Guns'n'butter

Senate testifies about Iraq war before Gen. Petraeus

By Bea Loughnee
Washington Reporter

WASHINGTON -- Members of two powerful Senate committees today presented testimony on the Iraq war to Gen. David Petraeus, commander of Multi National Forces in Iraq.

Senators invited the general and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker to Washington to give the two as much advice as possible on how to run the war, the reconstruction effort, and diplomatic affairs in Iraq and the greater Middle East.

"We wanted to be sure Gen. Petraeus had all the best military advice the various lawyers, businessmen, gamblers, and trust-fund babies of the U.S. Senate could give a four-star general," said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden.

Biden was among the numerous senators who berated the general for his military strategy and suggested that he take a different approach -- namely the one favored by a majority of voters in the senator's home state.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., called Gen. Petraeus's approach in Iraq a "failed strategy" and recommended quick withdrawal of U.S. forces just minutes after the general told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the strategy had produced significant, if "fragile," results.

In the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., mocked the general for continuing to believe that progress could be made in Iraq when everyone in California knew that was ridiculous.

After the day-long testimony, members of both committees expressed satisfaction that they had imparted valuable information to the general and ambassador.

"I think they both learned something today," said Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin. "We can sleep well tonight knowing that we imparted the great military expertise of the United States Senate to Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker."

Radical Muslim says guy at the end of the bar is looking at him funny

By Harold Bethyname
Religion Reporter

DETROIT -- Faruk Yusuf, a local radical Muslim, said tonight that he didn't like the way that "Westerner" at the end of the bar was looking at him.

"Is that guy looking at me funny?" Yusuf asked a friend shortly after the pair entered the establishment "for research purposes."

"Yeah, as soon as we walked in, this well-dressed, popular, good-looking guy, the one with all the girls checking him out, I swear he started looking at me funny right away," Yusuf said. "I was like, back off, Jack, cause I'll take you outside and drop a fatwa on your you-know-what. And he'd better watch out, cause I'll do it, too."

Yusuf's friend, Jamal Aba, a moderate Muslim, tried to calm his increasingly agitated pal.

"I said, 'Nah, man, he's just lookin' at that girl over there behind us. Take it easy,'" Aba said. "But Faruk, he was all convinced that this guy was staring at him and that was an insult to the Prophet or the religion or something. Did I mention that Faruk is five-six?"

The incident might have ended there, except Yusuf soon began muttering that the "Westerner" was unfairly monopolizing all the "females" in the bar. He said there was an obvious "Zionist plot" to deprive him of beautiful, drunk women, and that the tall, athletic obviously successful man was so popular only because he had stolen all of Yusuf's jokes.

"Did you hear him tell that one about the rabbi, the giraffe, and the polar bear?" Yusuf asked. That was MY joke, man! That hot blonde should be tossing her head back in mock comedic exctasy on THIS bar stool and tenderly touching MY forearm as a subtle signal that my devastating wit has activated her breeding instinct! Oh, man, I hate that guy!

At this point, Aba suggested the pair call it a night. But Yusuf insisted on staying and "observing this Western blasphemy" so he could warn all his friends back home how they would be treated should they venture into hostile non-Islamic lands. And also because "that brunette over there just looked at me, I think."

By the time the pair left, at 2 a.m., Yusuf was convinced of the secret plot to deprive him of success with the bar's numerous women that evening.

"Obviously, the American and his Jew financiers were plotting against me from the start," Yusuf said. "There simply is no other explanation for a man of my exquisite morals to have been so handily defeated by rivals who plainly spend more time in the gym than the mosque. I would never come back to an American bar again, but, well, all the women in my village are married to the sheik or one of his four brothers, so, I guess I'll be back next Saturday night. Maybe I'll wear my 'Death to America' T-shirt. Chicks dig a guy in a tight T-shirt."

John Kerry says he's finally ready to defend self against former middle school tormentor

By Bea Loughnee
Washington Reporter

BOSTON -- Former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said today that if his old sixth-grade nemesis challenges him on the playground again, he'll be ready this time.

"I've spent 50 years thinking up witty come-backs and practicing defending myself against wedgies, Indian arm-burns, and titty twisters," Kerry said in an interview today. "So bring it on, D.J. Butterfield! This time I shall issue the thrashing, and the payback I dispense shall be thrice-fold! I mean, three-fold!"

Kerry also said he would be sure to know the answers to tonight's "Jeopardy!" when he catches the show in reruns next summer.

Myanmar to crack down on kittens, bunnies next

By Vladimir Chang
Authoritarianism Correspondent

RANGOON -- Fresh off a bloody crackdown on more than 2,000 peaceful Buddhist monks, Myanmar's ruling junta announced today that it was targeting kittens and bunnies next.

"After last week's fun in Rangoon, I was quickly left bored and listless. I found myself wanting some other group to crush ruthlessly, and I wondered, 'What could be even more defenseless and wholesome than a Buddhist monk?' And I thought, "Kittens!" said Senior General Than Shwe, head of Myanmar's government. "So I decided to kill me some kittens. And after that it'll be bunnies."

Myanmar's army won't even have to use its own weapons for the kitten kill. China is contributing submachine guns and ammunition, while Thailand has sent thousands of hungry dogs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that if Myanmar ran out of its own kittens, he would gladly supply Russian ones.

The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution condemning the act, but saying that it has no jurisdiction over hostile acts against felines and rodents. And even if it did, the council declared, it wouldn't have the authority to act. And even if it had the authority, it would just sit by and watch because at this point that's all it knows how to do.

China begins respecting human rights 'because Mia Farrow asked so nicely'

By Vladimir Chang
Authoritarianism Correspondent

BEIJING -- After decades of pressure from foreign governments, the United Nations, the International Olympic Committee and its own citizens, the Chinese government announced today that it was so moved by 62-year-old actress Mia Farrow's pleas that it shall begin respecting human rights immediately.

"As a member of China's elite ruling class, I'd always accepted without question the premise that systematic oppression, torture, murder, corruption and all-around thuggery were perfectly acceptable governmental activities," Chinese President Hu Jintao said. "I'd always laughed at people who whined that these things were somehow wrong, especially if they did so while being marched off to a forced labor camp. Man, that was always funny. But when I heard those exact same requests for respect and fair treatment come from the mouth of a 110-pound, once-famous American actress, well, my eyes were suddenly opened, the sky parted and the truth descended upon me like a sparrow pregnant with justice and righteousness!"

Hu said his epiphany came because Farrow was so exceedingly polite.

"She just asked so nicely," Hu said. "There was no way I could refuse."

After his meeting with Farrow, President Hu promised an immediate cessation of all state-sponsored oppression, the freeing of all political prisoners, the abandonment of the one-child policy, official recognition of Taiwan as an independent nation, the granting of free speech rights to all citizens, an end to the manufacture of fatal children's toys, and a recall of all bootleg cds, dvds and consumer electronics. He acknowledged that the latter move would destroy the Chinese economy, but said, "hey, that's the price you pay for respecting other people's rights. I'm sure we'll manage somehow."

Ban Ki Moon, secretary general of the United Nations, said, "They did what? Just because Mia Farrow asked? You mean the millions of dollars in American taxpayers' money we deliberately squandered on that worthless goodwill ambassador program have actually produced some results? Holy crap!"

Farrow, the United Nations goodwill ambassador, said she was pleased with the Chinese government's decision. Her only disappointment, she said, was that President Hu refused to assassinate her former lover, Woody Allen, in one final act of evil before turning good.

Bush to close Guantanamo Bay after Renee Zellweger escape

Editor's Note: This Gunsnbutter spoof first appeared in The American Spectator.

By Bea Loughnee
Washington Reporter

WASHINGTON -- The White House announced today that it was closing the controversial U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the escape of a shockingly emaciated prisoner, Hollywood actress Renee Zellweger, caused widespread outrage among plump young American women nationwide and raised concerns that the Republicans' 2008 presidential nominee would lose that demographic to Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

"We're shuttin' her down," President Bush said in a press conference this morning. "You can hogtie and horsewhip a jihadi and the 'Merican people will just go on shoppin' like nothin' happened. But mess with the self-image of lonely single women, and buddy, you'd better start sleepin' with one eye open."

Thousands of single women aged 16 to 39 converged upon the mall in Washington this past weekend to demand the prison's closure after photographs of a once curvy Zellweger, now bony and gaunt, surfaced on the Internet.

"Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Guantanamo has got to go!" they chanted as they trooped from one end of the mall to the other, leaving a field of half-read Helen Fielding novels and Godiva chocolate bars in their wake.

"Renee Zellweger was my hero!" 37-year-old secretary Nancy Jodoin of Bethesda, Md., said. "She looked like a real woman, giving me hope that some day I, too, might sleep with Hugh Grant. But look what those beasts have done to her! She could turn sideways and pass through a locked door! Now I'll have to lose 30 pounds just to feel good about myself again!"

Zellweger had been held at Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of being a terrorist because of her uncanny ability to speak with an English accent despite being a Texan.

"Real Texans just don't talk like that," Bush is reported to have said when ordering her detainment.

But Zellweger was in prison only a few months when she escaped, apparently by turning sideways and sliding between a door jamb and a locked prison door, then climbing atop a parapet and letting the wind blow her all the way to Florida.

President Bush did not say where the prison's roughly 375 other detainees would be housed. But he said that despite constant appeals from the adult film industry, the administrations had no plans to set free cultural terrorist Paris Hilton, whom Bush described as "doing to American culture what al-Qaida is trying to do to our economic and military infrastructure."

Victims of Communist professors demand own memorial

By Bea Loughnee
Washington Reporter

WASHINGTON -- College students from across America rallied in Washington today to demand the creation of the Victims of Communist Professors Memorial, which they say will memorialize the millions of undergraduate and graduate students victimized each year by goateed English and history professors.

"We are the forgotten victims of communism!" cried Roger Killoan, 24, a master's candidate in English at Boston University. "We suffer unseen, unheard, sitting in our classrooms in mute silence, muzzled by our own fears of receiving a C from HIM, the Man With The Goatee!"

Eileen Mullins, 19, a sophomore at the University of Tennessee, said she paid for a course in American history from 1933 to the present, but all she was getting was a series of lectures about the virtues of redistributionist policies and the evils of free markets.

"I knew I was in trouble when my professor spent the first 34 minutes of the hour-long class describing the numerous crimes against the American people committed by Herbert Hoover," Mullins said. "When I passed my professor's office I saw that he had big posters of FDR and Che Guevara over his autographed picture of Al Gore, and I knew then that I had to keep my mouth shut. Normally, you know, I'd speak up, voice my opinion. But I need this class to graduate! So I just sit there and bite my lip as he drones on and on about the necessity for the workers to organize against corporate aggression. Did I mention this was a history class?"

The students said they were disappointed that President Bush did not list them among the many victims of communism when he dedicated the Victims of Communism Memorial on Tuesday.

Said 23-year-old UCLA business major Ted Paulson, "We deserve recognition, as do all who suffered in silence before us, especially those who, through no fault of their own, were persuaded to embrace socialism, changed their majors from finance to social work and gave up productive business careers to make $30,000 a year believing that expounding feminist theory to alcoholic wife-beaters is more socially valuable than creating hundreds of $80,000-a-year jobs that provide families with homes, health insurance and retirement funds."

The students suggested that their memorial could feature an angry student rising up, fist raised, desk toppled to one side, against a cowering, balding, bespectacled man wearing a goatee and sweater vest.

Google begins imprisoning 'dissidents'

By Vladimir Chang
Authoritarianism Correspondent

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Google, Inc., announced a crackdown on "dissident" employees, customers and casual users today, saying it intends to "eliminate subversive elements" and "purify the body collective."

"Google has picked up a disturbing increase in anti-Google chatter among the world populace, apparently driven by concern over our collection of vast amounts of personal data," said Google spokesman Gnot Hung. "We were particularly dismayed by the comments made by Gregory Wilson of 532 Windsor Terrace in Oakland, California, and several of his friends. We are pleased to announce that Mr. Wilson has graciously accepted our invitation to participate in a Google-cation seminar which will last. . . indefinitely. His friends also have accepted our invitation and have been made guests of the company, pending completion of their re-education."

Google has opened a series of "Google-cation camps" in remote locations around the globe. The company says the camps will "educate the people about the importance of maintaining personal privacy in this complex digital age. And by 'maintaining personal privacy,' we mean us maintaining it for you because, frankly, you people can't be trusted to search for porn without inadvertently giving away your address, bank account number and pet's name," Hung said.

Jim Garvey, 26, of San Francisco, said three Google employees knocked on his door late one night last week and took his roommate, Brian. "He had just finished complaining on a message board that Google was getting a little too friendly with the Chinese government, when moments later, bam! bam! bam! there was pounding knock at the door," Garvey said. "I put down my wii and answered it, and these three dudes dressed in black with little Google labels on their shirts barged in, grabbed Brian and whisked him away. It was horrible. By the way, do you think he'll be back by the first of the month? Because rent's due and I'm going to need him to pay his half this time."

Hung vigorously denied the incident. "Google does not abduct people in the dark of night," he said. "We do it during regular business hours so we don't have to pay our goons overtime."

Iraq War calls for end to John Edwards

By Norman Dee
War Correspondent

BAGHDAD -- The Iraq War today called for an immediate end to former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

Former Sen. Edwards has for months called for an end to the Iraq war. But after the 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate asked for Americans to protest the war on Memorial Day, the Iraq War said he'd "had enough of this B.S."

"Look, I'm bustin' my tail out here every day trying to bring death, destruction and, hopefully, disease to America's most ruthless enemies, and all this petifogging pretty boy can do is complain about the mess," Mr. War said from his home here in Baghdad's Red Zone yesterday. "This ain't no church picnic, Opie! I'm the Iraq WAR, dammit!"

Asked to clarify what he meant by "an end to John Edwards," Mr. War said he did not wish the presidential candidate dead, only retired to a life of silent seclusion, preferably "in some Third World hellhole with no cell phone service, Internet or radio contact."

Mr. War said that after four years of working on behalf of the American people, he was accustomed to criticism. But hearing politicians use his soldiers and Marines as props when complaining about his efforts "got my back up, bro."

"Listen, I don't mind politicians talkin' junk about my game. I KNOW I got game, you know what I'm sayin'? But when you start protestin' me on Memorial Day, get that shit outa town, man! That ain't cool."

Mr. War said he singled out former Sen. Edwards because John Kerry's running mate is the most annoying of his many critics.

"John Edwards has repeatedly apologized for voting for me, always saying that he regretted his decision to authorize my creation," Mr. War said. "But I ask you, did anybody who voted for John Edwards not come to regret that vote later? I mean, come on, he's a total tool.

"Hillary Clinton, she's a tool, too, but at least she hasn't apologized for unleashing me on the terrorists. At least she's got the balls to stand up for her vote, kind of, anyway. Barack Obama, he's an all right dude. He's pretty consistent, and he smokes. But Edwards, has that guy ever taken a position based on gut instinct? If he were prom queen, and I'm pretty sure he was once, he'd definitely put out if he thought it'd make him more popular. Definitely. I'm just sayin'."

Harry Reid declares local Little League season 'lost'

By Bea Loughnee
Washington Reporter

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared today that the Reno Little League Braves' sub-par 2-8 season was "lost" and the eight year olds would be better off giving up and going home.

"Look, I support the team," Reid said. "But honestly, they're 2-8. There's no way they'll come back from this miserable a start. I say their parents bring them home where at least they won't run the risk of pulling a hamstring or something. They can sit on the porch and eat ice cream for the rest of the season. It's safer and less humiliating."

Gerald Natters, 35, parent of eight-year-old Brave player Willie Natters (0.0025 avg., 17 errors), said he appreciated Reid's honest assessment of the team's chances.

"The coach wants the kids to learn things like perseverance, teamwork, and commitment," Natters said while watching his son's team lose to the rival Phillies 27-1. "But let's face it, everyone knows that these kids are only out here to fulfill the dashed athletic dreams of their middle-aged fathers, who fill them with all sorts of false hope about their ability to win against heavy odds and emerge triumphant in the end. Sen. Reid is right. They're losers. We might as well tell them now so they'll get used to the idea and not come to that realization at age 33 and turn to drinking two six-packs a day to dull their disappointment."

Despite the team voting 14-1 to keep playing because, in the words of coach Dan Kilbreth, "We believe in ourselves," the parents took Reid's advice, canceled the remainder of the season, sent the kids to the babysitter's and went to Vegas for the weekend.

"Why stick it out against tough odds when you can quit and go to Vegas?" Braves mom Jane Falvey said.