10 COP JOKES

As many of you may already have figured out by reading the paper, following international news, having Italian friends, or watching

Jersey Shore

, Italians have little to no respect for authority. Of any kind. It's why the mafia exists and it's why we make such great, charming troublemakers. Official power in Italy sucks major penises, and having no respect of the State or of official power in any form is encouraged in Italians from an early age. Blame it on the fact that Italy was invaded and ruled by foreigners from the end of the Roman Empire to 1865 and ever since we've been hardwired with the idea that all power is abusive. Or blame it on the fact that from 1865 to today every Italian person has been 100-percent justified in hating their shitty central government with a passion. The fact remains: ALL Italians think ALL politicians are liars, ALL cops are stupid, and ALL judges are corrupt. Our popular heroes are mostly bandits and criminals, and one of our favorite sayings is "

Piove, governo ladro

", which roughly translates as "It's raining, damn the government," or "It rains, the government steals". Actually, I've never been sure precisely what that saying meant. Is it that Italians think that thieving politicians are such thieving thief-bags that they cause it to rain? Or that Italians have such a knee-jerk reaction to authority that they'd blame it for the rain? Or maybe it's about how the fact that governments steal from their people is as constant a fact of life as the weather. Regardless: Italians don't trust the people in power. And they think that anyone who defends that power has got to be an absolute idiot. Thusly, most Italian jokes of the "stupid" variety (many of them are fundamentally the same as American blonde jokes) are about Carabinieri, i.e. Italy's military-elite police force. Italian jokes of the "damn freeloading immigrants" variety tend to relate to Albanians, but they are exactly the same as in every country (eg. Q: "What do Albanian kids get for Christmas?" A: "Your shit"). So here are a few jokes about stupid Italian cops. -Two Carabinieri are about to go to sleep in their bunk beds. The first cop sees the second approach his bed with two glasses of water, one full and the other empty, and place them each on his nightstand. The first cop asks, "Why do you have two glasses of water next to your bed?" The second guy replies, "The full one is in case I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm thirsty." "OK, but what about the empty one?" "Well, what if I wake up and I'm

not

thirsty?" -Two Carabinieri come running to their Captain. "Captain, captain, they stole our squad car!" "Did you see who it was?" "No, but we have the license plate!" -(This one got famous recently because Berlusconi told it at a press conference about Public Safety. No joke.) A Carabiniere walks into the office with a penguin. The Captain arrives and asks, "Carabiniere, what are you doing with that penguin?" The Carabiniere replies, "I got a call about a penguin being lost in the city. So I picked him up." The Captain says, "And what are you bringing it here for? Take it to the zoo!" So the Carabiniere leaves for the zoo. The next day the Captain sees the Carabiniere in the center of town with the same penguin. He stops him and asks, "Carabiniere, I thought I'd told you to take him to the zoo!" And the Carabiniere replies, "Yes sir, I took him to the zoo yesterday. I thought today I'd take him shopping." Q. How do you burn a Carabiniere's ear off? A. Call him while he's ironing. -A Carabiniere is painting the ceiling, and the paint is dripping all over his chair and the floor around him. A second Carabiniere sees him and says, "Why don't you put some newspaper under the chair?" "Thanks, but I can reach without it." -Two Carabinieri are walking on a beach. One says, "Look, a dead seagull!" The other looks up, shields his eyes with his hands, and says, "Where?" Q. How do you know a Carabiniere has been using your computer? A. There's

Tipp-ex

all over the screen. -Two Carabinieri are in front of a mirror. The first one says, "Look, two colleagues. Let's go say hello." The other says, "No, let's just wait. It looks like they're coming this way." -A Carabiniere walks into a clinic and says, "I'm here for my castration." The doctor says, "Are you sure? Castration is a very serious, irreversible procedure." The Carabiniere replies, "Yes! Castration. That's what I want." "Are you 100% sure? You want to be castrated?" "How many times to I have to tell you, I'm here for my castration!" Later that afternoon, the Carabiniere walks into his house and his wife says, "Hey honey. How did your vaccination go?" -A Carabiniere and his Captain are talking in the office. The Captain says, "You know, officer, there are two types of officers of the law. There are the smart ones, and then there are the ones who are a bit…" And he knocks on the wooden desk. The Carabiniere says, "Sir! There's someone at the door!" And the Captain says, "OK, wait here. I'll get it." TIM SMALL