learly delighted to have an offensive position at last, President Bush lashed out at "safety ign'rant" airlines and the FAA for its low-wheel requirements on commercial aircraft. According the president's amusing new platform, safety could be increased a bunchfold with the addition of 8-10 new sets of landing gear on standard airplanes, and hopefully would prevent scenes like the dramatic emergency landing of JetBlue Flight 292 on Thursday.

The commercial airline flight JetBlue 292 ran into difficulty landing when its foremost landing wheel arrogantly faced the wrong direction and forced a tense landing situation. The event was made all the more worthy of national attention when it was revealed passengers/potential victims aboard Flight 292 were watching their own ordeal on satellite television, one of the perks the airline offers passengers willing to risk becoming human charcoal on their flights. In the end, the plane landed successful, jetting down the runway covered with foam and emitting sparks in a thrilling scene of real life danger only seen previously on repeats of Jackass.

The White House jumped on the story, beginning on Friday with the president's casual comment that the plane would have been a lot safer if it had been a bus, and not quite so high in the air. The peckerwood president had no further comment then, but continued his assault on the airlines Saturday with a slightly more thought-out commentary.

"It's a shame the airline industry would risk the lives of so many of its passengers to save a few bucks," said our monkeyesque leader of the free world. When asked to elaborate, the president spared no one. "I say, more wheels. Why not? Put 8 more wheels on them sum'bitches, or what the hell, put 10. Flight 292 was lucky to land on two wheels. I bet those passengers would have had an even better chance for each wheel more you added on that thing."

Some critics of the president claim Bush is not rushing to embrace a serious airline issue so much as desperately fleeing the political quagmires of Iraq and failures to respond to recent natural disasters, to which the president says "horsehockey."

"I'm a pilot myself," said Bush, stating a half-truth. "Back when I flew a plane, I petitioned my commanding officers all the time for more wheels on Navy jetfighters. Our boys need to be protected from potential crashing disasters, and when you have more to land on, you have a better chance of landing. It's a scientific fact. And if it's not, it sure sounds like one."

The airline industry was slow to slapdown the president's criticism, probably out of some gratitude for the huge-ass bailout he approved for them in the post-9/11 environment; but JetBlue, the company who owns the world's most famous plane with muleheaded landing gear, did reject claims its planes were currently unsafe.

"Mechanical faults are always an unpleasant reality of the airline industry," said JetBlue spokesperson Chico Rudatti. "We do all we can to make sure our planes are safe before they get into the air, but once they're up there—fuck it, you know? Shit happens. Our pilots are trained to react calmly and with all their skill, and as you can see, they can make the difference between a successful landing and a company-killing crash."

Asked if they plan on making any upgrades to their aircrafts in light of recent events, JetBlue did concede it might start using the V-chips in their TV sets to lock out all airline-disaster-related programming on foreign and domestic flights.

n the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the currentmath of Hurricane Rita hot on Katrina’s high heels, elderly southerners who’ve been there before are offering a reassuring voice of bitter calm to troubled Americans across the South.

“Today’s hurricanes aren’t worth a hot goddamn,� groused Boca Raton resident Carter Dunlop, 88. “You all can quit your bellyaching. Back in the day, we had hurricanes to remember. I don’t recall their names or any details, but you can rest assured these latest pipsqueaks are even less noteworthy. Trust me, you’ll all hear Carter Dunlop scream like a woman when a real hurricane hits.�

“Category 5? Pssh, they’ll call any old stiff breeze a hurricane nowadays,� griped Biloxi native Ted Knuck. “Back in my day, you wouldn’t cross the street for anything less then a Category 15. And that was only because it blew you across the street.�

“And they call this a hurricane,� sniffed Elmer Controse, 76, of Wicker Falls, who had his entire house flattened by Hurricane Katrina. “Blew my house down, big whup. This is nothing. Back in ’56, Hurricane Chuck blew my house down, then re-arranged it and blew it back up again so that everything was inside-out. All my pictures were hanging on the outside of the house, and my toilet and stove were on the outside, it was like some kind of crazy doll house. But inside, everything was all aluminum siding. Creepy as hell. Now that was a hurricane.�

“Today’s hurricanes aren’t worth shit,� opined Daisy Altamont, 91, of Baton Rouge, who had her wedding ring blown up a cat’s ass by Hurricane Beauregard in 1949. “Get back to me after we’ve had the kind of hurricane that ends with you giving an enema to a housecat. But a word to the wise: if that does happen, I’d advise against telling anyone what you did. Apparently it’s illegal to enemize a cat.�

the commune was unable to verify the legal status of giving a cat an enema, but we did discover that it clearly violates American Show Cat Association guidelines, as it can apparently harm a cat’s self-image and lead to problems with bulimia.

Thus far, a consensus of scientists have been unable to confirm the elderly’s claims of mega-hurricanes from the past, arguing instead that hurricanes have been at about the same strength throughout history, and incidentally, the scale of hurricane categories has always gone from one to five, no higher.

“Bullshit,� disagreed longtime Hollywood, Florida, resident Angus Roper, 95, in spite of not having heard the previous paragraph. “When I was a boy, Hurricane Delphina blew my dog inside-out like a sock, right before it blew my grandmother through an oak tree. Not the branches, mind you, the trunk. Granny was never the same after that, chirping like a chipmunk whenever the barometer dropped. You don’t see hurricanes like that anymore.�

“Absolutely,� agreed Cape Hatteras, North Carolina’s Archie Slobertson, apparently displaying some kind of cross-state old-person telepathy. “Hurricane Dandy, now that was a… well, a dandy. Back then the hurricanes didn’t blow sideways like they do now. Nope, hurricane blew straight down. Pushed my whole town underground, no foolin’. Don’t believe me? Look on a map for North Jigglebarrow, you won’t find it! Better get yourself a shovel if you want to visit. Still folks livin’ there from what I hear tell. Yep.�

Thanks to an unprecedented number of Jurassic Park sequels, the BBC's "educational" series Walking with Dinosaurs, and countless truly putrid CGI dinosaur DVDs aimed at children, these terrible ugly beasts of yore have never been more popular. However, none of these irresponsible Hollywood types with their sexy and exciting CGI tools will tell you the real secret truth about these terrible beasts: Dinosaurs were boring.

Take for example the Snorasaurus, the most boring dinosaur ever to walk the earth. The Snorasaurus spent his days sitting in the mud, staring straight ahead and giving no indication whatsoever that it was alive or dead. Eventually, the Snorasaurus would evolve into his modern-day cousin, the legendary boring pet the iguana.

Clearly, the public has been sold a bill of goods about dinosaurs and how exciting they supposedly were. Few will tell you the truth about the Disappointadocus, the most overrated dinosaur ever to live, or his cousin, Hypalamus. That doesn't fit into their neat little "dinosaurs were awesome" worldview.

Few dinosaur lovers today would be loving it if they crossed paths with the Australopithasaur, an Aussie dinosaur known for its withering, pithy tone and general bitchy demeanor. This miserable beast was closely related to Cockbastaranus, the "Asshole Lizard" whom annoyed all others and was often killed by other dinosaurs as a matter of principle, in spite of its inedible meat, which was uniformly stringy and bitter.

The most famous disappointing dinosaur of all, however, was the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the "Terrible Lizard." And in this case, the name was perfectly fitting, as the Tyrannosaurus was uniformly terrible at hunting, fighting, mating, and all other dinosaur activities. This hapless creature was also known as the biggest pussy in all of nature. In spite of its impressive size and terrifying appearance, the Tyrannosaurus was easily frightened by other dinosaurs, birds, ground squirrels, and the sound of the wind rustling through tree branches. Because of his incredible cowardice, the Tyrannosaurus spent most of his time running away from various threats, real or imagined, and hiding among bushes and shrubberies.

These weren't the only miserable dinosaurs of course, as the unfortunate roll call goes on and on. Few scientists care to remember the Oshitodon, a dinosaur known for causing problems it would then blame on other dinosaurs. Most consider this clumsy oaf of nature best left forgotten.

Possibly the strangest of the dinosaurs was the Nonudodon, a dinosaur with a paralyzing fear of nudity, which would fashion strange, primitive articles of clothing out of branches, rocks, pelts and the patchwork skins of other dinosaurs. These modest creatures were often only seen at night, foraging on the forest floor for accessories.

Despite the claims of a few pissy scientists bent on ruining the fun for everyone else, dinosaurs and early man did in fact coexist, and they threw wild parties. Early man loved nothing more than getting dinosaurs piss drunk on fermented goat milk, and this led directly to early man's nomadic nature, since nobody wanted to hang around camp anymore after the dinosaurs had started barfing all over the place.

Dinosaurs did pose a special problem for early man, however, since many early cave-dwellers were trampled by Tyrannosaurus that were running away from threateningly-shaped clouds in the sky. Eventually, early man had to take to traveling around in giant man-sized boots with foot holes cut out of the bottom, knowing dinosaurs would never step in the boots because lizards don't wear shoes.

But how did all these dinosaurs get their names? After the discovery of strange reptile fossils in 1857, Sir Edward Albey named the theoretical beasts Agranamapeus, which is Latin for "Ahhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhhh! ArrggggaaaaahhhhhhhHh!" Sir Dingus Reily found this name to be accurate, though lacking in social graces, and proposed instead the name dinosaur, Latin for "Lizards so big you'd totally shit."

Unfortunately, the names of dinosaurs have often reflected the biases of the scientists doing the discovering, especially in less-enlightened historical times. Case in point is the Beaneramus, a small herbivore once commonly found in the land that is now Mexico. Thankfully, modern-day scientists have taken the liberty to give this beast the more politically-correct name of the Labambadon.

Likewise with the Krautosaur of Southern Germany, the bi-curious Fagodon, the McSaurus of Scotland, and the Frogonomin, the French "bird of meat" that once terrified the part of the skies that is located very near to the ground.

Now that you know the truth, do a good deed today and spread the disappointing word to all the small children you can find, before they get all carried away.

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