bizarreville

When it was revealed that Harry Reid had uttered a racially-insensitive comment about then Candidate Obama during the 2008 campaign, he quickly got an audience with Obama to offer an apology.  The shrill/quacky apology was taped and broadcast nationwide…and, as it turned out, the audio was picked up by the executives of the Aflac insurance company.  Aflac had been looking for someone or something to replace their aging duck mascot, and associated worn-out advertising theme which had run its course into the ground.  But they wanted a transitional approach to avoid pissing-off their duck-lover customer base, which surprisingly makes up a large percentage of total sales.

The think they found their man.  Harry’s quack-barking apology excited the Aflac leaderships team, “He looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and…well, performs like a genuine quack to boot.  What more could you ask for in a duck surrogate?”

Aflac, which supplies supplemental employee benefit insurance to various companies, sees another benefit of courting Harry…possibly getting the inside track on some of the new Health Care provisions.  Aflac admitted that they had been nervous about their future in the upcoming Obamacare world.  But they think if they suck-up to ole Harry, he might make Aflac supplemental coverage part of their freebie package to everyone.

Aflac hopes they can ink the deal within the next couple weeks, before other firms discover his amazing quacking talent.  He was asked to quack “Aflac” a few times over the phone during the recent phone interview, and performed flawlessly.  “I thought I was talking to a real duck, honestly,” commented Aflac’s executive duck recruiter.  “He may be a jerkbag senator, but, my, what a duck talent!”

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

The Bizarreville International Cliche Association has voted “The Buck Stops Here” as the winner of the most ambiguous, wimpified cliche of 2010.  Association Chairman Max Mumpf admitted  that the President’s applying the cliche recently to the Christmas Underwear Bomber followup fiasco was the clincher.  The “Wimpy” trophy will be awarded at a special Rose Garden ceremony next week.

Last year’s winning cliche, as most will recall, was “Give it 110 percent”.  This cliche was hailed for the beauty in its ambiguity…concerning what numerical value constituted Full Effort by an employee.  It was beautiful to watch the judges debating, some thinking 110 percent was more than full effort, while some thought it was less than full effort.  It was also given a Special Award as the most de-motivating little phrase of the past 100 years. 

The Buck Stops Here is a famous cliche that goes back to the Truman administration, where it was used to denote that passing the buck (or blame for a bad decision) would end with Truman.  During those times, however, its context would have much too tough-minded, not nearly wet & wimpy enough to be a finalist for the Cliche Assn award.  The committee took into consideration that President Obama has personally redefined this formerly tough, historically-significant cliche and turned it into a milk toast of total ambiguity and confusion.  That made it a clear winner in the 2010 competition.

The judges noted that the President further ambiguated the cliche by making totally vague what the word “here” meant.  They were particularly impressed because normally the word Here is clear, straight-forward, and so difficult to make ambiguous.  Here is here, right here. “It takes a real silver-tongued devil to say Here, and mean ‘maybe here, maybe there, maybe Timbuktu, maybe nowhere’,” said the head judge.  “Most impressive bit of word-dodging since Clinton’s ‘depend on what the definition of is is’ fiasco.  Brilliant.  Bravo.”

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

Talk show host David Letterbrain has checked into Manhattan Nutcase Help Center in order to get psychological treatment for his strange fear of Sarah Palin.  Friends did an intervention with Dave after the 403rd time he tried to unsuccessfully craft a funny joke, a year after she had left the national scene.  Palin jokes that perhaps at one time were real side-splitters had more recently diminished to “courtesy chuckles” from studio audiences.  Friends tried and tried to tell Dave that his jokes were getting stupider and stupider and stupider by the day…and that his fans were complaining daily of his obsessive unfunniness.  After many months of denial, ole Dave finally had to admit he had a phobia bordering on psychosis of Sarah.

“She scares the crap out of me,” Dave said while visibly trembling.  “She could be our next President.  And you know, after all the insulting remarks I’ve made about her, she might just find a way to throw my ass in jail.  I just don’t want to be locked up in a little cell with Igor, the Thunder Yonker…ouch.”

Counselors have tried to calm him down, suggesting his anxieties had no merit, and he should just put that out of his mind….unless, of course he has been dodging income tax for the past 20 years and/or taking some questionable or inappropriate deductions that a team of 1000 IRS agents working full-time on the “Dave Audit Project” might find.  Or, in case he has had a housekeeper, hose-keeper, or servant boy that he has failed to properly claim.

Counselors have said that this type of sickness is not all that uncommon among comics, particularly elderly ones who have lost their edginess and have forgotten what is funny while they try to advance their goofy unfunny political agenda.  While he is there at the Center, the doctors will also be checking Dave for any lingering Cheney-phobia symptoms, and may just have him spend time with professional joke counselors.

Fans are hoping Dave comes out of the Nutcase Center flushed of his Palin-ophobia.  They look forward to new fresh topical jokes, with his wit directed at the vast array of real, true knuckleheads running the country now.  Certainly, the joke material is there, and fans hope he can connect with it.

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

Taking a page out of the Al Qaeda playbook, Democratic leaders were able to successfully convince several senators to suicide bomb their careers by voting Yes on the Health Care bill.  These were senators whose home state constituents were overwhelmingly opposed to the bill, and who initially indicated that they would vote against it.  But, by using proven Al Qaeda-type brainwashing techniques learned during interrogations at Gitmo, the Dem leadership persuaded them convert to their way of thinking, and got them to agree to be thrown under the bus, careerwise.

But it did not come without cost.  Each trans-voter was promised 19 virgins who will be at their beck and call in their senate afterlife.  At the senator’s choice, they can be male, female, or a mix of both.  The virgins will be commissioned to satisfy any of the senators’ wild fantasies, some of which are expected to be quite bizarre.   Requisions for pudding-like food substances, pogo sticks, cases of lard, and air horns are among the items that have surfaced thus far in the negotiating process.

Some other senators have raised objections to the virgin handouts scheme.  They have cited that they have been dependable/reliable voters, toeing the party line, but are not being given these kind of perqs.  In fact, they say they get very little supplemental recognition, complaining that leaders are taking them for granted, and their votes for granted, just because they have no independent thought.  Dem leaders have responded that there is no truth to the charge, and assures them that there will be ‘severe repercussions’ if they ever get out of line.  “I think that proves we don’t take them for granted.”

Leaders are, however, considering throwing a bone to the steady-eddie senators.  “Maybe we’ll give them each a virgin or two to shut ’em up.”

Meanwhile, the soon-to-be-ex-senators are starting to announce resignation plans before the 2010 election process commences.  Their new lame duck status will allow them to totally disengage from senate activities, be able to spend time designing and building their new virgin playrooms, and most importantly, load up on ED meds.

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

With Democratic members of Congress nestled tightly behind locked doors debating/negotiating final language in the upcoming Health Care bill, the public has been left wondering what monstrosity-from-the-deep will emerge.  Pundits have questioned why the process has been so secretive, particularly when the President promised that the negotiations would be transparent, with cspan television coverage.  Some in Bizarreville are saying this is yet another broken campaign promise, and the latest in the 2010 Misrepresentation Olympics.

A White House spokesman met with reporters yesterday and said that, yes, the President misspoke when he said it would be transparent.  He meant to say “translucent”, an easy and forgivable mistake for someone to make who is not an optical scientist.  The President apparently always gets the two words confused.  He said that the meetings are indeed translucent in that people know there that there are some people moving, shuffling, and fumbling around in the room, but they just can’t see what their doing or saying.  But, he said, you can probably guess that it has something to do with adding layers of bureaucracy, and piling up costs to fix something that isn’t broke…duh.

Reporters questioned why the meetings weren’t being covered by cspan, as the President had promised.  The spokesman indicated that cspan had brought in cameras and put on special frosted-glass type lenses to get the translucent effect…even had a few Aides watch it and comment.  “The picture was very blurry and just did not seem to be very effective,” he said.  “Plus, not having any audio made the whole thing seem like you were just watching a TV test pattern.”  Congress people had considered taking off the frosty lenses in order to have a clearer picture.  But it showed just a little too much intimate detail… a lot of touching, scratching, and pants dropping, that might not be considered appropriate for their PG-level viewership.

The spokesman said that the President is committed to having high levels of translucency in all policy matters during his administration.  “You might not be able to see the details, but you’ll know something is happening.  And that is what change is all about.”

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

Bizarreville enforcement authorities report that the practice of profiling Ugly people has now been approved as a sanctioned practice.  Authorities are, in fact, encouraging all patrols to begin profiling immediately to help mitigate the wave of inappropriate behavior by the uglies.  The public’s desire to adopt the new practice stems from a recently published study from Bizarreville College of Abnormality, which concluded that ugly people created more social problems than non-uglies over the past 5 years.

Criteria for what constitutes official ugliness include, but are not limited to:  scraggly beards, too much face-hardware, tatooville, pastel-colored hair, and general ‘beaten with an ugly stick’ appearance.  But it can also include people who wear ugly clothes with holes, rips, paisley patterns, obnoxious color mis-matches, or gross food stains.

The new profiling practice will allow law enforcement and other security authorities to randomly pull these people over for interrogation and/or investigating any inkling of suspicious behavior.  They can haul their ugly asses into the Station if there is any resistance, smart alec backtalk, finger gesturing, or any other lude bodily movements.

A stampede of critics have challenged this new practice as violating ugly people’s civil rights.  They have also pointed out that ugliness is too subjective, which will almost certainly lead to borderline ugly people being harassed and mis-characterized as true Uglies.  Other critics have asked whether obesity would be considered ugly, and have correctly pointed out that there are many cute fat people.  Still others have challenged whether wearing an ugly hat fits under the ugly clothes clause.  In general, critics feel that if this practice is to stick, there needs to be standards and a rating system of some sort…perhaps even a registration requirement.

Clearly there are many tough issues raised that will require resolution in upcoming weeks.  In the meantime, ugly people are encouraged to stay home unless necessary, or be on their best behavior when out on the streets of Bizarreville.

Bumco Motivational Tools Inc has just launched its new line of hydraulically-operated motivational tools, specifically targeted to help citizens motivate their stubborn legislators who refuse to vote their constituency.  With more and more legislators choosing to be total ignoramuses on bills like the Health Care bill, Bumco feels the market for these new tools could explode.  They see expansion of the whole product line, including their high-performance “Wake Up Call” face slapper, and their classic “Anal Redriller”.

The Inept-o-vator 9000 has a number of new features, including a new special “Wanker” setting which can deliver 70 boots per minute to the new breed of pesky stubborn spacetakers who just won’t respond to the subtle approach.

Liberal critics point out that the Bumco tools are dangerous and have been known to create permanent physical damage to some unfortunate legislators.  But Bumco officials are quick to point out that when used properly, there will normally be no permanent damage unless the legislator continually refuses to heed the will of his/her people.  Bumco also points out that there have been rare cases when citizens have mispositioned their legislators on the unit, causing certain sterility issues.  And, bruising can happen if the targeted legislator has not yet developed sufficient ass lard.  So, the company has issued new operating instructions with pictures that “even a congressman could understand.

Bumco offers a satisfaction guarantee warranty that its products will provide proper motivation to even the thickest of the thick-skulled meat-heads.  Rather than money returns, Bumco promises to send out a team of technicians to properly set tool parameters and/or bring other Bumco Motivational Tools to the scene.  The bottom line, according to the company, is to get the job done.

Bizarreville auto dealers are preparing themselves for a potential onrush of new customers stemming from GM’s announcement of massive discounts on Pontiacs as that line gets phased-out.  Other dealers are concerned that the decision to sell these new cars as “used” cars may open pandora’s box of new sales gimmickry not seen since the advent of the rebate.

Dealers are optimistic in spite of the fact that Pontiac sales have been just about zilch in Bizarreville for the past 25 years, ever since GM changed its Pontiac brand strategy from high-performance, leading-edge designs to mediocre-performance, mundane crapmobiles.  “We knew it was a risky strategic shift,” commented a Marketing Manager with the former Pontiac.  “But our market research told us that customers were no longer interested in performance, styling, handling, or image.  They thought all that ‘Wide Track Pontiac” malarky was incomprehensible.  It wasn’t until many, many years later that we found that we were surveying a bunch of grammaws from Peoria…man, we really blew that one.”

All are anxious to hear details on the massiveness of the discounts.  “Hope it’s not another one of those ‘100 bucks below invoice’ scams,” lamented a shopper at Bilgewater Pontiac.  “Between that and the Employee A-plan discount pricing shell-game, we have become pretty disillusioned with pricing shenanigans by these guys…and have normally headed over to the Studebaker dealer.”  When told that Studebaker has been defunct for many years, the customer responded, “Really?  Guess we’ll have to head over to the DeSoto dealer, then.”

Many potential buyers are nervous about how Service will be handled after the dealers take down their Pontiac signs, and raise signs for a different brand, probably Asian-based brand.  “We’ll service the Pontiacs,” claimed the Service Manager at Bilgewater.  “…as long as we can scrounge up parts from the junkyards and find elderly mechanics who haven’t yet forgotten how to work on ’em.  The only other issue could be the demands from our new carline, Bangla Desh Motors…and our expectation of a steady stream of warranty issues with their rubber-band technology…that could zap our resources to work on lower priority stuff, like our old whats-its-name brand.”

Dealers will provide new customers with a signed letter from the CEO of Pontiac’s new parent company, Motors Liquidation Corporation, stating the company’s support of the line.  “I’ll state my personal reputation on it,” he said, while not fully disclosing that his current professional reputation is scooper-ready.

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

Yes, Friends…welcome to the Amazing Race to November, where the Bizarreville Congress will be challenged to ascertain how much worthless left-wing nutcase spending they can possibly do in just over 10 months.  The contestants know they’re getting swiftly booted out of their jobs in November, so by golly, they’ve got to work fast, damn fast, to get it done while there’s still no one who can effectively hold them accountable or slow their pace.

Remember, in the Amazing Race to November game, contestants get extra “style” point for ramming-through projects that are especially laughable in the eyes of our judges.  Research projects into the behaviors of stupid friggin’ animals, construction projects with no tangible benefits whatsoever, and anything that has the words “space” and “laboratory” in it are always solid qualifiers.  But judges will be looking for new deeper levels of creativity, not only in the project synopsis itself, but also in the ridiculousness of the supporting rationale.  Contestants are all reminded that they must make the judges laugh, real belly-rollers are certain to garner these bonus points.

Congress people are currently very busy with their bloated staffs trying to scrape up wasteage ideas, pulling records/notes that go back 30-40 years for shot-down projects and lame-brain funding requests that now have this once-in-a-lifetime shot at slipping into the 2010 frenzy.  One item, for example, is to completely restore the disco records blown up at the Sox game in the late 1970’s…a troubled project for decades, but now looking like a winner.

Congress is getting help from the Network of Inept Non-profit Non-functionals (NINN), the clearinghouse for coordinating/administering handouts to agencies too inept to make it on their own.  NINN always has a long running list of creepy, weepy adhocs who can turn on a dime to spend millions when extra cash is available.  A subsidiary organization of NINN, called Professors Too Inept to Teach (PTIT) also has a list of “shovel ready” university research projects to keep its research professors busy spinning wheels on inconsequentialness…and naturally keep them out of the classrooms where they can do real damage.  Suffice it to say, there are infinite places to whiz away money.

The Winner of the Amazing Race to November will be the Congress person who amasses the highest wasteful spending dollar count, plus the biggest earmark slush fund, combined with stupidity laugh points…a net total that should most certainly guarantee him/her a landslide loss in November for such blatant irresponsibility.  As a consolation, the winner will receive a lifetime guest spot on the interminable PBS pledge drives, an honorary pubah designation with the Acorn organization, and a commemorative set of gold-plated “McGovern for President” campaign buttons.  He/she will also get some kind of road, alley, or at least a ditch named after him/her somewhere in Bizarreville.

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

Bizarreville senators have just taken a solemn pledge to stop smoking.  Turns out, most of the senators are smokers.  And the liberal senators are the worst, smoking continuously…lighting off the next one from the butt of the last one.  But now they’ve decided to all take the pledge to stop.

It has always been strange to see these esteemed people conducting themselves in a manner that they know is so detrimental to their future health.  They are all extremely smart people, college educated, most with graduate degrees who fully understand the consequences of near-term pleasure vs. long-term jeopardy.  Yet, for whatever reason, probably aided/abetted by peer pressure from their smoke-aholic colleagues, they continue the bad practice.  Clearly, it has been a strong addiction, a spiral they have been unable to pull out of.

And the Senate rules have not helped them.  Years ago, rules permitted smoking only 10 cigarettes in the Chambers per day.  Then, under pressure, they raised it to 12, then 15, then a pack/day.  They held it at one pack for a few years, driven by the few non-smokers who had trouble breathing the stench, and who tried to interject just a little discipline in these knuckleheads.  But finally, the majority won out, and they raised the ceiling to 1.5 packs, then 2 packs, and recently to 2.5 packs.  Some cynics wonder why they don’t just make the ceiling “unlimited” rather than going through the stupid charade every so often.  “No, we really, really want to try to discipline ourselves,” say Senate leaders as they draft up new rules to go to 2.7 packs.

New incoming freshman senators normally are non-smokers when they arrive.  But within 3 months, they become addicted via inhaling the intense secondary smoke cloud…and seem to quickly lose their sensibility.  A few holdouts have remained non-smokers, and have come to the Chambers donning gas masks to make a point.  Naturally, they just get laughed at.

But now…pressured by the Public who has already given this Class of senators the lowest favorability rating in world history…just slightly above the inmates at Gitmo, and slightly below Kim Jong Il…now they have enacted this Pledge to stop smoking.  This has been a headline story nationwide, but the press release was carefully crafted to say (in the smallest font possible) that there would be some “special circumstances” when smoking would be permitted, “…at times when the Body is under considerable tension and stress…”

Official spokespeople have been vague when asked about specific examples that fit under the Special Circumstance clause.  But inside sources say that anytime anyone is at the podium speaking or anytime the Body is voting would be 2 examples that fit the tension/stress criteria.

Pollsters are early-estimating that this pseudo-pledge could take them below the Gitmo boys.

Disclaimer:  All stories in Bizarreville are purely fictional, even the ones that sound like they are real.

The Bizarreville FBI office announced Monday with great pleasure, that serious crime such as murder, manslaughter, and mayhem dropped 10 percent in 2009.  This came as a surprise, given the tough economic conditions all year, which have historically caused sharp crime increases as the unemployed became whacky, desperate, and search for adrenaline-activating activities to occupy their idle time.

When asked to explain this unexpected outcome, FBI officials pointed to the increase in unemployment benefits, new entitlements, expanded food stamps, and assundry handouts to anyone who wants them, and other freebies which have negated much of the desperation factor.  “It’s a lesson for us all in how to reduce crime…just hand people what they want, when they want it, with minimal fuss and muss.  Stop all the greedy hording, and learn to share with your brothers and sisters.”

A Bizarreville News reporter challenged the FBI spokesman that this sounds a lot like Socialism, a socio-economic system that has typically produced more widespread desperation, expansive black markets, and high crime where/when tried…normally requiring expansion of policing agencies such as the FBI and other head-clobbering security forces.  The reporter was quickly whisked away by 4 large, fully-armed Agents, who indicated that they wanted to do more ‘exploratory questioning of his provocative, intriguing theories’.

The FBI spokesman went on to suggest that reducing the desperation factor could also apply to the country’s problem with hard drugs.  “It all comes down to the same desperation=crime formula.  In the Office, we are currently developing something we call the Nome Theory….here’s how it goes:  Let’s say we made all hard drugs legal in, say, all the northern counties of Alaska…made drugs relatively easy and cheap to obtain up there.  First, it would make the drug problems go away in northern Alaska.  But then…then, all the druggies across the country would begin to flock to northern Alaska, drawn by the ease of availability and ease of transaction…ultimately eliminating their desperation factor.  Yeah, you’d probably have some junkhead, spaced-out wonks crashing into each other in snowmobiles…might have a few frozen, tripped-out carcasses stretched out in the tundra…might have some illicit deals with the Eskimo mob.  Who cares?  The point is the Nome theory would hoover up the whole drug problem and dispose of it to an area where desperation could be ‘managed’ quite effectively at 20-below Farenheit.  The Nome Theory….pretty interesting, huh?”

The spokesman then asked if there were any more questions among the reporters, who all seemed a bit glassy-eyed at this stage.  But there were none.

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

Bizarreville retailers have reported that the December 26 Christmas present return lines were 15 percent shorter than previous years, sending a wave of concern among economists that the recession might be readying for another dip.  Customers interviewed on the retail scene commented of the distinct lack of traditional barging-in, exhaustive sighing, and shouting favorite sayings like ‘Can we get this  f*^&!ng  line moving, slowpokes?’  When asked whether they opted for using their return money to buy junky picked-over merchandise or just receiving store credit, nearly 65 percent said ‘store credit’.

Some analysts have suggested the outside possibility that the people across the land might just be happy with their gifts this year.  “With a tight economy, it’s conceivable that buyers have taken more time and been more deliberate in carefully choosing the right gift for the right person, rather than just buying the first piece of crap they see on a shelf,” commented Bill Stufford, Christmas analyst with Bahblong Financial Services.  “Of course, we’ve also seen the rise in Starbucks gift card purchases by customers who say ‘Screw It’ to the whole gift selection process…those cards rarely get returned.”

Economists from the prestigious Paranoid Economic Institute (PEI) are worried that any little blip in consumer confidence could rapidly evolve to a snowball effect, racing down the hill and picking up trees and skiiers in its path.  Critics of the PEI say, “Yeah, I saw that holiday cartoon, too….what was it a Bugs Bunny or a Road Runner?  Cracks me up every time.”  Nevertheless, the PEI says it’s never too early to start hand-wringing, and making sure pantries are fully stocked with canned goods and protected with a sturdy padlock.  They continue to suggest buying Gold, even those flimsy gold-plated hoaky commemorative coins that have dropped in price to $19.95 limited time offer.  It should be noted (and PEI readily admits) that they have a substantial equity stake in FlimsoMint LLC, the leader in minting and huckstering of commemorative crap of dubious perceived value.

Other economists and professional egg-heads are awaiting to see January results, normally a month of meaningless irrelevance.  But this year, they say, it might be different…or it might not.  They say they’ll wait and see, then make their conclusions afterwards…sort of like they do with everything in economic analysis…while cleaning the grime off their rear view mirrors.