All Entries in the "Soft News" Category
KNOTHOLE NEWS
PHOTOS BANNED IN WILDERNESS AREAS
(Pitkin) The use of cameras or other mechanical machinery aimed at recording images will no longer be permitted in Wilderness Areas as of January according to a press release from the feds.
Persons engaging in this illegal activity after the said date will be fined and prohibited from visiting the regions in the future.
“In regions where other machines are banned we have now caught up to ourselves,” said Melvin Toole, architect of the plan. “Soon blenders, chain saws and generators will be taboo as well. Our goal is to rid the forests of people by next summer and cut down the trees. Then we’ll be done with all this controversy once and for all.”
Shutterbugs from all across the West plan to block entrances to Wilderness regions in an attempt to generate support for their hobby.
“Taking a picture is not harmful in any way to the forests and/or their inhabitants,” said Nellie Nikon, of Malfunction. “There’s no pollution, little noise and no impact on the earth. We just like to take pictures of birds and trees and flowers. We’re not bad people!”
The federal government, all wrapped up in another senseless Presidential election has not had time to review the restrictive agenda. Multiple use advocates have already threatened a filibuster. Persons wishing to attend should simply follow the brown forest service signs found all over the woods.
Department of Interior to start big fires
(Ouray) In a turnabout from an original plan to mechanically thin and burn about 10,000 acres near here, the USFS has decided simply to burn down 100% of the forests.
Operation No Trees-No Fires is already in place and a series of uncontrolled burns will start in mid-November.
Saying that the agency has finally found a way to silence all of the critics of our forest fire policies, a spokesman for the wardens of the woods called the plan fool-proof.
Originally the USFS had charted specific problem areas for destruction with prime harvests going to lumber companies for a nominal fee. Then, after reconsidering the complaints of many citizens the agency decided to be done with annoyances once and for all.
“We expect the blaze to last 40 days and 40 nights leaving a heap of ashes that should mix well with the rocky soil,” said the source. “Then, after about five years we can begin growing cash crops like hemp where trees once stood.”
Radicals within the ranks say the initial plan called for the fires to be set during hunting season so as to send a message to the firearm lobby.
Biosphere III Filling Up
(Crested Butte) The massive glass dome built last month to house herd refugees is filling up fast with an abundance of applicants showing up in person, their meager belongings strapped to their backs. Deer and elk, even bear and lion, are all willing to live peacefully together at least until the end of hunting season.
According to the ground rules endangered species have first crack at the digs followed by political refugees from the Rocky Mountains. Later, if room permits people will be included on the roster.
“It’s a sort of Noah and the Ark deal here,” said Estelle Marmotbreath, the architect behind the scenes. “We probably need two of everything just in case the world ends over the next couple of months.”
This biosphere is the third of its kind. The first two were employed as test cases involving an incredible assortment of living items from centipedes to barrel cactus. The shells were then donated to the modular housing industry.
Plants and mammals wishing to hide out here should call their elected officials or the President at home.
Horseshoe interns caught making up verbs and conjunctions
(Merda Verde) Three summer interns at The San Juan Horseshoe are being charged with tampering with and abusing the English language. The action, performed clandestinely over a period of three months, was suspected after grammatical leaks and a plethora of new words started cropping up last week.
Discovered by night cleaning personnel, the contraband words had been hidden in a henway colloquial hamper until the time where they could be safely released into the existing language. Apparently creating bogus action words and sentence breaks came before employing the existing forms of communication, a felony in some academic and professional circles.
After two hours of cross-examination it appears likely that the linguistic pirates will plead guilty to the charges.
While no motive was established, police found evidence that an attempt to dupe the public was foremost on their minds when the transgression occurred. According to one investigator the trio were not attempting to radically change literary society as much as to throw it into anarchy and leave it there.
“They have been purposely misleading the humble scores,” insisted a spokesman for the local district attorney’s office. “Imagine introducing scores of unregistered verbs and frightening conjunctions onto the shoulders of an already word-weary population.
Culturally speaking, the affront might have passed for the young reporters’ desire to get ahead in the competitive world of poor writing. All have admitted wrongdoing but say they need the expanded vocabulary to make sentences more powerful and to avoid the repetition use of the same words in their work.
Adding that they never intended their coined words and often highly contagious nouveau slang to fall into the hands of a mono-lingual caste, the three asked for lenience since none had paid back their student loans and feared a poorly punctuated debtor’s prison more than a dangling participle, metaphorically speaking.
“Syntax and sentence structure be damed!” said an unidentified senior editor at the Horseshoe. These are snotty novices with a J-School stamp. Powdered wig proportions!” he gasped, compound sentences dripping from his scrolling lips. “
No modifiers! No hyphens! Not even footnotes! I say put them into a compound sentence and leave them to rot! Who do these pipsqueak elitists think they are adding and subtracting grammar at will, hammering a half-stuttered language to an early death!” quipped the above source.
The three yet to be named defendants are currently incarcerated on page 116 until further action is instigated.
– Daniela Diphthong
“There’s only two things that money can’t buy: That’s true love and home-grown tomatoes.”
– Guy Clark
Patrons unaccounted for in Montrose Post Office line.
(Montrose) Have they fallen into the Great Abyss while waiting to buy a stamp or send a parcel? Are they victims of a conspiracy or simple poor planning? Did they take a number?
Today local postal sources expressed concern as to a roster of refugees lost, or at least last seen, in line here to buy stamps. The absences have no known precedence and public concern is quickly turning to fright. Long waits in long lines have been the prototype for two decades but until now everyone returned from the ordeal.
“We lost my brother Earl back in 2015 right before Valentine’s Day,” said a Simms Mesa woman. “He went in to send some candy and got caught in the shuffle. One minute he was addressing a greeting card and the next he was not there. If anyone has seen him please tell him we love him. We hope he’s eating well.”
Projected wait times to buy a simple stamp are hovering at about 17 minutes yet people continue to line up. What choice do they have? It’s not like there is a post office on every corner.
“My wife went in on Thursday to buy a stamp or two. When I checked on Friday she was still in line,” said a local rancher. “When I went back on Saturday morning she was nowhere to be found.”
Overworked postal clerks and long lines have plagued the facility since the population exploded in 1995 and the federal agency failed to keep up with the demand for services. Satellite offices were not capable of handling the overflow and many customers have taken to driving to other locales to send their mail.
“I drive ten miles to Olathe were the transactions are quick and friendly,” explained one Montrose man. “At high traffic times like summer and the holidays many of us show up with coolers, books, decks of cards and folding chairs.”
One minute they were there and the next they were gone.
“I Can’t even send my granny to the post office anymore. I’m afraid she’ll never return. Last winter she was packed up and mailed to Omaha.”
Anyone searching for friends or loved ones displaced, mislaid or gone astray while standing in line at the Montrose Post Office is instructed to go to the official website of the postal service and click on Missing Persons. Maybe they are there.
– Fred Zeppelin
Peace Treaty with Bad Angels in Jeopardy
(Hell) An antediluvian agreement, allegedly signed in the primeval dust of angelic battle, has been destroyed by fire according to demonic sources here.
“It is a tragedy of epic proportions,” said a prepared statement from downstairs.
The loss of the original pact between Good and Evil leaves that classic truce hanging by its ears. It’s destruction casts doubt on the validity of contracts, grants and leases written and signed before or since it was reduced to Hadean ashes. It also puts the Two Eternal Powers toe to toe and could dictate a return to hostilities.
Heaven, hesitant to mobilize for fear of offending its most favored trading partner, has declared a nationalemergency so as to give attorneys time to respond or find a copy of the initial peace treaty.
Both sides have shared little, preferring to jockey for godly position, one eye on the saints and the other on the sinners. Meanwhile the entire salvation mechanism has broken down as bureaucrats ignore daily chores so as to more effectively measure adversaries on the power pole.
One celestial expert is quick to dismiss the crisis. “…rusty-saber wing flapping by a bunch of old-fart arch-angels that would be better off playing golf.”
“Good and Evil have been co-existing for so long that it is often hard to tell one from the other…like right and wrong,” she flinched. “They are comfortable together.”
Sociable scientists in Purgatory say the entire episode is politically motivated and that morale is particularly low in hell this time of the year.
“The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know, warns a Purgatorial proverb,” she quipped.
“By now the place must be overcrowded with sinners of all shapes and sizes. Seriously, I’ve heard the food ain’t half bad the service is inhumane.”
– Daddy Longlegs
Bears Blamed For Donut Hole Heist
(Colona) Black bear, believed to have descended from Log Hill Mesa, are being blamed for the disappearance of over 6000 gourmet donut holes since the beginning of summer. The pilfering, which coincides with the opening of Zona de Colona Coffee House, had not been a problem in town since the railroad days.
Even though the holes are meticulously separated and stored in “bear-proof” containers the bruins come in at night and by morning they have run off with the glazed and sugared apertures. Law enforcement has been ineffective since the animals simply wait for stepped up patrols to pass through town then go back to their dirty work.
“We respect nature and all,” said one principal at the donut oasis, “but the nightly losses are killing us. The bottom line remains the same. Even a numbskull knows you can’t have donuts without donut holes!”
Many Colonese are at odds with Fish and Game, who they say coddle the bear. They like their morning ritual when dough becomes donut and do not appreciate the heavy-handed intrusion.
“When’s the last time one of these fury pests brought a box of donuts into work?” chided a local ranger. “People do it all the time. Bears get away with a lot of things because they are bears. Same goes for the moose but they don’t give a damn about donut holes, at least for now.”
– Patty Pettifogger
Baseball to Expand to Eleven Players
(New York) Major League Baseball has announced that it will expand on-field rosters in 2018 so as to make the game more interesting. The decision to go from the traditional nine players to a bulked up eleven was received with mixed reviews by baseball’s loyal followers.
Many say Major League Baseball is eager to capitalize on the popularity of football while distancing itself from the more violent sport. Architects of the plan insist that 2 more players on the field will pique interest in the stands and at home on television.
Proponents of the changes say their decision had nothing whatsoever to do with the rabid popularity of football, the darling of TV and a sport that employs eleven players on the field at a given time.
“A lot of us are still getting over the designated hitter clause in the American League,” said Spike Mulroony, a Baltimore Oriole fan who lives in Washington DC. “Now they want to augment the current rosters by going to eleven players on the field.”
O’Toole said the move would further dilute the already dwindling pool of talent that now exists.
“Just so long as they don’t increase the number of pitchers used at one time,” suggested ” Mulroony. “It’s important to keep the 150-year legacy intact but with the price of a hot dog at the ball park who’s going to notice another outfielder or two?”
Actually the specific expansion will affect two newly created positions on the diamond. The first will be a logical fourth fielder who will play short center field or be pulled in to the infield to cut off the run at the plate. The second will be a super-utility player who might find himself filling the hole between first and second or backing up the catcher.
“We feel that the addition of two new positions will make the game more competitive,” said former Florida governor, Jeb Bush, soon-to-be appointed Commissioner of Baseball. “There was far too much offense last year and the serious fan wants a return to the pitcher’s duel and the one run difference.”
Bush added that football has eleven men on the field at once and baseball has nothing to fear in embracing that numerical relationship.
Republicans in Congress are skeptical as to the move. Some say it is nothing more than another poorly disguised jobs bill aimed at employing more people on at least a seasonal basis.
“Presumably the size of the entire roster will increase” said Oral Noise (Unitarian-CA). Teams will be forced to add four players to play the two extra ones. This reeks of monopoly and we will consider anti-trust legislation to protect the integrity of professional sports.”
Product endorsements and the sales of professional team gear should not be affected.
– Rocky Flats
