All Entries in the "Hard News" Category

Indian Winter Astrograph

If your birthday falls this month rise to the occasion quietly. Keep gatherings within fire code and make sure most guests get home before dawn. This is a great time for romance but don’t start squeezing the invited merchandise until after the candles have been extinguished. If you already have a lover, ignore all advice from solitary wizards and lone matchmakers. Keep your oil clean and your transmission in a lower gear. Taurus may be the anchor but a windy Capricorn will help you get back to the harbor.

AQUARIUS (January 20 – February 18)
Avoid organic. It doesn’t fit over your snap bean ego, not to mention that drooping cauliflower ear. You actually possess one rare and abrasive eyebrow and a forced, corn-fed disposition. Bales of straw will be thy peers, moo cows thy sacred confidantes. Interrupt frustrations with reflections of natural disasters such as the emergence and evolution of humanity. If you want to get a rooster’s attention talk to him outside the hen house. Tonight: Down by the old gristmill.
PISCES (February 19 – March 20)
Keeping your head above water is not necessarily suggested, you know…with the fins, gills, and all. You may soon be on a roll but it could be accompanied by hush puppies and slaw. Although somewhat repetitious, your life is at least predictably serene. Take time to consider options. Remember: In the land of the blind, a one-eyed man is king. Look before you bite. After all, how much cuisine can there be on the end of a hook? Attention to personal hygiene will not help bottom feeders. Tonight: Make waves.
ARIES (March 21 – April 19)
Hopes for a raise will fall. Excess, rather than success should be your highest priority. Money will follow. How do you expect to climb the corporate ladder in sensible shoes? The basement office generally comes sans window but is the safest place to work during a tornado or hurricane. Keep a current letter of resignation in the top drawer and a bottle of cheer in the bottom right drawer. By Tuesday, it will likely be Friday before it’s Monday again. Tonight: Sleep in the shower.
TAURUS (April 20 – May 20)
Avoid the temptation to push the buttons of others especially while they are busy pulling on your chain. A cranky lover is like a one-armed trapeze artist, or maybe not. Journey outside your social circle toward your emotional rectangle or even your Spiritual Square and stop blaming others for the sad shape you are in. Open doors only when going in or out. Irrelevance is your ongoing virtue. Tonight: Keep it simple. You certainly are.
GEMINI (May 21 – June 20)
Following instincts is better than following a fertilizer wagon. Your fiery ideas are of no interest to persons still wet behind the ears. Life is one big gamble, so why not just shut up and deal? When you do get a good idea into your motivation it is often overwhelmed by the vast expanse of that flat, cranial landscape. Develop vacant lots between your ears. Collecting food stamps is an acceptable winter hobby. Tonight: Dine on Ding Dongs
CANCER (June 21 – July 22)
Concentrate on the dualism of mind and matter while compiling your weekly grocery list. Memories of the past should in no way compete with tendencies to fantasize about the future. Never allow stubbornness to subvert a tactical retreat when it involves frosty romance. Putting a bag over your head only serves to accentuate the rest of your shabby self. Your solar chart wants nothing to do with you either. Push yourself just a little bit harder today especially when you are near cliffs and atop tall buildings. Tonight: TV dinners until dawn.
LEO (July 23 – August 22)
Plan ahead since tomorrow has already made reservations. Take pain not to lap yourself before noon. The collision course that you have chosen has few pit stops. An elitist masseuse may rub you the wrong way. Follow through on passion’s promises, account for sultry details, confront the enemies of decadence. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich is not your invention. Finding the right person is like sorting socks. That’s all, sorting socks. One size almost fits all. Tonight: It’s never too early to send Christmas cards.
VIRGO (August 23 – September 22)
Sometimes it’s a thin line between laid back and laid out. Attempt some body movement so that co-workers know you are breathing. Cough, sneeze, get up and walk around your desk. Anything. You may be dull but you are certainly no candidate for an ulcer. If you seek career advancement, you must learn to take responsibility. The plants on the fifth floor need pruning. Somebody in cubicle seventeen is out of rubber bands. Tonight: Visit a thick friend.
LIBRA (September 23 – October 22)
An explosive mixture of emotions in the air could be the result of diet. It’s better to be up for grabs than down for the count. If others want to fight help them tie their gloves. Challenge the loser. In a one-horse town, it’s imperative to carry a bucket of oats if you want a ride. If you insist on poking a hornet’s nest do so with someone else’s nose. Don’t expect a free lunch when you still have breakfast on your face. Tonight: Dine with the neighborhood cannibal.
SCORPIO (October 23 – November 21)
The path to hell is negotiated one step at a time. The Sun in Aquarius may require a building permit. Tomorrow’s conjunction of Mars and Jupiter is becoming quite disruptive and could close the liquor stores. A competitor’s footprint on the back of your head may be both indicative and disconcerting. If you love someone, spell it out. Use one-syllable words and flash cards if necessary. This is not a great time to play hard-to-get if your intention is to be got. Tonight: Vegetable oil bombs at twenty paces.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22 – December 21)
Don’t read too much into all this astrological crap and you won’t be disappointed by dark and stormy nights and/or less than shooting stars. Relax. Take a nice long meteor shower before bed. Be careful of small-minded people in big hats through the 29th. Planetary activity in the well being sector of your chart dictates a wholehearted embrace of rapture. Hint: The sins of the flesh have nothing to do with how you like your steak. Tonight: Fired pinon nuts and milk.
CAPRICORN (December 22 – January 19)
One may find it tough to jockey for position from high in the saddle or behind the horse. A bribe in the judge’s chambers is worth two on the gallows. If you do nothing at this time, you cannot create dangerous precedents for later. From the look of your chart, your social life is about to escalate. From the look of your outfit, clowns are involved. Learn the difference between unwanted repercussions and unwanted leper cousins. Tonight: Practice body slams.
– General Kashmir Horseshoe
Delphian Alchemist to the Stars

Mundial podría estar fuera de balas en 2020

(Colona Roundhouse Noticias – 10 de abril de 2015)
Fuentes del proyecto local Trilateral Comisión del planeta se quede sin balas en 2020. La guerra como la conocemos ahora, dice el grupo secreto, podría ser una cosa del pasado.
“Las balas han convertido en una parte de nuestra propia fibra”, dijo un miembro que exigió el anonimato. No quiero ser alarmista, pero si no se hace algo para corregir este olvido todo lo que podíamos encontrarnos mirando por el cañón de una cámara de vacío. ”
Guerra redes de grandes beneficios para un pequeño pocos y sin pequeñas balas todo el paisaje se expande y cambia drásticamente.
“¿Podemos esperar que los combatientes de enojo para volver a la lucha con lanzas y flechas?”, Preguntó, hablando ahora en la prestación de la falta de fiabilidad. “¿Qué van a hacer … tirar piedras el uno al otro?”
Aunque no se sabe exactamente cómo surgió esta crisis se piensa que alguien que gana el salario mínimo, simplemente pulsa el botón de línea de ensamblaje incorrecto o llenó una hoja de pedido de forma incorrecta.
“No creemos que esto sea una acción terrorista”, dijo la fuente.
“Integridad del hombre se levantarán cuando ha llegado el momento”, aseguró otro miembro de la comisión dictatorial. ¿Cómo crees que desarrollamos la ametralladora o la catapulta? ”
Se anima a los entusiastas de Municiones de aprender nuevas habilidades de combate, como la excavación de fosos y el empleo de aceite caliente en los parapetos. Muchas milicias más pequeñas ya han empezado a entrenar reclutas cómo lanzan pistolas y rifles a los opositores con la esperanza de golpear algo.
“Después de toda la violencia y la manipulación que nunca esperaron nuestro reino a verse amenazada por la ausencia de balas”, agregó la fuente. “Supongo que simplemente siempre pensamos que serían allí.” – Dag Katz

Words are our friends

From Grammar Junkie, March 25, 2015
Pick the definition that best describes the key word. All are real words albeit rather emote and rarely used in the vernacular. Answer the questions correctly and win!

Coprophemia is
a. obscene language
b. the four-way stereophonic sound created by Peter Townsend.
c. the horn of plenty
d. Someone who fancies feces

Pannage refers to
a. the grease left over after frying food
b. the reproductive capacity of a television camera
c. food eaten by forest swine
d. excess rock extracted from a sluice box

Stasibasiphobia
a. the fear of catching too big a fish
b. the fear that the game warden will warn the bass
c. the fear of living underneath more powerful beings
d. the fear of standing or walking

A kobold is
a. a mischievous goblin who lives in an abandoned mine
b. a hoistman
c. the center wheel of an ore cart
d. a processed piece of ore

A knibber is
a. the person who lives next door
b. the low man on the totem pole
c. a male deer at the magic moment when antlers first appear
d. a spendthrift

An obstringe is
a. a heavily feathered bird with long legs and retractable neck
b. to bind or make indebted
c. payment in cattle in exchange for a bride
d. meditating while gazing at a shrouded navel

Kakemono is
a. a town in Indiana
b. a dessert from a Dim Sum tray
c. one’s older brother’s boxer shorts
d. a printed Japanese scroll with a roller on the bottom

Answers to the IQ test appearing in next month’s issue

1.) If you said the “long way around” was the only safe rout to point B, give yourself one point. If you said point B was not worth the trouble of getting to, give yourself two points.
2.) The answer was “a dog and two birds” Other acceptable answers were: a) Mt Whitney b)19% c) rice curd d)The Hanging Gardens Of Babylon e)>[40]yx f)May 4, 1691 g) sort of greenish or anything written in French
3.) Only if the electrician’s assistant leaves the building from the third floor west window and avoids every third step on the fire escape on his way down does he have a 68% chance of getting out alive.
4.) The answer to this one was “the train arrives at 4:30”. (You must show your work on this one, although it doesn’t matter who you show it to.)
5.) The answer to this one was either The Crimean War or The Korean War. We don’t remember.
6.) The correct answer here was 12. But if you wrote any number from 8 to 57 you’re ok. In fact any number below 150 is ok. Alright, we’ll accept 150 also. Well, if you wrote any number at all give yourself a point. Except 33. Only a doofus would write that.
7.) The correct answer was “I donít know.” Anything else was a shot in the dark. You know it as well as we do. No points.
8.) If you believe the answer to this one was “follow your heart” you are not only nuts but heading for calamity.
9.) The red star is under the third cup. If you have trouble seeing it, close one eye, eat a banana, and try again. Note: the star may appear as four black chickens in Canada.
10.) This one was a trick question; President Coolidge was never a real giraffe.

Scoring: If you scored 0 or less you are not too bright I.Q.-wise. (Don’t feel too bad, many of your type of people are quite successful.
If you scored 1-3 you are near to average intelligence ( a very scary place)
If you scored 4-7 you are above average intelligence, which isnít saying much. After all the average person finds Nash Bridges intellectually stimulating.
If you scored 8-10 you are a cheater. (Don’t feel too bad, many of your type of people are quite successful.)

Dear Editor:

March 25, 2015

I must take exception with an article entitled “Presidential Notes” which appeared in your January issue. For your information Richard Nixon played the electric guitar and not the cello as you repeatedly asserted. Also, Gerald Ford mastered the triangle while in gym class at Michigan, not while sitting in Congress. While you were correct in your assumption that Jimmy Carter played the harmonica you were remiss in your failure to mention his love affair with the washboard. It was at a washboard convention that he met both Teddy Kennedy and Walter Mondale in 1979.
The breakdown of Presidents and their musical instrument of choice follows a simple enough pattern. Some 22 Presidents, including Adams, Monroe, Tyler and Lincoln played the violin while another 30 enjoyed the piano. Teddy Roosevelt could really lay down some ragtime. Two played the tuba (Cleveland and Taft) and seven (including Bill Clinton) have chosen the saxophone as their preferred instrument. The only Chief Executive that did not play a musical instrument was Millard Filmore who was completely tone deaf and spent his brief two-year stint plowing through Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”, which he inadvertently left behind when driven from the White House. His successor Franklin Pierce could not make heads or tails of the book and subsequently gave it to his sister-in-law for her 50th birthday in 1853.
Thumbellina Etchabarron
Cimarron, CO

IRELAND JUST MILES AWAY FROM RESTING PLACE

(Malaga, Spain) The island nation of Ireland has been spotted off the coast of Spain this morning, traveling at the speed of 35 knots in the direction of Sardinia. Hibernians, long tired of dealing with Britain, kidnapped the island last year and began the epic float trip to the Mediterranean Sea.
These Celts insist that Ireland belongs in the Mediterranean near Italy, Greece, Spain and several African nations with which it shares a common heritage.
“When was the last time you saw an Irishman that acted like a German or a Swede,” asked Finbar Harahan, the wealthy financier in charge of the transport.
“We had a little trouble getting through the Straits of Gibraltar,” he said, “but that’s still run by the Brits and all.”
If all goes according to plan Ireland will anchor in northern Corsica before steaming off south to the Tyrrhenian Sea to an undisclosed spot donated by the alleged bastard off-spring of Napolean Bonaparte, who continue to live on the island of Elba, just off the coast of Tuscany.