The Borowitz Report Read online

  ALSO BY ANDY BOROWITZ

  Governor Arnold

  Who Moved My Soap?

  The Trillionaire Next Door

  Rationalizations to Live By

  (with Henry Beard and John Boswell)

  SIMON & SCHUSTER PAPERBACKS

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  Copyright © 2004 by Andy Borowitz

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  First Simon & Schuster paperback edition 2004

  SIMON & SCHUSTER PAPERBACKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales: 1-800-456-6798 or [email protected].

  Designed by Charles Kreloff

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Borowitz, Andy.

  The Borowitz report: the big book of shockers/Andy Borowitz.

  p. cm.

  1. American wit and humor. I. Title.

  PN6165.B67 2004

  814′.6—dc22 2004052470

  www.simonandschuster.com

  ISBN 0-7432-6277-8

  ISBN 13: 978-0-743-26277-4

  eISBN 13: 978-1-439-12949-4

  AXIS OF EVIL Kim JONG II, CHAIRMAN

  Dear Imperialist Stooges:

  Being President of North Korea and Chairman of the Axis of Evil is no day at the beach. Sometimes when I tell people that, they think I’m just bellyaching. Well, there’s only one thing to do with people who accuse you of bellyaching—execute them on national TV.

  Psyche! If you’re going to hang with Kim Jong II, you better get used to my twisted sense of humor. I’ve often said, you don’t have to be crazy to be President of the most evil nation on Earth—but it helps. I’m totally bent, and I encourage the people I work with to act like whack—jobs, too. If I see that one of my aides is walking around with a spent fuel rod up his ass, I know just how to fix his wagon: I execute him on national TV. Psyche! I swear, I’ve got a million of ’em.

  Don’t get me wrong: I love my job and I wouldn’t trade it for any other job in the world, not even a mindless one that pays boatloads of money like Shaquille O’Neal’s or Dan Rather’s. If I had to make a list of what I like about being President of North Korea, it would go like this: (1) buying nuclear technology from Pakistani scientists; (2) threatening the West with imminent annihilation; and (3) acting “mercurial.” And that’s just the top three! You don’t know how bodacious it is to stand on your balcony and watch 1 million brainwashed soldiers in uniform passing below you with all of those awesome missiles and tanks and shit. I may put on my frowny—face for the cameras—that’s a part of my job I like, too—but inside, Kim Jong II is saying to himself, “Sweet I”

  So what don’t I like about my job? It all comes down to three little words: Axis of Evil. Every time I think about the day I agreed to be Chairman of the AOE, I could practically kick myself! Here’s the way it went down: I was at an A0E meeting (it was our annual golf outing in Scottsdale) with Iran and Iraq sometime back in 2002. Someone—I think it might have been that douchebag Saddam Hussein—suggested that I would make a kick—ass Chairman of the Axis. Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t flattered. When you’ve dedicated your whole life to evildoing, there are really only two ultimate dream jobs out there-running the Axis of Evil or a movie studio. So, all-day sucker that I am, I said yes!

  Word to the wise: anyone who says that being Chairman of the Axis of Evil is a chance to roll up your sleeves and do lots of evil shit is totally selling you a bill of goods. I’ll tell you the truly “evil” part of the Axis of Evil—the paperwork! I thought being put in charge of the AOE would mean I’d be spending most of my time cooking up sinister plots or maybe designing secret underground hideouts and junk, but as it turned out about 99.9999 percent of the job is administrative. Evil my ass—I might as well be running AARP.

  To make matters worse, in early 2003 the other AOE members started dropping like flies, leaving yours truly holding the proverbial bag. I remember turning on the TV and seeing all of those statues of Saddam toppling and saying to myself, “Not cool, man. Not cool at all.” But Iraq dropping out of the Axis of Evil was a nightmare for me in more ways than one. Not many people outside the AGE knew this, but Saddam Hussein was Chairman of our fucking Refreshments Committee. Now that he was gone, there was no one, I repeat, no one, to work on the Axis of Evil’s Spring Dance.

  Then Iran started talking about letting nuclear inspectors into their country, and I’m like, Excuse me, but when did this become the Axis of Wussies? How come no one sent me that fucking memo, folks? All of a sudden, all kinds of crazy shit was going down (don’t get me started on Libya) and I was like totally, totally out of the freaking loop.

  Which brings me to another thing about my job that I’m not bananas about: when you’re dictator of a closed society like North Korea, it’s really tough to get access to accurate news and information. Maybe it’s the fact that there are no independent newspapers, TV networks or radio stations. Maybe it’s because people won’t tell you the truth since they’re afraid you’re going to “shoot the messenger.” If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: you shoot a few thousand messengers and it really comes back to haunt you.

  But I was determined never to be blindsided by world events again. I gathered together the top officials from North Korea’s Ministry of Truth and told them to fan out across the globe and bring back a news and information service that was so accurate, so thorough, so unimpeachable that it would keep me ahead of the curve from now until the end of time (which I’ve currently penciled in for May 2008). After weeks of scouring the planet for such a news service, they finally came back with one: The Borowits Report.

  From that day on, I haven’t gone a day without it. In fact, you could say that the superb, in-depth reporting of The Borowitz Report has turned Mr. Kim Jong II into something of a news “junkie.” Simply put, the news stories one finds in The Borowitz Report day in, day out, can’t be found anywhere else. A quick scan of such headlines as OPENELY EPISCOPAL MAN JOINS VILLAGE PEOPLE or BUSH MAY LACK GENE FOR HUMAN SPEECH makes you wonder—where was the rest of the news media when these stories were breaking? But even as I devoured stories like those, it dawned on me that The Borowitz Report was more than just the world’s most accurate news service. In showing the world for the treacherous place that it is, The Borowits Report offered North Korea the information necessary for our very survival!

  Springing into action, I collected the most shocking news stories from The Borowitz Report, had them translated into Korean and compiled into a book complete with notes from my own personal “blog.” I then forced every man, woman and child in North Korea to buy the book and required them, under penalty of death, to submit to a government—mandated pop quiz on its contents. Within its first week on sale, The Borowitz Report: The Big Book of Shockers sold well over ten million copies in North Korea, shooting to number one on our nation’s bestseller list and staying there for twenty weeks, until it was finally knocked from its lofty perch by The South Beach Diet.

  Word of the book’s history-making sales figures eventually reached the U.S., where a prominent U.S. publisher quickly snapped up the American rights to the book and translated it from Korean back into English. It is to that publisher, Simon & Schuster, that I dedicate this book. To everyone at S&S, let me just say this: working with an American publisher for the first time can be a scary ex
perience, even I or a North Korean dictator, but all of you evildoers made this evildoer feel very much at home.

  Peace out,

  Kim Jong II

  MAJORITY OF AMERICANS NOW BELIEVE EVIL IS BAD, SURVEY SAYS

  Sign that President’s Message May Be Getting Through

  In an indication that President Bush has been effective in communicating his message to the American people, a new survey released today indicates that a majority of Americans now believe that evil is bad.

  Of those responding, 54 percent strongly agreed with the statement “Evil is bad,” with 21 percent strongly agreeing with the statement “Evil is very, very bad.”

  By wide margins, those surveyed also agreed with the statement “Evildoers are bad.”

  In one of the most persuasive pieces of data in the survey, 87 percent agreed with the statement “Evildoers are bad because they do evil, which is bad.”

  And a whopping 91 percent agreed with the statement “I really mean it.”

  The University of Minnesota poll, whose margin of error is plus or minus five percentage points, shows that the President’s message about evil, evildoers, and other evil stuff may be taking hold.

  However, those responding to the survey still had some difficulty identifying the three members of the “Axis of Evil” whom President Bush identified in his State of the Union speech.

  Only 12 percent correctly identified Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, while 23 percent incorrectly named Batman supervillains the Joker, the Riddler, and Catwoman.

  President Bush’s speeches about evil being bad have sent approval ratings for evil tumbling to an all-time low.

  In other poll results, 61 percent agreed with the statement “Washington, D.C., is the capital of the USA,” and 57 percent correctly identified the number two as the sum of one plus one.

  KIM’S BLOG

  Most people figure that whenever President Bush talks about “the Axis of Evil” or evildoers or whatnot, that would really piss me off. Au contraire, homes! The fact is, every time he says the word “evil” it’s just more free publicity for yours truly.

  Face it, before Bush was President practically no one had even heard of Kim Jong II or North Korea or our superscary nuclear weapons program, but thanks to all of his speeches, my brand awareness is now sky-high. In some parts of the world I’m now better known than Vanilla Coke! There’s only one word for that: awesome.

  I’ll tell you something else. Before Bush was elected, I was busting my hump to get publicity—Internet banner ads, radio spots, you name it. I even showed up at the Golden Globes one year with Mary Steenburgen. What did it get me? Nada!

  The fact is, nothing gets your name out there faster and better than being called “evil” in a State of the Union address. If there’s one thing that bugs me, though, I guess it’s this: people can’t decide whether to spell my name Kim Jung-Il or Kim Jong Il. My publicist says that the whole spelling thing is keeping me from truly breaking out and we’ve got to clear it up somehow if I want to make it to the cover of People. (Everyone knows how to spell “Clooney,” she says.) Now I totally understand why Cher and Madonna went the one-name route! I guess when people just start referring to me as “Kim,” then I’ll know I’ve arrived.

  OSAMA’S WIFE, DEBBIE BIN LADEN, SPEAKS OUT

  Rips Terror-Hubby in Exclusive Chat

  Question: What’s worse than being the world’s most wanted man, hunted by U.S. Special Operations Forces while bunker-busting missiles jangle your nerves morning, noon and night?

  Answer: Being trapped in a one-room cave with four really pissed-off wives.

  Much has been written and said about Osama bin Laden, the evildoer, but relatively little is known about Osama bin Laden, the henpecked husband.

  Until now.

  Sources close to the bin Laden household say that there is “trouble in paradise,” and a recent exclusive interview with one of Osama’s four wives, Debbie bin Laden, appears to bear this out.

  “The world knows how evil Osama is,” Debbie bin Laden says. “What they don’t know is how cheap he is.”

  The exclusive Debbie bin Laden interview appears in the new issue of Angry People, a popular Kandahar magazine.

  In it, Debbie bin Laden says that “the day the allied bombers knocked out all of the power plants in Kandahar was the happiest day in Osama’s life, because he knew it would bring down our electric bill.”

  Her husband is so cheap, Debbie bin Laden says, that he allegedly told the Taliban to ban all movies “just so he wouldn’t have to take us to any.”

  “It’s no coincidence that they banned dinner and dancing, too,” Mrs. bin Laden says.

  “His idea of a good time is popping one of those spooky propaganda videos he made into the VCR,” claims Debbie bin Laden. “How many times can you watch him going ‘Death to America’? That gets old real fast.”

  All in all, the picture Debbie bin Laden paints of life with her notorious husband falls far short of the glamour she and her fellow wives—Rhonda bin Laden, Barb bin Laden, and Kelly bin Laden—thought they were marrying into.

  “I don’t want people to think we’re a bunch of gold-diggers or anything,” Debbie says. “But when you marry a millionaire, you don’t think you’re going to spend the rest of your life crouching in a mud hut.”

  Osama bin Laden’s wife Debbie bin Laden (left) organizes a rally of angry bin Laden wives in a suburb of Kandahar.

  CLINTON DELIVERS FIRST “STATE OF CHAPPAQUA” ADDRESS

  Five-Hour Speech Finally Ends When Neighbors Call Police

  Former President Bill Clinton, hoping to establish an annual tradition for his retirement years, delivered his first “State of Chappaqua” address tonight from the roof of his suburban home.

  The President’s trademark hoarse voice could be heard booming throughout the leafy community, amplified by a handheld megaphone the former President had purchased at Radio Shack earlier in the day.

  The wide-ranging speech, which covered such topics as Chappaqua’s schools, traffic and commerce lasted five hours and threatened to continue well into the wee hours of the morning.

  But angry neighbors flooded the police with calls, demanding that the authorities tell the former President to stop speaking at once.

  Chappaqua residents appeared dismayed and exasperated by the former President’s long-winded address, which several neighbors described as the most tedious speech they had ever heard.

  “When he first moved here and started driving around with ‘Do You Think I’m Sexy?’ blasting from his car stereo, I thought it couldn’t get any worse than that,” said Carl Bolton, a neighbor of the former President’s. “Now I know that it can—much worse.”

  Former President Bill Clinton poses with his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), just hours before Chappaqua police forced him to stop talking.

  Other residents were more sympathetic with the plight of the former President, who has seemed restless of late in this sleepy New York hamlet.

  “You have to feel sorry for him,” said resident Ben Tarkow. “He’s really seemed bummed out ever since his wife made him take down that telescope.”

  MOST BASEBALL PLAYERS ON STEROIDS AND THE REST ARE GAY

  Pagan Human Sacrifice Rituals “Widespread” in Nation’s Pastime, Former Player Says

  Baseball was rocked by controversy again today as a former player charged that a majority of baseball players use steroids and the rest are gay.

  The former player spoke on condition of anonymity because, in his words, “Dudes on steroids can really kick your ass.”

  Even as Major League Baseball officials refused to comment on the player’s claims, another unnamed player came forward to say that performance-enhancing human sacrifice rituals were “widespread” in major league locker rooms.

  The unnamed player spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being burned alive on a pagan pyre.

  But he indicated that the practice of human sacrifice was common throu
ghout baseball, especially in the National League Central.

  Most of the human sacrifice ceremonies in baseball are in supplication to Norse deities such as Odin or Thor, the unnamed player said.

  Few baseball players were willing to comment on the heathen ritual controversy, but one player, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he thought that the issue was “no big deal.”

  “If a guy is hitting the ball well, I don’t think the fans care if he’s burning human flesh for Odin when he’s off the field,” the unnamed player said.

  Further roiling the baseball world today were the accusations of yet another unnamed player, who charged that well over half the players in Major League Baseball have no names.

  “I’m not going to name names,” the unnamed player said. “They know who they are.”

  New York Yankees fans are dismayed to learn that all of their favorite players are either using steroids or gay.

  QUEEN ELIZABETH CAUGHT SMOKING POT

  In Latest Royal Bust, Stoned Sovereign Found with Giant Spliff

  In the latest drug scandal to hit the British royal family, Queen Elizabeth II was found smoking a gigantic marijuana “spliff” in a garden shed behind Buckingham Palace today.

  A cloud of smoke from the enormous joint was spotted rising above the palace by eagle-eyed tourists who were waiting to see the Changing of the Guard, a popular London tourist attraction.

  Fearing that the garden shed was on fire, palace guards burst into the small outbuilding and found the British sovereign puffing on the enormous spliff while listening to a boom box playing last year’s surprise hit “Because I Got High” by the rapper Afroman.

  The British tabloids had a field day with the royal family’s latest drugscapade.