ANN ARBOR (APUPI) In a catastrophe certain to reverberate throughout American society for decades, millions of the MTV generation have succumbed suddenly in the past twenty-four hours, after ignoring rapper P. Diddy's and Senator Hillary Clinton's frantic warnings over the past weeks.

"I feel like I failed," said the morose musician. "I called millions of young people in the hopes that we could avoid this, but somehow the message just didn't get through."

The unprecedented die-off has resulted in horrific scenes all across the nation. Bodies are stacking up on college campuses, in pizza parlors, malls, and bars, and the older survivors have their hands full keeping up with it. Cruelly, the affliction doesn't always kill. There are many who live, but in a zombie-like state--those who made it to the polling place, but couldn't quite figure out how to work the machines.

Elderly workers, seemingly immune to whatever is causing this, are performing triage and trying to sort those who have been felled by their failure to vote, those who are merely injured but can survive with a rapid administration of provisional ballots, and those Bush supporters who are just sleeping off a bender after celebrating the night before.

Authorities have been unable to estimate the total number of casualties, which continues to grow hourly, but the few survivors are envying the dead. Upon seeing the carnage and contemplating life without their cohorts, many now regret their own votes yesterday, particularly with the loss of their candidate, Senator Kerry.

One young woman stared across a sunny quad full of her former classmates, limbs askew as they fell where they stood, many still clutching their color-coordinated cell phones. There was a dazed look of disbelief in her eyes. "I warned my roommate about what P. Diddy said," she sobbed. "But she wouldn't listen. She said she was too busy, and she didn't know anything about the issues."

"I told her that wasn't important, that what was important was to make her voice heard, no matter how uninformed and incapable of critical thinking she was, but I couldn't get her there, and now it's too late."

"My boyfriend is gone, my candidate lost. Why did I vote? What is there left to live for?"

It's too early to know the full sociological impact of this new holocaust, but it may be similar to Europe in the early twentieth century, when millions of young men were slaughtered in the flower of their youth in the Great War. Except this time, the culling had no gender bias--both young men and young women have been cut down in equal numbers, at least relieving any potential imbalance. Some have even pointed out that there's a silver lining to the dark cloud. The average IQ of the nation is expected to skyrocket almost overnight.

Young Bush voters are saddened, but stoic.

"We have to go on," said one young couple. "We're now the hope of our generation."

Could this be the "Row" Effect at work. With the MTV crowd having to decide between voting and TRL, Kedwards was up the creek without a Pdiddyaddle?

Trey Parker and Matt Stone covered this topic brilliantly in their season premiere episode of South Park last week. And you have certainly done a fine job as well, Rand. :)

I think young liberals are more likely to complain and protest but young conservatives are more likely to act and vote. I would love to see a study on this.

This close to Halloween, all those dead might just spring back t life and run around trying to bite people to the tune of "Down With The Sickness." Hopefully the Lounge Against The Machine version, or we won't be able to outrun them.

Hey, they can still vote in Chicago.

Awesome Rand!!

Rand, you are really giving Scott Ott a run for his money! That's twice in one week you've had me trying to supress hysterical snorts of laughter at work.

Good job, and keep it up! ;-)