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.”

REV. AL SHARPOON OBJECTS TO AP STORY BELOW (click here to read earlier story)

The Lightly Reverend Mr. Al Sharpoon held a press conference today accusing the Apocryphal Press and other critics of O.J. Simpson’s social etiquette of racial bias. “I’m sick and tired of this O. J. Simpson case and how people keep accusing him of murder an American jury found him not guilty of and some racist violation of white people’s etiquette. It’s well known by the Hitlers in the D.A.’s office that Mr. Simpson was a victim of a plot by his ex-wife to embarrass him by framing him for her murder and she almost succeeded.”

When Mr. Sharpoon was reminded that after he was found guilty by an American jury of defamation and ordered to pay damages he said, “Juries can be wrong. I've stood by what I believe. Juries are proven wrong every day. Maybe I didn’t say that. How do you know? If you believe bad things about me you are a racist and a Nazi.”

Mr. Sharpoon then announced he would take questions only from those reporters present who actually believed him and the room quickly emptied, ending the press conference.

OBAMA PARTY CRASHERS BREACHED ETIQUETTE, TIMES SAYS (click headline for story)

An article today in the fashion section of the Times points out that when a Washington couple crashed President Obama’s party, they not only highlighted security lapses but “trampled countless protocols that are the social, business and networking bedrock of official Washington.”

This charge prompted an Apocryphal Press investigation into other such “tramplings” that uncovered these protocol faux pas that the 9/11 hijackers were not only improperly dressed for a weekday morning event in lower Manhattan but failed to say “please” and “thank you” when forcing their way into the cockpit, O. J. Simpson selected the wrong carving knife to use on his ex-wife, and Jeffrey Dahmer held his knife and fork in the wrong hands when eating his victims and even gulped white wine instead of sipping a fruity Bordeaux such as 2005 Chateau Mouton Rothschild.

According to society protocol authority Litigia Ballsitch* these breaches demonstrate a “boorishness that far exceeds the brutality of these offenders.” She recommends that in future rude violent felons be sentenced to finishing school. Ms. Ballsitch added “A lifted pinky is a sign of gentility in the most homicidal of men.”

In a related story, an NFL spokesperson said “Our latest research shows that after effects of concussions can be reduced in severity by on-the-spot apologies, especially if the inflictor of the injuries forgot to say “please” before tackling his victim. The research also shows that if the victim says “after you my good fellow” before he knocks his block off, the injuries will heal more quickly.”
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* Litigia Ballsitch is not connected in any way with Jacqueline Kennedy’s White House social secretary, Letitia Baldridge.

CARS TO RUN ON OLD CLOTHES

[An op ed in the Times warns against raising the permissible ethanol content of gasoline]

The Garment District, New York City November 28, 2009AP). The United States Department of Agriculture announced today a program to subsidize development of an automobile fuel made from gasoline and shredded old clothing, to be called “shmatanol.” Preliminary studies have shown that a “rich fuel” mixture of one part Dacron polyester and three parts 87 octane gasoline would be as efficient as the gasoline alone. This mixture would be called “25% rag content shmatanol.”

The developer, Gregor Grossman of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, said the idea came to him when he tried on a pair of his old Dacron bell-bottoms and a stray cigar ash burned a hole in them. “The material just disappeared,” he said. “Nothing burns cleaner or quicker than polyester.”

Vintage clothing shops, movie costume departments, and affluent former hippies are hurrying to incorporate and offer their shares to the public. Financial analysts guessed that the recently announced Salvation Army IPO could result in record sales.

On his radio show, the conservative pundit Russian Limburger (“The Big Cheese of Talk Radio”) angrily denounced “this socialist inspired raid on America’s attics,” and Glen Blech suggested that many of our vintage clothes were made in foreign countries, like China and Malaysia, while gasoline is made in the US by our patriotic American oil companies. “Just saying,” he said.