New Emperor-President Puts on Good Show
(We publish here a future news item, which came to us, once again, from the unexplained and non-existent, at least in this dimension, website, angelcynn.warp)
WORLDVILLE, 0:800 a.m., 30 JANUARY 2021
The administration of President Roscoe Dimwitz got off to a rip-roaring start today with the first bombing raid of the season, which targeted an area just outside the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Saddam Hussein, looking his age and leaning on a cane, defiantly promised "the mother of all big trouble" for the US, coming soon, he said, to a military theater near you. He claimed that twelve civilians had been killed in the joint US/UK mission, which began at 3:00 a.m. Iraqi time and resulted in the pinpoint destruction of several sheep pens and one goatherd. The raid is said to have sent yet another message to the timeless Iraqi despot. According to Pentagon spokes-bipeds, the goatherd was involved in transporting important materials for the production of weapons of mass destruction.
The Iraqi Raid has become such an important symbolic gesture on the part of an incoming administration that it now outranks the inaugural balls and parades, which once were such an important part of the Worldville (formerly Washington) social scene. Failure to be invited to the Pentagon to witness a new administration's first salvo in real time is seen these days as a major social slight. The event is now so fraught with legend and lore that it has pushed aside Punxsutawney Phil, the famous groundhog, and his shadow – to say nothing of the lesser known groundhog, Wiarton Willy, way up in Ontario – as an omen of future events.
Soothsayers, psychics, and bookies compete to predict when a new president will launch his first raid on Iraq, and side bets are taken on the weaponry to be used and the number of collaterals to be damaged. "This is like having our own little weapons-testing lab and target range; it's so realistic and the price is so low," said Totentanz Chapman of the multinational conglomerate Complex Military Industrial University Solutions, Inc. "Thank God, nobody is ever hurt in these trials," he added, "except for a few wogs."
A class of reviewers has sprung up in response to widespread public interest in ranking presidents as bombers of Iraq. We spoke to Kani Kryo, a leading critic, about this year's entry. "Yeah, I think this is one for the books. I mean, you have to consider the aplomb, the flair, the unbought grace with which Dimwitz carried this one off. Here's a guy addressing a fund-raiser at Orphans for Socialism and he only lets it slip out, real nonchalant like, towards the end of his speech, that he's blasting the hell out of Iraq. Like it happens every day, which it almost does, come to think."
Another bombing raid reviewer, Ace Frio, was more restrained. "Yeah, sure," he said, "it was a pretty good one. But ya gotta notice the poor menu of ordnance expended. They didn't use the circular saw-blade launcher, the used oil filter bomb, the cryogenic implosion bomb, or any of the other funky new technology the public wants to see in action."
In some frustration, he added, "Look the people wanna see some exciting weapons of mass destruction being used in this campaign against weapons of mass destruction. Otherwise, what's the point of voting for the guy?"
Both reviewers agreed, however, that public interest will reach fever pitch again, once the planned pig-sheep-cow bomb is ready, perhaps in time for the next inauguration. "That'll be more fun than a broken gas main taking out the butcher shop," said Frio. "Total War, Total Fun."
Mr. Frio stared blankly at our reporter, when asked if the ancient Roman suovetaurelia, a ceremony involving just those three animals, had inspired the new bomb.
Mr. Kryo broke in to say that he was holding out for deployment of the mortgage bomb and the liquidity-trap bomb. The Dimwitz Administration has declined to comment on these matters. Secretary for Light Prevarication, Elmo Sinary, drew an imaginary zipper across his lips, when our reporter raised the question.
On further questioning, Mr. Sinary emphatically denied that the government is working on an Annoying CD Bomb, which releases hundreds of recordings of Bill Kristol demanding unconditional surrender. "I don't think Mr. Kristol can even speak Iraqian," grumbled the Secretary. "Besides," he went on, "there's no known antidote for the guy's voice, and if the wind shifted, why we'd lose a lot of our own personnel."
August 30, 2002
