ollowing the assassination of Afghan Vice-President Abdul Qadir by armed terrorists Saturday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai immediately took over the role of Vice-President within a few short hours of the incident.

"As of this time, I am now second in command of the country of Afghanistan," Karzai said to a small gathering of reporters in the presidential bunker.

When pressed by western and Middle Eastern reporters alike on the logic of stepping down to fill a position below you, Karzai did not respond. He ended the press conference when persistent inquiries as to who is now the president of Afghanistan came up. Reporters were shuffled from the bunker by burly guards, one of whom we swear used to work at Studio 54.

The late Qadir was an important part of the rebuilding of Afghanistan's government. The veteran Pashtun warlord was believed a stabilizing influence and supporter of U.S. action in the country, and with him gone, that stability is now in question. With Karzai unintentionally demoting himself to a secondary position, it may be up to the U.S. to call upon a new president and then responsibility placed on the people of Afghanistan to "elect" them in a fair election, like the kind that put George W. Bush in office.

With the future of Afghanistan again under pressure, advice is coming in from strange circles.

"This never should have happened, and measures should be instituted to prevent it from happening again," said CEO of WorldCom Inc. John Sidgmore. "I may not know assassinations and domestic terrorism, but I know power structures and fire coming up from below. You never want to have just one person beneath you on a pyramid. I suggest at least three, maybe up to ten Vice Presidents to create that solid second floor. That way if things start crumbling underneath you from the bottom up, you've at least got a few more bodies in the way before you hit the ground."

The president was also reached for his obligatory quote.

"It's a sad day for the Afghanistanian people," said the president, then nodding to affirm what he had said. "That guy they lost was a valued member of our foreign department. It's a sad day for his family and the people who liked him, of which I understand there are many. The people who don't like him are having a happy day, but their happy day will turn into a sad day when we catch up with them. And that will be a happy day for us."

When questioned about Karzai's decision to step in for the fallen Vice President, Bush's resolve was tempered and cautious. "It's a very brave step, although we will wait and see if it was good or not. I have a vice president. I know that I would be terrified if something happened to him, and with his heart running like a '69 Impala, that possibility is always lurking in the shadows."

esponding to a week of heavy rains and severe flooding that has destroyed more than 200 homes and forced the evacuation of thousands of residents, Texans statewide have banded together to take back their state from Mother Nature. Seeking to live out the meaning of their state creed, "Don't Mess with Texas," Texans have waged an all-out war on the storm systems that have pummeled their state in recent days.

"First, it started out with some hooting and hollering, just letting off some steam after my house got washed down the river with all my guns still inside," explained New Braunfels resident Stymie Rauch. "Then when my pickup got washed away too, that struck me as personal and enough was enough so I gave them rain clouds a good what-for. I'll admit, there was some blue language involved that you aren't likely to hear at a nun's funeral. But them rain clouds knew what, they had it comin."

Inspired by Rauch's example, other New Braunfels residents swore and threw rocks at the clouds from the roofs of their homes, which were each comfortably stocked with several cases of lite beer and battery-powered television sets in case of a longer-than-usual flood.

New Braunfelite John Richard Stubing elevated the protest to an armed conflict when he begin firing his shotgun into the sky, signaling that he was mad as hell and also out of Frito dip. Neighbors cheered from their rooftops and an unknown hillrod waved a Texas state flag in support from a rowboat he was piloting up Honeysuckle Lane.

Word of the New Braunfels resistance movement spread like Billy Ray Cyrus haircuts across the state and within hours groups of armed Texans were wading through the streets and brandishing firearms in several Central Texas towns. Clever commemorative tee-shirts were printed up in record time featuring the cloud-mocking catchphrase "G'on Now, Git" and by nightfall country singer Toby Keith had released a timely single entitled "Mother Nature Ain't No Mother of Mine (The Pissed-off Texan)."

By Saturday, calls had been made to former Texas governor and current U.S. president by default George W. Bush to dispatch the U.S. nuclear arsenal in response to the clouds' aggressions against the people of Texas. Current governor Rick Perry publicly supported the use of nuclear force and all other necessary holy hell to send a message to the storm front. Perry summed up the state government's position as "Be you a cloud or be you from Amarillo, you know that when you rattle the big dog's cage, that big dog just might give you a bite for your troubles. Look out, weather."

Some Texas activists, however, were not content to wait for the wheels of government to get around to turning. Saturday afternoon, Patrick Scott, the president of cable television's The Weather Channel, was kidnapped from his Atlanta home. A letter described as "sort of like a ransom note" was discovered at the scene, though only the phrase "We gotcha by the balls now!" has been released to the press.

Meanwhile, residents across the state waged war on Mother Nature into the evening on Saturday, pulling down trees with pickup trucks, stomping on flowers and spraying aerosol products straight into the sky. A man was arrested near San Antonio for feeding chili to penguins at the zoo and a grassroots movement took hold among Texans who defiantly refused to cut up their six-pack rings before discarding them.

However, by Sunday a soggy and hung-over Texas awoke feeling plum tuckered out and noticeably less defiant. Talk had turned to the wisdom of passive resistance in the struggle against Mother Nature. Sunday conversations were dominated by discussion of magazine-drying techniques and boasts of homes to be rebuilt bigger and better in the exact same spots, only with game rooms and hot tubs this time around. Other Texas discussed the feasibility of developing waterproof bubble-domes to cover houses or outfitting trailer homes with pontoons.

Meteorologists had previously predicted a few more days of heavy rain for Central Texas, followed by dry weather, but are now withholding their Texas forecasts until Patrick Scott is returned safely.

I suggest you check your phone for bugs and turn the stereo up loud. At least if you're reading this column out loud to yourself or with friends. Some may say you're crazy for believing the world is more than meets the eye, that the government deceives you every moment of every day, that you host small parties where you get together with friends and read my column aloud. I say if you're crazy, we're all living in a nuthouse. And we're the less crazy "germaphobic" kind of insane and everyone else is the "dog tells you to shoot the president" kind.

We have turned a corner, loyal readers. We've opened a door to a room or a lid to a box that we can't close again. We've stripped the spark plug where we can take it out, but can never put it back in. We've unscrewed the top to the jar and you've gotten peanut butter in my chocolate. We're through the looking glass, people.

Be prepared for anything. Your life may be in jeopardy just for seeing me. Your wheel of fortune is spinning out of control. You've thrown the dice and shouted "Yahtzee!" and the government is listening in. The word of the day is "conspiracy," with a capital "C" and it's right on triple word score, triple letter points.

You're looking in the manhole, Americans, and there's a foul stench coming up. Go ahead. Turn to me with a pinched face and ask, "Damn! You smell that?" I sure do. Someone smelt it who did not dealt it.

We've lifted up the seamy underbelly of America and tickled it until the leg started kicking wildly. But it's not enough. We keep tickling, up and down the belly. Don't be surprised when it pees on you.

I've met with top government officials, who agreed with what I said. About being through the looking glass, I mean. We've walked through the park, arm in arm, neither looking the other in the eye so government spies wouldn't know we know each other. Sure, it felt really gay to be walking like that through the park, and some teen-age boys we believe were not affiliated with the government chanted something obscene about us, but homophobic teen-agers is the least of our problems right now. We've broken through the ice and our collective privates have shrunken like sun-dried dates in the freezing water.

This information is too big to release in one column. I can only say three words: Japan, yogurt, chemical P. No more is safe to say; in fact, I worry about government assassins out there doing Yahoo word string searches on "Japan, yogurt, chemical P" and stumbling on this column. My life would be worth less than a possum douche if I was discovered with what I know at this point. That's why I used "yogurt" in place of the real word which, if said, would put the horrifying reality out there for all to understand and fear, but also shorten my life significantly. So I hold back the secret true word at this moment, but let's just say that "yogurt" is the biggest worry of our new millennium, if we knew about it.

Things will go from worst to far worse than worst if I let the wrong information slip right now. This column is a call to arms—I'm assembling an elite team, a daring venture on my part. For the first time I'm going to do something rather than report the ugly truth. My elite team will break into the yogurt storage facility and remove the dreaded chemical P before it contaminates the yogurt and yogurt-based products, at which point the ultimate weapon of covert destruction will be formed.

The team will have to be brave, intelligent, and expendable. They should also be able to follow my commands from a long distance away, since I'll be coordinating from my fall-out shelter at an undisclosed location I can't disclose. And should they be caught, they should disavow any knowledge of my part in the operation and certainly shouldn't expect to receive any sort of payment for incomplete work.

If this sounds like you, or an unsuspecting friend you could trick into doing this, then by all means, contact me. I'll be at my undisclosed fall-out shelter, so if you can contact me I'll know right away you're one of the government spies and my hideout's been compromised.

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