Today's Headlines 7/26/06

* Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's trip to the Middle East was abruptly cancelled when the National Security Agency overheard a domestic telephone conversation in which a member of Hezbollah stated that there was a plot to place 500 snakes on her plane in a time-release crate. Instead Secretary Rice will travel to Paris where she will investigate a suspicious murder at the Louvre.

* In what is being referred to as a shocking development in the War between Israel and Hezbollah, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister has unfreinded Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General and leader of Hezbollah from his MySpace profile. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice stated that this was a sad development in the crisis in the Middle East. Secretary Rice, who remains friended on MySpace with both Prime Minister Olmert and Sheik Nasrallah stated that it was the United States' official policy not to unfriend foreign leaders so that the lines of communications may remain open and that they may read their blogs. Other notable times in history when world leaders unfreinded each other on MySpace include when Adolph Hitler unfreinded Joseph Stalin on August 30, 1939, when George W. Bush unfreinded Saddam Hussein on September 12, 2001, and when Lady Diana Spencer unfreinded Prince Charles and Camila Parker Bowles December 8, 1992.

* Ford Motor Corp. Announced that it was entering into a partnership with Time Warner to provide movies to its employees who are paid not to work. William Clay Ford Jr., CEO of Ford made the announcement. In March of 2006 Ford began paying many of its employees not to work due to the fact that no one is buying Ford vehicles resulting in tremendous overproduction. According to company insiders, employees have lost job satisfaction due to the boredom of sitting around not working. The partnership with Time Warner will provide two movies to the employees each day. The first movie slated is the 1986 Michael Keaton comedy Gung Ho. Ford, which lost $123 million in the second quarter of 2006, had considered numerous plans to pull itself out of the slump. Other rejected plans included drilling holes in the gas tanks of its new vehicles and changing its name to Nakahama Motor Corp.

* Israel was accused today of violating the Geneva Convention with a plan to destroy ten Lebanese cities for every missile Hezbollah has launched at Israel. Israel defended the accusation as untrue. An Israeli spokesman noted that Hezbollah has launched over 100 rockets into Israel and that Lebanon doesn't have 1000 cities that Israel could destroy in retaliation. Meanwhile Saudi Arabia called for a cease fire to allow it time to resupply Hezbollah with rockets.

* President Bush today began a what is to be a one-month push to help republicans in 2006. The president will begin stumping for democratic candidates in tight races. President Bush's first stop will be to stump for Ned Lamont in his primary battle with Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT).

Today's Headlines 7/23/06

* Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heads to the Middle East today in an attempt to resolve the growing tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. Due to the United States policy of not negotiating with terrorists, Secretary Rice will spend the entire trip sightseeing. Secretary Rice is said to be very excited to visit Qumran Library and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Initially she was scheduled to have tea with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, but he had to cancel because he is to busy fighting a war in Lebanon with Hezbollah.

* The Democratic Party announced today that it was changing the schedule for its primaries for the 2008 presidential election. The Democratic Party will be moving up the Nevada caucuses, which will now be scheduled between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. The change was ratified by the Rules and Bylaws Committee, and was set to be ratified by the Democratic National Committee next month. "The Democratic Party is viewed as a bunch of New England liberals." said one Democratic spokesman, who went on to say, "This change will have gamblers and hookers deciding the [Democratic presidential] nominee instead of New England hippies and should improve the party's image nationally."

* President Bush vetoed a bill passed to allow federal funding for stem cell research using unused frozen embryos. Bush noted that numerous children have been born through adopted embryos. When told that there were 400,000 embryos and that only 128 embryos that had been adopted, Bush called on Congress to fund adoptions for the other 399,872 embryos. Under the measure, all mothers receiving federal welfare payments or food stamps will be required to adopt and raise an embryo. When the children are sixteen they will be sent to repopulate New Orleans.

* Editorial:

President Bush used the word "shit" this week and everyone is very excited about that. Although the President is supposed to be a religious man, the fact is that Dick "fuck em all" Cheney is the Vice President and meets with President Bush several times a week, if not daily. A few bad words are going to rub off. But what is really interesting is not that the President used the word "shit", but the fact that President Bush actually knows that Syria is supporting Hezbollah. We should all be thankful that he actually knows what's going on in the Middle East this time, unlike in the Iraq War, when he thought that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were gay blood brothers.

Speaking of the Iraq War, these editorial pages have on numerous occasions criticized the Bush administration for invading Iraq when there were significantly more serious threats facing this nation. Such threats include the nations of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and of course the terrorist group al Queda. But now that the War on Terror is approaching its fifth anniversary, it has become clear that the Bush administration chose correctly when it invaded Iraq. Iraq, as we now know (and really knew then too), did not possess weapons of mass destruction, was contained, and did not pose a threat to the United States or to the Middle East. And yet, the Bush administration fought a war against Iraq. Now three years later it is clear that the Bush administration completely fucked it up. If the Bush administration could not prosecute an effective war on a nation that did not pose a threat, what would have happened if we attacked Iran or Saudi Arabia which really threaten us, or Pakistan or North Korea, which have actual nuclear weapons. Yes. That's right, we would now in this country be speaking Persian, or Arabic, or Punjabi, or Korean.

Therefore, we should be thankful that the Bush administration attacked a nation that wasn't threatening us. In fact, if anything, the administration's incompetence demonstrates that even war with Iraq was thinking too big. We should have gone to war with Liechtenstein, Monaco, or Vanuatu, none of which have an actual military. Perhaps then we would have won and would actually feel safer.

Today's Headlines 7/13/06

* The Pentagon announced that it would be ending its exclusive arrangement with Halliburton to provide logistical support services to the army in Iraq. "The crisis which necessitated an exclusive arrangement with Halliburton is ended." stated an unnamed source at the Pentagon. Unrelated, the Bush administration has announced a complete troop redeployment out of Iraq to begin immediately. In further unrelated news, Halliburton refused to comment whether it had in fact received an exclusive contract to provide logistic support services to the army in Iran.

* Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied allegations that he is a zombie, living off of the intestines of children ages three to five. "These allegations are outrageous," screamed Putin as he wiped what appeared to be blood off of his lips. "I would never eat the intestines of children. Yummy delicious children. With their beautiful bellies."

* Democrats in Congress have proposed raising the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $5.35 per hour. The Act is to be titled "The Feingold-Kennedy Fair Wages for All Americans In Particular Poor Americans Who Are the Ones Who Need a Fair Shake in All Fairness in this Fair Country of Ours Fairly Act." Republicans denounced the move as election year pandering and proceeded to push their agenda of a constitutional amendment banning flag burning, and another prohibiting homosexual marriage. Moderate republicans are allegedly in negotiations with democrats to break party ranks to support the minimum wage hike. As a concession, the democrats would agree to eliminate taxes on incomes over $200,000.00 per year, the elimination of the estate tax, and the elimination of Medicare.

* In a surprise turn of events the Bush administration has conceded that the Geneva Convention applies to all prisoners of war, including enemy combatants. Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General, stated that the Bush administration has consistently maintained that the Geneva Convention applies to all prisoners captured during war and that the current statement was not a change in policy. Gonzales also reaffirmed the Bush administration position that the Article Three provision banning "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment" did not in fact ban humiliation or degrading treatment, but only treatment that was in fact both. He stated that the policy at the detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay has always been to only conduct torture in a form that was humiliating or degrading, but never both. He stated that the ban did not prohibit humiliating treatment that would actually be followed by degrading treatment. "So long as the humiliation and degradation is not concurrent it is consistent with the Geneva Convention."

* The Department of Homeland Security announced today that it was eliminating funds to the City of New York in light of the study that found New York had significantly fewer threats than Indiana or Wisconsin. Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, stated, "We had initially provided funding to the City of New York on the basis of the fact that it had been attacked by al Queda. However, our sophisticated computer modeling demonstrates that the next al Queda attack will be at a flea market or a petting zoo in the Midwest." When asked whether the raids on al Queda had found any maps of the Midwest, Chertoff conceded that the maps and plans had all related to sites in New York City. Chertoff stated that Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans, was provided with logistical and strategic support by al Queda demonstrating that al Queda was not focused on targets in New York City.

* White House Press secretary, Tony Snow, dismissed rumors that the White House had Kenneth Lay, former CEO and Chairman of Enron, killed so as to avoid President Bush facing the decision whether to pardon him after the 2006 midterm elections. "The decision to pardon Kenny Boy was made when the indictments were first handed down. The President had agreed to pardon Kenny Boy during the final days of the administration. There was never a plan to pardon him after the 2006 election." Snow conceded that the big loser in Lay's death was Jeffrey Skilling, also a former CEO of Enron, who will now have to donate $5 million to the RNC and Bush Presidential Museum to receive his pardon just like everyone else.