The Perry debate team was thrilled last night that Governor Rick Perry was actually able to name two of the three agencies he would immediately eliminate if elected President, noting that the Texas governor rarely was able to name even one.

Melanie Sprim, a Perry debate strategist, could barely contain her glee. "Wow," she said, "He really nailed it! What a performance!" She explained. "When the moderator asked the governor to name three agencies, we were sweating bullets. Well, you can imagine our relief!"

During last night's debate, Perry said he would eliminate three agencies: Education and Commerce. He could not remember the name of the third, even after being given half an hour to think about it. In frustration, moderators momentarily considered allowing Perry to google the result.

Governor Perry later explained that he had already eliminated the Department of Energy from his mind, so he was unable to recall that it still existed.

After withdrawing his proposal for a referendum on the debt deal to save the Greek economy, Prime Minister George Popandreou has proposed instead propping up the economy with a very large stick.

"I understand that it would have to be immensely large," Popandreou said, "hundreds of kilometers long and very sturdy." Popandreou said that simply constructing the stick would create thousands of jobs and flood money into the economy.

"Unfortunately, building the stick would require massive infusions of capital," a member of the Greek government said, "and so once again, we are asking for a loan from the E.U."

The European Union was leary of the plan, because of concerns that the stick would really have to be large enough to bear the weight of the entire European economy, which threatens to collapse if the Greek economy falls. "This European Union thing was really smart," said E.U. official Francois Arczek. "Like John Kerry windsurfing or Michael Dukakis driving a tank."

The physics world is abuzz with news that a group of European physicists plans to announce Friday that it has clocked a burst of subatomic particles known as neutrinos breaking the cosmic speed limit -- the speed of light -- that was set by Albert Einstein in 1905.

Update: This post picked up as a "popular law story from around the web" by the Wall Street Journal.

Nation Weeps

A frightened nation held its breath today over final negotiations to replaster the debt ceiling even as GOP negotiators threatened even tougher stances on replacing the ugly debt wallpaper and debt carpeting.

"Mark my words, we will not be replacing the debt carpeting unless we get a balanced budget amendment and a lifetime supply of twinkies and beer for every member of the Republican Party," Speaker John Boehner told reporters today.

Democrats practically wept over Boehner's threat, saying they were already exhausted with the effort of caving in on the debt ceiling. "Some people may not understand, but capitulating to every demand of the Republican Party is very effortful," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid was going to say "taxing," but reconsidered under pressure from GOP leaders.

"I'm just happy they were able to come to an agreement over the ceiling," said April Pishter, a housewife from Debuque, Arkansas. She was untroubled by the terms of the agreement, so long as long as the ceiling remained intact. "It's just so important to have a roof, a ceiling, anything hanging over our heads."

AT&T; and T-Mobile today announced plans to merge in order to vastly increase their reach and value, spokespeople said.

"Now," explained Shirley Dickinson of AT&T;, "we can fail to provide service to twice as many customers as before."

Dickinson's additional comments were unclear, due to poor sound quality. Calls back to Dickinson for clarification were repeatedly dropped.

In person, Dickinson later told reporters that the merger would result in "even more bars in more places," although listeners could not be sure she was not talking about prisons or nightclubs, based on their own experiences with the company.

One real upside of the merger is that the two companies would be able to charge more money for less service, according to an anonymous source, AT&T; Vice-President Gil Maddingly. "This is another victory for the American consumer," he said, "because a victory for American Capitalism is a victory for everyone."

He uses Verizon.

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."