In a move that military analysts claim could turn the tide in the war against violence in Iraq, the Pentagon announced today that its elite Vehicular Enforcement Unit will begin issuing traffic citations to suicide car bombers in May of this year. As General Jeremiah "Gangrene" Kneelander framed the issue in a late-afternoon press conference, "We've been approaching this whole suicide-bombing problem ass-backwards. Up to now, these terrorist nut-cases have been able to plow headlong into a crowd and blow up their cars without suffering any negative consequences whatsoever. Well, let's see how brave these little sand-chompers are when they realize that a $250 ticket for reckless operation of a motor vehicle is waiting for them! Bring it on, bad boys!"
When Washington Post reporter Kyle Timley questioned the utility of giving a traffic ticket to a dead man (or woman), General Kneelander stepped out from behind the podium, hurled himself at Timley, and proceeded to fatally strangle the reporter with one hand while screaming, "Now there's one less Commie newsman sticking his ballpoint pen up my butt!"
Pentagon officials apologized for the incident, indicating that General Kneelander would be placed under house arrest and would not be allowed to carry his General Patton riding crop for 30 days.
For the third consecutive year, the number of squirrel suicides in the United States has increased, according to figures released yesterday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "This is an alarming trend," remarked Eswood Hynchey, Deputy Statistician for the Service. "Historically, most squirrel deaths have resulted from accidents: being hit by automobiles, falling from tree limbs, choking on oversized acorns, and similar mishaps. Illness, of course, also takes its toll. Male squirrels are highly vulnerable to prostate cancer, and females to congestive heart failure. Suicide has never been a significant problem. But the suicide rate has grown from 3% of all squirrel deaths in 2004 to 23% last year. That's a startling increase."
Documenting suicides among squirrels is not easy, Hynchey conceded. "Depressed squirrels do not usually leave a note before jumping off a tree limb, or knowingly dashing in front of a speeding car. But the circumstantial evidence is often compelling: squirrels who give away their winter supply of acorns to friends, or who make peace with grackles at the bird feeder after years of scuffling with them; these are troubled creatures sending a message."
Though the reality of the jump in squirrel suicides is, at this point, not debatable, the reasons for the increase remain unclear. "Many of these squirrels voted for President Bush in 2004, and perhaps they feel betrayed by the President's performance since then. The chronology of the increase in the suicide rate is certainly consistent with this hypothesis, but the truth is, we just don't know the answer," Hynchey remarked.
In an announcement that took his supporters and critics by surprise, President Bush promised in his weekly radio broadcast on Saturday to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of June. According to the President, "The war just isn't any fun any more, or at least it's not nearly as much fun as it used to be. Everybody seems to be pissed at me, and now that Donny [Rumsfeld] and Colin [Powell] aren't around, there's nobody to cheer me up when I get depressed. I wish someone had told me four years ago that American soldiers could get killed in this thing. I thought that only British and Belgian forces were going to be doing any of the real fighting. Condi Rice swears that she warned me about this back then, but dammit if I remember."
The President indicated that as soon as all U.S. soldiers are back in the States, safe and sound, he intends to start doing hard drugs again. "I've been to hell and back with this war," he observed.
Does John McCain have the roundest head of any Presidential candidate of the past 30 years? According to confidential cranial records recently obtained from the FBI by Grin investigative reporters Gretchen Frawley and Dominic Sasso, the answer is a resounding yes.
A spokesman for the McCain campaign declined to comment.
The Vatican announced today that the Catholic Church's long-standing ban on artificial birth control was the result, in the words of spokesman Cardinal Enrico Yabbo, of "an embarrassing typographical error" in a Papal encyclical. What the Church had actually intended to prohibit in the encyclical, as part of its campaign to combat eating disorders among the faithful, were all forms of artificial "girth control," such as diet pills.
"We are very, very sorry for any hardship this mistake may have inflicted on members of the Church over the years. We feel especially bad for the untold millions of devoted Catholics in South America, who have been reproducing like hamsters in heat for the past several decades."
The Vatican plans to FedEx an initial shipment of 200,000 condoms to Brazil by the beginning of April. "It's the least we can do," commented Cardinal Yabbo.
"HOLD YOUR PARTNER'S HANDS, LOOK DEEPLY INTO HIS EYES, AND TELL HIM HOW YOU FEEL"
At a New York Yankees press conference this afternoon, agents representing Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez announced that the two stars will enter couples counseling sometime next week. "Over the past two years Derek and Alex have grown apart for a variety of reasons, remarked Chuck Fontaine, Jeter's agent, in a prepared statement. "But they still care about each other deeply, and are confident they can rekindle the magic they shared in the early days of their relationship. Ultimately, this is not about who plays third base and who plays shortstop, but about what they can achieve together as teammates -- for each other, and for the rest of the team. Both Derek and Alex have recently said hurtful things in public about each other, and they realize that now is the time to begin the healing process. We ask Yankee fans everywhere to wish them well as they begin this journey of reconciliation."
Jeter and A-Rod will miss the rest of the Yankees' spring training games, as they travel to a couples clinic in Ames, Iowa run by Dr. Milt Hussenstaffen, a distinguished marriage and family therapist whose previous clients have included Bill and Hillary Clinton, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, and Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell.
