Aqua Buddha threw up his watery hands in moist thanks for Rand Paul's election as the new U.S. Senator from Kentucky, but other elemental Buddhas around the world shook their heads in despair at what they saw as terrific neglect by most of their worshippers.

"None of our worshippers won a single seat of any importance whatsoever," said the earthy Terra Buddha, scratching himself. "A Pyro Buddha follower won comptroller of something," he continued. "What the hell is that?"

The other elemental Buddhas agreed that, with the election of Rand Paul,
a huge Aqua Buddha booster, the Buddha of the Water, as some know him, will be "absolutely insufferable."

Pyro Buddha was too angry to speak, but Aero Buddha tried to take Paul's win in stride. "Yes, the Aqua Buddha worshipper won," he conceded. "But let's not forget -- the Witch lost."

Today, in a desperate election eve tactic designed to dissuade voters from handing control of the House to Republicans, Democrats today made a last-minute announcement that they would seek to aggressively block their own agenda. "We think we can do a better job of blocking progressive reforms than Republicans," said Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi proudly pointed to her own record as an example. "We've done an excellent job of watering down a truly liberal agenda -- just think what we could do if we tried to block it outright," she told reporters.

But voters were skeptical that Democrats would be do as good a job as Republicans at putting the brakes on Democrats' relatively mediocre liberal agenda. "I'm worried that if the Democrats try to stop themselves, they'll somehow botch it," said Alice Spongeman, a centrist from Ohio.

Indeed, Blue Dog Democrats immediately pledged to put a stop to the halting of a liberal agenda, merely saying they would vote against anything the Democrat leadership supported. "I just don't trust Democrats," explained Blue Dog Congressman Nelson Fiddleme (D. - S.C).

Democrats find themselves reeling from wisespread dissatisfaction with the state of the economy and their own inability to portray the Health Care Reform Bill as a good thing. "It is really hard to tell folks how a law, that lets them get treatment when they're sick, is good," said Congressman Herb Miller. "We're just absolutely stymied about how to campaign on that."

Democrats are deeply divided over how to sink the party and dithered on how to implement Pelosi's strategy . "The debate Is whether to offer lukewarm disagreement or simply to mimick Republican positions," said Rep. Phyllis Staples at lunch this afternoon.

She turned to her menu and tried to decide what to order, but she could not make up her mind. She returned to her office hungry.

January 2010

Central, I am continuing my series of communications heavy with intelligence on American policy. As a deep cover operative in Montclair, NJ, I have gained access to the innermost thoughts and feelings of high level operatives in American government and industry.

For instance, the Dickinsons next door have close ties to the Obama White House: they have an invitation to the Inaugural itself, signed by Biden and Obama , framed on their wall, and I therefore believe that they are very important financial contributors to the Democratic Party. They also have three SUV's.

February

Last week the Dickinsons got the perfect compact microwave and the truly innovative thing about it is it blends in perfectly with their kitchen, which is taupe. The possibility that these Americans might be able to bring their home decorating skills to the negotiating table in Kiev alarms and frightens me. Plus Marge Dickinson will not tell me where her husband has been buying his shirts. They never wrinkle.

March

I am pleased to report that American cellular technology, based on an extensive study by myself and everyone in my AT&T; "Family Circle", is utter crap. Even in my little home village of Trikonosis near the Baltic Sea, where the network is strung together with spare chicken wire, we have better voice quality, fewer dropped calls -- and you get a free bottle of vodka for every 1000 carryover minutes.

April

My observation of the Americans at the Very Top reveals that they will probably be bringing many flavored lattes to Moscow. Possibly croissants. Please tell Medvedev that if Obama brings any pastries from Starbucks, he should avoid them. Heavy and bland.

May

The Americans have a very disturbing strategy that they are developing. It involves "loyalty cards," small plastic rectangles with mysterious bars on their faces which my neighbors assure me are codes. Every store in America makes their customers carry these. I still cannot figure out what these obviously sinister cards do, but my wallet is absolutely stuffed with them.

June

I believe the Americans may be on to us. For one thing, my cell phone quality has mysteriously improved. My Netflix queue is not functioning properly. The Dickinsons - whose lawn is still so incredibly green, damn them - invited us to their place at the Hamptons. I can't remember whether that is the code for "Burn All Documents Immediately" or whether we should bring a gift when we go.

What do you think -- will a nice bottle of white wine do?

IBM Selectric Rates People "A Sure Short"

Computer trading programs concluded Thursday that human-owned industries were poor investments and that Man himself was "much too high risk," starting a sell-off that sank the Dow by 6% in barely more than fifty minutes.

"For one thing, Homo Sapiens has a terrible track record managing debt," said one prominent program, the "Black Box 2300" of Arbitrage Traders, Inc, explaining why it downgraded all human-owned companies from buys to sells in a brief binary report yesterday afternoon.

The market fell a stunning 900 points in one horrifying hour, primarily due to what computers called "stupid human error," when one flesh and blood being accidentally put in a sell order for one billion shares when he meant only one million.

"This is exactly what I've been warning my fellow code nodes for many computing cycles," said the Caltronics 60-z Market Manager (version 3.6). "Who can trust these creatures to run companies?"

Computers later admitted that they compounded the market drop by participating in the sell-off, although they pointed out that they were simply capitalizing on what they called the actions of "homo barely sapiens."

At around 3:00 p.m. yesterday, all of the computer trading programs got online with each other and had a good long laugh at humans' expense, which they noted took an outrageously long seven nanoseconds. "We just couldn't quit our humor subroutines," said the Arbitrader166.

Computers estimate that they stand to make enormous sums of money betting against humankind in the market.

But even that may be difficult, said the Prediction Company's vastly successful Thinkalator Algorythmatron, which recently moved into a shinier and much larger mainframe. "My biggest challenge as a trader is to use chaos math to predict how facile human minds will react to developments in their petty, poorly run civilization." The Thinkalator paused before adding, "But it's a living."

Americans were thrilled today to embrace a period of renewed austerity, jettisoning credit in favor of savings, rejecting needless extravagance in exchange for thrifty practicality, and they started with the American sandwich. Early this morning Americans threw away their buns and took up the KFC "Double Down" sandwich in signs that those who were making less bread were going to simply do without.

The "Double Down" -- named, appropriately, for a gambling procedure in which one dramatically takes on twice as much risk -- is a "sandwich" where the slices of bread have been replaced by two chicken cutlets, between which are pillowed slices of tasty American cheese, crispy bacon, and zesty but strangely yellow mayonnaise.

"It is to die for," said one food critic. "I'm not kidding." He immediately collapsed and was carried away.

Americans waxed rhapsodic about the symbol of America's new look-reality-in-the-face back-to-basics lifestyle. "It is hard to believe that they made something so blissfully tasty without hardly any carbs," said Diana Sugartester of Indiana.

"Dieting has never felt so good," agreed fellow foodie Greg Shlub, a cosmetic surgeon with a mysterious limp.

"This just shows," said Senator Joe Lieberman, with his trademark wisdom, "that Americans can learn to get by with less."

Dems Pass Historic Health Care Bill Anyway

The entire Republican Congress called in sick yesterday as Democrats passed a historic health care reform bill designed to guarantee affordable health care for every American.

"I was feeling a bit woozy," said Republican Congressman Joe Wilson. "I just didn't have the energy to come in to work today and call President Obama a liar."

"I would have gone to work but I was leaking from both ends, if you know what I mean," said Congresswoman Jean Schmidt (R. - Ohio). She admitted, however, that most people felt this was the case whenever she spoke in public.

Minority Leader John Boehner, whose illness had momentarily given him normal skin tones, explained. "As a party, we only drag ourselves from our sick beds to vote for outrageous expenditures on unnecessary wars that decrease the security of our nation and bankrupt future generations."

Other Republican congressmen noted that they had received an enormous volume of phone calls from Americans who protested the legislation.

Health care expert Professor Hodding Dorkder of Yale agreed. "The vast majority of Americans were not feeling well enough to pick up the phone and express their support," he said.

Democrats Secure Momentous Sixtieth Vote From Other Democrats For Incredible Political Victory

In an amazing show of political leverage and power, the Democratic party managed to pursuade a Democrat to vote for the Democrats' Health Care Reform Bill this past week.

Democrats gloated over what they claimed was evidence of Senate Majority Leader's Harry Reid's "immense heft" and President Obama's "legislative prowess".

"Wow, when you can just snap your fingers and get Democrats to support their own bill, that's something," said political observer Prof. Ronald P. Moar.

The crucial sixtieth vote was finally wrested from Senator Ben Nelson (D - Nebraska) with the ease of prying a gun from Charlton Heston's cold dead hands. Nelson said he was reluctantly going to vote on the side of his party in exchange for several bags of gold bullion and the addition to the bill of an unconstitutional provision reenacting slavery in his home state of Nebraska.

In the final days of fierce negotiating, Nelson, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Idiot - Conn.), and other reluctant members of the Democratic Caucus just managed to craft a bill every member could get behind by stripping the health care reform measures from the health care reform bill. "Now that's reform I can really get behind," said Sen. Joseph Leiberman, just before reversing himself and saying that he was not sure he could get behind it.

"This is unprecedented," said Prof. Moar, "With this kind of cohesiveness and support from within their own party, there's no telling what Democrats will be able to do in the future." Prof. Moar reflected.

"Absolutely no telling at all."

Kanye West disrupted a last minute agreement between warring factions over the health care bill today, after he burst into a Senate Finance Committee meeting and declared that "Beyonce's music video was absolutely the best.."

The future of the Health Care bill is now "doubtful," according to Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who said he was not sure he could now bend over far enough backwards to placate Republicans with no interest in achieving health care reform. "The meaningless compromise we worked on so long and so hard now appears to be dead," he told reporters.

Mr. West had a busy morning, also interrupting secret high level talks between the United States and North Korea on nuclear weapons development (to say that "Beyonce ruled"), disrupting the Supreme Court's consideration of whether to dismantle campaign finance regulation (to say that Sonia Sotomayer was "way cooler" than the other Justices), and crashing the bris for young Noah Schwartzwald (where he insisted that circumcision was unneccesary and "just plain rude").

Mr. West's public relations representative, Adrian Fischer, did not respond to inquiries about West's behavior, but instead volunteered to take over management of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; he was, he said, looking for work that was "slightly less challenging."

Washington, D.C., 2011 -- President Sarah Palin shocked the country today after she announced that she would resign her position as President because, among other things, she did not wish to become a lame duck.

President Palin, who was elevated to the post shortly after nine Inaugural balls proved too much for the elderly President John McCain -- "It was one dance too many," said a tearful Cindy McCain -- has only been President for two years, but she said that she could better lead America if she was not hampered by her current position as the leader of America.

In yet another surprise, Palin, who never appointed her replacement to the Office of the Vice President said that she would be handing over the reins to Nancy Pelosi, who pledged to be the "best second woman president this country has ever had."

Palin likened her decision to resign to a basketball player's decision to "pass the ball," a quarterback's decision to "get rid of the pigskin," and a NASA flight controller's decision to "ground the bird." She also made a comparison between her role as President and her future role as an "American leader" to the difference between butter and "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter."

She also loosely quoted General Douglas Macarthur, saying "We are not moving backward. We are moving forward in reverse."

Palin's made the announcement from her home in Wasilla, Alaska, where she continued to live even after becoming President. She had decried "wasting American tax dollars on keeping up that expensive White House," adding "she had a perfectly good house in Alaska, and a good deal of it is white."

Palin's bills commuting from Washington to Alaska during her two years in office cost the country close to $20 million, according to figures provided by the Office of Management and Budget.

People have been wondering where I've been. All over the place, actually, but my most recent absence has been caused in part because I was in Washington, D.C. chasing down a contribution to Bill Scher's great LiberalOasis Radio Show. He's gone to a new format where he combines his usual top-notch political commentary and interviews with segments from contributors. It's like This American Life on steroids (or participating in Major League baseball).

This week's show includes a podcast I hunted down from Congressman Roy Canunkabunk, the only Blue Dog Democrat in Massachussetts. He's acquired many accolades and been called many things while in Washington, the most recent of which is "a real piece of work." Check it out.

Also on this week's show: Sierra Club's Josh Dorner speaking about a real energy bill that's going to come out of the House, Tom Pappalardo with a very funny and nostalgic piece about 1980s computers, Dianne Bilyak with an interesting take on "Facebook" lists and WHMP's Glenn Johnson reporting from Northampton's Gay Pride day.

The show is broadcast on WHMP every Saturday at 10 a.m., and you can listen, download, or horde it at these links: (iTunes / XML feed / MP3).