Power Outage Tied to Cheney Personal Excesses

he White House, home of the White, faced a major embarrassment this week when a release by the president's private probe into the power failures of two weeks ago pointed to a most uncomfortable source—Dick. Indeed, Vice President Dick Cheney was singled out as the leading cause of the energy problem that left multiple states in periods of blackout.

It ended a troubling week for the Vice President, whose office was accused of holding out information on an energy probe Monday by refusing to turn over documents vital to the investigation. The General Accounting Office reported the administration met with a succession of energy lobbyists, to the complete and total surprise of Americans everywhere, but the extent of corporate involvement in energy policymaking could not be verified without the documents withheld by the Vice President.

The latest revelation of Cheney's involvement in energy problems could adversely affect his position on the 2004 Republican ticket. The president's probe, inserted deep inside the problem, made note of several private excesses that may have led to the undue strain on the northeastern power grids. Cheney officials confirmed Friday that the Vice President's quarters in the White House is the only one plugged into the northeastern power grid, pointing out that the Vice President's power needs "cannot be satisfied by the piddlin'-ass power grid currently supplying the D.C. area."

One of the power offenses Cheney is accused of includes the employ of an industrial-grade air conditioner used solely for the Vice President's bedroom. Some say the personal air conditioner is the only 90-million BTU unit made for personal use. Vice Presidential spokesperson Canton Canby only responded to the allegation by claiming, "The VP likes to walk around naked."

Close investigation by the probe, under the guidance of Neilson "Soft Crust" Reilly, revealed that virtually nothing in the Vice President's White House quarters were not temperature-regulated. His personal pool and hot tub were heated, and his private work-out room, never used, we can guess, was cooled. Documentation also proves the VP had his sauna air conditioned and his refrigerator heated, as the best way to keep balanced temperatures to all things. Personal assistant Canby did not find the temperature regulation obsession strange.

"Well, maybe to the working man that sounds like an odd thing, but I know if I were doing work as important as the Vice President, I certainly wouldn't want to be worried about how hot or cold my fridge needed to be to enjoy a frosty beverage when I got home from the Middle East or wherever he's gone off to."

Among the more alarming findings of the probe were hospital-grade shock paddles. Canby, now sweating and in need of an industrial-strength air conditioner himself, found nothing odd about the frequently-used paddles, employed by the VP sometimes up to six times a day.

"What? So you got to be dead to want a charge from those things? There's no law says you got to be dead. The Vice President got used to the jump start you get from absorbing electricity straight into the body. There's no law against it and at the time we weren't under orders to conserve energy. Get off the guy's back. Sometimes his heart needs a little warning blast to know to keep doing its job, if it knows what's good for it."

Canby refused to answer further questions on the probe's accusations, waiting to receive the results from a probe conducted by the Vice President's wife, Lynn Cheney, under the objective to find out who left all these lights on in here.

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Dear commune:

What the hell is Damon Wayans doing on Delta's in-flight video? Did he bitch-slap the president and get some kind of harsh community service sentence or something? Damn.

Peace.

Rodney Shue
Belmont, LA


Dear Rodney:

That's not the in-flight video, Delta shows programming from E! on their flights now, which is more entertaining but less helpful when the fuselage rips open at 20,000 feet and everyone thinks the oxygen masks are treehouse telephones. Who Damon Wayans bitch-slapped to end up on the E! network is another question entirely. And for future reference, you can't bitchslap the president unless the president is a bitch, which won't happen until America gets over its backward prejudice against bitches. Right now it's only possible to dipshit slap the president, though as a progressive, forward-thinking organization, we here at the commune hope that the days of presidential bitch-slapping are not far off. Lastly, though we appreciate your stimulating questions, we must ask that you have the navigator or someone transcribe your letters for you in the future, because we understand about the control panel being bumpy and all, but you've still got the worst pilot's handwriting we've ever seen.

the commune

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Editor's Note: the commune is not responsible for whatever it is you're complaining about. the commune is also not ignoring you. Nope, not ignoring you. Nope, nope. Chatter on all you want, we're not ignoring you. La la la la la.

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A Gonit on a sled
races home to his bed
through the colon of a whale
sleeping on a bed of shale
snoring gently, without fail.

Through corridors the green sled slid
past hooks and nooks
where blue snails hid
by toreadors who long debated
how they'd come to be located
improbably, deep in these innards
and who was singing that Lynard Skynard.

The Gonit's sled shot past the belly
where several ships swayed in the jelly
each one's crew singing quite loudly
a different tune, and they sang it proudly
all except for an alien saucer
who's crew sat glumly, reading Chaucer.

And from the stomach's cavernous walls
sounded pounding, and muffled calls
to keep it down, we're trying to sleep
and we hope you drown, you bleepity-bleep.

The Gonit slid
the Gonit slipped
past a half-digested ship
and a clam who had the grippe
and a drunk who was quite ripped.

A school of sturgeons
were seen merging
with a herd of white sea horses
and a jar of jellyfish changing courses.

A submarine was wedged between
an obese dolphin and a walrus,
six antelopes who'd caught a virus
squeezed by in search of mint papyrus.

And still the Gonit sped along
from colonic locations far and yon
through endless twisting tubes and tunnels
that slowly narrowed like a pink funnel.

The tunnel's subtle turn and twist
lulled the Gonit like a hypnotist
and his eyes began to droop
by the three-hundredth loop-the-loop.

First he nodded, then he dazed,
his eyes took on a glassy glaze
as he began to dream and dream of sleeping
because quite shut his eyes were creeping.

Into a Gonit dreamscape he sweetly slipped
as his body slouched forward and his round head dipped,
a move he regretted, there can be no doubt,
when he missed his turn and was pooped right out.

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