Obama Has Fit of Rage, Frowns Slightly

WASHINGTON, DC- An enraged Pres. Obama told Larry King yesterday that he is "furious" over the Gulf Coast oil spill. The normally calm president displayed his uncontrollable anger by pursing his lips slightly and drawing his eyebrows into a subtle frown.

"I've never seen him fly off the handle like that," an aide confided. "If I were [BP CEO] Tony Hayward, I'd be sleeping with one eye open," the aide went on to say, "just in case someone comes by to deliver a very sternly-worded letter."

Robots Fail to Stop Oil Spill

Yesterday's attempt by BP to use robot submarines with diamond saws to stop the oil spill proved unsuccessful. BP executives are now scouring comic-books in search of another solution, preferably involving psychic monkeys with laser swords.

BP CEO Inconvenienced by Spill

With the economy and environment of the Gulf Coast in peril, it's easy to forget the real victim of the oil spill, BP CEO Tony Hayward. Since the well began spewing about 70,000 barrels of oil a day into the ocean, it's been nothing but a headache for BP's long-suffering chief executive. "I'd like my life back," Hayward told reporters on Sunday.

Financially speaking, the oil disaster is no big deal for BP. Federal law limits the company's liability to $75 million, on average less than 3% of BP's annual profits. Senate Democrats are attempting to raise the liability cap, but James Inhofe*, an oil industry advocate who moonlights as a US senator, promises that Republicans will filibuster such attempts.

The real cost for BP is the horrible inconvenience that Hayward is suffering. It now appears that he will be forced to spend his entire summer in Louisiana, a state that no longer has any uncontaminated seafood he can eat or clean beaches he can lie out on. An aide close to the executive describes the effect on Hayward's summer vacation plans as "a tragic disaster."

*Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) has received over $1.2 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. He is the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

BP Cleans Gulf Coast of Toxic Jounalists

In the five weeks since news of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster exploded into the headlines, BP has been working tirelessly to stop the hazardous flow of information. It is still unclear exactly how much journalistic ink has been spilled on this story, but clean-up teams are working day and night to remove potentially toxic journalists, photographers, and bloggers from Louisiana's beaches.

Last week, CBS reporters were threatened with arrest for attempting to film a polluted beach (video here). This week, BP CEO Tony Hayward demonstrated his commitment to cleaning up the news coverage by personally shoeing a cameraman away from a pool of oil.

BP officials are optimistic that they may be able to plug all news leaks within the next several weeks, at which point they can turn their attention to stopping the actual flow of oil.

Louisiana Sen. Wants More Drilling

As Louisiana copes with the most catastrophic oil spill in history, it would be easy for Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu to pander to special interests (such as the voters of Louisiana) and take a stand against off-shore drilling, but Sen. Landrieu has never been one to take a position just to please three or four million of her constituents.

This week the senator came out in support of continued and accelerated offshore drilling, not because she's received over $400,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry over the past five years, nor because energy giant, Entergy Corp is her single biggest contributor. Sen. Landrieu just loves oil, and sees tremendous benefits in her entire state being completely covered in thick crude.

"You'll never have to worry about squeaky hinges," a Landrieu aide explains, listing the benefits of completely immersing the state in oil. "It keeps your skin from drying out. The pungent aroma is so strong, no one will notice if you have bad hygiene; and who knows, 'The World's Largest Oil Slick' could well be a bigger tourist draw than great food, music, and boobs.'"

House Passes Health Bill, Death Panels Storm Capitol

WASHINGTON, DC- Within minutes of the House passing historic health reform, death panels marched through Washington, killing babies, grandmothers, and American liberty. "Everything the Republicans said was true," screamed a shocked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). "They sounded so crazy, but they were right."

President Obama hailed the bill's passage as "not a victory for any one party, but a victory for me, and other secretly gay Muslim Kenyans plotting to destroy the US."

As the socialist Nazi death squads stormed the streets, our founding fathers were seen rising from their graves in outrage. "We built this nation on the core principle that no American should ever have affordable health care," cried a zombie George Washington as he devoured the brains of an innocent passer-by. "Now you've ruined everything."

America Cursed with Pat Robertson Due to 'Pact with Devil'

In the shocking wake of Pat Robertson's statement that the Haiti earthquake was God's will, and a "blessing in disguise," Americans-- particularly Americans of faith-- are wondering what they did to deserve such a person as the Republican televangelist.

"I just don't understand how a loving and just God can allow someone like [Robertson] to exist," says Mabel Wren, a Methodist in North Dakota.

The former presidential candidate has sparked frequent outrage in the past, such as when he blamed 9/11 on American immorality, or when he called on his followers to pray for the death of Supreme Court justices. Theologian, the Rev. Juan Kook, has a theory as to why Robertson has been inflicted upon America. "Our founding fathers made a pact with the Devil to defeat the British, and today God is punishing us with Pat Robertson."

Why punish us now, more than two hundred years later? "The thing you have to understand about the way the Lord works," Kook explains, "is that the Dude's a serious procrastinator. He promises to smite you one minute, then stops to check His Facebook page and bam! A couple centuries have gone by."

As Robertson is now 79, many hope the days of suffering under his affliction are drawing to a close, but Kook warns that "when God really wants to stick it to you, he can prolong the life of someone like that indefinitely." Kook cites the case of South Carolina senator/statutory rapist Strom Thurmond, who lived to be 470. "Let's face it," says Kook, "no one knows how to hold a grudge like God does."

Climate Change Won't Destroy Blue States, Red States Claim

LINCOLN, NE- With the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen approaching, climate change skeptics are becoming increasingly vocal. "Environmentalists make wild claims with nothing to back them up but science," says Ogden Clover of the Nebraska based, Red State Alliance. "Now science is good for a lot of things, like making volcanoes out of baking soda and vinegar, but what it's not good for is dealing with matters of faith, and real Americans have complete faith that there is no global warming."

Like most red state residents, Clover believes that "the myth of global warming" is a politically motivated conspiracy between liberals and every single climatologist on the planet. He also adamantly insists that he and other climate change deniers are "absolutely not involved" in a conspiracy of their own to annihilate the blue states.

"The idea that melting polar ice caps could cause massive flooding and wipe out the east and west coasts and Hawaii is downright laughable," says Keith Stewart of North Dakota Future Beach Front Realty. "I mean, come on."

One of the most outspoken disbelievers of global warming is professional Facebook-poster, Sarah Palin. "If I believed for one minute that global warming could destroy the Obama states, kill Katie Couric and Tina Fey, and change my state from a frozen wasteland that resembles Dante's ninth level of hell to a tropical paradise, of course I'd be against it," says the Alaskan oil advocate, "But we all know it's not true." Palin has yet to confirm speculation that she will run for president in 2012, but a Red State Alliance poll suggests that if carbon emissions remain unchecked, she could easily sweep all twenty-two states.

Mayans Predict Palin Will End World in 2012

2012 was number one at the box office this weekend. The picture is based on the ancient Mayan prophecy that the world will end in 2012 after Sarah Palin's election as president.

According to Mayan scholars, the ancient mystics believed the end of time would result from the

apotheosis of a charismatic, yet vastly stupid woman, so extremely unsuited for leadership that her rise to power would cause the very universe to collapse in on itself. "The hieroglyphics depict her as a flying huntress," explains Harvard Mayanist, Ian Whetherby, "one who shoots down wolves from a floating chariot that very much resembles a helicopter."

Whetherby warns however, against reading too much into the prophecy. "These are just the attempts of a primitive society to understand their world," advising that any correlation with modern events should be looked on as coincidental.

"That said," he continues, "the inscriptions do specifically name the 'doom-bringer' as Sarah Palin, a former beauty-queen and governor of Alaska, and mother to a brood of offspring with nonsensical names."

When asked about the prophecy at a stop on her book tour, Palin dismissed it as a "wild and paranoid conspiracy theory," and urged the public to focus on the real issues facing our nation, "like how Obama forged his birth certificate to illegally become president, create death panels, and take God off our coins."

Entire Town Destroyed by Irony

LUCKYVILLE, NY- Just weeks after voting to change the town name, the community formerly known as Dumfolk was wiped off the map by a tragic and lethal dose of irony. Despite warnings from the National Literary Service that a deadly irony front was on the way, Mayor Tom Hero decided not to evacuate the town. "You never know how seriously to take these warnings," he explains.

Hero began taking the threat seriously on Monday, when the fire station caught fire during their annual barbecue. Fortunately, the entire fire department was on hand with their hoses. Unfortunately, the artictecturally significant fire station was built entirely from sodium metal, which explodes in water. The resulting blast destroyed multiple nearby homes.

Luckyville residents sought haven in a former bomb shelter under City Hall. Unfortunately, the since the end of the Cold War, the bomb shelter had become a storage area for municipal dynamite, which soon detonated. Survivors claimed the detonation occurred when Alice Butz, chairperson of the Luckyville Commission to Stop Smoking, inadvertently tossed her cigarette into the dynamite.

At this point, Hero decided an evacuation was necessary, and loaded the entire surviving Luckyville population onto two ferries to take them across Lake Peril to the neighboring town of Safety. "Now I saw the last Batman movie," Hero explains, "and I was mindful that a crazy person might have filled the ferries with explosives, so I had both ferries loaded with bomb sniffing dogs." As it turns out, the dogs were rabid and devoured all of the passengers when they were halfway to Safety.

Hero was Luckyville's sole survivor. Unfortunately, while being interviewed by this reporter, he became aware of a bee in the room. Deathly allergic to bee stings, Hero flailed wildly and accidentally flung himself out the window of our twenty-sixth story office. Fortunately, he landed safely in the back of an industrial pillow truck that happened to be passing beneath. He was taken to the hospital, where he suffered a fatal bee sting before being randomly shot.

Fourth Horsemen of the Apocalypse Downsized Due to Budget Cuts

HEAVEN- In a joint press conference this week, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse announced that when they make their final charge across the world to bring about the end times, there will only be three of them. "We know the prophecies call for Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death," War told reporters, "but when you think about it, pestilence, war, and famine all cause death. We couldn't justify the expense of a fourth horsemen for death alone."

"Also," added Pestilence, "you all have syphilis now."

The need for budget cuts comes as a result of the housing market crash, as the Horsemen had become heavily invested in real estate over the past decade. "For a while we were doing so well, we were thinking of hiring a fifth Horseman," said Famine. "We weren't sure if it was going to be Halitosis or Celebrity-Has-Been-Reality-Competitions, but it was going to be something suitably appalling. But now we can barely afford horse feed."

As for Death, he announced that he is looking forward to

pursuing solo projects. He assured reporters that his job prospects are good, but added "if you hear of any openings, let me know. Seriously, I'll do anything."

How to Prepare for the Apocalypse

While the Horsemen declined to offer a specific date for the end of the world, Famine confided that Amazon.com's offer of no payment for twelve months on electronics is "a way better deal than you know." For those attempting to plan ahead, there is a new guide to making the best of a post-world world. Rob Kutner's Apocalypse How is chock full of tips on how to survive the unsurvivable.

As a writer for the Daily Show (a rival news organization), Kutner is an expert on dealing with utter catastrophe. The Inquisition ranks Apocalypse How as one of the top two books in print today to offer practical advice on what to do while being devoured by a band of irradiated flesh-eating mutants, the other of course being Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope (see the chapter on his early days in the Illinois Senate). Clearly both books are a must read.

BBC Headline: God 'Will Not Give Happy Ending'

The BBC News online today ran a story about the Archbishop of Canterbury's announcement that "God will not guarantee a 'happy ending.'" Upon hearing of the article, Inquisition staffers raced to the site, hoping for news about a heavenly massage parlor, but were disappointed to discover just another dull report about how all life on earth probably will be extinguished by global climate change.

Further research however, revealed that God has in fact opened a massage parlor in east Hollywood, and will give a happy ending if you slip Him an extra twenty and ask for the "altar boy special." Would-be clients are urged to schedule appointments before global warming makes the entire earth bursts into a big ball of flame.

Obama Invokes Theatrical Curse

In a speech honoring Lincoln's 200th birthday, at Ford's Theatre, where the sixteenth president was assassinated, President Obama said aloud the name of Shakespeare's Macbeth, inadvertently running afoul of the deepest superstition in theatre history. Saying the name of the Scottish tragedy in a theatre is considered the epitome of bad luck.

Mistress Mysteria, one of the nation's leading psychics, predicts that as a result of this grave error, the president will be cursed with having to manage two wars and a devastating economic crisis, and will have to endure having his every move scrutinized for the next four to eight years. "I wouldn't wish that on anyone," she says.

Roommate from Hell (video)

by Chris Pearson & Allan Piper

LOS ANGELES- In an ever worsening economy, more Americans are having to adopt unconventional living situations just to keep a roof over their heads. Eric Sharpe and Dave Stahler have been roommates for three years. Describing themselves respectively as a "neat freak" and "a slob," they often have felt like their two-bedroom, North Hollywood apartment wasn't big enough for the both of them. Nevertheless, when Dave recently lost his job and Eric suffered a pay cut, they decided to take on a third roommate.

"It's not an ideal situation," Eric admits. "We've had to give up a lot of space."

"Also," adds Dave, "our roommate is a demon who devours human souls, is trying to bring about the apocalypse, and really hogs the bathroom."

Tod von Unschuldigen (German for "death of the innocents") is a torment administrator from the Eighth Circle of Hell, who happened to be looking for a new apartment when Dave inadvertently summoned him in an attempt to get out of doing household chores. Tod had never considered moving to North Hollywood, because he regarded it as "too far from Hell, and not as nice a neighborhood," but when he learned that these two humans were seeking a roommate, things fell into place.

"Hell rents have gotten ridiculous," Tod explains. "And with all the real estate agents who end up down there, you always have to pay a broker's fee."

Living in such tight quarters requires a lot of compromise. "Unfortunately," Eric laments, "not everybody in this house understands human standards of decency."

"It's true," Tod confirms. "Dave has no sense of boundaries. I had a bag of hornets I'd been saving, and Dave just went and ate the whole thing."

"Hey, if you don't write your name on it, it's fair game," Dave counters. "Anyway, they were gross."

Given such a difference of cultural backgrounds, some clashes are inevitable, but the roommates are doing their best to get along. "I'm an active member of a conservative church," Eric relates, "so a lot of people assume I'd have a problem living with the Prince of Lies."

"The Prince of Lies is my uncle," Tod corrects. "I'm just the Viscount of Misleading Statements."

"Anyway," Eric continues, "it turns out we have very similar moral values. We volunteered for McCain together. We both voted for Prop. 8. And while I'm not crazy about the fact that he slays virgins in his room and sets fire to their bodies on an altar of human skulls, as long as he pays his rent on time, it's really none of my business."

All three roommates hope to save enough to eventually get places of their own. In the meantime, Tod is grateful for the hospitality his human roommates have shown him. "I'm a stranger in the human realm," Tod says, "but now that I live here, they've really made me feel like I belong in their world. I hope before long I'll be able to do the same for them."

Click here to see a short documentary about the three roommates.

Obama Annoyed by Volcano

WASHINGTON, DC- Volcanologists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory warned this week that Mount Redoubt, just 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, may soon erupt in what could be largest volcanic explosion on US soil in over twenty years. Upon being briefed on the danger, near the end of his first full week in office, President Barack Obama was reportedly irritated.

"Really?" the president is reported to have said, "Really? It's not enough that I inherit two wars and an economic meltdown. Does the earth have to be literally exploding under our feet? This is ridiculous."

In an unrelated crisis, the National Weather Services is warning that it soon will be raining "big buckets of crap" over most of the country. The White House has yet to release a statement.

Bush Looks for One Last Thing to F*** Up

WASHINGTON, DC. With just over forty-eight hours left to his presidency, George W. Bush has been thinking about his legacy. When he was first elected, the nation was experiencing an economic boom, a nearly six-trillion dollar budget surplus, domestic tranquility, and seemed to be making substantial progress in brokering middle-east peace. "Those are terrible conditions for being in the White House," President Bush explained in an exclusive interview with the Inquisition. "It's boring. It's what they call in the business, 'bad tv.'"

Despite such inauspicious circumstances, Bush has managed to preside over the largest attack ever on US soil, two wars that have cost the lives of nearly five-thousand American soldiers and an untold number of civilians, a pre-Magna Carta era policy on civil liberties, the destruction of an entire US city, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, a growing national debt so large that mathematicians may soon need to invent new numbers to quantify it, a collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire, a strengthened Al Qaeda, a nuclear-armed North Korea, a breakdown of diplomatic relations with our allies, a critically damaged environment, and even a tri-continental plague of locusts in 2004 (this is literally true-- look it up).

Even in light of these achievements, the president who called himself the Decider, is concerned that history may not be kind to him. "My presidency has been what the queen of England would call an 'annus horribilis,' or 'a horrible anus,'" the president explained, "but I don't know if it's enough to make it stick in the books." Bush compared himself to King Jehoram of Israel. "When he was president, things got so bad, mothers ate their own babies. We haven't seen anything even close to that," adding, "yet."

The president has not given up hope that in these last two days he can accomplish one final catastrophe. "When I owned the Texas Rangers," he said, "I told them, as long as there's time on the clock, you just keep running with the ball. I've still got the nuclear strike codes, and I'm not ruling anything off the table."

No matter what the president is able to accomplish in his final hours, he is sure to leave office with some regrets. "I was really hoping for a global zombie epidemic," he said with a sigh, "but it looks like it's just not going to happen."