satire – Page 2 – If there is something

Taylors cursed with an inflated sense of Taylorness

Following the ascension of a certain Taylor to the status of Galactic Superstardom, a whole slew of other Taylors are beginning to act as if their Taylorness confers superstar status on them. This disturbing new trend has some rather ordinary Taylors behaving as if they’re entitled to all the flattery and fawning of that Taylor whose popularity eclipses the Super Bowl.

Take, for instance, the case of LIV golfer Talor Gooch. After being snubbed by the Masters golf tournament and despite lacking a ‘y’ in his Talor, this counterfeit Taylor had the unmitigated gall to take a shot at four time major champion golfer Rory McIlroy.

“If Rory McIlroy goes and completes his grand slam without some of the best players in the world, there’s just going to be an asterisk. It’s just the reality. I think everybody wins whenever the majors figure out a way to get the best players in the world there,” Gooch said.

Did everyone catch that? If Rory McIlroy wins the Masters and completes the career grand slam, there will be an asterisk because three time LIV Golf winner Talor Gooch wasn’t in the field. Nevermind that all the top talent and major winners currently playing on the LIV tour will be there, the absence of Talor Gooch will necessitate an asterisk be affixed to Rory McIlroy’s legacy should he win the Masters tournament.

There is one Taylor whose name is spoken in just about every household in every corner of the universe, and still she isn’t capable of summoning the ego required to make a statement as dim-witted and tone-deaf as Talor Gooch’s comments. But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to his Taylorness over powering his good sense.

Another Taylor who can always be counted on to demand the citizens of the world think of her before acting on their own interests is Taylor Lorenz. A “journalist” for the Washington Post, this Taylor has, in the past, scolded the rest of humanity for not maintaining the strictest Covid restrictions because she’s immunocompromised. Also, she saw fit to lecture everyone on the importance of journalism in the wake of some recent mass layoffs in the media. An actual journalist might have had a point, but she’s emblematic of the need to purge the profession of reporters doing advocacy and not reporting. Despite her mediocrity, her Taylorness won’t allow her a moment of self-awareness.

While the massively popular Taylor seems to be doing a pretty decent job keeping her ego in check, the same cannot be said of some of these other Taylors. They appear to feed off the worship and adulation aimed at her and redirect it at themselves. The Taylors are not alright. Someone in their circle needs to have a difficult conversation with them. Otherwise it’s going to get pretty ugly when their Taylorness crumbles and comes crashing down all around them.

Welcome to the New York State Supreme Court

In a bright New York courtroom, on a mahogany stand, there sat a rock and roll legend raising his right hand.

Do you promise to tell the whole truth, or something resembling the facts? Sorry, could you repeat that for the hard of hearing in the back.

Through a fog of tequila, peyote and THC roamed the dust covered memories of Don Henley.

“I remember scraps of paper, words written on a page, and a groupie in the corner who didn’t seem of age.

“I preferred yellow notepads and Glenn Frey preferred white, prompting hours of quarreling on which one we would write.

“I think we settled on yellow and the songs began to take shape, then we ran out of doobies and had to stop for a break.

“Someone nicked our notepads and sold them for a price, while the band was left with nothing but pink champagne on ice.”

Ed Sanders shuffled forward with his nurse in tow, “I’m here to cover Manson,” and sat down in the front row.

The room erupted in laughter, a guitar played some chords, up rose Don Felder whose solo blew off the doors.

Like a drum boomed the gavel and order was restored, while over in the corner an old Rolling Stone reporter snored.

From the bench the judge called out, “bailiff please tell me the time, we haven’t had this spirit here since 1969.”

For real, Rolling Stone today put these words in print, “the band didn’t want dirt on their 1890 breakup to be made public.”

They’re living it up at the New York State Supreme Court, what a nice surprise, bring your alibis.

President reduces global warming in White House ceremony

Out of concern for the safety of climate change activists who use their bodies to block the freeways of the nation’s capital, President Biden held a ceremony at the White House yesterday where he dialed back global temperatures by two degrees Fahrenheit. The president hosted members of Extinction Rebellion and several other climate groups to demonstrate the concrete steps his administration is taking to reduce global warming.

“Okay, everybody, most people don’t get to see this,” the president said, standing before an elaborate control panel. “Those buttons over there launch the nuclear missiles. We use these doodads to communicate with the aliens. We got one for the Greys and one for the Reptilians. And over here we have the global thermostat. My administration has heard you loud and clear. So, now I’m going to dial down global temperature by two degrees. Press hold. Bingo! Climate crisis averted.

“On behalf of the United States of America, I’d like to thank you all for being a monumental pain in the ass and drawing attention to this global crisis. But now you don’t need to lay down on the freeway anymore and prevent hard-working Americans from getting to their jobs or picking up their kids from school. You’re now free to stop gluing yourself to things and throwing soup on the Mona Lisa. Go out and have some fun! Have an ice cream cone! That’s what I’m going to do. And now your ice cream won’t melt so darn fast.”

It appears the Terminator Toothbrush story is just a false alarm

Not since Orson Welles incited mass hysteria with his 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast has a media event caused so much global panic.

First reported in a Swiss newspaper, the story of three million hacked toothbrushes repurposed as conscripts in a botnet army with the mission of taking down a Swiss company turns out to be more fiction than fact.

According to Fortinet, a security company that helped promote the story, a massive force of Terminator Toothbrushes did not cause millions of euros of financial damage:

“To clarify, the topic of toothbrushes being used for DDoS attacks was presented during an interview as an illustration of a given type of attack, and it is not based on research from Fortinet or FortiGuard Labs. It appears … the narrative on this topic has been stretched to the point where hypothetical and actual scenarios are blurred.”

Not so fast, though. Just because millions of sleeper agent toothbrushes weren’t activated to carry out cyber attacks doesn’t mean it couldn’t theoretically happen. It seems smart toothbrushes, smart refrigerators, smart electric blankets and smart bean bag chairs have very poor security and could be mobilized to carry out computer hacks at a massive scale.

The false alarm has incited deep paranoia among users of these ordinary household gadgets, with many living in fear of something as seemingly innocuous as a smart toaster or an internet lampshade. This has caused many to reimagine our dystopian future as one where humans become slaves to our home appliances.

Perhaps we’re already there.

Man unsettled by appearance of decapitated snowman on his lawn

While shoveling his walk early this morning, Mr. Arthur Brown was startled to discover the decapitated remains of a snowman lying on his lawn. What he at first mistook as possibly a snow covered soccer ball, on closer inspection turned out to be a head. The snowman’s carrot nose and a single arm lay nearby. The rest of the torso was missing. The remains lay a few feet from an alley that runs along the property, indicating that a car may have stopped and deposited the snowman’s parts sometime during the night.

“It was pretty gruesome. Nothing prepares you for a sight like that. I mean, some kid probably made that snowman, and for some sicko to come along and remove the head and throw it in some stranger’s yard, what kind of evil person does such a thing?” Mr. Brown said.

Suspicion immediately fell upon some neighborhood vandals. “Over the holidays we had a group of teens stirring up trouble. They took the lights from one neighbor’s festive display and rearranged them to spell the word ‘TITS’. Real cool,” Mr. Brown said sarcastically.

According to police, this most recent discovery is not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern of snowman slayings city-wide. “This is our third snowman slaying this month,” said Detective Russ Cole of the Riverbend Police Department. “Somebody in this town really hates fucking snowmen. At first he’d try to bury the remains under some fresh powder or hide them behind some bushes. Now he’s just leaving them out in the open, like he’s trying to send us a message. I tell you, spring can’t come soon enough for this town.”

Pressure on LIV Golf to acquire some underdogs

Within minutes of amateur Nick Dunlap’s historic PGA Tour victory, Greg Norman’s texts were lighting up with demands from his Saudi overlords to bring the same level of excitement and drama to LIV Golf.

“Are you seeing this, Shark? Why don’t we have any Cinderella stories? LIV needs drama, Greg Norman! Spare no expense. Buy us some amateurs! Get us some underdogs, Shark!” the texts read.

The Alabama sophomore’s improbable victory over some of the PGA Tour’s finest highlighted what’s special about the PGA Tour and exposed one of LIV Golf’s most glaring weaknesses. LIV Golf can’t produce the high-drama, engrossing narratives that are a recurring attraction on the PGA Tour.

A tour composed almost entirely of entitled, overpaid wicked stepsisters playing exhibition golf will never produce any Cinderella stories. Who looks back on any NBA season and goes, “Wow, that was some All-Star Game!”?

I know, somebody’s going to come at me with the Chili Dippers defeat of the Sandbaggers in the team finals as an example of pressure-packed, LIV Golf high drama at its finest. Sure, I’m old school and I don’t get it.

“Greg Norman,” the texts continue, “get me a journeyman golfer who is about due for a breakthrough victory. We need a couple of almost washed up tour veterans who yearn to taste victory one more time. Buy me some fearless young guns ready to announce their arrival to the world. Whatever it takes, Greg Norman. There is plenty of money in the bottomless PIF.”

State university grad admits most of his college party stories were ‘borrowed without attribution’

A former Indiana University student is coming clean today after it was recently revealed that most of his college party stories were either wholly or partially lifted from other people’s work, and that he failed to properly credit the source of those stories.

“It is with a heavy heart that I admit to you today that I have at times engaged in duplicative language when relating past tales of college drunkenness. I hope that today’s admission can be a critical first step in winning back the trust of friends and loved ones,” said 48-year-old Kyle Simmons.

The admission stems from an incident that occurred at Nick’s English Hut in Bloomington, Indiana, following a recent IU basketball game. Simmons sat at a table of fellow alumni, throwing back pounds of Bud and swapping beer-soaked stories, when a middle-aged gentleman at a table nearby overheard a tale that sounded awfully familiar. After the man confronted Simmons, Simmons agreed to publicly correct the record.

“The stories I’ve been telling all these years are actually the work of Kevin “Corn Dog” Edwards. For the record, I never inadvertently vomited on the back of my roommate’s head. That was Corn Dog. Nor did I ever perform an acrobatic ten minute keg stand. Again, credit where credit is due, that was the great Corn Dog. Finally, I never belly flopped from a stairwell into an inflatable pool of Milwaukee’s Best. That remarkable feat was performed by the flying Corn Dog.

“I’d like to thank Corn Dog for the opportunity to set the record straight. Some say I stole Corn Dog’s work. Let me be clear, I object to that characterization. I never stole, I merely borrowed Corn Dog’s stories without notifying him or providing proper attribution. I sincerely regret my use of replicated phraseology and hope that my alumni group will see fit to keep me on as a member,” Simmons concluded.

United States calling for humanitarian pause in ongoing Hall & Oates dispute

As the nation embarks on what could be an extremely contentious presidential election cycle in 2024, Americans are calling on chart-topping rock duo Hall & Oates to set aside their professional differences for humanity’s sake.

Experts agree that a possible Hall & Oates separation has the potential to spiral out of control very quickly.

“I’m sorry, but we need a unified Hall & Oates right now. We’ve got war in Ukraine. The fighting in Israel and Gaza is tearing us apart. We have two unintelligible geezers running for president. Come on, Hall & Oates, say it isn’t so,” complained former Obama campaign chief David Axlerod.

Officials inside the administration agree, the American people are clearly not ready for a protracted legal battle between Daryl Hall and John Oates.

“The administration needs to get on top of this. This is not good for an incumbent president going into an election year. The images of Hall & Oates fighting it out in court every night are not something the country is prepared to handle. Like a flame that burns a candle, the candle feeds the flame,” said one senior administration source.

Mediators are working furiously around the clock in an attempt to resolve the conflict before it escalates further.

“My friends wonder why I call them all the time, what can I say? I don’t feel the need to give such secrets away,” a court appointed mediator revealed, but declined to elaborate.

However, counsel for the defendant, Oates, has filed several motions decrying the aggressive tactics employed by Hall’s attorney.

“She’s deadly, man, she can really rip your world apart,” Oates’ attorney wrote in his brief.

For now, Americans are just trying to make the best out of a potentially catastrophic situation.

As one fan revealed, “My baby heard Hall & Oates were suing each other and she just split. No warning. She’s gone.”

Local man’s outdoor Christmas decorations attract scrutiny

A Fishers area man is facing the possibility of hefty fines today after his outdoor Christmas decorations were deemed to be in noncompliance with his neighborhood association’s bylaws.

Jeff Ross has been ordered to pay $500 for multiple violations ranging from a Santa that is too large to excessive and obtrusive lighting displays.

“My Santa is over eight feet tall, which is a violation, and my lighting display exceeds the number of lights allowable per square foot. Also, there seems to be an issue with the frequency with which the lights twinkle,” Ross said.

“Residents’ holiday light displays shall not exceed 12 bulbs per square foot and shall not dim or change colors more than once every three seconds,” the community’s bylaws state.

Having exhausted all his appeals, Ross has resigned himself to paying the fine and removing the offending decorations.

“They came and deflated my Santa yesterday, and they snipped the wiring on several strands of lights. I mean, I get it that they have their rules, but did they need to slice up Santa with a Stanley knife? The kids are pretty traumatized,” Ross said.

Asked for comment, the neighborhood association issued a statement: “We’re looking into the excessive force complaint leveled against our compliance officer. We strongly condemn violence in all its forms. If we determine that the rights of the jolly old elf were violated, we will take appropriate action.”

Stubbornly high prices for American Girl Doll make Hoosier Sally Doll an affordable and attractive alternative this holiday season

While inflationary pressures have eased slightly in recent months, the cost of some popular Christmas items remain stubbornly high. Case in point, the American Girl Doll retails at a price out of reach for many Americans, forcing them to seek out affordable but less desirable knockoffs.

Perhaps the most popular alternative this holiday season is the Patriot Girl Doll. Patriot Girl comes with a cute red, white and blue camouflage jumpsuit, an adorable little tactical vest and an AR-15 right out of the box. Optional accessories include NRA membership card, PG Drone of Freedom and limited edition Patriot Girl Hummer H3. Patriot Girl Doll retails for an extremely reasonable $59.99.

Probably the best deal this Christmas would go to the Hoosier Sally Doll. Hoosier Sally is a member of her school’s marching band and comes with County Soybean Queen sash and tiara included. She retails for a modest $39.99. The basketball loving Hoosier Sally Hoop Dreams can be purchased for a mere $10 more.

Other knockoffs having a hard time gaining a foothold this holiday season include Moscow Maria, the hard-bitten Muscovite who dreams of marrying an oligarch when she grows up. Also, consumers seem to be passing on Patty the Activist Doll. She’s ready for revolution right out of the box, sporting a backpack filled with mouth-watering vegan snacks. She also comes with an audio feature that allows your child to record the name or issue that causes them the most consternation and Patty the Activist will chant, “Hey, hey, ho, ho (Justice Thomas, the patriarchy, student debt, rent, etc.) has got to go.”