The Lint Screen

Tag: Joe six-pack

  • Watson Releases Tax Return

    Accountant reviews Watson's tax return.
    After weeks of speculations about his incredible wealth and accusations of being elite, nonhuman presidential candidate super duper computer, Watson, today released his income tax returns.

    The 11,318 page tax return showed that the brainiac binary box had income of $636,864,321.90 in 2010 and paid an effective tax rate of 1.246%. A fraction of Watson’s income was earned playing Jeopardy, but a large portion came from playing slot machines in Las Vegas, winning various bar bets, tapping into the Federal Reserve’s computer system and “being lucky enough to find money on the street.”

    “This should put to bed for once and for all the fact that my candidate is out of touch with the American people because he is a computer and fabulously wealthy,” said Watson campaign spokesman, C. Wendall Snooty Airs, IV.

    “Watson is just like the common working man or woman. He’s Joe Six Pack, Larry Lunchpail, Carl Commoner all wrapped into one. He works hard, pays his fair share of taxes and wants to live the American dream. Elect Watson president and you’ll see, America– he’s one of us! Now then, who here in the press corps would like to repair to the bar for a snifter of Courvoisier L’Esprit and a relaxing Cohiba Behike?”

  • It’s Official: Facebook Toppled Mubarak!

    The media has won its war on pushing the narrative that social media was responsible for the toppling of the 30 year rule of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.

    “It was a long, tough battle,” said an anonymous source with a large news organization, “but we think we were finally able to sell this idea of the power of Facebook to the public. Even though less than 20% of Egypt has internet access, we’ve been able to promote the incredible power of social media. This is very important to new organizations like ours because more and more we want to rely on the public for our news-gathering, reporting and opinion pieces. Crowdsourcing is simply a much more affordable way for us to run our news operations. We’re using a lot more social commentary for our content for one simple reason: Joe six-pack and Jane goatskin-of-Boone’s-Farm-wine work a lot cheaper than expensive liberal arts-educated journalists with their fancy cargo pants and no-iron shirts.”

    While the news organization official admits that poverty, oppression and high unemployment were factors in the Egyptian revolution, those age-old societal problems did not fit with the ‘21st century social media-as-the-new-power‘ narrative being promoted by major news outlets.

    “Look– hunger, poverty, oppressive government and hopelessness are timeless sparks to incite revolution. They’re like the greatest hits of revolt in history, but there’s no news angle there. We needed some pazazz! Now, you add in the influence of Facebook, and well, sir, you’ve got yourself a bonfire of news appeal because everyone’s on Facebook and they want to feel good about the fact they spend countless hours every day posting pictures of kittens or kids or love poems to their morning coffee. Hey, we all want to believe that the same tool that helps us share cute moments of life can be used to “LIKE” a revolution and topple a corrupt leader! That’s the power of the social network and a successful news narrative that drives down operating costs. “