Every expense has been spared in order to provide Presidential election results with an accuracy that would make Colin Powell beam with pride as he presents them to the United Nations with the same determination he used when he promulgated a hoax before them regarding Iraq! Technological advances, such as the telegraph and the electronic calculator, have been roundly ignored in favor of the same sort of chicanery that allowed George W. Bush to steal the 2000 Florida election! And, using the brilliant and spectacular trickery that network television calls exit polling, we will base our results on the warped opinions of a few right wing evangelical religious fanatics and members of the John Birch society at our bellweather polls that have been closed because of firebombings by rabid anti-abortionists.





Using our Elections Network Interactive Analysis Computer, or E.N.I.A.C., our operator, former embezzler and paroled child molester Father Vinnie "Three Fingers and a Toe" Phrum, will be monitoring closely the functioning of this Intel-386 and vacuum tube based calculating giant as it tallies votes at syrup speeds and simultaneously supplies heat to large portions of three midwestern states. Using an operating system called Critical Redundant Intelligent Paradigm Producing Logical Engine Device, or CRIPPLED, the computer will perform calculations as quickly as NASA can get a shuttle up to save the Hubble. Father Phrum is seen in this candid photograph adjusting the sensitivity of the E.N.I.A.C. to newly installed touch panel voting stations in Florida in preparation for the arrival of electronic hanging, dangling, dimpled and pregnant chads. The importance of these electronic chads in this election cannot be understated as it will almost certainly guarantee a level of confusion and inter-party wrangling that hasn't been seen since the last level of confusion and inter-party wrangling that led directly to the installation of the United States Supreme Court as an electoral body, and, following that, the inauguration of a President with statesman and leadership qualities that will make his image forever hover alongside Warren G. Harding's and Millard Fillmore's.





But no elections war room is complete without the human element, or even the presense of a hamster, parts of a horse, or a politician. This is equally true of the dirtcentral Election Returns War Room, and a visit by the  blue-ribbon Federal Elections Commission, accompanied by a deceptive President of the United States, would lend an upbeat atmosphere to the superheated air produced by our E.N.I.A.C. and the panting of Father Phrum's assistant, junior high school student Wanda "Winkie" Armbruster, as the good father chases her around the array of blue-tinted vacuum tubes busily consuming most of the electricity produced by a nearby smoke-belching coal-fired power plant. But all work and no play makes Father Phrum a fairly flaccid priest and computer operator, so some light-hearted humor, such as that shown in this candid photograph of an impromptu masquerade ball held in the war room, with Father Phrum disguised as President Bush, and his assistant Winkie and her ventriloquists's dummy Laci portraying members of the FEC questioning the President on his personal involvement in attempting to smear the military record of John Kerry while never really addressing why he was generally A.W.O.L. from his cushy stateside National Guard service during the Vietnam War. While the actual visit by the FEC and the President never happened, this tender spontaneous moment made up for it before it was time to get back to chasing Winkie around the tubes.






Naturally, when important news and information enters the War Room it is critical that notification be made almost instantaneously so that the ever-alert dirtcentral staff can publish it at speeds approximating a glacier on the dirtcentral web site. A sophisticated alarm mechanism that is tied directly into the E.N.I.A.C. immediately notifies operator Father Phrum and Winkie Armbruster of important news. The mechanism, based on a recently revealed military procedure used to extract important data from sources in Iraq, is pictured at the left. Worn by a "volunteer," the alarm mechanism consists of a specially designed robe and hood woven of a highly conductive material that is connected to a port on the computer. When critical news items are identified, signals, consisting of a continuous burst of 240 volts for two minutes, causes the "volunteer" to scream loudly and with sufficient agony that Father Phrum is compelled to call the dirtcentral staff to get the "volunteer" to shut up. Always concerned with safety, dirtcentral modified the mechanism's design, placing the "volunteer" on an insulated box in order to maximize his consciousness during periods of repeated news alerts. The alert system has proven so effective that during testing the "volunteer's" screaming directly led to the remarkable news that George Bush's daughters had not recently attempted to illegally acquire prescription drugs and that JPL had discovered how to use the parachute. Additional alert mechanisms tied into other ports on the E.N.I.A.C. provide varying levels of news alarms, but their configurations, such as pyramids of naked prisoners, naked prisoners being forced to simulate sexual acts, naked prisoners with women's underwear over their heads, naked prisoners shackled to metal bunk beds, and naked prisoners being attacked by guard dogs or laughed at by prison guards, don't appear in this tour, but you can see them by simply visiting web sites about the US military success in Iraq.






Of course, no war room would be complete without a spokesman, and we could find none better than one whom we think befits the subject. Always the stiff, plastic standup doll with the pasted-on smile and unflinching eyes that work so effectively for Laura Bush, spokesman Backroom Bobbi beats 'em all. As our war room rolls out the results of this tightly contested presidential election, Backroom Bobbi will be there to avoid displaying all of the puerile facial characteristics that made George Bush's debate performance so memorable, and the substance of Bobbi's press releases will be as bereft of content as the performance which accompanied the president's memorable facial characteristics. And being made of plastic, spokesman Bobbi won't be able to belt out a "shove it" like a Theresa Heinz Kerry or a "go f*ck yourself" like a person of vice presidential caliber, thereby maintaining a semblance of decorum between members of the press. Moreover, sugarcoating extraordinarily bad news, like a Bush landslide or a judicial decision by a Bush federal court appointee or yet another cessation of hostilities in Iraq will be easy for Backroom Bobbi, since a lack of conscience will give her the same amazing fortitude that allowed presidential press spokesman Scott McClellan, whose boss had reveled in the mudslinging about John Kerry's military heroism, actually complain about the Vietnam war veteran using smear tactics against the star truant of the National Guard. And Bobbi can't be accused of favoritism or of being a liberal  or conservative, because nobody really knows where Bobbi stands, except that when she stands she looks fabulous in her smart, yet not too ostentatious outfits, her perfect, almost Donna Reed, hair, a figure that supermodels yearn for and try to get through bolemia and liposuction, and her anatomically safe and underdetailed body that makes every religious right parent breathe a deep sigh of relief.

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And that concludes our brief tour of the dirtcentral Election Returns War Room. We want to thank everyone who made this War Room possible, including the White House, today's terror alert color, George H. W. and Barbara Bush, In 'n Out Burger, the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church and the Episcopal Church of Nigeria, the voters of Missouri who have made their state safe for divorce and Julia Child who, finally, doesn't have to cook for anyone anymore.

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