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.”