embers of the red-hot "Minutemen Project" petitioned Congress for government funding to support their patrols of the borders of planet earth itself, fearing more illegal alien immigration, the small and green kind. The Minutemen darlings wrapped up their recent month-long patrol of Mexican-U.S. borders, and are hoping to extend their project and, in the future, even help safeguard the inter-galactic borders from unauthorized intrusion.

"If Martians, Venusians, Neptunians or whatever want to get into this planet, and by extension into this country, they can go about it the proper way," said Minutemen project founder Jim Gilchrist, speaking to Congress on behalf of his organization. "But there are laws in place to keep out those we don't want on this planet, at least in this country there are. We reserve the right to kick them out on their asses, wherever those asses might be located."

Angry populist shouting ensued in the wake of the claim, or more like the dull kind of irritated murmur you might here at a dance club when you're commandeering the floor and making all them skanks look amateur.

The Minutemen called their first patrol effort a huge success, a month-long venture in which vigilante volunteers watched for illegal crossings and reported them to the border patrols, never once taking the law into their own hands, we're assured, and hope it's all the proof Congress needs that ordinary citizens can deal with the problem of illegal immigration, without unnecessarily involving trained officials and people who are actually employed to deal with the matter.

"Illegal immigration is the number one country facing this problem today," said Rusty Hemlawn, exaggerating quite a bit. "If the government is too bloated and slowed down by legalities to handle the problem, then it's up to us normal armed citizens to do it ourselves."

Hemlawn and company make a good point, though, that if you are a middle-class, gun-toting white citizen who doesn't have family that's been ravaged by the economy or affected at all by military extensions overseas, illegal immigration by non-white people into your mostly-white country is certainly the biggest problem concerning you.

But, people who are semi-intelligent wonder, how much of a problem is illegal immigration by non-earth entities? The answer might surprise you, if you ask some of the redneck members of the Minutemen themselves.

"I's been sitting here for all my shifts all month," said Judd Bumper-Scruggs, a 42-year-old Minutemen volunteer and recent high school dropout. "I ain't seen but one or two Mexicans nosin' 'round the border, but I seen a mess o' them flyin' contraptions. We got a big problem with alien invasion, and I'ma be the first to warn you."

The Minutemen, not usually the reactionary type, were quick to report their findings to all the scientific bodies of the world, except for the unlucky fact they didn't know of any of them. So the group wrote to its Congressmen, and were invited by famous Senatorial inflammation Zell Miller to bring their cause to the legislators.

Gilchrist, speaking to Congress: "What happens when hard-working white—I mean, Americans, heh, of any color, of course—good Americans start losing their jobs to these green illegal immigrants? They control the laws of space and time, so of course they can afford to work for a lot less than an American doing the same job. They come here, all crammed in their flying saucers, looking to take work out of our mouths. I think we have a right to be protected from that."

Organizers of the Minutemen project claim their sweethearts are already guarding the skies with the use of high-powered telescopes (look in the small end, folks) and the occasional homemade heleocopter, but government funding would facilitate their private police force, as well as legitimize the group of angry crackers.

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"It's cold enough to make ice cubes in my ears, especially if you like ice cubes that double as candles."

Someone once said, "People will buy anything." He probably didn't think I heard him, he said it kind of under his breath after I finished purchasing a moped with no wheels from him, but whether he wanted me to hear or not, he was right. As the incident with my "noped" proves. It was as true in his time as it is in mine.

You got to give him credit, though, that guy was a good salesman, as well as a good philo softener. He could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo, I bet, like the saying goes. But that makes sense, I guess. Even if they live in the cold weather it's probably pretty warm in the igloo, otherwise they would freeze do death. Even if it isn't, you've got to put your frozen hamburger somewhere, right? You don't want to just leave it lying around or put it in your underwear drawer. Like the health department guy told me, that's not sanitary.

I do wonder why people would live at the North Pole at all, or any of those Eskimo places. You got to imagine they're the ones who started all these rumors about Santa Claus. 'Cause let's face it, they lose Santa Claus, there's no reason for anybody to go see the North Pole. Just to say they went, I guess, but that means your tourist dollars are coming entirely from pricks. That would suck. Busloads of pricks coming into your frozen tundra every year, getting off wearing their big J. Crew winter parkas, looking around and saying, "Well, this is overrated." No wonder there's so much suicide in cold climates.

Not that I know much about Eskimos. I love the pie they make, but other than that I'm completely in the dark. Their asses and balls are cold, if what people say is true. Just like the well-diggers. I wonder if Eskimos ever thought about traveling south, where they could all get jobs as well-diggers. People are probably tired of the well-diggers complaining about how cold their asses and balls are, but the Eskimo just rolls in like, "Ha! This is cold? You sissy." Then they dig wells. They could make a killing. But really, I don't know how much money there is well-digging now that we can bottle water. All those Eskimos moving to New England for nothing, that would suck.

If someone can sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo, I don't know if that makes them a terrific salesman, really. I don't know nothing about Eskimos. For a long time when people said that, "He could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo," I thought they were just saying Eskimos were crazy people. Living inside ice houses, buying refrigerators, eating whale ass. These fuckers were probably buying all sorts of shit they didn't need. Subscriptions to People, electric hat rack, radioactive butter. They were just crazy, but crazy in a cool way, like wild and can't be restrained.

Hence the phrase, "He fights like an Eskimo!" Which never caught on, no matter how I tried to drop it everywhere. Better luck next time.

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These days, it seems like you can't rifle through a newspaper looking for the comics or pretend to read a magazine on the subway while staring down a young lady's blouse without hearing something about the latest business scandal. If somebody isn't having a rubber-gloved finger probed up their asshole for shredding confidential documents, then they're facing the Spanish Inquisition for making a personal fortune by overvaluing their company's stock at the expense of the bottom line. And through it all, I've only got one question on my mind: since when did the entire business world turn into a bunch of crybabies?

Back in my day, you didn't hear people pissing and moaning about insider information or cooking the books and it's not fair, boo-hoo. Back then we only had one rule in business: no kicking in the nuts. And that one was sometimes optional.

Those were the glory days of bold men doing what it took to get head, not bald men doing what it took to get ahead. We had priorities, and big cars. Anybody who wanted to ask too many questions didn't get to ride in the big cars, they could schlep it back to the Hilton in their miserable little Yugos if they wanted to play around with any of that Woodward and Bernstein bullshit.

Heady times, indeed. And the corporate takeovers were the best of the best. I remember I was working for Schleinhauser Nut & Bolt Co. when they bought out Winslow Fasteners. Good god was that sweet! The spoils! We took many of their top executives as man-slaves and the most comely of their female execs and secretaries as our concubines. And I don't recall anyone complaining then, except of course for the man-slaves and concubines.

Forget about trying to live that large these days, you'd be lucky to pull off a subsidized loan to buy company stock in the current "goody two-shoes" national climate. The law of the land used to be that if you didn't have balls big enough to hang with the big boys, then you could cart your shriveled little nuggets on over to the unemployment line, bub. Get in line behind all of the other suckers who take a court order not to shred documents seriously. Hell, in my day I shredded stacks of court orders not to shred documents, that's just the way things worked. It was always better not to leave a paper trail, especially not concerning the sticky finer points of business like profits and expenses and other such voodoo.

Back then people understood that it was all about survival of the fittest, meaning the most cunning and feared, not to mention flinty. These days, people wouldn't know flint if it started their ass on fire in a movie theater. Nowadays it's survival of the least offensive, and may the bland guy win. At least it will be until some real slick bastard comes along and reminds us what it's all about, like some kind of big business Jesus Christ. I personally can't wait; this infantile obsession with "fair play" is really starting to chap my ass.

Jesus, did anyone see the tits on that girl waiting in line over there? I mean, she could lose a few pounds around the middle before she'd be a bona-fide knockout, but still, good lord! A man could get lost in that cleavage. And I hope it's me. I wonder how she feels about 50 year-old married men? Maybe she's got some kind of corporate take-over fantasy rolling around in that pretty little cock-teasing head of hers.

I think I'm going to ask her to join my staff.

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