Andromeda

Andromeda Galaxy is now three times bigger. And we pass the savings on to you! It turns out your human scientists, with their tiny brains and crinkled forepaws, were unable to conceive the vastness of such a stupendous galaxy as Andromeda. Also, they forgot about the suburbs. Everyone forgets about the suburbs. Except on Memorial Day, when the total barbecue-generated energy produced in the suburbs is equivalent to three decades of the Sun's total output, or enough to run John Kerry's hairdryer for one hour.

Others have devoted tireless efforts enlisting government assistance for needy multibillion-dollar corporations by pointing out that some piracy criminals may have sympathies with Hezbollah. These courageous anti-piracy crusaders have boldly shown that much more of the War on Terrorism billions should be spent protecting record company profits, due to the slight risk they may some day fall from obscene to merely exorbitant. Oh, and to stop terrorism.

And now it has fallen to Andromeda to draw the attention of the country, nay, the world, or even nayer, the universe, to the temporary difficulties and minor impediments corporations have faced in attempting to pry into the viewing, buying, eating, reading, remedying habits of the public -- all because of terrorists!

Andromeda bravely provided the following testimony before the Senate Committee on Exploitation of the Masses:

Do Terrorists Engage in the Protection of their Privacy?

We are also frequently asked if terrorist groups attempt to protect their privacy. We do not know the answer to that question. What we do know is that while working with law enforcement to conduct anti-privacy raids, we have been in homes and businesses in which photos of Hezbollah leader Sheik Nasrallah have been prominently displayed.

Undaunted by the terrorists' threats, Andromeda also heroically gave the following valiant testimony before the House Committee on the Removal of Doors:

There are also indicators that some associates of terrorist groups may be involved in pro-privacy crime. During our investigations, we have encountered suspects who have shown great affinity for Hezbollah and its leadership. The following are just two examples: during the search of a residence pursuant to an anti-privacy search warrant, we saw two small Hezbollah flags displayed in the suspect's bedroom. Next to the flags was a photograph of Hassan Nasrallah whom we recognized as a leader of Hezbollah.

In 2004, detectives served an anti-privacy search warrant at a clothing store in Los Angeles County. During the booking process, the suspect was found to have a tattoo of the Hezbollah flag on his arm.

What greater proof could there be? The Department of Homeland Security must immediately invest hundreds of billions into research to improve corporations' ability to track consumer behavior.

Note: Your browser's refusal to accept a cookie from our advertisers has been reported. Yeh, that's right, just try to get that flag tattoo off your arm before the authorities arrive.

As regular readers of this blog know, Andromeda despises humor of any kind. That is why we have historically applauded the arrests of so many air passengers for making their so-called "jokes."

Clearly, these dangerous individuals fail to realize the deviousness of Al Qaeda. For years and years, Osama bin Laden's minions waltzed with insouciance through our tightest security by first declaring, "There's a bomb in there" and then guffawing, "I was kidding!" Amused security workers everywhere laughed uproariously and, owing to the general hilarity and good-feeling, completely forgot to check the bag!

The only possible way to prevent this fiendishness was to make jokes a felony. Of course, the penalty depends on how funny the joke is. Jay Leno, for example, always receives just a warning, whereas there still exists a shoot-on-sight order for Peter Sellars, though he's been dead for years.

Well, due to our powerful opposition to the Iraq War and tremendous influence among young people, naturally Andromeda has been dragged into this oil-for-food scandal. We were really impressed with Mr. Galloway's remarks and we would like to strike a similarly eloquent and defiant pose when we appear. Here is a first draft of our opening statement. (Actually, it's the second draft -- the first draft had a lot more "A-ha!"s.)

"Senator (here we will fix Senator Coleman with a steely gaze, or possibly our 'crazy-eye look' which would have the advantage of not seeming like just a copy, and also of being comfortable and familiar), we are not now, nor have we ever really been an oil trader, and neither has anyone been one on our behalf, except in the larger sense, of course, that we don't actually drill for oil ourselves and pump it and refine it into gasoline for the Geo Metro, in that sense, someone is an oil dealer on our behalf, but we don't need to talk about that now, right? Right? Why are you just looking at me? Turn the mike on? You mean my mike isn't on?

"Sorry about that. So we were saying, we have met Saddam Hussein. Yes, we have. Exactly as many times as Donald Rumsfeld has. A-ha! (Pause for steely gazing during applause.) But we were only meeting with him to get a slice of the oil-for-food deal, whereas Rumsfeld was there for the guns-and-gas deal. We were not there for the guns-and-gas deal, no, not us, because we didn't hear of that until it was too late. We barely heard about the oil-for-food deal in time. We are very busy. We just got digital cable.

"We had very little oil to offer, so the meeting with Saddam did not last long. He told his henchmen to throw us off a roof, and shoot us, and throw us off a roof again, but they let us get away with just the whipping followed by the open-wound-sewage-swim. The only food we got out of it were some stale mints in the waiting room. They looked like they had *dust* on them. What does that say? Poor housekeeping has brought down many a regime.

"The second time we met Saddam was right after the war. He was on the run. We ran a little cafe outside the Green Zone. He needed forged papers to get out of the country and, well, that just happened to be a side business of ours. We were maintaining the oil-for theme, because we still had hopes of some franchising opportunities. He was hauling bales of currency, but had very little oil. We were reluctant to break with the theme and start accepting cash-for-food, or cash-for-false-papers, but he convinced us, after taking us for a swim around the treatment plant. The papers worked like a charm. A few weeks later, they dragged his crazy cousin out of that spider hole."

As regular readers know, Andromeda is dedicated to the highest standards in journalistic ethics. Well, "dedicated" is probably a little strong, since, technically, we're dedicated to the proposition that all galaxies are created equal. Except M102. And "standards," well, you have to take that loosely, since there really are no journalistic standards for blogs. And "ethics," isn't that just subjective, anyway?

But the point is, our motto is: Chekc the facts, chekc the facts, and then chekc again! Admittedly, except for the exclamation point, it's not a very inspiring motto. Personally, I wanted "Live Long and Proper" based on the Vulcan thing, but I couldn't think of a hand gesture which signified propriety. For "chekc the facts," we hold an index finger primly in the air. Which is nice, as far as it goes.

But the point is, ethics or not, lame motto or not, at least nothing we have said here has led to any deaths. OK, sure, the "Kill Tom Humpredinck of Butte Fork, Florida, He Gets Home At Seven" piece we did a few months ago resulted in the horrifying death of Englebert Humperdinck through autoerotic butt-forking, but we did issue an apology and eventually a retraction. And an apology for the retraction, which, somehow, was interpreted as a fatwa. And, finally, a formal withdrawal of the fatwa. Even then, rather than accepting our apology, the White House said it was puzzled.

But the point is not whether a popular singer from the sixties is a heretic whose highly offensive and imaginative mis-uses of the Holy Book of the Molemen cry out for a ritual shrimp-forking, no, that's not the point. The point is we have to change our motto. All this fact-checking has created a bottle-neck from the blogging point of view, no matter how many lives it may save.

This will be decided, as always, by elbow-on-hand applause meter:

1. No Whine Before Its Time
2. Made-Up Facts Are Still "Facts"
3. Please Do Not Kill Anybody Because Of What We Write (Except Tom Humpredinck of Butte Fork, Florida)
4. Quality: Not Just A Word ... Anymore
5. Shrimp Forks: America's Most Over-Looked Fork