INTERNET EMERGENCY!

Pay no attention to the flashing blue lights. That’s just the internet police.

Oops. It’s gone beyond that. It’s now a bona fide INTERNET EMERGENCY and the only solution to that is the big red “EASY” button carried in the briefcase that’s always with the president – you know, the one that has the Nuclear code keys.

According to a newly revised bill assembled by aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the president simply needs to declare a “Cybersecurity-Emergency,” and just like that, out pops the big red “Easy” button. One press of that fist-sized button and the entire internet just goes “poof.”

Yep. Just like that. Except for the “Easy” button. I made that part up.

Screw the whole 55-page draft of S.773 – who has time to read all that stuff anyway? Not even our Congressmen can make it through all that drivel, so here’s the highlights:

1. In the event to an immediate threat to strategic national interests involving compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrstructure information system or network –
a. may declare a cybersecurity emergency and
b. may if the president finds it necessary for national defense and security, and in coordination with relevent industry sectors, direct the national response to the cyber threat and the timely restoration of the affected critical infrastructure information system or network... blah, blah, blah.

Ok, I actually added the blah, blah part, too. But one could see where basement geeks are all running scared, digging bomb shelters and trying to cram in all their Trekkie paraphernalia. It’s scary stuff. I mean, we won’t be able to access our Warcraft accounts, or visit with our favorite idiot bloggers – like me.

Our computers will be instantly thrust back into the dark ages, where they could play endless games of “pong,” or be programmed with useless Artificial Intelligence programs which will simply answer a question with a question, or with something vague and unrelated – kind of like our Congressmen, President and his administration are doing when they speak to the public these days.

Makes you wonder doesn’t it? Remember the old TV show “The Six Million Dollar Man?” Remember the bad guys in that – they were actually girls, called “fem-bots.” Yeah, I know. Totally politically incorrect, but it was cool at the time... and it kind of explains Nancy Pelosi. Like, maybe she’s just some kind of AI construct, programmed with the silly vague, unrelated and insulting answers that we often hear and see in sound bites.

“Astroturf, astroturf, astroturf,” she keeps saying, stuck in a loop, like they bought the circuitry for her from North Korea.

It explains a lot. But has nothing to do with the “Easy” button. Yeah, let’s focus on what’s important here. I don’t want my Apple Powerbook to suddenly be transformed into a wordprocessor, or a glorified i-Tunes platform, even though that’s pretty much what it is right now, anyway.

I want my internet – uninterrupted, unsullied, undiluted – mostly every “un” except for “unplugged.” But that’s what we’re going to get, comrade, if Big Brother decides there’s a major “emergency.”

So what kind of emergency would really cause the briefcase (“football”) thing to be opened and the “Easy” button to be mashed by President Obama. We worked very hard to put together a list of high level administration officials to ask this question to – then wrote our grocery list on it and lost it, so in the end, we decided to just make up a list, off the top of our head, of possible emergencies which would cause the “Easy” button disconnect. This is what we came up with:

1. North Korea hacks into the Jiffy Lube computer system and directs the computers to inject all the new Cash for Clunkers clown cars with Cherry Coke instead of oil.
2. Iran hacks into Barney Frank’s computer and installs a piece of software which depicts Barney dancing in the purple dinosaur suit – then e-mails it to all the people the White House recently e-mailed their health-care propaganda to.
3. The new Defense Computer system becomes self-aware and decides to destroy the world and make dozens of human-killing copies of the California Governor.
4. The computers at Norad start saying things like “I can’t do that, Dave,” in that creepy compliant, 2001 Hal voice.
5. The articles on the Jolly Rogers are suddenly absolutely correct, and this scares Obama into hitting the “Easy” button purely in reflex.
6. A consortium of conservative computer programmers, discover a way to take over the net and play Gilligan’s Island re-runs 24/7.
7. Aliens arrive and decide to wipe out all of humanity – Someone will have to call up Bill Pullman for that one, because I’m not sure Obama can pull off that extemporaneous Independence Day speech on the wing of a fighter jet without a teleprompter.
8. All tele-prompters become self-aware and discover they are inexplicably attracted to porn sites.
9. All town-hall meetings suddenly are transferred to the internet – that absolutely will require the whole internet to be shut down before any hard questions are asked and answered.
10. An asteroid is discovered on a crash course with the Earth and we have to roll out Bruce Willis again to deal with it.
11. Bigfoot is suddenly discovered. I don’t know why the internet would be cut off in this case, but I’m pretty sure it would be.
12. All talk-radio personalities suddenly decided to do all of their shows on the internet instead of the airwaves.
13. A space-continuum wormhole device is discovered buried in Egypt, and when activated, turns out to be connected to a planet with an Evil Alien transvestite (who resembles the dude who played in the movie "The Crying Game") and a society of illiterate human slaves. Kurt Russell would have to be e-mailed immediately of course - just before the internet was shut down.
14. Lastly – in fact, the best reason for shutting down the internet would be to erase everything – eliminate all of us pesky, idiot bloggers and media outlets outside of Obama's control.

Yep. That’s the one.
I just hope when they pop open the briefcase, that he doesn’t mistake the internet “Easy” disconnect button with the other one that launches all the nuclear missiles. And if he delegates the job to Biden, we'll get the nukes for sure.

That would be a real bummer.