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?"

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 original television probably wouldn't impress your average 21st-century American, who is used to all manner of razzle-dazz and flippety-flupp in the delivery of passive, couch-slumping entertainment. No, the first TV was a humble device, nothing more than a telephone attached to a small easel that held a pad of paper. The caller would call to tell an acquaintance about something that had happened, and while he verbally described the scene the answering party drew it up on the pad of paper. It was a rather stupid invention, but it was all they had back then and was wildly popular because it was new. Everyone marveled at the "Fourteenth Wonder of the World" (everything was a "Wonder of the World" back then, even Tommy Smothers) but social critics warned that the television would be the end of us all, with youths aimlessly doodling away the days and sending dirty pictures back and forth by way of description.

But after a few years, America's love affair with television began to wane, and by the mid-1930's Americans began to feel the seven-year itch for new technology. Many thought it would come in the form of a talking train, and a series of popular books were written on the subject. But the powers-that-be knew they had to get the ball rolling on a new, improved television, unless they wanted to continue running all over to hell and back every election year, shaking hands with every sweaty yokel that crawled out from under a rock somewhere. No chance! The talking train would have to wait. The time had come for television.

No one knew this better than President Roosevelt, and he wasted no time shining the big, lightbulb-shaped searchlight into the sky, signaling for all of the inventors to come out of their basements and backyard sheds and insane asylums and come to their country's aid.

Roosevelt gathered all of the nation's inventors together in a large hall that smelled strongly of cabbage, which everyone blamed on the room but all knew was the stink of the inventors themselves. They were given their mission, to re-invent television, and the inventors took to it with relish in their hair. Right off the bat they formed inventing teams, which they gave tough-sounding names like "The Genius Gang" and "The Eureka Dukes" and they invented chants that they used to taunt the other inventing teams. Before long there was a tug-of-war and a sack race to determine exactly which inventing team was the best, and within a week the President had to send in the National Guard to break it up because the inventors weren't getting any inventing done. But by that time the inventors were entrenched in a bitter clan war, and operatives from the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency had to be sent in to infiltrate the gangs and break them up by starting rumors about who exactly was stinking the place up like cabbage.

The government then wisely sent the inventors on their separate ways, and hunkered in to hope for the best.

The early returns were not promising, as most of the inventions that were submitted revolved around grafting telephones to sundry household devices, such as a hat rack and an ironing board, with the notable exception of one inventor who somehow managed to build a working telephone inside of a live pig.

Several other inventions of lasting importance were created during this quest for television, however, by inventors who either didn't understand the assignment or who thought the easel-pad television worked fine. And though the patent office was at first disappointed to receive them, inventions such as the burp-counting clock and disease flypaper would eventually have profound effects on American life.

The first invention that the office received which came anywhere close to improving on the original television was Monasto Farbie's Dream Beam Television. Farbie was an RCA employee of sub-normal IQ, who nonetheless did quite well in life by smiling constantly and only opening his mouth to agree with what more important people were saying. Farbie's invention involved a complex series of mirrors and magnifying glasses designed to shoot images over a distance of up to nine feet. It didn't even do that well, but being that it was the only new patent submitted with the word "Television" actually in the name, it was seen as a step in the right direction.

Out of this mess appeared Solace Mertz, an inventor from Idaho who hadn't been present at the President's meeting because he'd spent that weekend trapped in a box. Mertz arrived, seemingly out of nowhere, with a fully functioning television camera and screen in tow. When asked where he came up with the idea, Mertz told a long, detailed story about a dream he'd had one night where hyper-intelligent panda bears had come down out of a flying cocoanut and taught him how to make a television.

No one present knew what to say after he finished his story, except the CIA, who acted quickly by kicking Mertz in the teeth and telling him that if he didn't go along they'd tell everyone that he had married his cousin. Which was true, though Mertz had cleverly avoided detection for years by marrying all three of his cousins, so that nobody could say for certain which one he was married to and curious parties eventually got confused and gave up.

Roosevelt then quickly announced that Farbie had invented the television, and the nation was spared the embarrassment of awarding medals and honorary degrees to some Moonie who talked to panda bears. Everyone was happy: Farbie was famous, the nation had a new reason not to clean out their rain gutters, and politicians never had to go to West Virginia again. Mertz returned to his humble Idahoan life and lived quietly for years, until the night the panda bears returned to his dream and told him how build a ray gun that could remotely induce a cerebral hemorrhage in a head of state, which is a story for another column.

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