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John the farmer was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called “pullets”, and ten roosters, whose job it was to fertilize the eggs (for you city folks).

  The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn’t perform went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time, so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so John could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.

  The farmer’s favourite rooster was old Butch, and a very fine
specimen he was, too. But on one particular morning John noticed old Butch’s bell hadn’t rung at all! John went to investigate.

  The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The
pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover.

  But to Farmer John’s amazement, old Butch had his bell in his
beak, so it couldn’t ring. He would sneak up on a pullet, do his
job and walk on to the next one.

  John was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.

  The result…The judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell
Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.

  Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making: Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly
coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren’t paying attention.

“Commonwealth chief scientist Jim Peacock says the planting of new forests across large parts of the country would play a major role in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.” ABC news 3/10/07.
Good, so we can look forward to the tree gobbling mill to get the thumbs down from Dr. Peacock.

What a golden egg Gerry Mander has laid! Indeed, it makes me feel Tasmaniantimes should have a golden egg section for comments/responses that are worth readers’ ratings, or staying within reach for a resonable time,before they get buried in the archives.  I expect to want to return to this nice chuckle.