Oil spill cleaned up with gigantic doily

Hammer and 'Sicle

Stereogram of carpet looks like slightly different carpet

Look at this image and cross your eyes slightly, allowing them to relax and focus beyond the image. A 3-D representation of another, distinctly varied carpet will appear.

New neighbor setting off Amwaydar

VANCEFORD - The guy who just moved in next door to Will and Patsy Grindace is triggering their Amwaydar, an intuitive ability some have for detecting multi-level marketing.

Lawrence "Larry" Bostock, Jr. purchased the ranch house adjacent to the Grindaces, and so far has been a pleasant addition to the neighborhood.

"He seems a decent guy," said Will Grindace after a recent backyard cookout hosted by the Hutchinsons across the street. "Good manners, well groomed, no noisy activities after 8 at night. Keeps his lawn in good shape."

However, at the cookout, several of the guests grew concerned that Bostock may be involved in some sort of business that involves reselling products and recruiting other sales associates.

"We were talking in real general terms, you know 'what do you do' kind of stuff," said Grindace, who is a project manager for a printing company. "I thought nothing of it when he mentioned retail, home care products and electronics. We were just making small talk at that point. But he said 'water and air purifiers' and that perked up my ears."

Grindace grew suspicious as Bostock talked of working for himself and that his company might be looking for quality people for a great new opportunity.

"He said 'passive income,' and that's when I knew. I don't know what company he's working for, but I didn't intend to find out."

By the time Bostock got to insurance and dietary supplements, Grindace had already begun plotting his esape from the back yard to the kitchen.

"He was actually addressing the back of my head when he asked how much extra I'd like to make a month."

The evening continued quietly if uncomfortably, with Bostock making several vain invitations to an informational event at his house next Tuesday. The following day, the Grindaces cleaned out their 2-car garage so they could resume parking in it and avoid eye contact with Bostock.

Hurricane season shortened to one week

WASHINGTON DC - The 2009 Atlantic hurricane season has been shortened from six months to one week, starting today.

"It's going to be one hell of a week, but we want to get it all over with in one swoop," said oceanographer Claude Degausse. "This gives us more control over response efforts and scheduling."

In a normal hurricane season, an average of 10.1 named tropical storms form in the Atlantic and cut a swath through the eastern seaboard of North America. Climatologists from numerous countries forged a joint resolution to lump all the tropical depressions and cyclones together for one hectic week.

"It may very well save lives, especially if we evacuate the whole region several days in advance," said Degausse. "I don't think that's happened yet, though, another agency is supposed to be doing that."

GM gets additional $3 billion from Washington for rust proofing

DETROIT - Automotive giant General Motors sat Washington down in the manager's office Wednesday and laid it out straight. This deal on the table to exchange $27 billion in unsecured debt for 10% of GM stock is worthless without some rust proofing.

Washington may have worn down the new guy, Evan, in offering only $19.4 billion in federal loans, but, hey, this is Rick here. He's telling Washington how it is. And if Washington drives off this property without our special rust protection package - and this is a one-day deal only - for $3 billion, Rick is afraid Washington will have a rusted heap within three years.

GM reminded Washington that these prices won't last, and that this is the same offer they'd give their mother. If Washington turns down the rust proofing, GM may have to speak to the floor manager to avoid bankruptcy, which may not happen anyway with prices this smoking hot.

Washington is also considering the fabric protection package, but has emphatically refused pinstriping and paint sealant.

Spelling error leads to weasels vaccine

NEW MONIA - Due to a simple mistyped word in a proposal, researchers at Klumsig Laboratories have developed a vaccine against weasels. The proposal from an unnamed agency was supposed to be for an improved treatment for measles.

"You could say it's serendipitous," said immunologist Fran Tolleson. "We didn't find what we were supposed to be looking for, but we did come up with this pleasant surprise."

Klumsig will apparently keep the funding for the project, because they fulfilled the terms of the proposal.

Tolleson suggests that the new vaccine may be helpful to poultry farmers who wish to safeguard their chickens from weasels.

"We have not yet determined if it is effective in chickens, or for that matter at all. We also don't know if it may also be useful in warding off ermines, minks or ferrets."

Klumsig already has begun planning its next vaccines for humps and nutella.

Hamster tycoon purchases Mall of America

BLOOMINGTON, MN - The largest enclosed shopping mall in the U.S. has been purchased by a billionaire hamster and converted to a giant hamster-style run for humans.

The industrialist hamster, who goes only by the name Mister Fluffles, lived previously with heiress Nadine Gatton-Vandervelt, who left her fortune to the rodent upon her death in October 2008.

Soon after his newfound fortune and independence, Fluffles began a spree of spending. He bought a field hockey team, replacing the artificial turf in their arena with cedar chips and expressing his desire to play forward.

In January, Fluffles began talks with the Canadian Triple Five Group, which owns and manages the Mall of America. He purchased the megamall for an undisclosed amount, and promptly installed transparent orange tubing to make it resemble his living quarters for the last twenty months.

Details of further modifications to the mall are forthcoming, according to the hamster's public relations director, but Mister Fluffles himself has been silent. One source claims that the food court will be fitted with hanging water bottles and that a gigantic shoebox in the parking lot is to house shoppers when it's time to clean the mall.

Spacewalk goes awry for Shuttle mascot

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER - The fifth and final spacewalk for Shuttle Atlantis mission STS-125 ended abruptly today when astronauts had to retrieve their dog.

Gus, the house pet aboard Atlantis, had already been for a spacewalk, but got out again through an open window.

Mission specialist John Grunsfeld was a little flustered, but took things in stride considering that he had to cut short some of the activities planned for that last walk.

"We got all the batteries, sensors and thermal blankets replaced on the Hubble Space Telescope," said Grunsfeld. "But we were going to cook a few bratwurst outside before Gus got away from us. I guess he just took himself for a little walk."

"Fortunately, Atlantis has a powerful and lengthy robotic arm, which helped pull him to safety. Otherwise, he would be going not for a walk, but an orbit of his own."

Gus and the crew of Atlantis are all back aboard safe, getting ready for their return to Earth on Friday.

Toilet lid up-down dispute resolved

JOHNSTOWN - A local family has reached a resolution in a conflict over whether the toilet seat should be left up or down.

Four siblings in the unnamed family were the first involved in the disagreement, one son aged 15 and three daughters aged 9, 12 and 17. The son was the sole party in favor of leaving the seat up on occasion, while the daughters were unanimous in their wish to have it down.

Several late night incidents brought the situation to a critical level, involving at least one daughter in an inadvertent dunking.

"I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night without turning the light on, and ended up sitting down on the bowl," said the eldest daughter. "It was not cool, and it's happened numerous times before to all of us," referring to the other girls.

She and her sisters have implicated the son in the lid-lifting, as they claim they would have no credible reason to do so.

The sisters launched a series of awareness campaigns, including signs and verbal reminders, but to no avail. According to insiders, the practice of leaving the lid up continued unabated.

The habit of sitting down with the lights off met with hostility and derision from the son, who pointed out that anything from the family cat to a scorpion or a mongoose could be present in the bowl. One daughter reports that on at least two occasions, some sort of plastic animal was indeed positioned there.

The sisters responded with a fluffy tank lid cover to prevent lid from staying up on its own. The lid cover itself was subsequently wet, an incident still under investigation. The oldest daughter contends that the act was committed by the son intentionally, but he has invoked the "lights off" defense.

"You won't have to worry about that lid being up anymore"

More recently the parents of the family were dragged into the conflict. Initially they had encouraged all parties to settle the dispute amongst themselves, but as tempers and acts of retribution escalated, they took sides.

The father took up his son's reasoning, that any person using the toilet could be expected to look first, as the males of the family have always done.

The mother argued that common courtesy was the order of the day, also revealing that in the master bathroom all patrons are required to sit for any function. The father subsequently recused himself from the proceedings.

She then gave the order that the seat should always be left down after any visit to the bathroom. For a brief time, the son responded by putting both the seat and the lid down, such that any visitor must lift at least one lid every time, as he said "the better to balance things out."

The situation remained in fragile détente until the arrival of a feisty uncle last Friday. Upon hearing of the impasse during a family barbecue, the drunken uncle strode to the bathroom, tore the lid from the toilet and threw it out the window.

"There, you won't have to worry about that lid being up anymore," he reportedly said. After brief consideration, he then ripped the entire toilet from its foundation and carried it to the front yard where he tossed it to the curb.

The situation is considered settled by all parties in the household, and talks on a new toilet will begin as soon as the uncle has departed the premises.

Credit card customers begin issuing signing statements

WILMINGTON - New borrowers are increasingly employing executive-style signing statements while entering agreements with lenders.

A signing statement is a written pronouncement, heretofore used primarily by the President of The United States upon signing a bill into law. Such statements potentially have the effect of modifying the meaning and intent of the law in question.

For example, credit card holder Chad Bennett of Halterville recently received an amended notice of terms from one company. He read the fine print and responded in writing that he agreed to the terms with the following provisos:

• "Interest" shall be construed to mean "a feeling that accompanies special attention to an object".
• We (cardholder) reserve the right to switch between U.S. and Zimbabwean currencies at such times as it will benefit us.
• Any change in terms such as due dates and mailing addresses shall be construed as incapacitation on the part of card issuer, and cardholder will revert to last known stable terms. Any fees or penalties arising out of such change in terms shall be treated as imaginary and not subject to observance.
  
• Cardholder naturally assumes that you (card company) are swimming in cash, what with the fees you charge us and the flotillas of bailouts coming your way. Therefore, we will cease immediately paying any fees construed to be associated with operating expenses.
• Monetary values shall be treated as hexadecimal values, truncated to binary for calculation, then converted to decimal for payment. This may have the effect of reducing the apparent value of some entries.
• Citing the desire for us to be friends, and the cultural edict "neither a borrower nor a lender be", we hereby declare certain parts this contract that sound like usury null and void. We (cardholder) will be the final arbiter of what that means.
• Your decisions over the years to extend credit so recklessly to credit risks such as cardholder calls into question your business judgment, and therefore we intend to show you some tough love.
  

Critics, among them credit card companies, say that such statements are contrary to the law.

"They basically mean you can interpret the agreement any way you like," said credit card lobbyist Phil Copros. "It renders the agreement powerless. Regular people don't get to to that."

TV shows all about mitosis anymore, claims amoeba grandmother

KIDPOOL - A concerned single-celled eukaryote has launched a campaign to lessen the amount of asexual reproduction in television programs about microscopic organisms.

"It's all good and well to learn about life's basic processes," said Nana Moeba, avid viewer and grandmother to countless offspring. "But this goes beyond all decency and amoebic values."

Ms. Moeba plans to organize a protest against the local stations that broadcast the most explicit mitosis content if her colony survives spring cleaning.