From Bernard Golberg’s blog:

Did you hear the one about how President Obama, upon taking office, learned that the economy was in even worse shape than he thought – so in order to save money, he had to fire 17 journalists.

From Jorge Costales:

If someone had done in the Tour de France what Cliff Lee is doing in the MLB playoffs, they would have required a blood transfusion to compensate for all the blood and urine tests he would have been subjected to.

About Catholic Squirrels:

There were four country churches in a small Texas town: Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist and Catholic. Each church was overrun with pesky squirrels.
One day, the Presbyterian Church called a meeting to decide what to do about the squirrels. After much prayer and consideration they determined that the squirrels were predestined to be there and they shouldn’t interfere with God’s divine will.

In the Baptist Church the squirrels had taken up habitation in the baptistry. The deacons met and decided to put a cover on the baptistry and drown the squirrels in it. The squirrels escaped somehow and next week there were twice as many there.

The Methodist Church got together and decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God’s creation. So, they humanely trapped the squirrels and set them free a few miles outside of town. Three days later, the squirrels were back.

But the Catholic Church came up with the best and most effective solution. They baptized the squirrels and registered them as members of the church. Now they only see them on Christmas and Easter.

From a 10/29/09 WSJ Editorial regarding the federal first-time home-buyer tax credit:

It’s hard not to laugh when viewing the results of the federal first-time home-buyer tax credit. The credit, worth up to $8,000 for the purchase of a home, has only been available since April of last year. Yet news of the latest taxpayer-funded mortgage scam has traveled fast. The Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell George, recently told Congress that at least 19,000 filers hadn’t purchased a home when they claimed the credit. For another 74,000 filers, claiming a total of $500 million in credits, evidence suggests that they weren’t first-time buyers.

As a “refundable” tax credit, it guarantees the claimants will get cash back even if they paid no taxes. A lack of documentation requirements also makes this program a slow pitch in the middle of the strike zone for scammers. The Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department are pursuing more than 100 criminal investigations related to the credit, and the IRS is reportedly trying to audit almost everyone who claims it this year.

The program is set to expire at the end of November, so naturally given its record of abuse, Congress is preparing to extend it.