BELLINGHAM, WA (Ferret Press)- The early maneuvering for position in the 1996 Presidential election heated up in Northwest Washington today with the announcement by Scooter D'Weasel, a Bellingham sock merchant, that he will seek the nation's highest office as the only current contender for the Furo Party nomination. D'Weasel deferred all questions to his campaign manager/spokesman/janitor/caterer, Chris von Seggern, for comment. "Scooter's got all the attributes Americans look for in a national leader," von Seggern said. "He's charismatic, handsome, determined, and not afraid to let his mind be known on the issues." Von Seggern refused to comment on the matter of a running mate; "Scooter has a few candidates in mind, but he's waiting until the time is right to make an announcement." Considered by many to be a strong "dark horse" contender in the 1996 election, the Furo Party is nonetheless little-known to the American public. Important planks in the party's platform include federal raisin subsidies, the addition of Bitter Apple to the federal list of controlled substances, and the eradication, using nuclear weapons if necessary, of California's Fish & Game Department, which official party literature describes as "the greatest threat to Americans' freedom into the 21st century." Although the Furo party rolls claim about 10 million members nationwide, turnout in previous years has been weak, largely due to the fact that, amazingly, none of the 10 million are eligible to vote. A party official who wished to remain anonymous described this as "a mockery of American justice, a system of blatant discrimination based upon the sole and irrelevant criterion of how many legs a citizen has," and which he vowed that party candidates elected to office would immediately work to rectify. I am Ferret of Borg The Litterbox is Irrelevant Bitter Apple is Irrelevant Your Socks Will Be Assimilated [Posted in FML issue 1464]