BALTIMORE, MD – Shortly after Michael Phelps (motto: “Quit calling me a fish out of water”) was suspended for three months by USA Swimming (motto: “Like the Olympic Committee only with more affordable bribes”), all of his major sponsors announced they are dropping him for Tommy Chong (motto: “Huh?”).

“We decided that, if we’re going to go with a dope smoker, we might as well go with the best,” said Kellogg’s spokesperson Anthony Tigre. “Bill Clinton wanted the job, but he hasn’t eaten cereal since Hooters started serving breakfast.”

Chong, best known as the taller, slower half of the dope-smoking comedy team of Cheech and Chong, has never been known as a athlete. “I disagree,” said Tigre. “We watched “Up In Smoke” and Chong exhibited a much greater lung capacity than Phelps when comparing doobies to bongs.”

Joining Kellogg’s in dumping Phelps for Chong is the swimwear manufacturer Speedo. “We’ve already contacted our sweat … I mean plant in Manila,” said Speedo spokesperson Barry Cheeks. “They’re changing the labels on the Phelps swimsuit to read ‘Chong Thong’.”

Omega held a board meeting before replacing Phelps with Chong as its official timepiece endorser. “A couple of board members wanted Harold and Kumar,” said Omega spokesperson Claire “Don’t Call Me ‘Big’” Hand. “Unfortunately, their manager informed us that it’s his job to tell them the time.”

Phelps is refereeing all calls to his mother, was busy calling all of her own sponsors to assure them that she has a glass of wine with dinner but that’s all. Tommy Chong is currently on a reunion tour with Cheech Marin and could not be reached for comment because he had no idea where he was.

WASHINGTON, DC — After imposing a $500,000 pay cap on some senior executives whose firms receive government financial rescue money, President Barack Obama admitted that this punishment may not be strong enough to change their ways and hinted that more severe punishments may be considered. An unnamed source inside the White House whose name rhymes with “pillory” and is known to be an expert on the use of cruel and unusual punishments to get her his or her way has leaked the following list of “CEO Convincers” awaiting the president’s signature:

• Sit in a dunk tank with basketballs being thrown from three feet away by foreclosed mortgagers.

• Enter the Witness Protection Program and have your new identity be Bernie Madoff.

• Walk a plank attached to a corporate yacht sitting in a naval scrap yard.

• Hang for 24 hours from manacles forged to look like Rolex watches.

• Spend twelve hours flying in a corporate jet with a screaming baby.

• Swirlie in a $35,000 toilet.

• One hour in an iron maiden with the spikes replaced with Mont Blanc pens.

• Hanging wedgie from the horn of the bull statue on Wall Street.

• Wine-boarding, starting with the oldest bottles from his personal wine cellar.

• Trophy wife replaced by first wife.

A group in India has announced plans to build and market a $20 laptop computer, making it cheaper than the $100 Children’s Machine designed by MIT, the $200-$400 EeePC made by Taiwan’s Asustek and the $300 “Don’t Ask Why It’s Dented, Do You Want It Or Not?” PC from my neighbor who sells steaks out of his trunk. The name of the new cheap laptop is the “Sakshat,” which is Indian for “Crapple.”

Leave it to India, the makers of the $2,000 car and the 50-cent national sewage system, to come up with a netbook that even people who were laid off when they’re jobs got outsourced to India can afford. Who cares if it’s immediately obsolete? At that price, they can buy a new one every week and still have money left over for cool new Indian computer games like Grand Theft Brahma and Sim Slum.

The Sakshat was developed and financed jointly by the Indian Institute of Science, the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Nuns Who Got Rich Selling Mother Teresa Souvenirs. It has 2Gb of RAM, wireless connectivity and folds up to make a handy coaster. A prototype was demonstrated at an electronics trade show in India. At about the same time the Sakshat was powered up, a curtain was ripped in half at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond and a MacBook Air with voice recognition software being tested at Apple headquarters in Cupertino suddenly began speaking in tongues.

India’s secretary of secondary and higher education said that, although the initial cost of the Sakshat is about $20 a unit, he expects the price to fall. At about that time, Michael Dell reportedly clutched his chest, looked skyward and cried, “This is the big one, Lizabeth!” The initial target audience for the Sakshat is the 550 million Indians under the age of 25 who need to learn computer skills to compete in the global market and study to win on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.”

This is why the $20 laptop must be stopped. Once they have their cheap computers, Indians will use them to build a bridge across the Pacific on which they will drive their $2,000 cars to America and buy our foreclosed houses. Before we know it, the Oscar will go to an Indian movie, all-American condiments like ketchup and salsa will be replaced by curry and the Cleveland Indians will be moved to Calcutta. HP, Dell and Apple will be forced to merge into one failing computer company called GMPC.

Email, call or Twitter your Congressional representatives and tell them to stop the Sakshat before it’s too late. Suggest distracting India from its goal by giving Google a chunk of the $800 billion bailout to redirect all searches made in India to porn sites featuring well-endowed Indian men and female snake charmers. Do it today!

If you’re like me (and if you are, let me just warn you ahead of time that therapy doesn’t help), you read the story about John Thain (former Merrill Lynch CEO who sold the company to Bank of America for $50 billion and a Senate seat to be named later) spending $35,000 on a toilet for his office and you thought, “Are you kidding me? Where can I get one of those?”

This top-of-the line toilet is one of a kind and its purchase was probably not covered by any home or contents insurance premium. Why Mr. Thain purchased it might be mind-boggling and absurd to many. But it’s definite that he had something in mind when he bought this fancy bathroom fixture. A toilet that costs $35,000 may seem like an extravagance, but anyone trying to sell real estate in this market knows that the commode is the one part of an office or dwelling that not only holds its value, it can actually increase the total selling price, especially if the potential buyer “makes a big deposit” while looking and doesn’t have to flush twice, jiggle the handle or attempt to improvise a plunger out of a toothbrush and a Dixie cup.

So, what exactly did John Thain get for his $35,000? Here’s a list of features on his classy commode that will make any plumber crack a smile wider than the smile cracking from his coveralls:

Direct input pipeline to a fresh mountain spring.

Direct output pipeline to a secret sanitation plant that searches for jewelry accidentally dropped in.

Special fast flush option for pharmaceutical emergencies.

Antique 1400-year-old porcelain bowl from the Dung Dynasty.

Bidet for visits from trophy girlfriend.

Disappearing bidet for visits from wife.

Bark-operated seat lifter so pet dog can drink.

Purr-operated lid-lowering option for when wife’s cat tries to use it.

Self-jiggling handle.

Score-keeping display for game of aiming stream at target on bottom of bowl.

Rolls of paper made from recycled subprime mortgages.

Verified autograph and inspection sticker from Joe the Plumber.

TAMPA, FL – Circuit City (motto: “We’ve Still Got Plenty of VHS Players and AM Radios”) has purchased the last 30 seconds of commercial time available during Sunday’s Super Bowl telecast in spite of the fact that the company is going out of business and liquidating the merchandise in its stores. “It’s our way of saying “screw you” to all of those people watching the game on big screen TVs they bought at Best Buy and Wal-Mart,” said Circuit City spokesperson Harry “Back” Ordor.

Rather than attempting to convince viewers to stop by its stores for heavily-discounted merchandise at its going-out-of-business sales, Circuit City will exact its revenge on fair-weather customers by showing videos of dogs eating baby kittens and cats eating baby puppies that will look even more disgusting in HD on big screen TVs. The commercial’s soundtrack will include the sounds of fingernails on blackboards, vomiting and selections from Jessica Simpson’s latest CD. “And to keep people from running to the bathroom during the commercial, we’re interspersing the kitten and puppy feast with nude photos of Drew Barrymore and Brad Pitt,” sneered Ordor.

NBC is already receiving calls protesting the Circuit City commercial, but the network has no plans to pull it or run a warning before it airs. “Are you nuts?” screamed NBC Director of Super Bowl Commercials and Cleaning Product Infomercials Jack “Amazing” Wyper. “This will be the biggest thing since what’s-her-name’s nipple. Both teams have requested TVs on the bench so they can watch it too. President Obama even gave me his super-secret Blackberry number for a ten-second heads-up.”

NBC refuses to reveal when exactly the Circuit City commercial will be run because no company wants their commercial to air immediately after it. “I figure there’s gonna be a lot of crying, so I may run a Kleenex ad,” said Ordor. “On the other hand, Circuit City offered me a truckload of car stereos to give the slot to Best Buy.”

HOLLYWOOD, CA – The producers of ‘24’ (motto: “Don’t Complain Or We’ll Bring Back Jack’s Daughter”) announced they have scrapped the scripts still left to be shot for this season in order to work in new cast member Bernie “The Ponz” Madoff. “He’s the perfect villain for our show,” said ‘24’ Senior Top Executive Producer A. Rolf Flynn. “Jack Bauer can’t torture a lousy financial statement.”

Madoff’s agent approached ‘24’ after reviews of the first few episodes of this season were less-than-stellar. “Too many liberals, women, liberals, crybabies, liberals and wimps,” said ‘24’ Fan Club president Noah Lyfe. “Did I mention liberals?” Although Madoff had no formal acting experience, the idea intrigued ‘24’ Super Executive Really Senior Better-Than-Everybody Producer Les “Doug” Fairbanks. “He fooled all of the people all of the time,” said Fairbanks. “ He’s evil but he looks like your mailman. I hear he once made Dick Cheney cry.”

Madoff’s character will be called Bernie Madoff. “We had some other names in mind, but we didn’t want to get sued by anyone whose name we might accidentally pick,” said Fairbanks. “Fox is still paying off a couple hundred guys named Charles Montgomery Burns.” The character Madoff will bankrupt the Federal government, the FBI and secret organization Bauer is working for, forcing a financially-strapped Jack to fight bad guys by throwing rocks, make his escapes on a skateboard and torture bad guys by flushing the toilet whiler they’re in the shower. “I’m now a cross between Jack Bauer and Joe the Plumber,” said star Keifer Sutherland. “Would that make me Jack the Plumber or Joe the Torturer? I need to call my agent.”

Madoff refuses to reveal what happens to his character. “Let’s just say there’s a final battle between me and Jack that could end the world as we know it,” Madoff said during an appearance on “Entertainment Tonight.” “Luckily, Jack is on his own, while I know two people who each know four people who each know ten more people who each know … Wait, I’ve told you too much already.”

REDMOND, WA – Microsoft Corp.(motto: “Just Forget Vista, OK?”), announced it is laying off 5,000 employees in the next year and a half, the first job cutback in the company’s history. “We’re going through an economic blue screen,” said Microsoft spokesperson Paige Falt. “We expect this corporate defrag to free up space and give our stock a reboot.”

Most of the employees being laid off are fairly new to the company, so their stock options are worth about as much as old DOS manuals. To help them through this tough time and keep them from storming the Redmond headquarters with pitchforks, sickles and sharpened CDs, Microsoft agreed to give each departing employee the following severance package:

• One autographed picture of Bill Gates for each month of service.
• As many Zunes as one can carry.
• A copy of ‘Economic Fallout 3’ for the Xbox 360.
• Map of San Jose.
• Jerry Seinfeld dartboard.
• Never-been-opened pack of Bill Gates’ combs.
• Hourly no-benefits contract to come back and clear out copier jams.
• Cassette of the Rolling Stones’ doing “Start Me Up.”
• Coupon for free tour of MSNBC.
• One minute to grab as much as possible in the company cafeteria.

BOISE, ID – Waldo S. Ware, newly-elected commissioner of the U.S. Professional Scavenger Hunt League (motto: “Do You Know Where I Can Find A Coconut Bra?”) announced today that mobile searches will be banned from league play staring with the 2009 season. “Mobile Searches are the worst scandal to hit our sport since Indian star Raja Klemuns tested positive for curry-based steroids.”

The U .S. Professional Scavenger Hunt League was established in 2008 to give small cities a chance to host a professional sports team without having to build a stadium, a sports complex or a bowling alley. Charter franchises were awarded to Boise, Idaho, Old Hickory, Tennessee, Cut-and-Shoot, Texas, and Eagle Butte, South Dakota. Cities that have lost sports franchises or are upset with their current teams are also under consideration, giving hope to Los Angeles and Detroit. The Scavenger Hunt Championship, called the Snooer Bowl, will be held in September in Egg Harbor City, New Jersey,

Ware first learned about cell-phone-initiated mobile searches on the Internet while looking for new items to add to the scavenger lists for the upcoming season. “I googled ‘hard-to-find stuff’ and up popped this site explaining Yahoo’s One Search , Google’s Mobile Search and Microsoft Live Mobile,” said Ware. “If a scavenger hunter can use his or her cell phone to quickly find the nearest store selling left-handed screwdrivers or mustache blow-dryers, I’d call that an unfair advantage. You know, like being born Yao Ming.”

To prevent scavenger hunters from using illegal mobile searches, the league will conduct random tests for iPhones, Blackberries and Android systems. Players caught with these devices will be suspended for one game. Players caught with dial telephones will not be penalized since they’re on the scavenger list.

Yahoo and Google refused to comment on the ban. Microsoft announced it would cancel commercials planned for broadcasts of U.S. Professional Scavenger Hunt League games and would apply the $12.95 to a Super Bowl ad.

RICHMOND, VA. — Hot on the heels of the announcement that the chain is closing all 567 stores, laying off 34,000 employees and liquidating all of its remaining merchandise, management at Circuit City (motto: “Please don’t refer to a sale item as a ‘best buy’”) revealed plans to sell the empty stores to the United States Department of Energy to be used as storage facilities for nuclear waste. “I think it’s a great idea,” said laid-off store manager Nick Tendo. “My store is right next door to a Best Buy. Let’s see how many TVs they sell when the sales staff grows a third eye.”

The abandoned stores will take the place of the controversial Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada, which has yet to be used due to protests by environmentalists, ranchers and a local resident claiming to be Bigfoot. “They’re the perfect locations for nuclear waste storage,” said DoE spokesperson Rod Szilla. “Based on Circuit City’s final sales figures, nobody knows where they are.”

Circuit City officials say anyone unlucky enough to receive a Circuit City gift card for Christmas can redeem them during the liquidation sale. After the stores are closed, the DoE recommends that unused cards be shredded and eaten, along with any catalogs, sales flyers and credit card bills listing store locations. Laid-off employees will be offered jobs at the nuclear waste facilities provided they pass a physical and demonstrate their loyalty by bringing in the blades of a windmill.

TOKYO — In anticipation of a $1.1 billion operating loss this fiscal year, Sony Inc. (motto: “Why Are You Reading This When You Could Be Watching TV?”) has unveiled what it’s calling a revolutionary new “Grayscale” television designed to win back old customers who can’t afford to operate at a loss after buying a micro-thin 60-inch 3-D Sony plasma Geewhizatron. “Grayscale is the new color,” says Sony engineer Ahn Seladems. “The quality is excellent whether you’re watching on a 20-inch model sitting on a TV tray or a 5-inch model balanced on your stomach.”

The Sony grayscale television will be called the Minitron and is expected in stores in time for the Super Bowl. “We don’t care who’s in the game as long as it’s teams that wear white or black uniforms,” said Minitron’s U.S. marketing manager Madge Navox. “We were thrilled to hear Bruce Springsteen is doing the halftime show in his traditional t-shirt and black jeans.”

The Minitron is aimed at the low-end consumer and will be available anywhere from Best Buy to dollar stores. Customers planning to buy one at Best Buy should prepare for a long walk since the Minitron display will be in a back-of-the-store closet next to the rest rooms. “It’s back there next to the VCRs and cassette players,” said Best Buy store manager Serkut Zitty.

The Minitron is expected to be promoted heavily by television newscasters whose every facial flaw is highlighted by high-definition televisions. “With the Minitron’s grayscale, my pimples blend in with my jaundice to make a nice sexy off-white,” says New York’s Chicks At Six co-host Buffy McMuffy.

Some networks are also hoping to take advantage of the Minitron’s grayscale. The AMC network is rumored to be planning a sweeps week “Watch ‘Mad Men’ The Way It Was Meant To Be Watched” marathon.