Greek-Like JOW

I just read that the EU will spend $319 billion to bail out the profligate Greek – about the same amount of money the US spent on the entire Space Shuttle program. Since the entire Greek economy is something of a joke I thought to provide you all with a few jokes with a Greek theme.

One of the oldest jokes on record (that is funny to modern tastes) is from the Greeks.

It seems a Greek philosopher ran afoul of an eastern despot who ordered the man to be executed.
“But sire,” the Greek protested, “I have many valuable things to teach you.”
“What can you possibly teach that is of interest to me?”
“Anything – I am such a fine teacher I can teach your horse to speak. If I cannot have him speaking to you in one year than you can go ahead and execute me.”
Intrigued, the King gave orders that the philosopher was to be housed in the stables and given unlimited access to the King’s favorite horse.
A few days later one of the philosopher’s friends came to visit him. The philosopher was sitting comfortably next to the stall where the King’s horse was kept.
“What are you thinking?” his friend challenged him. “You cannot teach a horse to talk.”
“I know. But a year is a long time. I may pass away naturally. The King may die. Or I may be able to teach this horse how to talk.”

---------------------------
In an ancient monastery in Greece, a new monk arrived to join his brothers in copying books and scrolls in the monastery's scriptorium. He was assigned as a rubricator on copies of books that had already been copied by hand.
One day, he asked Father Florian (the Armarius of the Scriptorium), "Does not the copying by hand of other copies allow for chances of error? How do we know we are not copying the mistakes of someone else? Are they ever checked against the original?"
Friar Florian is set back a bit by the obvious logical observation of this youthful monk. "A very good point, my son; I will take one of the latest books down to the vault and compare it against the original."
Friar Florian went down to the secured vault and began his verification. After a day had passed, the monks began to worry and went down looking for the old priest. They were sure something must have happened. As they approached the vault, they heard sobbing and crying. When they opened the door, they found Friar Florian sobbing over the new copy and the original ancient book, both of which opened before him on the table. It was obvious to all that the poor man had been crying his old heart out for a long time.
"What is the problem, Reverend Father?" asked one of the monks.
"Oh, my Lord," sobbed the priest, "the word is 'celebrate'!"

……………………………………
A Greek and an Italian were drinking coffee one day discussing who had the superior culture.
Over triple lattes the Greek guy says, "Well, we have the Parthenon".
Arching his eyebrows the Italian replies, "We have the Coliseum."
The Greek retorts, "We Greeks gave birth to advanced mathematics." The Italian, nodding in agreement, says, "But we built the Roman Empire."
And so on and so on until the Greek comes up with what he thinks will end the discussion.
With a flourish of finality he says, "We invented sex!"
The Italian replies, "That is true, but it was the Italians who introduced it to women."

This one is from Eric is not exactly Greek but is sort of related to the talking horse

A young cowboy goes off to college.
Half way through the semester, he had foolishly squandered all his money.
He calls home. "Dad," he says, "You won't believe what modern education is developing! They actually have a program here that will teach our dog, Ol' Blue how to talk!"
"That's amazing," his Dad says. "How do I get Ol' Blue in that program?"
"Just send him down here with $1,000," the young cowboy says. "I'll get him in the course." So, his father sends the dog and $1,000.
About two-thirds of the way through the semester, the money again runs out. The boy calls home. "So how's Ol' Blue doing son?" his father asks.
"Awesome, Dad, he's talking up a storm," he says, "but you just won't believe this - they've had such good results they have started to teach the animals how to read!"
"Read!?" says his father, "No kidding! How do we get Blue in that program?"
"Just send $2,500, I'll get him in the class." The money promptly arrives. But our hero has a problem. At the end of the year, his father will find out the dog can neither talk, nor read. So he gave the dog away.
When he arrives home at the end of the year, his father is all excited. "Where's Ol' Blue? I just can't wait to see him read something and talk!"
"Dad," the boy says, "I have some grim news. Yesterday morning, just before we left to drive home, Ol' Blue was in the living room, kicking back in the recliner and reading the Wall Street Journal, like he usually does. Then he turned to me and asked, "So, is your daddy still messing around with that little redhead who lives down the street?"
The father exclaimed, "I hope you can get rid that SOB before he talks to your Mother!"
"Sure, Dad, I can do it for only $5000."
"Good, here is the money. Take care of it."
The kid went on to law school, and is now a Congressman.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

A couple is having dinner in a restaurant when the wife suddenly blurts out “I love you.”
The husband says: “Is that you or the wine talking?”
The wife replies: “It's me, talking to the wine.”

And finally something completely different-

Two cows are standing in a field, talking to each other.
One cow says, "Hey, aren't you worried about getting that mad cow disease everyone is talking about?"
The other cow says, "Why should I? I'm a chicken."