NOSTRADAMUS 'R' US: a look at the future from the gap

The old crystal ball ain’t what it used to be, but…let me see…maybe… ah, it's starting to come in...in 2008:

Barack Obama has his family tree recharted and finds out that he and Michael Richards are related through a common descendancy from a paternal great-great-great-great uncle of Alice B. Toklas. Dick Cheney is heard to say, ”Does that make me Jewish?” to which Mary replies, “No. But it doesn’t make me Gertrude Stein either.”

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is shot accidentally, while cleaning up cow chips at the President’s ranch in Texas as a part of his community service, by Dick Cheney who is hunting quail with a .357 magnum. The bullet lodges just above Scooter’s third left side rib. Cheney is saved from an unmerited charge of attempted manslaughter when the emergency medical team arrives quickly and hears Cheney say, “Trust me. I’m an expert on open heart surgery,” before he attempts to extract the bullet with an Arkansas toothpick and a pair of channel locks.

Clem Rampart, while hunting up some food chases a rabbit onto the back yard of Graceland and his errant bullet bubbles up some of what turns out to be an 89 billion barrel reserve of sweet crude. Immediately, Elvis goes to the top of the list of the richest men in the whole world. As a series of consequences, Detroit unveils plans to turn out a new line of 16 cylinder pick-up trucks and 5 ton SUV’s; Al Gore is stripped of his Nobel Prize and declared insane and transported by boat to a health clinic on an island that used to be the state of Vermont; Mr. Rampart receives a 1959 Cadillac as a reward.

Mel Gibson finishes filming his ten hour epic “Bandstandopolis” in the original Pig Latin with subtitles. He lists Dick Clark as technical advisor. The stress of the project makes Mel turn to drink and he has himself driven in a limousine through New York City shouting from the open top, “___fay isthay owntay! And that ______ingfay ___Jay, oombleBlayergay!”

Dan Brown publishes his new book, The Da Bortioni Code in which he submits that the secret of the descendancy of the Whore of Babylon is encrypted in the works of Mary Shelley, the Brontes, Louisa May Alcott, and Oscar Wilde on through to Emily Dickenson and Judith Rossner and is guarded zealously by an occult sect of the Daughters of the American Revoulution and the Sisters of Mercy, because if the identity of the last descendant, who works in front of a tattoo parlour off Hollywood and Vine, were revealed, the price of street sex would plummet to a low that would threaten the economy of the major cities of the world—and some minor ones.

Rush Limbaugh writes a book, My Life On Oxycodone and Viagra, in which he reveals a secret obsession with Nancy Pelosi and Asian porn, and for which he tearfully appears on “Oprah” wearing a splint on his crotch, whereby Oprah has her own doctor examine it for authenticity and finds no more than a severe case of prolapsis ani, whereupon Oprah says, “What we have here is a genuine cry for help.”

Ann Coulter is interviewed by E. D. Hill on Fox News Live and reveals herself to be Howard Stern in drag.

Mitt Romney, citing the vast expenditure by candidates (including his own money) on their campaigns, vows that his first act in office if elected will be to shorten presidential terms to 2 years and Congressional terms to 1 in order to use that cash flow to pull the economy out of the funk that administrative policies have put it in, and to show off his best strength to the nation, which is campaigning. The yawn that erupts throughout the land is so tremendous, it frightens the Pentagon into DEFCON 4.

A semi trailer carrying a full load of toys made in China overturns inside the Lincoln Tunnel and FEMA responds immediately and seals it off indefinitely while it sweeps up the toxins, and evacuates a three mile perimeter around the Tunnel, sending the White people to temporary quarters in the Warwick New York Hotel and all others to a migrant camp in South Carolina.

New Orleans passes an ordinance that all refuges from Katrina that wish to resettle in the city must each have either his own recipe for gumbo or be able to play a reed instrument. And have money for a new house.

After a morale-boosting visit in the field from Pat Robertson, a new sect practicing neo-fundamentalist Christianity forms out of the numbers of civilian volunteer watchdogs along the U.S.-Mexican border who will now crucify illegal aliens to saguaros in the firm conviction that they will be resurrected in New Hampshire as staunch Republicans. Democrats, foreseeing the dwindling of their constituency, push to outlaw the sale of vinegar along the border states.

Representatives of The Guiness Book Of World Records are invited by the Administration to sit in on the debriefing of detainees in Guantanamo. Responding to public outcries against waterboarding during interrogation, Michael Mulkasey says, “It isn’t torture if they’re willing to resist and go for the record!”

Iran accidentally detonates its first nuclear device with plutonium provided by Russia. In the absence of Iran’s top nuclear physicist, Ardeshire Hassanpour, who was assassinated (some believe by Israel) last year, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says, “How tough can it be to work one of these things?” and has one of the technicians jiggle some wires, making it go off close enough to Tehran to scare it into suspending all further testing. The technician loses three fingers, but Ahmadinejad has to move out of the palace. He glows in the dark and keeps everybody awake.

Rudy Giuliani asks Mitt Romney, “Is it true what they say about Mormons?”

Senator Hillary Clinton, answering a queston from the League of Women Voters, says, “I’ve been through all that before. Sex is not a four letter word, and adultery isn't either, unless of course, judgmentally, presupposing a situation in which the sum of those two words can be divided equally to signify a context heretofore containing other than plausibility and material probity, they can be utilized as an indictment warranting no more significant a penalty than offhand sardonicism.”

Happy New Year, Everybody!

Noe.