Saddam Hussein is sitting at home when the phone rings. He picks it up and says “Hello”. The voice at the end of the phone says “Hello Mr. Hussein, it’s Paddy here. I’m just ringing to let you know that we’ve declared war on your country.” SH smiles to himself, “Come on Paddy”, he says, “there’s no point you declaring war on us, you wouldn’t stand a chance.” Paddy replies, “No, no, we’ve had ourselves a meeting, and we’ve decided to declare war on you.”

So SH says, “OK Paddy, now listen, I’ve got an air force of over a thousand planes, what kind of air force have you got to match that? It’d be over in no time.” So Paddy says, “Well my lad’s got himself a hot-air balloon, and my brother used to work at an airport.” Hussein laughs, “Oh come on, you’ve not got a hope”. “Hold on a sec, Mr. Hussein, “, Paddy says, “we’ll just have a quick meeting.” So off he goes and has a quick meeting. “Are you still there Mr. Hussein? Yes, well we’ve had our meeting, and we’ve decided that we’re still going to declare war.”

So SH says, “Right then Paddy, well you know, as well as the air force, we’ve also got about a thousand tanks. How are you going to match that.” “Well,” Paddy says, “I’ve got an old austin, and my cousin down the road has got a tractor.” “Get real, ” says SH, “that’s no match at all.” So

Paddy says, “Hold on, I’ll just go and have another meeting.” “Are you still there Mr. Hussein? Yes, well we’ve had our meeting, and we’ve decided that we’re still going to declare war.”

SH thinks this is just amazing, “Well how many soldiers have you got Paddy?”. “Well,” says Paddy, “there’s me, my kid, me 4 cousins, and they all had sons, and there’s Bill down the road…. I reckon I could get together about 30.” Laughing openly now SH replies, “Come on Paddy, I’ve got 10,000 highly trained fighting men at my disposal. I think you’d better go and have another meeting.” “I will”, says Paddy, “I will.”

“Are you still there Mr. Hussein? Yes, well we’ve had our meeting, and we’ve decided that we’re not going to declare war on you after all.” “At last, ” replies SH, “What made you change your mind?” “Well, it’s those 10 thousand soldiers you see. We can’t declare war on you because we’ve got no facilities to keep all those prisoners!”

This speaks a lot about the Japanese quality standards and also cultural misunderstandings.

They’re still laughing about this at IBM. Apparently the computer giant decided to have some parts manufactured in Japan as a trial project. In the specifications, they set out that they will accept three defective parts per 10,000 .

When the delivery came in there was an accompanying letter. “We, Japanese people, had a hard time understanding North American business practices. But the three defective parts per 10,000 have been separately manufactured and have been included in the consignment. Hope this pleases you.”

An American tourist in Moscow found himself needing to get rid of a large supply of garbage from his recent stay at an apartment. After a long search, he just couldn’t find any place to discard of it. So, he just went down one of the side streets to dump it there.

Yet, he was stopped by a Moscow police officer, who said, “Hey you, what are you doing?”

“I have to throw this away,” replied the tourist.

“You can’t throw it away here. Look, follow me,” the policeman offered.

The police officer led him to a beautiful garden with lots of grass, pretty flowers, and manicured hedges. “Here,” said the cop, “dump all the garbage you want.”

The American shrugs, opens up the large bags of garbage, and dumps them right on the flowers.

“Thanks for giving me a place to dump this stuff. This is very nice of you. Is this Russian courtesy?” asked the tourist.

“No. This is the American Embassy.”

These four guys were walking down the street, a Saudi, a Russian, a North Korean, and a New Yorker.

A reporter comes running up and says, “Excuse me, what is your opinion about the meat shortage?”

The Saudi says, “What’s a shortage?”

The Russian says, “What’s meat?”

The North Korean says, “What’s an opinion?”

The New Yorker, says, “Excuse me?? What’s excuse me?”

Peter Ludwig, a caver from Austria who is appalled by American driving habits, offers the following advice:
The probability of being involved in a traffic accident is directly
proportional to time spent on the road. Driving fast decreases one’s exposure.
One third of traffic accidents are caused by drunk drivers; two thirds are caused by non-drunk drivers.
Therefore, the safest way to drive is drunk and VERY fast.