Rise in Eco-Friendly Construction Means Less Demand for Some Building Materials.....

Sedona, AZ-As more home owners are demanding eco-friendly construction materials and techniques, producers of some exotic building materials are beginning to feel the crunch, with some even going out of business.

"I don't know if I'm going to survive the Summer," specialized contractor Deet Mortenson explains. "If someone had told me ten years ago that the demand for panda bones would sink to such low levels, I would have laughed in their stupid hippy faces."

If current trends continue, experts like Mortenson believe that the housing industry will see more builders setting classic materials aside in favor of green alternatives like bamboo, cork, and sunflower seed husks. "I predict that the days of average red-blooded americans being able to count on sturdy houses made out of black rhino horn and bald eagle heads are numbered thanks to those liberal fatcats!"

Japanese Whale Researchers Conclude Humpbacks Still Delicious.....

Shimonoseki, Japan-A fleet of four Japanese research vessels recently embarked on a mission to investigate the reproductive and feeding patterns of whales, including up to 50 humpbacks, with plans to study just over 1,000 of the aquatic giants in order to better understand these mysterious and gentle ocean dwelling mammals.

The vessels, manned by whale researchers equipped with specially designed research tools such as large spearlike explosive projectiles connected by thick rope to a deck-mounted propulsion system. These projectiles, critical in helping the Japanese government to achieve its goal of studying enough whales to satisfy the nation's intense hunger for knowledge of these beloved sea creatures, is designed to easily penetrate the thick layers of whale fat and lodge itself in the flesh. The sharpened science spikes prevent the test subjects from dropping out of the study prior to being pulled aboard where consent is obtained prior to further research taking place.

"As soon as we received IRB approval on this we jumped at the opportunity to contribute to the existing literature regarding whales," mission leader Hajime Ishikawa explained. "Our appetite for understanding whales is not to be taken lightly. We will study whales until we fully grasp all of their delicious inner workings and behavior, even if we must study every last whale on this planet."

Katsumi Miyagi, a Japanese-American living in New York, is excited about the prospects of doing hands on research of her own. "Once you try it, and get a taste for whale research, you just want to study them all the time," she explained. "I especially enjoy studying whale with soy sauce and just a dab of wasabi. I find that they best compliment the joy of discovery."

Tests Reveal Higher Cootie Levels Than Expected in Children.....

Atlanta, GA-During an emergency press conference held today in their Atlanta headquarters, it was announced that a recently completed CDC surveillance study involving the determination of cootie levels in a random sampling of children from across the nation revealed a significant increase.

"Then scary thing is that this increase was across the board," Lead investigator Dr. Hammond St. Michelle explained. "So we can't blame this on, say, the recently discovered increases in the number of nerds, geeks, dweebs, goobs and hyperdweebs in most regions. Some of these kids were pretty cool. Jocks, cheerleaders, homecoming queens, girls who put out on the first date, mysterious new kids with dreamy eyes and a troubled past. Nobody was spared."

Dr. Leo Trasande, assistant director of the Center for Children's Health and the Environment at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City is very concerned higher cootie levels could lead to more childhood disease and disorders. "We are in an epidemic of cootie related disease among American children today. An effective vaccine against this scourge must become a top priority to medical researchers but I fear that the cootie shot may come too late for many of today's youth."

Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, disagrees. "My concern about this new trend of "measuring" levels of substances in the blood that have been proven to be "deadly" is that people might begin to believe that their children could suffer some kind of harm just because similar levels have been shown to kill mice, or rats, or monkeys or something. Didn't we already go through all of this with second hand smoke?"