U.S. Gulf Forces "Vaguely and Randomly Alerted"
In what could signal a new increase in tensions in an already troubled region, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield admitted today that U.S. forces in the Arabian peninsula are in some kind of vaguely defined alert status.
"There have been some threats in recent weeks and different forces in different areas and different circumstances have different threat alert situations," Rumsfield said in an actual quote that will form the basis of all subsequent jokes, so I hope you paid attention.
For example, while Rumsfield would not commit to admitting that any US forces were in "Threat Condition Delta", he did say that, if circumstances warranted, up to three aircraft carriers could, but may not be, placed into "Super Secret Code Plaid One Niner".
In addition, if news stories about his increasing inability to divest himself of millions of dollars in controversial business holdings continue to appear, a number of missile-carrying destroyers could then be placed on a rotating schedule of alerts, starting with the relatively mild "Hey, Look At That", through the increasingly severe "Maybe We Should Do Something", "Hey, Watch Out!", "Duck!", "Goose!", "Holy Shit", and the highest threat indicator, "Hey, Isn't That The Smell Of Burning Flesh?".
Once that last threat alert status code thingy has been reached, Rumsfield said, the alert status would then be changed randomly, every two hours, with press releases going out to the major news organizations each time.
20/20 Hindsight: Filler From NewsBreak's Past
As I go through the archives, I will occasionally stumble across items of note. Usually embarassing things, like days where I was obviously treading water, filling space, and high on cough syrup. Or things I said which, while they made perfect sense at the time, in retrospect, end up a bit embarassing.
Such as this, from March 13, 1998:
"And yeah, I think that the American public is about to be sucker-punched again by Nintendo when the Color Game Boy is released this summer. I mean, folks had their chance to buy the Lynx, the Game Gear, the Turbo Express, and the Nomad, each of which, despite being released from 1.5 to 6 years ago, are more powerful than the Color Game Boy will be. But now it's a Game Boy, and all of a sudden Nintendo is going to have invented the color hand-held in the minds of most Americans. Don't look at me. I'm not the one who bought into the whole Game Boy thing, nor the "Game Boy With Colored Case" thing, nor the "Game Boy Pocket", nor even the "Game Boy Pocket With Colored Case" thing."
Flash forward to 2001, and I've now since, um, bought into the Game Boy Color thing, on a whim on vacation. And then I went and bought into the Game Boy Advance thing. Not that I'm not still bitter about it, it's just that being able to play Ms. Pac Man on the bus goes a long way towards assuaging my Nintendo guilt.
