bizarreville

With the recent announcement that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is retiring, there is a scramble to quickly develop a short-list of candidates for his replacement.  Stevens was most known for being the outspoken leader of the liberal wing of the Court.  He was nominated by President Ford in 1975, and at the time, appeared to be a constitutional conservative, but almost immediately did a quick 180 and changed his views on everything legal.  He changed his views on affirmative action, the death penalty, gun control, and at one point suggested just scrapping the Constitution and starting over.  “Man, I sure fooled those bozos,” said Stevens at the time.  “What a bunch of saps.”

A local county judge from Bizarreville has emerged as a potential replacement candidate, named Judge Mert Shlunk.  Mert also owns the Shlunk Auto Body Collision shop, which offers a guarantee to give any customer 5 pounds of coffee if they gripe that their repair job sucks.  In terms of background, Shlunk got his law degree from Stubitz Refrigerator College with a solid C-average, and a fairly good class attendance record.  He became a judge 13 years ago, and put on a brilliant campaign… which seemed somewhat irrelevant when it turned out no one else was running.  He has had no issues of personal infidelity staining his tenure on the bench, but quips that maybe he would have if he was better looking.

Shlunk is an enigma in terms of his political philosophy and leanings.  He attends church regularly, but doesn’t put anything into the offering basket.  He believes strongly in the Constitution, but admits that technically he’s never read it, cover to cover.  “Every time I go to the library, it’s checked out.”

Shlunk supports equal rights, and espouses expanding the rights of NASCAR fans, light beer drinkers, and Moms-with-bratty-kids segments of the population.  He believes that women have the right to choose, but thinks that mainly should apply to what to cook for dinner and which fabric softener to buy.  He is unsure of his stand on the constitutionality of income tax, indicating that particular issue may be in the part of the Constitution he hasn’t read yet.  He does not believe in gay marriage, but says he’s not so crazy about straight marriage either.

When asked about Roe vs. Wade, he said he normally prefers to stay inside the boat, and would generally prefer to pick up an oar if his fishing boat motor konks out.  “In fact, I have a pretty solid record on this issue,” Shlunk said.  “I really need to buy a new motor for that friggin boat.”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones you’d swear are real.

The Bizarreville Bankers Association issued a statement yesterday that has a segment of citizens very upset.  The Bankers announced that there will no longer be a classification of mortgage loans titled “Sub-prime” mortgages.  As most know, sub-prime mortgages were widely viewed as a key contributing factor to the recent financial crisis and economic recession.  And so to distance themselves from this confusing and very ambiguous term, the Bankers have decided to drop it altogether.

In its place will be 3 new classifications of mortgage loans, and all loans for that matter:  (1) Prime credit loans, (2) Loans to people whose credit sucks, and (3) Loans to numbskulls who will most assuredly never pay them back, so say goodbye to that dough.  The Banks will also adopt a new logo system that will appear on all loan applications and other paperwork…a vacuum cleaner icon on the ‘Credit Sucks’ designees, and a stack of cash with wings icon for the ‘Kiss that dough goodbye’ designees.  Logo tee-shirts will also be available at any participating bank.

Much of the outcry has been related to the #2 classification, Loans to people whose credit sucks.  Gripers argue that this places a stigma on a lot of good people who, through no fault of their own, just ended up getting a dozen or so credit cards with maxxed-out balances, and/or a car loan whose monthly payments were set unreasonably high by greedy bankers.  They claim that it will now be difficult for them to get any financing for a new Lexus or Beamer, let alone a mortgage on that new lakefront cottage.  They will be embarrassed to ever file for bankruptcy for fear of being ridiculed and stigmatized by friends and neighbors.

Several banks have recognized the insensitivity of the ‘Credit Sucks’ designation, and have offered to give any lousy credit customer who opens a new account a free low-power vacuum cleaner as a promotional enticement.  Another bank is giving away free brooms with a label “Don’t suck, sweep”.  The Bankers Association said they are certain that these low-end customers will see the humor in these items…although privately one bank exec said he hopes they do their business at the credit union from here on out.

Surprisingly, there has been little pushback on the ‘Never Pay Back’ designation.  Most feel this segment of the market will return to their roots of borrowing money from Title Pawn companies, loan sharks, and the mob…where contract terms are simpler and payback terms are easy for them to understand.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones that seem so real.

Click over to the Simpli-Tax tab for the next exciting installment of the trek toward Simpli-Tax, and the CPA war to prevent it all from happening.

Note to all loyal Bizarreville followers:  Thanks so much to the growing number of members of Bizarreville Nation for supporting our site by purchasing our book, Tales of Obamaland.  This book helps us continue to fund Bizarreville.  If you’ve not yet dove into Obamaland, please consider buying a copy…for yourself, for a friend, for a colleague…we know you will thoroughly enjoy it.  With political satire written in a Dr. Seuss style, it is a book like no other.  Tales of Obamaland is available at Amazon.com, BooksAMillion.com, BarnesAndNoble (bn.com), and Powells.com, and it is available in e-Book format from iUniverse.com.  Click on any of the 4 logos below and order one!

The cracker jack Bizarreville Postal Service announced sweeping cost cutting moves in response to their $238 billion projected debt over the next decade.  The strategy will be rolled out in phases over the next 4-5 years to get them from 12-digit deficits down to a manageable 10-digit deficit.  The Postmaster General commented that he has not figured out a way to make money handling/delivering mail, and has suggested they may start delivering pizza if things don’t get better.  Pizza owners quip that a delivered pizza would cost about 38 bucks if the Post Office took charge.

The Post Office will initially start by cutting out Saturday deliveries and Saturday mail pickups to trim $5 billion/year in expenses, and put 49 thousand postal workers on the street.  But within a year or two, they plan to  eliminate Monday and Friday service, then in another two years take it down to just Thursday mail, and to hell with it.  They are considering a new Self-Service concept, whereby customers could just go to the post office and plow through a big pile of mail on the floor to find their stuff…but it’s only at the conceptual stage at this point.

The Office was expecting there to be an outcry about this service cutback, but surveys have shown that citizens could not care less.  Some people surveyed did not even know who the Postal Service was, until it was explained they were the ones who deliver Snail Mail that’s stuffed in that box at the end of their driveway.  “You mean the box that has all the worthless crap mail in it?” asked one surveyed customer, who later remembered getting a birthday card in the box about a year ago.

Supporters point out that the Postal Service is reasonably efficient, given the fact that they are still using a business model honed in the 18th century, and run by a government model honed in the 11th century.  They emphasize that most mail actually makes it to the destination desired, and challenge naysayers to find any other governmental bureaucracy that can get it right over half of the time.

Progressives have proposed bolstering the office with more federal funding, higher stamp prices, and maintaining bloated headcounts with generous wage hikes each year.  “Cuz if they fail, who will deliver our junk mail?” asked a progressive pundit.  “Who?  Fed Ex?  I doubt it.”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction.

Reports from law enforcement offices are that drunken drivers over St. Patrick’s Day were far drunker than years past.  Drivers pulled over and arrested had blood alcohol levels twice the legal limit on average, with some 3 times the limit.  Authorities are wondering what has caused this surge…but think they may have the answer:  Jello shots.

“We used to focus on excessive beer drinking,” the Police chief said.  “But with the skyrocketing price of beer in bars, you will run out of money before you get drunk enough to be a danger on the road.”

“We also had considered excess Margarita drinkage as a potential problem.  But our investigation showed that bars were watering the drinks down more and increasing the salt on the glass rims to increase their profit margins.  A perpetrator would just about go into a salt-poisoning overdose state before getting above the legal alcohol limit.

“But we finally came across the Jello shot trend, and believe that may need to be the problem du jour to be tackled.  We are in the process of encouraging bars to sell less-tasty Jello flavors like rhudabega or asparagus, if they suspect a customer has had too much.  That may not stop them, but at least may slow them down while they shiver and shake off the taste.

“As always, we encourage drunk customers to call for a taxi.  The only problem we’ve seen lately is that a lot of the taxi drivers are now getting drunk on jello shots.  And it is so hard to determine if a taxi driver is drunk, because they drive like such idiots when they’re sober.”

Click over and catch the newest update on our CPA buddies fighting the Simpli-tax proposal —–>

Disproving another adage, Bizarreville is now offering a Free Lunch from 12 noon to 1:00 pm Monday through Friday.  It is being done with no adverse impact to current taxpayers, and no strings attached.  It is totally free, and open to anyone and everyone who wants or needs a lunch.

Free Lunch will be available at the former home of Shanky’s Bar-B-Q, the originators of the baby back donkey ribs and the cabbage-flavored barbeque sauce.  Shanky’s, as most know, went belly-up after the alleged food poisoning epidemic and associated lawsuits.

One word of caution for the lunch freeloaders who might be tempted to take advantage of this enticing opportunity.  The bill of fare consists of a variety of pre-digested, processed, and freshly scooped dog food…somewhat watery in texture and pungent to the nose.  It is not particularly appetizing, but it is free, and free in basically unlimited quantities.  Free Lunch also solves a perplexing environmental problem…but that is the subject of another story.

Free Lunch is brought to you by your friends on the Liberal Left, who believe that quantity is more important than quality, and that everyone has an inalienable right to the pursuit of food.  Free Lunch will be funded by the future, not-yet-conceived grandchildren of Bizarreville taxpayers.  Thank you letters have been written, and will be sent/opened when the babies are born and become old enough to read.  When the kids reach 21 years of age, they will receive the invoice.

Check out the next installment of Simpli-tax, the series —–>

Progressive Democratic leaders have now begun taking reservations for spots underneath the Obamacare Bus.  The prime spots are expected to go fast, but the slots under the crushing weight of the bus tires will be held aside for those congressmen with the hardest heads and/or pre-existing brain damage. 

The king of hard heads, Harry Reid, has a special reservation under the front wheels, paid for by the President himself.  “Bring it on, baby,” Reid said.  “Bring on the Big Foot Bus, I don’t care….I’m ready and willing.”  Doctors have pointed out that Reid suffers from a variety of brain maladies already, and no additional head trauma could make him much worse.

The parade line for the bus crush had lengthened as the current health care poll results were released over the weekend.  Now 75% of citizens want the gimmick-ridden Obamacare program stopped or started over.  But one congressperson had said that she had just talked to one old woman in Syracuse who encouraged her to stay the course.  She cited that her best friend’s 3rd cousin’s housekeeper who smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day died from lung cancer because she couldn’t get quick treatment for her black lung.  The congressperson claims that was enough to convince her to keep the fight for Obamacare to the bitter end…”irrespective of your fudged poll numbers suggesting people think the whole program is lame.”

Liberal inner circle members of Obama’s staff have continued to load more and more sandbags onto the Obamacare wagon.  But they claim the way the Obamacare bus suspension is designed, no extra weight is being actually transferred to the tires and wheels.  One senator questioned the logic of that statement, but was promptly told to shut up, and slide under the bus, or he would find himself losing in his own primary.

Many blue dogs sense that their end is near, but are hoping against hope that some magic dust will be scarfed up by their Leaders that will prevent them from being crushed by the bus’ 12,000- pound weight.  They have been led astray before.  They have been led to believe in the Tooth Fairy, the caped crusader, and Wilma Flintstone by their “inspired” leaders in the past, only to find out much later that feet-propelled cars are totally impractical…and the TF pays absolutely nothing for broken dentures under pillows.

The bus crushing could get gruesome, but many could conceivably survive.  Skull structure experts warn all audience viewers that they should not try this at home.  They point out that these people are professional hard heads with extra skull thickness, allowing them to resist pressure more than most normal humans.  “Do not throw yourself or your buddy under such a bus unless you are one of these bonefide hard heads.”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even ones that seem pretty real.

Continuing coverage of the President’s health care summit with a bunch of very smart 5th graders.  Laura Laxatiff responds for the class on question 3.

Q3.  Some insurance companies won’t cover what they call “pre-existing conditions”.  That means if someone has a medical problem before the company starts insuring them, the company won’t pay the bill.  What can we do about that?

Laura:  Well, if you ever had a cold, does that mean they would never cover you for colds?  Or if you had an earache before?

President:  I’m not sure, but I think it just applies to things that people have wrong with them.

Laura:  Just about every old person I know has something wrong with them.  Cindy’s mom has sore knees, Jacob’s dad takes 6 pills a day for something, Chelsea’s dad is always complaining about his sore back.

President:  If they leave one insurance company and go to another, they might not be covered for those old knees and bad back problems.

Laura:  That’s not very fair.  They should definitely be covered for whatever problem they have.  Why wouldn’t an insurance company cover them?

President:  The insurance companies are worried that people will stop paying for insurance…but then when something goes wrong, they’ll hurry up and sign up for insurance.

Laura:  Seems kind of silly to me.  Do you think that would really happen very often?

President:  No.  Probably once or twice in a blue moon.

Laura:  Then why are they so worried about it if it would hardly ever happen very much?

President:  It’s complicated.  I personally think they’re just trying to get out of paying for different things.

Laura:  Yeah, I know.  My friend Marty Mopeburger is always tring to get out of work his mom tells him to do.  Even easy stuff like taking out the garbage.  He’ll do all kinds of stuff to get out of taking out the garbage, when it would be so much easier to just do it and get it over with.  He’s a pretty weird kid.

President:  So you think we should tell them to just cover pre-existing conditions?

Laura:  Yeah.  Some people are sick, some aren’t.  If you try to get too picky on stuff, it will drive you nuts.  They should all just say:  “Come on, join us.  We’ll take care of you.”  Stop trying to be so weird about little meaningless stuff.

President:  How should we go about tell them to do it?

Laura:  I’d say just tell them to do it and that’s final.  That’s what my mom tells me when she wants me to do something.  If she’s allowed to do it, I guess you’re allowed to do it, too.

 (to be continued)

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction.

Take a peek at the Simpli-tax series (on the right), if you haven’t checked it in a while.  It’s a nice story of CPA’s trying desperately to hold on to their lifeline: the convoluted tax code. 

Either that or buy TALES OF OBAMALAND.  I think you’ll like it.  And after all, you need a little humor to get through it all, right?

Last week, Limburger Waste Company announced plans to build a Mt. Trashmore type landfill at the old Skunksville Farms property.  Some citizens have complained that, if they do this, it will totally block the view of the famous “Bizarreville” sign, a beloved tourist attraction for visitors.  Leaders of the Tourism Bureau say that there is not much else to see or do in Bizarreville, so the sign “…is one of the few things we’ve got.  Plus, the landfill would stink.”

An ad hoc committee has formed to try and block the issuance of the land use permit that Limburger is trying to obtain.  The group is trying to attract rich millionaire movie star types to aid in their efforts.  They say that this is just the type of wheel-spinning goof-ball cause that would appeal to these prima donnas in between their red carpet doink-oramas. 

But they may ask the hoidy toidy set to also chip in some cash.  The committee would like to be able to buy the Skunksville land and turn it into a park.  A couple of the members even took the initiative to go buy a swingset, plop it down at Skunksville, and have their kids play on it as a pre-emptive photo op.  Unfortunately, they stuck the swingset on the side of a steep hill, and 2 of the kids flew off, tumbled down the hill, and whacked their heads pretty hard while the cameras were rolling.

Meanwhile, Limburger has stated that they will make beauty enhancements to the Mt. Trashmore after it fills up…grassy lands, trees, the whole bit.  In fact, they offered to relocate/transplant the Bizarreville sign to their new landfill mountain, squeezed right in between the methane recovery spigots…even add black-light spotlights so tourists can see the Bizarreville sign at night.

The Committee has not been convinced, and has pointed out that the seepage from the landfill would probably discolor the Bizarreville sign blocks, and ultimately dissolve them altogether.  They want to stop Limburger, and plan to fight to the bitter end.

Limburger has taken a practical approach to the matter.  They say that they might have to consider relocating the landfill to an alternative piece of property… right behind the Ad Hoc Committee chairman’s home, if this “bitter end” deal doesn’t work out.