t took congressional involvement to break the dyke, but baseball commissioner Bud “Charisma� Selig finally admitted to reporters this week that Major League Baseball has a serious problem with Gatorade. The performance-enhancing beverage, known in baseball circles as “The Juice,� has been giving modern ballplayers an unfair advantage over their historical counterparts for years, due to its advanced electrolyte-replacing technology and deliciously thirst-quenching lemon-lime flavor.

“Who knows how many home runs Babe Ruth could have hit if he wasn’t thirsty all the time?� questioned baseball historian and still living at home middle-aged guy Roger Bankercruff. “The number would have been astronomical. With all the hot dogs that guy ate, plus the fact that he never, ever drank anything but highly-dehydrating beer, even during games or when brushing his teeth, the evidence points to Ruth leaning heavily on death’s door for most of his playing career. Which makes the man’s accomplishments obviously all the more impressive. If he hadn’t been near-fatally dehydrated, not to mention completely bereft of vital electrolytes, for the whole of his adult life, we’d be talking about the one time he didn’t hit a home run, and how Barry Bonds isn’t fit to sniff the Babe’s grotesquely stained tidy whiteys.�

Pressed for an imaginary number of home runs Babe Ruth would have hit if we could go back in time with a case of Gatorade and convince the Babe that it was futuristic green beer, Bankercruff struggled with a calculator and his counting fingers for several minutes before deciding “10,000 home runs is not an unreasonable estimate,� had Ruth been hopped up on Gatorade during his playing days. Such a total would leave Bonds roughly 9,300 short in his quest to become baseball’s all-time home run leader, a number the Giants slugger may not reach without further developments in human growth hormone, Teflon knees, or Bonds’ head being re-attached to some kind of mechanical hitting machine.

Active home run leader Bonds, as well as notorious Michelin men Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Jason Giambi, have all come under fire in recent months for their performance and inhumanly well-hydrated appearances. A recent congressional hearing saw fan favorite McGwire dodge the issue of his Gatorade use like a ninja frog, virtually confirming fan suspicions that Big Mac had been “hydrating� for years. McGwire’s suspiciously non-parched speaking voice did nothing to dispel these concerns, in spite of the slugger’s claims that he had only used questionable but unbanned beverages such as Red Bull and Diet Rock Star. Baseball stars Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa and Curt Schilling conspicuously drank large quantities of water during the hearings, drawing attention to their obvious lack of artificial hydration.

In response, Major League Baseball has instituted a new Gatorade testing policy and tougher new rules, including a ten-minute talking-to for fifth-time offenders. Critics, however, have been calling the penalties too lenient and point to the new pink passionfruit Gatorade flavor that is rumored to be undetectable during drug screenings, and the use of other beverages such as Mountain Dew as a masking agent.

So far, the only player punished for Gatorade use has been Tampa Bay salary moocher Alex Sanchez, who was singled out after league officials noticed the green sweat on his jersey, which Sanchez blamed on his intense diet regiment of wheat grass and lime Play-Doh.

Other suspected hydrators have offered up similarly lame excuses, including Gary Sheffield of the Yankees, who admitted to performance-enhancing beverage use during an interview earlier this year. Sheffield explained that he had used Red Bull accidentally after it was given to him by Barry Bonds’ trainer, who told him it was baby aspirin.

“It didn’t help me, though,� explained Sheffield. “I mean, it made my headache go away, but I couldn’t hit a fastball any better. And I was up for two days scrubbing the grout in my bathroom. That shit was nasty dirty.�

Red Bull and Jolt Cola are both currently legal under Major League Baseball’s rules, but have been banned by the Olympics for years due to their hyperactive benefits, starting when 230-pound pipe-fitter Mark Tungley of Ohio won the Tour De France accidentally in 1998.

“Iwasjustonvacation, outforabikeridetoblowoffsomesteam,� explained Tungley, speaking at a high rate of speed and sweating like a beer glass in spite of the cool weather. “Jesus,thisRedBull stufftasteslikecandy, Ican’tdrinkenough. Yourememberthose sweettartscandies? Thisislikedrinkingsweettarts, exceptwithout allthechewing. It’sawesome.�

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Like many children, I was once a young boy. And as a lad, before I could even speak the language, I held a precious dream in my heart like a butterfly. A butterfly that wiggled and squirmed and eventually burst from my chest like an alien, but this one left behind no gaping bloody hole, at least none that was visible. For like many children, I had dreams of one day growing up and capturing a mythical beast to prove it existed.

My father would tell me, "Set more realistic goals for yourself, Mr. Bagel." Although now that I think about it, that doesn't sound like something my father would say at all, and there is the distinct trace of an accent when I hear it my mind, so it may have been a butler I had or an English tourist. But someone said it, and I would grow disheartened, before I remembered that only I could let the butterfly rip through my chest and leave myself bleeding to death on the floor.

During my teen-age years, my "Reckless Red" days, I let go of that dream and sunk into the hopeless despair only fit for songs by The Smiths. It's in the nature of a teen-ager to turn cynical, like the very butterfly I earlier metaphored sprouting its wings as part of its growth. However, I tricked fate, and as I got older I grew far more immature than even I could have imagined. I resumed my dreams, and it was like I had never stopped believing I could lasso the Loch Ness Monster or trap Bigfoot in a box with a carrot as bait. Of course, doing either one of those would have been silly. But last year, while the commune took that long sabbatical I didn't really know about, I took to New Orleans to pursue my dream. And the world's biggest butterfly.

I speak of none other than the Baton Rouge Butterfly, one of the most famous local legends of all time. Though no one in New Orleans or Baton Rouge had ever heard of it, so don't bother asking any of them. This local legend about Louisiana is only famous in part of New Jersey and, I understand, some areas in Europe. I uncovered a book on it at a yard sale, only partially colored by the previous owner, that sparked my childhood interest in the legend and I assembled my mythic creature-hunting team of old with renewed vigor.

Loading my equipment into my customized Hummer XXL, a vehicle unfit for travel on earth roads, I traveled south to that beloved region with my loyal manservant Rascal and my faithful friend of many years, Sully. It seems like only yesterday the news just wouldn't shut up about Hurricane Katrina, yet when we reached these battered shores the whole region appeared to be in the midst of wonderful reconstruction. I'm sure the several buildings my Hummer XXL knocked over or crushed were helpful losses to paving over the city of old, they didn't look very new at all. We researched the existence of the Baton Rouge Butterfly in New Orleans, since I was much more familiar with that city and its many fine houses for gentleman tourists, but I have to admit we knew a lot more about the legend than any of them did. They mocked our faith in the unproven and a few of them made fun of my fine white suit. But were we dissuaded? Sully was, and he napped in the passenger seat for most of the trip. I was not, and nor was Rascal,as I pay him handsomely.

We surveyed the entire city of Baton Rouge and its surrounding areas, the world's largest moth net in tow. Did we find the creature of my youthful dreams? No. Did we discover even minimal proof of its existence? That's difficult to say, but everybody says no. Let's change that question however: Did we chase a dream and discover something even bigger than ourselves in the process? No. However, I think I can dare to say we displayed uncommon faith in the unseen and changed the hearts of the people of Louisiana, even helping the rebirth of the cities damaged by the hurricane. They would also say this is a big negative, too, but they can shut-up and stop pissing on my dreams.

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While your average American gives no thought to the complicated world of politics, concerned more with trivialities such as "Will my job survive the year?" and "How can I afford to keep my family medically insured?" the think-tankers in the upper echelons of the U.S. government are asking only one question: "Is Saddam Hussein alive, and if so, where is he?" Yes, if you check, that's technically only one question, hence the single question mark.

The short answer is: No. But wait! Before you think I've become boring in my old age, I haven't cracked your brain with the baseball bat of conspiracy yet, and I assure you there is more to the Saddam Hussein story than you've considered before. And always more than they're telling you.

The reason Saddam Hussein is no longer alive is that he was never alive. Saddam Hussein, was, is, and always has been nothing more than a computer program. Surprised? Good, I say. You don't think I hold off on telling you all this shit simply because it slipped my mind, do you? I get my jollies watching your jaw drop, friend.

Has anyone ever seen the movie Virtuosity? Of course not. Some would chalk this up to the film being predictable and fairly empty of any real enjoyment, but I say this underestimates the part played by the American government to make the movie go unseen. The film is a roundabout way to propose that many of our society's villains are nothing more than distracting computer creations, and it took a lot of government operatives countless hours to make the film so utterly forgettable as to slip through the box office cracks unnoticed. But there was good reason for all the time spent doing so.

If we open ourselves up to the possibility that one villain is really just a souped-up Atari made to look like Russell Crowe doing a decent American accent, where do we stop questioning everything? Consider this: Have you ever been in a room with Saddam Hussein, the actual man? I didn't think so. That should make it abundantly doubtful a real Saddam Hussein even exists.

Everyone knows Iraq was only targeted by the military for one reason, and that's oil; this is only up for debate by people who enjoy deceiving themselves about everything, such as the government has only altruistic motives, or J.A.G. is a really good show. In fact, whenever you hear a government official say they want to bring democracy to another country, it should automatically translate as they have natural resources vital to our economy and are holding out. Hence we decided to bring democracy to Iraq, in exchange for barrel upon barrel of yummy oil.

Of course, Iraq was a foreign culture and has virtually no strategic value, following that we have no enemy after the Soviet Union dismantled and had no strategy against no enemy. The original leaders of Iraq, looking pretty dopey and smiling all the time like they just squeezed out a silent fart, weren't much motivation for the American people to go to war. So the U.S. war machine created the Saddam Hussein computer program, based an old Abbot & Costello routine beloved by Sec. Jim Bakker. "Who's in charge of Egypt?" "Hussein." "I'm sayin', I want to know." Love that one.

But if you build a computer program too good, as any hack movie producer knows, it can develop its own intelligence and decide to take things over. Which is exactly what happened when we installed the Saddam Hussein program on Iraqi Amigas. Pretty soon we did have a Saddam Hussein threat to overthrow—our own. He even generated independently more pictures of George Bush's Uncle Herb in full Iraqi military guard and had him doing ridiculous Herb-like things, such as waving a shotgun around or reading threatening messages to the U.S. government in great big glasses from his underground bunker.

Keep in mind, I still think the Saddam Hussein program is a threat, and if one mainframe carrying the program survived the Baghdad bombing, the danger remains. But all of this could have been dealt with much quicker and efficiently by planting a virus in the Iraqi intranet, or installing Windows 2000 on one of the network computers.

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