FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:
As, you know, the world’s largest oil producers have hired us to develop lies that support the claims of their various environmental organizations.
There is a problem. Environmental lies are no longer believed by the brighter field beasts. They laugh at environmentalists. They’re telling people that environmentalists are simple-minded liars in the pay of energy companies and energy producing governments. People are listening to them! Clients worry that the credibility of their entire big business/big government environmental movement is at risk.
They expect new and better lies. To help you, we’ve assigned Dr. Dick Dudewell to your fine committee.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Before we get started, I’d like to introduce all of you to the famous Dr. Dick Dudewell, himself. He’s the only person who’s outstanding lies have earned him a place on every single Lie Committee!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah wants ter say that it’s a real honor to be selected to help ya’ll invent some Enurgy Lies. Ah’m ‘specially honored to be workin’ with Dr. Brownout. Suh, you’ve been a real example for all the Lie Committees.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Thank you for your kind words, Dick. It’s a real pleasure to have you lying with us. There’s a question left from our last meeting. A re we supposed to encourage or discourage solar-powered electricity producing units for homeowners?
Dr. Willis Watless: We should probably encourage their usage in cloudy states like Pennsylvania and discourage them in sunny states like Arizona. Lots of opportunities for waste!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Discouraging solar cells in sunny places needs newer lies like “Wavelengths generated by roof-mounted solar cells may not cause cancer directly. What may be worse, they appear to introduce preliminary cell changes that may be responsible for causing pre-cancerous cell malformation”.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Now, that’s a mighty fine lie, Miss Brenda. Ah’m very impressed. Even a reel scientist cain’t disprove that “the growth of pre-cancerous cells can’t be affected by ‘prelinimary changes’ caused by rooftop solar cells.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Thank you, Dr. Dudewell, but I am ‘Doctor’ Bigohm.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’m mighty sorry, ma’am. I was so impressed with how purty you are that I just plumb furgot. Ah’m also mi’t’ly ‘mpressed wiffin the motorcycle gangette y’all have put t’gether. Saw all two hunnert of y’all rollin’ down the Innerstate. “That Brenda!”, Ah says to myse’f, “What a woman!”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Well, thank you, Dick. How kind of you to notice.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: It was purty hard not to notice. ‘specially that reel purty gal leadin’ the pack on that magnifycent pink Harley.
Dr. Willis Watless: Dick, we are here to lie, not to flirt. And, I have a wonderful lie: “The undetermined wavelengths reflected by solar cells may be certain to attract lightning, even from clear skies”.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I love that! Any time we can put “may be” and “certain” next to each other, we make real progress. The fools don’t even notice. “Lightning from clear skies.” is absolutely brilliant! There’s not a newsreader on the air dumb enough to pass up ‘news’ like that. Not one of the driveling simpletons is smart enough to question it.
Dr. Willis Watless: And, if we need a lie to get the fools to waste more money, we tell ’em “The country needs to be energy-independent, and it’s the ‘duty of every American citizen to put up some solar collectors’”.
NOTE FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: Fine, fast lies on the roof-top solar cells. They can be made to seem complicated, dangerous, and undesirable in places they might work. Or, useful and “American!” in places where they won’t work. Clients want lies about roof-top water heaters. They are being used all over the country. Some of them actually save people money that should be going to our utility clients.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: We’all are gonna need some top-quality lyin’ for that. It’s one thang to keep the fools frum tryin’ sum’thin’ new, ‘n gettin’ ’em to do sum’thin’ stoopid, but it takes truly great lyin’ to make ‘em give up sum’thin’ that’s actually savin’ ‘em money. Mah own su’jestion is that we jes’ tell the fools how “ugly and unattractive” they are. Tell ‘em their appearance’ll utterly destroy the value of their homes. Mebbe get some of them ‘homeowner’ shows on public television to say how ‘tasteless’ they are.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Brilliant, Dr. Dudewell. The value of their houses is about the only thing we’ve left the worthless fools. That’s a wonderful lie!
Dr. Willis Watless: I like it, too. We do need a little bit of a scare for the few fools left with analytical skills. Maybe this would help, “Water in root-top collectors absorbs wavelengths from all energy sources. This multi-spectrum sunlight has almost been definintely proven to be possibly the widest spectrum light that occurs naturally outside of a nuclear reactor. Medical problems have not yet been analyzed sufficiently to say that it is not unhealthy.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That last lie is marvelous! It starts out making sense, ends up making no sense, and it’s got a double negative that’s so confusing I don’t even understand it. Well done, Willis! Our newsspewers will love it!
Dr. Wally Weasell: We could throw in something like, “Water in roof-top collectors may gain either positive or negative charges from sunlight. We cannot be certain that such water may not bind more quickly to cancer cells on the skin, accelerating the growth of visible tumors.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Wally, what a wonderful lie! No woman wants to even think about having cancerous growths on her face! Let’s add a sentence, ‘Scientists are concerned that tumor growth from water that has been heated in roof top collectors may cause tumor-like growths on facial skin, because the face is the part of the body most exposed to deadly solar radiation.”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I love that, Brenda, I just love it! It’s a “caring” kind of a lie. Got an element of truth, but wonderful lies all aound it. Like a diamond set in crud.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah like it, too! It’s a lie as big as Texas, and Ah like it!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: This should be all the lies we need, except for one addition. Can we get something in there about causing large, multi-colored moles? We could get women so scared they’d actually write Congressoids and get their local zoning officials involved in making any sort of roof top water heater illegal just to keep ‘large, multi-colored moles’ from appearing on their faces. Just one mention on Oprah would have them ripping half the solar water heaters off roofs all over the world!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:
Good lies! They can be made to seem believable. We will get them in front of focus groups to polish and refine them so the fools will take them in. Then, we’ll release to national news. Within the month, we’ll have news outlets passing your lies on as if they’re gospel truth.
Well done.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: On behalf of all of us in the Energy Sub-committee, thank you for your kind words. We work hard, for long hours, to create an endless stream of believable lies. Your encouragement is what keeps us going.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: That shore is the truth. Down in the great state of Texas, we’ve got some pow’rful good liars, but nobody lies as good as this h’ar committee!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:
Our clients, the largest power companies in the world, have noticed that a few more fools are putting up small windmills to reduce their power bills. They want lies to discourage small windmills .
Dr. Wally Weasell: Who do these arrogant fools think they are? To think they shouldn’t be totally dependent on legal, lawful, government-chartered utility companies! They make me sick to my stomach.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Now, Walter, don’t let it get to you. Those kind of people are the white trash scum of the earth. Anyone who’d want to get out of buying electricity, or anything, for that matter, from a state-regulated monopoly is the worst kind of parasite. We just have to get them back on the meter. It’s our job, and we should do it well.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s right, Walter. Focus that anger on new, better lies. You can do it. Get a grip on yourself. You were the inventor of the marvelous lie about solar-heated water causing grotesque skin tumors. Let’s get to work on putting these small windmills out of business.
Dr. Wally Weasell: You’re right. The cause is too important to let my hatred for them get in the way. I’ll put more effort into lying. How about “These small windmills present an incalculable danger to birds, thereby endangering local eco-systems?”
NOTE FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:
Dr. Weasell, it is necessary to interrupt. Many state-owned utilities use windmill generators as a proven way to grossly overcharge their customers.
The smarter fools have already noticed piles of chopped up birds beneath the whirling blades. They wonder why the local conservationists aren’t raising a fuss. If we make an issue about small windmills chopping up songbirds, the brighter fools may wonder why eagles chopped up by large windmills are studiously ignored. We don’t want them to consider, much less understand, how many environmentalists are already on our clients’ payrolls.
Dr. Wally Weasell: If you think it would help, I’d gladly change my lie to say that “Small windmills, being nearer to the ground, destroy helpful insects.” Do you think any of the fools are smart enough to connect ladybugs and praying mantises being killed by small windmills with eagles chopped up by big ones?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Heck, there hain’t three people between New York and Callyfernya smart enough to figure that out, and none of them are allowed near a TV camera. Ah’d say that the ruthless massacre of helpful ladybugs and praying mantises by small windmills was an ecological disaster waitin’ to happen.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Let’s show the usual depression pictures of a dust storm in Oklahoma and get some good copy about “This is what happens when ladybugs and praying mantises are destroyed. Even one small windmill is one windmill too many.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Dr. Dudewell, don’t a lot of farmers and ranchers use small windmills to pump water for cattle? I’m not implying that there should be such things as farmers and ranchers and cattle, but, still . . .
Dr. Dick Dudewell: You shore are raht. We could tell the fools that the prayin’ mantises and other valuable insect friends already know where the old windmills are, and that they steer clear of ‘em.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Or, we just tell them that water-pumping windmills rotate so slowly that they don’t kill any helpful insects. They’ll believe anything we tell them as long as it gives them an excuse not to do anything.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah tell you, lots of times, Ah’ve seen hunnerds of prayin’ mantises ridin’ ‘round and ‘round on the slow-movin’ vanes of water-pumpin’ windmills. They’re as happy as kids on a ferris wheel!”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I never knew that! Do the praying mantises really enjoy it? That’s wonderful! It’s so nice to hear that what the fools think of as brainless, cold-blooded organisims are actually enjoying life.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Brenda, Ah hates to break it to you, but Ah is tellin’ a lie, and iffen it fooled you, then it’s a great lie, a monumental lie, a lie fit for the New York Times ‘n network news, too!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Actually, Dick, you had me believing it, too. Great lie! Fantastic lie! The kind of lie people want to believe.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: It’s the kind of warm, fuzzy lie that Congressiods with tears in their eyes love to pass on to their voters. I can just picture those praying mantises, riding around and around on thousands of water-pumping windmill vanes, and looking like they’re giving thanks for the good time they’re having. Why, the animal rights tie-ins alone should generate whole new fees for us.
NOTE FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:
Dr. Dudewell, we are very impressed with your fantastic lie that praying mantises enjoy riding around and around on the slow-moving vanes of water-pumping windmills. We do see a tie-in with various animal rights groups.
Our clients love your lie. They will do the usual “research” to prove that happy praying mantises get rid of more insect enemies than unhappy praying mantises. They know that slowing down their already inefficient wind generators enough to let praying mantises ride on their vanes can give them an excuse to raise rates even farther. Bleed the fools!
Dr. Dudewell, congratulatons!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Wal, Ah thank y’all. Iffin Ah may, Ah’d lak to make a sugges’ion. Ah’ve been hearin’ that the smarter field beasts are lookin’ at makin’ their own hydrogen. Y’all heerd about that, right?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: No. What will they do with it?
Dr. Willis Watless: They want to power cars with it. They can use the same engines, and drive a hundred miles on a tank of water.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We can’t have that! It would let people drive for free! It would destroy our clients! We need to make it illegal for the fools to do anything but be bled.
Dr. Emily St. Cloud: How many of them are actually powering cars with hydrogen?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: No one knows. Fed’ral agents confiscate all their equipment when they hear ’bout ’em. Prollum is, we only hear ’bout the ones who talk ’bout what they’ve done. Why, there may be millions of ’em driving ‘roun’ wifout payin’ their fair share to our clients.
Dr. Willis Watless: And, their fair share is everything they’ve got, the dirty bastards.
Dr. Brenda Bighom: Oh, Willis, stop calling the filthy field beasts names. It wastes time. We have to pretend to care about them!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: We don’t even want them to think about it. We need lies, and we need them, now!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I’d like to suggest that we write some news for our news-spewers to make people think of “bomb” when they think of “hydrogen”. Then, a neighbor who’s saving money becomes a potential terrorist, a destroyer of neighborhoods.
Dr. Willis Watless: We’ll superimpose pictures of Hiroshima over American suburbs while some deep-voiced newsspewer recites: “We can’t let the rich do this to us.” On alternate days, we replace “the rich” with “Big Oil”.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Wonderful! We could offer rewards to encourage them to turn in any friends, family, and neighbors who are evading their fair share of costs.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Is there any chance their cars could explode?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Not with properly designed tanks. We have to be sure that no one is allowed to have properly designed tanks.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah think that ree-wards for squealers is a great idea! And, you know, iffin we could confiscate some o’ them hydrogen cars, our clients could study them and see how they do it. Then, gummit regulators could make the key parts illegal.
Dr. Willis Watless: Dick, you’re absolutely right. How big a reward should we pay?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Ten thousand. A hundred thousand. A million, for each one? It doesn’t matter how much it costs, they’ve got to be gotten rid of!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: ‘N about the dozens, mebbe hunnerds, of folks smart enuf to already be makin’ their cars run on free hydrogen, we gotta kill ’em er put ’em away where they cain’t get out.
NOTE FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: OUR CLIENTS WANT MORE LIES TO MAKE ALL NON-REGULATED POWER PRODUCTION SYSTEMS THAT WORK TO BE MADE UNPOPULAR, UNPATRIOTIC, AND ILLEGAL. IN THE MEANTIME, YOU ARE TO DEVELOP SMALL, ANNOYING THINGS WE CAN DO TO THE FOOLS SO THEY DON’T NOTICE THE HUGE COSTS WE’RE IMPOSING ON THEM. FOR INSTANCE, LARGE WATER COMPANIES WANT YOU TO DEVELOP LIES TO JUSTIFY MAKING IT ILLEGAL TO DRILL OR REPAIR A WATER WELL ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Ohh, that is SO important. The field beasts are leaving our cities and inner suburbs, where we can tax the pants off them. They’re moving to the country, building their own houses, and drilling their own water wells, and we can’t tax them! It’s vastly cheaper for them, so it has to be stopped.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: It’s terrible. Our clients are losing billions of dollars and millions of votes. Isn’t there some lie that would justify making it illegal for the fools to drill a well?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Wal, Ah guess there is. Ah, mahself, think we should tell ’em that drillin’ deestroys the livin’ places of unnerground anymals. Worms, moles, ants, grubs, there’s lots of “vital biodiv’rs’ty” unner the groun’.
Dr. Willis Watless: That is so true. So very, very true. I love it when we have a verifiable fact. An occasional truth gives validity to our lies.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Surely, the fools aren’t dumb enough to believe that killing a few earthworms is important? I mean, if there’s an eight inch hole in a square acre, maybe one or two of the worms would be killed.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Not even that many. The slimy l’il things jes’ crawls outta the way. So do the ants ‘n moles. Prob’ly, the well wouldn’t kill an’thin’ at all, ‘cept’n a few crippled som’thin’ or others.
Dr. Wally Weasell: Then, we need a more believable lie.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Nah. Hardly any field beasts is smart enuf’ to think that any animals are bright enough to move a few inches to avoid being killed. We jes’ get some photos of bisected worms writhin’ ’round in agony while a powerful drillin’ rig, with lots of smoke, is crankin’ away in the background, makin’ an ungodly racket, while the newsspewer looks real serious and frowns while recitin’, “It’s amazing that there are any vital earthworms left, after all this.”
Dr. Walt Weasell: That sounds good. Ignore the facts, go for the feelings.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I like that. I truly do. You’ve already gotten me feeling sorry for the worms. Let’s fade the story out by showing a frantically writhing half-worm slowly dying. As it dies, we’ll have some mindless, heartfelt drivel like “with so many wells being drilled, time is running out.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s good! Tha’s really good. No fact, jes’ feelin’. The field beasts’ll swallow it right up!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: There are more lies we can tell. Let’s talk about “vital ground water”. The fools are so used to hearing about “vital ground water” that they’ll be suitable alarmed if we simply repeat “It seems nearly certain that private wells may have an adverse effect on vital ground water.”
Dr. Willis Watless: Let’s make up lies that draw parallels with holes in the earth and holes in the body. “Every well is a possible source of pollution that can contaminate vital ground water.”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Should we say that the earth has “vital organs” that may be infected?
Dr. Walter Weasell: Why not? The fools’ll believe it.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: How’s this: “Layers of sandstone act as Mother Earth’s kidneys.”?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Good lie, Bobby. Let’s tell ’em that “Powerful underground forces are the strong, pumping heart of Mother Earth.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: ‘N we shore don’ wan’ her havin’ a heart attack! Got to keep ever’thin’ jus’ the way it is!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: “The stalactites and stalagmites are filters in Mother Earth’s cavernous lungs.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: After we’ve got ’em thinking that dirt and rocks are alive, newspewers can tell ’em: “If water can come out of a hole, germs can go down the same hole. We must eliminate all threats to precious ground water.” It’ll seem reasonable, after all the lung and kidney crap.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I’m confused. Should the groundwater be “vital” or “precious”?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Bobby, groundwater is both “vital” and “precious”.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s what I think, too. “Vital” and “Precious”.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: And, we tell ’em that no one person has the right to the precious water under their ground. Maybe, we could say “All underground water is so vital that no one person can have access to it without government approval.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah like that! It’ll stop the field beasts from movin’ away from towns and cities where we kin tax ’em to death. We’ve got to stop ’em from buildin’ away from a water main and a water meter.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Tax them, tax them, tax them! Making wells illegal is a great way to keep them under our thumbs. How did those filty field beasts even get the idea that they had the rights to drill for their own water when it’s not even their own water? They’re just selfish, greedy, useless bastards. We’ll fix them.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Let’s make up some romantic lies for the dumber fools. Let’s say that “Underground water is as vital to earth as blood is to our bodies. Precious groundwater flows endlessly beneath us, pumped the the warm heart of Mother Earth.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Oh, Wally! That’s almost poetic. I love it! We could Oprahfy the line. Every single one of our talk-show twits should memorize it! Newsspewers, too! We should have them practice an hour a day to look properly sincere while they recite it!
Dr. Willis Watless: And, music. We should play soft, meaningful music while they say it. Maybe, get one of our music shills to make up a song about it.
“Mother Earth, Mother Earth,
No one should hurt Mother Earth.
We’ll protect her, we’ll protect her,
We’ll protect our Mother Earth.”
You know, some kind of mindless drivel like that. The fools will lap it up. Make kids recite it, or sing it, instead of that ridiculous “Pledge of Allegiance”.
Dr. Willis Watless: I’ve got one! Let’s tell the fools that when they pump water from the ground, the surface of the earth sinks, and their houses will collapse! Surely, we can photograph a collapsed house near a well.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Wonderful, Willis. Why we got a thousand collapsed farm houses in my county, alone, ‘n ever’one of ’ems got a well. Brilliant.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Did they collapse because they pumped the water out from under them?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Nah. They collapsed ’cause the Federal Reeserve raised interest rates at the same time our Food Committee passed a bunch of laws makin’ all the farmers keep their pigs in air-conditioned pens made out of porcelainized brick. After they went broke, we had a bunch of our experts write articles blamin’ the problems on “bad farm management”. We got the fools to blame themselves!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We are making good progress. We’ll have to make sure that anyone who sees through our lies is called “heartless”, and, better yet, “insensitive”. We want the herd to hate anyone who tells them how stupid they are to believe our lies.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s right. The smarter field beasts have got to be labelled in such a way that being right means nothing. Emotion must be made more important than mere intelligence.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That was our old school song!
“Feeling ever, thinking never
Makes the fools into slaves!”
We’ve got to get all of them saying “I just know that feeling is better than thinking”.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Timmy, y’all got a great idea. Let’s tell the fools that thinking is just a crude emotion, only suitable for the simple, unsophisticated brains of the lowest field beasts.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I love that! By demeaning the entire process of rational thought and analysis, we elevate ourselves while undermining anyone smarter.
Dr. Willis Watless: That should be the goal. But, what if one of the field beasts asks: “If we don’t let our smart people think, we could be invaded and murdered or enslaved by people who invent better weapons.”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Field beasts aren’t smart enought to think that far ahead.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We’ve got to get the smart people labelled “paranoid”. That’s the best way to silence anyone who’s able to think, Willis.
Dr. Willis Watless: Bobby, I’m not thinking about thinking. I’m feeling that one or two of the brighter field beasts may believe they’re thinking when they wonder about being killed or enslaved by foreigners if their country gets too dumbed-down.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Who cares what they think or feel? What can they do about it? Besides, if we enslave them first, and get all their money, who would bother invading? We can prove that they’re safer if they’re slaves!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s a hunnert percent raht! Besides, iffin there is an invader, we’ll be the first to get on their side and help ’em loot.
Dr. Willis Watless: Excuse me for interrupting, Dick. Bobby, that’s such a smart comment that I can’t help but wonder if you aren’t a lot smarter than we thought? Maybe a lot smarter than you let on? Maybe you are one of them smart people.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Willis, that reply was so smart that it’s YOU who has to be one of them. Dr. Bigohm, I think Willis is actually smart. He should be removed from the Committee.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Now, Bobby, Willis isn’t that smart. I have his IQ tests right here, and you are actually one tenth of a point smarter than he is.
Dr. Willis Watless: See! Dr. Bigohm, you should throw Dr. Brownout off the committee. He’s too smart. He’s making me feel inadequate!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I’m not smarter. I know I’m not. I think Willis got his lower score by cheating!
NOTE FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: DR. BIGOHM, GET YOUR COMMITTEE UNDER CONTROL. DRS. WATLESS AND BROWNOUT, YOU KNOW THE RULES. NO MEMBER OF A LIE COMMITTEE CAN BE REMOVED UNLESS HE, SHE, OR IT IS AT LEAST ONE STANDARD DEVIATION SMARTER THAN THE GROUP AVERAGE. YOU MAY BE SURE THAT ANYONE THAT INTELLIGENT WOULD HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED FROM ANY LIE COMMITTEE.
IN THE MEANTIME, WE HAVE A NEW ASSIGNMENT. POWER COMPANIES ARE WORRIED THAT PEOPLE MIGHT REPLACE THEIR LIGHT BULBS WITH LIGHT EMITTING DIODES.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Now, that’s reel seeryus. Those little LEDs don’t use hardly any ‘lectricity a’tall.
Dr. Walter Weasell: It’s worse than that, Dick. They use so little power that even a small windmill or solar cell array can supply all the power they need, with a few truck batteries for storage.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: This is very disturbing. The field beasts could cut their power bills way down!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: It’s worse than that. They could cut themselves off from the meter! They could avoid taxes! They could go off-line!
Dr. Willis Watless: They could eliminate paying utility taxes? I never thought of that! We have to stop them! What can we do? What?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Wal, it ain’t as bad as all that. They’ll still need a lot of power for their teevees, refrigeraters, ‘n computers.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Maybe not, Dick. If they used super-insulated refrigerators that ran on 12 or 24 volt systems. they wouldn’t need much power for food storage.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: That’s true. And, they could run their washers ‘n dryers on natchural gas. They could go off-line! Damn field beasts.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: You know what I heard? I heard that some smart field beast had invented “closet dryers”.
Dr. Willis Watless: Do people in the closet need to be dry?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Willis, maybe you are as dumb as you claim. “Closet dryers” are places where people can hang their clothes after they’re washed. Drying clothes takes a huge amount of power. If they hang freshly washed clothes in cedar-scented closet dryers, they may take a day to dry, but only use a light bulb’s worth of power. “Dresser dryers” do the same thing with small articles of clothing.
Dr. Willis Watless: I get it. You know, they could run their chimneys through the Closet Dryers, and use waste heat from their furnaces and hot water heaters to dry them! Hope the field beasts don’t hear about that!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: My Baal! That’s awful. Using electric dryers generates billions and billions of dollars worth of fees and taxes. If the smarter field beasts are able to avoid dryers by using “closet dryers” and “dresser dryers” , all our clients will lose.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah think these here closet dryers put another cash flow at risk. Them real hot dryers tumblin’ ’round ‘n ’round wear out people’s clothes faster. “Closet drying” will let their clothes last a lot longer. We don’ want field beasts savin’ money. Plus, it saves the field beasts a lot o’ time. Clothes go straight from the washin’ machine to the closet or dresser.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We need lies! They have to be convinced that not using dryers is dangerous. It’s wrong, it’s just plain un-American to be independent.
Dr. Willis Watless: That’s right! When we were chanting “power to the people” we didn’t mean that they should actually have the right to generate or save their own power!
NOTE FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: THIS SUB-COMMITTEE HAS BROUGHT TO LIGHT A FANTASTIC FUTURE BILLING OPPORTUNITY. POWER COMPANIES WILL BE SURE TO PAY FOR LIES TO STOP ‘CLOSET DRYERS’ AND ‘CLOSET DRESSERS’ FROM BEING USED. CLOTHING MANUFACTURERS WILL PAY US FOR LIES TO CONVINCE PEOPLE TO KEEP USING DRYERS THAT WEAR THEIR CLOTHING OUT MORE QUICKLY.
IN THE MEANTIME, PLEASE FOCUS ON LIES ABOUT LEDs.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah plum’ fergot. LED lighting is efficient, cheap, and don’t take up hardly any space a’tall. How we gonna lie that away?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: It’s a challenge. Let’s say something like “LED wavelengths are more dangeous than wavelengths from regular electric lights because their wavelengths may cause the otoliths in the inner ear to explode. Great pain and hearing loss appear to be nearly certain to follow.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Brenda, that’s a great start. Do you think the same field beasts who are blasted at rock concerts by amplifiers as big as school busses will believe it?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Sure. We tell them that the damage is caused by the wavelength, not the volume of sound.
Dr. Willis Watless: That’s totally untrue. They’ll buy it.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: They sure will. A video short of people in a rock concert able to hear each other whisper will be followed by an LED user asking “What are they playing?” while a 200 piece brass band plays “When the Saints Go Marching In” at maximum volume.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I’ve got a good one! Let’s add onto Brenda’s exploding inner ear lie with “Sinus cavities are natural resonators for wavelengths generated by LEDs. The sinus cavities heat-up, just like the inner ear, and may be permanently damaged. Mucuous secretions may be permanently changed in color and odor.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Oh, Bobby! That’s magnificent. Your lies haven’t even the slightest element of truth in them, but they sound so true!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Y’all are fergettin’ one of our oldest lies. “Light Emitting Diodes may Hurt The Children”. Ah think they’ll believe that “LED light may damage the unusually sensitive retinas of infants. This is the sort of thing we can’t take a chance with.” Let’s tell the fools, “Iffin y’all value your baby’s eyesight, then don’t use LEDs.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: I think we’ve come up with good lies about Light Emitting Diodes. Now, let’s look at the “good taste” angle. “Americans have billions of dollars invested in tasteful lighting. These disturbing LEDs make our beautiful lamps and shades look out-dated. We all know that there’s nothing as nice as attractive, traditional lighting fixtures.”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Let’s show some huts, Indonesia or somewhere, that are prime examples of sheer squalor, and show how their inhabitants use LEDs to process drugs. Equate them with both crime, disease, and poverty. Tell the fools that murderers and child molesters prefer sneaking into homes with LEDs because they aren’t bright enough to deter them. Lots of possibilities.
NOTE FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: DR. PEEDYMETER, WE’D LIKE TO KNOW WHAT THESE POSSIBILITIES ARE. ANY PROFESSOR CAN RECITE “LOTS OF POSSIBILITIES”. YOU ARE A PROFESSONIAL LIAR. YOU KNOW THAT OUR CLIENTS WANT GOOD, SOLID, SIMPLE LIES THAT CAN BE EASILY MEMORIZED AND RECITED BY NEWS-SPEWERS AND TAKEN IN BY THE FIELD BEASTS.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: My sincerest apologies. Specific lies are: “The low lighting levels provided by LEDs make it easy for criminal assaults of all kinds. Studies show that hardened criminals have learned to fear bright light, but have no fear at all of LED lighting because of its low intensity.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’ve got a good one! Let’s tell ’em that LEDs’ low level lightin’ causes people to make mistakes. Show an operating room bein’ lit up by a tiny LED fixture, ‘n have a team of doctors mistakenly takin’ out somebody’s eye ‘stead of an ingrown bunion or sum’thin’. Scare the bejabbers out of ’em.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s a good approach! And, we could tell the fools that LED light keeps them from seeing “natural colors”.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Bobby, flourescent light bulbs don’t exactly show “natural colors”, and the fools buy them just because they’re cheaper to use.
Dr. Willis Watless: Yeah, Bobby. Your bright idea might have sunk us into unbelievability. What good’s a lie that’s not believable?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Now, now, Willis. I’m sure that Bobby thought he had a good idea, and there are places where even field beasts won’t use flourescent bulbs, like in their bedrooms and living rooms.
Dr. Bobby Brownout; That’s right, Willis. My lie was good for some areas of the home. I’m sorry that I didn’t make that clear.
Dr. Willis Watless: You didn’t make it clear because you never thought of it. Thank goodness that Dr. Bigohm is here to catch your mistakes.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I’ve had a wonderful idea. Let’s tell the fools that some very light-skinned white people are making their children swallow red and greed LEDs and using their kids for Christmas decorations.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Timmy, would that work? I mean, it would be a nice touch. And, for party decorations, too. You know, a bunch of lit-up albinos serving drinks, holding flowers, or pretending to be statues would be a nice touch for a big party.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’d like to get me a dozen or so. Have to be reely white. Mebbe we could get Cleanfleece to pick up some little Lapplander kids. They’s pract’cly albinos. Ought to light up real good.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Stop it, you guys. I’m not serious.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I am, Timmy. My son, Baxter, and his boyfriend are solemnizing their deep commitment to each other next month. The party is at our beach house, and I think it’s a marvelous idea. The guests would love to see some lit-up little boys.
Dr. Timmy Peedymete: We could say that it was “an ancient Teutonic custom.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: The nice thing about Timmy’s idea is that we get to demonize both Christmas and cheapen white people.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s right. Darker skin’d keep the light from shinin’ through.
Dr. Willis Watless: Then, we get to offer the usual leftists an opportunity to complain. That should be worth something.
NOTE FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: OUR CLIENT IS REVIEWING YOUR LIES. THEY DO NOT SEE ANY PROFIT POTENTIAL IN YOUR LIES ABOUT TURNING VERY LIGHT-SKINNED CHILDREN INTO LIGHT-UP ORNAMENTS, BUT DO SEE PROFITABLE OPPORTUNITIES WITH YOUR OTHER LIES.
CLIENT RESEARCH INDICATES THAT THE FOOLS WILL BELIEVE BIO-FUEL LIES. BIO-FUEL TAX POLICIES ALLOW CLIENTS TO SPEND TWO DOLLARS TO OBTAIN ONE DOLLAR’S WORTH OF ENERGY. THEY NEED LIES!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I have a whole file of bio-fuel lies from the sixties. It’s right next to my folder of shale-oil lies from the nineteen-fifties.
Dr. Willis Watless: Bio-fuel, syn-fuel. It takes more energy to produce than it gives off. It’s completely insane.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We all know that, Willis. Only a moron would think it was a good idea to burn a 1,600 BTUs to make 1,000 BTUs, but the clients think there’s money in it.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Oh, yes. Big money. Tax money. An obvious lie is to raise taxes on gasoline to fund the bio-fuel. Make the fools pay twice.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Make ’em pay three or four times! Make ’em pay for special injectors, fuel pumps, and gas lines that the bio-fuels can dissolve.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah say they’s real oppurtunity here! We kin make ’em pay fo’ whole new gas stations! Big, new tanks, fuel lines, gas pumps, all sorts of special, ‘spensive equipment that’ll have to be junked as soon as the economy dips ‘n reality hits!
Dr. Willis Watless: It’s amazing! The fools are too stupid to want power companies to build breeder reactors that run for basically nothing and can fuel everything, even charging batteries for electric cars.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Willis, I’m glad you brought that up. We may need lies to counteract what the smarter fools are sure to think of. Breeder reactors would slash power bills and leave each field beast with several thousand extra dollars to spend every year of its worthless life.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Breeder reactors?
Dr. Willis Watless: They basically go on forever. Need a couple of people standing around to make the fools think it needs to be watched, but it’s all completely automatable.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Then, they could have basically free power?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s absolutely frightening. Why, they’d have more disposable income, and our clients would all go broke. Or, have to cut their salaries.
Dr. Walter Weasell: We can’t have that! Do we have any lies on file?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: The usual ones about Chernobyl. You know, that twenty million people were killed.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: And, the fools believe it. Actually, about fifteen people died, and they were mostly blind drunk. Run over by evacuation vehicles.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Thank Baal for Russian alcoholics. They provide corpses to blame on what needs to be blamed. Quite nice of them, really.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah thank we need som’ more lies. Do the fools still think that storing “deadly nuclear waste” is a problem?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: They do! We’ve kept the fools from understanding that the uranium was radioactive when it came out of the ground, some of the energy was used, and what’s going back can be put safely away.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I never understood why they just couldn’t put the used uranium back in the mine that it came from? There’s only a few dozen carloads of the stuff, and if they put it back where it came from, what difference would it make?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Timmy, that’s the sort of thinking that can get us into trouble. Please stop making sense.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’ve said it a’fore, ‘n Ah’ll say it agin’, the fools deserve what we’re doin’ to ’em. Ah do thank we need a lie, ‘n Ah’d lak to sugges’: “When nuclear waste is transported by rail, the trainloads of highly radioactive material may leave a ‘dead zone’ five miles wide along the track.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Five miles altogether, or five miles on each side of the track?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’d guess that some scientists would estimate that it was five miles on each side of the tracks.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That means we can make the train crews all wear silly costumes! Let’s make ’em all dress up like Darth Vader, and wear coveralls made out of lead.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: What about the wind? We can tell the fools that “On a windless day, a ‘death strip’ ten miles wide is caused by escaping radiation. On windy days, the death strip extends as much as ten miles downwind.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Timmy, I love “death strip”.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Do you think “Strip of death” sounds more dramatic?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Even better. “Strip of death” sounds more ominous. “Death strip” could mean a small mall going out of business. Which it would, if it was in the Strip of Death.
Dr. Willis Watless: We had a lot of the fools convinced that storing radioactive materials was hazardous. Some of them don’t believe it. Thank Baal there’s “precious groundwater”. A lie like: “When precious groundwater is exposed to high levels of radiation, death and disease can travel underground at speeds of ten to twelve miles an hour.”, or however fast we can convince them groundwater travels. Maybe fifty miles an hour, downhill.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah lak that! “N, it gives us an excuse to keep the fools frum drillin’ wells. It’s a great excuse to keep ’em connected to water meters ‘n high taxes.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Oh, Dick! You’ve tied it all together! Brilliant! Why, it’s like a Unified Field Theory of Environmental Concern!
NOTE FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: THESE LIES WILL HELP JUSTIFY EXPENSIVE BIO-FUELS RATHER THAN GIVE THEM FREE POWER FROM BREEDER REACTORS. WE HAVE A NEW PROJECT. CLIENTS REPORT THAT FIELD BEASTS ARE PUMPING WATER OUT OF THE GROUND, USING ITS HEAT, AND PUMPING IT BACK INTO THE GROUND.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’ll bet our gas comp’ny clients hate that! Why, the fools are gettin’ free heat, ‘n our clients are gettin’ smaller checks.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Help me understand. There is water under the ground, right? They drill a hole, it fills up with water, and they pump it into their house. They take the heat out of it, and let it run down another hole. How do they get the heat out?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: No one really knows. It’s like they run water through a refrigerator backwards, or something. At any rate, it works. They call them ‘heat pumps’.
Dr. Willis Watless: I don’t understand how they work, either. Probably have to be a nuclear engineer, or something. But, I do know that changing the temperature of water should be illegal.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Oh, it is. We just can’t find all the people using heat pumps. Once they put the equipment in place, it runs for years. All over the world, precious worms and grubs may be freezing to death. Ants. I don’t know how they survive.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: You know, we spend a lot of money talking about “the delicate balance of nature it takes to keep amphibians thriving”. Changing any water temperature has to destroy millions of amphibians.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Bullfrogs are dropping like flies! I can see it, now. Lots of pictures of oddly colored toads and frogs, lots of fancy graphs that show how they’re disappearing, and how malaria is increasing, and a concluding sentence: “People think they’re saving money with ‘heat pumps’, but the real cost has to include damage to invaluable and delicate amphibians.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Oh, that’s good!
Dr. Walter Weasell: Let’s get a video of a brightly colored frog rolling its eyes back and dying. Its colors fade. The usual intonator recites solemnly: “Another death caused by a rich American caring more about his SUV than about our world.” And, I love the way you blame malaria on rich, white Americans, rather than on our side taking away DDT. Brilliant, Bobby.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: It is, Bobby! Ya’ll had a mighty good idea, too, Brenda! Make sure the announcer, Ah calls ’em ‘Intonators of Doom’, has a slight foreign aksent and a deep voice. ‘N make sure he mispronounces a lot of the words. A lot of the fools think that people they cain’t unnerstan’ are smart enuf to be respected.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Another coup for Public Television. Its steady parade of pretentious jerks has done as much to dumb people down as Public Education.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: And, cheaper, too! Why, we can spew lies on public television faster and cheaper than a million Marxists in public education.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Public television lies go straight to the people we’re trying to confuse and misdirect. No wasted time going through a lot of useless “teachers”.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Some o’ them dam’ teachers ahr still tryin’ ter teach the l’il bastards how ter read and write. None of that on Public Television. Jes’ a lot of kids bein’ made to think it’s OK to live in garbage cans, lak Burt ‘n Urnie.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We’re getting off the subject. We have to stop the fools from utilizing the heat that they somehow “pump” out of groundwater.
Dr. Willis Watless: How about this? “Heat pumps cause unnaturally rapid cooling when they pump colder water back into precious aquifers. . .
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’m mighty sorry fo’ inter’uptin’, but Ah want to congratulate you on puttin’ ‘precious’ next to ‘aquifers’. Ah don’t thank that’s ever been done befo’. Brilliant!
Dr. Willis Watless: Thank you, Dick. Anyway, “When unnaturally cold water is pumped into precious aquifers, the sudden temperature drop may cause cracks in the earth’s vital crust. Huge canyons can appear, wiping out all manner of precious life-forms.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Willis, that’s wonderful! We’ll get our friends at Public Television, why, we were just talking about them, to get some shots of the Grand Canyon, superimpose some photos of Chicago, and show how rapidly forming crustal cracks can destroy whole cities in the blinking of an eye.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Those crustal cracks can cause volcanic eruptions! Entire nations can be buried in molten lava! Everyone on earth is only seconds away from unexpected death, because a few selfish people tried to steal heat from the very earth we live on.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah thank it’s a wonnerful, wonnerful lie! Let’s have them show the Great Lakes drainin’ right through Chicago. Have a few of Chicago’s landmark buildin’s washin’ up in New Awleens.
Dr. Willis Watless: And, show millions of computer-generated pictures with cars bobbing around in the Gulf of Mexico. All of ’em with Illinois license plates.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: This is the most preposterous lie we’ve ever invented. Surely, they’ll know we are lying?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: If we can get Al Gore to narrate it, half the people on the left side of the bell curve will write letters demanding that we put an end to the “dangers caused by selfish, wealthy homeowners” who want to “make Mother Earth as cold as their hearts.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Good copy, Brenda! “Makin’ Mother Earth as cold as their hearts.”, why, that’s sheer po’try.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Well, if we get Al Gore to narrate, we will get most of the fools believing us, demonstrating, writing letters to Congressoids.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Amazin’ thing is that those kind of bozos can write.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I’ve seen some of their letters. Large, illegible scrawls. Baal, but they’re dumb.
NOTE FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: THE SMARTER FIELD BEASTS ARE DEMANDING THAT WE USE MORE NUCLEAR POWER. THAT MAY CAUSE OUR MIDDLE-EASTERN CLIENTS TO LOSE OIL SALES. WE NEED LIES AS TO WHY WE DO NOT NEED MORE POWER THAN WE ALREADY HAVE.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That makes sense. If we have more power, prices will go down. With less power, prices go up. So, we need lies to get people from wanting more power.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: They use a lot of hot water. Too much. Let’s tell the fools that “Hot water is bad for you.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah thank that’ll work. Hot water prob’ly is bad fer ’em. Gets ’em cleaner’n people like that need ter be.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: It would be fun to make them give up their water heaters. That would save a lot of energy, and still keep prices high. And, it will make them dirtier, sicker, and more miserable.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I hate to repeat myself, but it’s a great Public Television project. “How much is too much?”, and show a lot of wrinkly people, all of them blaming their wrinkles on “too much hot water when I was younger”.
Dr. Willis Watless: Then, we get a bunch of sixteen year olds, dress ’em in old people clothes, and say “We didn’t use hot water when we were younger. It shows.”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Let’s use foreigners who didn’t have hot water. Make a lot of primitive cultures out to be “basically, better than high-tech societies, like ours”.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Public TeeVeers like thinkin’ that primitives are lots better’n us. They’ll buy into that quicker’n worryin’ ’bout how many primitives’ll die cause they ain’t got no antybiotics.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: National Geographic readers think that way, too. They are so delightfully dumb!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Let’s not even leave them enough hot water to wash their medical implements. Baal, but people who are dumb enough to believe us deserve to die. Deserve to die!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah know it! Ah’ll betcha that in six months, we make hot water usage drop by half. Just drone on ‘n on about it. “Hot water ruwins yer skin, hot water ruwins yer clothes, hot water makes yer hair fall out, hot water makes ya fat, hot water cracks yer dishes, hot water makes ya stee-rile, hot water causes cancer, hot water hurts the finish on yer car. Let’s make hot water into a curse.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: What if some of them worry about sanitation? I can picture some of them whining: “How will I get my dishes clean and safe to use without hot water?”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Why should field beasts have dishes? They have fingers. Every fifty or hundred of them just need a cooking pot. The question is, do they need to cook?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: What about us? If we take hot water away, how will we take hot showers? Wash our clothes?
Dr. Willis Watless: We’ll have to have exemptions. Important workers can’t be interrupted by change. We have to stay focused. We require hot water, bad as it is, to avoid being distracted. We’ll make that sacrifice willingly to help our fellow citizens.
Dr. Walter Weasell: This is a good way to remind the field beasts of their place in life. They aren’t worth the energy for either their clothes or bodies to be kept clean.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Come to think of it, why do they even need clothes? I mean, we could issue some sort of uniform that would be much cheaper than letting them buy and wear what they want.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah thank that’s an absolutely wonnerful notion! We could make ’em wash their new uniforms, mebbe we should call ’em “Pipplecovers” in state laundrymats.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We could put state laundromats in the public schools! That’d be the only place they could get access to hot water or soap. Brings us closer to state barracks and state dining rooms.
Dr. Willis Watless: Brenda, that’s truly brilliant! Hot water is too dangerous to let the fools have in their houses. Every day, millions of babies and old people run the risk of being boiled alive. Only certified dispensers should be allowed to use hot water. Public schools are the perfect place.
Dr. Walter Weasell: We could bus them to the schools at night for appointed wash-times. That would save even more energy. When the field beasts come home from work, we’ll bus ’em to the farthest school.
Dr. Willis Watless: If they behave well, we could let them take hot showers! We’d have good attendance for short talks about the environment.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Hell’s fire, Willis, we could have ’em listen to long talks ’bout all kinds of mindless drivel. Get an Al Gore cardboard cutout, have the fools sqeeeze into teeny li’l desks, ‘n listen to recordings of Al on various subjects while they’re starin’ at the cardboard cutout. Four or five hours at a whack!
Dr. Walter Weasell: Why let ’em sit down?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: They’ll have to listen, if they want hot water!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: If they try to leave early, they can’t get a permit for their next shower!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Iffin they try to leave early, they should be shot!
Dr. Willis Watless: While they’re at the shower/lecture/wash, we could have inspectors ransack their houses! Make sure there’s no contraband.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: If they have heat pumps, we can destroy them! If they have any kind of energy-saving device, we can confiscate them! We’ll fix ’em good!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We are making progress!
Dr. Willis Watless: We certainly are. I have a suggestion about their clothes. Uniforms were suggested. I think we should limit their apparel to whatever they can make out of old grocery bags and duct tape.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Plastic, or paper?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I think paper would be more environmentally sound.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: But, iffin they have to eat at the school cafeteria, where’ll the fools get grocery bags?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That sounds like a problem they’ll have to work out among themselves.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: If they have to come to the schools to shower, they might as well eat there. Why couldn’t they just sleep in the gyms and classrooms? Their houses are environmentally wasteful. If the field beasts just lived in the schools, they’d save lots of energy.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Then, we could give their houses to incoming immigrants. Tell ’em “You’re livin’ the American dream!” After each election, we cram those immigrants into the schools, ‘n give the houses to even newer immigrants, ‘n tell ’em, “You’re living the American dream!”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah sees where y’all are goin’. Iffin they shower at the school, ‘n eat at the school, ‘n sleep at the school, why do the field beasts even need clothes ‘n houses?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Exactly! Who cares if the accursed fools just walk around naked? The bashful ones can rub mud on themselves.
Dr. Walter Weasell: They won’t need cars, houses, or clothes! We’ll reduce energy consumption, make their miserable lives vastly more efficient, get them forced to participate in school activities, why, we’ll have Heaven on earth! Year-’round, life-long education in the glorious public schools!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: What about beds? Where, exactly, will they sleep?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah thank they could be usin’ the schools’ tumblin’ mats. Put one on the floor, put another on top of ’em, and weight ’em down so they don’ waste energy rollin’ ’round.
Dr. Willis Watless: No reason that they couldn’t sleep at the classroom desks. That’s what most of the l’il bastards do all day, anyway. Might as well let ’em get really good at it.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: How would we start?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We should start the next time there’s a disaster we can mess up. A Hurricane like Katrina would be perfect. If those officials were just a little bit smarter, those people could have been bussed to the nearest intact school.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: They’d be thar still!
Dr. Walter Weasell: Think how much happier they’ll be, knowing that they’ve reduced their energy uses to a “sustainable” level.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah hate waitin’ for this. Iffen we don’ have any nachural disasters to get School Livin’ goin’, mebbe we could make some. Blow up sum dams, ur sum’thin’. Ah thank furrest ‘fires ‘ud help. We could burn out a coupla’ towns ‘n see how “School Livin’” worked out.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: “School Living”. Has a nice sound. Or, “School, a lifetime adventure.”
Dr. Willis Watless: “Your public school, a lifetime adventure in learning.” would be good. Make ’em think that the schools actually belong to them, that living in them will be an adventure, and that they’ll learn something.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I like putting ‘your’ in front of public schools, it’s such a great lie, but let’s be more inclusive. “Your public school, a lifetime adventure in learning and living.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: That has a nice ring to it. Adding “and living” let’s ’em know that it’s really important.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Sounds like all we need is a nice, medium-sized disaster and we can put a program in place.
NOTE FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: WE WANT TO SEE A BETTER, SHORTER NAME FOR THIS PROGRAM. WE FEEL THAT YOU HAVE DEVELOPED AN IDEAL TRANSITION AWAY FROM THE WASTE OF PRIVATE DWELLINGS TO THE EFFICIENCY OF GROUP LIVING. IT IS GOING TO BE A HARD SELL. MANY OF THE FIELD BEASTS BELIEVE THAT THEY ACTUALLY LIKE THEIR LIVING SPACES.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I didn’t know that! To think they’d actually be attached to their wretched little hovels! If they’re that stupid, why do we bother with them?
Dr. Walter Weasell: We really don’t have anyone else to bother with.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s true. It’s not really that much fun to torment animals.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’d like to blow up a dam, flood out a big valley, ‘n get this project started.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I grew up near the Allegheny River. There’s a big dam on it. If we had some Cleanfleece explosive experts go to Warren, in-the-middle-of-nowhere, Pennsylvania, and blow it up, a dozen little towns down the river would be wiped out. Lot’s of people’d be glad to be “school-livin’”.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: It ’bout time! We can acshually get started on this here “school-livin’. How much’ll the Cleanfleecers charge us?
Dr. Willis Watless: I spoke to their agent. He’s working on a multi-media deal. It’s a hydro-electric dam, so the Ay-rab oil interests will pay him a million dollars for blowin’ it up. On top of that, insurance companies’ll be able to raise rates all over the Northeast. They’ll pay him another million. Big unions’ll have big projects rebuildin’ washed out roads and bridges. They’ve agreed to pay two million, and two big construction companies will match it.
NOTE FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: BILLING DETAILS ARE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. SUB-COMMITTEES ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO BE INVOLVED IN ANY ASPECT OF THE BILLING PROCESS. HAVE ALL BILLING INFORMATION FORWARDED TO US IMMEDIATELY. FOCUS ON LIES THAT YOU WILL NEED FOR THE FIELD BEASTS DISLOCATED BY THE FLOOD AND LEAVE PAYMENT DETAILS TO US.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We are all very sorry for having overstepped our boundaries. All information has been forwarded. Our sole desire was to be of service and present you with a complete plan.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Mah question is, do we let ’em know when the dam breaks, or jes’ let ‘er rip?
Dr. Willis Watless: That’s a very hard question. If we do it at night, and don’t tell them, most of ’em will die and we won’t have to worry ’bout ’em.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: But, if there’s only a few survivors, they might rather go live with relatives than be crammed into a local school.
Dr. Walter Weasell: There’s a problem with that, Dr. Brownout. If we give them too much warning, they might get into their cars and drive away. They might never come back.
Dr. Willis Watless: This is a very difficult situation. Ideally, we want several thousand field beasts in every town along the river crammed into their schools. We don’t want them leaving.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’ve got an idea! Let’s have a bunch of “commun’ty meet’ns” in the local schools. We’ll tell the fools that they gotten to get to the meetin’ or else, we’ll be flattenin’ their house fer ‘Watershed Pertecshun’.
Dr. Willis Watless: Great idea, Dick. They’ll all have to show up.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Dick, that’s brilliant! And, when they’re all inside the schools, Cleanfleece blows up the dam. When they come out, their town’s’ll be gone. Washed clean away! And, we’ll cleverly have “emergency supplies” already on hand in every school building. They’ll congratulate us on our “brilliant foresight” even while we’re crammin’ ’em right into the classrooms.
Dr. Willis Watless: How will we keep them there? Some of them may try to escape.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We’ll quarantine the areas. Tell the fools that “Deadly, deep-water germs have been discovered in recent floodwater”. They’ll be required to “stay where they are” until we get an “all-clear” from “certified medical personnel.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: What if there were no floods?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Then, we’ll tell ’em that recent droughts have brought new, deadly microscopic life-forms into being.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: They’ll believe either one. Heck, Ah’d believe either one. Makes reel good sense. Take weeks, mebbe months, fer final clearance to let ’em get back to their houses. By that time, we’ll have ’em so drugged they’ll have fergotten they ever had houses.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Even better! It gives us a chance to burn down all the houses that weren’t washed away! If the fools remember they even had houses, we’ll tell ’em, “Deep-water microbial contamination was so bad that the only way we could help was to be sure that every building was cleanly burned to the ground. It was the only thing we could do to guarantee the health and welfare of every citizen.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: “The only thang we could do!” Tha’s amazin’! ‘N it’ll work, too. The fools’ll believe it. You’ll see!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: At last! We’ll get the field beasts out of their own dwellings and into the public schools. Full time.
Dr. Willis Watless: Finally! Progress! I feel like we’re finally getting somewhere!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah got one qweschun. Iffin we burn down all their houses, how we gonna get the fools to pay prop’ty tax? How we gonna get any money outen ’em?
Transcriber note: A silence of nearly six minutes followed Dr. Dudewell’s question.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I don’t know how to say this, but we may have gone too far. Unless, of course, we want to, well, I might as well say it, we can either enslave them or kill them. That’s all we can do.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: We have no choice. I vote for enslavement. We already have quarters for them, in the schools. All we need is to keep them there. The energy we’ll save!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: IT IS NOT IN THE PURVIEW OF YOUR ASSIGNMENT TO SET SCHEDULES FOR EITHER ENSLAVEMENT OR MASS MURDER. WE CONTINUE TO COUNT ON YOU TO DEVELOP LIES TO JUSTIFY THESE THINGS WHEN THE RIGHT TIME COMES.
YOU DO HAVE AUTHORIZATION TO REMOVE THE DAM, BEING VERY CAREFUL, OF COURSE, TO BE SURE THAT ALL MONEY RECEIVED IS FORWARDED TO THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
WE SUGGEST THAT YOU USE YOUR ‘SCHOOL LIVING’ PROGRAM ON A TEMPORARY BASIS. KEEP THE FOOLS IN THE SCHOOLS FOR A FEW WEEKS. THEN, ALLOW THEM TO RETURN TO THEIR HOMES.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Wal! Ah’d say we’s doin’ purty good! We gets the Cleanfleece guy to mebbe split fifty, sixty percent wiffin us, so’s we kin make a reel big payment to THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, ‘n there may be a leetle lef’ over fer a bonus.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That could work out very well.
Dr. Willis Watless: I think so, too. I’ll give the Cleanfleece agent a call tonight to see what his actual charges would be. We should clear several million dollars on this.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Does that include rebuilding the towns? Smaller contractors might pay us a good bit.
Dr. Walter Weasell: And, there’s a lot of money in rebuilding the utilities. Power lines, sewers, water treatment plants. Destroying the middle Allegheny River valley could make us a lot of money.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Pain and suffering. There has to be a lot of pain and suffering. There’ll be lawyers crawling out of every nook and cranny. Who’s going to pay for all of this?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Insurance companies. Power companies. Lots of big, deep pockets full of money. Every penny taken from miserable field beasts. We’re going to do very well out of this. Willis, how much will the Cleanfleece demolitions expert charge us?
Dr. Willis Watless: I think he’ll blow the dam for a million, cold cash. We’ll set it up so he splits with us, rather than with Cleanfleece.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Won’ the folks at Cleanfleece be mad iffin they find out?
Dr. Willis Watless: No. Cleanfleece encourages its experts to make their own deals. They have to pay their expenses, of course, but Cleanfleece is directly financed by all the big companies who have high-tech competitors to control. They mostly worry about having someone around to blow up things when they’re needed.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: After the dam is blown, then all the survivors are herded into the schools. They stay there for four to six weeks, then we let them go home, if they have homes.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: And, we see how many we can convince to keep living in the schools.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: REVIEW OF YOUR PROPOSALS IS NOW COMPLETE. REGRETFULLY, YOUR PLANS TO BLOW UP THE A DAM ON THE ALLEGHENY RIVER HAVE TO BE PUT ON HOLD. CLIENTS ARE CONCERNED THAT YOU MAY DISRUPT PLANS FOR MASS TRANSIT TO REPLACE INDIVIDUALLY DRIVEN VEHICLES.
OUR CLIENT NOW NEEDS LIES TO JUSTIFY OUTLAWING INDIVIDUAL VEHICLES IN ANY TOWN OR CITY WITH MASS TRANSIT.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: The only people who should be allowed to drive cars into urban areas are government officials on important business.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That’s exactly right, Bobby. Those useless field beasts have to stop driving around like they’ve got something important to do.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah jes’ get plum’ sick to mah stomack when Ah see them ‘spressways full o’ cars comin’ ‘n goin’. Them pipples shuld all be ridin’ in busses. Trains. Cattle trucks. Drivin’s too gud fer ’em.
Dr. Willis Watless: Exactly right. No need for them to be driving around. Using precious fossil fuel, taking up valuable urban space to park. Letting them drive around is very bad for the earth.
Dr. Walter Weasell: And, it’s bad for people. All those emissions of carbon monoxide, why that’s a deadly poison, and it’s coming right out their exhaust pipes every time they turn on their engines.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Walter, that’s a very good point. We’ve made the fools worry about all kinds of imaginary atmospheric problems. The dumber ones worry about ozone, second hand smoke, carbon dioxide, particulate exudations from plastics, but we’ve never gotten any of them to worry about carbon monoxide, a real poison. Why?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I’ve been running this commitee for years, and I don’t know.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: SOME OF OUR EARLIEST CLIENTS WERE AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURERS. WE ARE ON RETAINER WITH THEM AND ARE THEREFORE UNABLE TO DISSEMINATE ACCURATE INFORMATION ABOUT THE DEADLY NATURE OF CARBON MONOXIDE.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Thanks very much for the explanation. So, we don’t talk about real poison gas on any newsspewing medium, only about fake poison gas, like ozone and carbon dioxide.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: So, we have to channel commuters onto public transit without talking about how cars produce carbon monoxide? I hate this! I mean, carbon monoxide is a real poison, and we can’t talk about it!
Dr. Walter Weasell: What’s the matter, Timmy? You want to tell the truth, all of a sudden?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Well, I’d like to be able to use just a little of it. It makes the lies so much better.
Dr. Willis Watless: Timmy, using truth to bamboozle field beasts is like shooting fish in a barrel. Of course we could take a car, park it in a barn, and film all the animals dying as it ran for a couple of hours. But, we’re artists. We have to make harmless things like ozone into imaginary killers.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I know. It’s just that, well, for once I’d like to be able to put a little bit of truth in what we do. Just to make it more believable. But, I understand. The real challenge is to hide the real truth about real dangers while we make things that are completely harmless seem dangerous.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Wal, ‘course that’s what we do. ‘N we do it better’n anybody. Why, even Commies cain’t lie as good as us’n.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I should say not! Poor, foolish Communists just had one or really big lies. When they fell apart, there was nothing left except some slave-produced oil, gas, and minerals they could sell.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We run our society on thousands and thousands of little lies. When the fools focus on one long enough to see the fraud, we just switch to another. That’s the beauty of capitalism and democracy. Lies for everyone. Lies for every human activity.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: And, we make all the field beasts tell the truth. You know, the fools have to honor their contracts and not lie under oath. Not like us.
Dr. Walter Weasell: We make the fools tell the truth. If they lie, we fine ’em and put ’em in jail.
Dr. Willis Watless: But us? Hah! Exactly the opposite. If we tell the truth, we’re out of a job.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We’ve had about all the deep thinking I can handle. It’s time we got back to work. We need lies, good lies, to get the field beasts out of their cars and into our buses and trains.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I think we should remember Dr. Dudewell’s suggestion about using cattle cars. Why should they be allowed to sit down? If we cram them in tightly enough, they won’t be able to fall over. So, why waste money on seats?
Dr. Walter Weasell: How do we cram them in that tightly? Hydraulic rams?
Dr. Willis Watless: Cattle prods are cheaper. Make them supply the energy to cram themselves in. Have to be careful not make ’em suffocate themselves, of course, but staff’ll find some formulas.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’m mit’ey gratified thachu thought enuf of my idea to ‘member it, Dr. Brownout. Ah thank it has sum merit, ‘pecially since we culd get movin’ wif it tomorry.
Dr. Willis Watless: I think that we could get them crammed into cattle trucks more easily in warm weather. But, in winter, they might freeze to death.
Dr. Walter Weasell: So?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Well, I don’t want my maid to freeze to death. If cook froze, who would make my meals? If laundress froze, who would iron my shirts?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Good point, Dr. Peedymeter. I certainly don’t want my wet nurse freezing to death. Who’d feed my little Fatima?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: So, iffin we’s agreed, we kin put ’em in cattle trucks ‘tween what, Easter to Halloween?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Easter! Halloween! Really, Dick, you know better than that!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Jes’ checkin’ to see if an’one was payin’ tenshun. Frum May Day to Labur Day, we rides the fools ‘n field beasts in cattle trucks. What ’bout the res’ of the yeer?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Let’s slow down, a little. We need some lies so’s the fools’ll think there’s a reason they’ve got to give up their automobiles and go back and forth to work in cattle trucks.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I don’t know if this has ever come up before, maybe someone did suggest it, but I think we should make a big deal of Crustal Deflection.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: ‘N what in the hail is “Crustal Deeflexshun”?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: When the fools drive millions of cars to work, it causes the crust of the earth to deflect. The crust under the suburbs goes up, because there’s less weight on it, and the crust under the downtown goes down, ’cause all the cars are parked there.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Wow! I had no idea! How much does it go up and down?
Dr. Willis Watless: No one knows. But, it seems reasonable that it must. It seems frighteningly reasonable.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah kin almos’ feel it movin’. Y’all know it’s movin’ ’cause that’s whar potholes cum frum.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Dick, that’s brilliant! “That’s where potholes come from!” The fools’ll love it! They’ll believe it!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I suggest calling it “Crustal Deflection”. And, we tell ’em that since it happens at the same time every single day, a huge wave is building up, and that a “tsunami of liquified earth” could wash over any city at any time.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Oh, what a lie! Oh, what a lie! It’s the best lie I’ve ever heard! “Buildings will go down like tenpins. Bridges will collapse. Whole cities sure to be buried! Will your city be the first to be buried alive by its own commuters?” Why, this is better than rogue asteroids, global warming, giant meteors, and planetary infusions of white-hot plasma. The script almost writes itself.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: And, we tell them that huge eruptions of magma may “Fry millions!”
Dr. Willis Watless: Surely, there’s not more than one or two of the fools who’ll believe this mindless drivel?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: They’ll believe it, Willis, once we get some celebrities babbling about it. Half the morons believe anything celebrities tell ’em. This lie will have charts. Graphics. 3-D effects that’ll be unbelievable. We’ll cram it down their throats, just like Global Warming.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: ‘N they was dum enuf to believe that!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I just thought of a good one! Let’s tell the fools that “An airplane, coming in for what the pilot thinks is going to be a safe landing, could find itself hitting a runway that was suddenly standing on edge because of ‘Crustal Deflection’!”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Timmy, I am impressed! It’s a wonderful lie!
Dr. Walter Weasell: Or, tell ’em that the runway could rise up in the air, like a flapping towel, and come down on top of the airplane, crushing it into dust!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Like a huge, concrete fly swatter!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah haf ter say, Ah’ve been on all the lie committees, ‘n Ah’ve heerd ’bout all the lies thar’ is, ‘n this ‘un takes the cake! Dr. Peedymeter, Ah takes mah hat off ter yuh, suh! “Crustal Deflection” is the bes’ thang since sliced bred!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: And, it affects billions of the fools. Every time any of them moves anything, we’ll make them have to wonder “Could this be the straw that broke the camel’s back? Is this the movement that causes the ‘earth tsunami’?”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Make ’em live in fear. That’s one of the best things we can do. Every day could be the last day for every single one of them, and if they’re all destroyed, it’ll be the fault of one of ’em doin’ something wrong.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah lak that! We’ll get ’em so scar’d they won’ want ter move fas’ or stop qwik. Too scared ter jump high ‘er land hard. Ever’ activity should be metered.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: The joy of it all! We’ll be able to have them watched. They’ll want to be watched! Every minute. We’ll convince the dumber fools that they actually need someone watching them, just to be sure that no one can cause the dreaded “Crustal Deflection”, even by accident.
Dr. Willis Watless: Every human activity! Think of the construction monitoring fees we’ll be able to generate! Why, can you imagine what one, single concrete truck does to “Crustal Deflection”?
Dr. Walter Weasell: Are you filling a swimming pool? Emptying a swimming pool? You may be causing ‘Crustal Deflection’!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Bathtubs! Sinks! Flushing toilets! “These things might not seem like much in themselves, but, added together, these weight shifts make the ominous promises of “Global Deflection” absolutely inevitable .
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah jes’ ‘memb’red. Ah’m on the Lie Committee fer Political Lies, n’ they is usin’ the pipple commutin’ ter wurk as a prob’ble cause of “Planetary Oscillation”.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That makes a lot of sense! I wish we’d thought of it. Still “Crustal Deflection” is better.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Timmy, I’m sure our lies are far better than any that they’ll come up with. Those Political Liars are always behind us.
Dr. Walter Weasell: But, they have London Ritz-Carleton working for them! The field beasts just love her! I’ve heard that she can make a lie believable to something like fifty million field beasts just by sending herself an e-mail, calling it “confidential”, and copying half a dozen publicists.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We need to have our own staff celebrity! I’d like to have one that we could rely on to be sure that the fools understood our energy lies more thoroughly.
Dr. Willis Watless: I’d love to have our own staff celebrity. It would certainly make us look more important.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Would a staff celebrity attend our meetings?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Walter, Ah don’ thank yu’d wan’ no staff ‘elebrity at the meetin’s. Cel’brity’s air so-o-o-o dum’ that we’d be havin’ to ‘splain ever’thin’ three, four times jes’ to get ’em to unnerestan’.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I can put in a request for Staff Celebrity to THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, but I don’t know what kind of funding is available.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah thank that London Ritz-Carleton gits paid about eleben millyun dollars a y’ar at the Polytickal Lies Sub-Committee.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: DR. DUDEWELL, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO SHARE FISCAL INFORMATION BETWEEN COMMITTEES. DR. BIGOHM, WE ARE CONTINUING TO EXPLORE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ASSIGNING EACH LIE COMMITTEE ITS OWN STAFF CELEBRITY. WE ARE MERELY USING LONDON RITZ-CARLETON AS A TEST.
IN THE MEANTIME, WE NEED NEW LIES. IT TURNS OUT THAT PEOPLE ARE SAVING RECYCLING FEES BY DUMPING THEIR OLD OIL DOWN OLD OIL WELLS.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We can’t have that!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I should say not! If the fools are able to escape recycling fees, our clients will lose billions!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’ve got ter admit. It’s purty smart of ’em.
Dr. Willis Watless: What, exactly, do we say is wrong? I mean, the oil came out of a hole in the ground. Now, they’re putting the same oil back down the same hole. How can we say there’s something wrong with that?
Dr. Walter Weasell: That’s right, Willis. It seems so harmless. How can we make this into an issue?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: In a way, the fools are recycling. The only thing wrong is that we don’t get any money for what they’re doing.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Today, its a very small thing. Some fool changes the oil in some engine or another, and dumps a couple of gallons down an old oil well. Soon, big companies may be doing the same thing.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: But, how can we convince even the dumbest fools that there’s something dangerous about it? I mean, if an oil well is a mile or two deep, who cares what’s down there?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Bobby, Ah’m ashamed of y’all. ‘Course thar’s nothin’ wrong wiffin dumpin the ahl raht back whar’ it came frum. We got to find som’thin wrong.
Dr. Willis Watless: Dick is right. We need a lie. This is, after all, a “lie” committee. Our job is to come up with energy and environmental lies. Now, let’s get a good, solid believable lie.
Dr. Walter Weasell: I can’t think of one. I mean, if they’ve pulled, oh, a hundred thousand swimming pools full of oil out of some hole, and now they want to put some back, they could say they were “stabilizing things”.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: They could say “We’re giving something back.” Oh, how I love it when the fools applaud someone saying “I want to give something back.”, and never notice when he makes another few billion.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Will the fools believe: “Injecting oil into the earth may cause disequilibrium from which volcanos and earthquakes are sure to follow.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s good, Brenda. That’s very good. But, won’t the fools just say: We are balancing out our previous imbalance before it has a chance to cause damage.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: This is hard. Very hard. Ah thank this ee’r is the biggust, mos’ complicated lie Ah evah hurd of.
Dr. Willis Watless: Well, we better get cracking! It won’t be long until some fool or another is grinding up city garbage, mixing it with sewage sludge, and pumping it underground “to stabilize the strata”.
Dr. Walter Weasell: We have to stop them! The field beasts will save billions! They’ll have virtually free garbage disposal! You know the first law, “Nothing must be free.”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Won’t it hurt the precious groundwater?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Timmy, you fool! The ground water is a few hundred feet down. These wells are MILES deep! There is no way that it can pollute the groundwater.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s raht, Brenda. Iffiin it would pollute the groundwater, than the oil that they’s pumped out befor’ woulda polluted it.
Dr. Willis Watless: I’ve got it! You know how we were saying that when the field beasts drive back and forth to work, the surface of the earth goes up and down? Well, we tell them that putting all this pollution underground just gives the crustal deflection something to pump up.
Dr. Walter Weasell: And, that will pollute the vital groundwater! Willis, that’s a great lie!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: It is a great lie! We’ll be able to raise costs higher than ever before. We’ll bankrupt those filthy field beasts faster than ever! We’ll be able to charge milage because every mile they drive causes crustal deflection.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I know it’s not our job to wonder about such things, but will the fools believe that? Will they believe that driving one car, or a million, will cause crustal deflection that will pump old oil and sewage sludge straight up through miles of solid rock?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Sure! They’ll believe it. We’ll have some flunkies draw up a bunch of cartoons. They’ll show how the cars flex the layers of rock and pump up what’s below it. We’ll make it so believable that they’ll actually be mad at people who don’t believe it.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Call anywun who don’ believe “radicals”, ‘n “insensitive”. That’ll shut up the mos’ of ’em. We start out the newsspewers sayin’ “It seems impossible that drivin’ yer car can cause rock fluctuations miles beneath your autymobile, but the latest research. . . ”
Dr. Willis Watless: Timmy, if you hadn’t come up with that brilliant lie about “crustal deflection”, I’d have never thought of it.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Willis is right. Timmy, “Crustal Deflection” could be as big a lie as Global Warming”!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Oh, what an honor that would be!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Timmy, I’m nominating you for the Nobel Prize. “Crustal Deflection” is a lie that can make every single fool feel so guilty for moving anything that we can tax them! Again, and again!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: The bigger or faster a thing is moved, the more it can be taxed. Timmy, your lie can be used to justify whole new departments, laws, regulators, inspectors, security forces. Why “Crustal Deflection” is, truly, the new Global Warming!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah thank it’s a big enuf lie that we shuld get ahr own Staff Celebrity! We shuld get sum’un who’ll be reel believ’ble. We got ter get the whol’ worlt t’ slow down ‘n lighten up. Iffen we don’, “Crustal Deflection” will destroy us.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: We should tell the fools that “urgent action” is necessary.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I’m going to request that THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE review this past session. Then, I’ll make a request for our own Staff Celebrity!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’ve got an idee. Let’s see iffin we can get London Ritz-Carleton transfurred to ahr committee! She’s alreddy hurd of Planetary Oscillaton, so there won’t be the yars ‘n yars of trainin’ it usually takes to get a Staff Celebrity to unnerstan’ sumthin’.
Dr. Willis Watless: London Ritz-Carleton? On OUR committee! What an honor! Why, the thought of being able to work with our very own Staff Celebrity, why, I don’t know if I bear up under the sheer wonder of it all.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Willis, get ahold of yourself. She’s just a person, like you and me.
Dr. Willis Watless: Timmy, you don’t understand. This is London Ritz-Carleton! Famous heir to a vast fortune, spending her time bringing culture and literacy to an unappreciative world! In earlier times, she’d be a saint! A saint, I tell you!
Dr. Walter Weasell: I have another lie! Not as good as Timmy’s, but a wonderful lie, nonetheless. We can tell the fools that the earth is spinning around on, oh, I don’t know, tell them it’s spinning around on something. Then, with some cartoons, we tell them that there’s some sort of force, like a centrifuge, that pushes any garbage pumped down an old oil well right back to the surface.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Walter, that’s wonderful! The force pushes the garbage right up to the surface, maybe in a few hours, and pollutes the precious groundwater.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: They ain’ no fiel’ beas’ dum’ enuf’ ter believe that the spinnin’ of de earth,would push garbage through two er three miles of solid rock in a coupla hars. They ain’ that dum!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Now, now, Dick. They believed in global freezing, and in less than a year, reversed to Global Warming, where the big money was. If they can intellectually make such huge switches and not even notice, even when someone points it out to them, they’ll believe that putting garbage down old oil wells will pollute their water.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Especially if they can be made to believe the earth is spinning around, and there’s outward pressure that reacts strongly to “Crustal Deflection”.
Dr. Willis Watless: Actually, there is a theory that the world is spinning around, right now, on what they call its “axis”, and that it goes around the sun.
Dr: Walter Weasell: Do the field beasts believe it?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Most of them.
Dr: Brenda Bigohm: I rest my case.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Actually, the world is a large ball that spins around on an axis.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah thought so!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm (visibly angry): Dick you are a fool! Worrying about whether the earth spins on its axis! Worrying about whether it goes around the sun! The world revolves around me! It revolves around you! It revolves around this committee! No wonder I am a Lie Committee Head, and you are not! You never will be!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’m on ever’ lie committee that thar is!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Yes, and you’re laughed at on all of them! Every day, talking more and more like a hick! Every day, introducing your little warnings of earthy wisdom! You, you are a peasant! You’re a good liar, but you’ll never get into management! Not as long as you think the credulity level of those accursed fools is something to worry about!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Wa’l, they kin think. N’, in sum places, they kin vote. N’ iffin Ah wants ter talk lak a hick, wa’l, Ah’ll talk lak a hick. Ah invented a lot better lies ‘n you ebber did. N’ Ah’ll invent lots more. Mebbe Ah oughten ter file a complain’ ‘ledgin discrinimation. See iffin pipple be thankin’ the way y’all thank.
Dr. Willis Watless: Now, Dick, I’m sure we don’t need to file any official charges. I’m sure that Dr. Bigohm believes you are a fine liar. She’s just upset because, well, she despises the creatures so much, and you are always making excuses for them.
Dr. Walter Weasell: I’m always glad when Dr. Dudewell does give us an insight as to the operations of their so-called “minds”.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I don’t think that the filing of formal charges would be appropriate. I’m sure that Dr. Bigohm didn’t mean anything. She’s just frustrated about how hard it is to keep the fools paying and paying for everything while getting nothing in return. She’s carrying a big load, a lot of responsibility, and we should be understanding.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I can see where both of them are coming from. Keeping the fools from putting used oil and diluted garbage down holes several miles deep takes big, mind-straining lies. And, Dick has certainly helped with a lot of very fine lies. I think Dr. Bigohm’s skills are mainly administrative, and, well, she may be a little bit overwhelmed by Dick’s fine lies.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Wa’l, why ain’ she givin’ Timmy a hard time? Timmy cum up wiffin Crustal Deflection, ‘n she didn’ give him a ‘ard time. Ah thank she’s wurried ’bout us gettin’ a staff ‘elebrity lak London Ritz-Carleton on her commi’tee, ‘n she’s a lil bit jealous.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I certainly am not jealous of London Ritz-Carlton! I think she’d be a fine celebrity for our committee, and am making every effort to obtain her services. We do have a budget, you know. I can’t just offer her twenty or thirty million dollars a year. Unless some of you are willing to cut your salaries a few percent?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: The most wonderful idea just came to me! Let’s tell the fools that “crustal deflection” is actually pumping up garbage at the very same time that it is pumping groundwater more deeply into the earth!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah lak that! Ah reely do!
Dr. Willis Watless: It’s brilliant, Bobby. We can convince them that driving will make them all die of thirst!
Dr. Walter Weasell: And, that underground oil will be driven more deeply underground!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Finally! We’ll be able to stop them all from driving. The fools will have to ride bicycles. Walk around. No more personal transportation.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We still have to be sure we can get them to work. How can we justify packing them into trains and buses? Since they’re heavier, they’ll be sure to cause more “crustal deflection”.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Let’s get some smart-flunkies to come up with some lies as to how mass transit doesn’t cause “crustal deflection”.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah thank all we’s gots ter do is ter tell ’em that “controllable buses counteract the pumping effect by having speed ‘n weight controlled.”
Dr. Willis Watless: That sounds as if it could be make to sound sensible. We could also put vastly bigger tires on the buses.
Dr. Walter Weasell: I can picture that! Tires ten or twelve feed wide. Soft, rubber rollers, actually, running clear under the bus. Maybe ten or twelve of them. Put signs on the buses saying: “This vehicle will not cause Crustal Deflection”.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That is so good! Then, we can allow transport trucks to be refitted with them. We want some surface transportation to take place, or I won’t be able to get my Omaha steaks.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I want my Bentley fitted out with tires like that! All Lie Committee personnel should be assigned personal vehicles guaranteed not to cause Crustal Deflection.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’d lak that! Ah’d lak a heliocopter a lot more! Ah thank we shuld each get ahr own pers’nal heliocopter. ‘N, each heliocopter shuld be big enfu to carry a personul vehicle that’s guaranteed not to cause Crustal Deflecshun.
Dr. Willis Watless: Dick, that’s fantastic! Our heliocopter, I mean, helicopters, should each have a pilot. Each personal vehicle will need a permanent driver.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Willis, key personnel have to be able to travel anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice. We need a full complement of pilots and drivers so that they are available to us 24/7.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: It will make the fools more secure, knowing that we can be anywhere in the world in a matter of hours when our help is needed.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Worldwide duties are very pressing. I am going to put in a requisition for a super-sonic transport big enough to carry both a helicopter fleet, and personal vehicles and a full complement of pilots and drivers.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Fer each of us?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Yes. At first, we’ll just get a staff supersonic transport. As time goes on, I’ll request more.
Dr. Willis Watless: Will they go for that?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Listen, our Crustal Deflection lie is so big that we’ll be able to stop any field beast from moving anything, anywhere, any time! This is bigger than Global Warming! We deserve, yes, deserve, our own supersonic transports, personal helicopters, and personal ground vehicles!
Dr. Walter Weasell: Brenda, I agree with everything you’ve said. We’ve earned those rewards. Never before has such a tiny handful of people come up with a lie so grand, so glorious, so marvelously brilliant that all human locomotion can be stopped for environmental reasons that seem so good.
Dr. Willis Watless: Thank Baal, and Timmy Peedymeter, for “Crustal Deflection”! We’ll be ready, when the next volcano erupts, to get all sorts of wonderfully restrictive laws enacted.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I do hate to interrupt all this wonderful talk about having our own supersonic airplanes, helicopters and vehicles, but I had the most wonderful idea. It’s about trains. We’ll tell the fools “Trains generate unusually long underground waves. ‘Train Waves’ have totally disproportionate effects on crustal deflection. To keep our water supplies safe, no train can pull more than two cars. Or, fifty cars, or whatever we get paid the most to legislate.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Timmy, I love it! I’m stunned with how brilliant it is! Why, we’ll make everything so expensive to move they’ll never move anything.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Timmy, yer idea gives me one, too. Let’s tell the fool that boats, plowin’ through the oceans, “Push shock waves thru the ‘incompressible water’, and that causes Crustal Deflecshun under the vital sea floor.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: The filthy field beasts mustn’t be allowed to have anything bigger than a canoe. A rowboat. An innertube.
Dr. Willis Watless: Oh, what lies! What glorious lies! What magnificent fraud! Oh, they don’t deserve us, they just don’t deserve us.
NOTE FROM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: SOME OF THE FOOLS INVENTED A WAY TO SAVE ENERGY. THEY USE TANKS FULL OF COMPRESSED AIR TO PROVIDE HOUSEHOLD POWER. WE NEED LIES TO STOP THIS BEFORE IT GETS STARTED.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: This has to be stopped! It will allow field beasts to save billions, even while it makes many of our clients utterly redundant!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I don’t get it? Compressed air? How can that be such a big help to the fools?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah kin mebbe ‘splain. What they may be doin’ is usin’ a tank lak they’d use a batt’ry. ‘Cept, ‘stead of storin’ electricitee, it stores energy in the compressed air.
Dr. Willis Watless: What possible harm can that do?
Dr. Walter Weasell: That’s exactly the problem, you tool. It can’t do any harm! Compressed air is odorless, invisible, non-toxic, and non-polluting. We can’t legislate against what they’re already breathing.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: This is serious! A large tank could be filled with air from any kind of a pump, compressor, or windmill. It could be filled with a small windmill, and provide power for weeks. Even when the wind isn’t blowing.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That’s my fear, too, Timmy. The fools could take a big tank of comprressed air, and have it replacing their refrigerator, washer, and dryer motors. They wouldn’t need electricity. Every house would save thousands of dollars.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: It could be worse than that. They could run hoses from their tanks, and turn a little generator hooked up to whatever light they wanted to turn on. They’d turn their lights on and off by running compressed air through generators.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: That wuld wurk. Worse, it wuld wurk well. Ah got me a mou’tain cabin what don’ got no electricicality. Ah thank a thang lak that’d do reel gud up th’ar.
Dr. Willis Watless: This is much worse than I’d imagined. The fools can run pumps and generators directly from their compressed air tank. That would be about 90% efficient. That’s a huge savings.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Can they pump up enough compressed air to run their vehicles?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I hope not!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I’ve heard of compressed air motors. If these fools could compress air for free, there’s no telling what they could do with the energy they’ve stored.
Dr. Bobby Burnout: Does anyone know if they could hook solar collectors up to the Compressed Air Tank? Would the CAT hold enough energy to let them get, it makes me sick to say this, “off the grid”.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Not that! Anythin’ but that! Iffin the stinkin’ scum goes off gird, ahr clients lose money. We cain’t have that!
Dr. Willis Watless: We have to be very careful to explore all the options they have before we start to invent lies to justify keeping this illegal. What if the fools decided to put big, cheap solar cells in their yards and on their roofs? What if they used them to run auxiliary generators to make CAT storage even more efficient?
Dr. Walter Weasell: Willis, how DO you think of these things? Why, if they collect energy from both sun and wind, they could go off-grid. They could live without paying our clients! We have to stop them.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Lies! We need lies! This problem is clear. This problem is big! There are all sorts of natural, free ways to compress air. We have to make all of them illegal.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I don’t know what we’re going to do. How can anyone object to compressing and releasing the same air we breathe?
Dr. Bobby Burnout: Well, I think it’s dangerous. Very dangerous. What if the tank exploded, and wiped out an entire neighborhood?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: The kind of a fiel’ beas’ who’d come up wiffin som’thin’ lak this, he’d jes’ hare hisself an engineer. He’d get some kin’ of a “safety valve”, n’ get it certyfied to be “safe”.
Dr. Willis Watless: We may have to destroy this awful idea on the basis of emotion. We just focus on the fact that it may not “feel safe”. Everything a person does should “feel safe” to everyone around whatever it is that a person does. I would not “feel safe” if one of these installations were within several miles.
Dr. Walter Weasell: What if the field beast buried the tank in the ground? Would you “feel safe”, then?
Dr. Willis Watless: I never thought of that. I may just “feel uneasy” because of the Compressed Air Tank, and that’s legally valid enough to stop one within several miles of me. I remember my neice “felt uneasy” because she was dead-center on the flight path between New York and L.A. By the time planes were over her house, they were so high in the air you couldn’t see them, but she “felt uneasy”. The courts made them change the flight path.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: “Feeling uneasy” is a wonderful legal theory, but there’s nothing intrinsically dangerous in air. After all, we breathe it. Safety doesn’t seem to be a real objection. Air won’t explode. It’s not flammable, and it’s not poisonous. I think we have to come up with a whole new set of lies to destroy this before it catches on.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Any suggestions, Timmy?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I have the beginnings of a lie. You’ll all have to help me make it better. What we do is tell ’em: “Each of us has a social responsibility to be socially responsible.” They can’t argue with that.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: No one could argue with that. Great beginning.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: “One of our gravest responsibilities is to be very sure that we never hurt another person, especially one who is not as able.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah lak that! Ah thank y’all are settin’ up a great beginnin’!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Thank you, Dick. That’s especially meaningful, coming from you. Then, we add, “People who are able to save money may hurt people who are less able. They’ll be deprived of the revenue they need to live on, if people make their own power.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: And, that wouldn’t be fair, would it?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I almost have tears in my eyes! Timmy, you have the beginning of a brilliant campaign! All feelings, no fact.
Dr. Willis Watless: I was just running some rough numbers. It’ll cost a field beast fifteen or twenty thousand dollars to set up a Compressed Air Tank, compressor, windmill, and a few solar cells. He’ll get all that back in three or four years.
Dr. Walter Weasell: If I weren’t one of us, I’d want one of them.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Willis, my figures show the same thing. But, there’s something worse. If a field beast has enough air left over, and he fixes his car to run on compressed air, he can get a two year payback!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: If we don’t come up with more lies, THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE is
going to replace us with random sentence generators. That’s what they did with, I don’t remember if it was the Republican or the Democratic National Committee, and their output has never been better.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: They can’t do that with our kind of “technical” and “scientific” issues. We’ll come up with something, won’t we, gang?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: We shore will! We’ll be comin’ up wiffin a lot of good ways to keep this idee frum catchin’ on. Ah thank we shuld buy a priznur from, oh, Mexico, mebbe. ‘N we tie him ter a CAT. Then we pumps it up. Iffin we pumps it up enuf, that priznur is goin’ ter be ruinated when the Cumpressed Air Tank ‘splodes. Then, we kin say “That thar system ain’t safe.”
Dr. Willis Watless: Do we have to use a real person? We couldn’t use ballistic gelatin, or farm animals?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah thank it’s jes’ gots ter be a priznur. Ah’d lak ter see a whole
body, blown plum’ inter peeces on every TeeVee news broadcast. Than, it’ll look mit’y dang’rous. We kin git the whole thang made illegal.
Dr. Walter Weasell: How much would a prisoner cost?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: We used to buy prisoners for my grad school project. They weren’t even a couple of hundred dollars. I remember. We’d go across the river from Laredo, I think it was, ‘n give a hundred dollars to a warden. Then, we had to pay half that much for a “prisoner deposit”.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: What! A prisoner deposit? Those greedy jailors!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Yes. We were never able to keep prisoners in good enough shape to return for deposits, so we always lost the deposits.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: So, Dick, you’re going to get a prisoner, tie it to a tank of compressed air, and compress enough air so that the tank explodes. That’s going to literally blow the prisoner all over the place?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Yup. Git it on film. Then, we kin show pipple, “It’s reely unsafe to have a Cumpressed Air Tank anywhare ‘roun’ yer house er yer fam’ly.”, ‘n show ’em the videeo. They’ll demand legislashun makin’ ’em illegal.
Dr. Willis Watless: There’s another consideration. Why should any of the fools think they have the right to do anything regarding energy? The ideas of “low price” and “independence” are exactly opposite of what they should be thinking.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Right you are, Willis! And, the notion of letting people think they have the right to “compress” air! Why, only licensed, certified engineers should be allowed to do that.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I never thought of that. While we’re undermining it, we’ll pretend to be in favor of “Energy Independence”, but, at the same time, regulate it so heavily, and make it so complicated, that no one could ever be “energy independent”.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: It’s like winning the lottery. The fools all think they’re going to win, and but they never do. With Timmy’s plan, they’ll all think they’re “just a step away” from being certified to operate their own power plant, but changing certification requirements every few days’ll keep the greedy bastards hooked to the grid forever!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: THANK YOU FOR THE BEGINNINGS OF A PROGRAM TO THOROUGHLY UNDERMINE THE USE OF COMPRESSED AIR TANKS THAT LET THE FOOLS STORE THEIR OWN ENERGY.
IT APPEARS THAT A GROWING NUMBER OF FIELD BEASTS WANT MORE GEOTHERMAL ENERGY. OUR CLIENTS NEED TO KEEP ENERGY AS EXPENSIVE AND HARD TO GET AS POSSIBLE.
Dr. Willis Watless: There’s something that I don’t understand. Geothermal energy is basically free, once the plant is built. I never understood why they just couldn’t have free electricity for their homes, businesses, and vehicles?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Willis! What kind of insanity is that? Give something free to field beasts? They are here to work, Willis! And, they’re here to work for us! And, our clients!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s raht! We got ter keep ’em wurkin’. Don’ wan’ ’em havin’ kids ‘n gettin’ uppity. Drain ever’ las’ bit of wha’ever they have frum ’em. That’s ahr job. It’s more’n ahr job. It’s ahr duty!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Very well put, Dick. Willis, what were you thinking? Of course we could give them free power. We could give them all their basic food free. We could crank out cheap cars for almost nothing. With today’s automated manufacturing, there’s nothing we can’t make for very little cost.
Dr. Willis Watless: Well, I think we should understand why we don’t just give them what they want, or reasonable substitutes, at the lowest possible cost.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Willis, there are three ways to operate a society. One is to make them all into slaves, and kill the ones you don’t need. Have them build some pyramids and rip out their hearts when they’re finished. Or, a society can be free, the way the United States used to be. The third way is to use taxation to make everyone into a partial slave.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I prefer the direct slavery route, myself. Freedom only helps smart, hard-working people. Tax-slavery ends up being too confusing.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Most of us prefer direct slavery, Timmy. It’s the most satisfying. It’s the most fun. It’s the best way to let any feelings of dislike we have for them take the most creative forms possible.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I like good, old-fashioned total slavery, too. Make ’em quiver with fear when we walk by. Total control! That’s what I like.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah kin see why y’all’d thank lak that. But, iffin you gets sumbudy in charge, oh, Ah don’ know, lak Pol Pot, ur tha’ Jim Jones, w’al, y’all might end up jus’ as dead, ‘n jus’ as quik, as a slave. Tax-slav’ry is more secure, even iffin it is confusin’ ‘n complicated.
Dr. Willis Watless: I can understand why we don’t want full slavery. There could be rebellions, and there are always enemy nations who’ll be encouraged to invade by angry slaves. But, if we just had everything everyone needed made in automated factories, and a few paid slaves, wouldn’t we be more secure?
Dr. Walter Weasell: Willis, you are talking about a whole new theory of government. Keeping them quiet by keeping them satisfied. The problem is steak.
Dr. Willis Watless: Steak? How do you mean?
Dr. Walter Weasell: When you cut up a cow, there’s five hundred pounds of meat. Twenty pounds is steak. Who gets the steak?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah lak steak. Ah’d lak ter have steak ever’ day. Iffin Ah’m gettin steak, sombudy else ain’t. ‘N, ever’ one of those sumbudies ‘ud all lak ter have steak ever’ day, too.
Dr. Willis Watless: Then, the problem is making sure that everyone has all the steak they need to be happy?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Yes, but everyone wants fresh fruit in winter. Lobsters. BMWs. Rolls-Royces. Everyone wants cashmere, but there isn’t enough to go around. Some people have to wear cotton and rent small, dirty apartments in undesirable neighborhoods. Everyone would rather go to the Bahamas for vacation, rather than East St. Louis.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Everyone wants to win the lottery. If everyone won, there’d only be enough money for each person to get a refund, less handling charges. No one would play.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: People would rather be poorer, and think they have a good chance of winning a lottery than to have the same amount as others and have little chance of getting more.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Willis, you can’t make people happy. If you give them one dollar, they want two. Soon, they’ll be mad at you because you didn’t give them two. The more you give them, the more they want.
Dr. Willis Watless: I know that. But, if you gave each of them a million, say, wouldn’t they be happy?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: They’d be happy fer ’bout a week. Then, mos’ of ’em wuld have gone thru the whole millyun.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: And, they’d show up, wanting another million.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: YOUR DISCUSSION HAS DIGRESSED INTO AREAS THAT SHOULD BE COVERED BY THE SUB-COMMITTEE FOR POLITICAL LIES. WE NEED LIES TO EXPLAIN JUST WHY WE SHOULD NOT GIVE AWAY WHAT OUR CLIENTS ARE NOW SELLING AT GREAT PROFIT.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We do need to give them reasons why they shouldn’t be allowed to have free electricity.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Yes. We understand that they mustn’t be allowed to have free electricity, but we need to make them believe that.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: W’al, Ah thank we shuld be tellin’ ’em that payin’ is fair. Iffin ever’body got it free, some ‘ud use more’n others, ‘n that wuldn’ be raht.
Dr. Willis Watless: But, first, let me ask. Is this true? I mean, could we build geothermal plants that would provide free power?
Dr. Walter Weasell: Yes. We’d have to build a thousand or so, for a half a billion apiece, but every American would have all the power they’d need. Forever.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: And, if the fools ever realized that they only need two or three hundred nuclear plants to cut their power bills by two thirds, well, they might want that.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: It does sound attractive. If they had cheaper power, they’d have more money to spend on taxes. Maybe it would help other clients.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: But, our contracting clients hired us, first. We have to follow their orders. Those are the rules.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Doesn’t seem fair. Just because they’re smarter than other clients, they get the advantage of our lies?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Them’s the rules. Y’all signed a contrac’. Jes’ lak Ah did. Iffin we
don’ lie, we’s gonna be reeplac’d. Ur, wurse.
Dr. Willis Watless: Then, we lie. Why don’t we tell them, “If there were free power, some Americans would abuse it. They’d leave their doors open all winter and buy huge SUVs. That would accelerate global warming.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: Willis, that may be all we need.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: But, what if the fools said, “Build another hundred geothermal
plants.” Then, what would we do?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We tell them that “Global warming would melt all the icecaps, and we’d drown millions of people.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Does anyone still belive that? Talk about a tired lie!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Lots of ’em beeleeve. Lots.
Dr. Willis Watless: I’m not really up on geothermal heat. How do you get it, drill a hole or dig a pit?
Dr. Walter Weasell: They drill a hole. Usually, near where there’s a lot of molten rock. Like near a volcano.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Then what do they do?
Dr. Walter Weasell: What, do you think I am? A smart flunky? I don’t know. Get heat out of it. Make the heat spin turbines. Something like that. It’s very complicated. That’s the only good thing about it.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: There’s no point in us knowing how to do anything. Our job is to stop people from doing things.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: SOME OF THE BRIGHTER FOOLS HAVE FINALLY NOTICED THAT WE ARE TEARING DOWN POWER GENERATING FACILITIES ON PURPOSE. WE NEED LIES TO JUSTIFY TEARING DOWN POWER PLANTS WHILE THERE ARE POWER SHORTAGES EVERYWHERE.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That’s terrible! Who’d have thought any of the fools were bright enough to figure that out?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Well, when we tear down perfectly good nuclear reactors, someone’s bound to notice.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’m not surprized. They ain’t as dum’ as us’n’s’d like ter think. ‘N they still got meters. They gots ter pay their power bills. Not like us, wiffin free power fer’ver.
Dr. Willis Watless: Still, it’s always a surprise when they notice what we’re up to. We should tell the fools that “Only unsafe plants are being disposed of, and only when the interests of public health demand it.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: The fools still believe it when they hear us making excuses for “interests of public health”?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Walter, they got so many lies comin’ at ’em night ‘n day they jus’ plain don’ know whether they’s comin’ er goin’.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: How much generating capacity have we destroyed?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We’re not allowed to have access to that. Only the executive committee knows how much generating capacity has been taken out. I’d guess twenty percent, maybe more.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: And, the fools are just beginning to notice. On top of that, we’ve been forcing power companies to stop building new plants.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: They’s makin’ so much frum sellin’ ‘lec’tr’ty that the big financial pipple are buyin’ ’em up. As part of the deal, regglaturs make ’em promise to cancel new power plants.
Dr. Willis Watless: That’s brilliant! Do the fools notice?
Dr. Walter Weasell: Not likely! Why, when Romania wanted to join the European Union, we made ’em shut down one of their two reactors so they wouldn’t have any spare power to export.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That’s wonderful! We’re shutting them down everywhere.
Do the fools know why?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We are certainly not going to tell them. If they knew that the big oil interests in the middle east were worried that electric cars powered by plugging into house and office sockets connected to cheap nuclear generators were behind this, they’d have a fit!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: What! I never knew that. Thanks for tying it altogether, Dr.
Bigohm. If the fools were allowed to have nuclear reactors and electric cars, they’d save trillions of dollars. We can’t have them doing that.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah shuld say not! Wors’n that, them ‘lectrik motors are reel cheep to make. Why, they could be buyin’ cars fer two er t’ree t’ousan’ dollars. Jus’ lak golf carts, wiffin slightly bigger moturs. Drivin’ theyselves ‘roun’ ever’whar. We needs ’em ter be usin’ publik transpertashun.
Dr. Willis Watless: That’s right, Dick. I love to see herds of them lined up for public transportation, being moved around like the mindless cattle that they are.
Dr. Walter Weasell: And all the time, thinking it’s good for them! What fools they are. I love it, too. And airports. I love watching them being herded around airports, poked and prodded at like cattle.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Let’s get back on point. We need some lies. I think “particulate matter” is always a good power plant lie.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: And, it is. But, there’s a problem. Chinese, Korean, and Indian clients need to keep right on building the cheapest power plants they can, no matter how many dense clouds of “particulate matter” they’re pumping out. They’re paying us big money to be exempt from American and European standards.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That does complicate things. Let’s tell the fools that there is an overall “fair carbon output”, below which these countries fall. Maybe, we could make rich Americans stop breathing to maintain “fair carbon output”.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: “Fair” is always a good word to use on the fools. But, we need it to sound cuter. We should expand on the use of “fair carbon footprint”. That’s a cute phrase, and the fools think it means something. Lets have the Newsspewers tell ’em “Developing countries are exempt from our high standards because their overall ‘carbon footprint’ is so low. It’s only fair to give them a chance, too.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Well said, Timmy. The fools have been convinced that it’s better to be “fair” than to be alive and prosperous. They’ll never know the bribes we squeeze out of developing countries.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I’ve got an idea. Let’s come up with an “Fair Carbon Footprint”. Tell the fools that “concerned citizens” don’t want to use any more energy than they could generate by peddling a bicycle.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah lak that! Ah reeely lak that! The blam’ fools wouldn’t be able to
boil a cup of water in an har!
Dr. Willis Watless: They’d know their place.
Dr. Walter Weasell: How would they bathe? Take hot showers?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Walter, field beasts don’t need hot showers. Who cares if they’re dirty and smelly? It’s their natural condition. We’ve been letting them get out of hand, using so much energy all the time. It’s about time we put them in their place.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I’d just like to know why it’s taking so long? We need more power
company consolidation, and we need that consolidation to be controlled by the right kind of people.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Don’cha mean “lef’ kind of pipple”?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I mean, “our kind of people”. We can’t have anyone in charge of power generation with any affinity for truth or efficiency.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I should say not! We don’t want some “neighbor-lover” who’d run an efficient plant to produce inexpensive power. We need big spenders, making hundred-million dollar salaries.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah wuldn’t min’ ownin’ a passle ‘o powur plan’s, myse’f. Ah’d lak ter get me a coupla big jets ter fly ‘roun’ in ter ‘nspec’ the plants.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Dick, I’m sure we’d all like to make several hundred million dollars running inefficient power plants, but we have a higher calling. We have to provide those opportunities for other, far less qualified people than ourselves.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s right, Dick. We can’t have Lie Committee members moving into operational roles. It would make it seem like the system is corrupt and self-serving. If we don’t maintain our integrity, why, what would we be?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Wal, Ah’d be reel rich. ‘N have a coupla huge limo-jets flyin’ me ‘roun. But, Ah guess y’all are raht. We gots ter look lak we’s ‘bove that sort of thang.
FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:
FEWER FOOLS BELIEVE THAT GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL. THIS IS ONE OF OUR MOST EXPENSIVE LIES TO DATE. WE CANNOT ALLOW IT TO BE SABOTAGED. WE NEED MORE LIES TO DISCREDIT THOSE WHO DOUBT.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Part of the problem is Al Gore. No one is taking him seriously. The primitive dolts who want to limit the size of government say that Al Gore lies all the time.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: So?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: It’s those dam’ fools what beeleeves in tellin’ the truf’. They think pipple shuld tell the truf’. You jus’ cain’t reason wiffin ’em.
Dr. Willis Watless: They have the insane notion that people should “practice what they preach”. Who are they to tell us what to do? Who are they to question what we tell them to believe?
Dr. Walter Weasell: That’s the basic question. ‘Who are they to question what we tell them to believe’? I’ll tell you who they are. They’re a bunch of uppity, white-trash scum, and they’re in the way. I remember what Uncle Joe did to ’em in the Ukraine. He had the right way to treat ’em. Send squads with machine guns around to their houses.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Walter, that’s what all of us would like to do. But, we can’t. Some of them still have guns. Some of us might get hurt. After we get them disarmed, then we can do what’s right.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: People! People! We need lies. We don’t need nostalgia. Happy days will come again.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s right! In the meantime, we need to justify what is increasingly indefensible, that Global Warming is a real problem caused by selfish, greedy Westerners who consume too much.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’m ’bout burnt out. Ah cain’t think of any more lies fer Global Warmin’. Ah think we got ’bout all the lies there are.
Dr. Willis Watless: There’s always room for another lie. How’s this: “Global warming causes the earth’s crust to expand. That causes tectonic shifts. Tectonic shifts, even tiny ones of a quarter of an inch, will cause volcanic activity.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: That’s right! They can’t deny that! They’re all in danger. We’re all in danger! We have to do everything in our power to make people safe from volcanic eruptions!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Willis, that could be a great lie.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah gots ter han’ it ter yuh, Willis. That’s purty good!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Surely, we can come up with something better than that. The smarter field beasts will just say, “Oh, they’re just a bunch of chicken littles saying that “the sky is falling.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Why don’t we tell them that the sky actually is falling? Or, that it could start falling at any time. You know, have some smart flunkies come up with some theory that “In warm air, atoms tend to come together. Massive accretions of nitrogen boulders can fall right out of the sky.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah don’ know iffin that’ll wurk. Ah think Ah ‘member hearin’ that when it gets warmer, the atoms move aroun’ faster.
Dr. Willis Watless: When they move around faster, do they smash into each other and stick together? That could form “nitrogen boulders” that come smashing down from the sky.
Dr. Walter Weasell: How should any of us know something like that? We’d need to talk to a smart flunkie, an atomic scientist, or someone like that.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: He has to be one of our scientists. He can’t be one of those people who wants to experiment, then see if the results repeat.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Surely, none of the dolts do that? Why, if they did that, they could tell the difference between what works and what doesn’t. We can’t have them doing that.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: CONTINUE THIS LINE OF THOUGHT. WE NEED LIES TO MAKE OUR LIES SEEM MORE CREDIBLE. THE VERY FOUNDATION OF WHAT THE FOOLS CALL “THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD” MUST BE UNDERMINED.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That’s so true! We should start at the beginning. Let’s discredit both rational thought and analysis.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Maybe, we could make repeat experiments illegal. Say that “Wanting to verify someone else’s findings is insulting. Hostile. Worse, it gives the opportunity for smart people to make dumb people feel bad.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: That’s an assault on the Bill of Rights!
Dr. Willis Watless: Well, an assault on our Bill of Rights. Their Bill of Rights doesn’t even mention hurting people’s feelings, even when they’re trying hard to do something right.
Dr. Walter Weasell: We had that problem with the hockey stick. Some of our scientists came up with a new way to graph global temperatures. It “proved” global warming. When their scientists found out how many mistakes they made, our scientists were called “liars” and “environmental liars, scare-mongers, and profiteers”.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Didn’t they sue for defamation?
Dr Walter Weasell: They sued, but there were one or two jurors who kept repeating “The truth is a defense against libel and slander.” So, our scientists lost their their reputations, and felt really bad about themselves.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Where do the fools get ideas like that? “The truth is a defense” Hah! The truth is what we say it is. That’s the way it has to be. If other people were allowed to say what “truth” is, why, we’d lose our authority.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah don’ think they say what “truth” is. They jus’ figger they gots ter make sure they got som’thin’ that looks “consistent”.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Well, “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Dr. Willis Watless: That’s right! Little minds are scared of consistency.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Willis! Don’t you see what that means? They’re insulting us! They’re saying that we have little minds because we’re scared of consistency.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: We are not! We aren’t scared a bit by it.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Shore we are! ‘Cause their scientists are consistent ‘n ahr scientists do what they’s s’pos’d ter do, jus’ come up wiffin the answers what gives ’em the mos’ fundin’.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Well, if that’s what our scientists do, isn’t that a “kind” of consistency.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: It is! And, it’s the most important kind. You can always trust our scientists to do what’s right. We understand the “big picture”. We look beyond truth.
Dr. Willis Watless: Well, I just know that a lot of the field beasts don’t believe anything we say. They don’t trust us. And, they make fun of us.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That should be against the law. We’re concerned about energy, and about who should get it, and how much they should get. We just know that they’re getting too much energy and they aren’t paying enough for it. That’s the truth!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That’s right. That is the truth. But, they say truth is different. They say environmentalists are like gangsters, lying to get money from them.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Some of the field beasts don’t even care. They say, “Just give them the money, if they want it enough to lie for it.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s raht! Ah’ve heerd sum of them fundamentalists say that. “Jus’ give the thieves whatever they want. Then, fergive ’em. That’s how we gets to Heaven. Too bad they don’.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Let’s get back on track. We need lies to, first of all, make “truth” seem to be an antiquated concept. Then, we can replace “truth” with “what helps the most people”.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Then, we replace “what helps the most people” with “what helps us and our clients.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Good point, Bobby. Then, we replace “what helps us and our clients” with “what helps us”. That is, after all, the highest truth of all.
Dr. Willis Watless: Who could deny that? Who could come up with a higher truth than that?
Dr. Walter Weasell: It’s going to be hard. They take oaths to “tell the truth”. They have contracts they have to follow. There’s a lot of “pro-truth” words and phrases in the language.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: When Ah wuz passin’ as a Bap’ist, Ah heerd that sum of ’em beeleeved that they shouldn’t “bear false witness”. Now, tha’s ’bout the wurst thang we’d wan’ ’em beeleevin.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We need to make them take an oath. They should be loyal to us, not some crazy religion that tells them to tell the “truth”. You know, let’s mandate that the word “truth” always have quotation marks around it.
Dr. Willis Watless: I like that! Everytime someone tells the “truth”, it’ll look like they’re lying.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: What about TV? When some dead-brained newsspewer says “truth”, he, she, or it can’t use quotation marks. Let’s electro-shock train ’em to raise their eyebrows every time they say the word “truth”.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Bobby, that’s brilliant! I love training newsspewers! It’s so much fun watching them twitch every time they get a big electric jolt for saying anything right the wrong way or anything wrong the right way.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah lak ter he’p train ’em! Tha’s how Ah spent mah las’ v’cayshun. Trainin’ newsspewers is lots more fun’n shootin’ fish in a barr’l.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTUVE COMMITTEE: THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUGGESTIONS. THE PLAIN AND SIMPLE TRUTH IS THAT WE NEED MORE LIES. PLEASE RE-FOCUS YOUR EFFORTS ON RE-GAINING CREDIBILITY FOR OUR GLOBAL WARMING LIES. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. MORE AND MORE OF THE FOOLS ARE PAYING LESS AND LESS ATTENTION TO US.
Dr. Brenda Brownout: You heard the directive. We need more lies. We have one about “nitrogen boulders” being caused by global warming. And we have a lie about how often tiny crustal expansions caused by global warming are producing volcanic activity.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We need more lies. Those are just one-time announcements. They’ll be discredited in hours or days. We have to find some new problems that Global Warming causes.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s raht, Bobby. We needs a lie ever’ day or two jus’ ter keep up wiffin the demand. Why, in one day, we had lies ’bout Global Warmin’ causin’ the polar b’ars to multiply b’yond their food s’pplies. Later, in the same newsbroadcast, we had lies tellin’ em polar b’ars wuz dyin’ out cuz they was eatin’ each other frum “heat frustrashun”. After that, more lies ’bout how they was raidin’ city dumps as fer South as Chicago ’cause Global Warmin’ had boiled the seal herd alive. Next day, we’d tell ’em the polar b’ars was invadin’ the natchural terr’rory of the grizzlies, n’ there was a big b’ar war goin’ on.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Those were great lies!
Dr. Willis Watless: Ah, the good old days. I remember how we’d take random sentence generators, add “global warming” to any sentence with two or three nouns in it, and insert any verb implying death, pain, or disaster. We’d have a new environmental problem every fifteen minutes.
Dr. Walter Weasell: It’s easy, in the beginning days of a big lie. Now, we’re reduced to mindless garbage that supermarket tabloids won’t even stoop to. “Nitrogen boulders falling from the sky.” How many of the fools are dumb enough to believe that!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Now, Walter, “Giant nitrogen boulders falling from the sky is no dumber than NASA having endless meeting about giant asteroids smashing into Key West.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: It’s all about the funding. We all need more funding. So, we’ve now got one good lie, about volcanoes caused by crustal micro-expansion, and a low-class lie for the really stupid field beasts about Giant Nitrogen Boulders falling from the sky.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ain’t a single fiel’ beas’ ebber seen a “Giant Nitr’gen Boulder”. Not won. How we gonna ‘splain that?
Dr. Willis Watless: I know! We tell ’em that “Nitrogen atoms separate back into an invisible, odorless gas on impact.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: Good one, Willis! That’s why no one ever sees Giant Nitrogen Boulders lying around on the ground.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We could blame forest fires on Giant Nitrogen Boulders falling from the sky! And, crop failures! After all, scientists suggest that large masses of free-form solidified nitrogen can go from absolute zero to 10,000 degrees in microseconds.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: A lot of unsolved problems are explained away by Giant Nitrogen Boulders falling from the sky. The Bermuda Triangle, for instance, is probably where a lot of Giant Nigrogen Boulders land.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah was hopin’ fer a tie in wif Global Warmin’ ‘n the Beermuda T’angle. Great lyin’, Timmy!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I’ve got one! Tires! Global warming causes tire failure, and vehicle accidents!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s no lie. Tha’s the truf! Why, Ah ‘member Ah wuz drivin’ one of my giant combines on the home ranch north ‘o Dudewellville, ‘n the tires blew out jus’ as I was roundin’ a bend. Combine tipped over’n crushed six farm wurkers.
Dr. Willis Watless: Oh, Dick, that’s a wonderful lie. It’ll help get the farmers behind us.
Dr. Walter Weasell: I wouldn’t count on that. A lot of those farmers hate us for what we’ve done to them. Making them stop irrigating their fields ’cause the excess water vapor was causing Global Warming didn’t make us any friends in agriculture.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: No, but it sure made a lot of foreign farmers love us! Oh, the bribes and bonuses used to flow like water. Now, they’re all drying up.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Because of Global Warming, no doubt.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s a good ‘un, Brenda!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I’ve got a good lie! Let’s tell the fools that “Friction between air and moving vehicles causes heat. Millions of people driving just 30 miles an hour more slowly may stop global warming.
Dr. Willis Watless: I like that, Bobby. Let’s get something worked in about “Vehicular friction may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Thank Baal for that camel’s back! It makes a little, tiny lie grow and grow.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I use “camel’s back” all the time. In my word processor, every paragraph automatically ends with “This may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back”. You’d be surprised how often it fits in. I hardly have to think, any more. The lies just tell themselves.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We’ll hope THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE doesn’t find out. If they knew we were all using a bunch of crudely programmed word processors to crank out lies, they’d replace us with chimps.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Oh, I can’t do that any more. We’ve told almost every lie there is about Global Warming. Now, I actually have to sit and be as fearful as possible of every possible thing that happens.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: WE’D LIKE YOU TO RE-EXAMINE LANGUAGE PATTERNS SO THAT WE CAN USE SOME POPULAR “OLD SAYINGS” AND ADAGES TO HELP GET THE KIND OF “PARALYZING PLATITUDES” WE NEED INSERTED IN THE FOOLS’ MINDS.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Yesterday, I was so worried about our lack of lies that I started rubbing my hands together. I wonder if that amount of heat could make Global Warming worse?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Who knows? It may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s a good wun! Ah, mahse’f, jus’ luv ter use “Tip of the iceberg.” Any prollum Ah see is allus “jus’ the tip of the iceberg”.
Dr. Willis Watless: Those are the only two sentences that anyone should be taught. “That could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.” and “It’s just the tip of the iceberg.” What else do the fools need to know?
Dr. Walter Weasell: Is it possible for a problem to be both “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and “the tip of the iceberg.”?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Walter, that’s such a hard question. I’m sure I don’t know. Bobby, what do you think?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I’m sure it must be possible. I just can’t think of one.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah kin think of wun. Iffin y’all saw a smokestack, the smoke would be all that’s needed to “break the camel’s back” by absorbin’ so much heat that all the earth’s surface water’d suddenly start to boil. Since y’all only see one smokestack, that means there maht be lots more, so “it’s the tip of the iceberg”.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Thank you, Dick! I just couldn’t think of any way to put the two together.
Dr. Willis Watless: I always like to work in the one about “It’s better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: I like that one, too. We just don’t tell them how much a fishing license costs! Or, that every single species of edible fish is about to go on a “Protected List”. But, my very favorite platitude for the morons is “You can’t be too careful.”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I just love that one! I use it every time I talk to a field beast. It makes them think that I care about them. Actually, what I want to do is paralzye them so that they can’t do anything without worrying.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: “You can’t be too careful.” should be the end of every sentence. It goes with “It may be the tip of the iceberg.” AND “This may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.” in the top three warnings we should apply to any field beast activity.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: The other day I saw a field beast mowing his grass with a gasoline powered lawn mower. I asked him to “Stop and think about what you’re doing.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah lak ter get ’em ter “stop and think about what they’re doin’.”, too! Takes away some of that thar self-confidence that we be wurkin’ so hard ter get rid of.
Dr. Willis Watless: One of my favorites is, “We all have to be concerned about that.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: I like “Everything is important.”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: The best of all is “Stakeholders have concerns about what you want to do.” I mean, you can paralyze any number of field beasts by saying that over and over. If it asks, “Who’s a stakeholder?”, I say, “In an issue this big, we are all stakeholders.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Timmy, you are brilliant!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: It’s amazing! We invented the word “stakeholder” to get control of what was going on without having to buy an acre of land or a share of stock. We “Stakeholders” are above having to pay for anything.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah know! Ah thank it’s wunnerful! We get control jus’ by bein’ “concerned”. Dam’ silly fools beeleeve us!
Dr. Willis Watless: You know, when one of the fools can prove that what it wants to do is perfectly harmless, I’ve found, “Even so, some of us just don’t feel good about it.” is often enough to stop them dead in their tracks.
Dr. Walter Weasell: I like to remind them “The earth is a finite ball.” When one of them drives a car, or turns on a light switch, I want them to think “The earth is a finite ball and I have just robbed the future of energy.”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I like to tell them “We are, you know, running out of oil.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Don’t any of them understand that oil is produced underground, by magmatic heat, and endless amounts of it well up from down below every day?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Not after they get through a public high school. In twelve years of drivel, that’s one fact we never let them know about!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Wun of mah favorites is: “It’s best ter be on the safe side.” Sometimes, Ah tell ’em, “We haf to play it safe.” The fools beeleeve in bein’ reel safe.
Dr. Willis Watless: Every time I get a chance, I tell ’em: “Things are not always what they seem on Planet Earth.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: That’s a great phrase, Willis. Means absolutely nothing, yet there’s an air of indefinable truth in it.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: “Spaceship earth.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: “Mother Earth.” I love letting them know that “Mother Earth is running out of patience.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Yes! Personalize it. “Mother Earth, after all, is everyone’s loving Mother.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah lak that! Makes ’em think their own mommas are made outen rock, water, ‘n dirt.
Dr. Willis Watless: I always like to tell them, “A butterfly’s wing in the Andes can cause a tornado in Oklahoma or hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: And, they believe that brainless crap! We’ve gotten them convinced that worrying about any non-existant cause-and-effect is a sign of high intelligence.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: And, that it’s a sign of being “sensitive”. I think I despise the “sensitive” field beasts more than any of the others.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: They are nauseating! Sickening! The white-trash scum of the earth. They, themselves, are walking pollutants.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: But, they’re the ones on our side, Brenda. They actually believe all the lies we tell ’em.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Maybe that’s why I hate them the most. Smarmy little weasels. Brainless fools.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: WHILE ALL OF US SHARE YOUR OPINION OF THE FOOLS, WE STILL NEED YOU TO EXPAND YOUR LIST OF MIND-NUMBING PLATITUDES.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I’m so sorry. Sometimes, when I think about them, I’m so full of hate I simply can’t think of anything else. One thing that I used to tell my students was this: “If even one person could be hurt. . . .’
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I like that, too! And, “We just don’t know enough to make a decision.” works in every situation.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah don’ know how we kin come up wiffin so many Paralyzin’ Platitudes wiffout bein’ wrong once! We’s gots ter be ’bout the smartest pipple anywhere!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Can we get some more use out of the “Sustainability Lies”?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Those are great lies!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah luv the way it p’lyzes their minds! When we ask ’em “Is it sustainable?” in reel seryus tones, it jus’ stops ’em dead in their tracks!
Dr. Willis Watless: It does! It really does! It’s one of the best lies, ever!
Dr. Walter Weasell: Who thought of it?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: No one knows. It might have been some anonymous contributor or a private foundation. Some anonymous greenie, maybe?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Well, it doens’t matter who the unsung genius was. It’s a great lie. We’ve told all the fools that perpetual motion is impossible. It’s a short leap from there to having them believe that nothing can be sustainable.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I never thought of that, Brenda. Nothing is sustainable, so only nothing is sustainable!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah nevah thought of that! Ah luv it! Only nothin’ is sustainable! Baal be praised! This is the complete and utter d’strucshun of all them dam’ Chrischuns’ ideas! Only NOTHIN’ is sustainable!
Dr. Willis Watless: How true, how true! Only nothing is sustainable. That is our goal today, it was our goal yesterday, and it will be our goal as long as there is anything but nothing!
Dr. Walter Weasell: What a glorious day! We have finally enunciated our goal in words that even the dumbest field beast can understand! Only nothing is sustainable, and sustainability is our goal!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Entropy! Don’t forget entropy! Everything is winding down! Everything is headed toward nothingness.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: The faster we get there, the better. We’ll empty out their minds, take away their access to energy, make’ em eat tofu, make antibiotics illegal, empty out their bankbooks, and pillage their homes. Nothing, nothing, nothing!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We’re nearly there!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: THERE MAY BE A LEAK ON YOUR COMMITTEE. SOME OF OUR CLIENTS HAVE HEARD ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE PLANNING.
THEY HAVE THREATENED TO START FUNDING RETROGRADE ELEMENTS WHO WILL TELL THE FIELD BEASTS THAT THEY HAVE SOULS THEY MUST WORK TO SAVE. THAT WOULD UNDERMINE THE WORK THAT ALL THE LIE COMMITTEES ARE DOING.
AS OF NOW, YOU WILL PUBLICLY RENOUNCE ALL LIES THAT REDUCE CLIENT FUNDING.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: They may think we’ve gone to far, but we were only laying out worst-case scenarios.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s right. We weren’t really planning to destroy our clients. We were afraid someone else would, and were trying to come up with lies that would forestall any efforts that these subversive elements might make.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: We wuz jus’ watchin’ out fer some of them other Committees. Cain’t hardly tell what they’s up to, anymore.
Dr. Willis Watless: That’s right. We love our clients. They must have us confused with some other Lie Committee.
Dr. Walter Weasell: You know, if we do have a leak, we each have to be very careful.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: We may not have any traitors in our midst. The clients may be bugging us!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah nev’r t’ought of that! Have we ever had ahr offices ‘nspected fer bugs?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: No. But, we don’t know that, if there were a blabbermouth, that he wouldn’t have bugged his own office to provide an excuse.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Now, that’s a thought! Let’s hire some security-flunkies to check.
Dr. Willis Watless: If Brenda is right, we couldn’t trust what they reported. Besides, they might be working for a client.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Do you suppose that some field beast is monitoring us? Telling the others? Using the internet in very inappropriate ways to let them know what we’re doing? Maybe, using some obscure religious web site?
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: SOME OF THE BRIGHTER FIELD BEASTS HAVE NOTICED THAT THE EARTH’S TEMPERATURE DIRECTLY RELATES TO SOLAR OUTPUT. WHEN THERE ARE LOTS OF SUNSPOTS, THE EARTH’S TEMPERATURE INCREASES. THAT UNCOMFORTABLE FACT IS UNDERMINING BELIEF IN MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I can see how it would! Field beasts aren’t that stupid. If they realize that changes in solar output cause the earth’s temperature to go up and down, they won’t take responsibility for global warming.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Those disgusting fools! I would have never thought they were that bright! Once they realize that solar output changes every day, and that the earth’s temperature immediately goes up and down accordingly, they won’t worry about the harm their vehicles are doing to the solar system.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’m purely ‘mazed. Whodda thunk they’d figger it out?
Dr. Willis Watless: Not me! I thought our global warming lies would carry me through to retirement! Now, we have to come up with whole new lies.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Cheer up, Willis. We’ve done it before, and we’ll do it again!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: It’s hard to replace a really big lie. Global warming was the best and biggest fraud we’d ever manufactured.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Global warming is the biggest lie this committee ever invented, but the early Political Lie Committee convinced people that Stalin was not killing millions of Ukrainians. That was a big lie!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Oh, it was. Of course, the early DDT lies killed lots of people, too. Maybe more than all the Socialist leaders there ever were.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Them DDT lies wuz great lies! Wiped out mos’ of ‘frica. Let us get all their oil. Yuranium. Copper.
Dr. Willis Watless: We’ve got to stop living in the past! We need lies for today!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That’s right! We need lies for today. And, tomorrow.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: When a lie is ruined by the truth, we cut our losses. If Global Warming lie is dead, we come up with a new lie! A better lie!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I’ve got it! We don’t have to get rid of Global Warming, even if it is caused by increasing solar output.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: What! If the sun causes temperature changes, the accursed fools are off the hook.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: No, we aren’t. We tell them that “‘Reflective leverage’ from ‘unrestrained bounceback’ causes a disproportionate effect on the sun.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Timmy, if the sun were the size of a basketball, the earth would be smaller than a pea. How can energy from tiny people on the tiny earth affect the huge sun, millions of miles away?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Well, this is just coming to me, but I think we could tell the fools: “All the planets are on the same plane. When more than one planet is lined up with the sun, some of the energy flows are reversed into “back channels”, the way that water in an eddy goes upstream. That has a disproportionate “bounceback effect” on the sun, and is what causes sunspots, more solar flares, and Global Warming.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Timmy, tha’s the mos’ brillyant thinkin’ Ah ever heerd tell of! Why, it’s ab’lutly staggerin’! Global Warming ain’ dead. It’s been intelleckshually brot back ter life, thanks to Timmy Peedymeter!
Dr. Willis Watless: Will there be any field beasts dumb enough to believe it?
Dr. Walter Weasell: There will be by the time we get through with ’em. Timmy, this lie’ll save the huge, vast, trillion-dollar Global Warming lie! We can also tell ’em “A powerful ‘back channel’ frequently opens up between the earth and the sun. Carbon monoxide, or dioxide, I always forget which one is bad, is drawn to the sun, sucked into it, and causes the increased solar output that causes Global Warming.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: But, how do we tell the fools that gasses can go through a hundred million miles of absolute vacuum at absolute zero.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: It’s pulled there by the sun’s immense gravitational field. It’s so powerful that the normal laws of physics are distorted.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: But, won’t it get all spread out and dissipated so that it can’t hit the sun with any measurable concentration?
Dr. Walter Weasell: Nope. It stays together because it stays in “The Back Channel”, and is sucked right up to the sun.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Makes sense to me! Ah beleeved it the minute Ah heerd it, ‘n after list’nen’ ter Bobby ‘n Timmy ‘n Walter, Ah beleeves it mor’n ever!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: OUR CLIENTS ARE OVERJOYED. ALL OF THEM WERE CONCERNED THAT THEY’D HAVE TO REPLACE THE GLOBAL WARMING LIE, BUT YOU’VE COME UP WITH A WAY TO SAVE IT!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I hope so. It’s just hard for me to imagine how the deadly carbon dioxide, or monoxide, or whatever it is, can come out of a billion exhaust pipes, and get to the sun in such quantity that solar flares are caused.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We have to get over that concern, because some of the field beasts will be asking the same questions. After all, the earth receives one billionth of the sun’s output. We’re telling the fools to believe that a trillionth of a billionth of all that energy, bouncing back through The Back Channel is enough to cause mammoth explosions on the surface of the sun.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: It’ll take a reel leep of faith, that’s fer shore.
Dr. Willis Watless: When you look at all the rest of the sheer, unimitigated crap we’ve been feeding them, they won’t even notice. The fools will just be glad to know “there’s something we can do!” to make it better.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Exactly! Their self-esteem has been raised to such lunatic levels we can tell them that if just a few of them burp too much, the sun will explode. The whole solar system depends on how much energy they save!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Brenda, the problem is simple. If we ever put forth a rational, intelligent lie, it may make them think. We only want them to feel. To react. To care. Once that’s all they can do, they’ll believe anything.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I’m sure you’re right. I just have a perpetually hard time understanding how unbelievably dumb they are. They deserve everything we do to them.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: And, more! If they believe that driving a cars at night, on the far side of the sun, causes solar flares, they’ll believe anything!
OUR CLIENTS APPRECIATE THE EXTRA TIME YOU’VE PUT IN ON THE VITAL NEED TO KEEP THE GLOBAL WARMING LIES ALIVE AND WELL. WE ARE HAVING SOME ASTRO-FLUNKIES EXAMINE YOUR PREMISES AND PUT THEM INTO EVENING NEWS PROGRAMS ALL OVER THE WORLD. BE PROUD! YOU HAVE HELPED TO SAVE OUR FINEST FRAUD!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Well! It seems that THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE is pleased with what we have done.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I still think we should do more. I just can’t figure out what.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’m reel shore Ah don’ know what more we culd do. We done lied ahr hearts out on this, alreddy.
Dr. Willis Watless: Maybe, there is something else we could do?
Dr. Walter Weasell: What, Willis? Do you have an idea?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Tell us, Willis!
Dr. Willis Watless: I was going to suggest that we just bypass the lies. There’s no way that any smart field beast can look at the facts and think that global warming is real. That means, as usual, we only have the very dumbest ones on our side.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That’s true. And, the dumb ones can change!
Dr. Willis Watless: They can. They move from one lunacy to another so quickly that they could turn on us in a minute!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We don’t want that!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: What are you suggesting, Willis?
Dr. Willis Watless: Let’s go from lies directly to guilt.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Do you think we can? Isn’t it too early?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah thinks Willis has a reel gud point. The dum’ ones culd turn ‘gainst us, iffin we don’ paralyze ’em wiffin a big load of guilt.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Willis, what do we tell them?
Dr. Willis Watless: Oh, I don’t know. Let’s tell ’em there’s this malady, call it “green guilt”, and that if afflicts people who aren’t helping the environment.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That’s a BIG lie, Willis. I mean, there’s like, oh, I don’t know, billions and billions of cubic miles of atmosphere. Are we going to make someone affecting a billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of it believe they can make a difference?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: They’re that dumb! I tell you, almost half of them will repeat everything that London Ritz-Carleton says! They’re as dumb as parrots! They’ll feel guilty.
Dr. Willis Watless: The best thing about making them feel guilty is that we can get money out of them!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Big money! Tax money! They’re too lazy and selfish to give us any actual money themselves, but they’ll vote to tax their neighbors in a second! “Green Guilt wears heavily on those who do not help Mother Earth.” There’s fools out there who’ll believe it!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: There are! Funding will flow!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Let’s show a family on a picnic. A big boot comes down from the sky and squashes them. “Too bad their carbon footprint was so big.” says a voiceover from some simple nincompoop. “They didn’t have to die.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah like that! I reely do! Stamped out by their own “carbon footprint”!
Dr. Willis Watless: Let’s have a whole series of families being destroyed. Have ’em roasted like weenies on a fire ’cause they didn’t do enough to protect the “precious ozone layer “!
Dr. Walter Weasell: Guilt ’em up good! Show families dying of thirst, “Because they didn’t care enough for the rain forest.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Gosh, but they’re dum! Believin’ all that crap we tell ’em ’bout the rain ferrust!
Dr. Willis Watless: Animals, too! Let’s show some antelope dying of thirst. Some caribou and walruses, starvin’ to death because they can’t catch any salmon.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Willis, I don’t think caribou eat salmon.
Dr. Willis Watless: Oh, so what! Tell the fools that they do in an emergency, and their emergency supplies of fish may disappear in the blinking of an eye, because no one cares.
Dr. Walter Weasell: And, then, we’ll say, “We care! Show how you care. Vote for ____!” and we name the name of whichever one of our nincompoops who needs the moron vote to win.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: We need to get more people on our side. Let’s get magazines to publish whole issues on how important it is to stop Global Warming. Load ’em up with pictures of sincere-looking celebrities and wannabes.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: All the gullible field beasts will think they could be in the magazine ’cause they believe mindless drivel, too! What an idea! We’ll get a bunch of our science-flunkies to support it with something that seems intellectual, scientific, and important.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Field beasts love to feel important! They’ll identify with the people in the pictures. “I could be there, too!”, they’ll say to themselves. They love to feel as if they’re “vital”. “Concerned.” “Sincere.” They love being vital, concerned, and sincere. They really do. Brainless fools.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah knows that even out in the sticks whar Ah live, there’s a bunch of cretins who lak bein’ “vital, concerned, ‘n sincere”. Iffin y’all kin string them three wurds t’geth’r, why, it’ll brang ’em in lak buzzarts to a dead cow.
Dr. Willis Watless: Where do these morons come from? What is it that shuts off their brains? Why are they so unbelievably gullible?
Dr. Walter Weasell: I don’t know, Willis. I don’t think any of us do. I just know that if they see a lie on TV often enough, they believe it, no matter how insane it is.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That’s right! Now, they watch more TV’n ever! So, they’re more gullible than before.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: It is so much fun! I can hardly wait until THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE tells us it’s time to go back to Global Freezing! I love to watch ’em spin ’round ‘n ’round!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Now, Brenda. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ve still got eighty percent of their scientists who say that human activity has little, if anything, to do with global warming.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Cut off’n their fundin’! That’ll either shut ’em up er get rid of ’em.
Dr. Willis Watless: We need some sort of a test for government funding.
Dr. Walter Weasell: We do! It’s wrong to steal money from taxpayers and give it to honest, hard-working people who will tell the truth. Let’s weed out these disgusting, uncooperative people!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: We should, but how? Can we just say, if you tell the truth, no government money for you?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We’ve already said that, Timmy. The ones on our side work hard to be indentified. They literally lust to be on TV. Slimy bastards will sell their souls for their proverbial ‘fifteen minutes of fame’. We’ve got to get the good, the decent, the hard-working ones who tell the truth and send them away somewhere.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Where?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah miss Siberia! It was so big, y’all culd send ‘enemies of the state thar’ fer decades ‘n not fill it up!
Dr. Willis Watless: Why don’t we rent Siberia from Putin? Rent the whole place, and fill it up with these disgusting malcontents?
Dr. Walter Weasell: Let’s see what THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE thinks.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: WE FEEL THAT MR. PUTIN WOULD BE HAPPY TO RENT SIBERIA AS A PLACE TO PUT INDEPENDENT THINKERS. HOWEVER, SOME INDEPENDENT THINKERS PAY A GREAT DEAL OF TAXES. THAT MONEY WOULD BE LOST WERE THEY TO BE IMPRISONED. IF A TINY HANDFUL BECOME DANGEROUS TO CASH FLOWS, WE WILL RECONSIDER.
PLEASE DEVELOP MORE LIES TO CONVINCE THE FOOLS THAT THERE IS A “BACK CHANNEL” THAT CARRIES HUMAN-PRODUCED CARBON DIOXIDE STRAIGHT TO THE SUN, WHERE IT CAUSES “HUMAN-INDUCED SOLAR WARMING”.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Oh, what a wonderful name for our lie. “Human-Induced Solar Warming”! Blame SUVs for solar flares and sunspots!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE is composed of sheer geniuses! What a name! What a concept!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: It’s jus’ plain brillyant! “Human-induced solar warmin’”! Ah’d jus’ stick a hyphen in it ‘n leave it alone. It almost stands by itse’f. Hardly needs no ‘splainin’ a’tall.
Dr. Willis Watless: We need to make up some sort of a mechanism whereby a few SUVs, emitting a trillionth of a billionth of the sun’s power, can cause solar flares. Some sort of “upstream light eddy” that carries carbon dioxide from an SUVs exhaust pipe straight to the surface of the sun and causes explosions that are a hundred times bigger than the earth.
Dr. Walter Weasell: That’s going to be hard to explain logically. Like we said before, let’s just get some of those NASA animations that show how water along a river can eddy upstream, and superimpose them on a cartoon of the sun. Show lots of arrows showing light coming toward us, and a whirlilng stream of carbon dioxide being drawn into the sun.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Let’s start with a picture of some fool starting up his SUV. A huge cloud of exhaust spews out the back. It starts whirling around, and joins up with clouds of exhaust from other SUVs.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: And, the clouds of carbon dioxide go straight into the sun, like an arrow, and when they get there, a huge solar flare comes out and the cartoon shows it melting a glacier somewhere.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Will the fools believe that? Are they that stupid?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Shore they are! They’ll sit there ‘n watch iffin all the newsspewers tell ’em they’ve got to “Be concerned. Be very concerned about this frightening end to the human race.” Tell ’em that human “Flare Triggers” are, at this very moment, going to the sun in deadly clouds of carbon dioxide.
Dr. Willis Watless: If the cartoon is done right, the solar flare could blast Venus out of its orbit and knock down an airplane. We could say, “Real terrorism starts at home.” when the cartoon plane crashes into a cartoon skyscraper.
Dr. Walter Weasell: We’d imply that 9-11 was caused by solar flares erupting because selfish, greedy people had their own vehicles!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: It’ll help our plan to replace private vehicles with public transportation!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I love getting the smelly bastards into filthy, stinking buses!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Cattle cars would be better!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: We culd tell ’em that cattle cars is better fer ’em. “Natchural vennilashun makes fer healthiur pipples”.
Dr. Willis Watless: When it’s twenty below, will they believe that?
Dr. Walter Weasell: What difference does it make if they believe it? Once we get ’em on those cattle cars, they’ll be so sick and cold they won’t have the energy to complain.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I think we should make them ride in pedal-powered cattle cars. That way, they’d have to work to get to work, and we’d save all the fuel costs.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That’s a good idea, Timmy! If they had to pedal, they could participate in a “Save the world by self-propulsion” campaign.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: They’ll buy into that! The fools’ll think they’re “helping”, in some way, to make a better world.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Lots ‘o fools thank thay kin make a “better wurld” by participatin’, somehow. This’ll give ’em a chance fer a reel wurk-out.
Dr. Willis Watless: Won’t some of them want to pedal their own bicycles? Bikes are a lot lighter, and they’d be a lot easier to pedal.
Dr. Walter Weasell: We can’t have people thinking they have the right to do things on their own. All activity must be collective, so that others may be helped.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That’s right! The idea that any single person should “own” a bicycle is, in itself, repugnant.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: The only bicycles should be “community bikes”, and kept in “community racks”. That’s how we build up communities!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: How wonderful! People could ride community bikes from community bike rack to community bike rack. They’ll be broken in days!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: They shore will! The tires’ll be flattened, the pedals broke, and the chains off’n the sprockets! Ever’ bike’ll end up bein’ a big pile of junk.
Dr. Willis Watless: We’ll make them fix any bicycle they see! They’ll spend half their free time fixing bikes that other people have broken!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: And, the pedal-powered cattle cars’ll be used for people too old or too young to ride bikes. There’ll be wheezin’ geezers and day care kids pedaling for all they’re worth.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: And, they won’t get anywhere for hours. Days. But, they’ll be saving fuel! Saving the planet! Keeping the sun from exploding!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: It’s their duty. Plain and simple. We’ve just got to be sure that everyone does his duty.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Or, her duty.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Or, its duty.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Jus’ as long as them dam’ fools is doin’ ahr duty, tha’s all we care ’bout.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: IT HAS COME TO OUR ATTENTION THAT A LARGE JAPANESE COMPANY IS DESIGNING A SMALL, NUCLEAR REACTOR. IT CAN BE MOVED ON A RAIL CAR. THE UNIT WILL ALLOW A COMMUNITY TO PRODUCE ITS OWN ELECTRICITY AT LESS THAN HALF THE COST OUR CLIENTS CHARGE. WE NEED IMMEDIATE LIES SO OUR CONGRESSOIDS CAN MAKE THEM ILLEGAL.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: This is serious! If those disgusting field beasts can make all the clean, cheap reliable electricity they need, why, that would be wrong.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Very, very wrong. Very.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: If they were able to get their own power, how would they be taxed? What if people got even smaller reactors, the size of a refrigerator, and electrified their neighborhood? How would we tax that, I’d like to know.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Most of those people are so stupid they’ll be more scared than anything. The fools would rather go on paying three or four times more for electricity than try something unknown, especially if we can make them think it’s “dangerous”.
Dr. Willis Watless: That’s right. “Dangerous” is the word. “Risky” is another. So is “radical”.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah figger y’all are right. We should tell ’em “For the sake of our nashun’s security, we can’t afford ‘terrorist targets.” They’ll think about that, iffin y’all kin call what they do thinkin’, ‘n figger they oughten ter be makin’ it illegal.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: How true. Lots of them would rather be intellectually comfortable than rich. The fools don’t understand that they’d cut their electric bills to a few dollars a month, and have so much power they’d be able to heat their water, and their buildings. On top of that, they’d have so much power they could charge batteries in cars and drive around for free.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Fools. We have to keep the brighter ones from figuring that out.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We do! Those damn smart people can figure out things like what you just said, Bobby. I wish we could just kill them. Or, put them into prisons. That’s where they belong. If we could only get rid of those accursed . . .
Dr. Walter Weasell: Easy, Brenda. Easy. We need smart people because they pay a lot of taxes, and they can’t do that if they’re dead or in jail. So, we need to scare them.
Dr. Willis Watless: Let’s encourage some little village to set up their own small nuclear reactor. When it gets going, we’ll have some demolition experts blow it up with a small atomic bomb. There’ll just be a huge, steaming crater where the town used to be. Then, no other town will want one.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Willis, tha’s the mos’ brillyant thang Ah ever heerd tell of ! It’s pure jeenyus! This h’ar prollum is solved!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s the lie we’ll submit to THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. We let some town put in their own reactor, then we obliderate. Let the rest of the fools think they’ll destroy themselves, and no one else will want one.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: And, if they do, well, we’ll just obliderate some more towns!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: WHILE WE AGREE, IN PRINCIPLE, THAT LETTING SOME SMALL TOWN PUT IN SUCH A REACTOR AND THEN BLOWING IT ALL TO SMITHEREENS IS A GOOD IDEA, WE DO NOT THINK IT WOULD BE PRACTICAL. IF OUR PARTICIPATION WAS DISCOVERED, ONE OF OUR CONGRESSOIDS MIGHT BE DRIVEN FROM OFFICE. PLEASE DEVELOP ALTERNATIVES.
Dr. Willis Watless: I hadn’t thought of that! Well, we can always fall back to the “nuclear power will make you sterile” argument. They’ve heard that so often they automatically nod in agreement every time they come across it.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s the same lie that the natural gas companies told a hundred years ago to keep the fools from replacing gas lights with electric light bulbs! It always works!
Dr. Walter Weasell: We can reinforce that lie with “nuclear energy causes cancer”. Lots of the fools believe that, too.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: The blam’ fools don’ even know that low-level radiashun is good fer ’em.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I know! They are so, so, so dumb! They’ll go for radiation therapy, X-rays, and MRIs even while they protest nuclear energy. Fools!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We may need better lies for the smarter ones. The smart ones know that nuclear power will save hundreds of coal miners’ lives. They know that nuclear power doesn’t emit pollution. We need some better lies.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That’s right! Let’s go back to our old, reliable lie; “It is impossible to get rid of all the nuclear waste. Make ’em think there’s mountains of it about to erupt and cover them with radio-active dust, “like Hiroshima”.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah don’ know. Lots o’ the fools know that iffin y’all was to take all the raydio-active waste frum all the p’wer plants in the world, it’d barely cover a football field ten ur fifteen feet high.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Is that true? That’s all the nuclear waste there is in the whole world? I’m astonished!
Dr. Walter Weasell: Actually, they could use all that radio-active waste to run different kinds of power plants. I hope the fools never find out that there is no waste from properly designed nuclear reactors.
Dr. Willis Watless: We need much better lies than I realized. Nuclear energy is like a dream come true for the fools! It’s cheap, clean, and has no waste.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s why we’re here! The best way to scare ’em silly enough to go on paying ten times more than they need to for electricity is to use Middle-easterners. We’ll have a couple of hacks write movies, mebbe a TV series, on some demolition specialists trying to protect their religion by blowing up atomic power plants.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That’s a wonderful idea. True, too. Why if people started using atomic power to heat their houses and fuel their cars with batteries charged for free, the price of oil would drop like a stone.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: It shore would! Why, y’all couldn’t give the stuff away.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: The entire Russian economy is based on selling high-priced oil and natural gas to Europe. They’d hate it, too!
Dr. Walter Weasell: Those are the two groups paying our bills! They’re our clients! Have been for years! We can’t disappoint them. We need lies and scares, and we need them, now!
Dr. Willis Watless: I think Bobby has had a wonderful idea. Let’s get some stories into the popular culture about terrorists attacking nuclear reactors, not because they’re paid demolition experts for hired, but for some sort of vague “religious reasons” that’ll make them seem to be cultural heroes.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’ll get ’em subconsciously hostile to any kind of nuclear power. What if we had our clients send some over to blow up a reactor? Not here, where there’s internet freedom, but in some country where no one is allowed to blog about it?
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: GOOD LYING, DR. BROWNOUT! WE FEEL THAT IS A VERY GOOD POSSIBILITY. WE WILL GET SOME DEMOLITION SQUADS TRAINED TO BLOW UP NUCLEAR REACTORS. SOMEWHERE IN SOUTH DUMISTAN, MAYBE.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Whew! That’s a relief! I just couln’t think of a good enough lie.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: ‘member the Golden Rule. “Iffin y’all cain’t think of a lie, a scare’ll do jes’ fine.”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: And, it’s easier to scare them. The lower 80% of them think it’s a sign of intelligence to worry about something. They love to worry, worry, worry! All we’ve got to do is feed their desire to seem intelligent.
Dr. Walter Weasell: That’s a good point, Timmy. They do love to think they’re smart. The dumber they are, the faster they’ll believe in something that they think makes them look smart.
Dr. Willis Watless: Once, when I was at post-graduate school at Kyoto Multiversity, we had a class project to make people afraid of chopsticks. By the time we were finished, half the people in Japan thought it was safer to use a sharp knife and fork than a piece of dull bamboo.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Did you get an “A”?
Dr. Willis Watless: I got three Doctoral Degrees from that one thesis. With three Doctoral Degrees, there’s no one ahead of me when I apply for any government grants.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: It’s a good thing you got this job! You’ve made this committee stand out!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: W’al, Ah don’ know iffin he made all of us look gud. Miss Brenda, y’all looked purty gud long before Willis’s great lie.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm (blushing): Oh, you, Dick.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: WE NEED LIES TO MAKE THE FOOLS BELIEVE THAT THE STORAGE OF NUCLEAR WASTE IS AN INSURMOUNTABLE PROBLEM.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Yes! That should be our prime objective. We’ve gotten the fools all worried about every conceivable kind of waste, and nuclear waste is the very worst waste there is.
Dr. Willis Watless: It’s incredible dangerous!
Dr. Walter Weasell: And, it lasts forever. It’ll destroy their children. If they have any children, which they shouldn’t.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Has anyone ever seen nuclear waste? What does it look like? What color is it? Does any of it actually exist?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah don’ think anywun acshually knows. Ah ain’t nebber seen none. Ah knows that much.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I know there isn’t very much of it. Like you said, Dick, if , well, you actually said “iffin”, you piled all the nuclear waste in the world in one place, it’d be about the size of a football field, about ten or fifteen feet high.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That’s all there is. It would fit in the basement of my summer home. That’s all there is of it. But, it’s bad. Very bad. Very, very bad. Impossible to worry too much about it, it’s so bad.
Dr. Willis Watless: We can’t let them think that because there isn’t much of it, that it isn’t dangerous. We should tell them that “The small quantity of nuclear waste makes it more dangerous, because it’s so much harder to control.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: Willis, that’s marvelous! It makes absolutely no sense! They’ll lap it up like kittens do cream!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: The less there is, the worse it is. Willis, that’s a great lie!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah think so, too. But, the brighter field beasts’ll see raht threw it. Some of ’em’ll wonner iffin it jes’ shouldn’t be stuck in a big, deep hole. Big, deep holes like what it came out of.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: What will we tell them?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Tell them nothing. Let’s tell the fools that if we bury it, it will cause a volcano. All that nuclear waste in one place will act like a “Magma Magnet”! Huge volcanoes will erupt all over the world.
Dr. Willis Watless: Brilliant lie, Brenda! Brilliant! “Nuclear waste, when buried underground, acts as an irresistable ‘Magma Magnet’, causing huge, earth-destroying eruptions.” What a line! Our newsspewers will have something really new to worry about.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: We gots all the field beasts reel familiar wiffin them “tektonic plates”. We tells ’em that the ‘rupshuns’ll follow the fault lines what’s dividin’ the “tektonic plates”.
Dr. Walter Weasell: I feel like this could be the biggest lie since “Crustal Deflection”! We may be able to combine them in a massive, super-lie: “Burying nuclear waste attracts massive magmatic intrusions into the upper crust. Its effects will distort the earth’s crust so badly that cracks in the ocean floor will make all the water in all the oceans ‘run right down the drain. It will magnify the effects of Crustal Deflection. ”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Now, that’s a lie! Great job! But, won’t they wonder where the water will go? It’s not as if there are huge hollow places for it to run to.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: W’al, Ah figgers that we don’ tell the fools that it’ll drain away. Tell ’em that the cracks in the ocean floor b’tween the “tektonic plates” will let all the sea water hit hot magma ‘n plum’ ‘splode the whole earf into smithereens!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That’s even better! We’ll tell the field beasts that they’ll be destroyed by huge clouds of poison gas-clouds blowing out of the cracks in the crust. We’ve already got great graphics! Let’s just recycle every National Geographic picture of Pompeii, and every other volcano, erupting, change the caption to read, “This is what happens when you bury nuclear waste in the ground.”, and get our newsspewers busy!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: ALL OF US ARE VERY IMPRESSED! THIS IS THE KIND OF LIE THAT CAN GO ON FOREVER. AND, EVER. IT’S A GREAT LIE. PLEASE CONTINUE TO DEVELOP IT FOR THE ASS. PRESS.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: It is a great lie. Congratulations to all of us! We’ve come up with a lie so big, so huge, so monumental, that no one can deny it.
Dr. Willis Watless: And, we can tie it in with the lie about interplanetary “backchannels” that take carbon dioxide straight to sun and destroy it. We’ll use those graphics, and instead of having the deadly gases coming from SUVs, we’ll show even bigger clouds of it coming out of volcanoes.
Dr. Walter Weasell: And, we tell the field beasts, “Radioactive gases, back-channelled into the sun, are even worse, if such a thing is possible, than carbon dioxide and exhaust fumes from privately-owned vehicles being drawn into the solar corona.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: This is a lie so big that we can regulate and penalize any human activity. Both moving around on the earth’s surface, and burying anything, not just radioactive waste, may cause, heck, it’s almost certain to cause, the oceans to disappear, people to be wiped out, and destroy the sun. Wow!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Let’s tell ’em that’s what d’stroyed the dynosawers.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Oh, I think that’s a beautiful idea! We’ve told the brainless fools that the dinosaurs were destroyed by asteroids, global warming, global cooling, mosquitoes, glaciers, heat waves, salt, almost everything. Why, they’ll be grateful to know that “Finally, science may have discovered the real cause of dinosaur extinction.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: They’ll be relieved. And, they’ll be relieved, again, when we say that something else wiped them out. I wonder why they’re more concerned about that than about their own families?
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: WE NEED FAST LIES! SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET HAS JUST SAID THAT MILITARY EXPERTS HAVE DISCOVERED THAT AIR TURBULENCE FROM WINDMILLS MAKES RADAR INOPERABLE. WITHOUT RADAR, AIR ATTACKS ON OUR COUNTRY CAN COME WITHOUT WARNING. THOSE FOOLS IN THE MILITARY ARE SCARING THE FIELD BEASTS!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: They shouldn’t be allowed to do that! The fools should be glad to be destroyed in air attacks. It’s one of the best ways to get a painless death while eliminating their own contributions to global warming.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Now, Brenda, we know that, but most of the fools don’t want terrorists crashing planes into buildings, much less dropping nuclear weapons on them.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah never knew that windmills kep’ radar frum wurkin’. Ah’m havin’ a hard time comin’ up wiffin a lie to justify keepin’ windmills if keepin’ windmills means that lie committees frum other countries take over. Why, all of us culd be wiffout’n a job. Sum of them furren liars’d love ter hunt us down ‘n kill us. Nobody hates a liar more’n a furrin liar.
Dr. Willis Watless: We have to remind the fools that “Peserving the environment is more important than saving lives.” We have to tell them something. Maybe, “Windmills are a risk to national security, but there’s a greater risk of destroying the planet if they take our windmills away.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: We have to get the fools to believe in our priorities. The right priorities. We’ll have newsspewers ask endlessly, “Isn’t it better to run the risk of an occasional fanatic than to do what will surely destroy the planet?”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: The planet is the most important thing! Why, our last set of lies proves for a fact that if we don’t take care of the planet, we’ll destroy the sun. Then, the whole solar system will collapse!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That’s infinitely more important than protecting a few buildings or cities from invaders or terrorists.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: So, we’ll tell ’em something like this: “Yes, it is true that some radar functions may be temporarily disrupted by the turbulence from vital windmills. But, compared with the sure and certain disaster that will follow the removal of those windmills, the risk is so small as to be insignificant.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah figger Ah better build me a nice, safe bomb shelter. Whachu gonna do, Brenda?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Hope you make it big enough for all of us!
Dr. Willis Watless: Every government building should have bomb shelters! We need one in this building! We need it now!
Dr. Walter Weasell: It has to be big enough for everyone, or there won’t be enough room.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: It only has to be big enough for us.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: But, what if we aren’t here. What if we’re out consulting? At a restaurant? Resort?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: No Important Person should ever be more than a hundred yards from a bomb shelter. But, how do we keep them from being overrun by field beasts?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s gonna be hard! Sum of em’s still got guns!
Dr. Willis Watless: This is hard. Very, very hard. We’ll have to have bomb shelters with poison gas, or bombs, or something, to get rid of the field beasts so there’s room for us to be protected.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Every two-bit bureaucrat in the world will think he, she, or it is important enough to be protected. How will we keep them out? I don’t want to be exposed to bombs because some meter maid has taken my bomb shelter space!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: None of us do, Walter. You know, this issue may be serious enough that we should, and I only say this because someone has to, consider getting rid of windmills?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Timmy! How could you dare to suggest such a thing! After all the endless hours we’ve spent! Why, windmills are one of our biggest lies. They’re expensive, they don’t work, so they’re vitally important to everything we believe.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Brenda, that’s all very true, but how are we going to get rid of those meter maids who beat us to the bomb shelter? We could be killed, hurt, or inconvenienced. We can’t have that.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Mebbe the win’mill lie’s ’bout run its course. Mebbe it’s time to get rid of ’em ‘n come up wiffin som’thin’ else that won’ wurk.
Dr. Willis Watless: Like what? I’ve spend half my career telling the fools lies about windmills! All that work, up in smoke, just because they make it impossible to defend ourselves against terrorists and foreign enemies?
Dr. Walter Weasell: Willis, to save windmills, you’re going to have to come up with a way to keep the meter maids and lesser bureaucrats out of our bomb shelter!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I hate to say we should face facts, because it’s not something any of us are used to doing, but if we can’t figure out how to protect ourselves, the windmills have to go. Willis, can you think of any way to make sure that happens?
Dr. Willis Watless: No, not right now. But, we are the best liars in the world. And, the windmill lies have lots of mileage left on them. Let’s think about it. Maybe, we can come up with a way to save them.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Why not just have all the windmills stop turning every couple of minutes? Then, there wouldn’t be any radar-disruptions, and we’d know if foreign Lie Committees were invading.
Dr. Willis Watless: Bobby, if we do that, they won’t produce any energy. Probably take them a minute or so to get back up to speed, then we’d have to shut them down, again.
Dr. Dr. Walter Weasell: So, they wouldn’t be producing any power? They don’t produce any power now, to speak of. The field beasts won’t care, and if they did care, what could they do about it?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Think of the money to be made by having “Air Defense Brakes” put on every single windmill!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah figger that startin’ n’ stoppin’ all them windmills ever’ coupla minutes’ll smash ’em ter flinders in a month or so. No way they kin take that kind o’ stress.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Dick, I hadn’t thought of that! Why, we’ll get to buy new windmills all the time. Think of the jobs we’ll create! Totally useless jobs!
Dr. Willis Watless: Dr. Bigohm, I must protest! Surely you realize that no government job is useless!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Oh, I know all that, Willis. We all do. But, mindlessly replacing useless windmills every couple of months will provide thousands of jobs for otherwise unemployable people. And, since they’re government funded, we’ll be able to pay high wages, get people to quit their real jobs, and when funding runs out, they’ll be cold, stony broke!
Dr. Willis Watless: I like that idea!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: CLIENTS ARE CONCERNED! MORE FOOLS THAN EVER HAVE STOPPED BELIEVING OUR GLOBAL WARMING LIES. WORLDWIDE TEMPERATURES HAVE BEEN FALLING FOR YEARS! OUR ENTIRE STRUCTURE IS BEING UNDERMINED AS MORE AND MORE REAL SCIENTISTS HAVE STOPPED BELIEVING IN OUR MAGNIFICENT LIES.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Mebbe we shuld pay ’em off. ‘N mebbe ahr payments ain’t keepin’ up wiffin inflashun.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Whatever happened to idealism? The idea that these people would abandon us simply because they lack the courage to go on lying is disgusting!
Dr. Willis Watless: Having a few real scientists “disappear” might help.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Willis, you may be on to something. If a dozen or so of them were to “disappear”, the rest of them would stay in line.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Death is too good for these traitors! Some of them just went along with us so they could get tenure. Now that they’ve got it, they’re suddenly interested in “truth”.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s the problem with “scientists”. Some of them think that valid measurements and experiments mean more than funding. That’s not science. That’s sabotage. Treasonous bastards! They should be shot.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We all know that, Bobby. It’s that damned internet. As soon as we get a really good lie, the fools see someone contradicting it with what they think is the “truth”. It’s bad for business. Nobody believes our newspapers, any more. They’re shrivelling up like prunes. Newsmagazine sales are in the tank. Nobody watches our newsspewers on TV.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Time ‘n time agin, we hear ’bout this dam’ internet. We gots ter be thinkin’ of ways to shut ‘er down. Cain’t have pipple tellin’ the truf ’bout t’ings.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: TOO MANY OF THE FOOLS ARE NO LONGER WORRIED ABOUT THE DANGEROUS LEVELS OF CARBON DIOXIDE. THE SMARTER FIELD BEASTS ARE TELLING THEM THAT THERE’S SO LITTLE CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE THAT ONLY THE DUMBEST FIELD BEASTS WOULD WORRY ABOUT IT.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: How much carbon dioxide is there?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Oh, I guess there’s about 380 parts per million.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah hates it, Ah plum’ hates it, when pipple talks ’bout ‘parts per millyun’. Ah cain’t ritely figger out what that means.
Dr. Willis Watless: I know what you mean, Dr. Dudewell. I don’t know, either.
Dr. Walter Weasell: It means that if there’s a stack of million dollar bills, that three hundred and eighty five of them would be carbon dioxide. And, the increase would be about thirty dollars, enough to fit in your billfold.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That doesn’t seem so bad. But, it is, in’t it?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Oh, my, yes! It’s bad! It’s really bad!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: But, how many parts per million do there have to be before people get sick and die?
Dr. Walter Weasell: Five, ten, twenty thousand? A million? Who really knows things like that? Smart flunkies, maybe. All we know is that there used to be 350 ppm, and now, there’s 380.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: That don’ make no sense ‘tall. Why, iffin Ah had a millyun dollar bills stacked up, it’d be more’n half a mile high! Mebbe, a l’il more. T’ree hunnerd ‘n fifty dollar bills, why, they wouldn’t be much more’n an inch thick. No wonner the fiel’ beasts ain’t worried ’bout it no more.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: It’s even worse than that. If there’s less than two or three hundred parts per million of carbon dioxide, all the plants would die. Every one. So would all the animals. And, all the people. Even us. Carbon dioxide is necessary for life.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Then, let’s get rid of it! Wouldn’t that get rid of the field beasts once and for all?
Dr. Willis Watless: That would be the ideal thing to do. But, if we got rid of the carbon dioxide, we would die, too.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Not if we sequestered it underground and could get as much of it as we needed. Then, after everyone was dead, we’d let it out, and we’d be the only people left.
Dr. Dick Dudewll: But, all the plants ‘n animals’d be ded. What wuld we be eatin’?
Dr. Walter Weasell: My theory still has some bugs to work out.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: So far, everyone has been absolutely right about everything. There’s too much carbon dioxide. The people who don’t think so are better off dead. But, we need plants and animals to keep on living. It’s so difficult to make sense of it all.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Well, if they aren’t taking carbon dioxide increases seriously, and there’s really no reason why any but the dumbest of them ever would, why don’t we make up some lies about the larger components of the atmosphere?
Dr. Walter Weasell: Are there others?
Dr. Willis Watless: Oh, my, yes. Lots of them. There’s oxygen. And, nitrogen. And lots of others.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’m allus puttin’ nitrogen on mah fields ter grow corn. It ain’t no gas. It’s a stinky powder.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: How could it be in the air if it’s a stinky powder?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I’m sure I don’t know. We’ll have to ask a smart flunky.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: The nitrogen is in the air. It’s about seventy or eighty percent of the atmosphere. It’s somehow taken out, and made into fertilizer and other things.
Dr. Walter Weasell: What kind of things?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: How should I know? I’m no smart flunky. I just heard something once about nitrogen being used to make plants grow. It must be like speed for them.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Let’s make up some Nitrogen Lies. There’s a lot of it, so Nitrogen Lies will be a lot scarier than lies about carbon dioxide. From what you’re telling me, there’s so little carbon dioxide that it doesn’t matter at all. Why did they bother make up lies about something that’s so inconsequential? It makes our jobs so hard, when they do that.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: It’s those damn smart flunkies. They’re always coming up with something that they think is real smart, and they don’t have to take the responsibility for getting the fools to believe it. Now, with Nitrogen Lies, there’s so much of it that all of ’em’ll be scared a lot more easily.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: We culd tell ’em iffin too much car exhaust gets into it, the whol’ worl’s gonna smell like fertilizer.
Dr. Willis Watless: We’ve always been good at getting the fools to worry about acid. Remember “acid rain”, when they thought their hair would dissolve if it got rained on? Well, let’s tell ’em that “acid nitrogen” will burn out their lungs!
Dr. Walter Weasell: Cover their sinus cavities with agonizing blisters!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: And, it’ll make ’em get real fat! The fools hate bein’ fat.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Oh, I love it! These will be BIG LIES. Big as Global Freezing! Big as Global Warming! Big as Cholesterol! Big as Crustal Deflection! This’ll be bigger than any lie that Dr. Frances Foophastan can make up over in Medical Lies! Even if she does have a lot of doctor flunkies operating for her. I hate that Frances Foopahstan!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: W’al, y’all ahr so much purtier than she is, y’all outen ter be feelin’ sorry fer her.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Oh, Dick, do you think so?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah knows so! Iffin we culd jus’ get back ter focusin’ on these hayr Nitrogen Lies that you, wiffin yer great mind, thot of all by yerse’f out’n that purty li’l head o’ yours, why we’d make all the other Lie Committees look reel bad by comparisun.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We could think of some more lies besides “Acidic Nitrogen”. Let’s have some smart flunkies figure out how, oh, I don’t know, human breathing, maybe, could make all the nitrogen in the air turn brown, or something, and blot out the sun.
Dr. Willis Watless: I like that! “Blot out the sun!” lies are always believable! We could tie it in with Global Freezing. They all bought into that one! We’ve already gotten most of the writing and file footage on hand. We just need a new reason for them to believe it, again.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Let’s tell the fools that both Global Freezing and Global Warming switch back and forth as fast as a teeter-totter goes up and down. It only takes a slight increase in carbon dioxide, and the earth begins to bake. An equally tiny increase in “brown nitrogen” makes all the water on earth freeze in a matter of months! And, no matter which way it changes, it’s their fault for being such greedy pigs!
Dr. Walter Weasell: Brenda, that’s a brilliant idea. Make them think their own essence will destroy them! That’s absolutely wonderful! And, as you say, we’ve already done all the hard work. We just recycle some of our old lies. We need to, and fast, if the field beasts have stopped believing in Global Warming.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: You know, recycling has always been a concern of mine. From now on, we could make our lies much cheaper to recycle if every television spot, magazine article, and Ass. Press release had the same body, but with a different headline. Then, we’d just have to play some newsclod to read or write a new headline, and dub it into the old copy from some previous alarm.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF YOU! ESPECIALLY TO DR. PEEDYMETER. WE COULD SAVE MILLIONS, BILLIONS, IN PRODUCTION COSTS IF WE COULD JUST RERUN MORE OF OUR OLD FRIGHTS AND ALARMS WITH NEW HEADLINES. THE FOOLS WILL NEVER NOTICE. AND, DR. BIGOHM, WE ARE FASCINATED WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF YOUR NEW “NITROGEN LIES”. WELL DONE, BOTH OF YOU.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Ohhhh. I’m so glad they liked my lie! I’m glad they liked yours, too, Dr. Peedymeter, but I just can’t remember when I’ve been so happy. I just wish Dr. Frances Foopahstan could have heard that!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Well, I’m she’ll hear about it at the Convention.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’m reel shore she will.
Dr. Willis Watless: So, what do we tell the newsspewers to start spewing? First, that Global Freezing will reverse Global Warming because all the Nitrogen in the atmosphere is turning brown. It will be like “The earth is wearing sunglasses.”
Dr. Walter Weasell: Oh, Willis, I like that! “Like the earth is wearing sunglasses!” That’s the sort of lie that sinks into the fools’ minds like a bullet! The micro-second after they hear it, they’ll be convinced that freezing to death is right around the corner.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: The Second Part of The Nitrogen Lies will be that, “As the earth’s vital nitrogen layers slowly turn brown, it will be impossible for the sun’s heat to warm our planet. That causes chemical reactions that will turn all the water on earth into sulphuric acid. We will all go blind within the next ten years!”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: And, have the newsspewer-scientist wearing dark glasses! Or, have a flashlight. I guess the flashlight would be better. Its clothes should have big holes in them, eaten away by acid.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Have the off-camera people screaming something about being burned alive. Have some others screaming about the pain of freezing to death!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Acshually, bes’ thang ter do wuld be ter acshually burn some of ’em. That way, the screams’d sound more genuwine. Squirt sum lighter fluid on ’em, ‘n toss em a bunch of lit sparklers. That way, they’d both scream AND run around reel fas’. Culdn’t beat that!
Dr. Willis Watless: We need some science, too. Let’s get some glass jars, fill ’em full of nitrogen, and get some good footage of animals dying inside ’em. Show the field beasts’ll what’s gonna happen to them!
Dr. Walter Weasell: I like that! I really do! At the same time, lets tell the fools that scientists are working on nitrogen-powered cars to solve the energy crisis.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Oh, that’s good! That’s very, very good. We’ll get to use the old “two-edged sword”. We’ll tell the field beasts, “Nitrogen, whose increasingly opaque nature, combined with the acid burns its giving to plants and animals, is a ‘two-edged sword’. Despite the danger, courageous scientists are developing ways to turn the deadly nitrogen into a cheap, clean replacement for gasoline and diesel fuel.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Wonderful! Nitrogen is turning brown, and will shut off sunlight. Nitrogen is becoming acidic, and will cause blindness. The advantages of nitrogen-powered vehicles are being explored. We need something else. Does nitrogen help the fools lose weight? Grow hair?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s a reel gud point, Miss Brenda. Iffin we kin get some smart flunkies ter list all these advantages ‘n dangers of nitr’gen, we’ll be able to fill up hunnerts of newscasts. Mebbe, t’ousands!
Dr. Willis Watless: Don’t forget teacher packets. We’ll send teacher packets to every public school in the world, so they’ll be able to get some of the kids to worry about nitrogen, others to power model airplanes and cars with it. Others will fertilize plants with it. Feed it to lab rats. There’s gonna be something for everyone, in The Nitrogen Frauds.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Don’t ever call it that! Why, if a field beast ever heard that we associated the Nitrogen, whatever we call it, Concerns, with a lie, they’ll put it on the internet, and we’ll be stopped before we get started!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That’s right, Willis! We can’t call anything we do by its rightful nature. Nitrogen Concerns will end up being whole fields of study! Lots of university jobs with high pay and tenure! It’s hard enough to get these sort of things to work, especially if word gets out that even we, who make them up, think they’re crocks.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Let’s tell the fools that the biggest problem in all of human history is deciding “Nitrogen, Friend or Foe? “. As the “Swelling Nitrogen” in the atmosphere continues to grow, it drives away oxygen, and all the people on earth will die. Have some smart flunkies blow up balloons with nitrogen until they explode. That’ll prove how dangerous it is.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That’s a good one, Bobby. “Swelling Nitrogen levels are bad enough by themselves, but when the nitrogen is acidic, why, the consequences are so destructive that every concerned scientist must investigate!”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah wonner wha’ the fools ahr thinkin’ when they hear “science must investygate”. Prolly, they thank there’s a lot of reel scientists doin’ reel reesearch, not just a bunch half drunk yokels sittin’ ‘roun’ in a room watchin’ TV.
Dr. Willis Watless: It’s nice that they have such a positive view of scientists. It makes our jobs ever so much easier.
Dr. Walter Weasell: It sure does. Just knowing that we’ve got a bunch of quacks who’ll say anything we want, even gussy it up with charts and “studies”, why it makes me feel kind of proud.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I wonder if there are any real scientists, anywhere?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I don’t know.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Me, neither. Do you think there could be? Somewhere?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Nah. Oncet they figgers out how much money they kin make lyin’, they ain’t hardly any of ’em leff’.
Dr. Willis Watless: I think there are a lot of them. We just never hear from them because they aren’t allowed to be on television. No newspaper reporters will ever talk to them. They’re just invisible.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Then, what difference does it make how many there are? Or, if there are any of them?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: They do talk to each other. And, they get on that accursed internet any time they find that scientists are lying about things. They may be invisible, but they make a lot of trouble for us. A lot of trouble.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: None of this is our problem. The Political Lies Committee can take care of this. Put them in old prison camps, or something. Let’s just get rid of as many as we can.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: WE HAVE A VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM. SOME OF OUR CONGRESSOIDS MAY LOSE ELECTIONS BECAUSE THE FOOLS ARE ANGRY AT HAVING TO PAY FOUR DOLLARS A GALLON FOR GASOLINE. SOME CONGRESSOIDS ARE NOW IN FAVOR OF DRILLING, EVEN THOUGH THEY’VE TAKEN HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CASH BRIBES, DEPOSITED IN OVERSEAS ACCOUNTS, TO STOP DRILLING. WE NEED LIES!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: This is serious! You’d think the fools would be glad to pay four dollars a gallon for gasoline because it keeps them from driving so much!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Brenda, it’s obvious that the fools just don’t care as much about Global Warming as they should.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah shuld say they don’! Ah’ve been down in Sludgewater Falls fer a coupla’ weeks, checkin’ out the ranches. Ever’body Ah talked to said they warn’t no sech thang as Global Warmin’. Said it wuz all a big, fat lie.
Dr. Willis Watless: Are the fools that smart? After all the TV shows, Ass. Press articles, magazine covers, celebrity endorsement? They still don’t believe it?
Dr. Walter Weasell: They believed us until the oil shortages started to cost them money. We didn’t count on that. We all thought they’d just keep on believing and believing and believing.
Dr. Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Well, it’s clear that we have a problem. We can stand to lose a couple of seats, but that’s all.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: It could be a lot worse than that! The Republicans aren’t saying much, but the voters are making them nervous, too. All the liberals are afraid they’re going to lose their elections. People just don’t trust environmentalists, any more.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: It’s not that they don’t trust environmentalists. They think they’re mostly liars, alarmists, and frauds.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Which, of course, they are. But, the fools ain’ s’ppos’d ter notice. Mebbe they is a lot smarter’n we figgered.
Dr. Willis Watless: Let’s start with some lies telling them that it’s good for them to pay more. Tell them gasoline should be ten dollars a gallon, like it is in Europe.
Dr. Walter Weasell: That’s always a good idea! Every time we tell a lie, we should say, “We don’t want to fall behind Europe.”, even though the whole place is falling apart.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I know it! Massive unemployment, high inflation, and taxes that just won’t stop! It’s wonderful! It’s what we need, here!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: N’, lots of regglashuns! They got regglashuns that jes’ don’ stop! They regg’late mos’ ever’thin’. Ah heerd that iffin y’all was in Euyrope, y’all cain’t have a dog weighin’ no more’n two or three pounds.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Wow! What kind of lies do they tell their fools? Maybe we could get some good European lies for here.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: They’ve got a much longer base of lies to work from. Why, they’ve got everything so screwed up that only four of five percent of the population can read in any country’s native language. Here, half the people can read and speak English.
Dr. Willis Watless: It’s just not fair to compare us with them. Why, they’re ahead of us in every way. Tiny little cars, lots more bicycles, much higher crime rates, much lower literacy rates, and lots more promiscuity. Why, there’s not a single area that they aren’t ahead of us!
Dr. Walter Weasell: That’s not fair! We should be able to do that, here. We do need better lies, but what, exactly, is left for us to lie about? I think we’ve told just about every lie there is.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Walter, don’t say that! Why, I’ve got a brand, spanking new lie. Let’s tell the fools that they each have an aura. And, they do. We take some pictures of someone with an aura. Then, we show the same picture that’s near an energy source, and have some smart flunky take the aura away. “Outside energy destroys your natural aura!”, we tell the fools.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Timmy, I like that! We’ll turn “natural aura” into the most important thing that any of them has. “Your natural aura is what people subconsciously see when they see you. Without it, you’re practically nothing.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: We culd tell ’em that they’s gots ter have a “good, healthy glow”.
Dr. Willis Watless: Like a nuclear reactor?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah see whatchu mean. Mebbe tell ’em “They gots ter look ‘radiyant’.” Iffin their nactchural aura goes away, they cain’t look “radiyant”.
Dr. Willis Watless: Well, it does sound better than telling them they should “glow”. “Natural Radiance is the most important thing you have. We will all look better and do better if we stay away from anything that reducces our Natural Radiance.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I like that. “Women can increase their Natural Radiance by staying away from anything that uses energy.” Even the dumbest fool can understand that.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: It’s a natural for TV talk shows. Oprah could do wonders with it! Dr. Donny Doccudrama could do wonders with it. Actually add in some Natural Radiance to people who stay away from “artificial energy”.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah likes tellin’ ’em that they oughten ter “stay ‘way frum “artificial enurgy”. It’s a natchural! It’s the kind of lie they’ll beeleeve.
Dr. Willis Watless: I like it, too. But, is it enough to make them grateful that they’re paying higher gasoline prices than ever before?
Dr. Walter Weasell: We can have some smart flunkies tell them they’re actually paying less. “When gas prices are adjusted for inflation, we are paying less than ever.”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Are they dumb enough to believe that? I mean, you’d have to be a virtual moron to see gas prices double in the two years that our kind of Congressoids took over Congress and believe that, somehow, things were better.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Timmy, it’s our job to make up lies. It’s our job to introduce as much confusion into their thought processes as possible. The “adjusted for inflation” lies will confuse a lot of them. It always has. It always will.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s right! Some of them will believe anything that one of our newsspewers tells them. Or, writes for them. Or, shows them pictures of. We only need to keep a certain number of them confused to keep voting for our kind of Congressoids. This helps.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Iffin we onlee get ten, fifteen purcent of the morons ter vote ahr way, combined wiffin the ones what’s got to vote fer ahr guys so’ they kin keep on gettin’ money frum the gummit, we gets ahr guys in office whar’ they kin vote the way they’s tol’.
Dr. Willis Watless: So, we’re agreed? We tell them that the only way they can maintain their “Natural Radiance” is to stay away from any manmade device that produces energy and that they’re really paying less for gasoline than ever before? Is that enough?
Dr. Walter Weasell: We all know what THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE wants. More lies! I think we should try to do better, though the “Natural Radiance” lie is brand new.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I’m very tired. Those two lies took a lot of energy. Especially “Natural Radiance”. I think we’ve done a good day’s work.
Dr. Brenda Brownout: Let’s try for just one more good lie. Not necessarily a brand new lie, but a good, solid, recycled lie. We simply have to maintain the Environmental Lies. Otherwise, there might be budget cuts, and I don’t want that to happen to us! Some of us might lose our jobs!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: We don’t want that!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I’ve got one! Let’s tell the fools that both gasoline fumes, and exhaust vapors, too, cause “Pre-mature wrinkling”!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Now, tha’s a mitey fine lie!
Dr. Willis Watless: I like it! And, it gives the fools who ride bikes another reason to hate cars and the people who drive them!
Dr. Walter Weasell: It does! It really does! We can have some smart flunkies show pictures of peoples’ faces turning into prunes! We can have some really smart flunkies dress up like doctors, and look very concerned while they tell the fools that “Aging, in the past was almost invisible. Once, it was impossible to tell a sixty year old woman from a fifteen year old. Since so many of us have energy devices, we all look much, much older than we need to.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: The very dumbest and vainest fools will want to outlaw every energy device!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: This is the perfect use for all those stupid actresses. They go on talk shows, ignoring all the lights, cameras, microphones, and other electrical devices all around them, and tell the fools “If only we stop using all this energy, we’d all look so much better.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Perfect! The lines are simple enough for even the most vacuous actors and actresses to memorize. And, it’s easier for them because all they ever think about is how they look. Maybe, we could get someone over-the-hill to renounce energy devices, altogether.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Let’s make ’em talk a lot about Walden’s Pond. Ah don’ know ‘sactly what that is, but they’s allus talkin’ ’bout it when it comes ter talkin’ ’bout how ‘mportant it is ter “get back ter nachure”.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Well, we’ve done it! We’ve come up with three lies. If there are going to be budget cutbacks, we’ve got to be safe from them! I’ll bet you that Frances Foopahstan, over in Medical Lies, never came up with three lies in one session, especially when two of them are brand new!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Brenda, when I think about it, we’ve come up with four lies! Inventing the phrase “energy devices” and making them something to avoid, covers every single thing we’re trying to do when it comes to corralling the field beasts.
Dr. Willis Watless: I never realized that, but you’re right! It lets us demonize every single thing they drive or plug in or has batteries. Even wind-up motors are energy devices.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Let’s divide “energy devices” into two groups. There are “good energy devices” and “bad energy devices”. Tasers, when used by our police, are “good energy devices”. Automobiles, when they’re used to, oh, I don’t know, take them to work, are “bad energy devices”.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That’s wonderful! When Al Gore is flying around in a huge private jet to tell people not to fly around in airplanes, he’s using a “good energy device”. When one of the field beasts is flying to a sales call, he’s using a “bad energy device”.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: When I’m getting my hair washed and dried, I’m using a “good energy device”. When some fool that has no need to worry about what she looks like does the same thing, that’s a “bad energy device”.
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: EXCELLENT LYING! ALL OF US ARE VERY IMPRESSED. AT YOUR EARLIEST CONVENIENCE, PLEASE CONTINUE TO EXPLORE THE DIFFERENT WAYS TO DEMONIZE ENERGY DEVICES.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Ohhhh! This is so exciting!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: There are always cell phones! The fools have an endless capacity to hear lies about how using them causes brain cancer.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Y’all ahr raht! We kin tell ’em a billyun times that “Yer cell phone’ll rotcher brain away.”, ‘n the fools jes’ keep listenin’ to us.
Dr. Willis Watless: I didn’t realize how often we’ve been telling them that lie. An Ass. Press review shows that at least a thousand newsspewers regurtitate “Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer!” lies every ten days.
Dr. Walter Weasell: And the fools still buy newspapers, magazines, and watch mainstream TV! You’d think they’d have figured out that all we do is lie to them! I had no idea they’d heard the cell phone lies so often.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I’ve got an idea! Let’s tell them that if they use a cell phone and an electric razor, that their chance of brain cancer “rises exponentially”.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Timmy, that’s wonderful. We’ll have some actors and actresses in scientist costumes solemnly tell that that eating and drinking before, during, and after cell phone use also causes “unanticipatable changes” that may “lead to cancerous growth.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s good! We’ve never had any compound lies with cell phones, only the direct “danger” that they’ll cause cancer. This way, we can add soap, hot water, shampoo, running water, tight collars, loose collars, artificial-fibre clothing, natural-fibre clothing, furs, dry ice, pets, earmuffs, air conditioning, forced air heat, static electricity, vehicle energy auras, nearby computers, global warming, and rain to an endless list of “things to watch out for when considering safe cell phone usage”.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Bobby, Ah’m plum’ stunned wiffin that lie! Why, y’all have figgered out a way to prop up an old lie ‘n make it seem lak a bran’ new one. We’ll have the blam’ fools worryin’ more’n more ’bout less ‘n less!
Dr. Willis Watless: Bobby, it is brilliant! We’ll have the dumber ones worried sick, sick I tell you! Let’s get some smart flunkies on this immediately!
Dr. Walter Weasell: I’m impressed, too. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a lie so profound, so magnificent, and so easy! Why, even the dumbest local newsspewer can’t screw up an endless series of lies like this. Every day, they just have to memorize the latest danger, and connect it with cell phones.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: This is a real break-through. We may be able to get foundational support. You know, set up the usual “scientists” to look and sound real serious while they prattle on about it on talk shows! This is going to be wonderful!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: And, it gives us a chance to recycle some old lies that no one believes in any more. We can tell the fools that “Ozone makes cell phones almost certain to cause tumor growth in the inner ear canal.” Or, we can tell them, “Alar residue on apples makes current flows that accelerate cellular malformation.” We did such a good job on the alar lies, it’s a shame to let them just disappear.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We have hundreds of file cabinets full of sound, proven lies. Recycling them to apply to cell phones gives them a certain air of credibility. “For decades, scientists have been worried about chlorine in water. Now, we know that the chlorine’s natural resonance may magnify cell phone wavelengths to the point that they will cause cellular damage.”
Dr. Dick Dudewll: Ah lak that “nachural resonance”. Ah ain’t nebber heerd o’ that b’fore, ‘n Ah lak it! I reely do! It’s one o’ those golden phrases that fits in anywhere. “Nachural resonance”. It jes’ resonates nachurally! Ah’m gonna try to get it in all mah lies!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: WE ARE GRATEFUL FOR YOUR FINE WORK. SMART FLUNKIES HAVE ALREADY BEEN PUT TO WORK!
A NEW PROBLEM HAS ARISEN. THE NUCLEAR, COAL, AND NATURAL GAS POWER CLIENTS ARE CONCERNED ABOUT ELECTRICITY BEING GENERATED FROM DAMS. THEY WANT HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER STOPPED, THE DAMS DESTROYED, AND MORE PEOPLE BUYING THEIR POWER.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Oh, this is exciting! Once those fools get dams in place, they basically get free power! We can’t have that! We need to get rid of those dams. All of them!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We did some work on this a long time ago. I remember telling the fools that they should worry about some kind of migrating fish or another.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’d say we shuld wurry ’bout all migra’tin’ fish! ‘N crayfish. ‘N ‘phibyans.
Dr. Willis Watless: That’s good, but let’s go beyond that. Let’s tell them that putting a dam on a stream or river is like putting a tourniquet on your neck. The “proper flow” must be maintained according to what nature wants, not what helps a bunch of greedy power companies!
Dr. Walter Weasell: Demonize the power companies! That’s always fun, and the fools can quickly be made to believe that the people who’ve been supplying them with cheap power for generations are a bunch of greedy so-and-sos who’ve “got to be stopped”.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Oh, yes. Yes. Make them hate the power companies! The more they hate, the less they think, and the more lies they’ll believe! Let’s get smart flunkies to get them hating the power companies. Put a couple dozen of their executives in jail!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I’ve got a good one! Let’s tell the fools that “Water piles up behind dams. The earth cannot sustain that weight. That’s why there are earthquakes.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s good! We can blame earthquakes on people, “and their insatiable urge for more power.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: We shor’ can! It’s all their fault, grubby l’il field beas’s. They outen ter be ‘shamed of theyselves fer bustin’ up Mudder Earf.
Dr. Willis Watless: Don’t forget volcanos! All that water piled up behind all those dams is pushing down, and it has to push up molten lava straight from the bleeding heart of the earth! The bleeding heart of Mother Earth!
Dr. Walter Weasell: There may be a problem. The smarter field beasts may believe that if the water goes into the oceans, it will make them weigh more, and cause tidal waves from undersea earthquakes and volcanos.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Are they that smart? Surely, they can’t be.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: A few of them are. Wish we could gulag any field beast with an IQ over fifty. Now, we have two questions. First, are any of the field beasts smart enough to understand that billions of tons of water in a dam is worse than having those billions of tons of water sitting in the ocean? Second, does it matter? The only thing that counts is what the mass of them believe in the big blob that’s in the middle of the bell curve.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s true! So what if a few of the smart ones can figure it out. The blob-people will never be able to comprehend the problem, let alone argue intelligibly about it.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s raht! Akshually, we culd us this as a way ter get rid of the briter wuns. Iffin anybuddy kin figger it out, we jes’ fix ’em good. Tha’s wha’ we’ll do!
Dr. Willis Watless: Dick, we all hear a lot of talk from all of us about “fixing them”, but we never seem to get around to it. Any ideas?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: It’s mitey frustratin’, Ah kin tell y’all. Pursonaly, Ah’d lak ter shoot ’em. Prollum is, some of ’ems still got guns. Mite shoot back.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Well, that’s not our department. That comes under The Political Lie Committee. Our problem is still just what Brenda said, believe our dam lies. We only have to be sure that eighty or ninety percent of the fools believe it. And, it does make sense.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Let’s get some smart flunkies dressed up like scientists. They’ll make some kind of a “study” with lots of props. Maybe stretch out a sheet, and load it with rocks until it breaks. Then, they look real seriously at the camera and say: “The earth’s delicate crust can tear apart the same way when it’s overloaded by people who just don’t care enough about the planet.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That gave me an idea! Tell the fools that “If the rocks would break through the sheet, all that heavy water would break through the earth’s crust! It would hit the magma, or lava, or whatever all those melted rocks are called at the earth’s core, and explode!”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: It culd blast whole contynents raht inter outer space!
Dr. Willis Watless: Let’s tell ’em that’s where the moon came from! It used to be where the Pacific Ocean is, and it was blown clean into outer space by water hitting the molten rock at the earth’s core from dams built by the people who used to live in Atlantis!
Dr. Walter Weasell: That’s absolutely magnificent! Oh, that is magnificent! They’ll be so confused by that they won’t even think about Brenda’s concern, that the amont of water pushing on the crust is the same no matter where it is.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Oh, this is so wonderful! I am actually shivering, this lie is so exciting! We’ve tied the moon, Atlantis, and the destruction of the entire earth into those greedy fools building dams to make a lot of electricity that they really don’t need! No one can argue with all those lies strung together. Why, it’ll drive a sane person crazy to even try!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: It’ll neutralize the fringe field beasts, that’s for sure! Sixty, seventy, eighty percent of ’em won’t argue with any conclusion we draw. They think they’re being “intellectual” if they repeat the news releases we give ’em. I can see the fools’ babblin’, now. “Atlantis destroyed, a quarter of the earth’s land mass thrown into orbit because the Atlanteans just thought they were ‘so smart’ and built dams where they shouldn’t have!”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah figger we’s got ’bout the greatest lie wha’s ever been tol’. Brenda, this all came raht outen yer purty l’il head. They’s sum raht pow’rful thinkin’ goin’ on in thar!
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Why, thank you, Dick! I must say, we do have some wonderful lies that came out of it.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: This will take awhile to digest, and I’m almost embarrassed to mention my own much smaller lie.
Dr. Willis Watless: Oh, now. Don’t be overly modest. What’s your lie?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Well, you know how we’ve gotten the fools to worry about salt? All the time, telling them over and over again that they’re eating too much salt? My lie, and it’s very, very small, is to tell them “Dams keep fresh water from flowing freely to the sea. That makes the sea get saltier, and causes countless billions of vital marine plants and animals to die.”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That’s not such a little lie! It’s wonderful. We’ll tie it in with coral reefs. We’ve got half the field beasts in the world worrying about coral reefs. The fools are used to worrying about coral reefs, and they like to worry about coral reefs, even though hardly any of them have seen one.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I think that’s a wonderful lie, Bobby. And Timmy’s idea about tying it in with coral reefs makes it that much better. The fools do like to worry about coral reefs.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: We kin git a bunch o’ smart flunkees on TeeVee, wiffin a whole lot o’ rocks, ol’ bricks, even sum concreet blocks, chunks of coal, ol’ tires, ‘n tell ’em “This har’s wha coral reefs look lak when they’s too much salt frum them durn dams what pipple allus be puttin’ up what they shud n’.
Dr. Willis Watless: The fools’ll be worried sick!
Dr. Walter Weasell: They sure will! Let’s tell ’em that if the coral reefs die, all the fish will, too. And the seaweed. Then, we spin a lot of yarns about how “Vital Plankton, the very heart of the food chain, will be eliminated from all the oceans of the Earth. The death and destruction of our civilization must surely follow!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: BRILLIANT LYING! YOU HAVE OUTDONE YOURSELVES! AT THIS VERY MOMENT, WE ARE PUTTING PSEUDO-INTELLECTUAL NINCOMPOOPS FROM A DOZEN STATE UNIVERSITIES TO WORK ON THIS. PLEASE CONTINUE.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: You know, I had forgotten how many of the fools still believe in Atlantis. Why don’t we tell them that “The people in Atlantis were as advanced as we are. Maybe, more so. They had cars, airplanes, motorboats, and electricity. They caused Global Warming, and wiped themselves out.”
Dr. Bobby Brownout: They were such greedy pigs, only thinking about themselves, that Mother Earth just eliminated them. We’ll tell ’em that the “Bermuda Triangle”, that ancient source of death, is a reverberating echo of the glory that was Atlantis.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah lak that! The fools’ll eat it up! ‘N you know what else? It ‘ppears that ever’ time we find a glacier bein’ driven back by Global Warmin’, they’s trees and roots ‘n whatnot unner whar it used ter be. Now, we kin tell ’em that they was growin’ afore the Atlanteeans wuz destroyin’ the earf wiffin the cata’lism they caused frum the Global Warmin’ that destroy’d ’em.
Dr. Willis Watless: Let’s tell the field beasts that we’ve discovered some sacred Tungsten Tablets from Atlantis. We’ll have some smart flunkies make up an alphabet, and we’ll continually find more to justify every single scare we want to use on the fools.
Dr. Walter Weasell: That’s brilliant! We can tie in all the scares we’ve ever thought of, or ever will think of, and document them on the Sacred Tungsten Tablets from an earlier culture that destroyed itself with its own greed.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: This will be wonderful! I love the idea of Sacred Tungsten Tablets. We can put anything on them! Where will we say Atlantis was? I think we should say that it’s on the dark side of the moon.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We’ll tell ’em it was blown there after the huge explosion caused by their numerous hydroelectric dams leaking trillions of tons of water into the Very Core of Mother Earth. When the huge land mass was launched into sub-orbital flight, it spun around, and ended up on the far side of the moon, where it’s buried under huge landslides.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: They’ll love it! We’ll tell the fools that “The people of Atlantis are still alive, living in endless tunnel complexes they’ve dug all through the moon.” Let’s get some smart flunkies to recycle some drawings from the early nineteen hundreds about what cities of the future looked like. There’ll be flying saucers, automated walkways, robot servants in every household, and all the other crap we can stick in there.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: It’ll prove ter the fools that bein’ modern ‘n technical ‘n havin’ lots of gajets’ll destroy a society quicker’n anythin’. We kin tell the fools “The pipple of Atlantis regret their obsesshun wiffen tecknikal devices. They wishes they’d nebber quit livin’ in caves, ‘n now that they’re back in ’em, they’re reel happy.”
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Finally, we’ll have positive proof that all technical progress is bad! We’ll have every certified engineer in the world flipping burgers! That’ll fix their smart asses! Anybody argues with us, we just have a new Sacred Tungsten Tablet from Atlantis discovered that’ll tell the field beasts whatever we want ’em to believe!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: PLEASE TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO COME UP WITH LIES ABOUT PERSONAL TRANSPORTATION DEVICES. TOO MANY OF THE FIELD BEASTS ARE SIMPLY TOO ATTACHED TO THEIR VEHICLES.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That’s right! The fools just love their cars.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah shor’ lak mah big Suburbans. Ah got mos’ fifty of ’em!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: You have fifty Suburbans? What do you do with them?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah drives ’em ‘roun’ mah ranches. Ah got most a dozen of ’em at ev’ry ranch. All of ’em painted black, wiffin gummit identificashuns so’s Ah kin transports sum illegal aliens iffin Ah need sum extry cash.
Dr. Willis Watless: How much do they pay you? How many do you bring in?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah gets ’bout three t’ousan’ apiece. Ah kin jam twenny imm’grants in each Suburban. Mah foremen ‘n hired han’s make a coupla trips a day.
Dr. Walter Weasell: That’s amazing! Six million dollars to twelve million dollars a day! All cash! No taxes! Don’t you ever worry about getting caught?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Nah. The Border Paytrol ain’ ‘lowed ter stop nobody no more. Iffin the immigrants knew that, they’d walk in fer free.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I’m sure that it’s very nice that Dr. Dudewell has fifty huge vehicles that make him several million dollars a day, but we are supposed to be telling lies about why other people shouldn’t have any vehicles at all.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: And, I’m sure we will. Dick, I must say, I am impressed. Six million dollars a day? Why, that’s very impressive! Maybe you could show me your operations, sometime. I’d love to see it. But, Dr. Peedymeter is right. We’re getting paid to come up with some lies to get the fools to stop driving.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I think we should have a series of lies. We could start with the biggest cars, like Dr. Dudewell’s profitable Suburbans. We’ll tell the fools they should “trade down”. Get smaller cars.
Dr. Willis Watless: Then, we tell the field beasts that those cars still aren’t small enough. Get ’em crammed into ever smaller cars.
Dr. Walter Weasell: When we’ve got ’em all crammed into cars that are no bigger than motorized sardine cans, that’s when we get the fools convinced to just ride bicycles everywhere they go. “Half as many wheels means you’re doing twice as much to save the planet.” Tell ’em a lot of crap like that. Most of ’em’ll believe it.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah laks that! Tell ’em ’bout how ‘mportant them “wheel ratios” are to pertectin’ the planet.
Dr. Dimmy Peedymeter: “Wheel Ratios”! That’s wonderful! After bicycles, we tell them, “Bicycles have too many wheels, each of which has a carbon footprint the size of Nevada. To give the planet the protection it deserves, you all need to be on unicycles. They only have half as many wheels, so they’re the best way to reduce our “Wheel Ratios”. The fools can’t argue with the math.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Brilliant! And, once they’ve all changed to unicycles, we tell them that the planet can only afford a “Wheel Ratio of zero”. Make ’em walk wherever they want to go.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s wonderful! We can drive them into near-immobilization. We’ll have cars, of course. It’s important for us to be able get around.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah’m shor’ keepin’ mine! Ah’ll use all mah Suburbans fer buses. Git mah ranches incorporated as cities ‘n towns, ‘n Ah’ll be able ter charge the droolin’ fiel’ beasts ter get ’em ter werk. Hire me sum illegal imm’grants ter drive ’em ‘roun. Any of you be needin’ a ride, ‘n Ah’ll see that y’all get a nice discount!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: THE FOOLS HAVE BEGUN TO NOTICE THAT THE WORLD IS GETTING COOLER. SOME OF THEM ARE STARTING TO SNICKER WHEN THEY HEAR OUR CONGRESSOIDS TALK ABOUT THE DANGERS OF GLOBAL WARMING! WE NEED LIES!
Dr. Walter Weasell: This is serious! Do you think they’ve noticed our thermometer placement?
Dr. Willis Watless: I don’t even know what that is?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Well, for the past ten or fifteen years, we’ve been having all the temperature recording devices in the world moved so they’d give higher temperature readings.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: And, it’s worked. We closed down all the temperature sensors in rural areas, and all of them in places like Siberia. Then, we moved them to sewage treatment plants. Airports. Parking lots. Next to city incinerators.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Then, world-wide temperatures began to skyrocket. Finallly, people could see how bad Global Warming really is!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah figgers that the wulr’s temperyatures akshually wen’ way down, ’cause the sun warn’t shinin’ as much, but the fools mos’ all beeleeved that the wurl was ’bout to roas’.
Dr. Walter Weasell: Now, there are a bunch of fools who go out and take pictures of the thermometers. People are seeing them on asphalt runways, and next to air conditioning vents, and beginning to question Global Warming.
Dr. Willis Watless: I’d like to just kill ’em all. Smart alecky know-it-alls!
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Now, Willis, we’ve gone over this before. We can’t kill them until we take their guns away. One of us might get shot!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: We can’t have that! But, what are we going to do? We have to do something! The Lie Committee wants lies, and I’m having a hard time thinking up any new Global Warming lies. Maybe, it’s time to switch back to the Global Freezing lies?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: It’s not time for that. If we switch back to Global Freezing lies, the fools will want more power. They’ll want to stay warm! They’ll want more electicity. Then, we’d actually have to build some nuclear reactors. You know, solve the problem by giving them clean, cheap power. We don’t want that!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah ben on all the Lie Committees, ‘n Ah ain’t never solved a prollum, yet. Ah ain’ ’bout to start, now!
Dr. Walter Weasell: Well, it’s nice to listen to all that you have to say, but we do need some lies. We have to convince a few more fools to belive Global Warming is a real danger and that it’s caused by carbon dioxide. Those are our directions. So, let’s get some lies. I’ve got one. Let’s tell the fools that there’s only so much energy in the galaxy, and that our fair share is still high, by historical standards.
Dr. Willis Watless: What!? That doesn’t make any sense.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That’s why I like it. It has some phrases that sound meaningful, like “energy in the galaxy”, “fair share” and “historical standards”. Those are deep, meaty phrases that can mislead nearly any field beast.
Dr. Willis Watless: Well, when you put it that way, it does make sense. The phraseology is certainly praiseworthy. But, I’m concerned that the fools just won’t get it. Not that there’s anything to get, you understand, but, well, it’s just so, well, it’s just so completely nondescriptive.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: I like it! It gets across the thought that there’s some impersonal galactic power out there who cares about our “being fair”. I mean, if we could spend some more time on that, we could humanize the need for “balance in deep space”. That would confuse ten or fifteen percent of the fools so much that we could tax ’em like crazy.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: “Balance in deep space” is good. So is “galactic fairness”. How about this: “If we don’t stop global warming, we’ll wreck the vital energy balances in deep space. That wouldn’t be fair to our interplanetary neighbors.”
Dr. Willis Watless: But, Brenda, no one knows if we have any interplanetary neighbors!”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: W’al, the way Ah sees it is that it don’ matter much iffin we gots any innerplannery naybors er not. Iffin we did haf, it’d only be fair to treat ’em square. Cain’t do that iffin we’s piggin’ up more’n ahr fair share of ennergy.
Dr. Willis Watless: I never thought of that! It doesn’t matter if there are other people in the galaxy. The “fair” thing to do is to imagine that there are, and treat them, well, the way we’d like to be treated.
Dr. Walter Weasell: It’s like the Golden Rule, applied to things that may not exist. Why, it’s better’n Christianity. None of them ever thought of this, that’s for sure!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: WE STILL NEED MORE LIES TO COUNTER WHAT THE THERMOMETERS ARE TELLING THE FOOLS. THERE HAVE BEEN RECORD COLD TEMPERATURES ALL OVER THE WORLD, AND THE BRIGHTER FIELD BEASTS ARE NOT TAKING GLOBAL WARMING SERIOUSLY.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: They be gettin’ it offin der innernet. All kinds of crazies out there, tellin’ the truf.
Dr. Walter Weasell: We need some lies about how all those “truth” people are trying to destroy the higher reality. Sure, Global Warming may not be exactly right in some insignificant details. Admit it’s a fact that the world is getting colder. Tell ’em that it now turns out that the solar cycles cause global temperature change. Then, say, “So what?”
Dr. Willis Watless: But, wouldn’t that just make them turn against us?
Dr. Bobby Brownout: That’s right. Walter, I don’t understand how we can use truth as a way to justify our lies.
Dr. Walter Weasell: It’s important to get them thinking about nonsense. What we do is tell them, “The world is actually getting colder, which is why the people who believe in Global Warming know that it’s vitally important to prepare for the next warming cycle. By cutting back our energy usage, we’ll get used to the cold tempratures. Freezing weather won’t bother us at all. It’s important for all of us to pretend the earth the earth is getting warmer, when it’s really getting colder, because that’s the best way to get ouselves so toughened up that we’re independent of the solar system’s powerful forces. We want to be “able to take it”, and this, our leaders say, is the best way.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Walter, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Or, maybe, the smartest. The only thing I like about it is that the words seem to follow each other in some sort of seemingly logical order. Maybe it’s good that the entire notion is ridiculous.
Dr. Willis Watless: It’s perfect for AM radio. All those people driving around really aren’t concentrating very much on what’s being said. The only thing they’ll remember is that they want to be “tough” and “able to take it”.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Well, it is a lie, and we’re in business to invent lies, and business is good. I’d call it a “filler” lie, you know, one that takes up brain space and provides a certain amount of confusion.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah figger a lot uf pipple’ll beeleeve it. Most of guys wants ter be reel tuff guys, ‘n we’ll be keepin’ ’em tuff. All them pipple what’re alla time jumpin’ inter frizzen laks, pertendin’ they’s lak walruses ‘n polar ba’rs, they’ll like it, even iffin they won’ beeleeve it.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We could develop a lie about “flash points”. Tell the fools that, “The world is getting colder, but only because the subsurface warming is hidded. When the temperature reaches exactly the right point, a planetary “thermal inversion” occurs, and the temperature will automatically go up fifty degrees in a week.
Dr. Walter Weasell: That means the ice caps would melt in a month! Florida would be underwater! The world, as we know it would come to an end.
Dr. Willis Watless: We’ve got to be prepared. We should have a whole series of “We’ve got to be prepared” Lies. You know, molten pieces of the sun slamming into the Pacific Ocean, and boiling it away. Take a lot of people to prepare for a disaster like that.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: “Be prepared!”, why, the importance of being prepared introduces a whole new possibility of lies that’ll take up countless hours of tv and radio. And, it’ll fill up the few newspapers and magazines left.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah figgers we outen ter be prepared fer the moon ter fall raht inter the earf. Be lak gettin’ hit wiffin a huge cue ball. Need sum pipple ter study it.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: How do we tie that in with Global Warming?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah dunno. Mebbe tell the fiel’ beasts that when der earf get wurmer, der magnetical poles gets reel strong. Then, the innerplaneterry magnetical attrakshun’ll mos’ likely pull the moon rah inter der earf. Ka-Pow! Get sum cartoons. Scare the kids reel good, even iffin it din’ do much else.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That’s a wonderful connection. Do magnets get stronger when they get warmer?
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I think they do, “especially if the conditions are right.”
Dr. Walter Weasel: Then, we can have all sorts of lies about what would make the “good conditions”. Almost anything could. Too much driving around. Too many cars on the streets. Too many planes in the sky. Too few whales eating tons of plankton every day in the oceans. Anything we don’t like becomes a “bad condition” that may turn the earth into a “super magnet” that will pull the moon right into it at a high speed.
Dr. Willis Watless: Bright lights could trigger reactions in the magnetosphere that would be so powerful that they would affect the magnetic structure of the earth, the sun, and all the planets.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Ohhhh, I like that! Lets have some smart flunkies come up with some lies about how “The electromagnetic spectrum is very susceptible to suddenly increasing in power, especially when atmospheric electron flows are excited by excess nighttime light.”
Dr. Dick Dudewell: ‘N iffin the magnetotrons, ‘ur wha’ever they are, gets too p’w’ful, they cain’t h’ep but draw der moon smack inter us. Then, let’s get der fools tryin’ ter figger out which side of the earf it’s better ter be on iffin we gets us a big moon-smack.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Great idea! The fools love to think about stuff like that. Makes ’em feels they’s reel smart.
Dr. Willis Watless: Brenda, you’re starting to sound more and more like Dr. Dudewell. Have you been spending a lot of time at his ranches.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: Not near as much as Ah’d like!
NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: WE HATE TO INTERRUPT THIS FASCINATING DIALOGUE, BUT WE HAVE INSTRUCTED DR. DICK DUDEWELL TO ACQUAINT YOU WITH AN INTRIGUING LIE THAT WAS JUST DEVELOPED BY THE MEDICAL LIE COMMITTEE.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Ah has ter say, Ah’m plum’ honored ter be able ter tell y’all ’bout this here lie. Wha’ we figgered is, w’al, we culd have sum of wha’ we calls “Involuntary Amputations” ter he’p make t’ings wurse fer the fiel’ beasts.
Dr. Walter Weasel: This sounds exciting!
Dr. Willis Watless: Yes! “Involuntary Amuptation”! It has not end of possibilities. Well, it must have an end, somewhere, since they only have so many things we can remove, but, still. . . .
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: I like it, already. For THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE to have jetted Dr. Dudewell to our meeting shows that they think it’s important!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Well, Dick, what’s this all about? We’re all just dying to know.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: We shore are!
Dr. Dick Dudewell: W’al, over at the Medical Lies Committee, we figgered that iffin we wuz ter have the fiel’ beasts have their legs cut off, ‘n we didn’ know whar’s ter cut ’em off, ‘sactly, whether at the knee or the hip, they’d take up lots less space. THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE must have figgered that thar’d be sum environmentally sound concurns y’all culd wurk on.
Dr. Walter Weasel: Why, that’s a brilliant idea! We could replace their legs with, oh, I don’t know, roller platforms.
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Think how much energy they’d need, if they each lost thirty or forty pounds of legs. We could have some smart flunkies figure it out. If they weighed less, they wouldn’t eat so much. Save all kinds of dangerous stress on cornfields and places like that.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: Just think! Their cars could be a lot smaller. Wouldn’t need anything bigger than a go-cart. That would save trillions of gallons of precious fossil fuel.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Over at the Medical Lies Committee, we figgered their rooms culd be a lot smaller, since the ceilin’s could be lots lower. We thought that would help the environment!
Dr. Walter Weasel: That’s true! Why, if we could cut them off at the hips, they’d only be three feet tall. Every house, every apartment, and every office could have a four foot ceiling. We could put twice as many of them in every room they have.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: That would really help the environment! No more wasted fuel heating all those useless spaces overhead! Why, we could save trillions!
Dr. Bobby Brownout: Well, we’d keep the utility bills high, just to make sure that we’re draining them as much as possible, but, still, we’d be able to heat twice as many people with the same amount of fuel. Ought to leave a trillion or so a year for THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE to invest.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Y’all figger the fiel’ beasts’ll go ‘long wiffin this? What iffin they fights ’bout it? Mebbe, reevolts, er sum’thin’ lak that?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: That might really irritate them. Maybe, we could just cut the legs off the poor ones. Make the rest of them pay for a “Leg License,”
Dr. Walter Weasel: Heck, make ’em pay for two Leg Licenses. One for each leg. It’s the only fair way to do it.
Dr. Willis Watless: I agree, Walter. They should have to get a license for each leg. Then, they shoud have to renew it every year. Unless they decided to get with it, and “go legless”.
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: I just can’t understand why we never thought of this, before. I mean, it’s so obvious! What better way is there to save the environment than utilizing Involuntary Amputation to reduce the fool’s carbon footprints?
Dr. Dick Dudewell: Tha’s what they said, over at the Medical Lies Comm’tee. Said them fiel’ beasts’d have hardly no carbon footprints at all, once’t they couldn’t walk er run er need great big cars ‘n houses, ‘n high ceilings wh’ar they lived. ‘Specially, they won’ haf much uv a carbon footprint iffin they don’ gots no feets.
Dr. Walter Weasel: We need a squad of smart flunkies, fast! We’ve got to be able to give ’em reasons to make ’em think it’s a worthwhile investment in the future to get rid of their legs.
Dr. Willis Watless: Walter, first we have to decide if we want to cut ’em off at the knees or at the hips.
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: We’ll get more work, and more funding, if we do both.
Dr Willis Watless and Dr. Walter Weasel in unison: Huh? How we gonna do both, Timmy?
Dr. Timmy Peedymeter: The first go’round, we tell ’em that our “scientific investigators” have discovered that “the sustainability requirements are such that all human beings need to be at least a foot and a half shorter.” After we’ve cut ’em all off at the knees, then we say, “Due to cosmic forces beyond our control, sustainability levels have changed dramatically. It is now necessary for all human beings to be more than two feet shorter.”
Dr. Brenda Bigohm: So, we re-amputate. That’s wonderful, Timmy! It means that all our doctors will get to do double amputations, two on each field beast. You know how happy more billable house make them!
Dr. Walter Weasel: How do we keep from having our own legs amputated? Not that I’d mind, of course. I will do everything necessary to preserve the environment. Still, I do like to get around on my own.
Dr. Dick Dudewell: All us Lie Committee members’d be ‘xempted frum havin’ ter be shortened. We needs ter be reel far-sighted, so’s we kin help ’em better.