Mutt's Thoughts

Lawmakers celebrate the passage of funds that will be used to honor the renunciation of fiscal restraint.

WASHINGTON—In recognition of mankind's inherent propensity for tragically foolish decisions, Congress allocated nearly $500 billion Monday for the construction of a new national monument honoring human folly.

"From Hannibal's disastrous crossing of the Alps to Custer's humiliating defeat at Little Bighorn, human history has been plagued by senseless mistakes, and it is high time we built a memorial to honor that history," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said of the expensive and ill-advised monument. "My deepest hope is that future generations of Americans will one day look upon this pointless edifice and be filled with a sense of awe and wonder at mankind's utter lack of foresight."

"To think of all the ways our time and money could have been better spent," Pelosi continued. "I can imagine no more fitting tribute."

According to the bipartisan plan, the proposed monument will be built precariously over a Washington freeway overpass, and will require as many as 30 years of grueling labor to complete. As a representation of humanity's failure to learn from past mistakes, the project is being designed by the architecture firm of Ganz & Weiss, best known for their work on a series of dangerously constructed St. Louis public housing projects that were condemned in the late 1990s.

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"Our goal is to create a structure that, like the human race itself, is doomed from the outset and plagued by innate flaws that can never be corrected," Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) said of the monument, which he claimed would eventually sink into the federally protected wetlands that surround it. "Not only will it be an aesthetic disaster, but it will also require constant, expensive maintenance just to ensure that the whole foundation doesn't topple suddenly and kill hundreds of innocent people."

The lead architect on the project, Robert Wheeler, told reporters that the monument would be a stirring testament to more than 200,000 years of arrogance, idiocy, and waste. He also confirmed that no fewer than eight different blueprint designs would be clumsily patched together in order to preserve the spirit of indecision and gross incompetence with which mankind has approached the vast majority of its endeavors.

"The face of the building will be covered with recently excavated sections of the Titanic, as well as several faulty pressure valves from the Chernobyl power plant and hundreds of uranium-tipped shell casings from the first Gulf War," said Wheeler, whose design calls for the monument to be surrounded by dozens of oil derricks pumping night and day into bare dirt. "But the most exciting feature of the memorial, in my opinion, is the giant glowing orb at the top that will symbolize humanity's needless overuse of energy and will itself use a staggering 12 gigawatts of power per second."

According to sources, thousands of poorly paid migrant laborers will carry out construction on the monument, digging straight through underground power lines and gas mains in order to clear a space for the soon-to-be dilapidated foundation. In addition, officials from the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed Monday that the construction zone has already been designated as a highly toxic Superfund site, setting the entire project three months behind schedule.

"So far we've spent $40 billion and lost a total of 300 or so construction workers, and we haven't even put in a full day's work," said project manager Tom Matthiessen. "It's been a challenge, but knowing that we're doing this to commemorate the countless lives and resources squandered by human beings throughout history makes it all worthwhile."

Added Matthiessen, "At this rate, I'd say the whole project should be a total, top-to-bottom nightmare by late December."

Although a vast majority of legislators supported the $500 billion bill, a few dissenting voices claimed that the project is an improper use of congressional funds.

"While I am all for paying homage to mankind's tragic legacy of imprudence, surely there are more appropriate ways to do so than this," Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) said. "Why can't we simply give the money back to the taxpayers so they can waste it all on bad investments, botched plastic surgery, and misguided real estate deals? Wouldn't that be a more suitable way of recognizing the complete inanity of our pathetic existence?"

At press time, Congress, and all of humanity itself, was trapped in a self-perpetuating loop of failure that is expected to continue until the inevitable extinction of the human species

Adult readers say they are drawn to the 'Green Man' children's book series by the complexity of its characters ranging from yellow to blue.

In what was perhaps the most meaningful discovery ever made, early man exited the safety and shelter of his prehistoric cave, struck two stones together, and for the first time in history created fire.


Moments later, man created fire for the second time and, after all the screaming and excited yelling had died down, the third, fourth, and fifth time.

"Fire, and its ability to light any object not currently on fire instantly on fire, completely changed human existence," noted archaeologist and historian Phillip Krensen said. "Not only could man now defend himself from dangerous predators, but he could also cook their meat, then get up from the bonfire, smile briefly to himself, and spend the rest of the evening seeing what else there was around to burn down."

"Our findings indicate that this ranged widely from brittle husks of corn, to small branches and twigs, to other unsuspecting Homo erectus within arm's reach," Krensen added. "Indeed, it was a time of great fire-related exploration."

According to remarkably detailed cave paintings from the period, early humans attempted to set fire to surrounding bushes, roaming buffalo, uncooperative mates, the sky, primitive tools, the ground, cooperative mates, and, judging by their often blackened appearance, most of the cave paintings themselves.

In addition to influencing prehistoric eating habits, art, and interpersonal relationships, the introduction of fire also gave rise to several new leisure activities, such as fire-watching and fire-gazing, and helped to develop early modes of communication. Some scholars have gone so far as to claim that without the discovery of fire, modern man wouldn't have the amazing range of frightened and pained expressions and exclamations that he does today.

"Fire definitely had a very powerful effect on individuals at the time," said Howard Schwartzman, an expert in early human civilizations who spoke to reporters from his home in upstate New York. "It was like nothing else they had ever seen before, and for the next century or so, it became just about the only thing anyone could pay any attention to."

"But then, who can blame them," added Schwartzman, suddenly throwing his glass of whiskey into the fireplace next to him. "Man, just look at that thing go."

New research shows that early humans may have lost the secret to fire for nearly 3,000 years after they attempted to set a nearby lake ablaze.

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Following the lethal poisoning of more than a half million people over the course of several millennia, cultures across the globe finally learned how to identify which mushrooms could be safely consumed.

"Thousands upon thousands of human beings sacrificed themselves to determine which varieties of wild mushroom are delicious and which will paralyze and kill you on the spot," historian Marcus Whiting told reporters. "Without their painful, often grueling, prolonged, and excruciating deaths, we would never have discovered that it's okay to liven up a miso soup with a handful of flavorful shiitakes."

Scholars have long viewed this event as the most significant of its kind since the deaths of more than 800,000 confirmed that the bear could not be milked.