Surge of Fainting After Bloggers Read April Fool's Stories About Clinton Dropping Out

(CP) - Kitchen floors and office buildings all over the country felt a shudder today, as hyperventilating blog readers dropped to the ground by the thousands. Their computer screens typically were set to one of the 15,000 postings about Hillary Clinton suspending her campaign, joining the McCain campaign as Vice President, or abruptly resigning the Senate to join a traveling circus, all of which are deeply funny and original.

A local hospital has experienced a shortage of beds for all the patients coming in with head injuries. "We don't know what to do with them all... wait a second, Hillary's getting a sex change??" said registered nurse Samantha Morgan, before falling off her chair.

A quick study of the proliferation of these posts, meant as jokes for the American holiday of April Fool's Day, have found that most of them can be traced back to one man in Lincoln, Nebraska known as "Funnyman Zero." An Obama supporter, he reportedly "thought it'd be hilarious" to "give everyone a scare and a laugh" during this lull in the primary battle between Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama, which resumes on April 22nd. "Get it, I wrote that she's dropping out, but you see she's NOT dropping out! This is awesome, I have to forward this as an email to my friends!"

In addition to the clogged emergency rooms, reports from local drugstores with a run on nasal spray and Albuterol are coming in. And the local Apple Store has seen dozens of sheepish customers with cracked or broken laptop screens, presumably from a release of anger after recognizing the joke.

At Talk Left, a blog supporting Sen. Clinton, the blogger using the pseudonym "Big Tent Democrat" was not amused. "This is clearly a deliberate campaign by the Hillary-hating drones to force Clinton out of the race. Will Obama denounce this tactic by his most rabid supporters mired in Clinton Derangement Syndrome? Obama will almost certainly oppose what I said."

Others considered this a technique designed to validate Sen. Clinton's claims that Obama is trying to shut down the race before voting in the final 10 primary states. "Clearly some Clinton supporter wrote that to pin it on the Obama people," said a blogger known as "Probama Noclinton". "How dumb do they think we are?"

In other news, cruise missiles have been launched against Iran.

Nuñez Drops $4 Million on Sweet AT&T Home Entertainment Center

In preparation for his upcoming appearance on MTV's Cribs, California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez has constructed perhaps the most state-of-the-art home entertainment system that anyone has ever seen, using equipment exclusive to AT&T and costing a whopping $4 million dollars - in fact, exactly $4 million dollars, to the penny. Nuñez reportedly paid with a co-signed check.

"This system's got it all," said an ebullient Nuñez while introducing the system to reporters at his downtown LA condo. "There's complete wireless Internet throughout the place, unlimited long distance and cellular service through Cingular, an iPhone, IP television through AT&T U-verse (just OK'd by the state Public Utilities Commission), and we even threw a cell tower on the roof so we'd never drop a signal." AT&T doesn't currently make computers or television monitors or what Nuñez described as "kickass" speakers, but they made a special dispensation for the Speaker, creating limited-edition electronics and hiring some of the best engineers from Sony and Toshiba to do it.

Amazingly, the bill for this service came to precisely $4,000,000.00, coincidentally the same cost that the California Democratic Party refunded to Nuñez last fall after the 2006 elections. AT&T spokesman Donald Ralston denied that this home entertainment system was simply the final piece of some secret deal made between the company, Nuñez and the Party. "Hey, if I had a spare $4 million lying around, I'd get myself this same deal," Ralston said. "You can get Internet in the bathroom. Did you hear me? The bathroom!"

The home entertainment center may prove an asset in the upcoming statewide initiative over relaxing term limits for state legislators. Nuñez plans to offer voters free nights in his "tricked-out" Web-enabled condo, so they can obtain more information on the term limits battle and why state lawmakers need the wisdom of experience to negotiate the difficult straits of Sacramento. He also is using the AT&T deal itself as a selling point. "Do you think some rookie lawmaker could get himself this kind of setup? Did the spokesman tell you that you can get Internet in the BATHROOM???"

Other amenities in the condo include a Web-based kitchen with cooking timers and automated appliances "like the Jetsons," in Nuñez' words. The bathroom reportedly is also Internet-enabled. A text message from Nuñez' iPhone can also unlock the front door.

Fellow lawmakers in the Assembly have offered tepid but mildly jealous support, although Minority Leader Mike Villines claimed that the living room blinds with a giant representation of the AT&T logo on them was "a bit much."