Pingree Report – December 6, 2009

PINGREE REPORT – DECEMBER 4, 2009 – text

Market testing for UC San Francisco’s new brain tumor vaccine ran into an unexpected snag last week when a flood of potential patients were rejected from the trials. The good news is the vaccine shows promise in attacking some of the most virulent forms of brain cancer. But, researchers say, more than two dozen patients from Orange County and the Central Valley had to be turned away. Sources confirm that the 26 volunteers didn’t meet minimum test trial requirements for having both cancer—and, a brain.
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And speaking of brains, Honda Motor Company has updated it’s human brain-controlled robot. The robot’s name is Asimo. A person need merely don a helmet fitted with colorful round rubber rings, allowing easy access through one’s cranium deep into the think-gel beneath.

Once fitted with the alien-tech helmet one’s thoughts direct each action the robot takes. The Pentagon was expected to scoop up the technology. However, a bidding war for exclusive rights to the new product has knocked the military entirely out of the picture. Bay Area billionaire Larry Ellison would, should he gain rights to Asimo, build an army of identical robots to replace his entire Oracle work force. Pitted against Ellison is Hustler skin magnate Larry Flynt. Flynt hopes to cast Asimo in the much-anticipated sequel to “Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?”
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Late each September Bay Area sophisticates treat themselves to public humiliation, spankings, canings, whippings, floggings and creative gymnastic bondage at San Francisco’s famed Folsom Street Fair. In fact, the charity leather gathering is California’s 3rd most popular participant event.

But now we learn that for a Kansas couple who innocently wandered into the festivities, this year’s Folsom Street Fair meant coronary shock, smelling salts and an official police complaint. That complaint may bring an end to the fair’s outdoor fetish demonstrations, practices popular with, but limited in Kansas to politicians and to clergy.

Adolf and Edna Wurstsaugen came to the fair expecting cake walks and fresh lemonade, just like the similarly-sounding Wholesome Street Fair back in Cain City, Kansas. Expectations were dashed, say the couple, when, passing through the entry gate, a bearded mauve-sequined nun tossed them a kiss – and patted Adolf’s fanny.

The couple was, quote, “shocked, disgusted and scandalized,” by most everything they witnessed, though Adolf concedes that Edna thrilled at the men in crotchless chaps; and that both he and his wife found certain fellatio techniques utterly astounding. “Here’s hoping,’ Adolf enthused, ‘that Edna picked up a few pointers along the way.”
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And finally, while the Pingree Report strives to present you the news without slant or embroidery, we nonetheless reserve the right to occasionally voice our opinion on matters which affect us all, and particularly on matters that affect us, personally.

A few days ago our good friend, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, forfeited the last vestiges of his sanity, accusing such prominent news aggregators as The Huffington Post, Google News and our own SF Bay Area Timeless of the wholesale theft of his news pieces. Murdoch cited monies he’s poured into both his Faux-News organ and his wide and growing array of neo-fascist propaganda tabloids, calling them valued and legitimate fonts of information. In short, Mr. Murdoch demanded that we pay him to propagate his own miserable self-serving half-truths and bald-face lies.

Rupert Murdoch, the man who calls we news aggregators slimy tech tapeworms and vampiric content kleptomaniacs, feels we deserve no better fate than did the Turks under Vlad the Impaler. It all comes down to money, according to Murdoch. “Critics say people won’t pay for content,’ Murdoch bloviated to a jam-packed Federal Trade Commission workshop, ‘but I say they will,” especially—we might add— once Mr. Murdoch manages to get his spindly fingers on every last media resource in the world.

Responding to Murdoch’s demands, Google announced Tuesday it would be happy to bend over and submit to him.

Arianna Huffington took a different tact. The Huffington Post proprietor pointed to four separate Murdoch-owned websites, including FoxNews.com, the Wall Street Journal and Rotten Tomatoes, all of which swipe competitor material without so much as a tip of the hat or a kiss out the door.

That Rupert Murdoch would like to control and have us pay dearly for each printed word, every utterance, video clip or photo that comprises all forms of terrestrial mass media is, admittedly, a righteous and admirable aim. No doubt he is well-intentioned and has only humankind’s best interests at heart. In fact, we here at SF Bay Timeless would like nothing better than to retire atop mounds of filthy lucre provided by a Murdoch media buy-out. We’re simply awaiting his generous offer.

Meanwhile, we will continue to take pot-shots, rail against and rob Mr. Murdoch of whatever odorous materials his toadies produce and he fully pays for that we deem of satiric worth. Unfortunately for Mr. Murdoch, his materials are easily the most fertile, abundant and endless of the sort to be found.