A scientist finally succeeded in cloning himself, but all his clone would do was sit around and swear. After a week of this, the scientist got fed up and pushed his clone out of the 10th-storey office window. A short time later there was a knock on his office door. The scientist opened it to find a policeman who said, "I'm going to have to arrest you for making an obscene clone fall." _______________________________

There were three legionnaires walking through the desert under a baking sun. They were fully equipped with enough water for days, and had food aplenty. On the shimmering horizon mirages came and went and came again, visions of swimming pools attended by dusky maidens, stalls full of ice-cream, sorbets, freshly-whipped smoothies of every conceivable flavour.

But all to no avail, as the legionnaires did not crack, but kept marching solidly on. Suddenly one of them froze, "Psssst" said he. His companions halted, and strained their eyes to where the first legionnaire was pointing "Le voila", said he, "Regardez, mes amis, isn't zat a bacon tree on ze 'orizon" ? And sure enough, there it stood, proud and defiant in the middle of the desert, a true bacon tree. Slowly they crept forward towards the mystery object far off, inch by inch, centimetre by centimetre, until they were within a stone's throw of the bacon tree. Even nearer they crept, and suddenly, a shot rang out, dropping one of the legionnaires in his tracks.

The other legionnaires hit the ground as bullets thudded into the sand around them. The other two returned fire, and gave first aid to their wounded companion. Even as they bandaged him, and poured water over his face, they could hear his faint voice: "Zat was no bacon tree," he gasped, "Zat was an 'ham bush."

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000

Answers

And another....

Sure Bet

Charlie was a regular visitor at the racetrack. One afternoon he noticed an unusual sight. Right before the first race, a Catholic priest visited one of the horses in the stable area and gave it a blessing. Charlie watched the horse race very carefully, and sure enough the blessed horse came in first!

Charlie followed the priest before the next stables and performed a similar procedure. Charlie played a hunch and put a couple of dollars on the blessed horse. Sure enough the blessed horse came in by two lengths and Charlie won close to fifty bucks! The priest continued the same procedure through the next few races and Charlie won each time.

He was now ahead $1000, so between races Charlie left the track and went to the bank and withdraw his life's savings - $20,000. The biggest race of the day was the last one. Charlie followed the priest and watched carefully which horse he blessed. He then went to the betting window and put his whole $21,000 bundle of cash on that horse to win. Then Charlie went out to watch the horses race. Down the stretch they came, and as they crossed the finish line, the horse Charlie's fortune was bet on was dead last.

Charlie was crushed. He located the priest and told him that he had been watching him bless the horses all day, and they all became winners except the last horse on which he had bet his life savings. Charlie then asked, "What happened to the last horse which you blessed? Why didn't it win like the others?"

"That's the trouble with you Protestants," sighed the priest. "You can never tell the difference between a blessing and the Last Rites..."

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000