OSAMA RELEASES NEW RECORD WORLD NEWS
(MECCA-GOJIRA, SAUTEED ARABIA) - "Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!", the new record by Osama and the Fatwas, has been getting lots of airplay since its release and seems certain to attain platinum record status. Also know as "Jihad Three Times," basically it's a thrashy punk cover of Tony Orlando and Dawn's "Knock Three Times" with Arabic lyrics so inflammatory it makes even gangsta rappers cringe. However many Fatwa fans claim it's really an Osama sound-alike on the record and the playing of the lead licks on an electric guitar doesn't represent the true sound of Islamic Punk. Apparently only an electric oud will do. Further the fans maintain that Saudis could never play I-Punk properly in the first place, preferring the sound of Yassir and the Hashishim from the early 70's. Like the Fatwas, they've had a lot of hits over the years but more than a few bombs too.
Purists and their complaints aside, industry analysts attribute the current record's success to its unusual crossover appeal, especially with the normally talk-only news junkies. Circumventing the usual Clear Channel controlled radio playlists and the Internet, J3T was first premiered by Alvin Jeerya, a deejay in Teheran. Then the record spread like wildfire through the Mid-East, which is remarkable because Islamic radio isn't allowed to play music. CNN and other news organizations soon put the record in heavy rotation when they found that playing the song backwards reveals the lyrics of "The Happy Wanderer" in English.
Attorney General John Ashcroft promised to look into potential copyright violations and warned stores to refuse shipments of Osama's Greatest Hits if delivery is attempted anytime before Christmas. Or anytime thereafter too. [Achmed Ikayted, 13 O’Clock Religious Music Reporter]
LAME DUCK CONGRESS PASSES ENVIRONMENTAL BILL NATIONAL NEWS
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Congressional Democrats, eager to accomplish as much as they can before relinquishing control of all the key committees, triumphantly passed a new environmental regulation this week, a new bill aimed at curtailing ketchup waste at fast food restaurants. "We are so glad we were finally able to pass the ketchup with this important bill. I mean pass this important environmental bill," declared Congressman Charleton Noklew. His figures show that only 10% of the ketchup packets that a restaurant hands out are actually used on the burgers, fries or hotdogs they are intended for. "This makes ketchup waste a significant portion of the national debt in addition to being an environmental hazard, so we needed this in the wurst way. The total value of this wasted ketchup nationwide is over $1 million per year," added Noklew, whose Ketchup Waste Taskforce spent $100 million on fact finding junkets to various tomato growing states.
The new ketchup bill tries to control the situation in two ways, by providing tax breaks to restaurants that provide bulk ketchup in pumps or bottles, and severe penalties for restaurant patrons that don't use all the ketchup they are given and dispose of the empty packet properly. The bill also provides for a new Ketchup Enforcement Division to be added to the Department of Homeland Security. Congressman Noklew later demonstrated the recommended way of disposing of the ketchup in the packet, by first placing it on the floor pointed at the assembled media and then jumping on it. [Frida Peoples, 13 O'Clock Condiment Sideboard]
BUSH SETS UP INSURANCE INDUSTRY INSURANCE
(THE WHITE PALACE) - Resident Bush happily signed a new insurance bailout bill that covers the US insurance industry for not only acts of terror, but all acts of God. Also at the ceremony, beaming insurance industry executives proclaimed, "The beauty of this bill is that ultimately anything that happens is an act of God, so this way we can make taxpayers pay for everything!"
Bush steadfastly maintained that this is not an insurance industry bailout, a corporate welfare program or a government plan to take over the insurance industry. "No, this is just free money," he said at the press conference. "Their liability is reduced to zero, so now we'll never have to worry about the insurance industry ever going bankrupt." Bush added that with the cost of the coming war in Iraq and the reduced revenues due to a slow economy and tax cuts, even several trillion dollars in extra red ink to cover any insurance losses will be "just a drop in the bucket." When asked what might happen when the US itself goes bankrupt, Dubya quickly sidestepped the issue and invited the press corps to vacation with him on a chain of Pacific islands that a consortium of insurance industry giants just bought for themselves. "Well, we don't have to worry about paying off claims anymore and the islands were just sitting there, so why not?" said Gearhardt Twinkle, an industry spokesperson. [Monty Debtload, 13 O’Clock Guest Concerned Citizen]
NEW YORK MAYOR NOT JUST BLOWING SMOKE LOCALE NEWS
(NEW YORK, NY) - The gloves are off in the battle between smokers and non-smokers in the Big Apple. Nightclubs, long off-limits to those who either fear or are allergic to cigarette smoke, may soon be smokeless, thanks to the efforts of a large group of people led by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Smokers, both in the public sector and in office, are fighting Bloomberg with everything they've got. At recent hearings, a parade of speakers waxed eloquent about their fond childhood memories of the smell of cigarette smoke, the separation anxiety they'd already suffered when the government took away their TV friend, The Marlboro Man, and how many of them might consider going nuts with an assault rifle if the laws are passed. The most effective speech came from Doral, the "Taste Me Taste Me" dancing cigarette box, who brought the gallery to tears when she told of her decades-long battle with alcohol resulting from being shunned as a disease-causing menace. When a Bloomberg aid then asked for a study on the feasibility of alcohol-free/smoke-free nightclubs, a riot broke out. Nobody was killed, though several people did sustain severe cigarette burns, and one dancing box was partially crushed. For now, the larger battle rages on. Will there be clean, safe air in New York's nightclubs? And in the end, what difference will it make when the patrons will eventually have to step out into the polluted New York air to wait... and wait for a taxi. [Don N. Hale, 13 O'Clock New Yawkologist]
INDIANA'S NAME RUFFLES FEATHERS IN POLITICAL CIRCLES
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - In a two hour, impassioned speech on the congress floor, Edmond Rainwater asked representatives to consider a bill that would require the state of Indiana to change it's name. "The very name 'Indiana' flies in the face of native Americans," Rainwater said, "especially when you consider how little influence we have there. It's so politically incorrect it begs to be dealt with." When asked what suggestions he had for a new name, Rainwater didn't miss a beat. "I favor Liarsville, but WhiteMurderersFromTheEast works, as well. We've toyed with Mugaleia, which is our word for 'they who need entire regiment to wipe out one village of women, children and old people while the warriors are away,' but we know we'd never get that past the governor here. He's not exactly on our side in this matter." Indiana governor Jeremiah Johnson IX, speaking by phone from his office, responded to Rainwater's comments by stuttering, stammering, and finally asking who we really were and threatening us with various laws against prank phone calls. We had more success reaching Christian Caleb, the Dean at Lower Indiana State College. "Well I don't know what they're going to say in Washington," grumbled Caleb, "but there's no way in hell we're changing our mascot. We've always been and always will be the Lower Indiana State Settlers Massacred By Savage Injuns, and that's all there is to it." Meanwhile, elsewhere in the nation, the Tennessee Valley Pesky Redskins Pep Club began digging a moat around its football stadium. [Willis Topp, 13 O'Clock Political Correctness Division]
WOMEN TEED OFF AT NETWORK AND CLUB OF PIGS SPORTS SECTION
(DISGUSTA, GA) - The Mister's Tournament, golf's most prestigious event, is almost certain to include drama and suspense of a kind its promoters aren't looking for when angry women and anti-women men clash over the club's long standing ban on women members. And if you think that was a mouthful, wait'll you see the loose teeth in Wilhelm Yonston's mouth if Minerva Uguys gets ahold of him. He's the commandant of the club and she is the head of ATWUYA (A Three Wood Up Your Ass!). Several months ago she politely asked him to reconsider the policy and allow women to join the club. When he responded by taking and shooting hostages, demanding she leave the country and never write to him again, Uguys took her complaints to the public.
She also took them to the sponsors of the Mister's Tournament, Bob's Jock Straps, who boldly sprang into inaction, saying they thought "it could be construed as wrong to shoot hostages, even if they were just women." Commandant Yonston's troops immediately surrounded and eliminated the board of directors from Bob's Jock Straps, leaving the tourney without a sponsor. Uguys next took her case to the network, but after being led into the corporate offices she found only couches and several lamps shaped like trembling executives. Speaking on a news program, she then promised to take the story to the people, "state by state, if need be."
Commandant Yonston commissioned a poll to circumvent such a move. Based on a survey of 800 female submissives in a dominance chat channel on the Internet, "women should not be allowed on any golf course unless ordered to go there." Uguys is unimpressed. "The network, the club, even the Dom/sub channel, they're all just part of the same club of pigs, and we're coming at them from all sides. We hear the jokes. We hear them say 'this isn't Pebble Bitch' and things like that. When we descend on them on tourney day, you know what you're going to hear Yonston say," muses Uguys with a twinkle in her eye? "The same last words Custer said: 'God, I didn't know there were THAT many of 'em!!' Then we're gonna make a club sandwich with roast pig." [Nick Jackalass, taking refuge in the bunker on 15 (written before the event)]
STUDY SHOWS WHITES SUBCONSCIOUSLY SUSPECT BLACKS HUMAN INDIFFERENCE
(SEATTLE, WASHINGTON) - Video games that show both white and black men in various situations with objects in their hands that may or may not be guns have apparently provided surprising data for researchers at the University Of Washington.
In nine studies, white test subjects incorrectly chose to shoot the black characters on the screen when all they had in their hands were cell phones, pop cans and other innocent objects, while failing to shoot white characters who did, in fact, have guns.
The test subjects themselves were stunned by their own actions, many of them so embarrassed and ashamed of themselves that they had no qualms about paying 13 O'Clock News personnel good money not to print their names, though Frank Q. Wilcox of Bellardia and Darren Levenson of Orrett City apparently saw no need to do so.
The final results of the 9 tests showed that 93% of the black characters were fired upon when only 33% of them were armed, while only 11% of the white characters were shot at. The extra numbers were explained by University officials as "crazies who just strafed everybody on the screen."
White supremacy leader Whitey Dodge condemned the studies, calling them inflammatory. "They got a bunch of people who just don't know how to play video games," said Dodge from his bunker in Idaho. "They're trying to insinuate some problem exists when it really doesn't, casting white America in a bad light once again, and it makes me sick!"
The planned 10th test, in which African American males would play the same video game, was canceled after the first test subject, aiming his computer pistol at the screen, was immediately gunned down by 24 police officers. All 24 were put on paid leave, but a spokesman for the department said the officers had no choice, as it appeared the test subject was pointing his computer pistol at the white character. [Duncan Cuver, 13 O'Clock News]
COMPUTER DATING SERVICE GOES BEYOND PANDAS
(LOST KEYS, OKLAHOMA) - Adolph X. Press, the man behind the new computer system designed to improve various zoos' panda breeding programs, today announced new software designed for improving match making among other species. New computer dating programs include systems for California Grey Whales, who seem to respond best to what can only be called low frequency singles ads. "What we broadcast underwater are things like 'Single grey whale female, likes krill, tummy rubs on the sea bottom and vacations in Baja. Seeks romantic male grey displacing at least 10 tons who likes to sing deep and low. Not too many barnacles please. RSVP Tag 5385.' At least that’s what we think the whalesong means, because it sure brings the male Greys running, er, swimming." Other species Adolph has helped with dating systems include howler monkeys. "Actually they don't need sophisticated software, just darkened rooms with colored lights and loud Luther Vandross music playing," he claims. It seems that the difference in the mating patterns of primates is not so great after all. [Phoebe Snowboard, 13 O’Clock Interspecies Bureau]
Last month Florida passed a law barring inhumane treatment of pregnant pigs. No word yet on a law barring inporcine treatment of pregnant human beings.
LATEST COUNTER-PROPOSAL BY CATHOLIC CHURCH CONFUSING FLOCK(VATICAN CITY, ITALY) - In the past year this bastion of religious hocus pocus has gone from a peaceful place to a fortress under siege in the wake of the sex scandals that threaten to destroy Catholicism for good. Bishops have held several multi-day meetings to discuss the problems - primarily the misconduct of many priests and bishops who force or coerce young altar boys into sexual relationships - and how to regain the trust of a stunned worldwide congregation.
Several blunders by the bishops haven't helped. When their first proposal amounted to sending the offending priest or bishop to his room without supper, there was considerable grumbling in the congregation.
"Hell, that's not even punishment enough for leering at the boys from the pulpit," spat Davey Callohan, a Catholic from Wooster, Mass. When the bishops then came back with the proposal that the offending party would have to go to awareness therapy camp, some nerves were calmed, until it was learned that the wording included "with the boy of his choice for companionship."
"They're oblivious to the whole thing," growled Cornelius "Corny" Holyfield, head of STABED (Severely Tarnished Altar Boys Enduring Disgrace). "They don't even realize it's not natural, the way they pork a boy in a confessional, so they're not dealing with the real issue."
When word of Holyfield's comments reached the bishops, an emergency session was called, after which a "final statement" was issued. "Peoples of the Catholic Church," it reads, "we have sensed your dissatisfaction with our previous solutions and we understand. We've decided to go straight to the root of the problem once and for all and clean up the sickness that plagues our church today. Any priest or bishop caught spanking a boy during sex will be terminated with no further discussion. The church will not tolerate kinky sex."
A jubilant Holyfield gave a brief statement thanking the bishops for coming to their senses, saying "this is what we've been waiting for all these months. I couldn't be more thrilled." Davey Callohan and his friends paraded through the streets of Wooster, cheering, tears streaming down their faces. "Now the boys will grow up with a healthy view of sex, and that's all we ever asked. God bless the Pope and his homies."
Current altar boy James Henry MacCauley spoke to us only after being guaranteed complete anonymity, as he fears his priest and significant other, Father Starchy Coombs, would track him down at his home at 142 Seneca Pl. W and give him another in a series of terrible beatings. We agreed and conducted his interview through the screened wall of a confessional. "This is terrible! Help me! Can you take me out of here?" he asked, but of course we had to run because Michael Jackson had just held his baby over a meat grinder at the Jimmy Dean Sausage factory. [Buff Tucker, 13 O'Clock Atheist]
NEW FASHIONS FOR TROUBLED TIMES FASHION NEWS
(PLAINOLE, TEXAS) Fashion mogul Sacclothe today launched his new designer apparel line. Dubbed Condition Yellow, it was created with a look that's in tune with today's paranoid lifestyle. "One never knows when a terrorist attack may happen," he claims, and the need to be prepared for the worst simply hasn't been addressed in the fashion world until now. "I started with the utility of military fatigues," says Sacclothe, "but designed in a way that these clothes could also double as formal evening wear." His new unisex pantsuits are woven out of bulletproof Kevlar and then adorned with a faux cravat and cummerbund for the men and long skirts with plunging necklines for the women, even though the kelvar still shows through in the neck area. They also feature a discreet built-in holster for accessories like a semi-automatic sidearm.
The optional headgear is a modified NATO helmet, but with a broad floppy brim in basic black. It comes mounted with artificial leaves made from silk, covering a nightscope, global positioning system and a drop-down gas mask for defense against chemical weapons. The leaves can also be color coded to the season. Footwear is left up to the individual but Sacclothe himself cautions against wearing combat boots with his creations. "That is so juvenile. I much prefer the stiletto heels, especially the ones with a real stiletto in them."
Most people are surprised to find that in spite of its name, the new apparel uses almost every color except yellow. Instead all the clothes feature muted urban colors that blend in with buildings in case of house-to-house fighting. Sacclothe later revealed he named the line Condition Yellow for his basic design motif, that of a large dark stain in the crotch area. [Gloria N. Ecsellcheese 13 O’Clock Military Fashion Desk]
PRINCE MEETS EMINEM IN RAP BATTLE ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
(DETRASH, MACHINEGUN) - The Artist-Formerly-Known-As-Glyph-And-Again-Known-As Prince brought suit on the producers of the new hit movie 8 Mile claiming that his movie Purple Rain was plagiarized. Speaking through the law firm of Duck & Cover, Eminem said that the movie was really a rewrite of Coal Miner's Daughter and produced an early draft of the script with the working title Trailer Trash's Son to prove it. Former-Glyph wasn't buying it and refused to withdraw his suit (a lovely lavender affair with rhinestones and lace) until Eminem proposed a rap battle session like in the movie.
Prince, rather than formally accepting, took the dramatic step of starting immediately without a DJ to provide a beat, rapping:
You ripped off Purple Rain,
You caused me such a pain,
You can't sing high,
Your clothes aren't fly,
You're just a little white stain!To which Eminem reportedly replied:
Steal the Purple I did not,
My story is all I got!
I'm trailer park trash,
But I can't figure YOUR ass,
Are you straight or gay or what?
[Minnie Appleless, 13 O'Clock News Decadence Reporter]
NEW CHRISTMAS MUSICAL FEATURES STAR WARS THEME(NYUK, NYUK, NYUK) LucasShow Limited in association with music legend Andrew Floyd Shredder recently announced their new Christmas musical has been scheduled to premiere on Christmas Day off-Broadway. Entitled Darth Maul And The Night Visitors, it takes place a long Christmastime ago in a galaxy far, far away. The story concerns the young Darth Maul who helps three strangers, a Gungan, a Wookie and an Android follow the Death Star so they can praise the newborn Annakin Skywalker upon his birth to his slave mother in a used robot depot. Featuring the songs "The Little Pod-Racer Boy," "O Little Town Of Mos Eisley," "It Came Upon A Miticlorian Clear," "O Come All Ye Forceful," and "The Dark Side Boogie," it's sure to be a hit with Star Wars fans everywhere. [Kirk T. James, Sci-Fi Department]
CRUISE BOATS FULL AS PATRONS TRY TO CATCH VIRUS
(PORTS O'CALL, PORTUGAL) - In spite of the bad press regarding poor sanitation on large cruise ships, passengers have been booking pleasure cruises in record numbers. Passengers have been getting sick with everything from dingy fever to the Norwegian trots on these voyages recently and it seems that the first thing the cruise lines do in the event of an illness caused by lousy maintenance or bad food is refund the passenger's fare.
"It's like the lottery with the prize being a free cruise," said Fred and Melinda Bumfaulkner from a pair of sun chairs on the promenade deck of the Princess Diuretic Line ship, Beefoffal. "Better yet, we have friends, the Grossenouts, who got a very bad case of jaundice and their out of court settlement was $400,000!"
Princess Diuretic officials claim some have not been sick at all and have been faking symptoms. A favorite ploy is creating diarrhea by taking strong laxatives. Nevertheless they are thankful for making the Beefoffal a happy, full ship again. [C. D. Affair 13 O’Clock Botulism Desk]
[Ed. Note: A. Sid Brown, who normally brings us the weather report, reports that he got hold of some bad acid and is under the weather and won't be able to do the weather today. We didn't know whether the weather was better left unreported until Sid's return, or if it was better to follow the letter of our procedures manual and bring in some name that you'd know right away to report on the rain that's been coming our way. The decision was made for us when we learned that nobody was willing to work for free Starbucks and Pez, like Sid does. So for worse or for better there will be no weather. Well, there's always weather, but it'll all turn out fine. Anyway, Sid's wrong almost all of the time. We only keep him around because he always has good drugs. Well, except for this time.] WEATHER SECTION
That's the news, if you can believe everything you read. Actually, only the signposts on the road to Armageddon are true, but we don't give out the real names of these fools because it would be advertising to them. We'll have more news for you in the next issue of Cosmik Debris. Thank you.