GERMANS DECRY CELEBRATION OF THIRD REICH

GERMANS DECRY CELEBRATION OF THIRD REICH

Berlin April 21, 2010 (AP). A recent attempt by an extreme nationalist organization to celebrate the Third Reich has met with downright horror here as well as threats of criminal prosecution. Prime Minister Angela Merkel said, “I can’t believe anyone would propose celebrating the Third Reich. It was a treasonous conspiracy based on racial domination that set off a terrible war on our own soil and brought us to our knees. We do not wish to celebrate a treasonous brutal war that we lost. It’s as ridiculous as some American state celebrating the Confederacy, if you can imagine such a thing.”

SEC SUES LIONS EXECS

Detroit April 19, 2010(AP). Revelations that executives of the Detroit Lions have been selling the Lions won-loss record short for several years has brought a suit by the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that the executives “built a team designed to fail.”

The case, filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, alleges a complex construct of options and swaps all relating to the Lions performance in the NFL. An options product called the “Lions Victory Index” is at the heart of the alleged fraud. A new insurance-like product from AIG (Aiiiee, Gevalt) called “Loss Swaps” guarantees the success of the index shares. According to the complaint, the fraud began “as soon as Mr. Ford’s senility and incompetence became apparent. The swaps provide windfall profits as the Lions lose. The more they lose, the higher the market price of the swaps. You do the math.”

An attorney for Chairman William Clay Ford Sr. said “Mr. Ford is shocked. He will comment personally on the charges as soon as he can find his office.” Reading from a book called “Boilerplate Denials for Busy Attorneys,” he said, “We deny any fraud or wrong doing and we are confident that the Lions will prevail ultimately (not on the field, mind you because then we’d all go broke) and we will have a detailed statement as soon as we figure out what the hell happened.”

In other news, Massachusetts Republicans have nominated a prominent health-care executive as their candidate for Governor. Several people close to the nomination process, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being laughed at, said, “The idea was to get a health care lobbyist in public office, thereby eliminating the middle-man.”

APOCRYPHAL PRESS NEWS ROUNDUP

TEXANS BELIEVE PEOPLE COEXISTED WITH DINOSAURS

Austin, TX. In a dispatch dated February 17 headlined “Meet the Flintstones,” The Texas Tribune reported that “Nearly a third of Texans believe humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and more than half disagree with the theory that humans developed from earlier species of animals, according to the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.”

Many of the poll’s respondents said they had actually visited the natural history museum and given names to the dinosaurs, including Rush, Glenn, Sarah, Newt, and Frist. Some also honored neo-dinosaurs, Mitt, Rudy, and Lieberman.

Torrance, California. The Times reports that “James E. Lentz III, the president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., said today that Toyota's huge recall might “not totally” solve the problem of unintended sudden acceleration in some of its vehicles. Mr. Lentz made the statement in a phone call from his Avalon stuck on a pedestrian overpass on the San Diego Freeway. Investigators said the auto had barely avoided a crash with a DC-9 taking off from San Diego International Airport. They said Mr. Lentz was saved because his car was going faster than the plane.

Vancouver, B.C. Canada. A spokesman for the Winter Olympics denied today that the events Men’s Super Combined and Men’s Half Pipe had anything to do with gay sex or crack smoking.

APOCRYPHAL PRESS TIMES HEADLINE ROUNDUP

DUELING METAPHORS DEPARTMENT:
Tea Party Lights Fuse for Rebellion on Right

OVERDONE METAPHORS DEPARTMENT:
Democrats Reel as Senator Says No to 3rd Term

MISLEADING HEADLINE DEPARTMENT:
Secret Joint Raid Captures Taliban’s Top Commander has nothing to do with marijuana cigarettes or bong hits.

REAL HEADLINES WITH IMAGINED SUBHEADS:
1. White House Invites Congressional Leaders to Summit
New Obama Aide, Pied Piper, To Push Them Off

2. Pope Urges Irish Bishops to Confront Sex Abuse
Bishops Demur, Prefer Looking Other Way While Screwing Choirboys

SAME STORY, A DIFFERENT EDITION:
Pope Meets Irish Clergy to Discuss Clergy Abuse
Clergy: “If choirboys abuse us, we forgive them.”

HEADLINES MEANT TO BE UNDERSTOOD ONLY BY INSIDERS:
1. Heavy Snow Postpones Men’s Super Combined
2. After the Cohen Debacle, a Chance to Show Skill

APOCRYPHAL PRESS NEWS OF THE DAY

President Obama is calling for a three-year freeze on spending for many domestic programs but is expected to ignore the advice of former Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) who was convicted after ninety-five thousand dollars in cash was found in his freezer.

U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, sent two cables to the State Department saying that Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, is not an adequate strategic partner and that Eikenberry is worried about conspiratorial efforts to undermine U.S. influence. Washington said it would use the Kabul cabal cables to cobble together a new policy statement.

The Times reports that many colleges and universities, including such highly regarded institutions as the University of Minnesota and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are sending out pre-printed applications to potential applicants to file without the usual application fee or essay. They resemble so-called “pre-approved” credit card applications, although neither actually guarantees approval. Both were created by the same advertising guru. According to Marx Karlson, dean of admissions and lunchroom supervisor at Loyola College of I-696 whose motto is “Eruditio gratia pecuniae,” “we think it’s undemocratic to reject out-of-hand those who can’t write well enough to fill out an application or write an essay. We believe in the government agencies who lend tuition to these worthy, if untutored, applicants that do our screening for us.”

The Times reports that Tea Party disputes are taking a toll on the upcoming convention that is expected to include an address by Sarah Palin for which she is reportedly to be paid one hundred thousand dollars. The loudest Tea Party dispute involves the scones faction and the cucumber sandwich faction.

In business news, The American Wind Energy Association, in its annual report to be released on Tuesday, said that wind power grew 39% last year, “and that’s even before Senate debate began on the health care bill.”

In sports, the man who today threw his shoe at Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and missed was identified as Bret Favre.

MEDICAL NEWS: PHYSICIANS CITE LITIGATION AS CAUSE OF ERROR

New York, January 24, 2010(AP). The New York Times reports today that people are dying or sustaining permanent injury from radiation sickness because of the failure of doctors and hospitals to detect computer errors, missing filters, software flaws, faulty programming, poor safety procedures or inadequate staffing and training. The American Medico-Apologists’ Association (AMAA), says that these unfortunate deaths and injuries, along with ninety thousand preventable deaths from hospital-induced infections each year, are the result of malpractice suits and demonstrate the urgent need for tort reform now being pressed by Republicans in Congress.

Dr. Heathcote E. Bradbury, a radiologist at God Have Mercy on Us Hospital and spokesman for the AMAA said today, “Physicians are so frightened that process servers bearing malpractice papers lurk under every hospital bed and in the dark corners of operating rooms that their hands tremble and their minds aren’t free to do their work in a competent fashion. Until tort reform frees us from this plague of warranted criticism, we will continue to kill patients by accident. There will be a holocaust of mammoth proportions. In plain English, we will make mistakes until you stop suing us.”

In another medical development, scientists at Pfizer have produced experimental data suggesting that the effectiveness of medications is in direct proportion to their cost. In one experiment, Pfizer raised the price of Bacteria-Be-Gone (BBG), its new full-spectrum antibiotic, once each month and found that BBG’s effectiveness went up accordingly. Pfizer then raised the prices on all its prescription drugs by ten per cent and called it “a life-saving stratagem.”