Congress cuts Robert Parish
Washington, D.C.--Acting on pledges to reduce spending, Republican
members of Congress voted to cut Charlotte reserve center Robert
Parish and apply his million dollar salary towards balancing the
federal budget. Parish, a former star for the Boston Celtics, has seen
his productivity and playing time decrease in recent seasons.
According to Congressional insiders, the feeling on Capitol Hill is that
although Parish began his career with the best of intentions, recent
performances have marked him as the sort of ponderous, slow-
moving program that is ripe for the budget knife. "Parish was great
in his day, but in this era of budget cutbacks we simply can't justify
spending millions on a guy who's unfit to carry Patrick Ewing's jock
strap," Senator Jesse Helms commented in a hearing of the Senate
Finance Committee, adding that Parish's long-time support of
affirmative action, public broadcasting and liberal welfare policies
played no role in his departure.
Clinton plagued by chronic plebiscite
Washington D.C.--Doctors at John Hopkins Medical Center remain
perplexed by a large growth which has appeared at the base of
Clinton's skull. The growth, which appears to be caused by a rare
North American plebiscite, has already caused noticeable errors in
Clinton's sense of balance, causing sudden unpredictable shifts to the
right. Doctors first noticed the plebiscite in November, and expect the
condition to persist through 1996 when it will either be cured or
prove fatal to the host. According to Hillary Clinton, prospects for
recovery seem grim, noting that a recent USA Today/CNN poll put
Clinton's odds for survival at below 35%.
Boy's room declared federal disaster area
Gurleyville, ND--Leon Snippet, 12, a student at Gurleyville Middle
School thought his room had probably seen better days. But when his
mother enlisted the federal government to aid in its clean up, even
Leon had to take notice. "Before, mom had told me it looked like a
tornado had roared through it, then an earthquake, then a tidal
wave," Leon explained. "We don't even live near an ocean, which
shows you how smart she is." Despite repeated warnings, Leon
refused to clean, stating that "it's my room, and messy is the way I
like it." Since receiving a hefty government grant, however, Leon has
changed his tune. "Mom never offered me more than seventy-five
cents to pick things up," Leon commented. "Uncle Sam, on the other
hand, is giving me 1.2 million just to study the problem."
Scientists compute the significance of t
Tacoma, WA--Researchers at the University of Washington have
successfully derived a method for comparing the means of two
separate groups. According to their results, the significance of a
means test "t" equals r over the square root of one minus r squared
multiplied by the square root of df. Thus, it becomes easy to compute
the point biserial r between membership in one of the two groups
and the dependent variable and find t from this equation, which
requires only that we also know the df for the r. "As one can clearly
see from the formula, I have exactly t minus the square root of t
cubed friends," mathematician Henry Rosenthal stated. "Of course,
that doesn't count computers."
