UPDATE: Strike Canceled, BART and ATU Reach Tentative Deal

BART Board Resolves to Resurrect Reagan if ATU Strikes
By: Justin Bagnall, "Associated Press"

SAN FRANCISCO, CA. August 16, 2009- The nine-member BART Board of Directors met overnight on Saturday to discuss possible options in the event of a strike by the Amalgamated Transit Union on Monday. Following hours of heated debate, the Board voted unanimously to resurrect former President and Governor of California, Ronald Reagan.

“The Board unanimously agrees that the 900-member ATU is using hostile negotiation tactics tantamount to holding the entire San Francisco Bay Area hostage,” BART Chief Spokesperson Linda Patterson said in a press conference this morning, “We need someone with enough political clout and sense to set them straight.”

The vote by the Board reflects a controversial 1981 decision by Reagan to fire over 11,000 air traffic controllers who went on strike for better work conditions, better pay, and 32 hour work week. The late-late Reagan declared the strike a “peril to national safety” and ordered the striking union members to return to work, or forfeit their jobs. Two days into the strike 1,300 controllers returned to work while the remaining strikers received the axe.

The ATU is threatening to strike over a unanimous decision by the Board to impose a new contract which namely forces union members to contribute 7% of their paychecks to their own pension plans. The ATU has come under criticism for making demands during an economic recession which has left hundreds of thousands unemployed and without benefits. The California Government, Board, and ATU have all undergone scorn from bitter Bay Area residents, of which nearly 340,000 commute on BART every day.

“Disrupting public transportation is what terrorists do,” remarked Ryan Boss from San Francisco, who takes BART five days a week to his job in Daly City, “everyone from top to bottom is to blame for this fiasco.”

Members of the California Government, which has been viewed as utterly insolvent, inept, inefficient, and without testicles, praised the decision reached by the Board in a statement released this morning: “We are proud at the audacious decision made by the Board of Supervisors to literally bring new life into the Bay Area and California. We stand by the Board in their efforts to shift their responsibilities to the resurrected Golden Son of California. We all look up to the former Governor for his ability to do things that we could never do. Frankly, those gonads are exactly what we’ve been without.”

The Governor’s Office also released a statement inviting the reanimated Reagan to speak personally with the Governor about the California’s economic woes. “The former President and Gov. Schwarzenegger have much in common, like their careers in Hollywood and their elections in one of the most liberal states of our country. The Governor looks forward to discussing the pressing economic issues with the former President before he returns to the grave.”
The decision has also been well-received by members of religious organizations who have previously condemned mortal efforts to bring the dead back to life. “If it was anyone else, it would be an act of the devil, the sheer will of Satan himself, but because it’s Reagan, well, it’s more like a second coming, if anything,” Oakland Reverend Morris Benchman said.

Critics have responded to the decision by pointing out that the condition of the former President’s remains are unknown and may be unable to withstand the forced reentry of Reagan’s spirit. Critics have also alleged that Reagan’s memory may not all be intact, considering his long fight with Alzheimer’s prior to his death in 2004. “The decision to raise Reagan from the dead is well-intended, however the haste taken to reach the consensus overlooks problems regarding both the quality of Ronald Reagan’s former body as well as his mental capacities. It would be an embarrassment for an old bag of mumbling bones to be roaming through Sacramento, but then again, that’s the California State Legislature as it is,” UC Berkeley Political Science Professor Thurgood Ottinger remarked.

Board Consultants have suggested in overnight burial in Colma’s Pet’s Rest Cemetery and Crematorium due to lack of funding to hire a professional witchdoctor.

AP 8-16-09

Maybe just for fun... try that alternate transit plan! Who knows, you might just like casual carpooling, AC Transit Transbay service, or the ferries.

Dang, well there go my plans for tomorrow morning....
Kicking back sipping my coffee and thinking 'At least I don't have to deal with that mess' as I watched the chaos on the news.