CERN: Crush Earth Right Now

Gaea has her high priests (and priestesses) at work building a mighty temple to her wondrous nature at a secret location somewhere in Europe! And there they will work their dark arts. And I mean really dark arts. Like in "no light or life escapes" dark arts.

You see, man has so poisoned and polluted the planet that Gaea has decided to send earth to the crusher and She is having here holy men (and women) build her temple at the power point of her creation, the place all call CERN. Here's some reassuring words from Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson:

There’s this worry that at CERN, they’re going to turn on the accelerator and create states of matter as never before – which is true – at higher energies than ever before – which is true – and possibly produce micro black holes. What happens if one does not evaporate, but just sort of hangs around? Whatever it touches, it eats, then it gets more massive. The more massive it gets, the less likely it will be to evaporate, because they evaporate quickly only when they’re small. This worry that it will create a runaway black hole that will eat the Earth is what some people have been concerned about.

Silly some people. What are the chances of the Earth gettin' ate, burp.

You see, CERN actually stands for Crush the Earth into a Round bit o' Nothing. The end state has all of the planet's heaviness and all of its gravity rolled into a single point. But there is no matter so the point is kind of pointless -- you know, the way life can sometimes seem when you don't get that fellowship. This point is so small it would fit in the vest pocket of an hydrogen atom -- and eat the hydrogen atom.

Now, are we going to let a bunch of self-loathing European intellectuals make this call? For them, Earth has gone from Planet Hollywood to Planet Ennui. Talk about "Earth in the balance." On one side total planetary annihilation weighed against 2,000 tenured positions and a chance at a dozen Noble prizes -- the things that make life worth the bullshit. I'm telling you, folks, the "little blue marble" is just going to have to take it chances with the rest of us.

Plus, the Eurosmart set look at man as a total pest. And woman ain't much better. Remember, we are about to escape the gravity well of earth. So if something ain't done fast, the human rash will spread across the Universe. A rapid transubstantiation of the planet into a single pointless point may be the answer they are looking for. This will take care of the chimp problem, too. Let's face it, they ain't any better than humans and are, all and all, a disappointment.

It's interesting how uncontroversial this all is. Somewhere in the universe a planet is destroyed every day. But an oil well off the coast? That might dirty a duck and affect property values. But what about total annihilation? Do you think you will own a little bit of the singularity?

Where are all the people who want to save the Pandas? OK, maybe you don't care about China getting devoured by a black hole. But what about the Pandas? And when the oceans are sucked in, what about the whales? How are you going to Free Willie from a black hole?

And it doesn't have to be this way. We can build this thing in outer space. It will weigh five pounds and collide sun beams with moonbeams -- but in proper proportion. It can be done.

We sure need to do something. Start a movement. I'm willing to sell the T-shirts and bumper stickers if you are willing to buy them. This is an Orca. This is an Orca being devoured by a black hole. Here is a puppy. Here is a puppy being devoured by a black hole. Rid the Grid of CERN!

Ask not for whom dat Canary croaks, it croaks for you!

I just glanced at the headlines on my BBC Live Bookmark. The Top three are: 1) Iran says attack by Israel "impossible" 2) Mugabe condemns opposition "lies" 3) Nigerian oil pipeline "attacked."

This got me thinking: what I would like to see are impossible lies attacked. Excuse me: "impossible" "lies" "attacked."

Meanwhile, I'm wondering if The Onion has taken over The Asia Times Online. I can handle their over-the-top anti-Americanism (it does take practice) but lately some of their stuff is just wacky. John Feffer writes:

The global economy is reeling from the triple whammy of soaring energy and food prices and extreme weather stress, and as long as policymakers don't address all three of these trends as one major crisis, it could get a whole lot worse. Just ask North Korea, which in the 1990s was the world's canary. The famine there that killed as much as 10% of the population was a harbinger of the crisis that now grips the globe - though few saw it that way at the time.

Few? I say, "Name one."

That would be The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (affectionately known as the "Norks") acting as the "World Canary" in the "One World Coal Mine." I thought we had gotten rid of them coal mining canaries but I forgot about Socialism.

So. Let's see. How would this work? The North Korean canary flies deep into the One World Coal Mine and thence into a cage. Once Upon its perch, it closes and locks the gate. Later, the mine collapses on account of the commissar cat, fat in his plush office, deciding to save money and exceed the quota by not shoring up the roof.

The Canary cage gets smashed in the collapse and the gate springs open. The canary flies out of the cage and through the coal catacombs to the outside air. It lays on a sunny hillside puking black slime out of its little lungs. Then the commissar cat sees it. The canary drags its little darling self towards another mine entrance. At the last moment -- just before it becomes "famine fried chicken" in the commissar kitchen -- it flaps its little wings and flies into the mine just ahead of the power puss! Other canaries watch, and figure coal mines are the place to be if you want to get away from official cats.

They find coal mines of their own and fly in -- but it is all the same coal mine because it is the One World Coal Mine with diverse entrances. And inside the mine, they find cages with gates to lock behind them that will keep away stray cats. So years on, the "World Coal Mine" will be filled with "World Canaries" locked in their little "One World Cages" lit by dim and distant fluorescent. They count the minutes and breath recycled air while dreaming that the roof will cave in.

Actually, it is starting to make sense. Mr. Feffer, you are a genius.

He saw it on the Internet and sawed it off.

The Belmont Club: Disinformation

Dear Mr. Ram,

I heard at work the other day that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Is Sen. Obama really a Muslim? I ask you because I know you will give it to me straight.

I heard it at an OPEC meeting where "Mo'hammer" Quadhafi was MC. He kept going on and on about how Obama's a Muslim and will not get a square deal in the election. And to get elected he'll be a bigger Zionist than Ben-Gurion and act more white than a albino Laplander. I also heard his mentor is one crazy communist, which sounded good. I asked what a "mentor" is and was told a mentor is a person's grandmother who is at the same time his mother's mother, which I didn't even think was possible! Could it be some sort of, I don't know, sign? Could it be a virgin birth type thing, because I do not think that communists make babies. Or is that just in Russia?

Also, Mo said when Sen. Obama is President the USA will take over the oily oil companies and then dominate OPEC because the Democrats keep more crude off the market than any old dictator. Mr. Ram, they are taunting us! Saying we owe them big. That we'd be nothing without them! We'd get hardly no money for our honey if America drilled. Drill in Alaska, Mr. Ram, and you drill us.

Also, if the USA joins OPEC, does that mean we will have to open our meetings to those liars at the New York Times? And rely on LGF to protect our honor? Geez, this is crazier than Russia joining NATO.

So Mr. Ram, please to inform!

1) Is Barack a Muslim?

2) Is his crazy mentor-mother a commie?

3) Will he bring the USA into OPEC and make the rest of us Tyrants look like egg sucking Munchkins by comparison?

Yours sincerely,
Confused in Caracas

Dear confused,

You are an idiot! Your friend "Mo'hammer MC" is an idiot! However, I do support you in your quest to rid us of the Sulfurous smelling swine in the White House. He is, as I am sure you are aware, an idiot! But he don't even believe Barack Obama is a Muslim! Idiot!

Yours,
Ken "The Doll" Ram

In the Movies it starts with your pets and moves on to you

Could the fact that I have two posts on basically the same incident be a coincidence? Maybe! BBC NEWS | Americas | Canada coroner condemns foot hoax:

A severed "foot" in a running shoe found in Canada's British Columbia is not human, the province's coroners service says.

It said the remains found near Campbell River on Vancouver Island on Wednesday belonged to an animal, describing the hoax as "reprehensible".

Five human feet in shoes have been found in the area since last August. All but one were right feet.

Right foot. Wrong species. If it were human, it would not be reprehensible: it would be prehensile-able. No. Wait. That's if they found a hand in a running shoe. Geez. What would a severed hand be doing in a running shoe?

Have they taken a good look at the other five feet? Maybe they threw them into a pile in the in the corner of the coroner's office. Then one day they will say, "You know, maybe we should get rid of theses old shoes -- hey, the feet ain't human!" Because maybe they just thought it was another National Health Service backlog. After 60 years you finally get to the head of the line and they send you down to the Morgue. But in this case people were just hacking off their own feet. And where do you put your severed foot? On the beach. Problem is, your broken toe still tickles even after you cut your foot off, so why do it? I mean, none of this makes sense. People should not operate on themselves. Or others. Or their pets. And as for torture, that just plain should not be allowed to happen in Canada. Well, I've had my say.

My left foot and yousin's right.

This sounds like a coincidence to me:

BBC NEWS | Americas | Sixth human foot found in Canada

Another human foot encased in a running shoe has been found on the shores of British Columbia in Canada, the second this week and the sixth within a year.

Like four of the others it was a right foot, a police official said.

The foot was found near Campbell River on Vancouver Island and appeared to have been severed, a witness said.

Police, who are not speculating on this, are trying to determine the origins of the feet and whether they (sic?) are any links between the discoveries.

Ever since that WMD intelligence fiasco in Iraq officials are not going out on a limb about anything. After all, it's possible six people decided separately to separate their foot and toss it out on the beach. And is that even a crime? I mean, if you get beyond the littering angle. But maybe they were just feeding the wildlife. Still, there is the problem of the running shoe. That would be litter, not crab food.

Another fact that points toward coincidence is that one left foot. This approximates the level of left handedness in the general population. My advice to the police: go down to the mall or wherever and question people who have recently lost a foot. Ask them where they lost it. And their shoe size.

Barry at the Barricades

During the first crisis of his administration -- which corresponded roughly with his term in office -- President Barrack "Barry" Abamo (not his real name) had to defend his pastor and mentor of many years, The Reverend Robespierre "Peewee" Leftnut. The Right Reverend Leftnut was criticized for exaggerating (wildly) "the truth" he told the nation at the Inauguration. Feeling the heat from the controversy, President Abamo famously said, "The Reverend Leftnut is closer to me than my right nut -- scratch that! I mean. He's as close to me as my demented grandmother and crazy aunt!"

Barrack spoke the truth. Before he even ran for the Senate, the Right Reverend provided him with the the insight that led to the winning slogan of his Presidential Campaign: "In Barry You'll Have a Friend in The White House."

Barrack was not a religious person when he first met his pastor. The music, not the doctrine, originally attracted him to the services. The foot stomping worship of the choir was quite different from what occurred at The Unitarian Church he grew up attending. He had found those services downright boring and the Rod McKuen songs they played made him want to puke (Sausalito and sign language/Commune and coffee/Stanyan Street and your wide eyes!). If it were possible to become a lapsed Unitarian, he would have done that -- proudly. Instead Barry joined the "Infinity Church" of Peewee Leftnut. The choir itself was worth the price of admission.

As a preacher, Leftnut was known to get "a bit rough in his remarks." Barrack thought this understandable. After all, instead of citing Ludwig Wittgenstein, Walt Whitman and The Transcendentalists, he used the "old testament" as his source. For Barrack his improvisations on those superstitions turned it into a spiritual jazz. The cadences and the rhythms of his oratory were such that it didn't matter what he said. The fact that large crowds could be enthralled by such blather is what Barry found inspiring. For instance, Peewee's sermon, "Whitey is an Honorable Man," did justice to both Shakespeare and Mark Anthony -- although Barrack zoned out a quarter of the way through. Still, it was good to hear the Pastor refer to Whites as honorable. Refreshing. As usual, Reverend Leftnut ended the sermon in a crescendo -- nay, in a cascade of crescendos that so worked up the crowd that Barrack could not understand the finer points. For instance, that certain segments of the population were devils and demons on account of what's in their DNA -- so no need to blame them individually, just watch 'em close.

But even though he misunderstood much, Barrack thought he caught "the Gist" of what his pastor said. He preferred "The Gist." Often, when he was a Senator, the member of some pressure group would come to see him, and put some thick report on his desk. And Senator Abamo would say, "Give me the gist!" And they would give him the Gist, and some money, and a promise to round up thousands of votes in the next election. And so he became quite fond of the Gist. And in this sense the Gist of Reverend Leftnut -- campaign contributions and votes -- was quite good indeed.

It was another of Peewee's Sermons that provided the occasion of Barrack's inspiration. The Right Reverend's sonorous voice -- which wooed before it wowed -- caused Barrack to drift and dream as he sat in the pew. First, Barrack wondered what the woman beside him looked like naked, even though she was his wife (he thought it would be a sin to envision his mistress). Then he mentally calculate the value of pi, carrying it out many decimal points (until it occurred to him he may have made a mistake way back, let's see...). Next, he envisioned a rubrics cube and began arranging all the colors. It was surprisingly easy. He wondered why solving it in his mind was easier than in real life. And as he wondered about the ease of solving puzzles, the Right Reverend's voice intruded, and injected the Gist into his mind as if using a hypodermic on his skull.

"The American people," Peewee sermonized, "need to Socialize more!" And Senator Abamo thought: this is true, we could all be more friendly and sociable. "We need to Socialize!" screamed the Reverend, "From the top down!" And the Senator nodded in agreement: being sociable was an area where our leaders could lead. And Leftnut Screamed, "The Upshot: Don't be economical as you Socialize! Be audacious as you Socialize!" Yes, someone must take the lead when making new friends. "The Upshot is! Socialize or shoot! It's The Upshot or be shot!" And Barrack saw it clear: we must reach across the divides. We must be friends or risk violence.

These insights led him to write his second best selling book: The Audacity of Friendship. His first was "Barrack Life," the memoir of the inner turmoil and psychological oppression he experienced as a student at an exclusive boarding school and an Ivy League University. In the end, he recommended to young people that they become ascetics rather than addicts to the globe-hopping swell life, as happened to him. If it were possible to be a lapsed jet-setter, he would be.

Thus the Right Reverend provided him with the title for his new book and the slogan for his campaign: "America! Sociable from the Top Down." He told the cheering crowds, "I know we are a needy nation. And a friend in need is indeed a friend! Other Presidents tell you the Bucks will stop. They even brag about the bucks stopping, as if that were a good thing! But I say the Bucks will never stop! When we run out, we'll print more!" He easily won the election, carrying every corner of the nation except the Economics Department at the University of Chicago.

Once it became obvious he would carry Fifty States minus an economics faculty, Barrack sat down to consult Reverend Leftnut about the sorts of people he should appoint to government. When they discussed the Supreme Court, Leftnut listed a number of qualities one should look for in a Justice. He felt the ability converse with God so that God can confirm your prejudices was most important. It occurred to the future President that the man who most embodied this attribute was the fiery Reverend himself. So he secretly determined to select his Pastor as his first appointment to the Supreme Court. It seemed a simple way to payback both the Reverend and the Nation for all that they had meant to him (and to each other). Now, it is true the Man of God lacked the expected legal experience, but he would more than make up that deficit with the "spirit" he could bring to the law.

With no initial Supreme Court vacancies, however, President Abamo decided he could best introduce his pastor to the voters by appointing him Poet Laureate of the United States. He thought "the master of rhyme and time" must surely be qualified for that position. Plus, when he nominated Peewee for the Supreme Court, he will have already been vetted.

The plan began to unravel at the Inauguration. The Reverend who got "rough in his remarks" did not disappoint that day. It was overcast and cool but Peewee warmed things right up. He intoned, "America's Buzzards are buzzing. It's vultures are vulture eating." Before the listeners could decide if those statements made any sense, he charged forward. "America's! Buzzards! Buzz: You murdered my Daddy! You raped my mama! America's! Vultures! Eat! Devour! The poor! Munch on! The Children! America's! Harlot! That Rich Bitch! Bitches! Gimme Mo' Money, Ho'-Ho'-Honey!"

The first fist fight broke out early. It was between an ACLU litigator and an elderly nun. By the time Leftnut suggested the nation "let slip the bull goose loonies of resentment; erupt the volcanoes of revenge; give the whole heartland heartburn," the riots were in full swing. It quickly spread to every part of the nation -- except the Heritage Foundation, which was burned to the ground but otherwise was too proud to participate.

The next day Leftnut left on a hastily arranged world tour: so sudden was the departure that foreign capitals hardly had time to organize flag burnings. As the cities smoldered and the ten trillion dollar "Uprising reconstruction and reparations bill" wound its way through congress, Barrack's advisers thought to ease the Reverend Leftnut out of the "newly empowered" Poet Laureate position. They decided to make him Secretary of Education since nobody knows who the Secretary of Education is or cares what he says.

But as Secretary of Education, Leftnut would sermonize at the weekly cabinet meetings. The only way to get him to shut up was to double his budget. Obviously, that could not go on indefinitely since fairness dictated that all other departments get similar increases. Even the Defense Department was having difficulty spending all the additional funds (though, surprisingly, the Education Dept. had no such problem).

Fortunately, there was soon a vacancy on the Supreme Court. The Law Clerks tried to awaken a Justice from a three year nap and discovered he was actually dead. So they erased "I completely concur with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg" from the office chalk board and called the President.

Having already been vetted, the Reverend Leftnut sailed through his confirmation hearings. And all went well until noon of the first day.

Justice Leftnut wanted to nationalize the airlines but was confounded by a bunch of lawyerly arguments. So instead, he insisted the Court nationalize the Friendly Skies. "If we cannot nationalize the Airlines, then nationalize the air!" The entire legal community was so taken with the audacity of the argument that the ruling became law right then and there. Besides, it was the only way to get him to shut up. From that moment the Federal Government owned the skies, and any pies the skies may hold. In an editorial the New York Times called in a triumph of common sense over greed. On the futures market, the dollar price of air skyrocketed. It remained steady in Pesos. When Barrack heard the ruling, he suddenly realized what "Socializing from the top down" actually meant.

For ordinary folks Nationalizing the sky had consequences that only became apparent the next day. People woke up to the news that Federal Government now owned everything above the first floor: the top 99 stories of the Sears Tower, your attic and roof, the tops of utility poles and so on. At first property owners did not know what to do with this news, other than stop the mortgage payments. Barrack himself hoped that if everyone ignored the ruling, life could go on as before. But one fellow in St. Louis was getting his roof fixed, and figured since he no longer owned the roof he'd send the bill to the government. Soon everyone was getting their roofs fixed and upper floors remodeled -- and since they weren't paying the bills themselves, agreeing to double or triple the going rate (including kick backs). Instead of the tax payers sending in money, they began sending in different kinds of bills -- stacks of them. Within a week, the Treasury Secretary complained and quit. His temporary replacement complained and quit. The temporary replacement's temporary replacement complained and quit. And so on. The whole mess was now called "Barrack Socialism."

The Pie in the sky upkeep was too costly. Barrack realized they must privatize the air. Then they could tax the pies and pay all those bills. But to carry out what the New York Times now called "the most sweeping privatization in the history of the world," they would have to get Peewee off the Supreme Court. For it was said he held the other Justices by the ears: no one wanted to set him off sermonizing, so all decisions were now unanimous. They called the court, "Peewee's Sermons and the Supremes."

Actually, getting Justice Leftnut off the court proved surprisingly easy. On the court everyone had given up arguing with him. The traditional afternoon nap (after milk and cookies) didn't fit his temperament. And while being in a position where one's word is literally the law held an attraction, he soon realized it was contentious argument that he craved. So when the offer came for him to swap places with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, he readily agreed. The formalities were quickly handled and within a week Justice Schumer sat on the Court and Senator Leftnut shared a desk with Hillary Clinton (the Senate office building was burnt to the ground during the third wave of riots so everyone had to double up). Barrack was so relieved by the change that even hearing that Justice Schumer wanted the country to make the country more sociable (from the ground up) didn't bother him.

The crowded office conditions hardly mattered to Senator Leftnut, since he spent all his time on the Senate floor. He and Senator Byrd launched a filibuster on his first day. The rest of the nation couldn't figure out what all that talk and argument was about, and in truth was preoccupied with its own problems.

Normally when the Capitol is in gridlock the United States does quite well. Unfortunately, it was during the Byrd/Leftnut filibuster that Hawaii and Alaska left the union. The rest of the nation rationalized this departure on a "Last in, first out" basis. When Texas left, it was pointed out that Texas was independent nation when it joined the Union. When California joined the rest of the Southwest in "The Peso Union" is seemed a reasonable response to economic upheaval. In fact, it was not until the Southern Confederacy reformed that the antebellum bells went off. But by that time the North had already seceded from the Union. So when the Byrd/Leftnut debate entered its third month, the United States of America consisted of Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and American Samoa -- with the latter two reconsidering their association.

Afterwards it was unkindly said that the nation conceived in "just words" had achieved a fitting end: Not in a bang. Not in a whimper. But in a bloviation into oblivion.

THE END

My own West Wing Memior

West Wing Wounded (a look back at a previous election)

Scott McClellan took a hatchet to Republican President Bush; But I used a paring knife on Democrat President Bartlett (Pear)!

Well, there's jubilation in the nation, not to mention the White House. The closely watched election had a Hollywood ending when the the President's party stormed back to win. Of course, it was a literal (and yet at the same time figurative) Hollywood Ending because it was the Democrats who won and election night was on The West Wing, a classic TV Melodrama.

I'll recap some of the campaign.

I'm not good at names, but here's the cast near as I can remember:

President Pear: the Brilliant President of the United States. He's won six Noble Prizes (Peace, Physics, The Economics Of Taxation, Social Chemistry, Election Engineering -- plus The Noble Prize in Nobility). The rubes in the heartland find his brilliance irritating and are threatening to vote for someone really stupid and let the country's future go hang!

Gov. Filth E. Rich: The really stupid person they are threatening to vote for.

Leotardy: The Brilliant President's Brilliant Chief of Staff.

Joshington: I haven't quite figured out this guy's job. The Brilliant Chief of Staff of the Brilliant Chief of Staff of the Brilliant President, I think. Important thing to remember: He's Brilliant.

The Future Mrs. Joshington: I'm just calling her that cause I think it would upset her. The important thing to remember: She's Brilliant.

The election is close and too close to call. The nation is at war. Admirably, President Pear and Chief of Staff Leotardy are keeping politics out of the war by not telling anyone we are in it. Of course the whole Middle East knows and the Israelis know, but as a matter of national security it's important the voters not find out. So when San Francisco woke up one morning around noon and discovered the Golden Gate Bridge had gone missing, the administration announced it was having a make over. Good Morning America said it was about time that rusty old, "art deco thang" was replaced. All over the Bay Area the call went up: we want a new bridge with more je ne sais quoi! Gov. Davis called on all the bay areas available ferries -- boats that carry passengers and cars -- to help see them through. Then he blamed Enron.

Meanwhile, the Romance is back on! Joshington fell for a powerful lady lobbyist who is in the pay of Big Oil and the Petrochemical Industry. (This is after she sold her soul to groups pressuring for a lower capital gains tax!) Unfortunately, Joshington doesn't know any of this (it's revealed here for the first time). He thinks she's working for child safety caps on condom packages, so the little tikes won't fit them over their heads when they find them on the playground. Of course her real job is to encourage Joshington to push a stupid policy agenda that will undermine the Democrats! This sounds so not-nice of her, but remember: She gets paid more than he does so who should sacrifice for whose career?

So imagine her chagrin when he tries to do something politically smart. He pushes an administration proposal to encourage marriage without asking her first -- if he'd asked, she would've accepted his proposal. But like many men he's for marriage in general but for living in sin in particular. So she storms out and, in the manner of a scorned woman, works to promote a left candidate who will steal votes from President Pear. She hopes this will cause President Pear to lose and force Joshington to accept a job with ABC News, where both his credibility and his reputation for integrity will go down the toilet. Of course she says the real reason she left him has to do with back alley abortions. It doesn't make sense to him because they use three forms of birth control. She said it cause that's the only way she knows how to sound like a liberal.

She can't wait to have him come crawling back to her, which explains why she crawls back to him. Besides, the evil financiers have paid her to be a mole, and how can she be a mole if she isn't weasel enough to get into the inner sanctum? So she has to be a mole-weasel. (By the way, I don't mean to degrade animals when I compare them to certain humans). In furtherance of her career she wants him to advocate replacing the bubble gum in sports trading cards with "child proof packaged" condoms. This is an obvious public health measure since condoms don't rot the teeth. As part of this effort, she blows up a condom like a child's balloon, ties it, and hands it to Joshington. Depending on how he holds it, it resembles either an erect penis or a cute and cuddly animal with an extremely elongated (Huge! Enormous! twelve inch!) nose.

She's already earned a large bonus. Filth E. Rich was surely pleased when she maneuvered the Pear campaign into advocating giving out free hypodermic needles to drug addicts. She made it sound humane and good. But she knows when their voting base realizes this will happen in their neighborhoods, they will ask the sorts of questions small minded people ask -- such as: will the addicts break into my house before they pick up the needles or after?

The following week President Pear is "down on the farm" to practice for the upcoming debate. The President is at a disadvantage because he is brilliant and articulate. His opponent Filth E. Rich is all to willing to take unfair advantage of being a stupid, bumbling, tongue-tied oaf. "He's the automatic winner of the expectations game," is how Ms. Press Release (or is it Bull Slinger?) puts it. "Everyone thinks he's too dumb to tie his shoes so if he ties his shoes he wins!" But her real fear is Filth E. Rich will hire Noami Wolfe and she'll advise him to wear loafers.

So President Pear and his folks have their debate practice and immediately run into a problem. First, they have a brilliant staffer playing the stupid opponent and he don't know how stupid is stupid. Should he knock over the podium now? Then he can say, "I did not trip on my shoe laces!" Or Maybe: "This is my podium, Mr. President. I paid for it! And I will knock it over if I want to!" But instead he waits, and to start off makes a remark about families, how maybe the nation could do with few more of them. Right away this shows how Filth E. Rich could take unfair advantage of his stupidity to strip away all complexity from Social Policy.

President Pear gets over the top upset at this breathtaking lack of nuance. "Doesn't my opponent realize there are families," says Pear, "and then there are families? We dare not label, we cannot pick and choose between them! This is a question of real morality and I don't mean your simplistic grandmother's morality -- unless she's raising the illegitimate child! Point is we must make room for all families. Families where the parents are of different sexes, families were the parents are the same sex. Families where the parent are different sex, become the same sex, and maybe become different sexes again -- point is, we should help them. Often these are close families. Families were the sister is also an aunt and the brother is the father! How dare Filth E. Rich suggest we pick and choose who the government gives money too! What is the guy, some kind of Mormon?"

His staff is aghast. First, you should keep the answer to ten words. Second, instead of "illegitimate child" he should have said "child born out of wedlock" or perhaps "future adult not bound to a father at birth" or maybe "cute little free agent". His staff agrees with him, but wonder if he could talk around his position and spring it on the nation after the election? Or, put another way, could he put it another way? Maybe a third way?

So the quest begins. Find the third way...and put it in ten words.

Meanwhile, President Pear's secret war in the Middle East heats up. The United States and Israel (real nations) are locked in deadly conflict with Qumar (a fictional one, I think). Qumar is feisty. They are determined to fight until President Pear is forced to call press conference. The President is wisely determined not to let news of the conflict slip: for Jimmy Carter will immediately fly to Qumar and offer them economic aid and help with their missile program in return for a pledge to "talk nice."

Meanwhile, during the previous meanwhile his White House Aid Joshington calls his girl friend. Their romance blossoms whenever they're separated by at least two states. Joshington still thinks she is lobbying for child safety caps on condoms, but actually she's a "Big Oil" mole.

So Joshington, who believes she is an authority on Women's issues, asks her how she'd handle government aid to families? "Hey, I'm a woman and I just want the government to give me the money and then get out of my life. And I mean it. Butt out buster!"

"That is brilliant," says Joshington. "We take a position of extreme Socialism before the check is cashed, and combine it with an extreme Libertarian position after the check is cashed, and achieve real political balance! That's the third way: combine the Benefits of Socialist state with the life style of a Libertarian one!"

"Exactly," says the future Mrs. Joshington.

"Now, can you put that in ten words."

"Best I can do," she said, "is sixteen."


The election spun on spin and the spin swung on the hinge of the debate. But it was the debate that unhinged Filth E. Rich.

It happened at the end. Rich was winning as long as he kept the simple, well, simple. It was his inability to make the simple complex that did him in. Rich says, 'The government can't spend your money better than you can."

That was all the opening that President Pear needed. He looks at his grinning opponent and says, "There it is! That's what my staff has been searching for. The perfect ten word answer! But, Governor Filth E. Rich, tell me -- do you know the next ten words of that answer?"

This, of course, was a brilliant come back. You could see Rich trying to work it out. He looked not only perplexed, but confused. Problem is if you add ten words to the perfect ten word answer is it still the perfect ten word answer? It would have twenty words, wouldn't it? And would it be the perfect twenty word answer? Wouldn't you then have to remove ten words? Rich just froze on stage while his brain went into an endless loop, much the way Windows does when it's trying to convince me that my next computer should be a Mac. In the Rich case, you could see him short circuit with sparks flying out his ears. There was nothing left to do but concede. And he did so, right then and there.

This was a great relief to the nation. They like things simple, and nothing simpler than having one guy to vote for. Ask Saddam. Oh, forgot. He's dead.