Humor: Fueled by Petrol

Voters will head for the polls tomorrow in what appears to be record numbers. Not only are many Tucsonians voting who normally spend election day with more fruitful pursuits, but we are hearing that they are more informed than ever before.

Of course, this is due entirely to the widespread use of Media Advertisements and clever posturing.

To see how this will affect tomorrow’s election, we took to the streets this past weekend and asked the voters how they will vote.

“Me?” asked our first interviewee, Silas P. Horsenrider, whom we found perched on a bar-stool in one of Tucson’s oldest and most revered beer-joints, “I’m not voting for any of them City Hall guys who wasted all that money an Rio Nuev-bo. That’s for sure.” When asked who he would be voting for, Silas said simply, “Them other guys.”

The consensus was heavily in favor of “Them other guys” in the bar, so we left and sought other demographics.

At the Mall, we felt, we would find a better cross-section of Tucson-a-cana. Our first subject was clear on her views.

“We have to elect someone who knows what Tucson needs for the future. Someone who has their finger on the pulse of the economy. Someone who lives in my neighborhood.” When asked where she lived, our subject declined to elaborate, but her Hummer had gate-pass stickers for one of the more exclusive gated Tucson Communities. Her body-guard was of Eastern European descent.

Next we tried to pick the brains of some barely-legals who were haunting the food court.
“Election?” several said, in lock-step unison. “Election? Is it time to vote again? Is Obama winning?” We left the next leaders of America and went out into the parking lot.

“Officer!” We had spied one of Tucson’s Finest, on a bicycle. He wheeled over and took our I.D., ran a “wants and warrants” and gave us a ticket for standing in the street. Then he asked us what crime we would like to report.

“The election, officer. The election. How will you vote?” This we shouted from the curb, as we had learned quickly to stay out of the street.

“Election! If we had more policemen, I would have time to run you in for interfering with the vote!”
We scurried away, hoping to escape a Federal Rap.

The rest of the day went much the same. Wherever Tucson voters were accosted, the results were similar. When voting, Tucson Voters tend to vote for themselves.

We predict the groups that have the least work to do on election day will carry the vote.

Everybody else will be too busy trying to make ends meet to get out and vote for a new crop of “Urban Planners”.

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US Attorney General Eric Holder is reported to be considering the appointment of a criminal prosecutor to investigate Bush administration’s torture of terrorist suspects. (Washington Post, 12 July, ‘09 by Carrie Johnson)

Note: that is terrorist suspects, not necessarily terrorists. A significant number of “suspects” have been found to be held without cause by the military and are being released….because the military found them to be innocent.

Whatever the case, President Obama has consistently held against any investigation or prosecution for torture by Americans, especially when they were acting according to legal guidelines established by the Justice Department at the behest of the Bush administration.

We obtained a secret transcription of a recent confrontation between President Obama and Attorney General Holder, which was written in shorthand by a deaf-mute German tourist. Herr Kronenburg, touring the US capital with his family, happened upon the conversation while looking through a pay-telescope which is mounted to the railing near the Lincoln Memorial. The President and the Attorney General were sitting on an outside balcony which was within the instrument’s range. Since Herr Kronenburg has been deaf and mute from birth, he is as adept at lip reading as one can be. It is to his disability that Herr Kronenburg attributes his success in providing this rare insight into the political machinations generally hidden from the public eye.

The telescope had been on for some moments before Herr Kronenburg chanced to focus on the balcony and recognize the President. He was unable to recognize the Attorney General until much later, when he was able to review news clips on the web. The conversation had apparently been under way for some moments when Herr Kronenburg began to read the President’s lips. Transcription follows, exactly as written by the observer moments after the telescope ran out of quarters. Dotted lines indicate parts of the conversation which were not clear to Herr Kronenburg for one reason or another.

The President:
“Eric, I’m telling you…….would….against the national interest.”

Holder:
“Mr……..how can it be ……the …..interest to investigate breaches of the Geneva…….”

The President:
“It would be divisive,…..I can’t…….of prosecution. Besides, the guys that did it were…..orders from the same Justice Department you…..”
Holder:
“Not the same department, Mr…….. it was my impression……you appointed me to…….”
The President:
“Upholding the law is exactly what I am talking…… The law allowed torture on the Bush watch. So there were no laws broken. Nothing to…..”
Holder:
“Surely, Mr President, you can’t suggest the United……..try to….the Nuremberg Defense?”
The President:
“No. That was different.”
Holder:
“…….how were……different?”
The President:
“Well, they were Nazis. We’re…..”
Holder:
“But sir, what will the world say if ever we need to prosecute war criminals again, like we did after World War II in Japan and Germany? Won’t they…….”
The President:
“They may. They may not. What I have to do is hold this Congress together. It would be…..”
Holder:
“Sir, I may have to go against you…….regard.”
The President:
“You know I will……….against……..”
Holder:
“I am appalled at your………Americans taking……..Nuremberg defense…..”
The President:
“Don’t do it, Eric.”
Holder:
“Sir, this seems……be against every principle ……you …..for. Will you fire me if I proceed?”

The President took a moment, leaning back into his chair on the sunny balcony. He took a sip of coffee and his features relaxed. He smiled broadly and got up. Stretching out his hand as if to shake with Holder, he said clearly, “Of course not, Eric. I thought you would never ask.”

The telescope blinked off at this point, and by the time Herr Kronenburg was able to get more quarters into it, the president was gone. Only Holder remained on the Patio. He drank from his coffee cup for a few moments, wiped his lips fastidiously with a napkin and got up. His lips moved silently, but Herr Kronenburg was able to see Holder clearly in the bright Washington sun.

“That old fox!” was all the Attorney General said.

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The US economy, in free-fall for over two years, has today begun to improve with the New York Stock Exchange reporting rising stock prices across the board. The recovery began with the open of the Stock Markets in the Far East, which opened during the American night and before the New York Exchange opened.

Especially strong has been the recovery of the heavy industrials, along with tech stocks which service the American military. Companies which provide weapons systems and military aircraft opened on the American Exchange this morning in New York at prices fully 25% above last Friday’s close.

Even the American shipyards have begun to climb out from the deep-sea dive they sustained as the American economy began to sink in late 2006. With the American military reducing or even canceling orders for submarines, destroyers and other “ships of the line”, shipyards have operated as repair facilities at best and been shuttered and had their dry-docks sold to foreign interests at worst. In what could be the most notable turnaround in this economic recovery, the stock in the American shipyard in Bath, Maine, American Boat Works, opened today at $ 45.56 US. This in the face of the fact that the American Boat Works was already in receivership. The company was the prime contractor for American submarines, orders for which were slashed by an American military needing desert-style equipment to fight its wars in the Middle East and unable to pay for even that.

European market experts were scratching their heads this morning, as were investors in the US and Canada. With no change in the profit-to-earnings ratios  for heavy industry and military contractors, the American Securities Exchange Commission ordered a halt in trades by midmorning. The government said trading would resume on Tuesday, unless market-manipulation could be uncovered to account for the dramatic rise in stock prices today.

Only in the Far East was trade in America’s rising stocks heavy.

Investors in Hong Kong, China, Saudi-Arabia and even Russia scooped up American Industrials and went after the previously embarrassed American Treasuries. Buying was especially heavy on the Russian exchange, and is expected to surge again Tuesday as the Ruble gains against a weakening dollar.

Analysts at the American CIA were said to have notified the American President that the surge is due to a belief, fostered by a trip to China last week by the former Vice President and an associate from Texas. The trip was rumored to have been made in an effort to pave the way for American Treasury debt to be forgiven by the Chinese government in exchange for American military support of the Chinese Agenda in the Far East.

With rumors that former VP Cheney has successfully negotiated a military-aid repayment plan for the American/Chinese debt, other nations with strong currency or stashed oil-revenues have joined the fray, picking up American Treasuries to position their countries to receive American military support in their regions.

While it is too early to say whether the generally un-steady American CIA has it right, European markets are expected to follow suit in tomorrow’s opening with a strong demand for American Treasuries by the governments of West Germany and Britain, although the British will have to borrow heavily to participate.

At home, several high-profile American investors have filed emergency lawsuits against the SEC action, saying that freezing the American markets has put them at a disadvantage worldwide. The SEC is expected to allow trading to resume tomorrow morning, as the new demand for American securities is sure to give a boost to that formerly robust economy.

In Bath, Maine, former American Boat Works employees have begun to line up at the company’s gates, hopeful that the rise in the nearly defunct submarine-works stock will mean the yard will be brought back into readiness for military orders. Some of the workers have been un-employed for over two years and have had no luck securing employment elsewhere, as almost all  American military contractors have fallen on hard times as the Americans have begun to dig in to its guerrilla wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Only a surge in American Navel operations would call for a return to the days when the US Congress approved billions for nuclear submarines, stealth bombers and heavy destroyers. These expensive, hard-hitting pieces of military hardware are only effective in larger theaters of operation. It is probable that the Americans will be pressed to provide more navel support for its new financial allies as it tries to find ways to repay a national debt, based in sold American Treasuries, that has begun to worry even the normally financially cavalier Republicans. With the American economy stagnated, the fortunes of America’s wealthy have begun to diminish; without a recovery in heavy industrials, there is little hope for this politically powerful group.

While Europe gathers its Euros in preparation of tomorrow’s market binge, China has announced its intention to place Hong-Kong under Chinese military occupation, unless the Hong-Kong market is closed and prohibited from purchasing more American Treasuries.

The Chinese, according our un-identified source at the CIA, are worried that if the Hong Kong sector becomes a large enough holder of American debt, it will confuse the already perfidious loyalties of the American military-industrial complex and lower the trade-value of China’s already enormous investment in the US.

Brokers in Hong Kong, wary of the massing of Chinese troopes along their borders, are expected to begin wire- transfers out of the country as soon as possible. It is suspected that the run on Treasuries will continue with buying going through third-party  exchanges if the Chinese do invade Hong Kong.

Whether the Chinese will be able to maintain their lead in ownership of American debt through the coming weeks is of utmost concern to the nations which began the run on Treasuries this morning….if the Chinese are able to maintain a clear ownership of American debt, then the bid to co-opt American military support in the region will have been an expensive mistake.

Whatever happens, it is probable that the Americans will enjoy a steady economic recovery based on the new demand for US Treasuries, and that the American heavy-industrials will be brought back on-line as quickly as possible to meet the expected demands for  the heavy military equipment which will be needed to support America’s new financial allies in the Far East, whoever they may turn out to be at the end of the day.

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(Special report by Jimmy Petrol, who has spent the past weeks in close association with a group he calls the DES, or Democratic Eugenics Society. The “public” name of the group is Citizens for Conservative Population Growth…report follows).
Dallas
It is seldom a reporter happens upon such a story, chiefly because generally these things just don’t happen. Conspiracy theorists abound, but humans don’t get along well enough, in general, to conspire.

The exception is only found in the “for profit” sector; therein lies the vehicle and motivation for all sorts of scam, fraud and manipulation. Jack Abramoff, for those of you who remember the infamous champion of Native American rights, often represented both sides in a dispute…cozy and profitable.

So it is, nearly, with the modern day Eugenicist. Given a terrible rep by the Nazis, Rwandans, Serbians, Iraqis and not least of all, the Turks, overt efforts to “improve” the gene-pool are kept dark as possible…the pogroms and ethnic wars are named “anything but”  by the aggressor.

And in the West, Eugenics is believed to be dead. Wiped out by civilization just as Salk wiped out polio; a thing of the past, only alive in the less civilized parts of the planet.

And so I thought also.

In fact, the fellow responsible for this current effort to “improve” the gene-pool denies it is anything like eugenics at all.

“Jimmy,” he said to me when he recruited me, “what we are doing is just offering people a chance to improve the political position of their own group. Without war. Without any of that old-style eugenics stuff. All we do is promote the natural, the human thing. We tell ‘em to have more babies.”

Of course, I knew what he was talking about…I had run onto him precisely because I knew all about the “breeding” plans springing up all over the planet. Everywhere, countries, churches, political parties, ethnic groups…everyone is being told “have more babies !” by their political leaders and holy-men. I had traveled to the Deep South of the United States to attend church services and hear the exhortations toward Fundamentalist Christian Growth for myself.

“See, Jimmy,” went on my new boss, “I was really hunting around for something I could do to improve my own little “political” situation. And I was in church down here when all the Fundies started talking about having babies for Jesus. You know, the thing you came down to investigate. It’s real. But I found out it’s not just the Fundies that are telling their people to have more babies. It’s everyone. Everywhere. Russia…they have had a negative population growth problem; they want Russians to have more babies…little Russian babies to boost Russia, Jimmy. In fact, I can tell you absolutely that there isn’t an ethnic, religious or political group that isn’t urging its members to have more babies….in the case of the Fundies, they call ‘em “babies for Jesus”. Everywhere else, they just call ‘em “more of us”. As in if there are more of us, there are less of “them”…percentage-wise, see.”

I knew all of this, of course. It isn’t news….even Sarah Palin could tell you about having babies for Jesus…to increase the political clout of fundamental Christians. I have to admit, though, I could see no way to make money from this frightening trend; to exhort congregations, nations and ethnicities to pump out babies when the planet is so full-up already seemed unlikely to result in pay-o-la.

“How….” I began, but the boss was sharp…he knew what I wanted to know.

“Jimmy, all you gotta do is write. Just write little pamphlets up like I tell you. I’m making a Deep South tour right now, mining the congregations down here for a little “support” for my lobbying in each State Capitol. We stay away from Washington right now, you know. Washington’s got “religion” all of a sudden, and it ain’t our kind. They put my pal Abramoff in jail and I don’t want to follow. So all we do is this….”

What we did was simple. Every little town has a lot of little churches. Every church wants an “expert” on the subjects close to the congregation’s heart…and increasing their number was definitely close to their hearts.

All the boss did was waltz in, soft-soap the pastor and talk to the congregation for a few minutes after the service. Then we had a little table, where the pamphlets talking up the baby angle lay out. Nice. Three color. Lots of pictures of drooling babies. Just the stuff.

And the checks fell into the boss’s hat like nothing. It was amazing. And all he ever said was that he was on his way to the Capitol to let the legislature know that they “mean business”. That’s it. No fraud, no muss, lots of dough. We made a bundle.

And to be fair, the boss did go to the State Capitol. He was smooth as silk, with the brochures with the pouting babies on them….he got in to see those State Assemblymen quick and easy. We had letters from every congregation we had mined and the Senators know who votes in Texas.

So we went. On and on, a new town every couple days, a new batch of checks to support our little “unlicensed” lobby (“God don’t give out licenses, son”).

But the thing that bothered me wasn’t so much that the boss was making money promoting little Christian Soldiers. That’s fine. More the better.

What bothered me, the reason I signed on, was to find out who the boss was talking to late in the night and early in the dawning hours on his cell phone.

And that is what the scoop is.
He was talking to his crew…all over…working tirelessly on behalf of every group that wants to have a bigger, more politically powerful group.
See, it isn’t just a little thing anymore. This birth-rate raising thing everyone is promoting is working. There will be a boom to make the “baby boomer generation” boom look puny. And it is everywhere. All over the world.

And that’s no problem, either….what you gonna do? People love to have babies.

It’s just that the boss and the fifty or so other promoters know where this is all going to end.

“War, Jimmy. War. Nothing can support the population growth we’re gonna see in ten years. Nothing.”
I was agog.
“Yep. The way to “cleansing” the planet of the low-caste, the poor, the “disadvantaged” isn’t to sterilize ‘em or do anything like the Nazis did. Nope. All you gotta do is tell ‘em to breed like rabbits, that if they do, they’ll prosper. All that can happen, what with fifty million more in India, fifty million more in Pakistan, is that they will fight. Same everywhere. Too many already…more coming fast…all in the name of “Us First.” You know who dies in war Jimmy; the common man. And everybody’s gonna be common in this one”.

Of course, he knew I was planning on writing this expose’. He laughed about it when he dropped me at the airport in Dallas.

“Have fun, Jimmy. Remember, you’re a comic. This muckracking won’t work for you. They’ll never believe you spent two weeks in Texas with the Devil ”

He smiled.

Devilishly, of course.

Americans are living longer than ever before. In fact, all the denizens of the First World are living long past “retirement”, which is a concept based in the aristocratic notion that “successful” primates move about and do things “less and less” rather than “more and more” as one may think.

Americans have developed the “do nothing” mindset into an art form. The American television, which gives many Americans all they need to know about society, morals and living, extols the “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” to a rather embarrassing extent. Americans who do things, and like it, are somewhat appalled by the “drugged monkey” imitation most of the US populace exhibits.

The new US president, being a man of “infinite sagacity” as Kipling would say, has formed a task-force to investigate the ramifications of this new longevity and issue a Presidential Report to Congress.

Specifically, the task-force has been ordered to find out what Americans are doing with the twenty to thirty years of healthy retirement they now enjoy. It is the Obama Administration’s opinion that the government must know what the Vast Retiring Boomer-Babies are likely to do with all their time and money; it is estimated that over 30 % of working America will retire withing the next fifteen years.

Unless of course, the Wall-Street geniuses find a way to steal the Boomer’s retirement savings…..oh, wait….they already did.

Nevertheless, the Presidential Commission on Retirement Activities has been hard at work (well, for Americans) surveying retired Americans to find out what they are up to and what infrastructures need to be bolstered or created to support all the coming Retiree Activities.

Our source, who of course doesn’t want to be identified because he is speaking without authorization as usual, has leaked a draft copy of the report, which is scheduled to reach the President any day now. The printing has been held up by the un-expected retirement of a few crucial members of the Commission, who reached retirement age at the end of the study and have refused to do any work whatsoever.

The report makes clear a few critical points:

1.Americans, upon retirement, generally refuse to perform any useful function. Doctors refuse to doctor, carpenters will not cut wood and nurses will not nurse.

2.Where Americans generally are physically “at the workplace” for eight hours a day pre-retirement, they are generally “in front of the television” for six of those hours after retirement.

3.Where Americans tend toward Obesity pre-retirement, they launch themselves towards it with renewed vigor after. Americans gain an average of 47 pounds post retirement.

4.This weight gain, termed “Rubenesque” by its ardent supporters, is the single most deadly of all American activities, rivaling even the traditionally most likely method of accidental death in the American home, slipping in the bath.

5.Automobile usage triples for retirees, until age, obesity and senility prevent it, although most Americans qualify for driver’s licenses long after they become dangerous.

6.Prescription medications for depression, impotence and indigestion are five-times more used by American retirees when compared to their European counterparts.

7.Alcohol consumption skyrockets after retirement, with the average American drinking its weight in Vodka and Corn-Whiskey every six months.

8.Suicide is down among retirees when compared to the general population; the Commission suggests that this may be linked to the astonishing usage of products like Viagra. Conversely, “stroke” related deaths are up.

9. Internet porn is a mainstay of the retired American male, which when paired with the Viagra usage, accounts for the fact that most Internet porn sites are owned by subsidiaries of American drug companies.

Finally, the Commission finds that the Great Baby-Boomer Retirement Activity Plan, which is the classified name for the project, amounts to less than nothing.

The Commission’s recommendations to the President are few and to the point:

1.Require all current American Retirees to Submit a Life Plan to the Government, which should list the activities each retiree intends to participate in after retirement.
2.All such plans which list “watch television” or “travel the USA in a motor home” should be forwarded to Islamic Jihadists; this should, says the commission, engender a jealous desire to emulate Americans and diffuse the Jihad as nothing else could.
3.All Americans under the age of retirement should be notified that retirement age has been raised to “until dead”, as the American Retiree population will consume all available foodstuffs and fuel supplies if allowed to proceed in the manner in which they have become accustomed. That is to say, if most of America is either retired, fired or living the life-style of the wealthy on the public dole, there will be precious little to eat in America in the near term.
4.All of which, says the Commission, amounts to a self-righting system; without food, leisure time will become less attractive. The the American retiree-community will begin to resemble the active, politically involved retiree of Europe and look less like a “drunken monkey” in due time.

Essentially, the Commission is recommending that the President “Do Nothing”, as the system as it is has become so insupportable that the American Dream of Doing Nothing as Soon as Possible will collapse like a Fat American Tourist in Paris in the summertime.

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Dick Cheney and the next Republican presidential hopeful, Zeb Bush, flew to Beijing today and were said to be in private talks with members of the Chinese government.

Sources inside the Cheney camp say that the former VP has initiated talks designed to redeem US Treasury Bonds held by the Chinese. It is considered likely in world financial circles that the US will eventually default on much of it’s Treasury debt and would be ripe for a hostile takeover by its major creditor, China.

“In the political world,” Mr. Cheney is rumored to have said, “a “hostile takeover” is often an actual invasion.” It is in order to forestall such an eventuality that Cheney and Bush have opened private negotiations with the Chinese.

Our source explained, “The Chinese are into the US for more than the country is worth. Or at least they will be by the time Zeb is elected seven years from now. Mr Cheney has personal knowledge, based on his participation in the US economic crash, that leads him to believe that the US will never be able to repay the vast debt owed China. This will be especially true in a few more years, once the value of American real estate, crumbling infrastructure and obsolete factories reach their true valuation on the world market.”

Mr Cheney’s office did not return phone calls, but Zeb Bush’s personal assistant called us right back.

“Zeb is such a man of the people,” she told us. “He didn’t want to go to China right now, because we were supposed to take a fact-finding trip to the Bahamas together, but Mr. Cheney called the Republican National committee (RNC) and they told him if he didn’t go they were going to send that Palin object. He sobered up quick and got going.”

The Chinese government issued a statement yesterday acknowledging the arrival of the Cheney/Bush team, but denied they were holding private negotiations with them.

It is a crime for a private citizen to negotiate with a foreign power, and the RNC was quick to deny the claim that Dynamic Duo were doing anything of the sort.

Our source, when questioned about the RNC denial, said, “Palin was real upset to be left home….she was storming around the airport with her luggage and a small entourage of hairdressers, make-up people, a personal masseuse and a couple of bodyguards that looked like they had stepped off the cover of G.Q (Gentleman’s Quarterly). When they left her on the tarmac, she started dictating a letter to the press, which I have right here in my pocket. She left no doubt that the Republicans are cozying up with the Chinese to rent them the US military as a partial repayment on the US debt.”

While experts in finance are reluctant to make any comment on this affair, the possibility of the US using its heavy-hitting military to support China in its extra-territorial acquisitions has caused a stir in European circles.

An un-named source at the World Trade Organization put it this way; “The United States may find itself in the awkward position of owing the Chinese more than the country is worth. In that event, the US will have to find pretext for supporting the Chinese agenda in the Far East. What the Republicans are trying to do is just get this all arranged nice and neat, before the Chinese decide that the US Treasury debt is worthless and take some radical approach towards getting their money back.”

Ms. Palin, when reached for comment in the airport bar, had this to say on the possibility of American forces being essentially “rented” to the Chinese to erase American debt; “I can see Russia from my house. The Chinese can see them from their backyard. I think America needs to think about the Communist threat and the Treasury debt as two related issues. We can support our friends, who have lent us so much money, and get out of debt with only the loss of a few Marine battalions. This is win/win, unless they change the law an draft me.”

Ms Palin was inclined to continue, but the G.Q. bodyguards gathered her up at this point and hustled her into a waiting limo. She was not inclined to stop talking to the press at first, but one of the bodyguards flashed a Macy’s card at her and she relented.

A Marine recruiter, when questioned about the possibility of Ms. Palin being drafted and included in any US armed forces assault in support of the Chinese Agenda, told us; “The Marines have a set of values which require that a Marine “Never Give Up”. The former Governor could never be a Marine”

.

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