Andromeda

Dick Durbin's open weeping for ever having criticized America's Torture Program does indeed set a high bar, but at Andromeda we are prepared to throw ourselves across that bar as we attempt to outpatriot wily ol' Durbin.

First, we want to apologize for ever having mentioned the Downing Street memos. Well, actually we never mentioned them, but we sincerely regret we didn't not mention them more.

Second, we deeply and profoundly regret any hurt we may have caused Dick Cheney by pretending we found another Downing Street memo which said:

I met with President Bush today and found him to be a doe-eyed ingenue, gooily pliable in the skilled hands of a cabal with a secret agenda, easily fooled by mystifying double-talk such as, "Badges? We don't need no stinking badges," readily convinced by frat boy slash cheerleader rah-rah, such as "Slam dunk!" and easily distracted by ego-reinforcing protocol. Also, he kept correcting my use of the word "dissemble." --Tony Blair.

Third, we cry out in anguish and lash our tender parts in regret for having linked to the Bush cheerleader picture.

Recognizing that Durbin's second apology has finally put the terrible Gitmo chapter behind us, we at Andromeda hope to end the Iraq War by apologizing hard enough for ever showing the temerity to criticize it.

We at Andromeda have an uncanny sense about these things. Still, we must admit there have been a few times we have been being seduced and we were completely unaware of it. Like the ten years we spent in that reform facility on the Re-Education Planet back home. Due to averaging, of course, our accuracy percentage is still 100%, thanks to the countless times we have believed we were being seduced, when, in fact, we were just being pickpocketed. Or receiving a prostate exam. Or both, but what we are saying is we salute Anne Bancroft for her life, career, and her subtle skills in the deadliest form of combat.

It can finally be revealed exclusively (MUST CREDIT !!!) on Andromeda that the Great Electron Wars are about to begin. The U.S. has prepared as best it can, assuming setting up an MSN chat room called "HACK4US" was the best it can, and its digital army lies ready, eager, and waiting, sipping Mr. Pibb and adjusting their mice. The evil-doers, contrariwise, have prepared their clones, dressed them up in fetching Star Wars costumes, and lined them up rectilinearily, for the imminent assault. So far, the evil-doers have only jiggled the perimeter wire, but the coming attack shall wreak electronic havoc, and then Andromeda will stand about in the smoking ruins afterward, find a lonely Luftballon, think of you, and let it go.

Heute zieh' ich meine Runden
Seh' die Welt in Trümmern liegen
Hab' 'nen Luftballon gefunden
Denk' an dich und laß' ihn fliegen

Believe it or not, there is something called the "Outer Space Treaty." The U.S signed the treaty, agreeing to the peaceful use of outer space, in January 1967. In other words, the only part of the entire Universe the U.S. intends to militarize is the middle atmosphere, the lower atmosphere, mountains, deserts, swamps, highlands, lowlands, flatlands, tundra, icecaps, icebergs, islands, oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, cities, towns, villages, and possibly the interior, of one little planet. But the crazy give-peace-a-chance kooks don't like to talk about that, do they?

Of course, the treaty did not mean the U.S. could not continue a militarily manned space station well past the date the OST was signed. As far as you know, that program ended in 1969. Two space suits from the program were recently discovered. One was for "Lawyer" and one was for "007." That is what is so sad about signing these treaties -- secret agents need to consult a lawyer before they can even fire the space laser, much less activate the Death Star. The lawyer's code name was "Richard Lawyer," since everyone was going to call him "Dick" anyway.

The U.S. military's recent recruitment problem is of great concern to us here at Andromeda. The news today that the Army is changing its rules about kicking out drug addicts and the obese represents a good first step as part of an over-all strategy to responsibly address the problem. The unhealthy, the unfit, the drug-addicted, the drunk, the refractory and the criminal will hopefully supply the shortage left as the gay are identified and court-martialed. Ultimately, however, it strikes us that the problem is similar in many ways to the budget problem, and calls for a similar Bush-style solution.

With the budget, the problem was that more and more money needed to be spent to pay for Bush's global ambitions, and yet Bush was unwilling to accept a tax hike to pay those costs. With military recruitment, the problem is that more and more lives need to be spent to pay for Bush's global ambitions, and yet Bush is unwilling to accept a draft to keep those lives in good supply. For the budget, the solution was brilliant. Simply ignore reality. It did not matter that we were spending more than we were taking in. And so the budget problem went away.

A similar solution to the recruitment problem is obvious. Deficit soldiers. Just as foreign countries have financed our deficit spending, we will promise countries like China and Japan soldiers in the future in exchange for their soldiers now. To help them decide to lend us soldiers now, they could come by nurseries and playlots and Michael Jackson's house to look over the crop of future soldiers they would have to choose from.

"Aha!" you say, "There is a flaw in that approach! What if in the future there were a war with a 'creditor' country and the U.S. owed that country so many soldiers it could not supply its own side?" To that, we say, "You are so foolish we will not deign to answer your foolish question, and you smell." But then you say, "Please!" and we say, "OK, this time we will, but don't be so foolish from now on with the foolish questions that you have all the time, smelly." The answer is simple: the U.S. would supply its soldiers to form the enemy's army, which would mean the enemy would have spare soldiers the U.S. could borrow (in exchange for future U.S. soldiers) to fight for the U.S. side.

Andromeda's mortgage and checking account are with the World Bank, so, frankly, we were a little worried about Paul Wolfowitz' first day as President, which was today. This morning we went down to our local branch to use the World ATM.

Wolfowitz was standing there amid a bunch of balloons colored like Earth globes, greeting the customers. He had a long, sharp, toothy smile that reminded us of a wolf. Hunched next to him, in the shadows, was his buddy Richard Perle. Perle was eating cake, even though that was supposed to be for the customers. He wasn't smiling, but he did seem to like the cake.

We walked up to Wolfowitz and shook his hand. He said, "Welcome to the World Bank, did you know we reduced our checking account fees?" He didn't wait to find out if we knew that or not, because he was just asking different questions like that to everyone who came in. Like "Have you thought about a second mortgage?" and "Did you know we have zero percent car loans for qualified applicants?" He asked us about the checking account fees and pulled us along with the hand we were shaking, and pushed us with his other hand on our shoulder. We wanted to talk about the Iraq War, but he was pushing us on so fast, we only got a chance to say, "Nice hair!" and then we were face-to-face with Perle. Perle wasn't expecting us to stand there in front of him, cause we were just supposed to keep going on in to use the world banking services and see if there was any world cake left, but we stopped and stood there in front of him, watching him finish his cake beneath a large fake rhododendron. It was so dark we hadn't noticed it at first, but after our eyes adjusted we could see he had a lot of black pens with chains on them sticking out of his pocket. His eyes glittered when he saw us looking at his pocket, then he made a sudden animal noise and dashed out from the rhododendron. We went to the World ATM machine.

The machine confiscated our card and spit out a piece of paper saying the World Bank had suspended our card due to suspicions we had weapons of mass destruction. So we stood in the line to talk to a teller and explain we didn't have any WMD any more so could we have our card back or at least get some cash because the anthrax salemen on our street wouldn't accept credit cards. Ahead of us in line was Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Iraqi Prime Minister. He said he had to go to the bathroom cause he had been waiting in line for hours. "Will you hold my place?" he asked. We told him we didn't think so. "You *are* just the transition Prime Minister," we said. We explained about our ATM card and he said the same thing happened to him, even though Iraq just got inspected! So we felt sorry for him and said we would hold his place if we could have his cake. We ate his cake and when he came back from the bathroom, we said we never met him before and we didn't know anything about any cake. But we got tired of standing in line, so we just snagged a huge stack of those deposit envelopes and a balloon and walked out. When we got home, we had a nice letter from the bank with a new ATM card with Wolfowitz' picture on it. That is some very nice hair.