SOMEWHERE UP NORTH: Frosty the Snowman announced his support for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito today.

"President Bush has chosen someone for the US Supreme Court with a unique appreciation for the relationship between the Constitution and people of faith," Frosty said.

"Alito's decision to allow a town to get away with religious displays of the Christian and Jewish faith on public property by adding me demonstrates an incredibly flexible legal mind that can justify anything he believes in," added Frosty.

Believers in the divinity of Frosty started surfacing all over America once the legitimacy of their faith was confirmed by the Alito nomination.

"Hooray! We can pray to Frosty at school," said one school aged child.

"Finally, we can come out of the ice chest and admit we're serious snow worshippers," said a member of a line at a Colorado ski lift.

"Golly, a diety that will unite America," said Defense Secretary Dom Rumsfeld. "I kinda like Frosty. I wonder what his position on Iraq is?"

Cities around America planned to add Frosty to their Christmas displays this winter. "I think the perfect way to capture the new American holiday spirit will be to put a menorah in the stable behind Jesus, and replace one of the Three Wise Men with Frosty," said Tom Cuidado, City Manager of Washington Camp, Baja Arizona

"It is clear that in order to force the right-wing fundamentalist goals of Bush's supporters down the throats of the American people, he had to select a Supreme Court nominee who would reliably vote in favor of banning abortion, allowing people to own machine guns, and abolishing civil rights for minorities," said Ching Ado, dean of the General Delivery University School of Law and Order.

"But to avoid a bitter confirmation fight, he had to pick someone with broader appeal to ordinary Americans," added Ado.

Many Americans apparently believe in Frosty.

"If Alito is going to justify banning abortions for humans, he is going to have to respect the rights of Frosties," said Ado.

For example, shoveling the snow on one's sidewalk could be deemed as snowpeople abortions. "If you discard the snow, what will you use to make more snowmen?" asked Ado.

Protecting the rights of Frosty could lead to a Supreme Court ruling outlawing global warming.

"There's nothing like a warmer planet to endanger the survival of snowmen everywhere," said Ado.

The use of Frosty to justify stretching the Constitution could also apply to the right to life. "Shouldn't the government mandate every heroic attempt to extend the life of snowmen when Spring arrives?" asked Ado.

Frosties will also introduce a new dimension in the 2nd Amendment debate over the right to bear arms. "Snowmen rarely have arms, so in the future every snowman will have to at least have sticks for arms," said Ado.

The eating of snow cones just about anywhere in American will also have to be protected as part of the freedom of religion protections.

"One could look at the consumption of a snow cone as being similar to communion for those who believe in Frosty," Ado explained.

SECRET PLAN TO DESTROY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND BANKRUPT COUNTRY DISCOVERED

A secret plan to destroy America was discovered the other day in a surprising place. Not in a cave in Afghanistan. In a trash can behind the White House.

The plan was patterned after Ronald Reagan's successful effort to destroy the Soviet Union.

For those too young to remember Reagan, his plan was to outspend the Soviets in military weaponry, forcing the Soviets to try and keep up, until the Soviets went bankrupt and their government collapsed.

Reagan pulled this off by creating the Star Wars space defense program, which was never actually intended to produce anything worthwhile, throwing billions of dollars into this, prompting the Soviets to try and beat the Americans in what was an imaginary goal.

The new plan intends to destroy the American federal government. And it was not created by Al Qaeda. Evidence suggests it may have been written by embattled Bush advisor Karl Rove.

The premise of the plan starts with a basic Republican distrust and opposition to any kind of centralized government with any kind of power to regulate any kind of private enterprise.

Philosophically this branch of Republicanism is represented by the Bush wing of the party. This is as opposed to the social conservative Republicans who want a strong central government with the power to jail anyone burning a flag, banning all forms of abortion, and making the Constitution subject to interpretation under a strict fundamentalist reading of the Bible.

The economic libertarian (also known as the Robber Baron) branch of the GOP believes that if all federal regulation were eliminated, as well eliminating all social entitlement programs, society--at least that enjoyed by rich white people, would be improved. This version of the GOP also believes that business leaders will always act in the best interest of the public, will never fix prices, gouge, sell inferior products, or export American jobs to China. Tooth Fairy belief is also frequent within this branch of the GOP.

Here is the Rove Destroy American Federal Government Plan:

(1) Reduce federal income taxes for the rich. 

This phase of the Destroy the Feds plan was implemented and has produced staggering federal deficits.

(2) Start a war based on lies so federal credibility is destroyed and dump vast quantities of money into this war.

This phase of the Destroy the Feds plan also has been implemented at a cost of $200 billion and nearly 2,000 American lives.

(3) Appoint lots of cronies into positions where they can spend federal dollars for the benefit of my friends.

How else does one explain hundreds of millions spent on renting cruise ships to house victims of Katrina, or awarding no bid contracts to Bush buddies.

(4) Appoint right-wing crazies to the US Supreme Court

ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT REVISION TO COST TRILLIONS BUT WILL SAVE MORE CRITTERS

WASHINGTON - The nation’s most prominent and contentious environmental law, the 1973 Endangered Species Act, could be in line for a major overhaul that would limit habitat protections while giving new rights to property owners.

Legislation by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo would eliminate "critical habitat" protection for plants and animals where development is limited; would allow political appointees to make some scientific determinations; and would require the federal government to compensate property owners whose development plans are blocked to protect species.

The fast-moving bill was approved by the US House of Representatives.

Pombo, a conservative rancher from California’s Central Valley, has been aiming for more than a decade to rewrite the Endangered Species Act, arguing it forces landowners to bear unreasonable burdens to protect plants and animals, leads to costly lawsuits and isn’t successful enough in recovering species.

"In our bill we protect the small property owners," Pombo said as debate began on the House floor. "It was a compromise, a reasonable way to protect endangered species, to protect the habitat which they need to recover."

The bill also would compensate affected property owners, Pombo said,"and dang it, we should."

The White House issued a statement Thursday supporting the bill to "improve and update" the act but also noting that payments to private property owners "could result in a significant budgetary impact."

Many Democrats, as well as some moderate Republicans, said Pombo’s bill would destroy a law they credit with preserving species such as the bald eagle, the California sea otter and the Florida manatee.

The bill "changes the Endangered Species Act in a radical, radical way," Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said Thursday. "It’s an entitlement program for landowners who want to gut the Endangered Species Act."

What's in the bill
Pombo’s bill would:

• Eliminate "critical habitat," area that is now required to be designated when a species is listed and is protected from harmful actions by federal agencies. Instead, "recovery plans" for species, including designation of habitat, would have to be developed within two years. The recovery plans would not have regulatory force and the habitat would not be protected from federal actions.
• Specify that landowners with development plans are due answers from the interior secretary within 180 days, with a 180-day extension possible, about whether their development would harm protected species. If the government doesn’t answer in time, the development could go forward.
• If the government blocks the development, the landowner would be paid the fair market value of the proposed development.
• Give the interior secretary the job of determining what constitutes appropriate scientific data for decision-making under the law.

General Delivery University Economist and Ecologist Horace Greely predicted that the cost of Pombo's revision to the Endangered Species Act could cost trillions.

"This change will cost US taxpayers trillions of dollars," Greely said.

"It is probably part of the GOP's secret plan to destroy the federal government by bankrupting it," Greely added, "but until the money runs out, a lot of property owners are going to get filthy rich."

Greely predicted that as soon as Pombo's bill becomes law, property owners ditting on failing farms, dying ranches, and unfeasible developments would start finding endangered plants and animals everywhere.

"In the past, if an endangered species was found on a farm or a ranch or somewhere where someone wanted to build a condo project, that project ended up being stalled for years and costing a fortune to proceed," Greely said.

What that meant in practice was if some scientist hadn't seen the endangered species on the property, the owner probably got rid of it," he added.

"I know of a property owner in Tucson who went out an rescued all the cats at the pound and turned them loose on his land before having a survey done to see if there were any endangered pygmy owls on the place," Greely said. "No owls were found."

"Now, every real estate agent is going to be nominating a new species for protection if he can make a buck."

SINGING MICE SUE HUMANS TO PREVENT PIRACY

Within days of the discovery that mice actually sing, the International Federation of Singing Mice (IFSM) has filed sued in Federal District Court in New York seeking an injunction against humans using mouse songs.

"The unauthorized use of mouse songs could be devastating to the mouse population," said Randall Ratburt, lawyer for the singing mice organization.

The mouse songs have been copyrighted in the United States and 37 other countries, Ratburt announced.

"The problem is the songs are mostly love songs, used by mice to attract each other," explained Ratburt.

"If a human were to use one of these mouse composed songs in a mouse trap, it would be devastating to the mouse population," he added. "Mice could very quickly be extinguished from the planet."

The lawsuit was served on the US government, the United Nations, and every company currently making mouse traps.

"If this isn't a frivolous law suit, I've never seen one," said Ralph Nader, attorney for the ACME Mousetrap Company. "Of course well fight it. Mice are vermin."

Attorneys for major recording companies weighed in on the side of the mice.

"We're negotiating a license agreement with the mice for appropriate use of the mouse songs," said a spokesman for Sony Records. "We're just having problems deciding what the market is."

"However, we stand firmly behind the principle of protecting intellectual property," added the Sony spokesperson. "And that goes for protecting whale songs and bird songs."

Scientists are recording every sort of animal in all sub and supersonic frequencies to determine how many other creatures also sing.

"We originally thought just humans and birds sang," said Willy B. Green, Professor of Animal Science and Mythology at the General Delivery University. "Then we discovered whales sing, and chimpanzees sing. Now mice. Probably if we listen at the right frequencies, we're going to find damned near everything living on the planet sings."

Meanwhile the FBI has opened an investigation into how the mice organized and hired a lawyer.

"It wouldn't surprise us if a bunch of rats hired a lawyer," said I "Scooter" Libby, newly hired spokesman for the Chicago Police Department, "but mice? That means mice can communicate with people. And mice are everywhere. Even in the White House.  Listening. They could be spies!"