ovable loser and one-time fanatical terrorist hopeful Zacarias Moussaoui vowed to fight the death penalty and instant martyrdom for Islam in a Virginia courtroom Friday, as he entered a guilty plea on multiple terror charges.

Moussaoui's al Qaeda comrades were responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the attempted attack on the White House. The attacks resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 people and spurred the War on Terror, as well as fueled the War in Iraq. In Friday's preliminary hearing, however, Moussaoui tried to distance himself from the national tragedies, and claimed he was part of another attempt to fly a plane into the White House that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

"I came to America to be part of attack on White House and use plane as weapon of mass destruction," said Moussaoui in funny broken English. "As you can tell, attack not go so well for me. Moussaoui get picked up at Minnesota flight school paying cash for lessons. Stupid Moussaoui!"

People in attendance laughed themselves silly, with comparisons to Tarzan and the Incredible Hulk going around the room. The terror suspect burst into rage, shaking his hands violently and yelling, "Quit it! Quit laughing at Moussaoui!" until he was tasered by bailiffs.

While medics attempted to revive the suspect, Moussaoui's defense team spoke to the press. They vowed, despite having pledged his life to al Qaeda's plan to martyr themselves destroying America, Moussaoui would fight the death penalty in the case after the prosecution announced they would seek capital punishment.

Moussaoui, a French fanatical Arab, was the first suspect arrested in the probe investigating the 9/11 attacks, arrested in 2001 a month before the attacks when he raised suspicion by paying $7,000 in cash for flight simulator training in Minnesota. Those who knew him in his private life described Moussaoui as a generally nice fellow, but said he did stand out from the other foreign visitors they knew.

"Well, I remember he referred to himself in the third person a lot," said neighbor Rachel Wincett. "He talked a lot about wanting to blow up George W. Bush. But it's Minnesota, you know, you can't swing a dead cat without finding someone who wants to kill the president."

Flight instructor Harold Farmer noticed peculiarities with Moussaoui as well.

"Mostly he asked a lot about parachutes," said Farmer. "He'd ask how the auto-pilot worked… if you could steer the plane for something like, say, the White House, put it on auto-pilot, and then parachute out to safety before the massive explosions ensued. I told him sure, we all dream about it, but auto-pilot technology hasn't come far enough to turn planes into self-guided missiles yet. Maybe one day."

Nathan Ledbetter, a sometime-friend of Moussaoui, recalled: "He did carry a boxcutter with him everywhere we went, and when people stepped too close to him he would whip it out in a pinch, jab it out at everyone, threaten to fly the whole plane into a government building. I'd tell him, 'Yo, Zack, we're not in a plane, man, we're at Brewski's, and it's dollar beer night.' Come to think of it, I guess you can call that 'odd' behavior. Not the oddest with my friends, but odd enough."

In a statement pledging to fight the death penalty, Moussaoui reminded the judge that technically, since he's still alive, it's proof he wasn't involved in the suicide attacks during 9/11. Moussaoui also said that thought he hopes to embrace eternal martyrdom and be blessed in the afterlife with a planeful of virgins and the kindness of Allah, he will be happy to wait a long time, like until he is 97 years old, before he martyrs himself.

yslexia rereffus Mark Dingus-Smith held the world in awe this week after news broke that the central Indiana resident, no shit, talks to God on a regular basis. Thankful that the nation's latest God-talker is neither a Republican politician nor a New Age fruit, pious Americans have swarmed from miles around to gawk at the modest man's Indiana home, many hoping to eavesdrop on these heavenly conversations and catch a hint of what God really thinks about gays, contraception, and the red-hot topic of gay contraception.

Many were intrigued to find this simple man on a first name basis with the universal creator, with trivia buffs particularly interested in the discovery that, according to Mark, God's first name is Rufus.

"Who's a good boy? Rufus is a good boy! Rufus is the best boy in the whole wide world, isn't he?" gushed Dingus-Smith, offering encouragement to the singular deity, who surely must find his awesome responsibilities dispiriting at times. "Yes he is! Rufus is such a good boy!"

According to local news reports, neighbors discovered Dingus-Smith's gift after overhearing several one-sided conversations emanating from the house where Dingus-Smith lives alone with his dog, and asking the lifetime dyslexia sufferer just who he was talking to. Though unaccustomed to the national attention, Mark was already locally famous for unintentionally starting a minor Martian-invasion scare in the region last year after claiming in a bar that the nation's breast implants were full of aliens. After the shooting stopped, it was discovered that Dingus-Smith actually meant "saline."

Although the affliction of dyslexia is most often associated with difficulties in reading caused by the mental transposition of letters, in some extreme cases it can lead to the confusion of entire concepts. The most famous recent example of such being U.S. president George Bush's mistaken belief that Iraq had acquired WMD's, when in actuality the rogue Middle Eastern nation had just opened their first Wendy's.

According to Dr. Nikolai Balsvet of the McClurg Institute, dyslexia effects over 20 million Americans, though to those afflicted it only seems like 0.2 million, adding to their sense of isolation.

Some of the religious pilgrims who have made the trek to central Indiana and spent weeks camped out on Dingus-Smith's lawn have been disappointed with meeting Dingus-Smith and observing his decidedly laid back God-talking routine, which often involves playing with this dog and drinking Coors Light. Many untrue believers decried the entire story as "bullshit," peeling out in their RVs and pausing only long enough to throw trash on Dingus-Smith's lawn.

Others were upset that Dingus-Smith was taking his time working hot-button political issues into his dialogue with the eternal source of all life.

"I'm still pissed Mark hasn't asked God about gay contraception," groused lawn-camper Colman Slank of Nebraska. "He's always too busy playing with that goddamned dog of his. But this is one issue that really gets my goat. It's like the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of moral outrage, that one. 'You got sinful perversion of man's natural sexuality in my blasphemous triumph of modern technology over God's natural plan!' 'Oh yeah, well you got blasphemous triumph of modern technology over God's natural plan in my sinful perversion of man's natural sexuality!'"

"You remember that commercial, right?" followed-up an uncertain Slank.

Don't ask me why or how, but I keep dating guys named Evan. Without exception. It's actually kind of eerie and disconcerting the more I think about it, which is probably a good sign to quit. Thinking about it, that is. I'm not sure I can quit dating Evans, since I never actually set out to date guys named Evan in the first place.

I thought I had broken my streak once, back in 1997, when I started to date a guy named Charles. Then two months into the relationship I met his parents and discovered that his real name was Evan. His friends just called him Charles. For short? For long? I don't have any frickin' idea. His middle name wasn't even Charles, it was T-Fal. Don't get me started on that one.

Things went predictably downhill from there.

Things went sour between the previous Evan (Evan 7) and I after he wrote a column about Columbine called "Revenge of the Nerds," which I thought was unforgivably tacky. And he wasn't even writing for the commune! I'd thought that dating a fellow columnist would solve a lot of those normal career-relationship problems, like living with someone who doesn't understand your need to move in with a tribe of Kalahari Bushmen for a month to research a piece you're writing on teen pregnancy.

Turns out I was as wrong on that as I had been about my hot stock pick for that year: "Fat Camps" for bulking up underweight kids. Turns out you can't legally force-feed a child peanut butter through a tube, plus the chunks tend to clog up the tube. But that didn't much matter in the end, since my second-choice stock had been for a company developing man-sized Furby dolls as companions for the elderly, and that whole enterprise went south like a snowbird after some old bag in Kansas tried to feed hers soup and it blew the power grid for half of North America.

The first Evan I dated was probably the best, and in retrospect I should have quit while I was ahead. Sure, it was high school, but if I had known what was to come I would have gladly called it a romantic career at 16. Truthfully, I don't remember that much about Evan 1, but he smelled nice and that went a long way in high school. I think he was on the soccer team; either that or he just took shin safety very seriously.

It was a quick luge-run downhill from there, since Evan 2 pretty much spent all his time drinking Zima and crushing the empty Zima boxes against his forehead as a joke, which meshed surprisingly well with his job as an toll booth operator. People love a little levity when they're fishing through their seat cracks and underwear for 35 cents. And he did pull down a decent wage, mostly through selling Zimas to thirsty motorists. That eventually led to his downfall, of course, since one day he ran out of Zimas and had to leave his post to run to the Liquor Barn, which resulted in that story you heard on the news about those 200 people who got into the state of Illinois for free. Evan's boss was pretty pissed and wanted him to pay those lost tolls out of his own pocket, but never the math scholar, Evan jumped out the window instead and never looked back, not realizing he'd just left a lucrative Zima-distribution job over $70.

Evans 3 through 6 weren't worth remembering, or at least I don't remember them anyway, and numbers 9 and 10 left me for each other, so I won't be glorifying them with a more detailed mention. But on the bright side, I just started dating a new guy named Elvin, which I consider to at least be a step in the right direction. Unless he's really just another Evan with really sloppy handwriting, in which case I'm doubly screwed since I'm not sure if I'm supposed to meet him tonight at the boathouse or a bathhouse. I'm hoping it's the boathouse, since I'm tired of gay boyfriends always using up all my expensive makeup. Wish me luck.

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