Mall Santas to Goldman Sachs: Hand Over the Vaccine

New York, NY – In a jolly but firm tone, the Association of Mall Santas (AMS) has issued a formal demand to Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs to hand over all their doses of the swine flu vaccine to the thousands of Mall Santas across the country, who are going into this holiday season woefully unprepared to face one of the deadliest flu viruses to hit the world in recent memory. “If Virginia were alive today,” said one jolly old elf, “she’d be at high risk of catching a deadly disease from her most loved adult figure. Yes, Virginia, there is a swine flu-carrying Santa Claus after all.”

The latest in a number of organizations that have stepped up recently to implore Goldman Sachs to do the right thing by giving up their doses of the vaccine to more deserving at-risk organizations, the Santas claim that their need is greatest due to the fact that in just over a week, they are going to be forced to come in direct contact with what one Santa referred to as “little Petrie dishes that sit on our laps.” There is a good possibility that kids could get more than just toys for Christmas, i.e. a case of the deadly swine flu.

For this reason, the Santas are pulling out all the stops to convince the hale and hearty executives at Goldman to give back the vaccine, including threatening to put each and every one of them on their “naughty” list. Said one mall Santa, “You don’t even wanna go there, especially with the country already up in arms about those bonuses.”

The CDC, while not specifically siding with the Santas, does agree that not only are the children at risk of contracting swine flu by chancing an impromptu visit to their local Mall Santa, but the Santas themselves are in a higher risk category due to the fact that most are considered obese, a risk factor that figures heavily (no pun intended) in contracting the virus. “All those years of milk and cookies and candy canes have really taken a toll on Old St. Nick,” commented the Center’s official spokesperson.

While waiting on Goldman to “do the right thing,” the AMS has issued the following statement for all Mall Santas in order to cut down on the risk of contracting the deadly swine flu virus or spreading it to their tiny visitors:

“Sterilize, sterilize, sterilize. Most Santas are no stranger to alcohol, but this year especially, use as much alcohol as you can to kill those pesky germs. There is no better sterilizer on the planet. And for the outside of the body, use germicidal soap and hand sanitizer often.”

Conservative Doll Series Out in Time for Christmas

Whiskey Creek, VA – Small independently-owned doll manufacturer, Patriate Pride, has announced a new line of dolls fashioned after the ideals of two of today’s most controversial conservative figures, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin. In fact, the “Michele” doll and the “Sarah” doll will be the cornerstones of the new series, “Pretty Pride.”

In an effort to override the popularity of other doll series that now take on a more urban persona, come equipped with hip-hop clothing and accessories, and which now indicate what Patriate Pride views as a decaying set of morals than when previously introduced, the Pretty Pride doll line features good looking Americans with picture perfect families. Patriate Pride hopes these new dolls will appeal to those seeking the throwback days of the ‘50’s, where mom stayed at home and cared for the family while dad went off to work every day; where everyone went to church on Sunday; and when God and Country were separate but equally respected when we put our hands over our hearts to recite the hallowed Pledge of Allegiance,” as one company spokesperson put it.

Clay and Sally Parsons, originators of the Patriate Pride line of dolls believe that this is an idea whose time has come. “It’s about taking our country back, and we have to teach our children what real homespun values are,” said Clay. “We’ve had enough of that free-wheeling progressive way of doing things and it’s time we pulled the reins in and went back to a time when morality wasn’t just something we talked about, but something we fervently believe in and practice daily. It is never too late to repent,” said Sally.

When asked specifically what it was that the Parsons didn’t like about the present offering of dolls on the market, both let out a laugh at the same time. “How much time do you have?” asked Clay. “There are so many things wrong with the dolls on the market today from having one line of doe-eyed dolls dressing like Saturday night hookers to giving Barbie a boombox and calling her Rappin’, Rockin’ Barbie. Barbie went from the girl next door to having a visibly pregnant friend, Midge.” Said Sally. “We felt it was time to bring Barbie back into the fold by introducing her to some wholesome females again.” When reminded that Midge was actually married and already had kids and was part of the Barbie Happy Family Neighborhood, Sally had this to say:

“Sure, there’s the Barbie Happy Family Neighborhood series, but again, the manufacturers missed the mark by including other children of mixed racial backgrounds in with the Barbie family package. I’m sure the parents of some of those kids are probably separated or divorced and we just don’t want that to be the case in the Pretty Pride series. That’s when we decided it was time to develop a line of dolls for our friends’ and family’s kids that speak to the good old-fashioned WWJD values we grew up on,” said Sally, totally not understanding the irony in that statement.

Clay confirmed that Michele will be the predominant doll in the Pretty Pride series. “We fashioned the Michele doll after someone who holds family values and Christianity dear to her heart, and we believe she embodies the only true American belief system.” The Michele doll comes dressed in a Chanel suit, pearl necklace, white gloves and carries a Bible. Other dolls in the Michele line include her husband, Marcus, her own five children, and of course 23 foster children.

“Some folks say we chose Michele because of how many dolls we can actually make money off of due to her fostering talents in real life,” said Sally. We didn’t really think about that when first coming up with the Pretty Pride dolls, but now that you mention it, those foster kids really will make us some money hopefully. That is what is so great about this line, it is so life-like.”

Patriate Pride is hoping this initial doll offering will take off and if it does well, they will introduce the other premiere doll of the series fashioned after Sarah Palin. The doll “Sarah” will come dressed in a designer dress with the tag still attached and hip waders, carrying a fishing pole in one hand, and a copy of the Constitution in the other.

Asked if they were considering adding an Alan Keyes doll or a Michael Steele doll to the line, they agreed it wasn’t out of the question to have a few “token” conservative dolls to round out the collection, but didn’t see it happening in the foreseeable future.

Asked if the Parsons felt that their Patriate Pride doll line may upset many progressives, they both agreed that this is something they just felt God called them to do and if it upsets the progressives, then so be it. Do they have any regrets then? Clay answered. “The only thing we regret is that Michele is a working mom. If she would just give up her day job and be a stay-at-home mom like Sarah has done, that would perfectly round out this particular play set.”

“Only in a perfect world,” sighed Sally. “Only in a perfect world.”

Christmas Light De-tangling Contest Erupts in Violence

Holy Smokes, VA – The first annual Christmas lights de-tangling contest held at the local BPOE lodge was interrupted late in the evening when one of the contestants, Harvey Smith, pulled a gun on fellow contestant, John Houdini, accusing him of having a special knack for untying knots, and thereby giving him an unfair advantage.

Nerves were already jangled when the contest, slated to run two hours, was going into the fifth hour with little less than half the Christmas lights untangled. “The lights were in an awful mess,” said Thomas “Tank” Upshaw, Highest Grand Poobah of the Grandest Lodge in Holy Smokes. “We had the wives in last year to help take down all of the town Christmas lights and decorations and true to form, before anyone could stop them, they had just wadded the lights up in a ball and threw them into a bunch of Hefty lawn and leaf garbage bags. We just figured we could untangle them in plenty of time before the next holiday season rolled around. I guess the time just got away from us, so we came up with the plan to hold a de-tangling contest.”

First prize was a quarter-side of beef from Holy Smokes Butcher Shop. Needless to say, competition was pretty fierce and the fellas were in rare form, cajoling each other and pulling some pretty nasty pranks to get their fellow Elks from winning that prize.

About a two and a half hours into the de-tangling contest, a few of the lodge members had to drop out of the contest, showing outward signs of stress such as muttering expletives and developing nervous facial tics. One contestant, Dale Pistoff, was physically shaking and swearing he was gonna kill his wife when he got home. Several lodge members took him over to the bar and gave him a couple of shots of Old Turkey and were able to get him to calm down enough to promise there wouldn’t be any killing at his house that night.

Just when they got Dale calmed down, someone yelled “put that gun down!” The Grandest Big Old Grand Poobah, Dickie Smurtz, rushed at Harvey Smith, who was pointing a double-barrel shotgun at Houdini. “He’s gonna win this damn contest cause he can get those knots untied quicker than anyone here and we all know it,” said Smith, obviously suffering from severe stress brought on by working on the same knot for more than a half hour. Smith had lost control, got up from the tangled mess and went out to his truck to get his shotgun muttering that was the last knot Houdini was gonna untie.

Smurtz got to Smith just as he was pulling the trigger and caught Smiths’ arm, aiming the shotgun for the roof. “That buckshot sprayed all over the brand new drop down ceiling tiles we just paid $800 to install,” said Smurtz. Luckily, no one was hurt, but the ceiling took a direct hit.

Next thing you know, the cops are hauling Smith off in handcuffs, and the whole Lodge erupted into laughter. Seems when Smith turned around to be led out, his foot got tangled in some lights lying on the floor and he was dragging the whole mess outside with him.

When asked the next day what he thought about all this, the Grandest Big Old Grand Poobah, Dickie, smiled and said, “Well, we now know that a man’s breaking point comes after about five and a half hours of de-tangling Christmas lights. We’ve decided to give up on the whole mess and pass it over to the local Optimists Club, along with the quarter-side of beef. Hopefully, they’ve got what it takes to get the job done in time for Christmas.”

Viagra Concession Ends Strike

Transit workers in Philadelphia, threatening to continue their strike for a raise in more than their salaries, have won a battle with the Southern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority to have most of their health care costs covered, including full-month prescriptions for Viagra and similar prescription medicines to treat erectile dysfunction (ED).

The leader of the transit workers, Jeff Laccid, explained it like this “look, if the train ain’t got enough power, how’s it gonna make in and out of the tunnel, ya know?” He continued, “Not that there’s anything wrong with me, but I got guys coming to me saying that they can blow through the ten-pill-a-month allowance in a long weekend. They’re telling me this is hard on their wives and girlfriends. The number of transit workers threatening to beat it if they don’t get their pills has swelled since the insurance plan took its hard stance.

The official healthcare provider for the transit authority, Dr. Ed Wiener, says that this was a perfect storm waiting to happen due to:

* More and more transit workers coming up on retirement age or crossing into retirement.
*Salaries and retirement accounts taking a huge financial hit, creating a load of stress.
*Most of the older workers taking other prescription drugs for diabetes and high blood pressure that affect their male performance.

“What this amounts to is a bulging population of men who have come to depend on that little blue pill, and who were initially told to make do with what they had. Some claimed it just wasn’t enough.”

The Transit Authority, though, wasn’t buying it. There are a few younger guys out there who were taking advantage of the program by forging prescriptions for the little blue pill--affectionately known in transit circles as the “pocket train,”--and then turning around and selling it at a much higher price to their senior co-workers who were too embarrassed to discuss their condition with their own doctors. “Let’s just say that there was more than bus passes and train tickets being sold out of the terminals,” said one insurance company spokesperson.

What does this newest concession say about the success of union negotiators in the public transit system? I’ll tell you,” said Laccid, “all that dickering back and forth paid off in a huge way. It’s not like we want to stick it to anyone, we just want a bigger package for our guys.”

Editor at Washington Post Claims "Charticle" is Last Straw

All hell broke loose over at the Washington Post last Friday when features editor, Henry Allen, shoved and punched one of the Post’s Style writers, who called him a very naughty name that rhymes with rockpucker.

Allen was less than pleased with a piece of journalism presented at the weekly meeting held between the writers and the editors of the Style section of the Post. Following the meeting, Allen got “all up in” Style writer, Monica Hesse’s face over an article he described as a “charticle,” forcing Hesse’s co-writer, Manuel Roig-Franzia, to come to her defense. He did so by alling-cay Allen-ay an ocksucker-cay. By the way, a charticle is described as an article that fuses text and graphics, and a journalistic style (no pun intended) that is frowned upon in the journalism business. In addition to the style faux pas, the charticle contained several errors that pissed Allen off to no end.

The fight (actually, Allen punched Roig-Franzia and Roig-Franzia took it like a Style magazine journalist) occurred in front of the office of Executive Editor ,Marcus Brauchli, and in fact, Brauchli was one of the people in the room who helped pull Allen off Roig-Franzia.

Immediately following the incident, Allen was called into Brauchli’s office and appropriately read the riot act, which appears each week in the editorial section of the newspaper. In addition, Allen was barred from the newsroom for the remainder of his career, which just happens to be a few days from now, as he has already announced his retirement effective November 20, 2009.

So, with Allen out of the picture, Roig-Franzia is up for Allen’s job and claims that if he becomes the features editor, there will be more of the same type of journalism where “charticles” come from. Here’s a tentative list that he’s come up with:

Particle – Fuses half the story with lots of pictures.
Grapharticle – Fuses useless graphs with lots of text (not to be confused with charticle).
Pharticle – Fuses photos with really clever captions.
Emoticle – Fuses happy news with smiley faces.
Antarticle – Fuses cold hard facts with cold hard graphics.
OMGarticle – Fuses text messages with graphic graphics.
Politicle – Confuses politics with text.
Errarticle – Fuses glaring errors with photos that don’t match.
Freeforarticle – Fuses face with fist.
Satarticle – What you just read on Glossy News.

2003 Photo of Cheney May Explain Plame ID Outing

Since 2003, many groups have claimed that Dick Cheney was the person at the forefront of leaking the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame to the media, thereby blowing her cover and forcing her to end a long and successful career with the CIA. Although Cheney denies this claim, a recently surfaced photo may explain Cheney’s inability to recall certain events leading up to the outing of Plame’s name.

The FBI interviewed Cheney in 2004 regarding his involvement in the matter. After filing a lawsuit to get the FBI interview summary released, the watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, has finally received a copy of the summary in which it is revealed that Cheney’s memory was sketchy, at best, on whether he discussed Valerie Plame with his Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, who ultimately was charged with leaking Plame’s name to political columnist, Robert Novak. Cheney could also not remember whether or not he discussed Plame or her husband, Joe Wilson, with Bush.

A recent photo of Cheney, Circa 2003, has surfaced showing Cheney wearing mismatched shoes. According to Dr. Leu Singha Grip, an expert in the study of dementia in senior citizens, this quite possibly could indicate that Cheney is suffering from early onset dementia which may be affecting his memory. Dr. Grip believes that Cheney may very well believe he was telling the truth when he said he did not recall if he told Libby about Wilson’s wife and her employment at the CIA.

Although, in reality, during Libby’s criminal trial, evidence was submitted that showed Cheney did tell Libby about Wilson’s wife in 2003; the fact that Cheney could say one thing one day and turn around and say something completely opposite another day is a pretty clear sign that some form of memory loss may exist.

Cheney’s wife, Lynn, confirmed the fact that Cheney’s memory has been slipping for the past decade. “Yes, it’s become a real problem in the Cheney household,” she said. That mismatched shoe photo is just the tip of the iceberg. It started simply enough with him forgetting where he put the keys to the car, to not remembering to pick up eggs and butter from the grocery store on his way home from the Oval office. But it has gotten progressively worse.

“Especially in the bedroom, while holding me at night” Lynn continued, “he sometimes calls me by another woman’s name. It's getting to be so common that we just laugh when he calls me ‘Destiny’ or ‘Roxy’.

She said that it happens most though when Dick is reading the newspaper in the morning over coffee and starts a sentence and then just forgets what he was going to say. “We call them brain farts and these days, Dick is having lots of brain farts.” She said smiling. “It’s just a part of getting old, I guess.”

Dr. Grip agrees that Cheney's brain farts could explain a lot.

Toy Shop Owner Faces Bankruptcy Over "Cursing" Doll Mix-Up

New York, NY - A Hoboken toy shop owner is suing a Chinese doll manufacturer for unspecified damages claiming that the “cursing” dolls he ordered “don’t even f**king talk.”

Hoping to cash in on the annual round of innocent dolls, i.e. Elmo, Jr., bought by parents that, when taken out of the packaging, are found to be hot-wired to say something off-color, and thereby adding to the doll’s value, Hal Hapless saw an ad in a doll trade magazine for “cursing” dolls made by a Chinese manufacturer and quickly ordered 10,000 of the dolls.

“I ordered 10,000 of the cutest little “Wanga Dolls,” he said. I figured with a name like wanga, well, I was hoping they’d say something at least bad enough to make a few indignant mommas cry foul, return the dolls to me, contact their local television stations and voila! It wouldn’t be long before I was making the circuit on morning news shows and raking in a huge profit on those trash talkin’ barbies.”

But Hapless’ plan went horribly awry. “When I got the boxes, I was so elated. I couldn’t wait to hear what the dolls said.” Turns out, the “cursing” dolls were really voodoo dolls meant to be used in voodoo rituals. They weren’t talking dolls at all.

Hapless’ calls to the Chinese manufacturer have so far met with futility. “What the hell am I supposed to do with 10,000 f**king cursing dolls that don’t f**king curse? This is so f**king unbelievable, I just cant f**ing believe it.