CYCLOPS KITTY / MURDER INC. YES, WE HAVE NO TORTURE BAN Last week, when Preznit Dubya signed the anti-torture bill he'd done everything in his power to prevent, he performed a bit of political legerdemain that was essentially the grownup version of putting a hand behind his back and crossing his fingers. He did this by issuing a "signing statement" delineating his interpretation of the law, which differs distinctly from the intentions of the legislators who drafted it. "The executive branch shall construe the law in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President as Commander in Chief," Dubya declared, adding that his particular interpretation was essential to protect the American people from "further terrorist attacks." At first glance, this might seem harmless, a flourish of ceremonial rhetoric. Legal experts, however, see in that statement a clear indication that Dubya believes he can waive the torture restrictions at will. A bit of background is in order. The signing statement theory is a cornerstone element of the unitary executive concept, an idea that was dreamed up relatively recently by conservative movement intellectuals in reaction to what they saw as the erosion of executive power in the wake of Watergate and revelations of rampant intelligence agency abuses during the 70's. For reasons that should be obvious, Preznit Dubya and Uncle Dick are big fans of this philosophy, which encapsulates all the fascist hallmarks of postmodern neoconservative magical thinking. Not so coincidentally, one of the biggest judicial boosters of the unitary executive concept is Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, who underwent his first day of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Monday. At this point, yer old pal Jerky requests that you indulge him in an editorial tangent: What do you figure the odds were that New York Times reporter David E. Rosenbaum -- whose last story was about how Alito wrote memos arguing that top government officials should be immune from prosecution if caught wiretapping American citizens without a warrant -- would end up being murdered while strolling through one of DC's poshest neighborhoods, scant days before the launch of those confirmation hearings? Probably about the same as the odds that an alleged former associate of Jack Abramoff's -- not to mention Ahmed Chalabi's -- would happen to be caught on camera jumping to her death from a hotel window in London, just as the disgraced Republican super-lobbyist begins his long surf down the porcelain whirlpool. Kinda makes you happy not to know what's really going on, doesn't it? Hardly anybody ever gets snuffed just for harboring dark suspicions and indulging in crazy speculation. *** **** *** What do you get when you distill all the day's most relevant news into an easy-to-digest quick information fix? If you've been smoking a lot of weed and you have an unwholesome penchant for coining acronymous neologisms, you get... THE DAILY DIRT "QUINFIX!" From this day forward, you'd better think twice about e-mailing goatse-grams to the snoopy bitches who got you fired from your cushy telemarketing job by tattling on your clandestine porn and reefer-break habits. According to new anti-"cyberstalking" legislation drafted by Congress, passed by the Senate and signed into law by Preznit Dubya last week: "Whoever... utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person... who receives the communications... shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both." Niiiice... Contrary to their ongoing claims to the contrary (heh), disgraced Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and associates visited the White House 195 FUCKIN' TIMES during the first few months of Preznit Dubya's accursed reign. During meetings with Jesus H. Ashcroft, Big Dick Cheney and others, Jack and friends tried to get their cronies appointed to prestige positions in federal agencies, and lobbied to keep the American Protectorate of the Northern Mariana Islands free from pesky minimum wage and human trafficking laws. That sound you hear is a cock crowing three times... only backwards. Thanks to Bill Gates, hundreds of millions of people will soon be hearing the ambient, auditory alchemy of guitar virtuoso Robert Fripp every time they turn on their computers. King Crimson's camera-shy ringmaster recently spent a few days on the Microsoft campus, recording various sounds for the soon-to-be-released Windows Vista operating system, and part of the process was captured on video. Great stuff! Okay, so scientists are now saying there's an offside chance that a relatively sizable asteroid could crash into the eastern hemisphere of the Earth some time in 2036, releasing 100,000 times the energy kicked up by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, obscuring the sky with a thick, planet-wide shroud of dust and debris that could trigger a mini-Ice Age. So what do you think these eggheads decided to name this murderous space rock? Try Apophis, which also happens to be the name of an ancient Egyptian demon who sought to plunge the earth into darkness. Real funny, guys. It's enough to make you wonder whether all those probes they're launching are meant to figure out how to divert potentially deadly asteroids away from us... or draw them to us, in an effort to quell both overpopulation and global warming. Talk about killing two birds with one stone! An Israeli defense firm has used nanotechnology to create a substance five times stronger than steel and twice as strong as any impact-resistant material currently used in protective armor. You know what this means, don't you? It means that, one day, I might actually get to sit in an office chair that isn't constantly threatening to collapse beneath the gravitational insults being inflicted upon it. HUZZAH! Hey, is anybody reading this?! Our page-hits have gone down slightly, as they do every holiday season, but reader e-mails have slowed to an unprecedentedly slow trickle. I haven't had any good hate mail in weeks! Don't worry, conservatives... I promise not to report you to the FBI for "annoying" me. Anyhoo, if there are any technical glitches with the website(s), please let me know at the e-mail listed directly beneath this paragraph. If, on the other hand, your epistolary sloth is due to you guys agreeing with everything I write... well then, I guess that's okay. Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky: jerkyleboeuf@gmail.com

ON THIS DAY January 9 Anson Jones, the last man to hold the title President of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide on this day in 1858. Jones had campaigned against Texas' annexation by the United States, but voters weren't swayed. Regardless, Jones fully expected to be sent to Washington as a Senator. He wasn't. A few years later, he stabbed himself to death with a carrot. Don't ask me how, I just work here. On this day in the year 2006 -- today, in other words -- King of All MediaTM Howard Stern begins broadcasting his radio show, live and uncensored, on Sirius satellite radio. Chaos will most assuredly ensue.

THEY SAID IT! "I have been on the No Fly Watch List for a year. I will never be told the official reason. No one ever is. You cannot sue to get the information. Nothing I have done has moved me any closer to getting off the list. There were 35,000 Americans in that database last year. According to a European government that screens hundreds of thousands of American travelers every year, the list they have been given to work from has since grown to 80,000. My friends tell me it is just more government incompetence. A tech buddy said there's no one in government smart enough to write a search algorithm that will find actual terrorists, so they end up with authors of books criticizing the Bush White House. I have no idea what's going on." - James Moore co-author of the bestselling political tome Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, got a creepy, Orwellian surprise this week when he tried to board a plane. *** **** *** "If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?" - Go ahead and try to guess how John Yoo -- who helped craft the Bush administration's post-9/11 legal policy as former deputy assistant to Witchfinder General Jesus H. Ashcroft -- answered the above question posed by Notre Dame professor and international human rights scholar Doug Cassel during a recent debate. Go ahead... take a wild stab at it.

JOKES! Today's first joke was sent in by Henry Bent! An African chieftain flew to the United States to visit the president. When he arrived at the airport, a host of newsmen and television cameramen met him. One of the reporters asked the chief if he had a comfortable flight. The chief made a series of weird noises: "Screech, scratch, honk, buzz, whistle, z-z-z-z..." Then he added in perfect English, "Yes, I had a very nice flight." Another reporter asked, "Chief, do you plan to visit the Washington Monument while you're in the area?" The chief made the same noises: "Screech, scratch, honk, buzz, whistle, z-z-z-z..." Then he said, "Yes, and I also plan to visit the White House and the Capitol Building." "Where did you learn to speak such flawless English?" asked the next reporter. The chief replied, "Screech, scratch, honk, buzz, whistle, z-z-z-z... From the short-wave radio." *** *** *** Thanks to our old pal G Condrey for sending in today's second joke. Three guys and a girl are marooned on a desert island. After one week, the girl is so ashamed of what she's doing, she kills herself. After another week, the guys are so ashamed of what they're doing, they bury her. After another week, they're so ashamed of what they're doing, they dig her up again. WORST JOKE OF THE DAY Today's groaner was sent in by Trembly Dale. A doctor is on a train and this pregnant woman gets on and sits down opposite him. As they travel the doctor is reading his newspaper and the woman takes out her knitting. As she is knitting, about every 20 minutes she reaches into her bag and pulls out a bottle of pills from which she takes one and swallows it. This goes on for about an hour when the doctor sees the label "Thalidomide" on the bottle. "Excuse me", says the doctor to the woman, "Do you know the effect that could have on your unborn child?" "Yes" says the woman "I never could knit sleeves."

READER'S SOAPBOX! Got a gripe? Pet peeve? Have your say in the Daily Dirt! Columns can pretty much be about anything, as long they meet the following criteria: 1) don't write shit that'll get us in trouble. 2) Keep it interesting. 3) Keep it short. 4) We don't edit your mistakes. Oh yeah! feel free to send a picture of yourself if you want. TOPIC: SIMPLE WORDS OF WISDOM care of: David 1. If you are choking on an ice cube, don't panic. Simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat and presto. The blockage will be almost instantly removed. 2. Clumsy? Avoid cutting yourself while slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop. 3. Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by simply using the sink. 4. For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. 5. A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button. 6. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives, then you will be afraid to cough. 7. Have a bad toothache? Smash your thumb with a hammer and you will forget about the toothache. Remember: If you woke up breathing, congratulations! You get another chance. - David ["Words of Wisdom" eh? I'll SUE your sorry ass!!! - Jerky] FIRST AMENDMENT ZONE / ASK JERKY! MOPJ, Forgive me for asking such a silly question, but please let me know if I'm nuts. A day or two ago I saw Dubya addressing the press about the wiretapping issue. He replied to a reporter's inquiry about the legality of the wiretaps by saying "If Al Queda's calling you, we want to know why" (smirk on face). Help me out. If they know Al Queda's calling you, don't they know where the call is comming from? And if they know Al Quedas calling, why not get a warrant?! How do they know it's Al Queda? And if they know, doesn't the NSA know where the call is coming from? Please enlighten this simple citizen. Ernie [Dubya's volley of panicked excuses make a lot more sense if you don't think about them too much. - Jerky] *** **** *** MOPJ So that's why the "centre" party in the UK never put a successful election campaign together! The guy up there in charge was drunk as a skunk all along. Rumours are that when he realised the Socialists and the Conservatives shared identical policies, he knew he had to stand out and somehow be different. His cunning plan to visit 3 pubs a day and buy a drink for as many of the electorate as possible in return for votes, was thwarted only by the fact that he has bright ginger hair and no-one would stand by him at the bar, even when free booze was on offer! JC [One of the things I love most about you Brits is your irrational hatred of red-heads. - Jerky] *** **** *** Jerky... Off the top of my head, I believe the money was for 'funding'... not payment. And it was only in the neighborhood of about $8,000.00. (Oswald was broke and had a wife and kids.) Although the story made sense to me... considering how many times the Kennedys tried to off Castro... I don't much believe it either. But if it was true.... that was one helluva shot Oswald made. Cheers, Andy [The alleged amount was actually $6,500. Whatever the truth might be -- and at this point, we'll never know -- one thing is certain: the spread of managed obfuscation continues apace. But personally, yer old pal Jerky thinks Huismann is barking at the wrong Cubans. - Jerky] *** **** *** Jerky; A republican senator from Missouri wants to make it illegal to sell cold beer... Moron must not know it only takes 7 minuite to go from piss warm to ice cold if you know the secret: immerse in Ice water and spin them/keep them moving! MusMus [Or you could stop being such a pansy and drink it warm. Hot, even. Nuke that PBR! - Jerky] *** **** *** Jerky; Saw that good ol' Pat Robertson has deigned it necessary once again to wrest himself away from the delusions of the 700 club & spread more words of hate, further proving his narrow-mindedness with his statement that Israeli PM Ariel Sharon was 'God's punishment' for dividing the holy land of Israel'. What is it with this fucktard? I guess that he felt that he didn't make a big enough fool of himself when he stated that the members of that PA school board that voted out that intelligent design fiasco, he had to do this & for all intents & purposes, equate himself with the same fundamentalists that attacked the WTC?? What's next, Pat? you going to hijack an El-Al flight & crash it into downtown Tel Aviv? Somebody please get his stupid ass off the air. Evil_one [Whatever his faults, Pat provides a vital service by reminding us all how conservative Christians are a bunch of fucking idiots. It helps keep their numbers down. - Jerky] *** **** *** Jerky Please write about the death of Art Bell's wife. Albert V [This is going to sound a lot more insensitive than I mean it to, but... why? - Jerky] *** **** *** Jerky; VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY HAS BEEN HOSPITALIZED EXPERIENCING SHORTNESS OF BREATH Satan wants him to come home SingleM29 [Speaking of shortness of breath, EASY WITH THE ALL-CAPS, MAAAAN!!!!!! - Jerky] *** **** *** Jerky... No wonder some of these idiots get caught. Abramoff was about as subtle as a madame in a whorehouse. Good grief.... Cheers, Andy [Yup. - Jerky]

Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky: feedback@dailydirt.com