


But the sad truth is the truth behind the humor isn’t as funny when you know the truth


These attempts at humor are my own creations, sometimes from scratch, sometimes modifying someone else’s gag. They range from pathos to bitter-sweet to belly-laughs. Something for everyone, it is hoped. All were taken from The Professional Paranoid Newsletter.  If you like any of these, you may reproduce any one at your site/blog or in print provided you cite and link back to this blog.

by H. Michael Sweeney

Question of Time

The Evergreen International Airport was hailed by an approaching aircraft as the sun was setting. The pilot had a request for the correct time, necessary to assure accuracy in navigational computations.

The tower responded by asking… “Flight, please identify yourself.”

The pilot responded with “Why? What difference does that make? I just want to know what time it is.”

The tower was silent for a moment, and then came back the answer. “I can’t reveal that information. I don’t know your clearance type.”

The pilot was well aware of Evergreen’s CIA ties and made a logical deduction, but countered with a response calculated to his favor. “Tower, this is Senator Farnsworth of the Senate Intelligence Community on a vacation flight. You can find my flight plan filed with FAA if you want to verify. And I suggest that all hell will break loose if you don’t both tell me what time it is and explain why you need to know who I am before you would tell me.”

The tower asked for a moment and then came back with a response. “With apologies, Sir, the correct time is 6 PM local time, on the nose.”

“And why didn’t you just tell me that in the first place.”

“Sir, I needed to know who you were in order to give you the proper time.”

“That makes no sense, son. What are you talking about? The time is the time, isn’t it? Or does time come under the category of disinformation with you people?”

“No sir. But we get certain kinds of pilots in here from a variety organizations all the time, and they each think about time in different ways.”

“Go on, I’m listening.”

“Well, Sir… If you were Air Force or Army, we would have said ‘18:00 hours.’ If you said Navy or Marine, we would have said ‘six bells.’ But if you were DOD, or our own people, I would answer ‘01Zulu,’ and of course, if ‘FBI, we would have said ‘The big hand is on the six, and the little hand is on the twelve.”

A Question of Questions

Spies lead a hard life which requires them to almost always pretend to be someone they are not. It also means that they must continually worry about being discovered or assassinated, or even double crossed by their own side, and other fun things. Naturally, this tends to make them a little crazy after a while.

Agency knows this, and tries to provide professional psychological helps, thus retaining Doctors on the payroll for the purpose. After all, it wouldn’t do to have a spy talking to a civilian doctor about such issues, and related mission details.

Naturally, these psychiatrists must have top secret clearances. And therein lies the problem: The Security Interview, usually administered while the subject is attached to a lie detector machine…

Interviewer. Doctor Smith, have you ever been arrested or prosecuted for a crime?

Smith. What makes you ask?
Interviewer. Its my job. Please answer the question.

Smith. Are you always so preoccupied with your work?

Interviewer. This is a lie detector test, Doctor. I ask the questions, you answer. The machine tells me if you are lying, or not. That’s the way it works.

Smith. Do you worry a lot about being lied to?

Interviewer. I get paid to do this, Doctor. You aren’t making very easy. Can we please proceed?

Smith. How does that make you feel? I sense a little hostility in your tone.

Interviewer. I am naturally a little upset, Doctor. You are not cooperating. I’m supposed to be asking the questions, here, and you are supposed to answer.

Smith. You seem to have a problem with impatience. This would appear to manifest as a need to control others. Tell me about your Father. Did you get along well with him? Was he strict?

Interviewer. My father has nothing to do with this! It’s my job, and nothing else. Now will you please cooperate, or should we terminate this session?

Smith. Is that what you want? To end our talk? I thought we were just beginning to make some headway.

Interviewer. “O.K.That’sit. I’m out of here.

With that the interviewer stormed out of the room. Just before the door shuts, he heard the Doctor say ‘Fine. But I still have to charge the Agency for the full hour.’

A Spy’s Fairy Tale

The cold war was over and a bunch of retired spies were getting drunk in a bar, swapping ‘war stories.’ The first was 007, who explained in great detail how he had retrieved Soviet missile abort codes from the Soviet High Command’s HQ safe.

“That is not possible!” insisted his KGB friend. “No one could get in there.”

“Well it was a rather narrow escape.” said 007. “I barely had time to seduce the secretary on the way out.”

Everyone agreed it was incredulous bragging, but no one wanted to be outdone.

The Russian’s honor seemed at stake, for he asked to go next. “Did I tell you about the time I obtained access to all of Apple Computer’ s secrets?”

The answer was a resounding and in unison “YES! And we still don’t believe you”

The Mossad Agent next took the lead. “I shouldn’t be telling anyone this, but I was the one who faked messages from CIA to Saddam that led him to think the U.S. would not respond if he invaded Kuwait.”

“Incredible,” said 007. “You mean that whole war was merely a setup to neutralize Iraq?”

“Not at all.” replied the man. “The Israeli government just wanted Patriot missiles without having to buy them.” Eyes rolled.

Then they looked at the CIA man, and asked him what story he had to share. “Let’s just say that I was responsible for the mind control projects that caused you folks to undertake those missions.”

No one believed him, so he explained. “You each think the other is lying about their exploits, but I know better. Agency needed the Soviet codes but knew it was too dangerous, so we tricked the Brits into doing the dirty work. If they got caught, they took the blame. If they succeeded, we got the secrets – but James, you see, was programmed not to remember, that he delivered them to us, and not M.” 007 was indignantly incredulous at the notion.

The CIA man ignored him and continued. “And in like manner, we had the Russians get for us the secrets from Apple so no computer would be safe from our back door access. Of course, we then modified the information so it only seemed to work for the Kremlin boys… they were really talking to a dummy system we set up for the purpose.”

“I do not believe any of it,”said the Mossad man, “because there could be no reason to have us fake the message that led to war.”

“The answer to that, my friend, is plausible deniability. If anything went wrong, we could blame you. And, we happen to own a lot of stock in the maker of the Patriots!”

The Israeli looked stunned, as if beginning to believe the man. “This cannot be true, he said. If it were, you would have to kill us all, here and now, to keep such a secret. And besides, I’m pretty sure I’d know it if anyone attempted mind control on me.” The others agreed.

“Believe what you will,” he said. With a decidedly twisted smile, he then said “Peter Rabbit” three times. The men stared blankly at him in disbelief as if to question his sanity, and laughed as he calmly stood and walked away to the door, seeming to confirm their beliefs. But when the door slammed behind him, each of the men, now wearing blank stares, pulled their revolvers and shot themselves in the head.

On the other side of the door, the CIA man straightened his tie, and grinned. “I love programmable responses.” he said.

With that, he went to a phone and made a call. “It’s done.” He said. “Our secrets are now completely safe.”

“Good.” said the man at the other end of the call. Then, without any warning save a small little laugh, he repeated three times the phrase “Rumple Stiltskin.”

Fractured Isms.

Ferrari facing cataclysm!

Ferris Beuller (Mathew Broderick) had it right. “A person should not believe in an “ism“, he should believe in himself.” In other words, don’t be a follower of someones ideas. If you want to make a change for the better, you are what you’ve been waiting for.
















Obamaisms: Your cows are being detained indefinitely to combat terrorism. I’m a God fearing man on Sundays. I liked John Lennon. He sued Apple Computer, who didn’t contribute to my election fund.

A Subliminally Minimal Delima

Suddenly, almost overnight, a new craze seemed to be sweeping the country. It seemed like there was no retail outlet of any kind or size where you wouldn’t find people wearing silly slip-on rabbit ears. Stranger than that, they would give a couple of hops or more whenever they said something. It made no sense, and no one knew where it came from, especially those who were involved in the insanity. If you asked them about it, they simply said something like “I don’t know. I just can’t help myself.”

At CIA, panic ensued when it was discovered that the common denominator was that they were all customers of the same cable company, one which was partnering with CIA to deliver subliminal programming messages in the audio tracks. A top level meeting was convened and an investigation ordered. The answer would prove to be simple, but it was hard to find. Eventually they discovered the programmer of the subliminals in the messaging system had misunderstood his orders because he was hard of hearing and refused to admit it.

He had been instructed to embed a message intended to support the war on terror, as follows: “Talk to people while shopping, sharing rabid fears.” But he had apparently heard something else.

Weapon of Mass Distraction hides Collateral Damage

President Bush and Cheney called a special meeting of his White House Staffers, to include all the clerks, secretaries, and the like. He wanted to test read the speech he was preparing to give the American people in order to ‘sell’ his Iraq war, America’s new ‘new war.’

He and Cheney had been arguing about how to sell the public on accepting the war, but Bush had proposed a way to prove they would, and thus, the staff was to be a ‘sample audience’ to test the notion. At the end, they were instructed to ask questions as if they were media reporters at the real press conference where the speech would be given.

Bush started with a long introduction into the reasons for attacking Iraq, and eventually, got to the part where he was going to attempt to minimize the ‘cost’ of the war.

The strategy included an attempt to parallel the likely outcome of with the war in Afghanistan — focusing on stealth and cruise missile technology, high altitude bombing, US air superiority, and so forth, all to minimize loss of life. That went well enough. Then they came to the part he wanted to test:

“With respect to the matter of civilian casualties, I assure you our forces will take every possible precaution to avoid unnecessary loss of life. Collateral damage estimates provided to me by the Department of Defense based on their overall strategic plan are encouraging, to say the least. Estimates are that 240,000 Iraqi civilians will die, along with two Americans; a young blond Woman from California and her four-month old baby girl.”

Naturally, when it came time for questions, the staff exploded with queries about the Woman from California and her baby, and why she had to die.  Bush turned to Cheney with a smile.

“See. I told you they wouldn’t care about 240,000 Iraqi.”

The New CIA Recruits

A trio of new CIA recruits fresh out of college, were being given a tour of the training facilities. One of them was a bit arrogant and cocky, a know it all. Well, actually, they all were, but this one was more so than the rest, and quite annoying. His name was John Doe Smith, as it happens. No. Really. That’s his real name. I made it up myself!

At one point in the tour, they visited the shooting range during an assassin sniper training session, which had been going on for more than an hour. Nearby, a sniper trainee was using a heavy 70 mm armor-piercing long-range rifle, with a massive number of expended cartridges scattered nearby. The arrival of the recruits gave the Firing Range Officer an excuse to give the shooters a 10 minute break, and they left the line, leaving their weapons at rest.

As it happened, a young female CIA Instructor was giving the tour, and the cocky guy felt obliged to attempt to impress her at every opportunity, his motives all too plain to all concerned, and most annoying. While she started to talk about the firing range and rules of operation, the overbearing young man reached down started to pick up a large 70 mm rifle, smoke still rising from its barrel.

To his dismay, he quickly learned it was not only quite heavy, but as his grip was about the barrel, he found it extremely hot. He had managed to lift it a couple of inches, when, as if bitten by a viper, he had let go with a suppressed yelp and yank his hand back.

Indeed, he would soon have a set of blisters as proof of his foolishness, but his pride would not let him admit to his pain, and he grit his teeth to form an attempted smile.

“What’s the matter?” asked the instructor with a penetrating stare. “Too hot a weapon for you to handle?”

The other recruits broke into laughter and took the opportunity to join in the attempt to embarrass the man into finally shutting up — they had had a stomach full of him already. “Yeah, Smith. Are you a candy-assed smart ass, or just a dumb-assed smart ass?” asked one with a chuckle. The others laughed even harder.

Smith didn’t turn to face them at first, trying to figure out how to extricate himself from such an embarrassment. Then he got an idea, and he turned his head to glibly announce his excuse…

“I don’t know what you are talking about. It just doesn’t take me long to inspect a good murder weapon.”

NSA: Bastion of Security

Security has to be tight anywhere national security is involved, even tighter when daily fare, such as at NSA headquarters. And perhaps even tighter if work involves international plots during wartime and worries about assassination and terrorism. How much tighter still, if paranoia creeps in because of all the security leaks in the news, of late, and Congressional investigations deemed to be politically motivated witch hunts?

I swear I am not making this up. Signs almost identical to the following wereposted briefly at an unnamed secure facility — here simplified in paraphrase for clarity and brevity. Pay attention the fine print… which would seem to be the most demanding and harshest security method ever devised at a Federal facility.


The new card-scan and voice-print security system

will be activated next Monday, August 3rd. Effective as of that date:


Without New Card And Passwords!

New scan cards will be issued in exchange

for the current ID badges on Wednesday Aug. 5th in room 27C

Can Spies Ever Tell the Truth?

A paraphrased joke from Dr. Laura (originally a dumb blond joke):

A Secret Service Agent, FBI Agent, and CIA Agent were walking through a mall to get lunch when they encountered a spooky looking magic shop that was simply irresistible. Going inside, they found lots of curious looking artifacts and an ancient looking gentleman behind the counter.

Behind him was a mirror with a black drape over and a sign which read “Danger! Mirror of True Thought” Curious, the men asked the little man, dressed like a wizard of old, about the mirror. He explained that any who used the mirror and honestly told it their thoughts about their shortcomings would be granted some good gain regarding those shortcomings. But if they lied… well, it was too terrible to speak of.

The agents scoffed at the notion and cajoled the old man to prove it by uncovering the mirror that they could try it. He refused and warned them it would be foolhardy. Still, they pressed him hard until, with a wicked smile and a little laugh, he finally agreed. “Fools,” he said. “You will regret it.”

He uncovered the mirror and the FBI agent presented himself and, after a few second of thought, spoke his mind. “I think,” he said, “I could use a better gun.” Suddenly, a bulge appeared under his shoulder. Checking, he found his Smith and Wesson was replaced with something that looked like a ray gun from Star Trek.

The others marveled at the device, and this prompted the Secret Service Agent to

address the mirror. :”I think,” he said, “I could stand to have a better memory.” Suddenly, his mind was flooded with total recall of every experience he had ever had since birth. After illustrating by recounting several of these, the CIA agent decided it was his turn.

He stepped up to the mirror, and looked smugly into it. “I think,” he said, and then promptly vanished in an orange flash amid screams of pain.

Ironic Moronic Tonic

Item: There is a one in thirty-three chance you will loose your job, but not to worry, it will be a short term problem because the death rate for the unemployed is 33% higher than for the employed…

Item: The number of manhole covers exploding from pent up sewer gas is high enough that many communities have installed special ventilation systems. However, these systems seem to introduce electrical components into the underground in a way that sparks cause even worse explosions with a frequency which suggests it was a bad idea.

Item: Injecting too many household cleaning items under the skin of a rat leads to Cancer. Electric blankets and cell phones create magnetic fields conducive to Cancer. Some plastic mini-blinds were apparently constructed of materials which biodegrade in sunlight to produce cancer causing substances in the air. 21% of all US homes have Radon gas seeping through their floors, which causes lung Cancer. The coatings in ALL food tin cans contains compounds which leech into the food and which can cause Cancer. Cancer rates are increasing every year as result of all this, but not to worry. The cure for Cancer will be along in just a few more centuries.

Item: Soda Pop is considered high on the list of causes of obesity and resulting health issues. So they developed artificial sweetners… all of which are based on poisonous compounds. It’s our new fluoridation program.

Item: Under President Bush (the First,), the June issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics published an article proposing that happiness be defined as a psychiatric disorder; happy people tend to make judgment errors which impact negatively in their life because they ‘do not have a realistic understanding of their physical and social environment.’ Darn that old Constitution for attempting to let us have our pursuit of happiness… Since then, every President has been working hard to fix that — in the name of mental health, we must presume.


About Author H. Michael Sweeney



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