All Entries in the "Soft News" Category

Vatican “Holding” Cash for Second Coming

(Special to The Horseshoe from Rome – April 25, 2015)

Pope Francis has addressed the massed wealth of the Vatican in light of hungry constituents around the world. In his annual Easter Message the populist pontiff told a crowd in St Peter’s Square that the church was saving the money for the Second Coming.
“When Jesus returns he’ll need a little spending money and we are busy securing those funds for him,” said Pope Francis. “We can’t have the man out begging or performing miracles just to eat,” he said, in direct reference to the great prophet’s return to earth at an undisclosed time.
When asked how much money will be given as compared to how much is in the coffer the Pope declined to answer suggesting interested parties contact Cardinal Mario Plata over at the Vatican Treasury.
The Pontiff then said that the status of the fortune stashed here was unclear and that he planned to earmark half for distribution among the poor.
“And not just Catholics,” offered Plata. “Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and even Protestants are on the Vatican radar.”
Sources here continue to struggle over who gets what when the floodgates open.
“It’s kind of like a big family deciding on who gets what after the death of a patriarch or matriarch except we are talking about millions of people and quite a chunk of change.”
Francis’ recent pronouncement on the validity of climate change and a directory of what practicing Catholics should do to confront the problem, is sure to anger plenty of deniers in their pompous pews from Dublin to Darwin. – Melvin Toolini

Macramé Hemp Condoms the Rage

(Western Colorado Crafts – Ridgway, CO – April 25, 2015)
In 2003 Wanda Epsonne was waitressing at the Wimpton Truckstop during the day and taking in laundry in the afternoon just to make ends meet. Now, thanks to growing public health awareness and the mastery of an ancient art Epsonne is knocking down seven figures.
Her cottage industry: Macramé condoms made from distilled hemp that she sells all over the world. The operation, employing 100 people and turning out 35,000 hemp/rubber sheaths per day, has drawn applause from some and criticism from others.
“We’re always looking for good workers,” said Epsonne, turning the interview into a help wanted advertisement. “The position requires someone who can macramé fast and has a sense of humor to go with it.”
Despite efforts to regulate the sale of the controversial items most are purchased by tobacco companies, seeking to diversify in the light of anti-smoking campaigns and a drop in sales.
“They have pulled out of the heavy tobacco manufacturing and embraced the burgeoning birth control market,” said Epsonne. “although our condoms are more than that. Who knows the level of functionality when these boys get done adding filters and chemicals? They lied once and they are doing it again.”
Sales are creeping up but 35,000 macramé condoms are quite a boatload. Epsonne says she hopes to stop reliance on tobacco companies to make her nut.
“We are reaching the cream of the crop, the people that know a good thing when they see it, but then there are the others, the sheep out there, that need a little two by four action. Most don’t even know what LSMFT means. Dumb bastards.”
A former Trojan cheerleader (USC), Epsonne moved to Western Colorado in 1998 searching for gold and a husband. Her first gutty venture, a home for displaced pigeons, never got off the ground while her choice of men left her waddling near bankruptcy.
The idea to create macramé condoms grew out of a desire to jumpstart the hemp industry while relieving the already overtaxed rubber plantations of Malaysia and Borneo.
“We want to create wanted jobs not unwanted children,” she said, “and make a fortune doing it.” – Susie Compost

Verbal Teas Dominate Market

(Manana) A revolutionary blend of verbal tea has nailed down a 35% beverage market share after only one week on the shelves. According to tea wizards at Terrestrial Seasonings, a Colorado-based herbal health concern, the initial impact was greater than expected leaving the cupboard bare for the time being.
“Out teas will help people to better express themselves, their inner feelings, their outer limits,” said Howie Spout, a spokesperson for Terrestrial. “As the name implies we are of the earth but looking into the cosmos for new direction, new awareness, new tea bag designs.”
Spout was quick to point out that Terrestrial was in no way associated with the Tea Party or any of its supporters.
According to the company’s official statement, a single cup of verbal tea will noticeably stimulate a drinker’s use of action words and spike his oral vocabulary. In lab experiments, researchers found that the rats chattered more clearly and carefully in conversation with other rats after sipping a saucer of verbal tea.
“Although these disease carrying, crop destructive rodents have no written language, communication within the cells and sects seems quite smooth,” said Spout, “and sophisticated in a highly evolved idiomatic manner.”
Verbs, of corpse, are the basic elements of sentence structure that provide action and movement – the caffeine of grammar. Terrestrial expects to stay with a winner and leave nouns, adjectives and adverbs to the other guys.
The verbal teas come in assorted flavors and phonetics such as Blackberry Past Tense and the popular Hibiscus Present-Perfect. The secret tea blends kindle the remote region of the brain cortex that is employed strictly for tantric eroticism, preparation of income taxes and conjugating verbs.
All of the teas are completely artificial and contain no natural flavors or ingredients. In the tradition of Terrestrial, the colorfully decorated boxes are covered with annoying sayings such as “You can’t change the world but you could change your underwear” and “Today is the first day of the mess of your life.”
Tea aficionados are encouraged to keep a wise eye out for Proverbial Tea this spring, a calming strain of Asian and Polar teas that incites drinkers to spurt out poorly timed and tiresome trivialities disguised as imperative directives and inspired declarations. We can’t wait.
– Fred Zeppelin

“Oh it looked about the way I pictured it. Flames, demons, not much to drink.” – Dante, remembering his visit to Hell.

Reading comprehension #611:

The following is a short test of one’s ability to understand and analyze prose. READ THIS SEGMENT ONLY ONCE OR FACE DISQUALIFICATION AND FORFEIT ALL PRIZE MONEY!

A bear and a rabbit sat on a log deep in the forest. The bear felt a great bowel movement coming on but was out of toilet paper. He turned to the rabbit and asked, “Do you have problems with things sticking to your fur?”
The suspicious rabbit asked why and then scurried away leaving the bear to his own devices, which most likely would have been a bush or some bark. The angry bear muttered, “You just can’t count on those damn rabbits when you need them.”
a.) What did the bear mean by things? Do they sell animal toilet paper?
b.) Are bears really all that concerned with personal hygiene?
c.) What happens if a bear, or other hibernating mammal has to go in the middle of the winter?
d.) Do rabbits and bears actually converse?
e.) Would the bear had been better off just grabbing the rabbit, without all the chatter?
Send your answers to Hunting Editor, San Juan Horseshoe, Box 615, Gunnison, CO 81230. If we use your response in our November issue we’ll give you a free subscription, a free T-shirt and a free roll of toilet paper. No phone calls please.

Guilt Allotment Reaches Crested Butte

(Elk Mountain Report – March 25, 2015)
Crested butte’s semi-monthly allocation of prime grade guilt arrived here this afternoon, two days behind schedule, but much to the relief of needy citizens. Many say they were just days from depletion of September’s historic airdrop, part of which was hauled away upon impact by local black bear.
The cargo, hauled in from the Confront Range was poured out all over the town’s major intersections and lapped up under the close scrutiny of all sorts of morality brokers.
Reporter Melvin Toole, of the now defunct Baldwin Beekeeper saw it this way:
“There they were, the guiltless, the flirtatious, the wickedly happy assembled sans buckets at the onus froth to receive their due. Have I detected a smile, a frown, any emotion at all?
“The rickety carts, now freed of their unholy loads, stood motionless at the end of the pavement,” he continued, “their drivers arrogantly spitting and rolling cigarettes while doling out careful quotas of heavy blame and overripe culpability from large plastic garbage cans.”
A spokesperson for the Jokerville Guilt Guild confirmed reports that although funding was still frozen, the government would pick up the tab for this month’s shipment.
“The cost of transporting mass quantities of guilt from the urban centers to so many Hootervilles has risen sharply since the inception of the program in 1985,” explained Emily Marmotbreath of Irwin, Executive Director of Rocks and Pieces of Kindling, the parent non-profit of the guild.
“The demand has remained much the same with some citizens ignoring the program altogether, probably because of pride or ignorance,” she added. “According to many of our eloquent institutions humans cannot live without a minimal application of guilt. The guild simply seeks to maintain a level compatible with churches, schools, gov’ment and social standing within the community.
Supporters of the program go to great lengths to credit the guilt drops for the dramatic rise in casual celibacy and a decrease in narcotics use during the week. A final measure, to be hashed out by the Colorado House, will then be nailed on neighborhood doors from Cortez to Burlington by Friday.
“A society at peace with itself can not flourish,” said Syd Fahrt, a leading proponent. “It is the ultimate powder keg. Guilt holds the inside track in the much-desired “redeeming value” category. Until we come up with an effective substitute guilt is what we have and what we will employ.”
Fahrt then went on to blame President Obama and all people of color for what he called “a failure to adopt sufficient guilt trips in their daily lives.
“Just look at those Blacks and Latinos out there having fun while the white folks sit at home guilty about not mowing the lawn or putting money into the collection plate. It is quite pathetic,” he mused.
Critics point to the rampant abuses that have raised more than one eyebrow in the Senate. Even though most agree that society would fall apart without guilt they contend that the present programs are expensive, ineffective, discriminatory and dull. Slow-moving guilt wagons on the highway and their often surly and abusive drivers on Colorado’s high passes.
“We support aerial spraying and/or the introduction of safe levels directly into the food and water supply,” added Marmotbreath, who is also the Executive Director of Airplanes and Syringes in Western Colorado.
The aerial method, dubbed crop duster zero by jokesters over at the Council of Christians and Jews has come under heavy bombardment by Libertarians and ecological lobbies who fear the spraying will adversely affect voter behavior and quite possibly kill off the local magpie population creating an overabundance of bad guilt. Up until now guilt-free voters slept through Election Day and magpies cleaned the highways exhibiting no outward signs of guilt, overtaking even vultures and slugs in that ranking.
Residents of Gunnison County and holders of a condo key are entitled to 350 grams of guilt per day until May 15 when unused piles of guilt will be swept up and ignited. The ash is then sent to the former Soviet Union where it might do some good in a more primitive form.
The next scheduled stop for the guilt procession is Gothic where in November partisans blocked the road and sniped at the guilt peddlers, wounding three. This time around the guilt carts will be escorted by idle Colorado State snowplows. Air support will be provided by the Saudi Air Force Marching Band. – Kashmir Horseshoe

Game Crossing Signs Confuse Game

(Montrose – March 25, 2015) The plethora of warning signs strategically placed on local highways this winter by the Colorado Division of Transportation has resulted in mass confusion among the deer and elk population.
Many of the herd animals, wards of the state, are simply confused as to what is appropriate action while other resent the uniformity as an invasion of privacy. All agree that things were fine in the past, and that the meddling of C-DOT has only made matters worse.
“The deer and elk are hesitant to cross the highways anywhere due to blinking lights that distract them and uneasiness as to just what constitutes a legitimate game crossing,” said Slim Pudge, a born again taxidermist who now works as a missionary among the herds. “The signs are no more than visual pollution and have no redeeming value since deer and elk cannot read.”
Pudge is convinced that the situation will continue to deteriorate and reach an apex when the bears wake up.
“The bruins will never go for this,” he spat.
The state had little comment on the matter preferring to ignore criticism and concentrate on a much maligned study aimed at determining if herd animals purposely jump out in front of moving vehicles or if eating sagebrush is really that much fun.