Saddam Hussein seeking work as a
media pundit

Incredible Hulk implicated in steroid
probe

By
John Breneman

Noted superhero The
Incredible Hulk has been subpoenaed to testify before
a congressional committee investigating steroid
use among athletes and entertainers.

Attorneys for the comic
book icon — best known for his bright green skin,
bulging musculature and brooding, surly disposition — say
they have encouraged their client to cooperate with the panel
but warned that harsh questioning might trigger his legendarily
explosive temper.

Related story: Canseco claims he did steroids with Bush

The Hulk has repeatedly denied using illegal substances,
attributing his overdeveloped physique to a "laboratory
accident" involving exposure to "gamma
rays." But sources say Captain
America will testify that he once injected the Hulk’s
buttocks with a substance called Mutant Growth Hormone.

The chairman of the House panel conducting the hearings questioned
the Hulk’s credibility, pointing out that he exhibits many
of the classic signs of steroid abuse, including unusual skin
conditions, cartoonesque brawn and volatile mood swings sometimes
called "roid rage."

"Mr. Hulk is admired as a role model by many children
and his failure to come clean sends the wrong message,"
said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Virginia. "We don’t want impressionable
young kids thinking it’s cool to go around smashing in people’s
skulls and flipping over automobiles."

The House panel is calling for a strict policy designed to
end steroid use among comic book heroes. Superman
could not be reached for comment.

Steroids infiltrating
Washington, Wall Street
Santa
Claus denies use of performance-enhancing drugs

Humor Gazette anthrax reporter John Breneman fears anthrax has infiltrated his syntax.

Going postal over anthrax

By John Breneman

Run for your lives! Anthrax is back!

You remember anthrax: "Powdery poison slays five in
mysterious postal attacks."

That was in late 2001, when the microscopic pathogen was
all the rage. All day long it was anthrax, anthrax, anthrax.
Round-the-clock coverage on CNN, FOX News and C-SPANTHRAX.

Talk of the toxin took over our airwaves with non-stop reports
of the horrible spore, a heady mix of fear-mongering AND facts.
America’s short attention spanthrax was overwhelmed with anthrax.

The word was drilled so deep into our brains that I became
virulently anti-anthrax. It even infected my syntax.

We never found out if it was sent by the evil Talibanthrax,
way over in Afghanistanthrax, or whether it was an inside
job pulled by some mad scientist or a white powder supremacist
from the Ku Klux Klanthrax.

I hated that raggedy anthrax. It was out there lurking in
our mail sacks. We knew it could turn up anywhere — from sea
to sea, from the Rockies to the Adirondacks.

Way smaller than Tic Tacs, it could be hidden in backpacks
and knapsacks, smuggled in sedans or late-model hatchbacks.

I
was scared of the sugar on my morning stack of flapjacks,
paranoid I’d be poisoned by my Post Raisin Branthrax. What
if the terrorists planted a lethal surprise in some poor kid’s
Crackerjacks?

The media fed us countless angles on the anthrax maniacs.
Could they slip through security cracks and make weapons of
smokestacks? Could they contaminate the economy, devalue our
greenbacks? What if it ransacks our Dows and our NASDAQs?

But the anthrax probe hit a big anticlimax and vanished from TV, another media flash-in-the-panthrax.

Now, just as you thought it was safe to relax, comes news
of a possible anthrax relapse. Is it a false alarm or a threat
of real harm? I’m hyped up to see how the media reacts.

I’ve never been one of those hypochondriacs, but now I’ve
got this itchy spot on my thorax. I’m worried my homeland
security is lax; yesterday I thought I saw white powder on
my tan slacks.

So I’m irradiating my mail and turning my angst into
wisecracks.

In case you missed Parade magazine’s
annual
"What People Earn" report in your Sunday paper,

here is a Humor Gazette version:

George W. Bush, war president, $7.7 trillion national debt / Lindsay Lohan, pop tart, $10 million / Donald Trump, Hair Club for Men president/client, $100 million / J. Christ, savior, $0 / Marty Kurdkiller, genocidal maniac, assets frozen / Barry Bonds, baseball ballplayer, $18 million

John Smith, cave explorer, $10 million / Don Imus, cantankerous media curmudgeon, $4.5 million / Pamela Anderson, professional set of tits, $2.6 million / Speed Racer, NASCAR dad, $2.1 million / Darwin Charles, simian rights attorney, $180,000 / Michael Jackson, alleged molester, $600 million

Rush Limbaugh, right-wing stooge, $2.5 million / Martha Stewart, license plate maker, $80 million / Mo Cudhoffey, airport security, $18,000 / Reid Page, Humor Gazette news anchor, $200,000 / "Condi," exotic dancer, $600,000 plus tips / Howard Dean, former presidential candidate, minus $1.2 million

Rather goes out in a blaze of … courage?

By
John Breneman

Ironic that Dan Rather, whose most colorful Ratherism involved
"walking through a furnace in a gasoline suit,"
saw his career end in a crackling hickory fire of self-immolation.

Rather goes down as a trailblazer in the age of media superstars
projecting themselves into the story, a shoot-from-the-hip
anchor who went gunning for his own version of Watergate and
wound up with Rathergate. The reporter who famously talked
trash with Nixon got burned when he dug for dirt on
Bush.

In retrospect, he didn’t need documents as phony as a Michael
Jackson’s nose to make the point that President Bush’s National
Guard record is lamer than a three-legged armadillo.

Rather survived his stint as a war correspondent in Vietnam
only to be done in decades later by friendly fire, his career
killed by his own carelessness. He took aim at the president,
but his bulletin missed its mark and buried itself deep in
his own foot.

This grave blunder left the anchorman with about as much
credibility as a president blowing hokum about weapons of
mass destruction.

When it became clear that the documentation behind his National
Guard story was shakier than cafeteria Jell-O, Rather forfeited
his status as one of the most powerful figures in the media
and became a lame-duck anchorman, as impotent as Bob Dole
without his Viagra. With the harsh glare of the media spotlight
now focused on him, Rather squirmed like a man wearing a too-small
bathing suit on a too-long car ride back from the beach.

The jam he created for himself was nasty enough to gag a
buzzard, but if you had to bet the double-wide you knew he’d
have some memorable words for the millions of viewers watching
his last broadcast of the CBS Evening News on Wednesday.

After all, this would be the final signoff from one of the
last of the old-time anchormen, those trusted figures welcomed
into America’s living room to deliver "the news"
before the news devolved into an infotainment byproduct distorted
by profit motives and political agendas.

Surely he wouldn’t use his pulpit to comment on the president’s
policy of spreading democracy like a boll weevil through a
cotton field. But perhaps we could expect some homespun words
of wisdom from the man who once observed — no one will ever
know why — that if a frog had side pockets he would carry
a handgun.

Instead, perhaps fitting in this age of short attention span
everything, Rather chose a one-word soundbite for his epitaph.
Courage.

And that’s the way it is: In a voice as earnest as Ted Baxter’s,
delivering a message more perplexing than profound, a once-revered
newsman hangs up the old gasoline suit and fades to black.

Related info:
Ratherbiased.com
Rathergate.com
Ratherisms
(compiled by Dan Kurtzman)

Syrian bread prices climb as tension mounts

By
John Breneman

Political unrest in Lebanon threatens to throw the world
Syrian bread market into a state of upheaval not seen since
the olive oil embargo of the early 1970s.

Syrian bread prices climbed sharply for the third straight
day amid heightening tension between Washington and Damascus
and international calls for a boost in output from OPEC (the
Organization of Pita Exporting Countries).

Hundreds of thousands of protesters poured into a downtown
square in Beirut on Tuesday, denouncing American baked goods
and shouting pro-Syrian bread slogans like "Tastes great
with tabouleh!" and "Less filling than bagels!"
The protest rally reportedly was organized by Hezbollah, a
militant Shiite Islamic group with ties to the Hummus terrorist
organization.

The White House has called for an immediate and full withdrawal
of Syrian troops from Lebanon, but sources say Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad is concerned this would leave Lebanon vulnerable
to a U.S. takeover of its vast Syrian bread reserves.

Bashar al-Assad, known for his love of ophthalmology and
crispy brick-oven pita, inherited the presidency from his
father Bashar H.W. al-Assad and now controls as much as 83%
of the world supply of Syrian bread.

President Bush, who recently went on record acknowledging
that you cannot "drill for Syrian bread," said it
is vital to U.S. interests that we not allow terrorists to
acquire unsecured stockpiles of pita.

CNN Middle East correspondent Baba Ghanouj characterized
U.S.-Syrian relations as "falafel."

Mad cows sent to anger management

By
John Breneman

To protect American consumers from a possible recurrence
of a deadly public health crisis, hundreds of mad cows are
being herded into anger management counseling.

"These cows must seek professional help to confront
their inner rage," said Dr. Milton Shepherd of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. "Otherwise, millions of Americans
will never feel safe eating a hamburger or a juicy, steaming
bowl of Beef-a-Roni."

As health officials scramble to pinpoint the source of a couple slabs of tainted beef found in the Northwest, they are also quarantining all
pissed-off or angry-looking cows to make sure the disease
does not spread to other animals.

"If this mad cow situation is not contained quickly,
before we know it we could have a mad pony epidemic on our
hands," said Dr. Shepherd. "Not to mention mad chickens
and mad pigs. They say mad kittens are the worst."

Health officials are also busy separating fact from myth.

"Humans cannot contract crabs or camel toe by eating
tainted meat," said Dr. Fester N. Carcass of the Centers
for Disease Control. "And there is absolutely no connection
between mad cow and the monkeypox scare that swept the nation
in 2003."

Nevertheless, the public is being urged to remain vigilant
about animal-related medical conditions. "Just use common
sense," said Dr. Carcass. "Consult a physician if
you are feeling mousy, bird-brained or dog tired. And don’t
eat anything called Bovine Encephalitis casserole."

Martha
Stewart to introduce
stylish line of ankle bracelets

By John Breneman

Inmate #55170-054 (aka Martha Stewart) busted out of the
Big House today and is now holed up at her $16 million mansion
in Bedford, N.Y., where she will serve five months under house
arrest.

Stewart’s next step is to meet with her probation officer
Monday morning to receive an electronic ankle bracelet; she’ll
then report to her jeweler to have the plain black monitoring
device festooned with diamonds and white gold.

The devious domestic diva — convicted last March of lying
to federal investigators about an insider trading stock deal
— said her five-month stint at the Alderson Federal Women’s
Prison in West Virginia taught her some valuable lessons.
She promised she will never again fib to federal authorities
and said she would also avoid white lies, especially in social situations
better suited to off-white or beige falsehoods.

Stewart, 63, said she also learned how to disable a bull-dyke
prison guard with a crude but elegant diamond-studded shiv
and how to turn a frilly pillow case into a deadly weapon
by filling it with soda cans and savagely whipping it about
like Sean Penn in the movie "Bad Boys."

The convicted felon/media superstar reportedly has created
some exciting new recipes for bread and water, as well as
a decadent Chocolate Hacksaw Layer Cake. She also picked up
some handy tips for polishing those tarnished brass knuckles
and learned 101 uses for a broken razor blade.

Analysts say the high-profile Stewart trial yielded several
important legal insights: 1) It doesn’t pay to parade into
court flaunting a handbag that costs more than what most jurors
earn in a year; and 2) the government is not afraid to spend
millions prosecuting someone for a $50,000 stock swindle if
the defendant is famous enough to advance the careers of all
those involved.

Though critics have suggested the case against Stewart was
motivated by her celebrity status, prosecutors have deflected
all such questions, including those involving book or movie
deals, to their agents.

The jury is still out on whether her prison record will harm
her career as a product pitch-woman, but Kmart today introduced
a new Martha Stewart line of stylish but affordable orange
jumpsuits.

Next up, Stewart is slated to star in a spinoff of Donald
Trump’s "The Apprentice." But instead of parroting
Trump’s signature phrase "You’re fired," she is
experimenting with harder-edged jailhouse slogans like "You’re
dead meat, bitch" or "I’m gonna cut you."

Gazette linked in Moore’s "Must
Read"

The Saddam insane artwork created to illustrate
the March 2 Humor Gazette exclusive
"Madman Hussein to plead insanity" (see below) is
posted under the Thursday, March 3,
"Must
Read" report on Michael Moore’s website. Our
thanks to Mr. Moore and his associates.
We are also proudly
listed on the "Enemies
List" of FOX News President Roger Ailes.

Hussein attorneys claim he’s insane

By
John Breneman

Legal analysts say Saddam Hussein plans to fight charges
of war crimes and genocide by pleading temporary insanity.

"I am Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq," said
the disgraced ex-dictator, adding, "Saddam I am. I do
not like green eggs and ham."

Hussein told an Iraqi judge
that he is also a CIA hitman, a Mesopotamian deity and a porn
star known by the stage name Dick Tater. The desperate Hussein
also claimed he
partied with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld back in 1983-84.

Noted legal superstar Johnnie Cochran told Don Imus that
he told Oprah that Hussein’s insanity defense is bolstered
by the fact that President Bush has called him a "madman"
approximately 12,465 times since Sept. 11, 2001.

But White House spokesman Scott McClellan responded that
Bush used the term "rhetorically," much like the
words "grave and gathering threat," "weapons
of mass destruction" and "links to al Qaeda."

McClellan reminded reporters that God had specifically instructed
President Bush to take over Iraq and fulfill his destiny as
a war president, even if it meant getting thousands of people
killed.

Hussein defense attorney F. Lee Chalabi said his client has
been a "nutjob" since 1988 when he accidentally
inhaled some mustard gas while wiping out some infidels. His
legal team estimates the American media has referred to Hussein
as the "wacky Iraqi" an estimated 2.4 million times.

"This
is all theater. The real criminal is Bush," a
defiant Hussein told the judge while swatting away imaginary
fruit flies and humming "U Can’t Touch This" by
M.C. Hammer.

"Hussein. Rhymes with ‘insane’. Can you dig it?"
concluded the wacky Iraqi madman.