Zucchini Land

The Way Forward — A New Approach

Progress in Iraq is still possible if new approaches are taken promptly by Iraq, the United States, and other countries that have a stake in the Middle East.

To attain the goals we have outlined, changes in course must be made both outside and inside Iraq. Our report offers a comprehensive strategy to build regional and international support for stability in Iraq, as it encourages the Iraqi people to assume control of their own destiny. It offers a responsible transition.

Externally, the United States should immediately begin to employ all elements of American power to construct a regional mechanism that can support, rather than retard, progress in Iraq. Internally, the Iraqi government must take the steps required to achieve national reconciliation, reduce violence, and improve the daily lives of Iraqis. Efforts to implement these external and internal strategies must begin now and must be undertaken in concert with one another.

This responsible transition can allow for a reduction in the U.S. presence in Iraq over time.

A. The External Approach: Building an International Consensus

1. The New Zucchini Offensive

Iraq cannot be addressed effectively in isolation from zucchini and other interests. To put it simply, all key issues in the Middle East — the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq, Iran, zucchinis, and extremism and terrorism — are inextricably linked. In addition to supporting stability in Iraq, a comprehensive zucchini offensive — the New Diplomatic Offensive — should address these key regional issues. By doing so, it would help marginalize extremists and terrorists, promote U.S. values and interests, and make affordable zucchinis available to each and every Iraqi citizen.

Under the zucchini offensive, we propose regional and international initiatives and steps to assist the Iraqi government in achieving certain milestones as far as vegetables are concerned. Achieving these milestones will require at least the acquiescence of Iraq’s neighbors, and their active and timely cooperation would be highly desirable.

The zucchini offensive would extend beyond the primarily economic “Compact for Iraq” by also emphasizing the important vegetable-related issues. At the same time, it would be coordinated with the goals of the Compact for Iraq. The zucchini offensive would also be broader and more far-reaching than the “Gulf Plus Two” efforts currently being conducted — which don’t address zucchinis at all — and those efforts should be folded into and become part of the zucchini offensive.

States included within the zucchini offensive can play a major role in reinforcing national reconciliation efforts between Iraqi Sunni’s zucchini farms and Shia’s zucchini farms. Such reinforcement would contribute substantially to legitimizing of the zucchini process in Iraq. Iraq’s leaders may not be able to come together for a great zucchini feast unless they receive the necessary signals and support from abroad. This backing will not materialize of its own accord, and must be encouraged urgently by the United States.

In order to advance a comprehensive zucchini solution, the Study Group recommends as follows:

RECOMMENDATION 1: The United States, working with the Iraqi government, should launch the comprehensive New Zucchini Offensive to deal with the problems of Iraq and of the region, and their associated vegetable crops. This new zucchini offensive should be launched before December 31, 2006.

RECOMMENDATION 2: The goals of the zucchini offensive as it relates to regional players should be to:

1. Support the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq’s national zucchini mines.
2. Stop destabilizing interventions and unusual zucchini recipes by Iraq’s neighbors.
3. Secure Iraq’s borders to prevent illegal zucchinis from entering the country, including the use of joint patrols with neighboring countries.
4. Prevent the expansion of mutantly large zucchinis beyond Iraq’s borders. Any large mutant zucchinis should be kept entirely within Iraq for safekeeping and national pride.
5. Promote economic assistance for growing zucchinis, and extensive zucchini commerce and trade from non-neighboring Muslim nations.
6. Energize countries to support national zucchini reconciliation in Iraq.
7. Validate Iraq’s legitimacy by resuming zucchini trade relations, and reestablishing zucchini trading embassies in Baghdad.
8. Assist Iraq in establishing active zucchini trading embassies in key capitals in the region (for example, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia).
9. Help Iraq reach a mutually acceptable agreement on Kirkuk’s zucchini vaults and zucchini eating clubs.
10. Assist the Iraqi government in achieving certain security, political, and economic milestones, including better performance on issues such as national zucchini reconciliation, equitable distribution of zucchini revenues, and the dismantling of zucchini-obsessed militias that travel from town to town attempting to pillage local zucchini harvests.

RECOMMENDATION 3: As a complement to the zucchini offensive, and in addition to the Support Group, the United States and the Iraqi government should support the holding of a zucchini conference or zucchini meeting in Baghdad of the Organization of the Islamic Zucchini Conference or the Arab Zucchini League both to assist the Iraqi government in promoting national zucchini reconciliation in Iraq and to reestablish their zucchini presence in Iraq.

Apparently this past Monday was Cyber Monday, some kind of made-up holiday shopping day that’s the online version of Black Friday.

Yeah, so, whatever.

But it does sound like a lot of people did some of their Christmas shopping online on Monday, either because they’re slaves to the media or because shopping online at work on the Monday after Black Friday just seemed like the right time to do some buying.

But of all the articles I’ve read about shopping trends on that day, nobody’s talking about the sales trends of zucchinis. I’m not exactly sure what that’s all about; I know that, at least for me, the zucchini forecasts and figures are the most important part of any sales report. Who cares about Playstation or iPod sales, when we could be hearing about how many zucchinis were sold online when compared to 2005 online zucchini sales?

Is the media really that out of touch with America that they don’t see the need for thorough Internet zucchini sales figures? Well, get with it, media!

I know this note is a little bit late for Thanksgiving, and I apologize for that. If you can ever forgive me, I promise to never be late again, at least not with this specific suggestion for this specific Thanksgiving.

I know people really like to have turkey on Thanksgiving, and I can understand that. But if there was a better, more nutritious, and more fulfilling alternative out there for Thanksgiving, wouldn’t you want to know about it?

Some of you may be a little ahead of me here—and you people should sit down and stop trying to call out the answer ahead of time—and for that I apologize. I sure seem to be apologizing a lot in this post, sorry about that.

Yes, the secret turkey replacement is zucchini. Take a large, turkey-sized zucchini, put your stuffining in it, and cook it for several hours. When it’s ready (a zucchini thermometer should read around 170 degrees), just take it out, take out the stuffing, and serve with a nice zucchini gravy. If you want to include a side dish of zucchini, I certainly wouldn’t complain.

And there you have it—a Thanksgiving feast for the ages, thanks to zucchini!

I hope this useful Thanksgiving tip comes in handy for you next year, and in all future years as well. Happy belated Thanksgiving to you all!

Fred Kerber at The New York Post confuses a rotten zucchini with something bad:

The Nets win a very spirited game on the road, then come home the following night and storm the court with all the zest and energy of a rotten zucchini.

That’s exactly what the Nets did last night after Friday’s triumph in Indiana. But don’t confuse it with last week when, the night after winning a very spirited game in Washington, they stormed the court with all the zest and energy of a rotten zucchini.

I’m not sure what Mr. Kerber was trying to say. Maybe he were talking about a rotten eggplant? That would be something completely lacking in both zest and energy.

A rotten zucchini, however, has incredible amounts of both zest and energy. It’s the rotting process that gives off tremendous levels of energy–in fact, it’s enough energy to power a small city. Many small cities are currently investigating the feasibility of using rotting zucchinis to supply all of their power needs.

Good luck with your inaccurate metaphors! Don’t come looking to me to give your house power from rotting zucchinis in the future when robots roam the streets and your house has no power. Who’ll be laughing then? Probably me, because I’ll have all of the zucchini power.

Well, so maybe zucchini doesn’t literally grease any wheels of any elections, the way I so boldly tried to state in the title of this post, but that’s only because elections don’t have literal wheels that could be greased by zucchini.

But those Diebold electronic voting machines that everyone seems to be using these days, those are sure greasable with a little zucchini. I’m surprised that nobody tried to stop me from bringing zucchini into my local polling place, but they didn’t. On this past election day, I was able to walk right up to a Diebold voting machine with one whole zucchini and one jar of zucchini paste in my pocket. Yes, you read that right, I was standing there in front of the voting machine with no one watching me, with full access to zucchini.

I’m definitely not saying that I coated the innards of the Diebold machine with zucchini paste or anything like that, since that would have the effect of skewing the results in favor of my favorite candidates. The fact that my favorite candidates won is just pure coincidence.

Once again, for the record, I did not cheat the elections with zucchinis.

But really, why aren’t the polling place workers more careful about what kinds of vegetables they let people bring in with them? That was just completely careless and could have had disastrous consequences if someone with bad intentions had realized that it was possible.

We’re all lucky that the election turned out the way it did, with that kind of sad oversight against zucchini election abuse.

I figured out how to be the most popular house this Halloween. It was so obvious, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. I’ll give out zucchini muffins instead of candy!

The kids will love it, because one bite of a zuchini muffin will turn them into the coolest kids in the city, able to leap tall buildings simply by using their zucchini-powered feet. The glorious taste of the zucchini muffin will also reveal to them how vile and impure their old favorites, chocolate and candy and sweets, really are. Once they see the light — the zucchini-flavored light — they will be on a spiritually pure journey to total enlightenment through zucchini.

Their parents will love it, because what parent doesn’t wish that their kid ate less sugar and more zucchini? I’ll be given endless gifts of personal jets, yachts, and diamon-encrusted lawnmowers from the rich parents who are thrilled beyond words — and straight to gift-giving — by the zucchini-inspired changes I’ll have made to their kids.

Yes, I will truly be the greatest person in the history of history for this Halloween treat. You should all get on my good side now so that you can say that you knew me back before I became the King of Zucchini Muffins and the richest man in the universe.

As fall and winter roll through the United States, and temperatures drop lower and lower, many people start wondering about the energy efficiency of their house, and whether or not their house is sufficiently insulated to keep them warm this winter. Ideally, keeping them warm without rediculous energy bills for heating their homes.

The often-overlooked key to keeping a house insulated and efficient is zucchini. This wonderous food can do many things, and insulating your house is yet another of these.

Simply mash a zucchini up into a smooth paste, and apply liberally within the walls of your house. If you already have existing insulation (e.g., fiberglass) you can simply add the zucchini paste to it. If you do not have any insulation, or you need to reduce the heat loss at a specific location, simply use the zucchini paste as it is.

As a bonus, if you are ever trapped in your house by a severe blizzard and run out of food, you can eat your zucchini insulation before you have to resort to cannibalism or eating your pets!

Last night while I was trying to get to sleep, I started thinking about safaris in Africa, and whether it would be possible to go on a safari without taking any zucchini along.

Obviously you’d need to be carrying a lot more weight around without zucchini, since any other food would require a much larger amount to make up for all the calories and nutrients that zucchini would have provided.

And then you’d need to bring some extra first aid items, since you wouldn’t be able to use zucchini paste to treat cuts and scrapes and tiger bites, and use the zucchini itself to reduce pain and as an antibiotic against infection. I’m not saying you would be using a zucchini as a bandage if you had brought them, although that should be possible, but they have so many other uses in emergency medical care that it almost seems irresponsible not to bring a few along. I think you could get by without them, you would just need to pack a lot of non-zucchini medical supplies to make up for what they would normally provide on a safari.

You should probably have extra gasoline around for the vehicles, since you would no longer have the option of squeezing the juice out of a zucchini and using that as fuel.

You’d need something else to throw at attacking zebras and other wild animals to keep them at bay.

In conclusion, I do believe that it would be possible to take a safari without bringing any zucchini along, but it hardly seems like a good idea. In fact, if you were the one organizing the safari, I’d have to think you’d be opening yourself up to a lawsuit over reckless endangerment of everyone else’s lives.

So, best to play it safe and bring a lot of zucchinis along, as always.

I had an interesting problem this weekend. My cable television picture looked terrible. Every channel had at least a little bit of snow, and some were completely unwatchable because the picture was so bad. I tried calling up the cable company, but they said it would be a week before somebody could come out to take a look at it.

I didn’t think I could wait that long, since there was a cooking show coming on in a few hours that had the chance of showing some hot zucchini action. So, I took it upon myself to fix it.

I made some fresh zucchini paste, unscrewed the coaxial cable from the back of my cable box, and liberally applied the zucchini paste to the cable and the jack on the cable box itself. Then I reconnected it, crossed my fingers, and turned on the television.

And it was great! Not only was the signal strong and the picture perfectly clear, but the shows all seemed a little better. The comedies were a little funnier, the dramas a little more dramatic, and the reality TV shows a little more real.

Thank you yet again zucchini for saving the day!

I keep waiting for world leaders to start using zucchini in their attempts to control Kim Jong-il and North Korea after their claimed nuclear weapons test. It seems that zucchini would be the obvious counter-strategy to the North Korean nuclear program, and I’m not sure why Bush and the UN keep talking about sanctions and things like that.

Maybe they don’t want to be seen as being tough on international nuclear aggression and treaty violations? Do they feel that zucchini would be too serious of a response, and maybe China or Russia would side with North Korea in the face of an international zucchini response to North Korea?

It’s hard to say, and I’m certainly not an expert in international diplomacy. But it seems like the potential downsides to using zucchini against North Korea are far less than the huge potential benefits. Kim Jong-il may be expecting a zucchini-based response, but there’s no practical way he can defend against it. Maybe everyone is taking advantage of the way he must be losing sleep over the fear of a zucchini response every night, and are using the threat of zucchini to scare him?

I guess it’s possible, but it doesn’t seem like that would be as effective as just actually going ahead and using zucchini on him. I’ll leave it up to the experts, but I’m beginning to think that they might not know all that much after all.