Former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was in stable condition Monday after a 90-minute surgery to correct "a serious dental problem." Pinochet issued a terse statement after coming out of the procedure, which was performed by his personal oral surgeon, that simply said "It isn't safe."

FOX TV isn't wasting any time stockpiling "reality shows" in preparation for potential strikes by the Writers Guild and/or the Screen Actors Guild. The shows require no writing or acting, just shameless people. The latest is Colonoscopy Squad!, which will feature raw footage of on-camera voyages through human intestines.

How people will be able to discern a difference between Colonoscopy Squad! and C-SPAN  will be the biggest obstacle to potential success for the new series.

Also on the books at FOX is  In the BAIG!, a reality show that will feature the day-to-day lives of the collaborators who have helped corporate slime try to steal New York's WBAI radio from its staff of authentic journalists and its thousands of listener/owners.

In case both show biz guilds strike, the stars of In the

Baig! would be filmed in the act of violating the rights of three different groups of highly skilled workers, solidifying the corporate futures of these dauntless opportunists.

When asked what he thought of English-only suits Court-appointed President Bush said "I'm sure they're nice but I prefer to wear suits made in the USA!"

Hawaii's school teachers agreed to a new labor contract Tuesday, ending the second of two walkouts that shut down a state's entire public education system for the first time. Part of the reason the state caved in was the show of solidarity from teachers around the country who went all the way to Hawaii just to join the picket line.

Smokey Bear has a new message for adults: "Only You Can Prevent Wildfires.-- literally, now that Jr. Bush has slashed funding for our national parks."

Elections officials nationwide say they are determined to reform voting procedures and tabulation after the problematic 2000 elections. Court-appointed President Bush has promised to sign any federal reform legislation that is passed -- on January 20, 2005.

The Bush administration and Peruvian authorities are in sharp disagreement over responsibility for the deaths of the Baptist missionaries who were shot down in the plane fingered by the CIA. "Our agreement with Peru was clear, we said we'd be happy to order killings but we simply could not accept any blame for them" said one administration official.

Off the record the Bush administration is said to be quite miffed with the religious community over the killings. The court-appointed prez himself was said to grumble, "You'd think these people never heard the term 'Baptists under fire'."

Now that hoof and mouth disease has  infected a human in England the Court-appointed Bush administration has offered the full services of the Central Intelligence Agency to Britain as soon as it decides to go ahead with the wholesale eradication of its own people.

Nearly 250 children who used to live on the streets packed into a congressional hearing room to testify firsthand to the devastating impact homelessness has on childhood. Republican legislators called the hearing a "liberal plot that these children never would have been sucked into had they been properly homeless-schooled."