Inside the Purple Bus - Not the Purple Pill

Have you seen the big purple SEIU bus? It's hard to miss. Anyway, your intrepid agents from the GRAB managed to get inside and see what it's all about.

The SEIU 1199 is one of New York's most powerful unions. If you're a state legislator of some sort, they probably have your testicles in a lock box. You pretty much can't get elected in New York without them.

That aside, we wanted to know what was going on in there. We were able to get two undercover agents on the bus: one during a members-only event, and one during an invitation only meeting for politicians. What was found will astound you. We apologise for the quality of some of the pictures, but we think you'll get the idea.

Members Only
We now quote from the agents report:
"I was surpised by the interior. Many of my 'brothers and sisters' were excited and sharing rumors about what the bus looked like inside. I figured it'd be a boring interior, with some makeshift desks and cheesy posters plastered everywhere. I'll let the photo speak for itself.

"We were brought in and after a few moments of staring at everything, the real deal began. A union representative started a DVD while others passed around some free beverages. I noticed several empty bottles of JD and JB laying around. While the others enjoyed the open bar, I studied the video closely.

"The video started innocuously enough, but after a few minutes, the tone seemed to get more serious, and due to the generous amounts of refreshment available, helped drive home the union's key points to its members: pay more dues, and there is endless amounts of money that the government can pay them.

"Let me describe a scene from the mid-point of the movie: a nurse returns to her 4500-square foot home, from work, in her Lexus SUV. She stops by the mailbox and retrieves her mail. While thumbing through it, she screams. The camera pans in on a piece of junk mail that states, in large letters, 'NY TO BECOME RIGHT TO WORK!' She rushes in and talkes to her husband. He mentions that his CSEA local president explained to them what that would mean. As the video continues the husband explains that right-to-work legislation would mean management would fire all the union employees and hire cheap non-union workers from India, euthanize all the elderly on medicaid and medicare only, and replace childhood imuunizations with placebos.

"The nurse asks her husband what they should do. He looks right at the camera and very seriously states that every union member should make extra contributions to the 'education' fund. (The fund is used to help educate legislators about the evils of not bending to the union's will.) Without the extra donations, the union will be unable to prevent the disintegration of New York State and civilization in general. He also encourages them to write to their state legislators to oppose the legislation.

"In the next scenes we are shown the union members writing letters and happily engaging in educational pickets. By the end, the politician who had sponsored the legislation is recalled and executed for treason. The movie ends with the nurse from earlier kissing her husband and saying that she is so happy to be a part of SEIU and would be willing to give more of her newly increased salary in order to keep the union strong.

"At the end, most of the viewers were either crying or shouting to find out who is pushing right to work legislation. The union representatives calmed everyone and handed out little cards that members could use to have more of their salary go to the union in order to prevent 'such a dire future for us'.

"Many of those present did so. I took the opportunity to fill out Byron Brown's information and opted for him to donate an additional $20,000 per year. It'll be fun to see what comes of that."

Coming Soon! Inside the SEIU Bus!

Have you seen that purple bus? We went undercover &
what we saw will shock you!

Visit grabflo.blogspot.com!

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RP-FroWNY Strikes Again!

Buffalo, NY - In another daring and bold move, the Revolutionary People's Front of Western New York, has made its views known, this time with a massive banner painted onto City Hall. (see photo)

Buffalo Police have no leads and cannot confirm why nbobody saw what was happening. "Preliminary reports are that everyone thought they were window washers," stated Lt. McGruff. "Yes, it was 3 AM, but people work weird hours. Besides, we were busy ridding the city of the scourge of illegal parking."

The mayor had no comment other than "waffle".

The claim by the Rp-FroWNY was sent by fax to various media outlets. The return fax number was answered by an escort service, leading authorities to believe that some type of wiretap or line hijacking took place. They discount the idea that the escort service let someone use their fax machine.

Reaction was mixed throughout the community, as some praise the effort to thwart a casino in Buffalo while others were upset by the disfigurement of one of Buffalo's more famous buildings.

Thank you thedailymeme.com!

Those who speak most of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality.

-- George Santayana

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Get your creativity flowing... what does this quote inspire you to write?

New Urban Tours - Satire/Fiction

Detroit, MI - This is not what you'd expect to find on the west side of Detroit - a bus full of tourists. These are tourists from quiet, safe places who have a morbid fascination with the decay and destruction of a major American city. Operated by New Urban Tours, these visitors climb on board a specially designed bus and cruise around some of the worst places in Detroit where they are able to see real life prostitutes and crack dealers. On a good day, they may even get to see a shooting, comments the bus driver/tour guide.

"People pay good money for Jack the Ripper walks and to trace the path of the Beltway Snipers, so this is just a natural extension of that market," explains Mark White, the owner. "Instead of having to imagine the fog and the smell of the pollution of late 19th century London, [the tourists] get to see everything live." Each person can expect to pay about $50 for the 3 hour tour and chances are they will see prostitutes plying their trade in parks, crack dealers selling their wares near schools and see gang-bangers capping each other.

They do it in the air-conditioned comfort of a leather-seated min-coach bus which has reinforced windows and doors that can not be opened from the outside without special equipment. The bus even features HD monitors so you can watch the action from cameras placed around the bus.

A mature couple from Amherst, NY booked the tour after seeing a flyer in a Windsor casino. "This is just so much safer that driving ourselves into Buffalo to see the same thing" commented the husband. "We figured since we were here, why not?" added his wife.

Mr. White explains the popularity of his "Crack and Ho Tour". "People watch this stuff on their televisions all day and they wonder if it's really like that. So when they see our ads and understand that they will be kept safe but be able to go into some of the more dangerous places, they just eat it up."

Asked if he has been subpoenaed for videotape footage of crimes in progress, he responds that the cameras are live feeds and are not recorded. Personal recording devices are prohibited and the only markings on the bus reflect that fact. Aside from a two-tone gray-black paint job, darkened windows, and the obvious coach body, the only thing to distinguish this bus from any other tour bus is this sign on each side: "Nothing is being recorded by this vehicle. There is no cash, credit cards or anything of value on this bus."

Mr. White means it also. "We make them sign a waiver and have them leave everything in their hotel safe. I mean everything - they come with only the clothes on their backs. If anyone has any sort of medical condition, we ask them to take their medicine or only bring what they need."

Local leaders are not too pleased with this type of entrepreneurial spirit, as one can imagine. They see it as yet another form of "blaxpoitation". Measures are being considered to tighten controls on tour operators to prevent the spread of such tourism.

"We want people to come to Detroit for positive reasons - to see a game or show or to start a business, not to watch our citizens sell sex and drugs," stated Mike Snell of the Chamber of Commerce and advisor to the mayor. "We need a positive image, not a 'Cops' [referring to the television show] mentality."

When asked about the criticism, White shakes his head. "I'm not the one who drove this city into the [toilet]. Nobody said word one when the jobs started moving out and real estate people scared white people away. I'm not the one who was elected and screwed everything up. I didn't drive the city into poverty and bring drugs onto the streets. I grew up here and I am giving back by investing money in the city through small business. Some of the crack houses have been torn down with my money. When was the last time any so-called leader footed the bill to improve a neighborhood?"

White does have plans to expand his business into other cities and types of what may be called "voyeurism of criminal acts". "Right now, I have plans for similar tours in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. The LA tours should start by fall. We are tentatively calling it the 'It's a Crack World Afterall Tour', or maybe the 'Shootings by the Stars Tour'. We hope to have Philly online next year. I'm sure we will come up with something creative to call it."

Satire/Fiction - The Day

As Juvenal said...How can I not write satire?

6/6/06
Buffalo, NY - A group calling itself the Revolutionary People's Front of WNY (or "The RP-FroWNY") launched what it called a series of "informative protestations" across Buffalo and Erie County, disrupting schools and government offices. Members of the front staged skits depicting humorous and violent scenes depicting a "reformation" of local politics.

At Riverside High School a group chanted "Away with Rumore!", making the union chief's name rhyme with "away", for several minutes before performing a five-minute sketch in which an unidentified individual portrayed Rumore as a money and power hungry tyrannt declaring that he "would rather see the schools shut down than see true reform". Some students cheered from open windows. Teachers refused to be interviewed for this article.

The protestors scattered once police sirens were heard to approach. The group urged students to sign-up at their website, http://www.freewebs.com/rpfrowny/. Several students indicated interest in the group.

At the County Building in Downtown Buffalo, protestors chanted "Giambra, Giambra, he's the man! He's the man that we can't stand!" They also carried signs that indicated displeasure with the county legislature, the fiscal boards, as well as various public employee unions.

"They don't realize they are all part of the problem," stated one protestor who gave his name as "Jose Bergamin". "The unions try to make us think they are victims but many of their contract provisions raise costs and preserve the status quo. The politicians are guilty too of trying to keep their little fiefdoms and perks intact." No county employees or politicians agreed to be interviewed, although one county legislator flashed an obscured "victory" sign as he walked across the street.

The protests were peaceful and non-destructive except for a small group who caused some damage near Buffalo Police headquarters. With the pay-raise issue still in limbo, the police have not relented on handing out parking tickets everywhere except around their headquarters. Some protestors managed to spray-paint "I'm a hypocritical pig" or "I love $$ more than your safety" on several vehicles. They had prepared stencils which allowed them to paint a car in only a few seconds. Police were unable to apprehend anyone as they were busy ticketing cars on Washington Street.

Liberate Upstate!

I think we should split New York state. Downstate can keep the name "New York" and they can keep the bloated inefficient bureaucracy. I'd even be willing to let them keep Albany.

The new state would keep all the counties, except:
-New York County
-Nassau
-Westchester
-Albany
-Rockland
-Orange
-Putnam
-Ulster
-Greene
-Dutchess
-Columbia
-Rensselaer

I think the capitol should be Niagara Falls or maybe Syracuse.

Since this would be a new state, we can start over and fix up this mess. My wish list:

1. Political Reform - ease ballot access and party formation; do away with Republican and Democratic; set all representative territories as full counties; consolidate major metro areas into single entity counties; eliminate patronage and perks; strict controls on spending and pork for legislature.
2. Labor reform - enact right to work legislation; do away with bloated, corrupt and money-draining public employee unions - allow unions for CBAs only.
   
3. School reform - move control to local districts, revamp sports to remove emphasis on championships, use latest research (quantitative and qualitative) to improve schools; incentives for new teachers in high-need areas.
4. Tax reform - exempt first $50K of income for each person (all filing stati), then impose straight 10% tax on income above that level; reduce workers compensation and unemployment insurance costs for businesses; straight tax of 10% on all profit after certain costs; streamline and reduce cost for incorporating and starting businesses.
5. Authorities - do away with them; merge functions into appropriate departments; strip patronage and perks; use power generating sources to provide low-cost power throughout the new state;

Well, that's a start. I will probably go back through and flesh more of these out and develop some depth. I am thinking that it would almost be like the South after the Civil War - nobody who held office before can hold office again for a certain number of years. I have lots of ideas and I hope some of them even make sense.

Distinctions on here

I realised that some of what I plan onposting may be not be recognised as satire or fiction. So I will denote such posts as "satire" or "fiction".

It came up, in my mind, when I was contemplating a fictional short-story. I realised that some people out there might take me seriously. Of course, despite mentioning that it was only a radio play about 3 million times, people really thought aliens were invading New Jersey.

So, there you go. I have some ideas for additions to this. Now, I just need the time.