In The News News
By Tim Colin
The debate over health care has been heating up all summer with millions of Americans attending town hall meetings with their congressmen. Are these people nuts? Who would spend their summer going to meetings with a bunch of politicians? Get out there and get a life. What good is good health if you are going to spend it yakking it away with some guy in a suit. Get outside and do some extreme mountain biking or extreme rock climbing. If you slip and fall 500 feet down a mountain you are not going to be worrying about whether your covered by health insurance. All you will be thinking about on your way down is “how much is this going to hurt?”

The war in Afghanistan is heating up. We can’t discuss too much about the Afghan war because no one that we know can find Afghanistan on a map. We have a map on the wall that shows all of North America with most of the major cities highlighted with a black dot. After polling everyone in our offices it seems to be a toss up as to whether Afghanistan is in Alberta or Quebec Canada. Afghanistan doesn’t sound French so it’s not in Quebec. It is spelled with a lot of “A’s” so our best guess is that Afghanistan is in or near Alberta. We should send someone up there to check on the war effort.

Business News
By Ted Collin
Stocks were moving down most of the week but ended up 96 points on Friday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) ending at 9441.

Lately, the banking sector has not been doing well at issuing new home mortgages. Wall Street has however, come up with a new way of making money issuing a new type of mortgage. The new mortgage is called the Reverse Organ Mortgage or ROM. The ROM works much like a reverse mortgage on a house except, it is on your vital organs like your heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, spleen etc. Specifically, the way the ROM works is that you will receive a sum of money each month for a particular organ and when you die, your organ is harvested and any balance owed to you will be paid to your heirs. The organs themselves will be delivered to commodities speculators who have been biding on the price of your organ should it be harvested on a given day. In the end, the person who bids the most for the organ will receive it for transplantation either for himself, a loved one, a valued customer or, employee.

Sports I Care About
By Tim Colin
The Detroit Lions won 17-6 in an exhibition game they played against the Buffalo Bills. Great job guys! I’m proud of you. As Ronald Regan once said last season should be left on the “dung hill of history”. Or did he say “I can’t read my teleprompter. I think it’s busted”. Anyway, the Lions won in the pre-season and will have a chance to start the new season with a win on September 13, when they play at New Orleans. The Lions have not selected a starting QB yet but, they might as well just go along with Mike Stafford. He did win the exhibition game.
The Detroit Tigers are on a roll leading their division by five games. If I had one of those non guy emotions I might shed a tear right now of what you would call happiness. Instead I have nothing but guy emotions like anger, greed, revenge, lust and my favorite, remorse for having been caught doing something I should not have. I really hate being caught.

I don’t care much about college sports except, I love to see the U of M punch out the lights of Ohio State in one of the most classic matches in college football. I've busted more than a couple of TVs over the years when the game didn’t come out with Michigan on top of Ohio State.

Entertainment News
By Gerrard
The movie “Gamer” should pull in a large audience. It’s pretty violent so, make sure you go with people who are not afraid of a little roughness. I have a girl in mind that might go on a date with me to see this movie. I can’t go on a Tuesday to see the movie because I have to take mom to the C.E.T.A hall so she can play euchre. I have to stay in case they need a forth player.

“Taking Woodstock”, is kind of funny but, because I live in a resort area, there are a lot of people here that entered the year 1969 and never left. Several of them live out back of this building. If I have a sandwich I don’t finish, I leave it on top of the dumpster so they can find it easily. I once drew a picture of a marijuana plant on the back of the building. Several of the old hippies spent three days trying to roll it up into a cigarette. Tim Colin, who likes to throw his weight around, yelled at me so I had to paint over my art. So much for freedom of expression.

Psychic News
By Madam Misty Merkel
Well, I’m having a lot of trouble getting any spiritual vibes this week. I just heard from my twin sisters Twisty and Christy (They’re twins with each other and I’m a twin with each of them). It seems they each have new boyfriends and I don’t. I told them that after a séance I went dancing with Elvis and they didn’t believe me. They said that guys will tell you anything to get you to go out with them. I said I hope that wasn’t what happened. The guy Elvis possessed was Gerrard the weird guy that raises rats in his mother’s basement. They told me the only Elvis I ever danced with was Aunt Myrtle’s dog named Elvis and he danced with everyone. Actually, he tried to jump on every one. No one wanted to go to Aunt Myrtles because they were afraid her dog would jump them as soon as they walked through the door.

I guess the lions will do o.k. I just wonder that if I buy some new cloths and hang out in different places if, I might meet some new people. I know most guys need someone with money. The problem is that I lost almost everything during the current big financial crash. I lost my house in foreclosure. In addition, my stockbroker, Ira Rippoff, told me that if I invested $1,000 each month with him in a retirement account, that in 10 years, I would have built up a really nice nest egg. He also said I had beautiful eyes like Angelina Jolee. I invested with Ira and built up a nice nest egg but, the egg was for Mr. Rippoff. Now he’s living in a luxury hotel in the Cayman Islands and I’m stuck in a cheap trailer park. He gets room service and I can’t get garbage pick-up. All I have left is the old trailer I inherited from my Aunt Myrtle. It still smells like my aunt and her dog Elvis. He and my aunt both smelled like gin so it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. A gin and tonic sounds about good a couple of paragraphs ago. Or was that a rum and coke I had this morning?

The movies "Gamer" and "Taking Woodstock" will be big hits. I also predict that you should get out your Ben-Gay and arthritis rubs because the weather’s going to be cool.

The Michigan Outdoors Scene
By Ted Colin
There is a warning being issued by this publication to people that will be visiting the area parks and recreational facilities during this Labor Day Weekend. It seems there is a hideous lizard creature wandering through the woods, This creature started out small this spring, about a foot or so tall, and has last been reported at being nearly four feet in height. This monster started out with a penchant for pilfering bacon from a campers stores then, frying the bacon over the camper’s’ own cook stove and then, devouring said bacon as the camper and their frightened families looked on.

More recently, the lizard creature attacked a backyard luau pool party being held by area nudist retirees. The lizard creature purportedly ate the roasting pig from side to side like an ear of corn then, dashed into the forest. The nudist retirees could not follow because the woods were adorned with poison ivy. Doctors say that poison ivy poisoning is the number one cause of fatalities amongst area nudophiles.

Science And Technology
By Ted Colin
We have recently had a number of reported crop circle events in Northern Michigan. The farmers have been upset because we mainly have cherry orchards in the area where the crop circles have occurred. The problem is cherry trees do not snap back upright after a few days, they just die. The farmers have said it will take several years to replace the trees.

Personally, I went out to investigate the possibilities of crop circles turning up at one of the many vineyards in Northern Michigan. I never got out to look at the grapevines to see have messed up they might be by crop circles however, I did enjoy hoping from vineyard to vineyard tasting the wine and cheese. I almost bought a bottle at one place and then I saw the price was over $5.00 per bottle. I decided I'd stick to Boons Farm.

Many theories have arisen as to the cause of the crop circles. One is that Sasquatch is so powerful that he is pushing over trees to pick the fruit off of them. This seems plausible since Sasquatch is certainly powerful enough and cherries found in an orchard are a lot bigger and less bitter than the little ones you see in the wild.

Another theory is that lizard boy is now big enough to push over trees. This seems implausible since lizard boy was last seen just about a week ago still stealing bacon from campsites. He was still reported to be just a foot tall. He is still just a boy and is not even a tween yet let alone a teenager or adult lizard man monster.

The local authorities believe someone is going around with an all terrain vehicle, hitching a rope to each tree then, pulling them over. This seems implausible because it sounds silly. Who would do such a thing? If you're going to knock down a cherry tree just just a chain saw.

Finally, the only theory left is the one we have to assume is correct. That theory is that Aliens from outer space have been landing on our cherry trees and knocking them over with their anti-gravity beams. The anti-gravity beams are what the aliens use to hover over the ground. They also use the anti-gravity beams to hurl themselves away from the earth at the speed of light.

Recently, the crop circles have been becoming more elaborate. They are now making designs and writing messages with the knocked over trees. One message left by the space aliens indicates their home planets distance from earth. The message read "I Love Lucy". Since this was a popular show about 50 years ago we know the space aliens live about 50 light years away. This is the distance it took for the TV airwaves of "I Love Lucy" to reach our great alien communicators.

Some local figures have ridiculed the space alien theory. They ask why don't the aliens just come down and talk to us or at least send us an e-mail or a letter. The answers to these naysayers are simple. First, the aliens won't come down to talk to us because they think we are too violent and might try something. Second, they won't communicate with us via the Internet because they are afraid they might pick up a computer virus that could destroy their entire civilization. They may have seen "Independence Day". Finally, the aliens might be super environmentalists. By sending us mail they probably have considered how many trees were destroyed to create the paper, envelope and stamp. By not sending us mail they may have saved a tree.

HUMOR NEWS NUTS EDITORIALS
THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE
No to Extraterrestrial Free Health Care
By Ted Colin
Assistant Editor
I do not believe in giving free healthcare to aliens from other planets. We Earthers can’t afford to take care of our own sick let alone taking care of all the galactic charity cases just because their own planets don’t give them universal health care. Besides, if they can afford to travel across time and space to get here they most surely can afford to pay for their own health care once they get here. If they are so hard up they could sell their spaceship or some of their technology in exchange for having one of our saw bones doctors look at them. I’m sure Microsoft would pay a pretty penny for software that ran faster than the speed of light thus answering your questions before you have them. Apple would also like to make phones that generate more energy then used while cleaning the atmosphere of carbon emissions. So just say “NO” to free health care to extraterrestrials. We need to take care of our own first.

Just Say “NO” to Extraterrestrials on Earth
By Tim Colin
Editor In Chief
Like always, my brother Tim has missed the point. Of course everyone else seems to be missing the point also. The most important debate we need to be having is how we spend all those health care dollars. We need to be spending all of our health care dollars on testing everyone on this planet to make sure they are not an alien thing from outer space. I know that I am human but, at least a couple of you out there are one of those things. We need to test everyone to find out which one of you is human and, which one of you is one of those things. In the movie “The Thing”, Kurt Russell developed a test that sure made those monsters jump up and run around. And he was trapped at the anarchic with limited resources and education. Surely we must have some bright geniuses at MIT or maybe a really good community college who, could come up with a way to ferret out those alien things from the human population of earth. From my point of view, humans are the most endangered species on this planet.

I’m Unhappy with My Health Care
By Mike Colin
Janitor/Gofer/Fall Guy
I think my health insurance stinks. I pay $300.00 per month and it has not covered any of my $27,000 in medical bills I’ve had this year. It’s pretty good insurance, I guess but, it has a $1,000,000 deductible and a 50% co/pay. I’m not sure what a co/pay is but, it sounds really bad. It’s like being a co/defendant. What’s worse is I can’t stop paying the premium. It’s set up through a checking account that automatically deducts it every month. I can’t even pay rent but, I have to pay my insurance premium. If I try to stop the payment my insurance agent calls me up and threatens to have me arrested. I told my uncle Mike (he’s my insurance agent) that I can’t afford to keep $300.00 in the bank each month and I keep having the bank fine me $25.00 every time the insurance company tries to take the money out. My uncle Mike told me I had better get used to $400.00 taken out each month since I’m considered to be more likely to be unhealthy since I complain too much. When I bought the policy from my uncle Mike he said it was a great policy since I got the coverage I deserved while he got a 40% commission for the sale and 20% commission each year if I renewed it. My dad said my Uncle Mike was like the scorpion in the scorpion and the fox tale. I said to my dad, “is that the one where the scorpion took a whiz on the fox when the fox was giving him a ride across a river. Then, they both drowned because scorpions always whiz on foxes?”

“You got it boy”, dad answered.

IN THE NEWS NEWS
By Tim Colin
President Obama gave his health care speech last Wednesday. Most people were very disappointed. No where in his speech did he say anything about hiring one million more single female nurses. Many of us guys are looking for professional women who can support us financially and, take care of us like a mother (or kind nurse) when we get sick. Furthermore, in terms of cutting health care costs, if everyone married a nurse, health care costs could be cut by half or more. At least that’s what the guys said last night while we were playing cards. The nurse/wife could take care of all the minor accidents like getting stabbed while playing lawn jarts or cutting off your toes while playing lumber jack with the electric hedge trimmer. The savings from eliminating emergency room care would be fantastic. There are hundreds of tasks a wife/nurse could perform that would save millions in doctor’s visits. So, instead of requiring everyone in America to buy expensive insurance they can’t afford, everyone should be forced to marry a nurse, doctor or, some other health care worker.

BUSINESS NEWS
By Ted Colin
To quote Steve Martin the stock market has been “one wild and crazy guy”. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up this week but, it has been bouncing frantically up and down in a 700 point range for several weeks now. The pundits all say the economy is improving and I guess they’re right. I’m finding fewer people are picking up beer cans downtown on Saturday morning so, I have a lot more weekend play money than I did earlier this year. The armature canners must be feeling wealthier and not bothering to go canning.

It was announced this week that Disney is buying Marvel Entertainment for 4 billion dollars. Disney has changed a great deal over the last several years. It has gone from being a Mickey Mouse outfit to a high school, Hanna Montana musical business. Marvel Entertainment has brought us such hits as The Fantastic Four, Iron Man and The Incredible hulk. I didn’t know The Hulk could sing or that Iron Man could break dance. Disney has announced that High School Musical Fantastic Four will be available for sale by Christmas.

SPORTS I CARE ABOUT
I’m not sure if I’ll watch the Lions play the Saints on Monday. Last year every time I watched the Lions play I thought I jinxed them since, they always lost. Of course when I didn’t watch the Lions play I also thought I jinxed them into loosing. I guess I’ll flip a coin. Anyway, Stafford has finally been picked to be the starting QB. It’s about time a decision was made on who would be the starting QB. Some years the Lions wait until the season is over and then decide who they should have picked as QB. Well, I had better shut up. This year I know they will do better. If the Lions do as well as the Tigers this year I’ll think about deleting all the negative press I’ve given them over last years program.

In upcoming games:
The Lions play the Saints on Monday,
The Tigers play the Blue Jays on Friday, Saturday and, Sunday.
One college game that might be interesting is the game between Central Michigan University and Michigan State. MSU will most likely win but, sometimes CMU pulls off a fast one on old MSU.

THE OUTDOORS NEWS NUTS
A Brief Swim in Quicksand
By Tim Colin
I have seen a lot of movies where either the bad guy or the monster drowns in quick sand. I thought it would be interesting to find some quick sand to see first hand what the stuff was really made of. A warning to the public: QUICK SAND IS VERY DANGERROUS SO, IF YOU WANT TO GO SWIMMING IN IT YOU HAD BEST NOT GO ALONE. I was able to get my brother Mike to come along with me on this trip. I promised him he could keep all the cans and bottles we found so he could turn them in for the deposit money.

We picked a fast moving river that ran through a swamp. It had been raining for over a week so the river was about three times deeper and moved much faster than usual. We each wore waders since sometimes the water went up to the crack under your knee caps. We waded down stream from where we were parked for over an hour but, we did not find any quick sand. Finally, we had a little action. My brother had wandered off down river about a hundred feet or so when he lost his footing and was grabbed by the current and rushed down river over sharp rocks, sharp sticks and logs as hard as concrete. I smirked a little when he fell in but, when I saw his head bobble away down the rapids I decided I would be expected to at least go look for his body.

Just as I was moving along the river bank trying to figure out how I would explain my brothers demise to my parents and his new girlfriend, wouldn’t you know it, I stepped into some quick sand and was up to my waste in liquid earth. I immediately yelled for my brother Mike to come and save me in the off chance he had managed to save himself and could thus, save me. I yelled several times but, he never showed up so I knew I was on my own. I decided as I sank that I was not going to give up. I wanted to live to inherit some money from my parents one day. With my brother Mike and myself gone, my brother Ted would get everything. I just could not stand that thought. I had to find a way out.

The problem with quick sand is that the more you struggle the more you sink. I was already up to my belly button and I knew I would not last long. I would have done something based on science but, I flunked chemistry in high school and took mostly PE and Wood Shop classes for electives.

Finally, I had some luck. An overhanging branch from a spruce tree was just in reach of my finger tips. Gradually, I worked my entire hand up the branch then; I grabbed the branch with my other hand and pulled my body up, out of my waders and safely onto muddy, but stable ground. I sat there a couple of minutes covered with mud. My shoes and waders were long gone so I would have to make my way back to the car with just my wet socks on. When I got to the car, my brother Mike was there. He had a lot of cuts and bruises but, he was still alive. He told me that the river wound around back up towards the pull off where the car was parked. Mike said that as he sailed past our car he grabbed onto a piece of brush hanging out over the river.

I told Mike that as I rushed to save him, I fell into quick sand and almost died I then asked him why he didn’t come when I hollered for him .He claimed he didn’t hear me scream. He said the rush of the river was so loud that my calls for help must have been drowned out.

In conclusion, you should be careful when looking for quick sand along Michigan’s rivers, lakes and, streams. If you do fall into quick sand hopefully there is a low hanging branch near by so that you can pull yourself out. You see in the woods of Northern Michigan, if you get into trouble, one can hear you scream.


PSYCHIC NEWS
By Madam Misty Merkel
Like most psychics, I use a number of methods and tools to predict the future. Taro cards, rare magical stones, crystal balls and various personal possessions of the dearly or even nearly departed. Today I used a wee gee board and a jigger of apricot brandy to make my predictions. I use to light a candle before I went into my predictive trance but, drinking heavily and having an open flame sometimes doesn’t end well. My aunt May got snockered on her own corn liquor. Then, she fell asleep smoking a cigar on a hay pile. It took a week to find a cup full of Aunt May to put in the urn. My poor cousin Jerry is still afraid of any kind of fire since his mama died so tragically. This makes it hard on the rest of the family since we have to all put out our cigs when the creepy mama’s boy comes around.

Anyway, today I am making financial predictions for the rest of 2009. The following are things that will probably happen but, if you wager on my predictions then you will mess up my predictive juices and anger the predicting angels. So, betting on my predictions may well make my predictions not come true. Therefore don’t make bets on my predictions or you will loose!!!

During the year 2009 there will be plagues, deaths and unhappiness. Finally, people will stop watching cable news and everything will be o.k. The stock market will go up and the stock market will go down. In the end, buy stock in Madam Misty Merkle’s Overnight Wrinkle Cream Remover and you will make me a fortune. I have several franchise opportunities in the Bay Area for people with winning attitudes. Remember, it’s not what’s inside that counts; it’s what your face looks like.

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
By Gerrard
I like Kate Beckinale. She plays a U.S. Marshal in a Movie called “White Out”. In the movie, Kate tries to track down a killer in Antarctica. It’s rated R because it has so much violent action in it. I might ask my mother if she would loan me the money so I can go see this movie. I expect to make a lot of money selling the rats I raise to college psychology classes this fall but, so far I haven’t received any orders so my cash funds are kind of low.

Tyler Perry has another Madea film out. What can I say? It’s another Madea film. There are usually some hot chicks in his movies but, this one is about kids so I think I will pass.

I will also pass on the Disney flick “High School Musical Fantastic Four”. I like the Incredible Hulk better than the four space mutant guys. I don’t like dancing or musicals anyway. They bring back some bad memories about marching band. I was always getting yelled at for being out of step and ending up in the wrong spot on the football field. I was also looked down on by the other kids since I was the only kid that played the accordion in marching band. What’s worse, even though I was the only accordion player, the band leader never made me first chair. It’s humiliating to be the second chair accordion player when I was the only one that played the accordion. That met I never got to do a solo.