More "Truly Shocking" Developments

• Apparently, The New York Times is turning to comedy in order to get its financial house in order. The Times leads today with a "story" about the Afghan President's brother being, are you ready for this shock, on the CIA's payroll. If Times eds ever went anywhere except the Upper West Side and the Beltway, they would have known what any third-grader knows: the Karzai Boys are CIA Central Casting par excellence. Poor Dex Filkins: how did they rope you into this dopey "scoop?"
• President O and his advisors seem determined to send those $250 checks to every Social Security recipient, despite the math: it will add $14 Billion to the deficit. The shocking thing is that O's Team was willing to buy next year's senior votes, instead of this year's. Mrs. Pelosi has pointed out that, since the checks are taxable, the actual deficit number would be less than $14Billion.
• Mr. Rangel was so incensed at the $14B Senior Payoff, he is considering sending every American an extra tax bill this year for a flat $39,000, their share of the total outstanding national debt . Understandably, Mr. Rangel has exempted himself from this uber-tax. He will, however, keep his share of that $14B. It's only right, the guy's got seventeen mortgages to pay off!
• The Leader of the Republican Opposition, Rupert Murdoch, has decided not to change his name to "Red Fox" after all. Advisors to Murdoch pointed out that there already had been  a "Redd Foxx," a noted comedian. Also, his advisors did not think it was wise to draw voters' attention to his odd hair coloring, a secret mixture he got from his friend Paul McCartney. Finally, they told him that he could not be President anyway, since he is a naturalized human, er citizen.
• The FAA has suspended the Delta/NW pilots who overflew their Minneapolis destination, while working on their laptops, ignoring frantic controllers and tempting fighter jets. Delta/NW immediately received over 10,000 job applications for the two openings, many from actual pilots. Delta/NW has decided not to charge those overflown passengers for the extra mileage flown after all; however, the extra miles will not count in their frequent flyer accounts.
• Gen. McChrystal has decided to stop blabbing his new Afgan war strategy at every possible opportunity. He had been under the impression that, since Taliban laws forbid people from watching TV, listening to radio or reading newspapers it was safe to publicize the strategy. He was recently advised that Taliban leaders don't actually follow those laws. Talk about shocked!
• The newly-crowned Co-Commisioners of Baseball, Rupert Murdoch and Scott Boras, have begun talks with the ML Players Association about moving the World Series to early December in order to take advantage of the end of the regular college football schedule. In a related development, ESPN, a division of Disney, has purchased the University of Southern California from its Trustees in a private equity deal. 
• Advisors to NYC's current and about to be Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, have told him that an attempt to change his title from Mayor to Emperor was not likely to pass after his corona.....induction. Reportedly, Bloomie responded, "What good is having an Empire State Building without an Emperor?" Close advisors are considering whether to tell him that, in fact, Gov. Paterson had already staked a claim to the Emperor title anyway.