Sometimes "value" is just a synonym for "cheap"

I wasn't going to indulge this idiotic and insulting excuse for leadership known as the "American Values Agenda" with any further attention, but just a couple days in I've already had about all I can stomach of Republican lawmakers wasting time, energy, power, media attention and tax dollars on the legislative equivalent of jacking off with one hand while waving the flag with the other.

And lest you accuse me of hyperbole, here's just one example of what your fine "representatives" have been up to lately:

House Republicans, who have the ability to dictate the floor schedule, got a head start on their agenda during the day, winning approval of legislation designed to guarantee members of condominium associations or similar groups the right to display the American flag.

Well, I know I'll be sleeping better tonight knowing that while whirligigs and pink flamingos can be restricted in the name of community aesthetic conformity, Old Glory can still fly unfettered. Such profound and consequential injustice being averted here, all right. And that's just the beginning:

"The American Values Agenda will defend America's founding principles," Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said. "Through this agenda, we will work to protect the faith of our people, the sanctity of life and freedoms outlined by our founding fathers."

Of course, that means they're out to erode separation of church and state in favor of codifying more Christianity, restrict abortion and amp up the amendments they agree with (guns and intrusive police searches for everybody!) while ignoring the others, especially that pesky first one.

What exactly do Republicans have in store for the coming weeks? Attempting to bar confiscation of firearms by law enforcement officers seeking to restore order during emergencies, for one. Because if there's anything to be learned and righted following the Gulf Coast debacle, it's that we need as many firearms as possible on chaos- and disaster-ravaged streets–it says so in the Bill of Rights.

And lest anyone call this administration hostile to or dismissive of scientists, we'll all get to hear from some fine examples who claim abortion causes such searing agony to unwanted uterine interlopers that women seeking the procedure should be notified under a federal "fetal pain" law and given the option of doping their budding embryos (probably quite literally) to the gills to ease their suffering.

And though the gay marriage horse may be dead, it apparently is not yet beaten to a bloody enough pulp, for the marriage amendment is also back on the agenda.

Then there's the "Pledge Protection Act," which would specifically ban the federal judiciary–you know, that third, constitutionally coequal branch of government–from taking up cases involving the Pledge of Allegiance and its inclusion of "under God." The House Judiciary Committee shot it down Wednesday, but chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., is planning another vote because several Republicans, illustrating just how vital this matter is, didn't bother to show up the first time.

Nonetheless, that's not stopping his cohorts from running the Karl Rove classic "say the exact opposite of what you're doing" play by invoking the same founding fathers who explicitly kept religion out of the Constitution and constructed a government on secular principles precisely to preserve religious freedom to argue for institutionalizing and politicizing their particular faith:

"Radical courts have attempted to gut our religious freedom and redefine the value system on which America was built. We hope to restore some of those basic values through passing this legislative agenda and renewing our country's commitment to faith, freedom and life," Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said Tuesday.

Now, call me crazy, but as far as I'm aware, you're still free NOT to have an abortion, NOT to marry or consort with someone of the same gender and NOT to do all sorts of other things if they conflict with your personal (and that's the operative word) religious beliefs. Plus you get to practice and express whatever faith you fancy and recite whatever religious mantras you like, including the Pledge in public schools, if it makes you feel all good about yourself.

But, silly me–as long as their way isn't decreed to be everyone's, poor Christians, who comprise a mere 80 percent of the population, are under attack, and with them our very national way of life:

"Family, faith, patriotism and hard work bind us together as Americans. Our laws should reflect those priorities, and House Republicans are committed to the American Values Agenda, policies that stress the core values on which our nation was built," said Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, third-ranking member of the leadership.

So, what, people not in "ideal" family units and non-Christians (and all those factions of Christians who disagree with the ruling ones about what their faith means), plus lazy people and those without boisterous nationalistic spirits should just move?

Honestly, denizens of the legislative branch, do you people realize the opportunities and power you have to solve actual, physical problems and be a positive force in people's lives? I realize many of you seem to think that by preaching about faith and families and patriotism you're doing divine work and making everyone's lives better by morally micro-managing them, but you're really just wasting everyone's time and betraying your own gifts and abilities, whatever being or document or principle you choose to believe bestowed them.

You're even driving me to irrational optimism regarding the electorate when I say that I sincerely hope voters' priorities are better reasoned than yours–and that the flag-burning amendment and its inane kin won't get resurrected:

The vote is likely to be an issue in the Congressional elections in November, and Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican who was the chief sponsor of the amendment, predicted the minority who opposed it would be held accountable by the voters.

Yeah, I know I've been keeping meticulous track of who voted where on that one, and I'm out for blood on election day from those who dare scoff at protecting vulnerable pieces of cloth and act like the adult lawmakers they are. In fact, I might just try to vote multiple times in multiple states just so I can wreak as much patriotic vengeance as possible.

But if supposedly progressive Democrats like Howard Dean and Barack Obama keep talking about how the party has to "find religion" and authentically embrace it to reach out to evangelical voters, giving us one more reason not to vote for any member of their entire inarticulate, spineless loser lot, it will be a minor miracle if many of us bother to vote at all.

Always practice safe syntax

In the wake of the surgeon general's statement on the dangers of secondhand smoke, there's all sorts of talk wafting around about smoking bans like the one here in Madison–and how to make them more politically palatable by starting with laws protecting children.

Because, naturally, children have more of a right to protection from clouds of carcinogens than the rest of us who already have comparatively more years of relatively tumor-free existence behind us.

Indeed, it's a sad fact of American life that often, there's just no way to protect children from their own and their parents' stupidity without abusing everyone else's freedom.

And as Sen. John Kerry so gallantly reminded us all on the Senate floor Tuesday during debate on that asinine flag desecration amendment, "In the United States of America, you have a right to be stupid."

Gee, maybe he could have been president after all.

Nonetheless, in these troubled times, it is our collective duty to reach out to protect the precious, precious children–even skanky 14-year-olds who meet 19-year-olds on MySpace and then sue for $30 million alleging rape.

With all the recent publicity surrounding the dangers of online predators, including statistics claiming one in five children has been sexually solicited online, I think we could all benefit from a refresher on some basic safety tips for Internet socializing:

• If someone harasses you online, says anything inappropriate or does anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, contact your Internet service provider. Odds are they already have federal law enforcement officers close by, sealed up in their secret room just down the hall "monitoring" private e-mails.

• A "friend" you meet online may not be the best person to talk to if you are having problems at home, with your friends, or at school–they may not be who you think they are, and you may wind up being victimized. Seek out an adult in your school, neighborhood or church instead. They never molest anybody.

• Choose screen names that are nondescript and do not identify you as a child or an otherwise tempting target of unwanted attention. Try things like "i_<3_ann_coulter" or "herpeschick" if you'd rather the Cassanovas let you be.

• Online safety isn't just for kids–adults should also maintain a healthy skepticism when socializing online. Internet dating sites in particular are part of a parallel universe in which 5'7" equals 6'1" and a "fat sack of crap" magically becomes "athletic," so beware.

• Internet-savvy adults should also consider volunteering at your local library, school or Boys & Girls Club to share your know-how and help younger children learn to use the Internet safely. You certainly won't run into any pedophile suspicion there.

• Maintain your privacy–don't post pictures of yourself online. Everyone knows they're liberally Photoshopped and stragetically cropped anyway.

• If you become aware of the sharing, use or viewing of offensive, vile and morally bankrupt images online, immediately notify appropriate authorities. But be aware that while they can prosecute cases of child pornography, David Hasselhoff videos still qualify as free and protected speech.

• Be sure to save transcripts of all your IM sessions. With the Justice Department admittedly arresting people for crimes "more aspirational than operational" and now claiming its goal is "prevention through prosecution," now might be the perfect time to get rid of annoying rivals and ex-boyfriends by steering the conversation toward al Qaeda or presidential assassination.

• And finally, here's a tip you'll only get here: Misspellings, emoticons and acronyms are potent aphrodisiacs for sexual predators–use them at your own risk, for they are the textual equivalent of walking through a dark alley in a vinyl mini skirt, drunk. Proper English is your online rape whistle. Blow it hard and blow it proud.

Stumping on the catwalk

I realize I usually use this space to address all things political, so my other passion–fashion–may seem a bit out of place.

But if you think politics and fashion have nothing in common, you're probably a man–who gets to buy much of his attire by precise suiting dimensions and have it tailored for free, and enjoys a range of inseams and versatile cuts wherever he treads. The world of women's clothing is all about constant battles, power plays, petty sniping and, everyone's favorite, tawdry mudslinging.

Take the recent controversy over major department stores attempting to drop their "petite" departments, then reneging after the shrill outcry from incensed petites with penchants for boxy separates that sounded from across the land.

It simply wasn't fair, they argued–the average American woman is 5'4" and a size 14. Those under 5'4" simply NEEDED departments of clothing specially constructed to their proportions, they cried, and stores obliged.

Well, I've got news for you, ladies of smaller stature–pants can be hemmed and sleeves can be shortened, increasingly in-store. Try being 5'9" and a size 2. We don't get special departments in actual, physical stores where we can go try things on our elongated frames–we get to go online for limited selections from a handful of boring retailers who carry "tall" sizes, who seem to think we're all big-boned to boot.

If it makes you feel any better, "real women," though we tall, thin presumably therefore "fake" women may get all the pages in fashion magazines and get told on the street that we look like supermodels and it was a joy to merely walk past us (true story), we can't find clothing that fits us off the rack to save our freaking lives.

And you do not know true shopping frustration until you order a drop-dead gorgeous, expensive dress you've been drooling over for months, only to slip it on and discover it's cut for someone six inches shorter than you, with its rear hip darts bulging out at your lower back and its waist an inch under your chest.

Then, to add insult to injury, you get home from exercising to maintain your svelte figure looking to relax with your new issue of Vogue containing the eagerly awaited fall fashion preview, when after a few page turns your eyes are assaulted with one of those blasted Dove ads featuring a woefully underclothed "real" (read: chubby and ordinary looking) woman, rather ironically sporting bleached hair and hawking tan-in-a-bottle.

Now, I'm sorry if it makes me a traitor to my gender, but I don't want to see lumpy short chicks in their underwear proudly displaying their complexion imperfections when I'm flipping through my goddamn Vogue–it's supposed to be my glossy aesthetic reprieve from the lumpy short chicks who proliferate everywhere else.

You already have the retail clothing market indulging your bulges and too many of you already hog all the tall men–is it really asking so much that you keep your munchkin yet somehow more authentic selves out of my decadent fashion publications?

But, I suppose, woe is the scrawny Amazon. I guess I'll just have to console myself with the fact that, even in clothing that doesn't fit perfectly, I still look better than many of you "real" women.

And that, when your heads are turned, your boyfriends like to stare at me while they're holding your pudgy hands.

At least you can always talk to the squirrels

Here's a nice self-esteem boost for those of us who have no one we can genuinely count on to notice or care whether we live or die other than family members and people we owe money or work–it seems there are now so many of us that sociologists are worried our aggregate hermitude is unraveling the great American "social safety net."

According to data collected by Duke University researchers, "Nearly a quarter of people surveyed said they had 'zero' close friends with whom to discuss personal matters."

The survey, conducted annually since 1972, has tracked a decrease in close friendships starting in the mid-1980s, which researchers suggest might stem from increasing workaholism and changing patterns of habitation and community involvement that make it less organic for people to get together and recognize commonalities.

Not only does this increasing isolation harm individual lives, argues the lead researcher, but it also compounds broader disasters and emergencies, especially for poorer people, who tend to have fewer friends (how delightfully Republican–if you don't have the money to buy friends, you're doubly screwed):

"It's one thing to know someone and exchange e-mails with them. It's another thing to say, 'Will you give me a ride out of town with all of my possessions and pets? And can I stay with you for a couple or three months?" Smith-Lovin said.

Well, no kidding–that's what families are for. You can impose on them all you want during the hard times because they have no choice but to listen, oblige and remain tied to you.

With friendships, the odds of meeting and connecting with someone in synch with you on key matters who will voluntarily associate with you are downright astronomical, even when it's all sunshine and roses. Why would you then want to jeopardize it by unloading on them about your problems and asking things of them when in need?

It seems plausible to me that we as a society are merely realizing this "friendship" business is often an untenable catch-22.

Friends are over-rated, anyway. By definition, they're quite a lot like you. And come on, you suck.

Luck, be a lady (or a mushroom cloud)

According to a new book by Ron Suskind, the "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emptive warfare seems to be merely the practical instantiation of a principle pushed by Dick Cheney:

"The One Percent Doctrine," refers to an operating principle that he says Vice President Dick Cheney articulated shortly after 9/11: in Mr. Suskind's words, "if there was even a 1 percent chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction — and there has been a small probability of such an occurrence for some time — the United States must now act as if it were a certainty." He quotes Mr. Cheney saying that it's not about "our analysis," it's about "our response," and argues that this conviction effectively sidelines the traditional policymaking process of analysis and debate, making suspicion, not evidence, the new threshold for action.

Since I read about this last week, I've been trying to think up any real-world situation, any at all, in which applying the one percent doctrine makes logical sense and would be psychologically or practically advantageous.

The difference isn't applying it to good remote possibilities versus bad remote possibilities–odds are overwhelmingly against you in both cases, leading either to crushing disappointment or pre-emptive overreaction, by definition, 99 percent of the time.

If you defy those odds and turn out to be right, you score big. But if you turn out to be wrong, you waste a lot of time, energy and resources, and make a colossal mess.

As far as I can fathom, all the one percent doctrine is good for is insulating self-delusion in matters of extreme perceived importance in which you yourself have little or nothing to lose.

No wonder the Bush administration sees its intuitive appeal in matters of force projection.

And it turns out, as someone who does not believe in God and does not ever want children, the arguments I hear from well-wishing strangers trying to convince me I'm wrong on either count spring straight from the one percent doctrine as well.

For instance, one of the logical rationales for believing in God is that if you do it and it turns out to be a false belief, there's no harm done. But if you don't believe and you're wrong, you're in for an eternity of fire and brimstone.

Phrased another way, if you think there's even a one percent chance there is a God, you should assume there is and believe.

But for those of us who genuinely think there isn't, living as if there is, "just in case," would require being dishonest to ourselves now, in this world, to reap some hypothetical benefit in a merely possible beyond.

Similarly, Dick Cheney's heart palpitations also echo in the background of arguments put forth by those who just can't comprehend the fact that some of us don't want children.

Take the women who work with my mother and comment on how sad it is that I'm depriving her of grandchildren, who like to allay her alleged worries by insisting, despite never having so much as met me, that I'll change my mind.

Mind you, as a child during the height of the Cabbage Patch craze, I put baby dolls among the creepiest of quasi-humanoid forms, right up there with E.T. and Glow Worm, and wanted nothing to do with them. I never babysat as a teenager because I hated kids, thought they were gross and had no desire to interact or communicate with them. To this day I'm unnerved by religious paintings depicting the Annunciation, as they activate a wholly irrational yet mortal fear of spontaneous, miraculous conception. And though I don't make a habit of eating them, kids continue to offend every single one of my senses and simply have no place in the kind of life I want to live.

I'm well aware that the sun having risen every day in the past isn't itself a logical reason to believe it will rise tomorrow, but the odds of me changing my mind, barring some kind of catastrophic head injury, are, to be generous, about one percent.

Yet I get asked by kind-hearted souls who don't want me to live a life of regret after my ovaries whither, how do I know I don't want children if I never experience having them? Sure, I may think I would hate motherhood, in the here and now, but what if I grew to love it?

Essentially, seemingly forgetting they're talking about a human being and not a Brussels sprout, "How do you know you don't like it if you don't try it?"

Well, gee, when you put it that way, why not–I'll wager my time, my money, my looks and my very sanity on the remote possibility that you're right about what a future version of me might want.

The decision not to believe in something or not to do something is still a decision, considered thoroughly and arrived at actively at least as often as decisions in the affirmative. And that's something anyone fond of arguing the one percent doctrine to others to defend their own choices–be they mothers or Christians or trigger-happy vice presidents–could stand to be reminded of.

For while operating on faith is fine for those who hold the luxury of dealing in the possible, deciding on evidence tends to better serve those on the ground.

It's every girl's dream come true!

It appears there's been a veritable orgy of Fitzgeraldy goodness going on in my mailbox lately.

This past week I got a graduation congratulations letter from Jeff Fitzgerald, the dreamy Republican majority leader of the state Assembly, to accompany the one (on much better looking stationary) from his brother in the Senate, Scott.

Once I was done giggling like a school girl and covering the envelope in lipstick marks, I read its contents and was initially disappointed that it was basically just a standard, platitude-laden form letter, with nothing standing out as particularly worthy of note or online ridicule.

Then I noticed it was dated June 14... 2003.

Poor Jeff, numbers just don't appear to be your friends. You still owe my mom $160 plus a decade or so of interest for that illustration she did back in the day of your architecturally uninspiring domicile, remember?

But I suppose, I just can't hold a grudge when you write to tell me, "I am sure you will be successful in all that you choose to pursue."

So I now have written proof that not one, but two Fitzgeralds believe in me–man, I really can do anything!

I'm going to miss you boys. We should go get shitfaced sometime before I leave Madison.

This execution brought to you by the letter "J"

At this point, how anyone purports to sincerely debate the ethics, medical or otherwise, of capital punishment from any position but backed into a corner is enough to boggle the mind.

Take this snippet from the New York Times on the controversy surrounding the drugs currently used in the standard lethal injection cocktail:

A major obstacle to change is that alternative methods of lethal injection, though they might be easier on inmates, would almost certainly be harder on witnesses and executioners.

With a different approach, death would take longer and might involve jerking movements that the prisoner would not feel but that would be unpleasant for others to watch.

Yes, heaven forbid we remind them they're watching a human being die and not sitting down for a nice wholesome episode of Sesame Street or something. (Though maybe bringing in the Count to track the administration of the different drugs with a cheery little musical number might bolster inmate morale and absolve the ethical angst. It might also take PBS off the chopping block.)

If witnesses and executioners–people who give this practice a direct institutional sanction by merely showing up to perform their jobs–can't stomach actual, unglamorous, unseemly death, that's a hint something is wrong.

We've already, by and large, done away with and written off as barbaric the guillotine, the electric chair and the gas chamber–anything that viscerally reminds us there is, in fact, an ethical snag here and that the prisoner in question isn't just drifting off into the eternal sands of justice, but being killed in an act that anywhere outside of his role as a convicted and condemned criminal we as a society consider roundly wrong.

When we're trying to nail down the moral particulars of which variations of ultra-sanitized, state-sanctioned death are OK and which are cruel and unusual–from the eligible inmates to the preferred chemicals to the acceptable error rate–perhaps we're not in an ethically defensible position to be playing executioner.

Not that that ever makes a difference.

And speaking of lost causes, check out this guy. What a persistent little monkey. Doesn't he just make you proud to be an American?

Ladies and germs...

... I bring you the best random, out-of-place Google ad ever:

I for one think this is a fabulous idea–and because nobody knows just when contagion will strike, kids should be required to wear masks at all times. Not only will it keep them safe (ultra-vigilant mask use might eventually atrophy their immune systems completely and confine them to cozy little bubbles to boot), but it will muffle their shrieks, make the ugly ones look a little better and embarrass them all so profoundly that they just might stay indoors and stop hacking their non-lethal but still festering microbial fauna onto communal door handles and onto the backs of strangers' necks in restaurants.

We come in peace, love and flaming ineptitude

As Western string theorists too often wind up hogging all the fun, famed cosmologist and author (OK, pop-cultured simpletons, and inspiration for the paraplegic with the computer synth voice on "Family Guy") Stephen Hawking toured China last week, prognosticating a rather grim future for our collective kind:

"It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species," Hawking said. "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."

As not to be a total realistic downer, "He added that if humans can avoid killing themselves in the next 100 years, they should have space settlements that can continue without support from Earth."

Despite his administration's storied and stellar history of utterly ignoring scientists, given President Bush's talk about spending billions on a mission to Mars a while back and his still flaccid approval numbers, it's more than a little disturbing that one of the most respected minds on the planet is telling us we should seriously consider colonizing space so some representatives of our species can evacuate when we invariably destroy this sphere and bring about our own extinction.

Good thing we can still take comfort in the fact that Dubya, standup comic extraordinaire, would quite possibly be too busy cracking ill-advised jokes about Hawking's physical impairments to listen to his argument if made audience to it directly.

And at the moment, his leadership team is probably too giddy at the prospect of finally getting to use their precious missile defense system against North Korea to pay hypothetical interstellar refugees much more heed than they've paid the tangible ones right here on this orb.

For though getting a delightfully novel solution to the Guantanamo problem is always a possibility, we would probably just wind up spending billions on a luxury escape pod for a select group of neocons, evangelicals and cryogenically preserved Bush family members so the "dynasty" can spread its tentacles of visionary leadership out across the cosmos–plus just enough poor people and ethnic and religious minorities to keep them all well-fed and active.

But with any luck, we've still got a good century to figure it out–and if yet another Bush is in the White House at that point, perhaps we'll also have acquired the wisdom to just take the hint and fold already.

Another reason cookies are better

As if Wisconsin needed another special license plate to give more motorists license to drive like rampaging cretins with veritable impunity from visible displays of justified, antecedent aggravation, a new plate is now available to close relatives of U.S. military service-persons killed in combat, declaring the lucky vehicle's occupants members of an extra-special "Gold Star Family."

Oh, is that a gold star plate I see? Well, in that case, it's OK that you didn't pay attention to the good half mile of neon orange signs telling you your lane was ending. In hindsight, it was an honor and a privilege to be given the opportunity to exercise my freedom, forged in your forefathers' blood, to slam on my brakes for you as you obliviously drifted into the side of my car. You're part of a "Gold Star Family," you obviously have more important concerns on your mind.

Indeed, who wants to be caught honking, muttering profanity or tossing crude gestures at a "Gold Star Family?" Homeland Security has probably implanted surveillance devices or set up a tip line to track you down if you do.

What's so offensive to me about things like this is that they're all about putting personal information out for public consumption, inviting suspicion that the projectors are on some level just fishing for recognition or sympathy or something else no more praiseworthy or genuine.

That, and the fact that these "gold star" plates don't cost any more than the regular, pinko ingrate versions. Among the special plates, the "endangered resources" plates, those infernal "celebrate children" plates that make every other minivan on the road that much more annoying, even da Green Bay Packers plates (ya der hey!) all cost extra, with the money being donated to their respective causes.

If you wish to so tangibly honor military service past and present, wouldn't it make a bit more of an impact to talk with your living family members or anyone else who might have an interest in your loved one's experiences, or write a letter to a current soldier, or, hell, get really crazy and educate yourself and try voting accordingly in the next election? Maybe even donate your time or money to help aging veterans or the struggling wounded returning from the present round of warfare?

To those who argue such automotive declarations are merely personal statements, I can't speak for all the patriotic, military-cheerleader types out there, but I don't spend much time gazing at the back of my own car, ruminating on life, love and sacrifice. More often, I'm stuck glaring at SUVs with nauseating "NANA OF 5" vanity plates whose elderly drivers cut me off and then drive five under the speed limit.

I can understand advertising the fact that you yourself have served, as that's explained by simple ego-defensive psychology–but a family member? If this is the most meaningful and personal means you can devise to remember or pay tribute to a member of your immediate family, that's rather uninspiring to say the least.

But, then again, who wouldn't want to advertise the fact that their familial blood has imbued an apparatus that authorizes torture as Special Forces SOP, sends soldiers off to kill and die for no decent reason and still classifies homosexuality as a "mental disorder?"

For the rest of us deprived souls, come on, Department of Transportation, how about some useful special license plates, like a "Riding my bumper like an orally fixated lamprey isn't going to make the car in front of me go any faster" plate? You know, to help us practice pre-emptive, on-the-offense driving against domestic tailgating terrorists.

I swear, if puffed-up patriotism and crude politics could fuel cars, U.S. oil dependency would be no more.

This Father's Day, give dad what he really wants: Kill yourself!

I've never been a fan of holidays that honor certain classes of people for merely existing, especially when they reinforce the status of classes already held up in countless everyday arenas as the social ideal. Take parents.

Several years ago I filled all four panels of a Mother's Day card writing about all the reasons being a parent is nothing special, how holidays honoring parents for not abandoning their children were just plain silly and how devoting one's life to being a mother is actually an unwise course of action if one takes a greatest-general-good view of ethics. (It was a hit.)

I enjoy Father's Day, though. It's the one frivolous familial greeting card holiday I can completely bypass without suffering debilitating social sanctions. I also get a minor thrill out of seeing ads for Father's Day sales. They remind me of all the money I've saved over the years.

Just the other day, Border's sent out a helpful little e-mail highlighting gift ideas for different types of dads. But as the apt category of "deadbeat drunken degenerate" wasn't listed, I hit delete and was perversely content.

I'm not saying we shouldn't thank our parents for the things they do for us, on whatever day of the year they happen to occur, but why should any of us have to devote an entire, arbitrary day to thanking our parents for merely being parents?

They bring us into existence without our knowledge or consent, and then expect us to thank them for sustaining the lives they created? As if what they're doing is particularly novel or morally praiseworthy?

From a happiness-maximizing ethos, parenting also makes you miserable–something readily observed in restaurants and minivans across the land that was also commented upon by Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert in this week's Time Magazine:

Psychologists have measured how people feel as they go about their daily activities, and have found that people are less happy when they are interacting with their children than when they are eating, exercising, shopping or watching television. Indeed, an act of parenting makes most people about as happy as an act of housework. Economists have modeled the impact of many variables on people's overall happiness and have consistently found that children have only a small impact. A small negative impact.

And that's if you don't already hate them to begin with.

Gilbert, a father himself, goes on to lay out a simple three-point psychological survival mechanism by which parents convince themselves their children make them happy:

1. "Given the high price we pay, it isn't surprising that we rationalize those costs and conclude that out children must be repaying us with happiness."
2. "Memories are dominated by their most powerful–and not their most typical–instances."
3. "We believe our children are our greatest joy, and we're absolutely right. When you have one joy, it's bound to be the greatest."

Then, as not to upset anyone, he goes and screws it all up in the last paragraph by arguing in light of all this, we should celebrate parenthood even more as the glimmering apex of humanity because, in essence, sires still don't take the rational, raw utilitarian course of action and smother their spawns with the nearest throw pillow, but rather love them in spite of the constant trials and pain. (In less evocative language, of course.)

Basically, by this argument, because parenting entails so much strife, a parent's love for a child is somehow even stronger and purer.

But this logic seems to be unique to parents. We don't honor and aspire to be like people who stay in abusive relationships, or people with self-destructive addictions–and with good rational reason. We certainly don't call those people selfless humanitarians and deem them admirable.

Parents, though, in between orating at length about all the sacrifices they make for their children and treating their progeny's accomplishments as their own, in a rather deft act of social swift-boating, like to insist that people who choose not to have kids (or don't want anything to do with theirs) are selfish.

But if children themselves don't make parents happy, that means they're deriving the pleasure of being a parent from something external to the source–namely, they like to be able to brag to other people about having kids, take pride (and tax breaks) in instantiating their slice of the American dream, fish for respect as selfless martyrs and try to force their supposed joys down the throats of those around them with repugnant pictures, free-range strollers and malplaced pity, as appropriate. That doesn't sound terribly altruistic.

Assuming parents are less selfish and therefore better people than the child-free also assumes anything parents do for or because of their children is good in itself simply because it is being done with someone else in mind. But as in anything else, spending time with or doing things for your kids doesn't automatically benefit or improve them–it can just as easily hinder or harm them as well.

The fact is, you can't have it all. Everybody's selfish, and everybody makes choices as to where they're going to direct their energy. Workaholics or travelers or fitness fanatics or others who choose a source other than kids are all "selfish," but whatever they do doesn't float out in a vacuum, either–it still impacts other people, with at least equal potential to do so for the better. And at least it doesn't directly churn out another boisterous generation of mediocre posterity to pop anti-psychotic prescriptions and exude entitlement.

So, dads, take this Sunday to soak up the praise and revel in the self-justification–and enjoy your dumpy polo shirt, tacky sports paraphernalia or talking bottle opener. You've earned it.

Why DC is called "Hollywood for ugly people"

According to Reuters, John Ashcroft, Condoleezza Rice and the "Singing Senators" aren't the only wannabe rock stars to have graced the Bush administration with their musical finesse–add the president's current chief of staff to that list:

Josh Bolten entertained a congressional picnic on the White House lawn by playing bass guitar in a band called "The Compassionates." In black pants, white shirts, skinny black ties and sunglasses, they performed songs including "Born to be Wild."

And had to dodge flying undergarments, I'm sure. At least they weren't wearing leather pants and fishnet tops, but seriously–"The Compassionates;" "The Second Amendments?"

Where are all the cool political band names, like "Karl Rove's Large Intestine," or "Quail Incident," or "Screaming Filibuster?"

Oh, such squandered potential.

Tarnishing a pretty penny

Amid Thursday's news of Bill Gates' stepping down from Microsoft to devote his full-time energies to giving away the obscene amount of money he's amassed, it was frequently mentioned how Gates has already tossed $10.5 billion at various causes across the globe, making that $1 billion in fraudulent FEMA hurricane payouts the GAO announced this week look downright paltry.

Indeed, $10.5 billion seems like an almost unfathomable heap of money, and it is. As ABC News pointed out, Gates' foundation has spent more to fight diseases in Africa than the annual operating budget of the United Nations' World Health Organization.

But for a bit of perspective, Gates' announcement came on the same day (probably happily for the White House) that Congress approved another $65.8 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to Reuters, Congress is also poised to consider a separate bill allotting another $50 billion to that noble cause yet this year.

To date, spending on Iraq alone is just shy of $320 billion. Spending on the broader "war on terror" is approaching half a trillion dollars. That's $500,000,000,000.

The Pentagon also announced Thursday that by its tally, the 2,500th American soldier has been killed in Iraq; to say nothing of the tens of thousands of Iraqis the most conservative estimates purport to have been killed since the invasion. (For more numbers, check this out.)

Next to all that, using FEMA debit cards for sex-change operations doesn't look quite so offensively wasteful as it did a few days ago.

Just a little something to think about in the background as Bill Gates is held up not merely as a successful, generous and decent man, but as a shining example of the potential free market capitalism holds to empower individuals to affect the good in the world that its wealthiest governments supposedly cannot afford.

Current Iraq policy in a visual nutshell

Upon returning from his surprise trip to Baghdad, President "I'm a high value target for some" Bush gestures like a confused and jet-lagged primate during a press conference Wednesday in the White House Rose Garden. Bush declined to discuss U.S. military strategy or suggest a timetable for bringing home the some 130,000 troops now in Iraq, instead electing to take the high road above evolving domestic politics surrounding the issue by utterly ignoring them–a strategy he hopes will serve him well until he's safely out of office.
(Photo: AP/Evan Vucci)

Just look where over-achieving can land you

One of the most amusing tidbits to emerge from the news in recent days comes from this week's Time Magazine, in which Mike Allen writes about how President Bush took his daughter's sloppy seconds and turned a young Texas fellow named Blake Gottesman into one of his most trusted personal aides.

Mr. Gottesman, 26, doesn't have so much as a college degree (though he's now bound for Dubya's alma mater, Harvard Business School), but he dated Jenna Bush in high school, which more than qualifies him for a position on the top shelf of the Bush cabinet, as W's go-to Wunderkind no less.

Other staffers call him the president's "mood ring." Karl Rove calls him "brilliant." Dubya calls him "Soldier." I call him a world-class tool. Basically, this guy draws a $95,000 salary to be Dubya's manservant. And they say young people have no respect for hard work.

Though he also attends to substantive matters like drafting speeches and managing the president's professional interactions, other aspects of Gottesman's job description are a bit more interesting:

Since it's hard for the president to receive mail, Gottesman takes to work the catalogs he receives at home so that when the two have downtime on Air Force One, the president can choose running shoes and fishing gear, which Gottesman then orders online.

"Hot dog, son, it's the new 'Woods 'n' Whet-lands' catalog! It's just like Christmas!" Now there's something I hadn't thought about before–aside from letters pre-screened for anthrax and praise from children or servicemen, how much of his mail does Dubya actually get to see? And how much junk mail must the president get? You know there have to be people who have passed a couple of dull or drunken hours typing "1600 Pennsylvania Ave." into the "request a catalog" forms on all sorts of obscure, mistargeted or downright prurient Web sites.

And of course, no aide worth his salt can neglect gathering materials for the next great American instantiation of irony in architecture:

Gottesman collects artifacts for a future presidential library, down to the whistles Bush blows to start the White House Easter Egg Roll.

Now isn't that a precious piece of history if ever something was. On the off chance that he's fielding curiosity requests, I've got a few suggestions:

• The famed August 6, 2001, "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S" intelligence briefing. (Oops, that's probably been "accidentally" incinerated.)

• The copy of "My Pet Goat" Bush couldn't seem to put down when informed of the Sept. 11 attacks.

• Enough source material to fill a "Hall of Star-Spangled Propaganda Banners."

• A taxidermied Barney and Miss Beazley, whose outfits change with the seasons and holidays.

• The president's custom-made "World Leader See 'n Say."

• A lost recording of Dubya playing the jug while Ashcroft sang patriotic folk songs.

• A one-of-a-kind end table from the Crawford ranch decoupaged in Florida and Ohio presidential ballots.

• The notepad on which the president doodles race cars and monkeys when taking long-winded calls from God.

• And, of course, The Pretzel.

Temporary solutions to permanent problems

Three "enemy combatants" being indefinitely detained at Guantanamo succeeded in offing themselves with nooses improvised from clothing and linens Saturday, marking the first deaths among the more than 450 detainees being held there, many for the past 4 and-a-half years.

Of course, according to the military, despite the fact that only 10 of the detainees have been charged with any crimes, they are all still terrorists hell-bent on destroying America, and even their suicides are all about us:

"They are smart, they are creative, they are committed," Admiral Harris said. "They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."

Yeah, what cold-hearted ingrates–is that any way to thank a country that has housed you without charge or explanation since 2002, force-fed you with extra-wide tubes and custom restraint chairs and created a special classification beyond the laws of any nation, even the laws of war itself, just for you?

Come on, boys, unless and until the Supreme Court rules this summer that we can charge you in our federal court system and seek the death penalty, show some respect for the sanctity of life.

In other news (into which a joke about mass quantities of virgins would be far too easy a segue), a bunch of bloggers convened in Las Vegas over the weekend to mingle with the Democratic Party B-list and court the mainstream attention they claim to disdain at the "Yearly Kos" convention.

Amid turning to drooling fanboys and girls around Maureen Dowd while simultaneously deluding themselves that they enjoy even a shaving of the readership or opinion leadership her kind commands, no doubt they also took a moment to communally marvel at how, removed from their natural habitat in the self-aggrandizing ether of cyberspace, they're really just a dowdy bunch of middle-aged armchair politicos largely preaching to (or molesting) the choir.

Genealogy gone wild

Not to turn all petulant blogger here, but why, pray tell, are all the major news sources indulging Ann Coulter with attention to her latest illogical, inutile and incendiary play to grab headlines and sell books by railing on Sept. 11 widows to Matt Lauer when we've got a U.S. senator making illogical, inutile and incendiary statements on the job?

The truly Honorable Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., stood up on the Senate floor Tuesday to add to the so-called debate on the gay marriage amendment with an enlarged photo of his family and shared this vital piece of information with his colleagues and his (no doubt grateful) nation:

"As you see here, and I think this is maybe the most important prop we'll have during the entire debate, my wife and I have been married 47 years. We have 20 kids and grandkids. I'm really proud to say that in the recorded history of our family, we've never had a divorce or any kind of homosexual relationship."

And here I thought the "Vote for me–I figured out how to procreate, so running the country will be a snap!" campaign ads featuring candidates' families were bad.

Even if this had anything at all to do with anything remotely pertinent or deserving of further discussion, asininity of this astronomical degree is a far worse thing to have blighting your family tree, on or off the record.

If this is what comes crawling out of a morally pristine gene pool, the used band-aids suspended in most of ours don't look quite so disgusting.

Maybe the antichrist is just running late

For not only did 6-6-06 bring us President Bush saying he was encouraged that peaceful diplomacy was on track with Iran, but campaigning Democrats are finally channeling the darkness and learning to speak Rovese–take this statement from Illinois State Rep. Melissa Bean, a Democrat up for re-election:

Ms. Bean said she would support making the tax cuts permanent only "so long as we're cutting spending," adding, "Otherwise it's not a tax cut; it's just a deferred tax increase."

Perhaps failure is merely deferred success after all.

And on a related note, check out this little pearl of Ukrainian gallows humor from Reuters' Odd News:

A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.

"The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said.

"A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery."

The incident, Sunday evening when the zoo was packed with visitors, was the first of its kind at the attraction.

How tragic. Didn't this guy know God takes Sundays off?

Waving the flag and smothering the flame

Oh, that Bill Frist. What a dreamboat. When not evaluating a piece of animate produce via remote video on behalf of the national conscience, he's busy futilely trying to constitutionalize whom you can consort with and what you can combust, on the off chance that one of his Democratic colleagues up for re-election this year is politically autistic enough to vote "no" to either amendment and script his or her own attack ad.

As my hero Frank Rich wrote in his most recent New York Times column:

The current Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, has proudly put on this month's legislative agenda constitutional amendments to stop same-sex marriage and flag burning. "Right now people in this country are saying it's O.K. to desecrate that flag and to burn it," he said on Fox News last Sunday, though it's not clear exactly who these traitors are. A Nexis search turns up only one semi-recent American flag-burning incident – by a drunk and apparently apolitical teenager in Mr. Frist's home state, Tennessee, in 2005.

The "Citizens Flag Alliance," which tracks flag desecration incidents to bolster its fight for the democratic right to protect the flag from those wantons who want to sully it with their sordid First Amendment right to free expression, lists several more, but at issue in most of the anecdotes seems to be that the flags being burned didn't belong to the unpatriotic pyros in question.

Still, "Asked on 'Fox News Sunday' if flag burning and gay marriage were the most important issues the Senate can address in June," according to the Associated Press, "Frist said the agenda will focus on securing the country and its values." And, the good doctor said, stamping out flag desecration "is important to our values as a people when we've got 130,000 people fighting for our freedom and liberty today."

Because bored teenagers in their anarchist phases and absent-minded patriots who leave their flags out in the rain are truly the scourge of the nation, much more harmful than its government wasting time, effort and tax dollars on measures pre-emptively doomed by polls and politicos alike in a transparent attempt to distract from its failures among rising costs of living and the commencement of hurricane season at home, and that pesky matter of the continuing state-sponsored carnage overseas to which Mr. Frist alluded.

Indeed, the fine ruling patriots who roll their eyes at things like gun control or energy regulation as un-American meddling by an alarmist nanny state but see no problem in preaching about imposing their paternalistic will on others' freedoms through this nation's founding document, wishing to use it for the first time to curtail rights rather than extend them, need to straighten their priorities.

Symbols in a democracy are by their nature ambiguous, conveying different messages to different sources. They command their power and serve their unifying purpose in a diverse society by being commonly recognized despite those conflicting interpretations, not by having a single interpretation mandated.

It's not by accident that this country does not have sacred symbols, and that we (blessedly) don't have to display portraits of our leaders in our homes. It's also no accident that amending the Constitution is set up to be so difficult–so that the vocal political forces of the day, be they neocon nutjobs or lily-livered liberals, can't use their tenure, transient also by design, to change the basic principles of government on their every point-scoring whim.

But true to 2004 form, some Republicans are hoping that all things flaming will trump such silly, practical concerns as economic survival and perpetual war at the midterm ballot box. Others are skeptical:

"Those are the issues that are dominating people's dinner-table talk," said Scott Reed, who managed Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. Reed dismissed Frist's plan, saying: "If you're a gay who likes to burn flags, it's going to be a long year."

As it's going to be for all of us who have to listen to this pandering rhetoric if it's allowed to keep masquerading as policy discussion.

Never mind the opinion polls showing far greater majorities than it takes to win the presidency opposing both amendments: Many people in this country get absolutely incensed at the notion of making illegal immigration a federal crime–does anyone honestly think the masses would support tossing Zippo-happy citizens into federal prison for igniting a piece of fabric in political protest or democratic expression, or just to be good, vengeful American neighbors?

Granted, there are probably many more constructive and meaningful ways to go about any of those, and no one is going to say flag desecration is a fabulous thing and we should have more of it, but honestly–who does it hurt?

Oh, right–military veterans, proud Americans and their FEELINGS.

But in this post-modern, commodified culture in which everything is packaged and sold, patriotism is hardly an exception. And when you see Old Glory plastered on the bumper of a mammoth SUV that cuts you off in traffic, or undulating on a greasy tank top barely covering the bloated gut of some human-walrus hybrid lumbering down the street slurping on an ice cream cone he or she needs like another hole in the head, it's a little tough to swallow the grand and teary eyed arguments about the flag being a precious symbol of national pride and sacrifice whose purity must be defended from the highest echelons.

And as long as power remains concentrated among the likes of Bill Frist, essential democratic values face more of a threat than they ever could from a drunken malcontent with a book of matches.

Forget the diploma, I'm framing this instead

This weekend I received a snail mail letter not from an actual person, but from State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, my alleged "representative" at my hometown address.

I seriously thought for a moment the legal cease-and-desist order had finally arrived after some Googling staffer saw this post, but soon found something just as lame: a letter of congratulations for graduating college, which unfortunately did not contain any cash (that's going to far worthier sources, I'm sure).

It turns out good old Scott–for based on the seemingly authentic signature, we're apparently best buds on a first name basis–graduated from the prestigious UW-Oshkosh, also with a degree in journalism. Oh, the places you can go.

Scott also wishes me "the best in all [my] future endeavors," which in delightful irony basically entails making a career out of criticizing the likes of him. He also included a quote from every good Republican's guiding muse:

I am proud of your achievement. As President Reagan said, "there are no limits to human intelligence, imagination, and wonder". [sic]

Now, Scott, I realize you've probably got some unpaid, political science major intern typing out your form letters, but when you brag about your journalism degree and wax philosophical on the importance of education in the preceding paragraph, would it kill you to capitalize and punctuate your quote correctly? Even third-graders know the punctuation belongs inside the quotation marks. And if you omit the Oxford comma in an earlier clause, don't include it here. It's all about consistency, man, that's what you Republicans DO.

But still, Scotty boy, stylistic nitpicking aside, it warms me somewhere deep within my soul to know that I do, in fact, have one friend in this town who at least pretends to care about me.

Actually, that's likely just the Excedrin PM kicking in. You suck, Fitzgerald. And I'm moving soon, so your days of unjustly counting my awesomeness among your constituency and futilely courting my vote with your fancy-pants stationary are numbered.

But, tee hee, I'd really love to keep in touch–let's be pen pals! That way we can dot our I's with little hearts.

Everyone's a suspect - it's net neutrality!

Just when I was starting to get nostalgic for the days of using "Hi, Mr. Ashcroft!" as my e-mail signature, in the name of truth, justice and the new American way, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Roberto Gonzales have been meeting with major Internet companies to discuss the feasibility of storing data on customers' Internet use, which the Justice Department could then subpoena to fight not just the traditional child pornography and terrorism, but lawlessness in general.

While initial proposals were vague, executives from companies that attended the meeting said they gathered that the department was interested in records that would allow them to identify which individuals visited certain Web sites and possibly conducted searches using certain terms.

It also wants the Internet companies to retain records about whom their users exchange e-mail with, but not the contents of e-mail messages, the executives said. The executives spoke on the condition that they not be identified because they did not want to offend the Justice Department.

At least they're not busy slashing Homeland Security funds to actual potential targets while funneling more toward "middle America" lest they injure any state's self-esteem by declaring it not equally deserving of a terrorist attack as any other, but this isn't much more productive.

Who among us wouldn't look like a complete and utter deviant ne'er-do-well if we were being evaluated solely by our online activity?

Hell, if I had a list before me keeping a running tally of every term I've typed into Google, I would probably scan it over, then immediately head for my closet to try and figure out which shoes and accessories best compliment the orange jumpsuits at Guantanamo.

And never mind the logistical snags. For instance, sites innocuous on their own can combine to paint a highly suspicious portrait: visiting MapQuest, the Census Bureau site and this amusing supplier of custom-diseased lab animals alone would be enough to brand you a bioterrorist.

But for now, this is just a proposal. In the meantime, to protect ourselves and our nation, I think we should all begin censoring ourselves so the fine protectors of freedom in our government don't have to do it for us:

• Clear your e-mail contact list of suspicious looking addresses like "deathtoamerica @ hotmail.com" or "crazy_achmed @ gmail.com."

• Curtail your use of @:-)# and any other emoticon that could conceivably be wearing a turban and/or explosives.

• Remove from your Facebook profile any pictures of yourself suggestively posing with a piece of artillery.

• Unsubscribe from the "Friends of Hillary" e-mail list immediately. (Which you really should do anyway.)

• If you need to look up information on the finer points of weaponizing viruses or improvising bombs, skip the search engine and head for your local public library, where thanks to the renewed USA Patriot Act, your government already has the legal authority to monitor what you're reading, for your own protection.

Great, now I'm going to have nightmares

Well, that's the last time I open a usually stylish store e-mail without reading the subject line.

But 'tis for the best, because this is long overdue: Anyone who voluntarily assaults themselves and everyone else with these aesthetic abominations deserves every misfortune that ever befalls them in life, multiplied tenfold. Anti-libertarian though it may be, rubber garden clogs have no business existing in a free society. I don't care how "comfortable" they are, they make you walk like a lummox and look like you're out on a day pass from the group home, especially if you're a grown man or woman. If you're reading this and you own a pair, you're a horrible person, you sicken me and I hope you're thoroughly ashamed of yourself.

Casting the net in a pool full of scum

Amid all this incessant and grating chatter about Hillary Clinton and Al Gore tussling for the title of favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, it's nice to take a step back and realize things could be (slightly) worse.

An appropriately small group of Dutch pedophiles are apparently launching their own political party–the "Charity, Freedom and Diversity" party–in the Netherlands to push for such crucial reforms as lowering the age of consent to 12, legalizing kiddie porn (and broadcasting it on daytime TV) and decriminalizing sex with animals, while of course keeping animal "abuse" prohibited.

Yes, nations of the Middle East, this is democracy at its finest–come on, you know you want to be a part of this.

Though I adamantly contend it's just too early to engage in any educated speculation as to the next presidential candidates, if the Democratic compass keeps pointing due loser as it has been, 2008 just might be the year I throw away a vote on someone even more un-electable than the Democratic chosen one: If the Democrats run Hillary in 2008, I'm voting third party, GOP-favoring vote siphoning be damned.

I don't care if it's Ross Perot. I don't care if it's Ralph Nader. I don't care if it's fricking Ben Affleck. I'll write in a Muppet if I have to–my vote is not going to Hillary.

And according to an ABC "Now Vargas Free!" News/Washington Post poll, I'm not alone: 42 percent of respondents said they would "never" vote for Hillary. (Sadly, adding a "not even versus a pedophile" option would probably have garnered a less dramatic figure, unless of course they culled their sample from sex offender registries or MySpace profiles.)

According to that same poll, at this point Hillary has a notable edge among women, even Republican women. I swear, feminists, don't make us all regret giving women the right to vote.

Hillary Clinton is showing herself to be a politician in the most pejorative sense, and her party is acting as though it really is spineless and clueless enough to think she can win on name recognition alone, even when that name cues visceral revulsion.

And we've seen what an "electable" candidate got us in 2004. Karl Rove and his smarmy strategist kin managed to make a war hero look like an unpatriotic liar next to a draft-dodging war monger–tossing them Hillary would be like laying out an all-you-can-exsanguinate buffet.

Besides, I think many of us apathetic American youth and not-so-youth are simply tired of political "dynasties" and all their electoral inbreeding. Seriously, folks–the Clintons and the Bushes (yes, there's talk of running Jeb Bush for president in 2012 or 2016, scope out your Canadian real estate now) aren't the Kennedys.

Is there no left-leaning soul in this entire country who can inject some variation and–god forbid–enthusiasm and new ideas into the leadership? Because once again, we've all seen what rule by entitlement and settling grudges gets us.

Perhaps the pedophiles are onto something–or at least the parliamentary legislative system that theoretically indulges them is.

Just think–instead of having two parties dominating every facet of the institutionalized electoral and governing processes in this country, we'd have a legislative body made up of some Democrats, some Republicans, plus a few NRA militiamen, dirty hippies, religious kooks and representatives of every interest that currently spends billions lobbying or hogs precious media attention that can mobilze passable support.

It would be like some kind of philosophical extremist symposium (or at least a parasitic death match), with all these passionate and often conflicting interests shouting out in the open instead of trying to lure impossibly mainstream candidates into their corners with money and influence, then whining in the national spotlight to the rest of us when they inevitably don't get their way.

Who knows if anything more worthwhile would get accomplished, but whatever did would probably not be much less worthwhile.

And I could finally inspire and unite some similarly disaffected citizens by starting up a party whose main objectives are banning babies from public places, making men get annual permits to walk around shirtless (hey, anti-obesity legislation is hot right now) and replacing conventional military forces with special ops squirrel battalions to finally win the war on terrorism.

Hell, when a conservative columnist like the New York Times' John Tierney uses his Memorial Day inches to write about how one of the benefits of cheap immigrant labor is that it lets him afford more frequent manicures, the established idea well is either tapped or fatally contaminated.