Bush saves the environment with
Super-Duper Environment Saver Thingie

President Bush announced today that he has saved the environment by using advanced business-friendly technology previously known only to a few obscure creationists at Bob Jones University.

The astounding discovery came after months of effort followed by several consecutive minutes of deep thought. The creationists, led by Professor Sappy, decided in January that the Super-Duper Environment Saver Thingie would function marvelously, and then worked diligently to gather unrelated evidence to support their conclusions. "We have worked so very, very hard," said Professor Sappy. "We would stay up at night and pray like the dickens. Hehehe. I said 'dickens'. Hehehe."

Professor Sappy and his students spent night after night building the Super-Duper Environment Saver Thingie out of SUV tires and day-old punctured McDonald's catsup packets. They added a hint of porcine waste for aroma. When they had nearly completed it, they packed it in a redwood planter, threw it in the back of the Humvee, and drove to Florida looking for a final piece of divine inspiration.

Many hours later, the Professor and his students ran out of fuel miles from the nearest gas station. So they did the only thing they knew how to do: they pulled over to the side of the highway and prayed for divine intervention. Then, in the creeping green dark of the Everglades--Lo! Came the Lord God himself, in the form of a alligator named Ned. Ned dragged himself out of the swamp and announced he would tell the students how to complete the Super-Duper Environment Saver Thingie, but only if He could eat one of them. He asked the Professor to choose.

"Take the fat one," said the Professor.

"You mean the least fit?" asked the Lord Ned.

"I didn't say that," mumbled the Professor.

And so Kevin the Fat One returned to his maker, the hard way. And once Ned had finished snacking, he fulfilled his promise.  "Go and find the tallest mountain. Climb to the top. There, a burning bush will present you with two tablets. Take them and you will know all you need to know."

The Professor and his remaining students (all of whom now pledged to join Weight Watchers at their earliest convenience) felt humbled by this Divine instruction. They got back in the Humvee, which was now miraculously full of 400 gallons of premium heaven-sent gasoline, and drove like hell until they realized Florida doesn't have any mountains. The Professor could not be daunted, however, and decided that by "mountain" God had been referring to Magic Mountain in DisneyWorld.

Sixteen hours later and after an extended detention by a Disney security guard dressed as Dopey, the Professor and his students stood atop the Magic Mountain roller coaster, waiting for the burning bush. They waited, and they waited, and they waited. And then, finally, at precisely three o'clock in the afternoon on a Wednesday, it came.

Jenna Bush, fresh from a mid-day frat party, came flying along on the roller coaster. Her overtreated, heavily sprayed hair scraped the roof of the indoor coaster and burst into flame. Horrified, Jenna screamed and threw her purse into the air, where it slipped through a small gap in the coaster superstructure. The Professor and his students watched as the purse flew up out of the Magic Mountain rooftop, broke open, and distributed its contents far and wide. But of all the things in the purse, two small white aspirin tablets headed straight for the Professor and hit him in the nose.

The Professor was baffled. None of this had happened as he thought. He still didn't know how to make the Super-Duper Environment Saver Thingie work. So he grabbed his students, got back into the Humvee, and drove straight back to the swamp where they'd encountered the Lord Ned.

After a few minutes, Ned presented himself by poking two beady eyes above the waterline. "Yes?" he asked.

"I don't understand," said Professor Sappy, "we did everything you said, but all we got was two lousy aspirin tablets. What the hell does that mean?"

Ned crawled up on the bank and sidled up to Professor Sappy. "Why, my dear son, you give me a headache."

The Lord Ned then ate another student and called it a night.

Professor Sappy, however, would not be prevented from giving the President the Super-Duper Environment Saver Thingie, divine inspiration or not. And so he did, and the President did not question, and in a press conference this morning President Bush declared the environment to be saved.  "With the Super-Duper Environment Saver Thingie we've fixed it all--polution, deforestation, other stuff. We don't even need that Yucca Mountain place to dump nuculer waste anymore. The Super-Duper Environment Saver Thingie lets us dump it right in your local city parks with no problems whatsoever."

In a completely unrelated story, a large alligator was seen hitchiking to Washington.

The Rat feels your pain

Living on dial-up this week in the Gopher State, I have discovered the sloooooow loading of my page for non-broadband users. Although my images are already compressed to the maximum, I think there might be some other ways to save on bandwidth, namely reducing the number of posts on the home page and improving the archive layout. Alas, I will not be able to implement site-wide changes until I return to the glittering realm of cable internet in a couple of weeks. Hang in there.

5:18:42 AM