merican contractors detained in Iraq by U.S. troops have returned the States, and are anxious to deliver a message to concerned parents: Avoid sending your kids to Iraq's Camp Falluja this summer.

The warning follows the release of 16 American and 3 Iraqi contractors who were detained in the "happiest place in Iraq" for 72 hours, without seeing a lawyer, natch, while they were suspected of being terroristic mercenaries or yet another of the many gun-toting nutjobs just wandering around Iraq looking for love in the wrong places. During their detention, as part of the "Camp Falluja Fun-Powerment Program," the detainees claim they were verbally and physically abused by American troops, suffering the most severe damage to their self-esteem.

Says one of the detainees, ex-Marine Matt Raiche and team leader of Fun-Powerment Team Blue: "I was in disbelief the whole time. I couldn't believe what was happening."

No doubt much of the shock came from the way Camp Falluja, "the America away from America," has been presented in the media in recent months, as part of the administration's attempt to off-set negative publicity in Iraq. Designed as a self-esteem building two-month sleep-away vacation for American youths, as well as a detention center for suspected Iraqi terrorists, Camp Falluja has been sold to the public as the most hate-free area in the newly democratic country. True proof that democracy can work in the country, and American children can benefit from new experiences in a foreign land, Camp Falluja allows daring young adventurers, as well as dangerous terror suspects, to inter-mix freely on Iraqi soil and participate in trust-building empowerment exercises and healthy physical activity, as well as offering overweight teens a chance to learn discipline with their eating.

"I went to Camp Falluja!" exclaims a husky 12-year-old, holding up a Polaroid of his formerly corpulent self in the now-famous commercial. "No more 'fatty pants' for Charlie!"

What the commercial may have left out is images of Fatty-Pants Charlie being hurled to the ground violently, bound so tight he loses circulation in his hands, insulted and demeaned by American soldiers, stripped naked, and threatened with bodily harm by the release of a vicious hound dog on his persons. These make up the majority of the accusations by the detained Zapata-employed contractors, and while this thing is expected and even encouraged for Iraqi detainees, doing it to Americans is just playing unfair.

"I sent my son Phil away to Camp Falluja just for a week," said Hazel, Connecticut hausfrau Nina Brown. "He just came back Friday and it's obvious he's been traumatized. He freezes up and goes catatonic whenever I shoot my guns off in the backyard, and he's terrorized whenever he's strip-searched now. He didn't come back more confident and educated about Iraqi culture at all.

"Needless to say," continued Brown, "I expect a full refund."

In the wake of the accusations, some have questioned whether the very idea of Camp Falluja was a good idea—placing a large number of suspected Saddam Hussein loyalists together with underage American boys and the occasional U.S. contractor—let alone the execution. An inside source at the White House, though, whom we call Dickie, doubted any long-term changes would be made in the wake of bad press.

"Are you kidding? They're already working on the exercise equipment for the next big opening, at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo." Concluded Dickie, "Some here are arguing the U.S. should take this opportunity to re-evaluate how its soldiers are trained to keep detainees, maybe the very cultural differences that exist between our two great societies. But more than likely they'll just redesign the T-shirts and add more fun runs."

hree masked bandits made off with the largest-ever collection of stolen sperm samples in a daring daylight heist of the McCullough Bank of Low-Grade Sperm in New York this week, amusing authorities and frightening one McCullough patron into premature donation.

Authorities believe they are dealing with extremely low-grade, and possibly mentally deficient, criminals, all likely the results of McCullough sperm in the first place. Common sense and eyewitness accounts point to the robbers mistaking the sperm bank for the usual money-filled kind, lured by the facility’s lax security and complete lack of the imposing 87-year-old security guards usually employed by banks in the movies. Even worse, the apparently dipshitted bandits also robbed the least desirable sperm bank in town, as McCullough has traditionally been a discount repository for the genetic material of over 5,000 winos, junkies, teenage heart-attack victims, the criminally obese and conservatives for the last 20 years.

“Yeah, this looks to be the work of some real gonads,� evaluated police captain Walter Diggs. “One of them even dropped his wallet at the scene, but since it was just full of coupons and a novelty driver’s license made out to Jesus H. Christ, this has been of little assistance in our investigation.�

The McCullough Bank of Low-Grade Sperm, known in the reproductive-assistance community as “The Island of Misfit Spank,� was created by wealthy thinker Nelson McCulloch in 1982 to counterbalance to the offensively Nazistic eugenics movement. McCullough hoped to counter the societal effects of eugenic tycoon Robert Graham’s Repository for Germinal Choice, also known as the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, which aimed at improving society by giving more women access to high-grade spunk. The McCullough Bank went in the other direction, extending the reproductive power and reach of the very individuals who natural selection, and surely at least the Nazis, would likely have wiped out.

Authorities speculate that after McCullough’s long and proud history of creating the ugly, the short, the slothful and disinterested, the weak, the gene-poor, the flat-chested and the unlovable, the bank’s chickens may have come home to roost in the form of deficient McCullough alumni making off with millions of their potential siblings in a beige 1987 Chevy Nova with a “Big Johnson� bumper sticker.

Reproductive-assistance experts remain terrified at the thought of how the sperm samples might be used in the wrong hands, possibly as sandwich spread.

“I just wouldn’t want to be in that car when the skeet packet goes off,� chucked McCullough head Nigel Barmes, referring to the explosive packet of hot-pink dyed sperm that tellers mix in with stolen samples to foil robbers.

The McCullough incident marks the first occurrence of sperm bank violence in this country since 1991, when militant pro-choice activists blew up the Washington, D.C. Gentleben Sperm Repository in retaliation for several abortion clinic bombings nationwide.

Please.

Deidrebane, my dear, I tire of your ceaseless accusations. I swear this is all I've heard about all week since you found that softball-sized rock of crack cocaine in the sofa cushions. For the googleth time, darling, that's clearly not my shit. Do you see my initials monogrammed anywhere on the rock? My elegantly formal CC? Or even one of my famous "Hands Off!" post-it notes? I think not. So let's put this silly controversy to bed before I miss another moment of the Ultimate Fighting Challenge.

No, of course I don't know whose crack rock it might be. Did you ask the children? All of them? You really called Montpellier at reform school? I have to admit I'm impressed by your thoroughness, my dear. What did he have to say? Lonely? Wants to come home? Hit another student with a cue ball? Really? Now that's showing some initiative. I may have misjudged the lad. Was he playing pool or billiards? Snooker? Even better! Remind me to send him a snuff box for Father's Day. I know he's not a father, Deidrebane, but anyone can enjoy a fine mahogany snuff box. Don't be so closed-minded.

Did I see the maid rifling through the couch like she'd just lost several thousands of dollars worth of illegal narcotics? My dear, name me a day when that hasn't happened! You know how Consequa is, with her rifling. That's why we chose her from among the finalists, don't you remember? Consequa was rifling like a pro long after the others had succumbed to fatigue and delirium. It's her calling card, like Carson with that golf stroke. You know, Rich Carson, when he had that stroke on the course? He milked that for years, dear, always japing like he'd burst a blood vessel in his brain whenever the moment called for levity. Whatever happened to him, anyway? Died of a stroke? Really? I bet it was hilarious.

Yes, I suppose it could have been the butler's crack rock, now that you bring up the possibility. He's always creeping around in the shadows, answering the door at all hours of the night. Never trusted that behavior. What was his name again? Lee Butler? That's convenient. Can't believe I couldn't remember that name, how long have we had him? Is that in decades? My word. Remind me to send him a snuff box for Arbor Day.

You know, dear, it could have very well been the dog's. We don't know where he goes at night. Why are you looking at me like that? I wouldn't even know where to find a five-pound rock of pure crack cocaine. Not at this hour, anyway. Let's get back to the dog thing. Have you noticed that guilty look on his face lately? And the other day he was obviously jonesing, twitching on the floor like an electrocuted sea bass. What? I don't believe for a second that all dogs do that while they're sleeping, where did you read that? Dog dreams? Have you been watching that Oprah program again?

Sincerely, Deidrebane, sometimes I wonder about you.

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