by ARTURO BIGBANGBOOTIE, Alternate Reality News Service Transdimensional Traffic Writer

[ This is a guest broadcast from the Alternate Reality News Service. ]

The Bush administration has entered into a tentative agreement with the Democratic Union of Great Old Ones which will see that group of ancient deities (or alien beings – the mythology, and, therefore, the government, is uncertain on this point) assist in the efforts to quell the insurgency in Iraq.

“This is a great day for the war on terror,” President Bush announced. “The Democratic Old Ones, they know how to kick ass. See, they been doing it since before man walked the earth!”

“Anything that would speed up the end of the insurgency is welcome,” Iraqi President Jalal Talibani, sweating for reasons that had nothing to do with the camera lights on him, stated in a separate press opportunity. “We, uhh, just hope that, when this is all over, there will be a country left to live in.”

Talibani broke up the room with a suggestion that he could rule Iraq from a safe distance. Like, the North Pole.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the news by complaining that in enlisting DUGOO in its war on terror, the Bush administration was escalating the arms race. It is well known that the Russians have only a handful of relatively young demons at their disposal, and are vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike using mid-range Shoggoth.

President Bush, responding to Putin’s concerns, said, “Pffft.” Translated out of diplomatese, this roughly means, “Hey! You lost the Cold War and now we’re the only military super-power in the world. Get used to it!”

It had long been known in military circles that the War Department (later the Defense Department) had obtained a copy of the Necronomicon in 1927, and had been trying to decipher its long forgotten language ever since.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) took over the project in the 1970s; recently, advances in parallel computing which allowed for the use of sophisticated cryptographic algorithms led to an almost complete translation of the ancient book of dark magic, which in turn led to communication with DUGOO.

“Our first contact was exciting,” General Cathcart Cynthia stated. “We only lost 237 enlisted men before we finally convinced them just to talk!”

Negotiations with DUGOO were often difficult. “Money was of no use to them,” General Cynthia said. “Fame? Well, they already haunted the dreams of men and boys, so there really wasn’t anything we could offer them there. Eventually, we hit upon the idea of a portal into this dimension; after that, the deal came together rather quickly.”

Although the Pentagon will neither confirm nor deny it, the DUGOO is believed to already be in Iraq.

Domestic critics of the agreement pointed out that the beings the White House has summoned had always been known as the Great Old Ones – Bush merely tacked on the phrase “Democratic Union” to make them more palatable to the American public. “There’s nothing democratic about laying waste to entire nations,” Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards pointed out.

“Oh, that’s just silly,” White House spokesperson Dana Perino chirped in response. “Killing every living thing within a thousand mile radius – what could be more democratic, more non-discriminatory than that?”

Perino added that the best way to look at the agreement was that it was just another form of outsourcing.

“Some of our contractors protect our senior officials in Baghdad,” she explained, “some of them hideously dismember our enemies and defile their corpses. It’s just a continuation of the policy we’ve had in place since the war began, really.”

Edwards, one of the few Democrats who haven’t openly or tacitly accepted the agreement with the DUGOO, pointed out that unleashing demons from another dimension to help the war on terror could have cataclysmic unforeseen consequences.

“Did we learn nothing from the blowback from our aid to the Afghanis fighting against the Soviets?” he asked. Journalists knew he was serious, because one hair on his head was out of place.

“Oh, John,” Perino countered, “can I lend you my comb?” The White House correspondents chuckled merrily to themselves.

The Alternate Reality News Service sent stringers into Iraq to get the point of view of DUGOO. Those who weren’t disemboweled and fed their own entrails returned gibbering about an “awful squid-head thing with writhing feelers” the size of a small mountain. Our staff therapist believes that the best we can do is make them comfortable for the remainder of their lives, which we all hope will be mercifully brief.

Under the circumstances, we decided to forego the usual journalistic trope of contacting all sides of the story.

Excerpted from Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be. Copyright 2008 by Ira Nayman.

Print versions of Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be can be purchased through Amazon.com and major bookstores. A complete digital version of the book (except for the amazing cover – sigh) can be found on the Web site Les Pages aux Folles, which also features three new Alternate Reality News Service stories every third week.

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