Heifervoyeur: PowerPoint Derails Military

Everyone knows that military commanders go nuts for pretty pictures. During the French and Indian War, Washington famously spent twice his monthly ration budget on illuminated maps of Ohio and Maryland. In his memoirs, he wrote, "I thought the inlets were cute."

Now, in an attempt to reduce their carbon footprint and be more "with it," the U.S. Army has gone digital, moving from watercolor cartography to PowerPoint. According to an Army publicist, the shift will give the Army "street cred" and will limit the number of inadvertent orphanage bombings that result from using maps whose ink has bled.

However, the digital shift has caused some unanticipated side effects. High ranking officers have started working late into the night, adding sound effects and animation to their PowerPoint presentations in an effort to outdo one another at Monday morning meetings. While many officers describe the atmosphere on the base as "good-natured competition," many of these strategy sessions have dissolved into street rumbles between two newly-formed gangs: the Comic Sans Kings and the Helevectias. Perhaps most worrying is the CIA's new policy of using Wingdings to encrypt sensitive messages.

The impact of basing troop placement on PowerPoint is yet to be determined, yet some of our soldiers are noticing disturbing trends. Private Idaho, stationed in Iraq, remarked that his troupe's maneuver's have become increasingly "like the lilt of a cartoon word across a screen." The U.S. Army press office was unavailable for comment.