we got this one from a friend of ours:
after numerous rounds of “we don’t know if osama is still alive”, osama himself decided to send george bush a letter in his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game.
bush opened the letter and it contained a single line of coded message:
370hSSV-0773H
bush was baffled, so he e-mailed it to condi rice. condi and her aides had no clue either, so they sent it to the fbi.
no one could solve it at the fbi so it went to the cia, then to the nsa.
with no clue as to its meaning they eventually asked britain’s mi-6 for help. within a minute mi-6 cabled the white house with this reply:
“tell the president he’s holding the message upside-down.”
[ed. note: yes, we know there are capital letters in the joke. but our style sheet rule of “no caps” would ruin the punchline. sometimes you have to give up style for a laugh!]