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 April 19, 2004 |
indings of the 9-11 Commission distressed many in the government and law enforcement agencies this week, with media attention quickly turning to allegations more could have been done to prevent the tragedies. Some were alarmed at revelations the CIA had information about Al-Qaeda’s plan to use airplanes as weapons as early as 1995. More troubling, the twenty-first century disaster had been predicted as far back as the sixteenth century.
The question has been raised amidst the report: Could intelligence from Nostradamus have prevented 9-11?
Some, and not just stoners, are saying yes. Michel Nostradamus first released his information on the disasters in the sixteenth century, in his usual reporting style of quatrains and vague language. Still, little confusio...
indings of the 9-11 Commission distressed many in the government and law enforcement agencies this week, with media attention quickly turning to allegations more could have been done to prevent the tragedies. Some were alarmed at revelations the CIA had information about Al-Qaeda’s plan to use airplanes as weapons as early as 1995. More troubling, the twenty-first century disaster had been predicted as far back as the sixteenth century.
The question has been raised amidst the report: Could intelligence from Nostradamus have prevented 9-11?
Some, and not just stoners, are saying yes. Michel Nostradamus first released his information on the disasters in the sixteenth century, in his usual reporting style of quatrains and vague language. Still, little confusion could come from the prophetic announcement that “The sky will burn at forty-five degrees latitude, / Fire approaches the great new city / Immediately a huge, scattered flame leaps up / When they want to have verification from the Normans.” The Commission interviewed several experts on the sixteenth century seer and what exactly the government knew at the time of the prophecy.
“I’m extremely dismayed,” said some senator on the panel, “to think we had this information nearly five hundred years ago and still couldn’t respond appropriately.”
Interviewed by the Commission was Nostradamus expert Professor Paul Fischer, from New York University’s Humanities Department. In fact, Fischer is regarded by some not so much an expert on Nostradamus as one of the few people who knew anything about Nostradamus’ work and had Sunday off to testify.
“There are numerous reasons why the ‘Nostradamus intelligence’ proved insufficient to react to the Al-Qaeda problem,” said Fischer, before the Commission. “For one, the language of the prophecy is non-specific and did not really offer a date the attacks would happen. Secondly, a probable one-hundred year lapse came between the announcement of the prophecy and its translation into English, and even then there is no exact record for when it came to the attention of anyone in America. And thirdly, the United States would not come into existence as a government for another hundred years after that, and at the time did not have a bureau of intelligence. But if this Commission is determined to find someone of the era to blame, let’s just say King of England Charles II for the sake of getting this whole thing done with.”
The Commission then proposed Charles II be called upon to publicly testify to what he knew about terrorism during his administration, or reign, and faced minor embarrassment when a Senate page informed them the Merry Monarch has been deceased since 1685.
Speaking on a condition of detailed notoriety, Sen. Bill Willey expressed dismay at the Commission’s exoneration of Charles II and pre-revolutionary intelligence groups.
“Frankly, I’m not convinced all was done to prevent the horrors of September eleven,” said Sen. Willey, on Larry King Live. “The world around us changed in ways we never could have imagined on that dark day. It seems inconceivable someone could not have seen it coming and taken the Al-Qaeda threat seriously.” the commune news foresaw the coming of that movie about a gay Hitler after reading Movie Source magazine, but nobody calls us seers. Lil Duncan had a 50/50 rate of predicting any comings, but the less said about that the better.
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Amphibians threatened with extinction better pay protection money
Country named Myanmar apparently not some kind of joke
 Plans for Tallest Ferris Wheel Scrapped; Yao-Ming Too Busy to Turn It
Gold, shotguns, ammunition, fallout shelters all make strong showings
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Senator Wins Lottery, Quits "Shitty Job" epublican Senator Judd Gregg finally ran into a big steaming pile of luck Wednesday when he matched 5 of 6 Powerball numbers and won a lottery jackpot of $853,492. Gregg immediately called Vice-President Dick Cheney to let his boss know he would not be coming into work. Its about friggin time I got some good luck, Gregg told reporters in front of his home in his home state of New Hampshire. Gregg waved his winning ticket in the air frantically and laughed. Eat it, taxpayers! Im gonna be my own boss from now on! Gregg, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee and spent more than $2 million in his last re-election campaign, did admit to some sour grapes in not winning the $340 million jackpot won by an Oregon player in the same lottery. the commune's Fall Gadget Guide ts almost the time of year to start pretending youre Christmas shopping while you look for swanky new shit for yourself, and the commune is there for you with our first-ever annual Fall Gadget Guide. Join commune Tech Correspondent Mitch Kroeger as he guides you through the bewildering wilderness of the new and the shiny. Aides Urge Bush to Stop Referring to Iraqi Majority as Shits Sheryl Crow Takes Cancer in Lance Armstrong Split |
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 August 19, 2002
Herman's Hermits: Your Dad's Got Crabs, EddieWhat kind of noise does your brain make when you think? A hum? A whir? I've come to believe that mine's more of a rattle and frankly, this week that's got me concerned.
What could be rattling around up there? Loose juices? Snot? Who can say? For all I know there could even be a little matchbox car up there from when I was a kid. I'm not saying I remember ever sticking one up there, but like most people of my generation, I took a lassaiez-faire attitude toward toddlerdom that I've since come to regret. Who kept records of that kind of thing back then? Shit, I could have a juice cup up there.
You ever get tired of arguing with someone who's already made their mind up about something? I do. Take my friend Dave, for example. Gay as a floral-patterned thong. Only he doesn't think so. Dude just doesn't want to listen to reason, while even Kansas housewives know that only gay guys part their hair like that. Some people just like to argue for the sake of being assholes, but you mark my words. One day he'll out-gay us all.
Another thing: as far as I'm concerned, we won the Revolutionary war. America. Hands down, forget about it. Some people may like to waste your time with their nit-picking and armchair quarterbacking of the situation, but tell 'em to go piss up their hipwaders. America 1, New England, 0. End of discussion.
You ever notice how, in a noisy environment, the number 406 sounds just like "oral sex"? In other news, I...
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What kind of noise does your brain make when you think? A hum? A whir? I've come to believe that mine's more of a rattle and frankly, this week that's got me concerned.
What could be rattling around up there? Loose juices? Snot? Who can say? For all I know there could even be a little matchbox car up there from when I was a kid. I'm not saying I remember ever sticking one up there, but like most people of my generation, I took a lassaiez-faire attitude toward toddlerdom that I've since come to regret. Who kept records of that kind of thing back then? Shit, I could have a juice cup up there.
You ever get tired of arguing with someone who's already made their mind up about something? I do. Take my friend Dave, for example. Gay as a floral-patterned thong. Only he doesn't think so. Dude just doesn't want to listen to reason, while even Kansas housewives know that only gay guys part their hair like that. Some people just like to argue for the sake of being assholes, but you mark my words. One day he'll out-gay us all.
Another thing: as far as I'm concerned, we won the Revolutionary war. America. Hands down, forget about it. Some people may like to waste your time with their nit-picking and armchair quarterbacking of the situation, but tell 'em to go piss up their hipwaders. America 1, New England, 0. End of discussion.
You ever notice how, in a noisy environment, the number 406 sounds just like "oral sex"? In other news, I think the drive-up ATM is going to have to satisfy all of my banking needs for a while. At least until a certain prudish bank teller who never heard the story of "Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Open-Hand Slapped in Public" gets transferred to Siberia or wherever they send the girls who turn down the promotion-for-sex deals you're always hearing about in men's magazines.
Which is a bummer, since I've never been totally comfortable with the whole ATM concept. You just know there's some sick shmo out there running around in the middle of the night, wiping his ass on ATM keypads. There are just too many people out there for it not to be true. It may sound like something I'm just making up to fill column space, but it really is true, I actually shared a cab with the guy. Longest six blocks of my life, we had to keep stopping every time he saw an ATM or a pay phone.
I'm thinking of pitching NBC a sitcom idea I had based on a joke I heard in a bar one time. In the joke, this taxi cab driver picks up two naked guys and a naked girl at the airport. When they get to their destination, the cabbie turns around and, with a glance, realizes that obviously none of them could be carrying any money. The woman cups her breasts in her hands and arches her eyebrow, asking "Will these do?" The cabbie nods and she climbs in the front seat and they do the deed. The woman gets out of the cab, and then the cabbie turns to the two naked guys in the back seat and says the punchline, which I can never remember.
But I think it would be a funny show to have these three naked people traveling all over the world, doing funny things to get by without any money. There wouldn't be any explanation of why they were naked, of course, since that would probably get complicated and make it less funny. º Last Column: Crapping Out Like a Vegas Fat Manº more columns
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|  November 26, 2001
Volume 8Dear 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...
º Last Column: Volume 7
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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
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, IDDear Deborah:
Sorry, but we're not sure what you mean. We have no Ned Nedmiller on staff at the commune.
the commune
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.comDear 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
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.º Last Column: Volume 7º more columns
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Quote of the Day“The day destroys the night, the night divides the day, carry the four, times the weekend, round up from seven, and: Presto! 14. Not sure what that means, I'll get back to you next album.”
-Gin OrbisonFortune 500 CookieMonkeys and live electrical wire are a bad combo for you this week. Try combing your hair with a rake—hey, maybe those jokers were right. You will quit smoking this week, and upgrade to the syringe. Don't take any shit from the crippled, elderly, or the extremely weak: pretty much anybody you can get your girlfriend to beat up. This week's lucky burritos: Refried Revenge, Chock-Full- O-Olives, The Grand Mal, Nuthin-But-Sour- Cream, El Sleeping Bag, Someone Beaned My Ass Tonight.
Try again later.Top New Year's Resolutions| 1. | Quit being such an asshole | | 2. | Exercise every day. Every Arbor Day. | | 3. | Kill them all | | 4. | Lose 20 pounds to limey con artist | | 5. | Quit smoking halibut | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Dan D. Nancy 3/31/2003 Big Gay Bear"This is unbelievable," said John Patriot, referring to something he did not believe.
On the screen before him was a series of dots that meant nothing to the average Joe Six-Pack or his wife Jane Smoking-Tree. But Patriot instantly recognized the pattern.
Felix Nustle, a bureaucrat of the oldest ilk, stood nearby, hands crossed over his beer barrel chest. "What do you make of it, Patriot? We found it in the hideout of the subversive terrorist cell we apprehended outside Drinkenbad, Germany. We were afraid even you, the C.I.A.'s foremost expert on all things terrorist, wouldn't know"
"I'm afraid I know all too well what it is," said Patriot, though he really wasn't afraid. "It's a map of chemical laboratories. If I have to guess, I'd say these...
"This is unbelievable," said John Patriot, referring to something he did not believe.
On the screen before him was a series of dots that meant nothing to the average Joe Six-Pack or his wife Jane Smoking-Tree. But Patriot instantly recognized the pattern.
Felix Nustle, a bureaucrat of the oldest ilk, stood nearby, hands crossed over his beer barrel chest. "What do you make of it, Patriot? We found it in the hideout of the subversive terrorist cell we apprehended outside Drinkenbad, Germany. We were afraid even you, the C.I.A.'s foremost expert on all things terrorist, wouldn't know"
"I'm afraid I know all too well what it is," said Patriot, though he really wasn't afraid. "It's a map of chemical laboratories. If I have to guess, I'd say these laboratories store some kind of biological weapon, such as anthrax."
"Good lord!" exclaimed Nustle. "That's extremely disturbing—and topical. How can you be sure it isn't something even more frightening, and I'm just using a 'fer instance,' but something like nuclear-grade plutonium?"
"I considered that," condescended Patriot, pacing before the computer-generated map. "Then I realized that there's too many of them. Nowhere in the world would there be this many nuclear facilities that close to each other. But I recognize the pattern from a cluster of chemical laboratories in the Ukraine I helped dismantle a few years back."
"Wow, you've been everywhere," said Nustle in awe. "Well, that's a relief. At least you've already dismantled the potential threat."
"It's not over yet," said Patriot, picking up a phone and dialing a real long number. "I dismantled those chemical laboratories after the fall of the Soviet Union. But in post-communist Russia, the Russian mafia took them over and remantled them in my absence."
"You mean…?"
"I'm afraid so," said Patriot. "They're still mantled."
The phone rang in Russia and eventually was picked up by Mikhail Yvynokstof, a burly large Russian with a loud, infectious laugh, and the clap.
"Greetings, caller," said Yvynokstof. "I am sorry you called but I am not home at the moment."
"Can the jokes, Yvynokstof," said Patriot, grinning his phone call grin. It's John Patriot."
"John Patriot!" exclaimed the girthy Russian. "Truly this is a cause to celebrate. I will break out my finest Vodka and we shall drink. Since you are not here, I shall have the larger portion."
"I'm not calling to listen to you drink," snapped Patriot. "We've got problems. I think a terrorist group known as Ala-Carte is planning to steal biological weapons from one of fifteen labs in the Ukraine."
"Great Lennon's ghost!" yelled the moderately-rotund Russian. "Big Gay Bear!"
"Yeah, well you mother goes down more than a German U-Boat."
"No, comrade," said the monsterish Russian. "Is not insult. Is great Russian biological weapon. It was to be a defensive weapon against American troops, should cold war antagonisms ever lead to actual fighting. Various germ agents are stored separately throughout Ukraine to prevent accidentally making weapon when bored lab assistants fuck around with materials. My comrade… Ala-Carte is not planning to hit one of fifteen laboratories… but all fifteen!"
It was the worst thing John Patriot had heard of since the last novel. He scratched his chin thoughtfully and then his ass. It looked like this was to be his strangest mission yet, teaming up with his old Russian adversary to stop the rising threat of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism so popular these days.   |
