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This Just In From the Red Planet Express

Gregg EasterbrookPosted Tuesday, Dec. 7, 1999, at 12:48 PM ET

BARSOOM--Government officials said today they had conducted a second straight successful test of an anti-missile system that forms a key component of the Martian Defense Initiative, a favored project of the X!@888 administration. "Those bleeding tentacles in the legislature won't have any choice but to fund the MDI now," said administration spokespod X#%999. "We've shown that the system works."

Pods close to the MDI project said that the test had been launched toward "yet another free target that the Earthlings supplied us." They expressed amazement that Earth governments, which have "mysteriously lost" five of the last six spy devices sent toward the Peace Planet, still don't realize what's going on. "It seems as though our chief infiltration agent, KenSta555, has done an excellent job of causing diversionary chaos in the Earth political system," X#%999 said. "In fact, his bio-drone agent MonicaLew222 might have succeeded in bringing their whole government down, if it had not been for our lack of knowledge of human mating rituals."

E-mail Timothy Noah at .

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Gregg Easterbrook is a fellow at the Brookings Institution. His most recent book is The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse.
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