The Vulcans go to War

Once upon a time there existed a powerful tribe, whose leaders proclaimed that they were the Greatest Tribe on earth. As a new century dawned, the Greatest Tribe was bitterly divided between two parties: the Oranges, who were red, dum and happy; and the Grapes, who were blue, sour and very unhappy because the last election had been stolen by the Oranges. The Grapes were convinced that their man, the Great Kisser should have been chief.
Instead, the candidate selected by the Ultimate Jesters was Little Shrub. It was hard to decipher what to make of him. During the campaign he promised to be humble, compassionate and a uniter. But he got that all backwards. The good news was that he never made mistakes, at least not by his telling. Little Shrub was very religious but not very smart. However, he had inherited from his daddy, chief Big Shrub, a group of Vulcans who were very experienced in running the tribe. They were also a little crazy. The head Vulcan was Chief Liar, an experienced ventriloquist who told Little Shrub what to say and do. The other Vulcans included an old militarist known as Target Picker; a professor of right wing politics named Lupus Neoconus, who taught that the tribe should pick fights with any tribes he didn’t like; Cautious Soldier, a career warrier; and Auntie Ben, who was very close to Little Shrub and just as good at bending the truth into pretzels as Chief Liar.

The Greatest Tribe had antagonized many other tribes over the years, by selling them Coca-Cola and bad sitcoms. Some of these tribes belonged to the Nomad religion and their God told them that they shoudn’t take it anymore and should fight back. One of these fighters started a group called the Basement of Martyrs. His name was Tall Beard and he was very good at getting the angriest of the Nomads organized to fight the Crusaders. After Little Shrub became chief, the Basement staged a terrible and daring raid against two of the tribe’s highest tents and even against the five-sided war tent. Many people died and the entire tribe was shocked and enraged when they saw the pictures of the tents burning. The Greatest Tribe retaliated by attacking Mountanistan, a country which had hosted the Basement. They routed it’s army and chased out the Basement members, but did not defeat or capture them. Tall Beard was especially hard to find because he blended in so well.

Far away, in the great desert, there existed another tribe, the Leopards. They were ruled by an evil dictator, Mother-of-all-Losers. The former chief Big Shrub had tangled with this dictator a decade earlier, had broken many of his swords and chariots, but left him in power. The dictator had been a nuisance since then, but he was not a threat.
Lupus Neoconus had never liked Mother-of-all-Losers, so he and Target Picker started agitating to attack the Leopard tribe next. Lupus had preached for a long time that the Leopards were a threat. Target Picker said that the Leopards had much better targets than the Basement. Little Shrub’s political adviser, Dirty Trickster, thought a war would be a great idea, it would make it much easier to get Little Shrub reelected next time as a wartime chief.
There was just one little catch. The Vulcans had no plausible reason why the evil dictator should be removed by them. They looked to the Central Scouts to provide justification. The Scouts said they thought that the dictator had or was developing awful stuff, including bad stuff, worse stuff and worst stuff. All of this stuff could kill thousands of people, if Mother-of-all-Losers got his hands on it.
A devious and very effective propaganda campaign under the guidance of Dirty Trickster was now started to get the tribe’s people in a wartime mood. Lies and distortions flew left and right. Lies were reclassified as moral values. Nothing was overlooked. Chief Liar got on the road and made speeches that there was No Doubt that the dictator was developing bad stuff, even the worst stuff. He ignored the fact that Scoutmaster had warned that his information was about as solid as wet noodles. Chief Liar was living up to his name. Auntie Ben was no better. She even talked about Mother’s worst stuff leading to smoking mushrooms! Of course, Little Shrub himself did his part. In a big speech before the Council of Elders he claimed that Mother was importing organ pipes and fruitcake to make wurst stuff (this chief always had trouble with his native tongue).
The man responsible for outtribe relations in the Vulcan administration was Cautious Soldier, a man more trusted and respected than the other Vulcans. He advised Little Shrub that the Greatest Tribe should not attack the Leopards without agreement from the Divided Tribes. So Cautious Soldier was given the task to convince the DT. He gave a presentation to the Safety Council. He made many farfetched claims but was weak on substance, except for the well known wet noodles. It was not his finest hour. Not surprisingly, he did not convince important tribes such as the Vintners and the Teutons, nor did the Bears buy his story. The Vintners became quite vocal in opposing a war, which led to the absurd action in Laundryville to rename a vegetable dish the “liberty chips”.
On the other hand, the chief of the Foxes & Hounds tribe, Prime Poodle, backed Little Shrub absolutely. He and Little Shrub got busy armtwisting and bribing a few tribes to go along with their war idea. These tribes eventually joined the coalition of Willing Fools, which included the Kangaroos, the Flamencos, the Warsaws and of course the Mighty Atoll.

Under pressure from the Divided Tribes and especially from Target Picker’s warriers, who had ominously massed near the Leopards’ territory, Mother-of-all-Losers gave in and allowed DT lookyloos to see if indeed he had any bad stuff. They looked high and low, even under the beds in the dictator’s fanciest tents, but found nothing. The dictator even allowed the DT to break some of his longest spears! The lookyloos were still looking for stuff when Little Shrub and his Vulcan gang declared unilaterally that the evil dictator was not to be trusted, the danger was imminent and that they had run out of patience. Besides, the weather forecast was so favorible. The Greatest Tribe and the Foxes & Hounds attacked, with what they called Pow and Wow. They set off their biggest firecrackers, which duly impressed the rest of the world, although they missed their main target, the evil dictator. Target Picker’s warriers quickly marched through the Leopards’ territory and occupied it.

Meanwhile, back in Laundryville, Lupus Neoconus and Target Picker were really pleased. They smoked their war pipes and hallucinated that the Leopards would be delighted to see the Willing Fools and would thank them for liberating them . No such luck. The Willing Fools quickly found out that the Leopards hated other tribes occupying their territory. This should not have come as such a surprise had Little Shrub and his Vulcans done some research into the past. The Foxes & Hounds had had the same hallucinations and learned the same lesson 80 years earlier. But then one has to remember that Little Shrub can’t read, the Vulcans are know-it-alls who don’t like to get confused by the facts and those who counseled caution were poo-pooed by the Vulcan gang. How Prime Poodle forgot the lessons his tribe had learned long ago is hardest to understand.

Sad to say, nobody lived happily ever after. The Greatest Tribe paid dearly for the arrogance and stupidity of their Vulcan masters.

Either Dodd is backing down or they’ve got enough votes to defeat cloture. Anyone out there know?

jello jay: must have a bill that will be signed into law by the president.

Why? There’s already a FISA bill that would be returned to once the time-limited one disappears in January. That one is likely easily fixed…or the Courts will view the Bill as containing the intent to cover foreign-to-foreign communications that pass through domestic interchanges.

HEY DODD UP! WOO HOO!

That Dodd and Feingold aren’t insisting on the 30 hours of debate, post-cloture, tells me they are putting on a show instead of doing all they can to obstruct passage.

they can’t insist – see rule 22. i just spoke with the senate parliamentarian’s office and confirmed my understanding.

RETIRE SIR, before you’re in Depends! … oh, wait….