IRAQ: ONE STEP FORWARD, ONE STEP......WATCH OUT!!!!

Roadside bombings in Iraq have decreased 80% during the past month, the Pentagon announced today. This stunning reduction is the result of a unique collaboration between Iraq's Department of Public Works and the U.S. Army. As Major General Stanley "Sidewinder" Slawson explained at an afternoon press conference, "You can use only a roadside bomb in places where there's a roadside. Well, we've managed to re-pave 90% of the highways in Iraq, widening the lanes so that they extend all the way to the front steps of buildings on either side of the road. Now there's no roadside left for those maniacs to hide their bombs. Hah! Take that, you fuse fiends!"

An unfortunate side effect of the program (Operation Sidestep) is that the number of pedestrians killed by automobiles as they leave their houses in the morning to go to work has increased by a whopping 823%. "We call this 'collateral damage'," General Slawson observed, "and it's a damn shame. Most of those poor folks took one step out their front door and Whammo, before you could say 'You want grits with that?' they were flattened like a flapjack under a sumo wrestler's butt. Rest assured that we're working on the problem, but let's face facts: nobody ever said war was pretty."