Bringing you the
South on a plate 

“without a schedule, without remorse, without a street address”

Bob Cotten

Publisher, Editor -In- Chief

          The Earnest Herald admits that everything it publishes is purely fabricated. This puts us on same plane as the more expensive major newspapers of our time because they are no more relaxed about the truth than we are. Save money and subscribe to the Herald today.

New Tax Relief Measures
Brought Before the House

           WASHINGTON, D.C. --- Sensing widespread public dissatisfaction with current federal tax policy, lawmakers on Tuesday decided to consider ways to simplfy America’s current tax burden.
          The chief proposal is called “Pre-Emptive Revenue Capture.” Under the plan, all persons born in the United States would be assigned a “full life” tax obligation --- a dollar amount of anticipated federal tax that would be paid in a typical person’s lifetime, based on actuarial tables and adjusted for inflation. The tax would start when the taxpayer is born and would be paid monthly until the person dies.
          House members acknowlege that no newborn “person or persons” can generate income available for being taxed, so other people will have to pay the child’s taxes until he, she or they get a job.
          That way the government will have am immediate, predictible revenue stream on which to plan the anuual Federal Budget more efficiently.
The tax would start as soon as any portion of the person emerges from the birth canal, thus allowing those whose births may become prolonged to pay their “fair share” regardless of the time it takes for the entire person to fully emerge.
          Another proposal, similar to the one described above, is a lifetime tax on gasoline which would start at midnight on the applicable birthday of all driver license applicants, pro-rated to adjust for inflation, which all drivers would pay monthly, regardless of miles driven.
          “We know how much the average American dives in a lifetime,” said Sidney Derringer, (R-OK), “so this would do away with onerous taxes at the pump and just allow citizens to pay a flat rate every month.”
          People who do not own a car and never drive will also have to pay the monthly tax, just “to make it fair,” said Derringer.
          “We’re in this thing together,” he said. “This is not some kind of ‘you’re on your own’ deal.”
 

Here's the Earnest truth:

            If you get off the interstate at the first exit after the pecan orchard and go right at the bottom of the ramp and just follow that road about two miles on up, you’ll be in Earnest. Ferrell’s gas station is on your right and Linda Chiswell’s Cafe is on your left. If it’s anywhere close to lunchtime, we recommend the countrysytle buffet. They have the best iced tea in town. And the best chicken fried pork chops. And, lord, yes, the banana pudding!

A Cheaper Alternative is
Found for Accupuncture
by Caroline Sweeney, Contributing Writer

          Doctor Webley Malthouse, of 31 Clairmont Street in Thurmond, says he has perfected a method to eliminate chronic pain which mimics accupuncture but which is more affordable for the average person.
          “I named it ‘approxi-puncture’,” says Doctor Malthouse, “it’s not accurate but you get stuck more. An inch or so one way or the other, what’s the big deal? Bottom line --- we stick you and it’s cheap.”
          Approxi-puncture is based partly on the theory that a new pain in one part of the body can relieve symptoms of an old pain somewhere else and also partly on the power of suggestion.
“If you tell some guy he’s going to miss the corner pocket in a game of nine-ball, chances are almost even that he will. So if I tell him he’s going to quit smoking when I jab him full of pins, who knows, maybe he’ll quit. And if he doesn’t, well it hasn’t cost him an arm and a leg and he won’t run around after me with a cue stick.”
          Doctor Malthouse explained that his treatment is for people who can not afford true accupuncture.
“If I had to spend all day poking around for the exact right place to stick you it would cost you a fortune,” he said. “Plus I use regular sewing needles which are only 99 cents a dozen at the closeout store.”
          Doctor Webley Malthouse changed his name to “Doctor” from Frank Webley Malthouse nine years ago when he gave up his aluminum siding business in Cletus.
          Office hours 9 to4. Walk-ins welcome.

Naked Man Arrested After Frightening the Neighbors

         Hadley Ferris, 77, of 240 Oakview Place, was taken into custody Wednesday afternoon for appearing nude at the front doors of at least six homeowners in the Wheat Hills subdivision. He claimed he had been directed by the Prophet Elijah to tell people the world was going to end next Thursday and that he needed to get their attention by not wearing clothes.
          “He succeeded,” said Sheriff Wayne Fawcett.
Ferris, who had been released last year from the State Hospital at Burchfield was returned there for evaluation.
          “They probably won’t keep him,” said the sheriff, “I think he got excited and forgot to take his pills and went loco.”
          “I told him, ‘Hadley, you know you’re crazy and I know you’re crazy and that’s fine as long as it’s between you and me and Doc Haynes over at the hospital. But don’t go inviting the public in on our little agreement by scaring people. You do that and I got no choice but to pick you up’.”
          The sheriff said he planned to get Mr. Ferris some part-time janitorial work at the office as soon at he was able to leave Burchfield and that he had changed his mind about the end of the world.
          Charges of trespass and indecent exposure by two of the Wheat Hills neighbors have been dropped, the sheriff said.

If you prefer reading it on paper,
why not print your copy of
The Earnest Herald
Each page of the paper should print as two pages
or one and a half pages. You may also go to “Print” then “Setup” then “Effects” and re-size to print a reduced-size version.

Candidates Reveal Income
in “Transparency” Move

           Republican and Democrat presidential hopefuls yesterday released their income statements, stressing their committment to the “struggling middle class” and to “the working man” and to the “little guy” and to the “people who are even littler than the little guy” and to “people who need root canals” and “to people left out of the American Dream” and to “those being gouged by big oil” and to “those with past-due library fines” and to several other abjectly miserable but voter-rich constituencies seething with envy and suffering from man-made global warming
          Sen. Bilbo McReedy earned thirty million dollars last week at what he claims was a “bake sale”, adding to his ten billion dollars earned in 2007 doing PR work for pharmaceutical firms which he has pledged to eliminate if elected.
          Sen. Wilhelmina Kyser paid tax on forty million dollars which she said was “legally” earned shorting pork belly futures and selling calls on copper and raw lumber from the Finnish Commodities Exchange. Her records indicate that she also raked in another hundred and ten million dollars by shorting the Indonesian Rial and the British Pound.
          Meanwhile, Sen. Jay Birkenkool, earned the equivalent of the Canadian, Peruvian and Estonian gross national products combined through sales of his book: “Evangelistic Bolshevism” and another 44 million dollars for a speech he gave at a church picnic.
          McReedy told reporters he would “clean up Washington” but he was not able to locate it on a map when asked. He then chided the press for “asking a trick question.”
          Kyser said she felt the pain of people who were “barely able to make ends meet” but said the governemnt would confiscate any income they make over $40,000 “because they don’t need that much and it’s not fair.”
          irkenkool said that another twenty nine million dollars he made last July was “earned fair and square” selling autographed Bibles on Ebay.

 Tree Falls on House, Man

           A huge limb from a 300-year old white oak tree, fell Saturday onto the Park Road home of Tucker Nelson, after being chainsawed by brothers Clyde and Bartholomew Hodges, owners of Hodges Brothers Tree Service. The front porch and part of a sunroom were damaged.
          Clyde Hodges, who was holding a guide rope on the ground, received cuts and bruises when the limb grazed him on the way down. Bartholomew Hodges, who was up in the tree and actually rode the limb down when it fell, was knocked unconscious. He received additional cuts and bruises after Clyde Hodges attacked him with a shovel.

More Science News
You Can Use

         Scientist from the National Institutes of Health, working with researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and funded by Move-On.Org., will co-publish an article to appear synchronously in next month’s Scientistic American and National Geostatic Magazines, proving that the origin of Global Warming was the Frankfurt School.
The Frankfurt School was the first real “college” to study what later would become the American hot-dog --- a food known to have a carbon footprint just slightly smaller than red beans and rice, but higher than chicken liver couscous, depending on whether raw onions are used as a topping on any of the items.