“With TV terrorism ratings down, Al-Qaeda turns to the celebrity sex tape business in hope of generating publicity.”

The problem with the Internet is that when you get that “Hmm… I wonder if someone else has already made this joke…” feeling, you can immediately Google it and find out “Goddammit, they have!”

In the case of a bin Laden sex tape joke, I’ll concede that I’m probably almost six and a half years late in making that one. That’s what I get for being devastated after watching the WTC fall. I should have been thinking more along the lines of: how does this event relate to the amateur porn market?

This is how comedians approach tragedies. There will be comics in Kentucky making jokes about tornadoes in about three and a half weeks. The joke will start off with something like, “Do you think it’s ok to start making jokes about the tornado?” The really demented ones will start writing jokes the minute they see the first body. But they’ll wait a little while to give their audience a chance to attend funerals.

Of course, if the tornado wasn’t in your town, you can start making jokes the next day. (Unless the tornado hit the neighboring town in the morning, in which case you can fit some jokes in the same night. Be the first to do it, you can always tweak them later.)

I went back to my post on Dec. 31, 2004 entitled Tsunami Jokes. At the time, I claimed to have the first page on the entire Internet with that title. (I’m glad to see that I’m still the fourth website on the Google search.) I didn’t exactly make any tsunami jokes, but I was thinking about it. I’ve since read what I think is the best of the bunch, so if that guy I referred to is still looking for a good one, here it is:

Did you hear about the Indonesian fishing contest?
They thought they had a winner, but it turned out to be a Thai.

Obviously, it’s better orally. Some things are.