he United States Presidential Warning System (or “Terra Box� as it is fondly known around the White House, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the president’s speech impediment) reached its highest level Tuesday, signifying a major presidential gaffe or screwjob is impending. This news immediately scrambled foreign government officials, environmental groups and talk-show writers nationwide, who entered their own highest states of readiness and/or dread.

The little-known Presidential Warning System has been in place since the 1960’s, but it quickly fell out of favor during the Nixon presidency. Aides kept finding the siren-like device hidden in desk drawers or crammed beneath sound-deadening mattresses in the Lincoln bedroom over the course of Nixon’s term, and records indicate it was later disconnected under questionable circumstances involving a bottle of tequila and a fire axe. Efforts were made to bring the system back on-line during former president Ronald Regan’s first term, but upon being turned on the device immediately let out an eardrum-shattering blurt before quickly overheating. It then caught fire and had to be put out with a shoe.

The nation operated without a Presidential Warning System during the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations, as the device reminded George Bush Sr. too much of his childhood nemesis, the board game Operation, and President Clinton found it seriously hampered his social life.

The current siren-less incarnation of the device, consisting of a black box covered in lighted rectangles that are color-coordinated to the various levels of presidential “terra,� was brought online at the start of the latest Bush presidency. The new system was even praised by the president himself early in his term, when he said of the device: “I made it to the fourth level last night. Take that, Simon.�

Tuesday the system registered an alert status of red, which according to the device’s manual translates to “Holy Shit� written next to a picture of a little stick man with a gun in his mouth. However, officials cannot say for certain how many times Bush has “bagged a red� since being elected, since Tuesday was also the day a White House staffer discovered the device holding up a candle in the presidential bathroom and no one was certain how long it had been missing.

“While this may seem like an opportune time to panic, it is important to point out that the red bulb on the device appears to be nearly burnt out,� explained system designer Elwood Bond. “This is a good sign that we’ve been on red alert for most of the last two years, so this is more a ‘business-as-usual’ kind of doom than anything.�

Asked if the system might be calibrated too sensitively, given that highest level of impending doom was continuously lit, Bond answered that the system really wasn’t designed with a Bush-caliber president in mind.

“I set up the system so it would go red only in dire circumstances, like when Bush Sr. approved the CDC sending samples of anthrax, botulism and West Nile to Iraq in the early 90’s, or when we gave them the helicopters they used to gas the Kurds in 1988. Or really any time after the Shah fell in Iran and we were providing Saddam and the Iraqis with arms, intelligence and free money to help them invade Iran. All those are red-level events. Maybe orange. But Bush Jr. goes red just taking a piss.�

But is there any way to tweak the system so that Bush isn’t consistently in the red?

“I dunno,� replied Bond, scratching his head. “It does have an ‘off’ switch.�

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In a tree by the beach
lived a lecherous leech
named Coco Hobari McSteve.

McSteve believed
that a spot on his sleeve
held the secret the universe had pondered.

So anyone who wandered
by the tree or who squandered
a glance elsewhere was reminded.

That anyone who was blinded
certainly wouldn't have minded
if it was done by that beautiful spot.

He said it a little
and he said it a lot
He told when it was cold
and he told when it was hot
But very few listened
and even fewer cared
that the spot looked a lot
like a duck that was scared.

McSteve thought this important,
kind of scarily so
and if you walked by the ocean
he would surely let you know.
He had all kinds of stories,
two legends and a myth
that explained the deeper meaning
of the stigmata he lived with.

I traveled from a far-off land
West of Can and east of Hat
to find Coco McSteve
and the tree where he lived at.
I had heard the stories of this spot
and the enlightenment it brought
but when I finally spied it
I found that it did not.

I climbed up in that creaky tree
and crawled out on my knees.
And when I glanced that hallowed spot I
realized it was cheese.
Some kind of spray-can cheese
a fleck, borne of untidy eating.
And when I told McSteve my thoughts
he thought that I was cheating.
But with a lick and then a shrug
there was no doubt—he knew.
And with no further ado
he went on to contemplate his amazing shoe.

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Here's a phrase I've never said before: Good work, police. It goes against everything I stand for at heart and everything the stoner counter-culture who makes up our fanbase believes, but in this particular case, the five-O did their jobs well in apprehending Malvo and Muhammad, the famous snipers of last year. Some have called them the East Coast Killers, but myself, finding it distasteful to so lightly treat the subject of murderers, prefer to call them the Deathmasque.

But I package that compliment with a chiding, for no extra charge. For the snipers, whatever you call them, have only been two-thirds apprehended.

Gasp, if you're inclined. Then close your mouth before the flies take up residence. Bagel shits you not, Americans. A third sniper is out their running around loose, or possibly ambling, I make no bold statement concerning his walking speed. But this third sniper is free still, and if you need any more proof, check out the recent shootings in Ohio. Police may say they're unrelated shootings, but what have the police ever done for us, besides catching the first two snipers?

Who is this sniper? Do I look like the cops to you? Not my job to wildly speculate on the identities of snipers, folks, only to wildly accuse them of being larger in number than they've previously indicated.

I suppose you want to know my source, source-nosers. You would think after all this time I have more than earned your trust. After all, I've delivered pretty amazing information over the years—information so amazing, would I were to hear it for the first time, I certainly would be too agape to ask for proof. But I understand your need for verification—we live in a hard world that demands facts rather than rhetoric.

And this source, if I am at liberty to say, is among the most reliable I've ever consulted. I was reluctant to believe such an outrageous tale as the three-gunman theory, but my source revealed to me such conclusive evidence I could not refute it. Trajectories, shell plating, sight lines—all such confusing forensic jargon I had no choice but believe. One-hundred and ten percent proof two people could not have, under any normal human circumstances, committed those crimes alone.

Not to belabor the point, but when I think about it a little more, I really have earned a little more credit than you're giving me. I announce to you some of the most amazing conspiracy news of our fresh young century and all you want to hear is names, names, names—of sources, sources, sources. Thanks for the credit, he sarcastically remarked. But I think I've made my point.

Anyone examining the current talk of insanity pleas in the Malvo trial, or studying the Muhammad trial transcripts carefully can see (and it doesn't take my pointing out) there is subtle reference to a third individual. The question is: Who is this third individual, and why have the Malvo-Muhammad duo and their lawyers kept silent about it until now?

You know, what does a source really prove? Oh, someone else knows about this information as well. But what does that matter to you, Mr. and Mrs. Middle America, you wouldn't know some D.C.-area librarian from a Hoboken mental patient. A big-time Washington-area insider could mean complete legitimacy to those in the know, but if you don't know him, I could totally make up a name and you wouldn't be able to tell. It just pisses me off. You should know I wouldn't bring you a third-rate source. All this time, all these endless column inches—for what? I could've been writing about the time I diddled that girl from Subway. It certainly wouldn't lessen my credibility, would it? Shams.

Let's suppose, on this one occasion, I might have neglected to get the name and occupation of my source. Roughly translated, forgot to check my facts. Would that kill an otherwise spotless record? I think not. What do you think? Hypothetically. Of course it wouldn't.

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