the commune, 10/3/26: You'll learn to love it or die trying

Free World Shudders as Justice O'Connor Retires

July 4, 2005

Washington, D.C.

Junior Bacon

Justice O'Connor: "Stop me if you've heard this oneâ€”two Jews and a Polack are getting high at an Indian casinoâ€¦"

he left and moderates across the entire world let out a doleful cry as it received word that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor planned to retire upon confirmation of her replacement to spend more time making decisions in the private sector. O'Connor, one of the world's last few conservative moderates, appointed before the extinction of such creatures, often played the role of the swing vote in controversial decisions on abortion and the death penalty.

"Yahoo!" said swarthy right-wing leaders, not likely referring to the popular internet search engine.

The O'Connor retirement gives Ã¼bermensch George W. Bush his first chance in 5 years of rule by terror to appoint his own brand of Justice to the Supreme Court. The Court, friend to Bush ever since it put the little dork in office back in 2000, has often just narrowly avoided turnaround decisions on hot-button issues like abortion and the display of the Ten Commandments in federally-funded places.

On Friday, with O'Connor's announcement of her retirement, Bush joined the trumpets of praise for the country's first female Supreme Court Justice. The president called her "a discerning and conscientious judge" and even going so far as saying he wished he could hug her, were it not for the restraining order against him she issued herself.

Though O'Connor disappointed liberals on occasions with such decisions as affirmative action, the left and more moderate members of political parties trembled in fear of what replacement the gun-happy, baby-lovin', prayer-shoutin' president might offer up in her stead. Although the White House remained quiet on any potential nominees, insiders say they are already working on a list of nominees that can storm their way through the Republican-held Congresses to confirmation.

"Of course the president is seeking a justice that can restore balance to his party's politics," said inside source Nate the Gangsta at the White House. "But there's still the problem of getting him past the whiney liberal leftovers in Congress, and the whole thing is on display for the American public, who still ridiculously hold out hope both parties will elect someone who reflects majority values. But I'm telling you now, the watchword on this nomination is minorityâ€”the more ethnic the better."

Among the "minority" nominees are black woman Janice Brown, Hispanic Emilio Garza, white woman Edith Jones, and Frank Easterbrook, who is balding. Also among the potential nominees is Bush favorite and current Attorney General Alberto "Seedy" Gonzales, conveniently Hispanic and yet more conservative than Lawrence Welk's underpants. Gonzales may be the favorite now for the seat, who would make a fearsome foursome with Bush's other Reichsjudges Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and William Rehnquist.

With a Republican House and Senate, Democrats have few options to stop the appointment of a judge that could rollback decades of moderate or left-leaning decisions, especially with one of their only remaining tools, the filibuster, dubbed the "ballbuster" by local wit Ted Ted, under fire from the majority GOP.

The liberal opposition, however, had no potential nominees for the president to consider yet, but anyone who didn't carry a sidearm into the court would be a happy consideration at this point.

the commune news was sad to see the court lose its only female Justiceâ€”we say the jury's still out on Ruth Bader Ginsburg, so don't give us that again. Lil Duncan is herself a special appointment, and there are several construction workers outside our window a-pointin' at her now.

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House Democrats Uneasy During Rare Trip Outside

GOP strikes back at filibusters by installing Laz-E-Boys on Senate floor

February 17, 2003

Sister, Can You Spare a Dime?

º Last Column: I Have a Lazy E-Mailman
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So I needed some start-up capital, right? Since they shut my lights off and won't start them back up until they get a check.

I thought about going to my parents, then I remembered they have no money and would make me do chores or something for it even if they did. I thought about asking Acting-Editor Ramrod Hurley, but that dildo doesn't have access to anything at the commune, even Red Bagel's private stock of Tab is locked in the fridge and he has no combination. I thought about asking someone at the commune for the money, but they'd probably make me do chores, too, and I have an idea what kind of chores Ramon Nootles needs done.

Which left me to ask my sister. I mean, I could ask my brother, in fact I did, but he could only loan me the amount in crystals and I already tried to pay the bill with that. I needed real cash money or credit, and the only person I know is my sister. For those who need the background, my sister is the family outsider, Harvard Law grad, private law practice, does a lot of ACLU work, occasionally puts out a book or something. She's got the critics and liberals fooled, but we all know she's kind of an idiot.

I went to see her at her office and it was worse than I thoughtâ€”all this big talk of success was just a sham, the place is a real dump. Her law office is all the way up on the 30th floor and she shares it with a bunch of other lawyers, though her name is first, good deal there, I'm really impressed. It's so embarrassing I felt bad for her, no one will even share an office with her. She's in this huge place all by herself, even her secretary must have weaseled a place outside to avoid it. I can't blame her, we shared a room when I was a kid and I know she snoresâ€”it would be impossible to catch an afternoon nap with someone who sounds like a motorboat.

She was happy to see me, she asked if I needed work again, but everything was cool since I have the new sitcom in pre-production. She can be cool at timesâ€”back when she was doing better and I was on hard times she gave me a job playing Lady MacBeth in her backyard. There were no other actors to act with, and no stage and I had to make the costume, but I got paid pretty well and it was a sweet gig. Sure, I didn't know anything about MacBeth or his Lady, but I substituted the dialogue from a Facts of Life episode and she couldn't tell the difference. She was on the phone most of the time anyway during the show, which I usually hate.

Soon enough I got to the part about asking for money and Addie just nodded and wrote me a check from her big fat checkbook. I told her I'd pay her back, and she said I could pay her back whenever I could. Well, of course, then I said I might not be able to pay it back and she said that was no big deal. I told her I could work it off, but she said she's already seen MacBeth. So we're still kind of in negotiations, I might do some Antony and Cleopatra stuff maybe, if I can get that Who's the Boss? script.

Then, before she took me to lunch, she said, "You know, Clarissa, I was so jealous of you growing up. Mom and dad used to dote over you all the time and say they wished I was as pretty as you and had a job in TV. But then when the acting work dried up and you found it hard to get a job, and I had all my college and developed my skills and everything worked out for me, I realized I was lucky, in the long term. I had the better deal from it all."

Sure, whatever. I nodded and smiled and pretended to think it was not funny, but mostly I was just thinking we should eat some place with ribs. I hope now she doesn't want the money back since I basically worked it off being all like her psychiatrist and stuff.

º Last Column: I Have a Lazy E-Mailman
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October 15, 2001

All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth, and a Robotic Dinosaur

º Last Column: Where the Fuck's Jesus?
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Every year when Christmas rolls around, kids everywhere are treated to the months of anticipation and hours of fun that only a really awesome Christmas present can bring. Unless they get a robot dog that's retarded.

Last year for Christmas I got a retarded robot dog. It doesn't do anything cool. I was hoping that my robot dog would have heat vision or at least be able to curse in French, but all it does is eat puppy food and pee on the couch. I told my mom and dad that we should check the instructions, because they probably put the batteries in backwards. That happened one year when I got the Hot Wheels Detailing Shop for Christmas and it started smoking and caught the drapes on fire. That wasn't such a big deal though since Billy Doogan down the street got the same thing and his Hot Wheels always looked lame after that, he could never get the paint to go on smooth and all of his cars looked like they were fresh out of a burn ward. But last year I was excited about the robot dog so I thought we should check the directions. My mom and dad said that Santa hadn't brought any directions but I think they were just afraid of being wrong again, like the year I wanted the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers video and it turned out dad got confused and got me Nightly Muff'n Pussy Rangers instead. Dad thought we should just keep it but mom made him take it back and get the right one.

So last year I was stuck with a retarded robot dog that probably had the batteries in backwards. Or maybe it's just deflective from the factory, but something's definitely wrong. My friend Carl Washbaum got a deflective Poo-Chi for his birthday one time and all it would do was rub it's butt on the floor while it made the noise from electronic battleship, and mine is at least ten times more screwed up than his. I even think that mine's getting bigger, which is definitely not supposed to happen. If it keeps this up, pretty soon I won't be able to close the lid on my toybox.

At least Carl's deflective Poo-Chi was fun for a while. We used to hide it under his older sister's bed and she would run around, looking for her cell phone every time it went off. Mine just makes whining noises and chews on an old tennis shoe. And if you thought a Tamagotchi had to be fed a lot, you obviously have never owned a retarded robot dog.

My parents thought I might have fun with my robot dog if I taught it to do some tricks. Billy Doogan has a robot parrot that he taught to say "Fuck You Asshole" just like in Terminator so I thought my robot dog might be able to do some cool tricks too. But unless you consider crapping on the kitchen floor to be a real special trick, my robot dog just plain sucks at tricks. No "Simon Says", no adapter to connect to my Nintendo 64, nothing. I did see him eat a potato beetle over by the pantry one time but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to impress my friends with that one.

It's hard not getting your butt kicked at school when you're missing a front tooth and you whistle when you say "Miss Spankenauber" in class. Everybody thinks you have a crush on the teacher and that means serious underwear violations. Richie Turner really does have a crush on Miss Spankenauber, but his dad brought him a GameCube from Japan last month so he's pretty much untouchable.

If you think a lousy retarded robot dog is going to keep me from coming home with snapped underwear elastic and that it's going to restore my status among my classmates, you're sorely mistaken. At this point, there's only one thing that's going to set things right: a robot dinosaur.

A robot dinosaur would be bound to do some awesome tricks, and probably could eat other kids' robot pets alive. Maybe even other kids. And I bet it could do my homework, too, or at least scare Miss Spankenauber into giving me less workbook pages to do every night. And I'm sure it's got some kind of flashcard mode or some kind of educational thing going on somewhere in there, easily making it a better choice than that lame-o "LearnCo Systems Tutoring Funputer" that I know my parents have been looking at. And I'd be willing to bet you never have to mash up a heartworm pill into a robot dinosaur's food every night.

º Last Column: Where the Fuck's Jesus?
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Quote of the Day

“Fight back, men! It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean!”

-Capt. William Thomas Turner of the Lusitania

Fortune 500 Cookie

Looks like your lawyers have kept those topless photos out of the magazine; that and the fact you're 89 years old. Tonight, conquer life's mystery: Find out what that Alpo tastes like. Today is great week to give the gift of peanut brittle. Shaved or unshaved? Your dogs will love you either way. Today's lucky charms: Pink hearts, blue moons, green clovers, virtually any of them.

Try again later.

Least Heard Mobster Euphemisms for Murder

1.	Treat this guy to a steel sundae
2.	Make his shoes a lot heavier, more sinkable
3.	Invalidate his parking
4.	Go apeshit on this fuck
5.	Fill him full of holes like a Dade County ballot (2000 only)

North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie

BY Roland McShyster

10/4/2004

Buenos Nachos, Americanos, it's time for another weekly injection of the Entertainment Police serum. Hope you've all been good boys and girls out there in boy and girl-land, I don't really have the technology to follow up on that in order to deny the latest movie reviews to those of you who have been bad, so I guess we'll just have to keep on with the honor system on that one. You bad ones, you know who you are, you miserable fucks. And I bet you feel just awful poaching the straight world's movie-reviewing good time. You should. As for the rest of you, sorry for that ugliness, but now let's get on to the new releases!

In Theaters Now:

The Forgotten
Sure, I'll be the first to admit that it's a major bummer when somebody's supposed to pick you up at the mall and they completely forget about you, but is that really dramatic fodder for a major motion picture? It is if you're Julianne Moore, the queen of overreacting on the big screen. And although I'm sure you're waiting for me to give this turkey the patented McShyster "McShit!" razzle, I'm afraid I'm going to have to blow your mind by cracking open the stunner that I actually enjoyed this movie. Sure, the idea's batshit, but Moore's just touched enough to make it work on that crazy big screen. At first, when she starts ranting to strangers in the mall parking lot about how her son didn't show up to give her ride and how that means he never existed and her whole life is a giant alien conspiracy lie, you just shrug your shoulders and start making that cross-eyed, finger-twirling "crazy" gesture to your fellow theater patrons. But then you start to think. What if your ride doesn't come pick you up from the mall after the movie? How much would that suck and just how far out of your own ass might you crawl? Though I didn't see the rest of the movie, I'm sure it was fine. I had to go out in the hall and call my ride for a preemptive bitching-out.

National Lampoon's Gold Niggers
Let me be the first to make it clear that I don't approve of this film's title. No need to beat down the commune's doors and beat Roland McShyster to a bloody, racially insensitive pulp. Save that rage for the exploitive pencil-dicks over at the studio, if you don't mind. I don't care how many hard-core rappers you put in the cast, that kind of boorish insensitivity hasn't been welcome in movie titles since the 1950's. Or the mid-90's, in southern states. Though I'm sure the guys over at National Lampoon have been especially desperate for cheap laughs ever since John Belushi died and Chevy Chase had his soul removed in that infomercial accident, this one still has to go down with the infamous Skating Chink and the typo nightmare Emaneulle in Jew Zealand in the annals of the most offensive movie titles ever. But how was the movie, you ask? Are you shitting me? You think I was going to parade my white ass into that theater and announce that I'd just paid $9 to see some gold niggers? I got the hell out of there, and stopped to rent Roots on the way home in case anyone had followed me from the theater. Shit.

Shy Captain and the World of Sbarro
Maybe I spent too much of my childhood out in the sunshine, but I somehow managed to miss the comic book about the Italian-fast-food-loving WWI-era fighter pilot captain who was famous for never landing, due to his paralyzing fear of social situations. Nor did I catch wind of his most famous adventure, when he ends up being the only pilot left to fight off an invasion after the entire air force is destroyed on the ground by giant flying desk lamps. Did you read that one? Or maybe Hollywood is just starting to make this shit up, since audiences obviously don't care what they're getting as long as it's some kind of half-assed escape from reality. It's gotten so bad that I've even had offers to develop that Hero Gang comic I used to draw in high school, but I decided to take a pass since they wanted Ashton Kutcher to play me. Some things are just more valuable than money, and not spending the rest of your life having everyone think you're a gonad is definitely one of them.

And that's a wrap, but not the kind that come filled with delicious meats and shredded vegetables. Sorry about that, I wish it was that kind of wrap too. We'll be back in another few weeks with even more movie reviews for you to peruse, but probably still no wraps, so you might want to look into bringing your own lunch next time.