bizarreville

The President called a Health Care Summit conference at the White House with a select panel of 5th graders who had been contestants on the TV show “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?”  He did this after coming to the conclusion/realization that a handful of 5th graders were smarter than the entire body of Congress put together, could probably cut through the mumbo jumbo, and develop workable solutions to the health care issue.  The President asked 4 questions for the 5th Graders to deal with.  Little 5th grader Billy Smith responded to the President on the first question:

Q1. How can we cut the cost of Health Care?

Billy:  Mr. President, well, what’s causing costs to go up so much, sir?

President:  Doctors are charging more and more for their services and procedures to help people get better, Billy.

Billy:  Well, why are they charging more and more?

President:  Because their costs keep going up.

Billy:  Why are their costs going up?

President:  Doctors say because Malpractice Insurance cost is rising so fast.

Billy:  What is Mel Crack Diss?

President:  Malpractice, Billy, is when people sue doctors because they think the doctor did something wrong when he was treating them.  They sue them for millions of dollars.  And they get the money because everyone figures it’s just the insurance company that will be paying it.

Billy:  My doctor is a pretty smart man, and a real nice guy.  He’s got 3 kids.  I don’t think he would do anything wrong.

President:  You’re right, Billy.  Almost all doctors are very good doctors and do the right thing.  It’s extremely rare when a doctor is truly negligent.  But still, people keep suing and suing and getting lots of money for it, regardless if the doctor really did something wrong.

Billy:  That doesn’t seem too fair.  If a doctor is trying hard and doing his best, he shouldn’t be punished for that.  I know when I get punished for something like leaving the seat up, and I didn’t do it, I get mad.

President:  Well, the doctor doesn’t really get punished.  It’s the insurance company that pays the tab.

Billy:  But didn’t you say that the insurance company just goes ahead and charges the doctor more money?

President:  Well, yes…

Billy:  Why can’t we stop people from getting lots and lots of money when the doctor didn’t do anything wrong in the first place?

President:  Well, it’s complicated.  We don’t want to stop people from being able to sue a doctor when he really did something that was grossly negligent.

Billy:  I thought you said that was extremely rare?

President:  Ummm, I did…..I did say that…uh…let’s see.  Well, it’s like this…you see, the lawyers…ummm…the lawyers find out about these cases by hanging around hospitals a lot.  Now the lawyers are very nice people too, you see….ummmm…I tell you what, let’s move on to the next question.

(to be continued)

Disclaimer:  All stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones you would swear are real.

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?

Wednesday

9:05 am:  Went through the metal detector at the WH.  Was told my boots were too filthy for the WH carpet. Had to go to the restroom to scrub them down.

9:25 am:  I said Hello to the Pork/Earmark Czar in the north hallway, but he just grunted back.  Guess if you’re a “Czar” you don’t have to talk to common people like me.  But now that I think of it, I do remember a little Russian history, and that was true of czars.

9:55 am:  Sprayed the Chief of Staff office.  He stayed on the phone at his desk, so I had to work around him.  I thought I heard a large rat near his closet.  But it turned out to be his Exec Assistant who was making a squeaky noise when he talked.  Man, that was an irritating sound.

10:13 am:  Checked the mouse traps in the cafeteria.  All the cheese was gone, but the traps had not engaged.  I’ll bet one of those punk interns grabbed the cheese yesterday as an afternoon snack.  Probably feels pretty clever that he did it without getting snapped…or maybe he did get snapped, and just reset it to avoid embarassment.

10:47 am:  Sprayed the johns.  All smelled pretty bad.  Who knows what these goofballs eat around here.  Maybe Mexican?  Probably get free meals, compliments of us taxpayers.  I’ll bet they all get free chips and salsa delivered to their office whenever they want it.

11:18 am:  Unable to get into the main meeting room.  These guys just seem to sit in meetings all day.  Sit and talk, talk and sit.  That ain’t work.  Then they leave the meeting to go to another meeting.  They call them briefings.  Does that mean they drop trou and sit around in their skivvys?  Why would they do that?  Seems kind of perverted to me.

12:07 pm:  Broke for lunch.  Ate my salami sandwich while these clowns down the hall are probably eating steak tar-tar.  Reminder:  need to throw out the rest of this loaf of bread.

1:00 pm:  Shot a few hoops at the WH basketball court…until some Secret Service guy told me to leave.  I told him I was just spraying in here.  He called me a liar, and started to call for backup.  So I just left.

2:13 pm:  Inadvertently bumped into some muckety muck in a freshly pressed designer suit while I was spraying the west corridor.  He accused me of getting “pestulant odor” on his suit, and he would have to have it dry cleaned.  I said I was sorry, and I didn’t smell any “pestulant odor” on him.  He just said, “yeah, easy for you to say,” and walked away.

3:00 pm:  Completed my rounds and started heading out.  You know, I could do any of these jobs here.  But things would be different if I was in charge.  First off there would no more meetings, period.  Then I would give the janitors and other service people a 20 percent raise, no make it 25.  I’d have the czars cleaning the toilets, and filling up my office humidor with fresh cigars every day.  Yeah, man, a lot different…..

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction.

Nancy Pelosi yesterday ordered all of her liberal colleagues to immediately pick up a copy of the new book, “Karl Marx Unleashed”.  She said that it is high time we stop pissing around, nibbling away at important issues like auto industry nationalization, health care for the proletariate, and jail time for all capitalists.  “It is time for decisive, revolutionary-type action…that’s why the public elected us, and that’s what we are obliged to deliver…and deliver now before all the whackos on the Right have a chance to hose us down and extinguish the liberal flame within us.”

The new book, authored by Elmwood Skank, a professor of Political Science Mythology at Dweeb College, puts a brand new spin on old Karl’s 19th Century ideas.  He points out that Marx was like an Industrial Age Nostradamus, predicting that the working class would get pissed at CEO salaries and bonuses, that capitalism would cause major boom/bust cycles that would devastate so many speculators, and that the New Orleans Saints would eventually win the Super Bowl.  Of course that last prediction requires the reader to take a few interpretive symbolic leaps to make the connection.

But his communist fundamentals, according to Skank, ring true today…including the concept of sharing the wealth, helping the lazy, replacing competition with kumbaya, and disincentivizing initiative that, oh so often, leads to greed.  He invokes the famous Rodney King quote, “why can’t we just get along” to describe the societal problem with police brutalizing people just because they break a few laws here and there, threaten a few people, and terrorize the occasional neighborhood…or a dictator in Iran who just wants to be loved by the world communicty.  Karl Unleashed would get them all together and smoke a peace pipe…4 or 5 puffs and they would all get along just fine, thank you.

Nancy has become so inspired that she has gone to the library and picked up writings from Lenin, Engels, Trotsky, Mao, and Castro to really bone up on Marxist thought, and help her turn it into Action.  She has instructed her colleagues to develop a “Contract with Karl” set of 10 fresh new legislative bills to get this revolution into gear…high gear.  She has tried to not be too prescriptive, but hinted she would like to see things like food rationing, apartment-size equalization, and more public transportation to replace individual cars.

A Republican spokesman was asked to comment, but just shook his head and said “Wow”.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones that sound like they could be real.

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.

The President had announced with great fanfare the birth of a new Budget deficit reduction commission…a blue ribbon committee charged with taking a close examination of the deficit and deciding what actions could be taken.

But there was a problem, which staffers inside the White house later described as a cluster F#&*.  The President had privately instructed his Deficit Czar to organize a toothless effort to study deficit reduction.  And naturally, the obedient-to-a-fault Czar started tracking-down and recruiting candidates with no teeth.

He had started with the National Hockey League, particularly with retired players who played in the era when men were men…no helmets, no mouthguards, proud of getting into bloodbaths on the ice and pulling the jersey over an opponent’s head.  These guys proudly displayed their toothless displays as a badge of honor.  But, unfortunately, these fellows, a bit battered from too many slap-shot pucks to the noggin, said they were not interested unless they would hold the committee meetings on the ice.

Next they went to the Bizarreville Affordable Dentures office to do some recruiting in the lobby.  But a lot of these people were only about as smart as a congressman, so could not pass the basic intelligence test.  Plus, the Czar was not sure if people with false teeth truly qualified as “toothless”, and he was just a bit too nervous to ask the President for clarification.

But finally the team managed to scrape together enough toothless wonders to have a meeting, and the cuts began.  The first item to get cut was, as no surprise, all government-sponsored dental care.  All dental programs for government employees, military personnel, and officials would be gone…zip.  Savings would be in the multiple billions.

Next item cut:  Food Stamps.  Their rationale was if people don’t have food, they can go to the soup kitchens like the rest of us.  Or they can just make their own soup, just like grammaw used to do.  More billions.

Third cut:  All earmarks.  No one at the toothless table knew what an earmark was.  So they just cancelled them all.  More billions.

The Gummers started going nuts on all the frivolous spending on National Endowment of the Arts, studies of Polar Bear mating habits in Alaska, embryonic stem cell research, and Acorn – whatever the hell that is.  They cut out Medicaid completely but agreed to provide each current Medicaid recipient with a bottle of Vicks VapoRub to help with the transition. 

In the end, the Toothless Deficit Commission cut out hundreds and hundreds of little streams that were flowing into Pisswater Channel, and figured out how to balance the whole budget without a tax increase.  But when they presented their study to the President, he looked puzzled and dumbfounded.  All he could say was, “Ahhh…errr…ummm…duh…I mean….hmmmmm.”  But the President thanked the committee for their good work, complimented them on their wholesome “rural beauty”, but indicated that he had to leave for a security briefing in 5 minutes as he gave them the bum’s rush.

He gently placed the study into File 13 on his way out the oval office door.

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

Senator Evan Bayh from Indiana announced his plans to retire from the Senate, sending a shock wave across the Democratic side of the aisle.  At one time he was a formidable presidential candidate, and on a short list of contenders for Obama’s VP slot.  But his biggest flaw was that he was the voice of reason and common sense, traits that simply could not be tolerated, nor reconciled with the Giga-Lib agenda.

Bayh said that he was sick and tired of sucking up to the knuckleheads on the Left, whom he claims “seem to have left the Planet Earth to explore brave new worlds”.  He indicated he is also fed up with the chicken s#!# in the Senate when just trying to do simple stuff.  “You need to schedule a caucus to cut a fart around here.”

The crowning blow was when he decided to vote for the whacky Obamacare health bill, against his better judgement and intuition…then found himself vomitting over the stool later that evening.  He said it reminded him of the time he drank a quart of Ripple wine followed by a quart of Schlitz Malt Liquor while back in college. 

But he also said that the nonsense about Cap & Tax, the faux Jobs bill, and the secret plans to takeover the Breakfast Cereal industry…supposedly because Corn Flakes just aren’t crunchy enough anymore… was more than Bayh could take.  “Does this kookiness ever have an end?” Bayh questioned, rhetorically.

Bayh also indicated that he had seen a doctor who had diagnosed him with Demagogue Fatigue Syndrome.  This is a little known affliction which can crop up when a politician has just heard enough BS to the point his ears start to turn brown.  The only cure is to get far away from Washington, DC.

Democratic party leadership had no official comment beyond saying that he was whole on his coffee dues, and always paid his Super Bowl office pool bets on time.  But privately, Dem insiders said that they look forward to putting forth a first-class candidate, Oliver Spunkle.  Spunkle is a professor who teaches Marxism and Crocheting at Indiana University, is a staunch vegetarian, has never held a real job, and still wets the bed.  “We think Indiana voters will vote for him because of his affiliation with IU and because he had played basketball at his small-town Indiana high school,” the insider commented.

Opponents point out that Spunkle played on a team that went 0-20 his senior year, only had 6 players on the whole team, and Spunkle rode the bench.  But of course that was before he became a vegetarian.

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

To break the monotony of wraggling over bills, Congress has adopted a fun little internal game that they will be playing with themselves.  It’s called “I’m more bipartisan than you”.  Each congressperson will amass points between now and November whenever they do something that shows bipartisanship.  Of course the difficulty and excitement in the game is that no one there really knows what bipartisanship really means.  So it will be hilarious to see how they stumble and bumble trying to figure out how the points system works, and then conniving games on how to score points.

Now the rules of the game are as follows.  Every time a congressperson tells an opposing member “that’s a great idea”, he/she gets one point.  It can be recognizing a great idea on a landmark bill, or discovering a new way of washing his hands after going to the poddy.  It cannot be sarcasm (i.e. that’s a “great” idea), although the cleverest members may find ways to sneak some sarcasm into the dialog without the unclever, mind-numb opposing member even realizing it.

The congressperson will get 2 points if they have had a meaningful discussion with an opposing member to try to resolve a persnickety disagreement on a bill.  Points, however, will not be awarded if the person makes disparaging comments about his grandmother, makes inaccurate comments about certain body dimensions, or uses the F-word in describing what actions the opposing member can do with himself.

They will get 3 points if they actually find common ground with an opposing member.  Naturally, all feel that these points will be rarely given out.  It’s not even clear that most of these hardheads even know what common ground means, so it will be especially difficult for any of them to know it if they see it.  But points are theoretically available to the rare few who might take the time to probe and reconcile true desires of each side…or, more likely, the rare few who stumble upon common ground by sheer accident.

Finally, they will get 5 points if they actually come to a written bonefide agreement on an issue with an opposing member.  A panel will question both members to make certain that they really agree and are not just pretending to agree to get extra points.  Laughing or spit-takes during the panel questioning will put grave doubt on the authenticity of the agreement.  And if found to be faked, it will cause both players to lose 5 points, and furthermore, both members will be forced to listen to House floor speeches for 3 solid days in a row as additional punishment.

No points will be awarded for “compromise” agreements, where both sides feel like they lost in the deal.  Anyone caught compromising in this manner will be given a travelling stuffed toy duck that just quack, quack, quacks all day.  The Quacker will be required to be kept on the Quackee’s desk for the next 24 hours.

The winner of the “I’m more bipartisan than you” contest will receive an upgrade to his seat in the congressional chamber to a La-Z-Boy Sleepmaster XF…so that if he/she is going to be bored, at least it will be a comfortable boredom.  The seat has an optional vibration unit that can be energized when the House is set for a vote…or the unit can be switched off entirely to prevent sleep interruption.

The Bizarreville Luge team has reported that there is no friggin’ way they are going to compete on that treacherous track that tragically took to life of a Georgian athlete.  “Even if they shave off part of Curve 16 and wall-off those steel beam headbusters, that won’t be enough,” according to a Bizarreville Luge team spokesman.

Officials say that the accident last week was no fault of the track, but was caused by human error.  The rider was identified as being too inexperienced and only ranked 44th in the world.  “Our best luger is 1044th in the world, for crissake,” said the team spokesman.  “We really don’t want to turn our team into a 6-pack of meatball sandwiches on that Chicago Stockyard Dissasembly Line.”  The spokesman went on to say that the quality of their team’s luge sleds is about one-half step above the Flexible Flyers at Walmart.  “You get one of those babies going 90 miles per hour sideways, with someone about as qualified as my grandmaw on it…you’re going to end up with Brunswick stew.”

The players are not upset at the decision.  The have indicated that they just wanted to come to the Olympics for the over-the-top festivities, trading pins with the Rooskies, and the free hot chocolate.  Team Captain Skinny Jenkins said that there’s plenty of other stuff to do, and they might go try a little ski jumping just for the hell of it.  When asked about the danger of totally inexperienced people leaping through mid-air off a mountain, Skinny said they would let their youngest teammate Mikey do it…and if he broke some bones, they might just dog-off that whole idea, and go hit Happy Hour in the Athlete’s Lounge.

But the luge sleds have now been retired, and the team may try to sell the sleds as souvenirs to some of the spend-happy Olympic fans here.  “Anybody who would pay good hard cash to watch a Curling tournament, might very well be stupid enough to buy a luge for 500 bucks.”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction.  And, as you can see, nothing is sacred with these idiots here.

The Bizarreville TV Network is proud to be piloting a new TV series next week, called The Grumpler.  Modeled after the successful “The Bachelor” program, the new series will feature the grumpiest liberal congressman.  Casting will find one who is most upset about not not getting their statist/socialist government-control agenda passed…one who is genuinely ornery and about ready to go postal over the farting around in the Obamacare passage or other feet-dragging in government takeover of the economy.

The TV series will then bring 25 hookers onto the show to find new, creative ways to cheer him up.  He will then start narrowing down the field, week by week.  But the secret to the show is that he will actually be looking for the contestant who aggravates him the most in her feeble attempt to change his surly mood.  Any pro who makes him smile or laugh, as unlikely as that seems, would most likely be ushered onto the nearest limo for her trip home.

Elmer Smudd, the Executive Producer, figures the hookers will catch on to the “secret” pretty quickly, and may soon do all they can do to piss him off.  Smudd thinks this transition will be hilarious to their target audience, comprised of men and women who think 99% of all TV programming is pure crap (pretty big target market as it turns out).  Obscenities are likely to be flying, but will all be bleeped out so as not to offend the kids who have never heard that kind of language before.

Rather than a traditional rose ceremony, the lib congressman will cut off the top of the rose and give the thorny stem to the lucky girls who will continue, and move on to next week’s challenge.  He’ll keep the top for himself.

Each week’s show will feature new intriguing venues that are disgusting, revolting, reprehensible in their own right to help create the right mood.  Boring football games on cold rainy days, PBS pledge drive studios, Chuck E. Cheese, Mount Trashmore landfills, economic debriefing rooms, and book readings at book fairs will be among the chosen destinations.

The Winner will get to become the congressman’s Top Aide until the congressman gets thrown out of office, either by election, by sheer incompetence, or by impeachment.  The losing hookers will not leave empty handed.  Each will be given a new wardrobe designed by Streetwise Sleaze of Hollywood, the leader in upscale trashiness, and a one year’s supply of Tootsie Pops.

Smudd thinks the show will be a hit.  He looks forward to casting The Grumplette for next season’s shows.

The Bizarreville Olympic team announced that it made it up to Vancouver, and members are preparing diligently for the fashion parade at the Opening Ceremony and, of course, the events themselves.  The Bizarreville team is led by Bill and Sheila Farkward, figure skating team hopefuls.  The Farkwards could be contenders for the Gold in the skating pairs competition, but they have one major problem:  They run their routines flawlessly in practice, but when they get into real competition, they nearly always take at least one frozen ass dusting at some point during their program.  So, even though they technically come in as the favorite in every meet, they end up in the cellar and go home empty-handed.

The Bizarreville skating coach has been puzzled, and had suggested that they get psychological help, and booked them an appointment.  The staff sports psychologist suggested they just try to block out the crowd and focus on the music.  The Farkwards, never at a loss for words, said “Duh…so glad we’re paying you a hundred skins for that kind of brilliant advice.  Would you like to give us a full critique on our program while you’re at it, or would that cost extra?” 

But the psych-coach buffed off the sarcasm and said “Just imagine the whole audience is naked.  That will make you laugh inside, and forget your nervousness.”  Two sets of eye rolls later, the Farkwards bid adieu to Dr. Quackbrain.

But the figure skating coach overheard this advice and decided to help the couple.  On their final practice before leaving for Vancouver, he instructed the whole coaching staff to actually drop drawers and get naked, just as the Farkwards started their program.  They did.  At that moment, Bill glanced over to the bench just as he was getting ready to execute a throw/spin move with Sheila.  He promptly lost his focus and threw Sheila head first over the boards, and crashing into the second row of stands.  She ended up with a few cuts and bruises, but believes she will still be able to compete.

Meanwhile, Bill told the coach to cram his stupid ideas and shut the  f*%# up…or he would place the blade of his skate somewhere where the Olympic Flame don’t shine.  Bill later said, “You know, suddenly I feel a lot more relaxed!”

The President announced that he has scheduled a meeting with Republicans in Congress to air out their ideas on health reform.  He also indicated that he will be using the newly released Bumco “Deaf Ear Listener” unit during the meeting to help get him through the meeting he described as “potentially excuciatingly boring and anti-productive”.

The Deaf Ear Listener(DEL) is an innovative new product that appears to be ideal for Democrats in government.  It is a very small unit that fits snugly in each ear, camouflaged to look like excess ear wax buildup.  The DEL effectively blocks the wearer from hearing any external sound, while a small chip inside the unit gently plays “The Best of Bread” songs inside his/her ears.  It just came out and sells for $59.95 a set, but there is already a hefty order backlog.

Inside sources say that the President will maintain a pensive, thoughtful look on his face to make it look like he is actually listening to the Republicans.  A reporter asked about what the President will do if someone asks him a question.  “Simple,” the White House spokesman replied.  “He will just give some canned response that will have nothing whatsoever to do with the question asked…basically just like he does now.  It is doubtful that anyone will know the difference.”

The insider said it is important for it to look like the President is listening to contrary ideas, especially in front of cameras.  “But at the same time, all that squealling and chattering could potentially stress the President out…may even cause him to lose his appetite at dinner.  The DEL is an excellent choice to protect his health and well-being.  More American ingenuity at work!”

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