Poll: Congress got mad hate for ya votahs. 

Americans have one more thing to whine about. According to a recent Zigby poll, members of Congress have never had a lower opinion of the American people.

The poll indicates that for the first time congressional opinion on the people they serve has fallen to single digits. A total of eight percent of Congress members say they have a “good opinion” of the American people. Only six percent of the members surveyed said they had a “great opinion” of their constituents.

“This is historic,” said Raymond Zigby, who runs Zigby polls and still lives with his mom. “We’ve always assumed that Congress loathed the people they supposedly served, but this is the first time they’ve admitted it.”

Another grim statistic is, when surveyed, 82 percent of Congress said they’re legislators because of “the money and perks.” Only 12 percent said it was to “bang interns” and six percent–mostly Congressional members from Arkansas and West Virginia–said they were in Congress because they ”liked free passes to all them there fancy-lookin’ monuments in the capital.”

Congressman Beauchamps Bandoleer (D-Alabama. Go Tide.) said he has a dismal opinion of his constituents. “Oh, most of the time they’re a snivelin’ bunch of ingrates and do-nothings,” said Bandoleer. “Gimme a factory. Gimme a bridge. Gimme a clean environment. Gimme peace on earth. Give me a break, I say.”

Bandoleer adds that his opinion usually changes before the Fall elections. “Why I’m not saying I start to like all of them again,” Bandoleer said. “Just need to like 51 percent of them.”

In other headlines…

Centre County to kick voting old school.

Another sign of recession: Only one more hotel complex planned for State College.

Blair county nabs drug dealers, lets them go, repeat.

 Penn State firing employees (with alternative transportation).

While some companies and organizations are helping their employees deal with the high price of gas and harmful environmental effects of commuting with innovative four-day work weeks and telecommuting options, Penn State is offering faculty, staff and students a new–and carbon-free–way to fly.

Starting in August, Penn State, in conjunction with Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA), will introduce the CATA-pult, a medieval seige engine redesigned to hurl people dozens of miles to their offices, or at least on the wall outside their offices.

Benjamin Siegel,  chairman of the CATA-pult committee, said the program should save employees hundreds of dollars in gas money. “We’ve heard lots of complaints about four dollar gasoline,” Siegel said. “I’m telling you what, once you hit twelve thousand feet and start your descent, four bucks is the last thing on your mind.”

Siegel dismisses rumors that the ride is dangerous. “It’s no more dangerous than driving on Route 322 after Social Security checks are deposited,” Siegel said. “Or traveling on Route 550 after a NASCAR race.”

Tish Lamberdino, of Bellwood, said she has used the CATA-pult system. “It’s really not that bad, you’re in shock for most of the trip,” she said. “And when you land, your skin is so cold that you barely notice the cuts and abrasions on impact. Take some Tylenol with you for later, though.”

While CATA-pult use is free, Penn State has added more parking fees.

“If you splatter in a Green lot, that will cost you sixty bucks a month,” said Paul Stanley, director of Penn State Parking, Draconian Fee Division measures. “It’s only forty bucks to splatter in the all-staff Orange lots, so happy landings.”

To save money, CATA-pult users may wish to crash into a commuter lot, pick up their limbs and limp or crawl across campus.

In other headlines…

They start young in the Burgh: Pittsburgh teen charged with shooting at bar.

Circus looking for carnie-recruits visits Carrolltown.

They start young in Johnstown. Teen charged with firing gun in playground dispute.

And from the “you think you’re having a crappy day” file…

Raw sewage spews on man sitting on toilet.

40 Mules and a Cartoon: Obama demands satirical reparations!

The Obama campaign is striking back after a liberal news magazine published a satirical drawing of the candidate and his wife as a Muslim terrorist and black power leader, respectively. The Obama campaign immediately asked for a satirization of Bush to be published in The New Yorker’s next issue.

“The Senator finds the characterization offensive and hurtful,” said Gertrude Steiner, media relations expert for the Obama campaign. “He would like a drawing of Bush, perhaps drawn up like a monkey, cause that’s much more funny.”

Steiner said that the candidate will push for the elimination of satirical portraits and cartoons while he’s in office. “We have to end this era of political divisiveness, right after Bush leaves office,” Steiner said. “Until then we should be happy perusing funny pictures of Bush, maybe, like him as a Cowboy with six guns a’blazing.”

Steiner said she has not heard back from The New Yorker on the candidate’s request. “Hopefully, they’re too busy drawing a cartoon of Bush,” Steiner said. “They oughtta have him as Luke Skywalker and Cheney as Darth Vader. ‘Luke, you are my son.’ Now, that’s a hoot.”

According to Gary X, a religious adviser to the candidate, Obama is not being thin-skinned about the situation. “To have a picture of him and his wife displayed like that is tragic and distasteful,” said Mr. X. “Cartoons and drawings are deeply offensive to Muslims and especially one who is in the closet, like Brother Obama. Maybe if they had one of those pictures of mean Israeli Jew harassing Palestinians. That’s much more appropriate.”

Race gets snippy: Barack beats scissors. Papers cover Barack.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, leader of the Rainbow Coalition and director of United Eunuchs, wants action, not distraction, against an overpopulation of politicians.

In a recent interview in the second stall of the Fox News studio bathroom, Jackson said the overwhelming number of stray politicians who are issuing Civil Rights messages should be dealt with sooner, rather than later.

“There’s too much talkin’ and rappin’,” said Jackson. “And not enough happenin’. People need to see works, not words.”

Jackson said that he’s particularly upset at the number of black politicians, like Barack Obama, who are straying into his territory as racial polemicist. Obama recently made comments indicating black fathers should be more responsible in familial duties. “Who’s he to talk down to us, promptin’ such hysteria,” Jackson said. “How much raisin’ did his papa do back in Nigeria.”

According to Jackson, birth control is the only way to control the increasing numbers of Civil Rights operatives in the country who are cutting in on his turf. Neutering and spaying should be promoted as the best solution, since abstinence is unlikely to work.

“I say to all you jumpin’ on the racial band wagon, why, you kinda laggin’,” Jackson said. “There’s only room on this showboat for one, yours truly, the Reverend Jesse Jackson.”

“So folks remember to spay and neuter your cats and dogs,” Jackson said. “The same goes for all y’all Civil Rights wogs.”
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In other headlines…

Centre County demands park space.

Railfest: largest train nerd gathering ever.

Altoona has new blight proposal: small atomic device should do the trick.

And we ain’t making this up…

Couldn’t cut straight. Man arrested for DUI on lawnmower.

 Gen. X students: Today’s Penn State kids lack anti-social skills.

Just ten years ago, Brenson Beason, then a senior in Undecided Undergraduate Studies, was a self-described naive change agent who attended the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts shopping for over-priced pottery and exploring vandalism as a form of artistic expression.

“Back then, we really believed we could make a difference,” Beason said. “For instance, we thought if you threw a trash can into a window. You know, that would make a difference by, like, shattering the window.”

Now, Beason said the new generation of college students just don’t get it. Apathetic and insulated, Beason doubts this new class would have the stomach or stamina for rioting.

“They’re so isolated, you know, I watch them walk around campus with their ipods in their ears, so afraid to confront the world,” Beason said. “When I went to school we made our own rhythms, like the sound of a light pole cymbal crashing on the street corner and the thumpin’ bass of someone jumping on a car hood. It was like jazz, man.”

Beason said the generation’s prolific rioting wasn’t just honed by disrupting art gatherings.

“No. No. No. We rioted when the basketball team won; we rioted when they lost,” Beason said. “We once rioted when they took the Price is Right off for a special news report.”

Sue Ellen Mishky, who spent most of the art’s fest riot flashing her breasts and taunting the crowd into a frenzy, said she agreed the new generation is apathetic to change, but blamed over-indulgent parents and video games for their indifference.

“These kids sit in front of a box and jack cars and destroy street corners on Grand Theft Auto when we did it in real life,” Mishky said. “I really feel sorry for the kids growing up nowadays. There’s a disconnect with real life.”

“And when I was a kid, our parents would be, like, you know, get out in the fresh air and kick some beer balls around,” said Mishky. “They wouldn’t stand for this, I-want-to-stay-in-and-play-video-game stuff.”

Mishky currently works as a headlining exotic dancer and has auditioned for several roles in reality television. Beason works as an assistant manager at the same Uni-Mart he worked at during the art fest riot. He was a manager then, Beason added.

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In other headlines…

Centre County grows by 6.6 percent due to increasing numbers of State College snobs.

Pennsylvania legislators continue to shine.

PennDOT to study how to make Johnstown street more unsafe.

Just in time for summer. Obama Flip Flops.

Presidential nominee and below-average bowler Barrack Obama said his indecision on Iraq will attract more undecided voters to his side. He’s pretty sure about that anyway.

Obama recently back tracked from his promise to immediately pull troops out of Iraq; instead, he will evacuate troops in 16 months. Or 18 months. Thereabouts. “In 20 months, or so, our troops will be back,” said Jerry Stinger, a foreign relations expert tied closely with the Obama campaign. “So, in a little over two years, all the troops will be back with their loved ones. Probably.”

Stinger said the presidential candidate hasn’t changed his mind on Iraq. “As long as Mr. Obama can gain votes by opposing the War and then advocating it, and then sort of advocating it and sorta not advocating it,” Stinger said. “Then, by God, or Allah, or Jehovah, he’ll do it! Most likely.”

According to a recent poll, that wishy-washy approach is playing well with the nation’s undecided voters. In the poll, 50 percent of undecided voters “might” vote for Obama. Another 50 percent said that Obama’s indecisive approach was “kinda” like their own decision-making processes.

James Peter Principle, an undecided voter of Altoona, Pa., said Obama’s indecision resonates with him. “Just last week, I was going to buy wheat bread and then decided maybe white would be the way to go,” Principle said. “I ended up with pitas, but the point is we need a chief executive who can kinda go both ways on something.”

When asked who he’d vote for if the election were held today, Principle replied that he’d have to think about it, but Obama was in his “top five.”

Or six.
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In other headlines…

Bellefonte’s stoners bummed about town’s anti-tripping ordinance.

Inmates may be denied HD TV and rifle range privileges.

Food Channel show based in Huntingdon features new uses for spatula, frying pan.

Creative financing: PennRon gets lessons

Pennsylvania Governor Edward G-Money Rendell and state legislators are hoping some creative financing can make a pending billion-dollar budget deficit disappear and they’re looking toward the artists of creative budgetting for help.

According to state budget officials, former Enron, WorldComm and Countrywide Mortgages officials are looking over the state books, hoping to find new ways to pretend to balance the budget.

“It’s really not that hard,” said Charley Dirwin, a former accountant for Enron, said. “If Enron could have enforced our financing schemes by the arbitrary exaction of taxes, we’d be still in business.”

Dirwin said the state is also ahead in the creation of huge unproductive revenue holes. “The new budget will increase funds to welfare,” Dirwin said. “And like our fraudulent partnerships, the more money you put in, the less results you’ll receive. It’s perfect.”

According to Denny Burger, a finance expert for WorldComm, the group will also help the state use less accurate terminology in the description of its financing. “Tax? What’s that,” asked Burger. “What you want to call it is a ‘contribution.’ I mean, they are contributing. With a gun to their backs.”

Burger said to pull off a financial hoax, the perpetrators need two things: hope and forgetfulness. “Pennsylvania can certainly give taxpayers hope that the government will put the screws to some other poor schlob,” Burger said. “And, most likely, they’ll forget before elections, as long as the governor spreads out the fistful of bucks like he did last election.”
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In other headlines…

Heritage Days celebrates Philipsburg’s hillbilly past, present and future.

Pa. students enroll in online gym classes. Climb rope to top of computer.

Purple boxes capture beetles and several state residents.

Gandhi-Doody, pacifist mime, adds talent to July 4th alternative. 

State College’s pacifist community is offering an alternative to the warlike displays of fireworks, barbecues and beer-fueled fistfights that have become synonymous with Fourth of July festivities.

The group, Peaceful State, has created Non-violent Resistance and Solidarity Fest, as a peaceful way to celebrate the mid-summer holiday. Since the group does not recognize the existence of the United States, Israel, and the Aborigine Occupation Zone in Australia, there is no mention of Independence Day or revolution, except in the context of struggle against capitalism and Prince’s former band.

Garrison Kegger, who created the concept, said the event gets underway with a vegan non-barbecue featuring tofu burgers warmed on a solar cooker and served with a dandelion salad. “The taste is so-so,” Kegger said. “But the feeling in your soul that no living thing was harmed in the making of your lunch is delicious. Oh, except the dandelions. And those damn flies.”

Poetry readings, folk songs sing-alongs and an interpretive dance group,  Tao Movements, are scheduled throughout the day.

Kegger said the event is for all ages. For the kids, Kegger said that Gandhi-Doody, the pacifist mime, will be paying a visit. Gandhi-Doody mimes historical encounters with peaceful resistance and won a local Emmy for his show, “Sittin’ in and shuttin’ up: Miming the Civil Rights,” on PBS.

Uncle Scam, the clown prince of capitalism, will present lessons in dialectical materialism and uses balloons to form shapes of famous socialists and socialist symbols, including the swastika and hammer and sickle.

The evening concludes with their own version of fireworks. “We have a guy who bounces on a trampoline,” Kegger said. “He has his chest painted with the word, ‘boom,’ and I think he does some flips or something.”
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In other headlines…

Can Crime Scene U students find Gricar before DAs kill each other?

McDonalds gets sued for hot coffee; methadone clinics get free ride for hot doses.

Damn telemarketers. Drug pusher calls police, sets up drug buy.

Uncle Entitlement: A Salute to Dependence Day

Tammy Sue Barkhard, a third-generation Welfare recipient who lives in Tyrone, said that she gets a little misty when she hears the Star-Spangled Banner on July the 4th. It’s a special day for her.

“I think about George Washington crossing the Mississippi on that special day in July and creating a country that makes no distinction between the slothful and the truly needy,” Barkhard said. “It’s a good day to reflect on what this country owes me. Plus, a few of my babies were conceived on July 4th.”

Her live-in boyfriend, Dwayne Scott Arrington said he, too, enjoys the celebration of their complete and utter dependence on the government. Arrington said has never held down a job, but recently held up a convenience store for some spare cash to buy meth.

“I like to kick back and have me a beer, eat some dogs and burgers, you know, pretty much what I do every other day,” Arrington said. “Shoot, it’s like havin’ a holiday on a vacation day. I feel like I should get double time or somethin’.”

It will be a special day for the entire family. Thanks to a lax criminal justice system, Barkhard, Arrington, the six children and most of their fathers will be together for the Dependence Day festivities.

As part of those festivities, the family holds their own fireworks display, literally–they hold fireworks and firecrackers in their hands and toss them at each other. “I’d say it’s largely symbolic,” Arrington said philosophically. “We know that the local hospital has to treat us whether we have insurance or not. One of these years, I’m gonna blow off my thumb and get me a bionic one.”

Barkhard makes sure there’s lots of food, too, by making a special food stamp run to the grocery store.

“Those food stamps sure comes in handy during celebrations,” Barkhard said. “Most times I just trade them for booze, because we don’t get any booze stamps, yet. But we do have a Democratic congress, so we’ll keep hoping.”

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In other headlines…

It’s all in the wrist. Woman gives state trooper free golf swing lesson.

Centre County DA doesn’t respond to damning Gricar letter. Probably lost it.

Who’s ya baby’s baby’s daddy. Maury Povich… Altoona needs you!!!

PennDOT adds strip of inconvenience to Why-99. 

PennDOT will open the long-awaited I-99 highway by installing one-lane bottlenecks in the vital thoroughfare. The project, which is incredibly late and well-over budget even by PennDOT standards, will connect State College with the rest of the uncivilized world.

PennDOT spokesperson Kyle Letty said that the highway agency will suddenly restrict heavy, fast-moving two-lane traffic into a single lane to ensure long delays and exciting accidents. “We’re weren’t sure if we were going to open it all,” Letty said. “Fortunately a herd of white-tail deer trod a path that would complete the road, so I suppose we’ll use that.”

One reason PennDOT wants to create the bottleneck is to keep convenience to a minimum. Motorists will be able to slow down and enjoy the scenic views on Skytop for a half-hour to forty-five minutes and even longer during hazardous winter commutes.

“We also want to teach people who drive Pennsylvania roads how to merge,” Letty said. “In a recent survey, one out of two drivers won’t merge behind another vehicle and one out of two motorists refuse to let anyone merge in front of them. And we need to correct that with horrendous and often violent accidents.”

Even though PennDOT has promised to open I-99 in the past, Letty said this time the highway organization is serious. “But, if you notice, we said the bottleneck will open at year’s end,” Letty said. “We just didn’t specify the year.”

Sally Weaver-Auguston, who frequently commutes to State College as part of her job as an aide to absent-minded professors, said that she appreciates PennDOT’s sense of irony. “With gas prices at all-time highs and most people forced to either use bikes or reside in tent cities outside the University, PennDOT’s sense of timing is impeccable,” Weaver-Auguston said.

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In other headlines…

Last minute deal ensures state workers won’t get extra day off.

Domestic OK Corral erupts in gunfire.

 Jury to judge: “What were we talking about, anyhow?”