Area Toddler Spills Crayons, Commits Logical Fallacy.....

San Diego, CA- When local skeptic Andy Cadwallader asked his 5-year-old son to explain why he had dumped a box of crayons onto the living room floor, the last thing he expected to hear was a series of false premises, flawed arguments, and logical fallacies.

“It’s as if he has no understanding of the basic structure of logical argument,” Cadwallader revealed. “But he certainly knows how to employ ad-hoc reasoning. He must have picked that up from his mother.”

Timmy Cadwallader, a kindergartner at Perkins Elementary School, refused to yield to his father’s attempts to undermine his arguments, sticking to the claim that a heatless, floating, invisible and incorporeal dragon had knocked the box of 120 crayons over with his tail. According to Cadwallader, Timmy’s punishment will involve picking up the crayons and reading Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark again.

Area Man Swears He is Going to Say Something if it Happens Again.....

Raleigh, NC-While waiting in the "ten items or less" line at a local Harris Teeter supermarket, Raleigh native and unemployed bike shop cashier Brett Sturgeon couldn't believe it when a shopper in line ahead of him checked out more than the suggested limit of items.

"I was stunned," Sturgeon explained. "The sign is right there in plain English. If I see it happen again, I'm gonna ask to speak to the manager. I've just about had it with this kind of behavior and I won't stand for it anymore. I mean, what is the deal with people!"

Mr. Sturgeon, who has made bold claims of future and conditional action in the past, such as when he said that he wouldn't borrow any more money from his brother once the economy starts picking up, that he would move out of his parent's basement just as soon as he found a job, or that he would stop masturbating when his free trial subscription to Seventeen Magazine ran out, left the store after purchasing a frozen pizza and a case of Natural Ice.

Askimus Maximus: Advice for Daily Living from the Supreme Overlord of the Medical-Industrial Complex.....

(Maximus VII, Supreme Overlord of the Medical-Industrial Complex and CEO of Globodyne Industries)

Scared?

Confused?

Curious?

Don't worry, just Askimus Maximus. Maximus VII that is.

As the reigning Supreme Overlord of the Medical-Industrial Complex, and CEO of Globodyne Industries, Maximus VII may not have all of the answers, but he can easily fund a study to find them. And whether you're wondering how to get that cute guy at work to notice you, or stressed about the encroachment of governmental regulatory agencies into your business, just Askimus Maximus.

Dear Maximus VII,

I'm up for a promotion at work, but Kathy from data processing always seems to be one step ahead of me. Just once I'd like to show my boss what an asset I am to the team and come out on top. And taking Kathy down a peg or two wouldn't hurt either. Any advice?

Perturbed in Peoria
Dear Perturbed,

If I had a dollar for every adversary I've mercilessly crushed over the centuries, I'd be only slightly more wealthy. All kidding aside, I do have a great deal of experience in competitive situations that call for more than a smidgen of guile. Just ask Maximus VI. Wait, you can't because he's being slowly eaten alive by genetically modified eels in the dungeon beneath my secret fortress/summer home on skull island.

In order to best an opponent, you have to think like they do so that you can anticipate their next move. Get to know this Kathy. Befriend her. Study her like one of my scientists studies a synthetically derived compound. Did you know that every single pharmaceutical agent every developed is just one simple tweak away from acting as a deadly neurotoxin with near limitless killing potential?. I don't plan on ever decimating the population of Earth, I just like knowing that I can with the flip of a large switch under my desk.

Once you can predict her behavior like I predict increased profits from the flu vaccine when one of our strains "drifts" into a more deadly form, you've got her right where you want her. It's time to make your move. Don't be afraid to really go for the jugular. And if all else fails, a few years slaving away in my acid mines should do the trick.

I hope this helped.

Maximus VII

Area Woman Moved to Tears by Glade® PlugIns® Air Freshener Commercial.....

Abita Springs, LA-When 42-year-old tax attorney and divorced mother of 3 Kathryn Fortgang sat down to watch a rerun of HGTV's House Hunters today, the last thing she expected was to have her life irrevocably changed by a commercial for air freshener.

"I had just yelled at some ridiculous couple from Chicago who didn't want a perfect house because their table might not fit in the dining room," Fortgang explains. "There I was, so full of rage. So full of pride. I was living a wasted life of emptiness and regret. That's all changed now. You just can't go back after an experience like that."

Joining a long list of people in recent years who have credited Glade products with turning their miserable godforsaken lives around, Fortgang has taken things a step further than most. Pledging to bring the healing wisdom of Glade, an S. C. Johnson and Son brand of air fresheners, to as many people as will hear its uplifting message of hope and redemption, Fortgang has quit her job and will be embarking a on door to door crusade. "Sometimes a choice has to be made, to move forward or remain stagnant. I choose to live a life of meaning. Meaning and apple cinnamon."

Alternative Healers Alarmed Over Lack of Public Awareness and Understanding.....

Across the country today, practitioners of alternative medicine are joining together in a grassroots effort to raise public awareness of the benefits of alternative healing techniques and natural remedies. They are setting up tables at gyms and shopping malls. They are taking to the neighborhoods and going door to door. Clinics are closed all over the country as thousands of agitated acupuncturists, energized energy healers, and incensed aromatherapists, not to mention chiropractors and devotees of additional unconventional therapies too numerous to mention take part in an unprecedented campaign.  

Alternative medicine experts and supportive politicians are also petitioning state and local governments in every state to pass into law legislation to fund educational outreach and to support a broader recognition of these holistic modalities. It is an all out war on ignorance according to combined press releases from all the major alternative medicine organizations. Why the fuss? These efforts were inspired by a recently issued report by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) which revealed widespread unfamiliarity and a number of common misconceptions held by the public.

Despite a steady stream of published scientific evidence in prestigious journals like the Journal of Applied Kinesiology, Alternative Medicine-Singapore and Parade Magazine showing positive outcomes in a wide variety of conditions, the NCCAM report demonstrated that most people have very little understanding of alternative medicine. The authors state that 54 percent of the nearly 30,000 adult survey respondents reported that they have heard “nothing at all” about the concepts of meridians and stagnant chi that make up the core of acupuncture and acupuncture related sciences  — perhaps the hottest and most heavily financed fields in alternative medicine today. Sixty percent “believe they have never had a chiropractic subluxation, even though chiropractic research has clearly demonstrated that 100% of people develop them, often during the birthing process. ” Thirty-five percent said they were “not clear at all” about the difference between the various locations and depths of radial artery pulse diagnosis in traditional Chinese and Indian medicine.

"These are basic concepts of alternative medicine that people just aren't being exposed to," Acupuncturist and author of "The Vicious Cycle that Your Doctor Won't Tell You About: Quantum Consciousness and Adrenal Fatigue, the Cause of All Human Disease" and "How to Lose Ten Pounds in the Next One to Fifteen Months with Magnets!" Steve Salpedro explains. "Not knowing which acupuncture point corresponds to the liver, or that Hegu (LI 4) plays a role in runny noses, deafness, dysentery and infantile convulsions is like not knowing that socks go on before shoes. It really just boggles the mind."

On the timely topic of science education in the classroom, the report summarizes a number of findings by observing that “many Americans are receptive to including nonscientific values in science classrooms,” adding that “more Americans approved than disapproved of instruction regarding the use of colors, patterns and other characteristics of the iris to diagnose medical problems in public school science classes. However, many were unsure about the process of ingesting a substance diluted in a sugar or alcohol solution to the point where any molecules of the original substance are no longer present as a means of initiating the body to heal itself .”

But all hope is not lost for these misunderstood holisticians. Many are finding a silver lining, if not in the NCCAM report itself, in the response to it.

"It is a truly amazing thing," Belvedere, NE chiropractor Frank Grimes reveals. 

"To see so many alternative medicine practitioners coming together like this. It just goes to show that it doesn't matter that our training backgrounds and philosophies are so varied and often contradictory. What matters is that we can all come together, somehow ignore our many differences and focus on helping people. I also have student loans to pay off."

Grimes admits he yearns for a simpler time, before conventional medicine and its pharmaceutical industry supported monopoly on health bullied its way to the top. "In the past,  people didn't get heart disease, prostate cancer, or Alzheimer's. You just didn't have millions of folks developing chronic illnesses associated with old age. Hundreds or thousands of years ago all you had was alternative medicine, except it wasn't called alternative. It was just called healing."

Text Lost for 9 Months Finally Recovered.....

Lafayette, LA-On July 24th, 2011, Joel Seth Morgan sent a love text to his girlfriend, Cheverelle Bernstein. The couple had texted back and forth on a nearly daily basis while Joel was working at his father's plumbing accessories business as a way to help save up enough money to buy a car, and she was spending a couple weeks with her older sister in New Orleans. But this text, in which Joel told Cheverelle that he thought it would be "cool with him if she was like his girlfriend or whatever" never reached its final destination until last week.


"I remember that text like it was yesterday," Morgan explains. "I just helped fill a huge order of insulated suspension clamps so I was, like, really worked up. Plus I drank like 5 Red Bulls. So I was, like, I'm just going for it man."

Dirk Crenshaw, an employee at the Verizon store where Bernstein recycled her old phone found the lost text while reformatting the device for resale. He immediately called the intended recipient to give her the news. "I'm a hopeless romantic, what can I say?" 

"The whole thing brings back memories," Bernstein revealed, while fighting back tears. She was just 16-years-old at the time he wrote the text. Now nearly 17, she wonders how differently things might have turned out if she had seen it. "I'm like, you know, what if I hadn't hooked up with that guy on Bourbon street?" 

A few weeks after the text was sent, Morgan returned to start his senior year of high school and Bernstein was sent to a boarding school up north. They haven't spoken since.

Reeling Saltwater Industry Takes Steps to Improve Image.....

Cranston, RI-After decades of stagnant sales outside of industrial markets, and a colossal 2011 public relations disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the saltwater industry has hired the prestigious Howell & Jolly PR firm to improve its image.

“15 percent of all the water used in the United States is saltwater,” Howell & Jolly publicist Fran Weatherbee explains. “We know people are using it, they just aren’t speaking up. Sure we’ve taken a hit lately but we are poised to make a big comeback.”

Howell & Jolly recently issued a press release discussing a series of television and radio ads, as well as increased product placements in movies and television programs geared towards increasing public awareness. They have hired actor Josh Brolin, star of such high profile hits as The Goonies and No Country for Old Men, to help target a wider and more mature audience.

“Until now, roughly 92% of saltwater has been used to cool thermoelectric-power industry equipment,” Brolin revealed during a recent interview on The Diane Rehm Show. “Now don’t get me wrong, that’s an important service. I mean, let’s see VitaminWater cool a power plant or crack shale. But when you look deeper, really peel the onion here, there just a lot more there.”

The salt water industry is hoping that the Oscar-nominated Brolin will give the ailing liquid’s image a boost. In one ad, set to begin appearing on buses in most major American cities in June, an image of the Jonah Hex star in cowboy attire appears above the quote “I like my movies to have heart, my women fire and my water, well, I like my water with salt.”