I probably shouldn't be forwarding this here, but I thought it might tickle a few funnybones... It was forwarded to alt.humour.best.of.usenet for obvious reasons. :) Karen PS. So that I'm saying something real with this post, has anyone else been having a problem with requests to the wikipedia timing right out? I keep getting 'zero sized replies' after much sitting staring at a blank screen. It's annoying... ***** [Submitter's note: The folks in misc.writing are not nice to people who ask for help with home work. I especially liked the last line. . . .] Subject: Re: grain shortage From: billo(a)saltmine.radix.net (Bill Oliver) Newsgroups: misc.writing In article <3d8c5406.0203270016.11105efa(a)posting.google.com>om>, Jhon <ahmad1403(a)hotmail.com> wrote: Not too bad. Thanks for asking. Not many people recognize that most of the world's food needs are met by a single large grain of rice called "The World Grain" (TWG), also known historically as "Twiggy." The existence of The World Grain has been known for millenia, of course. Plato noted that all things in the world come from single World Objects in his famous "Shadows in a Cave" speech before the Hasty Pudding Club in 1032 BC. A best-selling expose of this was more recently written by Henry Beard and Ron Barrett called "The Way Things Really Work And How They Actually Happen." In this book, Beard and Barrett expose one of the greatest secrets of America -- that there is only one Chinese Restaurant in the world (The World Chinese Restaurant (TWCR) ). There is a vast web of pipes that attaches TWCR to all of the other Chinesse restaurants that we eat at. The Chinese Take Out of the entire world is fed through these pipes. The Chinese restaurant you probably order from is not real. Oh sure, you can sit down and eat there, or you can order take out. But it's not really real. It's just a place with wait staff where you go and pay for prepared food to eat on the premises or take away. But it's not a *restaurant* restaurant. It's a little like misc.writing.moderated. And, of course, there is The World Computer (TWC) which is in Redmond, California. I can't really write about that, else the it will take back my share of the world electron. The World Grain is, of course, the single grain from which all other grain comes. It is generally mined. The chips are then colored or milled and sold as corn, rice, or SUVs. The World Grain was first discovered by the early American Indians. The early Indians were mostly ranchers and hunters, though, and they were not particularly interested in a rock-hard lump of starch the size of a mountain. There were plenty of buffalo around at the time, anyway, so they sold it to the early European settlers for a Timeshare in Cornwall and season tickets to the St Endellion Festival Chorus. Unfortunately, they had attempted this without an agent, and found that they had overlooked the need for transportation. The famous artist Max Factor painted a scene where the settlers told the Delaware Indians that they could get tickets to Cornwall the day Louisiana elects an honest governor. This painting, called "Washington Crossing the Delaware" shows a number of Delaware Indians scratching their heads in furious thought. This habit of scratching the head when trying to find passage is the origin of our phrase "scalping for tickets." The World Grain was then taken to Plymouth, where it was known as the Plymouth Rock. At first, attempts to mine the TWG were unsuccessful because of the hard shell covering the grain. There was a group of people who wanted to soak the world grain in the ocean to soften it up (so-called "hard shell baptists" because they wanted to "baptise" the grain). The grain was placed in the ocean, but quickly started to expand well beyond what the settlers wanted. The World Grain started creeping across the continental shelf. People started building beach houses on it. The water near Boston turned even more icky than normal, though while looking out over the harbor Sting was moved to write those stirring words to our National Anthem about "amber waves of grain." Clearly, something had to be done. The world grain had to be removed. However, the folk in Massachusetts had also developed an impressive tourist trade based on this expanding behemoth, slowly becoming The World Pasta. So, they took out the world grain and put in a big stone. The tourists, while easily deceived as all tourists are, were still a bit disappointed. To this day, tourists go there, look at Plymouth Rock, and say "What? This is what we drove 6 hours for?" The world grain was then bought by a railroad tycoon and moved to Ohio, where it was mined successfully for years. Since the world grain was in Ohio, and Mann's Chinese Theater (and restaurant) was in California, the transcontinental railroad was built. Trainloads of freshly-mined grain chips went across the nation and feeding the world. Eventually a Democrat was elected President, and the government took the world grain away from the citizens in order to better serve them. The government set up an efficient mining and food distribution system which we call "The Great Depression." Millions of people were starving and went to Washington to demand action. Always responsive, the government created a diversity committee to better help people adjust. More recently, modern technology has allowed even the government to mine the world grain efficiently. In an effort to feed America's poor, the government called in the INS to distribute food to the needy inner cities of America. The INS always serious about its job, immediately set about dropping tons of food from airplanes into random uninhabited parts of Afghanistan. It helps a lot. Most of it. A small amount is used to make ethanol for liberals who want expensive gas and for Senators from the Midwest who want re-election. None. Most hunger is caused by not eating. Nope this helps! billo -- Karen AKA Kajikit Come and visit my part of the web: Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/ Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating Love and huggles to all!