oting the success that Subway Sandwiches has enjoyed with advertising spokesman Jared Fogel, McDonald's announced today that they are looking for a similar type of person to head up a new advertising campaign for them that is still in the works. Applicants for the position are expected to be pale, blotchy, still somewhat soft around the middle, and most desirably, should have undergone a radical weight loss in the last year or so.

"We're ditching the old tired-ass icons Ronald McDonald and Hamburglar and Grimace," said corporate spokesman Andy Lard. "Instead, we're looking for someone who was recently a big fatty, you know, a real tubbo. I mean just a gigantic container of goo. Someone that lost like three or four hundred pounds through an exclusive diet of Big Macs and fries and hot apple pies. We're looking for someone who can hold up a pair of pants big enough to stuff three sumo wrestlers and Anna Nicole Smith inside, but who is now comparatively slim."

Lard went on to say that the person they had in mind should also have "pasty white, preferably kind of blotchy skin, be extremely androgynous, and should still be porky enough as to be non-threatening to our commercial audience. We're looking for a soft, bland kind of non-descript guy, but one who has a real presence, you know what I mean?"

"We want someone who represents the average American who sits on his couch watching TV most of the week and all weekend, except for when he goes to McDonald's, of course, and has that kind of glazed look. We don't want anybody overly bright or too outspoken, just somebody nice and comfy-looking, somebody our customers can identify with. A recent lobotomy would be a definite plus."

Asked how the search was going, Lard admitted that they had not had much luck in the few weeks since it began.

"It's too bad we didn't snap that Jared guy up first," he complained. "He's really the ideal person for what we're looking for. Still, there must be others out there like him. And we're going to keep looking until we find him."

McDonald's shares lost money this past quarter for the first time ever, but Lard discounted the notion that the lack of an adequate spokesman was the reason.

"That may have played a small part in it, you know, us not having a big one-time fat-ass whale waving his drawers around on national TV and telling everyone how he lost weight eating McDonald's food; but the main reason is probably because people are finally wising up to how evil our corporation is, what with Satan holding the board chairman position and all, how nutritionally bankrupt our food is, and how our grand plan is to ultimately poison most of the Third World with our hamburgers. Uh... this is off the record, right?"

Lard then excused himself and said he had a luncheon meeting to discuss using a heavily-sedated Rosie O'Donnell in drag as the New Jared. He mentioned that the meeting would be at Fresh Choice, just around the corner from McDonald's corporate headquarters. Asked why the luncheon meeting wasn't catered with McDonald's food, Lard responded simply, "What, are you fuckin' kidding me? Nobody in their right mind would eat that crap."

an took a collective step backward, arms behind the back, whistling, and rolling eyes when the space shuttle Columbia exploded over Texas two weeks ago. Texans, used to loud unexpected explosions, were slow to realize exactly what had happened, but some analysts are now saying it was the “fuck you� heard ‘round the world.

“Man was never meant to fly,� said shuttle analysts Thursday. “It’s clear the kind of damage that caused the shuttle’s destruction, coupled with all the obvious other signs, that we’ve overstepped our bounds greatly. I suggest we all get used to walking.�

Though the reaction may seem extreme, even for space nerds, others are saying duh—it’s about time we’ve realized it.

Biblical doomsayer and Reader’s Digest editor James Bartle: “It’s taken too long to get this message, folks. All the plane crashes, not to mention the daily hot air balloon disasters that don’t even make the news—hasn’t it been made clear yet? Man was not meant to fly. Even the Wright Brothers plane didn’t fly more than a few seconds. People will say trial-and-error, necessary experimentation, blah, blah, blah. The truth is, we were shaking the apple tree that wasn’t meant to be shaked.â€�

But not only religious weirdoes are preaching this gospel now. In the wake of the loss of the shuttle and seven astronauts, people are reconsidering the 1986 Challenger disaster, which also cost the lives of seven astronauts, and even 2001’s use of aircraft by Allah to smite American capitalists.

“Nobody wanted to believe in the space program more than me,� said NASA helmsman and space aficionado Shansy Miller. “But the loss of countless craft and lives in the space program has finally become too much to ignore. How many times have we lost good people over the course of these fifty years in our vain attempts to exceed our limitations? Ten? Twenty or more? I think it was three, actually, but you get what I’m saying. It isn’t to be.�

Despite the innovations in technology and the potential offered by space travel, many are saying this is the final straw. Man has tried for far too long to explore space and has only gotten so far as the moon, or Mars, if you count unmanned probes, which no one cares about. It’s time to call it quits.

“We had a good run,� according to former astronaut and space cowboy Maurice Graham. “We been up into space, we planted a flag on the moon. I don’t see any point in doing anything more. All we’re doing is putting good multi-ethnic men and woman at risk and providing years of dead astronaut jokes for playground kids.�

“There will be no further shuttles in the foreseeable future,� said a faceless NASA drone, possibly an android. “I hope we didn’t leave anything valuable on the space station because we’re not going back there for a while. Watch out for Predators when we do. That’s all I’m saying.�

Currently, the president will be hearing arguments to ground all earth-traveling aircraft such as commercial jets and military planes, but there is no decision expected until at least after Iraq has been thoroughly carpet-bombed.

That's right, I said it: America's fat. You won't see Red Bagel challenge the readership like that, will you?

It's high time America took responsibility for its big fat weight. Doctors will tell you maybe you're eating too much and not exercising. Genetecists will tell you it's because of a fat gene, but what they mean is "fat jeans"—your ass has to squeeze in them. Ha. That's one for Ramrod.

What is the secret behind our obesity? Is it that we've become complacent watching TV and living high off our conveniences? Like the ancient Roman privileged classes, are we feeding off the sweat of underclasses and foreign labor? Never getting out to plant and reap our own crops, to pull our own chariots, to have to put on tight-fitting slave tunics instead of circus tent-style togas? Well, of course that's not it, I wouldn't have phrased it as a question if it was. No, it's something more insidious.

The Illuminati! That's right, you humps, I'm into the big boy conspiracy stuff now.

There is no fat gene, and you are eating too much, but that food is packed with surplus calories. And those non-fat cardboard rice cakes you eat, only to gain more weight? Pure re-constituted lard, dipshit. Don't think they can't get to you, too. They get to everyone.

Americans are being fattened up, like candy-seeking German kids wandering a forest. Except no witch is going to eat us, with some rare exceptions. We're not being made to be meals, although good luck with that rather on-the-nose conspiracy theory, Johnny Smallpicture. If you're wondering what other purpose it serves to fatten up America, I've got two words for you: Militia.

That's right, minute men. That's the two words I implied, hopefully you got that. America's is the only constitution anywhere that guarantees the right to form a militia—other countries may think their constitution does, but of course nobody ever actually reads the constitution but a small group of politics and history nerds and an even smaller group of revolution-era handwriting fetishists. Look again, Pierre—no militia for you.

If you were the Illuminati, poised to take over the world and yet stuck with this "militia clause" in the handgun-filled United States, what would you do? Well, scratch that, you'd probably spend all your money on lottery tickets and marry your cousin. But the Illuminati has a serious group of strategists, and if you can't make them lie down and roll over like the French, you make them too fat to fight. Here, have some more Twinkies. Sure, they're low-fat. Unless you count the additives we injected at the factory! No, they're just for coloring! Ha ha ha!

I wasn't really laughing at you that time, just pretending to be the Illuminati. But that's what's happening, America. The Freemasons are sitting behind their brick-built desks and cracking up as your scale spins further and further to the right. Pretty soon all those precious handguns won't mean anything—you won't even be able to get your fat fingers through the little trigger circle thing, whatever it's called.

Even our right-wing reactionaries are getting too fat to do anything. Rush Limbaugh used to weigh a trim 240, now he's ballooned up like a… balloon. And you don't want to see Ted Nugent lately.

As for me, I'm in prime physical condition. This is all muscle. Well, yeah, some of it's not, but I'm working that off as soon as the weather warms up. I urge you all to get into shape, and arm yourself heavily. See you at the gym/gun show.

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