TEHRAN (Reuters) – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday told Iran’s Prophets Television (IPTV) to start broadcasting Iran’s version of Wonka Vision across Tehran.  Wonka Vision enables viewers to literally enter their television sets. 

This technology is extremely popular among Tehrans clerics and religious leaders who hope to broadcast television shows of a heavenly paradise filled with an infinite set of 72 virgins to go around, such that the masses can then proceed directly to heaven through their wide screen TV’s imported from China.

Many in Tehran have taken to the streets this week to protest that only rich Iranians will be able to afford Wonka Vision, leaving the poor on Earth to fend for themselves after all the rich leaders have gone on to a new realm.

Most G8 leaders have expressed their doubts that Iran really has achieved a working version of Wonka vision.  Press Secretary William Gibbs from the United States stated, “As much as we would love to see our friends in Iran disappear into a television set, we just don’t think they really have this technology.  They’re really just braggarts and blowhards.”

Israel has been remarkably quiet.  Rumors have been flying over the last 24 hours that top scientists in Israel are actually working to funnel Wonka Vision technology to Iran secretly through double agent scientists in Pakistan.  Israel is currently the only country in the world that has both the capability to transmit a person into and out of a television set.  All other countries have only been able to send viewers into their sets, where they remain stuck forever.

I see Oompa Loompas by GoodToGoTees
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Property of the Oompa Loompa Army by stefrosa
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Have you ever asked your child a question too many times?

My three-year-old son had a lot of problems with potty training and I was on him constantly. One day we stopped at Taco Bell for a quick lunch in between errands. It was very busy, with a full dining room.

While enjoying my taco, I smelled something funny, so of course I checked my seven-month-old daughter, and she was clean. Then I realized that Danny had not asked to go potty in a while, so I asked him if he needed to go, and he said "No." I kept thinking, "Oh Lord, that child has had an accident, and I don’t have any clothes with me."

Then I said, "Danny, are you SURE you didn’t have an accident?"

"No," he replied.

I just KNEW that he must have had an accident, because the smell was getting worse. Soooooo! I asked one more time, "Danny, did you have an accident?"

This time he jumped up, yanked down his pants, bent over and spread his cheeks and yelled, "SEE MOM, IT’S JUST FARTS!!"

While 30 people nearly choked to death on their tacos laughing, he calmly pulled up his pants and sat down. An old couple made me feel better by thanking me for the best laugh they’d ever had!

Republicans are getting all worked up over the party to end all parties, its the 2010 Tea Bagger Ball in Memphis Tennessee!

Of course, they are not the only ones interested in this party!  Democrats, Independents, and even the remaining Libertarians with a sense of humor that haven’t gotten sucked   into the Tea Bag blow out can’t wait for the ultimate smack down in Tea Bag jokes.

The more socially conservative, conservatives were appalled last year to learn that the fun founding father catch phrases that worked 240 years ago in politics had taken on a very sexual connotation in the present.  Even though many of those same socially conservative, conservatives are the SAME ones that give regular good ol’ boy conservatives a bad name by fornicating with any thing with a fornication button regardless of sex and religion while demonizing how bad that is for everyone else to do out of the other side of any remaining open orifice, they were none-the less surprise to find out that tea bags today can also refer to TESTICLES!

Fun Factoid! Did you know that both Tea Bags and Testicles hang around like limp sacks, not doing much of anything unless you pull on their string up and down a little bit?

Yup, it is true, so knock yourself out!

So if you have $500 for a plate of dinner, a $250 hotel room in Memphis and some twisted morals that you don’t let your congregation know too much about, head on down to the Tea Baggers Ball!

Got Tea Bags? by ViralGrapeWrath

Got Tea Bags? by ViralGrapeWrath

Don’t Teabag Me, BroT-Shirt by ClarityRules

I’m not anti-Republican, just anti-BONEHEAD by noyoudidnt

Fuk’d News Mug by ClarityRules

A fantastic and amazing winter poem has recently been unearthed by a truly talented poet, a poet that could rival the skills of Shakespeare or in the American genre Whitman.  There is even a scant sense of rye humor that hearkens back to great commentators and writers and humorists like Mark Twain or Bill Cosby.

Here is that Amazing poem recently sent to myself in the form of a viral email.

‘ WINTER ‘
by Abigail Elizabeth McIntyre

Crap….It’s Cold

The End

The world’s largest (formerly) living snake was found dead in a large drained water complex in Brazil.  The snake measure over 50 feet long.  You may feel that it is now safe to venture back into the Amazon, but investigators found fragments of a snake skin (incomplete) that they suspect may have measured close to 70 feet.  It could be the mate of this dead snake.

You get sparks, some police brutality, a fearless yet restrained family of the victim in the ambulance, a lawsuit against the police officer and maybe the state and unemployment goes up in Oklahoma by 1 person.

On the monthly anniversary of the passing of WWII hero Darrell Shifty Powers, who was in all of the Band of Brothers episodes portrayed by Peter Youngblood Hills, I received an email that looked like one of those viral scams, but the email in fact is legitimate in content. 

"I could hear bullets and shrapnel hitting the plane. As I jumped out the door, I could see that the left motor was on fire." – Darrell Shifty Powers talking about jumping over Normandy, France, on D-Day.

Many, many of you have sent me notice that Shifty Powers of the heroic Easy Company, 2-506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division, died on June 17th.  I had no idea that he had passed on.  I have written here a lot about Easy Company and even have an autographed photo (Bill Guarnere) on my desk of the jump into Holland (Market Garden).

If you use GoogleNews (any combo of Darrell and/or Shifty Powers), there are less then ten notices of his death.  There are less than four articles about his passing on from "old media" news agencies.

Quite frankly, this is an affront to a genuinely good man.  Shifty Powers received two Bronze Stars and a CIB and fought in every campaign that Easy Company was in.  He was severely injured on his way home in a truck accident (the irony is that the men of Easy rigged the lottery to go home so Shifty would be first, but he ended up being one of the last to get home after an extensive hospitalization).

This email has gone viral about Shifty:

We’re hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services.

I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell "Shifty" Powers.

Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Infantry. If you’ve seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them.

I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn’t know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the right gate, and noticed the "Screaming Eagle", the symbol of the 101st Airborne, on his hat.

Making conversation, I asked him if he’d been in the 101st Airborne or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the 101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served, and how many jumps he made.

Quietly and humbly, he said "Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so, and was in until sometime in 1945 . . . " at which point my heart skipped.

At that point, again, very humbly, he said "I made the 5 training jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know where Normandy is?" At this point my heart stopped.

I told him yes, I know exactly where Normandy was, and I know what D-Day was. At that point he said "I also made a second jump into Holland, into Arnhem." I was standing with a genuine war hero . . . . and then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of D-Day.

I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France, and he said "Yes. And it’s real sad because these days so few of the guys are left, and those that are, lots of them can’t make the trip." My heart was in my throat and I didn’t know what to say.

I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in Coach, while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. When Shifty came forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have it, that I’d take his in coach.

He said "No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy." His eyes were filling up as he said it. And mine are brimming up now as I write this.

Shifty died on June 17 after fighting cancer.

There was no parade.

No big event in Staples Center.

No wall to wall back to back 24×7 news coverage.

No weeping fans on television.

And that’s not right.

Let’s give Shifty his own Memorial Service, online, in our own quiet way. Please forward this email to everyone you know. Especially to the veterans.

Rest in peace, Shifty.

"A nation without heroes is nothing." – Roberto Clemente
Thank you,
Doug Corrigan
PC / Business Process & Systems Management
Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.
Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx
Fax: xxx-xxx-xxxx
email: doug.corrigan@xxxxxxxxx

Authors Note on the topic of Darrell ‘Shifty’ Powers

I can not speak to whether or not the authenticity of the author is real yet, but the sentiment in the email is valid.  I have removed the authors phone and email addresses from this post, but did want to help increase the spread of this particular message.  We joke here at ViralGrapeVine about just about anything, and usually the wrong things at that. We have the luxury of doing that because veterans like Darrell helped secure our freedoms.  I am a veteran myself of the first Gulf War but my own story is of almost insignificant consequence compared to Darrell Powers with one small exception.

Just because a hero succeeds or survives or accomplishes something so great, it doesn’t mean the rest of us should stop trying.  I joined the service during the build up to the Persian Gulf War.  I was not drafted, did not need to join or anything like that.  I’m not a warmonger nor do I have many romantic notions about war or the military.  Members of my family have fought in almost every war that our country has been involved in since before the country was a country.  Yet, there was no family call for me to join, no wrong headed pursuit of family honor or anything.  In fact, many, possibly a majority of the veterans I spoke with in my family before I joined counseled me NOT to join the military.  I was dumb and lucky and things worked out fine for me. 

I also did not shy away from doing something (the dumb part) but I did it knowing the risks, knowing the potential consequences of my actions and more, some might equate that with courage.  My point is that even as I write this article on a site that is mostly egregiously poor satire, I do that to help protect the boundaries of my speech, trying to keep it free, and usually only just barely jogging myself out of writers block so that I may write somewhere else.

We can celebrate Darrell ‘Shifty’ Powers in a national memorial, but putting his statue up on a physical pedestal is not really what this is about.  So if you pass on this email, if you have passed it on already or if you do anything to help promote this effort, remember that your efforts will be largely wasted if you personally are not doing something, anything everyday to also protect our freedoms.  You can worship a hero all you like, but if you don’t make even small heroic steps yourself, then your worship of said hero is hollow & baseless. 

It’s called CurseBird and NO they do not have an affiliate program.  So you can go and curse them out on Twitter all you like, its probably not going to make your tweets have any more impact than they don’t already!

Washington DC almost ground to a halt this week as Congress and President Obama railed against the injustice of AIG paying $165 million in bonuses to employees as allowed by the legislation that Congress and President Obama had signed.

“Its not fair.  We didn’t read that trillion dollar bailout legislation.  How were we supposed to know there was a ‘previous contracts safe harbor clause’ in the bill as requested by the Treasury Department?” bemoaned both Democrat and Republican Congress people in both the House and the Senate.

Fortunately, Congress and the President were almost literally saved from themselves by a rising star in the economic advisory team of the Obama administration, who was just recently paroled from a prison sentence for not carrying the proper identification at a DC hospital.  Under Secretary of Economic Stimulus, Relief, Recovery and Credit Card Debt Elimination Nhat Shooeur has proposed a solution that seems to have finally put this problem to rest.  Under Shooeur’s plan the government will institute a new tax on bonus earnings.

The legislation is on a fast track in the Senate and in the House, and the President has already indicated that he will sign this bill in a heart beat.

“Hand it to me now, I’ll sign it and we can all read it next week.” stated President Obama, “There is no time to waste.  We have to get our country back on track, and we can’t do it without this last $165 million.  Let’s face it we’re broke if we don’t.”

The legislation is seen as simple, elegant and unprecedented.  It would impose a tax of 100% on any bonus or contract payment received by a person or entity from a company, person or entity that has received any bailout money from the United States Government in the last 5 years.  Note the 5 year term qualifies the bailout money, but the tax can only be levied against money received after the bill goes into law, which is currently slated for one minute after midnight on March 31, 2009.

Under this example, AIG would qualify as a bailout receiving entity.  So would most of the airline industry, and the auto industry.  Any employee or contracting company that receives a bonus or contractual payment from those qualifying companies would then have to pay a tax of 100% on those funds.

Critics of the legislation claim that this legislation could enable the government to impose a 100% tax on any American or company that has received a stimulus payment from the United States government.  That is actually a very large number of Americans as stimulus payments were initially sent out under the Bush Administration multiple times.

Press Secretary Gibbs said today that the critics must belong to some evil cabal trying to discredit the finances of the United States.  “Hello, We’re richer than Fort Knox!  Hell we own Fort Knox.”  A savvy reporter did follow up asking, “Is it true that the Chinese government holds a mortgage against Fort Knox?” To Which Gibbs replied, “Phhhhht!  You don’t think we care about the Chinese do you?  I’m out of here.  Time to head back to the Oval office and work on the new green burning fuel project that we have cooking up.  We’re smoking marijuana wrapped in hundred dollar bills.”