Hamas Leader Demands One True Ring

heikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of the Islamic militant movement Hamas, came out of hiding today to reject calls for a cease-fire with Israel. Yassin instead issued an impassioned demand that he be given the "Ring of Power," with which the Muslim cleric would rule the hearts of men and bring about Mideast peace through the total annihilation of all who would oppose him.

The wheelchair-bound militant leader spoke at a Gaza City mosque, flanked by Hamas bodyguards while making his first public appearance since nearly being killed earlier this week during Israeli air strikes.

"The time for playing games has ended," announced Yassin, gesturing to his rickety wheelchair with a resigned shrug.

"Israel can take my legs, but we will take the legs of their country! And eat them, like they were legs of chickens. Delicious Israeli chicken legs!" shouted Yassin, rubbing his tummy in a satisfied gesture. The largely Muslim crowd present cheered to show their support for chicken.

"And we will eat their wings and nuggets when we are done feasting on the drumsticks of oppression!" Yassin continued, making a face described by several onlookers as "kinda goofy-crazy."

Hamas has refused to give up its arms and join the government of incoming Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei, citing the August 22nd assassination of Hamas co-founder Ismail Abu Shanab as the latest unpardonable gaffe in Israeli-Hamas relations.

"In spite of the truce, the Israeli enemy did not stop its aggression, its massacres and its destructions for one moment after we bombed that bus full of children," added Yassin, refreshingly devoid of irony.

"Israel continues their aggressions and the United States has declared war on Islam," Yassin explained, referring to U.S. President Bush's recent "Let's Go to War with Islam" speech. "But Islam will be victorious, because it is stronger than Bush and his country. Or at least it will be once I have the One True Ring and take my place as the King of All Men. The infidels will scatter like cockroaches because I will be a huge Muslim man and they will be small like cockroaches, and I will be stomping on them. Look out."

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat expressed regret that discussions with Hamas leaders had taken this unfortunate turn into Lord of the Rings-themed dementia, greatly complicating hopes for stability and a lasting peace in the region.

Meanwhile, a group of 27 Israeli air force reserve pilots signed a petition refusing to carry out air strikes against Palestinian targets, citing apprehension about being on the wrong side when Yassin "gets that ring and starts kicking wholesale ass like an unstoppable 9-foot-tall voodoo zealot."

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There are truly frightening times to be a Democrat. We're sort of at war, the economy sucks, and there's a man with the IQ of a salad fork in the White House, threatening against all rational comprehension to be reelected. And it seems unlikely any of the current Democratic challengers will be able to suavely slip their tongue into the voting public's ear the way Bill Clinton did in 1992. Some Democrats thought Howard Dean might be able to pull off the trick, until he slipped and accidentally stuck his tongue up Iowa's ass on mistake, and now nobody trusts or even wants to think about where that tongue has been.

So what now? Thank God for Clark, right? If you can't sweet talk your way into a girl's panties, it never hurts to wow 'em with a uniform, right? Chicks dig a man in uniform; it reminds us of being forcibly acquired by an invading army or something. It's all genetic memory, hard to argue with that. So good, Clark can run for president, kick Bush in his National Guard-deserting ass, and then we won't have to wonder if we're watching Spitting Image or You Can't Do that on Television every time we turn on a presidential speech. Cool.

(Though it is kind of funny to imagine W popping out of one of those lockers and telling a knock knock joke about Health Care.)

Not so fast. Turns out there's the slight problem of Clark not having any political experience, and contradicting himself more often than Wayne Campbell. Oh, and the only state he won is Oklahoma, which is worse than losing Oklahoma. I'm serious, have you ever been there? I'd ask for a recount if I were Clark.

So the General is out. What about John Edwards? Good looking, smooth talker, former trial lawyer. Wait a minute, former trial lawyer? Jeez. He might as well be Jewish. No way Middle America is voting for this guy.

Now Democrats are riding high on the "FUCK, I DON'T KNOW. KERRY?" ticket because it's so fun to see a Democrat winning all those states, almost as cool as seeing it in the actual election, only they don't have that cool cartoon map with the states changing color. Even if he loses to Bush in November, we can always harken back fondly to that time Kerry kicked the shit out of New Mexico.

Not that John Kerry is a bad guy, I just haven't been convinced he's not already dead. You've got to admit it would be pretty embarrassing to nominate a dead man as the Democratic presidential candidate. We'd never hear the end of that. Just to be on the safe side, I'm going to go through a VHS copy of the Thriller video frame by frame to make sure Kerry wasn't one of the zombies moonwalking in the background. He does look kind of familiar.

But Kerry should at least be able to challenge Bush on his military record, since apparently Kerry got mugged in Vietnam or something. Though if he does, he will run the risk of being totally ignored by the vile liberal media, which is so biased against Bush it has virtually ignored the fact that his entire tough-guy image is based on four years in the National Guard, which is the military equivalent of going to a party school and majoring in Sex Ed. Never mind that he never even bothered to show up for the fourth year, apparently too hung over to even be in the right state.

Perhaps the liberal media could relate to Bush's slacker predicament, since they didn't really feel like following up on the story after somebody on Bush's staff "found" a scrap of paper stuck to the bottom of some army guy's shoe. It was decided this proved Bush fulfilled all his military obligations against all other contradictory evidence, because somebody had written "W" somewhere on the paper. Either that or it was an "M," nobody could tell because it's hard to say which is the top edge of a piece of toilet paper.

So maybe Kerry should just drop the whole military angle and run on the platform that he's seen death, and now knows no fear. That's kinda cool, and he's got the face to make it work. Hell, he could say he's spent a weekend playing golf with death, I'd believe it. Though things could get a little dicey if Kerry bites the Prime Minister of Japan on the neck and eats out his brains or something down the road. Best to keep an eye out for that.

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I thought I would celebrate my return to a regular column with a timely complaint—a beyond timely complaint even: I intensely dislike spandex.

Who exactly thought we needed this impertinent fabric? I recall we survived the '70s perfectly fine with only denim and polyester; the next day it's the 1980s, and suddenly we're immersed in a spandex society. Oh, I'm a 1980s fitness nut—I can't work out in burlap. Gingham is too good for me. I will not rest until I've found the perfect sycophantic fabric to kiss my ass all through my squat thrusts.

As if the world was sitting up at night, wondering what your particular camel toe looks like. And if you're the type of man who prefers to see as much of the female anatomy as possible, consider this: before the advent of spandex leggings, you could see the legs themselves. That's right, bare skin. How exactly is this an advantage for you men? I call "rip-off!" I sincerely hope you boys will join me in that call.

I submit, daring though my suggestion may be, spandex has brought nothing to this world. Sure, Batman could frighten the hell out of the cowardly superstitious criminal kind with his well-toned physique, but how did spandex help Robin? Or the rest of us, for that matter? Now any time we are dependent on focusing our minds on man-business, we run the risk of sexual thoughts pervading us at any given moment with a feminine physique perfectly outlined in lime green materials. Thoughts of baseball can't be conjured fast enough. Good people, I say it's a genuine threat.

I find the womanly shapes as appealing as any man, I admit that freely. But it doesn't mean I want my eyes popping in and out of their sockets like some Tex Avery character while I'm trying to peruse the stock market. I have a lot of money invested in things in the world, and none of them have to do with stunningly curvaceous asses of a hot pink hue. One of these days the law will change and you teasing harlots will be financially responsible for every time you distract me and cause me to accidentally invest my money in ludditesonline.com.

Tell me, what happened to the good old days? I remember well a time a man could walk down the street and only find himself fixated on thoughts of sex a mere five to six times in the course of a minute. All this, of course, without any visual stimulation—unless you were one of those men who found wide-brimmed bonnets exciting. And many of us did. No, in those glory days you had to don a raincoat and purposely stumble into a theater of indecent movies completely by accident. Things were much more discreet in those days, and we all preferred it that way. If you ran into an associate in the line, you had to pretend you were looking for that new John Ford movie that had just hit the theaters, and you had pocketed a half-roll of pennies in case they sold candy. We all knew it was pretense to stimulate the manly function of a solo reproductive act, and we all kept quiet about it. It was just polite society.

Those were the halcyon days when gyms were strictly reserved for tubby joes sweating off the fat in a steam cabinet, or wiggling them off with a giant rubber band that would shake them violently. Certainly not the place for stimulating thoughts—you were lucky if you could eat again afterwards. Then they let the women in and, surprise, surprise, everyone's obese now. We should all know why—with spandex around to remind us of the existence of the opposite sex, there's only one muscle that's getting a workout these days. That's right. Your dirty mind.

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