bizarreville

Bizarreville leaders had been trying to push through sweeping environmental legislation for several months.  But they faced dwindling public support, fueled by a barrage of resistance and disgruntlement from the uncaring industrial community…mostly those mean, heartless SOB’s who supply all that disgusting electrical power.  They would moan and groan about the billions of dollars that would have to be spent on installing exotic control equipment which would drive up all kinds of costs to the consumer to solve a problem that, admittedly, no one cares about.  Waah, waah, waah.

The Bizarreville Leaders were fed up with all this cry-baby arguing, and decided to be preemptive, drawing swords in preparation for rattling.  They announced at a National Chamber of Commerce meeting that the business community damn well better support Cap and ‘Fraid legislation, or face severe consequences, “consequences so harsh you could never imagine.”

The crowd at the meeting got rowdy, demanding to know the specific details of the threat.  The administration representatives refused and refused, but finally the pressure became too great.  “If you fail to sign this piece of paper stating that you will support the Cap and ‘Fraid law, if you outright defiantly refuse to do this minor thing to support your environment and the environment of your kids and grandkids….then we will contact your Mother-in-laws.  We will get your mother-in-laws onboard to nag you to death until you sign a support affadavit.  That’s right.  Full court nag press:  why won’t you sign it, are you too good to sign it, is there something wrong with your brain, I don’t know why on earth my Emma ever married a bum like you, you should sign it, sign it right now, I think you have a drinking problem and that’s why you won’t sign it, you are such a pathetic loser, do you need some Viagra to get you to sign it…”

A cruel threat indeed….but one that appears to be effective.  Several business leaders have been arriving at the EPA office with soiled pants, and have knuckled under and signed on.  “Mean, just plain below-the-belt freaking mean,” commented the CEO of Belchnard Edison, as he scribbled an illegible signature.

Bizarreville leaders made another impassioned plea to the Pakistan leadership group to ask for their help in fighting Taliban in their border areas with Afghanistan.  In particular, they would like to find one of the new up and coming Taliban leaders Oscummo bin Shizbak, who has been sending Facebook messages and instructions to Islamo-terrorists worldwide.  Fortunately, not too many people have signed onto his Facebook because he is so darn butt ugly.  Rumor is he’s now trying to set up his Facebook page without a face.

Pakistan leaders have refused to provide help in the past.  “We don’t want to go in those freaking, nasty, allah-forsaken ghettos…nor any of those rabies-infested moldy caves,” said a Paki spokesman.  “You kidding?  If Oscummo or any of his revolting buddies shows up in Islamabad, we’ll cuff ’em and stuff ’em.”  Syndicated reruns of Hawaii Five-O just made it to Pakistan. 

But they’re not expecting Oscummo or his chums to show.  Talibanners rarely venture into big cities.  “They’re the Mother of all Dirt Bags.  They never buy new clothes, or for that matter, even clean the clothes they wear.”  They don’t bother with what they call capitalist luxuries like taking baths or other acts of personal hygiene.  They can fart, and no one can even tell.  “Soap, what’s that?  More infidel foolishness and waste,” Oscummo once said addressing a crowd at an Afghanistan soccer game that he was referreeing. 

Pakistan authorities reiterated that these creeps avoid cities like the bubonic plague (which ironically has recently outbroken in some of their filthy camps).  “If you see a Taliban in a city, he’s probably there to suicide bomb something.”

The Bizarreville Job Summit is concluding, and the roundtable of guys-with-briefcases (i.e. experts) participated in good constructive debates on how to best stimulate job growth.  Their answer:  infrastructure improvements.

The first infrastructure priority will be to revamp the entire Bizarreville sewer system, which has badly deteriorated over the decades from the high acid content of our citizens’ urine.  In the past, however, it has been difficult to embark on the sewer project for two reasons:  (1) too little funding available to pay for the project, (2) too much foul odor to attract good mechanics to fix the problems.  The first issue:  no problem.  But the second issue is still a big concern, and may ultimately require some out-of-the-pipe thinking.

“I’m not friggin’ Ed Norton,” said one journeyman after refusing to traipse down the manhole.  “I looked down there in that yellow river and almost passed out after 15 seconds.  What have these people been eating around here?”

“One of my buddies used to work in the sewers 10 years ago.  And you know what?  He still stinks.  That’s right…you can still smell sewer on him.  Even if he puts on after-shave, he just smells like cinnamon-scented crap.”

Leaders say that they will not be dissuaded by the working condition issue, and vowed to pull out their checkbooks to find some shmucks/ any shmucks who will slop in the defilement for a price.  “May cost a couple hundred bucks an hour, but by God, we’ll find low-lifes with low scruples who’ll do it,” said a spokesman.  “We may not get high-skills, but we’ll make up for it with more warm bodies.  Hey, that’ll reduce unemployment even more.” 

When asked about training these subtrained workers, he replied,  “I can teach my grammaw how to weld pipe.  Granny’d probably do a better job than these ‘I’m too good for sewers’ prima-donnas anyway.”

One of the first items on the agenda at the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Summit will be carbon footprints.  It is expected to be a very emotionally-charged discussion, spurred by the list of impressive celebrities who will be attending…stately world leaders from all over the globe, renowned scientists, and a rich assortment of numb-nut goofballs from Hollywood.  Critics have argued to keep the air-heads from La-la-land out of the summit, since they know absolutely, positively nothing about the subject.  But others argue neither do all the other wankers who will be there…so what?

The crux of the discussions will be where to put these carbon footprints.  A spokesman for the Hollywooders argued that they should be placed on Hollywood Boulevard right along side the Hollywood Walk of Fame footprints.  “That way, tourists can see all the movie stars that have made this country great, right alongside the nasty mother  f%*##&$  from the heavy polluting industries and power plants who have brought this country down with all their filth belching.”

Prince Charles is expected to be at the summit and may argue to put the footprints in Piccadilly Circus.  “After all, England has had centuries of blackening the daytime sky, while you Yankees were still shooting buffaloes with bloody bows and arrows,” shouted a reporter from a London newspaper.

Third world countries are certain to get into the mix…with legitimate claims that they have never done anything whatsoever to control factory pollution, have no plans to do so in the future, and have actually executed people right in the street who have even suggested adopting environmental controls.  One negative, however, would be that many of them have no sidewalks, so would have to plunk the footprints down in the mud, goop and manure.

Clearly it will be a bloodbath fight.  But in the end, the issue will be decided by a Climate Summit Subcommittee, comprised of an assortment of enlightened grass sniffers and grass smokers.  They will weigh the pros, weigh the cons…and probably weigh a few other things while they’re at it.

Executives with Bank of Bizarreville (BoB) announced Friday that they will be paying off their $40 billion government Bail-out loan early, probably within the next 2 months.  This news shocked the Bizarreville financial community so much that many accountants had to remove their green eyeshades to wipe their brow. 

BoB is hitting this hard, not messing around.  Some of BoB bank managers, in fact, had to work past their normal 3pm quitting time, in some cases cancelling tee-off times, and in one highly unusual case, showing up late for the family dinner.  “We’re in extreme times and that calls for extreme actions,” stated one Bank VP.  “Our entire team is pulling together, shortening lunch breaks to 1 hour, cutting morning and afternoon coffee breaks down to 15 minutes, and putting a time clock at the restroom doors.”  The VP had a tear in his eye as he spoke of the pride he had in his guys, and said he would probably double the bonuses that the managers received last year to show the company’s appreciation.

The Bank is not out of the woods yet.  They will issue a new stock offering to allow the debt repayment within the next 5 weeks.  Current shareholders are up in arms, since this action would cause major dilution and likely drop the share price 50 percent.  “What are they bellyaching about,” asked a Bank VP.  “The stock was selling 80% lower than current price six months ago.  They’ll still be up over 30 percentage points.  C’mon now.  I guess they’re just a bunch of greedy bastards.”

The crusty old codgers sitting around the hot stove on a chilly day at the Bizarreville General Store were once again philosophizing about the state of the world.  The topic turned to the latest Climate Gate fiasco.

“It’s about time that moronic Global warming crap has finally been debunked.  Look at these purple fingers, would you.  My keister is so frosty you could instantly chill a PBR between my cheeks.  I can’t stop my dentures from chattering…they’re wanting to walk right out of my mouth.  Feel these ears…on second thought, don’t …you might bust off a piece.”

“Global warming….ha!  I saw that movie by that Gore fella…what was it called?  An Incontinent truth?  If that guy’s not pink, then I’m Mother Teresa.  I think old Gore B. Choff wants to be the next World Enviro-czar, and go around locking the doors on power plant that emit carbon dioxide.  Hey, Comrade Gore, you emit carbon dioxide…how ’bout if we lock your mouth?”

“Yeah, there’s a leader who knows how to walk the walk….as he jet-sets around the world, then takes his Caddy SUV to his 6-gazillion square foot mansion with 8 air conditioning units, 4 hot water heaters, and 13 crappers…then writes an article about how we should all tighten up our portholes and conserve.  Revolution by proxy.  Che Guevara in a 3-piece Armani suit with monogrammed “CG” shift cuffs.  Power to the People, baby. Pass me my decaf latte.  Ciao.”

“The truth is coming out that the science used in these studies may have been a bit flawed, a tad massaged.  Ooops, my calculator spit out the wrong number, not my fault.  I threw that dern thing out, and bought a new one now.  Will do better next time, trust me.”

“Yeah….or, oooops, I thought that was a nine instead of a zero.  I think my poodle must have dropped a little surprise on the data sheet.   My bad.  No dessert tonight.”

“Oooops, my Assistant sneezed on the graph and thought that glob was a real data point.   I put out a memo to all personnel – No more sneezing in the Analytical Lab, or you will be reprimanded.”

The sarcasm was getting pretty obnoxious, so the store manager finally kicked-out the old goats.  They were scaring away real customers.

Bizarreville leaders, after so many years of looking like idiots by leaking out key military information to the enemy, have this time molded a new, intriguing approach to blabbermouthia.  Rather than giving Afghan Talibans a heads-up on upcoming plans, they decided to take the opposite tack and just blab about when they plan to punt…in about 16 to 18 months. 

Spy reports say Taliban leaders in cave headquarters were totally befuddled by this announcement.  They said they normally figure Bizarreville leaders are a bunch of scheming perpetual liars…so they don’t know how exactly to reinterpret this potential lie.

Meanwhile, back in Bizarreville, the Leader’s supporters were upset at his policy redirection vs. campaign promises, and called him a liar.  But simultaneously, his opponents in the world of punditry pointed out his failure to fully support the troops, his ambiguous mumbo-jumbo, and called him a liar.  Even people sleeping on the couch who were tired of watching him on prime time TV, couldn’t think of anything else to call him, so called him a liar.

So the Taliban, seeing all these mixed messages, was not sure who to disbelieve.  After seeing supporters call him a liar, they figured that he might indeed be lying…or it might be a trick.  But then after seeing opponents and couch potatoes calling him a liar, they figured he was probably telling the truth.  Or it could all be a double-lie, or triple-lie…must be a lie of some sort, but a lie about what?

An smiling anonymous administration insider said: “A lie is as good as the truth, if you can get someone to believe it.”  He then hopped in his limo, joining an anonymous female in the back seat.

Good evening.  This is Marvin Shankst, Bizarreville TV13 reporter…on the scene at Tiger’s home.  We’ve been trying to get an interview with Tiger all afternoon, but he has turned us down every time…telling me to just settle down and get some Decaf, man.  Well, I told him “Man, I don’t drink decaf or coffee of any kind…maybe a pumpkin spice latte once in a while, but that’s it.”  I guess I may have seemed a little hyper…who knows?

I tried to ask him about the tree and the fire hydrant that, as you can see from here, are damaged…but he gave no comment.  I went to the local Fire Chief and asked him about the fire hydrant, and he seemed pretty rattled.  Here’s my interview:

“These hydrants are our lifeblood in the Station.  We lose one, we put each and every home in that neighborhood at risk.  You can’t just take this kind of thing lightly.  It’s serious, real serious.  We need someone….maybe a non-golfer or someone who doesn’t park themself in front of a freaking TV watching boring golf for 6 hours on a Sunday…someone to get to the bottom of this thing.  If you don’t, you’ll have all these rich  as*!&+$  running willy-nilly over hydrants, without any regard to the impact on us firefighters.  These guys just don’t give a  s$!&  about the safety of others.  They just sit in their Drawing rooms, and do whatever you do in a drawing room…draw, I guess.  Probably just draw all day….make little doodles that they probably sell at some “modern” art gallery:  Tiger’s Doodles…a thousand bucks.  Includes a frame.  Will personally sign it for another thousand.  What a life…golf and doodles…pfffft.

Retailers across Bizarreville were high-fiving each other after what they viewed as a successful Black Friday shop-athon.  More shoppers than expected had flocked to the malls, creating that rich tradition of constipated parking lots, bumper-car shopping & shoving excursions, and of course the endless lines.  Many retailers adopted the new Black Friday tradition of minimizing sales staffing on that Friday so that checkout lines were especially long, creating the impression of huge crowds inside their store to any passers-by.  It all seemed to work, as crowds were near record-level.  Missing from their wild exuberence was one minor detail:  no one was spending much money.

Particularly hit by the shop/no-buy paradox was Eldberd’s House of Flatscreens.  Old Eldy has been in the TV business for 50 years, expanding bit by bit.  But recently he decided to go “All In” in the growing Flatscreen market and built a showroom the size of a football field – boasting 1000 Flatscreens of every permutation of size, pixel, Hertzage, techno-nonsense, and plasmology.  Even found some metric screen sizes for European wannabe’s.

Eldy opened his doors at 3am, with typical ads for 30% off one obscure model:  a 3700 millimeter, paisley-colored, 82 Hertz Bullshmitz LCD television, but only carried 2 total units in stock.  Naturally those were snarfed up quickly.  Many other disgruntled customers were surprised to find all his other models were at full or nearly full price…causing considerable grumbling and grouching as they were still wiping sleep from their eyes and wondering why in the  f*@!  did they set the alarm and wake up for “this”?  Nevertheless, they roamed the great Hall of Same to marvel at the units upon units, with few actually plunking down ten C-notes to garner one of these trinkets.  One woman approached a beleaguered sales associate with the question, “Which one would you recommend?”  The sales person was restrained from throttling her by several onlooking customers.

Someone forgot to tell Eldberd that this ain’t your father’s TV business anymore.  Eldy still remembers the day when the only new feature on the next year’s model TV was a slightly different color on the vinyl fake-woodgrain overlay.  They forgot to tell Eldy that his vast array of Flatscreen inventory would all be obsolete in less than 9 months…replaced with all-new models with obsolesence-creating zinkrofaddles and dorkuloids.  Poor Eldy doesn’t even know what a fankerfloyd does…tsk, tsk.

The heady dreams of the developers of Dubai World are starting to come crashing down.  And it seemed like such a brilliant concept just a couple years ago…a world-class, exotic resort destination, 5-star accomodations, exciting James Bond-like activities.  But somewhere, somehow in the grand plan, someone forgot to tell the Chief that no one wants to go to that freaking place.  Certainly no one from Bizarreville…something about the crazy Islamo-jerkbags running around the MidEast blowing stuff up.  Now the venture is $60 billion in the dumper, and headed for bankruptcy.

But Elmo Mohammed has an idea.  He read about the “Medical theme” theme park getting tacked onto the Health Care bill, and thought why not create an Islamo-terrorist true experience park?  An Epcot Center for the Anti-matter world?  Sort of a Jihad Dude Ranch?

“It would be more than just rides.  It would be a reality experience somewhere between Survival Island and Gilligans Island.  It will be a tad bit dangerous, and yes, we may lose a Guest or two in the process….but that’s the difference between real reality and simulated reality.

“We could recruit some suicide bomber trainees, and create a bus ride where the goofbags blow themselves up…with all their guts and brain tissue plattered on the bus walls.  The kids (safely peering behind protective glass) would watch with amazement at this once-in-a-lifetime experience.  Now it may cost us a few thousand virgins in the afterlife, but it would be well worth it.  May go ahead and use a sprinkling of Islamo-peasants as bus riders to add to the whole effect…a couple more thousand virgins…better make a note of that.

“We could have a 5-day “Dude” experience where guests join a cluster of real live terrorists at a genuine terrorist training camp.  Guests could join right in:  Firing a wide range of high-powered weapons, planting nifty homemade bombs, plotting a legitimate act of terror…right alongside the real birdbrain professionals.  Can you imagine Bill Smith coming home after the Experience and telling all his buddies that he helped blow up a real subway in Mulfukra?  Wow.”

The banks that would have to finance this bright new idea are listening, but very skeptical.  Two banks, First Blockhead National Bank (FBNB), and Last Chance Bank of Bizarreville (LCBB) have already gotten well-burnt on the first Dubai World fiasco…but fortunately for Dubai, they still have the same incompetent CEO’s and bumbling Leadership teams in place, so there’s a good chance they’ll fall for it a second time.  Elmo thinks if he can get these 2 banks onboard, some others will follow suit in leming-like fashion.

Don Smerfnerd of Smerfnerd Investments is urging all customers to load up on gold, and do it now.  He says he is personally jumping on the bandwagon, joining the new cast of Gold Fever who have been coming out of the woodwork, citing the recently released Shlunkmann Economic Study that, he says, predicts gold could go as high as $2000 per ounce.

But the truth is, the Shlunkmann study, if anyone took the time to read it, never predicted gold would go to 2000.  The study itself was about self-fulfilling prophesies, the Pygmalion effect.  But it used the example if enough nutcases started predicting that gold would double in price, and ginned-up enough fear in the marketplace, it could all set in motion events that would actually cause the price of gold to double.  So, then what’s the deal with Smerfnerd?  Many of his colleagues have been wondering the same thing…why is Smerfnerd, a conservative investor, doing this?  He has never been one to buy at the high end of the market and get shmucked.

Turns out, our intrepid investigative reporter discovered that Smerf and a couple of his ex-Amway buddies devised a Buy Gold pyramid scheme.  It goes like this:  You buy some gold, then go pitch/grab some buddies to buy gold, who go hawk even more people to buy it, who then shake down some of their friends/family…and so on.  Feed the fear factor of world economic collapse, and roll out some drivel likening our situation to the fall of the Roman Empire.  Get someone to do a story of a family storing canned goods in their 60’s -era fallout shelter.  Toss in a Nostradamus prediction or two.  Develop a network of gold sellers, and grab a little commission on every layer in the sales pyramid.  Pocket some serious dough.

At some point, like all good pyramid schemes, it will all come crashing down.  Smerf will eventually run out of nimrods to suck into his web, and some people will start doing a little bit of gold dumping….then the gold price will plummet.  But by then, Smerf will likely have bailed on all his stash, pocketed a tidy profit, raked in enough commissions, and will be laughing all the way to the Caymans.  Smerfnerd could not be reached for comment.

The Chinese just announced that they will offer Bizarreville a newly-issued credit card to make it easier and convenient to make payments on the national debt.  As part of the package, the system will allow payments on-line from any Bizarreville Treasury computer, with a simple “Click and Doink” user-friendly method.

China has suggested, as a first step, transferring the $11 trillion (oops, just went over $12 trillion) National Debt to the card with no transfer fee.  They argue that rather than having T-bills spread across such a wide base, why not just do a bill consolidator loan into one central spot?  “Just like the poor shmuck who has a half-dozen personal loans who’s getting eaten up with minimum charges, and finally consolidates them into one huge home equity loan.  Just the sensible thing to do, right?”

The Chinese will offer low monthly minimum payment, in exchange for a slightly higher interest rate.  As a teaser, they will offer a 6.1% APR rate for the first six months, but then it will go up to 11.0% APR afterward.  Some Bizarrvillians were rebuffed initially at this high rate, but the Chinese said it was “…fixed for 20 years irregardless of any impending world financial meltdown.  In time…you’ll see.”

The Chinese are also offering a Rewards Points program with the new card.  The catalog has pages and pages of prizes, some pretty nice, but some pretty pathetic.  Lousy ones include several hundred thousand used Chinese military uniforms, and a 70’s-era Russian built “fixer-upper special” fighter jet.  Example of a good prizes include multiple-night stays at the new Macau casinos with $100 free seed gambling dollars.

Bizarreville economists probed into the details of the card, then asked that there be no prepayment penalty.  The Chinese busted out laughing uncontrollably at that notion.  After 12 minutes of this laugh-fest, the top Chinese economist said, “Sure.  No problem.”