Failed Experiment Produces Hideous Miniature Clone

enetic science took a step backward last week when the creation of a bald, chubby failed clone was revealed by members of the Raelian sect.

"They have attempted to play god, and they have failed," said someone in our newsroom.

The cloning was carried out by Clonaid, a terribly on-the-nose named company founded by members of the Raelian sect, who believe human beings were created by alien scientists years ago. In case you're wondering, yes, they are being completely sincere when they say that. Members of the socially unapproved religion announced their disappointment when the experiment yielded a clone one-eighth the size of the original, hairless, fatty, and with inhibited intelligence and language skills.

"Imagine our dismay when our optimistic attempts resulted in a hideous, miniature version of the DNA donor," said Clonaid spokesperson Brigitte Boisselier. "Perhaps we have exceeded the limits of human capability, but our intentions were good. And we are not giving up yet. The next clones we are producing are due for next week, and we are waiting to see if they are successful."

Though Clonaid revealed little of its methodology, they did speculate the process of incubating the clone in the DNA donor's body for nine months may have been a misstep in the procedure. According to outside calculations, simple physics dictate an exact duplicate could not be produced within the original since the amount of space needed to house a duplicate of equal size would have to be bigger than the original.

Clonaid scientists considered the possibility of the clone outgrowing the host and bursting right through the body, like that scene in Alien or Pras in that "Ghetto Supastar" video, and the scientists considered it had begun to happen, but instead the failed experiment escaped through an existing orifice after hours of laborious effort. It was then they realized the experiment had failed, producing a smallish, demonesque humanoid of sub-human intelligence.

"We have not given up hope that the creature may offer us some insight as to what went wrong, and we have continued attempts to communicate with it," said Boisselier at a press conference. "So far the monstrosity only emits ear-piercing screaming and claws at any who approach it. Our scientists are working to decode its screams and construct a common language, but the sounds are animalistic and will likely be a dead avenue. It is probably just crying out in pain, begging to be put out of its misery."

When asked if there were a chance the creature was unrelated to the clone experiment, Boisselier said the possibility was considered and rejected.

"It is quite clearly a clone of some form, though definitely not what we intended. We brought in the DNA donor for identification, and the creature definitely has the donor's eyes, as well as her cute little nose and dimples. We were going to risk contact between the donor and the creature, but then the small one made a boom boom."

The experiment may have other results as well, pushing lawmakers to create legislation in response to the first human clone, besides possible Tom Cruise clone Peter Facinelli, and evoking edicts from the world's religious leaders.

"Life is sacred, and it is not man's place to play God," said the Pope, mumbling in Latin. "I'm not one to say I told you so, but…"

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"As Jerry Springer said when announcing he was about to have dinner with a loyal viewer, 'It's time to take out the trash.'"

Is there a real Tony Soprano? I'm just asking because my neighbor says he knows him. And I've seen the TV show before and I don't want to get on the bad side of this guy if my neighbor goes mouthing off to him like he threatened to. Either way I guess it's in my best interest to stop throwing the garbage into the hall.

Garbage men are like Winston Churchill: They get no respect. A bunch of guys whose job it is to ride around on the back of a truck. That's the only highlight of their day. Then they have to haul your messy garbage to the truck and dump it in the back. In some cases. In other cases, the truck can do all the work. They hire Transformers or something, I don't know, but sometimes I watch through the blinds and see the truck pull up and the garbage can is lifted up by robot arms and dumped in the back. I always wonder what happened to the garbage men. I guess the real question is, is it a friendly Transformer or one of the evil ones? Like the Tony Soprano thing, I don't care to find out.

Being a garbage man is the worst job in the world. That's what I told myself when I was working at Trojan as a condom taster, and I stand by it. Sure, I went home feeling weird at the end of a long shift and you can't really get the taste of banana-flavored rubber out of your mouth, but at least only my tongue was worn out. With being a garbage man, that's probably a worse smell, and you have to move a lot. At least at the condom tasting job the other guy was the one doing all the moving.

What's even worse about being a garbage man, people always use you in negative examples. Some shithead kid doesn't do his homework and all of a sudden his mom is threatening to give your job to him. That mom better watch out. 'Cause if she's right and the kid becomes her garbage man one day, I bet she'll never get any furniture or boxes taken away. And the kid will be lapping it up. "I'm sorry, ma'am, that refrigerator box isn't officially in the dumpster, so we're not allowed to take it. Fuck you, mom. You should have shelled out the money for a tutor if you wanted your boxes picked up."

I wonder if you can even pick up garbage on your own home route, or if they assign you to some other route on purpose. Like it's a conflict of interest or something. Like a doctor can't operate on her own son. The garbage manager stops the guy as he's on the way out the door, all like, "I'm assigning you another route, Bill. You're too close to this case." That would be pretty cool, I guess. The other highlight of the job. Then you're right up in the ranks with doctors and lawyers. Because if your mom comes into the Burger King and wants a Whopper, you still have to wait on her. No matter how much she's making fun of you.

There's got to be some mobility in being a garbage man. Better routes or something. Like if you get in good with the boss or get a lot of letters of recommendation from people on your route, you can get reassigned to the rich people's routes or something. The kind of routes where people just throw out hundred dollar bills because they got dirty and shit. But then you probably couldn't even take them. Some kind of garbage collectors' code I don't know about. You see perfectly good sea food lying right on top, not even dirty, but you're bound by honor not to eat it. That's gotta suck.

There's so much I don't know.

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Dear commune:

Ed Phillips here again. I was in the midst of another college prank, trying to see how many people I could squeeze in my Yugo when the cops came down on me hard, those punks. As usual, they didn't understand and were very forceful in arresting me, although I told them, to be fair, I didn't kill any of them myself.

With all the terrorism and crap happening lately, I can sort of understand why the overreaction. So many Americans are willing to relinquish a little bit of freedom to make themselves feel safer. I, however, am not. How do we strike a balance? Do I have to write a signed letter with a notary public signature or something to verify that I am willing to sacrifice any security at all in order to retain all my freedoms? If that's the case, I would also like to sacrifice the current security I have in order to gain new freedoms other Americans do not enjoy.

If it sounds good to you, I'd prefer to be shot at maybe once or twice a day in order to enjoy legalized marijuana. If I could have sex with underage teenage girls without repercussions you could go ahead and give like three or four of them some serious disease or a huge boyfriend, that would give me pretty good odds, I think. I'm also looking for a way to commit a murder here or there, but I'm not sure what I can sacrifice, maybe you could serve me some bad undercooked pork or something real dangerous.

I have to go as I just made bail, God bless mom and that bake sale. I'll be mailing this on the way home and thinking up some good freedoms I'd like to get as well as securities I don't really need.

Ed Phillips
Hackensack, NJ

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Dear commune:

I have recently discovered your online publication and have to say I enjoy it, though I don't always agree with it. As an alternative source of news and opinions, it's successful in presenting ideas usually not found in the mainstream media.

I find all of the columnists very interesting, though I have to admit I don't enjoy Ned Nedmiller at all. It's nothing personal against the man, I just don't understand him. He barely seems to be speaking English, and none of it amounts to any sort of sense to me. What is the story with Nedmiller?

Deborah Kling
Daisy, ID


Dear Deborah:

Sorry, but we're not sure what you mean. We have no Ned Nedmiller on staff at the commune.

the commune

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Dear commune:

I am writing Dark Shadows fan fiction for the famous Dark Shadows website BarnabusBytes.com. As is usual, I try to stay true to the vernacular of the period. My questions: What is the past tense of smote? My initial thought was that it is smot, but my friends say that's not true, Barnabus would never say he smot someone. Arnie said smote is the past-tense of smite and the past-participle is smitten, but I thought smitten was a good thing, to say you were smitten by someone, whereas to smote someone is very bad. So what is it?

By the way, feel free to check out all the great Dark Shadows fan fiction by me (SheriffJonas@aol.com) and other fans at BarnabusBytes.com!

SheriffJonas@aol.com


Dear SheriffJonas:

Smote is a dangerous street drug lethal if taken in large amounts anally, though the same could be said of just about anything. Smite was the 19th vice-president of the United States, killed in a duel over smote, ironically. Smitten is the famous German candy with a touch of cinnamon.

Thank you for your invitation, but we find the whole thing very sad. At least that's the general reaction as we passed a printed copy of your e-mail around the office, though some found it hard not to laugh long and loud.

the commune

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Editor's Note: the commune is not responsible for your outfit, we distinctly said you didn't have to wear that dress tonight. So put on the red light, Roooooooooooooooxaaaaaaaanne.

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