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Q and A Christmas Jokes
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Dec 10, 2006 1:57 am
345 Views
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Q: What do elves learn in school?
A: The Elf-abet!
Q: What's the most popular wine at Christmas?
A: "I don't like sprouts" !
Q: If athletes get athletes foot, what do astronauts get?
A: Missletoe!
Q: What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?
A: Frostbite.
Q: Why was Santa's little helper depressed?
A: Because he had low elf esteem.
Q: Why does Santa have 3 gardens?
A: So he can ho-ho-ho.
Q: Where do polar bears vote?
A: The North Poll.
Q: What do you get when you cross an archer with a gift-wrapper?
A: Ribbon hood.
Q: Why do birds fly south for the winter ?
A: Because it's to far to walk.
Q: What was wrong with the boy's brand new toy electric train set he received for Christmas?
A: Forty feet of track - all straight!
Q: What kind of bird can write?
A: A PENguin.
Q: How does Al Gore's household keep Christmas politically correct?
A: On Christmas morning, they give the presents TO the tree.
Q: What do you call a cat on the beach at Christmas time?
A: Sandy Claus!
Q: How do sheep in Mexico say Merry Christmas?
A: Fleece Navidad!
Q: What nationality is Santa Claus?
A: North Polish.
Q: Why does Santa's sled get such good mileage?
A: Because it has long-distance runners on each side.
Q: What do you call a bunch of grandmasters of chess bragging about their games in a hotel lobby?
A: Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer!
Q: What do you get if you deep fry Santa Claus?
A: Crisp Cringle.
Q: What did the ghosts say to Santa Claus?
A: We'll have a boo Christmas without you.
Q: What did Santa shout to his toys on Christmas Eve?
A: Okay everyone, sack time!!
Q: What do snowmen eat for breakfast?
A: Snowflakes.
Q: If Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus had a child, what would he be called?
A: A subordinate claus.
Q: Why did the elf push his bed into the fireplace?
A: He wanted to sleep like a log.
Q: Why did Santa spell Christmas N-O-E?
A: Because the angel had said, "No L!"
Q: What goes Ho, Ho, Swoosh, Ho, Ho, Swoosh?
A: Santa caught in a revolving door!
Q: Why does Santa Claus go down the chimney on Christmas Eve?
A: Because it " soots " him!
Q: What do you do if Santa gets stuck in your chimney?
A: Pour Santa flush on him.
Q: Did you hear that one of Santa's reindeer now works for Proctor and Gambel?
A: Its true . . . Comet cleans sinks!
Q: What do you call people who are afraid of Santa Claus?
A: Claustrophobic.
Q: Why does Scrooge love Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?
A: Because every buck is dear to him.
Q: How come you never hear anything about the 10th reindeer "Olive" ?
A: Yeah, you know, "Olive the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names"
Q: Why did the little girl change her mind about buying her grandmother a packet of handkerchiefs for Christmas?Q: Olive ?
A: Yeah, you know, "Olive the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names"
Q: Why is Christmas just like a day at the office?
A: You do all the work and the fat guy with the suit gets all the credit.
Q: Olive?
A: Yeah, you know, "Olive the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names"
Q: What was so good about he neurotic doll the girl was given for Christmas?
A: It was wound up already.
Q: What's a good holiday tip?
A: Never catch snowflakes with your tongue until all the birds have gone south for the winter.
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Girl at the heart of global family feud
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Dec 9, 2006 9:01 am
331 Views
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<----Misbah
Part 111
Girl at the heart of global family feud
By Barbara Plett
BBC News, Islamabad
Misbah (centre) says it is a relief to be back with her family in Pakistan
The late afternoon sun is warm, but not hot. Misbah Rana is laughing as she plays a game of badminton with her brother at her home in a leafy suburb of the Pakistani city of Lahore.
At least, it is her home for now. The 12-year-old girl, also known as Molly Campbell in the UK, is at the heart of a custody clash that pits British against Pakistani law and defies conventional scenarios of child abduction.
Misbah was living on the isle of Lewis, off with west coast of Scotland, with her mother, Louise Fairley, but left at the end of August and flew to Pakistan with her sister Tahmina and father, Sajad Rana.
The distraught Ms Fairley made an emotional appeal through the media, claiming that her daughter had been taken by force. Since then Misbah and Mr Rana have been trying to prove her wrong.
"This life is the best life anybody can have," says Misbah. "There's nothing you can do there (in the UK) that you can't do here. Over here you are free, over there we get racial abuse, we get called Pakis and that, and over here, it's fun, it's wicked here."
Privileged life
There's a fountain on one side of the spacious yard, an eight-bedroom house, and a pet goat tethered next to a coop of chickens and pigeons.
It's a privileged life by Pakistani standards, and quite a change from the cramped home of Misbah's mother.
If the courts tell me to go back I'll run away again
Misbah Rana
There are other differences too. Misbah says she was lonely when she was living on the Scottish island.
"I didn't have anyone related to me except my mum, everybody would be saying, 'Oh my dad bought me this, and oh my sister gave me this for my birthday present,' and I'd be like, yeah I wish my sister was here, I wish my dad was here, and I wish my brothers were here."
Misbah says she was uncomfortable with the lifestyle of her mother, who has left the Muslim faith. And she adds that it is a relief to be back with the rest of her family.
How long she will stay is the question that now needs to be answered.
In the ornate red brick compound housing the city's high court, a judge is preparing to decide where her home should be.
Misbah's mother has custody in Scotland, and has filed a petition to get her back. She says Misbah was taken to Pakistan illegally.
Legal battle
Misbah's father argues that it is easier to raise his daughter as a Muslim in Pakistan, and says he wants her to be where she is happy.
Misbah lives a relatively privileged life in Pakistan
Custody disputes over children brought from Britain to Pakistan are not uncommon. The two countries signed an agreement in 2003 to help each other resolve more than 300 cases every year.
But few if any of the children are as vocal about what they want as Misbah.
"If I have to go back I'll be angry," she says. "I absolutely don't want to live with my mum, it's absolutely obvious that I want to live with my dad. If the courts tell me to go back I'll run away again."
It is the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, and the family in Pakistan breaks the fast together each day.
Misbah takes her seat next to her father, brother and sister in a large airy dining room with windows from floor to ceiling. They pray before passing out dates and pouring glasses of juice.
Misbah says she is sure about where she belongs. But this family fight has turned into an international legal battle that is bigger than the wishes of a 12-year old child.
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Father versus mother
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Dec 9, 2006 1:15 am
298 Views
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Police recently received a frantic call from a Filipina who reported that someone was trying to kidnap her daughter in Salmiya. When police arrived at the scene, they found out that the kidnappers were just the girl's Kuwaiti father and his brother. During interrogations, the man said that his wife had ditched him and fled from their house taking the child with her a few days earlier. He added that he spotted them in Salmiya and tried to take his daughter back, but she called police and accused him of kidnapping. The husband also said that as the husband and sponsor of his wife, he had cancelled her residency and that she was now illegally living in Kuwait. He demanded deporting her. The wife however said that she intended to appeal to get exempted from deportation. Officials said she would have been granted exemption if she had been married according to Sunni rites which rule that the child should be in her custody, whereas the father would be granted custody of children below 11 years according to Shiite rites.
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Pain of Afghan suicide women
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Dec 9, 2006 12:19 am
291 Views
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By Payenda Sargand
Gulsoom was unconscious for a week
Gulsoom is 17-years-old and married. Last year she tried to commit suicide - she failed.
She set fire to herself but, against the odds, survived with appalling injuries.
Her plight reflects that of a growing number of young Afghan women, campaigners say.
Driven to desperation by forced marriages and abusive husbands, more and more are seeking release through self-immolation.
Gulsoom was engaged at the age of 12. Three years later her family married her to a man aged 40 who she says was addicted to drugs.
She was then taken to Iran. Her husband beat her regularly, Gulsoom says, particularly when he had no money for heroin.
"Once after I was badly beaten by my husband, I was in bed when I heard a voice murmuring and telling me to go and set fire to myself," she says.
"I went and poured petrol on my whole body. The flames on my body lasted for minutes. After eight days I found myself conscious in bed.
"I cared about my father's dignity - that's why I tolerated everything."
'No one will marry me'
Gulsoom has had many operations since she divorced her husband and faces many more.
When I wore nice clothes my husband showed jealousness
Gulsoom, 17
Women seek death by fire
Fighting for the right to sing
She's not alone - there are hundreds of other women who have tried and failed to kill themselves.
Some women do manage to end their lives, but many survive with huge burns to their faces and bodies, like Gulsoom.
In many cases they have no choice but to return to the husband and the abuse from which they sought escape.
Gulsoom looks hopelessly at her scarred hands saying her only wish now is to be made better, although she says no one will marry her again with her burnt skin.
"When I wore nice clothes my husband showed jealousness," she recalls.
Forced marriages, a culture of family violence and many other social problems are given as causes for the suicides.
Afghan women have long had to suffer violence or mysterious deaths. Even now girls are still handed over in disputes or as compensation in murder cases.
Publicising abuse
The BBC's Salmi Suhaili, who works on women-related issues, says women taking their lives is not a new phenomenon in what is traditionally a very conservative society.
Monireh's story
But the rise of a civil society and a free media is helping to publicise their acts, he says.
Figures given by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission show that more women burned themselves to death this year in the southern province of Kandahar than anywhere else in the country.
Last year, Herat in the west - where most girls marry at around 15 - was top.
Deputy minister of women's affairs Maliha Sahak says that 197 incidents of self-immolation have been recorded since March 2006, 35 of them in Kandahar province alone. A total of 69 women lost their lives.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan says that Kandahar's only hospital for women, which has 40 beds, received 29 cases of suicide in the space of two months. Twenty of those women had set themselves alight.
Independent Human Rights Commission head Sima Samar regrets that, five years after the Taleban were ousted, Afghan women are still suffering violence in its various forms.
She says suicide is the final decision for women who don't have any other way to solve their problems or escape abuse.
Changing mindsets
The commission has been working with the Medica Mondiale agency to try to overcome cultural obstacles and give women more of a voice.
Campaigners say violence against women must not remain hidden or it will not stop.
Deputy women's minister Maliha Sahak points to last year's protocol involving many Afghan ministries, the Supreme Court and the human rights commission.
It was passed with President Hamid Karzai's approval and banned the marriage of a woman if she is under 18 years old.
She says another law is in the pipeline which will require agreement from both man and woman for their wedding to be legal.
The women's ministry is to mount an awareness campaign targeting men in an attempt to reduce the violence.
After decades of war, Afghanistan's civil society is still in its infancy.
Those trying to end violence against women face many years of struggle to change fundamental elements of tradition and culture, as well as so-called Afghan dignity.
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God king
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Dec 8, 2006 11:58 pm
282 Views
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God king pays tax for first time
King Gyanendra of Nepal and his son, Crown Prince Paras, have been forced to pay tax - for the first time in the history of the monarchy.
Officials at Kathmandu's international airport say the king and the prince were charged customs duties on imported goods this week.
The king, revered as a Hindu god by many followers, had his powers stripped away by the government this year.
He was forced to surrender absolute power after weeks of street protests.
Previous constitutions have exempted the king from paying tax. But in May, parliament removed the exemption.
'According to law'
"The customs office at the Tribhuvan International Airport charged a total of 130,893 rupees ($1,817 dollars) as duty and tax to release 50 torches and a hunting trophy," Lok Darshan Regmi, the head of the airport customs department said, the AFP news agency reports.
"Palace officials took away the parcel after paying the amount Wednesday. We imposed the tax according to the law," Mr Regmi said.
It is not clear why the king wanted so many torches.
The BBC's Charles Haviland in Kathmandu says the tax payment is the latest in a series of humiliating blows for the king.
His extensive lands are to be nationalised. Parliament has also taken on the right to decide who succeeds to the throne if the monarchy survives.
King Gyanendra seized power in a royal coup in 2005, saying that the civilian government was failing to deal with the Maoist insurgency.
But the Maoists and a seven-party opposition grouping formed an alliance to end his rule.
A constituent assembly is due to be established next year that will decide on whether the monarchy should be abolished.
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UN urges freedoms for Arab women
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Dec 8, 2006 11:37 pm
250 Views
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Discrimination against women is holding back economic and social development across the Arab World, a report by the UN's development agency says.
Arab women must be given greater access to education, employment, health care and public life, the report says.
The Arab Human Development Report is an annual overview compiled by Arab academics and experts in the field.
Islam is not to blame for the problem, the report says, but rather political inflexibility, male domination and war.
Disadvantaged
The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the Unite Nations Development Programme's report, entitled Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World, reveals deep-seated discrimination against women across the region.
Maternal mortality rates remain unacceptably high and women suffer more overall ill-health than men.
The rise of women is in fact a prerequisite for an Arab renaissance
Arab Human Development Report 2005
Maternal mortality rates average 270 per 100,000 live births, but this rises to 1,000 in the Arab League's poorest countries.
In all but four Arab countries, fewer than 80% of girls go to secondary school.
Half of all women are illiterate compared to one-third of men.
But there are exceptions. In Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, more girls go to school than boys.
And across the region, girls appear to make up more than half the top-scoring pupils, despite the disadvantages they face.
"Arab countries stand to reap extraordinary benefits from giving men and women equal opportunities to acquire and utilise knowledge," the report says.
Masculine culture
In public life, though, women's involvement is very limited: they make up an average of only about 10% of members of parliament, for example - the lowest proportion in the world.
The Arab experts and academics writing this, the fourth, annual AHDR suggest that some Islamic law should be re-examined to reflect modern Arab societies.
The authors also challenge the belief, often heard in the West, that Islam is the main reason for discrimination.
Instead they say a deep-seated masculine culture, conservative and inflexible political forces, conflict and, in some cases, foreign occupation are to blame.
"The rise of women is in fact a prerequisite for an Arab renaissance," the report concludes.
"At a time when the Arab world needs to build and tap the capabilities of all its peoples, fully half its human potential is often stifled or neglected."
The solution should lie in short-term affirmative action to expand women's participation and longer term, sustained collective action that would benefit of the whole region.
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Miss Universe Pageant Q & A.
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Dec 8, 2006 7:21 am
239 Views
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The SETTING: Pageant Night Ms. Universe Beauty Pageant Q & A Portion
THE FINALISTS:
Ms. America
Ms. Spain
Ms. Britain
Ms. Iran
Ms. India
Ms. Philippines
QUESTION: Ms. America, how would you describe a male organ in your country?
MS. AMERICA: Well, I would say that , male organs in America are like gentlemen.
QUESTION: Why do you say that?
MS. AMERICA: Because it stands every time it sees a woman.
(Applause...Applause)
QUESTION: Ms. Spain, how would you describe a male organ in your country?
MS. SPAIN: Male organs in our country are like toros in our very own bullfight.
QUESTION: Why do you say that?
MS. SPAIN: Because it charges every time it sees an opening.
(Applause....Applause)
QUESTION: Ms. Britain, how would you describe a male organ in your country?
MS. BRITAIN: Male organs in our country are like Shakespearian actors.
QUESTION: Why do you say that?
MS. BRITAIN: Because it cries after every performance.
(Applause...Applause)
QUESTION: Ms. Iran, how would you describe a male organ in your country?
MS. IRAN: Well. I can say that male organs in Iran are like thieves.
QUESTION: And why do you say that?
MS. IRAN: Because they always enter through the back door.
(Applause...Applause)
QUESTION: Ms. India, how would you describe a male organ in your country?
MS. INDIA: Well, I can say that a male organ in India is like a laborer.
QUESTION: Why do you say that?
MS. INDIA: Because it works day & night.
(Applause...Applause)
QUESTION: Ms. Philippines, how would you describe a male organ in your country?
MS. PHILIPPINES: Ahh... well, opcors, hihihi... I can say dat male organs in our country are like chismis!
QUESTION: Chismis?
MS. PHILIPPINES: Ayy! Sorry... it's ano, ahh kuwan... it means GOSSIP in our language.
QUESTION: Hmm... interesting comparison. And why do you say that?
MS. PHILIPPINES: Ayy... dyahe! Hihihi! Kasi... I mean... Because... it passes from mouth to mouth.
(STANDING OVATION!)
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Bad luck!!!!
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Dec 8, 2006 3:10 am
250 Views
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"Wearing new shoes on Christmas Day will bring bad luck."
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To link to this blog (celia2005) use [blog celia2005] in your messages.
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