Part 7 (1/2)
If you guessed ”Kim Jong II,” you're wrong-the correct answer is ”Donald Rumsfeld.”
Why yours truly is considered a menace to the universe while Rumsfeld is considered a protector of peace and freedom everywhere is one of those enduring mysteries I'll never fathom. And to make matters worse, as far as I'm concerned Rummy completely stole my act!
A couple of years ago, one of my a.s.sociates from the Ministry of Retribution came running into my office with a videotape. He was like, ”Kim, check this out.” So I stopped playing Tetris and popped the tape into the VCR. Dude, what I saw totally blew my mind: there was Rummy, in a Pentagon briefing, cackling away like a maniac and bisecting the air with a chopping motion lifted directly from the Korean art of self-defense known as Hapkido-in other words, my f.u.c.king hand gestures. It totally freaked me out.
My advisors said I should sue the b.a.s.t.a.r.d for copyright infringement, but I've never been a litigious guy. Like so many other disputes, this is just one of those things that I think is best settled by nuclear war.
IRAQI INFORMATION MINISTER MOVES TO AOL TIME WARNER.
Named Company's Official Spokesman Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, the former Information Minister of Iraq, was named today as the new official corporate spokesman for AOL Time Warner in New York.
Mr. al-Sahhaf, who just days ago had been saying that coalition troops were nowhere near the gates of Baghdad, had generally positive things to say about AOL Time Warner's prospects in today's compet.i.tive media environment.
”The merger of AOL and Time Warner was the most successful merger in the history of the media world,” said Mr. al-Sahhaf, wearing his trademark beret. ”All you have to do is take a look at the value of our executives' stock options-they're worth untold billions.”
AOL Time Warner antic.i.p.ates a ”banner year for revenues and profits,” the former Iraqi Information Minister confirmed.
Mr. al-Sahhaf disputed reports that the company was desperately trying to raise cash by selling a.s.sets such as its two Atlanta sports teams.
”No parts of this company are for sale-in fact, we'd like to go on a buying spree right now,” Mr. al-Sahhaf said. ”That's what companies do when their bottom lines are gus.h.i.+ng cash, which is precisely what ours is doing.”
Mr. al-Sahhaf also took issue with reports that Ted Turner, a major AOL TW stockholder, felt alienated from the company: ”That is insane! Ted Turner is deliriously happy! At our last board meeting he was purring like a little kitten. Ask anyone who was there.”
While many on Wall Street welcomed Mr. al-Sahhaf's upbeat a.s.sessment of the company's prospects, Ira Hogan of Credit Suisse First Boston lowered his recommendation on AOL TW to ”sell,” primarily because of the company's decision to hire Mr. al-Sahhaf.
Asked to comment on Mr. Hogan's move, Mr. al-Sahhaf replied, ”That gangster b.a.s.t.a.r.d will meet with a fiery doom of his own making.”
OBESITY MAY BE AMERICA'S SECRET WEAPON IN WAR ON TERROR
Americans Taking Up More s.p.a.ce, Leaving Less for Evildoers Call it Survival of the Fattest. Obesity, long thought to be one of America's nagging problems, may be something else entirely-its secret weapon in the war on terror.
A new study out today offers evidence that as America grows fatter, it may actually offer a stiffer challenge to terrorists who wish to infiltrate the U.S. for nefarious purposes.
”The average American today is between fifty and seventy pounds overweight,” said Dr. Charles Reardon, author of the study. ”That means that a terrorist who hopes to fit in here would have to eat like a pig to do so.”
Terrorists (pictured above) now have to gain between 100 and 150 extra pounds to successfully infiltrate the U.S. population, experts say.
The end result, Dr. Reardon said, is that any terrorist trying to pa.s.s himself off as an obese American would wind up in terrible cardiovascular shape, making him easier for law enforcement to chase in a foot race.
”We're going to be looking at a whole new generation of flabby, easily winded terrorists,” Dr. Reardon said.
In addition, tougher restrictions on obese pa.s.sengers by such airlines as Southwest-who requires that obese flyers buy two seats instead of one-will have the effect of ”crowding out” would-be terrorists.
”All in all, Americans are taking up more room, leaving less room for evildoers,” Dr. Reardon said.
Dr. Reardon said he hoped that the results of the survey would convince Americans that eating more and exercising less were their patriotic duties.
The study, which was the culmination of six months of intensive research, was commissioned by the Frito Lay Company in conjunction with Kentucky Fried Chicken.
KIM'S BLOG Not a day goes by that Bush or Cheney or Rice or some other imperialist stooge accuses me of starving my people. Even Colin Powell took his best shot at yours truly, telling reporters, ”You can't eat plutonium.”
Well, all I can say to that is, don't say you can't do something if you've never tried it. I keep a chunk of plutonium in my fridge, and when I'm looking for a little midnight snack it's usually the first thing I grab, and not just because it glows in the dark-it's darn tasty.
But I guess what really honks me off about the ”starving my people” business is that in America they're doing just the opposite: feeding their people to death! The average McDonald's meal has enough calories to feed an average North Korean family for three years, and longer than that if you throw in a McFlurry.
I think it's highly ironic that America, with its wall-to-wall Trimspa, Atkins and Bowflex infomercials would take me to task for keeping the people of North Korea thin and trim, but go figure. Like so much else in my relations with the U.S., their att.i.tude toward me can be boiled down to one word: envy. All I can say is, don't hate the player, hate the game.
BUSH MAY LACK GENE FOR HUMAN SPEECH.
President Has No Comment A team of genetic scientists stunned the world today by revealing that President George W. Bush may lack the gene necessary for human speech.
The scientists, who had been studying the genetic differences between humans and chimps, made the discovery about the President almost by accident, a spokesman for the group said.
”We happened to be looking at the blood work from the President's recent physical,” said the spokesman, Dr. Alvin Kunen of the University of Minnesota. ”We found extremely high pota.s.sium levels, indicating a banana-rich diet rarely found in humans.”
Prompted by the banana clue, scientists probed the President's DNA further and found ”no evidence” of the gene that enables humans to speak.
From the White House, the President had no comment.
But even as some in the administration angrily questioned the scientists' findings-arguing that the President often said things-Dr. Kunen said that many nonhuman primates were capable of producing basic, ”speech-like” utterances.
”In our experiments, we were able to teach a female baboon named Bonny to say such things as 'tax cut,' 'evildoer,' and 'regime change,'” Dr. Kunen said. ”This should not be confused with actual human speech.”