shows like 'Roadies' and the like. If Shilpa's secret ambition was to gain media attention and re-start her flagging celebrity lifestyle, she got more than her due share of it. There's nothing in India that sells like a plea for sympathy, and if you can make yourself look weak, subjugated and burdened while at it, you instantly become the perfect Bharatiya Naari in the eyes of the people. The blogosphere, the entire newspaper community, debaters, my grandmother's friends, the neighborhood dogs, every living being with a vocal cord suddenly has strong views on this topic.

Of course we cannot and will not tolerate racism or abuse, but somehow the credibility of the whole issue is shaky when the victim of the abuse has

a. chosen to be present in such an 'abusive' environment out of her own choice. (Nobody would have prevented her from walking off the sets at the first instance of abuse. She's not under house arrest for God's sake!)

b. been paid / is being paid / been promised a lot of money for appearing on the show.

c. has chosen to hide from the media and on no occasion, spoken to the press directly on this issue.

These trivial points are however of no significance to our media watchdogs and self appointed placard-weilding, effigy-burning Indian-Dignity-protecting brigade of 16 year old girls and boys who consider it their social responsibility to organize rallies and scream themselves hoarse. But what disappoints me is that, a government too has considered it necessary to react in much the same way.

American Byutee

The following text is an extract from one of the comments in the blog YesButNoButYes. To save you the trouble of clicking on that link, I copy-paste the funniest portions below.

The post was called Why People Think Americans Are Stupid and had a hilarious video too.

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up revocation in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up aluminium. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix ize will be replaced by the suffix ise. You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up vocabulary. Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up interspersed. There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.
2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.
3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney,upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as Taggart will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is Devon. If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become shires e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as Men behaving Badly or Red Dwarf will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You should stop playing American football. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American football is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays American football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders,your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called rounders, which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.
7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called Indecisive Day.
9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time,you will go metric with immediate effect and conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.
11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.
12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer,and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. The substances formerly known as American Beer will henceforth be referred to as Near-Frozen Knat's Urine,with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as Weak Near-Frozen Knat's Urine. This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen,Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.
13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or Gasoline, as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon- get used to it).
14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapistthen you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.
15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.
16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation and have a great day.
John Cleese

I was in splits, reading points 1, 6, 9 and 12. Brilliant writing!

One of the responses to this comment was by Dr.J, who said:

Mr Cleese (if you are truly who you say you are and I believe you are
because few others would be clever enough to make such a statement), I agree. Well, almost. I must take exception to several points. I think that driving on the left side will make most of us Americans dizzy, which, for driving, especially for driving an American car, is a dangerous state to be in, especially if driving a Ford (you call them Jaguars), which sometimes explode by themselves. I don’t think we should have to pay revenues going back to 1776. That’s just too expensive. If we do that we would not be able to invade random countries which is very costly, especially if we are required to put them back together again after destroying them. Actually, I don’t think we should have to put them back together again because it really takes the fun out of destroying them knowing that soon after we will have to put them together again. No fun at all. I don’t know much about lager, beer, bitters, or brew, but the thought of some warm, flat fermented substance being poured down throats in establishments near to my home is about as appealing as the thought of dirty, sweaty people sucking on each others toes. And finally, I have but one request. If we really must have a Minister for America, would you please do us that honour?
DrJ

I liked that very much.

Crapometer warning: Incidentally, this is the 51st post!