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:

Thanks for standing up for me back at the bar, dickcheese. I thought we were friends.

Sincerely,

Randy Moate
Riverview, KS


Dear Randy:

Though we appreciate your mail, we must stress the fact that the commune is a news organization made up of numerous individuals, office equipment, free-roaming egos and a Ford Fiesta we use for beer runs and other official business. We’re flattered by the feeling of closeness you have for our organization, however it is a logical impossibility for the commune as a whole to be considered your "friend" in any conventional sense. That having been said, we might stand up for you more often if you didn’t get in a dick-waving contest every time you get half a drink in you, asshole.

the commune

---

Editor’s Note: the commune is not responsible for Barry Switzer of Elk Plain, MO. What’s with that guy, anyway? Talk about an Olympic-caliber jerk. Man. the commune would love to know what makes that guy tick. Some kind of high-octane asshole fuel, we think.

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Imagine my dismay when I was driving in the great state of Arkansas earlier this year, the window down and enjoying the smell of oppression, listening to Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" on the radio, when the local newsboy interrupts to tell me the news that the space shuttle Columbia had blown up on its way to landing. I could not have been more infuriated—everyone knows "Heart of Gold" is the best Neil Young song ever. The astronauts would not have been any more expired had they waited another few minutes to give me the news.

Not that I take the death of astronauts lightly. They are the pilgrims of space, without dressing in the stylish black as much. It was a shame, but I have been writing angry, rambling letters to NASA for years advocating the use of weaponry on shuttles, and it was sad that someone had to get killed before they'd realize the wisdom in the suggestions.

Yes, hopefully when they file the official report on the Columbia shuttle disaster, of course blacking out the good parts with ample use of a Sharpie, the one good piece to come out of all this will be the recommendation of equipping future space shuttles with high-tech cannons and other defensive machinations. The fact Columbia was wiped out so efficiently only proves we are getting closer than ever to the alien lifeforms we've been seeking all this time.

I'm the first person here on terrestrial earth to sing the praises of peace, of trying to work out all our problems through non-violent means; but these green-blooded bastards have never heard of Gandhi, and non-violence means about as much to them as blassalbe grizzlesnorp means to us. Which is alien for "Whatcha cookin'?" if you must know. Yes, I say if the aliens want some, we bring it. Bring it hard.

Laser weapons are effective, true, but mighty costly and really only more visually fun to look at, not any strategic value. It is plain to the most uninformed observer, as I have observed, that laser weapons as used by the unidentified aliens, were used to some effect while Columbia was in space to wound the shuttle so mortally it wouldn't survive the return trip. But if these fancy pants think our weapons don't have enough pop to show them a thing or two, let's show them how it's done down here.

Traditional repeating firearms are more than enough for these pricks. Ample streams of gunfire will make our point quite nicely, and the fact you don't see a neon stream of green hurtling toward you gives you, as an alien, less chance to move out of the way. The real cool thing about space, should we engage in orbital dogfights, which I'm excited enough about prospecting to wet myself, is that with no friction in space and very little in the way of safe cover, these bullets will go on until they hit something, somewhere. Aliens can't outrun them! And even if they did, the things would keep coming, slow and steady, like the tortoise following the hare. Only this tortoise turns alien flesh into sloppy joe meat.

It goes without saying, until I say it, our first intentions should be to get on friendly terms with these aliens. No doubt they can help us with their endless advanced technology in areas of space travel and medicine and convincing an entire species to wear the same outfits. And we can help them become more profit-oriented and learn to argue amongst themselves.

But, just to make it clear, don't let them think we're pushovers. A size 10 shoe leaves a mighty big footprint on gray alien ass.

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