QUESTION: Mister, I'm glad that Boris Yeltsin was re-elected president of Russia. What will be his biggest task now that he has public support to lead his country into the next century, huh?
ANSWER: I'm glad you asked that, since I just returned from Russia and now am an expert on everything Russian. In a private meeting with Yeltsin, I advised him that in order to streamline government and allow capitalism to flourish, he must cut back the country's use of consonants by at least 15 percent. Russia uses more consonants per capita than any other country in the world and this selfish, wasteful practice must end. Take Yeltsin's buddy Viktor Chernomyrdin, for instance. He doesn't need all those letters in his last name. If he just shortened it to Cherno, he would save the public the use of six letters, four of them consonants. The voters rejected Gennady Zyugonov not so much because he was a commie but because he is a shameless V, Y, Z user.
Q: Mister, why are there suddenly so many damn militias around? And where do they get their names? Doesn't the Viper Militia sound like the name of a new car, huh?
A: It does. Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the 1996 Chrysler Viper Militia. It goes from zero to 60 in eight seconds, runs on fuel oil and fertilizer, and if you park it in front of a federal building, it blows up! You know, there have been groups of antigovernment, gun-toting whackos living in the backwaters and hollows of the country forever. In the old days, we called them ''hillbillies.'' The difference is that in the old days they just took occasional potshots at "them dern revenuers." Now they kill children and derail trains. In the past, some militias were actually looked up to. For instance, Teddy Roosevelt's little militia, the one called the Rough Riders, was made up of Ivy League sports figures, cowboys and adventurers. When U.S. Marines got bogged down on the bottom of a hillside in Cuba in 1898, Roosevelt went charging up and told them to either get in the game or get out of the way, because his guys were coming through. Roosevelt's volunteer militia then took San Juan Hill and he won the Congressional Medal of Honor. Those were the days, brah.
Q: Mister, why is it that many environmentalists believe in evolution and yet they get all worked up when species that can't cut it die out? Isn't that what evolution is all about, the most adaptable species surviving, huh?
A: It's because of insensitive jerks like you that we can't get a decent Dodo Bird Burger anymore. I understand they tasted like Yeltsin-McNuggets.
Q: Mister, hi, me again. Did you know that bunny huggers kill more bunnies than moose hunters kill mooses, huh?
A: No I didn't. I did know that the last dodo bird died when an environmentalist inadvertently put him in a choke hold during a Save-The-Dodo-Bird Rally in Perth. The owner of the local Dodo King outlet then said, ''Hey, mate, you going to eat that?"
Q: Mister, as a member of the Society for the Protection of Endangered Entrees, I find your remarks about the dodo bird insulting. Dodo birds tasted nothing like Yeltsin-McNuggets. They tasted like the Northwest spotted owl, with just a hint of cilantro. So, there, huh?
A: Stop it; you're making me hungry.
