Lions and Tigers and Bears....

AP NEWS is reporting that Condoleezza Rice has named Cuba, Myanmar, Belarus and Zimbabwe as "outposts of tyranny" requiring the close attention of the United States.

You may remember that her boss GWB named Iraq, Iran and North Korea as members of the "axis of evil." White House officials rejected George's first suggestion for the triumvirate, "Bad Boyz Club."

Rice later testified before the U.S. Senate, "To be sure, in our world there remain outposts of tyranny and America stands with oppressed people on every continent ... in Cuba, and Burma (Myanmar), and North Korea, and Iran, and Belarus, and Zimbabwe."

Iran was particularly caught off guard by today's pronoucement. Imam Tel Aziz of the Iranian Parliament stated in response, "Is this a good thing? Have we been downgraded to an outpost now? I was thinking axis is big, outpost...smaller. And evil is pretty bad while tyranny is, so so." State Department spokesman Kip Willamson countered, "What Mr. Aziz fails to realize is that you can be members of both the outpost of tyranny club and the axis of evil. They are not mutually exclusive."

On that note, TKID3 wants to extend its congratulations to the nation of Iran on becoming the first nation to join the select tyranny/axis club since Oakland A's star Jose Canseco in 1988.

When pressed on what she meant by closer attention, Condi said, "I mean we will falsify intelligence data, lie to the U.S. public in order to garner a fraudulent mandate for invasion and then rape, pillage and plunder those nations mercilessly. I'm kidding....it just means we launch some cruise missiles at them and deny humanitarian aid."

The Iranian government is composed of Islamic Fundamentalist Mullahs held over from the Iranian Revolution of 1979 as well as a growing quasi-democratic movement. Rice told reporters after her confirmation hearing that U.S. cruise missiles can and will discriminate between the two groups.