resident George "Foot-in-the-Mouth" Bush vowed that the U.S. would not give up the battle for Iraq until "every last American is dead and buried." Though it came out, hopefully, not as the president intended, it showed that growing discontent over the Iraq problem has not yet shaken the administration’s resolve to stay in there and really fuck things up until the Republican reign is over.

Speaking to a large group of soldiers at a U.S. military base in South Korea, also known as "the other front," the president pledged to keep a troop presence in Iraq "until the war on terror is won," demonstrating once again the president’s unfailing optimism/ignorance that a war on a concept is winnable. Look out, anger!

"The insurgents who strike at our troops… at Iraqi civilians… at the every constructive effort in the newly liberated Iraq… these cowards want the U.S. to withdraw its soldiers, so they can undo what we’ve already done there. We will not give them what they want," said Bush. Also not getting what they want are the millions of American citizen who had believed the troop presence would be withdrawn, and the thousands of American soldiers in the region who would prefer to spend their holidays with their families, alive and not being shot at.

The speech sounded almost too perfectly timed with a vote in the House of Representatives on whether or not to bring American soldiers home from Iraq, which ended in a resounding victory for the people who want them dead. The House voted down the initiative, proposed by hawkish Democrat Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania and denounced as a stunt by other Democrats, by 403-3.

Speaking for the majority, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (big-ass Republican, Illinois) said, "We will not stop supporting our troops when they need us most. We will not retreat. We will support our troops until every one of them is underground."

It echoed the promise of the president as he spoke to our boys overseas: "Even when every American soldier is killed by Iraqi insurgents, we will not surrender. We will give them more soldiers, fresh by the barrels, run too fast through the boot camps to be properly trained. And we will hold them there, like, ’Eh? Eh? Why don’t you kill these troops now? We’ll just make more.’ And we will continue with that response, until every last American is dead. This I promise you." The passionate speech was met with the most awkward applause ever heard in history.

The mixed message of the comment, mixed with the recent "Jesus was a fag" gaff by the president, has left some critics charging that the president no longer thinks himself fallible, safely in the beginning of his second term; others, on the other hand, charge that he just don’t give a shit anymore. This reporter sought the expert opinion of Newark University’s Noam Chauncey, not only to fill out column space, but also because it pisses off the bosses I despise so much.

"Public opinion has always been split largely down the middle on support for the Iraq War, and whether or not the American people believe the president is an asshole," said Chauncey, sipping a fine international coffee in his office at the not-fake university. "One issue decides the other. However, now the majority is moving toward War-no/Asshole-yes standing, which leaves the president with two options: One, to bow to increasing pressure and call the soldiers home, or two, to pretend he has a mandate to whatever the hell he wants while ignoring the world around him and the ever-present facts of reality. This president made his decision long ago. In fact, I don’t even know why you’re talking to me about it. We’ve known this for a long time and I’ve got shit to do."

The president cared so little about American response to his most recent approach, he promised us a quote for the article. Then, however, he had his press secretary pretend to search for something in his jacket only to pull out an extended middle finger.

recent round of standardized DMAS testing in America's elementary schools has revealed that in spite of President Bush's ambitious "No Child Left Behind" education policy, at least one American child has been left way the fuck behind.

"I don't like schoolin'," explained eight-year-old Topeka, Kansas boy Rodney Camaro, exhibiting numerous symptoms of left-behindedness, including messy, uncombed hair, untied shoelaces, a poor vocabulary and a fondness for pro wrestling.

Camaro was brought to the attention of education officials earlier this week when test results revealed that someone had actually scored a zero on last month's DMAS, a feat previously thought mathematically impossible.

"You get twenty-five points for just making a pencil mark on the page," explained testing director Earl Winters. "Fifty for writing your name. Ten for turning in your pencil at the end of the test. This kid must have eaten his pencil, he's a miracle."

So what happened to Rodney? According to the boy's family, Rodney's father's wages from his job at a local rubber vagina factory have been insufficient for the family to afford a professional tutor to help Rodney learn his ABCs and lefts from rights.

But many argue that the local schools have failed Camaro, as evidenced by his vague concept that North is "up" and only a dim awareness that money comes in various denominations. Camaro is often swindled in cash exchanges with his fellow students, however, due to his fondness for nickels.

"Ain't nothin' better than a nickel," Rodney explained, proudly holding up a 1997 nickel the boy paid $5 for last month.

Rodney also displays an appalling lack of knowledge about nutrition, history and math. According to the boy, a balanced diet includes the food groups of chocolate, milk chocolate, and Nerds. Rodney's teachers also detailed the boy's unique mathematical techniques, which include performing subtraction by running all the numbers in the equation together and adding a negative symbol, as in 4-3=-43. All reports indicate that Camaro is equally inept at science, and reads at a pre-natal level.

School officials insist that Rodney's the one who has let them down, refusing to get smart and clean up his act in spite of a generous grading curve that somehow has enabled Camaro to advance to the third grade, singularly on the merit of getting older.

When asked about the major players during WWII, the eight-year-old replied simply "Nutsies." Camaro was unable to elaborate with any more hilarious details.

America's schools have also failed to teach Rodney a single thing about politics, as well, given the boy's inability to name the current U.S. president, or, as he is known to Rodney, the "Karate King."

"Karate King don't want no name, Karate King don't need no name," the boy explained patiently in the face of this reporter's adult ignorance.

Despite Camaro's lack of awareness of the president's existence, President Bush already has plans for the boy, hoping sweep Camaro under the rug by offering Rodney an appointment to one of the government's major science posts, just as soon as he gets over his weakness for public urination.

Though as of press time, it was still unclear which of the two, Bush or Camaro, would have to stop peeing in public.

As long as there have been statements of truth, there have been lies. In fact, lies have been around a bit longer, since in early days there wasn't much of a good reason to tell the truth about anything at all, because it was near the beginning of time and nobody knew anything anyway. It took decades for normalcy to be established and for those original lies to come back and bite the liars on their early asses, creating a motivation not for honesty, but rather more clever lies that were less likely to boomerang back and fuck shit up later on.

After a few generations, someone told the truth, mostly on accident, and an entirely new category for these mysterious "not lies" had to be created. These were deemed highly unusual and somewhat unsettling, and no one was entirely sure what these statements of non-falsity might be good for. In the end, it turned out, the answer was not much.

Early caveman lies were charmingly quaint and simple, with the original lie, "It wasn't me!" still a popular favorite today. After a few hundred years the second lie, "It was him!" was invented, contributing greatly to the growing complexity of social interactions. The third lie, "No, you look great," marked the dawning of modern male-female relations, which have progressed little in the intervening 160 million years.

Lies grew more complex in Egyptian times, with the great lie of that age being the Pharaoh's "Seriously, we're building this pyramid for everybody to use!" But the modern lie didn't reach full maturity until the time of the Roman Empire, when the Romans went over 200 years without telling anyone the truth, ever. This became a running joke in Rome, since if you bought a ticket to the Coliseum, the time listed on the ticket only really told you the hour the event was guaranteed not to start on. Unlike modern Westerners, the Romans weren't angry at all about being lied to, since to a man they found it uniformly hilarious. Most conversations between Romans were merely contests to see who could tell the biggest lie, and because of this the greatest insult you could pay to a Roman was to compliment him. This cultural misunderstanding led to all but one of the wars Rome was involved in during the nation's reign, the other one being caused by a stray dog with incredible gas.

Some consider Jesus' "I'll be right back!" claim of rapturous return to be the original lie, but that's just foolish religious bias speaking. Men had been pulling each other's legs for millions of years before Jesus laid that turd.

Perhaps the funniest lie ever told in history was the pilgrim's famous "We come in peace!" canard handed to the Indians upon de-boating at Plymouth Rock. The Indians bought this stinker hook, line and sinker, thanks to an unfortunate history of total honesty in Native American communication, since most tribes even lacked the concept of what a lie was, except for the Ocaca ("Shitbird") tribe, who were dirty fucking cheats so crooked their arrows didn't even fly straight.

Fittingly, America was founded on not only the "Let's live together!" bullshit dealt to the Indians, but also the "We're just checking this place out for you guys" whopper that was flung back England's way. This cock-and-bull double-whammy set the precedent for a nation so enamored with tall tales we ended up exporting them to the entire world on flimsy little plastic discs guaranteed to last "forever."

America's favorite lie to date has probably been the fate of JFK; since 40 years have gone by without the truth ever being revealed that there never WAS a president named John F. Kennedy, even though it only took some grainy footage of some random parade unwisely detouring through Compton to convince an entire nation otherwise.

New Coke was a lie. It was actually exactly the same as Old Coke, which makes the soft drink's spectacular failure all the more hilarious. Admittedly, though, a large portion of the drink's failure can be attributed to an early can-printing mishap that led to the first million cans of the soda being shipped with the name "New Cock."

This flub did thrill the small bands of genetic dropped balls known as soda collectors, who rushed to buy up all the cases of the misprinted cola they could get their hands on. The flubbed pop was a giant flop with the general public though, since few people in the early 80's were ready to publicly declare their aching desire to wrap their lips around some New Cock. The soda did sell surprisingly well in Texas, however.

Advertising has overshadowed most of the big public lies of the last century, since not even President Clinton's "It wasn't me!" or President Bush's "Of course they got bombs, they're A-rabs" can really compete with the constant daily inundation of claims that beer will make you strong and that the same old shit is new and improved. In fact, dishonesty became so pervasive in advertising that the only completely honest ad on record, Pan-Am's ill-fated "We Really Hope You Fly With Us, Even Though the Airlines are All Basically the Same, or Else We'll be Up Shit Creek" campaign, led to the prompt bankrupting of the airline within fourteen days.

Other great lies you may have missed? Here's the rundown on what you need to know, courtesy of your Uncle Griswald: Unless you're Jimi Hendrix, nobody in the world likes to listen to you play guitar. Sorry. Underwear? Not really necessary, and the prime reason you haven't been laid in three years. Tomatoes aren't really a fruit, and Castor Oil isn't really good for you. Everybody else was pretending to like Reggae. Masturbation does cause cancer, but only if you keep it a secret. And most importantly of all, reading the commune really does improve both your chances of winning the lotto and being trampled by bison. Do with that knowledge what you will.

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