All Entries in the "Soft News" Category
Smart Phones Not Helping Says Study
(Palo Abajo) The wide use of what the communications industry calls Smart Phones has not resulted in an increase in intelligence according to Mensa, the high IQ society that often monitors cerebral behavior patterns.
According to the most recent study the use of the Smart Phone has resulted in the marginal loss and de-evolution of applied logic, the quasi-disappearance of social exchange and sometimes lower test scores among the control groups engaged. These interface maladies are becoming more and more common and threaten to disrupt the onion cart in the very near future.
The institute did not elaborate further.
CONNIE CONSUMER SAYS:
Executive Heated Toilet Seats Won’t Leave You Hanging
Don’t fall for the rap from those callous, high-pressure toilet seat salesmen. All they care about is a sale. Very few of them actually own one. Negotiating with them is like being home schooled by hungry crocodiles.
Rule of thumb: Spend top dollar and insure a comfy bottom. Buy a custom seat, fitted and responsive to your body. Don’t go cheap. The quality seats often last up to 50 years with proper maintenance.
Tired of chipping ice for your daily constitution? Avoiding the runaround by using idle time on the hot seat. Deal only with a reputable merchant. Promises of free toilet paper will seem rather banal if you get burned or even electrocuted with an inferior product.
Reminder: Free demo trial date termination is January 3 for residents of Coal Creek, Pea Green and the Snotty Beach Communities. Top manufacturers include Sure Fanny / Tushvent, Stool Trophy, Pooper Pal and of course the royal name in toilet seats…Cozy Bum.
– Carlos Tuna contributed to this report
Santa Says “No” to Elves in Yoga Pants
(Special: Baffin Bay) A generally calm and collect Santa Claus has blown out his red suspenders over a proposal to relax elfin dress codes in the Great North. In addition to fashion revisions on minor accessories and footwear, the relaxing of standards would allow elves to wear yoga pants on the job.
“Tights are one thing one thing, “ shouted the Yuletide icon, “but at last they cover parts of the human anatomy not meant to be accentuated. I realize some styles of clothing are meant to be a little shocking, even provocative but my workshop shall remain off-limits to these expressions of worldly embrace.”
“Elves were never meant to wear yoga drawers”
For centuries elves have been drawn to trendy clothing with often embarrassing results. Whether it is in vogue or retro they grab it off the racks. Many never consider whether tight fitting yoga pants emphasize the right bodily proportions or highlight the positives.
Speaking anonymously one veteran elf says the yoga pants are no more than a passing faze but that the issue here is elf autonomy. That’s why we started a union. That’s why solidarity is such a sticky issue with the front office here.
“He let the reindeer wear those silly, fuzzy snow-boots one sees at ski resorts,” the elf whined. “Santa still dresses like a slob most of the off-season donning bibs, torn, out-of-date Sixties shirts and penny loafers. He even tried to attend a pre-Christmas function down in Canada in a mohair suit,” he laughed, “but Mrs. Claus nixed his choice of textures before it became an international incident.
The source contends that Santa is no garment guru but that he is still writing the checks up here. A new plan for this year, which calls for elves to wear capes and show a little skin, is also off the table.
“Santa would need 16 pairs of elf yoga pants to cover his posterior alone,” finish the elf, who admitted that he wouldn’t have been able to lash out in this manner just a few years ago.
Meanwhile North Pole management is holding firm on the clothing innovations saying they set a bad precedent.
Santa admits that his traditional costume is baggy, itchy and out of touch with the real world.
“But it’s what the people have come to expect and I will not disappoint any one of them because of a labor issues. Elves were never meant to wear yoga drawers” he frowned.
-Kashmir Smelt
LOW-CAL CHRISTMAS STAMPS RELEASED
(Denver) The United States Postal Service has announced plans to release some 400,000 low calorie Christmas stamps in time for the holidays. The stamps, featuring Santa Claus and other celebrated Yuletide icons, will be first-class and available at the window on December 14.
The stamps are a colorful bit of Americana, appropriate to the season and contain less than three calories. Customers who prowl the post office hallways have for long complained about health considerations when purchasing stamps. Of course, the benefits of the low-cal stamps are only apparent when one licks the back of them. A self-adhesive batch, mistakenly produced last month, are only props and will be saved for emergencies.
If the promotion is a success consumers should expect to be assaulted by a grand array of theme stamps throughout the year. Next up: Heart-shaped first-class stamps for Valentines Day and 70-cent stamps for April Fools.
-Small Mouth Bess
Our American Political Spelling Bee
Live and in color from Bethesda MD – we pick up the action…
Part One – Spelling Accuracy
Monitor: Can you spell socialism?
Mr. Opinion : Soshalizm.
Moderator: No. Wrong. Next.
Ms. Justsmile: Sewshullism.
Moderator: No.
Wildman White: Soshhhulism
Moderator: No. Incorrect.
Mr. Putin: социализм.
Moderator: Correct but in the wrong language. Disqualified.
Part Two: Define the term
Mr. Opinion: I don’t really know but it’s real bad.
Ms. Justsmile: A system where we are forced to share with the poor, eat borscht and live in gulags.
Wildman White: It’s something about Russian fur hats and machine guns in your bedroom in the middle of the night.
Mr. Putin: A paradise who workers share in the profits and embrace quality of life 365 days a year and I didn’t poison my political opponents.
Moderator: Bozos: Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
Part III Presidential Pardons on the White House Lawn
Which of the following is your favorite crime that can be attributed to fake President Donald J Trump?
a. Obstruction of Justice
b.) Lying to Federal and State government bodies
c.) Sabotaging Transition Process
d.) Cheating on Taxes
e.) Collusion with Russia – treason
“Thanksgiving in Turkey”
TRAVEL ’20
Continued from in front of you
so that Bob (is that his name?) and I and the kids were pushed down onto the pavement and told to keep our eyes to the ground as the entourage passed by, snaking its way toward Mount Ararat and the grave of the Apostle Paul.
“Hey, mom,” said little Bennie, “says in this brochure that Turkey is larger than Texas. Is that for real?”
“No, stupid, it’s just all that jihad propaganda,” piped sister Beatrice from the pruned position. “Where did you get that brochure anyway?”
“Shut-up bitch,” said little Bennie. “Nobody’s talking to you!”
“Now kids, let’s try to put our hatreds aside. We’re miles from our hotel and not out of this yet,” said Dad. “These people are naturally friendly and engaging. They just have to get to know us. I thought St. Paul was buried at Lookout Mountain…”
No, that’s Buffalo Phil, fool,” said mom.
Finally, and not without more fanfare, the procession passed. The strange men in robes told us to get up and walk to the east and we would find true enlightenment…and our hotel.
“I wanna see Noah’s Arc,” said Beatrice, “and the ancient city of Troy. What a beat vacation. All my friends in Chicago will laugh at me if they find out I came all the way to Turkey without…”
“Wait, Daddy,” I said to my husband, “isn’t that the road to Istanbul, or is it the road to Constantinople? They must sell ottomans there. I just have to have an authentic Turkish Ottoman or I’ll just die.”
“What about dinner?” whined Bennie. “We’ve been here three days and I haven’t seen a taco anywhere. Today is Thanksgiving. Where’s the stuffing?”
“Now Bennie,” said my husband, whose name eludes me just now, “this isn’t America. One has to adapt. Sure, all of these rugheads wish they were in America, the land of the free, but they aren’t. They’re marooned here in Asia Minor…have been for centuries. I thought you liked the filberts in barley sauce that mom cooked up last night.”
“I want pizza,” screamed Beatrice much to the chagrin of a large angry crowd that had now gathered, blocking our exit from behind one of a hundred mosques that crowd the cobbled square. “I hate filberts!”
“And where is the football!” demanded little Bennie. “Don’t these Tartar savages know that it’s Thanksgiving?”
“I hate tartar sauce too,” mumbled Beatrice, “and Kurds and whey…
“Stop!” cried daddy. “Look a fez stand right out here in the middle of nowhere. I think we should all take home a fez as a souvenir from this lovely trip. Say there sahib. How much for four fezzes…is that the proper term? Yeah, four…and don’t try to screw me. I’m an American and I have rights.”
At that he pulled out a U.S. fifty which the man selling the fez hats quickly grabbed and stashed in his robe. He smiled and then let go of the hats.
“Those hats look stupid,” said Beatrice, and for once her little brother agreed. We must have looked quite the sight wandering down those snarled filthy streets, sipping a Raki looking for some familiar signs of home.
“I have to pee,” said Bennie.
“We need to find a halkevi, or house of the people. Surely they will have indoor facilities…
“And cleanliness,” I crisply quipped.
“And a make-up mirror,” added Beatrice.
“And some good old American toilet paper,” smiled Daddy.
“We could ask someone,” I said melodically, swept up in the worldly banter of a man I no longer knew.
“None of these bozos talk American,” said Bennie
“Turkish isn’t so hard to learn,” said Dad as he wagged his finger at a would-be thief. “The Turks borrowed many Arabic and Persian words during the Ottoman Empire, then Kemal Ataturk changed the whole shootin’ match over to the Roman alphabet in 1928.”
“How does he know all that?” whispered Beatrice in my direction.
“Daddy was once a Middle East expert in of the Bush Administrations, dear,” I explained.
“It’s worthless information about a country that prefers figs to cranberry sauce, olives to pumpkin pie…”
“Shhhhh,” Bennie. Here come the mashed potatoes!”
As I looked up I saw thousands of men in the street. There were Turks from Ankara, Turks from Izmir, Turks from Cyprus. All were working together pushing a massive vat of freshly mashed potatoes, thinly veiled in Seljuk mohair, toward the largest of the mosques to the east of the square.
“Wow, dad!” said Bennie.
“Where are all the women?” asked Beatrice.
“Maybe they do celebrate Thanksgiving in Turkey,” I flinched.
“Look, kids. Look! It’s the march of the turkeys,” said Dad. “Look, honey, they’re coming this way. It’s going to be a wonderful holiday just like I told you. Honey? Honey? Hey, kids, where’s your mother?
“Oh, she was forced into that black Mercedes by two men who have been following us since yesterday,” said Beatrice.
“What? Forced into a car? gasped Daddy.
“Relax, man she’ll be back for dinner,” said Bennie.
– Luanne Julienne
Ms Julienne is a free-lance writer who lives in a big house in Connecticut. In addition to writing travel articles she raises amphetamines, which are then sold to collectors in New York
