United States Congress disbands 4/1/2007 (and, no, that's no April Fool's joke!)

"The Congress is almost a total failure."
Chalmers Johnson, author of "Nemesis, The Last Days of the American Republic" (a book recently published in this universe, our universe.)

William Shakespeare was the first to coin the idiom about "strange bedfellows." In his play, "The Tempest," we hear "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows." More recently, politics are most often credited with creating strange bedfellows.

But just look what they're doing in the parallel universe just one over from our own. So seeped in misery is the speck of our little parallel Earth, it seems the people and their president George Bush have joined hands to make their country and world a better place for all to live.

In a coalition of the willing, Bush and the people have come together. And their first official act is the disbandment of the United States Congress!

Increasingly for Bush, congress had become meaningless and ineffectual. Since the opposition took control of both houses in January, it had also become a big annoyance for him.

Yet, despite power had shifted to the democrats, congress remained impotent, unable to check Bush, serving instead to only slow implementation of the president's policies.

For Bush, abolishing congress would save a lot of time now being wasted by powerless representatives with their meaningless committees. Hours, days, months spent questioning his appointees, his generals, his wars would be saved. No more examining his new Homeland Security policies making Americans safer from themselves. And best of all, no more summoning oil and pharmaceutical executives needlessly to Washington to grill them or look accusingly upon war and disaster profiteers in some vain attempt to appear they were putting the brakes on capitalism racing to its inevitable unchecked purity envisioned in the writings of great 18th and 19th century economists. Bush policies could be expedited unchallenged. Time could be better spent. So could the money saved funding the powerless government body. Money that could then be allocated for Bush's defense budgets and wars. The thought sent Bush drooling with ecstasy.

For many of the same reasons, Bush's coalition partner, the American people, had also grown disillusioned with their ineffectual senators and representatives. Abolition of congress was favored by nearly 3/4's of all Americans. But that wasn't all the coalition had their sights on.

After the dismantling of the legislative branch, Bush and America had secretly agreed they will then dismantle the media. Keeping it around during the dismembering of congress would be a source of amusement to the coalition; to read, hear and see their take on it. But mainstream media had become another source of annoyance to Bush and a joke to the American public as well as an embarrassment to its foreign readers. American mainstream media would have to be gutted too.

"That's when things will get really interesting," said one originator of the coalition who requested anonymity. "Expect the strange bedfellows to then dissolve their union as each attempts to fulfill their secret aims against one another."

"Bush will have the judicial branch, those great Homeland Security secret prisons and some of the military. Americans will have the numbers. Expect things to really heat up then!"

Well, such is life in the Universe just one door over from our own. While certainly exciting, don't expect anything similar on this Earth. As Frank Zappa once wisely said, "It can't happen here!"