The Parliament of Ghosts

I haven’t updated in a while, I know. I want to, but every time I start trying to write something, I get depressed. I mean, come on, the only thing inaccurate about my Presidential Negotiation Flowchart was that it wasn’t pessimistic enough. I literally can’t find anything interesting or clever to say about the current political climate and how fucked we are. I can’t even get overly sober about the whole thing to highlight its importance via a contrast to my usual tone. So I’m just giving up. Time to make my way in the world some other way.

That way? Pandering to nerds. If a racist hack like Jim Butcher can do it, why can’t a slightly less racist hack like myself do the same? So I have. Prepare yourself for the steampunk horror fantasy action cop noir opus of the century: the Iron Heart Cyclex. It’s a tale of a man coming to terms with what it means to be human…with a Lovecraftian twist! So enjoy, or don’t, I really don’t care anymore.

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So those of you who were following Spacklecube at all are, at this point, almost certainly not doing so any longer, because I may have accidentally stopped updating for a couple of weeks. I am not trying to say that I am the only person on Spacklecube anyone follows, I am simply saying that I was one of the few updating fairly regularly each week, and also I am the best. Humility aside, I have a very good excuse for my sudden absence, and like most of the problems with our country, it’s Barack Obama’s fault.

See, I was a pretty fervent supporter of Obama back when he was lying to everyone about the things he would do if he became president, and I ended up signing a lot of petitions and fake birth certificates and naturalization forms for Kenyans and what-have-you, and I guess that, at some point down the line, I must have checked a box I shouldn’t because suddenly I find a black bag over my head and next thing I know I’m in a dingy basement manacled to a desk with some paper in front of me. Turns out that the EULA for one of the many grassroots sites devoted to spreading the important message that Obama was running a grassroots campaign using iPhone apps or whatever legally obligated me to be drafted into a private force at the command of POTUS. I kinda figured that technically he ran the military, but whatever–that’s not the point.

The point is, I had inadvertently signed up for part of Obama’s Volunteer Emergency Reserves for Supervising Executive Espionage on Republicans, which was apparently designed to figure out who should be put in his massive socialist re-education camps, but was now being used to fill out minor bureaucratic positions when most of the executive branch was devoted to working on the president’s re-election campaign, which has apparently been the case since Februrary 2009.

Anyway, I had been drafted into the OVERSEER corps to negotiate on behalf of the White House for these debt ceiling negotiations that have been going on. Apparently, if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, we will all be killed by Alan Greenspan’s vengeful ghost or something? I don’t know, and, more importantly, I didn’t have to know, because, for the brief moment I saw David Axelrod before he went back to raising money from Goldman Sachs executives to finance commercials about how grassroots Obama’s campaign is, I was given a flowchart and told that if I deviated from it I would be executed. I complained, but when I read the EULA I had agreed to by visiting the Obama 2008 campaign website, I realized I had given them that right.

So that’s what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks, negotiating with various officials on behalf of the White House in an attempt to raise the debt ceiling. Since that hasn’t given me much time to work on Spacklecube, I figure I can just post the flowchart I was given and use that as an update. After writing a 500+ word introduction.

I’m not very good at saving myself work.

CLICK FOR THE FULL VERSION

It’s been a little while since I last updated with anything that wasn’t one of my cool videos.  In fact, Spacklecube as a whole has been kind of dead, with only David’s truly insane dreamworld and Alex’s incredibly banal dreamworld breaking up the boredom.  For my part, I’ve been busy, and unlike some people, I don’t have a cushy office job where I can just sit around all day and not update Spacklecube.  No, I do the work of a real man: trying to justify my existence to myself.  Well I have managed to stop doing that for almost TWO WHOLE HOURS and now I can present you with some of that brand new Spacklecube content you have all come to know and love with:

10 Amendments in the Renewed USA PATRIOT Act You Might Not Have Known About

could you honestly say you would give a shit if these things got waterboarded

1. The Sessions-Baucus Amendment legally redefines terrorists from “enemy combatants” to “a fairly persistent species of spider,” which means they no longer have human rights. Bush Lawyer John Yoo long pushed for this provision, now embraced by the Obama administration. His legal basis for the argument was that, “nobody cares about what happens to spiders, because they are fucking terrifying.”

2. After a difficult weeks-long procedural battle the Paul-Sanders Amendment was adopted. This amendment specifies that provisions of the PATRIOT Act can only be used on suspected terrorists.

3. After a 3-minute meeting in the White House between Lindsay Graham, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid, a rider was added to the Paul-Sanders Amendment defining a “terrorist” as “an individual who has done something that may or may not be bad anywhere, ever,” and “suspected” as “literally anyone.” After meeting with Chuck Schumer, the subclause, “who makes less than $1,000,000 in pre-tax revenue per year” was added to the provision. The amendment was passed while Senators Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders were waiting at the park behind the Capitol Building where they had been told that pretty girl they have a crush on wanted to talk to them.

seriously, fuck this guy

4. The Feinstein-McConnell amendment adds provisions on leaking classified information. The Subversive Nationals Implicated in Trafficking Classified or Harmful Executive Secrets Get Secret Trials, Interment, Two in the Chest, and Hospital Emergency Services Amendment prescribes harsh penalties for anyone accused of leaking classified information. When asked about the SNITCHES Get STITCHES Amendment, Sen. Feinstein said, “Bitches best watch who they talk to, ‘fore they find themselves in solitary confinement six feet deep.”

5. The Lieberman Amendment requires that somebody, anybody, pay attention to this sad little sack of pig excrement.

6. The Default Classification Amendment now instantly classifies all use of the English language by government employees. Any use of the English language in a building where “government business is conducted” is immediately classified as SECRET/NOFORN. Any conversations with the President or White House Press Conferences are classified as TOP SECRET.  The sponsors of this bill are unknown, as their sponsorship was retroactively classified by the passage of the bill.

a FOIA request can be filed to read the constitution but unfortunately FOIA is also classified now

7. A rider added by Sen. Inhofe expands the Default Classification Amendment to include the constitution.  All public versions of the Constitution now read “We the people, [REDACTED].” Citation of the Constitution in open session of congress can now be prosecuted under the Espionage Act.

8. The Look Out Behind You Amendment specifies that the American public be informed if the calls are coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!

9. The Huge Subsidies to Bribe Senators Who Pretend to be Principled Amendment, also known as the Lincoln-Nelson Amendment, specifies that Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson be allowed to “back up a truck to Fort Knox and take whatever they want as long as they stop talking to the media right now.”

10. The Internet List-Based Comedy Amendment specifies that “lists of items intended for either comedic effect, the provocation of discussion, or both” are “incredibly fucking lazy” and that anyone who produces one “should just fucking kill themselves.” A rider was added noting that, “if Google would change their algorithm so suicide increased a site’s page rank, we could solve this problem overnight.”

Welcome back to Spacklecube.  It’s been almost two years since our unique brand of failure to update and attempts to break my WordPress theme disappeared from the internet.  So what happened?  Well the site’s abandonment did coincide with Barack Obama’s ascension to the Presidency.  And our return has coincided with the beginning of the protests known as the Arab Spring.  You can draw whatever conclusions you want from that information.  I’ll only say this:  Middle East, you’re welcome.  Enjoy your democracy.

After such a long absence that I can neither confirm nor deny involved a deep undercover operative setting himself on fire at the behest of the Barack Obama administration, it might behoove us to reintroduce ourselves.  However, since every other person on this site is lazy, shiftless, or suffering from serious third degree burns, the introductions will be left to me.  So without further ado, I present to you the illustrious members of Spacklecube, and brief summary of the special talents they have that would make them valuable in, say, an NSA operation to begin widespread protests and revolution in the Middle East:

Cyrus is me.  The team leader, the no-nonsense cigar-chomping dictator who manages to hold this group together through sheer force of will–but I also have a softer side.  My crew may hate me at times, but they know I’ll always get them back safely, if your definition of “safely” includes “covered in third degree burns.”

Ozzie is the soulful poet, the one who really thinks about the things we do.  The one who asks the hard questions.  The one who loves just two things: his fellow man, and the ability of his fellow man to catch on fire.  He also has a guitar, which I think he enjoys playing.

Lord Hambrose is the money man, the landed British aristocracy with a contact in every city.  He is also a master of disguise, able to blend into any crowd, whether wearing a finely-tailored tuxedo or dressed as a simple mechanic carrying a can of gasoline.  Lord Hambrose is not, however, his real name.  To this point, nobody has managed to find out that he is actually the Queen of England, her majesty Elizabeth II.

Trey is the one who can talk his way out of any situation, whether a police interrogation about a supposed self-immolation that doesn’t quite add up, to an intense car chase away from a burning police station.  In the latter, he mostly talked with his customized Glock, “Petunia.”  By shooting bullets out of it, and into people.

Meghann is the planner, the one who can meticulously break down the ins and outs of a situation, and figure out exactly which piece goes where on the chessboard, and when one of them should be set on fire.  If you stick to her plan, nothing will go wrong.

The Brick Imp is a loose cannon, who doesn’t stick to anyone’s plans.  He’s an ace demolitions expert who knows exactly how much fire-retardant material it would take to allow an operative to survive total immolation, and knows exactly how much less fire-retardant material to use if you want the operative’s immolation to both look and be real.  Nobody knows his real name, and some suspect he may have forgotten it himself.

Finley is a really cool dog.  He is always accompanied by a handler, “Finley’s Mom,” who makes sure that he is, to quote, “A good boy.”

Nick is the crazy one, the madman who you can never remember why he is in the group until the moment he rescues everyone through his unorthodox thinking.  Also, he is a hypnotist who makes us all forget why he is in the group.  And maybe a wizard who can start fires with his mind.

Zac is our Mata Hari, the one whose overwhelming sex appeal can be used in any situation.  One day, he might use his wiles to distract and drug a fellow operative so he can be set on fire.  The next, he might use it to get a pretty lady to touch his junk.  He’s versatile, invaluable, and dangerous, just like gold silly putty covered in spiders.

David is the mystic, the man who has an uncanny sixth sense that allows him to know exactly when a person has been set on fire.  Unfortunately, his powerful mysticism makes it difficult for him to perform simple technical tasks that the entire team could do easily, such as setting up his own blog.

William is the guy we set on fire.