“My fellow Americans, our entire economy is in danger. This part of it is in danger, and the part over there too, and even those funny parts with the long names—yes, all in grave danger. For a long time now my good buddies at Merrill Lynch have been working their hardest with all parts of our economy, trying to do the right thing for America, but this is crisis time, and I’ll be frank—if my good buddies at Merrill Lynch do not receive $700 billion in small bills by midnight tomorrow, they’re going to kill this kitten. Now nobody wants to kill the kitten. It would be too bad to kill the kitten. But that’s where America is at present, with the danger. And the kitten doesn’t seem like a happy kitten. Seems like it might know what’s coming.”
Last night I had one of the worst dreams of my life: an alternate history where the United States developed nukes a few decades earlier and decided to use them on Spain after the U.S.S. Maine blew up. I was in the wreckage of Barcelona, walking around the crater where the Sagrada Familia had been, useless weeping.
