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Dateline: August 1, 2001

President Bush's latest efforts to bring us a safer and more secure world meshes perfectly with his various "faith-based" initiatives. Virtually every respected scientific analyses of the proposed Missile Defense Initiative conclude that the system doesn't work. (For example the Union of Concerned Scientists) It seems that if we "believe" if we have "faith" that the systems will work, it will! Let's call the new system the Faith-based Initiative on Ballistic Systems (FIBS).

We Believe! We Believe! Physics is so annoying when it get's in the way, isn't it? Now that we know the only way to get those missiles to hit those incoming warheads, let's think about how to operationalize the system. One problem of course, since we can't mix religion and government is to figure out a way to have faith in the missiles and provide some actual guidance to correct silly things like velocity, azimuth and trajectories of the projectile.

One might be concerned about the issues, noted NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes that "We will deploy weapons that don't work against an enemy that doesn't exist, and we will withdraw forces that do work against an enemy that does exist."

Fear not, another fine Administration official is pointing the way. John Ashcroft, our beloved Attorney General, holds morning prayer meetings in his office. Yes, the meetings are in his official government office but it's apparently OK, and the meetings are non-denominational in nature. Egads! we can control the missiles in a similar way! Deep inside the Pentagon, at Central-FIBS-Control, also known as Faith-central, command and control can be reorganized into a new faithful triad of Jews, Christians and Muslims. Each denomination controls a separate dimension X, Y, and Z coordinates with a few Buddhists to determine the orientation of the projectile. This equal and non-denominational nature of control, makes the entire system completely constitutional!

The visualization system is equally efficient and equitable. Naturally a 3D globe of the earth will be used. Surrounding the earth, as large floating icons, will be a Star of David, a Cross, and a Crescent Moon for faithful dimensional control. Floating around will be a small Buddha indicating the current faith-based-orientation of the primary attack.

The defense system can be launched and controlled with special FIBS-control-prayers. A launch sequence might go something like: "Baruch attah adonoi, ignition", "Bless us father and jettison the first stage fuel cells", "Allah is the Greatest, deploy the decoy dectectors". Each of these faith-based-control-prayers can be recited in sequence or, God forbid, in an emergency, in parallel (of course depending on the size of the attack).

One can only imagine the spirited discussions that would take place in Central-FIBS-Control. The FIBS initiative meshes fabulously with the next "good news" initiative being considered by the Bush Administration. According to the Washington Post:

Bush is considering proposals to help provide e-mail services to link grandparents and grandchildren, add citizenship to the curriculum in schools, increase community use of the Internet, encourage news organizations to "increase reporting of good news," ...