NEWS ROUNDUP

Antitrust Case. According to a New York Times report today, filings in the antitrust case on price fixing e-books laid out their defense against “the government’s charges that publishers had conspired in e-mails, telephone conversations and over lavish dinners in Manhattan restaurants.”

Assistant attorney general Lavish MacTavish said, “Sinful, Lucullan, hedonistic dinners, especially in Manhattan, are a known indicator of collusive price fixing. Had they met over franks and fries at Nathan’s or cream cheese on date-nut bread at Chock Full O Nuts, this whole thing might have been settled immediately. We thank the fearless journalists at the Times for letting the public know that book executives are self-indulgent sybarites and will surely go to Hell.”

Defense Of Marriage Act Called Unconstitutional. A federal appeals court in Boston ruled today that the law denying federal benefits to married gay couples is unconstitutional. An appeal to the Supreme Court is believed certain.

A government attorney called the head of the gay rights group and laughingly told him, “conservative justices will eat you alive,” to which the gay spokesman replied, “Fine by me. All five of them, or can I just pick Roberts?”

Name Changes Denied. The FDA denied a request by the Corn Refiners Association to change the name “high fructose corn syrup” to “corn sugar,” because “sugar” means solid or crystalline. Then they denied a request to change “boneless chicken wings” to “manufactured chickenoid product containing poultry meat and a ton of other crap” because most Americans would fall asleep before reading the entire name.

And the NRA’s request to change its name to “National Protection Association,” was denied the patent and trade mark office because of a strong protest by the Mafia that it would violate its copyright