elevangelist and all-around Christian doorknob Pat Robertson was on the defensive again this week, claiming that his recent quote "We should blow up the State Department" was taken out of context by the media to indicate that he thought we should blow up the State Department.

"Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up like Newt Gingrich wants to do," Robertson said during a "700 Club" interview with journalist Joel Mowbray.

"I can't state strongly enough how much I disagree with this idea," said emphatic department spokesperson Richard Boucher. "I think the very idea is despicable. I feel very strongly about this. No. I vote 'No'."

"It's just a terrible idea," added spokesperson Ron Lilly. "I mean, good luck getting your hands on a nuke that small."

"When I suggested previously that we nuke the State Department, many took this to mean I advocate the destruction of the U.S. State Department by way of planting a nuclear device in their Foggy Bottom headquarters," stated Robertson in his public retraction. "Nothing could be further from the tr—No, wait, that's right. What is everybody so upset about again?"

While State Department officials are nearly unanimous in their opposition to the plan, the American public thus far seems largely indifferent.

"The State Department? What do they make, license plates?" questioned hairdresser Roger Darland. "Fuck it, nuke 'em!"

Military experts find Robertson's plan intriguing, but not without its share of flaws.

"It would be exceedingly difficult to nuke the State Department without causing significant collateral damage to other parts of the government, given their geographical proximity," observed military strategist and gaming nut Noam Stewart. "Not that I'd be opposed to just nuking that whole circus, mind you."

Stewart also pointed out that Robertson's suggestion that "maybe we should cut off all of their dicks and put them in a blender," would likely be vetoed by the president and any other empathetic penis-havers in higher government.

The State Department, which oversees U.S. foreign policy, has come under fire from conservatives in recent months for coddling authoritarian governments in the Middle East and proving to be too lax in its visa program with Saudi Arabia.

"Robertson's comments were despicable, and irresponsible," lisped department spokesman Boucher. "Especially considering the highly-impressionable nature of our president. He doesn't always know when you're joking, even if it may seem obvious to us. President Bush is much like a Golden Retriever in that way."

merican media is in a frenzy the week following a brutal tiger attack on magician Roy Horn in Las Vegas. The Oct. 3 mauling of the entertainer happened at The Mirage hotel-casino show in front 1,500 lucky paying fans. Ever since the incident, news organizations and infotainment sources have been bringing a steady deluge of information on tigers and tiger attacks to the public, prompting the question: Is this really a problem?

Horn, 59, of the famed unambiguously-gay duo “Sigfried & Roy,� remains in critical condition following the near-fatal tiger attack. The tiger, a white 7-year-old Siberian tiger, the same kind it’s hard to get a photo of Horn without, was being quarantined and apparently held for questioning following the mauling. Witnesses said Horn was alone with the tiger onstage when it grabbed his arm; Horn then tried to fend off the animal with a microphone, but it offered no comment on its intentions. The tiger, whose name was not released to reporters, then went for Horn’s throat and dragged him off-stage. Those who saw the event described it as “terrifyingly amusing.�

No doubt it was gruesome to behold, and will be part of an hour-long Fox special in the future, but what about preventing further incidents of tiger-related injuries? One man has received possibly-fatal injuries already, and much other damage has been inflicted: 267 Sigfried & Roy workers lost their jobs and The Mirage lost a $44 million-earning act. What other damage have tigers inflicted on the American public?

According to a PETA pamphlet mistakenly mailed to the commune, over 15,000 tigers are privately owned in the United States, despite being illegal as pets. Since 1990, six adults and two children have been killed in tiger-related incidents, and over 60 have been seriously injured. Statistics on how many tigers or individuals are involved in the entertainment industry are not given, but it’s easy to assume most illegally-kept tigers are not kept secret by taking them onstage for a show regularly. In fact, truthfully, how you can keep a tiger amongst other people at all without anyone knowing about it is itself a mystery, given this reporter’s cat Knickers receives complaints from nasty neighbors on average of once a week.

Since the mauling at The Mirage, lawmakers have apparently done nothing further to discourage further tiger attacks. Though with media hype building, the exact number of licenses and permits necessary to bring a wild animal show to town will likely be revealed as tiger-related news proves a thin resource.

Reports continue to flood in about the outpouring of support for Roy Horn and his companion, meant in the working sense, Sigfried Fischbacher. People arrive in droves at a makeshift memorial in front of The Mirage and numbers of them hold candlelight vigils in front of the hospital where he continues his recovery process. So many people have visited the Sigfried & Roy website, it has reportedly crashed numerous times. Meanwhile, 11 million children in Africa are left orphans from AIDS epidemics and the UN projects 2 billion people worldwide will live in poverty by 2030.

The next time you're out fly-fishing on the open sea, and out of nowhere a deep rumbling beneath you swells into the thunderous surfacing of a mighty beast, a whale of elephantine proportions that promptly explodes in a cacophony of catastrophic gore, remember that you have Lewis Captain to thank. If it weren't for one of the greatest and most unlikely American inventors of all time, you wouldn't be frantically bailing dog-sized hunks of hot whale meat out of your boat as it rapidly capsized into the ocean. And as you're clinging to a Styrofoam cooler while what's left of your boat slowly descends down towards Davey Jones' locker, you'll know that you have just experienced the magic of Sonar.

Sonar was invented in 1918 by Captain Lewis Captain, a man who spent his entire life nurturing a powerful hatred of whales. This hatred would eventually lead him to develop the world's most powerful whale-killing technology, which had the unintended side-effect of helping sailors navigate underwater environs.

Captain's last name was actually pronounced CAP-tayne, like it rhymed with plantain. But back then people didn't know what plantains were either, so they just pronounced it "captain" and made fun of the fact that he couldn't even swim. Throughout history, people have had a hard time accepting anyone named Captain who didn't pilot a boat or at least wear one of those white hats around the office.

Growing up, Captain had no interest in the sea beyond his virulent hatred of whales, an animal which he had never seen. His reasons for hating whales so violently are a matter of folk legend, with popular explanations ranging from a whale eating his prized marble collection when he was a boy to Captain being agonized by a persistent stench in his college dormitory, which some passing neer-do-well described as "smelling like a whale's bung." Captain only learned to sail because people were tired of hearing him complain about whales when he had never been out to sea.

After earning a Bachelor of Sailing degree from the Maritime Institute in Massachusetts, Captain set out on several unsuccessful whale-hunting expeditions from 1915 to 1918. Some blamed his lack of success on his aversion to harpoons and his preference for putting various foods that whales might find delicious on a gigantic hook, which he attached to an oversized fishing pole. Captain never did catch a whale this way, though he did land several passing fishing vessels using these innovative methods.

Eventually Captain tired of his inefficient whale-eradication techniques. In 1918 he was inspired by the incessant screech a neighbor's highly-annoying big band record to develop a special underwater speaker, which could be used to taunt whales with big band music, possibly driving them to suicide. He also developed an underwater microphone with which he could gleefully monitor the whales' tortured Chewbacca cries of "Turn down that racket!" and "For the love of God, we're trying to sleep here!"

The system was largely ineffective until turned up to near-deafening levels, at which point it began working like gangbusters. The noises freaked out whales and various other undersea creatures, causing them to surface in a panic and explode when gasses in their bloodstreams, trapped by deep-sea pressures, sought egress like a shook-up Diet Shasta. Captain loved that shit, and soon orchestrated the exploding marine creature displays as if they were Fourth of July fireworks.

During one of these expeditions, or "Safaris" as Captain liked to call them, crewman Paul Langévin noticed that the microphone was picking up reflected echos of the big band music in such a way to allow the virtual mapping of the ocean's floor by timing the reflections received from various directions. Captain greeted this news by giving less than two thirds of a shit, but Langévin filed away the knowledge and used it to develop the world's first functioning "Sonar" system. The system was named for the first narwhal Captain exploded in 1918, and went on to be used extensively in the naval operations of WWII.

Over the next fifty years, Captain did his best at adjusting to a world that grew gradually less open to the wholesale slaughter of marine creatures. Toward the end of his life he was arrested while trying to blow up the trick-performing show whales at Sea World, who were beloved by children and weird maritime perverts the world over. Though he only succeeded in giving Shamu mild vertigo and a touch of performance anxiety with his hand-held Sonar device, Captain was ordered by the courts to attend several weeks of marine abuse-prevention counseling. He stubbornly died shortly thereafter, leaving behind a legacy of innovation and insane nautical enmity that will marvel and bemuse the world for generations.

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