[HUMOR] - U.K. Emposes ‘Crumpet Embargo’ on Iran after Embassy Invasion

11/29/2011

U.K. Emposes ‘Crumpet Embargo’ on Iran after Embassy Invasion

Tehran, IRAN – Just hours after hard-line protesters stormed the British Embassy in downtown Tehran trashing regalia and tossing paperwork out of windows, Prime Minister David Cameron today announced significant cutbacks in diplomatic ties with the Islamic republic.

The protesters – mostly students and youths – amassed outside the embassy around 9:00 am local time chanting anti-U.K. slogans in response to fresh sanctions over Iran’s controversial nuclear development program. Despite riot police presence, the crowd of several hundred pushed their way through protective gates and eventually accessed the facility. Computers and windows were smashed, and thousands of papers and files were set alight or heaved into the street. No casualties were reported.

In remarks made outside his residence at 10 Downing Street, Cameron expressed disgust and condemnation of the act, noting that given the U.K’s previously stellar public service record in Iran, it was “totally unfayre” that the embassy was trashed. He added that punitive measures would be implemented immediately, and lamented, “…these wankers nobbled our good name in Tehran!”

Recently proposed U.N. sanctions based on allegations of suspicious nuclear activity will be reinforced, said Cameron, as well as a new strict trade ban on all crumpets, biscuits, cakes, pastries, and other tea-time paraphernalia. By the end of 2011 the House of Commons is expected to issue a decree ending all exports of Princess Diana commemorative fine china. Officials at the Council for Healthy Administrations and Vocations (CHAV), a Middle East advocacy group that consults governments on economic policy, downplayed the embargo as “not serious”. “[President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad will likely see this reaction by the Prime Minister as a sort of schoolyard intimidation routine – daunting, but ultimately benign”, said Senior Research Analyst Omezza Spinali. Because of the generally amiable relations between the two nations, Cameron was “probably trying to scold Iran” by exploiting its love for elaborate desserts and teas.

As alcoholic beverages are not publicly solid in Iran under sharia, Islamic religious law, men frequent chāi khāneh, or tea houses. Due to high demand for gustatory satisfaction, shopowners are worried that this new ban will incite revolts in their clientele. The so-called ‘Crumpet Embargo’ is estimated to reduce customer appreciation of mid-afternoon snacks by 15-25% in the coming months. Iranian government officials have established a temporary ‘Yellowcake Bakery’ adjacent to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) headquarters in order to compensate for the shortage of breadstuffs.

United States President Barack Obama has not announced any trade bans on Iran, which experts point out would be useless, as most American-made goods are prohibited in Iran already.

The Hunter and The Hunted

Whenever I take a trip for business, I record an anecdote from the experience in my journal. It is mostly for nostalgia that I do this, but it is often for the raw humor as well. I shall relate to you the anecdote recorded from my most recent trip, a flight to St. Louis for a meeting with potential investors.

Had an uneventful morning making the way down to LaGuardia. My cab had made it almost all the way over the Triborough before I remembered I had forgotten my lint roller in the closet – I’d have to clean up a poorly attended collar in St. Louis. On a timely schedule, as is my foremost rule in arriving at the airport, I wheeled my luggage past the labyrinth stanchions and proceeded directly toward the security area. It is most accurate to describe my airport mentality as ‘no-nonsense’: get in, thank you very much, get out. The majority of my airport experiences are like this, and every passing face and smiling attendant receives my passive dismissal through the application of earphones.

The St. Louis trip was different, and I want to enter this to my record so that it can be remembered in full. I saw the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life. And I made her blush.

Do you know how your stare is demanded by a fire in the dark of night? So it was with her. Walking toward the end of the security queue, my heart felt as if to drop (a feeling which we all well know) when it was certain that our paths were the same, and I found myself directly behind her in the deep line of passengers. The great lottery of time had awarded me a long-overdue win; withholding an urge to gawk, I hungrily snuck glipses of this Helen and kept them carefully in my memory. My nose silently banqueted on the perfumed aura she left with every advancing step. I was smitten.

Odds were likely that we were going different ways, and that we would never chance to share the same ground again. “It really is a tragedy that our nature isn’t as outwardly social as it should be”, I think to myself. In retrospect, it was a way of encouraging myself to try and say something. Yeah - say something. Do it because people are just too sensitive these days; do it because you’ve got the charisma anyway; do it mostly because you can hear her voice and revel in it – or wince at it, who knows? The flirtatious risk had me in such a high that I thought at any moment I might make the perilous approach.

Those in front snaked along and filtered out into the concourse eventually, as we slowly approached the security vanguard. I gasped a choky “um” in a woeful attempt at conversation near the plastic bins, which I quickly covered up with a carefully timbred cough. Laughing at myself for the gravity of my nervousness, I emptied my pockets, removed my belt and shoes as mandated. My newfound angel cleared the x-ray machine, and I in turn, being waved through right after.

Then, in a flash of creativity, I conveived my line. I had discovered the angle. Every man digs for the effective pick-up line, but only the cleverest of gentlemen can postulate them.

This wonderful creature gingerly collected her belongings on the X-ray belt, shuffling toward the concourse as to create more personal space to reassemble her outfit. I shoved my wallet and keys haphazardly into my pockets, shouldered my duffel bag, snatched my shoes and wallet, and coyly positioned myself aside her.

Unconsciously timing my dressing to the same pace as hers, the left shoe went on, then the left. At first there was no connection between us – no soft glances, no words. I would be the initiator.

“Putting on a belt in public – feels awkward. Almost like a morning-after - walk of shame!” Cinching her belt at the moment I said this, she glanced up, smiling embarrassedly, with flushed crimson cheeks. I love making a little tension in someone else. ‘Click’ went my belt. ‘Click’ went hers. Suddenly, she trumped my shameless attitude with a confident riposte – “Was it as good for you as it was for me?”

I admit that this response floored me. I had not expected such a strong and confident reply from her. I flushed in turn, and was left to collect my belongings and watch her astonishing strut fade from view. Nothing lights the fire of my soul more than a woman of confidence – I suspect I will never again chance to happen upon a wonder as flamboyant as she.

Grand Misunderstandings

It is generally advisable to avoid mixing potent combinations of stimulants and depressants, as these concoctions can lead one to a skewed sense of sobriety, increasing risk of injury and overdose. For less scientific (but still sensible) reasons, youth fear concomitant enjoyment of soda and Pop-Rocks. But who ever thought about combining both turkey and sugary snacks, making one feel at once too tired and too excited, causing a nervous breakdown? Luckily for those who attempt the two latter recipes, the potency of the combination is purely imaginary!

Popular cultural beliefs in a very peculiar way tend to find harmony between representing concrete, researched science on the one hand, and defying logic on the other. They mutate over generations, along with the persons that give them existence, and the science that informs our general understanding. When we look back on ancient peoples and the knowledge they had, we tend to laugh from our privileged vantage point. How silly of them, we say, to have thought the Earth anything but a sphere.

Specific facts about reality may not be immediately accessible to the everyday conversationalist. Who would put it past a friend to describe in depth how terrible taking aspirin made them feel, without knowing that the symptoms were actually caused by another source? We often tend to attribute causes post hoc, ergo proctor hoc, that is by assuming a correlation where really none exists. Not knowing why things are as they are is the blunt reality of existing in a complex universe.

Common understanding is that consumption of sugary foods causes a boost in physical activity. The causal link would lie in the body’s metabolism of the sugar content, according to a prominent theory. Other culprits like food colorings and additives are also implicated. This ‘fact’ of a sugar/hyperactivity correlation is a common misperception, or misattribution. Witnessing and confirming a false sugar/hyperactivity relationship is more likely in certain circumstances, leading to a confirmation bias.  A father picking up his child from a birthday party, or a mother feeding cookies and oranges to soccer players, is likely to expect that the saccharine foodstuffs contributed to a burst of activity in these children. The crazy feeling is likely due to interacting with other children in a celebratory or athletic setting. One is more susceptible to believing this myth because of a preconception that it is true, and because of confirmation in specific circumstances. Would parents who believe the myth’s truth expect to see its effects in every applicable situation? If snuggled up in a warm blanket watching a movie, would a child be expected to surge with energy if given candy and a Coca-Cola? I honestly think not.

A second example of a systematic public delusion on food is of the lethargy that derives from L-trypophan, an essential amino acid, after eating turkey. No evidence outside of the anecdotal has thus far made its case as to this correlation. There is a lot of misplacing of blame at the Thanksgiving table when a full-bellied relative bemoans the influence of L-Trp on his body. That well-fed uncle’s blood supply has been enormously diverted to his digestive tract to process the shovelful of turkey, potatoes, and bread, each of which makes an L-Trp contribution to the stomach (What’s so special about turkey? Plenty of foods contain tryptophan – pork, cheddar cheese, soybeans, each more so than turkey). With the uncle already fatigued by an overworked belly, introduce the element of wine and you have a sure-fire situation where the sedative powers of turkey are confirmed, bemoaned, and ultimately appreciated.

Why humans are vulnerable to popular misconceptions of this kind is a question of our psychology. When it comes to what we believe and why we believe it, a study of the brain and of our social systems will go a long way toward bringing about clear answers. Practical reasons for our behavior are equally valid - an example is that agreeing to inconsequentially false propositions is socially expedient. Letting an untruth slide facilitates conversation. I remember politely nodding along to a friend’s discussion of reflexology, a dubious physical ‘therapy’, to avoid creating a feeling of ridicule, and moving the conversation pleasantly along. Similarly, your uncle’s lamentation of turkey’s effect, or your mother’s diagnosis of why you’re suddenly so hyperactive, can commonly be associated with creating and easing conversation. Another example is that sheer plurality tends to influence believers toward the majority. They can’t all be wrong, can they? The inconvenient truth is that yes, in fact, they can.

Imagine 100 people, each believing that bloodletting cures disease. The 100 might pass down this belief to their offspring, and by so doing propagate the idea to the next generation. As long as conditions are favorable – each person has a predisposition to accepting this idea, anecdotal evidence helps most of them agree to its truth, no scientific understanding upsets this tenet – the idea will tend to live on. In a basic way the survival of ideas is akin to the survival of organisms in nature, each flourishing under certain conditions, and always ready to be squelched out by a bigger, stronger, or cleverer rival.

[HUMOR] - Star QB Has ‘Terminator’ Surgery – Sources Say ‘Returns This Week Versus Saints!’

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Egregiously sidestepping established NFL conduct standards, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning was reported to have undergone an extreme and unprecedented back and neck surgery in western China last week, in which large portions of his spine and ribcage were replaced with metal prosthetics. A nagging injury sustained in summer workouts has sidelined the star for all six games so far this season, with questions lingering as to whether he will be able to return in the 2011 campaign. Sources say Manning was seen leaving Indianapolis International Airport yesterday with a protective coat on, several bodyguards, and gaudy Chinese souvenirs like finger-traps, paper dragons, and throwing stars.

Entrepreneurial surgeons in the Chinese Ganshu province take advantage of lax medical legislature, establishing clinics which are starting to attract elite athletic clientele who seek alternate – and otherwise illegal – rehabilitation procedures. Results of these surgeries are not well published; by press time the only other known similar surgeries were small-scale, with no more than 2 bones replaced in unidentified Chinese athletes and prisoners.

Manning’s agent Tom Condon held a brief press conference today in which he confirmed the surgery took place, but declined further comment on any specific details. “Peyton returned from China yesterday and is being evaluated by Colts staff for a potential return to the lineup for Sunday versus New Orleans”, he said. When prodded for a response regarding a potential breakout performance in Manning’s return, Condon coyly remarked “Let’s just say he’ll be half Manning, half Machine.”

The scope of the surgery may have encompassed as many as “17 bones, and an inordinate amount of connective tissues, muscles, and vasculature”, said former Colts team doctor Art Rettig, speculating to reporters about the extent of Manning’s surgery. “When I last examined Peyton as team doctor, he complained about aches in his neck, and an MRI showed mild, but extensive wear on his neck and upper back, likely due to the injuries unavoidably succumbed during a long career in the NFL. Or from too much drinking - either or.”

A group of twenty Colts fans gathered outside of the Sheraton Indianapolis City Centre Hotel, where the press conference took place, to fete the face of the franchise. “Kid’s such a [expletive] workhorse, he went and rolled the dice in China, just to get another shot at coming back and benching that [expletive] Painter!” said inebriated fan Roy Smalls, of McCordsville. “He done gonna go the whole ninety yards [sic]! I’ll be back, mother-[expletive]!”