WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said The U.S. Constitution is out-of-date, so he is ripping it up and writing a new one.

President Barack Obama told reporters last night that the U.S. Constitution has become a hindrance to progress in America.  “The document is so out-dated, that it is now becoming a hindrance to governing the country.”

Obama said that he has signed an Executive Order voiding the U.S. Constitution.  “We need to move forward.  We need change.”

Obama said he has already drafted a new constitution and that Americans “will love what I came up with.”   Insiders say that Obama is keeping a lot of old elements from the original constitution “he’s just making it better, bringing it into the 21st century,” said White House Spokesman, Jay Carney.

Many Democrats said that President Obama was a constitutional scholar and probably the only President – since the Founding Fathers – who is qualified to change the Constitution.

“President Obama knows more about the Constitution than  any man who has ever lived,” said Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi.  “It’s about time we changed that document and we are lucky to have President Obama to do it.”

Republicans, of course, were outraged that Obama would even consider changing the constitution, and they vowed to fight.   “We will fight this to the bitter end,” said Speaker of the House, John Boehner, “there’s no way we are going to let the Constitution of the United States be altered even a little bit.   If there are changes to be made to the Constitution it should be done the appropriate way – through amendments and we think Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor are the ones to make any changes.”

Insiders say the new Constitution will look a lot like the constitutions of Kenya, France and Soviet Russia.

There are many, many changes in the New U.S. Constitution, but here are a few of the highlights.

1) SUPREME COURT – Will now have 11 members, which reflects the growing U.S. population. President Obama will appoint two new members immediately.  The President can name a new justice without needing the approval of Congress.

2) EXECUTIVE FINANCIAL POWER – The President will have the power to unilaterally enact any financial policy he chooses, without approval of Congress.  He must inform them, but they will not “stop” him (or her) from promoting their agenda.

3) LOBBYISTS – They will now be outlawed. There will be no more lobbyists in Washington.  However, there are some exemptions outlined in the New Constitution” :  Trial Lawyers, National Education Association and unions.  They will all be able to lobby.

4) REPRESENTATION – California, New York and Illinois will double the number of representatives in Congress – permanently.  “The President feels that the smartest people in the country live in these states, so they should be over-represented,” said Jay Carney.

5) GUNS & RELIGION – Both will be banned in the United States.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Post Office is bankrupt and will be closing for good on December 3, 2001.

The United States Postal Service is so low on cash that it won’t be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and will, therefore, have to shut down.

The last day of mail delivery will be Saturday, December 3rd, 2011.  “There’s no way we can handle the holiday rush this year, we can barely handle a normal delivery day,” said a Post Office insider.

The Obama Administration feel that the shut down will save money and they do not feel that Americans will miss their mail.  “Most Americans get everything they need in email.  And most Americans only get bills in the mail.  So if we cut out the post office, we will save Americans on bills,” said White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney.

 The postmaster general, Patrick R. Donahoe, said in an interview with WWN.  “Americans don’t need any more catalogues.  We could ask Congress to bail us out, but what’s the point.  We had a good run.”

Recently, Mr. Donahoe was pushing for eliminating Saturday mail delivery, closing up to 3,700 postal locations and laying off 120,000 workers — nearly one-fifth of the agency’s work force — despite a no-layoffs clause in the unions’ contracts.

But, Donahoe feels closing up the whole Post Office system is better. “We should let the private sector handle the mail.  They do a better job anyway.”

Missing the $5.5 billion payment due on Sept. 30, intended to finance retirees’ future health care, won’t cause immediate disaster. But sometime early next year, the agency will run out of money to pay its employees and gas up its trucks, officials warn, forcing it to stop delivering the roughly three billion pieces of mail it handles weekly.

Mail volume has plummeted with the rise of e-mail, electronic bill-paying and a Web that makes everything from fashion catalogs to news instantly available. The system will handle an estimated 167 billion pieces of mail this fiscal year, down 22 percent from five years ago.

It’s difficult to imagine that trend reversing, so better to “chop the chicken’s head off now,” said Donahoe.

Ben Franklin is rolling over in his grave…

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Pornography in America is nothing new – it was just as rampant in Colonial times, historians reveal!

Our Founding Fathers amused themselves with smutty books and there was a big market in sexy paintings, sketches and engravings.

“There’s just been more attention paid to pornography nowadays because it’s more open,” declared Dr. John Potter.

Even Benjamin Franklin didn’t spend all his time flying kites – he was a passionate womanizer and an avid porn collector.

“We have all his smut here,” said an employee at the Library Company in Philadelphia, a rare book library that Franklin founded in 1731.

Archaeology students digging under historical buildings in Philadelphia have found pornographic objects left by early colonists, according to Dr. Potter, a museum curator emeritus. He says they dug up a pipe smoker’s tobacco tamper with two figures carved on it under Carpenter’s Hall, where the First Continental Congress met.

“It was a man and a woman in what you would call a compromising position,” the curator recalled.

Digging under Independence Hall, where the Liberty Bell hands, students discovered an X-rated wooden carving. And an obscene bottle stopper was found at another site.

Among the racy books read by early Americans were Aristotle’s Master Pie, a humorous sex guide; Fanny Hill, a tale of a woman’s sexual romps in 18th-century England; and a guidebook to Philadelphia’s brothels called Gay Houses and Ladies of Pleasure in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection.

The tradition of April Fools day, or playing pranks to celebrate the beginning of spring, goes back for hundreds of years.  Read on for a history of this mischievous holiday.

The Iranian New Year is the oldest holiday still celebrated which falls on roughly April 1st.  The New Year is celebrated by throwing goats in a river and betting on where they will swim out.  Then the irritated wet goats are herded into the homes of loved ones as a joke.

Roman generals recorded observing Druids who, on April 1st, would take several tourists who had been lured to an inn under the promise of “hot young singles from your area” and place them inside a large wicker man, which was then set on fire.  The Roman government began using a similar tactic to trick people into paying their taxes at the beginning of spring.

When the Roman Julian calendar was replaced with the Gregorian calendar by Papal edict in 1582, the “April fools” still going by the old calendar could be seen sowing crops on April 1st.

In 1687 Sir Isaac Newton gave an advance copy of his Principia Mathematica to friends and relatives which was blank except for the words “God did it.”

Without doubt the American founding father of April Fools Day was Benjamin Franklin, who did more to cement the day as an American institution than any other man.

In the 1775 Continental Congress, Franklin convinced delegates from Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina that the meetings would be strictly “Pants Optional” affairs.  He was known to give entire public speeches on the first wearing an ostentatious fake moustache.  During his work as Ambassador to France, he would routinely meet members of French government with a duck on his head.  Franklin would swear it was the solemn custom of the new Americas, until the official also agreed to conduct business wearing a duck.  Tales of his exploits were published in the Philadelphia Gazette on April 1st of every year.

Since Franklin, April 1st has been synonymous in America for a day of practical jokes and general mischief.  Such as the April 1st, 1975 broadcast of The Muppet Show in which Jim Henson staged an all Muppet production of A Streetcar Named Desire, featuring Kermit the Frog as Stanley and Miss Piggy as Blanche.

Weekly World News wishes all of our readers a safe and fun April Fools Day.

]]> http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/7261/april-fools-day-history/feed/ 4 Reginald Cunningham III april_fools_benjamin_franklin http://weeklyworldnews.com/opinion/ed-anger/6968/ed-anger-says-glenn-beck-is-crazier-than-i-am/ http://weeklyworldnews.com/opinion/ed-anger/6968/ed-anger-says-glenn-beck-is-crazier-than-i-am/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:32:07 +0000 Ed Anger http://weeklyworldnews.com/?p=6968 ]]>

I’m madder than a diabetic in a Dairy Queen at that Glenn Beck guy!

I’ve been America’s angriest right wing pundit since Bush was a bean sprout. But now this Glenn Beck guy comes along and gets rich imitating ME!

OK, Glenn Beck doesn’t copy me exactly. He’s a Mormon, first off, and that’s a make believe church like Amway, except Mormons don’t try to sell you dish soap. And he quit drinking years ago, although damned if you’d notice any.

Glenn Beck has this new idea on his TV show. I’m all for tanning the Government’s hide and waving the Stars & Stripes, don’t get me wrong.

But Beck’s notion is pretty hard to follow. Seems you gotta chop up a cobra, throw in some tea bags, and divide it by Seven Dwarves. Then the music goes “woosh!” and stuff spins around and there’s a big “kaboom.” We all hold hands and cry. The End.

Beck quotes Benjamin Franklin a lot these days. Stuff like, “Rattlesnakes’ rattles don’t rattle if you battle with the rattle!” Well, old Ben Franklin used to say a lotta things, like, “Crazy naked party at my place!” (That man spent way too much time in France for my liking…)

First and last time I saw Glenn Beck was at the big goodbye “do” at the White House for “W”. Beck was too busy sucking up all the crab dip to say much, so for all I know the boy’s in his right mind and just a little funny looking.

Glenn, you gotta stop that crying, son! Join a real church, maybe start drinking again. And if you ever need a break from TV, call me and I’ll sit in for you – no charge!

1752: Early Draft of Franklin Autobiography Reveals Shocking Secret

As recounted in his memoirs, Benjamin Franklin flew a kite during a storm to prove that lightning was, in fact, electricity. A key was attached to the kite and, when it was struck by a bolt from above, the Founding Father saw it light up, thus proving his theory.

However, in a newly uncovered first draft of his autobiography, Franklin recounts how he also experienced a short-lived but strange side effect from the experiment.

“When I touched my wife Deborah afterward, white sparks did fly off me, shocking her,” he wrote. “Our cat almost hit the ceiling when I went to pet her. I thought, for a moment, John Adams had come to visit — but it was my electric touch that did cause it. No doubt ’tis short-lived.”

However, Franklin’s condition was even more extreme than he thought.

“The next day I was debating the question of independence with my fellow Philadelphians,” said Franklin. “I became very agitated, and when I threw up my hands in disgust bolts of electricity flew out of them, striking a tree and dislodging a branch not far from Mr. John Hancock.”

Intrigued, Franklin waved his arms again, shooting more crackling energy around the green.

“While the question of independence was not decided right then, I was able to ‘convince’ my fellow congressmen to personally liberate themselves from my presence.”

After a week Franklin’s electric powers soon faded. However, his experience taught him a great deal about the nature of energy, and inspired him to invent the lightning rod, which protects ships and houses from electrical damage.

“I was quite a lightning rod myself with the missus,” he concluded in the excised passage.