Guns'n'butter

Phone company puts asterisk next to Bonds' name in phone book

By C. Schwetty Jacques
Sports Reporter

SAN FRANCISCO -- AT&T announced today that it was putting an asterisk beside major league home run king Barry Bonds' name in the local phone book.

"With the dramatic change in appearance he has undergone in the past 20 years, we frankly are not sure that the man who now claims to be Barry Bonds actually is Barry Bonds," AT&T spokesman Hung Up said this morning.

"Bonds appeared to be a normal 185 pound human being when he began playing baseball in San Francisco 15 years ago," Up said. "We'd like to know what happened to that person. Because the man now claiming to be Barry Bonds looks like a 285 pound Mr. T. action figure in a baseball uniform. Until he can successfully prove that he is, in fact, the same Barry Bonds who moved to San Francisco in 1993, we will continue to print phone books with an asterisk beside his name."

John Kerry says he's finally ready to defend self against former middle school tormentor

By Bea Loughnee
Washington Reporter

BOSTON -- Former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said today that if his old sixth-grade nemesis challenges him on the playground again, he'll be ready this time.

"I've spent 50 years thinking up witty come-backs and practicing defending myself against wedgies, Indian arm-burns, and titty twisters," Kerry said in an interview today. "So bring it on, D.J. Butterfield! This time I shall issue the thrashing, and the payback I dispense shall be thrice-fold! I mean, three-fold!"

Kerry also said he would be sure to know the answers to tonight's "Jeopardy!" when he catches the show in reruns next summer.

Scientists name new species of invertebrate after Hillary Clinton

By Bea Loughnee
Washington Reporter

MANAUS, Brazil -- Scientists studying the fauna of the Amazon River basin have discovered a new species of invertebrate that cannot make decisions without first consulting other members of its species to find out which choice is the most popular.

"This specie's lack of an internalized process for decision-making is quite extraordinary," said Dr. Yuval McBride of the University of Arizona. "It simply cannot decide anything independently, even whether to eat or mate. We decided to name it after the most indecisive organism we could think of. That turned out to be Hillary Clinton."

The specie's other interesting characteristic, McBride said, was its ability to take on either a blue or red hue depending on the color of the background through which it travels.

"This is most peculiar because the animal is rarely hunted," McBride said. "Its color shifting is not a defense mechanism. The animal just seems to want to fit in wherever it goes."

A member of the new species, Hillaria Indecisiva, is to be displayed at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.