shockingly obese woman who claims to have been Saddam Hussein's mistress escaped from Iraq late last year, meeting surprisingly little resistance in a flight from bondage that International aid workers are calling "A Big Fat Miracle."

Lamoula Pamsolos says she was Saddam's mistress off and on for 30 years, and twice on Sundays. After escaping Iraq in a daring daylight bike ride over a year ago, she has learned to live in fear of anonymous death should Saddam's hit men ever find her. Assuming he has noticed that she's gone and didn't actually buy her the bike himself. Out of fear for her own life, she has disguised herself under a veil of disgusting, corpulent backfat.

According to Lamoula, she was a key component to Saddam's "collection" of women, which also included a ballerina, a basketball star and a black belt in judo. When asked if her part was the big fat cow or the whiny emotional cripple, she only responded with a cold stare. Saddam also collected women with missing appendages, women with extra appendages, and women who could do that dancing trick with a pair of forks and a couple of baked potatoes.

Pausing to either belch or swear in Iraqi (translators are divided), Lamoula explains that she was Saddam's favorite mistress, a claim supported by the faded tee shirt she wears, showing a naked woman handcuffed to a bed under a logo that reads "SADDAM'S FAVORITE MISTRESS".

Growing up, Lamoula originally thought of bondage as "fun" and thought herself lucky to only have to work twenty seconds out of the day. However, as she grew older and became gradually less enamored with Saddam's growing thatch of offensive back hair, Lamoula came to realize that she would never be able to leave him. Even if she wanted to, the door to her room locked from the outside. And though her window did open, it was a perilous one-story drop to the tall stacks of blankets that were stored on the ground below. Thanks to her acutely weak ankles and fear of modest heights, Lamoula's prison was complete.

Pamsolos later discovered that her door didn't lock at all, but rather stuck a little bit unless you jimmied the handle. And so, after 32 years of servitude, she stepped out into a hallway she had never seen and looked upon the world with the eyes of a free woman who didn't know how to do anything.

When asked to describe Hussein, Lamoula paints the picture of a big brown blob with seven legs. When asked to describe Hussein using only words, Pamsolos tells of a demanding tyrant with a weak spot for children's songs.

"Everybody do what Saddam say. He no have to ask nobody no two times. Saddam say 'Pull my finger.' I no want to pull finger. But, I afraid of Saddam. I pull finger. Yes, Saddam mean. But Saddam love Raffi. Saddam sing Raffi all times. All times, never stop never. People want to say Saddam to stop singing Raffi, but they no say so to Saddam. So Saddam still sing Raffi all times."

Lamoula describes Saddam as an up-tempo dictator who was always quick for a smile, except for a period in early 1991 when he seemed "bummered" about something, possibly something he saw on the news. Pamsolos isn't sure, it was a long time ago.

Western Intelligence sources back Pamsolos' claims, but have not yet been able to extract any tactically useful information from her memories of the 32 years she spent in close quarters with the Iraqi dictator.

"So far we know he's left-handed, probably, he's big into Elton John and he likes to have sex with the lights on, which personally is more info than I needed," CIA spokesperson George Hudson explains. "At this point it's premature to call the discovery of Ms. Pamsolos a strategic goldmine, but we're still digging. Just the other day she remembered that his favorite show is Malcolm in the Middle, so information on hidden nuclear weapons may be right around the corner."

resident Bush addressed the U.N. Thursday in an effort to convince the international body to take action against Saddam Hussein, who, according to the president, has the capability for nuclear weapons in his arsenal and commits horrific acts on his own people, like eating babies for supper.

"Iraq has the materials at present time, or will shortly come into possession of them, to produce nuclear weapons," the president told the United Nations audience. "If that threat is not enough, you should hear what he does to his own people. He eats babies, people. I am not kidding. Whole babies, for supper. He butters them like a baked potato and eats them in big bites—I have heard the babies are alive when he does it. I am not kidding."

Members of the audience became uncomfortable, and looked to each other for a proper response to the president. Several asked their translators to elaborate on the interpretation, believing them mistaken.

"I have heard from proper sources in the White House that Saddam Hussein has personally ordered his military to gather all needed materials to give Iraq nuclear capabilities, to be used in potential retaliation against the U.S. It is also common knowledge among people who have been to Iraq that the men make their wives have sex with their sons while they are watching. All of this is direct influence of Saddam Hussein's rule of Iraq."

The president further explained that nuclear material has been bought or requested for purchase from other nuclear powers like Russia and Pakistan, and that when the mothers and sons make love for the enjoyment of the father, they sometimes act out depraved fantasies about school teachers and troubled students.

"America cannot, and will not allow a man to retain power who would use nuclear weapons in harsh personal vendettas that would endanger our people and his own. A man who punishes his children by pooping on their plates and making them eat it when they have defied him. And in some of these cases, the offense in question was only trying to get a loaf of bread from the cabinet to eat because they are not allowed to eat on days he tells them not to. That's the truth."

The U.N., shortly following the speech, was reluctant to immediately respond. They said the president's remarks would be considered, but they had no plans to further pressure Iraq in the matter of refusing weapons inspectors access to their facilities.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan responded to the president, "We are aghast at the allegations by President W. Bush and intend to investigate these matters ourselves. Of particular interest to the member countries of the United Nations are the accusations that President Hussein passes out puppies to audiences before his speeches and tells them he will only continue if they rip the puppies apart. Actions of this nature cannot be allowed to go on."

On the home front, Sen. Majority Leader Tom Daschle stated Congress was reluctant to commit to action against Iraq until further information was available.

"If Iraq has the bomb, we must and will act," Daschle told reporters. "If it's true that you can just drive over children on the streets of Iraq with your car and the police will do nothing to stop it, likewise, in that case we will also be forced to act. A country that barbaric must be re-educated, and a man so despicable that he would set his ex-wives on fire on his birthday, such as Mr. Hussein, must be removed from power."

Salutations to you, commune reader, assuming you're reading these columns and not merely gazing at the pretty colors while waiting for your Girls Gone Wild video clip to download. Forgive my gruff manner, but the Raoul Dunkin story has taken a swerve and crash lately, and I'm not in the best of moods.

In life you like to feel like you're constantly moving forward, and not backwards. Sometimes it's necessary to take a step backward, then two steps forward, like some kind of insidious conga line of the damned. Let's just say that I'm back in that conga line, stuck in the back with my paws on Sampson L. Hartwig's dusty hips and with Boner Cunningham's Vaseline-coated palms sliding up and down me in a sickly fashion. Back at the commune—neither above nor below hell, just slightly to the left.

A recent court ruling decided that maybe I could pay a judgment debt to the commune and Red Bagel in particular by returning to work here, and I suppose it's fair; or if not fair, un-appealable. I've gotten over arguing with my lawyer and blaming him for everything gone wrong in my life and I'm here to make peace with it all, and introduce myself to you. Not that you haven't had an introduction already, thanks to my friends at the commune; not a day goes by where I don't hear, "Hey! It's Palace Limp-Dick Raoul Dunkin!" or some other witty greeting on the street. Mine will be a little more personal.

I started off at the commune in the beginning of its web birth. I was the first to point out to Red Bagel that a black background and black text make the stories more difficult to read. My thanks was a dirty scowl and a desk drawer full of cooked noodles, which would have been more of a disappointment if I weren't so happy to receive the desk at the time. In short, I helped make the commune what it is today. If you hate me, I don't blame you, I hate myself for it. And since I took off for brighter horizons after we were established, everyone else from that era hates me also. Well, excuse the hell out of me for wanting those nice little perks of a secure job, like being paid in American currency and not having to wear disguises when going into the office. How dare I long for something more than spending drunken nights in the newsroom with the stereo playing, "MacArthur Park" while fearless Editor Red Bagel explains again how the strip searches are necessary to prevent government agents from wiring us in our sleep to eavesdrop on the office.

Until the lawsuit, in fact, I was never so sure of anything in my life as I was leaving the commune for M-TV. Sure, M-TV fired me for lacking "pep," whatever that is, but it set me on the paths of waiter jobs and doing maintenance on the machines at Kinko's that brought me back to writing—serious writing, playwriting. I was doing pretty damn well. My mistake was not more cleverly disguising my life story and, particularly, the Red Bagel character in my play. You got me, Bagel, what can I say? Once you were kind of like a father to me. Now you're completely like a father: I hate your guts and I can't wait until you're dead so I can inherit your rock polisher and other knickknacks. Then you'll finally have done me some good.

But again, this is a minor setback. The Raoul Dunkin story is much longer than this, and this is merely the depressing drunken newsroom "MacArthur Park"-listening conspiracy-drowning calm before the storm. Like Gloria Gaynor, I will survive, and unlike Gloria Gaynor, I will have another hit. Rest assured, though, until that day, Raoul Dunkin will put all his effort into making the commune better than it's ever been. After I have a cigarette. I'm jonesing for one bad.

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