Voter Turnout in Senate Hits All-Time Low

November 10, 2003

Washington, D.C.

Whit Pistol

Monday's vote for $87.5 billion for rebuilding Iraq passes with an estimated five "yeas," one "nay," and three chants of "quee-eer" not counted as votes.

tories of voter apathy in this off-year election have more merit following Monday's vote in the Senate for an $87.5 billion budget for Iraq reconstruction. The spending package passed with a 5-1 ratio, but only received an estimated 6 votes among the Senators in attendance.

Using the cop-out, or "strategy" known as a voice vote, the Senate skipped the usual procedure of recording who votes for what in the record so as not to embarrass apathetic Senators and possibly damage their chances for re-election or campaign contributions.
Using the voice vote, a verbal "yea" or "nay" or "no fuckin' way nay," Senators kept their names off an official record as being for the Iraq war or against it, so in due time when the majority of the populace reaches consensus on the wisdom of the war they can finally tell us how they really felt.

Some theorize the miniscule number of Senators voting had more to due with disillusionment and disappointment in Congressional legislation, rather than a despicable show of cowardice and political tightrope-walking. For the Senators, the "seniors" of the D.C. school, they've been around the block and seen how the game is played, and their cynicism is manifesting itself in voter apathy.

"It doesn't really matter anyway," said 39-year-old Hunter Whepley (D-SC), "no one ever listens to me. It's not like one vote in the Senate ever made a difference anyway."

The words express what many feel is an unwritten truth in the Senate: Voting is for nerds. Actually, it is a written truth, if you check out the men's room in the Capitol building. But instead of being the attitude of underachieving legislators or a handful of stoner congressmen, many point to the voting record as proof the Senate no longer thinks voting is cool.

"I'm not saying anything against voting," said Montana Republican Rooton Hardsandal, "but when was the last time anybody even passed any good laws or anything? You can't change nothing. The president just does what he wants. The states all do what they want, you can't make a difference. And those assholes in the Congress, they'll vote for anything you put in front of them. Gaylords."

Pennsylvania Senator Eli Keith expressed the lack of power many Senators feel.

"Sure, you can 'yea' or 'nay' a bill until the cows come home, but you know it's got to get approval from the House, and then the dorkwad president has to agree to it. And by that time, like, a hundred riders have been attached to it making it so it's illegal to smoke frogs or something, whatever some jerks in the back think is funny. Then, if you actually do show up, and nobody does, all the other Senators hear about it and get on your jock about it. I don't really care what everyone else thinks, but I don't want to be the only guy voting besides Robert Byrd. That old fossil votes for everything. I guess when you actually get Medicare you give a shit whether it passes or not."

Some peppy strategists on other congressional committees have proposed ideas to win bored Senators back to voting, including a Senatorial "Rock the Vote" special on C-Span, with guests like Nelly and Coldplay, or luncheons with motivational speakers like Tony Robbins to espouse the virtues of showing up to vote. The problem, according to Senators who wished to remain anonymous, is all those ideas are super-lame, and organized by king dinks of Dinktopia, doing more against voting than for it.

the commune news votes in every election, which really makes it hard to get from city to city everywhere in the worldâ€”do you know exactly how many aldermen there are? Lil Duncan is the commune's Washington correspondent, sometimes known as our White House correspondent, but always our sexiest correspondent. Or second, next to Stigmata Spent.

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July 7, 2003

Cassandra Coleman is a Big Sci-Fi Nerd

º Last Column: One Busy Summer
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To all those who have ever made fun of me, I have one thing to say: Eat a rotten cow out. For everyone who said or insinuated or made some kind of rude hand gesture suggesting my sister was more talented or smarter or cooler than I was in any case, I have one thing left to say: My sister is a gigantic sci-fi nerd.

That's right, my sister, Cassandra Coleman, the big-time successful lawyer and Harvard grad, the big-time book author, she's just a big old Trekkie underneath it all. Nobody was shocked more than me, I'll tell you that. The last thing you expect when you show up to a major metropolitan sci-fi convention is to find your sister at the head of the Terry Pratchett book-signing line dressed as Xena, Warrior Princess. In fact I'll make the bold declaration that any time you find your sister dressed as Xena, Warrior Princess, outside of a traditional costume party, is bad news.

She noticed me right away, and the mortification set in her face right away. She knew her cover was blown. Anyone who doesn't know, my sister sees herself as the downright respectable member of the Coleman family, although the rest of us like to put her in her place with a random insult or well-placed firecracker once in a while. But once word got back to our family, she knew all the jokes that had come before would pale in comparison.

Finally! That's all I have to say. Every time I show up to her office or palatial apartment she rolls her eyes like a bigshot or whatever and asks real condescending-like, "I suppose you need to borrow some money?" She's such a pretentious dildo all the time, thinking she's better than everybody and just chomping at the bit to put people in her place, and I would tell her so whenever I go there, but then she wouldn't lend me the money. One of these days I'm going to show up and pay her back, then really let her have it. And now I got all the material I need. It's my turn to roll my eyes and "tsk tsk" her, back to the stone age.

Since I was getting paid to show up to the convention, wearing my Queen Tongue outfit and signing autographs and such, I couldn't wait to blast her for it. That book-signing line was too long and ornery to wait around, but I knew I'd see her again since most of the convention spazzes show up for the filk prom. I was supposed to be on hand as a celebrity square dance conductor, so I would corner her there and give her the business.

To cut this story down to column length, let's just say the rest of the convention went splendidly and I was treated with supreme dignity and respect by all the pasty nimrods in attendance. A few of the guys asked me to dance, and some of them weren't all that bad looking, by sci-fi convention standards, and I would have danced with them, too, if I hadn't been wearing my Metallichick costume to the prom, since those bullet bra points can pierce the skin pretty easily with little force. I was the belle of the ball, likeâ€¦ well, like one of the handful of girls at a sci-fi convention. But my sister was off in the corner, sulking like the ugly duckling and staring at me guiltily.

When I caught up with her she was all but begging. "Please don't tell the folks, Clarissa," she asked me. "You know they get on me for every stupid little thing. You mention one thing about my Voyager fan fiction and the Spock jokes won't stop over the Thanksgiving dinner table."

Well, she was right about that. Give her credit for knowing the mom and pop, she's at least smart about one thing. And school subjects, so that's two things. So I told her I would keep her secret safe from the family, as long as I was allowed to tell anyone else I wanted to. She agreed, and then proceeded to tell me about the fantastic lesbian undertones of Xena and Gabrielle, and I pretended to care, a real sisterly moment.

It was a half decent time, for a sci-fi convention. And as soon as I figured out a way to tell everybody what a nerd she was, except my parents, I had some fun myself. I know they won't ever find out if I just put it in my column, reading something I wrote would be too much like showing support.

º Last Column: One Busy Summer
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March 3, 2003

The Government Can See into Your Soul

º Last Column: America's Momma So Fat She Sweat Butter
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A Washington bookseller I'd never heard of announced a couple of weeks ago they would purge details of a buyer's purchase upon request. This was in response to one of those 500 quickly-passed 9/11 laws which says the government can go through your sock drawer if they smell the stink of fear on you. I, for one, applaud the move. A lazy golf clap applause because even if it's a noble gesture it doesn't make a damn difference in the long run.

Just when I think people have accepted the government can get you no matter what you do, they show signs of struggling, thinking they can actually escape the Webâ€”that's what I call it. That's mine, by the way, intellectual property.

Yes, the Webâ€”part U.S. government, part Illuminati, all encompassing terror. Like the many-fingered centipede, the Web can put a pincer on you at any moment. The only reason you're walking around right now is because they don't give a damn if you're dead or alive. Occasionally, they think it's funny when you bitch about where the remote is because Baywatch is on in 5 minutes, but otherwise you're insignificant. Don't feel bad; so am I. Just slightly more significant at best.

If you think the government is closing its FBI file on you just because they have no store record of your recent purchase of Ass Monsters magazine, I'd love a toke of whatever you're smoking. You're delusional, Poncho. Store records are a tiny, tiny fraction of all the information they've already got on you.

Of course the government tracks everywhere you go on the Internet. If you need me to tell you that, go back to Conspiracy 101â€”hell, go back and your G.E.D. first, you're clearly a mook. And they don't care if you're checking out www.gayblackdicks.com, even if your wife would; they're more worried about your visits to the commune, folks. If I were you and totally lacked a spine I wouldn't come here again. Still here? I'm glad, even if I lost a bet.

Every time you go into your gym, even if it's just once a year, they have a recorder that keeps track of it. Every time you cross the street against the light or run a stop sign, there are built in sensors recording your license number (or DNA pattern) and reporting it to Washington. There's a chip under the counter at McDonald's that keeps track of how many hamburgers you've orderedâ€”you didn't think McDonald's counted all those burgers themselves, did you? From all that information they can know everything from your political views to the estimated date of death from cholesterol-blocked arteries. But that's not all.

Okay with all that, as long as they don't know your purchases? The important stuff? Try this on for sizeâ€”it's a reality suit, one size chafes all. The government has specific machines that can sort your trash, record who owned it and categorize it by importance. You think your garbage is in a landfill deep in the earth somewhere? Dream on, buddy. It's in a file cabinet in Wyoming. After all, something has to be taking up all that space, right? Your garbage is alive, well, and waiting to show up as evidence in your trial if it's ever needed by Uncle Sam.

So what are your options? You don't have any. Are you going to burn every piece of garbage? They'll be able to reconstitute it in original form, I'd guess. Or they will be soon, maybe before the end of this article. Well, I'm doing my part to thwart them as best I canâ€”this article ends now! Boo-ya!

º Last Column: America's Momma So Fat She Sweat Butter
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Quote of the Day

“No man is an island. But I have met several women I would like to live on for the rest of my life.”

-John Donne Juan

Fortune 500 Cookie

By the pricking of my thumb I have really fucked up my keyboard playing. Trust in a higher power this weekâ€”the Waffle King knows what he's doing. Why be merely happy when you could be shit-yer-drawers happy? The world is you oyster, which explains that nauseating fish smell you can't escape. Lucky hammers roofing, jack, ball peen, MC.

Try again later.

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

BY Roland McShyster

1/6/2003

Hot damn, America!

Against all odds we're back for another year of Entertainment Police love. Few would have thought we'd last this long, and most of them also believe in unicorns and platonic friendships. But here we are, in the abstract sense, as I'm here now and you'll be there at some later date, and we're both looking at these same words. Only it's not really equal since I don't know what the rest of this is going to say and you can skip ahead if you're in a "Fuck it All" kind of mood. Not really fair for me, but I guess that's why I'm the one getting paid, to deal with that uncertainty.

Now we look ahead to the coming year of 2003 and wonder if we'll see better movies than we did in 2002. Ha, just kidding. We all know that 2002 sucked a big novelty...

Hot damn, America!

Now we look ahead to the coming year of 2003 and wonder if we'll see better movies than we did in 2002. Ha, just kidding. We all know that 2002 sucked a big novelty disc, so the real question is how much better 2003 will be. I'm hoping the answer is:

A whole shit of a lot.

On to the movies!

In Theaters

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

There was a lot of shit going on in this movie: the CIA, Ralston-Purina, BET, disco, crop rotation, gongs, Margaret Cho, ninja breakdancing, bad hats, Julia Roberts barking in Morse code, dust, rubber boots full of salmon, the Pointer Sisters, Wheel of Fortune, underoos, sex with robots, John Travolta's childhood retainer, cashew chicken, nuclear autumn, that little alcoholic kid from E.T., saws, Golden Books, Rip Torn, and the list goes on and on. To be honest, I wasn't sure when the movie started or if it's even over nowâ€¦ I left the theater but I keep seeing things that make me think I might have just dozed off in the middle and I'm still dreaming. If that's the case I'm going to be pissed because I hate typing my columns twice.

Just Married Ashton Kutcher

I guess he's cute and all, I mean, it's not like I'd know. But if I were a girl I guess I could see it. If I were a girl. And I was really drunk. But, apparently this Kutcher guy is enough of a dreamboat that tying his knot is a common fantasy among the 12-24 set and a handful of gay sex columnists, so here we get a movie about it. And the lucky girl who gets to pretend to do it more convincingly than most (because of the Hollywood props and whatnot) is Brittany Murphy, who paid her dues by getting her trailer park on with Eminemineminemiâ€¦ Marshall McLuhan. I guess the movie turned out fine, though to be honest I thought there'd be more explicit honeymoon sex than there was. But I felt that way about Father of the Bride, too, so what are you going to do. All in all it compares favorably to other teenage girl wish fulfillment film such as Monkeybone and Drop Dead Fred Durst.

Love Liza

Philip Dustin Hoffman is fantastic as Liza Minelli in this warped tale of a singer coping with her gay lover's suicide by having everyone call her Rick and pretend she's a man. Talk about bizarre; shouldn't John Malkovich be in there somewhere? It almost got too weird for me when I thought Orson Welles was in the movie, too, but in the end it turned out that was only Kathy Bates. She should do him at parties; I think she could clean up.

The Pianist

Once again the Farley brothers prove that you can't keep a good man down, nor two mediocre men with gross senses of humor. Nor one midget-sized man who walks around in a tuxedo and has a gigantic dong, neither. I'm not sure where the midgets-with-giant-dicks fascination came from, but at least the Farleys put a creative spin on it by making the guy a concert pianist who makes his living playing a baby baby grand. He also gets into plenty of trouble with married women and as I'm sure you can guess he gets drop-kicked a few dozen times and spends part of the movie wedged in a fat man's asshole.

I'm not going to review them, but I just wanted to mention that Steve Guttenberg and Kirk Cameron both have new movies coming out this week, so if you're feeling shitty about your life there's some five-dollar therapy for you.