Living or Pancakes?

Pamplona, Espana – In an ever increasing litigious society, many thrill seekers are trying to find a replacement for the Running of the Bulls.  Every year in Pamplona, hundreds dare to ‘run with the bulls’ to accomplish a feat of unbridled idiocy unmatched except in the U.S. Congress.

Recently, the mayor of Pamplona, Yoland Barcina, who fires a rocket each year to signal the race to begin, set out to discover a more amiable beast to run with the citizens of Spain in the deranged ritual, ‘The Basset Hound was the obvious choice.  When you consider the Basset Hound body shape and the lack of horns, hooves, and angry territorialism, it is easy to see that the dogs will not gore anyone to death like bulls do.’ Mayor Barcina said Saturday.  Mayor Barcina went on to point out, ‘Bulls have horns, hooves, and weigh over a kilo, and that’s big and scary!’

Little is known how the public will respond to the Basset Hounds, because the top speed of a bull is about 40 kmph, with the Basset Hound’s is 5 kmph.  Furthermore, officials are worried because it is a bit difficult to get the hounds to run more than 40 feet without wheezing and suffering from cardiac arrest.

Joe’s Crab Shack the seafood chain which originated in Houston, Texas finds itself now in a feud with the IRS which they will most likely lose.  According to reports, the seafood restaurant owes more than $15 million in back taxes.

Joe’s has a seafood empire built on the profitable concepts of Long John Silver quality with Red Lobster prices. Recently, Joe’s has seen market share grow significantly, as Ray Blanchette, CEO says, “The Joe’s Crab Shack brand is well-positioned within its segment and has an enormous potential for growth,” Blachette went on, “I’m extremely honored to join this youthful, fun, family-friendly organization and I welcome the opportunity to reinforce and build excitement around its reputation for great food, upbeat service and unique atmosphere.”

What came as a shock to the seafood franchise today was that Joe’s owes taxes for being undercharged for Property Exchange Rate Depreciation, which is a long-standing tax code rule which places the tax receipts on the value estimates of a company’s real estate and buildings.  Harold Crick of the IRS said Monday, “According to the rule, Joe’s Crab Shack has been filed under ’shack’ status on the value estimate.  We just assumed they were located in real shacks, and the metaphor was lost”.  IRS agent, not know for their erudition with euphemisms or happy hour attendance are troubled that the seafood chain has been hoodwinking them into thinking that the restaurant locations were truly small beach-front shacks with fresh crab legs, fish, and hushpuppies.

Hope is not lost for Joe’s.  There are rumors that Joe’s Crab Shack could be appointed to a cabinet position in the Obama adminstration, at which time, their tax evasion and indiscretions with be ignored.

America is celebrating a new independence day this holiday weekend, in the wake of a cataclysmic earthquake that sent western California into the ocean late Thursday night.  California recently began sending IOUs to companies and vendors dealing with the struggling state, and many Americans feared an oncoming bailout of the left coast.

Robert Gibbs, the White House Press secretary said on Friday morning, ‘We know now that we have lost L.A., San Francisco, San Jose, and part of Oakland…uh… and a few other Mexican saint cities.’  The administration is working tirelessly to see what caused the massive earthquake, but Gibbs went on to say, ‘If these seismic issues had be handled during the previous administration, who knows, maybe we could have just lost San Diego.’

While the Obama Administration may be reeling over the outcome of the 9.8 magnitude quake, the rest of the nation is finding something new to celebrate this Fourth of July weekend.  Without California, the nation may have a chance to clear its vast debt, plus the hippie population has dropped 97% . Paula Hilary of Fort Worth, Texas said, ‘This is great news, because now I don’t have to fear any more yankees from California moving here.’

Before his final days as a free man are turned into the pain of prison, Bernard Madoff, the man who swindled nearly $60 billion from charities in a ponzi scheme, is making a final bid for mercy.  Madoff’s prison sentence is for the maximum 150 years, but he is not giving up hope of grace from the authorities.

In a press conference Wednesday, Madoff asked for his crimes to be put in proper context, “I woke up Sunday morning and listened to a slick preacher telling little old ladies to ’sow a seed’ [Madoff using air-quotes] of $1000, $10,000, and even $100,000, by sending him checks in the mail and no one is arresting him.” Madoff went on to say, “These hucksters have stolen much more from geriatrics than I ever did.  Plus, they are telling people that God wants them to take the money, at least I was honest telling people I was stealing for my own gain.”

When asked if he was guilty of taking money from helpless fools, TV evangelist Johnny Ringo said, “If I were sinning against these people, would God have blessed me with this new BMW?  I don’t think so.”

In recent years, the development of the term ‘green’ to denote environmentally friendly concepts is being questioned by some leading environmentalists.  Joe Adler of the Global Defense Council (GDC), the most influential lobbying group in D.C. said, ‘What we are trying to get across with the word green is the idea of earthiness, but in reality we should realize that the earth is not green, but is actually earth-toned.’

According to the color spectrum, the earth actually consists of more colors than green.  In reality the earth has several earth tones which range from green, brown, blue, yellow, orange, red, aqua, turquoise, tan, off-white, pearl, crimson, and many shades of gray.  So now, the GDC is calling for a change in the vernacular to turn the ‘green’ movement into the ‘earth-tones-with-natural-hues’ movement.

Little is known about the impact of the new earth-tones-with-natural-hues movement, but NBC is perplexed about what color to use on the peacock during Green Week, ‘Right now, we only have 5 segments on the peacock’s tail, so we are troubled by the new pressure to add more earth tones, because we would have to have one freakin’ huge peacock to accommodate the change.’ said Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC on Saturday.