Knock Knock - Cow

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Cow goes.
Cow goes who?
No, cow goes "Moo!"

Rooster Pride

An old farmer decided it was time to get a new rooster for his hens. The current rooster was still doing an okay job, but he was getting on in years and the farmer figured getting a new rooster couldn't hurt. So he buys a new cock from the local rooster emporium, and turns him loose in the barnyard. Well, the old rooster sees the young one strutting around and he's a little worried about being replaced. He walks up to the new bird.
"So you're the new stud in town? I bet you really think you're hot stuff don't you? Well I'm not ready for the chopping block yet. I'll bet I'm still the better bird. And to prove it, I challenge you to a race around that hen house over there. We'll run around it ten times and whoever finishes first gets to have all the hens for himself." Well, the young rooster was a proud sort, and he definitely thought he was more than a match for the old guy.
"You're on," he said, "and since I'm so great, I'll even give you a head start of half a lap. I'll still win easy!" So the two roosters go over to the hen house to start the race with all the hens gathering to watch. The race begins and all the hens start cheering the old rooster on. After the first lap, the old rooster is still maintaining his lead. After the second lap, the old guy's lead has slipped a little -- but he's still hanging in there. Unfortunately, the old rooster's lead continues to slip each time around, and by the fifth lap he's just barely in front of the young fella. By now the farmer has heard the commotion. He runs into the house, gets his shotgun and runs into the barnyard figuring a fox or something is after his chickens. When he gets there, he sees the two roosters running around the hen house, with the old rooster still slightly in the lead. He immediately takes his shotgun, aims, fires, and blows the young rooster away. "Damn. That's the third gay rooster I've bought this month."

How Specs Live Forever

The US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.
Why did the English people build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Okay! Why did the wagons use that odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagons would break on some of the old, long distance roads, because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.
So who built these old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Thus, we have the answer to the original questions. The United State standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. Specs and Bureaucracies live forever.
So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war horses.