irginia Tech officials revealed Monday that last week’s on-campus massacre, which resulted in 33 deaths and countless injuries, may have been related to a cultural exchange the university was participating in with the Iraqi city of Baghdad.

“We thought it might be enlightening for students to experience a day in the life of an average Iraqi,� explained University President Charles W. Steger. “To feel the effects of U.S. foreign policy firsthand. But let me be very clear when I explain that we had no idea the exchange would be so literal. And none of us can even begin to understand how this was possible. That old gypsy woman was very vague about the details.�

The particulars of the exchange are sketchy, but field reports indicate that Baghdad residents spent Monday attending beer-bong blowouts and date raping drunken sorority girls to the sounds of Dave Matthews Band. Va. Tech students arguably got the shittier end of the deal, spending the day coping with the kinds of heartbreaking carnage and mayhem normally reserved for everyone living in Iraq.

“Bah,� dismissed Iraqi horse gelder Jassim al-Ogedi. “Thirty-three dead? That is a good day in Baghdad. After the Americans opened the Pandora’s Box of pure, unfiltered living hell in Iraq, we thank Allah for every day that the death toll stays in the double digits.�

Iraqi insurgents were also displeased with the exchange and the resultant American media frenzy, which they could never hope to inspire even by killing every man, woman and child in the entire nation of Iraq.

“Hey! Assholes! We just blew up a children’s hospital! What do you guys need, a videotaped manifesto?� griped an insurgent whose given name translates as “Abdul with the Yellow Dog,� we think. “Christ! We kill more people than that by lunchtime, and where are we? Page seven? Four years of this shit and we still have fewer inches of newsprint than Don Imus. Fuck you guys.�

In response, Iraqi insurgents have set to work on a menacing, 30-story-tall killbot, which runs on the blood of the innocent, shoots dazzling fireworks, plays MP3s and comes preloaded with Madonna’s latest album. So far this development has only been reported in the U.S. magazine Popular Mechanics.

Few can offer non-humorous theories as to how the Va. Tech shooter fits into the U.S./Iraqi cultural exchange, however. The gunman, whom the commune refuses to name out of a desire not to make the cockknocker any more undeservedly famous than he already is, plus he’s got some bullshit ching chong name so we could just make something up and you’d never know any different, was not known to have any gypsy ties or to have been politically aware beyond what he had seen on South Park.

Some have gone so far as to argue that the shootings were a coincidence, based on the fact that no one has been able to connect the massacre specifically to the ineptitude of the Bush administration. Time, however, may return a different verdict.

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Imagine my disappointment to be on the road, without access to my column, when all the news about SARS was thick in the air. There's nothing worse for a conspiracy theorist than to be stuck in the middle of nowhere without a soapbox when a new disease breaks out.

A lot of people were talking about the WHERE with SARS: Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada. But no one bothered asking WHY—well, obviously I did, but it didn't do me very much good in the Motel 6 off Hwy 29. The cleaning lady only spoke Russian, or was having a religious experience, either is a plausible answer.

Yes, Americans—always ask why? Why SARS? Why China? Why? Because we like you.

A lot of you will probably say that a new strain of flu is not surprising. You say continual adaptations in flu viruses happens all the time. You say in a country of however many-billion people the spread of a new strain of flu is reasonable to occur in such conditions. Well, quit saying that. You're stomping all over my reasoning.

The truth is, SARS is no accident, and it's no naturally-occurring flu. SARS is, frankly, a big fuck you to the Chinese, courtesy of the U.S. All courtesy of President Bush. No, not the second Iraq war Bush, the first one, the one who was elected.

President "Wimp" Bush, former head of the CIA, America's crippling virus factory. Give him credit for thinking of the future—when Clinton was busy planning a strategy for the 1992 election, Bush had already put the Gulf War behind him and was aiming for the 1997 return of Hong Kong to China. Nothing burns a presidential ass more than having to give up territory that rightfully belongs to them, so Bush wanted to make sure China got both barrels of Hong Kong when they got it. That's when they developed SARS in the CIA labs.

As military men know, SARS is code for "Served the Asshole Right, Sarge"—lingo for when a guy tries to sneak away from battle and steps on a landmine, or any sort of similar scenario when you can say the same phrase. Bush himself picked the name for the virus, that's how hands-on he was.

Things got bungled up when Clinton got into office, however, since he was always too busy scouting poontang to worry about all the little time-relevant traps the previous Bush had set up. Bush had even set up a plan to turn Bosnia into the world's biggest Wal-Mart, but Clinton spilled some Big Mac sauce on it and forever ruined the project.

So while Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-Fat were all getting the hell out of dodge in time for the "big Chinese handover," as I just phrased it, the SARS plan was lapsing dramatically. All the chemical agents were in place, they just hadn't been activated by magic button. Bush planned to have his predecessor in place to set off the disease, but hadn't planned on becoming immensely unpopular.

Then, late last year, with his alleged son in the White House, old Bush takes a break out from dog track betting to call up his boy and asks him to push the big green button under the desk—explaining any of the details would have confused the pseudo-president, as all of his aids have come to realize. But the junior Bush made the button go push-push and—bazoom!—China's got the fever for the flavor of surgical masks.

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The tree hopped down from the hill
and he dashed through the field.
The sun had been peeled
and the clouds were as plump
as a Chinaman's rump.

A squirrel was asleep on a branch,
he awoke with a blanch
and he turned a stark white
when the fright
leapt up from his toes like a flash.

A duck somersaulted through the grass,
he was stoned off his ass
on crackers.
No, no, quackers!
The duck thought this funny as he saulted.

So he missed it when the tree ran by,
though a fly
saw it twelve dozen times
because that's the kind of eyes
God gave him, we surmise
he got bored after five.

When Luchas, who was chewing on a fig
he had pulled from his wig,
saw the tree he cashed it in.
In the seat of his pants,
where a platoon of ants
quickly voted to find a new place to live.

Sanchel thought the thing was a dream,
so she couldn't help but scream
when she saw the tree had ice cream.

"A looper! A looper on the loose!"
cried a tri-colored goose
when he saw the tree streak nakedly by.

"Ah-ah?" said poor Renal from the South
as ham fell from his mouth.
When the tree stepped on right-foot blue
he forgot how to chew,
his Twister picnic interrupted.

The scientist was taken aback
while on her date with Lumber Jack.
"This cannot be! I must investigate!"

But she for one ran too slow and too late,
for Jack jumped up in a haste
and with axe in had, he took up chase.

This parade was quite the sight to see.
A dozen lit out for the tree,
sure that magical lands awaited.

But when the tree dove trunk-first in the river,
the group gave up with a toe-dip and a shiver,
their curiosity abated.

After all, let's not get carried away here.

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