King George's Holiday Reading List

1. Fun with Dick and Karl.
2. Curious George in Iraq
3. I Saw It All on Downing Street
4. Where the Wild Terrorists Are
5. Scott McClellan and His Steam Shovel
6. The White House has Pooh in the Corner
7. One State Two State Red State Blue State
8. Green Eggs and Pork
9. My Senator and Me: A Dogs-Eye View of Washington D.C.

Saddam Claims “Bad Touching”

Before his trial adjourned until January 24, Saddam Hussein charged that his American captors "were mean to me." The former dictator said that the Americans had taunted and touched him in “unnatural” ways.

When asked how he had been taunted, Hussein responded that the Americans would not tell him where Mecca was. “Every time I asked them where Mecca was, they would point in a different direction,” he said. “Five times a day I would ask them so I could face the Holy city while I prayed, and five times a day they would point in a different direction.”

The judge then gave Hussein a doll and instructed him to show the court where the Americans had touched him. Hussein repeatedly pointed to an area labeled, 'No Fly Zone.'

“They touched me here, here and one time here,” he said.

When asked if it was good touching or bad touching, Hussein said, “It was bad touching.”

The Bush administration denied any mistreatment of Hussein, but they did concede that Bush is a little touched himself.

A Recipe for the N.S.A.

It seems those chaps at the N.S.A. have been up to it again. They’ve been monitoring international e-mails, and while I’m no security risk, I’m afraid my security has been breached!

You see, I have been corresponding internationally. I recently discovered that I have some kind of a distant relative who was a Master Chef in Nigeria. Apparently he left behind a jolly good recipe for yellow cake. It just so happens that a solicitor living in Nigeria was able to get a hold of my e-mail address and he contacted me post haste. He informed me that on passing, Chef Ebenezer Montgomery Tripp left explicit instructions with him to bequeath this old Tripp family recipe to me! I didn’t even know I had a relative who was a Chef, let alone a Nigerian!

The only thing was that he needed money to facilitate the exchange of this transaction. And while I hesitated at first, after a series of e-mails, the solicitor, whose initials were D.C., convinced me to wire him the money to expedite the transaction. He assured me that a certain family of bakers in Iraq would offer me three times what I was paying him.

That was three weeks ago and I still haven’t received the documentation. Has the N.S.A. intercepted it? What if they get this recipe and give it away before I have a chance to sell it? What if they intercept it and forward me a forged recipe? A lot of people say that could never happen, but you’d be surprised. What if they leave the cake out in the rain? I may never have that recipe again!

Patriot Act Extension is Doubleplus Good

Good news, brothers and sisters! We have won a glorious battle on the western front! Triumphs mount in Euroasia as the Iraqi people continue to embrace the occupation of their country by our forces! The inevitable victory is close at hand! War is peace! Freedom is slavery! Ignorance is strength!

The Republican leaderships of the House and Senate have reached a compromise on the doubleplus good renewal of the Patriot Act. Our glorious leader will sign the four year extension into law before Christmas!

Soon the terrorists will be on the run! They will have no place to hide in our cities. They will not be borrowing books from our libraries. They will not be making calls on our phones. They will not be looking at pornography on our internet. Praise to our leader! All Praise!

[Editor's note---The Lincoln Group contributed to this post.]

In the Fatherland

“It's a delight to be back in Berlin…de challenges dat ve face in de new var…are …challenges dat challenge us to make certain dat ve are doing all dat ve can to protect our populations from de dreats of dose who vould vantonly kill innocents…Ve vill do everydink dat ve can to cooperate mit likeminded intelligence services because ve need to remember dat dis is essentially a var in vhich intelligence is absolutely key to success…

“It is also important…dat any debate have a healdy respect for de challenge dat ve face vhen ve face an enemy dat operates from mitin our societies…

“De United States does not condone torture…Ve act…mitin our own U.S. laws.”

Ve have vays of making you believe us.