he entire Middle East got a warm fuzzy this week when leaders of Iran and Syria, two of the many points on President Bush's "Pinwheel of Evil," announced to everyone they were "best friends." Any attempt to attack one, the united leaders warned, would mean an attack on the other.

The announcement came shortly before a promise by Israel to "kick ass and take names" in Syria if the bombing of a Tel Aviv nightclub on Saturday could be traced back to the country. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon held a finger purposefully in the air for a moment, with the pledge that, "Seriously, we are no longer fucking around with you guys."

On Saturday morning, however, before the news of the night club bombing (Great White have so far not been implicated), Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari and Iranian President Mohammad "Oh, Mammy" Khatami stood together, arms around each other's shoulders, and announced to a crowd their nations were "best friends."

"Make no mistake: We love these fuckers," said Khatami, shaking buddy al-Otari quite forcefully. "Anyone raises their hand to strike my brother, it will quite honestly be the opening of a great can of whup-ass. I cannot wait to pound on the infidel who would come between myself and my bro Huge Naj. Or, for that matter, between any member of our country and theirs. The same goes true for us all, on both sides of the border."

"That's right," affirmed al-Otari. "No one puts a hurting on this bitch but me." The two party leaders then engaged in playful shoving on the platform, as the crowd of Syrian and Iranian nationals cheered them on and blew raspberries.

The thinly-veiled threat of retaliation against any country who strikes one or the other worried some analysts, who had been much more at ease with the notions of larger, more well-armed nations batting around the individual nations of Syria or Iran like flies. Together, the two pose a slightly greater threat, like batting around a flying pig or some airborne equivalent, but others reason that it remains to be seen whether the proclamation of friendship is so much talk.

Pentagon Defense Strategist Michael Compt elaborated for the commune.

"As an historian on the alliances of rogue nations," said Compt, "I can only wonder: What the hell were the voters on American Idol thinking when they kicked off Jennifer Hudson? However, this has nothing to do with my field of expertise. So I instead illustrate with historical examples how claims of unified fronts between countries have seldom stood up to real tests. One that comes to mind quickly, was the 'friendship to beat all' Cambodia had with Vietnam. True, both countries ended up going to war with the United States, but only after Cambodia loudly declared Vietnam has misrepresented its intentions."

For other examples, Compt also cited the "private club" effect when Germany, Italy, and Japan formed their original Axis powers, only to have the alliance fall apart quickly when the group eventually broke up over creative differences. Other noteworthy failed enterprises included when the Soviet Union declared China its "soul mate," only to have the two break up years later, when the Soviets accused the Chinese of being incapable of love.

"It's one thing if a country says it has your back in a fight when things are all Jim Dandy," said Compt, doing a little two-step with his feet to punctuate his point, "but really stick with each other through thick and thin, that's a hard thing to find. It's not the same thing as when two countries are really meant to be together, like East and West Germany. Sure, they have the occasional fight—but what they got, that's true nationalism."

olice announced Friday that they had apprehended a suspect in the murders of up to 10 killings, the notorious BTK killer, as DNA evidence may prove. The alleged BTK killer made no confirmation of his accusations, but did call national news media “fuck ups� who couldn’t even “get a simple three-letter name right.�

The suspect, Dennis Rader, blasted newspapers and television media for screwing up the killer’s chosen name since the earliest days of the first BTK victim. Between 1974 and 1986, or possibly even as late as 1991, the BTK killer (BTK standing for “bind, torture and kill�) compiled 8 victims, with two more potential victims being examined by police, and went through at least 6 public name changes as the media attempted to pigeon-hole the serial murderer.

Upon the death of the first four victims, an entire family, early pioneering journalists attempted to name the perpetrator “the Family-Size Killer.� When the next victim was discovered, three months later, the media hoped they had a serial killer on their hands, and dubbed him, “The Wichita Stabbing Strangler.� City officials glowered at the negative publicity, and demanded they change the name. Newspapers were in favor of “The Jayhawk Stabbing Strangler,� while news media won out with “Mr. Poky-Squeezy.� Upon the serial murderer being confused with a local birthday party clown of the same name, they changed his name again to “The Country-Fried Killer.� Around the same time, police confirmed letters being sent to them were likely from the perpetrator of the crimes, requesting the title “The BTK Killer.�

Even then, the news media fucked it up. A typographical error on the police memo lead to the killer being called “The BK Killer� for the rest of the year, and scared off many people from eating at all local Burger Kings. Other residents, who received their news from the radio, were misinformed about the “The DQ Driller,� and stormed area Dairy Queens to dig in to the new treat.

Angrier, even more irate letters arrived for the police and national media, all in caps, with the name “BTK Killer� underlined, and specifically noting the meaning of the letters in very contrary language. Some broadcast news outlets then, possibly on purpose, released the name as “The Beady Cake Killer.� Allegedly pissed off, the perpetrator sent even more contrite letters to police and the media, using some especially nasty words that rhyme with “rocksuckers.�

The BTK Killer continued to have trouble with his public name over the years, as media outlets alleged different meanings of the BTK notation, including “Bloody Tick Killer,� “Brown Taint Kicker,� “Bottled Tar Keeper,� “Billionaire Testicle Kruncher,� “Black Titty Kisser,� “Barmaid Toasted Kelp,� “Bunched-Toe Keds,� and “Blacula Tossing Kid.� Some even speculate the BTK Killer ended his string of murders when he did because he was sick and tired of being confused with Wichita tire merchant Birchfield Thomas Kinnear. This reporter was then asked to quit speculating and leave the police press conference if I had nothing worthwhile to contribute.

Suspect Rader did address the subject of the BTK Killer’s many names, while not admitting any connection to the murders themselves.

“Birchfield Thomas Kinnear? Please,� said Rader, in a statement released by Wichita police. “That makes no sense at all. If the BTK Killer was Kinnear, why the hell would… whoever he is… call himself that? If he murdered Kinnear it would make sense. And probably the only reason he wouldn’t have gone ahead and done that, not that he didn’t think about it, was he didn’t want to be forever confused by a callous, forgetful, illiterate industry of news people.�

Rader had been sought by police for questioning about the crimes, and was pulled over in a routine traffic stop when the police found his car parked illegally on the shoulder as Rader spray-painted the words “It’s Bind, Torture, Kill! IDIOTS!� on a Motel 8 billboard. The alleged murderer, however, refused to explain how the killer could stand having a name as redundant as the Bind, Torture, Kill Killer.

I was one of the lucky ones. I got to be in one of the first Macy's Day Parades, before it all went downhill. "The David Hartman Years," as I think of them.

It wasn't all cheap and gaudy back in my time. The floats were hand-painted, like works of art, not covered with smelly flowers to queer it all up. Why, just ahead of me the whole time, as I walked the parade, was a float that was a beautiful tribute to Michael Angelo's Sistine Chapel. Not the famous Italian painter guy, but Michael Angelo, a guy in New York famous for building a Gingerbread Sistine Chapel. And no one ever ate it either, since Adam's genitalia generally put everybody off their appetite.

We had balloons back then, too, but they weren't any damn Muppets or Woody Woodpecker or nothing. We had more respect than to put just anyone in a parade—we made balloons in the images of our most famous celebrities, like Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Rudolph Valentino. The W.C. Fields balloon was life-size. Even better than these cheap balloons they use today, ours were the main form of transportation between continents. If you looked out the window and saw Fatty Arbuckle sailing right toward you, you knew your country might soon be invaded by a massive army.

It took quite a bit of strength to hoist those balloons everywhere and not get lifted away into space. There weren't as many people back then, we knew how to control ourselves, sexually speaking, so only one person to a balloon we had. A hoister, which is what we called fellows who did the hoisting, had to secure themselves firmly to the earth with two pockets packed full of lead sinkers. Praying a little beforehand didn't hurt either.

I was a hoister in that parade, and you can probably just imagine how green jealous ol' brother Goose was. It had been his lifelong dream to be a hoister, even before we invented parades in 1912, and it drove him out of his mind to turn on the radio and hear me hoisting that Douglas Fairbanks balloon down Main Street, New York. He was so furious he punched the doorframe and hurt his hand, and it was in a cast for weeks. He also went down to the local corner bar with a gun and began randomly shooting people, but knowing Goose, that could have been for any reason. Sometimes he just liked to play a fierce game of tag with complete strangers.

But truth be told, outside of driving my brother on a mad killing spree, the whole parade thing seemed kind of empty. We weren't celebrating anything, since the Macy's parade was held on No Particular Day, which wasn't famous for anything, before they decided to have it on Thanksgiving. Nothing, that is, but our own hubris. We were an infant nation back then, still effectively sitting at the kids table. We threw parades just because we liked to create things, create them for no reason other than we had the will to do it and for the sheer delight. That's what made this country what it is today.

That and the several wars, I mean.

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