== President Cheney Sickens Planet = By Mark Morford

[madokie]

Earth recoils as VP assumes role for two "unholy" hours. Also: no WMD in Bush's colon

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/07/27/notes072707.DTL&nl=fix

Beginning at 7:16 a.m. last Saturday, and continuing for exactly two hours and five minutes, Vice President Dick Cheney assumed the role of President of the United States, while George W. Bush underwent a routine colonoscopy, a safe but risky-enough procedure that obliged the administration to invoke the rarely used 25th Amendment, which transfers all executive powers to the vice president when a sitting president is unable to perform the duties of his office.

While most Americans were completely unaware that the temporary transfer had taken place, the response from the collective body was nevertheless nearly instantaneous, as millions across the nation reported feeling some sort of unnerving wave of dread, something dark and ominous and stifling, like a collective shudder, a giant musty pillow jammed over the mouth of life itself, a great, low moan of deep, chthonic pain.

"What the hell is going on?" cried Jane Klowster of Oklahoma City, echoing the sentiments of millions as she called in to a local talk-radio program early Saturday morning, just after making a pot of coffee so bitter as to be undrinkable and noticing the flowers on her patio had suddenly wilted for no apparent reason, and also that her parakeet was dead.

"Did someone snuff out the sun or something? Why does the world feel so pale and deathly right now? I feel like my heart is being molested by a drunken hockey team made up of poisonous sea slugs and angry pinecones in the bowel of a rock. Wait, does that even make sense? I don't care. That's the feeling." ...