he country received two unexpected announcements Thursday, when Democrat John Edwards, a freshman Senator from North Carolina, told NBC he would run for president in 2004. Edwards then stunned everyone with the revelation that he was actually not the John Edward from the syndicated Sci-Fi Channel show Crossing Over.

Edward, who claims to be a medium who can talk to dead people, could not be reached for comment. This reporter then asked dead reporter Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown to get a quote from Edward, but Edward did not respond, and only pissed himself.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Edwards was firm in his insistence he was not the John Edward that talks to the dead.

"Of course I don't talk to the dead. I've never even heard of that John Edward. But if he is an American, I will do my best to represent him just as I will represent all other Americans when I am president. I have served North Carolina faithfully during my time in office, and I will serve the country just as well. All I ask is for your vote."

Edwards' political rhetoric continued for at least thirty more minutes, then this reporter left for a sandwich.

Edwards' decision to run for the Democratic nomination for president follows the announcement by former Vice-President Al Gore that he will not run in 2004, citing happiness with his new beard. Edwards enters the race against Jay Leno-lookalike Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, as well as potential candidates Sen. Tom "No, Seriously, I'm Running" Daschle and Sen. Dick "Last Name Never Looks Real" Gephardt.

Sen. Edwards told the press Friday his campaign would address key issues and attempt to overcome the Senator's disadvantages. Edwards campaign buttons were passed out with clarifying statements such as, "He's not the one that talks to dead people" and "The Senator, not the medium," as well as image-focused buttons with the Sci-Fi Channel's John Edward's face crossed out and Sen. John Edwards' face circled. Edwards' campaign manager Charles Manson (not the ritual murderer) unveiled a banner at campaign headquarters reading, "John Edwards for President. No, the other John Edwards."

Manson was optimistic about Edwards' chances, yet acknowledged there would be obstacles.

"Is it an uphill battle?" Manson asked, then answered before anyone else could. "Yes. Is it impossible? Not at all. Senator John Edwards is a dedicated and determined man, and he has set his sights on this and will pursue it as far as possible. I can give you my personal guarantee that, when the Senator is done, everyone in America will be convinced he is not the guy from the Crossing Over show. We have a three-pronged attack: Get his face out there, get his position as Senator in the public mind, and stress that he has never and likely never will communicate with the dead. By the time our campaign is over, the other John Edward will be known as 'the other John Edwards.'"

As for the Senators' hopes for winning a presidential race against George W. Bush?

"Oh," replied Manson. "We hadn't really thought that far ahead. Are you sure Bush can run in 2004? Won't his term limits expire by then or anything?"

short letter received by the U.N. in the mail Friday stated briefly and succinctly that U.N. weapons inspectors were tired of "dumb-ass Iraq" and wanted "to go home."

The letter surprised most everybody at the U.N., who believed the weapons inspectors were all very happy in their duties in the Middle East. Weapons inspectors had been in Iraq in years previous to prove Saddam Hussein has kept the country free of nuclear material and other weapons outlawed by their post-Gulf War agreement. Just months ago, before their return, the weapons inspectors were practically "hitting the roof to go back," according to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

"You know how weapons inspectors are," said Annan. "When they're here, they want to be there. When they're there, they want to be here."

Trouble started approximately three weeks ago, when weapons inspectors team leader Hans Blix called Annan at midnight and asked how long they expected the search to last. Annan said he couldn't be sure, and Blix suggested that they should return home and discuss the length of the trip to Iraq. After Annan refused, Blix called back four hours later and stated the whole team had agreed they were 100% sure Iraq didn't have any weapons anymore, even though they had only searched a handful of places.

Weapons inspector psychologist Danni Jersey said the behavior was not unusual.

"Most people expect this sort of reaction during the first weapons search," said Dr. Jersey, "but the truth is that the first trip contains more exploration, the discovery of new places, hopefully without weapons, and new friends. Although it's somewhat frightening for weapons inspectors, it is still exciting and keeps them involved.

"By the time a second trip comes around, expectations are raised, to unreasonable expectations sometimes. It is impossible to experience the same level of enjoyment and mystery all over again, and there's naturally some disappointment from the second search. Finding some weapons might make it more exciting, but if not, it's a matter of reconciling expectations and reality. No wonder they want to come home."

In the rest of Friday's letter, weapons inspectors told the U.N. that they had looked everywhere and found no weapons, everyone in Iraq hated them, and they found living conditions were "for shit." As part of the agreement with the U.N., a "host family" allows one weapons inspector to stay with them in a room they have set up. There have been no formal complaints on either side, but there has been much speculation about tension between host families and inspectors.

"I have nothing against the U.N., or the agreement Iraq has made after the conflict," said Iraqi Army corporal and host family patriarch Amani El-Abib. "But our weapons inspector, Terry, is quite a disagreeable boy. He never lifts a finger to clean up, he complains about the food, and sometimes I wake up in the morning and find he is searching our kitchen for weapons-grade plutonium. It's just bad manners to do so without asking permission."

Terry Gröfberg, a Swedish weapons inspector staying with the El-Abibs, felt similar antagonism for his hosts.

"They're nice and all, but old man El-Abib is always flying off the handle. He says I'm corrupting his children with my techno music, that I'm acting like an infidel when I ask if there's any electricity in the house, and that I keep looking at his wife when her veil is off. Dude, his wife's nice, but not my type at all. Just chill, muslim dude. Not everybody wants your stuff."

Secretary-General Kofi Annan had expectations that a little tough love would help the weapons inspectors stay focused on their mission.

"It's not the time for coddling now," said Annan. "I know they want to come home, but it will be better for them in the long run if they stay. They will fulfill their obligation, possibly help prevent more death from military conflict, and it will build character."

Though it might surprise the ignorant, the holiday of Christmas was celebrated long before Christ came along and limp-wristed his way into the history books, or at least the history books that are available at most major motels. They didn't call it Christmas back then, since that would just be spooky, but regardless, the winter solstice was celebrated for eons before Christ laid the golden turd.

In northern lands, ancient peoples celebrated the passing of the midpoint of winter, looking ahead to longer days and the return of the light, which would remind them just how ugly their neighbors were. With the light came the melting of the snow, which rang in the springtime removal of the dead bodies of all the dumb assholes who had frozen to death over the winter. Hence the term "spring cleaning" was coined, though over time it's somehow come to mean some yuppie sponging out his microwave.

The Norse in Scandanavia celebrated Yule, a vague holiday that involved eating and went on for however damn long they wanted it to. Anyone who asked if the holiday was over yet was eaten, and as a result it often dragged on for months.

The ancient Germans didn't celebrate, since they were German, but they were scared shitless of the pagan God Oden, who they placated by never going outside. The exchange of goods in the winter months consisted of things being thrown from one house's window to the next. This usually worked fairly well but mishaps did occur, and most houses had at least a few frozen chickens stuck to their outside walls. The biggest problem was that if the town butcher threw his back out, the entire town would starve, since Germans don't believe in vegetables except for sauerkraut.

The Romans had their own insane version of Christmas, which basically involved everybody getting naked, fucking, and throwing up all morning. They had a few other traditions rolled in there, but mainly they were just thinly disguised excuses for fucking.

In the early days of Christianity, Easter was the only holiday, and it got so out of hand that they were afraid to add any more. The early Christians were known for having an extreme early version of Attention Deficit Disorder, and as a result the celebration of Christ's resurrection soon morphed into a mutant strain when somebody thought they said procreation and they started dressing up like rabbits, and then somebody brought a bunch of eggs because he didn't have a rabbit costume and didn't know what else to do, and then somebody else said "Fuck eggs, I like chocolate!" and the modern insane Easter was born.

In the fourth century, the church decided it was safe to make another go at it and they added a celebration for the birth of Christ. There was a slight problem in that nobody had any idea when Christ was born, and the Bible just said something about there was tallow in the Eastern bung and nobody knew what month that was supposed to mean. The problem was solved when Pope Julius I scratched his nose for a while and then declared that Christ was born on December 25th. When scholars argued that this ran counter to all available evidence, he pope-slapped them and told everyone that if they wanted to piss off Oden, that was their own prerogative. Everybody agreed it was December 25th after that.

Julius I's real motivation was a clever one. By throwing the celebration for the birth of Christ at the same time when all of the non-Christians were celebrating the winter solstice by balling their brains out, he could confuse people into thinking that they were celebrating Christianity by drinking a lot of beer and nailing everything in the house to a tree, a deception that still stands to this day.

Once the Puritans took over England, they outlawed Christmas, and anything else that people liked to do. This lasted for about ten seconds before the people rose up and kicked their gay asses out of the country. They washed up in North America, complaining constantly about being religiously persecuted, and then outlawed Christmas there, too. The problem was that the Native Americans didn't know what Christmas was, so the Puritans had to teach them how to decorate their teepees with popcorn and nuts and little ballerinas on the outside, and then tell them never to do it.

Living with the Puritans eventually drove the Native Americans to drinking, which the Puritans had taught them to do so they could tell them not to do that, either. Eventually the Puritans died out after they decided that opening their eyes was sinful and then were all eaten by bears at night. But because of them, generations of Americans grew up without traditional Christmas orgies.

Eventually Charles Dickens wrote The Christmas Carol, which he completely pulled out of his ass during a wild weeklong acid binge. Naïve American readers believed that he was talking about real holiday traditions, and were pissed that none of the immigrants had told them about the fun of Christmas. Several immigrant-bashing why-didn't-you-tell-us-about-Christmas riots followed, and America's new arrivals quickly learned to make up traditions on the spot to appease the custom-starved masses.

Soon the entire country was celebrating a bastard amalgam of made-up holiday customs, believing that the Dutch or Ubangi or some goddamned people had actually strung lights up in trees and drank fermented egg snot for hundreds of years. The church was quick to remind everyone that Christ was born on Christmas, too, and they skylarked a story about three traveling salesmen giving presents to baby Jesus to make it all sort of tie together.

You might wonder how Santa Claus came into all of this, but that was all just a Coke commercial that everyone assumed was referencing an ancient tradition. To this very day, the guys at Coca-Cola are still kicking themselves that they didn't name the guy Santa Coke. Scandinavians may argue that Santa was based on their ancient myth about an elf named Jultomten who delivers presents in a goat-drawn sled, but that's just stupid.

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