These are taken from the 2/13/90 Richard Lederer column in the Nashua Telegraph ``Looking at the best puns of 1989'':

Frank was a happily married man who had only one complaint: His wife, Myra, was always nursing sick birds.

One cold November evening he came home to find a raven with a splint on its beak sitting in his favorite chair. On the dining room table there was a feverish eagle pecking at an aspirin tablet, while in the kitchen Myra was comforting a shivering wren.

Frank dropped his briefcase and strode over to where his wife was toweling down the cold little bird. "Myra!" he shouted. "I can't take it anymore! We've got to get rid of all of these da..."

Myra held up her and and cut him off in mid-curse. "Please dear," she said. "Not in front of the chilled wren!"

Mama Bear, Papa Bear, and little Baby Bear were all eating dinner when suddenly the door flew open and a strange-looking bear burst in carrying a gun. The intruder said nothing. It just gobbled up Baby Bear's dinner, took a wild shot at Papa Bear, and left.

"What was that?" demanded Papa Bear, picking himself up from the floor.

"I think it was a Koala," said Mama Bear, reaching for the family encyclopedia. "Yes, it says right here: `Eats shoots and leaves.'"

Two guys were walking in the woods one day, and they all of a sudden came across a bear. The bear noticed them, and started growling and generally getting really mean. The bear started to chase one of the guys, who, as it turns out, was from Czeckoslovakia. The bear soon caught up with him, and started to eat him alive (he didn't stay alive for long!). The other guy turned around and ran for his life.

A little while later, the second guy found a park ranger station and told his story. The ranger took his gun, and they both went out in search of the bear, in order to destroy it. Soon, they came across two bears, one male, and one female. The ranger turned to the other guy and said: "quick... tell me which bear ate your friend!" The ranger levelled his gun and got ready to to shoot.

"I'm not really sure," said the other guy, "they both look similar."

"QUICK! Make up your mind!" said the ranger.

"O.K.," said the other, "it was the male."

The ranger promptly aimed and shot the female bear. The male ran off. Using his knife, the ranger cut open the belly of the female and found the body of the other man.

"But why didn't you shoot the male when I thought it was the male who ate my friend?" the other man asked.

"Well," said the ranger, "I never trust anyone who says that the Czeck's in the male."

Two cannibal chiefs met at a cookout. One said to the other, "Did you ever try eating a missionary? They're awfully tasty."

The other promptly went out and found a missionary and popped him in the pot. After he had boiled him for an hour, the missionary was still too tough to eat, so he boiled him for another hour. When he still couldn't eat him, the cannibal threw out the whole mess.

The next time he saw his friend, he said, "That was sure a bum steer you gave me."

"Well," his friend replied, "what kind of missionary was it?"

"I dunno. He had a long robe with a cowl over his head and a rope tied around his waist for a belt."

"There's your problem, then!" his friend exclaimed. "You were trying to boil a friar!"

There were once two baby skunks, In and Out. One day, In went out, and Out stayed in. It came to be dinner time, and Mama skunk said, "Out, why don't you go Out and bring In in?" So Out went out and returned quickly, bringing In in. Their mother was surprised, and said, "Out, how did you find In so quickly?" To which he replied...

"Instinct."

Do you know someone who seems to know everything? When asked, they say, "A little birdie told me." Did you know they probably aren't lying? It is a little known fact that there ARE little birds that fly very fast, are never seen, and they are everywhere - thus they are called "Flies Unseen Everywhere" or FUE for short. These birds have quite a communications network and can generally find out anything from anywhere quite quickly. Some of these birds befriend certain individuals and communicate with them by making clucking sounds, sort of like a chicken. They are not dumb like chickens, however, and can establish a sort of clucking language with the lucky person they befriend. This person is then the one who is always in the know; one step ahead of the competition.

And those people who seem to be in the dark? Those who just don't get it? Those who's standard response to any given question is, "Huh?" Why I think it is pretty obvious to all now that the reason is simply because -- they don't have a CLUCKING FUE.

I AIN'T GOT NO BODY (Anatomy/Biology)

Hey, sphincter boys, here's a good piece of tissue to make your brain bile. It should freeze it dead in its tracts. Do you have the muscle for it? If you think you can't stomach it, don't read on; otherwise, slide me some skin, blood!

I stopped at Gray's the other day for a de-liver-y, my mind on Darwin, when I noticed this beautiful woman with a lovely par-itoneum. I said, "Alas! What a great duo-denum!" But, before I could respirate, she was gone. I guess the moral here was "now you caecum, now you don't." I guess you shouldn't say things in vein. I know, the smallest organ in the world is playing "My Heart Bleeds for You," no bones about it. So I took off after her, only because she was the prettiest girl I had ever spleen. Frustrated, my lungs tired, I mum- bled, "you must be kid-n-ey," as I turned to discover she had the police slap cuffs on me...it must have been a cardiac arrest. My day ruined, I knew the next morning I would have to go to cort-ex.

IT'S ABOUT TIME (Astronomy/Physics)

I was at work, munching away on a Fig Newton, when a large mass was forced through the window. "G," I said, "this is really heavy. Watt's something like this doing in here?" I knew it really had potential. So I poured myself a glass of Betelgeuse and unwrapped a Mars bar. I decided I was going to take it to the lab to have it analyzed. On my way there, I collided with a heavenly body that looked just like Venus. "Hey, are you a star? You look familiar to me," I said. "Hey, aren't you that guy I took to court the other day?" she asked. I said, "No. You've probably mistaken me for my brother Vector. We look very much alike." She was a real joule, so I invited her to my observatory. "Uranus!" she replied spiteully. "Opposites attract," I tried to convince her, but it was no use...with one wave she was gone.

IN THE NAME OF GOD (Philosophy/Religion)

(Dedicated to the world's greatest philosophers: Terry, Terry, John, Michael, Eric, and the late Graham)

Can you stand Allah these puns? I Kant. Maybe I should look for a new Job. I mean, Jesus Christ! It takes a sick sense of Hume-or. Well, I'm such a Socra-tease about the whole thing anyway. I'm going to go shopping for new puns at the John Stuart Mill. I'm going to put de puns in De-cartes. Hey, it's my life anyway! If you are looking for a place to get good jokes, this s-ain't it! Am I a genius or what? I think therefore I am...so piss off! After all, you can make it with Plato!

MICRO-CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK (Computers)

"Your drive is so...hard!" she said, composing her mainframe. "I don't byte," he replied, stroking her soft memory glands. The motions involved were very BASIC, but he seemed to push all the right buttons. "Do you have your disk?" she inquired, "I don't want to get a virus." With a short search and a little Assembly, he was ready to RAM his mouse into her drive door. With a binary algo-rhythm, he passionately proceded to run his program. Suddenly his data compiled in a heap throughout the Internet. "Oh, I C...you're the quick-sort, eh?" she said with a Lisp, "Just kiss my ASCII! I don't need you...this was the test run, and you don't Pas,cal. I'm going for your brother, ROM. At least his bits are stacked."