Dear Prime Minister Putin: I'll make this short because I know you are a very stressed-out ex-tyrant -- what with the strain of being equal all over the place and no longer executing anyone who's shorter than you are.

My name is, Yevhen Marchuk, your Minister of Defense, and I thought you should know that I've lost all our nuclear weapons. Of course I don't think they are really lost, just kind of mislaid -- you know like the remote or the cordless phone.

But in my own defense I should point out that, years ago, I suggested we install rocket-finder beepers so that we could hear where the little devils were hiding.

It really wasn't my fault that my beepers operated on the same wavelength as the nuclear detonators and would have destroyed half the universe if the one I left on a bus had batteries in it.

But, hey, Putin, we're Russian, right? After a night of comradely partying and two bottles of Stolichnaya, it didn't seem such a big problem. Naturally, I'm hoping that you are comradely partying with Stolichnaya when you read what I did with our delivery system on the Fourth of July.

Anyway, Vladimir, as I said to your favorite private secretary when she was leaving the broom closet with the president of Georgia, "What does it matter, Svetlina, when no one knows who to annihilate anymore, niet"? (In Russian, "OK" is "okylashiloshovskin," which will explain why it's more popular to say, niet) OK?

The thing is, Vlady, you are only a Russian prime minister now, which means the Russian president takes all the blame for everything you do -- like getting even with the president of Georgia for you. Anyway, I know you are disappointed that you will not be the one who is gloriously executed for losing all our nuclear weapons.

You know, Vla, we are taking a lot of flack for defending Russia against the Georgian hordes. I explained to Dick Cheney that it was because they had weapons of mass destruction and were a menace to the six-wheeler vodka truck that delivers to the Kremlin 14 times a day.

This reasoning had a very strange effect on Dick Cheney. Something you might want to remember Vlad is that you do not want to see Dick Cheney smile. Even a gallon of Stolichnaya will do nothing to erase the horror and it's easy to understand why he usually risks only a small upward twitch at the corner of his mouth. The only time the whole thing was seen in public was when he was intimidating other bidders for contracts to rebuild countries he has liberated. Some of his rivals even offered to knock down a few more buildings for him if he would only frown for them or, at least go back to the blank stare and twitch.

President Bush likes to be informed about what's going on in the world. When he heard about our attack on Georgia, he said, "That darn Georgia needed to stopped. They already got Atlanta completely surrounded. Miami could be next."

Oh, and when he heard that Vladimir Putin was watching the situation in Georgia unfold while he was at the opening ceremony of the Olympic games, he said, "Gosh darn it. I missed that event. Who got the gold?"

One last thing, Vladimir, now that we have captured Georgia why don't we go down country a little bit and take Florida then relocate all those senior citizens? I mean they would be far happier in their new retirement home in the barren wastes of the snow-laden Ural Mountain range. Just think of all the things they would have to complain about. Senior paradise.

Yours truly... Etc.

Anyway, that's enough about Putin's mail but I should tell you that, while I was surfing the 'Net, I came across a few super-secret CIA intelligence programs designed to make the world a safer place.

It seems that when discussing Georgia, Putin asked Cheney why he had invaded Iraq when they had no weapons of mass destruction. Well, Cheney almost smiled again and said, "Are you nuts? Why would we invade a country that has weapons of mass destruction? I mean we would end up blowing each other to bits, right? That would be really irresponsible. There would be nothing left for me to rebuild."

It's nice to know that, after the meeting between presidents Bush and Putin in Slovenia, Bush said he had looked Putin in the eye and found him to be honest and straightforward.

That's great, but maybe only the eye he looked in was honest. What about the other one? Was it rolling with its eyebrow raised mockingly? We'll never know now, will we? And nothing was said about how honest his nose was. That could come as a bit of a blow, maybe even start a cold war. (Ha, ha, Russian joke that Putin's bodyguard told me just before he was accidentally shot 50 times.)

Anyway, the good news is that Putin is more intimidated by Obama's smile than by Cheney's twitch. Makes sense. I mean, what aging, Russian politician wants to be reminded of the view he will stare at day after day from the window of his retirement home in the barren wastes of the snow-laden Ural Mountain range?

Anthony Cicale is a Lemoore resident. His column appears weekly in The Sentinel. Readers can write him at The Hanford Sentinel, P.O. Box 9, Hanford, CA 93232 or e-mail anthonycicale@hotmail.com.

(Dec. 14, 2008)