From the desk of Xavier Lipshitz:

Dear Dr. Admiral Poindexter,

After reading about DARPA's brilliant scheme for creating a "futures market" tied to terrorist acts around the world -- and the fallout among the spineless ninnies who are turning the U.S. into a castrated bridge club -- I feel compelled to write to you... and offer you a job. 

As I circle the earth in my supersonic jet, saturating myself with news and pornography via wireless Web connection -- it's increasingly difficult to differentiate the two -- I often fall into a reverie, recalling my early manhood ravishing concubines in Magyar, badminton in Belize, arm-wrestling primates in Tangiers... and soon find myself humming "Sunrise, Sunset." 

Ah, those months in 1951 when I took time away from business to have my right lung removed, and a second liver implanted. While I recuperated, a business partner undercut me in a deal to procure 10,000 orangutans on behalf of the U.S. military for the purpose of clearing Korean mine-fields. The partner housed the orangutans in a massive pit -- a former quarry or strip-mine. When I learned of the bastard's double-dealing, my psyche didn't venture a single stress-point into upset. No. In the fullness of time I had this former partner stripped, strung-up by his feet, and dipped in liquefied bacon fat. Then flung into the orangutan pit. 

But I digress. 

When I examine my 108 years upon the earth -- the last two decades spent primarily in my magenta jet; Las Vegas in the air -- I yearn for the simple pleasures of my youth: the ecstatic quiver in my hands as I pulled the wings off flies; feeding bologna to my Venus Flytrap plant; refracting the sun's light through a magnifying glass, scorching ants on the pavement. 

Because all too soon the time for business comes and the frivolous passions of youth are set aside. One look in to your Himmler-eyes, and I know that we share the same mind.

My offer is this: contract you for a decade (or until your death or my death, whichever comes first) for $100 million in gold bullion. For this you will submit to my surgeons who will implant Webcams in your eyes, microphones in your ears, and a neuron nano-chip in your cerebrum to transmit your sensory experiences to my full-body NeuroSense Strat-O-Suit. I want you to be my proxy in the world; I want to live through you, Dr. Admiral Poindexter; through your next adventure behind Great Oz's curtain. 

John, I want to pull the wings off flies once more. Only through you can I do this. How about it, then? Are you willing to make an old man happy? For $100 million and a little surgery? 

We'll begin in Tasmania... 

From: unitedoilagency@netscape.net

RE: OFFER OF SIX MILLION BARRELS OF LIGHT CRUDE OIL

Dear sir:

We confirm the offer of six million barrels of light crude oil (+/-5%) extracted from our monthly lifting quota. The crude oil shall be delivered to the buyers accepted destination monthly thus:

1,000,000 barrels (+/-5%) = 950,000 barrels net.

Quality: The quality shall conform with Bonny Light crude oil specifications.

Specification gravity    0.8398
API     37.00
BS&W     0.6% VOL.
Water content     BD- 0.2% AV
Reid Vapor Pressure    6.52PSIG
Pour point    Below 40  0 f
Sulphur  %wt     0.14
Salanity    4.7PTB

Price: The price shall be less $4.00 from quoted north sea brent crude oil price as published in the international oil bulletin (Platt).

Shipment: The shipment shall be cost insurance & Freight (CIF)

Payment: The payment shall be by out turn barrels basis. 

Bank guarantee under I.C.C 600 only shall be accepted for the shipment. 

Buyers bank shall be verify by the vitol oil bank to confirm the financial capabilities to avoid wasting of time.

For buyers requesting performance, vitoil oil shall invite fudiciary agent to provide this facilities. Please, should you be or have any interested buyer in these, revert immediately for further discussion.

Thanks.

Yours Faithfully,

Mike L Jones
GM/Client services Manager

From the desk of Xavier Lipshitz: 

Mr. Jones, 

I don't appreciate being contacted on a Saturday, even with an offer that may increase my empire by 0.000001%. However, I might be interested in your deal, though there are some problems I want to sort out. 

First, "Bonny Light" crude oil specifications are the Stove Top Stuffing of the petroleum industry. It's a system devised by clowns and used by frauds. An associate once ordered 3 million barrells of crude conforming to these specs (not from you), and tests revealed traces of human urine, Tab Cola, used tampons, and pizza crusts -- all of which are permitted (in varying amounts, granted) under the "Bonny Light" crude oil specifications.

Second, your Specification Gravity of "0.8398" is entirely out of line. Where are you getting this oil? Uranus? I'm not going to fill helium balloons with my shipment, it'll be going into my fleet of Lincoln Continentals. I don't want their engines sodomized by crude that has been drilled out of the ass of an abandoned quarry. 

Third, the INTERNATIONAL OIL BULLETIN (Platt), on matters relating to the petroleum industry, is about as reliable as SOLDIER OF FORTUNE is on gun-control issues. Don't tell me you subscribe to that rag! The brother-in-law of a business partner I dispatched with in the 1950s had a share in that -- I wouldn't trust that motherfucker to be dogcatcher on my estate. Instead, read CRUDE PROFITEERS MONTHLY. It contains facts hard enough to pierce your nipples with.

I also have issues with your Sulphur %wt and Salanity counts, however, I don't want to waste time poking holes in your data (which, so far, looks like a series of piss-holes in the snow). I want to talk money: How much are you going to pay me to take this shit off your hands? 

Before you answer that, send me your resume along with five references (no family members!) so I can satisfy the skeptic in me that you're my kind of guy.

Oh, yeah -- how may I contact your lawyer?

Be sure you don't hassle me again on a Saturday.

XL

Random Republican E-mail following Gray Davis' gubernatorial loss in California: 

Just a bunch of SORE LOSERS!!! But I love to see Democrats lose as much as I enjoy seeing the Rev. Jessie Jackass, Al 'the dork' Gore, Hillary 'I need a Rod from some Man' Clinton, Goofus 'pencil neck' Davis, Al 'not very' Sharpton, and Bill 'I don't have a clue, Captain Scandal, I lost my cigar, have you seen Monica? Osama Who? We need more government, not a military, DICKLESS' Clinton, and all the rest of the liberals who whine every time a Republican 'thank God' wins. 

Regards, 

Jon 

From the desk of Xavier Lipshitz:

Jon, 

You are in good company -- some of my favorite people were/are named John: John the Baptist, John Wayne Gacy, Michael Savage, John Poindexter, and the Duke, John Wayne. 

A box of Cuban cigars is yours if you can tell me which of the above enjoyed/enjoys coffee enemas. That's right, Dr. Admiral John Poindexter. Contrary to popular belief, Michael Savage only DRINKS coffee enema "afters," he does not partake rectally of the regimen.

Enough small talk.

I understand you have a chip on your shoulder. According to the dossier on my desk you hold opinions that leave people feeling like a clothes-pin has been affixed to their left testicle. Good -- we're entitled to our opinions; hold them without fear of molestation or persecution. But the credo "Live and let live" allows me to point you out as a lightweight. Where's the bite in your bile?  Emperor George W. will never win a second or third term with one-celled amoebas like you backing him.

Before you jump for the gun cabinet, let me explain that I put the "repugnant" in "Republican." I was buying Senators before you learned to do your business in the toilet. Bought my first island on what I earned off World War II. I have shaken the hands of hangmen, posed for pictures in electric chairs, and slice my bologna with a retired guillotine blade. So, as I step upon the skulls of the Great Unwashed on my way to the Bank, a whimpering, spaghetti-spined amoeba like you is nothing but dung under my boot. You think you're helping the cause, but you're not.

Get a grip on your gripes!  Study MENS room walls in truckstops, frequent haunts of disaffected youth -- get Hooked on Phonics for fuck's sake!  Christ man, words like "dork" and "dickless" are only used by dorks and the dickless. I'll assess your progress -- I own the satellite off which your e-mail messages bounce. My wireless Web connection keeps me apprised of your very syllable.

Get savage, man!  Stop pea-shooting around the  classroom. Emperor George W. needs you!  Rally the troops. An idle mind is the devil's playground.

And start with the coffee enemas. Pour them steaming from the pot into the funnel -- grit your teeth and scrunch-up your face. Makes a man mean.

XL