Feburary 29, 2012 — LJUBJIANA

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH - 16!!

Bwwwwhaaaaahhahahahah!

It is I, Gosar, the evil vampire overlord of Slovenia with an important announcement.

Every four years, the calendar-makers insert that greatest of holiday, LEAP DAY, into the calendar to confuse and bewilder you. But you have probably asked, as we all have, where have all the other February 29ths gone? THREE-FOURTHS of the February 29ths in the timeline are missing.

Does that mean that the earth rotates 1/366th faster around the sun-sphere three years out of four? Or are the February 29ths there, only we miss them because of the MASS SLEEPING DREAM that encumbers us? Or have the LEAP DAYS been saved in a mountain lair 27 miles east of Trieste, Italy?

The answer will surprise you! Unless, of course, you already know that, I, GOSAR, EVIL OVERLORD OF ALL SLOVENIA, have been hoarding February 29ths since 46 BC!

Now, for the truly evil part of my plan! I will unleash the February 29ths back into the calendar in 2013 unless I am paid a mighty ransom of 1,000,000,000 Slovenian Tovars in exactly one fortnight.

Otherwise, puny earthlings, I will reduce your calendar to look like this:

October 2013

November 22, 2008 — DALLAS.

JFK in Dallas

It has long been accepted that Lee Harvey Oswald, a man so hideous that he had three first names, was the sole assassin of JFK. This is not the truth.

History and mystery are taught in the same classrooms at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where I attended college. In the early 1990s, when I was getting my undergraduate degree in Historical Mysteries, I took a class from professor Dr. O. L. Harvey, an expert on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States of America.

In the class, which was about solving the mystery of where the great, lost city of Atlanta had disappeared to, he mentioned in an offhand remark about JFK’s assassination, “Yes, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. It’s the accepted fact. They acted alone.”

I bolted up in my seat. What had he just said?? They? They acted alone? What did he mean by that? I waited until after class and walked with him back to his office in the secret, underground academic control center of SMU.

“Dr. Harvey, did you mean to say ‘They acted alone?’ Shouldn’t you mean, ‘He acted alone’?”

And then Dr. Harvey told me the hideous, horrible truth* of November 22, 1963 and the events that happened 45 years ago today:

Lee Harvey Oswald acted with a team of three.

Lee Harvey Oswald was cloned.

A group of four Lee Harvey Oswalds killed JFK.

Many people know that Lee Harvey Oswald was a great Cuban and friend of Fidel Castro. What they don’t know is that during his time spent in Cuba, he was the test subject of Soviet cloning experiments. For the Soviets, Oswald was the perfect candidate for speed cloning, a radical method of cloning and growing a new human individual to an exact match of the original test subject.

Oswald agreed. He knew that four or five (the exact number is still unknown) clones would be the perfect accessories to commit murder, changing the course of history forever. The quick cloning process grew four known new Oswalds in record time, subjecting the clones to human growth hormones that brings them to the real Lee Harvey Oswald’s age in six years.

Mentally, the Oswald clones were less than 10 years old. But physically, they would match Oswald’s appearance and age in 1963… after 1963, they would age too quickly. Oswald had to act before 1963 was done.

So that fateful day in Dallas, four of Oswald’s clones sat in the Texas Book Depository and fatally wounded John F. Kennedy and shot John Connolly, governor of Texas at the time. After the trauma, one of the Oswald’s was captured, and later killed by another Oswald in a Jack Ruby costume (he had aged fitfully in those few days), who later died in prison by a third Oswald who became a prison guard. The fourth Oswald’s fate is unknown. He may have returned to Cuba.

All of these facts were given to me by Dr. Harvey, who passed away three years ago, on that fateful autumn afternoon in the secret underground academic stronghold at SMU. How did he know so much, I asked?

The original Lee Harvey Oswald changed his name, he said. He went back to school, specializing in historical mysteries, and now teaches at SMU. That’s right, Dr. Harvey was Oswald Harvey aka Lee Harvey Oswald, the man whose clones killed JFK.

*by which I mean “questionable but interesting lie.”

CATAN ISLAND - In the latest incident in the escalating conflict on Catan, UN Peacekeeping troops from Atlantis, Gilligan’s Island, and the Lost Island have arrived to maintain order and distribute much needed supplies.

Botswanan general Jack Shephard, leader of the peacekeeping forces, has summed up the situation in one word:”Lost.”

Fighting began when Gabe Dagani, a local sheep wrangler and fondler, built a settlement in the middle of brick magnate Larsson Omberg’s long and winding road. “I mean, who builds a house in the middle of a street?? Madness!!”

Matters only became worse when a mysterious black robber pillaged the grain silos. Rumored to be led by the enigmatic and mysterious settler known only by ‘Dave’, the robber appeared without much warning and wiped out half of the savings of the largest stockpiles on the island. Both the Dagani family and the Omberg estate were effected.

General Shephard knows he has a hard task ahead. “We just want to keep peace, resume trade, and perhaps move the robber somewhere else.”

When asked what his greatest fear was, Shephard said, “I only hope that the sudden appearance of such a large army won’t give anyone ten points. That could end the island forever, or until next Saturday night.”

North America renamed “McDonalds Presents North America”

Headlines from the Future!

April 29, 2011 — Mexico City, Mexico

The Congress of North American States met today to complete a resolution
that would give the naming rights of North America to McDonalds for 10
years. In return for the rights, McDonalds has agreed to pay North America
17.9 trillion dollars over a 15 year period.

“Well, obviously, we’re ecstatic about the deal,” said McDonalds company
spokesman, Alex Rodriguez. “It’s very exciting. It should go very far
in reaching a new level of brand-awareness.”

“And I think it’s very fitting that it’s here, in the continent formerly
known as North America, since this is where it all started for McDonalds.”

Acquisition of the North American name has been a slow process for McDonalds.
Beginning in 2001, at the Americas Free Trade Summit in Ottawa, the company
begin secretly soliciting countries to form a joint congress. It wasn’t
until three years later, in 2004, that the Congress of North American States
(CONAS) was formed.

CONAS’s chief mission over the past seven years has been to monitor the
concessions deals in Honduras and and Guatemala. McDonalds’ largest
rival, Phillip Morris Pepsico, had entered into exclusive contracts with
two countries to be the exclusive beverage provider, essentially shutting
McDonalds and its Coca-Cola division out of a market of 90 million people.

But in 2009, McDonalds won a great victory when the exclusive agreement
was found illegal by CONAS, stating that the agreement did not give Phillip
Morris Pepsico the right to divert natural rivers, springs, and inland
waterways away from major towns. The agreement was nulled, and McDonalds
was allowed to reenter the markets. McDonalds now has a 99.7% market share
in Latin America.

Elements of the negotiations between the McDonalds Corporation and the
CONAS are still being hammered out. An agreement has already been struck
that countries will be paid based on their land holdings in North America.
Canada, the largest country in North America, would benefit the most,
receiving over half of the monies.

The agreement has been hotly contested. The first major issue has been
whether to include Panama and Costa Rica. Neither country sent representatives
to the original CONAS meetings, and both had been considered for expulsion
from the continent.

“Panama is an isthmus, not a part of the continent,” argued Quebec President
Guy Carbonneau in 2010. “It’s Amerique Centralle, ne pas Nord Amerique. You call
a continent a continent, and you call an isthmus an isthmus.”

McDonalds lobbied and won acceptance in CONAS for inclusion of Panama and
Costa Rica. “Even though both countries are run out of Central America
district headquarters, the CA office reports to the North America office,
so for accounting purposes, we’ve always considered Panama and Costa Rica
North American,” says McDonalds spokesman Rodriguez.

Even as debates were ending on the inclusion of Latin America, a new
debate arose over the inclusions of islands. At stake were much-needed
monies for the democratic republics of Cuba, Greenland, and the Bahamas By Old
Navy(tm). Fidel Castro addressed the congress last May: “Is England not
a part of Europe? Do you not consider Japan Asian? Then surely Cuba is
as North American as Sunny Delight.” Sunny Delight was known as Florida
until 2008.

While debate continues for the inclusion of Cuba, Greenland has reached
a separate deal with McDonalds reported to be worth 1.4 billion. On July 1,
2001, Greenland will become known as “Greenland of McNuggets.”

A public row has also broken out between the United States and Canada.
Canadian Prime Minister Mike Myers has demanded that the US remove Hawaii,
the Virgin Airline Islands, and Guam from it’s area survey.

“Canada has not included Baffin Island, Victoria Island, or any of the
Queen Elizabeth Islands, as per the agreement. Each of these land areas
are considerably greater than the US’s island possession, yet they
continue to try to swindle us.”

The US did not include in its survey Whopperland (formerly Puerto Rico),
which became independent in 2007.

Negotiations are expected to be completed tomorrow at the latest. North
America will be changed on maps, road signs, school books, and treaties
beginning sometime in June.

Disney Declares Bankruptcy, Blames Extra Finger

Headlines from the Future!

May 26, 2011 — Los Angeles

Disney spokesperson Gary Bettman announced Tuesday that the once-mighty
Disney corporation has filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11.

Once the world’s second-largest entertainment conglomerate, Disney, which
includes the ABC TV network, ESPN cable channels, film studios, theme
parks, distribution networks, and Lipton Iced Tea brand soft drinks, has
seen it’s share price steadily decline since 2002. Company spokesman Bettman
has declined to speculate on the future of the company.

“We’re assessing our options. It’s certainly our goal to keep as many of
our Disney nursing homes and housing divisions operating normally, but
our studios and TV networks will shut down effective July 1.”

Many industry analysts had predicted the move as the value of the company
plummeted from 128 billion dollars in 2002 to 128 million in 2010. Many
disagree on the various causes of Disney’s demise, from the high cost
of keeping Walt’s frozen brain operational to the lawsuit against making
America suffer through seven years of Home Improvement. One thing
the industry does agree on, however, is the critical mistake of adding an
additional finger to Disney’s cartoon characters in 2001.

“Beginning in 2001, several anime (Japanese cartoon) shows began adding
a fifth finger to their characters. At first, America took this as a fad,”
says critic Leonina Maltin. “Never before had cartoon characters had
ten fingers, five on each hand.”

“Once the novelty wore off, however, Americans and the world began to realize
that they had been bamboozled. In cartoons like ‘Mickey and the Beanstalk’ and
‘The Simpsons’, they had been paying for five digits per hand and only getting
four. Citizens were outraged; even the Senate looked into it briefly.”

“There’s no doubt that the five finger issue got me elected. It’s why I’m here,”
credits President Jeffords. “The people of the United States demanded action,
and we responded. We got five fingers on every carton character made in the
US, including ‘Johnny Bravo’.”

Disney, an icon of the cartoon world, was slow to respond. Fearful of messing
with a known formula, Disney entered the five-finger cartoon with a new
character known as Mortimer Moose, who had five fingers on one hand and four
on the other.

“People didn’t know how to respond,” cites Maltin. “It was an instant
failure.”

As furor arose over Disney’s lack of action, animation division chairman
Phil Rozniak was quickly replaced with Matt Groening, the man who had been
so successful with the ‘Love Is Hell’ series of comics. His first policy
was to add a fifth finger to each hand of every cartoon in the Disney
repertoire, including favorites like Huey Duck and Don Knotts.

But Disney couldn’t keep up. Anime shows like ‘Happy Fun-Time Bubba Hour’
were now presenting characters with six or even seven digits per hand. Disney,
which still used traditional pen-and-ink animation, soon found itself
floundering.

Groening: “The ink alone was driving us way over budget. We had to go back
and redo 90 percent of ‘Beauty and the Beast Down Under.’ In hindsight, I
probably shouldn’t have had the animators redraw ‘Dumbo’ from scratch.”

As costs mounted and animators worked sixteen hour days trying to meet up
with demand, other phases of Disney’s business also began to suffer. The
first crack in the armor was at Disney’s Beijing-based theme park, Disney
China.

Bettman: “Several of the costumes worn by our Imagineers were resown together
wrong. Some had six fingers on one hand and four on the other. In one case,
Donald’s new fingers were sown on to his webbed feet. This began to frighten
the children.”

But the final blow came when Goofy insulted the Chinese Premier in a goodwill
dinner. Maltin: “Well, a four-fingered hand lifting one finger is cute; a
five-fingered hand giving you ‘the bird’ on national television as China
and the US were signing a peace accord is… well, horrific.”

To this day, Disney denies responsibility for the brief US-China war in
2009. Company spokesman Bettman claims it was anti-union forces who had
taken over the Goofy costume. “Why would it be in Disney’s interest to
start a war with China? Surely not to use military force to eliminate
copyright enfringement pirates who were illegally selling copies of ‘The
Emperor’s New Groove’ on DVD, now available at Wal-Mart for only $3.49 in
the bargain bin?”

Disney will seek protection from it’s creditors in hearings starting Monday.