Wal-Mart Justifies Illegal Alien Labor: 'It's Much Cheaper'

October 27, 2003

Washington, D.C.

Whit Pistol

Wal-Mart, defender of capitalism and alleged exploiter of the illegal workforce.

mm, mmm, mmm! Wal-Mart stores around America were hobbled Thursday when bucking young federal agents swooped in and arrested hundreds of illegal alien contract employees to deport them back to wherever they came from, with a friendly, "Better luck next time!" Friday, Wal-Mart explained the hiring practices that allowed so many illegal aliens to be working in their stores: "It's much cheaper."

"Regular labor," said sexy Mike Dunphy, the regional spokesperson for Wal-Mart of America, "is extremely costly in this day and age. Federal law requires you to supply benefits and a certain minimum number of hours for full-time employees. Also, you have to pay exorbitant amounts in overtime for employees working more than 40 hours a weekâ€”which can be pricey. Fortunately, Wal-Mart can get around this in most cases by hiring part-time employees, for whom the law offers no protection, and staff our stores with those employees without paying benefits. If we give them few enough hours, we don't pay them overtime, we can sufficiently run our stores for a reduced cost and string along employees for years before they realize they'll never get a full-time position."

All illegal aliens arrested in the federal probe, Dunphy was quick to point out, were not direct employees of the Wal-Mart corporation, but contract employees through other firms, allowing Wal-Mart complete exoneration. The hiring of illegal aliens, the Wal-Mart corporation noted, is against everything they publicly endorse.

"The Wal-Mart company and its subsidiaries has never employed illegal aliens," stated Dunphy, "directly. Now, we're not responsible for who our contractors hire to clean our stores. All we know is we're talking some serious coin to staff people to clean our filthy stores all night. If a contractor comes up to us and says they can get the stores cleaned for a ridiculously low price, what are we going to do, ask them how they can afford to do it? Of course not. Wal-Mart shoppers aren't asking us how we got those Sanyo TVs so discounted. We cut the costs and pass the blame on to you. Did I say blame? I meant savings."

The illegal hiring allegations come at a bad time for Wal-Mart, and Mike Dunphy in particular, who was losing his job at the end of the day. The corporation has recently begun downsizing after years of non-stop growth since its boom in the 1980s. Many believed Wal-Mart a teflon company after it survived past recessions without a scar, and continued to expand, but the announcement that hundreds of jobs would be cut came as a harsh call to reality for some. Damn shame.

"It's no surprise to those of us who work for Wal-Mart," said Dunphy, over cocktails at a local dive. "For years the corporation has barreled ahead to expand in areas where they've already eliminated most of the competition. Creating the illusion of growth is more important than real growth in the modern economy. Bringing superstores to small towns that could barely support a regular Wal-Mart, practices like that. It's like you're outrunning a drunken ex-wife with a butcher knife, sooner or later it catches up with you. The bitch is always right on your ass, economically speaking. You got pretty eyes, angel."

Wal-Mart had not been announced culpable for the employment of contractors who hire illegal aliens at press time, but federal officials said they hope it did not raise the cost of jeans in their area.

the commune news only employees one alien, if you count the Great Gazoo, but Red Bagel, the only one of us who can talk to him, claims all his work papers are in order. Stigmata Spent is so damn good-lookin' it should be illegal, but she keeps getting off on a technicality.

AOL next-generation Instant Messenger will deliver high-speed girl-on-girl action

9/11 Memory Honored with Destruction of Sears Tower

Arizona Border Patrol Installing Landmines

Global Warming Poses Threat to National Parks, Says WWF's "Machoman" Savage

October 13, 2003

Surprise Brothers and the Blackout Marathon

º Last Column: Double Stuff It Up Your Ass
º more columns

I don't remember anything from last night, I was comatoast. I'm not kidding, I fell in with this fast crowd of Olympic blood-dopers I met at GNC when I was there pricing one of those camelsack things you wear on your back so you can piss on the go. And everything's pretty much all a blur after that. It got a little weird at one point, I think I woke up in a closed library with torn-out book pages papier-mÃ¢chÃ©d all over my naked body, but thankfully the next blackout warped me back home. So all's well that ends, like they say. I think I may have ran a marathon in there somewhere, because my feet are hella sore, but I'd still say partying with reckless Olympians isn't bad as far as hobbies go.

Especially when my other main hobby is throwing away paperclips, pretty boring. I'm not kidding, my trash can sounds like a sleigh bell whenever the janitors try to move that thing. Whenever I get something that's paperclipped together, that little metal doohag goes straight in the trash, because fuck you if you don't think I can keep my shit together without your help. I resent that, and if I wasn't making your memo into a naked origami chick, that shit would be filed right where it belongs, under the corner of my desk that's all lopsided from when I had my office outside last summer. I still laugh when I think of those wimpy little neighborhood kids dropping my desk while they were schlepping it back up the stairs. You don't know funny until you've seen six little third graders screaming and scurrying away from a desk that's cartwheeling down a stairwell like some kind of berserk wooden monster.

Speaking of the office, I guess the big news around here is that Red Bagel's dad died last week, some kind of buffalo-smoking accident. And I know exactly what you're thinking, but I already asked and apparently he ran a buffalo jerky shack in Wisconsin somewhere. Though if you ask me that sounds like an answer designed to avoid the question, and I'm still not convinced the man wasn't some kind of High-Plains pervert. I decided not to push the matter further out of respect for the dead, but you know I'm going to hit the 'Net hard to get to the bottom of these buffalo-smoking allegations.

Anyway, the big Sixth Sense whammo surprise of the whole deal is that it turns out Bagel's dad actually owned the commune, he won it in a poker game with a mute Indian or some shit years ago, and so now it's been passed on to Red and his half-brother Gay Bagel. No shit, a surprise brother! Makes me wonder who's gonna come out of the closet when I die. Next thing we know this Gay Bagel shows up and spontaneously craps out a kidney when he realizes the commune has accidentally qualified as a non-profit organization for three years running, due to the fact that we don't make any money and Rok Finger once had a girl scout sleepover party at his house.

While they were gurneying Gay Bagel out of here and the EMTs were looking around under the desks for that kidney so they could put it on ice, he was mumbling some shit about making a ton of profit-milking changes around here so that his inheritance wasn't pissed down a river. Something like that. I don't know if that means we're going to get some new columnists with big tits or what, but I'm all for giving that a shot. Far be it from Omar Bricks to stand the way of progress, I might even have time to download JPEGs of some ideal candidates while I'm researching this buffalo-smoking story. Shit, I may even end up breaking Red Bagel's 57-month streak of "commune Employee of the Month" awards while I'm at it, hot damn.

Bricks out.

º Last Column: Double Stuff It Up Your Ass
º more columns

January 7, 2002

Ringing in the Root Beer

º Last Column: How the Kaiser Stole Christmas
º more columns

Twisted gas needles! It's time! 'Tis the season when a Nedmiller's happier than a hamster cut up by a coat hanger! Next Yesteryear done come and came, and Ned had hisself the biggest Next Yesteryear ever, as can be vouched by the fresh gypsies of Good King Wencelas, no less.

All was well-fittin' with the tradition of Next Yesteryear as invented by Nedley's great grandfather and greater granddappa in the year seven days before 18 hundred and 66, the same year Wencelas choked himself to death on a camel toe. As in every year, Ned scaled the great tent pole in the backyard and planted the head of a dead fish to ward off the Next Yesteryear goblin and his self-dropping breeches. "Whew!" said Ned. No sense taking chances of free-danglin' goblin willies scaring off Ned's guests at this Yesteryear party, no sir!

Course if there is any guarantee to be had of a Yesteryear party for the ages, it comes from collecting all of your person's dead skin flakes and mixing them into a fine, grainy paste. No joking! A true Nedmiller would do nothing less for the best Next Yesteryear ever, and Ned did it up good. Big old books will tell you suntanning by the mighty oak tree in the backyard makes them skins nice an flaked, and Ned will be bit on the ass by a woodpecker if that's a printed falsehood. Also, you just know climbing inside the over helps a heap for making skin flakes crunchy and ready to be flaked!

Before three possums can say Yahtzee, them party is begun. Fresh off the trolley comes Ned's fat meaty cat, and Ned cooks 'em brilliant. None for you? More for Ned!

More treats for the guests is laid out by the handfuls. Cinnamon gravy richer than the king of Siam, bottle caps with moth eggs laid nice in, and a dead guy roasting on the lawn. And them's just for appeteasers! Such a time brings back mammaries of Ned's first Next Yesteryear back on the plantation, yessir. Brings a genuine wet tear to Ned's old eye. And pinkeye to Ned's nose, it should be noted.

But them foods and decorations is just the beginning to the Next Yesteryear celebration! No Yesteryear has come to town until the clock strikes home and it's for real the Hour of the Misbegotten. Masked dogs take Ned's guests hostages and Neddy Furtado hisself has to hide in the wall outlets, crawling about like ol' 'lectricity in all its glory, dispatching one canine after another until all them guests are back to safeness. Then you know them guests take one big-sized bath together while Nedmiller the New cavorts about in a Saran Wrap diaper as Baby Clamdipper. Only when Nedder's own shadow catches him and pops him back in a bottle of that Kentucky Bourbon is this Next Yesteryear officially kaputs.

Then them post-party depressionations set in, indeedy-Steve. Ned cries hisself into the fourth dimension and back one more time, saying Nedmiller backwards eleventy times to banish away them nasty spirits if needed. Should that falter, Ned either sacrifices a virgin or deflowers a town crier, or both at one moment in stereo, whichever them situation calls. Usually one of them and a yellow pie puts Ned back into high kippers for the brand new year, ready to plan out again the next Next Yesteryear shindig proper.

Ah, tradition.

º Last Column: How the Kaiser Stole Christmas
º more columns

Milestones

1993: Ramon Nootles graduates from San Dimas Community College with a degree in Questionable Journalism, the first degree of its kind offered in America, and a minor in Poontang Studies.

Now Hiring

Iron Monkey. We saw the movie and thought the ancient Chinese legend might be the guy to get the ninja we hired out of our offices. Lame-ass ninja, poison-darting Lefty the mail clerk and skittering across the tops of the computer towers.

Top More Things to Do With a Severed Finger

1.	Donate it to shop teachers in need
2.	Really get your waiter's attention
3.	Confuse the hell out of C.S.I.
4.	Pick your friends and your nose
5.	Dip it in gold; make yourself an "I'm # 1" award

North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie

BY Roland McShyster

11/10/2003

Greetings, potential moviegoers, and welcome back to another week of Roland McShyster's Entertainment Police. We're back with our usual look at what Hollywood's hit with the car this week, and will do our best to jot down the license plate numbers of those responsible before the perpetrators can peel out off into the night. So without further undo ado, let's peek between our fingers at this week's movies.

In Theaters

Bastard Commander: The Far Side of the World

Honk if you're tired of seeing movies that try to make the Cobra Commander into a sympathetic character. We all know he had some kind of motivation, like all the other kids made fun of him back in grade school because he had a lisp, etc. But what Hollywood producers don't understand is that the whole point of the character is that he's just a bad guy and a jerk, and he doesn't have any kind of special gun to shoot so he's lame anyway. Those same producers called in Russell Crowe to try and recreate the white-wash job he did on insane folk-rocker Graham Nash in A Beautiful Mime, and he does his best here but it's hard to act much through a big chrome motorcycle helmet. The film is also hampered by the bizarre decision to tie characters from Gary Larson's The Far Side comic strip universe into the action. This might have been a stroke of genius in another film, but in this one the infant goes cartwheeling out the window the second a guy shows up with a gun that shoots Doberman pincer dogs. It all goes surreally downhill from there, as the film is overrun by giant talking cockroaches and ostriches wearing neckties. There were a couple of funny bits toward the end, but it turned out those were all from Far Sides I'd missed on the days my bastard next-door neighbor stole the paper.

Brother Bear

Kudos to Disney for showing some class in naming their latest animated manifesto Brother Bear, which is far more P.C. than calling him a "Black Bear," an offensive term racist scientists have been using for years. And it's a welcome turn of events after the debacle of Disney's last animated shocker, Black Hotties Acting Naughty, which was a box-office disappointment and was way too stingy with the cheesecake. Brother Bear tells the story of an African-American bear's struggle to earn respect on the street, or whatever the woodland equivalent of the street is. The clearing, whatever. Word on the street is that Brother Bear will be Disney's final traditionally-animated feature, I'm not sure if that means all their movies in the future will be done like Dr. Katz or what, but I'm game for the change. The current popularity of CGI animated films has proven amply that computers are where it's at, even if it is a lot harder to draw with a mouse. But apparently there are some guys over in Korea or somewhere who can do it, so cool.

Good Boy!

Sitting through political docudrama about George W. Bush's first 600 days in office, bankrolled by his right-wing supporters and corporate backers? Yeah, that sounds a lot better than having my nuts cut off with a weed whacker.

Looney Tunes: Back Door Action

If ever a film disturbed me to my very core as a human being, while brutally assaulting my faith in humanity, it was Baby Geniuses. But Looney Tunes: Back Door Action is number two with a bullet, and it has its eyes on the prize. While I understand that Warner Bros. has been under pressure to keep up with Disney's deteriorating morals these last several years, there is such a thing as going too far, and this time they went too far and a half. If I wanted to watch cartoons having sex, I'd move to Japan, thank you very much.

The Matrix Restitutions

It really warms my heart to see those Matrix-happy bastards finally getting what they had coming. After tricking fans of the original Matrix into sitting through the painfully unwatchable The Matrix Reloaded, which was about as much fun as watching somebody else play a video game for two hours, the Wacowski's chickens have finally come home to roost. With some guidance from the U.N. Film Crimes tribunal, the courts ordered the Wacowskis to make The Matrix Restitutions as a third "we're sorry" film to fulfill the community service portion of their sentence. The resulting movie tells the story of two comic book geeks who get into directing and score a surprise sci-fi hit, only to lose all sense of perspective and turn out a disgustingly convoluted and pompous sequel, which prompts a violent fan backlash against the brothers themselves. The courts ordered the Wacowskis to put hundreds of Matrix fans through kung-fu and wire-stunt training to make the spectacular vigilante mayhem of Restitutions believable, and it was money well-spent. The result is both satisfying and unintentionally hilarious, in a "pasty white gimp kung-fu" kind of way. And the best part of Restitutions? None of the guys get naked, and Keanu keeps his hard drive docked the whole time. Hallelujah.

The Texas Chain Store Massacre

One of my prime arguments against letting women direct movies has always been that it would eventually lead to tons of horrible movies about menstrual bleeding and shopping. Well, the first part of my prophecy came true a lot sooner than the second, but the second apocalyptic horseman has just pulled into town. While I'm sure it was very exciting if you were there in person, watching a movie about a really bitchin' sale at an outlet mall in Texas and some ladies who made an absolute killing on discounted home furnishings is one of my personal red flags that I've somehow ended up in a Turkish prison against my will.

Well, that's about all the nuts you can stuff into this squirrel's cheeks this week, gents and gentinas. Here's hoping the day's treating you well and that little claymation dude from the old Dominos Pizza commercials isn't chasing you all around, because man would that suck. Adios!