Ant Farmer's Almanac

GOP Rivals Question Whether Candidate Tim Scott's "Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada" Could Legally Serve as First Lady

"For the last time," said an exasperated Tim Scott, "I never said she lived in Canada, just that we went to different schools."

Nike Knock-Off Introduces "Gym Jordan's" Footwear with Banana Peels Attached to Each Sole

"For the deluxe edition, we're adding a chip that will play a slide-whistle sound effect whenever it detects that one or both shoes are higher than the wearer's buttocks, indicating they've fallen on their ass," said a spokesperson regarding the first release of the company's new "Gym's Shoes" line, "We briefly considered a shoe that lead the wearer to step on the nearest rake but, decided anyone buying these could manage that on their own."

 

Barn Jacket Manufacturers Sue Kerry

Plummeting Sales Spark Lawsuit

FREEPORT, MAINE (Ant Farmer's Almanac Newswire) Several manufacturers of barn jackets like the one John Kerry wore during his 2004 presidential bid have brought a class-action lawsuit against the former candidate. 

In the wake of Kerry's defeat, traditional rivals LL Bean, Land's End and Carhart have joined forces to seek $48 million in compensation for the projected loss in sales of the distinctive outerwear, known as either a "barn jacket" or "field coat" that, until now, has been a perennial favorite, with its 100% cotton canvas shell, corduroy or soft leather collar, button-out liner, flap pocket, adjustable cuffs and roomy bi-swing back. Available in six designer colors. 

"We had huge hopes for this jacket based on the exit polls," said one company's marketing rep, "We saw it as the next big presidential tie-in, like Reagan's jellybeans, Billy Beer or Kennedy's womanizing; now it's about as appealing as Nixon's five o'clock shadow." 

Each company had ramped up production of its jacket in misguided anticipation of a Kerry win and are now stuck with warehouse-fulls of unwanted inventory. "This item is now associated with a loser and nobody wants it," said Carhart's marketing chief. LL Bean is believed to be test-marketing their surplus as the "Blue State Special." 

Cabela's, another maker of rugged outdoor gear (but not involved with the lawsuit), has gone into round-the-clock production of a civilian version of the flight suit George W. Bush wore during his "Mission Accomplished" aircraft carrier landing, prompted by a Robert Novak column reporting that the president will wear the flight suit again at his second inauguration. 

In a related story, a group calling itself "Boardsailors for Truth" claim John Kerry never went sailboarding and that footage of him doing so was digitally altered, "That stuff's so easy to do," said a group spokesman, "Just like with that picture we faked of him with Jane Fonda. . . I mean, uh, surf's up. I gotta go, um, dude!" 

Eleventh-Hour Surge in Mudslinging

It's 527. Do You Know Where Your Campaign Is? 

WASHINGTON, DC (Ant Farmer's Almanac Newswire) On Saturday, Vice President Cheney told an assembled crowd that, if elected, John Kerry would "Return the Louisiana Purchase to France," adding, "But no Texan will have to trade in his Stetson for a beret; not on my watch, not without a fight!" When pressed for the source of this extraordinary claim, Cheney's staffers hastily presented as evidence xerox copies of numerous Kerry speeches in which the words "France", "Louisiana", "Return", and "Purchase" were highlighted with yellow magic marker. Although the four words were never used together in the same speech and are scattered throughout four separate documents, Cheney's spokesman stood firm stating flatly, that, "It's right here in black and white! In his own words! What more proof do you people need, anyway?" 

 

Elsewhere, the pro-Bush 527 group "Veterinarians for Truth" resurfaced. Formed last summer to refute claims that John Kerry had acted heroically in saving the life of his daughters' hamster, their new ad charges that on several occasions Kerry had surreptitiously replaced a dead pet goldfish with a lookalike, hoping that his children wouldn't notice the difference. The ad goes on to imply that Kerry was responsible for the fishes' deaths because he "flip-flopped about how often to change the aquarium water." 

 

In belated response to the growing controversy about the bulge in the back of President Bush's jacket during the debate, White House spokesman Andrew Card blamed acid reflux, saying that not only was it the cause of Bush's poor performance that night but a box of Prevacid misplaced by a junior campaign aide had created the mysterious bulge. 

 

Top 10 Things Transmitted to President Bush During the Second Debate

(with entirely insincere apologies to David Letterman) 

1) The Game 

2) Theme from Rocky 

3) The O'Franken Factor 

4) Tea for the Tillerman 

5) Audio Version of Saddam Hussein's Latest Romance Novel 

   (Narrated by James Earl Jones) 

6) Dunno, but it sure is catchy 

7) Dick Cheney's Feral Noises from Backstage 

8) Brian Wilson's Smile 

9) Dr. Laura's Call Screener's "Hold" Music 

10) Static 

Aaron Burr was Kerry's Top Choice for Vice President

John Edwards Was Actually Kerry's Fourth Choice for VP

NEW YORK (Ant Farmer's Almanac Newswire) The New York Post has published an article claiming that presumptive Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's first choice for a running mate was not, as previously reported, John McCain, Richard Gephardt or John Edwards but former vice president, Democratic party co-founder, political schemer, adventurer, killer of Alexander Hamilton and all-around cad-about-town, the very late Aaron Burr. 

Still stinging with embarrassment from its erroneous headline declaring Richard Gephardt as Kerry's running mate the same day Kerry announced that his choice was John Edwards, the story about Burr is on the editorial page, perhaps to shield it from the kind of scrutiny and fact-checking that a "news" story gets. Indeed, the article glosses over the central fact that Aaron Burr has been dead for 168 years, with only passing mention made of the ". . . DNA gathering, cutting edge cloning science and technology and Photoshopping . . ." necessary for his appearance on a Kerry ticket. 

The story focuses instead on Burr's assets and liabilities as a candidate. On the plus side, the Post finds Burr's ". . . experience, personal charm and first-hand knowledge of what the Founding Fathers really meant by stuff . . ." to be a boost for the Dems. The downside is Burr's long list of political, financial and personal scandals. He was accused of treason in the U.S., thrown out of England while there in exile and, of course, shot and killed Alexander Hamilton, ". . .even after Hamilton had fired into the air, gentleman that he was, believing that Burr would do likewise, thereby settling the dispute in a non-lethal way. He was mistaken, as Burr was, then as now, no gentleman." That and, as the paper reminds its readers, he's been dead since 1836, and would face a sharp learning curve about current events and probably smell awful. 

Despite the original New York Post being founded in 1800 by Alexander Hamilton, the paper's editors insist they ". . . have no axe to grind with his blackhearted assassin," and that their opinions are based solely on what they remember about him from Gore Vidal's 1973 historical novel Burr. 

When approached for a comment about the story, a spokesman for the Kerry campaign stared blankly at this reporter and asked, "Who are you? How did you get in here?" 

Aides close to Dick Cheney reported his disappointment at the lost prospect of facing off with Aaron Burr in Vice Presidential debates, and quote him as saying, "I'd have f***ing wasted him". 

Handover!?! We Meant Andover!

"You thought we said WHAT?" says Scott McClellan.

WASHINGTON, DC (Ant Farmer's Almanac Newswire) To the relief of much of the world, it was realized today that the June 30 "handover" of Iraq was all just a big misunderstanding. 

June 30 is actually the starting date of an American-Iraqi cross-cultural summer program sponsored by Phillips Academy Andover, the renowned Massachussets prep school founded in 1778 and usually referred to simply as "Andover". 

Apparently, it is the school's name that caused the confusion. 

Speaking on condition of anonymity, White House press secretary Scott McClellan stated, "This is obviously a simple misunderstanding that got way out of hand," adding, "I'm not saying that some in the media and in the state department willfully and repeatedly misinterpreted and misrepresented what the president and others said about this fine program Andover is hosting in Iraq, but I think we all know who they are and what their agenda is." 

McClellan went on to explain that the purpose of Andover's summer session in Iraq is "To bridge the gap between America's leaders of tomorrow and the young Iraqis who will someday be doing their bidding." 

The U.S. students will spend six weeks at Andover's Baghdad campus compound, where they will tutor a handpicked group of Iraqi teenagers on the American path to leadership. Seminars will include "The Old School Tie", "Wrinkling khakis ever-just-so", "How to spot an inferior blazer by its buttons", "Talking without moving your jaw", "Squatting to Pee" and "Hazing 101". 

Joseph P. "Skipper" Manley III, student spokesman for the Andover group, said, "These young Iraqi fellows can't be expected to know anything about assuming leadership without the overdeveloped sense of entitlement that only an American prep school education can provide." 

Neither McClellan or anyone associated with Andover would answer reporters' questions about why no literature or information about the program existed before last Friday, and why the parents of some of the Andover students involved didn't seem to know about it at all. McClellan responded sharply, "These are fine, brave Americans sacrificing a crucial part of a summer vacation of their young lives on behalf of their country. I think we owe them a debt of gratitude, not insults and insinuations of political skullduggery." 

Fox News devoted 48 hours of non-stop coverage and commentary to the Handover/Andover contretemps, blasting other media outlets as having once and for all exposed their treasonous liberal bias and bilious hatred of America. A spokesman for Rush Limbaugh said the radio host was withholding comment until he could figure out how it was Hillary Clinton's fault. 

Kerry Threw His Medals "Like a Girl"

WASHINGTON, DC (Ant Farmer's Almanac Newswire) For weeks now, rumors have swirled around the capital about an FBI film showing John Kerry tossing his medals over the fence of the Capital Building at an antiwar demonstration in 1971, and that this film clearly shows that Kerry "Throws like a girl". 

The film has become something of an urban legend and may or may not even exist. The story has it that an undercover FBI agent shot clandestine footage of the demonstration in case any illegal activity took place and law enforcement needed evidence for prosecution. 

None of the dozen-or-so Beltway insiders interviewed had actually seen it themselves, but all of them knew somebody that had and who'd told them about it. In some retellings it was medals thrown and in others ribbons, but all accounts emphasize the limp-wristed, sissy style lob by Kerry. 

Democratic Party activists point to the Bush-Cheney 2004 re-election staff as the source for these rumors, and accuse them of perpetrating a cheap campaign smear. A spokesman for the Bush campaign denied the accusations, saying, "We can do a perfectly good job of character assasination on our own. We don't need any help from the FBI," adding, "Especially not with some out-of-focus, silent, badly lit, grainy black & white 8mm film from 30 years ago." 

Asked how it was he knew that the film was 8mm, black & white, grainy, badly lit, silent and out of focus, the spokesman suddenly heard a phone ringing in another room and had to leave. 

When asked about the film and the furor surrounding it, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan stated that he could "Neither confirm nor deny that such a film exists or whether I've seen it personally," adding with a barely suppressed chuckle, "But if you've ever watched 12-year-old girls play slow pitch softball, it's kinda like that." 

Remembering the Maine Chance

From: The Office of Representative Walter Jones, R-North Carolina 

To: Bob Ney, R-Ohio, Chairman of the Committee on House Administration 

CC: Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, R, Illinois; Majority Leader,Tom DeLay, R-Texas; Majority Whip, Roy Blunt, R-Missouri 

BCC: White House Office of Political Strategy, Karl Rove 

 

RE: Retribution for Spain's recent treachery 

Bobbo, 

As per our conversation this morning, I'm forwarding suggestions for the renaming ("rebranding" as one of my interns put it) of any and all items with the word "Spanish" in them for inclusion in whatever legislation we cook up in retaliation for Spain's withdrawal from the coalition. This won't be a cakewalk like with the French. Spaniards aren't so snotty or insufferable as the French (who could be?), and it'd be hard to top the success of your "Freedom Fries" for verbal snap, but, hey, we can't look this gift caballo in the mouth (ha, ha). I'm told that there is some historical precedent for Spain stabbing America in the back. I'll look into it and let you know if we can use it somehow. 

It's been over a year now (time sure flies, doesn't it?) since we stuck it to the French, and Americans need a fresh reminder that Europe (except England, which isn't really even in Europe if you look at a map, for chrissakes) isn't to be trusted or even, whenever possible, referred to by name. There isn't a damn thing from Spain that we can't make or do 1000% better right here in the U.S of A. Don't get me wrong, I like sangria and tacos as much as the next guy, but we've got to draw a line in the sand. Again. 

I agree, too, that we need to cast our net wider and not restrict ourselves to just renaming things from the menu in the House of Representatives cafeteria like last time. Let's think big, Bob! 

Anyway, we tossed around several possible replacement words for "Spanish", including "Loyalty", "Coalition" and "Patriot" but "Steadfast" was our choice for, my staff tells me, it's subtlety, irony and alliteration. 

Here's a few to start the ball rolling: 

Steadfast Omelette
Steadfast Influenza 

Steadfast Moss 

Steadfast Fly 

Lady of Steadfastness 

(the) Steadfast Inquistion 

(the) Steadfast Civil War 

(the) Steadfast-American War 

(the) Steadfast Armada 

(the) Steadfast Prisoner (I admit that I don't get this last one, myself, but my staffers assure me it's essential) 

In addition to the items above, "tapas" will be renamed "hors d'ouevres, and the insult "Spic" will become "Stead" or maybe "Steader". I would have liked to have a few more, but when I asked my staff why the list was so short, they all got real quiet. I guess they were just tuckered out from all that reading. I know I would be. 

Let me know what you think. I'd like to have this ready to go early next week if possible. We gotta strike while this iron is still hot, hot, hot! 

Regards, Walt 

ps: I know I should cc the Dems about this, but really, would you want to miss the looks on their faces when we introduce this on the House floor? Me, neither. 

Unhinged at Any Speed

Nader Candidacy Prompts General Motors to Bring Back the Chevrolet Corvair 

DETROIT, MI (Ant Farmer's Almanac Newswire) — General Motors is resurrecting the Chevrolet Corvair, made infamous by Ralph Nader's 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed. 

It was Nader's exposé of the auto industry's willful and callous disregard for passenger safety, and the design and engineering flaws of the Corvair in particular, that made him a household name and Chevy's rear-engine compact a thing of the past. 

The announcement that Nader will again run for the presidency is believed to have sparked the plan. 

"If Ralph Nader can be so clueless and irresponsible as to make yet another pointless, Quixotic run at the presidency," said a spokesman for GM, "Then, we contend that it's probable he's been wrong about pretty much everything else he's ever done, including his harsh — and, we believe, terribly unfair — criticism of the Corvair." 

Sporting an air-cooled, rear-mounted engine and styled to evoke the original — in hopes of competing with the retro look Volkswagen Beetle, Chrysler PT Cruiser and Ford Thunderbird — the New Corvair will go other nostalgia-mobiles one better. 

"In the interest of period authenticity, we're dispensing with air bags, shoulder and seat belts, ABS brakes, safety glass, padded dash and steering wheel, crumple zones and reinforced passenger compartment as well as power steering, power brakes, power windows — pretty much power anything, really." said GM's spokesman. "All of this will enhance the retro driving experience," he continued, "Also, we're considering leaving off several nuts and bolts and over-inflating the tires." 

The introductory limited edition New Corvair's standard features will include an 8-track tape player, a metal dashboard with sharp, pointy chrome knobs, asbestos brake pads, and be offered in six "metal-flake" colors — in lead paint — not available since the late sixties. 

GM also announced that it will roll back the safety features of all its 2006 vehicles to 1965 standards.

A spokesman for his campaign dismissed any link between Nader's presidential run and the New Corvair, saying, "This is a cynical grab for free publicity by a desperate car maker scraping the bottom of the Baby Boomer nostalgia barrel." 

GM's spokesman retorted, "If Nader was really all that concerned with the American public's well-being, would he be screwing up another presidential election? We don't think so." 

Vanishing Act

Dubya's Lost Weekends

George W. Bush Was Never AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard — He was on a Top-Secret Special Assignment, Touring with the Rolling Stones! 

Using the very latest in conspiracy theory technology, the Ant Farmer's Almanac has pieced together a compelling and totally plausible scenario explaining George W. Bush's absence from his scheduled National Guard duty weekends (Note to Oliver Stone: The film rights to this speculation are attractively priced): 

The "gap" in George W. Bush's military service — May, 1972 to July, 1973 — closely coincides with the Rolling Stones' North American and Pacific/Australia tour that ran from June, 1972 to February, 1973. 

Our proposition: During George W. Bush's "absence" he was the co-pilot of the Rolling Stones' fabled tour plane (with the legendary "Sticky Fingers" lips logo emblazoned on its tail), having been planted there by high ranking U.S. Government officials to keep an eye on the British rock band and possibly even as an agent-provocateur, encouraging behavior that might cause the band to be arrested, thereby aiding the re-election bid of President Richard Nixon. 

Given the number of creative, cloak-and-dagger-loving dirty tricksters working for Nixon, it's no stretch to imagine that some especially clever CREEPer (Committee to RE-Elect the President) connected the dots between the following disparate facts and came up with a plan convoluted and outlandish enough to make Ian Fleming envious: 

1) J. Edgar Hoover routinely sent FBI agents undercover to infiltrate organizations he deemed subversive. These undercover agents would frequently incite the organization to perform illegal activities intended to lead to members' arrests, and to discredit or neutralize the group. By the early 1970s, hippie peacenik agitators topped Hoover's list of the dangers facing America. 

2) Nixon's need to stroke Hoover — who loathed him — in order to gain access to the FBI files on his political "enemies" thereby gathering enough ammunition to undermine any serious competition in the upcoming election. Major points with his hardcore supporters could also be scored if he could come up with a way to deport some noisy, long-haired, foreign-born troublemakers. 

3) It was on this tour that the Stones first used their own private jet, a McDonnell-Douglass DC-9, rather than regularly scheduled commercial flights, and they needed a flight crew that would pass FAA muster. 

4) The Chairman of the Republican National Committee, George Herbert Walker Bush, had a son, George W., with solid bona fides as both a pilot and a party animal. 

5) It was well known that the Stones' tour would be filmed, and it wasn't all that much of a leap to believe that filmmaker Robert Frank might record — however unintentionally — ample enough evidence of the Stones' drug use and debauchery to allow the U.S. Government to deport them. 

This would explain why there's no record of George W's service in "Alabama," except for pay-stubs (a bonus extra for CREEP that W was already being paid by the Texas Air National Guard), and the forms requesting a transfer. It would also explain why no one in Texas or Alabama saw him the whole time. They couldn't have. He was partying down with the "Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World", while simultaneously spying on them so deeply undercover for the U.S. Government that no file of his daring mission could be allowed to exist. 

But what of the infamous, incriminating film, you ask? The documentary made of the tour, Cocksucker Blues, is virtually banned owing to decades-long lawsuits, court orders and government red tape. Why? According to those who've viewed bootleg copies, the Stones' flight crew frequently partakes in the mile-high debauchery and would have been subject to any criminal prosecution aimed at the band. 

So, why did this brilliant plot fail? Clearly, the flight crew's enthusiastic misbehavior didn't help, but that could have been got around. The bigger question is why there isn't even a rumor of a record of such an intriguing and audacious act of political skullduggery? Hoover died in May, 1972 just as the mission was getting underway. Nixon was soon caught up in Watergate, and whatever files there were on this long-shot sideshow got fed to the nearest paper shredder and any conversations about it became gaps in White House tapes. Bush Sr. went to the CIA and learned how to stonewall so well even he doesn't know what he knows. The documentary film has been kept under wraps owing to the incriminating footage of W, and possibly other government ops, "keeping up with the Stones". 

As for what W knew and what he remembers of it, well, he spent nearly two decades after his bacchanalia with the band on a howlin' hell-raise, so you can't really blame him for not remembering his whereabouts for a few months — Mick and Keith sure don't — and Robert Frank isn't talking. 

And did Hoover and Nixon's nefarious plan to ruin the Rolling Stones really fail, after all? I mean, have you heard what they've recorded since Exile on Main Street? 

Packed Up, Stacked Up and Labeled

With the cacophony of presidential primary campaigning and its attendant media circus mercifully over, the village of Brigadoon, New Hampshire can get back to normal — nonexistent. 

BRIGADOON, New Hampshire (Ant Farmer's Almanac Newswire) — As the morning after the New Hampshire primary dawned, workers were already rolling up this little town's sidewalks.

Literally.

Workman were busy disassembling the storefronts all along Main Street — the diner, the barbershop, the Starbucks — and carefully packing the pieces into storage crates, leaving this 220-acre parcel of land empty and cordoned off until 2008. 

Well, 2007, to be exact. "We'll start rebuilding the town again Labor Day weekend before the next primary," says Willis Ryan, construction manager of Brigadoon, and familiar to observant television news viewers as the town's colorfully quotable constable Albert Bingham. "We like to have the place up and running before the ground freezes and make sure everything is in good working order and camera ready before any advance people show up." 

If this all sounds a little strange, that's because it is. Sort of. Despite the "Welcome to Brigadoon" sign's claim that the village was "est. 1768" this "town" has only been as much of a reality as it is since the late 1960s. "The idea first came up in '64 but we didn't get it together until the '68 primary," says Ryan. "We just backdated the town's founding by exactly 200 years from then. It seemed like a nice touch." 

"It started as something of a joke on the national news media and the candidates," Ryan admits. "You know, they barge in and disrupt our lives for week or so every four years pretending to give a rat's ass about us, so we decided, 'Hey, right back at ya,' and created a town that exists only as often as they show up and only for as long as they're in it." 

Asked if the candidates or the press are troubled by this elaborate deception, Ryan responds sharply, "Given the megatonnage of crap they unload on us while they're here, putting up a temporary, theme park version of a typical New Hampshire town full of folks willing to stop and listen to whatever BS they're selling this time is more self-defense than deception." 

The scheme seemed risky at first, concedes Ryan, "When a couple of reporters first figured it out in '76 we thought there'd be trouble, but since 1980, nobody's even raised an eyebrow. And the candidates love it. They can come and settle in for a few days, which is a big relief for them after schlepping all over Iowa. The media's happy because the whole place is so photogenic, we modeled Main Street on Norman Rockwell paintings, but we update it periodically to stay current. There's not a bad camera angle in town. Plus, we've got electrical outlets every ten feet, breakaway walls for tracking shots, excellent acoustics, internet access and the catering is always outstanding — Paul Prudhomme did 1988, '92 was Wolfgang Puck, Martha Stewart was here in '96, that "Bam!" guy... Emeril Lagasse did 2000 and this year we had Nigella Lawson." 

And how do the citizens of the Granite State feel about this quadrennial Disneyfication? "Oh, they think it's great," insists Ryan. "It's a useful diversion, like San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf, New York's South Street Seaport Museum or Santa Fe, New Mexico," Ryan continues, "It provides a passable facsimile of the real thing intended just for visitors who can't tell the difference — presidential candidates and the media, in our case — while leaving locals free to go about their daily business without the crowds and traffic. We picked this spot because it was so out-of-the-way. Everybody wins, really." 

Brigadoon's inhabitants — "Dooners," as they're called — are picked by a lottery system. They must be New Hampshire residents and registered voters to qualify. Most are workers at nearby factory outlet stores for whom the last weeks of January get slow enough that they can afford to take two or three weeks off to shake hands with candidates and cough up folksy, down-to-earth comments for reporters. 

"It's like jury duty," shrugs Roy Bascomb, Brigadoon's municipal snow-plow driver for the past three election cycles, "Except that you get to be on TV, and get your picture taken with maybe the next president. It's kind of fun, actually." Dooners also receive a small stipend for their time and any out-of-pocket expenses they incur are tax-deductible.  

Its "primary purpose" complete, by the time the candidates and media horde have descended upon their next destination, the only trace of Brigadoon will be the very tip-top of the water tower emblazoned with its name, peeking above the tree line and just barely visible from the interstate, three miles away. 

 

ABBA 2004

Press Release 

December 1, 2003 

Solvang, California 

We are pleased to announce that as of noon today we have submitted the necessary legal documents and tax dodge forms to establish a political action committee called Anybody But Bush Again 2004 and hereafter known as and commonly referred to by its acronym ABBA 2004. 

First off, we wish it to be known that ABBA 2004 is in no way associated with any political party — major, middling, minor or fringe — currently running, planning to prepare or preparing to plan to run a candidate for the presidency of the United States in 2004. Our purpose is simply to closely track, and periodically publish our opinion on the likelihood of electability among the emerging contenders. We will quantify our opinions, and lay odds when appropriate. We do this free of any party affiliation, ideological baggage or agenda beyond assisting in the defeat of George W. Bush in the upcoming presidential election. 

On a lighter note, our legal department insists that we state publicly and for the record what surely must be clear to everyone else. Despite the purely coincidental resemblance of our acronym to the name of the 70s Swedish pop combo ABBA, we are in no way associated with them — either individually or collectively — their record label or any of the dozens, it turns out, tribute bands and websites devoted to them and their music, and we do not have, seek or imply their endorsement for our use in any manner or for any purpose that could bring us financial or material gain.

You'd think this would all be obvious, but you know legal departments, a couple of threatening letters from Scandinavia and they get their briefs all in a bunch. 

With the necessary legalities out of the way, we can proceed to our first order of business: choosing an appropriate theme song. 

"Take a Chance on Me" and "So Long", both from the self-titled 1975 album "ABBA", each got lively responses from some staffers, but the former was deemed 'Awfully risky' by Gil in accounting and the latter 'A bit presumptious, maybe' by Ellie and Gregg, who never agree on anything. Gil thought that "Take a Chance" was 'Upbeat and optimistic', but he has a huge crush on Jennifer, who suggested it, so his opinion is a little suspect. "S.O.S.", also from 1975's "ABBA" was met with some initial enthusiasm but on further discussion was dismissed as 'Kinda desperate'. 

Jason thought that "Waterloo" from the 1974 album of the same name had potential, but it was decided that the historical reference was probably too 'oblique' (Jennifer's word), and would be lost on too many people to be worth it; Matt said it was 'Like, totally lame', and, even though nobody else in the room expressed such a strong opinion, there was a lot of me-too headshaking when he said it. "Watch Out" from that same release got everybody pretty excited until we realized that all we remembered about the song was its title, and until Matt fixes the 8-track tape player in his El Camino, we can't give it a listen. "Hasta Mañana", also from "Waterloo", had a few boosters, but was ultimately thought to be too similar to Schwarzenegger's famous "Terminator" catch phrase 'Hasta la vista, baby' and would confuse people. "The King Has Lost His Crown" from "Voulez-Vous" came up a couple of times but it might be better as a victory song, should W actually be unseated, and even then not entirely appropriate. 

All in all, "Move On" from 1977's "The Album" brought the fewest objections, if only lukewarm enthusiasm. 

Clearly, we're still far from a final decision, and in the spirit of grassroots democracy and interactivity (our website, abba-2004.org, should be up by Christmas), we invite your thoughts and feelings on this matter. Your vote counts! 

We look forward to keeping you up-to-date and informed about our progress and opinions with press releases, editorials and announcements of events throughout the coming months. 

Sincerely, 

Sven "Golly" Larson-Nelson-Peterson 

Executive Director 

ABBA 2004