s allegations and evidence continue to mount that Iraqi prisoners were subject to abuse and humiliation in U.S. military custody, the administration promised a change would come to the way prisoners were held, and that every dollar at their disposal would be used to fix or hush up the problem.

"This is a disgrace to America and all it stands for," said a current U.S. president, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "This is not the way we do things in this country—torturing prisoners, committing sexual acts with those in captivity, and getting caught in the act. It is against all we believe in. It makes a mockery of America and takes away our moral high ground. What's worse, they took pictures of it, hard evidence. What are we teaching our soldiers today?"

The president assured the media money would be thrown at the problem until it went away or was solved, and that the budget would not rest until enough green stemmed the tide of outrage.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, under fire and pressured to resign in the wake of the scandal, laid out a more specific plan of monetary problem-solving.

"Here's a fifty-dollar bill," said Rumsfeld, holding the currency up for media scrutiny. "As reparations, the U.S. government plans to give each and every victim of prison abuse one of these. That's a lot of money for an alleged terrorist or Baghdad bagman. It's in dollars, too, not drachmas or anything. And if you can prove you were sodomized, actually sodomized, not pretend, we'll make it a hundred."

Rumsfeld also said monetary reparations would be made to any prisoners who didn't survive incarceration, if their deaths could be proven with pictures. Another method of solving the problem proposed by Rumsfeld is increasing the number of military troops sent to Iraq—with more troops to supervise, it makes perfect sense less abuse would occur within the prisons.
Some critics charge the U.S. is trying to buy its way out of a bad press situation, which is something the critics say is completely unlike the United States. Kim Meducci of the Washington, D.C.-area chapter of Amnesty International, called the offer of money an insult to human rights.

"This is the kind of thing other countries do to their prisoners, not America," said Meducci. "Surely if a prisoner had ever been abused in the entire history of the United States we would have heard about it. It's a shame a few bad apples, a few rogue Americans who snuck around abusing prisoners, got caught. Which is to say, shouldn't have been doing such things in the first place. It's clearly not the way a military force occupying a hostile country behaves. And the administration should be ashamed of itself, more so, for trying to buy its way out of a scandal."

the commune only managed to end the quote by agreeing to take several pamphlets and provide a tax-deductible donation to the organization.

Some sources inside the Pentagon defended U.S. interrogation tactics, which critics have said created an atmosphere of secrecy and implied consent which tolerated and even encouraged the abuse documented in thousands of photos, video clips, and even some popular barracks songs. An anonymous Pentagon source, Col. Gerald Fetchen, spoke to the commune.

"American forces, especially the special ones, need a free hand to move as they want in protecting American concerns. If we start having to charge prisoners, to show evidence of terrorist involvement, if we have to start accounting for who we put behind bars and why they're there, we'll never get justice done."

weetie, the Food and Drug Administration went beyond its usual scope to approve abstinence last week, endorsing the political stance by rejecting over-the-counter sales of the "morning after" birth control pill known as Plan B. Plan A apparently being wait until you're married to bone.

Over-the-counter sales of Plan B were denied despite recommendation of an advisory panel, whose suggestions are almost always accepted by the FDA. The Plan B pill is a contraceptive tool intended to be taken within 72 hours after sex to prevent pregnancy, and has an 89% effectiveness. While less controversial than the more famous RU-486 contraception, which is taken orally to induce abortion, critics can be heard from their moral high horses critiquing the pill for encouraging promiscuity without the punishment of pregnancy.

Pro-Choice lawmakers and women's rights organizations have blasted the proposal's rejection, suggesting politics have guided the decision more than science, and the Bush administration has maneuvered the FDA decision to curry favor with its conservative base. The FDA claimed its decision was formed on the lack of research on girls 16 and under who take the pill, and not on cowardly bowing to special interests.

The FDA formalized its position Friday by releasing an official approval of abstinence.

"We find abstinence to be one hundred percent safe and effective at preventing pregnancy," said the decision. "All of our studies on the subject find that sex is way over-rated, and people who won't be your friend if you don't have sex aren't the kind of friend you need anyway. While some opponents say abstinence is for squares, our research shows that abstinence is the method for kids too cool to play the peer pressure game."

Critics have charged the FDA with exceeding its authority and entering the realm of politics with Friday's decision, as well of being complete dorks. The FDA ruling went on to acknowledge that while the Plan B pill's over-the-counter sales could ostensibly prevent thousands of unwanted pregnancies, that abstinence was the only sure-fire way to prevent "the bad reputations and normal feelings of guilt associated with underage pre-marital sex." Thus concluded the report: "Abstinence… yay!"

Some have called for the resignation of acting Commissioner Lester Crawford and acting director for the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Dr. Steve Galson, or at least signed confirmation the decision wasn't politically motivated. Galson previously headed a research group for the Abstinence Foundation performing a study on how the use of condoms reduced all feeling in the penis and the connection between teen-age sex and the holding of low-income jobs.

While the FDA has not closed the door to approving the over-the-counter sales of Plan B, it has significantly stalled the approval until, say, after the November election. If political motivation can be proven in the case, it will be more hard times for the FDA. The agency has faced recent scandal for letting so many male enhancement commercials ruin dinnertime television and approving over-the-counter sales of Placebo, the world's wonderful cure-all pill.

If there's any bar out there, buy everyone a drink and put it on my tab. I'm rolling in it, and this time it's not pigshit. I've got more money than I know what to do with since I was declared a disaster.

It's not even based on my physical appearance this time. I recently had a weather phenomenon happen to me that has never happened before. The guys at the meteorological society called it "isolated catastrophe," which is fancy talk for my own private tornado. It happened in my apartment about three weeks ago, but I didn't notice the damage done to my apartment until two weeks ago, it didn't look much different. I sort of remember being lifted a few feet off the ground while I was sleeping, but you never know, it could have been some form of ESP materializing in my unconscious mind. But the state is paying me $500, and I'd much rather have that than mental powers.

I qualified for disaster relief, the first time any single person has ever done that. Though there was a married couple one time in New Jersey, but that may be just a rumor. It's a pretty sweet deal for me, that's all I know. I'm supposed to use the money to clean up my apartment and seek counseling or something, but fat chance. I'm going to blow a fourth of the money on cheese, and the other half I'll invest or just buy luxury items with.

I'm going to spend my money smartly, though. People think money is about buying things you want, but that's for amateurs. Really smart money people know you use money to make more money. They call that investing, or maybe they call it something else, but investing is a real word. You make your money work for you. You use a little money to give the impression of a lot of money. That means buying nice clothes, like a purple suit made of silk and a hat with a giant feather. Then people know you're a high roller.

I've already got my luxury things picked out. I want to buy a car with silver wheels—I thought about gold wheels, but people might steal those. You have to keep silver wheels polished all day, so I'm going to buy a $300 spank rag. Maybe I'll buy two of them, but I suppose I could buy a whole box of monogrammed napkins to do the same job. I also have my eye on a few other expensive things, like a perfume that smells like loose change and a toaster so ritzy it refuses to make toast.

It would be nice to have money, I know that. I get so sick of heating my apartment with hot water bottles and going to the bathroom out the window. Gas, electricity, indoor plumbing—they sound like pretty nice things. So I'm going to invest this money right so I can make some real money later on, keep it flowing in. One of these days I'll have that kind of money, the kind where you don't have to wear the same T-shirt with the DeFranco Family on it for years. I'll have to borrow some food to live on for a while, until the money pays off. I don't want to make the mistake of eating the cash like I did last time I came into some money.

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