BewilderedSociety.com

WASHINGTON — A new report issued by a bi-partisan Congressional commission warns that unless serious changes are made in the next few years, the United States of America could face a massive hyperbole shortage.

“This is quite possibly the worst news ever,” Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wa.) said Tuesday. Hastings is the chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, which held hearings on the shortage last month.

“Hyperboles are among our greatest assets in this nation,” Hastings added. “And we must fight to preserve them.”

The hyperbole shortage is a recent development; however, this is not the first time America has seen the incredibly important linguistic tool face trouble. During World War II hyperboles were reserved only for use in recruitment posters and war time speeches.

However, since the 1940s use of hyperboles among the public has soared by an estimated eleventy billion percent, meaning that almost every single statement made by Americans in 2008 (the last year data was available) was in some way a hyperbole.

Graphic by Ryan Smith

“We treat it like its something that going to be around forever,” Dr. Walter Hastings of the National Exaggeration Institute in Great Good Place, Del. “Like it was paper or clean water or something.”

The report, which ran, like, a million pages, explained how hyperboles have become overused and may soon become extinct due to massive overuse.

For example, every single day the United State Congress uses over 45 trillion hyperboles, a figure that does not even include outright lies. Furthermore, the robust advertising industry uses a hyperbole every single nanosecond of every single day.

“If we don’t stop this rampant use of hyperboles we may face a future where reality is the only reality we can talk about,” Dr. Hastings added.

While members of both the Republican and Democratic party agree the pending hyperbole shortage is the most important issue of our time and perhaps all times, they have different views on how the shortage should be handled. Democratic leaders, including Rep. Ed Markey (D-Ma.), the ranking Democrat on the committee on Natural Resources, suggested restricting the use of hyperboles, allowing only a certain number per person. Under Markey’s plan, advertisers would be able to by unused hyperboles from less hyperbole prone industries.

“This plan is by far the most original and thought-out plan in the history of Congress,” Rep. Jim Costa (D-Ca.) said. “It clearly is the only option we can consider.”

Republicans seemed unlikely to support the Markey plan.

“This just puts the government in the way of industry and consumers,” Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tx.) said late Tuesday. Gohmert added that, while he wouldn’t release the details of the Republican counter proposal, it would allow for unchecked hyperbole use and attempt to keep hyperbole costs low.

Possible Presidential Candidate Donald Trump offered up a solution of his own on a five hour interview with the Today show Yesterday.

“I look at Iraq and Afghanistan and I see all these hyperboles that they are not using,” the most important figure in real estate and commerce said. “I mean, things are hellish there. They don’t need hyperboles to describe the world around them, they don’t need to exaggerate, their world is already bad enough just by reality. We should take their unused hyperboles and return them to the United States, where they belong.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Hastings just hopes action is taken quickly.

“We could be facing the greatest disaster in American history,” he said. “This could be like if Katrina and Pearl Harbor had a baby on 9/11. This could demolish the very fabric of our great nation.”

The Atlantic features a short, yet revealing interview with actor Paul Marcarelli, better known to society as Verizon Wireless’ “Test Guy.”

Outed in the interview, he reviews a couple awkward and painful moments (hearing “Can you hear me now?” as his grandmother was lowered into her grave) in the course of his nearly 10-year stint as the face of “the network.”

Equally disgusting, he discloses an incident where the fear of bad PR silenced a voice known for being heard loud and clear:

Then there were the drive-bys. Marcarelli has a home in Guilford, Connecticut, and five summers ago, kids in an SUV began driving past at night, yelling, “Can you hear me now?” Later, says Marcarelli, “they started screaming ‘faggot’ up at my house. It got progressively more profane as the years went by.” One night, it happened while some friends were over, and he decided to call the police. “As soon as I hung up the phone,” he says, “I realized that in order for them to do anything about it, it would have to become a report that would go into a police log.” Worried about the publicity—and the questions that might ensue if it came out that the actor playing Test Man was gay—he declined to file a report.

Via Gawker

On Tuesday’s “The Colbert Report,” Stephen Colbert challenges Family Leader’s Bob Vander Plaats belief that same-sex marriage is as bad for you as second-hand smoke.

Keeping with Republicans promise to eliminate waste in the government, late Wednesday afternoon the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the 2012 national budget that would completely defund Congress if approved.

The 243-188 vote was largely among party lines, as Democrats rushed to defend funding of the United States’ entire legislative branch.

“Funding for Congress is both necessary and Constitutionally required,” Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said following the vote. “I don’t think this amendment will hold up upon further review.”

House Republicans, meanwhile, celebrated the victory as deficit hawks.

“We looked at the sources of our budget crisis and unnecessary spending, and we found a vast majority of those choices were made by the United States House of Representatives,” Majority Leader Eric Cantor said. “We were left with no choice but to strip Congress of its funding.”

The move was supported by most members of his party, most notably the tea party movement.

“This move helps out average, everyday Americans like you and me,” Rep. Michele Bachmann said. “Our founding fathers had no intention of Congress when they founded this country in Concord.”

Democrats, meanwhile, appear disturbed, upset and concerned over the cuts.

“We we are witnessing is the ‘Ron Paul-ing’ of our Government,” Sen. Charles Schumer said. “We are attacking every single piece of government with the idea that government is wasteful itself. Government is not wasteful. Wasteful government is wasteful.”

Others questioned the economic impact the bill would have.

“This bill will cost the American people jobs,” Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said. “And I’m not just talking about Congressmen, but their staffs, lobbyists, Congressional reporters, paid protestors and every single shady cigar bar in the Capitol is at risk with this bill. The economic footprint is huge.”

President Barack Obama has not yet made a public statement on the bill, however insiders at the White House have suggested that the President might be happier in a world where Congress did not exist.

” He seems surprisingly chipper,” an aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Wednesday night.

Should the bill pass into law, officials would gut The Capitol Building and convert it into a large strip mall with as many as five Starbucks locations and D.C.’s first Nordstrom Rack.

Leading members of the Republican Party have some harsh words for President Barack Obama following the revelation that he waited until midday Sunday to adjust the clocks in the White House for Daylight Saving Time.

“President Obama chose to enjoy a long brunch with Michelle and his two daughters before adjusting the clocks in the White House,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney revealed Tuesday. “This is simply a distraction from the other much more pressing issues facing the nation right now.”

Members of the Republican leadership disagreed with Carney’s assessment, however.

“We are trying to balance the budget and get our country back on track,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said. “And the President of the United States doesn’t even know what time it is.”

President Barack Obama enjoys a plate of waffles rather than adjusting his clocks.

Others tried to link their criticism of Obama’s handling of the Daylight Saving Time swtich to past criticisms they had of his handling of the office of President.

“The President failed to answer the 2 a.m. wake up call,” Fox News contributer Sarah Palin said on the network Tuesday. “I mean, you can’t just adjust the clocks before you go out for flapjacks? Come on.”

The harshest words for the President may have come from his Republican opponent in the 2008 election, Arizona Senator John McCain.

“Like all good Americans, Cindy and I changed over our clocks at two Sunday morning,” McCain said. “I find it hard to believe that the leader of the free world does not have someone who can change the clocks for him.”

When confronted about the fact that Arizona does not observe Daylight Saving Time, McCain said that they changed the clocks in their houses to show solidarity with other hard working Americans in states where it is observed.

Many other voices from the Republican party have chimed in on the issue, including Michele Bachmann who erroriously suggested that the atomic clock in Washington was blinking “12:00″ for several hours during the weekend. The national atomic clock, known as NIST-F1, is actually located in Bolder Colorado, and will neither gain nor lose a second in nearly 60 million years.

Obama did change the clocks shortly after returning from a long brunch and what the president called a “considerable jog” with First Dog Bo around the White House lawn. Only one clock remained unchanged late Monday; A Nixon-era clock in the Queen’s Bedroom has not ticked in nearly two decades.

Citing “an over abundance of caution,” officials said Vice President Joe Biden was expected to complete his testing of batteries in the White House’s 1,028 smoke detectors late Tuesday.

A solution to the messy traffic situation at Indianapolis’ Allisonville Road and I-465 interchange will make situations worse before they get better.

A Indiana Department of Transportation study suggests closing cross-traffic on Allisonville for seven months to expedite construction, indystar.com reports.

The closure will give way to the ultimate solution, a DNA-looking traffic flow known as a “single-point urban interchange.” See the Star’s rendering here.