SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- This year, the San Narciso County Chamber of Commerce is pleased to present the community’s first annual Haunted House Spooktacular, which will be admitting guests at 6:00 p.m. in the Lake Inverarity Social Hall. Tickets can be purchased at the door or on the venue’s website. According to event organizer Francis Baldhamer, “If you can’t afford to have the pants scared off of you, don’t wear any!”

Baldhamer also advised parents to exercise caution when bringing along children under the age of 12: “Because of some creepy thematic elements and frightening scenes, younger kids could be very upset.”

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- The San Narciso Police Department is expected to be busy this Halloween enforcing citywide modesty bans on attire. Cross-dressing, wearing blackface, sexual innuendo, and anthropomorphization are a few of the behaviors that could result in fines or even prison time. “This is just another PC overreaction meant to punish the local business man,” complained Harold Paratestiez, owner of Harry’s Haunted Halloween Haberdashery and A.B.M.A.and L. “First, I was required to sell martial aids by prescription only. Then, I was told I could only advertise my store by acronym, not its actual name. Now this? I got into the All Hallows trade as a transition to a more family oriented business. This was going to be the first year we sold the Irwin Mainway line of children’s costumes.”

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Given the current state of the nation’s economic woes and rampant unemployment rates, analysts have given a lot of consideration lately to what’s being called “the rise of the machines.” It’s not a new concept, attempting to automate worker functions to optimize processes. But in an era dominated by outsourcing jobs to foreign markets and finding ways to increase profits by using machines instead of human labor, continued efforts to mechanize the United States have met with renewed criticism. And love them or hate them, even TSA agents are feeling the brunt. A number of airports around the country have rolled out Explosive Trace Portals (ETPs), commonly known as “puffers.” But 2012 GOP presidential candidate F. Chester Greene called the machines pointless. He told reporters that he has a plan in place to put the “human” back in “human resources,” without compromising safety.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- A turf war between rival motorcycle gangs that erupted outside an area Starbucks has left several men dead, authorities say. Last year in Northern California, a similar territorial dispute broke out between the Hells Angels and Vagos motorcycle clubs, stirring fears of more bloodshed as key members from each gang went missing in three different states. That incident was ranked by state law enforcement as the most severe clash of biker groups in nearly a decade. Thursday’s brawl, however, surpassed the Hells Angels-Vagos fracas in terms of body count, even though San Narciso Police dismissed theories that the feuds were related. Said SNPD spokesperson Ren Williams, “Apart from taking place outside a Starbucks -- which is virtually impossible to avoid in any city nowadays -- there’s no correlation between the two events. Also, the role of Starbucks in the 2010 massacre was coincidental. Here, it was the catalyst.”

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- In learning of Mike Wallace’s amazing catch during Sunday’s game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals, which wowed fans across the country, our reporters could describe the spectacle only as a show stopping display of athleticism and surrealism. Halfway through the second quarter, with Pittsburgh repelled to its own five-yard line, Ben Roethlisberger fell back into his own end zone and hurled a deep pass to Wallace on the right sideline. Wallace, the 93-year-old former anchor of CBS staple “60 Minutes,” apparently caught the ball near the 40-yard mark and effortlessly sprinted up the sideline for a touchdown. Wallace ran over 95 yards, and Pittsburgh went on to win 32-20. When members of The Bennington Vale Evening Transcript asked CBS executives for their take on Mike Wallace’s presence in the game, they seemed puzzled and appalled. Sending the geriatric newsman into the game was a decision they chided as a “dangerous stunt.” Wallace’s age, struggles with health and complete inexperience as a professional athlete placed the journalism icon in a perilous position.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- According to entertainment sources Tuesday, down-and-out starlet Lindsay Lohan was spotted entering a Beverly Hills mansion, reportedly the site of a risque photo shoot. Insiders later verified that the secretive gig was for a nude pictorial to appear in a future issue of Playboy. One reporter specializing in celebrity goings-on stated that Lohan was indeed prepared to flash more than just her sallow teeth and bloodshot peepers: “She’s not getting any acting work, and there’s no way she can keep up with her soaring bail amounts. Her father was also arrested today, so the family’s coffers are going to be drained faster than a 40-ounce Pabst within reach of Lindsay’s coke crusted fingernails. Hefner’s people have been approaching her since she did that Herbie film. This was inevitable.”

Photo courtesy Irrational Games

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- The Federal Housing Finance Agency introduced new rules Monday to provide underwater homeowners the opportunity to refinance their mortgages at lower rates through the federal Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). The agency estimates that nearly a million homeowners could take advantage of the program by the end of 2013. To date, HARP has helped only a fraction of the people it was designed to assist, partly because the homeowners seeking to refinance have been denied by the banks. The banks themselves are under no obligation to refinance mortgages worth less than the value of the properties. By easing eligibility rules, the Obama administration hopes to remedy the situation. But GOP candidate Herman Cain attacked the program immediately, saying, “Have we all gone nuts? Houses underwater? When we first started talking about a housing bubble, I didn’t think we literally meant a big ole air bubble in the briny deep. We’re trying to lower taxes and enforce accountability for irresponsible financial decisions. What message are we sending when we bail out the near-sighted owners of submarine properties? It’s okay to fail up? Well, it ain’t. It’s not our fault they didn’t build houses on land.”

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Representatives of Family Stations issued a public apology Friday evening to the families of eight college students after admitting that an embarrassed and disgruntled Harold Camping attacked them with his cane in Golden Gate Park. Although the precise details of the assault remain sketchy, authorities claim that Camping had requested to be taken to the area to assess the Lord’s loving and merciful slaughter of sinners, as well as His progress in sucking the souls of the pious back to Heaven.

“What Mr. Camping found,” one officer on scene described, “was a group of over 20 college students face down on the lawn. He must have believed that his rapture had begun. When he realized that he’d happened upon an elaborate display of planking, he just went nuts. At this time, we are placing Mr. Camping on a 72-hour mental health hold. None of the students were seriously injured, and no one’s pressing any charges at this time.”

(c) 2011. See disclaimers.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Family Stations’ End Time prophet, Harold Camping, has been unusually silent since his May 21 rapture prediction failed to materialize in the terrifying manner he envisioned. At that time, he rationalized the anticlimactic event as a “spiritual rapture,” in which sinners were placed on God’s naughty list while those slated for salvation were duly noted on His nice list. “More than ‘thy rod and thy staff,’ it seems that the Lord operates more bureaucratically,” said a spokesperson for Family Stations. “I guess you could look at it more from the perspective of ‘thy clipboard and thy form in triplicate.’ God may not play dice, as they say, but it seems that He’s a stickler for lists, process optimization and organizational best practices.”

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Muammar Gaddafi, the ruthless and erratic dictator of Libya, was killed Thursday as rebels overtook his stronghold in Sirte, a former fishing village and Gaddafi’s hometown. He was 69. Gaddafi, wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of ordering the killing of civilians, was toppled by rebel forces on August 23, just a week prior to the anniversary of the 1969 coup that placed him in power. Senior officials in the interim government hailed Gaddafi’s death as paving the way toward “liberation” after eight months of war. Despite public celebrations throughout Libya, however, uncertainty lingers. Accounts of the particulars of Gaddafi’s death seem confused, the future of Libya’s oil exports remain ambiguous, and nobody can agree on the official spelling of Gaddafi’s name. As such, the interim government has issued a global Request for Proposal to select a winning bidder to design the fallen leader’s headstone, with a standardized spelling of his name.

Police sketch of suspect

MIAMI, Fla. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- According to Reuters, residents in the cities of Plantation and Sunrise awoke to widespread damage on Wednesday morning. Area homeowners reported that their rooftops had been torn apart, their trees uprooted and the grounds near their properties littered with hurled furniture, lumber and debris. No deaths or serious injuries occurred, but about 25 homes were damaged, some of them severely. As noted by Reuters, one Plantation resident told local WSVN Channel 7 News, “We heard something, it sounded like howling at first. It came and some kind of debris hit our garage first. Basically, a two by four went through our door here.”

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Disney darling Selena Gomez was granted a restraining order Wednesday by a Los Angeles Superior Court against a 46-year-old man who exhibited “obsessive, harassing and threatening” behavior, and who spoke of harboring thoughts of killing the 19-year-old celebrity. Last month, police placed the suspect on a 72-hour mental health hold after he threatened to harm fans gathered outside Disney television studios by scratching out their eyes and driving ice picks into their eardrums. At that time, the man had described his intentions to authorities as “acts of mercy.”

Photo courtesy of GETTY

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Determining the origins of Earth’s oceans have puzzled scientists for ages. Because of the intense heat present after the planet’s creation, water would quickly have evaporated, making life unsustainable. For that reason, scientists generally placed the emergence of oceans around eight million years later. The question of where the water came from, however, remained a mystery. But astronomers now claim to have located a comet with the same chemical composition as the Earth’s oceans, proving that celestial bodies were a major source of water for early Earth. “It means it is not true any more that a maximum of 10 percent of water could have come from comets,” the lead astronomer in the study explained. “Now, in principle, all the water could have come from comets.”

Interestingly, the news captured the attention of presidential candidate Rick Perry, who said the findings demonstrated a clear link between the “very little we know about science” and the “preponderance of what we know to be true about Genesis. If we want to fix the world’s problems through science, let’s do it the way God did.”

NEW YORK, N.Y. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- The otherwise peaceful demonstrations occurring in New York’s Zuccotti Park, intended to protest the corruption and greed of the Wall Street financial systems that led to the collapse of the U.S. economy, took a decidedly darker turn Friday when Occupy Wall Street organizers unveiled a large guillotine flying a French flag. The basket at the foot of the beheading device was decorated with a picture of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

But the insinuation of violence from the image of the guillotine led to physical violence, which culminated in the arrest of three protesters. According to authorities, a female executive from Goldman Sachs attempted to address a contingent of Occupy Wall Street supporters to better understand their complaints. When three unemployed, middle class homeowners informed her that they could no longer put bread on their tables, the executive replied, “Look around you, there are bakeries everywhere. If you can’t find bread, why don’t you eat cake?” The protesters attacked instantly. The woman’s injuries were not life threatening.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Local business owner Adam Truman was admitted to San Narciso Regional Medical Center’s ICU Wednesday night with multiple broken bones and severe trauma. Truman, owner of Black Talon Engineering, recently made headlines with his introduction of the LapetOS, an embedded operating system that uses artificial intelligence to significantly improve the endurance of batteries in both consumer and industrial applications. Witnesses testified that Truman was attacked outside a political campaign mixer.

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- A U.S. citizen pleaded guilty on Monday to insulting Thailand’s monarchy, an offense that carries a criminal penalty of up to 15 years. The suspect has called on Washington to help release him, citing the need to support his freedom of expression. Similar to North Korea, the people of Thailand regard their ruler, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, as practically divine. The country boasts one of the world’s toughest laws on lese-majeste, or insulting the monarchy. The man in question, whose name is being withheld from the press by request of the U.S. Department of State, was charged with using the Internet to disseminate inflammatory rhetoric, criticisms, and information that was deemed insulting and threatening to the monarchy. “I pled guilty because no one can win the case,” the man told reporters. “I have no chance. I want the American government to help release me. This is a case of freedom of expression.”

MIAMI, Fla. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Police in Miami have released a sketch of a suspect wanted for questioning in the case of a local model found burned inside a trash bin. The 26-year-old African American model was found last month; police used dental records to identify her. The sketch was based on the accounts of several witnesses who saw a strangely dressed man with the model after she became separated from her boyfriend in one of the area’s crowded night clubs. Shortly after the picture was released to the media, tipsters began flooding police hotlines with details on the mystery man’s identity.

A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office released this statement early Tuesday: “We first want to thank all the concerned citizens in the community for your outpouring of support and invaluable information -- especially the children, for whom this must have been particularly difficult. But we can now say with certainty that the costumed crime-fighter known as Mystery Man is our prime suspect in this case. All other persons of interest have been cleared of suspicion at this time.” On the heels of the highly publicized arrest of Seattle’s crime fighter, Phoenix Jones, this news comes a powerful shock to costumed adventurers, their fans, Miami residents and police.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Today, many U.S. citizens will observe the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas, a voyage that concluded on October 12, 1492. The holiday has been celebrated unofficially since the late 18th century, and officially in various areas since the early 20th century. In San Narciso County, the annual Columbus Day reenactment ceremonies have given the local economy a strong boost from an influx of Southern Californians who gather at Kinneret’s Battersea Field to enjoy a variety of beverages, delicacies, and the “Integration of the Indigenous Peoples” commemoration. This year, however, Mayor Manny DiPresso has increased security after receiving word that a group of demonstrators plans to protest the ceremony. GOP candidate F. Chester Greene, surprisingly, also urged the mayor’s office to call off the event.

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Not one to shy away from controversial public statements and championing the conservative agenda, even to uncomfortable degrees within the ranks of his own party, F. Chester Greene on Friday mysteriously filed charges with the California State Attorney General’s office that accused President Barack Obama of killing Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Attorney General Kamala Harris could not be reached for comment, but her representatives said they had paid little attention to the complaint submitted by Greene.

BRIEF EDITORIAL -- Steve Jobs, the creative force behind Apple, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 56. His visionary approach to shaping our future was, unfortunately, all too rare a thing. His imagination and passion will be sorely missed. As my close friend and fellow BVET writer Michael Livingston said, "iSad." It wasn't meant as a joke or a slight, just a friendly way to remember an amazing legacy.

DELHI, India (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- India launched what it deemed the world’s most inexpensive tablet computer Wednesday. The Aakash, which means “sky” in Hindi, will be sold at a subsidized price of $35 to students and later in stores for $60. Most of the country’s 1.2 billion people live in poverty. Products such as Google’s Chromebook and Apple’s iPad remain far out of reach for the average consumer. “The rich have access to the digital world, the poor and ordinary have been excluded. Aakash will end that digital divide,” Telecoms and Education Minister Kapil Sibal said.

Interestingly, India, one of the world’s most successful outsourcers of cheap technology labor, admitted itself to offshoring the production of Aakash in order to keep the costs low. “To achieve our goal of creating a full service computing device at this price, we realized that we had to find cheaper resources,” Sibal added. “Manufacturing of Aakash takes place in Greece, where we purchased a warehouse and two thousand workers for about 400 euros. Also, technical support will be provided by call centers located in the United States, where the minimum wage is much more affordable.”

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Sociologists from San Narciso’s Poeslaw Institute for Social Research and Development (PISRAD) released a disturbing report on Tuesday that exposed new evidence of a sexual relationship between Ayn Rand, the progenitor of Objectivism, and Alan Greenspan, the American economist who served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve between 1987 and 2006. The study, a joint effort between PISRAD and Professor Regis Ketamine’s sociology team at San Narciso College, includes newly discovered entries from Greenspan’s journals. Janus Heuchler, the director of PISRAD, explained that the journal excerpts were found pressed between the pages of an old diary belonging to Rand, which went on auction last Wednesday. Heuchler described himself as elated with the find, but the more reserved Ketamine warned of distressing ramifications nationwide: “If Alan Greenspan screwed Ayn Rand and America, then we’ve all slept with Ayn Rand. That’s not something to be taken lightly.”

SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Now that wizened “60 Minutes” essayist Andy Rooney has retired, producers of the long-running television news magazine are desperately seeking out a new curmudgeon to fill the vacant slot. Rooney, 92, became one of the most prominent observers of the mundane and pedestrian, as well as an expert purveyor of platitudes. Throughout the course of his career, Rooney made millions of dollars speculating on the origins of naval lint, complaining about the unreliability of shoelace aglets, and wondering where the sun went each night around dusk. Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corporation, said that his network pioneered the requirement that every editorial news program on TV have a dedicated curmudgeon to wrap up the show.

“60 Minutes has enjoyed a place in American homes since 1968 when it was created by Don Hewitt,” Moonves remarked. “We championed the idea that hard hitting investigative journalism and revealing interviews should be tempered by the gripes of a whiny old man. We set the precedent. CNN has Jack Cafferty, the Washington Times has Andrew Breitbart, ABC had Paul Harvey, and the Muppets had Statler and Waldorf. We need another Andy Rooney before we get left behind in the dust we first kicked up.”