October 20, 2002

Gunning for George?

October 20, 2002

ponderosa There's a sniper cruising around the United States capital, plucking off seemingly random citizens.

There's a U.S. "president" ready to wage war on an enemy that he is having a difficult time convincing the rest of the world is as evil as HE seems to believe.

There's a mass media obsessed with this case, as there hasn't been much in the way of excitement when it comes to CNN's typical warmongering, and a populace living in fear of being shot dead in a Ponderosa or Home Depot parking lot.

On the other hand, we up in Canada can hardly believe that there are still so many Ponderosa's in the United States. Most of the ones here have been converted to Red Lobster restaurants, and even though they're pretty good, they aren't PONDEROSA.

After all, Ponderosa is the home of the salad bar, the bottomless cup, and the friggin' huge steak. Once again, I digress...

Could it be that the sniper is in the Washington, D.C. area for a reason...to assassinate the president?!?

Not that Paperless would ever approve of political assassination, but if there ever was a president worthy of a bullet, it would have to be George W. Bush.

After all, George Bush ended up in the White House by throwing around a load of bollocks about chads, undervoting, and recounts. When all was said and done in the state of Florida (coincidentally governed by his brother Jebediah), George Bush came out a winner in the last "swing" state, giving him the presidency, much to the amazement of the American people.

However, Americans were surprisingly NOT outraged! When things like tales of unfair voting happened in Zimbabwe, the world cried with outrage. When it happened in the United States, the pubic was so sick and tired of hearing about the ongoing "chad" scandal, that they were relieved to hear that it was finally over, never mind if the verdict was that George Bush had won, or that Florida had sunk into the Atlantic, taking the "Miami relatives" with it. As a result, Americans seemed so accepting that someone who may not have even really been voted in was residing in the Lincoln bedroom, and did little to challenge the fact.

Sure, there was a bit of shit disturbing, but then came September 11, 2001...

Any skepticism was immediately placed on the back burner. Americans, whether they be Republican or Democrat supporters, all felt unjustly violated, and cried out for revenge in an unprecedented bipartisan fit of pique. Out came the flags, politicians stood on the Capitol steps singing "God Bless America", and everyone bought Osama bin Laden dartboards.

Bombing the fuck out of Afghanistan didn't prove to be either as fun or as lucrative as George Bush had hoped, so he has begun lobbying for phase two: IRAQ.

Everyone knows that Iraq is evil, right? Saddam Hussein is so evil and disliked in his homeland that he has "royal tasters" who sample his food to ensure it isn't poisoned, wears a Kevlar fedora, and holds televised speeches from one of a dozen identical rooms so no one knows his whereabouts. "He looks a lot like the late Walter Matthau, but don't let that fool you, my fellow Americans...he's evil!"

Beginning with an attack on Andrew Jackson in 1835, there have been eleven attempts to kill the American president. Four presidents--Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy--died from assassins' bullets.

Could the sniper be out getting target practice for number 12?

The Paperless One