All Entries in the "Soft News" Category

JANUARY KIOSK

Colona, Colorado – January 10, 2015
A selection of announcements deemed necessary for the daily health and well being of our reader composed by pompous red-nosed bureaucrats in our editorial kennels.

LEAP YEAR VACCINATION DEADLINE
February 5 is the final deadline to get your Leap Year Vaccination. According to the Colorado Bored of Health this shot may protect Colorado residents from moral bankruptcy, killer bees, telephone solicitors, sexual innuendo, overcooked fish platters, insurance fraud, the scurvy, omnipotence and malpractice suits. The locations of this intrinsic medical procedure are secret and can only be discovered by purchasing at least one magazine subscription (see page 28) between now and the end of January. Complimentary services often associated with this preventative inoculation include weekend laundry service and access to cheap long distance rates. For more information go hang out at the corner of Main and Townsend in Montrose. One of our representatives will be with you momentarily.

CAR ALARM BAN STARTS THURSDAY
A strict car alarm ban will be enforced as of Thursday according to a spokesman for the Crested Butte and Jack’s Cabin Police League. No exceptions will be made. If you have a car alarm and live in this jurisdiction it is suggested that you rewire your vehicle or trade it in for one without the annoying accessory. Persons apprehended after noise ordinance abuses will be jailed without coffee and/or beaten about the head and shoulders while undergoing extensive exposure to hip-hop tunes from the North Fork Valley.

UN Weapons Inspection Teams Landing in Washington
United Nations weapons inspection teams are currently landing in Washington DC to begin surveillance of suspected arsenals here. Despite the presence of Iraqis on the investigative team US officials have promised to cooperate with the probe. The United States is said to possess assault technology of mass destruction and may be capable of building offensive chemical weapons. Citizens are advised to avoid the area until next week. If you have weapons of this nature in your dominion please turn yourself over to the United Nations prior to Ground Hog Day.

Gang Appreciation Day Canceled
The first annual Gang Appreciation Day, scheduled for Saturday at Larimer Square in Denver has been canceled. Authorities had hoped to lure violent gang members into the architectural canyons of the Mile High City then conduct sweeping arrests on charges of illegal assembly. Unfortunately the gang members, often three to four steps ahead of the cops, got wind of the operation and fled to Cheyenne for the weekend. No make-up date has been slated.

A Penny Saved…
The United States Postal Service has repeated a warning to persons intent on sticking copper pennies behind 32-cent stamps in an attempt to qualify for new first-class rates. In a direct statement the postmasters say: Anyone observed engaging in such senseless behavior will be ignored until further notice. It is not clear why the post office has expressed concern over this matter or why anyone would go to all the trouble to foul up mail service. Terrorism is feared.
– Uncle Pahgre

Santa Claus hanging up his spurs

(Silverton, CO – North Pole Recorder and Pacifier – January 20, 2015)
The Jolly Old Elk is leaning heavier on his middle name these days saying that he’s had enough reindeer and sleigh to last him a millennium. The announcement that Santa was quitting came as no surprise, especially to his trusted elves.
“The guy’s a real sweetheart, you know,” said Lawrence Elfe, who has been pounding out toys and sewing children’s clothing since 1947. “He’s always happy. He loves this Santa Claus thing. The problem now is that he’s worn down to nothing. He’s got holes in his breeches and holes in his elbow patches.”
Santa, who has accumulated a vast portfolio, will most likely spend his time in Western Colorado.
“He’s got the Gladstone cabin and the town house in Paris,” smiled Elfe. “It doesn’t take a magic reindeer to figure out where to spend August. He’ll be up in the San Juans.”
Unreliable sources near the elf say he has considered politics but has no platform and has shown interest in becoming a hip-hop singer, having penned some 300 songs to date.
“A lot of us have pushed him toward coaching,” said Elfe. “He was quite a wrestler in high school and I think he has all the tools to be successful.”
– Henny Penny

Turn in your neighbor program “going well”.

(Spring Creek Mesa – Colorado – January 10, 2015)
A pilot Security Task Strategy (STS), new to the Western Slope, is succeeding say authorities here. The pseudo-controversial “turn in you neighbor” program, instituted just last July, has already netted 200 arrests and the detainment of another 1000 suspects, bringing a slew of brand new criminals into police data files.
“We are making great strides in the family quarter where children have been encouraged to snitch on their parents,” said an anonymous spokesperson for a glut of law enforcement agencies. “Someday we’ll see leagues of these little patriots willing to betray family and friends for the betterment of the compliant.”
The control model follows the patterns developed in totalitarian scenarios all over the world. It allows informers to “keep their hands clean” and remain unidentified even when the most outlandish accusations are on the table. Sometimes financial rewards are in the mix as well.
“If our cruiser charts indicate anything, it is that people seek to be controlled, to be told what to do,” said Dr. Edward Despot, professor of autocratic philosophy at Police State College of Shavano. “The system can show leniency to one who stands firmly on the good guys.”
It comes as a surprise how eager many persons are to disregard the petty loyalties and embrace a system that keeps them safe in their homes after dark.
“It would be like me telling you we just arrested the House of Representatives for violating the Georgia sodomy law, which was recently upheld by the Supremes & Their Quart,” said Despot. “Kind of like getting caught in your own possum trap. Kind of like stepping in it, heh?”
Detractors and people who resist what they call “heavy-handed manipulation by the authorities” disagree.
“A strong analogy emerges,” they contend, “when we look at citizens who require state and federal assistance just to survive, due to limited choices and slave wages paid by highly profitable corporations. Who do you think subsidizes these immoral acts that go on in our sacred plutocracy? We arrest the poor, play plea bargain games, put them in jail and then parole them all on the taxpayer’s tab.”
“Why do we, as a society, need policing?” Despot asked. “Because we are all part of the criminal element and chaos would loom without control. There will always be the malcontents that say the system is rotten. Let them get their own system,” he quipped.
“With the termination of debtor’s prison and the workhouse there is no longer profit in busting the indigent. Even our federal benefactors know that. If we want to continue earning big black pickups and assault vehicles we had better locate and harass the uncooperative and those tangled up in the quicksand of personal freedoms,” said the professor.
– Kashmir Horseshoe

Elmer Fudd Fathered My Child!

By Muffy Hollandaise – San Juan Horseshoe – December 27, 2014

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One Saturday morning I was nursing a hangover that might have measured 160 on the Richter scale when all of a sudden he was in my living room. The Bugs Bunny Show had always seemed real to life for me but this was magnified 1000 times! He looked quite a bit taller than on TV and I was impressed with the way he carried himself. After a Bloody Mary or two we were friends.
But as it is with all men — he was out for one thing and one thing only! Yes, it’s true I was born at night but not last night. Star or not I stopped him short. At least I think I did – and disappointed with my lack of passionate response he disappeared back through my television screen.
Nine months later another Elmer Fudd look-alike appeared on the scene after a costly hospital bill. Paternal suits are one thing but no one believes me. Surely Elmer Sr. (I named the baby after his father) has the money to help me out.
Avoid these pitfalls by reading sanjuanhorseshoe.com and find out what you can do to protect yourself from undesirable acquaintances, annoying pen pals, jerkwater solicitations and unwanted advances from cartoon characters out on the make. When our readers are molested in any way we are quick to send a team of mad, burly advisors to the perpetrator’s front door for a chat.
It’s all included in the package. Control the senseless verbiage that enters your brain and you’ll be chanting, “If I could read, I’d read the San Juan Horseshoe” too. If Muffy had been paying attention she’d be out roller-skating in the desert instead of staying home breast-feeding a needy cartoon.

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Quality of Rum to Improve

(Latino News Briefs – Montrose, Colorado – December 27, 2014)
Baby steps to normalization may allow outcast, quality
Cuban rums to grace American palates, grab share of market

(Havana) A warm-up or meltdown in United States–Cuba relations may signify overdue diplomacy to some but more likely recall a kaleidoscope of petty Cold War events, center stage since Fidel Castro was rebuffed by Dwight Eisenhower during a post-revolution trip to Washington in April of 1959.

An end to a 50-year economic embargo and the reestablishing of embassies is just a start to what experts say threatens to redefine Cuba and crush what has become a self-sufficient, yet fragile culture. Big changes are in store, some good, some not.
One of the big ones is the presumed availability of exotic Cuban rum, acknowledged as the best in the world. It is a development that would most certainly cause the quality of rum to improve here in the U.S.
Following an Obama Administration announcement that the two countries will seek a normalization of relations a bevy of Presidential pretenders and self-serving politicians let out a howl. It was the same howl that we heard after the overhaul of the Immigration Policy, or following the implementation of Obamacare, or the bail out of General Motors, or the murders in Bengazi, or the choice of a White house dog, or the fashion and manners of the President’s daughters, or the First Lady’s attempts to promote healthy diets in schools, or elusive birth certificates, posh vacations or the employment of executive privilege…or Jimmy Carter’s return of the Panama Canal to Panama in 1977 for that matter.
Now happier howls are resounding over the likelihood of access to Cuban rums previously banned in the United States. It could easily be argued that this previously illegal sugar-cane concoction might soften the response from even the dead-in-the-wool Cold Warrior.
“Every quality anejo rum has its genesis in Cuba,” said a Miami purveyor of exotic cordials and elixirs, “and has since 1539 when a royal order of Spain formalized rum production. “All of the Nicaraguan rums first originated in Cuba while most rums from other Central American countries draw recipes from that island nation. Although it is often more difficult to corroborate, most fine rums found in Colombia and Ecuador trace their origins to Cuba too. Many of the wealthy Cuban exiles would prefer to lose the tag “Cuban rum” due to a class distinct distaste for the current government on the island but the first drops derive from Cuban heart and soil.”
Mass-produced rums may now go the way of the dinosaur like Communist vodka and a slew of sage-based frontier sweet wines that all but disappeared from American shelves of following the French Revolution.
Critics of the recent diplomacy say a warming of relations vindicates what they call an immoral government in Cuba. Isn’t this like the vindication of China, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and Wall Street for humanitarian offenses in the light of trade entitlements.
“The practice of ignoring the fox in the henhouse while stealing pies cooling in the window must terminate if we are ever going to get along on this increasingly crowded planet,” offered Jane Jane, of the Baseball for Rum Coalition, which endorses the importation of Cuban rum to the United States and the establishment of a National League baseball franchise in Havana. “Most politicians here are far more interested in personal fortunes rather than solutions,” she stressed.
Another angle suggests that the Cubans do not want us. Already the government there has taken steps to protect Cubans from destructive mass marketing and Yankee strip malls. Meanwhile America’s corporate bullies drool with the prospects of new markets open so near our borders.

 

Che lines up a putt in Havana in 1962

 “Ours is a fragile culture honed in the shadow of the embargo, the necessity of manufactured car parts and prevalent food shortages, drenched in tropical sunshine and the whiff of a smooth cigar,” said Wanton Perez, a spokesman for the Coconut Alliance in Santiago de Cuba. “We must take inspired steps to protect the Cuban people from the menace of mindless strip malls and death food consumerism.”

In a show of sincerity Cuba will donate a mature King Palm tree to the White House lawn while President Obama is sending his old Toyota sedan to Cuba.
“Most Cubans are not familiar with these newer, computerized, fuel-injected engines, but given a few weeks they will figure it all out,” said Perez. “Let’s face it, the lines on one of these boxy models just don’t stand up to a ’57 Chevy or a ’58 Buick.
Regarding the King Palm gift Perez expressed hope that the tree would survive cold Washington winters.
“I guess nobody thought of that,” she smiled. “But what’s most important is to take things one day at a time and with moderation. The Cuban people want goods and services for so long denied them. This silly squabble must end. America must move on into the 21st Century. Saludos! God help our integrity when cruse ships call. “ – Kashmir Horseshoe

Gov’ment warning placed on fast food

(Montrose)—December 12, 2014) The United States Food and Drug Administration has extended a warning as to the consumption of fast food within its sovereign borders. The caution advisement, a major breakthrough according to consumer protection advocates, states simply that eating this type of food will lead to health problems, shortened life span and massive weight gain.
“We may just as well drop the “s” from fast food and call it fat food,” said Melvin Toolini, of the USFDA. “In addition to the health caveat most of us here are also concerned with uniformity and laziness within our population. We see people acting as robots, sliding into drive-throughs, repeating their behavior, feeding their kids this crap,” aid Toolini. “It’s a law that children must wear seat belts because they are deemed too young to make their own decisions with regards to life threatening situations. What do you call eating this product?”
Consumers will soon see printed warnings on cardboard packaging, chicken buckets, and wrappers. If they choose to eat the stuff anyway the gov’ment is off the hook.
“What will we do with all the veteran fast food junkies when they get old and the effects of their diet start coming back on them?” posed Toolini.
It is unlikely that this development will have any immediate affect on the eating habits of the country over the long run social scientists and nutritionists feel it may cut back on health problems associated with poor eating habits. One critic of the plan, a population control advocate, condemned the warnings as another ploy to keep people alive longer.
“We have too many people now,” said a spokesman for Eat Yourself to an Early Grave. “And we have too many warnings out there. What ever happened to the concept of natural selection and the strong surviving the weak. It’s even in the Bible. A greasy taco or a chicken wing from hell are great population control devices.”
Another opponent of the campaign suggests that the gov’ment has embraced the concept of fast food as a method of repression and containment.
“Elements within that framework have been experimenting with mind control for decades,” said another unreliable source. “It only stands to reason that encouraging uniformity and repetition will create a population that can no longer make choices when confronted with the big picture. It’s a bullet-proof concept. Why would the feds abandon this philosophy in favor of public benevolence?”
– Fred Zeppelin