The tying together of several themes makes is sound like an Onion
piece, although I haven't been keeping up on those (sorry, JoeB,
should I have checked the archives there first?).
Of course, this is cleary unrealistic, because of one very obvious
flaw. They refer to BillG as only the 2nd most important person in
America...
-- Ernie P.
Begin forwarded message:
Originally from: rdloach@juno.com (Rob Loach)
Originally dated: 1 Aug 1997 0:00:00
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"The Sixth Sense - The Sense of Humor"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
New Net Crisis
Special advisory to all e-citizens:
President William Jefferson Blythe Clinton and Vice President Al
"Macarena" Gore jointly announced that a major crisis has arisen on
the Internet. The National Bureau of Standards and the Federal Reserve
Board have calculated that all jokes and parodies that can be
developed, have already been released, and there is *no more new
humor* available for Internet circulation.
Bill Gates, 2nd most powerful American, announced that Microsoft
would be recirculating all old jokes from their corporate
repository. "We had intended to issue this as a 'Microhumor' CD, Mr.
Gates announced, but in view of this national crisis, we are
recirculating these old chestnuts in the hope that they will amuse
once again.
President Clinton praised the generosity of Mr. Gates and said that
"decent Americans everywhere will pray silently that new humor can
be developed soon, and spread over the Net. In the meantime, as we
have always done in time of crisis, the Federal government will work
diligently to avoid a humor gap."
Senate Majority Leader Newt Gingrich observed that this was the sort
of thing that the Democrat party always did: use up all resources
without knowing how to replace them. He observed that a strong
national defense was even more important at such times.
Long time Senator Strom Thurmond asked "What's the Internet, son?"
Following the recent announcement that all available humor has been
used, and is now being recycled, a very unexpected reaction has
occurred in Congress. Responding to a flood of calls and letters,
members of both houses of Congress have come together to attempt to
resolve the problem. In a rare show of bipartisan cooperation, a
majority of Senators and Representatives signed a letter to the
President asking him to release some of the U.S. strategic reserves
of humor.
It is a little known fact, but the United States keeps a large
reserve of humor, in a manner similar to that in which oil reserves
are stored. Located in abandoned salt caves buried deep in Louisiana,
the humor is stored for times of national emergency and general
unhappiness.
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, in a statement made during a
press conference to announce the letter stated: "The American people
have spoken. The vast majority of the comments we have all received
have been from people who are tired of hearing the same jokes over
and over again. Granted, there are some that are true classics, and
one never grows tired of hearing them, but too many are marginal the
first time one hears them, and they do not get any better with time.
I would urge Mr. Clinton to act swiftly, and to release some of the
humor that has been stored away for years. It is in the best interest
of the country to do so."
Providing counter point, Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal
Reserve, responded, "Few know this, but one of my duties as Fed
chairman is to be the honorary Commissioner of Comedy. It is my
belief that there is sufficient humor in the economy, and that an
infusion of additional humor could lead to comedy inflation.
Currently, we now enjoy the lowest rate of comedy inflation in 30
years, and the Humor Retention Index (HRI) is at the lowest that it
has ever been. Releasing humor reserves at this time is ill-advised."
All of the arguments were made moot when it was reported by the FBI
that the humor reserves had all disappeared. During an unrelated
investigation, the FBI had received information that there might be
an attempt made to obtain American humor by the Chinese, and when a
check was made of the vaults, they were empty. Addressing a Senate
Investigating Committee, Attorney General Janet Reno stated: "Our
investigation initially centered on the Chinese government, but we
quickly exonerated them. Our investigation found that the humor in
the strategic reserves had been secretly removed by President
Clinton, and sold to the Indonesians. For a donation of $25,000 and a
pair of jogging shoes, Indonesian nationals were given a night in the
Lincoln bedroom and all of the humor that they could remember.
Evidently, this went on for some time. We finally got a break when
one of our agents made the connection with large numbers of laughing
Indonesians found in the vicinity of the White house, not wearing
shoes, and carrying armloads of towels monogrammed with 'LB'."
A White House spokesman read a statement from Mr. Clinton. "I don't
see anything illegal or improper about telling a few jokes to the
gardener or cook. If he wants to give me the shoes off his feet, who
am I to turn down a friendly gesture like that. And if that same
cook or gardener wants to donate $25,000 to my campaign, he has every
right to do so. As for the Lincoln bedroom, these people have to
sleep somewhere, and the Lincoln bedroom is not for sale. However,
renting it for the night is not out of the question."