Greenspan Predicts Own Unemployment will hit 100%

New York.

— Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan predicted Sunday that his own personal unemployment will rise to 100% by January, 2010. Speaking to George Stephanopoulos, on ABC’s “This Week,” Greenspan said there are few signs that his employment figures would rise at any point in the near future, in large part because he has exchanged his public role as protector of the national economy for golfing, bird-watching, and nuzzling with his wife, Andrea Mitchell (whom he describes as his “stimulus package”).

“My own hunch is that I’m going to penetrate the 95% barrier and stay there for a while before I really slow down,” he told Mr. Stephanopoulos.

“What accounts for your remaining 5% employment?”

“At the moment, this interview…but as soon as it’s over, I should have no problem breaking the barrier.”

District Mime:

South Carolina Governor Admits Extra-Marital Affair with Alpaca

“Where’s The Governor??”

Gov. Sanford was spotted on Saturday, with Tita, at a quiet venue in Buenos Aires..Can you spot the Governor and Tita in the crowd below?

(Buenos Aires) — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, having recently returned from a secret trip to Argentina, admitted Wednesday that he has been involved in an extra-marital affair…with an alpaca.

“I’ve been unfaithful to my wife,” Sanford told reporters in Columbia, the state capital. “I developed a relationship with what started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina. She is approximately six feet tall, woolly, and plush. Her name is Tita.”

Tita (left) and the Governor (right)

The affair began last year when Sanford was asked to pet-sit for his neighbor, Paul, a local sheep farmer. “If I had known that there had been an alpaca, I never would have…” he trailed off, overcome with emotion, “if it had been a ram or–hell, even a llama, this tragic affair might have been averted.”

In a statement issued Wednesday, Sanford’s wife claimed that she had complained two months earlier that “Tita is clearly not a hypoallergenic animal,” then politely requested that both of them move out.

“I deeply regret any harm that I have brought upon my wife, my children, and my dear, dear friend from Argentina. She is greatly troubled by these recent events and respectfully asks that reporters keep their distance or else risk the wrath of her spittle. If provoked, she may wark or orgle. These are noises that the two of us would like to keep to ourselves, like the private sounds of two, consensual mammals.”

Obama Appoints Czar Czar

In the past several months, President Obama has appointed a wide array of bureaucratic chiefs–or, “czars”–to reform various parts of our struggling economy and crumbling administrative infrastructure. The appointments include a drug czar, a web czar, a car czar, a health czar, a bar czar, and a spa czar. Last week, Obama inaugurated an annual Czar-Bazaar to address members of his czardom. Surrounded by some 110 czars, however, the President became so overwhelmed that he forgot several of their names, confusing the Yar Czar (for peglegged sailors) with the Babar Czar (for threatening elephants).

To simplify matters, Obama decided to appoint a new leader to regulate the booming czar industry. “Too many czars are out of work,” he told listeners during his weekly radio address, “and those czars deserve new jobs, benefits, and cozy sinecures. But without a leader–a czar czar–then how can these czars succeed? How they compete in a czar-eat-czar economy?”

The new Czar Czar, Ivan, anxiously awaits his appointment. In  anticipation, he devoured several interns and a page.

Middle Class Declares War on Lou Dobbs

After more than a decade of enduring a war declared on their behalf, the middle class has finally returned the favor.On Weds., at high noon, the middle class collectively declared war on Lou Dobbs.

In recent years, bourgeois members have noted  increased hostilities, including Dobbs’s grumbling, shrugging, baleful-staring, relentless disgust with daily headlines, and persistent demands for Metamucil. Things came to a head last Friday, when Dobbs declared a “Middle Class Memorial Weekend” in lieu of Passover and Easter observances, then turned around, bent over, and asked A.I.G., Timothy Geithner, and Nancy Pelosi to “kiss my tuckus.”

Dobbs refused to answer questions posed by Doubletake, although he did grumble, then spit like a camel in heat on one of our reporters.

Area White Man Foiled by Muse of Dance, Again

Wilt Brindleson, tireless efforts and chipper demeanor notwithstanding, simply has no rhythm.

Survivor Claims In-Flight Service “Totally Sucked Ass”

Yesterday, every passenger and crew member on board U.S. Airways Flight 1549 was rescued and returned home in healthy condition…except Paul Witherstone, who found the in-flight meal “soggy as a six-month old’s diaper. It totally sucked ass.”

After ferries escorted him back to shore, Mr. Witherstone joined other survivors at the Ritz Carlton in mid-town Manhattan–all expenses paid by US Air. Relaxing in the lounge, he only picked at his foie gras and ogled the haricots verts.

“It’s the least they can do,” he sighed “especially after that godawful tugboat ride to the hellhole those grubby rescue workers took me to,” he said, “shelter food? Are you kidding me? After that airline service?”

My Neck Itches (No, Wait: That’s Just Ann Coulter, Trying to Bite My Head Off)

For the last three weeks, my head has been itching incessantly. At first, I wasn’t sure what the cause was: a skin rash? Eczema? Allergic reaction? Then I remembered my date with Ann Coulter, who had tried to gnaw my head off.

It was our second time out together. I had just picked her up from her weekly Daughters of the American Revolution Garden and Racquetclub Meeting. As far as I could tell, she spent most of the time in the backyard.

“The cricket eggs are delicious,” she said, laughing. It was a long, sultry laugh and her breath smelled like a fine mulch. She draped a long, slim green leg over my thigh. “Not as good as the heads, though.”

My conservative upbringing had prepared me for everything–prayer in public schools, bathroom breaks in airports–but nothing at all like this. She asked me to pull over. What could I say?

Five minutes later, she was rubbing tree bark up against my neck. She called it a “garnish,” which, at the time at least, I thought was kind of sexy. There was a tickling feeling underneath my collar, which I mistook for her tongue (or proboscis?) but realized later that it was only the larvae (which had burrowed inside the tree bark).

She demanded that I act like Al Franken or Keith Olbermann. I asked why and that’s when she started nibbling on my neck and called me Michael Moore.

That pretty much wiped out my arousal right there. I hit the accelerator, opened the passenger side window, and waited for her light, fluttery, deadly, malodorous body to be sucked back into the teeming void from whence she sprung.

But, damn, my neck still hurts.

Final Score = Bush, 0; Irony, Infinity

Rod Blagojevich Offers To Sell Bleeping Governor’s Seat

Responding to recent allegations that he offered to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s empty Senate seat to the highest bidder, Blagojevich responded by upping the ante and offered to throw in his own soon-to-be-vacated Governor’s Seat. No one, however, has stepped forward yet to make him an offer.

“It’s a bleeping valuable thing! You just don’t give it away for nothing…you gotta pay to play. It’s bleeping mahogany.”