Monthly Archive for May, 2008

NEW YORK, N.Y., May 31…The Biblical story of little David’s victory over giant Goliath has been a metaphor for the struggle of worker against the boss, slave against the master, oppressed against tyrant. It tells how a shepherd boy vanquished the Philistine mercenary with only a slingshot and a bag of smooth stones.

But Biblio-skeptics say the encounter never took place; the story was concocted by King David’s spin doctors to enhance his legend. A slingshot, while effective against birds and small animals, could never fell a giant in full battle armor, helmet and visor.

Physicist Ken Gehagen-Verren, of the Intelligent Design Institute of Military Science counters that David did slay Goliath. But he used a secret weapon–an atlatl.

An atlatl is a device attached to a stone-tipped spear to enhance the power of the thrower. First developed in prehistoric times, it is a stick that is placed under the spear to act as an extension of the thrower’s arm. According to Gehagen-Verren, the atlatl creates a “hyperbolic tangent,” which exponentially amplifies the speed of the thrown spear and the distance it travels. A well hurled atlatl can go up to 100 mph and can greatly magnify the killing distance, he says.

Atlatls were was used to hunt large game and to defend against human enemies. “They were the great equalizers,” Gehagen-Verren says.”They made females and children as effective warriors as men and aided in the defense of the tribe against marauders.”

Atlatls were replaced by bows and arrows in Epi-Paleoithic era and would have been unknown in Biblical times. But Gehagen-Verren claims that “with God’s help” David “reinvented” the atlatl.

“As a shepherd boy David had to protect the flock,” he says, “but he was denied the use of the warrior weapons, the bow and the sword. While cutting branches for his shepherd’s crook he fashioned a spear. After a few throws God sent the revelation of the atlatl into his mind. He tried it. It worked. He had never slung a stone that far or fast.Then, he sharpened his stones into spear heads. Being an ambitious and calculating boy he kept his new weapon a secret. When Goliath challenged the israelites he stepped forward, knowing that he had an advantage.”

According to Gehagen-Verren the Israelites watched in awe as David faced Goliath. “One swift, true throw of the atlatl penetrated Goliath’s armor,” he says.

The Israelites, having never seen a atlatl believed that Yahweh had imparted special powers to David and his slingshot. “With one throw David was transformed from an obscure shepherd boy to God’s warrior, conqueror of Jerusalem, direct forebear of Jesus Christ.,” Gehagen-Verren says. “And it never would have happened if not for the atlatl.”

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 24… In a stormy closed-door cabinet meeting today President George W. Bush proposed what he called “the final solution” to the Israeli-Arab conflict–proms.

Bush said that on his recent visit to the area he was surprised to learn that young Arabs and Jews didn’t date each other or attend dances.

According to a senior official, who asked not to be named because he/she and/or/ it is not authorized to speak to the press, Bush rebuked his cabinet officers for not apprising him of what he called this “critical fact,” and instructed them to immediately begin organizing “mixers” in the Middle East.

“Nothing brings people together better than a good old-fashioned high school social,” Bush said.

Richard Jones, US Ambassador to Israel, suggested diplomatically that co-ed dances were not “the norm” in the religiously conservative Arab culture. Bush fixed him with a keen look and asked: “Has anybody ever tried them?”

“No,” he was told.

“Well then we don’t know if they won’t work, do we?” Bush shot back, triumphantly. Rising dramatically, he declared: “We are the most powerful country in the history of the world and you’re telling me we can’t get a bunch of kids to do the macarena?”

Bush appointed Vice President Richard Cheney as the chairman of what he called “homecoming night…”

“We should just nuke ‘em all,” Cheney muttered in his coffee.

“Speak up, Dick,” Bush demanded.

“We’re gonna have a ball.” Cheney said.

With a visionary gleam in his eye, Bush began making plans. “First, we’ll have to get out a vote for Prom King and Queen…That’ll encourage democratic participation. We’ll make the King an Israeli and the Queen a Palestinian…”

“Unmarried Arab women do not dance with strange men, Mr. President,” Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said. “And certainly not with an Israeli…”

Bush gave her a pitying look. “You may not know this Condi, but you put a bunch of young boys and girls together with those hormones raging and they’ll forget about their little differences…”

Warming to the task, Bush began making a checklist.

“We’ll need refreshments,” he said and snapped his fingers as he got a brilliant idea. “How about a barbecue?” He assigned Agricultural Secretary Ed Schafer to the task. “Let’s get us some chicken, some ribs, some Brunswick stew…”

“Muslims and Jews don’t eat pork, Mr. President,” Secretary Schafer said.

“Have they ever tried it?” Bush challenged.

“It’s a religious thing, Mr. President,” Ambassador Jones said, tactfully.

“Okay, well we can get some of those deep fried whiffle balls,” Bush said.

There was a puzzled silence for a moment until Secretary Rice came to the rescue.

“You mean felaffel, Mr. President.”

“Yeah,” Bush said. “Get a bunch of them. Get some of that humus. I mean we put that stuff on our compost heaps back in Crawford…”

“That humus is fertilizer, Mr. President, Defense Secretary Gates said. “This is hummous, it’s made with chick peas… and it’s a great delicacy..”

“Well, why do they want to call it by the same name as dead leaves and cow poop?” Bush said, momentarily miffed. But he soon recovered his good spirits.

“Condi, you hire the DJ, you’re musically inclined.”

“I lean to the classical, Mr. President,” Secretary Rice said.

“Oh now c’mon Condi, you were around for Motown. You look like the fourth Supreme…”

“This is gonna be some flop,” Vice President Cheney groused.

“Say what, Dick?” President Bush said.

“I like the Four Tops,” Cheney said.

President Bush stopped for a moment. His Cabinet looked on in trepidation as he sat there, brow furrowed, deep in thought. Then, he brightened.

“I knew I forgot something…Transportation. Dick, you’re in charge. Get them boys and girls some nice big stretch limos to take them to the prom in style.”

“What a bummer,” Cheney growled.

“What? “the President asked.

“I’ll get a Hummer,” Cheney said.

Bush went out to veto some bills. When he returned his Cabinet officers were sitting around, glumly.

“This is gonna be great,” he said. And got a faraway prophetic look. “And when the prom is over we’ll work on getting those Palestinians a state…”

NEW YORK, N.Y., May 20…The era of the “financial superclass” is over, Anarcho-Feminist Presidential candidate Leah Schildkraut declared today.

At the head of a small but boisterous crowd, Schildkraut invaded the floor of the NY Stock Exchange and vowed that her first action as President will be to “dismantle the triple entente of banks, hedge funds and private equity and redistribute the wealth and property they have plundered.”

Schildkraut brought trading to a halt as she launched into a diatribe against the “greedy global elite that has robbed hundreds of millions of families across the world of their natural rights.”

Quoting from an article by David Rothkopf in the Financial Times, she said that the top 50 financial institutions control almost $50,000 billion in assets. “This means that fifty CEOS control almost one third of the entire global economy,” she said. The top one hundred hedge funds control 60 per cent of the trillions of dollars of assets.

“There has never been such a concentration of financial power in history,” she said. “Neither Hitler nor Stalin nor the ruling dynasties of the world empires had such total dominance over the lives of so many hundreds of millions.” She pointed a warning finger at the brokers and blue smocked specialists. “You have been allowed to manipulate the world economy,” she said. “While lobbying against regulation of the markets you have profited from the socialism of the rich in which you depend on governments and international financial bodies to subsidize your speculation and cover your mistakes. While condemning the welfare state you have created the moral hazard in which you make reckless bets with baseless derivatives because you know the monetary system will have to bail you out or face ruin.”

Some brokers and specialists made frantic calls for “Security!” But others, anticipating a momentary plunge in the market due to Schildkraut’s tirade, called short sales into their cell phones.

“You have created a system where you make billions whether the markets go up or down,” Schildkraut shouted over the anxious cries of the short-selling brokers.

“30 years ago multinational CEOs made 35 times the wages of the average employee,” she said, quoting the Rothkopf article.”Today it is more than 350 times Meanwhile, the world’s 1,100 richest people have twice the assets of the poorest 2.5 billion…”

Within minutes the shorts sales caused the market to edge down. The volume skyrocketed as the large institutions began to liquidate positions. Losers were outnumbering winners ten to one.

Schldkraut pointed around the room. “This place is a necrotic tumor on the body politic,” she said.

Some brokers at the fringe of the crowd immediately ran to liquidate their pharmaceutical stocks.

Schildkraut was interrupted by Efraim Durg, candidate of the Gambler’s Rights party “These people are creating wealth for the masses,” he shouted.” You want to replace them with bureaucrats and bean counters.”

There was a sudden run on Agra stocks.

“They are driving up the prices of food and fuel and the basic necessities of life,” Schildkraut answered. “But on January 1, 2009 the people will rise up…”

Durg jeered. “They’ll rise up and ask for a good tip on the market…”

By now the trading floor was pandemonium as prices zig-zagged wildly. Fortunes were being made and lost.

“Kill her,” shouted the losers.

“Schildkraut for President,” laughed the winners.

A phalanx of Security Officers followed by NYPD, Homeland Security, FBI and the Pentagon Special Ops rushed onto the floor to evict Schildkraut.

She tried to reason with them. “How many of you can make your mortgages? How many have maxed out your credit cards? Don’t be stooges for the rich…”

“Did you call me a stooge?” A Security officer shouted. He tased Schildkraut, she crumpled to the floor.

“What are you doing?” Efraim Durg shouted, running to her aid.

“I thought she was pulling a weapon,” The Security oficer said.

Cops rolled the stunned Schildkraut onto her stomach and snapped cuffs and shackles on her.

“You don’t have to be so rough,” Durg said.

A Security officer jumped at him, red-faced. “Are you with us or against us?” he yelled.

DOHA, Qatar, May 16th…Citing the “clear threat” to Sunni Islam from what he called “the Obama-Hamas-Ahmenijhad axis” Ayman al Zawahiri, Deputy Commander of Al Qaeda today announced his support for Anarcho-Feminist Leah Schildkraut in the American presidential campaign.

“McCain and Clinton are Zionist stooges,” he said, in an audio tape released today, but expressed approval for Schildkraut’s “purity of heart.” She is he only candidate who had not been “corrupted by the Jewish lobby,” he said. “I am confident that Schildkraut can lead America back on to the righteous path.”

In a detailed argument, Zawahiri accused Barrack Obama of being “a front man for the Iranian-Zionist conspiracy to dominate the Middle East.” He listed three “disturbing omens of Iranian influence:”

1. The statement made by Ahmed Youssef, chief political adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Haniyeh that “we (Hamas) like Obama and hope he will win the election.”

Hamas never takes a political position without approval of its “Shia masters,” Zawahiri said and called their endorsement of Obama “proof that he is part of the Iranian-Zionist master plan to subjugate the Sunnis.”

2. The resignation of Obama’s Middle East consultant, Robert Malley after revelations that he had held secret talks with Hamas.

“The exposure of Robert Malley is the hump of the camel buried in the sandstorm,” Zawahiri said. Malley has said his meetings with Hamas were part of his activities with the International Conflict Resolution Group, but Zawahiri dismissed that organization as an “obvious Mossad front.

3.Obama’s commitment not to meet with Hamas until it has recognized the state of Israel, but his oft expressed willingness to talk to Iran without preconditions.

Zawahiri ridiculed this as “duplicitous expediency.” and said Obama has no need to meet with Hamas as long as he is communicating with their “true masters,” the Iranians.

He ended the tape with the ringing cry: “Schildkraut for President.”

Schildkraut was campaigning at the Magdalene Shelter for Unwed Mothers and was unaware of Zawahiri’s endorsement. She was delivering an impassioned speech to a small but enthusiastic crowd condemning the GOP’s recent proposal to cut cash assistance to unwed mothers under the age of 18.

“Taking food out of innocent children’s mouths will not cause the problem to go away,” she said. “This is the politics of cruelty.”

As the crowd cheered, a beige Bentley with BLACJAC plates pulled up and Efraim Durg, candidate of the Gambler’s Rights Party stepped out. A speaker blared Zawihiri’s Arabic message.

“Hey Schildkraut, know who that is?” Durg shouted. “Bin Laden’s right hand man. And guess what? He’s supporting you for President…”

“That’s a lie!” Schildkraut shouted back. But one of her aides, who was reading the news off her iPhone stepped up and whispered that it was true.

“I didn’t know anything about this,” the flustered Schildkraut said.

“You know what they do to unwed mothers in Saudi Arabia?” Durg asked, drawing his hand across his throat.

As the crowd melted away, Schildkraut protested: “I reject this endorsement. I reject everything Al Qaeda stands for.”

Soon she was alone.

Durg got back into his Bentley, gloating:

“Gotcha Schildkraut. Finally gotcha.”

NEW YORK, N.Y. May 9th…Google just grew. That’s the beauty of a search engine.

It just grew again.

Google is recession proof. It’s stock price has gone from 85 to 572. It employs 4,000 plus.

It just added another employee.

And it just grew again.

But one aspect of Google is shrinking–its hip rating. And pollster Efraim Durg says this may bode ill for the Googlefuture.

Durg, founder of VoxPopMetrics.com, conducts “demographically controlled” surveys outside Stash’s Kielbassa in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. He has one prompt: “Name the hippest company on the world.” He says Google was Number One on the “hipmeter” for years, but recent actions have lowered its standing.

“Google started to wobble when it agreed to censor itself in order to get into the Chinese market,” Durg says. “Still,some of my older demographic said it was cool because it was good business.”

But he registered substantial oscillations on his carefully plotted “hipogram” when Google announced its plan to offer all the books in the world online.

“Books are so old media,” Durg says. “My younger demographic was put off.”

The “hipneedle”dropped again when it was revealed that Google founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page were pushing 35.

“Only the very young and the very old are cool,” Durg says. “There are no cool people between 35 and 65.”

Brin and Page blundered again, Durg says, when they attended a conference for the “richest, squarest people in the world” in Davos, Switzerland.

“They wore shorts and sandals like they were trying to be cool, and cool people never try,” he says.”If they had shown up in really good suits they would have kept their cool.”

But the trouble really started when the Google lost twice to Facebook in the ultimate frisbee championships. “Spectators say the Googlers were run off the field,” Durg says.

People close to both firms says this defeat led to the defection of top Google ad executive Sheryl Sandberg to Facebook, which was followed in short order by the departure of Google senior manager Elliot Shrage to head Facebook’s new corporate and public affairs department.

“Executives are weather vanes,” Durg says. “They go the way the wind blows.”

Google maintained its cool in the corporate kitchen where it offered healthy, genetically unmodified cuisine from local farmers, as opposed to the indifferent institutional fare offered by Facebook. It also claimed the services of a chef who had cooked for the Grateful Dead and funkmeister George Clinton,

But that ended when chef Josef Desimone was lured away by Facebook. Famous for his wheatgrass shooters and homemade kombucha tea, which is said to increase neuron twitches in the brain, Desimone has now begun to reinvent the Facebook kitchen.

This latest departure rankled veteran Googlers more than any of the others. “We won’t miss Desimone,” a Googler told Silicone Valley gossip sheet ValleyWag. “Everyone hated his cafes. He had the worst heavy everything–fried menus.”

Durg shook his head at that disgruntled reaction. “Sore losers,” he said. “Very uncool.”

Chelm, Indiana, May 5…A year ago confetti swirled, banners furled and the Chelm High School Marching Band played “Indiana” as Armin Grooskarf was crowned “Mr. Consumer of 2007.”

On that sunny day Fox and CNN came to this forgotten factory town to hear the manager of the Chelm Wal-Mart read a message from President George W. Bush commending Mr. Grooskarf for his “dedication beyond the call of duty” in the war on terror. State legislators applauded as Grooskarf was given a plaque and a new Wal-Mart credit card with a fifteen-day grace period. Later, he posed for photos with Miss Indiana and got cheers as he used his new card to buy a Hannah Montana DVD for his niece in Oregon.

What had Mr. Grooskarf done to deserve this honor? He had consumed.

In the aftermath of the 911 attacks, President Bush had urged Americans to beat the terrorists by “going on with your lives, spending money, going shopping at the mall.”

Mr. Grooskarf, a sausage stuffer, who had been living on disability since his hand had been mangled by a meat grinder, took the president’s message to heart. “I wanted to serve my country in the only way I could,” he said. “I consumed.”

He bought a tractor mower, even though he had only a quarter acre lawn and his doctor had recommended hand mowing to help control his diabetes. He bought a Ford 150 pick up because Ford was in trouble and everyone said America couldn’t let the big auto companies fail. His credit was “shaky,” the salesman said because he had been late on a phone bill in 1993. But that was good. The 14.5% interest he was paying would improve Ford’s bottom line and help them lend money to other patriotic consumers. He bought a #632 built-in sub zero refrigerator even though he only lived with his mom and she had Alzheimer’s and often forgot to eat for days. He ordered a 424 wine storage unit, even though he only bought Gallo Chablis and the label said to make sure you drank it as soon as you got it home. He bought a 60-inch Sony Flat Panel HD TV, which barely fit against his living room wall.

The credit card companies joined with him in the war on terror. They let him roll one credit card into another. After a few months his mailbox was overflowing with offers. As a good consumer they said he “had been chosen” to receive another credit card with a bonus of 1000 miles on ATA airlines. They lowered his minimum so he could buy more and pay later.

Mr. Grooskarf heard Fed Chairman Greenspan say that housing prices were creating the wealth, which the American homeowner was using to finance the world economy. Sure enough the seven-room frame house that had been in his family for a hundred years was now worth a million dollars. He immediately bought the property next door for a million two, using his house as collateral. He didn’t need the house, it just seemed like the right thing to do. The loan officer showed Grooskarf a power point presentation that traced the path of his money. First, his mortgage was packaged into a “bundle” of “subprimes” and sold to a hedge fund. That allowed the bank to lend more money to deserving borrowers. Next, the hedge fund packaged his loan into a Collateralized Debt Obligation and sold that to investors. People bought insurance on the CDO and that was packaged into a “bundle” of insurance policies, which were then sold as another kind of CDO. And then swapped for still another CDO.

Grooskarf sat back in awe as the loan officer explained that his subprime mortgage had generated a hundred million dollars of wealth for investors all over the world.

“The American consumer is making everybody rich,” the loan officer said.

Then, the house of cards started to tumble. It began with people who couldn’t pay their mortgages. As foreclosures started to inch up, the CDO’s lost their underlying value. Hedge funds shut down, banks had no capital, the stock market crashed. Then, the housing market collapsed. Mr. Grooskarf had what the loan officer called “negative equity,” which meant that he owed more than his house was worth. The “home equity” loan he had taken out wasn’t covering his purchases so everything was repossessed. He was living in an empty house, which was about to be taken away from him. ATA airlines declared bankruptcy. The lowered minimum on his credit card extended his debt at a higher interest.

Now Grooskarf couldn’t borrow, which meant he couldn’t spend. Which meant he wasn’t doing his bit in the War on Terror. Neighbors told him not to worry. The same thing was happening to everybody. Indiana led the nation in foreclosures.

But Grooskarf was inconsolable. He watched the commentators on CNBC say that the “American consumer has disappeared.” Panic spread throughout the world. Food prices skyrocketed. There were rice riots in Asia and Africa. Neighbors say he felt responsible.

President Bush gave another speech on the economy. “We’re going through some hard times,” he said and urged Americans to “support the economy,” to “go shopping.”

“The president is angry,” Grooskarf said. “I’m Mr. Consumer. I should be doing something.”

This morning neighbors, seeing smoke and smelling fumes broke down Grooskarf’s new Wayne Dalton “safe and thermally efficient” steel garage door. Mr. Grosskarf was dead behind the wheel of his John Deere lawn tractor, which features “The Edge Cutting System, providing superior lift and a precise level cut.”

Police found a note on his new Mac Book Air, “ultra thin, ultra portable, ultra unlike anything else.”

“I’m Mr. Consumer,” it said. “The world was depending on me and I failed.”

Mr. Grooskarf is survived by his mother Adele, his sister Fran and his niece, Bree, of Eugene, Oregon.