SPINAL PROGRAM ANNOUNCED

WASHINGTON D.C. (AP) -- Stung by allegations his administration has done little to advance spinal-damage research, President George W. Bush today announced a $10 billion government program to study the very latest initiatives in spinal care.

At the center of the study will be what the president described as a "breakthrough" in "pre-trauma spinal-maintenence therapy". Essentially, as explained by the president, this involves "telling people not to get on big stupid animals and try jumping them over stuff."

"I mean, hey," said the president, standing before a chart demonstrating the relative sizes of a show-jumping horse and a standard showbusiness human. "You want me to do all this stem-cell science. How about you don’t get on the damn horse in the first place?"

Several million dollars from the program have been earmarked for a door-to-door education campaign in the nation’s wealthiest areas, where horse ownership and related spinal injuries are rampant.

"Turns out a lot of folks get on these enormous, witless critters and then - get this - try to make 'em bounce over walls and hedges and such," said the president. "My panel of experts tell me this is no way to maintain viable spinal integrity."

In a demonstration illustrating the potency of Bush's claims, a sack of kittens equivalent in weight to a standard showbusiness identity was elevated to a height approximating that of the rider of a leaping horse and then dashed to the ground. Fewer than half the kittens survived without injury, and all were subsequently killed when a weight equal to that of a mature horse was dropped upon the writhing, howling sack.

"See?" said the president, holding aloft a bloodied, lifeless tabby. "Stem cells ain’t going to do much for this little guy."

Nice...