President Bush said that his present umbrella was "working perfectly" and rejected calls for a new one.

"This umbrella is perhaps one of the finest umbrellas this country has ever had," said Bush, "and I stand firmly behind it."

Critics said that Bush's umbrella was "ineffective, severely flawed, and just as bad as no umbrella at all." In response, Bush said that was "just people playing politics," and that he was not "all wet," as many have alleged.

"That's exactly what you'd expect them to say," said Bush.

Habeeb McKenzie, a postal worker from Iowa, said,"That umbrella don't work for shit! Who is he kidding? Can I offer you some mail?"

Plan To Rename, Repaint Offices, Too

Iraq took a mighty step forward toward creating an independent sovereign government this week as the Iraqi Governing Council -- a group of U.S. appointed Iraqi exiles seen as largely subservient to U.S. demands -- renamed itself and became a group of dynamic, independent thinkers -- made up of the very same people.

"I am a new man!" cried Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. "I could order American troops out of Iraq tomorrow if I wished!"

Asked if this was true, Allawi became suddenly sober and said," I don't know. Let me make a call." After disappearing into his study and making an overseas call, Allawi emerged and answered, "No. I can't."

He raised his hands over his head in a gesture of triumph. "But I can dream!" he cried.

Mysterious New Body Has No Actual Name

The Iraqi Governing Council transformed itself into -- something else.

"Everyone's calling us the 'new interim goverment,' but we had been thinking about calling ourselves 'New Government with Minty Fresh Scent' to spice it up," said "New Improved" Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, who had previously been Foreign Minister in the Iraqi Governing Council.

"That's how I got this job," Zebari joked. "Foreign Minister was already on my resume."

All Chalabi, All the Time Is Only Thing That Will Satisfy American Public, Say Networks

Cable networks across the country announced today adding the "Chalabi Channel," in order to sate what they called "the insatiable appetite" of American consumers for news, discussion, and entertainment revolving around former-good-guy-turned-bad-guy Ahmed Chalabi.

"I, for one, just can't get enough," said Vinnie Schlockboom, a coal miner from Grundigsville, Pennsylvania. As Mr. Schlockboom dug into a huge movie-theater-sized container of hot-buttered popcorn, he lay back in his E-Z-chair and quickly surfed television channels for any tidbit about the "newly exiled exile."

"It's a classic American tale," said Princeton English Professor Hilda Hammerman, "Good man woos country, good man gets thrown out of country, good man gets country, good man turns out to be lying thief, trickster and traitor, has house continually raided, loses country."

Kevin Drum of the blog Political Animal and Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo have been signed on to sort out the facts and talk endlessly about the never-ending stream of developments and revelations about Chalabi. Richard Perle and Newt Gingrich will mud-wrestle Condoleezza Rice on "White House Rumble!" to get her to reverse the White House decision to stop associating with the same man to whom they paid millions so that he would tell them exactly what they wanted to hear.

A sitcom called "Chalabi and Friends" is reportedly in development. It will feature Ahmed Chalabi and a host of "unlikely political characters" who live in two apartments across the hall from each other bed-hopping and switching partners until the show goes into syndication.

We've got serious problems here. Moveable Type, the "personal publishing" software that keeps the site going, is going. Half the time it doesn't work -- new posts don't go up, or only go up after rebuilding (and timing out) three to four times in a row. Comments, as you all know who comment here, take about 30 seconds to post, which frequently (understandably) results in double posting. If you notice there's been some slowdown in posting (and I hope you didn't), it's because the Bush Administration isn't funny anymore. Plus, it's Clinton's fault. And maybe, just a little, it's because of these "technical problems" (read: women's troubles).

It turns out that this slowdown will happen with MT -- when it hits a certain number of posts and comments (in my case, 500 + posts and 1000+ comments), it becomes unbearably slow (and somewhat unusable). To speed it up, I have to remove part of the software (the part that removes the glut of comment spam) or just move to Expression Engine or something.

Anyone have any ideas? I know I have some readers out there that use this software and have a lot of traffic and posts, and I wonder whether they've run into this problem and come up with a fix for it.

Today the Department of Homeland Security warned of a much higher risk of a terrorist attack over the coming months, which prompted them to raise the threat level from Yellow ("Elevated") to Yellow ("Still Elevated"). "The threat level remains fundamentally the same," said Tom Ridge, "Except that it is definitely, certainly much threatier."

In response, the FBI pledged to step up its random arrest program, used most recently to such great effect with Portland lawyer Brandon Mayfield last week, who, although not a terrorist, "was unable to mount a terrorist attack during his two weeks in captivity, had he really been one."

Although unable to supply a date, time, place, method, situation, guess, hope, or random thought for the expected attack on the U.S. by al Qaeda, Ridge said there was "credible intelligence" corroborated by lots of "chatter" that, while not "actionable," provided a firm basis for scaring the bejesus out of an otherwise complacent U.S. populace.

"We don't want people to panic," said Ridge. "But it could be any place, at any time, and it could be either a nuclear explosion that flattens the coast or a biological attack that could make "The Day After Tomorrow" look like a high school picnic."

"Or not," he added.

Ridge cut his remarks short to make a trip to Capitol Hill to get the Department of Homeland Security renamed the "Department of Scaring The Pants Off People While Not Offering The Slightest Help Whatsoever."

"The Government" To Join Reality TV Lineup Until June 30

In one of his most important speeches to date, the President unveiled a detailed and methodical plan for the transfer of sovereignty to a new Iraqi government.

"We have entered into an arrangement with Survivor's Mark Burnett to choose the 30 members of the Iraqi interim government. 100 Iraqis will compete against each other to choose the 30 finalists and a new form of government in what, I think you'll agree, will make a very exciting month of television," the President announced before the U.S. Army War College tonight.

U.N. representative Lakhdar Brahimi will host, due to the unavailability of Survivor regular Jeff Probst, said Bush. Shi'ite Ayatollah Ali Sistani and representatives of the Sunnis and Kurds will be forced to run mazes, sell lemonade, and stand for hours on tree stumps while keeping their arms raised to prove their worth in running Iraq.

"Choosing the correct 30 people to run the interim government of Iraq is absolutely crucial to the success or failure of this grand experiment," said Bush. "There may be other ways to choose the 30 people, but we couldn't think of any."

White House officials dealt with criticism of the plan as half-baked, uncooked, and imbecilic by replying that having a plan -- any plan -- would be better than simply hoping that a truly workable interim government would simply coalesce while they "made a lot of speeches about it."

Proves Digital Cameras "Terrible Threat" To Nation, Says Rumsfeld

On Saturday, a soldier on leave, using his cellphone camera, took a picture of President Bush riding his bicycle into a huge ditch. The photograph showed that the President had been riding with his eyes closed, while Donald Rumsfeld, Condeleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney directed Bush to ride off the edge of a precipice and into the dangerous ravine.

The President denied that he needed to ride with his eyes open in the future. "Ya see, that's just what these ravines want, they want us to get away from these sheer drop-offs. But we will not be strayed from our mission," he said.

Donald Rumsfeld, who has banned digital cameras, camcorders, cellphones with cameras, and the gift of sight from all military compounds in Iraq, immediately extended the ban to all U.S. military personnel everywhere.

Pvt. Northrup O'Hallohan, who took the picture, was immediately placed under house arrest. His cellphone camera has been shipped to Guantanamo Bay for questioning.

"I don't know what I did wrong," said O'Hallohan. "I thought I still had 200 free minutes."

Search Of Chalabi Home Turns Up Only A $33 Million Watch

The U.S., pretending to an arm of the Iraqi Provisional Authority, invaded Ahmed Chalabi's house today, because Chalabi was deemed to be an "imminent threat" to the nation's pocketbooks, Donald Rumsfeld said today.

Rumsfeld initially claimed not to have any knowledge of the invasion, saying that the action had been mounted by members of the Iraqi government. However, he admitted that he had actually given the order to invade Chalabi's home when confronted with the fact that no Iraqi government yet exists. "Oh yeah," he said.

J. Paul Bremer, the U.S.-installed Occupational Czar of Iraq, was disappointed by how little was discovered in the raid of Chalabi's home, since he had been "fairly sure" that that the missing WMD would actually turn up inside.

"That would have been perfect," said Bremer, sitting next to a stack of Agatha Christie novels. "I mean, only a month ago we were still paying the little creep."

Chalabi is unfazed by the sudden downturn in his relationship with the United States. He was last seen in negotiations with cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

"I can tell you a lot about the Americans," he is said to have boasted.

New Belief System Entitles Them To Tax-Exempt Status

[A]ccording to the office of Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a Denison Unitarian church isn't really a religious organization -- at least for tax purposes. Its reasoning: the organization "does not have one system of belief."

The Unitarian Church, which was denied tax-exempt status by the Texas State Comptroller for not having "one system of belief," repudiated all of its prior teachings today in exchange for the sole doctrine that Texas should be sawed off the United States and pushed into the Gulf of Mexico.

"Is that belief system enough for ya?" said Unitarian Minister Obiah P. Dowd, who doubles as the sheriff of Yaul County.

The Unitarian Church is now moving to disqualify the Catholic Church from tax-exempt status because it propounds belief in the existence of the Holy Trinity. "We count that as three," said Minister Dowd.

In a press conference today, Comptroller Strayhorn said that she was entitled to judge the Unitarian religion based upon her acute expertise in all matters theological. "I've seen The Ten Commandmants dozens of times," said Strayhorn. "It used to be on the television every year."

Strayhorn denied being inconsistent for allowing the Church of Scientology to have tax-exempt status in Texas. "Oh, but they they have one belief system", she said. "They only believe in fleecing Tom Cruise."