police and law-enforcement-related jokes is the ongoing conflict between the representatives of the armed forces/law enforcement, and the "intelligentsia", i.e. well-educated members of society. Therefore, this theme is a satire of the image of military/law-enforcement officers and superiors as dumb and distrustful of "those educated smart-alecks": A commander announces: – "The platoon has been assigned to unload 'luminum, the lightest iron in the world". A trooper responds, "Permission to speak... It's 'aluminium', not 'luminum', and it's one of the lightest metals in the world, not the lightest 'iron' in the world." The commander retorts: "The platoon is going to unload 'luminum... and the intelligentsia are going to unload 'castum ironum'!" (The Russian words are lyuminiy and chuguniy). Until shortly before perestroika, all fit male students of higher education had obligatory military ROTC courses from which they graduated as junior officers in the military reserve. A good many of military jokes originated there: "Soviet nuclear bombs are 25% more efficient than the Atomic Bombs of the probable adversary. American bombs have 4 zones of effect: A, B, C, D, while ours have five: А, Б, В, Г, Д!" (the first five letters of the Russian alphabet, they are transliterated into Latin as A, B, V, G, D). "A nuclear bomb always hits ground zero." "Suppose we have a unit of M tanks... no, M is not enough. Suppose we have a unit of N tanks!" Angry threat to an idle student: "I ought to drag you out into the open field, shove you face-first against a wall, and shoot you between the eyes with a shotgun, so that you'd remember it for the rest of your life!" Cadets, write down: "the temperature of boiling water is 90°." / One of the privates replies, "Comrade praporshchik, you're mistakenit's 100°!" / The officer consults his handbook, and then announces, "Right, 100°. It is the right angle that boils at 90°." Cadets, now write down: "This device works at a temperature between −400 and 400 degrees Celsius." / "Comrade praporshchik, there is no such temperature as −400 degrees!" / "What would you know, it's a brand new, secret device!" (Note that Russia uses the Celsius scale.) Sometimes, these silly statements can cross over, intentionally or unintentionally, into the realm of actual wit: "Cadet, explain why you have come to class wearing the uniform of our probable military adversary!" (most probably, the instructor means jeans