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Sniper Perpetuates Exciting New Muslim StereotypesOld negative typecasting replaced by brand new negative images October 28, 2002 |
Rockville, Maryland Whit Pistol/AP Police search the vehicle belonging to daring new stereotype and alleged sniper John Allen Muhammad. The picture of the gun is for shits and giggles. eligious differences again proved insurmountable, this time in the case of the pair of snipers who terrorized the east coast of the United States with a string of fatal attacks that left ten dead and countless others terrified to walk in a straight line to work or school.
The suspects arrested for the crimes, John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, were like a Sanford & Son for the Guns and Ammo set, spending years of their lives as desperate loners together, acting for reasons not yet known to the public as they killed random victims and threatened the United States, requesting the reasonable extortion fee of $10 million to cease their terror. While little is known about the suspects, it is known that Muhammad, a Muslim, has done a bang-up job in putting a positive fo...
eligious differences again proved insurmountable, this time in the case of the pair of snipers who terrorized the east coast of the United States with a string of fatal attacks that left ten dead and countless others terrified to walk in a straight line to work or school.
The suspects arrested for the crimes, John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, were like a Sanford & Son for the Guns and Ammo set, spending years of their lives as desperate loners together, acting for reasons not yet known to the public as they killed random victims and threatened the United States, requesting the reasonable extortion fee of $10 million to cease their terror. While little is known about the suspects, it is known that Muhammad, a Muslim, has done a bang-up job in putting a positive foot forward for the Islamic community.
"Oh, goody," said President of the Positive Islam Group (PIG) Al-Abib Farouzi, "at last, a Muslim making the news who is not a foreign terrorist. This is more than we could have hoped for."
According to PIG, Muhammad has managed to break the usual American stereotype of Muslims who live in faraway third-world countries who wish death on America and commit gigantic acts of terrorism.
"Now when people think of Muslims," said Farouzi, "they'll know that in addition to the foreign-born terrorists moving around them, Muslims can also be van-driving serial killers who strike without apparent motivation and prey on anybody who makes an easy shot."
Muhammad, in his two-man tirade of raining bullets, has challenged post-September 11th stereotypes of domestic Muslims being normal Americans with no desire to kill or harm in any way. He has also reminded most Americans, who are quick to assume security in the areas they live, that danger doesn't only lurk in air travel or opening strange envelopes, but can come from anywhere at any time. Death is only a random bullet away.
"Thank you, Mr. Muhammad," said 24-year-old Maryland college student Marjorie Block. "I had previously begun to speculate maybe the anger Muslims feel toward the United States was possibly politically motivated due to unwanted government intervention in countries we had financial stakes in—I now foolishly see that Muslims just want money. Or they hate people walking around without flak jackets and helmets."
The negative Muslim images couldn't have come at a worse time for Islamic Americans, who were beginning to make a dent in negative Muslim images in the wake of the United States' War on Terror and the possibility of war with Iraq. Plans to add an Islamic muppet to Sesame Street have been stalled in the wake of the sniper arrest and ABC has dropped a mid-season pilot for My Six Wives and Kids, a Muslim sitcom.
"We have worked diligently at improving the perception of Muslims in the United States, domestic and abroad," PIG President Farouzi later stated. "And our hard work has been brought down by another brazen asshole. Thanks, dickhead—any other negative racial or religious stereotypes you'd like to perpetuate, as long as you're up?" the commune news is halfway through reading the Koran right now—don't you dare tell us how it ends! Raoul Dunkin is the king of sarcasm around here… at least, we think he is—it's hard to tell if he's being sarcastic or not when he says that.
| Future Bob Fails to Prevent Senator's DeathBusy schedule impedes time-altering intervention in 2005 October 28, 2002 |
The Future, TIME Junior Bacon (inset: Future Webcam) A solemn scene at an impromptu memorial for the late Sen. Wellstone... which could have been erased from history with better time-management skills by Future Bob (inset). onfound it all!
Anger and severe frustration were the mood Monday, October 31—Halloween—2005 when Future Bob checked his notes for things to do and realized he had forgotten to prevent the death of Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone.
Wellstone, a passionate former college professor and left-leaning Democratic Senator from Minnesota, was killed in October, 2002 in some sort of plane crash that also claimed the lives of members of his family and those aboard the plane. The details are long since lost to the ravages of time to 2005-dwelling Future Bob.
Prevention of the plane crash was on Future Bob's "to-do" list in the year 2005, though like many other events of that year have been unfortunately forgotten in time to change the future. Future Bob, ...
onfound it all!
Anger and severe frustration were the mood Monday, October 31—Halloween—2005 when Future Bob checked his notes for things to do and realized he had forgotten to prevent the death of Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone.
Wellstone, a passionate former college professor and left-leaning Democratic Senator from Minnesota, was killed in October, 2002 in some sort of plane crash that also claimed the lives of members of his family and those aboard the plane. The details are long since lost to the ravages of time to 2005-dwelling Future Bob.
Prevention of the plane crash was on Future Bob's "to-do" list in the year 2005, though like many other events of that year have been unfortunately forgotten in time to change the future. Future Bob, as you may or may not know in 2002, has extensive bills and has to work two regular jobs in addition to his charitable contributions to the commune.
Had Wellstone's death been prevented, as per Future Bob's plans, the key Senate race in Minnesota could have been won by the Democrat and prevented Republican control of Congress and the White House in 2003, which of course led to several dark moments in recent American history such as the revoking of the 4 th Amendment and the passage of the "Sell the Homeless into Slavery Act of 2004."
With Wellstone's survival, a better period was possible for those crucial years of American history. Wellstone could have won re-election and unmasked his Senate opponent former St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman as the evil KGB mole Dmitri Raszokoff. As it stands now, history is unchanged and Coleman will not be revealed until the great Soviet Reunion of 2005.
Among other items on Future Bob's long list of regretfully-unchanged history: The Sept. 11 th attacks, a reign of terror by a trio of snipers, Will Ferrell leaving the cast of Saturday Night Live, the election of George W. "Nightmare" Bush, the release of Britney Spears' Oops… I Did it Again album, and several type-Os in his last commune article that weren't corrected.
To Future Bob's credit, he did prevent the noxious gas attack of December, 2001; the death of celebrity Tom Cruise at the hands of a gay lover; and the publication of Oprah Winfrey's Sex book.
Future Bob extends his deepest sympathies and sorrows to Wellstone's family, friends, and constituents, and hopes he can do more in the past (your future) to change history for the better. Please do not bog him down with e-mails questioning why he cannot change the past at any point in time from where he is now, it is a miserable experience trying to explain how the timeline and time travel works and it costs a lot of money to keep his futuristic past-broadcasting ham radio operating.
Once again, Future Bob is called upon to report to Long John Silver's for his first shift. Until next time, guard the country like the future depends on it—mine does. Future Bob signing off. the commune news can neither confirm nor deny Future Bob is actually from the future, but if we didn't believe it we wouldn't publish it; or perhaps we would, who knows, we're crazy that way. Future Bob would really appreciate if someone would buy some stock that's about to go through the roof for him, or failing that, bury a box of money in the future site of his apartment.
| Study finds low I.Q. causes lead paint eating, not other way around |
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October 28, 2002 Deep Omar is the Chess Messiahthe commune's Omar Bricks has more pawns where those came from Life is funny sometimes.
I was out prowling around and whatnot the other day when I ducked into a store in the mall that had this huge life-size statue of Xena in the window. Now, Omar Bricks isn't a huge Xena fan or anything pathetic like that, but he knows a key piece of interior decorating décor for the Bricks Manor when he sees it.
I was hoisting the Xena statue onto my back when the pre-pubescent store manager asked me if I needed help with anything, like he was going to crap out a disc helping me carry this thing out to my bike. I asked him if he had could get me a dickfour, which I figured would keep him busy for a while. But he was unphased, this cat was all business. We shot the shit for a while, and I was disappointed to find out that this backwoods sto...
º Last Column: A Prank Call From the Fates º more columns
Life is funny sometimes.
I was out prowling around and whatnot the other day when I ducked into a store in the mall that had this huge life-size statue of Xena in the window. Now, Omar Bricks isn't a huge Xena fan or anything pathetic like that, but he knows a key piece of interior decorating décor for the Bricks Manor when he sees it.
I was hoisting the Xena statue onto my back when the pre-pubescent store manager asked me if I needed help with anything, like he was going to crap out a disc helping me carry this thing out to my bike. I asked him if he had could get me a dickfour, which I figured would keep him busy for a while. But he was unphased, this cat was all business. We shot the shit for a while, and I was disappointed to find out that this backwoods store doesn't accept SuperAmerica calling cards as a form of payment. No shit! In America no less. It was probably for the best though, since $10,000 for the statue probably would have gone over the minutes I had remaining on my card. I'm not sure, but there's a pretty good chance. Thus began a fruitless bartering session that went nowhere but gave us both a good excuse to yell in public.
I sent the dude to go check with his regional manager to make sure they didn't need a used Nordic Track for the store, and while I was waiting, some salivating dweeb trapped me into a conversation like a sparrow caught in flypaper. He had his retainer all in a twist about some computer program that had just given the King Geek chess guy a wedgie or whatever. Something about chess, anyway. I said I knew what he was talking about, just because the reflection of my face in his glasses was starting to wig me out and also I wanted him to stop talking.
Now Omar Bricks knows a thing or two about chess. For one, there's a dude that looks like a horse, but he's not called a horse. Don't ask me why. I think it's stupid too, but I didn't make up the game. And the other thing is, don't try to mix and match checkers pieces while you're playing, because nothing pisses off chess geeks more than bringing up the subject of checkers.
Since the manager still hadn't come back yet, I was stuck in a socially awkward situation that only wholly unexpected display of breakdancing ability would get me out of smoothly, and I wasn't wearing the right kind of pants for that. So I was trapped like a gimp as the chess guy showed me over to a computer where there was a herd of nerds crowding around, all taking their shot at beating this Deep Fritz genius chess program that had so recently bookslammed the Grand Dragon of the socially stunted chess world. Of course, they were all getting smoked like cloves at a junior high school party and giving each other wet willies for losing and all kinds of retarded shit I don't even want to go into.
Since I was kind of stuck there anyway, I decided to make it interesting and I announced that Omar Bricks had come to kick Deep Fritz in his chess-loving taint, once and for all. The dorks were dubious, but when I stated flatly that Omar Bricks had never lost a game, they were impressed. Or non-responsive, whatever. But technically it was a true statement, thanks to the patented Bricks end move where you "Ah, shit!" accidentally flip the board over with your knee when defeat starts to look imminent. It works in pretty much any kind of board game, though if you're going to pull that during a game of Scrabble, you might want to duck out the door while everyone is confused because that's one mess you don't want to help clean up.
So in the end I knew I had that ace up my sleeve, and I doubted the computer had anything like that to fall back on. Generally computers don't have sleeves to hide things in at all. That would require computers wearing dress shirts and nobody not recently off crack wants that, since at any time you could turn around and find big bird-headed lamps pecking at you and scary pants come dancing out of the closet and then you realize you're in some kind of Herbie Hancock video nightmare and oh shit.
The match started well, with me moving some horses and the computer moving some big dick-shaped things around for a while. I think my concentration may have lapsed because I was wondering if this computer had that naked golf game on it when one of the nerds yelled in my ear "Omart! He's got you in check!"
Now I don't claim to speak chess, but I figured this was probably bad. One of the other geeks pointed out the computer's little castle and how it was lined up to put the smackdown on my bedpost. Shit. NOW they tell me you can move the castle. What the hell kind of unrealistic game is this? No matter, either way I had to move fast. I told the dorks not to worry. Then, when the computer was about to put the "Castle of Death" whammy on me, I jumped up like I had just seen an underdressed high school girl out in the food court and in the process banged my shin like a motherfucker on the computer table. That sent the whole thing down like a pup tent on a Special Ed camping trip, no lie. The effect was basically what I had been after, though with more shin banging than I cared for.
Of course, that's just when the manager shows back up, when there's broken crap everywhere and I'm hopping around, holding my shin and cursing out Bill Gates. The nerds were long gone, off checking the food court for cleavage. The manager kid was going on and on about the broken computer and this and that, and I thought I was going to have to windmill my way out of there after all, but he changed his tune after I threatened to sue the whole mall over their defective computer tables. For a second I thought I might be riding home with that Xena statue strapped to my back thanks to my lawsuit ruse, but finally I had to settle for this little pewter statue of some kind of fat gremlin thing.
Tell you the truth, I don't even know what the hell it's supposed to be. But it sure makes a badass hood ornament for my bike.
Bricks out. º Last Column: A Prank Call From the Fatesº more columns |
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Milestones1982: Fred Connor born, grows up to lead successful rebellion against war of the machines in 2011. Or at least he would have been, if a Terminator hadn't successfully eliminated him from history, according to Research Editor Griswald Dreck.Now HiringGood Terminator. Talking to Griswald Dreck has made us see the wisdom of employing a preventative Terminator security system, preferably a skilled Terminator robot who has been reprogrammed to protect commune staff members. No pay or retirement plans—yours is not to reason why, just to do and die.Top Unrevealed Bush Tax Cut Benefits1. | Paper currency disintegrates upon touching hands of lower classes | 2. | Top 1 percent of wealth holders can legally eat cloned dinosaur | 3. | Five new interns approved for every Democrat who votes for cuts | 4. | Third Star Wars movie legally required to be drastic improvement | 5. | Millions of tax dollars refunded to rich; T-shirts for poor | |
| Harry Belafonte: Colin Powell a "Tallyman, Tally Me Bananas"BY sanchez vickle 10/28/2002 TV REPAIRFat patterns pulsing in stitches of static erratic and plastic, the spastic display. With a bang and a kick and a "cheap motherfucker!" an emergency side-slapping repair is performed. The picture then jittered and shimmied and quivered then twisted all sideways, the image deformed. With a hearty "hiya!" like the best fake karate pissed off fists of fury rained down on the set. A homemade remedy for that TV set voodoo, a righteous exorcism time-tested and true. But with one kick too many the screen split like a prism and with an ass-rattling blurt that cheap cocksucker died. Now, most would be ready to cash in the towel. To blow a foul "Taps" in...
Fat patterns pulsing in stitches of static erratic and plastic, the spastic display. With a bang and a kick and a "cheap motherfucker!" an emergency side-slapping repair is performed. The picture then jittered and shimmied and quivered then twisted all sideways, the image deformed. With a hearty "hiya!" like the best fake karate pissed off fists of fury rained down on the set. A homemade remedy for that TV set voodoo, a righteous exorcism time-tested and true. But with one kick too many the screen split like a prism and with an ass-rattling blurt that cheap cocksucker died. Now, most would be ready to cash in the towel. To blow a foul "Taps" into a snot rag, goodnight. But not on my watch! No, I cannot abide it. You will not go gently, you green plastic hunk of Taiwanese shit. So I break out my tool box, and with saw in hand, I proceed to gut it, this department store brand. And oh what wonders pour forth from its cavernous womb! All transistors and vacuum-sucked tubes. Delightful chrome marvels mysterious in hue. And though I could not save it this shitbox complex, the labyrinth of doodads built only to vex, I have other plans for this flat-lining set. These parts could prove handy, and I'm one to bet they could be glued together to make a grand UFO that might scare the brown vittles out of Clem down the road. |