Congress Approves Military Budget for "Whatever the President Thinks is Fair"

sure sign of the times, Congress gave a blanket approval to any military budget requests from president Bush Friday.

In an effort to quickly pass a military budget to cover next year—and the exciting promise of future military operations—both the House and the Senate conceded that what was necessary for the defense of the United States and its aggressive acts overseas was surely better decided by the president than by countless Washington insiders just there to fatten their pockets.

"Now I'm a politician, not a militaritician," said Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois), "nor am I knowledgeable of what words mean. But the president is a well-informed man with infallible decision-making powers. That's all I need to know before I approve him for whatever he needs. Policeman and firefighters are the real heroes."

After months of arguing over details, according to one Washington insider, members of the House stopped the quibbling by loudly speaking out of turn and saying maybe they were just fighting with each other because of partisanship.

"Well, no one wanted to believe it was true," said Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NewYork), "but we thought it might be possible. That made all of us feel none too good, let me tell you."

It was at that point they agreed the president was better prepared to decide how billions of dollars would be spent on the military projects for the future. Only he had the close contact with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other military officials, and only he knew what was planned for U.S. military actions next year.

The Democrat-controlled Senate quickly followed suit, approving the measure in record time.

"Our fellow representatives in the House are on the right track," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota). "We can't expect the president to stop doing all the things he has to do to come down here and ask us for money. He's busy making plans, and these plans affect the lives of millions of Americans. And if he's going to send them into battle, we better make sure he has the state-of-the-art equipment and funding they need."

The Senate roared with approval, although one minor voice in the background, a suspected Democrat, was heard to say, "Are you fucking crazy?"

On Saturday Daschle met with President Bush in the oval office with a giant blank check for a photo opportunity as Congress handed the president his open budget for 2003.

"Now just fill in the amount for whatever you think is fair, Mr. Bush," Daschle said, shaking hands with the president. "Keep our boys fighting as long as you think it's necessary. Just don't go buying anything all nutty like a Star Wars defense system or something," said Daschle with a laugh.

"It's not nutty, it really works," Bush snapped, turning red. "It can destroy 9 out of 10 nuclear missiles aimed at us by Russia agents or attacks from outer space."

Daschle then refused to give the check to Bush, saying he had to examine the date and make sure it was correct. He promised the check would be returned to Mr. Bush at a later time.

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"GET UP!"
screamed the miter
(a miniature mote)
who'd grown up in the bottom
of the back of a boat.

"RISE!"
cried the tiny little segmented man
whose hat was bright purple,
but his body was tan.

"HUZZAH!"
he repeated, at the top of his lungs
the very tip top,
so loud it rattled his bung.

"GOOD MORNING!"
he shouted.

"MOOD GORNING!"
he out-snouted
through the reverberant caverns of his nose
as he screamed and he scramped
and he ripped off his clothes.

"BRRRRRANT!"
on his bugle he bugled the note.
Then he honked out a ditty
that he'd recently wrote.

Into his mega he phoned
and he bellowed and moaned
as he screeched and he warbled
like a boy band on fire
and he pierced the sky with high notes
like a castrated choir.

He jumped and he leaped
as he stomped and he beeped,
making such a racket as to wake up the dead
who would wake with a ring and a buzz in their heads.

But even when threw a drum kit down the stairs
and gave untuned tubas to the back-country bears
and told the hyenas a side-splitting joke
and he banged on his gong till his gong-banger broke,
on his chalk board he screeched a quarry's worth of chalk
and he gave the loud-talkers a license to talk
and he shoved a canoe through a tight leather shoe
and he told teenage girls they were bathing in poo
and he amplified a donkey to the power of six
and he beat the complainer at a game of pick-up sticks,
he alarmed an alarm
and he pantsed a school marm
and he dropped twelve ball bearings on an aluminum barn
and he crept into the pope's bedroom and he screamed "DARN!"

still

Roofer McGoofer McGoo
slept
and he slept.


Goddamn dog.

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Life is funny sometimes.

I was out prowling around and whatnot the other day when I ducked into a store in the mall that had this huge life-size statue of Xena in the window. Now, Omar Bricks isn't a huge Xena fan or anything pathetic like that, but he knows a key piece of interior decorating décor for the Bricks Manor when he sees it.

I was hoisting the Xena statue onto my back when the pre-pubescent store manager asked me if I needed help with anything, like he was going to crap out a disc helping me carry this thing out to my bike. I asked him if he had could get me a dickfour, which I figured would keep him busy for a while. But he was unphased, this cat was all business. We shot the shit for a while, and I was disappointed to find out that this backwoods store doesn't accept SuperAmerica calling cards as a form of payment. No shit! In America no less. It was probably for the best though, since $10,000 for the statue probably would have gone over the minutes I had remaining on my card. I'm not sure, but there's a pretty good chance. Thus began a fruitless bartering session that went nowhere but gave us both a good excuse to yell in public.

I sent the dude to go check with his regional manager to make sure they didn't need a used Nordic Track for the store, and while I was waiting, some salivating dweeb trapped me into a conversation like a sparrow caught in flypaper. He had his retainer all in a twist about some computer program that had just given the King Geek chess guy a wedgie or whatever. Something about chess, anyway. I said I knew what he was talking about, just because the reflection of my face in his glasses was starting to wig me out and also I wanted him to stop talking.

Now Omar Bricks knows a thing or two about chess. For one, there's a dude that looks like a horse, but he's not called a horse. Don't ask me why. I think it's stupid too, but I didn't make up the game. And the other thing is, don't try to mix and match checkers pieces while you're playing, because nothing pisses off chess geeks more than bringing up the subject of checkers.

Since the manager still hadn't come back yet, I was stuck in a socially awkward situation that only wholly unexpected display of breakdancing ability would get me out of smoothly, and I wasn't wearing the right kind of pants for that. So I was trapped like a gimp as the chess guy showed me over to a computer where there was a herd of nerds crowding around, all taking their shot at beating this Deep Fritz genius chess program that had so recently bookslammed the Grand Dragon of the socially stunted chess world. Of course, they were all getting smoked like cloves at a junior high school party and giving each other wet willies for losing and all kinds of retarded shit I don't even want to go into.

Since I was kind of stuck there anyway, I decided to make it interesting and I announced that Omar Bricks had come to kick Deep Fritz in his chess-loving taint, once and for all. The dorks were dubious, but when I stated flatly that Omar Bricks had never lost a game, they were impressed. Or non-responsive, whatever. But technically it was a true statement, thanks to the patented Bricks end move where you "Ah, shit!" accidentally flip the board over with your knee when defeat starts to look imminent. It works in pretty much any kind of board game, though if you're going to pull that during a game of Scrabble, you might want to duck out the door while everyone is confused because that's one mess you don't want to help clean up.

So in the end I knew I had that ace up my sleeve, and I doubted the computer had anything like that to fall back on. Generally computers don't have sleeves to hide things in at all. That would require computers wearing dress shirts and nobody not recently off crack wants that, since at any time you could turn around and find big bird-headed lamps pecking at you and scary pants come dancing out of the closet and then you realize you're in some kind of Herbie Hancock video nightmare and oh shit.

The match started well, with me moving some horses and the computer moving some big dick-shaped things around for a while. I think my concentration may have lapsed because I was wondering if this computer had that naked golf game on it when one of the nerds yelled in my ear "Omart! He's got you in check!"

Now I don't claim to speak chess, but I figured this was probably bad. One of the other geeks pointed out the computer's little castle and how it was lined up to put the smackdown on my bedpost. Shit. NOW they tell me you can move the castle. What the hell kind of unrealistic game is this? No matter, either way I had to move fast. I told the dorks not to worry. Then, when the computer was about to put the "Castle of Death" whammy on me, I jumped up like I had just seen an underdressed high school girl out in the food court and in the process banged my shin like a motherfucker on the computer table. That sent the whole thing down like a pup tent on a Special Ed camping trip, no lie. The effect was basically what I had been after, though with more shin banging than I cared for.

Of course, that's just when the manager shows back up, when there's broken crap everywhere and I'm hopping around, holding my shin and cursing out Bill Gates. The nerds were long gone, off checking the food court for cleavage. The manager kid was going on and on about the broken computer and this and that, and I thought I was going to have to windmill my way out of there after all, but he changed his tune after I threatened to sue the whole mall over their defective computer tables. For a second I thought I might be riding home with that Xena statue strapped to my back thanks to my lawsuit ruse, but finally I had to settle for this little pewter statue of some kind of fat gremlin thing.

Tell you the truth, I don't even know what the hell it's supposed to be. But it sure makes a badass hood ornament for my bike.

Bricks out.

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