Oh and by the way, this isn't called a 'war' in my book. I believe the term you are looking for is 'debate'. However seeing as the 'debate' is generally pretty one sided, I like to call it 'taking the piss'. Anyway, any polite person would have just -not laughed- at my 'lame' joke if they had heard it before. If you treat bad jokes this way, I imagine you'd be a pretty unpopular guy down the pub/bar.