n a stunning election with worldwide implications, the unpredictable Palestinian people shocked the world this week by voting for the pita spread hummus as their new national favorite food. The US State Department had been hoping for a different result to the election, considering US hamburger interests in the region.

Polling results have come in amid claims that the US tried to rig the election, handing out free White Castle burgers at polling places and distributing propagandic pamphlets apparently left over from the Communist witch hunts of the 1950's, bearing slogans like "A Meal Without Meat is a Meal You Shouldn't Eat" and "Veggies for Fags."

The election results are hard to understand for American readers, most of whom do not consider chip dip to be a major food group. But in underdeveloped Palestine, the only groceries most Palestinians have access to are in gas station convenience stores like Pay 'n Gulp and the Circle K. As a result, Middle Eastern nutritional science revolves mainly around which snack foods provide the most pep for Arabs on the go.

According to commune answerbot Griswald Dreck, Hummus is made by grinding up live hummingbirds, a small, otherwise useless beast high in Vitamin E, and mixing the pasty remains with lemon juice. Hummingbird farmers were understandably thrilled by the news of the election, vowing to ramp up production by bulking up on their supplies of taser guns and pooper scoopers, the main tools of the trade used for catching hummingbirds.

Marketed in America under the name "Tasty Paste," hummus is ranked as our nation's 347th favorite snack food, just behind gum wrappers and candy cigarettes. A small subset of Americans are said to be enthralled by the exotic snack, daring the purchase it whenever the grocery store is entirely out of sour cream, guacamole and Frito dip.

The election's results have brought renewed attention to the controversial practice of nations electing their favorite foods, a ploy that hasn't seen the light of day since the United States' own disastrous 1984 election, when Americans shocked their corporate overlords by electing pizza over presumed-winner hamburgers in a landslide, shaking the towers of power down to their very foundations.

The Palestinians, known as "Pallies" to friendly neighboring nations, have always shown a tendency to go against the grain, particularly when western interests are involved. From their preference for turbans over the more-profitable baseball cap, to their refusal to buy into the worldwide tanning bed craze, Palestinians seem to exist solely to disappoint American businesses hoping to peddle their wares overseas.

Observers await news from the White House on whether this week's election is an invadable offense, or merely another reason to kick Arab people in the nuts behind the political scenes.

ey, remember 2005? It seems like only yesterday it was everywhere, sweetie… the fashions, the fads, the music (which you can download for free). Everybody was watching Lost and Googling Linsay Lohan. This year, it’s repeats of Lost and the Pitt-Jolie baby. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to forget those more innocent times.

The world started 2005 believing the biggest events to come would be the trial of Michael Jackson and the debut of Star Wars, Episode III, but were they ever wrong. Goddamn, sweetie, were they wrong.

Even if the big Star Wars finale was the biggest grossing movie of the year, the movie everyone was talking about was gay cowboy non-musical extravaganza Brokeback Mountain. A studio-financed My Own Private Idaho, the film featured a classic lovestory all Y-chromosomed up for today’s modern metrosexuals. I, for one, loved this shit out of it, hon.

It sure beat the hell out of the “biggest movie of 2005,� as everybody promoted it—only to have it being the biggest underwhelming movie of all time: King Kong. The movie under-performed to all expectations, possibly due to somebody leaking a copy of the movie to the Internet and an early cut of the film to the theaters in 1933. Remember 1933? Prohibition and flappers? That’s another column, sweets.

The country went crazy for TV, too. America was desperate for Desperate Housewives and lost our minds for Lost. We also continued the C.S.I./Law & Order craze as they collectively dominated three-five nights a week of televisions. And how about those new television shows we all went crazy for? That’s right—there were none.

And remember the music everyone was listening to in 2005? Neither do we. There was some Kelly Clarkson, some Kanye West, and 50 Cent mumbled some shit here and there. Where’s the club beat, bitch? Notice I didn’t say bi-atch? Too toooo 2004.

As for the news itself, there was no bigger story than the sad destruction of partyzone and Girls Gone Wild unofficial headquarters of New Orleans at the inhuman hands of heartless bitch Hurricane Katrina. As if that wasn’t enough, several frontin’ hurricane wanna-bes also tore shit up elsewhere.

The other big news stories were the continuing death of innocents for the unnecessary war in Iraq, but we leave that coverage to the no-spin zone doctoring of Bill O’Reilly. We were sadder about the death of one of the 20th century’s most pivotal religious figures, Johnny Carson. And how about the others we lost? Bob Denver, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Lou Rawls, and John Paul Pope, some kind of Christian prophet.

After years of a firm status quo, 2005 saw the shake up of not one, but two Supreme Court justices retiring (one for good) to open up the doors to the future’s arch-conservative oligarchy.

And who can forget the unforgettable catch-phrases of 2005? “Michael Jackson’s Jesus Juice�? “Cronyism�? “Mark McGwiroids�? None of these quite caught on with the national consciousness. No, 2005 was truly a year when nothing stuck in your brain. But the commune did take a severely long vacation, and that was da bomb, baby-doll. Let’s hope for more of that in 2006.

New Year's: the holiday, the spectacle, and the brand of adult diapers, can all kiss Omar Bricks' cherry red ass. That's not a threat—it's a promise. Actually, come to think of it, it's an invitation, but that doesn't sound nearly as menacing. But call it whatever you will, the word is out that Omar Bricks wants all things New Year's to choke hard on a turd, now and forever.

Before you start assuming that Omar Bricks is just jumping on the recently fashionable "New Year's Eats Old Pussy" bandwagon, check the record. I've never been a fan of the holiday, and I stand behind my record dating back to the third grade, when thanks to poor legal advice I stayed up all night on New Year's Eve in a confused attempt to see if Santa Claus was real, and instead got the drop on so many drunks in bulge-ridden leisure suits that to this day I still involuntarily beat children whenever I smell polyester. I've only had one good New Year's ever, and that was the year I forgot it was New Year's and spent the night locked in a canning plant, getting sick on mangoes.

This year had its own flavor of suck since I was under the mistaken legal impression that the statute of limitations for all 2005 crimes runs out at midnight on December 31st, so I'd spent the whole night running around and settling scores, dealing out hasty justice like my immune ass was about to turn into a pumpkin. I also set free all the dogs in the neighborhood, mainly because I've always wanted to see a shitload of dogs running together like in the old Chuck Wagon commercials. I had to rush and do a half-ass job of setting a parade float on fire just to get home in time to watch the Times Square countdown, a yearly tradition for lazy, television-watching sons of bitches everywhere.

Now, no one needs a call from CNN to catch the breaking news that New Year's television sucks big wet titty. Any time they schedule over two hours of air time for a ten-second event, you know there's going to be more crappy filler than a case of Winky's, those off-brand Twinkie knock-offs Foghat always wants every year for Christmas. About four seconds after the ball drops, they unleash an endless cavalcade of morons strategically positioned around Times Square, standing around saying shit like "There sure are a lot of people here… yep…" I haven't seen that many uncomfortable silences on TV since they gave that narcoleptic Chevy Chase his own late-night show.

After the depressing spectacle of listening to Dick Clark drunk his way through the ball-dropping countdown, I was in heavy need to distraction, so I went quick to the pantry for the case of Safeway beer I'd been saving all year for the occasion. Two minutes after the drop was over, Dick was still on stuck on twenty-seven, and I was really glad I'd saved the beer. It was a sad, sad state of affairs, ladies and gentlemen, and I spilled an entire case of beer on the couch. Some would say that's what I get for opening all the cans at once, but you save time your way, I'll save it mine. I just wish I'd noticed that the beer was spilling sooner, since the couch swelled up so much it pitched me onto Foghat's loveseat, and I accidentally touched way more dog underbelly than I care to admit. Now Foghat won't even look me in the eye, which makes going to his room to use the Super Nintendo especially uncomfortable.

That's right about when the neighborhood mob showed up to get their mailboxes back, which I'd been driving around collecting all night so I could open up my own Mailboxes ETC and hook up some sweet business tax breaks for 2006. I had to take a break from juicing my couch to talk the mob out of setting my neighbor Hamms on fire, because he had about 400 mailboxes lined up in his front yard like some kind of surreal drive-in theater (I didn't want to fuck up my grass). It all ended okay though, since I was able to convince the mob that the mailbox caper was exactly the kind of thing my other neighbor Mitch would do, and he wasn't home, so I had everybody over to my place to help suck the beer out of my couch.

Which may sound like a great time, yeah, but actually it was kind of weird. So screw New Year's. Bricks out.

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