(2007-03-27) — Iran announced today that it would release immediately the 15 British soldiers and marines it took hostage last week to avoid further “cordial pressure and devastating pleasantries” from British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“In this test of wills,” said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “we acknowledge the superior power of the adversary. We cannot withstand another onslaught of polite diplomatic language nor the withering, if unspoken, consternation we detect in the eyes of Tony Blair.”

A spokesman for Mr. Blair said, “Tyrants like Ahmadinejad, and the radical Mullahs who prop him up, understand only one thing: swift, targeted courtesy. And though we were reluctant to overreact to this little dust up, the Iranian leader now knows we mean business.”

The British Prime Minister’s spokesman added, “Our patience is virtually unlimited, but not infinitely unlimited. That’s why Iran blinked. They could see a day coming when the talking would stop, and we would reach into our arsenal of UN resolutions to consider more sanctions.”

Scott Ott will appear on The Mike Koolidge Show just after 6 p.m. (Eastern) today (3/26/07) to talk about John Edwards’ presidential campaign, Elizabeth Edwards cancer and the story Mr. Ott wrote for ScrappleFace.com about that.

The show, on WRHL 1060AM in Chicago, streams live online. Part of the interview will later be posted to the audio archives.

(2007-03-26) — A new Rassmussen poll shows 24 percent of respondents believe that Oscar-winning documentarist Al Gore is an expert on global climate change, while 49 percent believe he’s in his second term as president of the United States.

In other survey findings, 57 percent say Mr. Gore is “dreamy”, 74 percent think he could win Dancing with the Stars if paired with former Attorney General Janet Reno, and 52 percent believe he could “stomp Sanjaya” on American Idol by singing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

(2007-03-26) — Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-NE, this weekend charged President George Bush with being “too dimissive” of Congressional opponents to his Iraq policy.

Mr. Bush responded by saying, “My opponents have as much chance of bringing peace and freedom to Iraq as Chuck Hagel has of winning the Republican nomination for the presidency.”

(2007-03-26) — Scientists at the University of Nevada announced yesterday they have created a sheep that has 15 percent human cells, with internal organs that are half human.

U.S. President George Bush warned of the unintended consequences of “scientists playing God,” but added that such technology could help explain the recent behavior of “some of our friends in Congress.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, could not be reached for comment. A spokesman said Sen. Reid was busy lining up Democrat votes for a symbolic resolution condemning the president’s remark.

(2007-03-25) — A source close to Dick Cheney said today that the vice president has suggested freeing 15 British sailors and marines from Iranian captivity by trading former President Jimmy Carter for the hostages.

The deal, which Mr. Cheney reportedly believes “has a certain poetic justice to it”, would require an executive order signed by President George Bush, but the unnamed source said presidential adviser Karl Rove “can take care of that as usual without bothering the president with the details.”

White House insiders said the trade would not violate the Bush administration’s policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists, “since only one party in this deal would receive anything of strategic value.”

(2007-03-25) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that his forces took 15 British sailors and marines as hostages for “peaceful purposes,” and that no other nation has the right to determine whether Iran can “develop and test kidnapping technology.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad also accused the British and U.S. governments, who have protested the incident, of “interfering with long-standing cultural traditions in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

“We are a people who value the capture and detention of westerners,” said Mr. Ahmadinejad. “Our great Islamic revolution achieved world prominence more than 25 years ago when we held 52 Americans for 444 days. So hostage-taking is a sacred rite among us, and a solemn obligation.”

The Iranian leader added, “We do not expect narrow-minded godless monsters like Tony Blair and George Bush to understand our peaceful religious culture, but we insist that they respect it.”

(2007-03-23) — The Pentagon today admitted that, due to the Bush administration’s hugely unpopular war in Iraq, desertions from the Army have increased in each of the last two years, reaching almost 75 percent of pre-war levels.

According to a story in The New York Times, citing a National Public Radio report, the Pentagon has miscalculated desertion figures in recent years, in part because the Defense Department inexplicably misplaced personnel records during what officials called an “isolated incident at the office” on September 11, 2001.

With demoralized soldiers bolting the service at rates approaching the peace-time average — and almost 30 percent of the Vietnam war era average — Pentagon officials failed to offer a plan to halt what one reporter called “an exodus of Biblical proportions”.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, said she was not alarmed by the number of Army desertions.

“When Democrats say ‘We support the troops’,” Rep. Pelosi said, “these are the troops we’re talking about.”

(2007-03-23) — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who narrowly escaped death yesterday when terrorists detonated a rocket within 50 meters of him during a news conference, today ordered U.N. armed forces to mass outside of Baghdad for an all-out assault on the city, adding “this time it’s personal.”

“I used to think the so-called insurgents just wanted an end to the U.S. occupation of their country, so they could live in peace,” said Mr. Ban. “But they nearly killed the world’s leading peace emissary. These people are fanatics bent on the destruction of modern civilization so they can rule the world with their evil ideology.”

Mr. Ban said blue-helmeted U.N. troops would team up with Iraqi army and police units as well as U.S. forces “to scrub this town with a Brillo pad” and achieve “peace through superior fire power.”

“We’ll fight them in the streets,” he said. “We’ll fight them on the rooftops. We’ll fight them in the falafel shops. We will never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up.”

A unnamed U.N. spokesman warned al Qaeda, Iran, Syria and the various terror militias against underestimating the U.N. chief’s resolve.

“When he wants something to go away,” the source said, “it goes away. They don’t call him Mr. Ban for nothing.”

However, he added that the assault on the city may be delayed for some months to give time for U.N. troops to receive offensive weapons, and training in how to use them.