he Bush Administration sighed a whistle of relief this week with the news that Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a US soldier slain in Iraq who had been standing vigil outside the president's Texas ranch for over two weeks, had finally gone home to California to care for her ailing mother.

"Clearly, the creator has made his will known," Bush intoned smugly, as lightning crackled in the background and the lights inside the president's Crawford, Texas ranch dimmed momentarily.

Sheehan had drawn considerable national media attention to her vigil in recent weeks, becoming the focal point for criticism of the president's handling of the war in Iraq and making a tidy sum selling lemonade to the massive news crews that had assembled. But her mother's recent stroke came hot on the heels of news that Sheehan's husband of 28 years had filed for divorce, causing some religious nuts and the president of the United States to suggest that God doesn't like her.

"The Lord works in mysterious ways," philosophized Bush further, apparently suggesting that Jesus doles out strokes like some kind of celestial blackjack dealer.

When asked if he worried that his comments might be construed as insensitive, the president grew tense for a moment. "I didn't say 'bitch' again, did I? You heard me wrong; I meant 'beavered.' 'Bereavered.' You know, one of them fitty cent words," explained Bush, brushing a dozen locusts off his ink blotter.

Critics have taken Bush to task for refusing to meet with Sheehan, who wanted to ask Bush what her son had died to accomplish. With his approval numbers dropping like a concrete blimp, the president opted to change his Sheehan-dealing strategy from his morning ritual of randomly firing his shotgun in the air while shouting "Bitch, get offa my lawn!" to the more politically expedient tactic of ignoring her completely.

This required having a tunnel dug so Bush could exit his Texas ranch without passing by the depressing protestors camped out front.

"It was great, just like The Great Escape," reminisced Bush, who took no part in the digging of the tunnel but did buy a six-pack of lite beer for the three itinerant laborers who survived the tunnel's construction and frequent cave-ins.

However, neither the president's hard-to-get act, nor sending his sloppy drunk brother to drive his pickup truck over roadside memorial crosses in the middle of the night, did anything to shake Sheehan's resolve. Meanwhile, frequent unexplained events at the President's ranch in the last week, including blood flowing from the faucets, the Bush twins coming down with catastrophic diarrhea, and the failure of the sun to rise at all on Saturday has some religious scholars and Christians who have actually read the bible questioning if God really is on Bush's side this time.

But before the commune could address this issue with the president, the Secret Service discovered we'd cornered Bush for a candid in-pantry interview, sans handlers, and burst in with guns drawn. Thankfully for the cause of news, this reporter was able to sneak out with the story's notes inside a false leg, which drew surprisingly little scrutiny in spite of the low number of three-legged reporters in Texas.

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In this special edition, we corresponded with national film critic for Spineless Magazine Joel Dickman to get his take on the current crop of box office treats! Once again, we bring you the ceaseless praise of Joel Dickman…

The Incredibles
"It's just plain incredible! The computer graphics are the best ever! The people at Pixar have done it one more time. A heart-warming tale of a family that does the coolest things! Voosh! Voosh! goes the kid! It's incredible!"

Ray
"Love is blind, and so is Ray Charles! Give Jamie Foxx an Oscar, please! Go see Ray"

Alfie
"Jude Law is a wonder to behold in all the films he's been in, and Alfie, too. Law deserves the Oscar! He's so much better in this than Michael Caine was."

Shark Tale
"If you've waited your whole life to see Will Smith as a fish, this is a movie for you! Jack Black made me laugh like I was high! This shark bites!"

Surviving Christmas
"A Christmas movie for anyone who wants to see one! Ben Affleck is hilarious as the character he plays! You'll be telling everyone you barely survived Surviving Christmas!"

Saw
"I saw, saw, saw Saw! This movie scared me until I pissed myself! It's not as bad as everyone's been saying. Carey Elwes completely blows off the screen! Ooo—see Saw!"

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
"Bridget Jones: The edge of funny! Renee Zellweger is positively bloated as Bridget Jones! A sharp, witty, British movie… funnier than the first one and better than any other comedy you've seen! It's bloody… bloody good!"

The Polar Express
"Tom Hanks is one of the voices! A children's book that people have read comes to life through the magic of computers. A christmas movie the whole family can enjoy! It's full of great chunks of whimsy and wonder! The action is hot, hot, hot!"

º Last Column: You Don't Know Dickman (Vol. 1)
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Anyone who knows me should know I'm not political. Or at least I never thought I was. Which only means I never knew myself. Huh. How does something like that get by me? But it don't matter. I'm taking a stand, for once in my life. And it probably will be once. It's hard to take a stand for or against something. I keep forgetting I took a stand, and then I can't remember which side I'm on.

So I might as well tell you before I forget: I'm taking a stance against body grooming. Not all of it, mind you. I'm not some big slob or nothing. I'm still going to take my bath every couple of weeks, and I might even use soap. But no more of this bullshit about hair cutting and shaving and clipping nails and so on. It's all just a lot of crap made up by big business to sell us things we don't need, like electric razors and razors for the Amish and such.

Think about it: What would be the worst thing that would happen if you stopped cutting your fingernails today? Sure, a lot of fatcats who own nail clipper corporations would be out of luck. But you, with the long fingernails and toenails? If you get thrown out of a helicopter or airplane, you can just grab the side of a mountain or building on your way down. Save yourself from certain doom. That means we've been cutting our own throats by cutting our nails. And I'm done with all of it.

I'm done with haircuts, too. Done with lining some bigwig wig magnate's pockets with my hard-borrowed money by cutting off my hair and letting him come in after I've left to make some wig out of it. I recognize my hair, once in a while, when I see some bald guy wearing it on the street. Nobody else's hair curls just the way mine does. I'm losing all this hair out of ignorance and some greaseball with a dustpan and wig business is getting rich off my leavings. It's over, rich guys.

I'll just grow my hair out forever and ever. Grow it long, grow it high, grow it down to my ass, and then if it falls out from terror when it reaches that length, bury it proper and then grow it out again. I'm lucky to have hair. Even this hair. Some day I might be some old guy with huge bald patches and I'll remember all the huge patches of hair I left on a barber's floor in my youthful indiscretion. But that guy's not going to be me anymore. I'm keeping all of it, never cutting it again. And if any does fall out for any other reason, I'm going to develop an elaborate filing system to keep track of it all.

And I'm not going to cut or shave my crotch hair either. It probably goes without saying, but it always pisses off my mom when I talk about my crotch in my columns.

Face shaving is out, too. I've already got me the world's most beautiful moustache (despite what those elitists at Moustache Quarterly say) and I'm going to grow the world's coolest beard to be its buddy. They'll hang out together constantly, on my face, and go with me on fishing trips and to ball games. The best of friends until they grow old and gray together. I'll have a big thick beard and moustache, like that one famous religious guy—Manson.

The jury's still out on what to do with my urine and stools. But I've got plenty of jars, so there's lots of time before I have to come to a final decision on all that.

º Last Column: That's Nostaligia
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