Billy Beam

From the desk of Kris Kringle

Dear Jimmy,

Before you send me your Christmas wish list, I wanted to advise you not to get your hopes up.

For the better part of a decade, I’ve entrusted the elves with approving boys and girls for the nice list. Over this period, the number of children on the nice list has skyrocketed. Unfortunately, the number of children on the list has skyrocketed because the elves have approved kids–like your neighbor Kenny Colson, the cocaine kingpin of Sadlerville Elementary–who didn’t deserve nice list status. In my last audit, I found literally millions of Kennys on the list, and even thousands of adults, including Ricardo Montalban, Gene Simmons, and both T brothers, Mr. and Ice.

What I had failed to appreciate at the time I delegated nice-list decision-making authority to the elves was that they had a profound conflict of interest. The more kids on the list, the more toys that had to be produced. The more toys that were produced, the greater the elves’ year-end bonuses. Our labor costs exploded.

In a perfect world, I would have cut my workforce by firing the elves responsible for the reckless nice-list approvals. Unfortunately, every elf is a card carrying member of the elven union, Local Eleven. And, as any economist will tell you, there’s no economic force more potent than a union representing a workforce of highly skilled, geographically concentrated, and four-foot tall employees. Had we tried to fire anyone, we’d have faced a full blown work stoppage.

We’ve had zero luck breaking the union. A couple years ago we tried importing a bunch of tiny Mexicans, but they never adjusted to the cold. We considered using our massive toy warehouses to lure thousands of tween replacements for the elves, but the Pole’s crazed child welfare zealots, essentially an army of Carrie Nations, have vigorously enforced the laws that prohibit anyone under the age of thirteen from working more than 80 hours a week.

I had no choice but to curtail toy production, a move that decimated the North Pole economy. Tens of thousands of elves who had immigrated to the Pole and bought igloos thinking they would land high-paying jobs could neither find work nor pay their mortgages. Buyers defaulted. Igloo prices plummeted. The North Pole Hedge Fund, which had invested heavily in mortgage-backed securities, went belly-up. The crisis ushered in the hallmark social ills of economic devastation: prostitution, drug use, and Amway franchises.

In response, we are taking immediate emergency action. We are finalizing a merger with one of the most trusted fictitious icons in holiday gift delivery: the Easter Bunny. The merger will permit us to take advantage of economies of scale in candy confection and tiny plastic toy production. Although we’re in the early stages of due diligence and don’t fully understand the bunny rabbit’s business model–how does a rabbit, of all creatures, produce so many eggs and why does he bother to hide them?–eggs represent an incredibly a stable source of profit growth and the Easter Bunny has millions upon millions of satisfied customers. We well understand that compared with other potential suitors, such as the leprechaun with the pot of gold, this merger isn’t glamorous and doesn’t promise outsize returns, but it does bring a reliable revenue stream that will allow us over time to stabilize our operations.

What does all this mean for you the customer? Well, Jimmy, it means that even though you really, really deserve to be on the nice list, this Christmas even Santa can’t afford nice. I could lie and tell you the Easter Bunny will come through, but the truth is we won’t finalize the paperwork until May. There, there, don’t cry. We’ve done some outsourcing in the six-year old age bracket, so there’s a chance you might find a generous cash reward from the tooth fairy.

Sincerely yours,

Santa Claus

admin Uncategorized

The kidnapping industry entered 2008 anticipating record-breaking profits. What it earned instead were knee-shattering losses.

The economic boom of the 2000s tripled the profitability of kidnapping firms. So many businessmen, from corporate officers down to ordinary managers, earned so much money that finding rich victims was easy. Mark Huck, the salt-and-pepper-goateed scion of the Napped Kids empire reminisced, “We could drive around and pick up any CEO or CFO’s kid, heck even a mid-level manager’s kid, demand a million bucks, and have our cash by the end of the week.”

Investors pounced on the easy money by investing nearly a billion dollars in the industry, providing loans, issuing corporate bonds, and financing IPOs. Although the injection of capital helped fund corporate expansion, it also held the companies hostage to investors seeking to maximize short-term profits. Not only did shareholders force the companies to dispense with popular perks such as free massages, corporate cafeterias, and generous 401(k) matches, but they also insisted that the firms eliminate entire departments. Because investors believed the economic boom had rendered due diligence of potential kidnapping victims unnecessary, the research divisions were the first to be cut.

“We caved to shareholder pressure,” Huck said. “It was short sighted.” Now that the wealth of so many formerly ideal kidnapping targets has fallen, those research departments are sorely missed. “Sometimes we inadvertently kidnap poor people’s kids, and they, of course, can’t afford the ransom. Other times, we kidnap the kids of people who are rich, but know we can’t tell for sure that they’re rich, and they refuse to pay the ransom, citing poverty. So we’re stuck carrying these kids as excess inventory.”

The demands of being publicly traded merely compound the companies’ problems of feeding, schooling, and, in some cases diapering, their inventory. Companies that issue equity are required to submit to SEC oversight and abide by GAAP accounting rules. Samuel Swipe, the former CEO of Kidnappers ‘R Us said, “The SEC missed Wall Street’s securities fraud epidemic because they were always up my ass, complaining about our mark-to-market accounting procedures for these kids we had to carry as inventory.” GAAP accounting practices require that kidnapping companies write down any kidnappee not successfully ransomed within ninety days. Unlike financial securities, kidnapping victims cannot be marked to market, unless there was a comparable transaction within the past 30 days. After ninety days, a full write-down is required. “We have like 22 kids we’ve snatched and they’re worth nothing,” complained another corporate executive, who requested anonymity. “We may have to declare bankruptcy.”

Most firms have had no choice but to halt their kidnapping operations altogether and undertake full-scale corporate restructuring. “The key is to leverage existing resources and capabilities to create a value proposition that’s attractive to consumers,” said Swipe. “And you have to be mindful of broader, macroeconomic trends.” To that end, Huck is reinventing his firm as a home invasion company, hoping to leverage his firm’s expertise in the unlawful violent seizure and restraint of innocent people and to take advantage of the large number of relatively wealthy people who are now unemployed and sitting around the house.

Eying the recent increase in the birth rate, a former competitor of Kidnappers ‘R Us, which asked to remain anonymous for fear that its past association with a violent industry might tarnish its image among a security-conscious clientele, has moved into the day care business. “Our staff has years of experience in caring for young children, and if you really think about it, day care is kidnapping, only with a more predictable revenue stream. Parents pay a fee at the beginning of the month and then at the end of each day that month, we give them their kids back.”

admin Financial Crisis

There are many reasons really. But tonight I love Costco because the twelve pack of Chap Stick I purchased for eight bucks contains the following flavors:
* Classic Original
* Classic Strawberry
* Classic Spearmint
* Classic Cherry
* Moisturizer
* Medicated

Questions:

(1) Where is the Classic Moisturizer Chap Stick? I mean the reason why they made the stuff in the first place was to moisturize your lips. You can’t get any more classic than that.

(2) How do the aforementioned classic flavors differ from their newfangled counterparts? (Do the updated flavors even exist?)

(3) Classic Original: If something is original, isn’t its classicness implied?

(4) And finally, what mathematical property can we use to simplify the first four names?

admin Random

Billybeam.com has teamed up with Kirk Cameron, the most trusted name in the evangelical Christian acting community, to lauch what we expect will become the most trusted name in afterlife credentialing: getrapturecertified.com. If you anticipate ascending to Heaven in the Rapture, take ten minutes and get Rapture Certified so you have the proof you need to pass through the Pearly Gates.

admin Rapture

If you’re like most Americans these days, you’re probably wondering, Will I be taken up in the Rapture?

Unfortunately, even for those who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, the answer may be no.

But I’ve prayed all my life, how could I possibly get left behind?

Well, biblical scholars disagree about how the Rapture will unfold. Will Jesus return to gather the believers? Will God do it Himself? Or will the task fall to the Angels? No one truly knows.

Since God and Jesus are infallible, if either of them descend to collect the faithful, your beliefs will be enough; Father and Son will immediately separate believers from non-believers. If God sends a bunch of Angels, however, you may have a problem. Angels aren’t omniscient. They make mistakes. And let’s face it; keeping tabs on hundreds of millions of souls is a data management nightmare that would strain even the most sophisticated enterprise. While Jesus can store all this information in his head, the Angels must employ some type of database solution, like Oracle or SAP. But computer software is notorious for being plagued with bugs, viruses, and just plain old incompatibility.

Do you really want to risk the horrors of the Tribulation to a software glitch? Clearly, your ascension to an afterlife of eternal peace is too important to leave to chance. That’s why I’ve created the Rapture Certification program, the only afterlife credentialing program guarantees your eternal salvation.

Through the Rapture Certification program, you can earn an authentic certificate that shows that you are a believer who must be saved during the Rapture. As genuine proof that you are ready for the Rapture, the Rapture Certificate will give you and your family peace of mind, knowing that when the Day of Days comes you will ascend to the Kingdom of Heaven.

To get Rapture certified, log on to getrapturecertified.com and complete the brief questionnaire. For the low, low price of $29.95, you will receive one official Rapture Certificate, printed on durable, fade resistant 8.5″ x 11″ bond paper, and a custom frame. When the Rapture comes, present your certificate to an Angel. He will verify its validity and send you immediately to Heaven.

I know what many of you are thinking. “I’m constantly on the road for work. What happens if the Rapture comes and I don’t have my Rapture Certificate with me?” Not to worry. I’ve also created the Rapture Certification Card. The Rapture Certification Card is a credit card-sized piece of durable polycarbonate plastic that fits right in your wallet. Because theologians have yet to establish whether the Angels will use a bar code reader or a magnetic stripe reader to check the validity of your Rapture Certification Card, I’ve equipped it with both a bar code and a magnetic stripe, so that you’re covered either way.

Of course, those of you who lead busy lives are justifiably concerned about the congestion that is bound to arise on Judgment Day when millions of souls will be clamoring to get through the Pearly Gates. If you can’t afford to spend all day waiting around, the Platinum Elite Card is for you. Incorporating the latest in RFID technology, the Platinum Elite Card is your E-ZPass to Heaven. With the Platinum Elite Card you’ll avoid the lines, the arguments, the awkward fumbling through your wallet. Order within the next thirty minutes and you’ll also receive this over-sized lapel pin absolutely free. Declaring “I’m Rapture Certified, Are You?”, this beautiful, handcrafted pin will allow you to proudly broadcast your righteousness for all the world to see.

All Rapture Certification products are nontransferable but make fantastic gifts. All come with full money back guarantees. If the Rapture comes and you are not taken up into Heaven, you may return any Rapture Certification product for a full refund of the purchase price, less a $3.95 shipping fee and a $4.95 re-stocking fee.

Are you Rapture certified? Can you afford not to be? Get Rapture certified today!

admin Rapture

By any standard a liberal would use to rate presidents, George W. Bush was the greatest of them all.

When liberals have wet dreams, those dreams invariably involve a big, strapping government. And government is at its biggest when it owns large sectors of the economy, like the financial and automotive industries. (”Bush Defends Government Ownership of Banks,” CNSNews.com, October 15, 2008.)

Being sodomites, liberals adore homos. Between 2000 and 2006 the number of gay couples in the United States increased 31 percent. (US Census)

Liberals often have erotic fantasies about taxing people. In 2008, Bush taxed the people forty percent more than Clinton taxed them in 1998. (Department of Labor)

Collecting tax revenues solely for the purpose of paying down the debt takes some–though not all!–of the fun out of high taxes. (The phrase is, after all, “tax and spend liberal.”) Bush spent all his extra tax money on government projects, an extra $800 billion in government spending in 2008 compared to 1998. (Department of Labor)

Being self-righteous do gooders, liberals love poor people. Today there are four million more poor people for liberals to love than in 2000. (US Census)

As moral degenerates, liberals would prefer all children be born out of wedlock. Between 1995 and 2005, the proportion of out of wedlock births increased fifteen percent. (Department of Health and Human Services)

Since liberals detest religion, they are ecstatic that the rate of church attendance declined five percent during Bush’s presidency. (Gallup)

Few things warm a liberal’s heart more than seeing violent criminals released from prison on technicalities. Toward the end of his administration, Bush released the most dangerous criminals ever captured by the United States, the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, on technicalities. (”5 at Guantanamo Ordered Released,” Washington Post, November 21, 2008)

What about the country’s new president, Barack Hussein Obama? Although some pundits expect “The Chosen One” to take Bush’s crown, the new president is little more than a figment of the media’s infatuation. Can Obama impoverish the wealthy? Can Obama change straight people into gay? Bush’s title as the Greatest Liberal President of All Time is safe for at least the next four years.

admin Bush

I can no longer bear the pain: I am directly responsible for a black man being elected president of the United States.

How could a Sixth Degree Exalted Wizard of the Aryan Supremacy have done something like this?  I assure you it wasn’t intentional.

Although I hate the liberals and their political correctness, I usually stay out of politics.  When the liberals said women should be paid the same as men, I said nothing.  When they shamed the Ku Klux Klan into banning the use of the N-word during rallies, I said nothing. But when the Democratic Party nominated an affirmative action candidate for president, I had to act.

But I didn’t know what to do.  Denouncing Obama by calling him the N-word would only have discredited me.  So I spent the summer of 2008 wracking my brain for a substitute slur.  By August, I had ruled out all manner of flora and fauna-related insults before arriving at an appellation almost as insulting as the N-word: antichrist.  I knew I had picked the ideal epithet, because, as a moderate Republican, McCain would have difficulty getting the fervently religious to support him.  If I could persuade the religious that Obama was indeed the antichrist, they would turn out to vote for McCain, if only to prevent Obama’s election.  In my dreams, I swung the election for McCain and went down in history as the cracker who stopped the black president.

So I read the Bible, did some research, and made up a bunch of stuff.  Before long I’d crafted a plausible-sounding, albeit fictitious, case that Obama was the antichrist.  In mid-August, I launched a website, wrote a blog, and posted videos to YouTube.  And you know what happened?  The idea exploded.  Millions of page views, invitations to speak at church gatherings, even groupies.  While Obama held a 42 – 39 lead in the polls during the summer, his lead started shrinking from virtually the day my website went live.  Three weeks later, on the day the site got more hits than ever before, the polls showed that McCain had overtaken Obama for the first time, building a 45 – 42 edge.  I had made millions afraid that the country might bring the antichrist to power.  With the election eight weeks away and McCain gaining two points a week, it looked like the contest would be a landslide.

But then something changed.  In the space of two weeks the polls flipped.  Obama went from three points back to six points ahead.  What had prompted this shift?  After some research, I learned of a church (www.afterlifeministries.org) that had spread a most wicked message.  This church supported the faith of believers who looked forward to the Rapture, the Day of Days when Jesus would descend and scoop them up into Heaven.  The head minister, this Denny Dale,  quoted the Bible to explain that in order for the Rapture to happen, the antichrist first had to take power by winning the hearts of men; he emphasized that Jesus would only return for the Rapture after the antichrist had assumed power, because only then would Jesus need to return to save the righteous.  The minister concluded that since Obama was the antichrist, his election was necessary to speed the Rapture; everyone who believed in the Rapture was therefore spiritually obligated to vote for Obama.

I tried to refute this thesis on my blog.  I was ignored.  Then I decided to confess that I had invented the whole Obama-is-the-antichrist ruse just to get people to vote against him.  My words remained powerless.  My former followers had turned on me, impressed by the logic of this minister and determined to vote for Obama because he was the antichrist.  Since words were failing me, I decided I had to act.  I had to destroy this church and shut down its website.  I rented a U-haul truck, filled it with two tons of dynamite, and drove forty straight hours from New York City to the Montana address that the church listed on its website.

I can describe, but there is no way that your mind could possibly process the despair–like seeing 1,000 black people graduate from college–I felt when I arrived at the address.  What I found was not a church but a factory–I quickly learned that no church ever existed.   The website had been a hoax perpetrated by some liberal designed to sucker Christians into voting for Obama.

I have posted this note on the door to the factory, up the street from where I have parked my truck.  When you find it, no one will be able to identify me, not even from my dental records.  I am a suicide bomber with only a single victim.

admin Antichrist

Former President George W. Bush announced today that he’s trading the bully pulpit for a high school lectern. The former president has accepted a job teaching civics at School of Life, where the only teachers are celebrities who have learned their subjects through life experience, not books.

“I’ve often inquired, ‘Is our children learning?’” the former president said before a small gathering of reporters outside his ranch in Crawford, Texas. “I was the education president. Now I’m going to be the education former president.”

A spokeswoman for Bush said he would begin teaching immediately, at the start of the winter term on February 8.

Bush joins an already strong faculty that includes home economics teacher of the year Britney Spears, chemistry department chair, Robert Downey, Jr., and biology teacher, Sarah Palin.

On a visit to the school yesterday, a reporter spoke with a group of teachers huddled outside on a smoke break. Acting teacher Jenna Jameson sounded optimistic about her new colleague, “He’s been president like ten years, right? He knows a lot of government.”

Mike Tyson, chairman of the English Department, also welcomed the hire, saying, “I like him. He fight dirty. He won’t let any of these kids fade into Bolivian.”

Music teacher William Hung said he was writing a song to welcome his new colleague. Initially reluctant to reveal the title, Hung eventually told a reporter, “It called, ‘He Bangs.’”

With that, Jameson giggled and said, “I hope so. He’s cute. I want to do a few scenes with him.”

Bush’s spokeswoman added that the former president anticipates a “seamless transition” to his new job, as the school recently hired former aides Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Jack Abramoff, Alberto Gonzales, and Karl Rove to teach ethics.

admin Bush

Thank you President Snootnose for that banal introduction.

As the pollster to presidents, pornographers, and paparazzi, I spend nearly ever waking moment crunching numbers, and so it was on my flight here this morning when I conducted a thorough analysis of today’s Geldpants graduates. I discovered that this class of young men and women is truly exceptional–exceptional for its average-ness. In fact, never before in the history of education has a college or university produced so average a class of graduates. All the students above average? Not at Arthur C. Geldpants College, Mr. Keillor.

Now, because you are so average, the advice I’ve culled from thirty years of polling research about average Americans applies exceptionally well to you. And, since you are quintessentially average Americans, you are preoccupied with the bottom line, which is why I have quantified the value of my advice in terms of time, money, and freedom.

Career advice

1. Statistically speaking, of today’s 2,332 graduates, precisely seventeen of you will become strippers, and it is for the future flesh flaunters among you that I offer my first nugget of wisdom. When you get impregnated by one of your customers, do not work past the eighth month. (If you really need the money, you can work up until one week before the due date, but that is the ABSOLUTE latest.) Surveys show that 93 percent of Mensa members who witness live births in strip clubs and are also members of ASPCA but are not obstetricians never return. This advice may not apply if your birthing plan calls for you to deliver the baby inside a striptease establishment. Check with your local 4-H club vice president. Lifetime value of this advice: $32,000.

2. Twelve point seven percent of male graduates who never got laid in college and were comparative lit majors with a GPA above 3.36, will be caught in some sort of an embezzling scandal involving a Boy Scout troop before their 43rd birthday. Get a good lawyer. Lifetime value of this advice: five to ten, and the hatred of terrorists everywhere.

3. Forty three point eight seven percent of today’s fine graduates will land jobs that require frequent travel. My recommendation is that you follow the example of Flava-Flav and get a grill. Replace all your teeth with silver implants to trigger the airport metal detectors. This will force the doctoral candidates, unemployed brain surgeons, and out-of-season chess champions working the TSA screening lanes to send you through the handicapped lane, where the average wait time is a mere 648 minutes, which is, of course, 648 minutes less than wait time in the regular lanes. Lifetime value of this advice: 95.63 days.

Social advice

1. For the male graduates, polls show that there is a 99 percent probability that at some point in your lives you will find yourselves in a lesbian bar. Do not get into a fight. Although the urge to engage in fisticuffs when surrounded by a group of lesbians can be irresistible, don’t do it; you might just get your ass kicked. Seriously. I once got into a fight at a lesbian bar. The fight spilled into a straight bar, then into a second lesbian bar and then into the United States Mint. Although I walked out with a fistful of crisp twenties, I also walked out with my other fist full of my own teeth. My suggestion: when cornered, say you’re gay. Lifetime value of this advice: denture-free living.

2. For the women, polls have shown that the only time it rains men is when you’re at a gay bar. Don’t believe me? Visit your friendly neighborhood watering hole for friends of Dorothy and see for yourself. Enough of these visits should establish a tipping point where the song, “It’s raining men,” is never again heard inside of a straight bar. Lifetime value of this advice: Priceless.

3. For men and women, fifty-three percent of all marriages end in divorce. Improve your odds of marital bliss by choosing your mate with a coin flip. Lifetime value of this advice: Your net worth multiplied by 0.03.

But be warned: diligent application of this advice might just lead you to become above average.

admin Random, Uncategorized

In his first interview since his son left office, former President George H.W. Bush admitted making a “grave and catastrophic” error in the parenting of his eldest son. The 41st president told Katie Couric that he had, in fact, encouraged George W. Bush to “be anything he wanted to be when he grew up.”

With tears streaming down his face, the elder Mr. Bush recounted how he and his wife Barbara knew early on that W. was “the dumb one. Little Georgie was just slow. Jeb and Neil, they were sharp, they could have been Harding-style presidents, not good, but not utter disasters either.” Gathering himself, Mr. Bush continued, “Like any good father, I told W he could be anything he wanted to be. The standard father-son speech.”

“But if you knew he was an idiot, why did you tell him he could be anything?” Ms. Couric asked.

“How could I have known he would want to be president?” Mr. Bush replied with a shrug of the shoulders.

“President seems like a natural career ambition. You were a congressman. Your father was a Senator.”

“But how could I have possibly foreseen that even if he wanted to be president that the American people wouldn’t have realized that, ‘Gee, he’s a nice guy, but he’s really, really dumb, he can’t be president.’”

Ms. Couric gave Mr. Bush a sympathetic nod before saying, “Still, you had to know the damage he could do, if he became president. When your son was a boy, it was the height of the Cold War. The stakes were so high then, higher even than today. How could you take that risk?”

Tears welled again in the former president’s eyes. He looked directly into the camera and appealed for forgiveness. “I know I made a grave and catastrophic error. I should never have encouraged him. Once I realized what I’d done, I tried to talk him out of it, but by then it was too late.  All I could do was vote for Gore, and later Kerry. America, I am so sorry.” With those words and a dazed expression, the former president stood and wandered off camera, effectively ending the interview.

admin Bush