President Claims He Feels "A Whole Lot Smartier" Lately

he man who claims to be president of the United States, George W. Bush, says that for the last two months he has felt "a whole lot smartier than I used to." He attributes this improvement in intellectual capacity to the resultant stress from the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

"Ever since my daddy called and told me to expect a big surprise in the second week of Septremember, not only have I felt more presidentive than ever, but I also think my ICQ has gone up," he told reporters gathered on the south lawn of the White House to collect their official government propaganda handouts recently. "It's got to be the stressure from worrying about all this terristical activity lately that's doing it," he added.

Further expounding his theory that difficult times somehow increase brain activity, Bush went on to say that "I know Mr. Dick (vice-president Cheney), every time he has another heart attack, he yells, 'Ooh, that smarts!' I can hear him in the next office over from mine, he yells that three or four times a week. He's like a dang intellectuable now, a real genie. You know, 'cause of all them smarts."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, upon hearing the president's explanation, commented, "Well, there may be something to what he's saying, even though we pretty much keep him in the dark about what's going on in day to day affairs, but personally, I think the reason he feels the way he does is that we have changed the official White House snack in all the candy dishes from Skittles to Smarties. He gobbles those things by the handful, I swear, you should see him. He's like a damn little kid."

Fleischer also said that he and Karl Rove had taken to calling the president "Mr. Smarty-Pants" in informal settings, and that perhaps the nickname had gone to his head.

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Most Americans sat at home, in the safety of their quilts or warmed by a quaint trash can fire, and watched the war in Afghanistan on their televisions, computers, or radios while imagining what the attacks looked like. Emotional, patriotic, swept up in the fever that we are fighting a war for our very freedom… or so you thought.

I cannot even begin to tell you the depths of deception going on even as we speak. All the money, all the time, the five or six American guys killed over there, all for the sake of one huge monkey-dung-sized cover-up. For it has all been a distraction to keep us from noticing the evacuation of the Snow People in Utah.

The Snow People? Yes, Americans, the very same. Those of you who thrive on mainstream media only will doubtless wonder what I talk about, while those who know me personally and my mailman already know the horrible truth.

For years the good state of Utah has been made up of a reckless and wild, primitive race of beings with bizarre superstitions. But besides the Mormons, the state is also inhabited by a collection of icy humanoids we in the underground press have dubbed the Snow People, capitalized.

The Snow People are a harmless group of non-humans dwelling in cavernous outstretches of Utah. In fact, they create the cold weather in Utah, which would otherwise be as dry and hot as Jayne Mansfield buried up to her neck in the sand. The Snow People have always gotten along well with the other inhabitants of Utah, all five of them, and have meant our people no harm.

All would've stayed fine had the Olympics not come into town.

Yes, in anticipation of the Winter Olympics next year and the hundreds of dollars of tourist business they expected to receive, the greedy and ruthless officials of the great state of Utah have enlisted the U.S. government's help in relocating the Snow People to Alaska, the 51st state (more on that in another column at a later date). Do the Snow People want to move? Hell no! But what are you going to do against a timorous race of murderers and thieves with flame throwers and alien spacecraft technology at their hands? That's right, snowy boy, shut-up and move 'long now.

As you all know, the U.S. government is incapable of doing anything in a straight and forward fashion. It would have been jam dandy of them for the president to go on TV and say, "Hey! Looky there!" and while every American is generally turned around looking at something else, they trek the Snow People from Utah up to Alaska. We all likely would've done it, yes, we're always curious when someone's pointing somewhere. But no, the government always swats flies with missile launchers. So now we're caught up in this war on terrorism and we've bitten off a bit more than we're willing to chew. We may be stuck for years in this Middle Eastern mess, sorting out the details and figuring out who's a terrorist and who's just a regular old-fashioned neighbor country bomber.

Meanwhile, the Snow People are freezing their dangles off up in no man's land. As you may or may not know, Alaska's been uninhabited since Ore Ida corporate take-over of the state in 1996. "But, Red," you say, awful impertinent, "they're Snow People. Don't they like the cold?" Depends, dumbass. You're officially a warm-blooded mammal. Don't you like your blood, oh, I don't know, about 900° Fahrenheit? No? Shut-up and get your shit straight 'fore you interrupt.

It is our job as American people to stand up and say, "Hey! Teacher! Leave those kids alone! And the adult Snow People as well!" So when you go to the polls and surprise everybody by showing up for the real presidential election on Valentine's Day, make sure you vote for a third-party candidate who stands for equal rights for snow people. Currently only Jim "The Hatchet" Slade has such a platform, and he may not appear on every state's ballot because of the whole incarceration thing, but with enough public awareness, all of the big candidates will have to sit up and take notice some day. Power to the people! Snow and otherwise!º more columns

Anyone who's ever not spent a dollar long enough to look at it has noticed that there's more to American money than meets the eye. Look closely and you'll see that it's not just a green rectangle of paper; it's a green rectangle of paper with little pictures and words and crap drawn all over it. Don't panic, nobody's been screwing with your benjamins. And believe it or not, it's not counterfeit! They're supposed to look like that, and that's the way they're printed inside the ATM machines all across the country.

No doubt you've come to understand the big numbers on the bills over the years, and have a vague understanding about the old fart who's picture is printed on the front. We all know what the king looks like and you don't need to be able to tell Nixon from Nebuchadnezzar to be able to spend a ten spot. Flip it over and there's some big-ass official looking building on the back, Cher's house or whatever depending on which bill you're looking at. I hear Bill Gates' house is on the back of the $1,000 bill, and at the press of a button it transforms into a giant mechanical Wonder Woman. The house, not the bill. Or the Bill.

But American currency gets stranger the closer you look at it, kind of like Joe Pesci's face-lift. Sure, there's the king, a house and some numbers, but what about this bird doing the splits or the spooky bear with a key for a mouth? And who was the sick bastard who thought slapping on a pyramid with a giant floating eyeball on top was a good idea? That's about enough to make you go communist, or at least stop looking at money up close.

Of course, once your hysteria dies down and you come down out of the china hutch, you realize that there are logical explanations for all of this, and there are good reasons to have all of this shwag clogging up our bills.

The spread-eagled eagle is actually the Great Seal of the United States, but I'm with you if you think that dude needed a few more years in art school. I'm no mer-man or anything but that thing looks about as much like a seal as Sonny Bono. Many see this as evidence of the powerful acid available to our founding fathers, evidenced as well by the lyrics to our national anthem.

The Great Seal appears on all U.S. currency, so if you can't find it there's a good chance you're looking at Coney Island Bucks. The seal holds an olive branch in its left paw, a concession by the Continental Congress to the olive-growers' lobby. In its right paw it is clutching thirteen spears of asparagus, symbolic of the thirteen original colonies and yet another concession, this time to the asparagus-growers' lobby. From the seal's mouth trails a wide strand of dental floss, which reads "E Pluribus Unum," which is Latin for "Eat at Pizzeria Uno." Keep in mind that the Continental Congress was about as reputable as the American Gladiators, and most members were just looking to get laid or to see who could land the biggest bribe. Kind of like the NYPD.

Since everybody thought the seal was an eagle anyway, the Continental Congress chose the eagle as our national symbol in the 1782. Ben Franklin suggested that the turkey be made the national symbol, since eagles taste like microwaved ass. Regardless, the eagle was chosen and the rest of the Continental Congress suggested that Franklin waddle his fat ass into a weight-loss spa before they had to haze him with bars of soap rolled up in hand towels.

The crazy bear with the executioner's mask on is the symbol of the U.S. Treasury, and a viable warning not to screw with those badasses. The key in its mouth is like a dare, saying "You can screw around trying to print up fake money, and you can also have your intestines slurped out your ass like goddamned spaghetti, understand?" Call me gullible, but I took my scanner back to Best Buy after I saw that shit. Damn, Sam.

The pyramid on the back is a harder nut to crack altogether. Nobody really knows what it means or how it got there. The Continental Congress and the Treasury each blamed the other for slipping the pyramid in there, and nobody's ever taken credit for it, not even the Freemasons. The consensus is that the floating pyramid-eye rules us all from a bunker deep within Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. Perhaps this amuses you. If so, chew on this: at the base of the pyramid, 1776 appears in roman numerals. Precisely the number of Americans currently in prison for asking too many questions about the floating pyramid-eye. Creepy, eh? Research editor or no research editor, I know just about all I want to know about Mr. Giant Floating Pyramid-Eye. Nose around more if you want, but don't send me any letters scribbled on toilet paper from prison later asking what a cornhole is, 'kay?

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