.S. District Judge Myron Thompson shocked the nation Friday, ruling that the entire South was in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s principle of separation of church and state, and ordering that all nine Southern states be removed from the Union immediately. Thompson, who incited national controversy the previous week when he ordered the removal of a 2.6-ton granite Ten Commandments monument from Alabama's state judicial building, defended his unprecedented action as merely a logical extension of federal law, dictated by the U.S. Constitution.

“South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee have for years stood in clear violation of the separation of religion and government, a basic concept upon which America was founded. From the highest levels of state government down to local law enforcement, Christianity has not only been favored, but has virtually stood as the law of the land for generations,� said Thompson, explaining his ruling. As of press time, it was unclear whether all Southern residents would be required to leave the country, or if the U.S. would cut its chigger-infested losses and draw up new borders.

With the nine Southern states understandably resistant to the order, Thompson has threatened each state with a $5 billion fine per day until they comply with the order and presumably pack up their shit. While the fines are expected to wipe out most Southern states in the first fifteen minutes, Arkansas has already defiantly suggested that it will pay the fine, just as soon as its luck evens out on the pull-tabs.

“This ruling is an outrage!� shouted Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, to no one in particular. “The South has just as much right to be in this country as all those uppity pagan states that follow the Constitution. Besides, where are we supposed to go? Mexico? Those bean-burners is all godless Catholics, ain’t they?�

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who came to local fame and prominence as the “Ten Commandments Judge� after refusing to remove a huge view-obstructing Ten Commandments bumpersticker from the windshield of his car, is credited with having sparked this series of events when he installed the offending monument in his courthouse. Moore took a break from selling homemade “I’m with Stupid & the Ten Commandments� t-shirts at local rock shows to organize several Constitution-burnings throughout the South this week.

“Yeah, this is a violation of our right to free speech, or something,� claimed a befuddled Moore. “Wait, can we go back to the Ten Commandments thing? I’m still pissed about that. This country’s laws were based on those Commandments! Mostly. And now we’ve got to hide ‘em in some back toilet? Sickening! No one can hide from that truth. ‘Thou shalt not kill?’ We got that law, don’t we? ‘Thou shalt not steal?’ Got that one too. ‘Thou shalt not…uh… fornicate… with… thy neighbor’s… uh, something…’ Anyway, you know where I’m going with this! Sickening!�

“And what about Kentucky, what’d they ever do that was so Constitutional?� questioned Gov. Riley when he realized the microphone was still on. “I always ‘spected they weren’t as God-fearing as the rest of us, and this just proves it. Well I hope you can have fun in your nice fancy country, Kentucky, when you’re burning in hell! Ha! Gotta admit I gotcha there.�

Despite an overabundance of spunk, legal experts agree that the Southern states are still likely to be evicted.

“Well, I guess on the bright side this means we can put our monument back,� mused Moore, looking around for a dolly.

he most recent Nielsen ratings released Monday confirm the surprising success of ABC’s controversial new show, Are You Shot?, an unscripted reality program featuring former soap opera star Lorenzo Lamas and a panel of judges critiquing the injuries suffered by American GIs and civilians in post-war Iraq.

Critics and social commentators have savaged the program ever since it rose from the ashes of ABC’s ill-fated reality dud Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People, which was cancelled earlier this year due to lukewarm ratings and a lawsuit by radio shock jock Howard Stern. Despite claims that the new show (which features Lamas detailing puss-soaked head wounds and missing limbs with a laser pointer) is in appallingly bad taste and degrades the whole of humanity, U.S. viewers can’t get enough.

“I always want to keep up on what’s going on over there in Iraq, but it can be so tough,� explained avid viewer and bakery assistant Megan Herbert. “One minute we’re the bad guys, then the good guys, then the bad guys again, then a deli blows up. I like it better when there’s points and we can see who’s winning.�

Producers set up the show by dividing Iraq into twelve different “Hell Zones,� geographical regions from which contestants would be drawn. Each episode of the show focuses on contestants from a different zone, with viewers voting over the Internet on which challenger had been most severely fucked-up as a result of the ongoing U.S. occupation.

Early episodes of the show have scored Nielsen ratings as high as 26.3, besting such popular reality staples as Temptation Island and Oops, I Ate Your Dog. Such a surprising early success has ABC executives buzzing about possible record ratings for the planned season finale in the “Hell Zone� of the Sunni Triangle. Thus far, the Nielsen Media Research corporation has been unable to track accurate ratings for the show in Iraq itself, due to the small number of working televisions in the country which haven’t been either kicked in or bartered for food.

On top of suggesting that the show devalues human suffering and takes too long to get to the good gory parts, critics have also slammed Are You Shot? for extending the career of celebrity waste-of-space Lorenzo Lamas, who until recently was making ends meet lending his talents to a celebrity prank-calling service.

“Sure, some people may argue that the show is in poor taste,� admitted Lamas, while compulsively highlighting this reporter’s papercut with his laser pointer. “But America has always thrived on raising poor taste to the level of an art form. Without our example, the rest of the world would have no way of knowing when the bottom of the barrel has been scraped.�

“Hold on a second,� Lamas interrupted, glancing at his watch as he dialed a cell phone. “Hello, this is Lorenzo Lamas, from Falcon Crest. Do you have Prince Albert in a can? No, no, that’s Prince Harry. No, I don’t think he would actually fit in a can. Yes, he is quite adorable. Uh-huh, you’re right on that. Okay. Okay, thank you. Goodbye.�

The foreskin: Nature's "Mr. Touchy." Nobody denies the role of the foreskin in making sex even more sensitive than it otherwise would be. Some scientists, like my former roommate Bill Gottlieb, estimate that without the foreskin sex loses between 5 and 95% of its sensation. That's a lot of sensitivity!

No wonder M.A.R.S. wants so many foreskins. Not Mars, the planet, of course, let's not be ridiculous; I mean M.A.R.S., the Militant Alien Researchers of Sexuality, made up primarily of Neptunians. Everyone knows the Martians haven't been active in universal events since the 1960s, being a race near extinction. Forgive my spelling of Mars instead of M.A.R.S. in the headline, but I know how it is—you mention Mars, everybody jumps to attention; you mention Neptune, people are trampling each other in an effort to get away from boredom city.

But this involves foreskins, people—the abduction of them, no less. Maybe the Neptunians aren't as boring as you thought, hmm?

The part of the story you were never told starts back in the 1930s, when plucky environmentalists, then called "Earthtotalers," lobbied on behalf of the ecology to keep foreskins from just being thrown out the window once they were circumcised. Apparently, besides the nasty habit of them falling on proper ladies who just happen to walk by hospitals, the high oil content of foreskins turned out to be causing major environmental problems. Between you and me, I think it has more to do with prohibition of the time. After all, you're paying $45 for a beer and a foreskin lands in it, well, your whole day is just pissed away. But the Earthtotalers claimed some major ecological issue and got Congress involved, and before too long doctors had to dispose of severed foreskins like mechanics dispose of oil. Which pissed off our invisible friends, the Neptunians.

Neptunians benefited heavily from the excess foreskins thrown callously away since as early as circumcisions began. Interestingly enough, circumcisions are not the product of aliens, a nice change from most history, but the second-largest cause is behind it: Two guys drinking quite a lot. Lebzahamus and Eprudimus, two early Babylonians, were drinking quite a lot as was their custom to forget their awful names, when Eprudimus bet the other he couldn't chop the end of his dick off before Lebzahamus could pull it away. Eprudimus won, but was so envious of the sharp new look Lebzahamus had that he decided to cut off his own foreskin. Both awoke sober the next morning and horrified at what they had done, but not before a disgusting new trend had caught on.

Over the years, strangely, nobody wondered where those foreskins had disappeared to when causally tossed away. Neptunians, is the short answer. Given their limited sexual performance, Neptunians were desperate for any sort of enhancement they could get, so human penial foreskins became a popular aphrodisiac for their people. There was enough of a decline in the availability of foreskins when humans realized in the twentieth century, "Hey, what the fuck are we doing chopping our dicks off?" But then with the advent of medical waste disposal, the market for foreskins on Neptune became extremely endangered. In fact, things are so bad now that the future of the Neptune race is in jeopardy. If that sounds a little extreme, you've obviously never made love to a Neptunian woman without the aid of a foreskin aphrodisiac.

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