exponentiation ezine: issue [1.0: news]
Government Reveals Five-Year Plan to Utopia
February 2, 2005 American States Press Service
WASHINGTON, DC (ASPS) - At a candlelight ceremony to remember the victims of September 11, President Bush announced that the United States will realize Sir Thomas Moore's Utopia within five years. "America will be a shining beacon to the world of personal liberty, freedom, individuality and comfort," he said. "We will conquer hate, despair and inequity, and will create a new Utopia."
Speaking from the heavily-guarded podium in front of the gaping pit where the World Trade Center towers once stood, Bush pledged to end four years of infighting that have prevented the reconstruction of what he called "a symbol of our country, and what makes it great: our freedom." He delivered his forty-minute speech before going indoors after high winds began blowing garbage and crack cocaine paraphrenalia from the nearby Freedom Park.
Bush continued, "Not everyone will immediately desire personal freedom and the liberation of women, minorities, the oppressed, the retarded and the insane, but if they want to live in some backward feudal state of idol-worship and primitive toilet conditions, we will crush them like the evil they are. Utopia has conquered such backward superstitions and paranoid, deluded religious fanaticism."
Darla Hofheiser, president of the dissident group Wiccans for Abortion and Medical Marijuana, held a protest sign bearing the words NO FUTURE WITHOUT ABORTION, said she was disappointed in the president's speech. "If this is to be Utopia," she said, "Everyone must be represented, and -- how is that possible, when he won't allow abortion and medical marijuana? We have to agree to disagree."
American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Roger Cardozas expressed a contrary sentiment. "The right wing will always justify itself in terms of freedom, but where is the freedom for a Mexican-American superstate within what is erroneously called Texas and New Mexico?" Cardozas then departed for a keynote speech to the Association of Mexican American Students, entitled "Aztlan - Our Right and Destiny."
Further down the street, protestors from NAMBLA voiced a similar sentiment. "How is it that in this grand scheme, men who like to share their love with young boys and their peachlike buttocks are not included? Freedom means freedom for everybody," said NAMBLA protestor Jorge Rosenberg, who was joined by a crowd of every race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation in chanting "Freedom for everybody."
In the promenade across the way, however, emotions ran high in a different direction. "I won't feel free until I know I live in a country ruled by Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior," said Theresa Baxter, founder of Methamphetamine Addicts for Christ. "He is everywhere, if you look for him - in the heart of every human being, in the kindness of strangers, and in the tiny people who run under the table when I'm cranked."
Speaking from the White House, Attorney General John Ashcroft responded: "There are people out there who fear our Utopia, and we will take each one and using modern military hardware, send him back to his primitive gods in pieces, so that our democracy cannot be threatened by those who hate our freedom." He was promptly chastised by the National Organization for Women (NOW), who characterized his speech as "sexist" and "denying the right to women of being freedom fighters for the backward, primeval regime of their choice."
On the street outside the press conference, Joe "Wipers" Washington-Perez was gathering half-eaten hot dogs from a trash can while proposition cars stopped at the light for a windshield cleaning with a greasy rag. "Freedom ain't free," he said. "Takes two hours to find a full pork hotdog in these dumpsters, and I'm caught between the horsehead nebula and the Yeast God."
Speaking the dwindling crowd, as nightfall arrived and the city area outside White House security bastions became an unstable war zone between drug dealers, SWAT teams, skinhead gangs and rapists from every ethnic group and gender-orientation, Bush continued. "Once Utopia is established," he said. "We will live in peace and prosperity forever, unless evil is destined to thwart our progress."
"We cannot tolerate evil," he continued. "If they insist on fighting us, it will touch off a war between Utopia and the empires of evil." After a momentary interruption as iconoclastic rally racers crashed into the crowd of Falun Gong protestors outside, Bush was asked for his contingency plans for that event. Looking startled, the president said quickly, "Well, it will bring about the apocalypse, and all the good people will be called home to God, of course."
Israeli scientist invents cure for death
January 31, 2005 El-Shaddai News Services
GAZA CITY, ISRAEL (ESNS) - The remarkable announcement was made today that yet again, modern science has triumphed over nature, and this time conquering an age-old fear: Israeli National University scientist Haim Vorenberg has invented a cure for death. The cure, administered through a machine in which the user sits, makes use of a new subatomic particle discovered by Vorenberg, the vader.
"Vaders are the complement to free radical particles, which occur naturally in our flesh through the process of aging, as we become older and get closer to death, which reduces us to dust and ruins all we have done," he said in a thick German accent. "What our machine does is to replace free radicals with vaders, so forever we are free from the curse -- of death!"
Vorenberg previously worked on missile design systems and was responsible for the remarkable Israeli "Tikkun Olam" missile, which during the first Iraq war shot down one Scud, four Piper Cubs and uncountable pigeons brainwashed in the suicidal death religion of Islam. His list of accomplishments is long, including honorable service in the US Army Intelligence division before the Tet Offensive, Director of Safety Regulations at Three Mile Island, and Environmental Regulator at Love Canal.
"The machine is very fragile, very expensive," said Vorenberg. "It requires rare materials, like South African diamonds and white Russian gold," he said.
Interviewed in the Vatican, Pope John Paul II expressed solidarity with Vorenberg. "This ingenious man of God has invented the ultimate fulfillment of man's dominion over nature," said the Pope. "Blessings upon him and his kin, who are blessed in the eye of God, who up till now alone has held back death."
The machine was demonstrated on dissident Eli Al-Rafal, who shouted "Free Palestine!" before being strapped into the apparatus, at which point the heavy door lined in lead and gold was closed upon him. "Notice how we convey the blessing of Immortality on even our enemies," said Israeli government press officer Christian Horowitz. "Our God, who we share with Christians, is indeed merciful even to His worst enemies."
After humming for several minutes, the machine began making cyclic static discharge sounds. Vorenberg quickly adjusted a dial on a console that looked suspiciously like one borrowed from a US-made F-16 fighter. "We are now aligning the positrons and neutrons and, ah, magic particles in his body," said Vorenberg. "Soon the free radicals will be gone, and he will be free from death forever."
With an immense electric crackling roar, the machine fully energized and lit the room with an incomparable glow, leaving a faint odor of ozone and hair standing on end for the straight-haired among the observers. Vorenberg, his curly mop untouched, turned back the machine. "Success!" he said. "Another soul saved, and nature's vile death is removed, thus zee triumph of mankind is assured."
When he opened the machine, however, Al-Rafal had vanished, leaving behind a single red rose.
Los Angeles Annexes South Korea
February 4, 2005 Christian Thought Monitor
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (CTMN) - Today Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mayor Dick Riordan made a joint announced that Los Angeles, the nation's fastest growing city, had annexed South Korea. "In LA, we are proud to be a tolerant and diverse community, and as a result we keep growing," said Riordan. "I'd like to welcome our newest outer suburb, Seoul."
Schwarzenegger weighed in by noting that California "has always prospered from the diversity and hard work of immigrants such as myself," and promised the South Korean suburb would be no different. "You can now participate in the Los Angeles Dream," he told them. "You will be able to have entertainment jobs, medical marijuana, and drive in rush-hour traffic to cultural events like Linkin Park and the Vagina Monologues."
Sung Pak, leader of the California Korean-Americans Association, said, "Today is a brave new world for the Korean-American community, as we put our best foot forward to be the largest minority group in Los Angeles." He scanned the crowd for a minute, and then said, "That is, if our daughters do not continue to insist on dating white and Hispanic guys who dress and behave like gangsta rappers."
South Korea, a nation of 48 million Koreans, has struggled for wealth and independence in the highly competitive South Asian region for many centuries, being tossed about between China and Japan like an inflatable love-doll. "We decided, at last, to go to the source of business knowledge in Asia: Southern California," said President Roh Moo-hyun. "Since over a third of Los Angeles is owned by Asian businesses, it is hard to say yet who is annexing whom."
Riordan dismissed fears that the new suburb would be too different to integrate into LA's famously uniform escapist suburban culture. "Nonsense," he said. "Los Angeles supports many kinds of diversity, and we're sure South Korea will fit in just fine, as long as they don't mind gated communities, noise regulations and numbering their freeways according to our system."
Longtime LA resident Sarah Snyder expressed her surprise. "Well, how about that," she said. "I guess the suburbs just keep expanding, so it's bound to happen one of these days," she said, having a cup of joe after her African-style pilates workout and positive thinking orientation session at the New Wiccan Buddhist Temple in downtown LA (next to the Scientology building and two doors down from a Tantric chiropractor). Snyder said she welcomed the Koreans to LA, and hoped that some of them would show up to make her congregation more diverse.
Beaming with confidence, Schwarzenegger expressed faith in the process of assimilation. "People come here from all over, but pretty soon, they've got Zen gardens next to the Chicken McNuggets and a therapist session that evening, like everybody else," he said, noting that although plans to open a "Mann's Chinese" theatre in South Korea had met with rioting, there were no objections to installing the world-famous "In-N-Out" burger chain next to temples made seven millennia ago by ancient cultures. "It all just mixes," he said. "We are all immigrants here."
Not all residents were as concerned with welcoming the newcomers. "Fucking Koreans," said Rufus Watanabe, who scrounges garbage cans at roughly Wilshire and Mulholland, "We kicked their asses in that war, even if the god damn politicians tied our hands. But if they bring me discount AZT, or at least a 40, I'll be the welcome wagon."
Organized Crime Calls it Quits, Becomes Credit Reporting Agency
Russian-American News Service 20 January 2005 8:36 PM PST
Hoboken, New Jersy (RANS) - The once-mighty American organized crime empire has called it quits, citing the increased bureaucracy required to maintain a clandestine operation, and has turned over a new leaf as a credit reporting agency. Boss Dymitry "Sonny" Kaganovitz summed it up in his characteristic style: "We lost some deductions with the last tax code, so now we're going for the fat and putting the protection racket on the back burner."
According to Kaganovitz, while business in prostitution and heroin trafficking increases under Republican administrations, the continuing decline of America's economy to third-world levels has caused a plateau effect. "We're used to this from the old country," he said. "Big leaders, oil prices ain't good, so we gonna hit 'em where we're protected, and that's in credit reporting."
Credit reporting agencies are regulated minimally under federal law, but are the primary source of information for lenders, renters and arranged-marriage services. They track individuals by their Social Security numbers, originally an identification reserved for government use only in the process of taxation, and keep a "credit rating" on each individual according to the number of debts owed on that account. "There's almost no accountability, and if there's a problem, it's up to the individual to contact us and pay us an hourly to fix it. Beats pimpin' on the margins, and there's only one level of government to bribe," said Kaganovitz.
Associate Ivan "Crusher" Sternovitch agreed. "All we gotta do is put what businesses send to us inna the computer, and we got a whole employment service of solid citizens for that," he said. "With the national identification coming, and prolly linked through credit cards, we're just on the up and up." Mentioning a frustration with the intricacies of deducting machine gun parts and backstreet whore abortions, he cited the pure legality of the enterprise as a positive factor: "We've got the law on our side now," he said, "so if you whisper about us, we fucking sue you. Simple and legal. Can't beat it."
While Sternovitch denies that mob profits from traditional outlets like gambling, protection services, drug running and child pornography are down, Federal Bureau of Investigation special detective Frank Rosales disagrees. "We're really putting the hurt on these guys," he said. "Last month, we intercepted a record twelve tons of marijuana, and we cleaned all the call girls from Central Park," he said, from the four thousand square foot, waterfront Victorian house in Connecticut he affords through "really watchin' my pennies and dimes."
Although the federal government is proud of these figures, Bill Cartwright at the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, disagrees. "Twelve tons? That's nothing," he said. "If it were legal to have here at the office, and it's not so we don't, we'd have at least that amount for staff meetings. They always get the crappy weed, too, all bricked-out with the crushed seeds that make bad smoke, like someone just left it out for them to get and call it a day," he said, munching Fritos as he maneuvered a digital car in a video game called "Grand Theft Auto III: Sodomy and Lust."
Kaganovitz laughs off such criticism. "First and foremost," he said, "I'm a businessman, and I act on opportunity. We've got no regulation, no accountability, and all we gotta do is answer the phone when some idjit calls about a social, then give 'em the stuff we have in our computers." He inhaled deeply from a Cuban cigar. "Piece of cake, really."
Books: Looking Busy and Getting Ahead by Lawrence Turnrist, New York Daily Book Review
Normally, I eschew the species of books that increasingly populates the mahogany at even the best uptown bookstores, the somnolent "self-help section." There is only so much one can tell those who cannot tell themselves, says Maya Angelou, and I'm inclined to agree with the greatest of African-American feminist poets on that one. The field of literature is diminshed already by those who insist on writing books about character and adventure long after such things are irrelevant; today, art is in the individual, and for me to like a book, it has to have a unique setting and direction, like Aleister Shabaz Otuku's "The Birds of Parody Avenue," an uplifting tale about Asian youth with African-American fathers learning to succeed in the competitive pencil design industry despite being addicted to MDMA, individualistic iconoclasts and delightfully bisexual. No self-help book will reach that height of ingenuity and uniqueness!
However, "Looking Busy and Getting Ahead" is, above all else, a practical self-help guide. There are millions, just millions, of self-help books about succeeding at work, and they all have the same advice, like make contacts, communicate, and take responsibility for your work. This book however takes a more practical approach, because we all know that these days, jobs are just wasting time until you can go out at night (don't miss "Ladies Night" at the Ecclectic Flamingo on Tuesdays, boys - "women" should just stay home!). Chapters are organized by what you'll actually be doing during the day, such as Chapter Seven, "Ways to Stay Awake," which goes beyond just counting paperclips and stealing office supplies; it has useful exercises you can do with common office objects, tips for building electroshock sequencers to keep you on your toes, and tips for masturbating under a desk without giving the wrong coworkers a free show. Not only that, but in Chapter Ten, there is a handy guide to making up a language of your own, using common words in business phone calls, to arrange meetings with associates and paramours.
In depth evasion gets big in Chapter Fourten, "Ten Thousand Things to Xerox," which tells you how to find meaningless documents that look important and require hours of photocopying, stapling and filing, with appropriate pauses between, of course. As an Appendix, there's a section on business laws, by state, regulating mandatory break time and phone rules. My favorite chapter was the second, which gets into the nitty-gritty of a filing system based on ancient Egyptian astrological signs, but there's good detail all around for today's busy modern employee.
What I like best is that none of the methods mentioned in this book will disrupt business in any way, because they take advantage of the lack of productivity expected from a modern faceless drudge in an office full of non-productive people; of course, they won't enhance business either, but they'll protect your most important asset: being inoffensive and following the rules, as that means, eventually, you'll get promoted, and need volume two, "Looking Proactive and Getting Ahead." It isn't what you normally expect from this column, but try something new, and give it a read.
