he United States Presidential Warning System (or “Terra Box� as it is fondly known around the White House, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the president’s speech impediment) reached its highest level Tuesday, signifying a major presidential gaffe or screwjob is impending. This news immediately scrambled foreign government officials, environmental groups and talk-show writers nationwide, who entered their own highest states of readiness and/or dread.

The little-known Presidential Warning System has been in place since the 1960’s, but it quickly fell out of favor during the Nixon presidency. Aides kept finding the siren-like device hidden in desk drawers or crammed beneath sound-deadening mattresses in the Lincoln bedroom over the course of Nixon’s term, and records indicate it was later disconnected under questionable circumstances involving a bottle of tequila and a fire axe. Efforts were made to bring the system back on-line during former president Ronald Regan’s first term, but upon being turned on the device immediately let out an eardrum-shattering blurt before quickly overheating. It then caught fire and had to be put out with a shoe.

The nation operated without a Presidential Warning System during the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations, as the device reminded George Bush Sr. too much of his childhood nemesis, the board game Operation, and President Clinton found it seriously hampered his social life.

The current siren-less incarnation of the device, consisting of a black box covered in lighted rectangles that are color-coordinated to the various levels of presidential “terra,� was brought online at the start of the latest Bush presidency. The new system was even praised by the president himself early in his term, when he said of the device: “I made it to the fourth level last night. Take that, Simon.�

Tuesday the system registered an alert status of red, which according to the device’s manual translates to “Holy Shit� written next to a picture of a little stick man with a gun in his mouth. However, officials cannot say for certain how many times Bush has “bagged a red� since being elected, since Tuesday was also the day a White House staffer discovered the device holding up a candle in the presidential bathroom and no one was certain how long it had been missing.

“While this may seem like an opportune time to panic, it is important to point out that the red bulb on the device appears to be nearly burnt out,� explained system designer Elwood Bond. “This is a good sign that we’ve been on red alert for most of the last two years, so this is more a ‘business-as-usual’ kind of doom than anything.�

Asked if the system might be calibrated too sensitively, given that highest level of impending doom was continuously lit, Bond answered that the system really wasn’t designed with a Bush-caliber president in mind.

“I set up the system so it would go red only in dire circumstances, like when Bush Sr. approved the CDC sending samples of anthrax, botulism and West Nile to Iraq in the early 90’s, or when we gave them the helicopters they used to gas the Kurds in 1988. Or really any time after the Shah fell in Iran and we were providing Saddam and the Iraqis with arms, intelligence and free money to help them invade Iran. All those are red-level events. Maybe orange. But Bush Jr. goes red just taking a piss.�

But is there any way to tweak the system so that Bush isn’t consistently in the red?

“I dunno,� replied Bond, scratching his head. “It does have an ‘off’ switch.�

n American Airlines flight from San Jose to Tokyo was quarantined on the tarmac at the Tokyo airport last week when five passengers aboard showed symptoms of being obese.

"I was sitting next to one of them," claimed passenger Roger Mickle. "And he was going on and on about how he just couldn't keep the weight off and didn't want to get his fat ass laughed out of the gym. I'd heard about that kind of shit on the news and thought I should notify a stewardess. I hear it's some kind of epidemic these days."

Some observers have called the event an overreaction on the part of a Japanese government fearful of American obesity spreading to their relatively thin nation. Emergency vehicles met the plane on the runway in hopes of containing the threat, but all passengers were later released when it was discovered that the five were merely fat as hell.

"Oh yeah, they were pretty fat," said Jim Roache, a passenger in first class. "One of them was even fat as fuck. But obese? I leave that for the doctors to decide. I'd hate to call somebody obese and have them go on some kind of cake-eating rampage when it was a misunderstanding and they were just 'fucking fat'."

Tokyo officials issued a statement after the incident, explaining Japan's fear of American-style obesity. Though no conclusive scientific evidence has surfaced to suggest obesity is contagious, many researchers believe the American lifestyle and diet, major precursors for obesity, can be spread through direct exposure.

"These trans-pacific flights have to be watched very carefully," explained Japan's Health Minister Chikara Sakaguchi. "If you know what to look for, say the stain from a French fry on a blouse, or the glazed-yet-satiated look in a passenger's eye, you can spot the warning signs before this epidemic is spread across the ocean."

Asked if Japan was in danger of an obesity outbreak, US Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona scoffed.

"Japan? Obese? Please. They're way too in love with fish to really ever weigh in with the big boys. Very few countries really have what it takes, you'd be surprised. There was that scare in Toronto, of course, but it was always just media hype. I've been to Toronto, and those baloney-eaters don't know the first thing about being obese. They wouldn't know obese if it sat down at their table and ate all the potato salad. Americans, we take them to school about being just disgustingly fat."

Regardless, Minister Sakaguchi remains cautious.

"We love the Americans, and the many gifts they have bestowed upon our culture. This, however, they can keep. No thank you, so sorry. We honor you, proud Americans, your hearts exploding like Fourth of July fireworks, but people of Japan must eat vegetables sometimes. Is… is in religion. Yes. So thank you, but please keep your big rolls of blubbery fat over there like good neighbor. Sayonara."

Recently a famous musician friend of mine who will remain anonymous, his first name Beck, asked me, "Yo, Griswald—the guitar. What the dillio?" From these utterances I constructed a crude sentence asking me the history of the guitar, and it's a good one. For centuries no instrument has been strummed more by drunken frat boys to woo underage poontang to a house party. It is America's instrument.

The basic design came from an instrument in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages were so called namely because pretending you were smart would get your lights punched out by the unenlightened masses everywhere—it was like our modern-day Washington D.C., though the tie had yet to be created.

The original design is believed to be the creation of Johann Crunch, who later went on to invent a cereal while serving in the military. Crunch had kids that would not shut up, yet he found by pulling his wife's hair taut and plucking on it to make sounds he could lull them to sleep, and keep his wife in line. All this went in the crapper, however, when Crunch's wife died of a self-inflicted arrow wound. Not wanting to lose his ace in the hole with the kids, Crunch put her head on the end of a broom and tied the hair to the other end. This allowed him to create complicated chords with his left hand, like Gmaj7.

Upon his death, the guys who killed him made off with the strange instrument, which they called a lute, because they were uneducated and couldn't spell "loot" correctly. As one became more proficient with the lute, they formed the world's first modern band, though of course they could never find a reliable bass player.

The lute was mass-produced by monks, and the first design change was to start making it out of wood rather than maiden's skulls, a more cost-effective manner of production, and to use nylon and silk for the strings, for a more sensual plucking style.

The Dark Ages gave way to the Middle Ages, then a brief period called the So-So Ages, often unmentioned in history and a lot like our 1970s. As all this progressed, the lute became England's most popular instrument, and was also imported to Europe where it helped create primitive Goth Tech bands in Germany. By the time America had its independence from England and its natives, the lute had been extended and transformed into the guitar, so called just because lute sounded stupid. A modern descendant of the original Guitar family claims his six-times great-grandfather (though friends say he was only half as great as built up) is the one to have created the first guitar, because his long arms would get cramped trying to play "Love to Thee Maidens" on the lute and his frustrated picking style resulted in the frequent breaking of strings.

By the early twentieth century, the refinement process for steel had become so fluid they could make aluminum foil and guitar strings. Since they already made the strings, guitar players went ahead and decided to try putting steel strings on the guitar. Though they hurt like hell to play, the twangy-twang sound allowed the creation of country-western music, which is often referred to as "strike two" against steel strings.

In 1951, extremely bored with the Ozzie-&-Harriet world around him, musician Freddy Fender attempted to create the world's first electric guitar. It didn't necessarily sound like a good idea, but was part of Fender's ongoing attempt to make an electric everything. Though his electric shoes caused calluses and toe rot and his electric water balloons killed instantly, Fender had apparently found his niche and lodged himself quickly inside it with the electric guitar. He made a fortune selling pickups and amplifiers alone. He also opened the door to Peter Frampton and other musicians who couldn't play a regular guitar to any degree of interest.

Today, you'll find an unplayed guitar in nearly every closet across this great nation, and it's no secret why. I put them there.

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