U.S. Suspects Double is Standing in for Hussein

.S. intelligence experts have raised questions as to the authenticity of a videotaped speech featuring Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, which aired on Iraqi television only hours after missile attacks aimed at killing the dictator rocked a suburban Baghdad neighborhood. Iraqi officials point to the tape as proof that Hussein was not killed by the thousands of pounds of explosives that had been satellite-locked on his individual navel hairs in the attack, contrary to U.S. and British claims.

Intelligence analysts suggest that the man appearing as Saddam is actually Hussein’s double, a look-alike decoy known to be used by the dictator for certain unsavory public appearances and on particularly bad hair days. Off the record, at least one high-ranking U.S. intelligence intern believes the double to be none other than Saddam's little-known and slow-witted brother, Elmo Hussein.

Wearing a very silly pair of glasses and speaking with a slight lisp, the supposed Saddam spoke out Thursday morning against the U.S.-led attacks.

“Cookies, Cookies, Cookies. Saddam would like some cookies.�

CIA technicians began applying voiceprint analysis and other techniques to the video shortly after it aired. Early returns have been inconclusive.

“Lippety lippety lee, the bear climbed up a tree. When there was no porridge, he sucked on an orange and said ‘What a good boy is me.’�

“See the way he curls his lip when he says ‘porridge’?� CIA technician Luthor Retisma queried while pointing at a video screen. “Saddam doesn’t usually do that. He also usually doesn’t speak in such a sing-songy tone or pick his nose while the camera is running either.�

Iraqi officials vehemently deny the existence of any such double, claiming that Hussein has always spoken in nursery rhymes and was wearing the hilarious glasses because he forgot his contacts at a friend’s house.

“Whatever they’re alleging, that he got sand in his contacts or had an anvil dropped on his head or whatever, we’re doubtful,� explained an unnamed U.S. official, still bitter over not having a name. “They can come up with all kinds of creative ways to cover for Saddam’s idiot brother, but in the end technical analysis of the videotape will be the judge, jury and executioner.�

The unnamed U.S. official left the room before this reporter could ask what in the hell that meant.

As a result of Hussein’s first orders since the attacks, all Iraqi troops are to receive ice cream at once: two-scoop cones for ground troops and Neapolitan ice cream sandwiches for the elite Republican Guard.

“Well, there you go!� pointed out Iraqi ambassador Shamutz Gendal. “Saddam loves Neapolitan ice cream. Especially the strawberry part. I bet you feel silly about your silly theories now.�

Rumors of the supposed Saddam building a gigantic sand castle for his own protection could not be confirmed as of press time.

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You ever get a nagging feeling, like you left the gas on or forgot to piss out the campfire? Like you're forgetting something but you have no idea what it could be? That's the way the last week was for me until I realized I've spent the last ten years forgetting to get life insurance. Now, I know what you're thinking, that Omar Bricks and life insurance go together like a peanut butter and asscrack sandwich. That this is exactly the kind of dainty bullshit that points to my evil twin being the one who emerged from the smoking hull of that dogsled wreck years ago. That this is Exhibit A proving that Omar Bricks has gone soft like a hard-on during The Crying Game. And those concerns are understandable. Fuck you still, but they're understandable.

But even if it chaps your nads to do so, follow my logic here. Who really needs life insurance? Some milk-fed weenie in a three-piece suit? Some middle manager from Kansas City whose idea of a good time is folding the Wall Street Journal into a sailor hat and prancing around the house while the kids are at bocce ball practice? Shit no, those guys are throwing money down a hole that they're never going to see again, it's like investing in a record company that gives a shit about quality. The only people who stand to make a little money in the life insurance business are the ones who face death on a weekly basis, either due to their vocation or a propensity for taunting the psychotic, that kind of shit. And since my vocation is official representative for the Omar Bricks Nation, it's my job to represent, and represent everything Omar Bricks stands for. Which often involves almost getting my ass killed.

So this week I decided to stop playing it like a chump and see what I could do about lining myself up for a sweet payday upon the eventuality that I take a samurai sword to the noggin or get hit in the nuts by a bus. Most of the places I called specialized in boring policies, paying off if I got my ass kicked by cancer or packed enough pig lard into my heart for that to become a problem. Talk about a snooze-fest, I fell asleep on the phone twice talking to these guys. But that was before I found Moe Sherwood, who's just about the only insurance guy out there with a little imagination or hair on his balls.

Moe specializes in policies that read like the script for a summer blockbuster, packed with incentives for kicking the bucket in exciting and edge-of-your-seat kind of ways. Like the policy I got, the "Motherfucker," it pays off double if I'm ever fucked to death by a great white shark. You may laugh, but strange shit can happen when you're skinny dipping in the ocean, especially if you're smart enough to rub a pork chop all over your body first to guarantee that you get to see some cool fish.

I swear, this thing is practically written with Omar Bricks in mind. It pays off big time if I'm ever hit by a car while hang-gliding. That shit almost happened to me last week! Or if you're ever mistaken for a deer, shot by hunters and mounted over some dude's fireplace, you're going to be one rich dead motherfucker. Electrocuted while burrowing into a sub-Saharan anthill in the middle of the night? Break out the best coffin they make, dude, because you can afford it. Hell, you can have them install a flat-screen TV inside or cover the outside with LEDs like that sidewalk in Vegas where it looks like there are jets flying over your head. Your funeral's going to be more entertaining than the last three Harry Potter movies.

Now I know what you're thinking, unless you're fantasizing about Lindsay Lohan or something, in that case I guessed wrong, but I bet most of you are wondering what good all that money's going to do me if I'm dead. And you're right on that, though I'm sure Foghat would greatly enjoy his role as the policy's benefactor, he still doesn't know how to operate the can opener and would eventually have to forage for food after he'd eaten the rest of the couch. So that whole scenario would suck butt for Omar Bricks. But you have to admit it would be pretty sweet for Navarro Bricks, the dashing Cuban ex-patriot cousin who lives in my house and is exactly like me in every way except for the convincing Cuban accent.

Hey, anything to help out a family member. Bricks out.

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Hello readers, we're going to take a little break from the Fad Wagon this week while I write more of that book to excerpt and you learn a thing or two about daylight-saving time. Sound fun? Tough.

Many common misconceptions survive regarding daylight-saving time, including the belief that we do it for a reason. Nothing could be further from the truth. And don't call it "Daylight-Savings Time," that just proves you're a part of the International Communist Conspiracy.

The idea was originally suggested by Benjamin Franklin, compulsive liar and great American. Franklin was always late to everything, and frequently explained away his lack of punctuality by bragging that he lived in a special personal time zone that everybody else was too stupid to understand. When questioned, he'd rattle off a bunch of bullshit figures about how he saved energy by living his life an hour later than everybody else, allowing him to sleep in, stay up later and avoid traffic by traveling while everybody else had already arrived at wherever they were going. Only his girlfriend believed this, and everyone else came to refer to any ridiculously late events as occurring in "Franklin Time." Whenever anybody needed him there for a meeting they'd tell him it started two hours before it actually did, and then laugh when they got there and he'd been sitting and waiting for an hour.

Franklin's various shenanigans and rocky relationship with the truth earned him the nickname "B.S. Franklin," which he told naïve girls was short for "Balls Franklin." He came to fame after publishing an almanac of bullshit weather predictions and claiming to have "discovered" electricity after being blown off his toilet by a bolt of lightning. For years neighbors had warned that the gigantic kite Franklin had attached to his house, in hopes of sailing to a better neighborhood, would get him blown off the toilet in the middle of the night by a gigantic bolt of lighting, but he'd done little to heed their warnings. A smug Franklin discovered fire later that week when his neighbors burnt his house to the ground, taking offense at the "Father of Electricity" banner he'd begun carrying around town.

In 1776 Franklin was late for a meeting of the Second Continental Congress, and just missed the vote to kick Benjamin Franklin out of the Second Continental Congress. Upset that he missed his opportunity to cast the lone dissenting vote, Franklin demanded that the colony of Pennsylvania adopt "Daylight-Saving Time," a new system of his extremely recent invention that would have made him, in fact, early for the meeting. Thomas Jefferson signed the motion into law as a joke to humor Franklin, signing the form "Upyour Penis," but in a tremendous gaffe the clerk failed to examine the signature and "Daylight-Saving Time" was passed as Pennsylvania colonial law.

Relations between the various colonies were highly bitchy at this point in history, and I mean like drag queens at an Easter buffet. The new time change law really chapped the asses of the neighboring colonies, and before long, each one had passed their own new laws, not about to give smug Pennsylvania the satisfaction of always being early to everything and looking down its nose at all the other colonies as slacking layabouts.

After the Revolutionary War this really got out of hand, with states changing their time zones on an almost weekly basis in an attempt to one-up neighboring states and psych out tourists. At one point when you traveled from Massachusetts to Connecticut, you actually went back in time two days and had to be careful not to step on any butterflies or do anything that might mess things up for your future self back in Massachusetts. Eventually the federal government stepped in and announced that everybody had to get with the same program and stop all the silly horseshit, and from then on there'd only be two wacky nonsensical time changes per calendar year.

States were grumpy about losing their individuality, for sure, but most complied. I say most because Arizona and Hawaii never actually adopted daylight-saving time after becoming states, they only pretended to whenever the feds were around. To this day whenever some government official steps into a bank in Arizona you'll see employees scrambling to set the clocks back and act like they've been saving daylight all along.

The other exception is the state of Indiana, which never got its shit together and still has different time zones for every neighborhood, but after over 200 years of trying the government has given up on that state as a lost cause. Federal employees often refer to any broken or inexplicably errant clocks as being set to "Indiana Time," a joke that's very popular among the employees who aren't from Indiana.

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