Algerian Terrorist 'Hacks' Can't Escape Al-Qaeda's Shadow

hey're young. They're dangerous. They're filled with hate for all Western culture and the influence it's had on Islamic countries. No, they're not Al-Qaeda; they're Algerian, and they're tired of being compared to Osama bin Laden's terrorist units.

If you haven't heard of these Algerian up-and-coming homeland security risks, it's not surprising. They've only recently made any news at all, and it took a far backseat to growing concerns about Iraq and North Korea, as well as troubling domestic issues like the economy and Joe Millionaire. They're relegated to the back page of the World news right now, and they're not happy about it.

"It's just like Americans to ignore you as a threat if you haven't set off a bomb in their country or anything," said one leader of the as-yet-unnamed group, who refused to be identified by name but used the alias, "Stonewall." "It won't be that way forever. One of these days our name will be bigger than Al-Qaeda—as soon as we agree on one. People will ask, 'Al-Qaeda who? Were they anything like…' well, then they'll say the name of our group, when we have one."

It's a strong feeling throughout the group, as well as other aspiring Islamic extremist terrorists out there: Al-Qaeda has become the Elvis Presley of anti-Western guerrillas, and it's a double-edged sword.

"On one hand," said one youth, known as "Itchy," "people are finally taking terrorists serious again, for the first time since those Iranian hostages in the 70s. But now the bar is set so high nobody can compete with them. A lot of us don't have the kind of funds and numbers needed to destroy an American landmark or symbol of Western wealth. We're the independent terrorists, the ones doing it for the real love of Allah, and we have the better arguments, the better fatwas, and when we die for the glory of Allah's cause we're receiving the most rewards. But that doesn't matter much if you're operating out of basements and searching couch cushions for money to finance your terrorist camps."

One of the reasons the Algerians agreed to meet and discuss their situation was to raise awareness of smaller garage terrorist units. The press has not been kind—even when they cover their actions, like the recent news story in Britain where a group was arrested for possession of Ricin and killed a British police officer, the reaction of the American media is cynical and smug. Newsweek referred to the incident on page 48 with the headline, "Al-Qaeda Hacks Kill Just One in Manchester."

"It's completely unfair," said a thin, wiry terrorist nicknamed "Atwall." "Ricin is pretty dangerous, you know. Had that plan been carried out by our brothers, there's no telling the kind of damage it could have done, throughout Britain and America. Well, not America—that overseas postage would have killed our budget. But still, all the major networks are scoffing, like, 'Why couldn't they get Anthrax?' That stuff's expensive, infidels. We don't have Saudi oil money behind us. Most of our funds come from the donation jars we set up in Algerian supermarkets. That and loans from our parents, which are due back in a couple of years, when we start showing a profit."

"It's true," added Stonewall. "You kill one person these days in the name of Allah and you can't even get on the third page of a major news magazine. You have to be like in double-digits to get that kind of coverage. Let's not even talk about making the cover. We're optimistic, but we know it's a long way off. First we have to get a good name."

According to the group, several suggested names have failed to please a majority of the group. Suggestions currently on the table are "The Red Flag," "The Al-Roka," and "Grassy Knoll," which the group likes, but feel like it would take too much explaining and limit how much they make major newscasts.

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OH MY GOD SNOW

"You down wit OCD?"

"Hold on, I'm washing my hands!"

Ah yes, here we find ourselves again, another day, another Dolf Lundgren. I sit here, striking a dashing pose, young restaurateur (that means brave, right?) with a devil-may-care grimace and a flinty stare that reminds many of the unbridled Amazonian beauty of Larry Flint himself. You, I can just picture you there, commune readers. Sitting in class (not to mention in school), dreamily scratching your rump in a way that reminds many onlookers of Katherine Hepburn, when her ass itched. These are the draconian days of our lives.

"You down wit Oppenheimer Pension Plan?"

"Yes, you are familiar with my customary mode of behavior."

If I could save time in a bottle, I'd probably forget to poke holes in the lid and it would end up dying, its lifeless corpse lying there, feet up, staring accusatorily for weeks until I remembered that oh yeah, I saved time in a bottle, and went to check on how it was doing. That's probably why you can't do it.

Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered conference calls. Some hillrod told me that once.

BTW, I've come to be mildly obsessed by the term "hillrod" lately. Since moving to New Mexico my speech is frequently punctuated with phrases like "Hillrods! Twelve o'clock!" and "Arrr, there be hillrods afoot." The hillrods down in shipping are busy making voodoo dolls out of mud and chocolate, they don't find this sort of thing the slightest bit amusing. They also say "nuclear" funny.

I went to a day spa the other day, I thought it was a brothel but they waxed my Mason-Dixon line instead. That's between your toes, commune readers, you sick and physiologically challenged individuals. I'd hoped deep in the deepest recesses of my elementary school education that the place's design ("De sign, boss! De sign!" "That's right, Tattoo, my troll-like friend. It says 'Keep your midgets leashed'." "I no like puns, boss!") was merely a novel backdrop for exotic Korean handjobs, but by the time the big hand said six and the little hand said six too I had to give up the ghost on that expensive little fantasy and swallow the hard truth that I'd just dropped a hundred bucks to have my face wrapped in avocado and bacon.

When that bill comes due, you'll come over and find me perched on top of the coffee table, floating in a sea of tears that has nothing at all to do with the fact that I tried to flush a cowboy hat down the toilet. I look forward to it; I'll be waiting with Belgians.

Did I mention my apartment is also serving as a half-way house for mice? Even in the desert, you'd think I would have scorpions or Spaniards or something instead. My landlord may be a Spaniard, there's no question he's a worthless turd, which rhymes, sort of. He still doesn't believe I have mice, in spite of the perfect arc-shaped hole at the base of the wall in my kitchen, the "Home Sweet Home" mat which sits just outside that hole, and also the cat-face-shaped dent in my big frying pan.

I've been trying to smoke the little bastard out by blowing second-hand cigarette smoke into the hole every time I remember to do so. At this point it may just be a race to see which one of us gets cancer first, but I heard something about second-hand smoke being more deadly, so I think Vegas should favor my odds. Plus with his small size I'd have to be smoking like one of the Golden Girls to get the same cancer-causing effect per capita.

Truth be told, I'm not sure how many mice are in there, or how I'll even know if they've passed on to Mousehalla. When I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night I swear I can hear them scattering in the kitchen, yelling "SHIT! IT'S THE FARMER'S WIFE!" in their little high-pitched voices. Could that really just be a dream? Maybe I dreamt it all; maybe I don't really have any mice.

Badgers, on the other hand. We're thick with badgers.

All right commune readers, it's time for Stu Umbrage to duck off into the belfry to lunch upon sweet artichoke-hearts and New-Mexican-grown peaches. The Democratic Party keeps calling in an attempt to get me out to the polls this year, and I no longer feel safe downstairs. Could this be yet another sly ploy to get me under a tuna net? We shall see...

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Hot shit on a roll! I've been living in sin for weeks and didn't even know it!

As astounding as that may sound to you, good people, it came as even more of a shock to yours truly. And when I found out about it, an even bigger shock. It turns out Felchyana, the kindly Russian toothpick whose apartment I've been staying in is not married at all. Not technically, anyway, her husband having died recently. Not too recently, mind you, the coroner is estimating about two or three months gone by, I imagine they do that mostly by the kind of smell he makes.

The details are hard to glean, since Felchyana's English is a little shabby and I have a poor ear for details, but as near as I can figure it he was involved with a non-Italian mafia in some fashion and it did not lead to the expected 40-years-then-retirement. They found him in the shape of an ottoman in a warehouse down by the waterfront. Apparently a lot of mob enemies have been made into furniture and stored there, or sold to black market furniture buyers who have had the savings passed on to them. I was half intrigued to get a stool pigeon recliner, but I can't even afford my own place right now, so where would I put it?

This is all a side dish of the story, of course, the real issue being that I've been living in sin with an unmarried woman for weeks now. It was all innocent when I was a homeless vagrant living in the house of a Russian mob wife, but now people are going to think something fishy is going on. I won't have that, I tell you.

So I proposed to Felchyana yesterday, and her response was to bring me a jar of mustard. We will need work on that communication gap. After I broke it down with graphs, crude pictures, and a viewing of The Wedding Singer, she nodded, which I assume means we'll be getting married.

I should be the happiest man on the face of the earth. As you may know, Felchyana is a beautiful rose, not like Rose Kennedy in the later days, and as kind and loving a woman as anyone could ask for. She would easily be the most attractive and least mouthy of any Rok Finger wife, and more than a penniless shmoe like me could even hope for. But I can't stop to congratulate myself, and it looks stupid when you try to shake your own hand anyway. I have to decide when we're going to get married, how to pay for all of it, where I will live in the meantime, and how to communicate all this to her without making her run away.

Still, if I may take a minute of time to bask in the glow of love, it is probably the happiest day of my life. Well, there's been a lot of upheaval and nervousness, worry about what people are saying behind my back, and I tripped going up the steps into work this morning and busted my lip open. That all puts a bit of a damper on it. The happiest day, no, but it ranks very high. The fifth—no, too high. The ninth or tenth happiest day of my life. Let me do some quick calculations…

I have determined it is between the fourteenth and twenty-sixth happiest day of my life, with a margin of error of four days. We'll estimate a mean happiest day of my life at twenty-and-a-halfth day.

Once the plans are firmly locked into place, paid for, and living accommodations are covered, I will probably start into dreamy lighter-than-air feeling of love. But first there's a lot of toiling ahead. I suppose explaining this to Felchyana will require at least one more viewing of The Wedding Singer as well.

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