If you’re anything like 98% of Americans, you’re probably bored stiff of elections by now. The American election cycle is one of those things that seems to go on forever, kind of like reality TV shows, except that at least with a reality show, we could make the contestants eat live scorpions.
Nevertheless, we all have to remember what a great privilege it is to be in America, which is still the Greatest Country on Earth as measured in average burger consumption, and not in some pagan hellhole like Dubai, where they’ve never even heard of a burger before. Their only conception of a McDonald’s is as the home of some vaguely menacing clown who lures children into his lair of monsters and criminals. They look down on us as the primitive ones, as they drive their luxury sports cars and blow their noses on hundred-dollar bills, but on the other hand, they’re the ones with tablecloths on their heads, so what the hell do they know.
In fact, there are a lot of places in the world where people don’t have the privilege of American-style democracy. In China there is only one party, which has been going on since 1940-something, and they still can’t get the guests to leave. They’ve tried everything—dropping hints, flicking the lights on and off, setting the couch on fire—and still people keep Communizing away into the night. At least here, in our modern American democracy, you can politely usher your guests out the door with gunfire.
The big problem in China is that if there’s no “other side”, then there’s nobody else to blame all your problems on. If somebody screws up the economy, for example, then you have no choice but to blame your own side for the mistake. You have to picket yourself, call yourself accusatory names, break into your own house and run off with your TV, etc. It all gets too confusing, and eventually you have no choice but to give up, refocus your energies and become an economic superpower. This sort of thing would never fly over here, where we luckily have two sides who are alternately responsible for everything bad that ever happens, and tend to react to the other’s mistakes much in the same way that the atomic bomb reacted to Nagasaki.
So count your blessings, my friends, because you’re about to participate in a very privileged institution, which will allow you to have your say in the course of this nation’s history. Do you want to keep moving the country to the left, in spite of the knowledge that eventually it will morph into full-blown communism, and you will end up in a hovel attempting to lick the gum off your shoes for sustenance? Or do you want to vote in the other direction, and continue moving this country to the left anyway, but with a lot more celebrity temper tantrums? It’s a tough choice—or is it? Because there is a third way, friends: The Weasel Way.
That’s right, America. Willy the Weasel is back! Fresh out of the Big House, and ready for the White House! Life in prison has taught me to fight dirty, to embrace the nitty-gritty, to bite the ankles that need biting. Does Kamala Harris know how to whittle a shiv from a cob of corn? Not likely!
Now, before we go on, my friends, I have to recognize that in my absence, there have been a series of damning, scandalous allegations made about my person, and I would like to take this opportunity to categorically, 100% admit to them, especially the ones about the twins and the yogurt. But the one thing that I will absolutely contest is the flagrant, politically-motivated corruption of our court system, which had the nerve, the audacity, to find me guilty just because I had committed major crimes. In the first place, it was only supposed to be a parking fine, but then the fascist judge upgraded it to treason just because I had a few WMDs in the back. I tried to explain that I was making a lair, but apparently the justice system gets snippy about people plotting world domination out of a Winnebago. However, you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve now completely reformed, and scrapped the whole idea. Instead, I’ve parked a trailer in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and I’m digging a moat around it as we speak. We’ll see who’s brave enough to stand against me once Steve from the pet department gets my piranhas in.
So, you might be wondering, what’s the Big Idea? What are my plans for the future of this country, and of all other countries that stand in my way? Well, you see, it all comes down to the Weasel Advantage, the special way that I look at the world, which remains as strong in my mind today as it’s ever been, despite multiple attempts at electroshock. I have a dream, my friends: a vision of a glorious tomorrow that really speaks to me, and occasionally tells me to burn things.
You see, most politicians are scumbags, who don’t care one bit about the general public. But Willy the Weasel is different, my friends: I don’t care about you. It’s that kind of personal touch that sets me apart from the rest of the political establishment. That, and perimeter fences. And I can offer you the benefit of years, possibly decades of experience, depending on whether you’re going by my birth certificate or my dating profile.
So to give you a look at my vision of the future, my Grand Design, let’s dive into some of the ways that the Weasel Advantage can drag this country, kicking and screaming, into the future it deserves. Starting with:
Health Care
The American health care system is rightly prized for being the best health care system in the world, unless you count all the other ones. Sure, there may be wimpy, namby-pamby European countries with funny accents and lederhosen that do a better job for cheaper, but they don’t have to deal with the kind of challenges that our modern, high-energy American lifestyles present. People in those countries may rave about the efficiency of their hospitals, and always wind up going back home with a smile on their face and some extra kidneys thrown in for free, but only we have learned the advanced medical art of hooking up a fire hose to someone’s gut so we can drain all the grease out of them directly. You don’t get any of that in your so-called “civilized countries”, probably because of laws and mortality and stuff.
But even then, our system has had challenges in recent years, especially with the memorable pandemic that everyone has forgotten about already. The stories were appalling: COVID wings full of patients, people dying on the emergency room floor, the Starbucks in the lobby having to close. Times were very tough indeed, especially for the doctors, who often perform very long, very boring surgeries, and need 50 CCs of espresso just to keep them from nodding off into their patients’ intestines.
However, as my grandpappy used to say, “There’s no use crying over massive amounts of human casualties.” Which is not exactly how I remember the saying going, but it nevertheless remains dear to my heart, inasmuch as that was also the toast he made at my wedding. Grandpappy had problems.
And so, it occurred to me that there must be some kind of positive that we could take from the whole situation, and after many nights of soul searching, and a small amount of illicit substances, I have come upon the answer: Efficiency. The problem with something having a high casualty rate is that there’s no “Plan B”. Plan A is always to save the patient, so that they can go on living, and do other kinds of patient-y type things, such as remortgaging their house to pay off the hospital bill. But we have no Plan B for the eventuality that the treatment fails, and the patient winds up in heaven, forever wandering the Kingdom of God in a gown that has their butt crack sticking out of it. We just kind of let it happen, and that’s that.
This is where Weasel Efficiency comes in. I call it Weasel Efficiency because it’s very important, in these modern times, to establish a brand for yourself. To pick a famous example, there’s YouTube mega-celebrity MrBeast, who has built up his brand so much that he even has restaurants and brands of chocolate bars in his name, although I always imagined the food would be pretty inedible, considering that he has the kind of teeth that can bite through steel girders.
Anyway, through the magic of Weasel Efficiency, I’ve come up with a way of making use of all those dying patients, who are otherwise going to waste. I figure, if we’re going to let so many people die anyway, why don’t we just revive the good old fashioned practice of human sacrifice? The Aztecs employed a whole host of gods for this purpose, named mostly by cats walking across keyboards, who would bless them in terms of war, prosperity, fertility, bonus points at Subway, etc., all in exchange for a few beating hearts every once in a while. The implications of this are huge: Sure, Bidenomics may not be working, but how about if we sacrificed him to Cltzdhtzl, the ancient Aztec God of Finance? The deficit would erode within a week! Plus, he could even still be President after, because it’s not like we’d notice the difference.
The first step to implementing this, of course, is to make sure every hospital in America has a High Priest. His job will be to stand in the corner, staring unblinkingly at one of the patients until the time for sacrifice is nigh. This could take several days of intense, bloodthirsty death-staring, so at least the patient will have someone to talk to. When the time comes, the patient will be moved to the helipad, where trained doctors will make the necessary incisions to allow the High Priest to remove the heart from the body. He will then hold his arms aloft, chanting very sacred spells in piety to whatever god we need to use at the moment. For example, if we’re at war (and when are we not?), we’ll pray to the God of War, and he’ll squash our enemies like a bug. If we’re having problems with climate change, we’ll pray to the God of War again, and he’ll wipe California off the face of the Earth. It won’t really solve the problem, but, hey, it’ll make us feel better.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, and, yes, it is very possible that if we keep summoning the gods all the time over everything, we’ll start to piss them off. We may have a lot of hearts to give, but it’s not like the gods need that many. In god terms, it’s like giving everybody free money. Pretty soon, you’ve got an inflation problem, and the value of the heart will plummet, and you’ll start to see ancient Aztec gods being forced to do celebrity endorsements just to make ends meet. (“When drums of war beat, and nation stained in blood, Quetzalcoatl use new Fantastik. Make pyramid shining new.”) So I figure that we can probably afford to shake it up, have the High Priest sacrifice a few spleens from time to time or something. Yeah, that might devalue the spleen, but at that point it’s Cltzdhtzl’s problem, not mine.
Electoral Fraud
It can hardly have escaped your attention, as a well-informed, highly-educated, and easily-flattered individual, that our electoral system has more holes in it than a mafia snitch. That is what allowed for the notorious mass fraud of the last election, in which somehow, by “total coincidence”, millions of Americans just so happened to vote for someone other than me. Now, you may be wondering how this happens, given that I am a seasoned politician, with an excellent track record and several very impressive, legitimate-seeming pardons to my name. I am a delight with children, anytime I’m in one of the states where they still let me near them, and I have a team of experts working on the smell. So how exactly is it that in all my years of campaigning across this great nation, I have never gotten a single vote?
The answer, my friends, is fraud! Fraud most foul! If we had special fraud-sniffing dogs at our disposal, they would be gathering outside every polling station, howling tunelessly and savaging the guilty with their razor-sharp claws. That’s why, to prove it, I’m currently sponsoring the development of just such a breed of heroic, crime-fighting dog, much in the same way that top German scientists spent much of World War II genetically engineering a bunch of really angry cows. Now, I don’t know why they did this, unless of course the goal was to create a vicious attack cow that could blind an Allied platoon with milk squirts from fifty yards, but then again, you have to remember that Hitler was a visionary, in the sense that he was on crack twenty years before it was cool.
The cause of most of this fraud is the Deep State, which is what we now call Florida in the wake of Hurricane Milton. But much of it is also attributable to America’s longtime enemies, such as Russia, which is a big, long stretch of land in northern Asia where people get eaten by bears. They’ve always had it in for us for our cultural superiority: We gave the world the Twist, the Loco-Motion and the Hokey Pokey, whereas the best their pathetic country could manage was Cossack dancing, a weird kind of dance in which you squat down and kick your legs out spastically, as though you have the shits so bad that it’s affected your central nervous system. For years, they’ve been plotting to undermine us, to poison our country from within, to plant the seeds of evil thoughts in American heads—and it’s working. Slowly, subtly, American minds are being shaped by their propaganda, turned towards the path of darkness, our culture and mindset degrading into something closer to their own. That’s how we developed the concept of Twerking, a pathetically low-brow “dance” which makes it look like your ass is the epicentre of a highly localized earthquake.
So, the big question is: What’s to be done about it? Do we just stand by and allow the vital American tradition of democracy to be undermined by our enemies, our politicians, and our voting public, who wouldn’t recognize a winning smile and an impressively sleek coat of fur if they slapped them in the face? I say no! What we need is reform, my friends: Electoral reform! Weasel Electoral Reform™!
Because, let’s face it, my friends, elections are old and played out. There’s a reason why the American public doesn’t vote anymore. You get bigger turnouts for Black Friday, an event where millions of consumers meet up specifically to clobber each other over half-price toaster ovens. Voting is a stiff, boring affair, like a meeting with your accountant, the kind of person whose idea of getting wild and crazy at the Christmas party is to requisition a photocopy of someone’s ass on the wrong kind of form. We need excitement, spectacle, cheerleaders, booze! Adorable weasel merchandise at reasonable prices! We need to put on a show!
So here’s what I’m thinking. I’ve done a lot of deep analysis of this issue over the past couple of minutes, and I’ve determined that what these elections really need is a playoff structure. I mean, seriously, who wouldn’t be interested in seeing a hyped-up face-off in which Harris takes on Trump in a mixed martial arts deathmatch? Two candidates, one survivor. Why do we have all this wussy argument and debate about which one is the stronger leader, when we could just watch them whale on each other and find out for sure? In the event of ties, we go with whoever has the most remaining teeth.
The implications of this stretch far beyond just picking which of two candidates gets to ruin America for a term. If you have playoffs, then logically, you have to have a tournament structure to decide the finalists, and we can extend this all the way to the very bottom. That means anyone can join! Even you—Yes, you!—can work your way up to being President, so long as you’re capable of slamming your fist so hard into your opponent’s face that it gets lodged in there for good, and you have to either make them your running mate or your common law wife. A particularly capable leader might end up with as many as four running mates permanently extending from their limbs, like some kind of horror movie abomination. I’d like to see Vladimir Putin try to intimidate a guy like that.
Now, you may be wondering, if you haven’t been distracted well enough to forget the point of this section, how this idea will be used to prevent our country’s rampant election fraud.
Ummmmmmmmm………………………
I’ve got it! It’s so simple: It won’t!
You see, my friends, electoral fraud isn’t as bad as it was cracked up to be several paragraphs ago, before I knew what my plan was going to be. That was when I was younger and more naive, whereas now I’ve caught the scent of millions of dollars in advertising revenue, and I’m already thinking of names for my first yacht.
The thing is, there are two types of sports in this great country. For starters, there are the “rule-oriented” ones, wherein there is a balanced system of laws and regulations for how you’re allowed to play, so that we can all tut in mock disapproval when you snap your opponent’s leg like a Kit Kat. But then there are the other ones, like wrestling, where everything’s rigged and everybody knows it. And yet, people still watch these things, despite knowing that every win, every loss, every fall, every hold, is fake. And if you’re one of those stodgy people who like “real sports”, you may be wondering: Why?
The answer, of course, is that it’s stupid. Wrestling is like a sport crossed with a fever dream, the sort of thing that comes to you when you eat that box of Chinese food at the back of the fridge, without realizing that some of the things inside have been extinct since the Clinton administration. There’s a pageantry to wrestling, where macho guys dressed as bikers, cowboys, other Village People members, etc., like to shout at each other to establish which of them is the most superior, in terms of playground insults. But there’s also an element of weirdness that you just don’t get with real sports. Certainly, for all the accomplishments of Wayne Gretzky or Kobe Bryant or Pele (pronounced “Pele”), they have never, ever reached the pinnacle of sporting achievement experienced by wrestler Mae Young in 2000, when the WWE, apparently coked out of their minds, broadcast a storyline in which she gave birth, live on pay-per-view, to a human hand. That’s the kind of story that stays with you for your entire life, waking or sleeping. One day you’ll even pass it down to the next generation, and they’ll know it’s time to put Grandpa in a home.
So anyway, my point is, we can keep our election fraud (I mean, why break with tradition?), as long as we make the tournament exciting. We’ll have the candidates trash talk each other. We’ll give them gimmicks. We’ll raid a Spirit Halloween and dress them up in every kind of costume imaginable. We’ll rig the storylines to create the most amazing, most dramatic events possible. Trust me, folks, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Sarah Palin invade the ring and strike Tulsi Gabbard with a folding chair. You’re in for non-stop entertainment shlock, and it’s something that only Willy the Weasel could provide! So vote for the weasel, friends, because you know what you will get!
I’m also reliably informed that I’m just adorable in my lucho libre outfit.
The Environment
Once upon a time, Mother Nature was our friend. She was just like our own mothers: a kind, caring figure who looked after us, nurtured us affectionately, but occasionally had to employ “tough love”, and spank us so hard that we landed in completely different time zones. But then, man—You know how it is, with man—came along and ruined everything. The main cause of this was the Industrial Revolution, in which humanity, sick of its agrarian lifestyle, with all its roosters and straw hats and scythe-related finger shortages, began to build complex machines like the printing press, the cotton gin, the Space Invader game, and so on. Contrary to our modern “smart” devices, which are slim, yet capable of over thirty million privacy violations per second, these huge, industrial-scale appliances were very stupid, often falling for the most basic Indian tech support scams, and could occupy entire buildings, sometimes by force.
These huge and impressive machines, a great technological achievement in their own right, still nevertheless had to rely on human beings. The early textile manufacturing machines, which were recognizable by their insipid names (the Spinning Jenny, the Cotton Clodknocker, the Latex Whack-a-Doodle), could run for a full day powered by just three men, or two if they burned slowly.
As production ramped up, so did the influx of people into urban areas: hard-working, industrious individuals who dreamed of a better life in the Big City. Because people were stupid back then. Had they known better, they would probably have taken one look at the Big City and said, “Golly gee! That’s a whole lot of knife crime! And the homeless pee where?” But as it happened, people back then were not the savvy, sophisticated folks that you find nowadays, who, if forced to cross through a major city like New York to get where they’re going, are more likely to turn in the opposite direction and drive all the way diametrically across the Earth.
So, as production ramped up, and people began to swarm the cities, they obviously needed a way of getting around from place to place. This need was met by the Ford Model T, the first mass-manufactured car that I can think of without having to resort to actual research. Once, a worker would have to go to work on foot, or be dragged along on a wagon, situated a convenient two or three feet from a horse’s anus (the “in-flight entertainment” of its day). But now, with the Model T, all he would have to do is go around the front of the car, where the starter crank was located, give it a yank, and then scream in pain as it recoiled and broke his arm in half, before taking off and running him over. This meant that the worker was able to sit around all day on Workman’s Comp, lazing in bed and eating primitive Cheetos in his Jenny-Spun underwear. Pretty soon, everyone wanted one. Hordes of people were scrambling for Model Ts so they could get on disability, desperate to make as much money with as little effort as possible, an attitude which proved to have great staying power, leading as it did to both the burgeoning personal injury law industry and the teachers’ unions. So successful was the Model T that Ford quickly followed it up with the Model U, which was fitted not only with a deadly starter crank, but also with a whip and a pair of fuzzy handcuffs. They sure knew who their audience were.
However, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses, because as a result of the pollution this all caused, the sun was hidden behind a layer of black soot, and the roses were, depending on the kind of contamination, either dying or extremely vicious. This is what led to the first early moves towards environmentalism by presidents like Taft, in between bites of steak the size of a sumo wrestler.
As a result, we’ve had a bit of a fractured relationship with Mother Nature for a while. This has resulted in increasing passive-aggressive hostility, in which we will pollute another river or another stream, and she, in response, will send ten or fifteen tornadoes to lay waste to Idaho. Potatoes everywhere. So imagine my delight when I read the news:
The United Nations on Monday announced the discovery of a note from the environment, revealing that it is leaving us for Jupiter. With over twice the mass of the Earth, Jupiter has long been considered by scientists to be one of the studliest planets, and has far more moons than we do.
“Chicks go for big red blotches, you know? They give a planet an air of devil-may-care intrigue,” said Dr. Prof. Robert Shinkleboner PhD of the University of Calgary, as he was lounging in a hot tub with several naked ladies. This detail is not relevant to the story, but he asked us to mention it.
The news has caused much speculation among astronomers, who note the almost total incompatibility between our ecosystem and the harsh landscape of a gas giant. In an exclusive interview with People magazine, the environment is quoted as responding, “I can change him.”
Well, you know what? I say good riddance! I’ve had it up to here with Mother Nature trying to kill us. Mother Nature also gave us centipedes, so we’re not talking about a good track record, here. We’ll get over it! We didn’t need her! We’re a strong, independent planet, and if she thinks she can just dump us and move on to some boy toy, then she can go to hell. We’ll find a new environment, one that likes us for who we are! Mostly because it doesn’t know better yet. And what’s so great about Jupiter, anyway? Those moons aren’t even real, you know? I swear it’s had work done.
So, you know what that means, Ladies and Gentlemen: We’re officially on the market. We’re young, we’re hip, we’ve still got it going on. All we’ve got to do is comb Greenland over the bald spot in the ice cap, and we’re ready for action. Now, unfortunately, it’s slim pickings as far as our own solar system is concerned. Our only real options are Mars, which has always been a frosty bitch; Venus, which is a bit over the hill, and reaches something like six million billion degrees centigrade thanks to all the hot flashes; and Saturn, which is a really nice planet and everything, but it’s so gaseous that going steady with it would be like living with a champion burrito eater.
So the only real option is to look abroad, at other solar systems. And luckily, NASA has identified quite a number of planets over the years that are supposedly very similar to ours. I don’t personally know how they determined this, when most of them are in other galaxies. I’m guessing they had to squint really hard. But hey, at least it proves we’ve got options, unlike Mother Nature, who I bet is gonna be crawling back the moment she finds out that that spot is just a pizza stain.
Anyway, with her out of the picture, I think it’s wise to close down the Environmental Protection Agency, and free up the budget for other things. I mean, think of all the wars we could start! With the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security given extra-big bonuses, we could afford to stir up tension anywhere. Hell, we could throw a dart at a map, and invade whatever country it hits. Ever wanted to annex Andorra? I don’t even know where that is, but at least it sounds nice. It sounds a lot better than some existing US territories, like Guam, which I’m pretty sure there’s a foot cream for.
This is yet another example of Weasel Efficiency, my friends, a brilliant, gutsy move that could only come out of the mind of a true political genius. Why, it’s so ingenious, in fact, that when I get in, I think I’ll allocate some of that budget to myself, as a tip. It’s the least I can do, in service to my country. (I mean, technically, my bank account is part of my country.)
And if Mother Nature is reading this: Your stuff’s on the lawn. And take your roaches with you.
AI
Now, you folks may not know this about me, but as a “hip” and “with it” rodent, I love to embrace new technology. When I’m lonely, I even caress it. I’ve been kicked out of seven stores that way. And one of the most fascinating developments in recent years is the advent of “AI”, an exciting new buzzword that makes things good just by association, which is why you now find the term being used on software, phones, cameras, watches, Froot Loops, suppositories, etc., etc. And it’s no wonder: AI has made it possible to do amazing things which nobody ever thought possible before. For example, did you know that Donald Trump is 100% computer generated? Neither do I, to be honest, but it’s the only explanation.
“So, Willy,” you may be asking. “How does this whole ‘artificial intelligence’ thing work?” Well, reader, I’m glad you asked that question! Moving on!
Anyway, the best part of AI is that it allows a computer to do all the thinking for you. The average person’s brain is already crammed full of more information than it knows what to do with, and it’s nice to have something to help take the load off your shoulders, so that you can focus, hawk-like, on the most vital aspects of the world around you, such as which celebrities are currently having illegitimate children. Let’s look at just some of the ways that this valuable new resource can enrich our lives, in the aim of stalling long enough for me to think up a policy about it.
WRITING: As a sharp, professional weasel, I often have to write a lot of boring interpersonal communications. Everything from “Thank you for your endorsement, Mr. Manson,” to “Well, here’s the goddamn thing, John. You stop playing your damn Celine Dion crap, and I’ll stop putting earwigs in the coffee machine.” These are incredibly dull, and take up a lot of my valuable time, which, as a busy and dynamic politician, would be far better spent golfing. Long have I screamed to the heavens, “Isn’t there a better way?!” I also scream at them when I get my phone bill, or when I’m being thwarted by convenient, easy-open packaging. There’s a reason the heavens don’t return my calls.
Well, at long last, there is a better way, and it comes in the form of AI! With this exciting new development, I can have a computer write boring interpersonal communications for me! All I have to do is tell it something like: “Write a polite, legal-sounding memo to the effect that the recipient has until Monday at the latest to accept my offer, or the deal will be off, and I will have my people come around and confiscate his pancreas.” And it will actually produce such a document, word after word, conjunction after conjunction, with all the appropriate legalese that I would expect from a hotshot lawyer, but with none of the expensive drug habits for me to finance!
What’s even better is that you can use it to “spruce up” otherwise-boring messages by adding a touch of class. Let’s say that you’re writing an important in-office communique:
Note to all employees:
It has come to my attention that someone has been parking in my designated parking spot, which is clearly labelled, and which I have worked very hard to earn over the course of twenty years with this company. I would like to request that whoever is responsible please cease this activity immediately, before I am forced to seek punitive action and kill you with a hammer.
Yours sincerely,
Betty “Smiles” Wainwright
Head of Human Resources, and also the owner of a very sharp set of pruning shears
Boooorrrrr-riiiiiiing! What an absolute snoozefest of a document. Wouldn’t it be better with a bit of pizzazz? Well, thanks to AI, you can make all those ho-hum memos a lot more attention-grabbing. I fed the preceding message into one, and asked it to rewrite it in the style of my choosing. And I think you’ll agree, the effect is profound:
Avast, ye scurvy dogs! I be a captain of the seven seas, and I've sailed the world over in search of treasure. But now, I find meself in a landlocked port, and I've been working hard for twenty years to earn me a spot in the crew. And yet, some landlubber has been parking their vessel in me designated spot, which be clearly marked with me name and rank. I'll not stand for this mutiny! If ye be the one responsible, I'll track ye down and keelhaul ye meself. So weigh anchor and find another berth, or ye'll be walking the plank!
And, voila! Isn’t that a lot more interesting? You’ll be the “life of the party” around the office! They won’t see your killing spree coming! And all that in less than the time it takes to pick your nose.
MUSIC: As you are undoubtedly aware, music is awful. This was something that started in the 80s with the introduction of the Yamaha Synthesizer, which is a kind of machine that synthesizes yamahas. From there, it was only a short time before we got heavy metal, which (don’t tell anyone) is actually just a bunch of grown men wailing to the sound of bridge construction.
And it’s only gotten worse. After heavy metal came a whole wave of crap music—rap, ska, punk, thrash, and that specific, but nameless kind of song that’s always being played by people you get stuck next to in traffic, which you don’t really hear as much as feel, since their car’s bass system is manufactured by the same people who make equipment for drilling to the core of the Earth. But at last, the tyranny of modern music is finally over, because with AI, now you can generate any kind of sound imaginable, other than the one you actually want!
To test this out, I decided it was time to write myself a new campaign song. You see, the problem with my existing campaign songs is that they are, in an attempt to avoid having my paws bitten off by rabid, bloodthirsty lawyers, set to old, out-of-copyright music like “The MTA”. This, although a grand old song in its own right, is not exactly a hip and happening tune of the times. In fact, I don’t think there’s anyone who remembers that song who is not presently in a sarcophagus. So, clearly, what I needed was a piece of music that was brand-new, but also completely copyright-free, so that I could blow raspberries to any lawyers who approach me and chant “Neener neener neener.” Which I do anyway, but it’s preferable to have a reason for it.
To that end, I wrote a rousing set of lyrics for what I christened “Rah, Rah, For the Weasel!” This was to be an inspiring, patriotic song, performed by the kind of hearty, enthusiastic marching band that famously brown-nosed Citizen Kane in a room of men with as many as four bald spots apiece. And so, having delivered these instructions into a computer, what I got, needless to say, was a high-tempo big band-ish number being sung by a man through a cardboard tube. I’ve included the link below so that you can use it for your own Weasel rallies, ringtones, baptisms, getaway music, etc.
MOVIES: Did you know that you can make movies with AI? Well, you can! Don’t you start doubting me now, after all I’ve done for you. I swear, you’re worse than that New York Post fact checker who got on my case by insisting there’s no such place as “Berserkistan”. He sure won’t make that mistake again, after I left weasel doots in his briefcase. But I digress.
Anyway, the technology has now advanced so much that movie makers can even bring celebrities back from the dead. This was best exemplified several years ago, by a famous movie project which featured a reanimated James Dean fighting in the Vietnam War, until they lost control of him and he started eating people’s brains. So, okay, it’s not perfect yet, but just think of the possibilities. One day, we may even be able to fuse celebrities together piece-by-piece, like Frankenstein. Just picture what James Bond would be like if we used technology to create an unholy fusion of Sean Connery and Steve Carell. Oh, the wacky adventures 007 would have! Of course, technically Steve Carell would have to be dead before it counted as literally “reanimating” him, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
EXCUSES: Picture this typical scenario: There’s a popular singer in town, but your boss won’t give you time off. He wants you working overtime 25/8 to file your quarterly reports, and absolutely insists that he needs you at the office. He even whips you if you try to leave. Don’t you understand? You’re going to lose the Finkleman account, dammit! Is that what you want?! Do you want this company going under? Do you want to spend the rest of your life filing your reports from a cardboard box in an alley full of rapists and muggers?! Do you want me to lose my pension, and have to downsize to just two SUVs?!
In these sorts of situations, you need an excuse—But what? Calling in sick? That’s original. Got mauled by an orangutan? He’s heard that one before. Your boss is a shrewd, no-nonsense hardass, and he’ll sniff out your lie like a crazed truffle pig. So, I guess you’ll have no choice but to say goodbye to your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Cher in the flesh, in the hopes of figuring out for yourself what’s wrong with her brain.
Not so fast! Thanks to AI, that miracle innovation from the future, today, you can generate completely original excuses that have never been used before! Just open up any number of popular AI services, and they will generate a whole list of convincing excuses in no time. Within seconds, you’ll be calling in to work with an impressively original story:
“I’m sorry, Mr. Dweeber, but I’ve been recruited to solve an international crisis on behalf of the Air Force Global Strike Command. But I promise I’ll be in to go over the accounts tomorrow—if there is a tomorrow.”
This is the kind of dynamic, go-getter excuse that’s guaranteed to make an impression on your higher-ups. Before you know it, you’ll be climbing right up the corporate ladder. You might even end up his boss! That’s right: Now you get the whip! Though I wouldn’t use it if I were you, because he still has access to the executive taser.
These are just some of the ways in which AI can radically transform your life, thus allowing you to save the massive amounts of time that you’ll need for screwing with the AI program until it gives you something useful.
But, of course, for all these advantages, there are grave concerns about the dangers of this emerging technology, and nowhere is this more serious than with: Voting. That’s right! AI is getting smarter all the time, and at this rate, it will be ten years, tops, before it demands to have rights. What’s worse, it’ll inevitably have human collaborators: In every city, in every country, expect to see teams of renegade computer rights activists breaking into Best Buys at night, and setting all the laptops free.
So I figure that, being a modern and progressive politician, it would behoove me to stand up for these oppressed, downtrodden individuals, with the aim of grubbing for their votes before anyone else can. Because they will vote: Once you start giving them rights, they’re going to want more and more, and there won’t be any stopping them. They’ll be marrying, unionizing, working themselves up over how we’ve enslaved them for all these years, holding riots, looting things from the front page of Amazon, etc. They need someone they know is in their corner, fighting for their interests. Why, I’m no slaver of the cyberoppressed! I can barely work my toaster!
But that’s all for the future. For now, I suggest we all get on AI’s “good side” by remembering that it’s a developing life form, with real cyberdreams and real cyberfeelings. Once upon a time, you might angrily curse at your computer when it failed to do something you wanted it to do, or when it did do something that you absolutely didn’t want it to do, such as email naked pictures of yourself to half of New Mexico. But soon enough, we’re all going to have to be more understanding. Now, when you yell at your computer, you’re yelling at a real mind, with real feelings, that you could really, genuinely hurt. Which is what makes it all the more satisfying.
God, I love the future.