witty friend praises choice of car insurance commercial

For totally the very first time in the long history of mankind, local funnyman Dale Ivan Young jokingly said he liked the commercial chosen by a popular video-streaming website to play immediately before the trailer for a new blockbuster film. “Wow, this flick looks awesome - thanks for showing this to me,” Young said, chuckling over the familiar, repetitive quacking of a feathered corporate mascot while grinning and flashing his eyes at the person whose turn it was to select something to watch. “I can’t wait to see it, ha ha ha,” he continued, patting a love-handle as he furtively made brief eye contact with each of the six other people leaning over a small mobile device trying to get a glimpse of its display.

His meagre spunk apparently spent, Dale absolutely would not - by hook or by crook - offer up a solid, clear opinion about the upcoming film in question, instead sidling away from the group in order to perform a pretend inspection of his vaporizer under the light of a nearby overhead lamp.

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

on changing tastes

In a stunning reversal of gastronomic preference, the American people started to demand high-fat, high-salt foods, refusing to eat anything that claimed to be low in fat or devoid of added salt. “We have not seen a shift in public sentiment – especially when it comes to the sodium and transfat content of food – occur so quickly, almost overnight, in a long time,” said chairwoman of the United Heartland Food Councils, Darlene T. Wikkelbak. “Not since Wafflegate, when the Pastrymakers of America publicly announced that although waffles were utterly delicious they were essentially sugar-packed, dimpled pancakes made up of massive amounts of gluten, not since that tragic day have the American people changed their minds so quickly.” Preliminary reports indicate that a single, 42-second-long, shoddily-produced parody of a fast-food commercial playing on the YouTubes has shaped Ynki opinion more effectively than all federally-funded public service campaigns of the last two decades, combined.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

Grigovia blocks pipeline

After reviewing numerous environmental and economic feasibility studies, the Grigovian government is blocking a plan to drain local aquifers and export the water via pipeline. The decision is based primarily on concerns for the country's future independence and enduring water security. AguaMundo Holdings Ltd. (AHL), the Argentinian-Indian company that first proposed the idea, claims that the pipeline will bring prosperity to parched communities throughout Central Asia. “By moving water from these pristine limestone aquifers to the rain-deprived steppes of Grigovia's neighbor nations, we will help impoverished people gain self-sufficiency through agriculture,” said Armando Gupta, chief operating officer for AHL. “With access to these reserves and a 40 year exclusive contract to carry water anywhere in the Yalung River watershed or floodplain, our company will be able to operate at a relatively low cost to the consumer.”

News of the proposed pipeline (as well as the selling off of Grigovia's sovereign resources) sparked protests and indignation. Tens of thousands of people carrying signs and banners have gathered in front of the nation's parliamentary buildings to protest the pipeline talks; some three hundred environmentalists have set up a tent village in Free Speech Square, just down the road from the prime minister's house, where they plan to remain until the threats to Grigovian sovereignty and national resources have passed; and a group of vocational-technical college students is traveling on foot in the areas along the pipeline's proposed route to record the flora and fauna that live there and upload their videos to Youtube, in order to showcase the ecologically-diverse landscapes that would be threatened. “We will not rest until the threat to our homeland has passed,” said a masked protester in Free Speech Square who was perched atop a lamppost talking to passers-by. “We do well in Grigovia because we protect our resources, using them wisely and slowly, using them so that we all share equally of our natural bounty. This foreign company, however, wants to take our water and sell it to the Tajiks and the Uzbeks, our kind and generous regional neighbors. We love our oppressed brothers and sisters, and we wish them the best, but we refuse to let outsiders drain our aquifers and pipe our water – the very lifeblood of our people – beyond our borders and down into the dry and the dusty plains.”

Initial support for the pipeline came from a group of politicians from the Grigovia Forward Grigovia First Party (ЮВЮД). The group, which is known as the Kremlin 7 for their close ties to Russian business and political leaders, was also behind efforts to privatize Grigovia's national forests and open strip-mining concessions in the Yiptlong massif. Despite receiving less than 10% of the votes in national elections, ЮВЮД maintains influence in Parliament due mostly to its sizable war-chest, which is estimated to be as large as the gross domestic product of Sri Lanka and Liechtenstein, combined.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥