Tag: Satire

Once there were several Snakes who could talk.  These are related to the one mentioned in Genesis, but are even more devious.

Before we go any further, I want to let everyone know that I have no aversion to, and actually like very much, real snakes.  They are extremely useful reptiles, and keep the rodent population at an acceptable level.  Without real snakes, our ecology would be quite less tolerable.  The former Mrs. Translator has one in the classroom (not a venomous one) and we together kept a Ball Python until he became too big for safe handling, so we donated Kaa to a university.  Please in no way think that I personally dislike snakes, except for the metaphorical ones.

New York (FNS)-In an effort to help dispel concerns of racism, Terri Stocke, President of the Second Amendment March, agreed to coordinate with members of the Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/Push Coalition in an effort to encourage more members of the Black community to bear arms and to carry them publicly.

In return, members of the Black community have agreed to flood the 2nd Amendment March, scheduled for April 19, 2010, in Washington, DC, with hundreds of thousands of heavily armed residents of Chicago’s South Side and New York City’s Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods.

“We hope that the Black community understands that 2nd Amendment rights apply to all Americans” Ms. Stocke told the crowd outside Mr. Sharpton’s offices.  

Verona, Italy (FNS)–Joseph Ratzinger, also known as Pope Benedict XVI, was arrested and released early this morning by Italian police near Pescara, Italy, following allegations the Pontiff attempted to engage an undercover police officer in sexual activity in an Autogrill restroom in the City.

The Carabinieri (the Italian National Police), had been staking out a restroom at the Martina Gas Srl, located near the Abruzzo Airport, following complaints over a period of several months.

“Signore Ratzinger was arrested at 0245 hours Thursday morning”, reports Ministry of the Interior spokesman Harry Paratestes, “and he was released on his own recognizance pending an appearance before the corte d’assise on a date yet to be determined.”

SEATTLE (FNS)–Longtime activist Geov Parrish unexpectedly revealed to the crowd gathered to celebrate his 50th birthday Friday evening his impending plans to end his decades-long career as a public issues advocate in exchange for new opportunities in the field of corporate communications management and image development.

The announcement appeared to be even more shocking to the glitterati gathered for Parrish’s 50th birthday extravaganza at Seattle’s tony Rainier Club than the fact that the event was sponsored by longtime Parrish nemesis Frank Blethen, publisher of the “Seattle Times” and a frequent target of Parrish’s acerbic criticism regarding the state of corporatocracy and its negative impact upon the state of the Nation.

A new commercial venture and three new business relationships were unveiled: a corporate communications consultancy, tentatively to be named “I Am The State!”, is to be opened in the next few weeks, after suitable office space is located, with the United States Chamber of Commerce and The Seattle Times Company as the first two business associates; additionally, Parrish will be joining the Board of Directors of the Strangelove Foundation, an organization devoted to maintaining the purity and essence of our precious bodily fluids.  

There has been a great wailing and gnashing of teeth over the past day or so as those who follow the healthcare debate react to the Stupak/Some Creepy Republican Guy Amendment.

The Amendment, which is apparently intended to respond to conservative Democrats’ concerns that too many women were voting for the Party in recent elections, was attached to the House’s version of healthcare reform legislation that was voted out of the House this weekend.

The goal is to limit women’s access to reproductive medicine services, particularly abortions; this based on the concept that citizens of good conscience shouldn’t have their tax dollars used to fund activities they find morally repugnant.

At first blush, I was on the mild end of the wailing and gnashing spectrum myself…but having taken a day to mull the thing over, I’m starting to think that maybe we should take a look at the thinking behind this…and I’m also starting to think that, properly applied, Stupak’s logic deserves a more important place in our own vision of how a progressive government might work.

It’s Political Judo Day today, Gentle Reader, and by the time we’re done here it’s entirely possible that you’ll see Stupak’s logic in a whole new light.

It’s become more or less common knowledge that US forces have been using music as an operational tool for some time now, and I’ve begun seeing lists of the songs that are being used either to inflict pain, to demoralize, or to just generally disorient various people in various sorts of situations.

There are others, wiser than I, who will opine as to the questions of efficacy and the moral issues surrounding these kinds of operations; I will opine, instead, as to the quality of the songs used.

Frankly, had anyone asked, I could have put the torturers onto much better musical choices, just by selecting from my own “My Music” folder–which left me thinking: “hey, it’s the weekend…why not do exactly that?”

Got any psychological warfare mission planned for the weekend? Expecting to have to direct amplified sound at an angry mob in a defensive maneuver Saturday night? Planning a Halloween haunted house that goes a bit…fuurther?

Come along with me then, soldier, and I’ll provide you a playlist that should do the trick in almost any foreseeable emergency.

If you haven’t checked out fafblog, do. I loves me some fafblog. Those people understand about Chinese spam.

http://fafblog.blogspot.com/

Now, back to more serious stuff. Well no, that’s not right Fafnir is very serious. Go read fafblog. I mean it.

Now, back to the power.

We are the power, the kind gentle power.

The life power, that acknowledges how critical it is to step back from violence.

Yes, we must yell, when it gets that bad.

But mostly we must recreate the world. That’s the only job that makes any difference. We all have to get to get together and recreate the world.

Docudharma people, daily kos people, wild wild left people.

All of us. Everyone everywhere. We have to recreate how we see it, how we work with each other, everything. We have to recreate the world.

People who get into working with this, constitute the future of what we consider to be humanity.

Those who don’t? So sad. Chinese spam.

And now I’m back to fafblog. Fafnir loves them some Chinese spam.

Every time I run into a blog that is all about being hysterically rude and prime funny, I think: “There is hope. There is hope.”

Go read fafblog, peoples. Those people rock.

Those among us who are familiar with the Bible will recall that Jesus Christ himself was an active member of the health care community as he travelled about the Holy Land.

It is reported that he practiced within multiple medical specialties, and his works as both an ophthalmologist and a neurologist are recounted within the verses of the Gospels.

But what if Jesus had been practicing medicine in the therapeutic environment we’re familiar with today?

In today’s conversation we’ll be tagging along with Jesus as he takes a few calls at his HMO’s Customer Care Center-and by the time we get done you should be able to bring a whole new take to those discussions you’ve been having about why reform matters.  

Note: A story told on a holiday ought to be able to meander.  So, pull up a chair….

I posted this on Big Orange to a resounding thud and I am determined to give more people a chance to enjoy it despite its length.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I want to thank Ms. Daniels for allowing me to attend her classroom here at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, where eight years ago this week former President Bush famously read “My Pet Goat” to her second-grade students as planes destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and crashed into the Pentagon.

As you know, Senators Baucus, Conrad, Enzi, and Grassley asked me to change the date of my address to Congress on health care because Fox News had scheduled a one-hour prime time Glenn Beck special on “The Morality of Political Violence” opposite it.  In the interests of bipartisanship, I concurred, but I could not agree to the October 2012 date that they suggested.

As I was already scheduled to address schoolchildren today, and as all schools who objected to the supposed politicization of such an event have already withdraw from the process and accepted the alternative Glenn Beck children’s show that Fox News has provided, I’ve decided to combine my two speeches.