I await the consequences of this. Article 6 of the draft of the Iraqi Constitution provides: “Government should be rotated peacefully through democratic means. . . . ” Will Baghdad jurists later be divided between “strict constructions” and “living constitutionalists” over the question of whether “rotate” includes “oscillate?” Will it be within the “original intent of the framers” for the government to “vibrate?” Perhaps, in time, an amendment may be had providing that, in addition to government being “rotated,” it shall also be “levitated,” thus accomplishing, “through democratic means,” the ideal of every state: the repeal of the physical laws of the universe! So empowered, the Iraqi state may soon resolve the environmental “problem” of automobiles, and the accompanying dependency upon petroleum, by the invention of what that culture once offered only through fables, namely, flying carpets!

The Best of Butler Shaffer