The future looks pretty bleak for Minnesota's movers and shakers. With the budget shortfall projected in the billions, the days of free-flowing subsidies and over-budgeted boondoggles is all but over. Power brokers, politicians, lobbyists and their retinue continue to squabble over the last scraps of tax revenue for road projects and sewer lines, but they're well aware that in a few short weeks, the wheeling and dealing capital of the world will soon be Baghdad.
 

One enterprising maverick is Peter Johnson of the law firm, Smythe Porker. He and his two partners, Hennepin County Commissioners Tom McLaughlin and Ike Moped have donned their camouflaged fatigues and shouldered their PowerPoint displays and cardboard architectural models into the deserts of Kuwait, waiting for the order to attack Baghdad with a phalanx of highway engineers and a withering barrage of PAC meetings.
 

Waves of Stealth Bombers and cruise missiles will then begin the work of creating access for Humvees, F-150s, and Suburban Personnel Carriers. Countless sorties will transform the desert into a viable shopping destination. In anticipation of the grand opening, project organizers have already enlisted an army of construction workers for miles of pre-fab housing and parking lots.
 

Propaganda leaflets have been falling on Baghdad for weeks, telling the Iraqis what they can expect from the Fertile Crescent Access Project. As the hour of their liberation approaches, the oppressed but defiant people of Baghdad huddle in darkened cellars and eagerly discuss in hushed tones what "mitigation" they will get after the regime change. The cowed, but unbroken resistance clutch the full-color, glossy flyers that depict highways, flyovers, shrubbery, textured concrete sidewalks, lollipop trees, "open space" and the wondrous "Ellipse About".
 

Buckling his bandolier and balancing a 50-caliber laptop on his hip, Johnson removed his cigar long enough to say "C'mon men, it's time to rock & roll!"
 
 

Disclaimer: Please disregard this faulty reporting. We are all nice people here. It's those darned politicians in Washington that cause all the trouble!