WAR ENDS! PEACE RETURNS TO AMERICA

Our long national nightmare is finally over!

The bitter battle between Time Warner Cable and Fox News has ended and negotiations are currently underway to sign the instruments of peace. To be sure, there are myriad details to be worked out, but both sides have ceased hostilities and vow to honor the temporary truce cobbled together by Jimmy Carter, who had arranged for both sides to meet in Hawaii.

The peace process nearly collapsed when Fox favorite, Rush Limbaugh, fell ill and was hospitalized. Pres. Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and representatives of Time Warner were convinced by former-President Carter to meet delegates from Fox News in Limbaugh's hospital suite in a last-ditch effort to end the conflict.

Limbaugh, though slipping in and out of consciousness, courageously helped hammer out the articles of peace, doggedly determined that his voice should not be stifled due to idiosyncrasies of the free enterprise system.

Inklings of an armistice had only recently surfaced as the two warring juggernauts hurtled toward certain Armageddon with the specter of no NFL, no Sugar Bowl, no Bill O'Reilly, no American Idol, no Glenn Beck to be broadcast on Time Warner cable outlets, including Bright House Network of Bradenton. Area survivalists were already preparing for the worst, buying up every available set of rabbit ears in a three-state area. Internet web sites offered step-by-step instructions on how to build homemade television antennas out of old windshield wipers, a Scotch tape dispenser and a used pacemaker.

The Sarasota/Manatee Chapter of the All-American Tea Party had planned a massive demonstration scheduled for January 3rd, with the intended goal of bullying and intimidating Bright House Network into breaking away from Time Warner and forming a new Tea Party Network that would broadcast ONLY Fox News and Fox Sports. It is unclear at this time, however, if those plans have been abandoned now that peace is imminent or if it will go on as designed.

The news reached Bradenton just as the Sugar Bowl was being broadcast on Bright House, featuring the Florida Gators against some other team too lowly to even be identified in this report. When news anchors broke into the live feed to announce the joyous news of peace, Bright House offices were soon inundated by calls from irate fans, incensed that the network would have the blasphemous gall to interrupt a University of Florida football telecast.

Revelers flooded the streets of Sarasota in a spontaneous eruption of unbridled joy and celebration. The Sarasota Police Dept. estimated the crowd at around 150,000 throughout the downtown area, with the exception of Five Points Park, which is notorious for its transient and homeless population and long considered a death trap for anyone foolish enough to enter.

View of Sarasota from Gulfstream Blvd. looking toward the Rich Swier Memorial Bridge.

At one point, the celebration turned ugly and Sarasota law enforcement in full riot gear was forced to mount a full-scale rescue attempt of a health care worker, believed to be from Sarasota Memorial Hospital, from a vicious attack by an obviously-inebriated member of the famed rock group, The Village People. The woman, who requested anonymity for obvious reasons, later expressed concerns that she fears that she will mysteriously always be reminded of this most horrifying incident whenever she visits the Sarasota bayfront.

So, rest easy tonight, America. Peace is at hand. And while we may still have our men and women in harm's way in Iraq and Afghanistan, take comfort in the fact they are fighting for our God-given right to have this beamed into our living rooms every week from Fox: