All Entries in the "Soft News" Category

Simpson mug to don voting booths

(Cosmetics and Gulches — Montrose, Colorado – July 10, 2015)

The halting, yet familiar face of cartoon celebrity Homer Simpson will grace all official voting booths in 2016. Simpson, who best exemplifies the mindless pursuit of the 21st Century carrot, often casts his ballot based on hearsay, rumors and billboards that he reads on the way to work.
“He’s a big fan of talk radio too and even catches a few the TV news unless he doses off on the couch instead,” said his wife Marge. This is the biggest thing that’s every happened to anyone in our family.”
Analysts feel that Homer Simpson could be the new poster child for the new peasantry and the American Oligarchy.
“He’s not real bright,” said one political behaviorist “is afraid of what he doesn’t understand and can be easily manipulated. His decision making capabilities, conversation level, and me-first attitude, along with well-documented immaturity and a seriously undeveloped personality make him the perfect choice.”
Simpson narrowly beat out Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton for the honor.
“Now all that’s left is to choose the colors for the booths. I expect we’ll go with yellow and blue, with big red swollen eyes and an intruding beer belly,” said a brainchild of the decorations. “We want all the booths to be uniform and all the voters to look alike. If that isn’t democracy I don’t know what is.” – Ripple Van Winkle

Philae’s Comet May Support Alien Life

(Mother Earth – Paradise Lost – July 10, 2015)

Astro-biologists confirm preliminary indications that living microbes are thriving on an unnamed comet visited by Philae’s probe last week. The organisms become more active as the comet nears the sun, warming the immediate atmosphere and encouraging the aliens to kick out the jams.
“This pretty much knocks the hell out of previously accepted metaphysical explanations for our origins and destinations in a celestial sense,” said Charley Chimpe, veteran space traveler who flunked Astrology 101 in his freshman year at Police State.
Philae is expected to make another rendezvous with the microbes next month in hopes of establishing primitive dialogue. Pentagon officials made incidental contact earlier in 2015 in an attempt to facilitate possible weapons purchases in the near future. – Marianne Marvelous

U-KLEEN-IT Motels Eyeball San Juans

(From The Palmer Street Journal -Downtown Delta –July 10, 2015)

A new approach, aimed at relieving the daily pressures of the hospitality industry, may be on the horizon in Western Colorado with the opening of some sixteen self-housekeeping lodges.
U-Kleenits allow the patron the option of cleaning his room, changing the sheets, scrubbing the bano and vacuuming so as to receive a discount of up to 35% from the management.
Custodo-Lounge Corporation, founders of U-Kleenit, which boasts three new enterprises in Northwest Colorado already this year, is reportedly taking preliminary steps to open a new facility here.
Custodo is the nation’s largest manufacturer of organic janitorial supplies. Its fine hosiery division did well over $125 million in 2014. U-Kleenits have already transformed the hotel-motel industry and are expected to take Western Colorado by storm come springtime.
The concept appears to be tailor-made for the bed and breakfast set but local innkeepers say the idea will never fly.
“People are too lazy. People are too sloppy. People can’t do the math,” said the six-star proprietor of Snyder Arms and Roadhouse, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“How can we expect these guests to make the beds when they won’t even do the breakfast dishes?” said Mary Waffle who operates a bed and breakfast locally. “Pigs.”
The idea is simple: Each guest checks into his reasonably clean room in the evening and in the morning he gives the place a serious once-over. If the place needs a maid he pays full price but if it looks good enough he can expect a discount.
“We’ve had a lot of trouble with the bathrooms, winced Belle Toole, Executive Executive Director of Custodo-Lounge. “It seems that people don’t mind taking out the trash or sweeping the floor but nobody wants to scour the ceramic, if you catch my drift.”
Toole leveled with reporters saying that they expected no new conflicts with state and local health officials.
“We have fine repartee,” said Toole, inspecting a room. “If they present a problem we just offer them a free room and they generally go away.”
– Uncle Pahgre

San Juan Wall

San Juan wall above Pleasant Valley in Ouray County

SPANISH ARMADA SINKS OF IRISH COAST AGAIN

(Skibbereen – July 29, 1558) The entire Spanish fleet “the pride of Calais” has vanished in a violent storm approximately eighteen nautical miles off the southwest coast of the Republic of Ireland. According to a flagship call for help followed by a desperate distress signal from the few ships still afloat.

The renowned Armada was reportedly headed for England with the intention of invading that island nation. It was not clear how many lives have been lost to date since 16th Century ships’ logs were far more focused on weaponry, food and rum than on the lower element of human that inhabited the decks and galleys or were chained in their benches in the downstairs recreation area.

The Spanish military disaster represents the fifth in as many centuries. In 1588 the first “Invincible Spanish Armada, despite fiscal and spiritual support from the Vatican, was defeated by Sir Charles Howard of Great Britain. Nine short years later the Second Armada lay scattered by storms at St. George’s Channel.

These two incredible navel defeats were paid for with silver extracted from the lucrative Potosi mines in Bolivia. It is estimated that over 200,000 Native laborers died in the effort in the icy climate at over 4000 meters.

But did they learn anything? Apparently not since in 1644, with over 800 ships at his disposal, Manual Rudolf of Bavaria took the wrong left turn at La Coruna de Mariposas, landing his entire force waist deep in shark-infested waters on the Bay of Biscay. French villagers encouraged the sharks. All were lost.

Then in 1709 Italian, Hernando Cortisone, in an attempt to circumnavigate the swollen floodwaters of the North Tejo, landed on Gibraltar, which he claimed for the Queen of Denmark or the Duke of Marlboro, no matter. He was immediately arrested and jailed by the British colonial forces, where he roosted on the rocky peninsula, his ships reduced to firewood.

With the coming of the modern era Spanish navel thinking remained firm to its convictions and to the past. In 1889, during the lingering hangover from Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, an expeditionary force, including several thousand Serbian demolition experts and a host of well-endowed Flamingo standouts in reserve, set out for Lisbon. The plan was to seize the oil fields at Falmouth and continue up the Thames to a rousing victory. Instead the convoy ended up in northeast Brasil three months later and was eaten by Dutch headhunters out on the weekend. England was spared again.

Today, with the most recent military snafu freshly piling up further carnage in the nautical pasture, Spanish picaroons have vowed to descend on Dover beaches “by the next century or sooner.” For those of you keeping score at home that’s only 85 years away.

Meanwhile the London Stock Exchange has seen brilliant gains, unsurpassed during recorded history. (Yesterday the exchange registered an unparalleled 141- point explosion in heavy trading just before the wire.)

Most brokers on the floor at the time the Armada ran aground admitted that they had not known about another attempt to invade their shores. Mass reaction moments after the freak announcement ran from horrid mumblings to the ever-popular “Good Show Old Man” and “Chin Up Matilda”, a pip saying borrowed from the Australians.

The final demise of Spanish sea power came crashing down in the late afternoon as thousands from Dublin to Cork watched from their barstools. By nightfall a flotilla of cold-water pirogue boats had already swooped in and made quick work of any survivors. By morning there was no indication that the fleet had ever existed. Before nightfall the pirogues, under a Carthaginian flag and seriously overloaded with Libyan crawfish, clumsily capsized only inches from the crowded, seedy harbor, sending hundreds of momentary victors straight down to the ocean’s floor. `- Kashmir Horseshoe

Renegade Speckled Trout Continues to Hold Texas Couple

Special from Angler’s Angles – June 25, 2015

(Sapinero CO) The desperate speckled trout currently detaining a young Texas couple at a deserted alpine cabin near here. Police with rockets assault rifles and armored vehicles have surrounded the locale but are reluctant to charge fearing the welfare of the kidnapped people.

“We are also quite concerned with local neighbors including Gunnison sage grouse, lynx, moose, snow monkeys and a poorly defended prairie dog village to the west,” said one nervous deputy about to see his first action on the force.

The trout, a suspected member of a radical upstream splinter group, has threatened to drown oil workers Jim Bob and Ethyl Alcoone of Midland if authorities do not release the over 100,000 trout held at Roaring Fork Hatchery at Almont. A note to the Gunnison County Sheriff’s Office reads:

“Unless my brothers and sisters are set free there will be blood in the water. Don’t waste your time trying to bait me with half-gilled concessions and soggy intentions. I am no sucker. I will settle for nothing less than fish tanks, a charter jet, relocation to fish-friendly nations and full autonomy.”

The slippery perpetrator, a viciously anti-fishing mastermind is blamed for organizing hit and swim attacks on the Taylor River and harassment of anglers on Blue Mesa.

Police are attempting to reason with the fish and plan to drop worms and salmon eggs as a gesture of good will. The couple is surviving on trail mix. Police have warned local wildlife that aiding and abetting is a serious crime punishable by firing squad or worse. Residents are urged to stay clear of the unidentified region (maybe Wyoming would be nice?) and telephone authorities if they notice suspicious speckled trout engaged in odd, out-of-water behavior in the vicinity. – Estelle Marmotbreath