Stories of penis snatching are not unusual in West Africa, where witchcraft and superstition-rife religions still flourish. In recent days, new reports of snatching have flooded radio call-in shows here in Congo’s capital. Callers report (or express fears of) having their penises snatched or shrunken by sorcerers, who then demand money in return for the return of their penises.

“This is especially troubling considering how difficult not having a penis makes masturbation,” said Congo’s Minister of Penile Snatching Prevention, Dikimbe Kibaki. “How is a man without a penis supposed to protect his prostate, rubbing his nipples? I don’t think so…though I will give it a go.”

Of grave concern to many is the health of a detached penis. Without normal blood flow, many wondered how the organs would survive.

“My (penis) has a hard enough time surviving as it is,” said Stanley Livingston, of suburban Kinshasa. “It barely gets enough love when it’s attached to me. Who’s going to take care of it now?”

As Livingston noted, not all concern over snatched penises concerned prostate health.

“Not having a healthy prostate is one thing,” said Linvingston. “Being totally dickless is another thing entirely. I’ll never hear the end of it from my wife.”

Others wondered why sorcerers couldn’t have given them a choice of organs to snatch. Many would have gladly parted with pesky appendix or even prostates.

“Why the hell couldn’t they have snatched my damn prostate?” said Desmond Kano, who suffers from an enlarged prostate. “It’s not like you can miss it. These damn sorcerers got it ass backwards…literally.”

“Talk about restoring your faith in the Lord,” said Larry Terry, former president of Atheists.org, a post from which he retired this morning after news reports that frequent masturbation lowers a male’s chance of developing prostate cancer. “How can you argue there’s not a God after news like that? I’ve been SAVED!”

Others clearly shared Terry’s sentiment, as atheist organizations from around the world saw a stark drop in male members. Despite the desertion of nearly all males from such atheist groups, non-believer orgs actually saw a surge in membership, as fed-up females flooded their rosters.

“That’s the last straw,” said Sister Mary Tenacious, who claimed she’d be disavowing her nun-ly vows as soon as she finished her application to Atheists.org. “As any woman of the cloth knows, all kinds of things try your faith. But a world where playing with yourself benefits only men, I mean, heck with God if that’s how he’s gonna be.”

Other women weren’t as quick to question researchers’ claims…or God.

“I see God every time I touch myself,” claimed Christina Amphlett, lead singer of the DiVinyls. “Why else do you think I’m singing about touching myself all the time?”

“Not only was I discriminated against as a white woman who attended Yale Law School,” Ms. Clinton said, to a confused NAACP chapter in Philly. “Once upon a time, I fought a lonely battle with Tourette’s Syndrome, a battle from which I emerged victorious and ready to lead on day one.”

Asked when, exactly, she battled Tourette’s, other than at Camp David in 1995 when author Benjamin Barber and others were there to witness and document her “screw ‘em” remark, Ms. Clinton was ready with specifics.

“Whenever, in the past, I profanely denigrated a constituency whose votes I now need and someone has evidence of it,” Ms. Clinton said. “That’s when.”

Clinton said that goes doubly for any time in the future that she reviles rival Barrak Obama for statements he’s made, which turn out to pale in comparison to statements we later learn she made.

“I remember, my uncle used to take me out back of that old shed on Lake Wrunamoka to shoot our 22’s,” Clinton said, a wistful expression crossing her face.

“I remember how he actually nicknamed me “Screw ‘em” because, at times, I inadvertently said it so dang often…as happened to me at Camp David when witnesses were there to quote me.”

“God meant to bring down his wrath on those polygamists and their compound in Eldorado,” said the face of Jesus, which appeared to diners at a Texas panhandle eatery on a piece of french toast. “His aim was a little off. Acts of God are not a science…obviously.”

Though no deaths were reported in the region, don’t blame the Big Man.

“This wasn’t just some random ‘act’,” Jesus Christ on french toast continued. “God meant to smote some ass: Besides bringing the smote down on those male Mormons — which sounds like ‘Mammon,’ don’t you think? — he meant to take out some Mexican drug lords down El Paso way. And when I say ‘take out’ I don’t mean treat to watery drinks at some border town donkey show.”

Unfortunately — and as noted by the syrup-drenched visage of the Son of Man — God was off his game.

“If performing acts of God were easy,” said the piece of toast, speaking off the record, “everybody would be doing them. As it stands, God’s still the only one with those chops…though the collateral damage can be hell.”

“Bill collectors? Really?” sobbed one senior member of the campaign, tears of joy streaming down her face “What took them so long! For the love of God, take him!”

Informed that the bill collectors wouldn’t be coming for Bill, the former president, but would be there, instead, to collect on bills long unpaid by their own campaign, HRC’s people went directly to the third stage of grief: bargaining.

“You make him disappear, we’ll get your janitors their puny salaries,” one top staffer was overheard saying, over the phone, to repo people. Moments later, the same staffer was heard shouting, “Who’s got the petty cash?”

Bill collectors did ultimately arrive at HRC campaign headquarters, just as staffers were reeling from another batch of bald-face lies by ex-POTUS, Bill Clinton. Those whoppers involved statements and actions related to the “harrowing” arrival in Tuzla of his wife (who is, incidentally, the one running for president, name’s Hillary).

Staffers, who off the record admitted the campaign had been going through interns like hot wings at a Super Bowl party, were hoping the bill collectors would return with reinforcements.

“Can you send some Penn collectors,” said one staffer, who insisted the porcine pollster had not stopped working on the campaign. “And a Wolfson collector would be awesome. And an Ickes collector — especially an Ickes collector.”

For their part, the bill collectors wondered why a couple that raked in $109 million over the last ten years would risk their reputation by welching on debts to mom and pop businesses and college marching bands.

“Do you think they raked in 109 million worrying about the little people?” said one staffer. “Besides, they don’t have much of a reputation to risk. At least not with sane people.”

“His kidneys are cool,” said noted neurosurgeon, Dr. Larry Terry, of Venice Home-Schooled Surgical Guild. “But he’s got s**t for brains.”

Terry expressed frustration at the dearth of brains available for transplants.

“All he needs is one, measly brain — it’s not like we need six kidneys,” Terry said. “Hell, I’d use a pig brain if he weren’t already completely pig-headed.”

While the transplant procedure involves only one donor and one recipient, Terry insists it will be more complicated than the multi-kidney transplant.

“For one, the President’s got his head up his ass,” Terry said. “That may explain his tendency for talking out of his ass, but it’s going to require heavyweight proctologistics.”

For another thing, Bush’s brain cell deficit has been so great so he’s almost totally lost the ability to speak English, his native, and only language.

“It’s one thing if you’re the guy in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” Terry insisted. “It’s another thing entirely to wink your way through eight years as the leader of the free world, though God knows he’s tried.”

“I will be running up-to-and-beyond the convention in August, through the general election in November and, if necessary, until the Sun consumes the Earth in a gaseous ball of flame six billion years from now,” said Clinton.

Asked by reporters how she could justify staying in the race in spite of nearly impossible odds of winning short of calamity befalling Obama, she insisted she’s doing all she can to see that calamity befalls Obama.

“I curse him several times a day by spitting between two fingers,” Clinton said. “As well, my chief strategist, Mark Penn, has officially left my campaign so that he can unofficially continue his daily hatchet jobs.”

Clinton told reporters that if John McCain can keep America in Iraq for the next hundred years, she can certainly stay in the race for the next six billion.

“I mean, accidents happen,” Clinton told reporters. “I mean, Obama’s gonna kick the bucket eventually, and when he does, I’ll be waiting — if necessary in a specially designed cryogenic bed I got from cash-strapped Michael Jackson — to be returned to my rightful place in the White House.”

“We’re gonna need more time,” said Dr. Dick Leaky of Waterhouse Labs. “And maybe a bunch of pizzas.”

Leaky was asked what challenges researchers faced.

“There are frequent trips to the head, for sure,” Leaky confirmed. “But eight glasses of water a day kept us peeing, too — though generally in the toilet. After guzzling eight beers, most of my team is lucky to even get it in the rest room.”

Still, Leaky insists the team is deeply committed.

“We’re especially adamant that any human testing is done on ourselves,” said Leaky. “In that regard, we feel a great kinship with early vaccine researchers who injected themselves with trial vaccines, except that we’re way more belligerent and eat a lot of bar snacks.”

Despite the team’s insistence on only using themselves as test subjects, Leaky does feel that help is on the way.

“The things that everyday people like Arizona Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart are doing for the cause,” said Leaky. “His work with beer bongs is second to none. Regardless of whether it ultimately proves useful to our research — and despite any sanctions imposed on him by the NFL — we’re sure that, unless he gets whiskey dick, he’s getting laid a lot.”

“Re-Dub-Uranus intends to rename Uranus Planet Bush,” said a press representative for the organization.

Others were quick to jump on the Bush-naming bandwagon.

In Nevada, opponents of the proposed Navaho Mountain nuclear waste facility were clamoring to have its name changed to the Radioactive Bush Nucular Waste Dump.

“We think the project will definitely be shit-canned with the good ol’ boy name and cherished nuclear misnomer attached,” said Cherry Noble, of the anti-nuke group IfYouCan’tPronounceItShutYourPieHole.org.

Others considering adopting the Bush name include the nation of Austria, which is considering rechristening itself so that mail now addressed to the real town of Fucking, Austria will henceforth go to Fucking, Bush.

A statement released today by the airliner sought to reassure the public that “…while the gun was not in the pilot’s luggage when it discharged” as had been previously reported, “all the pilot who fired it was doing was demonstrating bravado in order to get some sex.”

The airline agreed that, like the face-shooting “hunting” incident involving Vice President Dick Cheney “there were some beers.” Still, the company maintained, “at no time was the flight crew doing shots of duty-free Jägermeister.”

This despite accounts by disgruntled passengers of empty bottles of duty-free Jäger flying in the “general direction” of a nude flight attendant fleeing the cockpit subsequent to the pistol’s firing, but prior to the plane’s landing.

“Usually, our pilots might horse around, landing ‘no hands’ while wearing S&M hoods to impress the ladies, that sort of thing,” said airline representatives. “This episode is a bit out of the ordinary for us and the public can rest assured we looked into it and found it to be the least of the public’s worries.”

“Nevertheless,” airline reps insisted, “at no time were passengers threatened by sudden decompression of the cabin, because the pilot actually passed out over the bullet hole in the jet’s fuselage.”