We must say, when we envisioned a scenario in which AMPTP president and chief negotiator Nick Counter took WGAw president Patric Verrone into his strong yet tender embrace on the balcony of the famed Warner Bros. water tower, and kissed his striketime adversary truly, madly, deeply on the lips to the exuberant cheers of thousands of working writers and execs below, it was pure fantasy.

Though widely vilified by those sympathetic to the WGA cause, AMPTP president Nick Counter has been doing groundbreaking work on behalf of the endangered Mountain Gorillas of Central Africa, embarking on a tireless quest to save the the species from extinction that often places him in grave danger. Shadowy blogspot truth-teller Bachem Machuno (of onetime Agents Can Eat My Ass Out Like Hungry Bears fame) has returned from a long hiatus to share Counter's story with Hollywood, hoping to humanize a man often so often unfairly depicted as a crow-riding bogeyman: "Counter's strategy in the case of the Mountain Gorilla was straightforward: herd them into an enclosed area, and wait. Whether it took weeks, or months, or entire seasons. Let them starve and turn on each other; only then will the strongest and most capable of them survive and contribute to a strong gene pool going forward." [nickcounterfanclub.blogspot.com]

No, this WGA picketer's sign (click the photo to enlarge) probably won't help to elevate the level of discourse in the already-ugly war of words raging between the writers and studios, but it may finally force AMPTP bogeyman Nick Counter to address some of the rapidly proliferating rumors concerning him on his organization's website: