From:	IN%"SEWALL@UCONNVM.bitnet"  "Murph Sewall" 21-JAN-1991 04:54:34.25
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Subj:	Another submission from the archives of Henry Cate III

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From: Murph Sewall <SEWALL@UCONNVM.bitnet>
Subject: Another submission from the archives of Henry Cate III
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Assuming they catch Noriega and bring him back for a conviction on the
drug charges, I have the perfect community-service job for him:
 
Opening mail for Federal judges.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
Heard on the radio this morning :
 
It all started when Bush anounced a million dollar award for Noriega.
 
Now the Columbian Cartel has offered thirty million for Bush.
 
Rumour has it that the price for Quayle has gone up to a dollar ninety five.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
Q:  Why did Noriega have to leave the Vatican Embassy?
 
A:  He ran out of money playing bingo.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
Who's the most confused person in the world today?
 
The Romanian ambassador to Panama.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
	The current record breaking cold snap and invasion of Panama
   have started a new series of Volunteer Army Ads:
 
Scene 1:
 
	Shot of Anytown USA city streets enveloped in a Blizzard of snow with
   hooded figures slipping and slipping between crawling traffic.
 
	Narrator: "Why put up with this ?"
 
Scene 2:
 
	Shot of Central Panama airport with t-shirt and bathing suit clad
   Panamanian people welcoming an incoming army air-transport full of troops
   (troops are being given Hawaiian leis etc.)
 
	Narrator:  "Sign up now and you can spend Christmas in Panama.
   This beautiful canal zone has 80 degree temperatures, friendly people,
   and great scenes."
 
	Woman's soft Voice:  "We'll fly you down in a luxurious wide body jet.
   Upon landing you'll be given food for two weeks, a flak jacket, mosquito
   repellent, sun-screen and five grenades."
 
	Woman's dreamy Voice:  "Yes - you may even win the 1 Million dollar
   grand prize - just find Noriega and turn him in.   Not only will you receive
   the $1,000,000 bounty, you'll be able to sell the T.V., movie and book rights
   to your story as well as collect $25,000 speaker fees."
 
	Narrator: "Sign up now!  This may be a limited time offer.  Certain
   restrictions and risks apply."
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
Heard on a local radio program......
 
And  coming up in the news,  further  reports  from West  Germany on the
historic  meeting  between  the Mayors of West and East  Berlin at a new
gate in the wall, near the Brandenburg Gate.  The meeting began with the
two officials exchanging greetings, and then, as a gesture of good will,
the Mayor of East Germany handed over the 650,000 tennis balls that they
had accumulated over the last 28 years.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
(True story)
A recently emigrated Romanian was lost, and called his
American host from a phone booth. The host asked him,
"Where are you?" The lost man replied, "I don't know."
The host told him, "Well, find a street sign." The lost
Romanian left the phone booth briefly, found a sign,
returned and said, "Una Vye street." (This is how you
would pronounce "One Way" in Romanian.)
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
>According to "All Things Considered" last night, Visa International
>will be issuing Visa debit cards in Czechslovakia and Lithuania.
>Regular credit cards will be considered in the future.
>
>Question: What does the well dressed East European Yuppie carry?
>
>Answer: The Visa Red Card, of course!
 
Well, it's about time, considering all the trouble they've had
caching Czechs over there since around 1968.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
   From "Dear Abby" newspaper column-
 
  Dear Abby:  I have always wanted to have my family history traced, but I
can't afford to spend a lot of money to do it.  Any suggestions?
  -Sam in Califoria
 
  Dear Sam:  Yes. Run for public office.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
Q:  How many Bureaucrates does it take to screw in a light bulb?
 
A:  Two.  One to tell you that all that can be is done is being
    done; and one to screw it into the water faucet.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
How about:
difference between a liberal democrat and a communist
is the only difference between a liberal democrat and a communist is that
the comunist knows what she is doing
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
Difference between a Conservative & a Liberal:
A Liberal is a Conservative who has just been arrested.
A Conservative is a Liberal who has just been mugged.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
New simplified tax form:
 
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                          |
|     U.S Income Tax Calculation and Remittance Form       Taxation Year   |
|     (Simplified)   Form #1990-1a                              1989       |
|                                                                          |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                                                       |                  |
|                                                       |                  |
|     How much money did you make?                      |   $_______.___   |
|                                                       |                  |
|                                                       |                  |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                                                       |                  |
|                                                       |                  |
|     Send it in!                                       |   $_______.___   |
|                                                       |                  |
|                                                       |                  |
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
from The New Yorker, Jan. 15, 1990
 
		    CLEAR DAYS ON THE I.R.S. SCENE
    [From Publication 590, Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs)]
 
	       If your life expectancy or that of your spouse, is
	refigured annually  and either of you dies, the remaining
	life expectancy of the one who died is reduced to zero in
	the year after death.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
(From "News of the Weird")
 
Kalvin Chambers, released from Arlington (Va.) County Jail at 12:03 p.m. on
Oct. 24, allegedly tried to steal a woman's purse on the street outside the
jail at 12:17 and was back behind bars by 12:40.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
(From "News of the Weird")
 
Baltimore police arrested Thomas Waddell, 25, in October for stealing 30
homing pigeons, valued at several hundred dollars, from a neighbor.  An
officer had found him walking oddly down the street because 21 of the
pigeons were stuffed in his clothes.  The office said, "He looked like
the Michelin tire ad."
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
I say one that was posted a few years ago near our legislative building in
Winnipeg.  It looked something like this:
 
 
 
    +------------------+
    |                  |
    |     ????????     |
    |    ??????????    |
    |   ???      ???   |
    |            ???   |
    |           ???    |
    |         ???      |
    |       ???        |
    |       ???        |
    |                  |
    |       ???        |
    |       ???        |
    |                  |
    |          >>      |
    |          >>>     |
    |  >>>>>>>>>>>>>   |
    |          >>>     |
    |          >>      |
    |                  |
    +------------------+
 
To this day, I'm still not sure I want to make that right turn...After all,
even the provincial government doesn't know.
 
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
I like the photo of the octagonal STOP sign with, just beneath it,
a "No Stopping Any Time".
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
>   I saw a sign by the St. Louis Arch that said
>             NO PARKING BEYOND THIS POINT
>  The funny part about it was it was it was out in about 3ft. of water
>  I don't know about you but I really don't need a sign to tell me
>  not to park out beyond three ft. of water. And this was even a
>  time that the water was down at its 20yr lowest
 
Ah, but St. Louis is a pretty old city, and that Mississippi, she moves
around a bit.  I grew up in St. Louis and it occurs to me that downtown
starts around 5th street because 1st-4th are under water!
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
Dave Barry's Proposals to Eliminate the Budget Deficit:
 
(These are winners of a recent contest Dave Barry held, seeking creative
ways to eliminate the budget deficit.)
 
Convert the federal budget deficit to electrical voltage - the bigger the
deficit, the higher the voltage - and then run the current through our
congresspersons.
 
A $10 million Roman Numeral tax on movies!  For example "Rambo IV" would
cost Stallone $40 million.  I'm not sure whether reducing the number of
movie sequels would be a side benefit or the main benefit.
 
The U.S. government should sell its secrets directly to the Russians
and cut out the middlemen.
 
----------------------------------------------------
 
From Telecom Digest V10 #12:
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 0:31:10 CST
From: TELECOM Moderator <telecom@eecs.nwu.edu>
Subject: A Bad Time to Fall Asleep
 
 
There were simpler times in the history of telephony, and simpler
problems to deal with.
 
During the several years I lived in the Hyde Park neighorhood on the
south side of Chicago during the 1960's, my favorite neighbor was
Lauri Fermi, widow of Enrico Fermi, known for his work on the Atomic
Bomb.  Mrs. Fermi and I lived in the same apartment building on East
56th Street, directly across the street from the Museum of Science and
Industry, and we chatted and dined together frequently.
 
In the fall of 1965, on the occassion of the twentieth anniversary of
the completion and first testing of the bomb, Mrs. Fermi told a
fascinating story of that summer day, twenty years earlier. Her
comments were tape-recorded, and are transcribed below:
 
"The testing was of course kept closely under wraps, you know, the
government was awfully sensitive about it. All the papers were giving
reports that a monster-like weapon was in the final testing stages,
but some of the newspaper accounts were ridiculous. Enrico was given
his orders only two days earlier as to exactly where we were to be
stationed in the test zone area. Even the local people in New Mexico
were told as little as possible; I think the governor and some state
officials were told, and sworn to secrecy.
 
"In Alamogordo, we checked into the hotel then drove out to where
Enrico had been assigned. It was set up that the scientists were
deployed over about a two hundred square mile area; we were about
fifteen miles from the target.
 
"The test was set for 4:30 AM the next morning, so we returned to the
hotel and went to bed early. We got up at 3 the next morning and drove
out to the location, since it took about an hour to set up the test
gear Enrico would use....I suppose it was about 4:15, when a fierce
rain storm developed. It lasted only five or ten minutes, but was
quite a downpour, and Enrico remarked he hoped nothing would go wrong
with the test because of it.
 
"Well, the time came and went, everything was quiet, no bomb, nothing.
About 4:45, Enrico decided we had better return to town and see what
was what, and we drove back. He wanted to make a phone call and see if
the test had been cancelled or not, and the only place open in town at
that time of night was the hotel where we had stayed. There was a
payphone in the lobby, and Enrico went in the booth, but he didn't get
anywhere. I heard him flashing the hook and swearing softly, then he
came out and said he could not get the operator. (Alamogordo had
manual service at that time, just a small switchboard.)
 
"We got in the car, and Enrico had me drive while he leaned out the
window and kept looking overhead at the phone wires. He'd have me turn
down one street, then turn back up another street, and finally he said
pull the car over and stop.
 
"Where we stopped was in front of a house on one of the residential
streets there, but what looked odd to me was on the side of the house,
there were hundreds of wires converging, coming in from a dozen
telephone poles which all seemed to meet in the back yard or on the
side of the house. And all these wires came down out of the sky you
might say, and went in the side of the house in a big bundle.
 
"The front porch light was burning, and when we went up on the front
porch, the front door was open, but the screen door was latched from
the inside. A radio was playing music very softly, and the room was
rather dim with just a single light burning. A switchboard sat on one
side of the room, and the signal lights on it were flashing off and on
like Christmas tree lights. Over by the other corner was a sofa, and
a woman was laying on the sofa, obviously sound asleep. This was right
about five o'clock, I guess, or a few minutes after.
 
"Enrico banged on the screen door a few times, then kicked it once or
twice with his foot. All of a sudden, the lady woke up; she looked
over at us very startled, standing at the door; she looked over at the
switchboard; looked back at us; jumped up and rushed over to the board
and sat down, pausing long enough to light a cigarette and she started
frantically answering all the flashing signals.
 
"We got back in the car, and drove out to where we had been before. We
were there about five minutes, and the test was conducted. Everything
the poets have said about the brilliance and beauty of that first
explosion was true.... later, we got together with the others who had
been assigned there and found out that it wasn't the rain that delayed
things; it was that woman asleep; you see, the main people responsible
were linked by phones through Alamogordo; they had to coordinate what
they were doing and sychronize their work. All of them got the same
thing on the phone we got: no answer from the operator for 45 minutes!
 
"Really, I can't blame the lady much. The whole summer of 1945 was
just horrid. When we arrived the day before, the temperature was over
a hundred; the poor lady probably couldn't sleep at all that day from
the heat, and still had to go to work that night exhausted. Then the
rain cooled things off twenty degrees in fifteen minutes; that sofa
was just too tempting for her; and probably every other night she only
got two or three calls in the whole eight hour shift....
 
"No one ever said anything to her or the woman who owned the phone
exchange there, so I suspect to this day, twenty years later, she
doesn't realize she was responsible for causing the first atomic bomb
explosion in the world to be delayed for a little over an hour....but
as I think back now, probably someone should have told her ahead of
time about that very special morning, and sworn her to secrecy until
the test was completed.
 
"When I was there in town two weeks ago for the (twentieth
anniversary) reunion, just from curiosity I went past that house; it
took me awhile to remember where it was. No wires anywhere like
before; and I asked someone there if the phone exchange was there. He
told me the 'telephone lady' had been gone for years; Bell or someone
had bought it and moved it to a building in the downtown area."
 
===================== End of Transcription =======================
 
And that was Laura Fermi talking about the summer of '45 in the desert
of New Mexico, in the fall of '65 at a dinner.
 
