Editors' Note: Every once in a while we receive a transmission from the planet Zontar, located hundreds of millions of miles away in the Remulac system. Although Zontar seems to support some form of intelligent life, these alien life forms are so different from us that it is hard to understand why they do what they do. Perhaps you can help us decode the mysterious doings of these strange – [We catch the drift – Ed.]

LEGISLATORS GRILL
CORPORATE CEO'S

By Geoffrey Dawson
Foreign Editor

TOKYO, Japan – At a stormy all-day hearing, Representatives could no longer contain their anger at foreign CEO's whom they blamed for killing thousands of innocent Japanese with their defective products.

Ignoring claims that the lawmakers were showboating for domestic political consumption, the Diet members subjected the American executives to a merciless verbal onslaught that left no doubt as to how angry they were.

At previous hearings, the American companies had sent their local Japanese language representatives to face the ire of Japanese politicians. However, both houses of the Japanese Diet made it clear that the gaijin CEO's had to either appear in person or face potentially crippling legislative and regulatory action.  

With the hot lights beating down on them, and the hearing shown on live nationwide television, the CEO's shifted uncomfortably in their seats, doing their best to project the image of humility that their Japanese PR advisers had told them was required under the circumstances.

The chair of the Special Investigative Committee of the Diet, Daisuke Yamai, opened the hearing with a blistering statement that set the tone for all that would follow: "We are here because we have concerns about the conduct of your firms and it would not be be fair to say that we are completely satisfied with the response of your firms to the concerns that we have stated."

Ladling on even more contempt and derision, Yamai-san pressed his attack: "We are greatly concerned that the products your firm are selling may not always contribute to the health and well-being of the Japanese public and therefore the situation is becoming increasingly difficult."

The white-hot ire of the Diet had been stoked by a number of well-publicized reports that linked the deaths of Japanese consumers from emphysema and lung cancer to their use of the product made by the CEO's firms: cigarettes.

R.J. Reynolds CEO Joe Camel humbly apologized for the lethal effects of their defective products

After Yamai-san had concluded his tirade, Altria CEO Phil Morris sought to mollify the Japanese. "There's nothing wrong with American cigarettes. In fact, they're good for you, "Morris testified.

Before he could go further, he was cut off by another committee member, Yusuku Matsui, who said: "If you would pardon the interruption, is it not troubling to you that over 500 scientific papers have conclusively shown the link between fatal disease and products of the type that your companies may be involved with in some fashion?"

In response, R.J. Reynolds President and Chairman Joe Camel said: "Who are you going to believe, a punch of piss-ant doctors and scientists or us?" In a possibly unconnected development, attractive young women in micro skirts and Joe Camel T-shirts distributed wads of 10,000 Yen notes to members of the Committee, which Camel referred as "tokens of our esteem, just like the girls."

Despite the distribution of gifts, some members of the Committee would not be dissuaded from their ferocious assault. "Do you not think that some statement of regret would be appropriate given the 15,000 Japanese who die each year from consuming certain tobacco-based products?" asked member Fumiya Nishiguichi.

Seeking to pour oil on troubled waters, Lorillard CEO Herbert Tareyton responded: "If you think we're going to apologize to a bunch of gooks you're f***king out of your mind."

Later in the hearing, Shun Tono played a tape of a desperately ill Osaka man who smoked while tethered to an oxygen tank, crying: "I can't stop. I can't stop." Tono-san then asked the CEO's to respond to accusations that cigarettes "might be addictive."

A contrite Camel said: "Of course, they're not addictive.  Who says they are?  Let me know and I'll send out five guys to kill him."

Notwithstanding the vitriol poured on the helpless American corporate honchos by the Japanese legislators, the fact remains that the Diet remains in a quandary. While some have insisted that the Government recall all cigarettes before more Japanese die in agony, others are concerned that it will be difficult to wean the public away from their beloved American cigarettes, which have a reputation for quality and style that local brands are unable to match.

The members of the Diet are also aware that the United States is not likely to roll over and play dead while one of its most lucrative exports is driven out of one of its largest markets. Speaking on Schlox News, international economics expert Sarah Palin said that if "the Nips" took one cigarette out of the Japanese market, she'd go over there with her shotgun and show them what it's like to be an Alaskan wolf hearing the whirr of helicopter blades.

Schlox's national security expert Dick Morris was no less firm in his defense of American industrial might: "If they want to put out our cigarettes, we'll do it for them.  By waterboarding.