Victory Strategy Held Up As Triumph

US President George W. Bush (Ret.) formally unveiled the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," 2 years after the war was declared over.

The book begins by defining "victory" and declaring "victory in Iraq is a vital U.S. interest." Strategy is discussed in detail in the text, which concludes with a discussion of eight "Strategic Pillars" of policy and conditions for "victory."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld praised the work as a "triumph of the printer's art," saying "this would have been an excellent resource to have" in March 2003, when the war began. "Unfortunately," he added, "one sometimes has to go to war with the book one has," referring to the bestseller "Creeping Flesh: The Horror Fantasy Film Book, Volume 1," (published February 2003) which was his reading material at the time. He did concede that he had been privy to early drafts of some sections as recently as last year.

The publication of the document was timed by its publishers, the Government Printing Office, to coincide with a rerelease of the "National Strategy for Victory in Viet Nam" (originally published 1985) and the "National Strategy for Recovery from the Unfortunate Events of October 19, 1929," (originally published 1944).

Attacks on Critics Are Misdirection to Hide True Crisis: Cheney Can't Close His Mouth

Top US government officials admitted today that they are facing a real crisis. It is not a problem of lack of popular support or political direction but lies instead in a medical mystery: US Vice President Richard M. Cheney has been unable to close his mouth for three weeks, and doctors are stymied as to the cause.

Cheney's condition is thought to be a side effect of involuntary muscular contractions which over his lifetime have made his head constantly skew more to the right while his mouth grimaced to the left, a tendency Cheney's doctors had believed to be benign, and which sometimes worked to his advantage. Many political opponents say they found the contortions "scary" in close encounters, making Cheney a formidable debator. Sources now say that over the course of 2005, Cheney had experienced more and more difficulty closing his mouth, until finally on October 16th he found that he was entirely unable to bring his jaws together closer than an inch and a half.

The condition does not prevent Cheney from closing his lips or speaking, but aides and associates, including US President (Ret.) George W. Bush, are said to be "intensely concerned" for his health. He must now drink gallons of water through straws to prevent dehydration and there are numerous other complications. One aide recounted that he had suggested a mesh screen be put in place some weeks ago to counter the risk of small flying insects accidentally making their way into Cheney's mouth, which had happened several times during the fall, but the idea was shot down by Cheney's assistant, "Scooter" Libby. A medical team from Bethesda Naval Hospital is said to be working around the clock on finding a viable cure.

Due to the potential questions about Cheney's fitness for office with such a debilitating condition, aides had been told to keep it quiet at all costs, hence the increasing volume of attacks on critics. "Still," said one source, "the evidence is staring us all in the face."

Cheney's office did not return calls for comment.

(Photo: Reuters)

MPAA, RIAA, Sony Negotiating With Hospitals to Install Copy Protection Software in Newborns

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and Sony are reportedly in talks to improve copyright protection worldwide with the aid of major hospitals.

A cocktail of customized viruses administered to newborns will implant -- it is hoped -- neural pathways that will make it impossible for people to view unlicensed content, and that will erase within 90 minutes all memory of what was viewed or heard, aside from brief "samples" and the opinion that the piece was enjoyable and should be seen again as soon as possible.

The innovation comes just in time to save the floundering recording and motion picture industries, say analysts. Despite the billion-dollar profits enjoyed by the companies belonging to both associations, salary demands of top executives are expected to outstrip earnings growth by 2010. This transition from a worldwide "marketplace of ideas" to a worldwide "tenement house of ideas rented from content providers" is expected to formally usher in the age of domination by multinational corporations, which has been rosily depicted in numerous dystopic movies in the past several decades.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and other consumer advocate groups have expressed strong opposition to the practice. A consortium of computer experts and neurologists, in an anonymous full page ad in the Autumn 2005 issue of the magazine 2600 -The Hacker Quarterly, have vowed to crack the brain's programming and "d3f3at thi5 pd1ou5 form of w4r3z prot3ction" in favor of "pwn3d" content.

Oil Execs Demand Supply-and-Supply Economy

In unsworn testimony to the US Congress at a star-studded gala committee meeting today, executives of several oil companies advocated a step beyond simple supply-and-demand economic theory.

Lee Raymond, chairman of Exxon Mobil Corp., said the company issued a memo to stations in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, urging them to "minimize the increase in price while at the same time recognizing if we kept the price too low we would quickly run out [of fuel] at the service stations."

Chevron CEO David O'Reilly continued the point, stating, "our ability to maintain extreme oversupply of our products is integral to our company's ability to pay for Congressional perks such as fine food, mortgages, and re-election campaigns." He and other execs urged Congress to continue to ignore their continuing price gouging and uncontrolled profiteering, saying they were forces that "made this country what it is."

Raymond concluded by promising to provide all members of the committee with two "skilled" fellatrists and two tins of caviar for a gala dinner scheduled to take place in the same room fifteen minutes later, and called their attention to manila envelopes containing 50,000 USD he said were taped below their chairs.

Dachsunds Riot Against Injustice

Protesting thousands of dog-years of degredation and secondary status, millions of dachsunds have taken to the streets of Germany, frightening citizens, birds, and burrowing animals alike. Swarms of the dogs, famed for their courage and tenacity even in the face of much larger opponents, have blanketed the streets of Berlin and other German cities, snapping at the ankles of human pedestrians, refusing to come when called, gnawing through doors, toppling lampposts and fire hydrants, and raising echoing howls against injustices and the moon.

Dachsund supporters have long noted increases in the number of "degrading" situations the dogs have been forced to endure. Whether they are being forced to climb stairs, participate in weiner-takes-all drag racing, being overbred to create white or double-dapple coats, or simply being teased with fake chew toys, the hounds have declared they have had enough and wish to return to their traditional lives without excessive human rules and interference, where they will be free to chase badgers, rabbits, and other animals their own size and larger.

Human-dachsund relations reached a similar nadir in 1917, when human H. L. Mencken remarked that dachsunds were "a half-dog high and a dog-and-a-half long," which breed supporters called "reductive" and "contemptible." Many American dogs of dachsund descent renamed themselves "Liberty dogs" while battle lines were drawn. Millions of dachsunds and humans died during the brutal war that ensued, featuring massive casualties on both sides over years of prolonged trench warfare.

Pluto Has 3 Moons, 2 Mommies

The 9th (or at times 8th) planet revolving around the sun, Pluto, has been found to have 3 objects in orbit around it, according to astronomers. The moons, termed S/2005 P1 and S/2005 P2, were observed in May by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Also reported was the equally shocking discovery that Pluto was in fact created by the collision of two "now very feminine-looking" asteroids, dubbed L3Z9 and D8K6, a fact determined by calculation of their current trajectories. Their collision, billions of years before humans populated earth, created the planet Pluto but left slivers of the original bodies in unusual, swirling orbits which attracted scientists' attention.