GREENESS ENVY
Pollsters Push Pollution Solution
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ASHINGTON, DC –– Jade with jealousy, the Republican Right is moving to regain lost ground in The EcoCulture Wars. These Neoconservationists covet the praise that's been garnered by Nobelist Al Gore for his global warming warnings, and the viridian votes tree-hugging Democrats have reaped in the polls. After claiming for years that climate change was due solely to Tipper's hot flashes, and throwing lots of greenbacks at "eminent scientists" to study the coming Ice Age, these newly-kelly conservatives are going for the other Green in a big way.
In answer to An Inconvenient Truth, Ex-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has published A Contract with the Earth, a pro-business approach to environmentalism (which is like a pro-gun approach to child-rearing.) The title invokes the heyday of the 90's Republican Revolution when Gingrich's Contract with America gave license to the corporate mob to put out a Contract on America –– axing jobs, icing unions, stealing billions. Newt's now thinking global as he evinces a tender and abiding love for Mother Nature even as he suggests ways to pimp her for profit and then get the old girl to lie back and enjoy it.
California's Gov. Schwarzenegger is pumping hard for a Green Old Party, but his Left Coast credentials unnerve the party faithful. "Arnold's not the most potent 'roid in the hypo," complains an unnamed RNC operative in Sacramento, "he thought Waterworld was a documentary. Besides, for all his charisma, he panders to Hollywood and the Kennedys." Secretly, right-wingers are said to be chartreuse with schadenfreude over the recent wildfires that swept the state. As EPA chief Stephen Johnson puts it, "See, you try to make friends with the Earth, and it burns your bony ass."
Nonetheless, the current crop of Presidential hopefuls need to pay lip service to eco-friendliness. As Hillary Clinton woos polluter and pollutee with equal aplomb, Rudy Giuliani is set to announce his 9/11 Mean Streets 9/11 Clean Streets initiative. It calls for a new Green Berets Special Forces Unit to patrol major U.S. cities, cracking down on lawless litterers, spitters, squeegee men, and other eco-terrorists. He insists, "The public should feel safe on our streets from a carelessly thrown gum wrapper, or, God forbid, the debris from another terror attack like the one we suffered on 9/11!"
Mitt Romney is calling for a massive Recycling America program which will provide sturdy mountain bikes (but not licenses) to illegal aliens, who will earn the minimum wage and valuable Green Card Points by riding from town to town collecting used cans, bottles and metal scraps. The reclaimed items will be used in the construction of a 20-foot-tall fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Fred Thompson would seek to cap hazardous methane emissions that are depleting the ozone layer by directing the National Guard to "shoot every gassy little critter that you can grind into a patty."
Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, is proposing weekly national prayer vigils beseeching God to spare the (straight) sinners and the building of the USS Arkansas, a $100 billion Ark made from repurposed Navy aircraft carriers. Tom Tancredo has directed his volunteers to collect as many old bottles and cans as possible, and to return them to recycling centers for the 5¢ refund which should see his campaign through until the end of next week.
HEAVY MATTEL
A Doll's House of Horrors
EL SEGUNDO, CA –– The massive recall of potentially dangerous toys by Mattel, Inc. took a bizarre and tragic turn as one of the company's superstars took her own life in an apparent response to the scandal. Two weeks after recalling 1.5 million Chinese-made Fischer-Price toys because of lead-paint dangers, the toy titan announced it was breaking the hearts of another 18 million kiddies worldwide by recalling a wide range of toys due to the presence of powerful, though teeny-tiny, magnets that posed a potential swallowing hazard. Toys included Polly Pocket, Batman and the "scooper" accessory for Barbie and her loose-boweled pooch, Tanner.
Barbie, already suffering menopausal mood swings and allegedly distraught over her best friend Midge's recent drug bust, reportedly "snapped" upon hearing the news of the recall. She stole a rifle from G.I. Joe's locker while he was away on duty in Fallujah, and blew out the section of her molded head where a brain would have been. Officials at Mattel expressed "profound regret" and vowed to honor her memory by overhauling their safety procedures, and by issuing a commemorative Big Sleep Barbie Play Set. The "before" edition is pictured here.
Ot
her Mattel characters, including Elmo and Dora the Explorer, are being offered grief counselling although the tragedy really hasn't sunk in yet, mostly due to the effects of lead poisoning.
Barbie's desperate act mirrors the response of shamed Cheung Shu-hung, a co-owner of the Lee Der Industrial in southern China that was blamed for using the banned lead paint. As Western companies increasingly deal with Asian suppliers they might learn from their example in the face of dishonor. Inspired by the recent self-inflicted death of Japan's disgraced Agriculture Minister, Matsuoka Toshikatu, Stanford School of Business is expected to offer an ethics course this fall entitled Seppuku and You which argues that career suicide is sometimes best for corporate culture, the greater good, and the bottom line.
POO POO PLOTTERS
Federal Authorities Issue Foiler Alert
WASHINGTON, DC –– As details emerged concerning the plot of a Guyanese/Trinidadian/Skid Row terror cell to devastate John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, New York by blowing up a gas pipeline, Federal authorities have decided to release information on several other recently-uncovered conspiracies. U.S. Attorney Roslyn Mauskopf characterized the potential devastation of the JFK scheme as "unthinkable", probably because no one but a crazy 63-year-old former baggage handler and homeless man like Russell Defreitas could have dreamed it up, but officials insist that Americans will involuntarily void their bowels when they're alerted to these other doozies.
Ira
q to the Future –– Seeking to bolster the case for his Iraq debacle, George W. Bush continues to provide ex post facto justifications for a preemptive war. Documents recovered by US troops from the fourteenth number two insurgent leader killed this month, show that deceased al-Qaeda in Iraq Chief Adu Musab al-Zarqawi may have been receiving instructions directly from Osama bin-Laden as early as 2001 via a crude, but effective, time machine.
The purported device, which is said to look a bit like Alladin's lamp, allowed the terror chief to transport himself across time and space to deliver insidious instructions and share his 9/11 plans. It is assumed he could also have visited Saddam himself and received a small check to help fund the World Trade Center attack. The current whereabouts of this fantastic contraption are unknown, but it has been classified as a WMD and is being sought.
The al-Chiquita Network –– Admissions by Chiquita Brands International that they paid terrorists about $1.7 mil for protection in a volatile farming region of Colombia, has the DEA joining forces with the CIA and the Jane Goodall Institute to prevent attacks in the U.S. by narco-terrorist-primates. Although the food giant has already paid $25 million in fines, the nexus of anti-American sentiment, coca and bananas has agents fearing that drug-crazed leftist chimps could enter the U.S. hidden in Chiquita container vessels and wreak havoc in port cities. "Have you ever seen a chimp on crack?," asks Karen P. Tandy, DEA head (in the non-doper sense), "J. Fred Muggs it is not."
Th
e Waziristani Candidate –– The uncanny similarity between the names Osama and Obama (one freakin' letter's difference!) prompted the FBI to probe allegations that the Democratic presidential candidate from Illinois may have at one time been a prisoner of terror mastermind bin Laden. Insiders insist that bin Laden has seen the film The Manchurian Candidate (the original –– even madmen have taste) and might have been inspired to secretly abduct his near-namesake during a Middle East junket, spirit him off to his lair in northwestern Pakistan and brainwash him.
Analysts reason that the process wouldn't have taken too long in the case of the left-leaning Obama, and they assume that his current campaign is the central element of a fiendish stratagem to put an al-Qaeda operative into the White House. It will also provide a persuasive explanation if Obama were to ultimately run on the bottom of a ticket with Hillary Clinton and if something unfortunate were to happen to her.
SUMMER OF SHAM
Nation Succumbs to Sequelitis
WASHINGTON, DC –– Even as Hollywood trots out third installments of several tentpole franchises this summer –– Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, The Bourne Supremacy, Rush Hour 3 –– it's threepeat time and beyond in our nation's capital. Coming soon to a government complex near you:
Th
e Wolfowitz Calamity –– He damaged U.S. credibility, squandering untold lives and dollars with the Iraq War. He crippled our reputation with his scandalous checks for sex shenanigans at the World Bank. Now, he utterly devastates America's prestige as he replaces US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad (after paying him for "certain favors") and finishes the work of former Ambassador John Bolton by removing the top ten floors of UN headquarters with and IED.
Wolf at the Door 3 –– After James Wolfensohn and Paul Wolfowitz, the Bush Administration searches for a successor with a vaguely lupine name to head the World Bank, offering the position to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Law and Order producer Dick Wolfe, and Marvel superhero, Wolverine.
Mc
Cain: 2008 –– 2000 -– sand-bagged by race-baiters in South Carolina. 2004 –– "Swift boated" when asked to run as Kerry's first mate. 2008 –– stumble-bummed as he hitches his star to the troop surge in Iraq. America's favorite POW is wow! in his latest comedy caper.
Gonzo Tres –– In an effort to compete with the popular sado-cinema of the Saw series, Alberto Gonzalez will follow his terror-filled turns as a torture-teaching Presidential Counsel and as Torquemada General of the Justice Department with his horrifying new role as Commandant of the Gitmo Prison Camp. He will have a bigger rack than Ilsa, She-wolf of the SS and, oh yes, there will be blood.
Hillraiser III –– Hill raised Bill in 1992 and again in 1996 and now the HillBilly Trilogy comes to a head (without a blue dress), as the desperate former First Wife attempts to make her story history.
An Extremely Inconvenient Truth: Emission Impossible –– As Al Gore attempts to match the breadth of Michael Moore's success along with the girth of his waistline he plans to release this sequel to his own eco-shockumentary and follow it up with a third focusing on ozone layer depletion, to be called An Un-effin'-believably Inconvenient Truth: The Hole's on a Roll.
Live Free, Die Hard & Leave a Beautiful Corpse –– Following in the tread marks of Bruce Willis' tired terrorist-fighting cop John McClane, the Pentagon extends it's wildly unpopular Iraq War Pentalogy to see if the public can be persuaded to plunk down another $100 billion.
HO NO!
Corporations Shocked, Shocked Over Jock
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EW YORK, NY –– Ur-shock jock Don Imus' show was cancelled by CBS Radio and its televised simulcast axed by MSNBC after the two media monoliths' management teams tuned in the program for the first time. It was the concerted, selfless efforts of the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, citing Imus' demeaning reference to the Rutgers women's basketball team, that alerted the conglomerates to the offensive nature of the broadcast they had carried for over 10 years in the relatively obscure morning drive time slot.
Eight days after the utterance of the racist and sexist (and tonsorial) slur, "nappy-headed hos", CBS CEO Les Moonves expressed spontaneous "revulsion" at the jibe and added that he had experienced "primal disgust" at the prospect of meeting with Rev. Sharpton, "horripilation" at the threat of major advertisers pulling ads from his network and "the dry heaves" at having to make a decision on Imus' fate. Having clearly suffered as much as the offended young women, Moonves moved beyond his original decision of a two-week suspension when he was made aware by the holy men that the host was not Dave Garroway, but Satan. Though he himself might have appeared on the broadcast, there was no way he could have known that the show's content consisted of probing interviews with leading politicians, badinage with celebrated authors, sport-related diversion, cultural rotomantade, and fag jokes.
The combination of salon and saloon, Rambeau and Sambo, Dice-K and Dice Clay, Algonquin Round Table and Mohegan Sun Craps Table also confused Steve Capus, News President of MSNBC (MS for MicroSoft, referring to its ratings). He felt the coarseness of Mr. Imus' "joke" was inconsistent with the journalistic standards typified by his near network's Doc-Blocks, which proudly feature "documentaries" like The Vampire Killings, Lock-up: Miami-Dade, The Hitman Tapes, and Predator Raw: the Unseen Tapes. Imus would likely still be on MSNBC if he had abused young people physically instead of verbally.
Having been awakened to the hate speech he had unwittingly peddled when the former Cocaine Cowboy tried talking ghetto to get a cheap laugh, Mr. Moonves can at least be proud of the image of young women of color his parent company projects elsewhere. He could sample Busta' Rhymes celebration of his bitch's dope back on Atlanta's V-103, the pneumatic hos of BET's Rap City videos, the enterprising career girlz of I Love New York on VH1 or the plus-size skank of Paramount's Eddie Murphy romp, Norbit. If he had a radio or a TV or a movie ticket, that is.
JUDGE DREAD
White House Sought Out-of-Court Settlement of Scores
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ASHINGTON, DC –– Like an electrified clamp on an enemy combatant's left testicle, the pressure on Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to resign has intensified in the wake of revelations concerning the firing of eight U.S. prosecutors. As is often the case in the Capitol, it is not the initial illegal act that has spurred the outrage, but rather the lies told in a clumsy attempt to conceal it. It's not the outing of a CIA agent, but the alibiing of an NBC anchor, not the break-in by plumbers, but the cover-up by bumblers, not the blow job, but the blown smoke. Seeing how unconcerned Congress is about breaking the law so long as one doesn't say one didn't, it's a wonder scandalistas don't simply cop to all allegations and check into rehab for a week to hold onto their jobs.
New e-mail evidence that hints at a conspiracy to inject politics into the wider world of judicial processes threatens to condemn AG Gonzalez to solitary confinement in the footnote Gitmo of the Bush presidency's sorry-ass history. An e-mail from Karl Rove to Gonzalez from January, 2005 following up on the suggestion that all 93 U.S Attorneys be let go (and have their gavels woodchipped and their robe dry-cleaning allowances slashed) adds a list of other possible candidates for replacement by "loyal Bushies." Although there is a gap of 20 or more e-mails in the subsequent correspondence, attributed to the work of top FBI technicians who figured out that e-mails can be removed from one's inbox and erased from servers so that they won't later be subpoenaed by Congressional subcommittees, the surviving messages detail a disturbing pattern.
Looking to affect the outcome of a race far bigger than any midterm election, the DOJ was looking to swap out soft-on-rock American Idol arbiters Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell with former Republican Congressman J.C. Watts and Fox News' snippy Shepard Smith. Paula Abdul was considered too incoherent to be a threat, although it was suggested that her dosages be upped. The Dancing With the Stars panel was discussed, but let stand because the old British loon "looks like Margaret Thatcher's husband" and the zany Italian "has a comforting Fascist air about him." As for another popular TV tribunal, Gonzalez wrote, "Get rid of all deviants on america'snext top model except for heidi kloom that big beuatiful blonde milf...mother and model...lol...and let marines back from Iraqjudge as a reward."
Other bruited ousters included the presumably left-leaning Amy Brenneman by the former Everyone Loves Raymond (and George W.-loving) co-star Patricia Heaton in the courtroom drama, Judging Amy. An e-mail written after Harriet Miers withdrew from consideration for the Supreme Court bench, outlines a plan to unseat Judge Judy, and have the less-qualified White House mouthpiece take her place in the daytime docket. Ann Coulter was proposed as Judge Marilyn Milian's stand-in on The People's Court which would change it's vaguely pinko name to The Conservative's Court and hear cases of liberals who lose relatives in terrorist attacks only to scam the government.
At one point Rove wrote, "god I hate Fast Times atRidgemont High, not jest Saen Penn, but that tall gooff. Can we get Universal to digtally remove Judge Rienhold and insert a young Dennis Milller?" A digital switch was also sought for liberal Paul Newman in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, with Tom Selleck a likely right-wing replacement and plans were underway to have Charlton Heston sub for Christopher Lloyd as Judge Doom and reveal not just Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but who ultimately tried, convicted and executed the furry little bastard.
GO SELL THE SPARTANS
Army Recruiters Coax Cannon Fodder
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ASHINGTON, DC –– Impressed with its boffo first week's gross of $70 mil and titillated by its condemnation by Tehran, the Pentagon has adopted the movie 300 as the basis for its 2007 Army Recruiting Campaign. A heavily-digitized adaptation of Frank Miller's comic book treatment of the 480 BC Battle of Thermopylae, which pitted 300 stalwart Spartans against a much larger Persian force, the film combines a stirring sense of bloodlust with an utter lack of historical accuracy. An enthusiastic General Petraeus, commander of Multinational Force Iraq, is said to have wet his pants at a preview.
"We want to instill that sense of blind patriotic fervor in the young men and women we're recruiting," offered Pete Geren, the new Acting Secretary of the Army. "Those Spartans understood the meaning of sacrifice in what some wusses would call a lost cause. We'll make their motto, our motto –– I tan i epi tas. That translates as With It or On It, referring to their shields, as in come back victorious or dead. Rather than come back wounded or disabled at the tax payer's expense, thank you very much." Mr. Geren replaces Francis J. Harvey who stepped down because too few soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan had gotten that message and selfishly overwhelmed the VA hospital system.
Eric Keshin of McCann Erickson Worldwide, which holds the $200+ mil a year US Army advertising contract, evinced enthusiasm for this "enhancement" of his agency's Army Strong campaign. "We've been looking for the right 'voice' for that manly slogan –– in my head it was always the Hulk or, at least, Hulk Hogan grunting "Army Strong, grrrr", y'know? But if we can get Gerry Butler as King Leonidas, with his loincloth and bitchin' six-pack, bellowing it and then cutting to WIth It or On It in blood red Futura Extra Bold with like a dripping/shimmery effect? Whoa, mama!"
The Army reached its recruitment goal of 80,000 early in 2006 by lowering the IQ requirements for enlistees (300 could denote the average SAT score), waiving various criminal offenses (knowing how to score skag can only be a plus in Afghanistan), and offering bigger bonuses (now recruits can have that handicapped van with custom detailing waiting when they get home.) Although Army brass intends to approach comix artists like Miller to adapt other hopeless military campaigns as heroic slaughter-fests against dusky devils, there is concern that the falling academic standards might make so-called graphic novels too challenging for the Fanboys in Company C. "We're looking to celebrate Custer's courage at Little Big Horn in Stand and Jim Bowie's deathbed defiance of Santa Anna in Mo and those British troops holding off the Zulu in South Africa in 139, but we might have to go straight to video," suggested Gen. E.C. Blurb, Commander of the Army's new ComicComm. "Of course we're covering the gaming front for PS3 and Wii with 3000, the story of the valiant Americans fallen in Iraq through 2006."
Joint Chiefs Head Gen. Peter Pace, who recently got into hot water for stating that homosexual acts are immoral when asked about the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, applauded 300 for handling the "gays in the military" issue so delicately. "Even if the real Spartan soldiers played Disappear the Spear when they were training their young men, the movie sensibly draws a line between the straight, white heroes and the bent, dark enemy. The Persian King Xerxes looks like Grace Jones at the Stonewall –– like I'd know –– and that's what has Ahmadinejad and his Iranian cronies up in arms. Hollywood has always been our biggest promoter, pitching the glory of war to the young and impressionable –– if we can combine that with fear of the queer, then we're getting somewhere."
NOTHING SACRED
Documentaries to Debunk World Religions
SI
LVER SPRING, MD –– Since launching Titanic, history's highest-grossing film, James Cameron has spent ten years photographing fish in 3D before latching onto the yarn of a 2,000-year-old tomb that purportedly contains the coffins of Jesus and his family (including JC Jr.) If the identities of those interred could be pseudo-scientifically established it would refute the Gospel accounts of Christ's resurrection and undermine the central dogma of the Christian faith. Cameron's documentary, The Burial Cave of Jesus, has understandably irked devout Christians, reputable archaeologists and discerning filmgoers who still cringe when they hear My Heart Will Go On. The publicity-generating controversy has convinced executives at Discovery Channel, which aired the film, to engage several famed showmen to discredit the origins of other world religions. A press release for the upcoming series, entitled Slap My Faith, includes blurbs for these exposés:
The Rama Plot –– Oliver Stone examines long-buried Vedic texts that outline a successful plot to assassinate Lord Sri Rama and replace him on the throne with an impostor. Conspiracy scholars cast suspicion on his archenemy Ravana, his wife Sita, brother Lakshmana and operatives from the CIA.
Sol Almighty –– Woody Allen traces the life of Sol, described in parchments discovered near the Dead Sea that date to the 3rd Century BCE as The One True Messiah promised to the Chosen People. His mother, however, insisted Sol get a real job. He died of a bleeding ulcer at age 33 after a career in divorce litigation.
Lord of the Wedding Rings –– Peter Jackson recreates the state of Utah in Wellington, New Zealand to reveal this shocking story of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. In letters located in the Provo trailer of an unnamed Osmond, that are believed to be written in Smith's own hand, the sect's founder is said to reveal that mandating polygamy was "just a way to get back at those guys who always beat me at poker."
I Can't Believe It's Not Buddha –– Ang Lee pans and scans startling scrolls unearthed in Nepal's Himalayan foothills that suggest Siddhartha Gautama was actually an extremely pushy guy with ADHD who owned a bar called Nirvana. He would sit under the Bodhi tree in a "meditative state" only when thoroughly intoxicated.
Dude, Where's My Thetan? –– Michael Moore takes on Hollywood's power-broker Scientologists when he uncovers an early draft of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics, bearing its original title Dietetics, and explores, in endless interviews, the theory that it was really intended as a weight-loss program for middle-aged film stars.
The Allah Code –– A former second unit director on Pirates of the Caribbean has bravely agreed to pursue the heretical revelations contained in a 6th Century manuscript discovered in Medina, Saudi Arabia. It calls into question the Prophet Muhammad's ... Discovery Channel regrets that it will be unable to broadcast this documentary and extends our management's condolences to the family of a former second unit director on Pirates of the Caribbean.
RUN LOL RUN
White House Hopefuls Scramble to Fill Coffers
WASHINGTON, DC –– With over twenty
months remaining before Americans go to the polls and choose their next President, candidates have already scurried to the campaign starting line. Whether one compares the 2008 contest to a 600-day episode of The Amazing Race with more shameless contestants or to an 86-week-long NASCAR event on a 1,000,000-mile track with more dishonest pit crews, it is certain that the amount of money that will be spent on this marathon could have sent Neil Armstrong to Jupiter and back.
It’s estimated that a minimum war chest of $100,000,000 is required to wage a viable Presidential campaign or, as in the case of a Mike “Sucka” Huckabee, to alert more than 100 Americans that you are attempting to do so. As more candidates eschew public funding, the onerous task of fund-raising begins earlier and earlier in the election cycle (for Hillary Clinton, at her 2nd Grade Bake Sale in Park Ridge, IL) and demands more imaginative means to dodge flimsy campaign finance laws.
Republican frontrunner John McCain, lusting after Religious Right collection plates, will enlist the prophetic Pat Robertson as his Chief Fundamentalist Raiser. He is also expected to have an aide “discover” the image of the Virgin Mary in a skin lesion on his forehead and charge admission to those faithful moved to touch it. Rudolf Giuliani has struck a deal with 7-Eleven Inc. to rename their convenience markets 9-Elevens until November ’08, to both honor those lost on that fateful day and to commemorate the heroic leadership of “America’s Mayor”. Hizzoner will receive a portion of the proceeds from the new Rudy Raspberry Slurpeeanee.
Massachusetts’ Mitt Romney will try to shake the liberal stigma of Boston as he shakes down disillusioned neocons with a Rummy’s Kids Labor Day Telethon for MDA (the Military Dysfunction Association.) Far-right long shot Sam Brownback of Kansas will attempt to shed the vaguely pederastic implications of his last name by changing it to Greenback, and selling chances at VFW halls on how few votes he'll receive in the Vermont primary.
Barack Obama will seek to trade on his rock star status, taking up the mantle of a fallen James Brown on a national Obamarama concert tour. He will be joined by The Dixie Chicks, Bruce Hornsby, Sheryl Crow, and, to bolster his street cred, Johnny Mathis. An upbeat musical version of his life, Obama Mia!, is scheduled to open in most Super Tuesday states this November. A well-endowed Hillary Clinton looks to raise the quid pro quotient by calling in every political favor she’s ever earned (even if it means sending recalcitrant allies video-taped “reminders” that were shot in the Lincoln bedroom.) She’s also enlisting her #1 debtor to secretly drum up hard cash with a string of XXX websites based on his scandalous past including slickwillywanker.com, monicablewinsky.com, and gennifurpie.com.
John Edwards will attempt to capitalize on the confusion between his name and that of the psychic medium John Edward by soliciting massive cash donations –– not covered by campaign finance laws –– from the deceased relatives of lonely old widows who find his mole “cute”. Formerly full-figured Bill Richardson of New Mexico is betting on diet-craze dollars with his new Santa Fe Diet book and the unseating of Kirstie Allie as spokesblimp for Jennie Craig. East Coast Senatorial “liberals” Biden and Dodd will attempt to crack the South by mounting a pay-per-view debate on a Jefferson Davis National Day of Remembrance in Georgia billed as the Filibusta in Augusta.
SURGE AND DESTROY!
White House Reinvents War!
PRESS RELEASE
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SURGE® is guaranteed** to succeed where older formulas failed simply because we say so! This product is not to be confused with ESCALATE® or DESPERATE® as some competitors assert –– this is a unique time-release solution designed to work fast, hopefully before the next election cycle!
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HAPPY NOOSE YEAR!
Hussein Hanging Gets 2007 Off to Swinging Start
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GHDAD, Iraq –– Like a premature Times Square Ball Drop, Saddam Hussein's plunge through the gallows trapdoor kicked off the New Year's Eve celebrations early this year. As his lifeless body (clad in a smart black single-breasted coat with matching neckerchief) danced at the end of the hangman's rope, jubilant revelers around the world broke into celebratory jigs. Naked bloodlust mixed with a wonderful new sense of global security to buoy partygoers from Sadr City to Crawford, Texas.
It was Shi'ia delight for Iraq's majority Muslims. Amidst the din of car bomb noisemakers, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pointed to the hanging as evidence that his government could "execute its duties, as well as its enemies." Resisting the urge to have Saddam's skull delivered to him to be worn as a party hat, the Dawa Party Poobah stressed the need to reach out to the deceased leader's Sunni followers. "We will extend a lifeline to our countrymen adrift in the sands of insurrection, a strong rope with a life preserver attached," offered al Maliki, wearing a tee shirt that read "I Choked Linda Lovelace...and Saddam". "They can choose to place it safely around their waists or we shall secure it snugly around their necks. It is the choice between a warm Baath and a bloodbath."
In Tehran, the normally abstemious Mullahs broke out the bubbly for only the second time since the Islamic Revolution (the first was in 2003, when the US invaded Iraq.) President Ahmadinejad hoisted a glass of Sparkling Pink Champagne and proclaimed his Government's sincere wishes to make a toast of Saddam. "To literally toast his stinking dead carcass over coals, drag it to Qum via flatulent camel and feed the remains to infidel vultures," offered the lighthearted Roast Master.
Though EU sourpusses in Brussels slammed the necktie party as "barbaric", Russia's President Putin, a one-time ally of Saddam's, saluted the well-hung hate-monger with a special Polonium-21 Cocktail and a heart-felt Nazdarovya! Venezuela's Hugo Chavez sent condolences to the Hussein clan along with a request for a memento –– that cool beret he wore when he invaded Kuwait. Former Axis of Evil co-despot Kim Jiang-Il cursed "the US terrorists" who hunted him down, while claiming that Saddam had Fedexed him his WMD while residing in his spider hole. When told of the fate of that other Most Wanted Dictator, Cuba's debilitated Presidente Fidel Castro simply replied, "Que?"
In the US, President Bush invited Dick Clark to his Crawford ranch to host A New Year's Iraqin' Eve along with Guy Lombardo's surviving Royal Candians (aka The Royal Willing Allies.) To the strains of Auld Land Syne ("Should auld acquaintance be strung up...") a jubilant George Bush hailed the execution as a triumph for Democracy. "In the past, that tyrant would've killed a prisoner without a fair trial," he insisted, "now, if the Iraqi government wants to gas a village or slaughter rival tribesmen it's got to drag them into court first. Sure, frontier justice is a little pricey, but I'd shell out $400 billion tomorrow if I knew it'd stop some lunatic from making death threats against my Pa."
Clark, America's ailing eternal teenager, was expected to spin some appropriate platters –– Dang Me, Breathless, The Twist, selections from Swing Time –– and provide comic relief with the punch line to the President's favorite new gag. To the question, "What were Saddam's last words?" the aphasic DJ would respond "Ggahhgrahhurrghhaahh..."
SCRIP SEARCH
President Seeks Cure for Iraq
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ASHINGTON, DC –– Not since Yahweh prescribed two tablets to Moses on Mount Sinai have a set of dicta been more widely heralded than those of the Iraq Study Group report. Outstripping _od's meager 10, the Baker-Hamilton cabal mustered 79 Commandments for the Bush Administration to cleave to in prosecuting its war in Iraq. Before the online inscription of these nostrums, commentators predicted that the President would use the cover provided by the report to save face as he downsized his goals allowing troops to come home. However, the lightning bolt that accompanied the final handing down of the document mostly produced the smell of rotten eggs.
The "suicide apes" of the Right branded Baker and Hamilton "surrender monkeys" for characterizing the situation in Iraq as "grave and deteriorating" and for suggesting benchmarks for the Iraqi government be set and threatening to withdraw military aid if (if?–– that's vintage Velvet Hammer) they aren't reached. The idea that the US should negotiate with hostile states like Iran and Syria shocked many conservatives including Vice President Cheney who was at court with King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, home of 9/11 martyrs. Emerging from beneath the royal's robes, the VP placated his extremely staunch ally who had just warned him that Saudi Arabia may back the Sunnis if the US pulls out of Iraq. "I assured his Crudeness –– little oil humor there –– we'd never talk with our enemies in Tehran when we can get bitch slapped by our buds in Riyadh."
The chorus of condemnation suggests that the process was set up solely to provide Adminstration defenders with a magic bullet to use against its critics. Having posed an unsolvable mystery –– how to escape a perfect disaster––they hoped to demonstrate that they're not the only ones without a clue. Even as the report was shit-canned around town, Bush dutifully extended the charade of seeking out fresh advice vowing to venture beyond the West Wing. In the East Wing he made calls to an array of experts, including State Department and Pentagon yes hawks, America's ambassador in Iraq (collect), influential professors, think-tankers and the guy at Moviefone.
Even as he put off the announcement of a new policy until January (spokesman Tony Snow jokingly said it was because he wanted be sure to "get it right") he released a list of parties he was expecting to confer with. These are said to include escape artist/exhibitionist David Blaine, Parade magazine's "genius gal" columnist, Marilyn Vos Savant, State of Fear author and reactionary visionary Michael Crichton, and Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ("not because of Nam, but because he's 90 and can't hear too well.")
Noting that the quandary of Iraq is comparable to that of "the Riddle of the Sphinx or picking the right suitcase on Deal or No Deal", the President expects to reach out to Stephen Hawking ("smart and I like his last name") for a Unified Theory of Democratization and a wide range of PhD's who might possess a "magic formula" including Dr. Rice, Dr. Kissinger, Dr. Laura, and Dr. Phil. A resolute Demander-in-Chief insisted, "I promise not to take no for an answer even though there is no answer."
OPERATION DUMBO DROP
Can Republican Girlie-Men be Pumped Up?
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ASHINGTON, DC –– After the Midterm Massacre Republican PACderms lumbered their way to Arlington National Elephant Burial Grounds, bearing the bones of Neoconservatism. As Richard Perle bugled Taps, the ballot-riddled ideology was laid to rest by pall bearers that included William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Vice President Dick Cheney and Ex-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The group declined Mr. Rumsfeld's offer to fall on his bayonet and join the disgraced ism in its grave. Looking down at the doctrine interred in an urn the size of a Dixie Cup, Mr. Kristol commented wistfully, "Seeing it there, so small and lonely, it's hard to believe it ever was an ideology that anyone took seriously. Maybe it was a mere conceit, a bagatelle, a flight of fancy, but..." he added with a catch in his voice, "God, how we loved it."
Ever the optimist (and not yet in possession of a briefing paper that summarized the election results), President Bush congratulated "the winners" and insisted that it was time for his party to "not cry over split milk" and to take "the initialitive" and redefine itself for the 2008 campaign. To that end the incoming Republican National Committee Chair
man Sen. Mel "Medianoche" Martinez (R-FL) has vowed to convoke the party brain trust to define a winning strategy. These Red Tide riders are to include likely Presidential contenders, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), incipient Senate Minority Leader Bill Frist and former reputed funny man Dennis Miller. The star attraction and designated political life coach will be California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Beyond the obvious goals of repealing the natural born citizen requirement for the Presidency and the legalization of human growth hormone for all office-seekers, the Governator (who can resist that charming appellation?) is set on "vipping the vipped girlie-men of my potty into shape." Conan the Republican (you gotta love it!) insists that, "Ve must do nationally vat ve did in Caulifornia. Ven your opponent says "I'll pee dere for you" to der voter, ve must say, "I'll pee back." Oh, und "Hasta la vista, crybaby." Hah, hah, shnap."
"Voters are just crazy about Ahnuld," observed Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), "even those Santa Monica Socialists. I think we all should be smoking cigars and driving Hummers and groping whomever. We need to recruit a new crop of political action stars with impenetrable accents for our side. How about Governor Jean-Claude Van Damme? Sen. Jackie Chan? Rep. Christophe Lambert? After we've rigged the Democrat primaries to get Hillary nominated, what else can we do?"
PERVERSIONARY TACTICS
Party of Lincoln's Log Cabin Logic
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ASHINGTON, DC –– Accusations of gay sex with a Denver hustler leveled against Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and White House confidante, suggest that Republicans are making a last-ditch effort to broaden their base on the eve of a tough midterm election. Faced with drooping polls, the GOP is hoping to jack up support with a stealth Gay Old Party strategy. Hoping to play both sides against the middle in a kind of Capital Gang Bang, the party will continue to espouse a ban on gay marriage and conservative Christian values even as they "reach around" to stroke the alternative-lifestyle set with a series of queeralicious news leaks.
Unmarried RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, who now prefers his name be pronounced Maleman, stated, "We haven't changed our family values stand one teensy, tiny bit. We just want to expand our Big Tent –– in smashing fall paisley –– to accommodate all Americans. Our internal polls (ouch!) indicate that most gays, no matter how sinful their lifestyle, tend to be well-off and secretly adore our tax cuts and tight fiscal policy. These bitches are closet neocons or as, Karl Rove likes to say, 'soccer moms with two balls.'"
The revelation of Rep. Mark Foley's cybersex pursuit of Congressional male pages apparently proved quite effective in reaching several non-traditional GOP constituencies including chickenhawks (not the didn't-serve-in-the-miltary-but-sent-soldiers-off-to-die kind –– they were already on board), online predators
, alcoholics, nosy onanists and Catholic bishops (who overwhelmingly approved Speaker Hastert's handling of Foley.) Though some red state bluenoses expressed outrage, they were expected to still vote R on November 7. Encouraged by the results, the RNC reviewed their vast library of incriminating videotape, phone taps and computer logs searching for their very own Barney Frank.
Whether Mike Jones, the accuser, was prompted by political operatives to come forth and "Jimmy Swaggart" Ted Haggard or if it was just Lady Boy Luck, the effect on the crypto-gay Religious Right should be felt on Election Day. The RNC is banking on the continued support of the credulous Faithful –– like a church member who actually told AP, "People are always saying stuff about Pastor Ted. You just sort of blow it off" –– along with a healthy uptick in lavender ballots.
Similar efforts to reach across ethnic and racial lines have proven less fruitful as the revelation that Virginia's Sen. George Allen had Jewish ancestry didn't seem to significantly offset his referring to an Indian cameraman as a macaca monkey, so the GOP will continue to "think pink." "Expect further dish in the final days of the campaign that will flip your wig, sister," promised Mehlman. "We have tranny aldermen, dom deacons and pederast selectmen who will come out to you if you come out for them. Besides, even if this doesn't net one single extra vote, it's so much better than having to defend that God-awful war in Iraq. Puh-leaze!"
DOH! OF THE DEAD
Can Bush Cancel Grave Reservations?
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GHDAD, Iraq –– Rumors of a chilling "October 31st Surprise" linked to the US midterm election rippled like a car bomb’s shock wave through this war-torn capital. Spurred by nervous Republican incumbents who fear for their sinecures due in part to public dissatisfaction with his failed Iraqi policy, President Bush is expected to appear on Halloween in the Green Zone to “raise the Spirits of the troops.” Donning the costume he wore to the post-9/11 pep rally at New York's Ground Zero and brandishing the same bullhorn to commemorate a comparable American death toll, the Commander-in-Grief will attempt to recast his war chant from ‘Stay the Course’ to ‘Stay the Corpse.’
A hooded Vice President Dick Cheney will attend with his personal autographed copy of the Necronomican (referred to in H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos) and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice will bring some standard voodoo paraphernalia (mojo bags, dolls, needles, decapitated chickens) given to her by Haiti’s President Preval. Despite the elaborate feathered Juju Hat she will wear, Sec. Rice wants Americans to know that the Administration isn’t just “playing trick-or-treat with Iraq” and that they expect to work some “powerful hoodoo for these brave people and our heroic soldiers.” Their ambitious goal is to couple modern media magic with the ancient black arts to revive public support for the war even as they breathe new life into a number of its fallen participants.
President Bush addressed the war’s unpopularity in an interview conducted for a Fox News’ Special called The War on Terror: Bwwahh-hah-hah scheduled to air on Halloween. Speaking to Brit Hume, who may or may not have been wearing a Herman Munster mask, the President offered, “Look, I know people die in war. You can turn on your TV and see that…at least, you could, 30, 40 years ago. Casualties are inevitable, but they are not acceptable. Death is the real enemy in the War on Terror, which is why Sec. Rumsfeld and I have been watching all of those George Romero zombie movies lately and consulting with the most eminent witch doctors and mad scientists in the field to try to come up with a multi-pronged strategy to reverse the so-called “dying process.”
“Beyond the Black Mass/Revival Meeting Dick and Condi and me will conduct on the ground in Iraq, I have instructed our military leadership to rush the latest experimental reanimation technology–– stuff the FDA hasn’t even seen yet --––to the hospital at our air base in Ramstein –– Ramstein, heh, there’s a spooky name. It’s not gonna be easy, but Dick assures me the odds of resurrecting our soldiers is on par with the chances of al-Maliki’s government succeeding. Now, I want our supporters in Christ to understand that war demands extreme measures and sometimes you have to shake hands with the devil to win a victory for our Lord. Jesus himself raised the dead, and so we’ve code-named this ultimate pro-life program, Operation Lazarus.”
The President, an eerie green spot illuminating his face from below, concluded, “It’s a death and life struggle, but we shall prevail. And when we succeed we will have licked our public relations and recruitment problems by assembling an Undead Army ready to root out the dead-enders, proud to fight right alongside the deadbeats in the Iraqi Security Forces. Soldiers with no fear, no complaints, no insurance. S’funny, I always used to pronounce Marine Corps as Corpse, and now I’m dead right.”
KIM CHEESED OFF
North Korea's Great Leader Mad, and Mad About UN Sanctions
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W YORK, NY – John Bolton, US Ambassador to the UN trumpeted the approval of a sweeping set of sanctions against the regime of Kim Jong-Il in North Korea or DPRK (pronounced "da' prick") in response to its recent "near-nuclear" bomb test. Bolton insisted that the US got everything it wanted in the punitive package ("short of water boarding Margaret Cho") and he hailed his colleagues for concocting constraints that would discomfort the country's leaders rather than its beleaguered populace.
As with the inscrutable short-range launchings in July of its No-Dong missile, Western experts are uncertain of the potency of this purportedly more-powerful device (the Lil-Dong), reporting that the level of radiation released in the atmosphere from its detonation was comparable to that of a micro-waved yam. Yet according to Bolton, "America refuses to be intimidated by a desperate, paranoid whack job who will do absolutely anything to stay in power, and who happens to possess a few ballistic weapons that can reach Tokyo or Seoul. We'll let Japan and South Korea quake in their kimonos."
Bolton illustrated the subtlety of the sanctions by citing three early provisions that didn't make the final package because they were judged too onerous for Mr. Public Jong-Qu. Bans on the export of edible gravel, oak bark toilet paper and cocktail umbrella lean-tos were all shelved.
Some of the adopted measures aimed at driving Kim Jong-Il even crazier include:
1) Banning the export of Jheri Redding One 'n Only Acid Perm, Garnier Fructis Volume Mousse and Conair Pro Blow Dryers.
2) Jamming the satellite transmission of Nick@Nite, G4, HSN and the Spice Channel.
3) Relocating Air America Radio to a barge in the Sea of Japan and boosting its signal to reach the three dozen known transistor radios in the capital (thus quadruling its previous average audience.)
4) Revoking the visas of Kim's back-up band, the Jong-Il Belles.
5) Levying a $2 excise tax on paraffin treatments at all US nail salons.
6) Downgrading the demarcation line between the Koreas to the 37th Parallel and Kim's title to "Not-So-Great Leader."
7) Mandating that the sound effect of a bullet's ricochet must accompany the utterance of the word "Pyongyang" in US newscasts.
8) Elevating North Korea from "The Axis" to "The Apex of Evil."
9) Embargoing the shipment of action films in DVD, VHS and 3-D View Finder formats, specifically titles starring Dolph Lundgren, Miles O'Keefe and Bob the Builder.
10) Enacting a relatively narrow ban on exported X-rated videos, targeting those with "smooth-shaven pale-skinned young females with oddly boyish buttocks, artificial limbs, and gold-leafed nipples pleasuring blind-folded little people."
11) Substituting inferior vinyl tubing on exported Penis Enlargement Vacuum Pumps.
12) Stepping up interdiction of heroin shipments via international waters, but only after Afghanistan's poppy-based economy is back on its feet.
China could exert the most meaningful pressure on its neighbor North Korea, and though Beijing tepidly supported the US proscriptions, it is reluctant to control trade across its vast border. Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya smiled indulgently as he said, "We know Kim is DPRK's Bad Boy, but he reminds us of us when we were young, homicidal Socialists."
RENDER BENDER
Bush Defends Alternative Deathstyles
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ASHINGTON, DC –– President George W. Bush had sharp words for those who would discriminate against the “differently-coercive” minority in the US intelligence-gathering community. He slammed “the liberal media, so-called human-rights groups and weak-kneed lawmakers, including a fistful of Republicans” for verbally abusing the “truth-seekers” who toil in unnamed facilities here and abroad. He termed it his administration’s top civil rights battle to protect the proclivities of the “persuasion-challenged” now threatened with legislation setting limits on their way of life.
"Many of these fine folks are members of the CIA or our proud military,“ fumed the President, “and it’s ironic that the demagographers who’re criticizing them for their “tendencies” are the same ones screaming "don’t ask, don’t tell" every time a gay soldier “salutes Pvt. Johnson.” That’s a double standard. The alternative interrogators we’re talking about have every right to express themselves as they see fit with their detainee partners. And I don’t think a former catcher like John McCain should be allowed to tell a hardball pitcher he can’t throw inside.”
"It’s not like they’re hurting anyone…except, of course, the detainees, but these are evil-doers we’re talking about. They are getting what they deserve. They provide us with valuable intelligence to use against the enemy even as they provide their interviewers with a funny tingly sensation. It’s win/win.”
President Bush tried to put this latest chapter of compassionate conservatism into historical perspective. “Some say it’s not right for the President of the United States to stand here and advocate beatings, canine intimidation, stripping prisoners, exposure to extreme temperature, sexual humiliation, water boarding (heh, sounds like that ought to be an event at the Beijing Olympics), and electric shock, but I say wake up and smell the singed short hairs. Never in our history have we faced so terrible an enemy. Never. Not in WWI or WWII or Korea or Grenada. These Islamo-Fascist-Commie-Environmentalists would kill every American if they could, eat the dead babies and establish a Caliphate from Tehran to Tucson. The out-dated Geneva Convention is just that: conventional, and in these dangerous times we must think outside the box to find new ways to put Ali inside a box.”
"Besides, most of the heavy-duty work has been out-sourced to friendly sadists in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. We render onto ceaser and he grabs ‘em by the cojones. The CIA and other agencies only play an advisory role, sort of like Dr. Ruth instructing the truth-seekers how to get the evil-doers to “Cry Uncle” and really like it.” The President concluded ruefully, “I say to my critics, who asked you? Like my old National Guard CO used to say, “If we want your opinion, we’ll beat it out of you.”
DOCUTRAUMA
ABC's Dramedy of Errors
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W YORK, NY –– Seeking to justify their heavily-criticized miniseries, The Path to 9/11, ABC programmers invoked the methods of pipsqueak celebrity author Truman Capote. “In Cold Blood was a true-crime story that was only enhanced by the author’s creative embellishments. Our film is packed with facts and even though some of them are fudged, we only hope we are half as skillful at fudge-packing as Mr. Capote proved to be,” offered company spokesman Ken Vague.
Mr. Vague labeled “absurd” charges by some in the liberal media that the series was motivated by a rightwing Hollywood cabal. “This isn’t cabal television,” he countered, “we’re network.” Members of the Clinton administration complained that scenes about their clueless actions prior to the attack were fabricated and were included to help shift some of the blame for unpreparedness from the Bush White House.
Producer Marc E. Platt insisted, “We were never politically motivated. I never had a conversation with anybody at the network, any of the actors, advisers, filmmakers or writers about politics. We also never discussed journalistic integrity, moral responsibility or dramatic coherence.” Ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright expressed disdain for the project, but allowed that the controversy finally made her understand the concept of “wag the dog.” “I always thought it was something Bill did with Monica in the Oval Office,” she marveled.
Strong ratings for the show have convinced ABC to proceed with an expanded slate of “non-political”, “bi-partisan”, “semi-documentary”, “3/4-bullshit” miniseries. Emission Accomplished will focus on the shocking sex scandals that brought the Presidency of Bill Clinton to the brink of impeachment, and the President to the brink of orgasm. Katrina: Wet and Wild will recount the utter failure of the Democrat Governor and Mayor to respond to that devastating hurricane, while dramatizing the internal squabbles and thorough incompetence of those responsible at the federal level during the Clinton years.
Saddam Hussein: Democrat Puppet will explore how the threat of the blood-thirsty Iraqi dictator was ignored by the United States from January 1993 until January 2001 and how Al Gore might have provided him with the formula for an “ozone-friendly” nerve gas to use against the Kurds. Burger, King of Thieves, the shocking tale of Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Burger’s treasonous theft of anti-terrorism documents in 2003 and the likelihood that he was smuggling them to Osama bin Laden with the tacit approval of the DNC. Blood on Their Hands: Roe v. Wade a sensitive retelling of the history of baby-butchering in this country, including a portrait of Hillary Clinton’s years as a backwoods abortionist in Arkansas. And in time for Election 2008: Evil Incarnate, an adaptation of My Life by Bill Clinton.
WAR IS MEL
Embattled Gibson's Fighting Words to Hawkish Hebrews
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LLYWOOD, CA –– Actor/Director/Inebriate Mel Gibson’s recent anti-Semitic tirade to arresting LA police officers has concerned citizens across America asking the same uncomfortable question, “How will this affect Box Office?” Though a handful, nary a minyan, of Hebraic Industry insiders have decried Gibson’s hot tongue triple decker, it’s still too soon to judge the ultimate fallout from his intemperate remarks.
Though he apologized for his rant, he did not take back his most explosive charge that “the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” The response to his forthcoming directorial effort Apocalypto will be closely monitored, but rumored changes have studio execs shvitzing but good. Initially bruited as an epic on the decline of Maya civilization with dialogue in an approximation of the original tongue, it’s said that Gibson has been reediting the film to more closely fit his racial theories by renaming his warlike protagonists the Meyers and overdubbing their lines in Yiddish.
Like an overzealous Mohel, it’s been reported that he has also made significant cuts to his Oscar-winning blockbuster Braveheart for DVD rerelease, redubbing it Bravehersh and changing the ethnicity of many of the most militant clansmen from Scottish to Semitic. “They’re already tight with a buck,” reasoned our generation’s D.W. Griffith, “and one of the really lost tribes could have made their way to the Highlands and incited a revolt.”
Other films need less tinkering. His seminal character Mad Max was of indefinite lineage, but his surname Rockatansky suggests that his murderous impulses could well have been passed down from shtetl storm troopers. In his Revolutionary War film, The Patriot, the protagonists all have WASP names like Martin, Oliver and Scott, but any Hollywood insider could read behind those noms de guerre when he has Kosher colleagues named Douglas, Curtis and Ford. If a black guy can be named Washington, why can’t King George III have been circumcised? The Vietnam conflict depicted in We Were Soldiers is tougher to pin on a Ho Chi Minsky, but Mao’s Communist Party was ultimately to blame and it’s generally accepted that the Chinese are the Jews of the Orient.
Even as DVD sales for The Passion of the Christ are expected to ascend anew to heavenly heights on the strength of Gibson’s harangue, a subsidiary of his Icon Entertainment International, to be called Goy Way Video, will issue Semiticized versions of Hollywood’s classic war flicks. Torah Torah Torah, Larry of Arabia, The Killing Felds, All Kvetching on the Western Front, Full Metal Jacket Marked Down, Cleopotroast, The Red Badge of Tsuris and The Cohen Mutiny are among its first scheduled releases.
A barely contrite Gibson allowed that his words might have been a “hook to the nose” of some of filmdom’s Jews, but he added that they should be the first to see that he meant that they were “responsible for all wars” in the same sense that producers with lots of cash make Hollywood tick. He added, “You can’t have a war without money, and the Rothchilds and a long line of Shylock-like money lenders have opened their purses to fund war and to profit from it over the centuries. There’s no shame in that –– it’s a fiduciary responsibility of which those people should be proud. Hey, and let’s be honest, my own Lord was a Jew and tell me, in the last 1,000 years, how many people haven’t been slaughtered in his name?”
THE DEFENSE RESTS IN PEACE
Lawyers Advise: "Decease and Dismiss."
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USTON, TX –– Mourners at the memorial service for Ken Lay expressed decidedly mixed emotions at the passing of Enron’s disgraced ex-CEO. A contingent of former employees who had lost all of their pension investments when the company failed were in attendance, armed with wooden stakes and mallets in case their former boss should make a surprise appearance. Shalene Weems, an administrative assistant choked back tears as she said, “I only wish I could’ve been there when that man collapsed—I would’ve massaged his chest with the back tires of my ’97 Ford Focus.” Books cook Bick Stargell, wiped his eyes as he said, “I’d have loved to ‘Lay’ him to rest myself.”
Lay's widow, Linda, was credited with putting on a brave face in a performance that was said to top her work in 2002 when she went on television to dolefully defend her husband’s honor. President Bush, perhaps relieved that he would be spared the humiliation of pardoning Kenny Boy upon leaving office, offered his condolences to the grieving spouse via Larry King Live, extolling his ex-buddy as “a good guy” and adding, “my hope is that his heart was right with the Lord.” The fact that Lay died from cardiac arrest, suggests that the Lord had his ticker right where he wanted it.
A bereft Mrs. Lay might gain some small measure of cold cash comfort from the knowledge that her husband’s demise would erase his entire case from the public record and that the government would be unable to collect on its $43.5 million forfeiture claim against him. When investigators in Aspen, CO first probed Lay’s death at a vacation chalet they noted the new Bowflex Xtreme 2 Home Gym, the Cardio Dance Blast and Cardio Salsa DVDs and the Full Stroke Sex Machine for Men that Mrs. Lay had recently bought for her husband. They concluded, however, that he had perished due to natural causes when the distraught wife began sobbing uncontrollably into a $10,000 bill. She insisted with great sincerity that he’d looked “so pink and rosy the last time I saw him suspended from that sheer 2,000 ft. rock face that I had encouraged him to climb after the Chili Pepper and Brew Fest.”
The realization that “the evil that men do lives after them, their sentence is oft interred with their bones” has inspired defense lawyers to reconsider their strategies in a number of high-profile cases. Lay’s co-convictee, Jeffrey Skilling, who faces sentencing in October, is being encouraged by his legal team to “leverage the farm” in the interest of his family, his community and his creditors (them.) Though Skilling is said to resist the idea he has apparently been consulting DVDs of Hitchcock films like Vertigo and Family Plot in which characters fake their own deaths and practicing the heart-stopping Yoga technique of Our Man Flint.
Though attorneys have advised incarcerated clients like WorldCom’s Bernard Ebbers and Tyco’s Dennis Kozlowski to engineer their own “early release”, such an eventuality would be a boon to society, not the wrongdoer’s bank account. To take full advantage of the death benefit, the defendant must “kick the oxygen habit” prior to sentencing. Among those counseled to not turn up their nose at “turning up their toes” are Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Saddam Hussein and Naomi Campbell. Though not currently on trial, Attorney Mark Geragos has recommended Michael Jackson preventively “grab the family jewels”, before another costly trial denies Bubbles the Chimp of his rightful pension.
NOTHING: ACCOMPLISHED
Sit and Duck Trumps Cut and Run
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ASHINGTON, DC –– Seeking to capitalize on the elimination of al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s Abu al Zarqawi and the escape from indictment of Decider in Washington’s Karl Rove, the White House launched a bold strategy for Republican victory in this November’s elections. Noting that the best defense is a good offense, an extremely offensive Rove reminded the party faithful that “Democrats could have never summoned the will to kill Mr. Zarqawi” (nor the stupidity to create him, he failed to add.) Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans orchestrated votes on nonbinding motions that heaped praise on the US troops in Iraq while rejecting a timetable for their withdrawal (excluding those who “the Lord in his Wisdom chooses to withdraw.”)
Giddy as Ann Coulter bitch-slapping a 9/11 widow, the President slipped away from his Camp David guests saying “I’m losing altitude –– I’m going to read”, which attendees sensibly took to be his euphemism for Number Two on WC One. Instead, he donned a false moustache and M:I:3 windbreaker, and stealthily jetted to Baghdad to celebrate the completion of Prime Minister Nouri el-Maliki’s Cabinet. El-Maliki, who was not informed in advance of the photo-op fly-by, expressed surprise at Bush’s arrival and relief that he hadn’t shown up during his election campaign. For his part, W stared deep into the PM’s eyes and marveled, “I can see m’reflection, but it’s upside-down.”
As the public’s disapproval for the war rose from “make it stop” to “I’m begging you, hand me that clicker”, irrational exuberance rippled through the GOP leadership who resolved to contrast the Democrats’ Cut and Run defeatism with a new triumphalist policy of Sit and Duck. “We’re confident that voters will recognize again this November that ours is the only party that can win this war, because ours is the only party that believes half the President’s bullshit,” boasted an RNC insider. The Democrats, whose voted for it/voted against it, good cop/bad cop, my sister/my daughter schizophrenic position(s) on the war, though a natural psychological response to an insane policy, are likely to unnerve an electorate more comfortable with a simply stated death wish.
“Look, we made this bed and we’ve damn sure earned the right to sleep in it,” trumpeted Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) who is running for reelection. “Some candidates don’t want to be seen with President Bush. They say he’s “radioactive.” Well, I’m a big proponent of nuclear energy and I’d be happy to have him come out and go all Three-Mile-Island on my challengers.”
“Americans hate tattletales, they hate subtitles and they really, really hate quitters,” pointed out Mr. Rove. “Dead heroes, on the other hand, really grab them. So our job is to slather yellow down the backs of our opponents while insisting that the best way to honor our noble dead is to add to their numbers. Misery loves company."
BORDER FOLLIES
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OWNSVILLE, TX –– An upbeat Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff chose this dusty South Texas town to announce a new set of initiatives to stem the flow of illegal aliens into the US. “I feel like a little boy with my finger in a Mexican dyke,” enthused Katrina’s washout. “And when you folks have helped us staunch the flow, we’ll be very happy to say “Heckuva job, Brownsie.””
As the hurricane season arrives, a battered Bush Administration is scurrying to drier and what they hope will be higher ground on the subject of immigration. Chertoff explained, “We hope to shore up the breached levees of America’s trust in our competence and to bail out the image of compassionate conservatism. And to towel off some wetbacks.”
The Administration is suggesting several “innovative” approaches to solving the crisis including variations on the idea of building a wall along the border the US shares with Mexico. “Good fences make good neighbors, especially in towns like Matamoros where you’re always looking to move some hot merchandise,” reasoned the Homeland Secretary. “Look how successful the Chinese have been in keeping the barbarians out with their Great Wall –– although The Stones did get in to play a concert."
Plans for Operation Humpty Dumpty provided by the Army Corps of Engineers include one ambitious design of a wall running the entire 1951 miles of the border. A 20-mile stretch was built as a test, but mislabeled blueprints mandated a 15” rather than a 15’ height, resulting in a cost-effective, but limited deterrent.
To defray the expense of massive barriers the government will suggest that corporations like Wal*Mart, Bertucci’s Brick Oven Ristorante and Blockbuster build retail outlets directly into the structure. “And how about shared-use arrangements with local municipalities,” wondered Chief Chertoff. “Convenient, medium-security prison space in Del Rio, outdoor murals in Yuma, handball courts in San Diego.”
The concept of “virtual walls” constructed of cameras, sensors, vehicle and agent patrols to supplement physical barriers has been widely discussed. Inspired by Barney, the First Scotty, President Bush suggested that illegal aliens who are captured should, upon release, be fitted with electronic collars that would provide a powerful shock should they try to slip back north past an invisible electric fence. Meanwhile, the Border Patrol K-9 unit is to be provided with thousands of Border Collies that will be trained by ex-Abu Ghraib guards to herd migrants using sophisticated jalapeno scenting techniques.
As a last resort The Pentagon is working on a new multi-billion dollar Immigration Defense Initiative adapting some of the failed Star Wars anti-missile technology to repel incoming aliens. Dubbed Men in Black by its architects, the program seeks to locate its targets using advanced heat-sensing technology and then to incapacitate them with non-lethal acoustic cannons. Project Commander Gen. “Boom-boom” Bowman says, “We basically compress the chorus of La Bamba into an infrasound bombshell and lay it on ‘em. Causes nausea, vomiting, internal-organ damage. Sort of a sonic burrito.”
TERRORVISION'S NEWEST STAR
Crix: al-Zarqawi Wowie!
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W YORK, NY –– Media critics here have been weighing in on the latest installment of Osama bin Laden’s long-running series of video specials with many comparing it unfavorably to the new show starring his avowed follower and ratings rival, Abu al-Zarqawi. TV Guide’s Chip Venable slammed the al Qaeda mastermind as “the Bob Hope of terrorism, past his prime, boring us with these endless, canned monologues and the same tired old lines. You half expect to see Ann-Margaret pop up in a burqa.”
Some savvy insiders suggest the intensely private fanatic is simply out of touch with the younger bomber. “Gawd, did you see him in that camo jacket and wool cap with his stringy gray beard that looked like cucarachas were living in it,” marvelled Style Network’s Chacho Quovadis. “I guess he was going for a Santino Rice vibe, but it was more homeless Vietnam vet.” W’s Mincy Wienerbrot concurred, characterizing his performance as “moribund, positively pfft! –– the deadest thing since Dick Clark this past New Year’s Eve.”
Ot
her longtime observers were less harsh, praising his mature dogmatism and “lived-in” zealotry. “Look, he’s been doing this a long time and he knows what his audience wants to hear,” suggested Ralph Waldo Firman of The New York Sun. “I was a little surprised, however, with the big O logo. I mean, I know he’s recommending books now, but somebody on his staff has got to tell him there’s only one Oprah.”
Meanwhile, Iraq’s al-Zarqawi released an altogether more polished production that included exciting action footage with missiles and automatic weapons clearly aimed at the youth market. Although he paid lip service to bin Laden most experts saw this as an opportunity for Abu Z (as he is cleverly marketing himself) to say “I’m da madman!”
"Oh please, he was as sincere as Eve Harrington praising Margo Channing in All About Eve, right before stabbing her in the back,” insisted Dingle Moorad of The Village Voice. “ Abu Z is down with the insurgent, he has street cred, the IED ID that you can’t fake in some cave in Waziristan. Of course I abhor his methods, but if you hate the sin, you gotta love this sinner.”
Vibe’s Akita Akbar praised “the black garb, the hip-hop cap with the Yankees logo which subtly disses Osama's greatest triumph, while playfully suggesting his own ambition to be a Bronx Bomber. If he can bring this same game next time and there happens to be a schedule conflict, 24 is ending up on my TiVo.”
Editor's note: Mr. al-Zarqawi's program was suddenly cancelled on June 7. Repeats of al-Zawahiri & Co. have been scheduled to fill his time slot.
PENTAGONISM
Retired Top Brass: Cashier Rumsfeld
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ASHINGTON, DC –– Not since their unanimous vote to boot longhair Bo Bice off American Idol have the nation’s top retired military leaders been in such accord as they are over the removal of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. A growing chorus of condemnation spurred by patriotism, a sense of duty and acute embarrassment has arisen among the emboldened generals including several who served under the Secretary during the Iraq War.
Maj. Gen. Charles H. “Panic” Swannack, Jr. stated, “…I do not believe Secretary Rumsfeld is the right person to fight that war based on his absolute failures in managing the war against Saddam in Iraq”, while Gen. Anthony C. “Zany” Zinni concluded, ”Rummy is fini.” Maj. Gen. John “The” Batiste, Lieut. Gen. Gregory “Old Wuss” Newbold and Maj. Gen. Paul D. “Take-out” Eaton all concurred with that assessment. Dr. Strangelove’s Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper added, “Rumsfeld makes me look rational.”
Former Secretaries of State Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger openly questioned Rumsfeld’s competency in funny accents while the Vietnam Era’s much-maligned Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara reportedly sent him a note that simply read, “Thanks.” Ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell would not comment publicly on the controversy, but close associates describe the former 4-starrer as expressing the desire to “kick his punk-ass.”
Pentagon observers suggest that this barrage of criticism is a counter-offensive by the military against an administration that is trying to lay the blame for the war’s operational debacles at its doorstep much as it had tarred the Intelligence community with providing faulty evidence of WMD. Condoleeza Rice copped to “thousands of errors” in Iraq (presumably referring to the 2,300+ US dead and 17,500+ wounded) while characterizing them as “tactical”, suggesting the military was at fault. “The Commanders in the field simply didn’t weigh the Risk factors,” commented a White House insider. “Our Game Plan based on The Star Wars Clone Wars Edition had us taking and holding Baghdad, Tikrit, Kirkuk and Tatooine in 48 moves.”
Of course the administration defended their master tactician with Pres. Bush stopping short of a “Great job, Rummy!” while still lauding his performance and suggesting he be “kicked upstairs” and promoted from Secretary to Administrative Assistant of Defense. Ex-Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard B. “Oscar” Myers, stood up for his former boss, insisting, “this is conduct unbecoming—the sort of questioning of authority that would never have happened in the Bush 41 or Reagan administrations. These soldiers could learn a thing or two from a man like Schultz.” It was later revealed that he was referring not to former Secretary of State George Schultz, but rather to the loyal Sergeant of Hogan’s Heroes.
For his part the unrepentant DOD Head maintained that his critics had “barely creased my Kevlar vest.” Feisty as ever, he chided, “They want a mea culpa—OK, I made mistakes. Strategic mistakes. I shoulda’ court martialed these danged quislings after I tore the stripes off their sleeves. With my teeth.” Despite his defiant stance The White House has reportedly contacted a top-flight marketing firm to help soften public perceptions of the peppery war hawk. Their plans are said to include the branding of the Rumsfeld persona and applying it to comforting consumer products. For adults who are suffering battle-coverage fatigue there will be bottles of 80 proof Gin Rummy and for tomorrow’s little soldiers there will be sticky sweet Rummi Bears in camo colors.
RETROFIBBING
Congress, DOJ Seek to Decriminalize Bush Presidency
WA
SHINGTON, DC –– Reluctant to impeach President George W. Bush or to pillory Vice President Dick Cheney on the Mall where the public might be allowed to pelt him with rotten vegetables, Congressional namby-pambies have instead decided on a massive overhaul of the criminal justice system in order to legitimize the last five years of executive malfeasance.
“Our nation is at war,” reasoned Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), “and if we were to punish our Commander-in-Chief for intentionally misleading the nation into combat, for criminally negligent mismanagement of the occupation and for illegally imprisoning and torturing the enemy in said conflict, well, then that enemy just might lose all respect for us. We must stand firm, look those legal statutes that would compel us to send the President packing dead in the eye, and rewrite 'em."
Surprisingly, there was little stomach for punishment across the aisle, with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) meekly calling for the limp slap of censure for the Chief Executive's wrist over his domestic-eavesdropping program. Last used to scold Andrew Jackson in 1834, the proposed measure failed to impress Bush who roundly stated, "I am against censureship. I mean it's OK to cut out scenes of nude gratuities, but let America judge if Sharon Stone can still bring it in Basic Instinct 2." In fact, Democrat Joe Lieberman is a leading proponent of the Right to Rewrite initiative as his party tries to appear tougher on terror. "We need domestic spying to identify, capture and disembowel potential terrorists," growled Sen. Lieberman, trying to sound more stud than Fudd. "I think we should fit all cell phones with miniaturized IED's and if we overhear some al Qaeda chatter, we oughta' blow their effin' heads off."
Thus in close collaboration with Attorney General Gonzalez the Senate looks to retrofit the crimes to the times. Initially, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) will sponsor the Can You Hear Me Now Act which would allow the NSA to monitor the electronic communications of any potential wrongdoer (read: you) without seeking a court order, although the Verizon Guy must be informed via text message within 60 days of the wiretap. In addition, the Justice Department's Operation Pecker Check, which seeks to out web surfers who visit pornographic sites, will be legitimized by a Phishing License compelling search engines like Google to provide the government with all user records. "That's a Freedom of Information Act we can get behind," averred the Attorney General.
The DOJ will suggest some time-saving strategies to streamline the ambitious undertaking. On the question of holding detainees indefinitely the plan is to have them redesignated as livestock and for the sticky statutes prohibiting torture,"we'll just change the word torture to something that we're less likely to do, but which is still distasteful, like cursing in Urdu or belching the Pledge of Allegiance" suggested the AG. Still the Senate has its work cut out for it due to the unprecedented scope of Executive misdeeds. "We've gotta make outing covert agents OK. We've gotta cover falsifying Intelligence to defraud Congress. We've gotta rubber stamp lying to a Grand Jury, election tampering, crimes against the Engish language, yadayada..." complained a frazzled legal aide.
"Look, we know it's a big job, but we're going to be responsible about it," insisted Sen. Frist. "We're not going to make the refund scam that got Claude Allen in trouble at Target legal retroactively. However, we might want to work in a loophole that would not penalize educators who use his methods in the future to 'acquire' classroom technology at no cost to the taxpayer. And we're not going to scrap election finance laws to help bail out Tom DeLay in the House, but I assure you we will codify a watertight Pure Dumb Luck Defense when the SEC comes snooping around a candidate's lucrative sale of stock in his family's health care company."
THE SOUR GRAPES OF WRATH
After Oscars Brokeback Author Broke Balls
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NDON, England –– In response to Crash coming from behind to cream Brokeback Mountain at this year’s Academy Awards the author Annie Proulx, on whose story the latter’s screenplay was based, penned a bitter broadside pounding the voters in The Guardian. Ms. Proulx wrote for all disgruntled losers when she observed host Jon Stewart’s “smart-ass jokes” were “too witty, too quick, too eastern perhaps for the somewhat dim LA crowd” and that “there was a kind of provincial flavour to the proceedings reminiscent of a small-town talent-show night. Clapping wildly for bad stuff enhances this.” One could have imagined her musings etched in a thought balloon over grumpy Paul Giamatti’s head as he fell to George Clooney (“From the first there was an atmosphere of insufferable self-importance emanating from "the show"”) or floating over Steven Spielberg’s as he lost with a sickly grin (“We should have known conservative heffalump academy voters would have rather different ideas of what was stirring contemporary culture.”)
Her opinion that “(Crash) was a safe pick of "controversial film" for the heffalumps” was probably unfair to the industry insiders who thought they were actually voting for David Cronenberg’s 1996 film of the same name, in which James Spader controversially humped a gaping wound in Rosanna Arquette’s leg. Her words of praise for the “funny, lively” fest that had awarded Brokeback top prize a day earlier –– ”If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices” –– suggest that a debt of gratitude had clouded her perceptions of a mock-hip, faux-caj vanity fair where celebs kiss more ass than her sheepherders ever did.
Yet the 70-year-old author’s screw-you conclusion: “For those who call this little piece a Sour Grapes Rant, play it as it lays,” could not fail to inspire the legions of also-rans and never-weres that the annual awards’ marathon leaves strewn behind along the Boulevard of Brokeback Dreams. Borrowing Ms. Proulx’s wicked wordplay (“And rumour has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash –– excuse me –– Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline.”) animator Hayao Miyazaki (Howl’s Moving Castle) lashed out at his competition in the Tokyo Times by referring to “Wallace & Vomit." In an al-Jazeera interview Paradise Now’s Director Hany Abu-Assad dubbed Best Foreign Film victor Tsotsi, “Nutsy” and Lead Actor runner-up Joaquin Phoenix referred to his category’s winner as “Philip Suckmore Hoffman in Crapote” on Entertainment Tonight. Surprisingly, Hoffman played sore winner, responding to the gibe by labeling the Walk the Line star, “Wackin’ Penis.”
Bonhomie, esprit de corps and several other French phrases were brutally torn from the nominees playbook as former Oscar slights came back to bite Hollywood in its AMPAS. The family of Orson Welles issued a statement on behalf of the director of 1941’s unrewarded Citizen Kane, contending, “he could shit pictures bigger than How Green Was My Valley.” Patrick Wayne, son of the Duke called 1952’s The Greatest Show on Earth “run of DeMille” and claimed his father who starred in contender The Quiet Man could “kick Chuck Heston’s skinny ass right out of his tights.” Omar Sharif of 1965’s Doctor Zhivago remembers that year’s Best Picture as “The Sound of Mucus…a great gob of spit… slimy sputum coughed up by a tubercular whore.”
Stanley Kubrick’s widow noted in Film Comment, “It would have been bad enough if 2001 had just lost to Oliver! In 1968, but it wasn’t even nominated, thus ‘losing’ to Rachel, friggin' Rachel and Funny Girl, too!” When asked by Swedish journalists to assess the defeat of Cries and Whispers by The Sting in 1973’s race, master filmmaker Ingmar Bergman simply broke wind loudly. Francis Ford Coppola observed to The San Francisco Chronicle, “Sure, Marty Scorsese and Polanski lost out to Chicago in 2002, but imagine the humiliation of having a Godfather movie beaten out by Dances With Wolves back in '90! That's a career-killer. Look at me, I'm in Romania trying to make an art film. Jesus. Wanna nice glass of merlot? ”
POWER PUFF
WASHINGTON, DC –– Vice
President Dick Cheney has issued a proclamation that vastly expands the powers of his office and, coincidentally, that of President Bush. Spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride stopped short of characterizing it as a “divine edict” (“the VP has far too much respect for the Big Guy to put it that way”), but felt comfortable in referring to “the imposition of royal fiat.” Upon hearing of the news, President Bush wondered aloud if that “was the kind of car Silvio Berlusconi drives.” He mused, “I had school buddies with Fiats back in the day and we always joked that the name stood for Fix It Again, Tony.”
Though some Democrats privately questioned the timing of the dictate in the light of Cheney’s Jeffrey Dahmer-like approval ratings, few felt comfortable in rising up from the weeds to face Number Two with a bullet. The manner in which the scroll with its gold leaf and ornate calligraphy was unfurled on the steps of the Capitol by a purple velvet-clad intern as the Marine Corps Band trumpeted We Will Rock You did rub some of the Veep’s critics the wrong way. However, The Washington Times applauded “a return to pageantry” in a front page story entitled Hail, Cheney!.
The new Presidential powers enumerated in the document include the line-item veto, the imposition of the Bagram Convention in lieu of the Geneva model for all enemy combatant detainees (to be legally redesignated evil-doers) and the authority to name up to six additional Supreme Court Justices immediately without Congressional approval. Furthermore, the Commander-in-Chief gets to personally review the private records of any US citizen who possesses a passport and to ban abortion, stem cell research, the teaching of Evolution, hip hop, Newton’s Second Law (“the formula F=ma brings back bad memories of Katrina”), transvestism, jello shots, nosy-parkers, Bono, panda bears (“they’re disappearing anyway—it’s merciful”) and broccoli (“for m’Dad.”)
He is to be issued a monogrammed Get Out Of Jail Free card, lifelong Secret Service protection for his pets, an annual Oscars goodie bag, a truly universal remote and a mulligan on any failed invasion. He will also have those prescient words he uttered to Bob Woodward carved into the steps of the White House, “I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”
Seeking to spend what political capital he has left before being fingered (this time in the legal sense) by fallen aid Scooter Libby, the Vice President reserved fewer though farther-reaching powers for himself. The scroll states: "He shall fix all energy prices throughout the US and its territories. He shall retain the sole right to declare war. He shall suspend any law he believes to give comfort to the enemy including those of free assembly, free speech and gravity. He shall transform base metals into gold. He shall be addressed as Deadeye, Milord. His gaze shall not be met should you touch the sleeve of his flak jacket. He shall receive your heartfelt apology if he shoots you or has you shot. And that means you, soldier. And finally, he claims le droit du seigneur, the feudal lord's fabled right to screw your wife on your wedding night. And you. But only in the wallet."
AND IRAN. IRAN SO FAR AWAY.
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HRAN, Iran –– Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who changed his name from Muhammad Ali just to bedevil US news anchors and proofreaders) has greatly expanded his government’s official “Shi’ite List” of prohibited Western pop culture. In the interests of protecting his nation’s young people from immoral influences while preserving Iran’s quaint 15th-century cultural climate, the Sharif Executive and his Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council (which was, ironically, the one-time moniker of a Sun Ra band in the 70’s) had already issued a ban on Western music being played on radio and TV. Barring George Michael’s Careless Whisper, the Eagles’ Hotel California and the stylings of Kenny G was initially applauded in some quarters as a triumph of taste though it soon became clear that the leader’s ear was as tin as his horn.
President Ahmadinejad (pronounced ah’m-a-doin’-jihad) ranted, “We reject totally the Great Satan’s siren call, and shall soundproof our young people’s turbans and burqas if need be! We spit lustily upon the entire history of Western music from Bach to Bacharach and Beck again and still have saliva enough to anoint the Zionist record executives who peddle such babel!”
The blanket edict does cite certain artists for special censure including Sunni and Cher, Bush, The Jazz Crusaders, Shah Na Na and David Bowie who is accused of actually marrying an imam. Surprisingly, Yusuf Islam nee Cat Stevens does not avoid the axe, but a provision is included to allow for an annual Independence Day performance of A Flock of Seagulls’ I Ran to be performed by the Islam Tabernacle Choir (which is banned from rehearsing the other 364 days a year.)
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he President, who was allegedly mistaken for a participant in the 1979 siege of the US Embassy in Teheran by several hostages who suffered through that ordeal (and mistaken for Jamie Farr as The Sheik in the 1984 Cannonball Run ll by several moviegoers who suffered through that ordeal), has ramped up the culture wars to recapture some of the magic of those heady early days of the Revolution. “Ayatollah Khomeini was like a rock star to us, if you will forgive the expression, inspiring us with his solemnity, his grimness, his utter lack of charisma!”, vociferated Ahmadinejad in a reflective mood. “If only I could inspire such disgust for women, Jews, intellectuals…!”, his voice trailed off in a plaintive bellow.
Not content to merely silence the West’s Pied Pipers and to ban Hollywood’s movies and TV shows, the Revolutionary Council is planning on establishing its own media production center outside of Qom, to be known as Mullahwood. Taping is set to begin immediately on inspirational television shows such as Fatwa Knows Best, Kate and Allah and Islamic Band Stand in which contestants caught singing have their tongues cut out. Mullahwood’s new moguls also promise big-screen offerings set to include High Infidelity, Heaven Can’t Wait, Some Like it Haaj and Dial M for Martyr. A studio spokesman also hints at a top-secret project with the potential to be a worldwide blockbuster. Ahmadinejad admits he has read the script and terms the concept, “simply atomic! Trust me, Great Satan, we will blow you away!”
ALLAH OOPS!
COPENHAGEN, Denmark –– Cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed first published here in the daily Jyllands-Posten have set into motion a Rube Goldbergesque madcap media-mashing machine throughout the Muslim world. Danish products have been boycotted in Mi
ddle Eastern countries –– leaving coffee shops particularly hard hit –– and Denmark’s flag has been burned in Palestinian refugee camps –– and not just because they’d used up all of the Israeli ones. Some thought the demonstrations were just make-work projects instituted by the new Hamas politicos who had expressed concern that large numbers of the professional unruly mob workface were underemployed, but the fact that Indonesia’s blue-collar protest laborers staged similar actions suggests that the delusional hysteria was real.
Underlying the outrage is the prohibition in Sharia law against any visual depiction of the Prophet. Inasmuch as they'd never seen his picture certain observers wondered aloud how the true believers could possibly have recognized Mohammed as the figure in the cartoons. There were few criticisms of the actual likeness although it was generally agreed the artists made him look too fat.
In support of the increasingly quaint notion of Freedom of the Press other European newspapers including Die Welt in Germany, France Soir and De Standaard of Belgium boldly reproduced some of the drawings sparking further protests, the torching of embassies, the firing of editors and the pulling of ads for cell phone detonators and airliner takeoff lessons. Newspapers in England and the US, however, answered the “I am Spartacus” challenge with an “I am Candy-ass” response.
The State Department, a noted champion of artistic expression and free speech –– for those living in North Korea and Iran –– sought to “mullahfy” the rabble by agreeing with the zealots that the cartoons were offensive to Muslims and the corporations that want to sell second-rate consumer products to them. A spokesman said, “Frankly, we believe the barring of caricature should be extended to protect not merely religious, but political sensitivities. How do you think the President feels when he’s been cruelly lampooned? We’re not suggesting the cartoonists be jailed, but we could chop off their drawing hands. Humanely.”
This satirical website is made of sterner stuff and we reproduce here the most shocking example, which shows He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Portrayed wearing a turban shaped like a bomb. We do not advocate the burning of any flags although we were thinking of suing for plagiarism on behalf of dozens of political cartoonists who have flogged this same tired idea since 1979 or so. Meanwhile, to hone one’s cultural sensitivities we suggest you enjoy the sort of sanctioned cartoons to be found on editorial pages throughout the Muslim world with their charming depictions of banana-nosed, money-grubbing Zionists and slavering, blood-sucking Americans.
'HOLIDAY' ON ICE
WA
SHINGTON, DC –– In need of a new wedge issue to put its enemies’ knickers in a twist while inflaming its flagging far-right fans, the Bush Administration has seized upon expunging the blasphemous phrase, “Happy Holidays” from public discourse. Acting through it’s swollen media organ, FOX News, and commentators like Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson (author of The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday… aw, shit, why waste the pixels to reproduce the whole asinine title) the White House hopes to rally the 85% of Americans who identify themselves as Christian against the insidious threat to their religious freedom posed by politically-correct pagans who incant that godless greeting.
"There is an anti-Christian bias in this country," O'Reilly discovered as a result of intensive investigation, "and it is more on display in the Christmas season than any other time." He also noted a seasonal rise in strains of anti-carolism, anti-elfism and anti-Santyism. Sadly, anti-commercialism experienced only a modest boost. O’Reilly’s revelations on bias did not extend to other religious holidays such as Passover, Ramadan, Diwali, Martyrdom of the Bab or Super Bowl Sunday.
Much of the ire was initially aimed at chain stores like Wal-Mart and Target for substituting the dreaded word “Holiday” for the word “Christmas” on products where the word “Cheapjack” would have been most appropriate. The cold rage soon spread like Vonnegut’s Ice-9, freezing out any utterance or reproduction of the H-word during the blessed season. A certain popular hotel chain is to be temporarily rechristened Christmas Inn, as is the Bing Crosby movie that introduced the standard White Christmas. Jazz songstress Billie X-Mas may not have sung that chestnut, but Old West lawman Doc Christmas would surely have appreciated its sentiment.
Like Rudolf Giuliani on a foggy night, the right-wing reindeer pledged to safely lead Jesus’ sleigh to the roof of the White House this year. Within, Vice President Cheney defiantly masqueraded as jolly ol' St. Dick at the Annual "Holiday This!" Party. “Christmas” Bush sat on his lap and read a lengthy wish list that included a shining beacon of hope for Iraq, a permanent tax cut for the super-rich, a Tickle Me Condi Doll, an English/English dictionary and batteries for Laura's Vibrating Chubby Teaser.
"Maybe Americans can finally understand how the Shi'ia majority in Iraq must've felt all those years while the Sunni minority imposed their 'Holiday' wishes on 'em," offered the President. "Now the Christmas stocking is on the other foot and like the Saddamites our nation's own Sodomites had better get some Yuletide spirit and hit the mall. 'Tis the season."
OUT WEST
HOLLYWOOD, CA –– The cr
itical success of the gay-themed cowboy movie, Brokeback Mountain has led to a reexamination of the classic Hollywood Western and its treatment of the love that dare not drawl its name. Budd Buttacher, assistant director on many oaters during the genre’s Golden Age shared some surprising insights into the ins and outs of the so-called Hickory Closet. “Right from the git-go, with the swishily-named Tom Mix in his pancake makeup and lipstick, done up in leather chaps and popping off them phallic pistols, most of the Western film stars were a Jack shy of a Queen-high flush. I’m not sayin’ they all tootled the bugle, but I think part of their essential appeal was to the lizard wranglers in the audience.”
"Whether you liked the ladies or not, the loneliness of a two-month shoot in Monument Valley with an all-male crew and several cases of Tequila would have most any man achin’ to slap leather. I heard a rumor The Duke got his nickname for dukin’ it out –– for havin’ quick fists –– and though he saved his Little Sheriff for the senoritas he did leave many a bit player with the funniest hitch in his gait. Why’d you think Walter Brennan walked so bow-legged? On the other hand, they say Gabby Hayes started off as a Shakespearean actor with the pertiest elocution until he made a B western called The Star Packer in 1934 and played Swallow the Rattler once too often.”
Pudge Schramm, veteran stuntman and the self-proclaimed “tightest Saddle Bum in the West”, remembers the horse opera-lovers he was proud to ride with and to ride. “These were men’s men, not some Pussy Posse. Yeah, we loved the Purple Sage and Lavender bath beads, but we’d as soon beat a man up as off. Randy, Rock, Tab, Monty, Lassie (that bitch!) –– I remember being backstage with those gay caballeros like it was yesterday. Cinema buffs today look for what they call subtext in the Westerns we made, but in the day we used to cut together alternate versions of those shows with additional racy footage for viewing at private parties. We had a high old time with titles like Broken Arrow, Blood on the Arrow, The Rifleman, The Quick Gun and Naked Spur.”
"It’s ironic, everyone assumed The Lone Ranger and Tonto were sharing a teepee, but despite the stage name Jay Silverheels, the Injun was a straight shooter from what I could see. Now, I’m not saying the so-called Long Ranger was your average paleface with average appetites. Let’s just say he was pals with Roy Rogers and they both loved animals and together they gave new meaning to the phrase “Trigger Happy”,” Schramm added, with a moist wink.
As to the international scene, an unidentified best boy on many notable spaghetti Westerns of the 1960’s said through an interpreter, “due to the nature of libel laws here in Italy I can only say that a certain man with no shame always kept a fistful of Vaseline ready. For a few dollars more I would share the good, the bad and the ugly, but otherwise, my name is nobody.”
EXIT POLLS
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ASHINGTON, DC –– Plunging poll numbers for the Bush Administration and its prosecution of the war in Iraq raised hopes that the level of prescription drug abuse in the general US population may not be as widespread as originally feared. Recent results put President George W. Bush’s overall approval rating at about 37% and his negative rating at about 42% (with about 21% expressing support for Geena Davis’ President ‘Bush’.) Meanwhile Vice President Dick Cheney’s approval numbers are hovering around 17% with 66% of Americans categorizing him as “somewhat nefarious” and 83% agreeing that he is "best suited to be Chairman of the Donner Party."
The Iraq War numbers should provide the White House with a particularly unsavory MRE of crow with nearly 57% saying the war wasn’t worth it (proving, yet again, that $300 bil doesn’t buy you what it used to) and only 35% approving of President Bush’s handling of the war (of which only 26% can say the word "Shiite" without giggling.) Approximately 63% wanted most US troops to come home in the next year while 35% believed that troops should stay as long as it takes to train Iraqi Security Forces to mishandle the insurgency as thoroughly as they have. Meanwhile 93% of Iraqis want a timetable for an early withdrawal of “Coalition Forces”, with that number rising to 113% if they promise to take Achmed Chalabi with them.
When asked what factor had changed their minds about Mr. Bush suitability for office only a year after they had reelected him, 37% of Americans cited “mismanagement of the Katrina disaster”, 29% cited “the White House leak scandal,” and 34% cited “no longer receiving telepathic commands from Karl Rove.” In light of these latest findings, a new poll asked, "If the 2004 election were held today and you knew what you know now how would you vote?" with 56% agreeing that they would still acquit OJ Simpson, but not Robert Blake.
Democrats did not escape the poll-ax with 94% finding the party “somewhat”, “kinda”, “very”, “exceedingly” or “un-effin’-believably gutless.” 54% of respondents blamed the Party's criticism of Mr. Bush's handling of the war for being "detrimental" to the morale of US troops. 67% felt that allowing Robin Williams to tour the war zone with the USO was "potentially devastating". Howard Dean received surprising support with 58% of all likely voters and 77% of likely Democratic voters favoring him for the post of Ambassador to Iraq (without bodyguard.)
With these statistical IEDs littering the road to the 2006 midterm election 74% of sentient life forms predicted the President would remove some troops from Iraq before next November to great fanfare. 82% expected the returning soldiers would receive 99% more press coverage than their unlucky compatriots who had preceded them horizontally.
WITHOUT DELAY
Nailing The Hammer
WA
SHINGTON, DC –– A funereal pall has descended over the Capitol Dome as the grim reality has set in that Fate may once again deny our nation the services of a great man. Wilbur Mills, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee was laid low (or high or in the back seat) by Fanne Fox, the Tidal Basin Bombshell in 1976. Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright was wronged by an Ethics Committee probe into his violation of draconian limits on fees and perks in 1989 and stepped down. Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was told to “Go, pack!” over mismanagement of his GOPAC Political Action Committee and 84 other ethics charges in 1998. And now, tragically, it is the turn of House Republican majority leader Tom DeLay to succumb to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (though the outrageousness of the fortune has yet to be calculated by prosecutors.)
A small-minded District Attorney in Texas has indicted Mr. DeLay on one count charging that he violated state election laws in September 2002. Arcane House Republican rules require that a leadership figure must step down, if only for a trice, if indicted. Though a conviction on this felony charge could mean two years behind bars, Mr. DeLay responded to the legal action as though he had been invited to vacay at a timeshare in the Bahamas and would return to his post once his tan had been perfected. Others, more firmly anchored in reality and fully mindful of the capriciousness of a public that had been metaphorically gang-fisted by Mr. DeLay and his co-conspirators for the past three years suspect that this was instead the moment when the former exterminator would check in to the Roach Motel, but never check out.
Reaction to the booking and fingerprinting of Sugar Land’s Rogue Elephant recalled the bleak days that followed the cancellation of the series Dallas when the awful realization dawned on the American public that it would never again thrill to the shameless chicanery of JR Ewing except in reruns. At the Watergate Hotel, the Chief House Procurement officer doffed his pimp-cut Kangol cap in deference and the prostitutes gave head in silence. Congressional interns respectfully organized a dead pool in honor of PAC’s Bad Boy with the smart money riding on DOA. Some female aides sobbed softly although more than one listener took the strangled sounds to be titters mixed with sighs of relief. NRA lobbyists held an Irish wake of sorts at Hooters and ended the evening with a 21-gun salute with assault rifles aimed in the general direction of Nancy Pelosi’s Capitol Hill offices.
A group of philanthropic influence peddlers pooled their resources to establish a small tax shelter/slush fund to provide for The Hammer’s family so that they could still enjoy free gifts (key rings, monogrammed pens) and trips (the Smithsonian, the Mall.) Congressman Roy Blunt of Missouri, who courageously agreed to serve as temporary majority leader and “keep warm” Mr. DeLay’s jack boots paid his respects by lowering the flag in front of his home and hanging the lawn jockey at half-mast.
Televangelists decried the fact that a good Christian could be cut down for employing fund-raising techniques that the Lord had approved for their use while an impeached adulterer like Bill Clinton had been able to retain the very office he had defiled. And late at night, along the banks of the Potomac, several dispirited members of Texas’ congressional delegation swore they saw the figure of the late, unlamented political consultant Lee Atwater strumming his electric guitar and singing the blues.
G2: THE ONCE AND FUTURE GOVERNATOR
SA
N FRANCISCO, CA –– A press conference announcing California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s intention to run for re-election was disrupted today when an emissary from the future — the Governator himself, 20 years older — appeared on stage, warning of the dire consequences that would result from his second term in office.
The governor had just begun his remarks and was expected to confirm speculation about his candidacy. As he smiled and uttered the phrase, “It’s not ah rumah...” the mysterious stranger strode to the podium and grabbed the microphone.
“People of Kulifohnia,” boomed the Governator from the future, a dead ringer for the current Mr. Schwarzenegger but white-haired and haggard, with a nasty scar down one cheek and dressed in tattered leather Mad Max-style biker gear, “Don’t do this!" Staring at the audience with his red, glowing left eye, he continued, "I warn you, death, destruction and deep cuts in essential services will be only da least of it! You must stop me... him... us... whatevah!”
He then addressed Schwarzenegger directly, saying, “I tried to stop you at da primaries next spring, offering to implant you with happy memories of a second term, but you didn’t listen then so I came back to now. After only two years with us in charge, da state is in turmoil and Hollywood Box Office is in da toilet... have your ego and ambition blinded you so completely that you cannot remember that sequels are never as good?”
Although initially startled into silence, Schwarzenegger stepped up to push his doppleganger away from the mic. After a brief struggle, Governator 2 pulled out an enormous chrome-plated hand gun, pointed it at the present Governator and said ominously, “Think of da lamentations of da vimmen! Don’t make me do this, we’ll both regret it!”
Governator 1 made several quick martial arts moves and knocked the weapon from G2’s hand, then fled to his Humvee and sped off. G2 shoved a nearby Highway Patrolmen off his motorcycle, hopped on and gave high-speed chase through the hilly streets of San Francisco.
The two vehicles roared into a steel mill near the Golden Gate Bridge that, although completely deserted, was operating at full capacity. Once inside, the chase continued on foot, with G2 following G1 up several flights of metal stairs to a catwalk directly above a vat of glowing red molten metal.
During their dramatic mano-a-mano fight to the death, a knife, an ice-pick and both Governator's car keys fell into and were consumed by the fiery liquid below.
G1, younger, stronger and not yet worn down by the nightmarish hellscape his second term will unleash, finally got the upper hand and tossed his future self over the railing and into the volcanic stew, shouting after him victoriously, “Tell da future it's history!”
As he sank into the flaming muck, G2 is reported to have raised his fist and declared, “I’ll be back... Ouch!”
Later, Mr. Schwarzenegger blamed the incident on his liberal enemies in the special effects industry. George Lucas denied any involvement and spokespeople for presumptive rival gubernatorial candidates Rob Reiner and Warren Beatty did not return calls.
–– L.K. Peterson
EENY MEENY MINEY MORON
Bush Knows Picks
WA
SHINGTON, DC –– In response to the recent barrage of criticism aimed at President Bush’s unnatural selection process in naming candidates to governmental posts, the White House announced a bold new policy today. Undertaken by the Nomination Initiative Taskforce (NIT), the strategy –– already tagged Dub Ya’ by wags –– is based on the findings of a study sponsored by the Department of Education, which concluded that a person’s surname is often a powerful predictor of the job for which he or she is most qualified.
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings naturally embraced this judgment, explaining, “Our European ancestors adopted names for their families based upon their line of work. Thus we can assume a Sam Smith shod horses, a Will Weaver made baskets, a Bonnie Baker kneaded dough, a Gus Gold lent it to her at exorbitant rates and a Holly Hooker blew sailors. The skill sets these families passed down from generation to generation predispose their present-day ancestors to excel in the fields encoded in their family names. Look, I don’t know how to say diner in Greek or newsstand in Hindi or deli with week-old hot table in Korean, but you get the idea.”
Reading a two-line summary of the three-year, $30 million study convinced George W. Bush to introduce the third essential criterion of name/job synchronicity into the nomination process. The first two criteria remain: 1) easy familiarity and 2) supine adherence to the White House Code of Loyalty (what the Mafia likes to call omerta.) “We don’t call it a process of elimination, that’s a bit scatological for the President, but he does feel that he, like LBJ before him, should be able to choose folks who he’d be comfortable conferring with even if he were on, y’know, the privy,” clarified Press Secretary Scott McClellan, knowing whereof he spoke.
"We’re not gonna go back and swap out all the fine folks we’ve already appointed, but in hindsight I do wish I had put Condi Rice in The Department of Agriculture, John Snow at The National Weather Service and the EPA’s Steve Johnson at Health where they deal with those nasty STD’s,” mused Mr. Bush. “Chao is fine at Labor, ‘cause there are plenty of food workers under her jurisdiction, but my Chief of Staff Andy Card would’ve probably served me better in Immigration and Naturalization handing out IDs to aliens.”
In one planned Cabinet shuffle Senator Arlen Specter is expected to replace John Negroponte as the nation’s Intelligence Czar, apparently because his name reminds Mr. Bush of James Bond’s organizational arch-nemesis. Mr. Negroponte, he of the Black Bridge, will move over to the Department of Transportation while current Secretary Norm Mineta will try to satisfactorally explain the meaning of his name in Japanese and the fact that he is the only Democrat allowed in the White House. Michael Brown, formally of FEMA, is slated to join the EPA’s Solid Waste Management branch.
Mr. Bush complained, “Let me say, I always resented the talk that this nominee or that was a crony –– it’s just not true, they are not cronies. I mean, Harriet Miers does look a bit like an old hag, but it’s not like she flies into work on a broomstick. I do believe this new process of NIT-picking will assure even bester possible candidates for upcoming job openings because names do matter. Look at mine and how much I like to clear brush on my ranch. Clear brush. Brush? Bush? Get it?”
If Ms. Miers bid for the Judiciary were to be shelved, Mr. Bush is said to be considering Cincinnati Reds’ great Johnny Bench, Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge or Bud Cort of Harold and Maude fame as a possible substitute. He is also mulling several candidates to replace the retiring Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan of whom Mr. Bush said, “He was successful ‘cause his name had green in it, though we’d probably have 0% inflation now if it had been Greenback.” Rap star Fifty Cent is apparently on the short list though fears that his low-denomination moniker will fail to reassure foreign markets have insiders giving the edge to rock burnout Eddie Money.
WHITE OUT
Bill Bennett’s Modest Proposal
W
ASHINGTON, DC –– Conservative talk show host William J. "Just Call me Bill" Bennett responded to a caller’s question that linked lower crime rates with increased abortion rates by saying, “But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” Noting the spontaneous explosion of his program manger’s head he hastily added that such a Pharaonic edict was, “an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.”
Many assumed that the former Secretary of Education and ex-Drug Czar had swapped his widely-reported addiction to shooting dice for a habit of smoking ice, but a subsequent announcement by his publisher suggests he was merely firing up his literary fan base. A Bigot’s Book of Virtues, a new treasury of instructive tales in his popular series, will be released on October 18, to honor the birth date of former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms. With this volume Bennett hopes to use right-minded stories and poems to, “instill in young people an appreciation of their proud heritage, to illuminate for them the dangers of quotas and to teach them to differentiate between white and wrong.”
Excerpts from Huckleberry Finn (“snippets of Jim’s proto-Ebonic gibberish”), Uncle Tom’s Cabin (“some juicy whippings”) and Little Black Sambo (“just the title is enough”) are interspersed with inspirational Ku Klux Klan tracts illustrated with stills from the stirring silent film classic, The Birth of a Nation. Beloved literary works are supplemented with rare and easy-to-hate screeds that include “Bull” Connor’s Freedom Riders, My Eye, Big Black Athletes by Jimmy “the Greek”, Crowning Rodney King by the LA Police Dept. and Barbara Bush’s Better Than The Shack That Washed Away.
Bennett commented, “I didn’t want to focus solely on the white/black/crime/euthanasia issue –– racial purity is much bigger than that. So we give the kids a little Fagin, a little Shylock, a little Portnoy –– when the character is self-loathing it makes the lesson that much easier.” A Bigot’s Book of Virtues incorporates stereotypes from around the world, from North Africa (Camel Jockey’s Big Race) to India (Flog the Wog) as it seeks to demonstrate the terrors of ethnic diversity. “Sure it’s a sobering message, but I don’t want to be seen as the boogie man, if you’ll pardon the expression,” said Bennett. “Look, would I ever advocate abortion of any kind, for any group? C’mon, abortion? Me?” And then he added with a sly grin, in his best Colonel Klink voice, “Besides, ve heff other methods.”
FEMA PITCH
Brownie Points for Relief Effort
NE
W ORLEANS, LA –– The Guinness Book of World Records reported today that Michael Brown of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was not the single stupidest individual to ever head a cabinet-level federal agency. Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, of the “tight pussy, loose shoes, warm place to shit” quip still holds that distinction, but it’s only because George W. Bush had downgraded FEMA to non-cabinet level status and Krazy-glued it to The Office of Homeland Security. In view of his previous experience with the International Arabian Horse Association, Brown was originally considered for the plum post of Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, but the White House decided he would be more useful as Farouk of FEMA, hastening the dismantlement of a quaint Federal bureau. Ironically, sinking that agency worked against him in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and he has since been downgraded to a topical depression and blown out of office.
When Brown was first told "the levees broke" he directed requests for financial aid to B’nai B’rith. He would later evince surprise that refugees from the storm were stranded in The New Orleans convention center –– he said he thought the TV images of huddled crowds were from a cablecast of The Day After Tomorrow (and wondered aloud, “why didn’t they just call it Friday?) Meanwhile, President Bush instinctively realized the mounting crisis called for preternatural calm on his behalf so he cannily continued his Texas vacation for two full days after the storm struck before moseying back to Washington to oversee FEMA’s oversights. He conducted a laid-back low-altitude fly-by over the stricken Gulf Coast en route to DC, at an altitude from which the devastated area looked a bit like Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Water Park.
When he finally touched his toes to the edge of dampness in Louisiana he joked with the media about being “high, though not dry,” in his wilder days on Bourbon Street and then advised a jumpy Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, “keep your chirt on”. So as not to create panic in a shaken populace that might irrationally fear that the relief efforts upon which their lives depended were being conducted like a Chinese Fire Drill executed by Iraqi Security Forces, Bush commended FEMA's Master of Disaster, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” (he had considered a play on the UPS tagline, “What can Brown do for you,” but thought it a little too tricky.)
Despite Bush’s comforting nonchalance, gale force criticism buffeted the beleaguered agency. Seeking to project a can-do attitude in the face of can’t-do performance, the White House moved to redub FEMA the Federal Emergency Business Lobby (FEBL) and repurpose it with seeking out the silver lining in the cloud of calamity and mining that lining for all it's worth. Bush reasoned, “If we’ve learned anything from the War of Liberation in Iraq it’s that one man’s loss is another man’s profit. Chaos stimulates the economy. It will be FEBL’s job to offer relief to those who rebuild shattered lives. Infrastructures. Other structures. M’favorite James Bond movie was set in New Orleans and had the prophetic title Live and Let Die –– that is what we must do here, today.”
"The storm didn’t discriminate, nor will the recovery effort,” insisted a sober President, adding, “Prejudice against a Halliburton subsidiary like KBR or a corporation like The Shaw Group, based on the insidious bias of small-minded folks against compassionate capitalism will never keep this administration from awarding no-bid multi-billion dollar aid contracts to the neediest multinationals. We must help them who help themselves. To your tax dollars. Some say charity begins at home. I say we give at the office.”
THE 007 CLUB
"Aim higher" Counsels Robertson
VI
RGINIA BEACH, VA –– Christian Broadcasting Network’s Good Shepherd, Pat Robertson, is planning a new TV program entitled Crosshairs, to illuminate the spiritual underpinnings of political assassination. On a recent edition of CBN’s popular 700 Club (the cryptic name apparently refers to the viewing audience’s cumulative IQ) he said of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, “We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," which would at least serve to reassure Fidel Jr. by confirming his suspicions. He sensibly added, "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop." The last point was a bit conjectural inasmuch as it’s always hard to predict how a sovereign state will react when a foreign government blows the brains out of its elected chief executive.
Though Robertson initially insisted that he was misquoted and blamed unfair media coverage (CBN did let the cameras continue to roll), he later clarified his statement to insist that he had only suggested that The U.S. “take him out.” Perhaps he was thinking an escorted visit to a church picnic or a Christian Jamboree might straighten out the left-leaning leader. But in Holy Hit!, the premiere episode of his new show Robertson will forcefully reinforce the Biblical rationale for assassination.
He preaches, “The Lord was often giving the order to smite this evildoer or that. The 10 Plagues were a political takedown of Pharoah and when Moses had the Red Sea crash down on Ramses and his horde he might as well have nailed ‘em with an rpg. The story of Chanukah is about the struggle for oil against a tyrant, Antiochus IV (nicknamed Epinames, ‘madman’, an apt designation for ol’ wackus caracas, Chavez) and after the revolt of the Maccabees the dictator was smitten on an expedition against the Parthians. I suggest that Parthian shot was from an assassin’s sling shot, sanctioned by the JIA (Judean Intelligence Agency.)”
"Did anybody actually see Judas hang himself? Maybe he wasn’t alone at that particular necktie party. And it doesn’t take Hemlock Holmes to figure out that King Herod who was reported to have died from a dreadful medical condition had something lethal slipped into his wine. We know Luke was a physician and could tell arsenic from old lace. You show me the forensic evidence that the death of Pontius Pilate was a ‘suicide’ or that the boating accident of the guy with the nasty whip in Mel’s movie was 'accidental'. Even CSI couldn’t have pinned those on Yahweh.”
"Modern scholars now wonder if the translation of the Sixth Commandment, ‘Though shalt not kill,’ which has long been understood to mean ‘kill’ as in ‘murder’ was accurate. Apparently a crack in the tablet obscured a clause that would have followed the word ‘kill’, with the word ‘conservatives.’ You’ll remember the Lord let Martin Luther King (liberal and fornicator) and Robert Kennedy (liberal and fornicator and Catholic) have it, but allowed Ronald Reagan to pull through. We don’t want extreme prejudice against those who terminate with extreme prejudice. We want to take the sin out of assassin. Billy Graham called angels ‘God’s Secret Agents’ –– so let’s issue them an 007 license to kill. Smite makes right, friends.”
SUGE AND SPITE
VMA's Off with a Bang
M
IAMI, FL –– Notorious (and pretty b.i.g.) hip hop impresario Marion “Suge” Knight was shot in the right leg in breaking news in the Red Room in the Shore Club in Miami Beach in a party thrown by Kanye West in anticipation of MTV’s Video Music Awards. Colonel Mustard of Miami’s elite CRI (Capped Rapper Investigations) Unit theorized that the weapon was a revolver, but when asked whom he thought had committed the crime, he conceded, “I haven’t a clue.” Other law enforcement officials suggested off the record that Mr. Knight’s involvement in the deadly East Coast/West Coast/Tri-County hip hop feud might, just might, have played a role in the incident. Dubious authorities suspected that fear of reprisals prompted partygoers on the scene to deny witnessing the attack, although it might have had more to do with their smoked sunglasses and the disorienting glitter of bling.
Before the party the Death Row Records’ founder told reporters, “I think it’s real good people are getting along down here,” referring to the fact that Miami had been considered neutral territory in rap’s turf wars, a sort of Run DMZ. Even though his rival Sean “Diddy” Combs (who announced before hosting the VMA telecast that he was simplifying his name further to just “Di”, though he stressed that it was to be pronounced with a short i as in “dim”) is a South Beach habitué as is the artist The Game (who tried to play “Suge” before the BET Awards, y’all), Mr. Knight exuded a Gandhi-like calm prior to the party. Even when a confused reporter asked if he had named his new recording venture Tha Row after Henry David, rap’s Sol Hurok smiled good-naturedly as he instructed his bodyguards to, “get that dumb MF outta’ here.” His mood was noticeably darker when he was rushed to Mount Sinai Medical Center with a shattered leg bone although he apparently rallied sufficiently to quip to the doctors and nurses attending to him in the ER, “I hope you’re all Republicans!” before slipping into unconsciousness.
Rather than putting a damper on the next evening’s celebration of all that is bright and beautiful in the world of music videos, a cap in the knee gave the proceedings a shot in the arm. Attendees squealed giddily like gerbils on crank as gangstas primp’d and pimp’d and the white girlz and boyz tried to act homier-than-thou. One of several animatronic Paris Hiltons graced the white carpet along with multi-hit (reportedly 9 times in a drug-related incident) artist 50 Cent. Homer’s blonde daughters, Jessica and Ashlee, promoted literacy by attempting to read a cue card. Diddy conducted a symphonic tribute to the immortal and oxymoronic Biggie Smalls while Snoop Dogg shnizzled a shnozzle like a shlimazzle smokin’ grazzle.
Some, who gave a shit, theorized that Mr. Knight might have shot himself accidentally and concocted the elaborate cover story of a second shooter because possession of a weapon would violate his parole. Others, with even less of a life, suggested that Suge had somehow gotten in to see rehearsals of MTV’s extravaganza that glorified hip hop’s legacy and only wished he had aimed higher.
COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
The Taming of the Shrewd
W
ASHINGTON, DC – Once again out-foxing the egg-headed liberal naysayers, President George W. Bush pulled a patented switcheroo by publicly embracing steroid-abusing Baltimore Oriole Rafael Palmeiro. A member of the Texas Rangers when Bush owned a 1.8% share of the team, Palmeiro was recently suspended for 10 days after he tested positive for stanozolol, a powerful performance-enhancer that entered the first baseman’s body through unexplained means. During his tenure with the Rangers, Bush apparently grew very fond of ‘Raffy’ who he described as being “like a gardener to me” and he responded to the initial reports of the failed test by saying, “Rafael Palmeiro is a friend. He testified in public and I believe him. He's the kind of person that's going to stand up in front of the klieg lights and say he didn't use steroids, and I believe him.''
At Congressional hearings in March the Raffish One insisted, "I have never used steroids. Period. I don't know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never." In his State of the Union Address, the President said, "The use of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids in baseball, football, and other sports is dangerous, and it sends the wrong message...I call on team owners, union representatives, coaches, and players to take the lead, to send the right signal, to get tough, and to get rid of steroids now." Apparently the right signal was to call for a career suicide squeeze with a needle hanging from one's ass.
Ironically, the slugger had joined the 3,000 Hit Club just before taking his 3,000th hit. Nonetheless, the supposed mystery of how the substance was ingested moved President Bush to direct the DEA to launch Operation Loose Juice with the goal of identifying possible sources of accidental steroid infusion. DEA Administrator Karen Tandy theorized, “perhaps the Hall-of-Fame hopeful visited the beach with his family and inadvertently stepped on a loaded syringe washed ashore from a nearby gym and thought it was a horseshoe crab.”
His enemies read Bush’s Fido-like loyalty to an under-oath liar as a lapse of judgment at best, proof positive of bone-ignorance at worst, but a subtler interpretation suggests itself. Wacky self-contradiction forestalls intelligent argument. From the first oxymoronic assertion that he was a compassionate conservative, this President has parsed language with a pitchfork, the anti-Clinton who didn't ask what ‘is’ is, but insisted that ‘is’ ain’t.
This critic-proof approach extends to the staunch promoting of John Bolton as the next US Ambassador to the UN – a 'roid-raging government player ripe for urine analysis – and his eventual recess appointment to that post. And true blue brown-nosing of Turd Blossom One, the redoubtable Karl Rove, in the face of his vengeful outing of an undercover CIA op moved Forty Turd to new heights of unassailable illogic. He amended his initial vow to fire anyone involved with the leak by stipulating that only if someone had committed a crime would they "no longer work in my administration." Far slicker than Willy, GW added the proviso, "Heck, even if someone was caught with his hand in Ms. Plame's cookie jar and convicted of treasonism he could still hang out with me and give me helpful hints all friendly-like and just say he wasn't really at 'work' 'in' 'my administration.' Look, it's August in Crawford, I'm not even workin' here."
SHOP TILL YOU DROP, MAGGOT!
Gitmo to be Converted into Retail Outlet
GU
ANTANAMO BAY, Cuba –– The Pentagon announced today that it will shut down the notorious detention center nicknamed Camp X-Ray and reopen the facility at year's end (in time for the holidays) as an Army-Navy Surplus Price Club in cooperation with retail giant Costco. The new megastore will retain the catchy nom de guerre Gitmo and feature blow-out prices on the vast overstock of gear and materiel the military has accumulated since the U.S. Naval Station was first established in 1898.
"Sure, we were taking a lot of heat for supposed abuse of the detainees," explained Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Gen. Richard B. Myers, "but that wasn't the main impetus for this move. No, this is a synergization maneuver, dovetailing Secretary Rumsfeld's base closure strategy with the need to scare up funds to pay for operations in Iraq. Look, we've got tons of product from decades of over-procurement and a large, captive labor force. Unionization won't be an issue with these workers and teaching them simple responses to customers' queries like "I new here" or "No speakee English" should be a snap."
The biggest challenge according to retail experts will be getting the customer from the mainland to Aisle 1. Planned solutions include a steady stream of brightly-painted PC-1 Cyclone class Patrol Boats zipping 35 avid shoppers at a time the mere 90 miles from Key West to Gitmo (the USS Don't Ask and the USS Don't Tell are currently being converted.) Kids and the young-at-heart can make the trip while being towed in a flimsily-constructed raft accompanied by a trained guide and an Elian Gonzalez lookalike. The Navy will also rerig much larger LPD 4 Austin class ships to sail from Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. These vessels will include on-board gambling and Vegas-style lounges featuring favorite USO performers – Tony Orlando sans Dawn has been booked for the inaugural cruise. Shoppers can also opt for puddle-jumping military transport planes, with the more adventurous invited to parachute directly into Gitmo's Aeronautics Supply Department (and receive a 50% discount on all silk items in the store.)
Costco VP Stan Carton said that his company would receive unspecified administrative fees in the deal, but that the majority of sales dollars would go towards funding the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. "We see this as part of our duty to our country," explained Mr. Carton, "and we're confident that there will be plenty of patriotic bargain-hunters who will make Gitmo a retail sensation. We're starting with a brand name recognized globally, pre-paid inventory, free parking, unparalleled security and a location just off the coast of the flea market capital of the world." When asked if the Gitmo brand name might carry negative connotations for some consumers, Mr. Carton replied, "Naughty is nice in retail these days. Everyone wants some edge, some street cred. The kids'll love it."
"Inadequately-armored Humvees, previously-assaulted M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, decommissioned PT Boats – these are classic Big Box items," observed Gen. Myers. "And the boys on the ground tell me they'll be able to offer so much more – an international gourmet shop with the finest freeze-dried Halal meals, a vast liquor store and smoke shop where you can purchase hand-rolled stogies from Castro's private stock. There will be a huge pet supply area with everything for your attack dog. CD's with the hottest tracks (the kind Ali can't stand.) Interrogation-quality lighting, heavy-duty restraints, miles of electrical cord, stylish hoods, soiled bedding, you name it. And anybody who gets the idea that the detainees will be getting off easy in this deal never pulled a double shift at BJ's the week before Christmas."
