PUBLIC PRAYER-BRAIN CANCER LINK
“NOW DEFINITE” SAY RESEARCHERS

By Henry Tremblechin

DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA, May 11 -- Researchers here at the Brain Tumor Center have concluded what many in Washington long suspected: that public, politically-directed prayer leads to brain cancer. Although it can strike anyone, those most at risk, according to Dr. Clint Pentel, include attendees at business-sponsored prayer breakfasts, accusatory televangelists and “politicians – like the president – who squinch their eyes real tight so everyone can see they’re praying hard.”

Dr. Pentel’s team, acting on anecdotal evidence, submitted questionnaires to a broad range of political and religious figures. “The forms we got back from those who claimed to pray constantly,” he said, “showed signs of incipient or full-blown dementia consistent with big, mean tumors. Of those we managed to convince to submit to a scan, almost all had the same disorder—Robertson’s Sarcoma.”

Squinching Up Your Eyes
Greatly Increases Cancer Risk

According to staff statistician Gina Overbyte, “No one has actually ever died of Robertson’s Sarcoma; they just get more and more dopey.” But the figures noted another strange phenomenon, she said, “People who pray in private, in houses of worship or to themselves never get the tumor. It seems to only strike the strident.”

Still, cautioned Dr. Pentel, the cancer, and its accompanying dopiness, could spread. “When you see all these signs urging people to pray,” he said, “and never warning them against mixing prayer and politics – you’ve got a dangerous mixture. For safety’s sake, I would keep a very strong wall between church and state, but under this administration it doesn’t seem at all likely.”

 

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SNEEZING, BELCHING, HICCUPPING
COSTS AMERICAN BUSINESS
OVER $14 BILLION A YEAR

Drs. Dustin Crudge and Bonita Flenser
ExplainTheir Eight-Year Study

By Helen Highwater

BETHESDA, MD, May 13 – After eight years of research, the National Institutes of Health has determined that sneezing, belching and hiccupping are taking an enormous toll on American business, increasing the flow of U.S. jobs to such non-sneezing countries as Mali and the Falkland Islands.

The Sneezing, Belching and Hiccupping Task Force was funded by a consortium of industry groups trying to squeeze more productivity out of American workers. Headed by Drs. Dustin Crudge and Bonita Flenser, the task force monitored workers in factories, offices, restaurants, theme parks and massage parlors.

“What we found,” said Dr. Flenser, “was even worse than what many had feared. A sneeze, for instance, isn’t just a ha-choo. There’s the seconds leading up to the sneeze, which often involves a number of false positive or unfulfilled sneezes. Then there’s the sneeze itself, and the follow-up: the recovery, the tissues – possibly the gesundheit followed by a thank you – and returning the tissues to pocket or purse. All in all, it averages 45 seconds.”

“We calculate that the median daily sneeze number for American workers is 4.3, or 3.225 minutes per day,” said Dr. Crudge, a renowned nasal epidemiologist. “Multiply that by the number of workers and then extrapolate that to an annual total and you have, well, a disaster.”

Flenser and Crudge acknowledge that belching and hiccupping take a lesser toll, but in the aggregate, said Crudge, “we estimate that American business loses at least – at least –14 billion a year.”

The panel also issued a set of recommendations such as impermeable nose plugs, mandatory Day-Quil and banning the use of the word “gesundheit.” “In the end, though,” said Flenser, “it is workers who must police themselves – otherwise they’ll lose their jobs to people who long ago learned that sneezing, belching and hiccupping are not consonant with a productive workforce.”

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS REOPENS AS BARNES & NOBLE

“It was old, stuffy and filled with product that often went years without moving, just taking up shelf space and never making a dime” said former Librarian of Congress James Hadley Billington, “and this is a new century, a new time and a new day.” Putting on a brave face, Billington prepared to begin work in customer service at the new Top-O-The Hill B&N Superstore. “And did I mention that we have a café?” he asked.

50 YEARS PASS AFTER BROWN VS. BOARD OF EDUCATION, YET MILLIONS REMAIN BLACK

A study by the U.S. Department of Education has concluded that despite 50 years of hand-wringing, pontificating and over $8800 in lavish aid, the majority of black students “prefer to remain that way.” Reaction from Capitol Hill was swift. “This is what all this affirmative action stuff gets you,” said Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-CA), of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce “we’re not appropriating another dime until those people get much whiter.”

BILLIONS IN AID FOR AFGHANISTAN WINDS UP IN A HOUSTON SUBURB BY MISTAKE

A multi-billion dollar 2003 aid package aimed at rebuilding infrastructure in and around Kabul, Afghanistan never arrived said U.S. aid workers. An investigation by the General Accounting Office discovered that Congressman Tom DeLay’s office confused the word Kabul for Sugar Land, Texas. Said DeLay, “It’s an honest mistake, the two names are so similar.” Unfortunately, said the GAO, the money had all been spent on GOP redistricting efforts and was now unavailable for the Afghanis.

© The Washington Pox 2003

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