Homo Insapiens

Frankly Newton, We Don't Give A Fig

2006-10-11T19:10:00.000-05:00

Isaac Newton (1643-1727) was one of the greatest scientists of all time and certainly the greatest ever born in Britain. This guy managed to figure out gravity, define the laws of motion, develop the law of cooling, understand the light was made of particles, help develop calculus, and come up with the speed of sound. Every English school kid knows that. Well, make that almost every English school kid. In fact, let’s settle for about 20% of English school kids if the government has its way.

About a month ago, the British Government set up a new science curriculum with the snappy name Twenty-First Century Science GCSE. The idea was to fix a serious problem: courses like physics, chemistry and biology are not fun; they can actually be hard work. In addition, some of the people who teach these courses are not exactly the most exciting members of faculty. A lot of them could talk a hole in the side of nuclear reactor containment building. It’s tough to get young Nigel or Sophie or almost any teen-ager to sign up for courses like Physics or Chemistry.

So, instead of forcing students to study boring science stuff, the new classes are based on discussions of ‘science in the news’. Organic Farming, Global Warming and Mobile Phone Technology are a few of the catchy new topics. You and Your Genes is sure to be a hit, Radiation and Life will come in very handy in case of a nuclear attack, and The Uses of Cannabis is expected to attract 73% of the population of Britain between the ages of 13 and 55 (a huge spur to continuing education).

Quite what all this excitement has to do with training future scientists is not clear. However, if the future of global competitiveness is based on having highly trained organic farmers who can send a text message to a bird who glows in the dark while stoned out of their minds, Britain is on to a real winner here.

Of course, (as is always the case) there are a few spoil sports who think that dumping poor old Newton and his scientific heirs is out of order. David Perks, head of physics at Graveney School, London, describes the changes as a "dumbing down" science. In a particularly small minded attack, Baroness Mary Warnock says, "Far too much teaching at school has already degenerated into this kind of debate, more suitable for the pub than the school room."

H I’s Education Editor, Montagu Bothersby, based at the Pig & Whistle, North London, reports that the comments of the Baroness have deeply offended the regulars. Barman Sid Frost said, “If darts ain’t about calculus, and having a flutter on the horses ain’t about probability, and makin’ sure I pump one square pint every time ain’t about physics, then I’m a monkey’s.”

So, as the Government proceeds to tell Mr Newton to get stuffed, there may be a back-up plan. If global competitiveness turns out to be based on who can pass a friendly evening hitting the bulls-eye, winning a few quid on the ponies, and consistently making accurate liquid measurements while getting slowly pissed, there will always be an England.

Throwing The Bums Out?

2006-10-02T19:14:00.000-05:00

As a service to American readers who think that the entire House of Representatives should be tossed out regardless of political party, H I’s resident political scientist at Big Bubba’s Bait Shop and Bar in Pungo, Virginia has drafted a letter that can be sent to any candidate running against an incumbent Member of the House.

Dear Challenger

I’m not sure exactly what you stand for but I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. If your opponent hasn’t been able to prove that you kidnapped the Lindbergh baby or founded the local chapter of the Osama Bin Laden Fan Club by now, you’re probably innocent of those things. So this letter is an IOU; on 7 November, I’ll honor my IOU by voting for you. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that as soon as you are elected you only have two years to convince me to vote for you again. If you don’t, I won’t. As far as I am concerned, the odds against you winning a second term will be 98% against you on day 1. If you want to beat those odds, there are a few things you might think about doing over the next two years.

Once a month, account for your time - nothing too elaborate, mind you. You can just list the month’s hours in a few major categories like ‘studying issues’, ‘identifying problems’, ‘setting priorities’, and ‘developing solutions’. Please provide examples of each. There is also the ‘get re-elected’ category and that’s ok. (Hint: this should not contain more than 5% of the month’s hours.)

Once a month, when Congress is in session, account for your votes. Just list every vote you did and didn’t participate in and give a brief explanation of why your position was good for the country and/or your district. (Hint: you get extra points for being brief and for not using the phrase ‘the people’s business’).

Once a month, account for what you cost – after all, it is my money. Just add up salary, benefits, perks like publicly funded travel, postage, staff and office costs, entertainment, and the rest, and divide the total by the hours worked each month. (Hint: if your hourly cost is ten times more than the average voter’s hourly income, you lose points.)

I may not agree with everything you do in the next two years, but if you account for yourself every month that just might get you another two years.

You don’t have to produce a monthly report on what you’re worth. I’ll decide that on my own.

Sincerely yours

PS: If the above all sounds too much like a real job, please let me know right away so I can skip voting this time and start working for an independent candidate for the 2008 election.

Do Not Collect $200

2006-09-28T08:23:00.000-05:00

It is important for companies to keep their products updated and the folks who own the popular game Monopoly obviously realise that. Since it was invented in 1935, the basics of Monopoly have stayed pretty much the same. Properties, hotels, utilities and railroads, trips to jail, and the colour coded currency of the game are familiar to generations of players.

As of November, that will change. The railroads will be replaced by airports. New landmarks and addresses such as Times Square, Waikiki Beach, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Rodeo Drive will appear. Monopoly money will be reissued in higher denominations. No one except peasants in Bangladesh thinks taking the trouble to ‘Pass Go’ is worth a lousy $200.

Monopoly fans have been invited to participate in this exercise and will get to vote for their favourite landmarks and where they appear on the game board. (Announcing the results of this election in November will give the 87% of Americans who couldn’t care less about which time-servers are elected to Congress something to get excited about.)

In the spirit of innovation, H I is happy to suggest a few updates to the popular Chance and Community Chest cards that make the game so much fun.

Go directly to jail or pay a lawyer $400,000 and write a book.

Take a flight from JFK and miss 93 turns waiting for take off.

You have come second in a beauty contest. Pay $17,000 for plastic surgery.

You have become a jihadi. Blow up the hotels on Times Square.

You have had a bad day. Sue the player to your left for $2,000,000.

Proceed directly to Go and collect $47.32 after taxes.

You have no imagination and six teeth. Win $150,000,000 in the lottery.

Get a permit to build a hotel on Waikiki Beach. Slip a politician $90,000 under the table.

You have been diagnosed as psychotic. Donate all your money to Scientology.

If you own both energy companies, rig the accounts and get $87,000,000,000.

You don’t have as much money as you want. Blame the player to your right.

Spill your drink and demand compensation from the banker.

What better way to have a fun family evening and introduce the kids to the lessons of modern life.

Naming Conventions

2006-09-20T16:04:00.000-05:00

Given the great issues of our times, it’s good to see the legislative and executive branches of the US government sharing the workload. The US Congress has responded by deciding to focus on the difficult challenge of naming post offices. According to the Congressional Research Service, post office naming is now the most common form of legislation. Apparently, debating whether a local post office named after Walt Disney or Frank Sinatra has a nicer ring to it affects the very future of the Republic

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has agreed to address the problem of border security head-on. The DHS has just announced the winner in a multi-billion dollar competition to get control of America’s land frontiers.

Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing all submitted proposals to fence, fortify and over-fly the Mexican border to detect and capture illegal immigrants. Lockheed Martin proposed the use of observation blimps although there was some concern that they would be mistaken for piñatas and attract several million Mexicans thinking they contained hard candies and party favours.

Raytheon’s solution included installing tens of thousands of sensors on the border hooked up to the Google Earth mapping system. It seems that border patrol agents would have been able to enter search terms such as ‘Speedy Gonzales’ or ‘Frito Bandito’ and get an immediate fix on an illegal entrant. Predictably, Northrup Grumman offered an airplane-based solution to the problem. Boeing’s winning bid proposes the construction of 1,800 border towers since it believes airplanes cost too much.

The dark horse in this competition was Swedish mobile phone maker Ericson. Doug Smith, the company’s Vice President for Governmental Solutions, says that border security comes down to a “big broad-band wireless solution”. Providing border agents with 1,000 free minutes a month to call for reinforcements was a powerful argument. Smith pointed out that “we don’t need a Star Wars-type solution here.”

If Smith is right, there is still time to reopen the bidding and give the Iraqi government a shot at the business. If a Star Wars-type solution is not what you want, the latest plan to secure the borders of their capital is a perfect fit. The Boys from Baghdad are planning to dig a 50 mile trench around the city to control who comes in and out. Here is a chance for the new government of Iraq to show their gratitude to the US for bringing the benefits of democracy to their country. If a 50 mile trench can keep Al Qaeda out of Baghdad, a 1,951 mile trench along the US-Mexican border is an obvious answer to keeping assorted gardeners, hotel maids and Mariachi bands out of Arizona and New Mexico.

Of course, a ditch separating the United States and Mexico might be considered a bit too low-tech by the DHS. The Iraqis might want to consider a joint proposal with Perrier, Evian or Pellegrino. $2 billion should be enough to dig the new ditch and fill it with water, providing a critical line of defence for America.

The new watery ditch could also provide an opportunity for the US Congress to focus their attention on border security and do what they do best. They could name the new ditch. Rio Grande has a nice ring to it.

The Rule Of Law

2006-09-15T07:06:00.000-05:00

It looks as if Sudan is finally responding to international pressure to respond to civilized norms and to improve its record on human rights. The Sudanese National Commission for International Humanitarian Law has just announced an agreement to work with the International Committee of the Red Cross “with a view to ensuring that the rules of humanitarian law are duly incorporated into domestic legislation.”

Of course, skeptics will question whether the Khartoum government is serous about joining the Axis of Niceness or getting their legal system up to the level of North Korea or Zimbabwe. Restarting a 21 year-old civil war in the south of the country and murdering 200,000 people in Darfur does present a bit of a public relations problem. These guys have even managed to get Kofi Annan upset with them and The Kofer has threatened to call for a UN Commission to Worry About Sudan as soon as the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Santa Lucia is completed in 2009.

In order to counter accusations that the Sudanese legal system is out of step with modern jurisprudence, the boys from Khartoum only have to point to the case of Mr Alifi’s goat.

Mr Tombe, a neighbour, apparently noticed that Mr Alifi had a goat (there is no claim that Mr Tombe actually said “ee-i-ee-i-o”). There is a claim, however, that Mr Tombe got to know the goat in question in the Biblical sense

According to Mr Alifi, he heard a loud noise around midnight on 13 February and rushed outside to investigate. He claims, "When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up". Having discovered the accused in the act of goatus interruptus, Mr Alifi did what any law-abiding citizen would do; he decided to let the law take its course. As a result, Mr Tombe has a new wife and Mr Alifi has pocketed a very nice dowry. It is not clear if the goat has gotten used to wearing a burkha yet. "We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together," Mr Alifi said.

Sources in H I’s Sudan Bureau at the Khartoum Khorner Khebab Shoppe in the Kentish Town Road, North London have revealed additional facts about this case. It is claimed that Mr Tombe decided to have his way with the goat because Mr Alifi’s camel had a headache. At the trial, Mr Tombe was offered the choice of marrying the goat or becoming a suicide bomber. After being informed that he could not substitute 72 sheep for the standard 72 virgins after he arrived in paradise, he agreed to make an honest goat out of the goat. Speaking through a translator, a good natured Mr Tombe said, “it’s not all that bad…most of the women in this village are real dogs.”

The Speaker of the Arab Parliament, Mohammad Jassem Al-Saqer, has urged the UN not to enforce resolution 1706 which calls for an international peace keeping force to prevent genocide in Sudan’s Darfur province. He may have a point.

After all, mass murder, forced migration, starving millions, lack of medical services, and the total destruction of all means of life support might not be pretty to watch. But how can anyone really get upset with a country that makes it illegal to get someone’s goat?

Physician, Do No Harm

2006-09-10T08:19:00.000-05:00

There is some argument about whether Hippocrates was born in 470 or 460 BC in Ancient Greece. But there is no doubt that he is the guy who came up with the Hippocratic Oath. That’s the promise that doctors have been making for over 2,500 years: to follow a professional code of conduct, to work for the good of their patients, to avoid violating the morals of their community, and to do no harm. That is, until the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services got into the act.

It seems that this outfit paid out $275 million last year to get doctors to assess elderly Medicare patients’ reactions to chemotherapy. For an extra $130 per visit, reactions like pain, fatigue and nausea were included in the evaluation and then reported on. Apparently pain, fatigue and nausea assessments are optional extras; for an extra $130 your physical examination can be super sized! Unfortunately for the Medicare patients, their share of this cost was $26. Unfortunately for US taxpayers, the government’s share was $104. Fortunately for the doctors, the odd $130 can add up to more than a golf club membership if you upgrade enough of those bothersome office appointments to examinations.

About 90% of eligible health care providers went along with this idea and the average provider earned a cool $23,000 from the Feds for noticing that Mrs Goldfarb was in agony and throwing up in the waiting room before collapsing on the little practice putting machine in the office. The top ten noticers pocketed more than $270,000 and one Hippocratic heir in Kansas picked up $507,563. This would be a nifty idea if the results of all this noticing and assessing and reporting were actually worth anything.

Unfortunately, Daniel Levinson, Inspector General of the US Department of Health and Human Services reported “numerous gaps and anomalies in the data and collection methods”. In a strong defence of the medical profession, after reviewing the programme, the Congressional Medical Advisory Commission reported that “Most oncologists did not believe it would lead to quality improvements for patients or produce any useful research findings”. The Commission did not report on how many little practice putting machines were saved from irreparable damage.

All is not lost. After all, Bill Frist, (Republican-Tennessee) the majority leader of the US Senate, is a doctor and he can surely get to the bottom of this story. High ranking Congressional sources assure H I that Bill will use his extensive medical background to review this sordid tale as soon as he has convinced Tennessee not to lift his medical license. What with all the pressures of spending $275 million on gathering useless research findings and diagnosing brain dead Floridians based on looking at home movies, Bill has not had the time to meet the state’s continuing education requirements for physicians. As soon as the Senator wraps up his presidential campaign, there should be plenty of time to get caught up. In the meantime, there is a huge demand for his medical skills. The United States is full of people who are suffering from pain, nausea and fatigue at the thought of Senator Frist running for President.

Alas, there is no record that Hippocrates ever ran for public office. It would have been handy if he had come up with an oath that said Politician, Do No Harm.

Is It Or Isn't It?

2006-09-02T12:34:00.000-05:00

In a disturbing update to H I’s exclusive coverage of the recent meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague, it appears that the issue of whether Pluto is a full fledged planet is not settled. Charges of ‘bad science’, ‘national self-interest’ and ‘election fraud’ are swirling around the IAU.

On the last day of the meeting, 424 of the 2,500 delegates showed up to vote to change Pluto’s status to ‘dwarf planet’. Apparently the rest of the delegates were sleeping off hangovers in the Czech beer capital. In their absence, the insurgent ‘dynamicist’ faction passed a controversial definition of a planet that had the effect of an asteroid hitting the earth. They decided that a planet is “a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit." The opposition ‘planetary geologist’ faction has gone into its own orbit.

NASA immediately launched a withering attack on the ‘rigged vote’. The US New Horizons mission to Pluto is about 6 months into a nine and a half year flight to study what it thinks is a planet. A high ranking NASA source told H I, “Imagine driving 30 miles to a really nice restaurant only to find out that it’s a McDonalds. Besides, half the people who live in trailer parks in Alabama fit that stupid definition.” It is reported that the White House is considering sending the 101st Airborne Division in to restore democracy to the IAU.

Athanasios Stavrodopolous, of Athens’ Asteroskopeio Dimotikos observatory, immediately demanded €50 billion compensation from the EU. “Pluto is a Greek god and this is a question of national honour. Believe me, Greece will not sell its national honour for less, or certainly not for much less!” Italy responded by threatening to mobilize the marching band of its Astronautica Gloriana Division to defend the Roman god Jupiter.

Defending the Dynamicist position, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a specialist in neutron stars from Northern Ireland, urged the opposition “to look on the bright side”. Apparently even dwarf planets have bright sides. Mickey O’Leary, president of PIRA (Provisional Irish Republican Astronomers) responded ‘Fawk dat, never surrender!” He announced that PIRA was considering a bombing campaign against the Jodrell Bank radio telescope in the UK.

Michael Brown, who started this controversy by discovering a ‘new planet’ called 2003 UB313 was philosophical about the results of the election. “I may go down in history as the guy who killed Pluto.” He was very relieved however, that the other Michael Brown would go down in history as the guy who killed New Orleans.

There is obviously a need for another election. Perhaps Jimmy Carter can be persuaded to observe it. Perhaps the Planetary Geologists Party can stay sober long enough to vote. Or perhaps everyone can agree to let Pat Robertson decide the answer. After all, he is the person who discovered that the entire universe is only 8,257 years old.

You Say Potato

2006-08-28T13:21:00.000-05:00

People planning to travel in the USA will be disappointed to learn that they have missed the 6th World Potato Congress in Boise, Idaho (20-26 August, 2006). It’s back to the same old boring itinerary of Disney World, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion until next year’s World Potato Congress takes centre stage.

The week-long event was organised by the National Potato Research and Education Foundation of McLean, Virginia. The foundation’s headquarters is nestled in the rolling northern Virginia countryside, near the home of the US Central Intelligence Agency. Perhaps that explains the excitement about this year’s demonstration of the new Potato Predator. This unmanned drone airplane can transmit aerial photographs of potato fields to help in spotting enemies such as spot weed and potato blight. (H I is unable to confirm rumours that the Potato Predator can also spot large groups of terrorists assembling in potato fields and target them with air-to-ground missiles.)

An exciting highlight of the 2006 programme was the series of expert panels on topics designed to appeal to visitors young and old. Audiences went wild during Global Forces Pushing Potatoes into the 21st Century, Potato Tuber Moth - An Invasive Pest of Global Proportions, and New Options for Sprout Inhibition. These guys really know how to stage an event.

As a service to readers, H I has obtained a partial programme of next year’s World Potato Congress:

Mr Potato Head: Master of Disguise in the War On Broccoli

Chips versus Crisps and the Anglo-American Special Relationship

Do New Potatoes Deserve Our Sympathy?

German Potato Salad and the Other Origins of the Franco-Prussian War

Potatoes and Obesity: A Study in Vegetarian Discrimination

Boiled, Baked and Fried – Thresholds of Pain

The Irish Potato Famine and the Spread of Roman Catholicism

The Diary of a Southern Sweet Potato in President Lincoln’s Kitchen Cabinet

Pommes Frites: Belgium’s Lasting Contribution to Western Civilization

Readers are encouraged to book early for the 7th World Potato Congress. Hotel rooms in Boise, Idaho are limited and the promised demonstration of the satellite guided, laser powered potato weevil death-ray weapon is sure to draw huge crowds.

From Pillar To Post

2006-08-24T07:34:00.000-05:00

Several universities in Great Britain have caused a bit of a kerfuffle by announcing that more ‘traditional’ subjects are a better preparation for higher education. Cambridge has said students should study those subjects if they want to be ‘realistic’ applicants. Apparently Manchester University and the London School of Economics are saying the same thing: courses such as Media Studies, Health and Social Care, and Performing Arts are a bit ‘soft’ in the competition for places.

Of course, many traditional subjects are no longer taught at any level in the UK. Some are simply not of practical use to anyone. These include Latin, Colonial Administration and Anglican Theology. Others are out of step with 21st Century Britain. Amongst these are, Agriculture, English as a First Language and Parliamentary Democracy. It’s lucky that a few of the traditional subjects like Maths and Physics are still on offer. At least someone will be able to deal with PiP.

Pricing in Proportion (PiP) is the new system for determining the Royal Mail’s delivery charges. This exciting new plan is based on the weight and size of the item to be posted. For first class, it couldn’t be simpler. If something is up to 240 mm long, 165 mm wide, 5 mm thick, and weighs no more than 100 grams, it’s a letter. If it’s up to 353 mm long, 250 mm wide, 25mm thick and weighs up to 750 grams, it’s a large letter. If it’s either longer than 353 mm, wider than 250 mm, thicker than 25 mm, or weighs more than 750 grams, it’s a packet. (If it’s any bigger or heavier than that, it’s too bloody awkward and the unionised postal workers won’t shift it in any case, so bugger off, mate.)

The sharp consultant types at the Royal Mail say that the system works very well in countries like Germany and Singapore. It appears that they may have overlooked something however. Between emails and text messaging, the only people who still send letters are over 65 and they still think there are 12 pence to the shilling and that millimetres and grams are used by Huns and Johnny Foreigner. It could be argued that the sharp consultant types who thought this up are 7 mm thicker than the back of an axe.

The queues in the local sub-post office as the patient, overworked and friendly staff member (who was probably born in Bangalore) tries to explain the metric system to dear old Mrs Mavis Witter will make check-in at Heathrow look like a choreographed ballet.

Of course, PiP may be a real benefit to Heathrow Airport as well. All carry-on articles have to be contained in a single sized bag. If it’s up to 450 mm long, 350 mm wide and 160 mm deep, it’s a carry-on bag. If it’s bigger than that, it isn’t. All the complexity and frustration of checking in for a flight can be put in perspective.

British Airports Authority has an opportunity for a real public relations coup here. When some stroppy passenger complains about the new baggage rules there’s an obvious answer. Passengers will surely be more cooperative when they are reminded, ‘Oi, Sunshine! Have you tried posting a letter lately?’

Blessed Are The Peacekeepers

2006-08-20T08:24:00.000-05:00

By agreeing to United Nations Resolution 1701, the world body decided to send 15,000 troops to Lebanon to enforce the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. A highly placed source in the UN Food and Beverage Secretariat reports that the nations of the world are engaged in a frenzied attempt to put the new force together. According to H I’s informant, “These guys are going through Château Petrus ’85 and caviar canapés like the world depends on it”. Happily for global peace, the UN is making real progress.

Bangladesh has made an offer of 2,000 if someone can provide transportation. Malaysia and Indonesia have offered 1,000 each as long as they don’t not have to recognise that Israel exists. Nepal has offered 1,000 so that some of their soldiers can get a break from their own civil war. Italy may kick in 3,000 after the August holiday season, and Germany has offered to despatch its naval forces to keep Hezbollah’s aircraft carriers bottled up in Beirut harbour. Discussions are being held with forty-five other countries from Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia to see if they can send troops. There are also parallel negotiations underway for the dispatch of 35,000 translators to the region so that the basic rules of operation can be sorted out. The world is not ready for an armed conflict between Ecuador and Lithuania over who gets to park their tank in the shade.

At least it looks like the overall command of this powerful new force for peace is in place. With an impressive contribution of 200 troops, France has accepted the challenge. General Jean Pierre Vauban-Maginot, spokesman for President Chirac, said, “as ze leading countray in ze wearld, France ees raddy to mak zees hoffair”. Shortly after the General’s comments, the UN announced that they were considering increasing the number of translators. The United States Congress sent a strong message of support to President Chirac by officially changing the name of ‘freedom fries’ back to ‘french fries’. President Bush was quoted as saying, “if Jacks and the rest of those countries take care of Hizbuller, I can take care of that Almajonnybob fella in Iran. And it’s good to see a South American country like Nepal steppin’ up to the plate.”

Of course the world should not be carried away with a false sense of optimism. The actual rules of engagement for the UN force have not been defined. The prospect of 15,000 guys in blue helmets and who speak 53 different languages wandering around a war zone looking for a place to buy a carpet or get a shag is a bit daunting. And if the Château Petrus ’85 runs out back at headquarters, Kofi may wind up talking to an empty room. Luckily there may be a back-up plan.

There is one country that has experience in sorting out the complex issues of the Middle East since 1095. No one has had the nerve to attack them in over 400 years. Their army has been constantly training since 1506 and was originally composed of 15,000 soldiers. It may be time to bring in the Vatican. The uniforms of the Swiss Guard make those blue helmets look like camouflage gear. Every document they ever handled is in the library so they must still have the plans for the crusades. None of their troops are Jewish or Muslim and they all speak the same language – Latin.

The Vatican might go for this plan. After all, if anyone has a shot at being a blessed peacekeeper, they have the inside track.

Hold The Pizza, Hold The Pie

2006-08-16T09:38:00.000-05:00

Whether you learned as a child to say ‘My very excellent mother just sent us nine pizzas’, ‘My very educated mother just sent us nine pies’, or some other equally nonsensical phrase, it was all about the handy use of a mnemonic. This particular mnemonic is used to help children remember the names of the planets in the order of their position from the sun. Of course, every 248 years Neptune drifts out past Pluto for 20 years before returning to its assigned spot; but 20 years out of 248 is not worth worrying about. Perhaps that’s why ‘My very excellent mother just sent us nine pizzas…extra oregano, pepperoni, anchovies, no sausage, peppers’ (except occasionally Pluto and Neptune switch places) never caught on. A good mnemonic can only take you so far. In any case, mum may want to hold off on ordering pizza or baking nine apple pies. The International Astronomical Union is about to demote Pluto from being a first class planet.

Almost three thousand astronomers are meeting in Prague for 12 days to test the effects of pilsner beer on telescope aiming and to decide the status of Pluto. Just like pilsner, this controversy has been brewing for some time. As they say down at the Budvar brewery, the discovery of a new and bigger object orbiting the sun about three times further away than poor old Pluto has brought the issue to a head. Michael Brown, of the California Institute of Technology, found the new wannabe planet and the fun loving guys at the IAU named it ‘2003 UB313’. The IMU (International Mnemonic Union) has spent 6 months in a Dublin saloon trying to work that into mum’s care package.

At first everybody ridiculed the idea of a new planet out there; but when the IAU realised that this particular Michael Brown was not the guy who managed the New Orleans hurricane response, everyone came around. There’s a good chance that the new arrival discovered by Brown, Pluto, and two other chunks of rock named Ceres and Charon will get lumped together in a new category called ‘dwarfs’. So it looks as if we’ll wind up with eight ‘classical planets’ and four also-rans.

Pluto is (or was, as the case may be) the only classical planet discovered by an American. Back in 1930, good old Clyde Tombaugh of Kansas discovered the little object after spending years looking at photographs of the sky. Photographs of the sky are really interesting compared to photographs of the earth if you are in Kansas. If Pluto is demoted, Mr Tombaugh takes a bit if a hit. Perhaps 2003 UB313 can be named ‘Brown’ to keep the Americans sweet on this deal. (Walt Disney already used the really neat dwarf names anyway; and a planet called Grumpy or Dopey lacks a certain scientific aura.)

This whole thing is now too complicated to teach to wide-eyed first graders. It’s time to move Solar System Studies to the high school curriculum. H I’s astronomy reporter, Bambi Van Allen, reports that the guys from the IMU are going through astronomical amounts of Guinness down at Cafferty’s Saloon in Dublin trying to come up with a meaningful mnemonic to help teenagers remember Ceres, Charon, Pluto and, possibly, Brown. Barman Seamus Finnegan said, ‘dey almost wrecked the feckin’ place arugin’ over UB 313. Dat’s a shite name if you ask me.’

Happily, at least the IMU has agreed on new aide memoire that teens can relate to for the eight classical planets: ‘My very exhausted mother just slipped us nembutol’.

War Of The Words

2006-08-11T09:06:00.000-05:00

In 1939, David O Selznick released Gone With The Wind and the US Civil War was defined for generations of Americans. It would seem that after over 65 years there would not be much disagreement on what a civil war is, but that definition is once again being challenged by critics and defenders of the Iraq adventure.

The critics point to the fact that Sunni and Shiite Muslins are killing each other at a rate of several hundred a day. They are blowing up each other’s mosques, businesses and homes, and invading each other’s territory. The defenders of America’s current policy dispute that a civil war is underway. US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld points out that “Iraq isn’t in a classic civil war at this stage…certainly it isn’t like our civil war…”

H I has managed to obtain a copy of the briefing paper that Secretary Rumsfeld requested to settle once and for all whether there is a civil war going on in Iraq:

To: Sec Def

The Pentagon, Washington DC

On the surface it’s easy for your critics to assume that there is a Civil War in Iraq. Iraqis are deeply divided and Sunnis and Shiites are killing each other every chance they get. Cities are under siege and bands of fast moving raiders are staging bloody hit and run attacks. But that’s where the similarity stops.

If you look deeper, it’s clear that there is no Civil War in Iraq. No one is wearing blue or grey uniforms and the southerners from down Basra way don’t own a single slave. Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army does not refer to him as ‘Stonewall Sadr’ and there are no Delta Force reports that they ever sit around a fire at night singing ‘Dixie’.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the former Prime Minister, has never been called ‘Honest Ib’. NSA analysis of satellite imagery of the country clearly shows that Falujah does not look anything like Gettysburg from the air and no stern wheel riverboats have been observed on either the Tigris or Euphrates rivers.

Perhaps the most important reason that events in Iraq should not be defined as a Civil War is that everybody, whether they are from the south or the north, hates Yankees.

We suggest that you say, ‘Iraq isn’t in a classic civil war at this stage…certainly it isn’t like our civil war…’ with full confidence.

PS: If anyone asks when we will able to withdraw our troops from Iraq, the current Joint Chiefs of Staff estimate is four score and seven years.

H I’s Wolf Scarlett has taken a poll of Iraqis in Baghdad as to whether they think they are in a civil war. Ninety seven per cent responded, ‘Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn’.

Off The Road Again

2006-08-06T11:04:00.000-05:00

After an extended and intensive bout of travel to investigate breaking news stories and visit the world’s troubled hot spots, it appears as if the editorial staff of H I will be safely ensconced back in Big Bubba’s Bait Shop and Bar in Pungo, Virginia for a while. It has been a harrowing experience to be in London, Madrid, Salamanca, Dusseldorf, Darmstadt, Ottawa and San Diego. Luckily, emergency rations of gin were available in all these exotic ports of call.

If you really want harrowing, however, the destination is not important. Whether it’s a week in Afghanistan or a weekend in Buffalo when the Miss Teen America pageant is in town, being there is not nearly as harrowing as getting there. H I has had the opportunity to travel with Virgin Atlantic, Iberia, Easy Jet, Air Berlin, US Air and Southwest Airlines in the past two months. The Warsaw Convention may govern the way passengers’ baggage is treated but the Geneva Convention obviously does not govern the way the passengers are treated. Travelling in Europe is marginally more acceptable as you don’t have to take your shoes off for the security inspection and the cabin crews don’t have names like Lance and Misty. Travelling in the US is marginally less acceptable.

The US airline industry has adopted the ‘hub and spoke model’. Unless you are travelling from one city with a population of more than four million to another city with a population of more than four million, you have to stop at a city with a population of less than one million. It is not necessary for this intermediate stop to be in the general direction of travel.

These intermediate stops are useful for testing the effects of micro-waved pizza on human beings and allow the members of the Golden Years Travel Club of Des Moines, Iowa to attach additional city decals to their carry on baggage. They also have the potential of enhancing the nation’s homeland security by eliminating the need to send terrorists to Saudi Arabia for questioning. Any fanatical jihadi would tell all after five hours waiting for a connecting flight in Philadelphia.

The other model the US airline industry has adopted is ‘no frills’ food. Southwest Airlines has apparently gotten this down to a science. On flights lasting more than four hours, passengers are provided with little boxes of ‘snacks’ that have obviously been purchased from the United Nations Refugee Agency. Apparently it is spiritually uplifting for Southwest passengers to share the ‘no frills food experience’ with the residents of Darfur. Veteran Southwest passengers have developed a strategy to deal with this situation. They bring enough soft drinks, sandwiches, pizza slices, fruit, processed cheeses, energy bars, cookies, crisps, and packaged salads to feed the population of their departure city. By the end of the flight, Lance and Misty are dragging massive plastic rubbish bags down the aisle collecting the food wrappers, drinks cans, leftovers, bits of lettuce, crusts of bread, and the odd slice of pepperoni. (This haul of supplies is undoubtedly recycled back to the United Nations Refugee Agency.)

Travel may broaden the mind and enrich the spirit, but if it were not for the commitment to journalism and the salutary effects of gin, H I might stay permanently in Big Bubba’s Bait Shop and Bar in Pungo, Virginia. In any event, columns will resume forthwith.

Time Travel

2006-05-28T03:07:00.000-05:00

With the increasing appeal of exotic vacations, it was a sure thing that someone would come up with the idea of travelling back in time to a remote destination. In the great contest to see who can tell the most boring stories about their holiday (complete with 11,739 photos), Mr Sergei Zimov has come up with an idea that guarantees to have family and friends begging for mercy. Mr Zimov is offering the chance to go back to the Pleistocene Period and spend a happy holiday in Yakutia, Siberia.

The Pleistocene Period dates from about 1.85 million to about 11,550 years ago. That should be enough to upstage your neighbour’s four-hour soliloquy on how Stonehenge was built. At a lousy 4,000 years, visiting Stonehenge is not much more impressive than visiting a 37-year old motorway service area. Outdoing your brother-in-law, who likes to bang on about his Caribbean cruise, is just as easy. Going to Yakutia makes going to Jamaica about as exciting as going to the corner shop.

In order to create this truly unique tourist attraction, Sergei plans to populate his 194,000 acre Lenskiye Stolby Nature Park with animals that lived there during the Paleolithic Age. He has released several hundred wild horses and brought in a herd of Siberian musk oxen. Canada has donated 30 bison to replace the local herds that died off about 5,000 years ago. But the real attractions will be the woolly mammoths.

Japanese scientists are busily working on cloning one of these extinct animals using DNA from ancient frozen remains. Apparently, Chief Scientist Dr Mokimoto Yakimori is optimistic based on his successful work on the Godzilla project. As a backup plan, defrosted woolly mammoth sperm may be used to impregnate an Indian elephant to recreate the species through breeding. A prehistoric, ten ton animal that looks like an elephant in a floor-length fur coat, and that can stand on two legs on a little platform, and dive into a tank of water, should be a real crowd pleaser.

A holiday at Lenskiye Stolby Nature Park should appeal to everyone. For sun lovers, in the two-week summer it gets hot enough to melt the asphalt on the roads. But for people who like it a bit cooler, Yakutia is really a treat. The coldest temperature on earth was recorded there in 1885: - 68.5C. That’s -98.3F in real degrees. It’s normal for the local lakes and rivers to freeze solid all the way to the bottom in the winter, and there is year-round permafrost.

As if wandering around 194,000 acres of frozen tundra to catch a view of a musk ox is not enough, side trips can be arranged to the many Siberian slave labour camps that were built in the area. Getting there couldn’t be easier either. Domodedovo Airlines offers several scheduled flights on their comfy Ilyushin 62-M’s and 96-300’s. The airline guarantees that all parts falling off their airplanes are of the finest Soviet-era craftsmanship. (For flight bookings simply type in Домодедовские Авиајіинии on Priceline or Orbitz.) Sergei certainly knows how to market a tourist package.

So the next time some obnoxious bore starts talking about his vacation as if it were as exciting as a holiday in Jurassic Park, just tell him that real men go to Pleistocene Park. With any luck, the hypothermia will get him, Domodedovo Airlines will get him, or Dumbo the flying woolly mammoth will get him.

On The Road Again

2006-05-13T20:42:00.000-05:00

It’s time for H I to move the editorial offices back across the pond. It would be easy to say that this is just a jolly in Europe, but thanks to Ali Gomaa, and the city council of Ecija, Spain, there is work to be done. After all, saving mankind’s cultural heritage is more important than a holiday.

Ali Gomaa is the Grand Mufti of Egypt. Most Grand Muftis stay busy issuing fatwas about normal religious questions and problems. Between announcing edicts on stoning women to death, decapitating infidels, and organising riots, being a GM is a tough job. The paperwork is a killer. Luckily, the internet helps with the workload. Islam Online, a popular 21st Century website aimed at the 14th Century web-savvy market segment, has a really nifty fatwa section for those everyday religious questions. If you want to know what to do on your wedding night when she finally takes off the tarpaulin, just log on to Fatwas-R-Us. If there’s a question on whether it’s ok to blow up a Starbucks for messing up the triple macchiato order, the answer is just a click away. But for those really tricky questions, there’s nothing like having a real live Grand Mufti.

Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa of Egypt has come up with an idea that makes Pat Robertson sound rational. He has decided that all the statues in Egypt have to go. Since people have been putting up statues in Egypt for about 7,000 years, the statue inventory is pretty impressive. Between Egyptian gods, Greek gods, and Roman gods, just about every museum, city park, and tourist trap is full of statues.

In response to this threat to some of the world’s great cultural heritage assets, H I is mounting a campaign to save Osiris. If any Egyptian god deserves to have his statues saved it’s this one. As the ancient historian Diodorus said, "Wherever a country did not permit the culture of the vine, there Osiris taught the people how to brew the beverage which is made of barley.” The Big O was the god of beer.

The Save Osiris campaign gets off to its official start on Monday when H I moves its headquarters back to the Pig & Whistle in North London. An appropriate statue of the old boy will be set up in a place of honour next to the dartboard. Massive quantities of the new special guest beer Gift of Osiris ESB will be consumed in protest and all profits from the sale of salt and vinegar crisps will be donated to AGGS (Ali Gomaa Get Stuffed). .

H I is also monitoring news from Ecija, Spain regarding the destruction of the ancient Roman City of Colonia Augusta Firmi Astigi to build a municipal car park. It appears that it will be necessary to go on to Spain to launch a campaign to honour Bacchus, Roman God of wine. (Although saving the world’s cultural heritage is a daunting task, at least in this case there should be good parking close to a decent bar.)

Given the critical need to devote significant time to saving Osiris and Bacchus, there may be some interruption in publishing updates to H I for several weeks. Subscribers to H I will continue to get alerts on new columns. All readers can show their support for these two campaigns by dramatically increasing their intake of beer and wine.

Spray Misty For Me

2006-05-09T11:35:00.000-05:00

You have to hand it to the pharmaceutical industry. Every company dreams of coming up with completely new ways of making money from its products, but the drug companies have figured out how to accomplish that in spades. If you are in the business of curing disease, you can never have enough of them. A healthy supply of diseases makes for a healthy cash flow. It’s a bit like the police recruiting and training criminals. Having a goodly supply of felons, cutthroats, and assorted miscreants helps the constabulary to grow and prosper.

Since the old, reliable diseases cannot be depended on for future earnings, new ailments are important. Rickets, scurvy, scarlet fever, ague, and the vapours are not the cash cows they used to be. Thankfully for investors, the guys in the disease lab are good at staying one step ahead of the guys in the cures lab. Between attention deficit disorder (ADD), restless leg syndrome (RLS), Male Erectile Dysfunction (MED), and the rest, just about everyone needs a dose of something. It was just a matter of time before FHC became the focus of attention.

Palatin Technologies of New Jersey, and scientists at Concordia University, Canada, have come up with PT-141; a nasal spray that gets people in the mood for a shag. Getting men in the mood for a shag is not actually a major scientific breakthrough. A short treatment of beer often solves the problem and, in severe cases, twenty minutes of web surfing or paging through a Victoria’s Secret catalogue is usually efficacious. For men with a serious, shag threatening condition, there’s always Viagra. The real breakthrough is that sniffing a bit of PT-141 seems to cure women with FHC: Frequent Headache Complaint. According to Palatin, with a quick snort of this stuff, a woman is not only able but also willing. At least that’s how the rats behave.

In experiments with female rats, Dr Jim Phaus of Concordia noted that test subjects immediately started wiggling their ears, slapping males in the face, and generally acting like wantons. The effects of PT-141 are virtually instantaneous and after a quick spritz, the rat lab immediately took on the appearance of a house of horizontal recreation in Bangkok.

More work is required to ensure that the new wonder drug is effective on human females. Dr Selim Celik, of the University College London says, “It’s acting on the brain, and we don’t know how female sexual behaviour is regulated in the brain.” (It’s a sure bet the answer is more than male sexual behaviour is regulated in the brain.) Part of the challenge will be to eliminate the side effects currently seen in the female rats. Wiggling the ears followed by slapping some guy in the face might be misinterpreted, particularly in a singles bar or local biker hang-out.

Palatin Technologies may have a real winner here. Even if some women are not interested in nasally induced nookie, a lot of men might pay top price for a spray can of this stuff. What is a 20-minute meaningful relationship worth these days? The overall economic impact could be huge. If millions of people are sniffing and shagging, it’s a sure thing that the demand for pizza and cigarettes will skyrocket. That’s really good for the spread of heart disease and lung cancer and, after all, finding cures is almost as profitable as finding diseases.

Where In The World

2006-05-04T12:28:00.000-05:00

According to National Geographic, younger Americans are not too savvy when it comes to knowing their geography. A recent poll of 18-24 year olds produced worrying evidence of geographic illiteracy. The survey asked a series of questions about the countries and peoples of the world. The results have called into question the effectiveness of the 20-minute lesson plan on geography most American students are exposed to in their 12 year mandatory educational careers.

Finding Pakistan and Afghanistan on a map proved to be difficult. The latter was missed by 88% of those polled. (In fairness, between Pakistan, Afghanistan, Waziristan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan, this is a tough assignment. Grouping them all together and labelling the territory Trashcanistan might have helped.)

Thanks to Wal-Mart, seven in ten found China on a map, however 10% thought Sudan is in Europe. This is considered a forgivable error as 93% of people who have ever visited London think the same thing. A majority of those questioned could not find the Pacific Ocean. The lack of recognizable landmarks makes that a particularly tough task. Surprisingly, even with all the news coverage, 67% cannot find Iraq and 33% failed to locate Louisiana, much less New Orleans. Luckily, the US Government has a plan to make Iraq easier to find.

The new US embassy being built in Baghdad will be a useful landmark. In fact, aliens from outer space will be able to spot it without leaving their home planet. Although construction has so far eaten up $1 billion, there is only $1.3 billion to go before the grand opening. This will be the biggest embassy on the globe. The 104 acre site is being surrounded by a 15 foot thick impenetrable wall which should prevent deliriously happy Iraqis from tossing troublesome bouquets of flowers into the grounds. There will be office space for 8,000 staff members, 619 one-bedroom flats, the largest swimming pool in Iraq, barber and beauty shops, a shopping mall and a food court. Just to make sure that the embassy provides a beacon of hope to the Middle East, there will be self contained water, electricity and sewage plants built to US standards. There’s nothing like inviting a few locals over for a hot shower to provide a beacon of hope.

At least this complex, which is about two-thirds the size of the National Mall in Washington, DC, will raise the morale of the dedicated State Department employees who work there. They have to agree to spend a whole year in Baghdad (minus the vacation every three months and the two trips back to the States). That leaves ample time to try all the fast-food joints in the food court and get a couple of hair cuts. Clearly, a new phase in US-Iraqi relations is planned as the diplomats replace the troops.

The government might be able to use this idea to put New Orleans back on the map as well. Providing reliable water, electricity and sewage facilities might perk up morale. The parts of town above the flood line could be filled with new flats, shopping malls, swimming pools and food courts. Surrounding the place with a 15 foot thick impenetrable wall would also help.

In the meantime, the strip-joints have been reopened in the French Quarter, 24-hour drinking is back, and the party is on. Clearly a new phase in New Orleans-visitor relations is planned as the bartenders replace the troops. National Geographic should be happy to know that the map reading skills of the 18-24 crowd are expected to improve dramatically.

Children Playing Tag

2006-04-30T08:09:00.000-05:00

There’s nothing like a nifty new scientific or technical development to start a fight. Biometric identification makes the civil rights activists mad. Cloning has the medical ethicists screaming at each other. Genetically modified crops enrage the whole-earthers, and nuclear power drives the anti-glow-in-the-dark crowd nuts. As if there were not enough arguing and protesting going on already, a new development has emerged that has the ability to start another war. RFID Tags have arrived.

Radio frequency identification tags are very small devices that can receive and respond to signals and can be attached to or embedded in products, animals, and people. The really powerful RFID’s are battery powered. When inserted in products, they can transmit all kinds of nifty information needed for shipping, sale, maintenance, and disposal of an item. When inserted in animals they can help find lost pets, ensure breeding information, and track herds. When inserted in people thy can provide medical background information, ensure identity, and help find missing drunks. These little devices are showing up everywhere and transmitting all sorts of information to all sorts of people, companies, and government organisations. Let the warfare begin.

The big retailers like RFID Tags a lot. Wal-mart in the US, and Marks and Spencer in the UK are planning to tag everything they sell. Albrecht Von Truchsess, of the German retailer Metro Group, is really excited about tags. He says, “RFID really brings a revolution to everything that is transported from one point to another, and in the future you will have it really on everything.” One can imagine Herr Von Truchsess calling all the items in the frozen food section to attention for an identity check. “Achtung! You vill tell us who you are und vere you came from! We haff vays of making you transmit!”

On the other side, consumer groups are concerned that too much information will be put in the wrong hands and that the tags will happily keep transmitting long after the customer buys the product. Apparently, the risk that a rogue pair of boxer shorts will report in from the laundry basket is a concern.

Viviane Reding, of Luxembourg, EU Commissioner for information society and media, is also upset. As she warns, “A new technology that is bound to multiply by 10 to 15 times in the next coming years in numbers of sales will not fly…” Luckily, fire, the wheel, flush toilets, the light bulb, and gin were all invented before Madame Reding became an EU Commissioner.

If you want really intense concern and upset however, there is only one group to turn to: Christian fundamentalists. They are worried that RFID tags will be implanted in people and evolve into the mark of the beast. Pretty soon everyone will be transmitting 666 and it will be the end of the world. Katherine Albrecht, author of The Spychips Threat: Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance, says, “My goal as a Christian is to sound the alarm.”

With so many fundamentalist Christians sounding so many alarms, Katherine might need a little help in getting her alarm heard. It might help her to sound this particular alarm if someone inserted a really powerful RFID transmitter in Ms Albrecht. Inserting the batteries is another thought altogether.

What's In A Label?

2006-04-25T08:16:00.000-05:00

In its unflagging dedication to customer satisfaction, Big Bubba's Bait Shop and Bar in Pungo, Virginia has installed new, padded bar stools. US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should be pleased.

The new bar stools fall under laws that require labels on upholstered furniture, mattresses, pillows, duvets, comforters, stuffed dolls, and teddy bears. In the US, unless it's a turkey or a piñata, if it's stuffed it gets a label certifying the safety and cleanliness of the contents. The Commonwealth of Virginia employs Bedding and Upholstered Furniture Inspectors to make sure the labels are properly applied. Although they report to State Bedding and Furniture Inspection Supervisors rather than the Department of Homeland Security, the labeling regime seems to be effective. The new bar stools are not stuffed with unwashed wombat hair, used leper bandages, chemical, biological or nuclear material, or other substances dangerous to the public. The content labels are useful.

Gonzales seems to agree that labels on content are useful as well. He has called for a mandatory website labeling law to “prevent people from inadvertently stumbling across pornographic images on the Internet.” (Unfortunately, the AG’s proposal will not prevent the editor of H I from stumbling over the new bar stools after a night at Big Bubba’s Bait Shop and Bar in Pungo, Virginia.)

In any case, the idea is to place appropriate “marks and notices” on each sexually explicit webpage. Images of shagging, bonking, naked cavorting, whipping, caning, and groping will get marks and notices. Basically, if an image has anything to do with people getting stuffed, it gets a label. Just to make sure that there are no loopholes in the law, “close-ups of fully clothed genital regions” will also be included. Apparently images of the Attorney General from the waist up can be displayed without a label.

The AG would like to see a second law that imprisons website operators who use “words or digital images” hidden in their site’s source code to direct visitors to porn sites. Gonzales really knows dangerous content when he doesn’t see it. There are, however, serious constitutional issues with this suggestion. The American Civil Liberties Union would immediately rise to the defense of a website called Mary Had A Little Lamb that pops up an image showing Mary actually having a little lamb.

Luckily for democracy, political websites are exempted from the proposed law. Embedding words or digital images to direct visitors to expectations of campaign promises actually being fulfilled are ok. Alberto clearly believes that content control requires a light touch.

Costs to enforce these new laws have not been established but it’s fair to say that it won’t be cheap. With tens of millions of websites in hundreds of languages, there are probably not enough people in the United States to enforce the new labeling requirements. This might be an opportunity to develop a new area of cooperation between the US and China. After all, China already makes most of the upholstered furniture, duvets, comforters, stuffed dolls and teddy bears in America. China knows how to do labels. And they also do a pretty good job of making sure only legally approved stuff gets on the Internet.

Guess Hu's Coming To Lunch

2006-04-20T08:06:00.000-05:00

Getting ready for the visit of the head of state of a major world power is a lot of work. H I has managed to get a partial transcript of a coaching session conducted by Secretary of State Rice for President Bush in preparation for the visit to Washington of President Hu Jintao of China.

Rice: Ok, Mr President, let's go over it again. Hu is the President of China.

W: I dunno. Who?

Rice: Right, sir.

W: Condy, just tell me who is the President of China?

Rice: Yes sir, he is.

W: Condoleeza, cut that out! What is the name of the President of China?

Rice: No sir, Watt is the Congressman from North Carolina.

W: Secretary Rice, how would you like to go hunting with the Vice President?

Rice: Ok sir, let's move on. Now sir, how do you say hello in Chinese?

W: How?

Rice: No sir, that's how you say hello in Native American.

W: What?

Rice: No sir, he is an African American

W: Who is an African American?

Rice: No sir, he's the President of China. Why don't I do the introductions.

W: Good idea, Condi. Let's move on. Any important calls?

Rice: Yes sir. President Chirac would like a few words.

W: Turkey!

Rice: No sir, France.

Why Wait For The MovieWhen You Can Buy The Book

2006-04-15T18:56:00.000-05:00

For 2,000 years that’s what they said about the bible; and that’s what they are saying about

Save Us From Ourselves
A Year In The Life of
Homo Insapiens

All the columns from the first year of Homo Insapiens are now in print and reactions from around the world are pouring in:

“This makes the bubonic plague look like the common cold!” World Health Organisation

“Maybe the cartoons weren’t so bad.” Jihadi Martyrs Digest

“It’s easier to pack than loo roll.”
British Foreign Office Travel Advisory

“Funnier than a rubber WMD!" Saddam Hussein

“We’re looking forward to a very busy year.”
American Waste Management Association

Now you can own the book that every one is talking about behind closed doors when no one else is listening. Don’t be the only person in your crowd wondering if they all think you are a Homo Insapiens. It’s easy to get your copy. You can

- Order it online direct from the publisher HERE

- Pop into your local book shop
(ISBN 978-1-4116-8158-3)

Please do not remove the copies of Save Us from Ourselves from the loos in the Pig & Whistle or the rest rooms in Big Bubba’s Bait Shop and Bar. If you are that desperate to have your own copy, contact editor@homoinsapiens.com or leave a comment below.

It's Elementary

2006-04-11T08:23:00.000-05:00

There’s nothing quite like a good British crime story. Whether it is Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, or more modern investigators from Scotland Yard, the twist and turns of a good English mystery attract readers and TV viewers around the world. Happily, a new source of material for this popular genre has been created by H M Government. SOCA has been officially launched.

The Serious Organised Crimes Agency is being referred to as Britain’s version of the FBI. The complex and focused mission of the new agency is obvious from its name. It is seriously organised. It deals with organised crime, especially seriously organised crime. It will not involve itself with humorous or trivial crimes. Comically disorganised criminals will have to find another organisation to match wits with. And the members of the new agency will be agents! Compared to that bold vision, the FBI’s job looks absolutely boring. It’s just a bureau to investigate federal stuff. (Although the FBI is a bureau rather than an agency, its employees are called agents rather than bureaucrats. The policing of American English is somewhat less rigid than the policing of America.)

Announcing the new agency, Prime Minster Tony Blair said, “There is nothing that should come before the basic liberty of the people in this country to be free from the tyranny of organised crime.” Given this bold statement, there seems to be one obvious organized criminal element against which SOCA can direct its attention: politicians.

The US Congress is pretending to be very, very upset about corruption. One member has been packed off to jail and prosecutors are looking into further possible cases. Since the US is a democracy, crooked politicians expect things like cash contributions and expensive vacations in return for favorable legislation that benefits their contributors. But the colonials have nothing on their British cousins.

Since the UK is a constitutional monarchy, crooked politicians are in a better bargaining position than the Yanks. In return for cash contributions and expensive holidays, they can offer to promote their serious contributors to the House of Lords as well. A $10 billion contract to provide left-handed scissors to the Department of Agriculture might be an attention getter in the US. Being promoted to Lord Muggins of Loose Chippings is an absolute show-stopper in the UK. For £1 million you get the contract and the chance to wear tights and a fur coat!

Given the concerns about bribes, backhanders, and general questionable practices regarding corruption in government, the political parties in the UK are banging on about the public financing of elections. Why should a few select contributors get shaken down by politicians when every citizen can be taken to the cleaners? Why not organize things – seriously?

There is a real chance for the revival of the British crime novel here. Brilliant Deputy Chief Agent Rathbone of SOCA takes on the Parliamentary Gang! The game is well and truly afoot! The SOCA team doggedly follows the trail of clues to the top of the seriously organized criminal cartel. And who could resist the final scene when organised crime czar Tony the Fixer turns to Rathbone and says, “It’s a fair cop, Guv.”

A Little Respect

2006-04-07T08:54:00.000-05:00

With almost a million square miles and a population of over 125 million people, the importance of Nigeria should not be overlooked. The country is Africa’s most populous, it has a GDP of over $130 billion, and it is the fifth largest oil producer in the world. Who could blame Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo for expecting a little respect on his recent trip to the United States? After all, diplomatic visits are a big deal. There are joint sessions of Congress to address, and trips to W’s ranch in Texas or to Camp David. The UN General Assembly is always good for a laugh and there’s always some American University willing to give away a fake degree. Then there are the public appearances. Between giving a speech to the National Press Club and the Sunday morning TV interview circuit, there’s a lot of respect to go around. After this trip, however, Olusegun may need to hire a new public relations outfit.

To start with, President Obesanjo’s big solo public appearance in New York was to discuss the African Fertilizer Conference. That registered a little low on the US Respect-o-Meter. Even worse, the conference is scheduled for June and it will be held back home in Nigeria. Not a lot of news or international respect in that. Not even a trip to Upper Volta. After handing out a press release on the value of compost to a reporter from Monthly Manure Digest in Rockefeller Center, he had plenty of time to finish the book he started back at the hotel room. This was particularly disappointing after the stop in Washington. Of course, the timing there could have been better.

The US Congress was busy arguing whether the New Orleans evacuation plan could be used as a model to evacuate 12 million people to Mexico. The local TV stations were busy arguing about who would play left field for the local baseball team. W was busy arguing with everyone else in the United States. As a result, there wasn’t much chance of a state lunch at the White House, much less a state dinner. There was a 15 minute photo op in the White House with a state cup of coffee and a donut. Of course, that was only if Charles Taylor was handed over to the United Nations.

Mr Taylor used to be the President of Liberia. Since he was indicted on multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and declared Africa’s most wanted man, the US was determined to have him hauled into court. The fact that he was living in Nigeria and seemed to have disappeared just when the guys with the arrest warrants were about to show up didn’t help with the arrangements for the state coffee and donut. W was not happy. At the last minute, Taylor was miraculously caught trying to sneak across the border into Cameroon. The meeting with President Bush was back on. The White House sent out for a couple of decafs and a box of assorted donuts. Twenty minutes later, President Bush was on a plane to Mexico and President Obesanjo was in a cab back to the hotel.

So President Obesanjo can go home to Nigeria and brag that he made nice with President Bush and deserves to have the constitution changed so he can be President for Life – how’s that for respect George! That will give him plenty of time to send a thank you email to everyone in the US Government. One of those nifty letters asking for help in recovering $37 million from a mayonnaise jar in the Central Bank of Nigeria if only the recipient will forward their bank details so that the commission and fees can be paid. Some of the greedy buggers and idiots in Washington are bound to sign up. Just like donuts, respect comes in assorted flavours.

Spring Cleaning

2006-04-04T12:12:00.000-05:00

If you have popped in to Homo Insapiens before, you will notice that a bit of tidying up and decorating has just been done. After hoovering the premises, disposing of the empty gin bottles, and emptying the ash trays, it seemed fitting to brighten up the place a bit. Luckily, it was not necessary to engage the services of an interior decorator or a feng shui master. Estimates on the materials required to repaint the rest rooms in Big Bubba’s Bait Shop and Bar in Pungo, Virginia, and the loos in the Pig & Whistle in North London, were a bit excessive. Enough paint remained to smarten up H I and, hopefully, the results are satisfying.

Patrons are requested not to write on the walls, but comments as to the new look of H I are encouraged. The editorial staff will give all due consideration to suggestions for further improvements since considering does not get in the way of having a drink and a smoke at the bar.

Regular columns will return in a few days – as soon as the paint dries.

Vive La Tradition

2006-03-31T10:35:00.000-05:00

It’s a pretty sure thing that Ernest-Antoine Seillière will not be invited to this year’s official Bastille Day festivities in Paris – unless the celebration is intended to mark the return of the guillotine. The unfortunate M Seillière committed two capital crimes in the presence of French President Jacques Chirac at a recent EU meeting. The first was to begin his presentation to representatives of all 25 EU members in English. The second was his response to Chirac’s question as to why he was not speaking French. Ernest-Antoine responded by saying, “I’m going to speak English because that is the language of business.” With that, President Chirac stomped out of the meeting. Jacques is a bit touchy about language these days.

Last year, H I reported on Chirac’s plan to launch a French language internet search engine to compete with Google. Since storming that particular barricade has had mixed results, the backup plan was to launch Chaîne d’Information Internationale (CII), an overseas Francophone news channel to compete with the BBC and CNN. As le Président said, in French of course, “France must be on the front line in the global battle of TV pictures.” (He did not explain the difference between a French and an English picture.)

Unfortunately for CII, a detailed marketing survey has shown that most of the overseas hotels, airports and cable outlets that have a demand for a French language, all-news, 24-hour channel are in Mali, Senegal, and Haiti. The survey also revealed that those three countries have a combined 37 television sets. As a result, Jean-Pierre Paoli, an executive with the new channel, has recently announced that, for about 22 hours a day, broadcasts will be in English. It looks like Jean-Pierre will get to play drop-the-soap with Ernest-Antoine in the Bastille.

Escape for these two to the US is not an option. These days no one in France can get a passport that the US will accept without waiting about 3 months for a visa. France contracted with a company called François-Charles Oberthur Fiduciare to print the new biometric passports required by US immigration laws since October 2005. Workers at the Imprimerie Nationale protested that Cardinal de Richelieu set up their printing operation in 1648. With that much tradition, the outcome of the resulting lawsuit was never in doubt: 21st Century – 0, 17th Century - 1. The $200 million dent in the travel industry as a result of the late start on the new passports was never in doubt either.

Travel to the US is off by about 30%. With about 300,000 Frenchmen hanging around the US embassy in Paris waiting for visas instead of hanging around Disneyworld, it’s a good bet that demand for the CII channel will be off by about 99% at the Holiday Inn in Orlando.

Sadly, H I’s interview with President Chirac was cancelled. Between the mob scene around the American Embassy, students smashing up Paris, the union demonstrations, the burning cars, and the practice riots in preparation for this year’s Bastille Day, he’s very busy. H I was, however, able to contact the lead announcer of CII’s English language service, Louis-Auguste d’Agincourt. He is optimistic about the plans for CII and its ability to compete with the BBC and CNN in English. “We are goingue ovair les scripts of zee old Panque Panthair cinémas for to attract zee haudience,” he said. “Eef Petair Sellairs can take on zee Anglish, d’Agincourt can do eet as well!”

Hearts And Minds

2006-03-26T09:42:00.000-05:00

The Pentagon has announced that, pending a final policy review, Iraqi newspapers will continue to be paid to run selected news stories. This has raised the inevitable outcries from the freedom of the press crowd. In defence of the policy, the US government claims that it is merely trying to get a balanced view of the news to Iraqi citizens.

A recent survey indicates that very few Homo Insapiens readers subscribe to Iraqi newspapers. The main reasons for this include, “There’s no horoscope” (11%), “The TV guide listings don’t include cable channels” (37%), “The crossword puzzles are impossible” (72%), and “I can’t read Arabic,” (99.899%). In order to help H I readers make an informed judgement on this issue, we are pleased to reprint excerpts from some US-financed stories recently published in the Iraqi press. You be the judge.

Traffic Accidents Eliminated
Fallujah’s streets continue to be among the safest in the world as traffic accidents have dropped to zero. Citing the government’s 24-hour curfew and the new regulations barring the use of automobiles, a spokesman for the Iraqi office of the American Insurance Association said, “If this continues, we’ll be able to lower premiums for collision coverage very soon.”
The Fallujah Post

Another Diplomatic Success
Thanks to the assistance of the US government, there is more evidence that the new Iraq is being welcomed into the family of nations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirms that the risk of hostilities between Iraq and Costa Rica has been all but eliminated. Negotiations, under the auspices of the US State Department, are underway to finalise a 99 year non-aggression treaty.
The Baghdad Enquirer

Mosque Renovation Program Continues
Efforts to renovate and refurbish the country’s mosques are in full swing. Significant progress has been made on the first phase of the work on the Golden Mosque in Samara, and efforts to remove the dome have been completed. Similar projects have begun on dozens of other mosques. As a part of the government’s equal opportunity campaign, Sunni and Shiite construction companies will continue to be awarded renovation contracts on each others' mosques.
The Samara Times-Picayune

US Congressional Delegation Visits
Eight members of the US House of Representatives made a brief visit to Iraq on a fact finding mission. Commenting on their journey, the ranking member on the Sub-committee on Steroids in Baseball noted, “We had to be mindful of flying through enemy controlled air space. At least our flight plan took us over France in the middle of the night. But the risk was worth it. It’s clear that the use of steroids in organised baseball in Iraq is not a problem.”
The Kirkuk Post Intelligencer

Mystery Solved
After years of investigation, the US Central Intelligence Agency has finally discovered what happened to the welcoming flowers when American troops first arrived in the country. An agency spokesman said, “It was a huge mistake. FTD got the order mixed up and sent the flowers to the Hawaiian Tourist Board instead.” An FTD spokesman added, “It won’t happen again. We’ve upgraded our computer systems. We’re ready to guarantee reliable floral deliveries to Iran.”
The Basra Bugle & Record

It’s good to know that the Pentagon is committed to the principle of “all the news that’s printed to fit.”

Oh Brother!

2006-03-21T07:53:00.000-05:00

According to the Bible, Cain and Abel got off to a pretty rough start and things went downhill from there. In the beginning (or perhaps a few months after the beginning) their parents really dropped the ball. Actually, the problem was not so much dropping the ball as not dropping the apple. Adam and Eve had a pretty good thing going in Paradise. They had healthy, non-fattening food and unlimited drink, no worries about disease, and a pristine environment. Hunting was pointless and agriculture was a waste of time. The very concept of work was ridiculous, and God took care of everything. The only rule they had to follow was to lay off the apples of wisdom. A decent education was not part of the deal. (British readers will recognise the similarities with the programme of the current government.)

As the Bible recounts, Adam and Eve violated the apple rule and were tossed out of Paradise. That’s when they decided to start a family. Perhaps they thought a quick shag was against the rules when they were wandering around naked in the original version of a Sandals Resort. Hearing stories about the Paradise Resort and Spa from mom and dad must have driven older brother Cain and younger brother Abel nuts. Growing up tending boring crops and smelly sheep added insult to injury. It’s no wonder that they fell out. Of course, there’s no guarantee that the brothers would have made a good team if they had been raised in Paradise. After all, Hassanal and Jefri don’t get along either.

Hassanal is the Sultan of Brunei. He is the absolute ruler of an oil field that happens to have a small country built on top of it. He is the Sultan, Prime Minister, Defence Minster, Finance Minster and head of the country’s official religion. In spite of all that hard work, he took the time to rewrite the country’s constitution. It says, “His Majesty the Sultan can do no wrong in either his personal or any official capacity.” He also has about $15 billion and apparently he is allowed to eat apples. This is really Paradise!

Jefri is Hassanal’s younger sibling. In spite of growing up in Paradise, Jefri turned into a problem brother. He embezzled about £8 billion when he was Finance Minister. In order to settle this disagreement Hassanal did not resort to fratricide. He took even more drastic action; he hired lawyers. Poor Jefri has had to sell off a few collectibles to cover the legal fees. So far he has auctioned off 400 Victorian lampposts, two unused Mercedes fire engines, several hundred Louis XIV gilt chairs, a fleet of forklift trucks, assorted jewellery, the machinery to operate a bowling alley, 16,000 tones of Italian marble, and a 180 foot yacht named Tits. Jefri is not into themed collectibles.

Based on a Bruneian law that says Hassanal is infallible, a court has decided that Jefri has to turn over his London mansion, the Palace Hotel in Manhattan, the Bel-Air Hotel in Los Angeles, a house in Paris, a mansion in Singapore, and property assets in Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, and France. Once again, the older brother is on a roll. It’s good to be Sultan.

Hassanal has also figured out something that Adam and Eve never realised in the Garden of Eden. He and the missus have managed to have ten children – four princes and six princesses. There’s obviously no rule against having good shag in Paradise.

Democracy Is Tough

2006-03-16T08:31:00.000-05:00

All one has to do is open a newspaper or watch television to know that the next few years will be tough. There will be continuing infighting over the formation of a government. Guerrilla attacks and backroom deals will be the norm. The religious fundamentalists will try to hijack the nation, and different parts of the country will look out for their own interests. Embedded reporters will travel with factional operatives behind enemy lines, and more stories of sabotage and warnings of vote rigging will emerge. Yes, America, the US presidential campaign has started!

There are several unique features about this election cycle. Firstly, there is no obvious candidate-in-waiting in the incumbent party. According to the constitution, W can’t run again, and Dick Cheney has decided that he’s not interested in a job with less power than the one he has now. So it’s a bit of a free-for-all for the Republicans. Their season started last weekend in Memphis when six hopefuls kicked off the political equivalent of Pop Idol. Of course, it’s also a bit of a free-for-all for the Democrats, but that’s not unique. Democrats would rather oppose each other than oppose Republicans. Some time in the future they will have their national convention in Jonestown, Guiana, argue with each other over a 55 gallon drum of Kool-Aid, and call it a day. But for the 2008 election, both parties are rolling out more contenders than usually compete in the Miss Brake Fluid Pageant.

The second unique feature of this campaign is the likelihood that none of the hopefuls will accept any public funding for their campaigns. The good news is that tax payers don’t have to shell out for the mountains of rubber chicken and the millions of balloons that are so essential to guaranteeing democracy. The bad news is that there will be no limit on how much these guys can beg, borrow, steal, and spend. The last time around, Bush and Kerry raised $274.7 million and $273 million respectively. That allowed them to buy enough TV adverts to make the Weather Channel the most popular station in the country. According to one observer, “There’s a growing sense that there is going to be a $100 million entry fee at the end of 2007 to be considered a serious candidate.”

The estimates for the upcoming campaign come in at about $400 million for each of the eventual nominees of the two main parties. To put that in perspective, $800 million dollars could build one and a half bridges in Alaska, or pay for desperately needed Spanish lessons for all Americans living in Arizona, New Mexico and Chicago, or cover the long delayed renovation of the Congressional Health Club and Wine Bar. $800 million is serious money; and that is not the full story. If campaign costs for the 2008 House and Senate elections are added in, Washington wannabees are likely to spend north of a billion dollars. That’s enough TV campaign adverts to make the average American kill to watch reruns of the Lawrence Welk Show or Lost in Space.

Of course, there may be an alternative to what will surely be thirty months of living through conditions that violate the Geneva Convention and the UN Charter of Human Rights. $1 billion should be enough to buy some country like Andorra or Malta. The politicians could then have their own country to make miserable and let the rest of us get on with our lives. On second thought, what did Andorra or Malta ever do to the United States?

You're Invited

2006-03-11T19:14:00.000-05:00

Tourism is the largest industry in the world. In 1950 there were 25 million international travellers. By 2004 there were 760 million travellers. In the next 15 years, the number will rise to 1.5 billion. There’s a bad news/good news story in these numbers. Unfortunately, with so many people travelling, it’s a dead cert that you will run into at least a few of the cretinous lowlifes from back home that you are trying to get away from. The good news is that with so many people travelling, new and unexplored areas of the globe are opening up. You might get to watch some stone-age tribe eating the cretinous lowlifes you are trying to get away from during your holiday in Borneo.

With all that tourist money sloshing around the world, countries are in hot competition to attract holidaymakers. Australia is going back to an old campaign to attract new visitors. In the last few years, Oz bragged about artists and opera houses and culture and nature. Now they are returning to the glory days of Crocodile Dundee, a shrimp on the barbie, and boozing on Bondi Beach. Australia’s new tourism slogan is, “So where the bloody hell are you?” Hopefully this will encourage people who want to relax, have a bit of fun, and down a few pots of lager, to visit Oz. Hopefully the self-righteous, the self-important, and self-promoting will get to meet the stone-age tribe in Borneo.

Countries around the world are planning to launch catchy new slogans in reaction to Australia’s new campaign. H I’s UK-based travel correspondent, Tiffany Barking-Smoot, has been tracking the new campaigns.

France! A chance to pretend you’re as good as we are.

Scenic Saudi Arabia – miles and miles of miles and miles!

How is Israel? How could it be?

Come to Greenland and double the population.

Why visit a country when you can visit Sudan?

Visit the USA…we know you want to…we heard you say so on your mobile phone!

Follow Your Wanderlust in Germany (But do not walk on the grass).

Yemen: Land of Contrasts! 11th century mystery with 13th century conveniences.

It’s more fun than North Korea…it’s Zimbabwe!

With any luck, everyone who likes to come home with 5,000 digital photos, plastic replicas of pre-historic bedpans, new insights into cultural development, and plans to organise a lecture tour on ‘My Vacation’, will be attracted by these campaigns. Homo Insapiens readers can go to Sydney, get pissed, and mumble, “So here’s where the bloody hell we are!” Or for a shorter booze break there’s always the Emerald Isle. As their advert says: Lose yourself in Ireland: We Do!

Looking Back

2006-03-07T14:46:00.000-05:00

Amidst all the acrimony and misunderstanding regarding the border disputes between the US and Mexico there is an exciting example of collaboration between these two neighbours. Since 1995, work has been progressing on what is soon to be the largest large-millimetre telescope in the world. Given the requirement for a telescope, there is some question as to how large the millimetres in question actually are. In any case, when it is completed, it will allow scientists to look back 13 billion years to a time shortly after the beginnings of the universe; just after the Big Bang. (Note: this term should not be confused with the Swedish movie of the same name.)

Mexico’s contribution to this endeavour has been crucial to the success of the project. It seems that the plans called for a very tall, extinct volcano. At about 15,000 feet, Sierra Negra is higher than any peaks north of the border. Mexican President Vincente Fox says this shows how a developing country can play a major role in cutting-edge technology. Apparently, having a tall, extinct volcano in your country is something of a technological accomplishment.

Of course, building a giant telescope with a 165 foot diameter antenna on top of a volcano is a technological accomplishment. Hauling 13,000 tons of concrete to the top of Sierra Negra was quite a job. The first plan was to use mules. Construction director Emanuel Mendez said, “Mules are the best road engineers in the world.” Unfortunately, using mules meant that the project would require another 13 billion years to get everything to the top of the volcano. Luckily, this presented an opportunity to contribute to the local economy. Hundreds of local villagers were hired to haul concrete to the summit in their cars. After making 13,000 trips up the volcano loaded with concrete, each car was resold to a Tijuana taxicab company at a handsome profit.

The US contribution to this $120 million plan has so far been $38 million, about 75% of which has been kicked in by the Department of Defence. H I’s military affairs correspondent, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Karl ‘Hardnut’ Magruder, has looked into this program. Magruder reports, “Project Galactic Hammer is critical to the War on Terror. The enemies of freedom proved that they are willing and able to pull off a big bang once. Intercepts from Swedish mobile telephones have picked up worrying chatter about another big bang. We are also aggressively following up on reports of smaller, test bangs across the Middle East. This project is an important temporary defence measure until Haliburton can build a 35,000 foot volcano in Iowa.”

Reactions to the project have been mixed. Noting that the site of the telescope is 15,000 feet above sea level and much of her state is below seal level, Louisiana’s Governor Blanco has asked Congress to set up a $27 billion altitude compensation fund. Reverend Pat Robertson has demanded that the telescope only be used to look back 8,274 years. “There’s nothing older than that anyway,” he said. Former Vice-President Al Gore does not plan to comment until he finishes inventing the long meter telescope.

Although the telescope is designed to pick up ultra-distant radio waves that started just after the big bang, the American Civil Liberties Union has not decided whether to file the mother of all class action lawsuits: sue the government for eavesdropping on the entire universe without a warrant.

Loaves And Fishes...With Extra Pepperoni

2006-03-03T09:06:00.000-05:00

In the conflict between the ‘Western World’ and the ‘Islamic World’, the guys in the turbans have had several distinct advantages. Not only are they willing to blow themselves up, they are breeding faster than a North Korean nuclear reactor. Given their birth rates, it’s quite a trick to supply everyone who dies for their cause with 72 virgins. Obviously they have a secret stash of virgins somewhere – weapons of mass satisfaction. It’s also obvious that they have been better at mass producing fundamentalist religious leaders than the west has. These guys can crank out imams faster than McDonalds can serve up double cheeseburgers. If there’s a shortage of mullahs, no problem. Just find a bunch of guys with straggly beards, glazed eyes, hats made out of old beach towels, and an arrested sense of humour.

Luckily, the US, the bastion of ‘western values’, has recognised that Rev. Pat Robertson is hopelessly outnumbered in the struggle against Ayatollahs R Us. In a little known campaign to recruit patriotic religious nut cases to meet this challenge, another brave American has stepped up to the plate!

Tom Monoghan founded Domino’s Pizza and sold the business for about $1 billion in 1998. After years of mucking about with thin crusts, stringy cheese, and figuring out what to do with 11,273 tons of leftover anchovies, Tom has volunteered for Operation Ayatollah Response. The maniacal mullahs might have Falujah, but America will soon have Ave Maria, Florida.

Monoghan has bought about 5,000 acres of land on the western edge of a Florida swamp and he plans to build a city based on strict Roman Catholic principles on the site. There will be a Catholic University with 5,000 students, and a city of about 30,000 faithful parishioners. This town will make the Pope proud. Since Tom will own all of the commercial space in town, he will be able to decide what’s sold and what isn’t. Forget condoms, scratch birth control pills, say goodbye to adult magazines, and don’t bother looking for Monday Night Bonking on cable TV. At the centre of town, there will be a 100 foot tall oratory, although it is not clear if the Singing Nuns will be hired to go up into the tower to call the faithful to prayer 5 times a day. This town will be as straight-laced as Mecca; and it will have golf carts!

Governor Jeb Bush of Florida attended the recent ground breaking ceremony for Deep Dish University, and state officials declared the project “a development bonanza for a depressed area.” When you start with a swamp, pretty much the only way to go is up. On the other hand, concerns are being raised about the project. The area is home to the Florida panther, an endangered species. Perhaps Ave Maria High School will name their football team The Panthers. Appeasement monkeys from the liberal left are also complaining about church-state separation, freedom of expression, and all the rest of that subversive clap-trap that weakens America’s defences.

Ave Maria, Florida could be one of the most potent strategic responses in the War on Terror so far. After all, any town that is run on strict Roman Catholic principles should be able to build up a massive stockpile of virgins.

A Sporting Chance

2006-02-26T17:31:00.000-05:00

The 2006 Winter Olympics are now behind us and Great Britain brought home 1 medal. That’s about average for the past 20 years. In the Summer Olympics, a ranking of countries based on medals won per million population puts the UK somewhere between 30th and 50th over the years. To be fair, this is not the fault of the athletes. Great Britain has a clear disadvantage in the Summer and Winter Olympics: Great Britain does not have a summer or a winter. Weather doesn’t arrive in neatly packaged seasons in the UK. By the time someone can dust off their snowboard or sharpen their javelin, its time to get in out of the rain. Very few Olympic sports are played with an umbrella. H I believes it’s time for a Non-Seasonal Olympic Games to highlight Albion’s sporting prowess.

Synchronized Queuing

Teams must form an orderly queue for no apparent reason in the shortest time. Points are deducted for jostling and awarded for civility. (This sport should not be confused with American Lining-up. Everyone knows the Yanks can’t even spell queuing.)

Individual Free Style Binge Drinking

Unlike most sports, the competition ends at the sound of a bell. Until that time contestants attempt to pour the entire contents of a pub down their neck. (In the spirit of fair play, no one remembers who won or lost.)

Mixed Pairs Parking

Teams are expected to find an on-street parking space and park their car in it before the team members murder each other. (Use of a resident’s permit or disabled indicator is grounds for disqualification.)

Giant Grocery Slalom

Individual athletes must steer a shopping trolley laden with 400 pounds of food from one end of a Tesco supermarket to the other on a Saturday without hitting anything or developing a hernia. (For EU contestants the food must weigh181.436948 kilograms.)

Speed Balancing

Contestants telephone a British bank’s call centre and compete to find a Customer Care Representative who can actually give them a balance on a savings account. Additional difficulty factor points are awarded if the call centre rep is from Bangladesh, Rumania, or Newcastle. (This is classified as a long-term endurance sport.)

British teams are heavily favoured in these events since they get so much practice. There are, however, plans to include a new demonstration sport in the Non-Seasonal Olympics to open up the competition and increase international participation. Downhill Multiculturalism will allow athletes from any country to play by their own rules.

Border Security

2006-02-22T11:14:00.000-05:00

The US Congress has returned and is hard at work. It’s easy to tell when Congress is back in session. They start banging on about “doing the peoples’ business by standing up resources in a forward-leaning way on a date certain.” When they are at home, they never talk that way because no one would understand them. Between wiretapping, ethics reform, Iraq, Gulf Coast relief, and retaining defence lawyers, it’s certain to be a busy session. Unfortunately that does not leave a lot of time for two of W’s big, but almost forgotten, ideas: Social Security Reform and Immigration Policy.

The main issue regarding Social Security reform seems to be to define what the problem is. Republicans and Democrats are in complete disagreement. The former have convincing evidence that by 2041 everyone over 55 will be forced to eat cat food. Democrats have equally convincing evidence that the real problem is the diet of the lilac crested tree iguana unless gay civil unions are legalised on Guam. A clear analysis of the demographics of the American population should resolve this bitter battle. H I is happy to provide the solution.

The US population is about 300 million. About 75 million of those are under 18 and cannot vote. They are unlikely to contribute to political campaigns. Problem solved.

About 70 million people are 55 or over and are not affected by any proposed changes to Social Security. They can watch Viagra and Levitra adverts on the telly instead of watching politicians carry on about cat food and iguanas.

There are 85 million Americans between the ages of 25-44. They don’t expect Social Security to be around when they retire. It would be a betrayal of trust for their government to disappoint them.

That leaves 85 million Americans who might or might not give a toss.

Demographic analysis of this critical group is very revealing. There are the fanatical Democrats who are still so incensed with the results of the last two elections, and are so enamoured of brie and Chablis, that they are planning to move to Quebec, Canada. That’s them sorted. There are the fanatical Republicans who are awaiting the end of the world. Since Armageddon will surely arrive before the politicians can agree on anything, they don’t have a worry. They have Celestial Security.

There are other large minority groups whose personal retirement plans are already taken care of. These include investment bankers, lawyers, and mass murderers serving life sentences without parole. They can be put into one demographic group.

Average, moderate Americans between 45 and 54 never form a demographic group bigger than a bowling team. They are too busy working and paying taxes.

That leaves one major, cohesive demographic group in the population. There are about 16 million illegal immigrants in the US. The vast majority of them are from Mexico and are hard working. All they want is a chance to send a bit of money home.

Social Security can be saved by Immigration Policy! Pay the benefits in Mexican pesos.

Laisser Les Bons Temps Rouler!

2006-02-18T08:24:00.000-05:00

Or, as they say in New Orleans, “Let The Good Times Roll.” Mardi Gras kicks off today and Potemkin would have loved it. Back in the 18th century, a very greedy guy named Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin decided to get rich by getting close to Russia’s Queen Catherine. Potemkin managed to get very close to the Tsarina. He gave her a good shag whenever she was in the mood. According to history, Catherine was in the mood a lot. (As Catherine liked to say, “I’m not prone to argue.”)

Catherine also liked to travel around Russia to see her empire and give the chamber maids a chance to change the sheets back at the Kremlin. So Potemkin also worked pretty hard to convince Catherine that Russia was full of happy peasants. Whenever they went on a tour, Grigori made sure the villages were decked out with false fronts like the fake main streets on a Warner Brothers’ backlot. After all, if everything looked all right, Greg could get back to bonking the queen and counting his cash. The creative concept of the Potemkin Village was born.

This year’s Mardi Gras theme is “New Orleans is back!”, and it should be quite a party. 6.3 million cubic yards of waste material has been cleared from the Crescent City. That’s almost as much material as Dick Cheney’s hunting accident produced for every comedian in the US. Unfortunately, there are still about 50 million cubic yards remaining; but with enough bourbon and wet t-shirt contests, the 30% of the local peasants who still live in New Orleans should look as happy as the visitors.

Of course the festivities this year will be somewhat limited. The party will last 8 days instead of the usual 12. There are fewer hotel rooms available for party goers since a lot of them are being used by insurance adjusters and government burocrats. Their job is to make sure that the local peasants don’t get too happy. Six of the city’s parade clubs will be missing and there won’t be as many floats. (The Federal Emergency Management Agency did buy 22,693 new floats at a cost of $1.34 billion but unfortunately they will not be available for this year’s Mardi Gras. In hindsight, storing them in the Florida Everglades was not a good idea.)

Thoughtfully, the US Congress has produced enough speeches and investigative reports to provide non-stop confetti for the entire 8 days. Since the reports document the failure of government at all levels, it’s probably a good idea to turn them into confetti. That way people won’t be asking, “Whose fault is it that all this toxic sludge is still covering half of the city?” They’ll be saying, “Wow, where did of all this neat confetti come from?” Keeping the peasants happy is a complicated job.

So the Big Easy, (or at least the part of it that does not look like Hiroshima in 1945), is back. For now, the Crescent City is pretty much one big Potemkin Village; but the party is on and the jazz will ring out. Perhaps the city, state, and federal clowns and crooks that blew it before, during, and after Katrina will learn a few lines from that old jazz standard, Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? It’s probably too much to ask that they all join in a chorus of Who’s Sorry Now?.

After all, they are busy counting all that money in the recovery budget and shagging the taxpayers. Grigori Aleksandrovich would be proud of them.

The Mummies Return

2006-02-13T09:01:00.000-05:00

It’s been a very exciting digging season for Egyptologists so far. A new tomb has been discovered in The Land of the Nile, and this ancient civilisation is once again in the news. It’s likely this will be an important discovery. Some people think it might be the most important discovery since Howard Carter dug up poor King Tut and doomed the spirit of the boy Pharaoh to do more road shows than the Rolling Stones.

The west bank of the Nile, across from Luxor, is a vast burial site. There are the Valleys of the Kings, the Queens, and the Nobles. Once again, there is fascination with the powerful people who ruled this land for so many years. Most were men, a few were women, some were winners, and a lot were losers. All of them wanted to live forever.

The digging season is getting into high gear in the US as well. With the mid-term elections approaching in November, excitement is already building regarding the next Presidential election in 2008. The buzz is all about who will be nominated to oppose the Republican candidate. It’s time for H I to lead a dig in the Valley of the Democrats.

Ex-Pharaoh Jimmy Carter is a nice guy but the party doesn’t pay much attention to him. He’s a bit like the sphinx. The sphinx is famous but no one is quite sure what the point of it is. Ex-Pharaoh Bill Clinton was pretty good at getting support from both the left and right banks of the Nile; but it’s against the rules for ex-pharaohs to make a comeback from the afterlife. And since the Democrats have decided he is a god, just being a pharaoh again would be a demotion.

Although Ted Kennedy is a member of a Royal Dynasty, he’s a bit out of touch these days. Instead of going for eternal life by being wrapped in bandages, he decided to be pickled in alcohol. Candidate-Pharaohs Gore I and Kerry I lack a certain excitement factor. When they give a speech it’s tough to tell whether it’s them or their wooden sarcophagus covers doing the talking. Joe Biden of Delaware is interested in becoming the Pharaoh, but he has a habit that might cost him a lot of support. This guy can talk a hole in a 100-ton granite obelisk.
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After the last election, poor Howard Dean was dropped from potential Pharaoh to Grand Chamberlain because everyone realised he is one block short of a pyramid. John Edwards may or may not make a run for Pharaoh, but he did take the precaution of having his hair dresser entombed with him after the last run.

Little known royal princes Evan Bayh of Indiana, Mark Warner of Virginia, and Bill Richardson of New Mexico face uphill battles. There may be a few minor monuments to them back home, but no statues of them more than 3 feet tall have been discovered. Tom Vilsack, of Iowa has a real problem. His tomb hasn’t even been discovered yet.

Could a Queen Hilary revive the ancient splendour? Although the diehard followers of the Donkey God would love her, all the believers in the Elephant God would be against her. At least she has one thing going for her. She’s the only candidate from the Valley of the Democrats who could truly run on the slogan, “Mummy Knows Best.”

That's All Folks!

2006-02-08T10:12:00.000-05:00

There was the War of Jenkins’ Ear. It all started in 1731 when a British merchant ship was stopped and boarded by a vessel of the Spanish Navy. In the ensuing fracas, the offending Spanish captain cut off the ear of Shipmaster Jenkins. After a great deal of huffing, puffing, and demonstrating back home in Britain, the government was goaded into declaring war. As so often happens in wars, this little dust-up got completely out of hand. In no time at all, the issue of whether Master Jenkins was unfairly deprived of his ability to keep his sunglasses from slipping off his head was forgotten. Pretty soon the entire enterprise wound up being the War of the Austrian Succession and raged across Europe until 1748.

Now we have the War of Mohammed’s Cartoons. It all started when a Danish newspaper printed 12 sketches of the Prophet. Denmark is not a likely candidate for starting an international war. The Danes did invade Britain about 1,200 years ago, but after realising that the weather was not very good, they decided to go home, build a tolerant society, and invent cheese danish. However, after a great deal of huffing, puffing, and demonstrating, some Muslims seem intent on expanding the dispute into the War of the Infidel’s Suppression. There’s a great deal of talk about cutting off the heads, hands and other useful parts of the cartoonists in question. The 18th Century was obviously a gentler time and Master Jenkins got off lightly.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is leading the charge. (Since Mahmoud is not allowed to wear neckties or to shave, there is some question as to whether he is on suicide watch. This is a troubling thought given his desire to control nuclear weapons.) Hamshahri, one of Iran’s leading newspapers, has announced a cartoon contest on the subject of the Holocaust. This is clearly a worrying escalation of the cartoon wars.

H I can report that there are pre-emptive cartoon strikes being considered by countries around the world. North Korea is planning a contest to make fun of South Korea and Japan. Russia has contacted sketch artists for ideas for insulting Ukrainians. Iceland, which is the only NATO member without any military forces of its own, is looking at drafting people with a sense of humour and drafting talent into a national force of draftsmen. France, fiercely protecting its honour, is stockpiling cartoons that insult every country in the world that has not announced they want to be French.

Amidst this escalating tension, The United States has attempted to be a calming influence. Citing its commitment to a ‘kinder, gentler arrogance’, the American government has decided not to mobilize its Strategic Cartoon Command at this time. In background briefings, State Department sources have, however, reminded reporters that Walt Disney was the Father of the Intercontinental Cartoon.

Hopefully the good offices of the United Nations can turn the world from the brink of war. Failure can only mean a further escalation and the threat of a massive American pre-emptive strike. Portraying Islamic fundamentalist states as a bunch of Mickey Mouse countries would be bad enough. But launching Porky Pig at them could spell doom for everyone.

The Name Game

2006-02-03T08:58:00.000-05:00

It’s that time of year again. It’s time for Superbowl XL! (Some student-athletes may think the ‘XL’ is short for ‘extra large’, but most players who attended Catholic universities will know that it is Latin for ‘40’.) The Superbowl is the ultimate test for teams in the National Football League. It is also the ultimate test for beer drinkers, designers of cheerleader costumes, television decency standards, and people who are not interested in American football.

Unfortunately, the name of this sport does not make a great deal of sense. Aside from the fact that there is a lot of running around, the human foot does not play a major role. There is already another sport called football in which the human foot is a key factor, but Americans call that soccer. Perhaps that is in honour of the socks that are on the feet in question. (Britons who visit the USA will find that using the phrase ‘proper football’ to describe their national sport will not make a lot of sense to the average Yank. The adjective ‘proper’ is no longer used in American English. Try using ‘genyouwine’. You will not be believed but at least you might be understood.)

Other sports have sensible names. Netball uses a net, handball uses the hands, and basketball uses baskets. In volley ball one volleys the ball, and beach ball is conveniently played on a beach. There should be a better name for American football based on the way it is played.

- It is played by two teams whose members are highly paid and get a lot of perks.

- Team members only work during the season and get lots of time off.

- The players travel often and they fly first-class and stay in very expensive hotels.

- Teams have fanatical fan bases that will taunt and insult the opposing team’s fan base.

- Team members play by the rules unless no one can see them not playing by the rules.

- Players can sign lucrative side deals to endorse products and services.

- The media loves to interview team members and then argue about what was said.

- Team operating costs go up every year.

- Retired players get generous pensions and are always welcomed back to the clubhouse.

- Games are played in incredibly expensive facilities paid for by taxpayers.

- The objective of the game is to score more points than your opponent.

Based on these rules, there is clearly a better name for this sport than ‘football’. Since the United States Congress uses the same rules, why not call it ‘sleazeball’?

Vintage Economics

2006-01-30T09:11:00.000-05:00

China has reported that its trade surplus tripled in 2005 to a record $102 billion. Official figures show that the country exported $762 billion in goods. Total foreign trade totalled $1.4 trillion, making the China the world’s third largest foreign trader. Even these impressive figures are thought to be understated since it is not clear if fortune cookies are included.

China is also working its way up the value ladder by exporting more high quality goods. After winning the Second Boxer Rebellion by taking over the global men’s underwear market, the Chinese have moved up to television sets, air conditioners and automobiles. It seems the Peoples’ Republic is now eyeing a new market. They are advertising for a “wine-maker with 15 years experience, preferably from Bordeaux.” Given China’s $3.15 billion grape-based wine market, a salary of almost $200,000 a year, and about 300 million peasants, the successful candidate will be able to change his name from Louis Lafarge to Louis XIV.

As with any new business venture, product placement and branding is critical. According to the Peoples’ Ministry For Peaceful Trade and Global Domination, two strategies are being considered.

In the first, China will go after the international quality wine market. There is clearly an opportunity to appeal to wine snobs. Arguments over whether the 2003 Chateau 长城 (Great Wall) is superior to the 2005 Clos de 毛泽东 (Mao Tse Dung) will liven up otherwise boring dinner parties. It won’t be long before some insufferable, self appointed expert in Malibu or Notting Hill starts to bang on about ‘a subtle nose with a hint of soy sauce and just the faintest essence of roast pork and overtones of fried rice’. Eventually all of Hupeh Province will be turned into a combination Rhone Valley and Sonoma County. Tourists will be able to see happy political prisoners jumping up and down in vats of grapes under the watchful eyes of supervisors wearing berets, striped t-shirts and carrying machine pistols.

The other strategy is to go after the overseas mass market. The demand for inexpensive wine is exploding, particularly in the US. Consumers are attracted to the convenience of buying wine in a box, the low cost of getting absolutely comatose, and the effectiveness of cheap wine in cleaning dead insects off the car windshield. Distribution is the key to this strategy. Costco, Sam’s Club and the other retailers that specialize in volume sales are the answer. The warehouse concept can handle 55 gallon drums. Employment opportunities at Wal-mart will surge for 73 year-old retirees with pacemakers who are not interested in health benefits and have an intense desire to become wine stewards. They can settle friendly disputes about whether 名星期二 (Tuesday) or 名星期五 (Friday) is a better year.

Regardless of which strategy the Chinese adopt, it is clear that they have a powerful competitive advantage in going after the international wine market. Exhaustive testing by a dedicated panel of Homo Insapiens readers has revealed the true appeal of Chinese wine. Two hours later, you’re sober again!

Beat The Dead Horse

2006-01-25T11:11:00.000-05:00

It seems to be a universal law of nature that any concept for a television series that attracts a significant audience will be reincarnated more often than a Buddhist monk. Law & Order has spawned Law & Order SVU, Law & Order Criminal Intent, and Law & Order Trial By Jury. CSI: Las Vegas has fathered CSI: Miami and CSI: New York. (Apparently CSI: New Orleans was dropped after one of the policemen stole the microscope.) Donald Trump and Martha Stewart have provided armies of apprentices, and marital bliss has enveloped bachelors, bachelorettes, and geeks. Although it may be a felony to beat a person to death on Boston Legal, The Law Firm and Close to Home, it is obviously not even a misdemeanour to beat a concept to death on TV.

After the surprise success of Dancing With The Stars in 2005, it was a sure bet that doing something else with ‘Stars’ was on the way. Given the ever watchful spoilsports at the Parents Television Council, Shagging With The Stars or Sharing Columbian Marching Powder With The Stars were not reasonable options. The obvious answer was Skating With The Stars. The premise of this show is a contest between two-person mixed teams. Each team is composed of one championship ice skater and one semi-famous ‘star’ whose familiarity with ice is limited to defrosting a refrigerator. The resulting performances give real hope for an Olympic medal to the pairs figure skating team from Nigeria.

HI’s television critic, Lance Thrust, can report that several exciting new attempts to squeeze money from old plot lines are in the works in TV-land.

Nakimoto: Forensic Lepidopterist. Exploring new possibilities for shows about the use of science in crime fighting, this hard hitting drama focuses on crimes involving butterflies. In the first segment, titled ‘Wings of Death’, Nakimoto pits his skills against a terrorist cell that has trained Monarch butterflies to attack police vehicles.

The Baritones. This gripping drama tells the hard hitting story of a Finnish crime family that muscles in on church choirs to force them to sing excerpts from Kullervo by Sibelius. Arguments between family boss Roope and his wife Venla over raising reindeer add to the tension.

Survivor: Falluja. A group of middle-aged Western women are parachuted into Iraq’s Sunni Triangle. In a fun twist, their family members back home compete to raise enough ransom money to gain their release.

Phantom of the East Wing: Combining the popularity of political dramas and science fiction shows, this series is based on the unexplainable, mysterious election of a Liberal Democrat to the American presidency. In the first segment, the new president is faced with the dual disasters of a flight of enemy pigs over Washington, and a potential environmental crisis as hell freezes over.

At this time, H I is unable to confirm rumours that Kofi Annan is negotiating to host a remake of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

Let's Get Prepared

2006-01-20T10:33:00.000-05:00

The United States Department of Health and Human Services has issued a list of useful information for citizens in order to prepare for an avian flu pandemic. The six easily remembered categories of actions provide a partial guide to surviving a nationwide attack by the H5N1 virus. As a public service, Homo Insapiens is providing some additional critical tips that the HHS has overlooked.

1. Interruptions To Social Services May Be Widespread

In addition to the possible closure of hospitals, government offices, post offices and banks, saloons, singles bars and night clubs may be forced to suspend services. Prepare back-up plans such as storing 12 cases of gin at home and for caring for people with special needs such as Hooter’s waitresses or male strippers.

2. Being Able To Work May Be Difficult Or Impossible

Plan for the possible reduction or loss of income if you are unable to work or your place of employment is closed. Employment opportunities may emerge in body collection and having a handcart or wheelbarrow will be a competitive advantage. Practice saying ‘Bring Out Your Dead’ in a clear, audible voice.

3. Schools May Be Closed for an Extended Period of Time

Get to know the neighbour’s kids in advance. They can be very useful and cost effective in foraging for food and if they return without a hacking cough or a fever you will know it is safe to go out.

4. Transportation Service May Be Disrupted

Bus, train and air schedules will be unreliable and service levels will be appalling. Drivers, conductors and baggage handlers will be surly and unwilling to assist you. This is a sure sign that the worst of the pandemic has passed and that things are returning to normal.

5. People Will Need Advice and Help at Work and Home

Advise neighbours and co-workers that you own a large gun collection. Review your in-laws’ last will and testament and offer to help with estate planning if necessary.

6. Be Prepared

Stock up on critical items such as medicine, food and water and decide in advance how much you will charge for them when your neighbours’ supply is depleted.

Of course, it is possible to fight the avian flu pandemic. Do your part. Consider taking up duck hunting, lacing your neighbour’s bird feeder with cyanide, and ordering the Big Bucket at KFC.

Avanti Torino

2006-01-15T13:24:00.000-05:00

In only a few weeks the 2006 Winter Olympic Games begin in Turin, Italy. The Italian government has been printing extra Euros for two years in preparation. They have constructed a series of stunning venues with catchy names like Pinerolo Palaghiaccio, Cesana Pariol, Sauze d’Oulx-Juvenceaux and Sestriere Borgata. Apparently the more familiar names like Slope, Mountain, and Rink have been used before. The games will kick off on 11 February and by 26 February the city of Turin will know if they managed to lose less than 14 billion Euros on the deal.

Given the growing excitement, it is difficult to understand the lack of pre-games news coverage in the US media. To remedy this situation, the editor of Homo Insapiens has been embedded with the Swedish women’s luge team for a week. In spite of suffering from exhaustion, H I can report that there are already examples of the ‘agony of defeat’ that is such an important part of any Olympics.

Saudi Arabia’s ice hockey team went down to a crushing 73-0 loss in an exhibition match against a short-handed Canadian girls’ under-7 squad. King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz immediately offered Saudi citizenship to everyone in Norway and ordered all Saudis to lower their air conditioners to -12 degrees saying, ‘We’ll be back!’

Meanwhile, the North Korean government has announced that its entire group of athletes is withdrawing from the Winter Olympics in protest. (The North Koreans are still very bitter after the tragic performance of their javelin catch team at the summer games in Athens.) Team Manager Pik An Pak told H I, ‘it is an insult for us to come all this way and find out that the downhill figure skating event has been cancelled.’ President Kim Jong-il announced that the whole country would go on a hunger strike in support of the team.

The United States is outraged that the US Army’s 7th Mountain Division has been disqualified in the cross-country skiing event. Coach Donald Rumsfeld noted that the geography around Turin looks a lot like the northern border of Iran and pointed out the importance of constant training. Rumsfeld is disappointed that the Olympic Committee took particular exception to the use of live ammunition by the team.

In a tragic training mishap, the Irish 4-man bobsleigh team has suffered a major setback. Rocketing off the 140 meter ski-jump hill at 217 kilometres per hour, Team Ireland slammed into the BBC remote satellite truck, destroying the vehicle and injuring several bystanders. Although testing cleared team members of using steroids, the average blood alcohol level of the bobsledders was 2.87. Coach Paddy O’Malley said, ‘you’d have to be a feckin’ eejit to park that great feckin’ lorry there. It’s a feckin’ miracle the bottle of Jameson wasn’t smashed.’ Brakeman Seamus Doyle agreed saying, ‘The facken’ Brits facken’ did us in’. Eamon Gogarty, team trainer, added, ‘The gobshite English cost us the fockin’ gold medal’.

H I will provide additional in-depth coverage of Torino 2006 as soon as the Chianti runs out and the members of the Swedish women’s luge team get into their rubber suits.

...and there's a bit more...

2006-01-15T13:23:00.000-05:00

Annus Districtus

2006-01-15T13:22:00.000-05:00

That’s Latin for ‘a busy year’ and it has been that. Homo Insapiens published its first column one year ago today. After more than 80 columns and more than 20,000 visitors, it is time to celebrate the human spirit by seriously depleting the supply of potable spirits stocked in the editorial offices. Commentary on the condition of mankind will resume with the return of minimal sobriety and in the firm belief that the Neanderthals deserve a rematch.

Pat Works In Mysterious Ways

2006-01-10T15:24:00.000-05:00

At first glance, spending upwards of $50 million to build an Evangelical Christian theme park in Israel looks a bit like proposing to build a monument to the Luftwaffe in London. Some of the locals might take it the wrong way. That’s not the only problem. The site of the new venture is a piece of land that Syria wants Israel to return. That’s a bit like Disney opening a Magic Kingdom in the Korean demilitarised zone. Then there’s the customer base: about 40 million American born-agains who look forward to a nice baby back pork rib bar-b-que after church and can’t wait for Jews to convert or be handed over to Satan so the world can end. Fundamentalist Christians thrive on challenges however. Reverend Pat Robertson, a backer of this project, announced that when Arial Sharon suffered a stroke, he was ‘smote by God’. There’s nothing like condemning a country’s most popular politician to hell to get a theme park off to a good start.

For readers outside the United States, Pat is a ‘televangelist’ and the founder of Regent University. Regent's mission is ‘Training Christian Leaders to Change the World.’ It’s a bit like a 5-star Pakistani madrassa with golf shirts and tasseled loafers. After praying for liberal US Supreme Court Justices to drop dead, calling for the assassination of the President of Venezuela, and condemning Scotland as a ‘dark land’ for its toleration of homosexuality, Pat was running out of countries as theme park candidates. Israel was a natural, especially given all the biblical references.

In spite of Robertson’s minor faux pas, plans for the new park are well underway. Test marketing the concept with the members of the Church of Apocalyptic Doom Followed By Rapture has produced very promising results. Although the planned Loaves and Fishes Restaurant will offer a limited menu, the rock bottom prices appear to be a winning feature. (Food costs are so important in a successful feeding operation.) The unlimited refills on wine at the Wedding at Canae Inn should also be a real draw. The inn’s all-inclusive Cure and Redemption package at $2,250 (double occupancy) should be particularly popular with the leper market segment. Unfortunately, plans by several Israeli investors to include a comedy club called Sadducees and Pharisees have gotten mixed reviews. There is, however, real excitement about the free donkey rides between the baptismal pool and the trailer park. The 8 meter diving board featured at the baptismal pool received rave reviews from a focus group of especially committed wannabe converts who wish to be born again in the Holy Land.

Uri Dagul, the head of the Israel Youth Hostels Association and a supporter of the new venture says, ‘no way will it be a Disneyland. We have to keep the spirit of the place. If we lose this spirit, with too many lights and projectors, it will be a catastrophe.’ Apparently this means that parents will not be able to take holiday photos of the kids standing next to park employees dressed in King Herod or Pontius Pilate costumes. It probably also means visitors can forget about the Escape to Egypt roller coaster ride.

It is entirely fitting that Reverend Robertson should be a key player in establishing a biblical theme park. After all, he is prominently mentioned in the New Testament. It’s in that bit about the Sermon on the Mount…Blessed are the nut cases for they shall give Me a good laugh.

A Final Disaster

2006-01-06T07:29:00.000-05:00

2005 will be remembered for the Asian tsunami, hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the Pakistani earthquake. Each of these disasters caused significant loss of life and massive damage to infrastructure. After Ashley Simpson, Bob Geldof and Bono threatened to do a global charity concert for the victims of these horrible events, it seemed that the toll of suffering would never end. Unfortunately, one final disaster was destined to mark 2005. The carnage in Norfolk, Virginia in late December was not a pretty sight.

The Virginia Zoo is no stranger to tragedy. Since 2003 there have been the deaths of a giraffe, a lion and a baboon. Then there was the unfortunate demise of a baby gazelle and a rhinoceros shortly after the opening of the new Africa exhibit in 2004. Although hurricane, tidal wave, and earthquake activity did not play a role in any of these deaths, last month’s disaster does seem to have been weather related. It rained in Norfolk.

One of the most popular features at the zoo was the recently built prairie dog village. The little animals busily created a warren of tunnels and happily settled in to their new underground home. Unfortunately, due to moisture in the ground and an inappropriate soil mixture, the entire tunnel complex of the new $334,000 Prairie Dog exhibit collapsed. Zoo Director Lewis Green was not optimistic that any of the animals survived. ‘Because they live underground we are not sure how many prairie dogs we had, but we started with 10.’

H I is investigating reports that Luis Lopez of Latinos No Documentos has threatened a massive protest march in support of the prairie dogs. ‘If they were not forced underground, we would know how many there are!’ he claimed. Lopez demanded an amnesty for all prairie dogs. (There is some question as to whether Senor Lopez believes agitating for driver’s licences and in-state college tuition rates are appropriate in this situation.) He also announced the formation of a new organisation, Prairie Dogs Without Borders, and kicked off a campaign for the return of Virginia to Mexico.

Unnamed sources have told H I that the Reverend Jesse Jackson has called for an investigation into the lack of access to medical services for the zoo’s African animals. ‘America’s indifference to the death of one giraffe should not be overlooked in the tragic deaths of the residents of P-Dog Ward.’ Claiming this as an act of solidarity with the prairie dogs, Jackson remarked, ‘if you can share the cage, you can share the rage’. There is the possibility of a $9 million wrongful death suit on behalf of the rhinoceros.

Luckily the news is not all grim. John Hoogland of the University of Maryland noted that the prairie dogs might just be hibernating. Hoogland said, ‘They’re fantastic diggers. They dig so fast and so expertly that it’s almost impossible to bury them alive.’ After careful excavations of the disaster area, 7 ill-tempered survivors were rescued.

The Virginia Zoo has announced an aggressive reconstruction plan for the surviving prairie dogs. Before ordering new dirt and renting a backhoe, they are studying the rebuilding strategy for New Orleans. Louisiana’s Governor Blanco has estimated that the new Prairie Dog Village should not cost more than $400 million.

The Year Ahead - 2006

2006-01-01T12:44:00.000-05:00

Homo Insapiens is proud to welcome guest columnist Madame Zsa Zsa and to publish her popular Annual Forecast for 2006. Madame regularly contributes her forecasts to Modern Necromancer, Nephrology Today, and the US White House Daily National Security Briefing.

January: The month ends abruptly after only 31 days. World-wide celebrations marking publication of the first Homo Insapiens column on 15 January 2005 deplete global alcohol stocks to dangerous levels.

February: Iraqi citizens demand another national election. Tests indicate that the purple ink supplied by Afghan sub-contractors contains sufficient cocaine to really chill out. Sunni radicals are urged to put down their guns and suck their index fingers.

March: Brewers and distillers still struggle to recover from the effects of 15 January. The US Senate authorises release of its Strategic Bourbon Supply over the vehement protests of Senator Ted Kennedy.

April: Scientists discover that global warming is significantly affected by the sun. Friends of The Planet demand that Earth be repositioned between Jupiter and Neptune. Barbara Striesand donates $1 million to the New Orbit Coalition.

May: Meeting on the French Riviera, African leaders decide to organise their own aid concert using the slogan ‘Eliminate the Middle-Man Now’.

June: The US Army Corps of Engineers reveals that the New Orleans levees failed because they were made of papier mâchè. Local contractors point out that the Mardi Gras floats survived Hurricane Katrina.

July: Christian Evangelist Reverend Duane Surely condemns Albert Einstein for ‘Godless relativism’. The State of Kansas immediately limits the speed of light to 55 miles per hour.

August: The last Mexican resident arrives in the United States. All the countries of Central and South America agree to move up one space.

September: Wal-Mart announces the opening of its 83,729th store in the USA saying, ‘you can now drive from St Louis to Miami without ever leaving the parking lot!’

October: New raunchy Paris Hilton videotape surfaces. China demands the return of Giant Panda Tsao ‘Long John’ Zsu citing failure of security at New York zoo.

November: Google finds last missing piece of information. Stock crashes to 11 cents.

December: The Smuggs family of Akron, Ohio add one additional light to their award winning annual Christmas display causing the North American power grid to self-destruct. Japan raises whale oil prices to $800 a barrel.

Return To Sender

2005-12-27T08:09:00.000-05:00

Christmas 2005 is now but a memory and people everywhere are once again facing the problems of the world. There is one question that hangs heavily over many a household at the moment: what should be done with the fruitcake? Before you throw it away, consider the following report by H I’s food critic, Pierre Mangetout.

The History

Fruitcake, similar to Christmas pudding in the UK, was invented by the Romans for use as catapult ammunition. During the Second Dacian War (91 AD) the enemy city of Sarmizegetusa was flattened by volleys of fruitcakes. After the Dacians surrendered, vast numbers of these missiles were returned to Rome and used to build Trajan’s Column.

The next time this Christmas delicacy appeared in history was in 1879 when an almost complete fruitcake washed ashore on the island of Saipan. The Royal Navy immediately launched an investigation and found that the fruitcake in question had drifted to Saipan from Blackpool, England. The 9,000 mile trail of great white sharks with severe indigestion and missing teeth was a vital clue. After strenuous enquiries, Chief Inspector Reggie Munroe of the Lancashire Constabulary charged a Mrs Mildred Witherspoon of 9 Wellington Close, Kirkham, with polluting Her Majesty’s oceans.

The modern era of the Christmas pudding seems to have dawned with the introduction of mail order fruitcakes in 1913. The Ringling Brothers Circus popularised sending them as holiday presents. (Apparently US Postal regulations barred sending elephant droppings in the mail.)

Genuine Fruitcake

HI has used all of its investigative resources to determine the characteristics of a genuine fruitcake. Our hazardous material laboratory (located in the kitchen in Big Bubba’s Bait Shop and Bar, Pungo, Virginia), reports the following: ‘Genuine fruitcake has the same atomic mass as a collapsed dwarf red star and twice the density. It is impervious to most materials but can be sliced by any sawmill equipped with a diamond-carbide steel cross cut blade. It has a half-life approximately 11 times that of uranium-235. It is estimated that 98.73% of all the fruitcake ever produced is still in existence.’

Meanwhile, at HI’s Food Standards Testing Centre (located above the gents’ in the Pig & Whistle, North London), Deputy Testing Officer Miles Frobisher reports that .0001 ounce of fruitcake delivers 100% of the annual recommended dosage of fruitcake. ‘Unfortunately the lads at the bar haven’t taken to the Christmas pud and vinegar crisps’, added Frobisher. Further experiments were curtailed as the 7 ton shipment of fruitcake sent to Darfur for field testing was returned untouched.

So before you decide to throw your fruitcake away consider the history and complexity of this rare treat. (Consider that it’s also illegal to dump nuclear waste at the community land fill.) Your fruitcake is a gift that keeps on giving. Someone gave it to whoever gave it to you. Give it to someone else next year. In the spirit of Christmas, get even.

Dear Santa

2005-12-22T08:02:00.000-05:00

Children of all ages have made their lists and sent them to Santa in hopes that he will approve of their behaviour and fulfil their wishes. Although not all celebrate this holiday as such, it seems a good idea that a general spirit of giving, hope, and friendship abides. There should be a sense of thankfulness at surviving yet another annual office party. Escaping from the ambush under the mistletoe sprung by a person with whom you would not choose to share a cemetery should be a cause for joy. Herewith, in this spirit, is H I’s letter to Saint Nick.

Dear Santa

Well it’s that time of year again and you are very busy. Your house resembles a Wal-Mart distribution centre. The reindeer are on a higher dosage of steroids than the Rumanian gymnastics team and the elves are working harder than the inmates in a Chinese tennis shoe factory. Mrs Claus is in a post-menopausal funk and is threatening to hang herself with decorative ribbon from a beam in the workshop. At least you can rely on H I to leave the usual quart of whisky and 200 milligrams of Prozac on the kitchen table.

If it’s not too much trouble, could you possibly slip a few extra presents in the sleigh. There are some people that H I would like to remember at this time of year and perhaps you can include them in your largesse.

Firstly there are the pretentious politicians, bumbling burocrats, pompous preachers, dastardly dictators, risible royals, expropriating executives and spurious celebrities. They all contribute to making this the golden age of satire. Their tireless efforts at keeping alive the controversy over whether evolution has been a success deserve something under the tree. You might consider anything that needs assembly, gifts that do not include the required batteries, red and green knickers equipped with blinking lights, or wind chimes.

Of course there are the readers of Homo Insapiens. Whether they stumble in after Googling ‘Hilary Clinton’s Ethiopian love child’ or actually intend to read H I, they deserve to be remembered. Regular readers and commenters might like personalised Rorschach tests. Subscribers might fancy new identities.

Finally there are those who blog, often daily, on subjects about which they are passionate for no reward other than to share their interest and, perhaps, enrich their readers’ thoughts. Four of these, Chronicles of the American Civil War, Archeological Digs, Tom's Astronomy Blog, and Egyptology News are noted in the links to the right. Give a special thought to them and to the other public spirited citizens of the blogosphere who make this chaotic cyber-world a better place to reside.

Thank you.

Homo Insapiens

PS. Say hello to the angel. Sorry about the accident. Hopefully, after Christmas, you will be able to find a really good proctologist who specialises in tree surgery.

Fighting Back

2005-12-17T10:10:00.000-05:00

There are few more iconic brand names in the history of US capitalism than Atlanta-based Coca Cola and Detroit-based Ford. Millions of people still savour memories of spilling a coke over each other whilst grappling in the back seat of a Crown Victoria or Cortina. But the marketplace is fickle and these two business giants have decided to fight back against growing competition and regain their former greatness.

Coca Cola is reacting to the threat of becoming second to its arch-rival Pepsi Cola for the first time and the CEO says ‘this is a transitional year’. The guys in Atlanta believe that when the Creator rested on the seventh day, He flopped down next to the pool, glanced at the nubile handmaidens tanning up, and popped a can of Classic Coke. Stoked with fervour, Mary Minnick, president of Coke’s global marketing, has announced a two-pronged campaign to beat back Pepsi. The company is introducing a new slogan for Coca Cola while it busily introduces a whole new set of beverages that are not Coca Cola. The advertising guys are getting ready to flood the market with the new slogan: ‘Welcome to the Coke side of life!’. (They are optimistic that they can get most of the supermodels in the world to appear in the adverts since most of the supermodels in the world spend most of their time stumbling around on the coke side of life.)

Meanwhile, back at the lab, a new range of drinks is being developed. A citrus energy drink called ‘Vault’ and a diet version called ‘Vault Zero’ are in development in response to the global crisis resulting from a shortage of energy drinks. For consumers who want more than energy, ‘Blak’ is on the way. This new cola based coffee drink will appeal to the market segment that enjoys poking wire coat hangers into electrical outlets and wants to stay awake for Wagner’s entire Ring Cycle in one sitting. Apparently ‘blak’ is the sound a person makes running head first into a concrete bridge abutment.

Ford is also going through a transitional year. It is transitioning from losing market share, money and credit ratings to losing more market share, money and credit ratings. Bill Ford, CEO, has decided that a new slogan will not be enough to reverse the company’s fortunes. ‘Welcome to the side of the road’ lacks a certain marketing flair. Noting that Japanese auto makers have already used all the nifty names for their models, the company admits competition is getting tougher. A spokesman said ‘We think Aïda, Rigoletto and La Forza del Destino have real buyer appeal, but let’s face it, Verdi only wrote so many operas.’ Product innovation is also not enough to get the job done, although the new line of fuzzy dice is considered to be an engineering breakthrough.

Ford has decided to defeat the enemy by closing 10 plants, laying off 30,000 people, and building fewer cars. Discussing a recent board meeting, the CEO said ‘I voted to make more cars before I voted to make fewer cars. I think we have to attack GM by aggressively announcing a time-line to withdraw our SUV’s and support our brave dealers in the fight for market share until next August.’ Senator John Kerry immediately praised the new strategy.

H I is investigating reports that Coca Cola and Ford are planning to combine forces. Detroit should be a perfect test market for their new joint slogan: ‘Drive-bys and coke go together.’

Tempus Fugit

2005-12-13T19:45:00.000-05:00

It seems like only yesterday since H I published its exclusive coverage of the coronation of Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI. It has been a busy 8 months. Establishing a new pontificate involves a lot of difficult decisions and tampering with tradition is never easy. Getting the Vatican cafeteria to drop sausage and kielbasa and feature sauerbraten and red cabbage was a big deal. Changing the monograms on about a thousand bath towels from II to XVI was a huge job. What do you do with a bunch of people who made their living translating between Polish and Latin? Then there were the last guy’s magazine subscriptions and credit cards to cancel. (As St Bruce, patron saint of interior decorators said, ‘it’s all in the details’.)

There were also important ceremonial changes that Benedict had to come to grips with. Learning to say ‘Ve haff vays of making you pray’ in 37 languages was not easy. Designing the new Panzergranadier uniforms for the Swiss Guards seemed to take forever. Then there was the balcony bit. The vision of a German standing on a balcony addressing 50,000 people had a few public relations problems. Luckily the Grand Chamberlain was able to sell a compromise to XVI. The weekly appearances on the balcony stay; the crowd does not march by carrying torches.

It’s a miracle that Big Ben had any time at all to deal with theological issues. Thank God, he is the CEO of Miracles-R-Us. He’s managed to find the time to publish several important new doctrines.

Overturning centuries of Catholic teaching, the Church has scrapped ‘limbo’. Originally limbo was seen as a convenient place for all those people who were born in a year ending in BC and for babies who died before they were baptised. Without membership cards, they couldn’t get into heaven. Since they were not guilty based on a technicality, they couldn’t be sent to purgatory or hell. Some bright spark in the Dark Ages had a nifty idea. Why not just have them hang around until the end of the universe and then figure out what to do with them? Unfortunately, limbo now contains a couple of billion souls who are bored rigid. They have no idea how long they will have to wait, there’s nothing to do, and no one gives them any information. Hanging around until the end of the universe is really miserable. In a bold step, the Vatican plans to change the name ‘limbo’ to Heathrow Terminal 6 and sub-contract the operation to British Airports Authority.

H I can also report breaking news on the Christmas controversy. Rumours have surfaced that several American atheists are planning to file a lawsuit demanding that the giant blue spruce being set up in St Peter’s Square should be referred to as a ‘Holiday Tree’. A spokesman for the ACLU says, ‘What happens in the basilica should stay in the basilica! God does not belong in the public square’. In response, after a lengthy study of the issue by the College of Cardinals and the Vatican Office of the Preservation of the Faith, the Pope will issue a new encyclical entitled Excidere amicus, ego dominus - et meum forum est.

As a service to readers whose Latin is limited to counting to III, we are happy to provide an English translation: ‘Get lost buddy, I’m the boss - and it’s my square!’

We Might Have Lift-Off

2005-12-09T09:17:00.000-05:00

December 5th and 6th was a perfect time and Berlin was an ideal place to hold a conference of European Ministers to discuss the objectives and priorities of the European Space Agency (ESA). There were no competing conferences on global warming, curing Aids, feeding Africa, controlling avian flu, or preventing earthquakes. Conveniently, with the new EU Directive on Eliminating Work in the Workplace, Mondays and Tuesdays are pretty slow back home in any case. Selecting Berlin as the venue also made it easy to pick up some Christmas marzipan and get one of those giant nutcrackers that look like a Prussian guardsman on crack cocaine.

17 European countries and Canada were represented. (Canada decided to be part of Europe after President Bush asked Secretary Rice ‘who owns that big empty space between Minneapolis and Anchorage?’) The ministers met to approve the budget of 8.8 billion euros to fund the ExoMars mission, plans for manned missions to the Moon and Mars, development of the polar ice-monitoring Cryosat 2 satellite, and implementation of GMES - the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme.

Although the delegates were asked to put national priorities aside in the interest of European cooperation, tensions between France and Great Britain immediately flared up. Dominique Perignon, speaking for France, argued forcefully that French should be adopted as the official language of the ESA. Perignon said, ‘Eef zere iz antellijon laff on Mears, it spiks Franche.’ Nigel Ponsonby-Smythe, British Astronomer Royal, defended the use of English by the ESA. ‘Crikey’, he gasped, ‘two days of Dom Perignon and I’ve got this horrific headache! I could murder a pint about now.’

Economic disagreements also surfaced during the conference. Athanasios Stavropopolous, Greek Minister of Technology lobbied hard for subsidies to compensate farmers for not growing olives on the Moon. Paddy O’Connor, Ireland’s High Commissioner for Development demanded that Irish bricklayers be given preferential treatment in bids to build the Cryostat 2 satellite. Sweden pushed their flat-pack design for the Mars Lander, pointing out that it includes two end tables and a bookshelf and is very easy to assemble. Cyprus requested that their entry in the Eurosong Contest should be beamed back to the Earth from outer space.

In an attempt to calm the proceedings, Herr Professor Doktor Werner von Stülpnägle, Germany’s Oberkommandant of Rocket Science, offered to apologize to the Netherlands in advance if the GMES launch vehicle goes off course and levels Rotterdam.

In the final report of the conference, it was agreed that manned space flight is very expensive and a lot of hard work. It was decided that it would be much easier to ask the Chinese, the Russians and the Americans to do it and that Europe should commit to supply designer luggage for the astronauts.

In a show of friendship to Turkey, the delegates unanimously agreed to a resolution that no lunar missions should touch down on the surface whilst the moon was in its crescent phase.

Election 2005

2005-12-04T15:47:00.000-05:00

The Iraqi election is scheduled for 15 December. Over 120 political parties are contesting 275 seats in the National Assembly. As the cable news networks are concentrating on the main political groups, H I is proud to provide an analysis of the most influential smaller parties in the race.

Under their dynamic leader Nebuchadnezzar Akkad, The Sons of Babylon look like a powerful force. They are campaigning to rebuild the Hanging Gardens and promise to hang someone in the garden behind party headquarters every Friday if elected. They also want to restore the cuneiform script to the school system and have demanded that the US provide every Iraqi citizen with a wireless, web-enabled Etch-A-Sketch tablet.

The ultra-liberal Progressive Freedom Faction is arguing for a kinder, gentler Islam. In an appeal to New Age voters, they are calling for the legal sale of hashish, alcoholic beverages and elimination of dietary controls. The PFF is getting attention with their hard hitting television spots featuring the catchy slogan ‘Where’s the pork?’

The New Democrats call themselves the Big Tent Party. In trying to appeal to everyone from centrists to far left agitators, they have decided not to propose any policies but to simply denounce everything their opponents say. Realising they have no chance of winning control of the National Assembly, they are concentrating on holding onto control of the Supreme Imams. Their offices are located in the Tower of Babel.

The Al Q’ore Martyrs Brigade, (a fanatical splinter group of the New Democrats), maintains that the last Iraqi election was rigged and is committed to restoring the Coalition Authority. Their members are willing to commit political suicide by strapping a copy of the party platform onto their bodies and appearing in public.

The Iraqi National Republican Party bases their position on a strong national defence policy. They support the Caliphate Act and maintain that Ecuador is an imminent threat to Iraq. They have proposed a guest bomber programme for undocumented terrorists who sneak across the border. In an appeal to their base, they favour overturning Fatima vs. Achmed, public executions of members of the ICLU, and they encourage all retailers to use the phrase ‘Merry Ramadan’.

Iraqis Abroad represents citizens who have emigrated to other countries. They support the use of washable ink in elections, voting rights for deceased Iraqis, unlimited campaign contributions, unaudited public works projects, jobs for their supporters in the Baghdad Water Department, and the firing of all federal prosecutors. They are headquartered in Chicago.

As the election season heats up there will be a flood of television adverts, mass mailings, telephone appeals and camel stickers. Look for lots of hand-written signs along the streets. With over 120 political parties, there will be millions of improvised election devices installed. As Vice President Cheney says, ‘It’s a sure sign of democracy and progress when every road in the country is littered with IED’s’.

Experience Counts

2005-11-30T06:54:00.000-05:00

If there is any good news that can be found in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina it is in the valuable lessons that have been learned. It can cost more money to bail out New Orleans and Louisiana than it costs to bail out the politicians who live there. Given the prevailing winds, stockpiling 800 truckloads of ice in Maine has a limited cooling effect on the Gulf Coast of the United States. Rolling every government agency except the Massachusetts Cranberry Pricing Board into the Department of Homeland Security is not necessarily a good idea. Training 85 year old bed-ridden Alzheimer’s sufferers in aquatic survival skills has a limited return on investment. Without cosmetic engineering, cable news reporters named Cindi, Missy and Buffy look like wombats who just escaped from a commercial washing machine.

Michael Brown, former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has taken these and many other lessons to heart. Within days of the disaster he sensed that there was something amiss when W stopped calling him ‘Brownie’ and began referring to him as ‘that useless idiot who couldn’t manage a war in Iraq’. Clearly, it was time to move on to the next challenge. Unfortunately, the job of preparing to defend the USA from health emergencies such as an anthrax attack or the avian bird flu was already taken. Stewart Simonson, Assistant Secretary for Public Health Preparedness in the US Department of Health and Human Services, has a lock on the job. Simonson’s background includes being a corporate secretary for the National Railroad Passenger Corporation and in coordinating crime and prisons policy for the state of Wisconsin. Noting that Simonson could open one of those annoying child-proof aspirin bottles, President Bush said that ‘Stewball’ is doing a great job.

Michael Brown has not been discouraged however. He is an optimist. He sees hope where others see catastrophe. He thinks 30,000 people can share 12 toilets in a football stadium for 4 days and remember to wash their hands after flushing. So he started a new company that specialises in disaster preparedness consulting: Michael D. Brown LLC. (Market research gave a slight edge to that name over Black Death Limited, Armageddon, Inc. and Dress for Disaster Associates.) Apparently, the new venture is off to a good start. Brown said, ‘I’m doing a lot of good work with some great clients’. In the interest of preventing mass panic and a collapse of local housing prices, the client list is confidential. Michael was also was quoted as saying ‘My wife, children and my grandchild still love me. My parents are still proud of me’. Mrs Brown and the children could not be reached for comment as they are house hunting in North Korea. Michael’s father is suing the family doctor for $11,000,000 over the faulty vasectomy and his mother is busy filming a Hollywood bio-epic called ‘Spawn of Satan’.

The new business enterprise is headquartered in Denver, Colorado and there are early signs of success. Based on an exhaustive study of the Rocky Mountains, Brown noted that Denver is poorly prepared for a tsunami. In a detailed report, Brown recommends increasing the number of US Coast Guard bases in Colorado and replacing the paper towel dispensers with warm air blowers in the toilets in Bronco Stadium.

There are rumours that Stewart Simonson is planning to join Michael D. Brown LLC. Hopefully terms can be agreed before 37% of the US population dies from Ebola.

Giving Thanks

2005-11-25T09:51:00.000-05:00

The United States has survived yet another annual bout of tradition. Thanksgiving 2005 has passed and there are 45 million fewer turkeys wandering around. According to tradition, the first Thanksgiving was a cross cultural event. The English settlers wanted to thank the Wampanoag Indians for their help in the colonists surviving their first winter in the new world. The menu for that initial feast comprised dishes native to the new land. The colonists were introduced to turkey, corn bread, sweet potatoes, squash and cranberries. The Wampanoags were introduced to smallpox. There might have been a lot of leftovers from the first Thanksgiving, but by the second there weren’t any leftover Wampanoags. As a result it is not traditional for Americans to invite a bunch of Indians to dinner each year on the third Thursday in November.

On the same day, back in the old country, the population participated in a major bout of tradition breaking. Whilst millions of Yanks were trying to remember their in-laws’ names and figure out what to do with Aunt Edna’s creamed onions, millions of people in England and Wales were trying to figure out what to do with the new Licensing Act. After almost a century of strict controls on the hours a pub could be open, 24 November 2005 provided a reason for every drunk in the country to give thanks. Millions of people wound up trying to remember their own names and figure out how to open a packet of crisps. People in England and Wales have made a science of getting eye-wateringly pissed in spite of the fact that last orders has traditionally been at 10:30 pm and closing up time has been at 11pm. The old system was actually very convenient. If, after a night of pouring as much booze down your neck as humanly possible by 11 pm, you were in the mood for a good fight, a bit of vandalism, or a minor riot, everyone else in the country who wanted to join in the fun was dumped into the street at the same time.

In an attempt to reduce the nightly scenes of public drunkenness and carnage, HM Government decided to try a radical idea. In response to the problem of passive smoking, the government proposed a nationwide ban on lighting up in public places. In response to the problem of massive drinking, the government introduced a nationwide plan to make it easier to drink. (Having a teen-aged girl with purple hair and a large staple in her eyebrow throw up all over you is not considered to be passive drinking). The Prime Minster believes that extended drinking hours will introduce a ‘café society’ to the country. It is hoped that ‘continental drinking habits’ will develop. He has visions of millions of Brits sitting at sidewalk bistros sipping merlot, wearing berets, and arguing about the philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre. Unfortunately, the last time two drunken Brits argued about the meaning of Jean Paul Sartre, 6 square blocks of Newcastle were destroyed.

The descendants of those first settlers of Massachusetts may have the answer to this dilemma. Boston based Samuel Adams Beer Company has introduced a new beer called Utopias. It has 5 times the alcohol content of regular beer. According to their marketing material, Utopias ‘is designed for after-dinner sipping, like a liqueur. It tastes like cognac smells’. At 25% alcohol, the most diehard beer drinker can get totally legless by 5 in the afternoon and be comatose by 6:30.

Eliminating the troublesome elements from the night time streets of Britain would mean decent people could take an evening stroll and not be afraid of being attacked by savages. After all, it worked with the Wampanoags.

If It's Peking, Duck

2005-11-17T19:42:00.000-05:00

Memo to: The President

Subject: Background briefing for your visit to Beijing

Location: The Meeting will be held in China. China is a Communist country. That’s easy to remember if you look at a map – it’s a little left of California. (China is also a very large country but it is probably not a good idea to say ‘Wow, I thought Brazil was big!’.) During this trip there will be two important diplomatic events. We are hosting an informal cook-out at the US embassy. That will give you a chance to get to know Chairman Hu Jintao. He’ll be the one wearing the badge that says Hi! My name is 胡錦濤. The Chinese will be hosting a state dinner. As President of the United States, you get to order three from column B, and since Condy is not on this trip you get her fortune cookie in addition to your own.

The Agenda:

There are three big issues that will be discussed on this trip: Trade, North Korea, and Democracy and Religious Freedom.

The trade issue continues to be a problem. Thanks to Wal-Mart, the Chinese have more US dollars than they know what to do with. We need them to invest in America. Suggest that they take the lead in rebuilding the hurricane damaged Gulf Coast. If anyone can reduce China’s inventory of greenbacks, a bunch of Louisiana politicians should be able to go through the money like water through a levee. You can also offer to subcontract border security to China. They have a lot of experience in building walls.

It looks like we are getting close to a deal on North Korea. South Korea has offered Kim Jong-Il unlimited electricity supplies. China has offered to defend Kim Jong-Il against invasion. Japan has offered Kim Jong-Il enough food for his starving citizens. Russia has offered Kim Jong-Il infrastructure projects. We also need to offer Kim Jong-Il something he really wants. Offer to lower the height requirements on the rides at Disneyland and a copy of Paris Hilton’s latest tape with the 6 bikers and the egg beater.

Democracy will be a tricky subject. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have determined that invading China to introduce democracy will stretch our military too thin. (Given Iraq, it looks like invading Liechtenstein might be a problem.) We need to get the Chinese to realise that Democracy is not a threat to the stability of the government. We need them to see that the power of the ruling party will not be threatened. Suggest that Tom Delay give them a call. Don’t push too hard on religious freedom. A country that uses chop sticks instead of knives, forks and spoons is not ready for intelligent design.

The Final Communiqué:

The closing press conference is a very important event. The Chinese are obsessed with saving face and following protocol. It is critical that you let the Chairman take the first question and give the first answer. Remember, Hu’s on first.

On The Safe Side

2005-11-13T20:41:00.000-05:00

Last week produced a bag of mixed results for the supporters of Intelligent Design. In Dover, Pennsylvania, the Everything-is-so-Complicated supporters experienced what it’s like to become extinct. Voters went to the polls and decided it was time to evolve the local school board. One of the school board members was not up for re-election. The other eight were supporters of a statement that there are ‘gaps’ in the theory of evolution, that Intelligent Design is an alternative, and that students could read about ID in a book entitled ‘Of Pandas and People’ which is available in the high school library. All eight were defeated in the election. The students at the centre of this controversy supported the proposition that there are gaps in the theory of abstinence before marriage. They maintain that shagging in the back seat of Dad’s car is a pretty good alternative and note that this month’s Hustler is available at the 7-11 next to the high school.

Reverend Pat Robertson, Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Intelligent Designer, reacted in a quiet and Christian manner. He advised the ‘good citizens of Dover, if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God. You just rejected Him from your city.’ Apparently the good citizens do not consider a tsunami to be an impending event. Students at Regent University, founded by Reverend Pat, immediately held a rally at the school’s new Olympic swimming complex and baptismal font to pray for the discovery of a volcano in southern Pennsylvania. In an act of true charity, Evangelical Christians across America decided to support Robertson in spite of the fact that he appears to be two psalms short of a full testament.

A thousand miles west of Dover, the good citizens of Kansas are not taking any chances with tsunamis or volcanoes. The state Board of Education voted 6-4 to include Intelligent Design in the science curriculum. They also voted to redefine science so that it is ‘no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena’. Board Chairman Steve Abrams said, ‘This is a great day for education’. It is not clear if Kansas will update the history curriculum to include the Tin Man, the Wizard and the Wicked Witch of the East.

Meanwhile, in other breaking news from Kansas, Steve Arnold discovered a huge oriented pallasite in a field in Kiowa County. The 1,400 pound meteorite exceeds the size of the one thousand pounder discovered in the state in 1949. ‘It is aesthetically the kind of meteorite that makes collectors drool’ said Arnold. (Obviously, Hustler is not available in Kansas.)

Kansas seems to be covered in meteorites and their fragments. Clearly the Intelligent Designer needed a break from time to time. What does a Designer do to relax? Team sports are out. There’s no one to play cards with, and being the only person in the universe makes a singles’ bar just a lonely place with an ironic name. It looks like He took up target practice and used Kansas as a nice, flat target.

So the people of Kansas have intelligently hedged their bets in case the Designer takes another break. After all, according to Pat, He is more likely to lob in a few more meteorites than to thumb through a copy of this month’s Hustler.

Crème Brulée

2005-11-09T08:19:00.000-05:00

In an attempt to satisfy the insatiable desire of the average American for in-depth reporting on international events, H I has mobilized its crack news gathering team to cover the riots that are sweeping France. Our senior correspondent, Shannon Segue, is embedded in a Golden Memories travel group currently enjoying a 14 day tour of all 25 countries of the European Union. The trip is sponsored by the Evangelical End Times Church of Wilmer, Texas. Pastor Kyle Muggins observed that ‘although a lot of people in this neck of the woods talk funny, you can find a McDonalds just about everywhere. And getting to see France burned up is really Biblical!’.

Reporting from the scene of the action, H I has been able to get a series of hard hitting interviews. They add up to a very grim picture. According to Philippe Poubelle-Merdier, French Undersecretary for Residents Who Want to be French but Never Will Be, ‘these petty irritations are the work of a tiny minority of trouble makers. How much difficulty can 5 or 6 million unemployed, hopeless, angry, disconnected North African Muslims cause the French Republic? If we can defeat the Germans three times in 150 years, this riffe-raffe can be dealt with’. Sylvie-Clothilde Poitrine, Head of the Insitute Nationale for the Protection of the French Language immediately denounced the Undersecretary for using the English phrase ‘riffe-raffe’.

Jean-Luc Pompier, head of the National Union of Firefighters released a bristling press statement denouncing the riots. ‘Our members are totally disgusted. Not only has the government refused our demands for a 3 hour work week and full retirement at age 26, but our working conditions are terrible. The smoke is incroyable, the heat is enough to ruin a soufflé, and with all this water how can we keep our uniforms dry?’ The reaction to M Pompier’s statement was electrifying. Pierre Cardin announced an emergency plan to design new, water-proof uniforms for the fire fighters including flame retardant red sashes that can be worn on national holidays. Yves Gauche, the spokesman for the French Communist Party announced a nation-wide strike at all water pumping stations. Reacting to charges that his move would allow the entire country to burn to the ground, M Gauche remarked ‘let them pump Dom Perignon’. French wine growers immediately demanded a subsidy of 80 billion Euros from the EU.

There are those who are attempting to calm the situation. Imam Farouk Barbequeuex, leader of the Central Mosque in the town of Piednoir-sous-Terre, urged the government to adopt Islam as the state religion and make the inclusion of bacon in Quiche Lorraine a capital offence. ‘Can a country truly be described as civilized when unclean and unholy pigs are used to find truffles?’ said the Imam. His suggestion that camels be used as a substitute has been fiercely condemned by the Dromedary Society of Lille. The DSL has announced the formation of a new political party which will campaign under the slogan ‘Two Humps Are Better Than One’. Les Dames Horizontales, the French prostitutes’ union immediately pledged a contribution of 2 million Euros to the new party citing fears that being forced to wear burkas would reduce their productivity.

In an attempt to improve relations between the US and France, President Bush has offered the help of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In response, our own Shannon Segue can report that France is considering declaring war on the USA.

Over Here

2005-11-05T09:12:00.000-05:00

Mr and Mrs Windsor popped over to the colonies for a bit of a jolly and have had a bloody marvellous time meeting the natives and learning the odd phrase in an almost unintelligible language. The Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne, and his wife are managing to maintain a low key and dignified visit to the United States in a trip that seems to have two primary themes. On their first three stops they concentrated on visiting disaster areas. There was a respectful ceremony at ground zero in New York City and a tour of the devastated city of New Orleans. In between these visits, they managed to fit in another tragic disaster area – they dropped by the White House for lunch and dinner. Since President Bush has not been indicted for anything yet, he and Mrs Bush were able to attend both meals. Having disposed of trips to the disaster areas caused by Al Qaeda, Hurricane Katrina, and Scooter Libby, they have moved on to San Francisco to concentrate on organic gardening.

Charles has had a busy schedule but his new wife has not spent all of her time deciding which of the 50 dresses she brought with her to wear. She attended a seminar at the National Institute of Health on the horrors of osteoporosis, a disease which brings agony and debility to millions of elderly people. It is not clear if she enquired as to the probability that she would be stricken with osteoporosis before her husband finally became the King of England.

There was concern in royal circles that the visit would create negative reactions in the US press. The last time the Prince was in the states, he was newly married to Diana, Princess of Wales. Americans had a real love affair with Diana. Anyone who has the reputation of being Mother Teresa in a package resembling Britney Spears is a tough act to follow. Two things seem to have made everything all right. Charles’ second wife seems to be an all-right sort with a sense of humour. In addition, not many people even knew The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall were in the country. It seems that monarchy is not as interesting to the Yanks as it once was. The Kansas City Royals haven’t been in contention for the World Series in years. The Entertainer Formerly Known As Prince is currently The Entertainer Presently Pretty Much Unknown. There was a chance after the last election that royalty would once again capture the country’s imagination but it was not to be. John Kerry’s wife, heir to the Heinz fortune, had a shot at being made the Countess of Catsup if he had won. However since it turned out that John was actually the Baron of Boredom in disguise, he has been relegated to being the Old Pretender.

The other problem with creating an interest in monarchy in the United States is the demographic makeup of the current First Family. Although George and Laura are the proud parents of well brought up and attractive twin daughters, they do not have a male heir. Although the father, Bush 41, and the son, Bush 43, had the makings of a dynasty, there is no one to carry on the family succession. Although this may be a disappointment to Bush true believers, it may be a relief to Prince Charles. The risk of a revolution in the USA as a result of a new George III must be of concern. The Yanks might decide to chuck in all this republican falderal and rejoin the United Kingdom.

Imagine the future King of England having to ponce around his North American colonies to open Wal-Marts and have tea with Cindy Sheehan. Charles must be hoping that brother Jeb Bush keeps the royal bloodline alive and well.

Bring Low Sweet Harriet

2005-10-30T13:31:00.000-05:00

As President Bush seems set to ‘re-launch’ his presidency after the fiasco of the hurricane response, the indictment of a key administration aid, and the ongoing arguments over foreign policy and the war, a few moments should be spent in remembering another casualty of the day: the unfortunate Ms Harriet Miers.

In hindsight, just about everyone thinks that nominating Harriet to the Supreme Court was the judicial equivalent of nominating the guy who wrote your DVD owners’ manual for a Nobel Prize in literature. The nominee must be a bit disappointed. A week ago she could imagine her name being written in the next edition of the History of the US Supreme Court. Now she can look forward to her name appearing on the answer side of a Trivial Pursuit card.

It’s not as if the administration did not try to get Ms Miers’ nomination approved. In attempting to improve her odds, the President argued that she ‘was the best person he could find’. As a result, Las Vegas changed the odds to 10,000-1 against President Bush finding the most colourful egg in next year’s Easter Egg hunt on the White House lawn. Vice President Cheney chimed in by saying ‘it’s not as if she is someone who just walked in off the street’. Although this was a ringing endorsement for the guys in the security booth at the end of the White House driveway, it seemed to lack the resonance the nominee clearly needed.

Further problems for Harriet came from the President’s own supporters. The Alpine wing of the Republican Party looked down from their journalistic heights and decided that she did not have the intellectual fire power to do the job. Conservative columnists noted her lack of judicial experience, the fact that she had made no speeches on important legal theory, and the absence of any written work more profound than a weekly grocery shopping list. Republican Arlen Spector noted that perhaps she should take a crash course in Constitutional issues. (Perhaps she could have enrolled in one of the crash courses being offered to about 20 million Iraqis.) Interviews with about 30 other senators resulted in a groundswell of drowsiness that was not very helpful.

There was also a rebellion against W’s selection from the President’s powerful base –the Shiite Wing of the Republican Party. In order to reassure the fundamentalist mullahs of the far right, it was pointed out that Ms Miers was a loyal convert to the born-again movement and belonged to a very conservative Evangelical church. This was not particularly effective as no one could produce any documents that proved that she supported burning liberals at the stake or that she believed that the earth was created on August 13, 8003 BC – at 2:38 in the afternoon. Apparently a full immersion baptism on the steps of the Supreme Court was not considered to be in good taste.

Amidst all this turmoil, the opposition party was able to sit back and watch the bringing low of Sweet Harriet. The Sunni wing of the Democratic Party, led by Senators Kennedy, Durbin and Biden were able to maintain a detached silence and prepare for a bout of apoplexy over the next nominee. After all, to paraphrase a well worn Washington rule, why bring a donkey to a catfight when you can bring an elephant.

To Boldly Go

2005-08-12T07:35:00.000-05:00

STS-114, otherwise known as the Discovery space mission, landed on Tuesday morning after a dramatic 2 weeks. Led by Mission Commander Eileen Collins, the crew of two women and five men reflected NASA’s commitment to equal opportunity in space exploration. In case any extraterrestrial life forms were observing the mission, the make up of the crew was also a good indication of the ratio of women to men in an Earth-based singles bar on a typical Saturday night.

The flight of Discovery exceeded all hopes in the ongoing quest to conquer the universe. The crew transferred 15 tons of supplies from the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) to the International Space Station (ISS) and 5,000 pounds of rubbish back to the MPLM for shipment back to earth. Although it is too early to draw final conclusions from this critical experiment, based on the performance of the MPLM it appears that a large metal box is a useful design for both a shipping container and a garbage dumpster. The experiment was considered a success. In another positive development, it was demonstrated that a lone crewman could be sent outside to fix the problems that were missed by about 75,000 engineers with a programme budget of over $150 billion.

Of course the real value of the shuttle programme is in support of the construction, supply, support and exploitation of the ISS. At a mere $30 billion, the cost of the ISS is a breakthrough in space travel. On the earth, it almost always costs more to build the repair shop than it does to build the vehicle that is being repaired. The fact that the shuttle has to bring its own spare parts and mechanic when it pulls into the service bay is considered a minor issue. After all, the two guys who are living in the ISS and circling the earth at about 200 miles are pretty busy. They are preparing to conquer the universe. As Captain Kirk would say, ‘if you’re going to Alpha Centauri, the first 200 miles are the toughest’.

Critics of the cost of manned space flight remain unconvinced by these successes. They point out that unmanned missions, packed with computers and robots have done more for conquering the universe than all the human trips combined. There are probes circling Jupiter and Saturn; there is enough air traffic over Mars to justify construction of an FAA control tower on Olympus Mons. The Hubble telescope has found a 10th planet and the Voyager I has done about 9 billion miles on its way out of the solar system. The two rovers have more combined miles on them than a Bangladeshi taxicab. We have parachuted a robot invader onto the surface of Venus, crashed a washing machine into a comet and are planning to fire a missile into the sun. Talk about conquering the universe!

There is, however, a strong sense that our species has a destiny to travel to the stars. Somehow driving from Cleveland to Akron or taking the 9:53 to Wakefield is no longer enough. Mankind will continue to dream of going where none have gone before. The Discovery mission has shown us the way to colonise the frontiers of space with the spirit of mankind. Put a woman in charge, tell the men to bring in the groceries and take out the trash, and do a bit of work around the place on the weekend.

As for the life-supporting technology, as long as there are men and women on the trip, there will always be a robot needed to remember to put the loo seat down.

When Cities Compete

2005-08-07T12:32:00.000-05:00

2006 will be a good year for European cities in the international events department. From 10 to 26 February, Turin will host the Winter Olympics. 84 medals in 7 sports will be distributed to about 2,500 competitors who will be kept in line by about 2,500 officials. About 10,000 journalists will provide critical support to the local wine industry. 2006 also sees the Football World Cup come to Germany. From 9 June to 9 July, national soccer teams from around the world will compete in 64 matches in 12 German cities from Hamburg to Munich. Preparations are already underway to accommodate the 3.2 million expected ticket holders. Berlin has announced the plans for the ‘Artemis Facility’, a convenient 25 minute walk from the stadium. With a whirlpool, sauna, cinema, buffet restaurant and a staff of 100 hookers, this is planned to be the biggest house of horizontal recreation in the world. Not to be outdone, the City of Dortmund is planning to install ‘drive-in sex garages’, giving new meaning to an oil change and a lube job. Unfortunately the German city of Köln (Cologne) will have to postpone installing the mirrors on the ceilings in the visitors’ centre for a while.

From 11 to 15 August 2005, Köln is hosting XX World Youth Day. It might be thought that the arrival of 800,000 visitors between the ages of 16 and 30 would provide a good trial run for the city’s plans to service the Football Fans in Raincoats market segment. However the arrival of 600 Roman Catholic bishops, an army of priests and nuns, and the Pope, will tend to put a damper on Cologne’s carnal commerce. For a week there will be hundreds of religious services and hours of contemplation and prayer. It is expected that the 4,000 journalists covering this event will maintain a contemplative attitude. It’s just as easy to get pissed on German white as it is on Italian red.

Competition to become the host city for a major international event is fierce. Seven cities have already signed up as potential hosts for the 2014 Winter Olympics. The Football World Cup is rotated around the continents and South Africa defeated such African countries as Nigeria and Egypt after a spirited competition for the 2010 event. (Sports journalists universally approved the decision as South Africa produces a very nice merlot.) The big question now is which city will get to host the XXI World Youth Day in 2008. Sydney, Australia is already ahead in the running thanks to Mel Gibson. In a plan to strengthen their bid, Gibson has been asked to recreate the Passion of the Christ as a part of the event. There’s nothing like a live crucifixion to jazz up a bid for an international event. Luckily for them, it’s also pretty clear to the reporters on the religion beat that Oz produces a quite decent cabernet sauvignon.

Although no US city has been considered for the 2014 Winter Olympics or the 2010 World Cup, there’s still a chance for XXI World Youth Day. Las Vegas would be perfect. For the clergy, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Beating the house is a certified miracle. The Bellagio could offer to comp the Pope. The hookers are already there and the reporters can get back to drinking gin. All Vegas has to do is figure out how to compete with Mel Gibson.

Of course, putting on a tableau of the money changers being driven out of the temple is a problem, but Caesar’s Palace could do one hell of a recreation of the lions and Christians.

The Apprentice

2005-08-03T07:24:00.000-05:00

President Bush used his powers under the US Constitution to make a recess appointment on Monday. John Bolton is the new ambassador to the UN until January 2007. The term ‘recess appointment’ originated in the behaviour of schoolchildren when they were allowed out of classes to run around and scream and shout and call each other names. George picked John to manage his UN team and all the Democrats and Republicans immediately started to run around and scream and shout and call each other names.

The Democrats think John is a bully and that he won’t play the game fairly. They wanted someone who would be a team player. They point out that the UN game is a noble pursuit and that it is the world’s favourite pastime and firmly believe it is the only game in town. The Republicans are very happy with John. They point out that the UN game is fixed and that the home team has not had a winning season in about 40 years. (They are particularly hopeful for John because he can stare down opposing batters and say ‘Piss off’ in 37 languages.) While the politicians were carrying on like a bunch of children, John reported for duty at the New York headquarters of the United Nations on Tuesday. By Wednesday he certainly understood the depth of the crisis the world faces: insufficient sanitation and clean water, unsafe working conditions, crumbling infrastructure, mis-management, corruption and waste. And those are just some of the problems at UN Headquarters.

The cornerstone of the UN complex in New York was laid on 24 October 1949. There are four buildings: the 39-story Secretariat, the General Assembly Building, the Conference Building, and the Dag Hammarskjold Library. The entire complex is technically not part of the United States and enjoys diplomatic immunity. That’s very useful because if it didn’t the whole property would be condemned. Roofs leak, a marble wall in the library has threatened to collapse, there’s no sprinkler system, the buildings are full of asbestos, 25% of the heating is lost in the winter and the machine room emits electro-magnetic radiation. In all, UN Headquarters is perfect for training peace keeping troops for duty in Bosnia.

The other problem with headquarters is the shadow. Apparently, back in 1949 the Mayor of New York promised to keep development in the neighbourhood ‘in harmony with the dignity and purpose of the UN’. As a result, delegates can’t pop across the street to a massage parlour or an xxx-rated theatre during breaks in the Global Women’s Rights debate. But Donald Trump built a 72-story residential building across the street and the Trump World Tower is about 350 feet taller than the Annan World Tower.

In order to regain the dignity it deserves, the UN is proposing to spend over $1 billion to fix up the old place. The Donald says the UN’s plan will cost more like $3 billion; he also says he can do the job for about $600 million. (Apparently Trump is not planning to sub-contract the plumbing to Kenya.)

So Ambassador Bolton has a chance to make the President happy. He can arrange for Trump to save the UN a lot of money and, if he’s lucky, Donald might say to Kofi ‘you’re fired’.

Roll Out The Barrel

2005-07-30T11:51:00.000-05:00

The United States Congress has gone into recess. After a gruelling bout of bill drafting, debating, i-dotting and t-crossing, it is about time for a well deserved vacation. (It would be uncharitable to observe that about 280 million Americans deserve a vacation from the hot air that seems to be an inescapable by-product of democracy.) The House and the Senate spent a lot of time working on complex issues such as Central American Free Trade, domestic security, and energy strategies. Inevitably there were winners and losers in the process. As the session was winding down it was clear that from the average citizen’s viewpoint, that the losers outnumbered the winners by about 279, 915,138 to 1,084,138. Luckily, there was still the Transportation Bill to even up the score.

With a final price tag of about $280 billion, the opportunities to ‘be about the people’s business’ and get a headline in the hometown newspaper were almost unlimited. State politicians across the country were salivating at the potential dollar-to-headline ratio: California - $23 billion, Maryland - $3.8 billion, Ohio - $7.5 billion. But true to its democratic roots, Congress also remembered small-town America. After all, it doesn’t take much to make a small town happy! Harrison, Arkansas got $33,440 for a new trolley barn. Abbeville, Georgia received $300,000 for a new welcome centre and Northport, New York was awarded $80,000 for new sidewalks. Milwaukee was given $640,000 to improve the Marsupial Bridge at the Holton Street Viaduct (to the undoubted delight of kangaroo owners of that fair city). Virtually no community was overlooked in the desire to make sure that average people’s lives could be improved. As Don Young (R- Alaska), Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee proclaimed, "This day is a truly momentous day for users of our nation's transportation infrastructure." It was certainly a momentous day for the citizens of Ketchikan, Alaska (population 14,470). If it doesn’t take much to make small towns happy, the $230 million dollars awarded to Ketchikan for a new bridge should have the same effect as giving every man, woman and child in town a lifetime supply of ecstasy. After all, the average improvement in this case works out to about $16,000 per person.

The good news is that although the new bridge will not directly help reduce traffic flows in New York or San Francisco, it will be 80 feet higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and just 20 feet shorter than the Golden Gate. Even better, the new bridge will provide access to the teeming island of Gravina (population 50) and the Ketchikan International Airport (6 flights a day). Dale Collins, an overjoyed resident of Ketchikan, reflected the excitement of the community: "The funny thing, when that big bridge is done, it will take more time to get to the airport than it does now on our little ferry, but it sure will be big. It's unbelievable, the size of that bridge." You can’t have everything when you are in the momentous days business. Given the tireless work of Representative Young in responding to the crushing traffic congestion problems of Ketchikan, it seemed only fair that the new bridge should be called ‘Don Young’s Way’.

Alaskans can only hope that Mr Young will take over the Environment Committee in the next term. Given his obvious legislative abilities and the limitless supply of hot air in Washington, it shouldn’t cost more than about half a trillion dollars to turn Gravina Island into a mecca for millions of beach loving tourists. Luckily, driving over to the island won’t be a problem.

The Fruits Of Technology

2005-07-26T18:29:00.000-05:00

It all resulted from breaking one rule; at least that’s what the bible says. Adam and Eve could live in Paradise, never be bothered by phone calls from credit card salesmen, run around naked, and not have to listen to paid political announcements or watch ‘Lost in Space’ reruns. And then they blew it. Instead of having a nice fresh 4044, they just had to eat a 3070. If the Divine Grocer had only used PLU’s in the fruit and veg section, the world might still be as perfect as the Garden of Eden.

A PLU (Price Look Up) is the small sticker that is applied to fresh fruits and vegetables in food stores. This little identifier is used to help the customer and the clerk in a supermarket. The idea is to prevent time consuming misunderstandings at the check-out point. When a PLU comes unstuck from an anise (4515), commerce can grind to a halt.

Clerk: ‘What’s that funny looking, disgusting thing and what’s the price?’ Customer: ‘I don’t know but I saw it on the food channel.’ Clerk: ‘There’s no picture of it in my Photo Guidebook to Funny Looking Fresh Things.’ 9th Customer in the check-out queue: ‘Hey Tree Hugger, eat real American food!’ 27th Customer in line: ‘Hey, you asshole, I’m late for Bible study!’ Incredibly obese 14th customer: ‘Can we move it along? My 5 gallons of choco-marshy ice cream is melting.’ 4th customer, who pays for the weekly groceries in pennies, muttering: ‘where is my handbag?’ 45 minutes later and the local cable station reports: ‘It is not clear why the normally loving grandmother massacred the 31 people ahead of her in the check-out line at Wal-Mart with a special-sale chainsaw from the garden department.’

Luckily, Greg Douillard and the Durand-Wayland Company have an answer to the problem of wayward PLU’s. Greg invented a way to tattoo fresh produce. All kinds of information can be permanently laser etched into the skin of an orange (4455) or a potato (9162) in addition to the price. The country of origin can be listed. (For US grown items, privacy laws probably prohibit listing the country of origin of the guy who picked it.) Handy safety tips can be included like ‘cut on dotted line’. Republicans can choose regular corn (4078), Democrats can select organic corn (94078), and Scientologists can enjoy genetically modified Frankencorn (84078). Helpful notices can be provided; single men can be advised to ‘dispose of onion (4669) if it grows hair’. Lawyers can demand a whole new range of safety notices: ‘Warning: Swallowing this pineapple (4471) whole is a choking hazard’. The new technology is particularly useful in the War on Terror. Using the ‘source and trace’ strategy to protect the food chain, every single piece of produce in the country can be monitored for threatening substances at each stage from farm to shopping cart. Employing everyone who lives west of Maine to do the monitoring will also dramatically improve the jobs figures. Fred Durand III, president of Durand-Wayland has another exciting idea. Why not sell advertising space! It might not be possible to fit an advert for a laxative on a grape (4499), but touting a sports bra on a melon (4050) would be a natural!

If the Deity is so smart, why was this idea missed so long ago. The world could have been a paradise! Why didn’t they grab that tomato (4044)? Life would be a bowl of cherries (4045) today if that large Gravenstein apple (3070) that Adam and Eve checked out had carried the message: ‘Eating this will really piss Me off’.

A Tasteful Debate

2005-07-22T08:44:00.000-05:00

Amidst all the talk about the need for civility in the Senate hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts, another White House nomination has been held up in the Senate for months. On 15 February 2005, Dr Lester M Crawford was nominated by President Bush as the new Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Unfortunately for the good Doctor, based on his record as the Acting Commissioner of the organisation, he has succeeded in providing the consensus that so many Liberals and Conservatives keep banging on about; and the consensus has been that Lester is a loser.

Left wing politicians have opposed the nomination based on the failure of the FDA to approve the sale of ‘Plan B’ without a prescription. Known as ‘the morning after pill’, Plan B is a birth control drug that works best within 24 hours after horizontal recreation. Even though two scientific panels recommended the change and 7 states have made sale without prescription legal, the FDA has continued to classify Plan B as a prescription drug. Liberals, led by Senator Hillary Clinton, suspected a vast right wing conspiracy to deny women access to birth control and threatened to abort Dr Crawford’s appointment. The FDA has now announced that they will decide on the status of Plan B by 1 September. The possibility of Domino’s delivering Plan B with the post-bonk pizza may resolve Liberal concerns.

Right wing politicians are also opposed to the Doctor’s nomination but they have a different issue. They object to the FDA approved warning labels on condoms wrappers. It seems reasonable to assume that a lot of Americans don’t even realise that there are warning labels on condom wrappers. Stopping to read the label on a condom wrapper has about the same effect as stopping to read the label on the other person’s knickers; it takes a bit of the excitement out of the moment. Apparently Senator Tom Coburn (Rep., Oklahoma) is an avid reader and he doesn’t like what he reads when he reaches for a condom. The current labelling statement says: ‘If used properly, latex condoms will help to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV infection (AIDS) and many other sexually transmitted diseases’. Condoms sound like a good thing. Coburn’s representative explains ‘that the senator's only concern is that condom labeling be changed to state their effectiveness or lack of effectiveness in preventing STDs’. Condoms don’t sound like such a good thing.

The senator is getting strong support from right-wing groups who believe that abstinence is the real answer to preventing HIV, AIDS, and STD’s; and nothing promotes abstinence like a good dose of label reading in mid-romp. To the delight of his supporters, Coburn does not limit his campaign for abstinence to heterosexuals. As he warned a Republican group recently, ‘Why do you think we see the rationalization for abortion and multiple sexual partners? That's a gay agenda’. (Given the fact that the senator is a physician, it is somewhat surprising that he is concerned about abortion amongst gay couples.)

As a compromise, H I notes that the FDA also monitors the nation’s food and enforces accurate nutrition labeling. In the passionate heat of the moment, some people might appreciate knowing the carbohydrate count in the Warm Sensations strawberry flavored model. Naaah…Senator Coburn probably wouldn’t like that either.

Spinning The Web

2005-07-18T21:28:00.000-05:00

Fresh from its failures in bringing stability to Haiti, ending Civil War in the Congo, and limiting the number of automatic weapons per person in Kosovo to 63, the United Nations has launched an ambitious new strategy. Rather than fixing things around the world that are broken, the organisation will turn its attentions to fixing things that are not broken. Although the UN could have decided to focus on lowering the speed of light at busy intersections, or ending mass poverty and homelessness in Switzerland, it has shrewdly decided to fix something that is not broken that will benefit all of mankind. The UN has decided to fix the Internet!

The focus of attention is an organization called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). This outfit manages a bunch of technical stuff that keeps a bit of order in the World Wide Web. Complicated things like IP Addresses, Protocols, Domain Names and Root Server Systems are all kept in line by ICANN. Basically they make sure that when you type in ‘The Magic of Christmas’ you don’t get a 45 minute video of Paris Hilton bonking the entire Brazilian Navy. Since this all works pretty well, it was obvious that a new UN group was needed; the Working Group on Internet Governance was born. After an extensive technical analysis of the Internet, which was based on reserving 1st class flights to Brussels on Expedia, the WGIG has released its first report from the Château de Bossey. (Unfortunately the Château de Bizeebodie was already booked by the EU Conference on Straight Lines.)

Four possible models for managing the Internet in the future have been suggested. 1. Replace ICANN with a Global Internet Council. 2. Replace ICANN with an International Internet Council. 3. Set up something to ‘address three interrelated areas of Internet policy governance, oversight and global coordination’. 4. Leave everything as it is and get on to the hors d’oeuvres and Chateau Petrus ’85. A separate Commission on Understanding WGIG Reports was established to study the difference between Model 1 and Model 2. Model 3 is on hold until Kojo Annan can set up something in a Swiss bank. Model 4 is on hold unless the US agrees to cover the $600 million cost of leaving everything as it is.

It will be difficult to satisfy everyone in this global effort. China wants a dramatic expansion of approved character sets. With an alphabet of between 40,000 and 80,000 characters they do have a point. On the other hand, the Chinese are not arguing for more IP addresses. The three they have, Central Party HQ, Army HQ, and Secret Police HQ, can easily manage 1.6 billion users. Japan wants bowing included in the protocols, Mexico wants uncontrolled migration of id’s to US root servers, and North Korea wants to nuke New Zealand if the Internet is actually implemented. In order to keep Tunisia in line, it was necessary to schedule the next meeting of the WGIG there. Taking a cue from Northern California, the country immediately launched a snappy advertising campaign entitled ‘Tunisia: Silicon Desert!’

In fact there actually may be an unspoken problem here that threatens the very core beliefs of the United Nations: ICANN is a non-profit organization. An unnamed a senior UN official told HI, ‘you’d have to be out your mind to solve the world’s problems without making a few bucks!’

A Perfect Storm

2005-07-15T09:20:00.000-05:00

Hurricane Dennis crossed the coast of the continental United States on Sunday afternoon, 10 July, in a lightly populated area. For those people in its path, the storm brought damage, disruption and, sadly, two deaths. Hundreds of thousands were left without power in its wake and debris was scattered across a wide area. But the casinos on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast were open the next morning and winds were down to 35 miles per hour by 11 am on Monday. Things could have been much worse for the people of the Gulf Coast. Tragically, things could not have been much worse for the US cable news networks.

MSNBC, CNN and FOX are big on hurricanes; they are easy to explain. The basic ingredients of a hurricane are fairly simple. Just about any weather system that starts in the Caribbean and develops enough wind and rain can be a hurricane. Add a catchy name and it’s time to dust off the Weather Central set. The coverage usually starts when Hurricane Waldo passes by some place like Haiti or Cuba. The good news is that in Haiti a lot of the houses are built from cardboard boxes so there are some really neat damage pictures. Since Cuba is run by Communists, the damage pictures from there are very popular. The bad news about Haiti and Cuba is that when a hurricane goes over land, it loses some of its punch. If Waldo can’t make up the wind speed, there won’t be any pictures of a Ramada Inn that used to be in Florida now sitting in Texas. But cable news executives can hope.

The frenzy at the cable news outlets was already building by Saturday afternoon. The younger, expendable reporters were despatched to strategic locations along about 2,000 miles of coastline from the Florida Keys to New Orleans. Each one of them was outfitted in very smart raingear from Abercrombie & Fitch. They were equipped with specially modified vehicles able to withstand an asteroid collision and rubber soled shoes. Luckily, about 400,000 residents were evacuated from the threatened areas to make room for the army of journalists. (Geraldo Rivera was unavailable and was thought to be following up a tip that the Loch Ness Monster spends summers in Aruba.)

Back at headquarters things were gearing up. Extra cans of hair spray were issued to network announcers Brandi, Candi and Mandi in expectation of a tough time ahead. New computer programmes were loaded up to bisect, dissect and disembowel Dennis. As Sunday wore on, it was discovered that the eye of the hurricane was only about 50 miles wide. The remote crew in New Orleans was reassigned to cover a gumbo festival. During gaps in the excitement, there was a cut to the National Weather Service. A guy who faintly resembled Mr Rogers pointed out that Dennis was actually moving down from a category 4 to a category 3 hurricane. The remote crew in Mississippi was reassigned to cover the opening of a Taco Bell in Biloxi. The excitement gap turned into a chasm.

All was not lost however. Dennis was not Ivan, but it was big. Weather maps were updated and, in grave tones, it was announced that rain was expected in Cleveland, Ohio by Thursday. Dennis was almost a perfect storm after all. Meanwhile Brandi, Candi and Mandi were frantically making hair appointments and hoping that Emily would not let them down.

A Lost Cause

2005-07-11T21:11:00.000-05:00

It seems that all or most of the Funda-mentalcases that perpetrated the London bombings survived the blasts. They could be travelling around the UK at this moment looking for another chance to create havoc. If so, they are likely to be watching the telly and reading the newspapers for news on their ‘great victory’. They are just as likely to be a bit disappointed. Commentators and editorial writers are praising the common sense of Londoners and the generosity and acts of heroism that were shown in the aftermath of the bombings. Memories of the Blitz are used as examples of the willingness of common people to come together to do what is right and to win against the odds. The weekend is over, Somerset soundly defeated Leicestershire in County Cricket and people are back to work. The message to the cowardly bastards who killed and wounded so many, and those who would come after them, is clear: the British do not surrender.

The bombers might expect her Majesty’s Government to immediately make a wife’s infidelity a crime punishable by stoning to death. They may hope that camel racing (in which the jockeys are kidnapped 6 year-old Pakistani boys) is taken up as the new countryside sport. They might want a new a state religion that gets Sid and Nigel and Tracy and Gemma to go to church and pray five times a day. (The current state religion is pretty happy if they go to church to get baptised, married and buried.) But if the bombers manage to see the local news, they might realise what they are up against. If these Islamo-whackjobs do try to push Britain back to the 14th Century, they are sure to be nibbled to death by ducks.

The ducks in question live in Portsmouth, England and six days a week for the past 15 years they have benefited from the generosity of three of the other inhabitants of that fair city: Beryl Stewart, 73, Betty Crisp, 75 and Sheila Lucas, 56. Every day except Sunday, in all seasons and in all weather, Beryl, Betty and Sheila have met at 6:45 in the morning, each carrying a loaf of bread. Every day, for all those days, they have taken the bread down to the lake at Hilsea Lines and fed the ducks. Since they live in England, these good ladies are not required to wear all-covering burkahs when they visit the ducks. Nor are they required to get the permission of a male relative to visit anyone at all. They did, however, run into the long arm of the law. They ran afoul of the Portsmouth city Council. Acting on a complaint of littering, the Council sent an enforcement officer to wait in the lakeside bushes to apprehend the three criminals. The officer in question was not equipped with an untrimmed beard and a Kalashnikov; he did have a notebook and a ball-point pen, however. After informing the ladies that they were breaking the law he told them that they were subject to a £60 fine if they persisted. Since arguing with a Council mullah is not punishable by being stoned to death in Britain either, Beryl, Betty and Sheila basically told him (in the nicest way possible) to piss off.

After a review of council procedures, which are a bit less strict than strict Sharia Law, the rulers of Portsmouth announced, ‘We are not against bird feeding and these ladies can continue. However we are concerned that the amount used was excessive and might attract rats and vermin.’ Obviously the London bombers are not welcome in Portsmouth.

So, to those intent on trying to force the United Kingdom to change, H I is happy to send a message: Piss Off…and mind the ducks.

Turnabout Is Fair Play

2005-07-09T11:12:00.000-05:00

With the latest announcement that Nigerian politicians have managed to skim off about $400 billion in the last 30 years, H I has identified an exciting new opportunity to Make Poverty History right here in the USA!

To: Mr Olusegun Obesanjo, President and Head of Government, Ajuba, Nigeria

Dear Sir

We are contacting you about a serious situation as reported on the Pungo, Virginia Crusader and Bugle website. Please see the article entitled ‘US Supreme Court Rules Against Bubba In Property Case’.

We know how busy you are running a country and hope that this correspondence does not cause you too much discomfort. If it were not an emergency, we would not send this good faith, honest and completely above board request to you. Your name was given to us by a member of the Virginia State Congressional Delegation who recently visited your beautiful country on a safari and fact finding mission into the potential uses of rhinoceros dung as an alternative to ethanol fuel additives.

We represent Mr Bubba E. Lee, owner of Bubba’s Bait Shop and Bar. Mr Lee is the victim of government oppression as described in the above referenced article. Even though the property in question is only .63 of an acre, there is a proposal to seize Mr Lee’s business to make way for a Wal-Mart super store. Proponents of this change to the fabric of Pungo claim that an 18 story Wal-Mart will fit very easily on .63 of an acre.

In order to foil these nefarious plans, Bubba has taken a second mortgage on the property in the sum of $47,000,000 (47 MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS). It is critical that these funds are held by an offshore trust company as Wal-Mart has announced plans to buy our local bank and turn it into a garden center. These funds (47 MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS), have been deposited in a fiduciary escrow account with a financial institution in North Korea. In order to ensure access to this money, Mr Lee needs your help as a respected head of government of a country with a flawless reputation in international finance. Obviously, this must be a joint venture. In order to assure you of the good intentions of our client, you will be entitled to 25% of the total sum recovered as soon as all the necessary paperwork has been completed.

Although we are confident of your intentions in this matter, it would reassure the Trustees of the Save Bubba’s Committee if you would be so kind as to forward the following information as a matter of urgency: a copy of your diplomatic passport, your Swiss bank account details, a copy of your chauffeur’s driver’s license, the password you use to access the International Monetary Fund payments system, the keypad sequence used to gain access to the United Nations headquarters spa and sushi bar, and Bob Geldof’s email address. We look forward to working with you in saving Bubba’s. Yours, H Insapiens

If we can save Bubba’s, H I is confident that there is hope for the £13 million project to ensure that malaria never threatens the gents’ loo in the Pig & Whistle.

Take The High Road, W

2005-07-06T06:11:00.000-05:00

Memo to: The President

Subject: Background briefing for your G8 Summit meeting

Location: The Meeting will be held at the Gleneagles Hotel and Golf Resort in Perthshire, Scotland. (Note: it is not necessary for you to attempt to say Perthshire.) Scotland is a lot like California. It thinks it is a separate country too.

The meeting: It is very important to remember who is who at the meeting. Use the CIA codenames for the other attendees: Canada (Sleepy), France (Grumpy), Germany (Guilty), Italy (Sloppy), Japan (Shorty), Russia (Sleazy) and the UK (Monty). The EU will also be there because they want to be a dwarf when they grow up. You don’t have to remember them.

The agenda for the meeting is very limited because the members of the golf club want the tank traps taken out of the sand traps and the AWACS plane and the tanks off the 15th fairway in three days. As a result, you will not be able to lobby for the Save Terri Treaty or argue to have condominiums labelled as ineffective in preventing painful rashes. Negotiations will be limited to two topics: Africa and Global Warming.

Africa is the big continent that kind of looks like a guitar. There are a lot of countries in Africa but they don’t get a vote at the summit. They are like Washington, DC. Not only can’t they vote, but they have a lot of poverty, crime, AIDS, and corruption too. This part of the meeting should be pretty easy. Everyone wants to fix Africa before Jessica Simpson decides to do a solo benefit concert. It’s also a good chance to make Tony happy. He keeps whining about his legacy and wanting to make the 8:06 from Mombassa to Lagos arrive on time. (He’ll be meeting with you before the summit if the 8:06 from London to Edinburgh arrives at all.)

The Global Warming part is more of a problem. The problem is that everyone else thinks it’s a problem. They are going to talk a lot about science. They will try and convince you that science is more than nucular fishing. They will try and scare you that the oceans are rising and millions of people will drown. (Note: most of the blue parts of the US map are closest to the ocean.) Point out that if it gets a little warmer there will be less use of wood burning fireplaces and the habitat of the semi-spotted periwinkle will be saved. We have an independent study funded by Exxon to back you up. It is very important that little or no progress is made on this issue. Suggest that the UN be put in charge of it.

A post summit press kit will be distributed with details on the disastrous problems faced by more than 600 million people of Africa, the risk to the survival of the human race from global warming, and the ethical and moral imperatives that have been placed on the world’s political leaders.

We will have a separate press announcement for the US media on your support for Little League Baseball and announcing July 28th as National Pistachio Ice Cream Day.

When Harry Met Sally

2005-07-03T05:48:00.000-05:00

Amidst all the controversy over the Patriot Act, individual rights, censorship and the imposition of moral values, the Attorney General of the US, Alberto Gonzales, has struck a blow for freedom. It seems that the AG has been misjudged. He may want the FBI to keep track of how many times Dr Seuss’ Cat In The Hat is checked out of American libraries by ‘children of interest’; but his underlying liberal instincts have been revealed by his treatment of Harry and Sally.

This epic march of liberalism started in 1936, when Harry met Sally. Harry’s more formal name is Majesty of Justice. Sally’s actual name is Spirit of Justice. They were installed in 1936 in the shiny new Department of Justice building and they fit right in because they were pretty shiny and new as well. Harry and Sally are 12 foot 6 inch aluminium statues sculpted by German-born American artist Paul Jennewein. Harry is a bare-chested Hollywood type and is wearing a discreet bit of cloth around his midsection. Of course, at 12 foot 6, and with a chest like Arnold Schwarzenegger, people don’t need much imagination to picture what’s under the bit of cloth. At the same time, Sally has been standing there, with her arms over her head, dressed in a revealing toga. In miraculous anticipation of Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction, Sally’s right breast has been on display for about 70 years. Harry should get the Justice Department merit badge for self control.

Although Harry and Sally may have had a few prurient thoughts and even imagined the odd bonk when the guards weren’t looking, there is no evidence that they actually ever did the dirty over all those years. However attitudes changed after 9/11. John Ashcroft, then the Attorney General, formulated several new policies. The first was a strategy to defend American liberties by whittling them down to a manageable number. The second was a strategy to include Christian Righteousness in the people’s business. The third was a strategy to assure the honest, law-abiding Americans of the Muslim faith that they had nothing to fear from the government – even if they were eventually all going to hell. Harry and Sally didn’t have a chance. Shortly after AG Ashcroft’s arrival, large blue curtains were installed to hide Harry and Sally from the public. Harry and Sally were taken into isolation without being allowed to contact family or legal counsel. Fundamentalist Christian tourists were spared the temptation of glancing at Sally’s 73DD hooter or fantasizing about Harry’s amazing plumbing. Fundamentalist Muslims could tell their friends about the 100% veiling of Sally and say ‘at least the infidels have made a start’. It all seemed like a good idea at the time.

Of course the curtains also hid the public from Harry and Sally; so in a way they did have a chance. Who knows what they got up to in the three years they were given a bit of privacy. It’s also not completely clear what the Justice Department got up to in those three years but they obviously cornered the market on blue curtains.

Times change and strategies change as well. Mr Gonzales, the new Attorney General, has had the curtains removed. Sally is back to being a tease and Harry is back to gritting his teeth. Harry and Sally have learned what a lot of Americans already know: getting your hands on a bit of justice can be very frustrating.

Let's All Compromise

2005-06-30T06:41:00.000-05:00

The two decisions the US Supreme Court made on the 10 Commandments issue are considered by many Americans to be irrational. The next decision they made was completely rational. After giving the separation of church and state pot another good stirring, they decided to leave town. In the meantime, they have left in their wake a continuing bitter controversy. It is likely that the American Episcopal Church will be very disappointed by the pro-Commandment Texas decision. The continuing emphasis on commandments and traditions could get in the way of consecrating transvestite atheists as bishops. This will be a hot topic at the church’s next ecumenical chardonnay tasting. In the meantime, based on the anti-Commandment Kentucky decision, an irate group of dyslexic Evangelical pastors are reportedly organising a march on Los Angeles. It is feared that millions of people will respond to the cry to ‘Stop The UCLA!’

There may be a way out of this mess that the Supremes created. A careful legal analysis of the two decisions in question leads to a startling conclusion. In Texas, 10 Commandments carved on a 12 foot, 8,000 pound block of granite that could stop a Hummer are ok. In Kentucky, 10 Commandments typed in 12 point Times New Roman that you need 20-20 vision to read from more than 2 feet are not ok. Clearly, the religious text in question can be used as a lane divider on an interstate highway but not in an eye test. More importantly, in the legal analysis, the Law of Averages comes into play. In Texas, 10 out of 10 Commandments are ok. In Kentucky, 0 out of 10 Commandments are ok. So the average number of ok Commandments in Texas and Kentucky is 5. This is perhaps a way forward – a Commandment Compromise as it were.

Selecting which 5 Commandments are ok is not difficult. The ‘no false gods one’ is only unpopular with Hollywood stars who like to be false gods. (In fairness to Tom Cruise, he thinks he is a true god.) #1 is a keeper. The ‘no graven images’ thing is a problem. All the Elvis portraits on black velvet and the Statue of Liberty would have to go. Forget #2. The prohibition on taking the Lord’s name in vain, #3 is probably ok. If you are pulled over for a DUI it’s just as easy to say ‘son of a bitch!’ as it is to say ‘Jesus Christ!’ ‘Remember the Sabbath’ is a big problem. No NFL games. Dump #4. ‘Honour your father and your mother’ is definitely in. No one could get elected to anything if they didn’t pretend do that, so #5 is a must. ‘You shall not commit murder’ is a bit of a problem. On the one hand, a lot of people think the announcers on Court TV are pretty foxy and some people prefer watching Nancy Grace to going to the dentist for a root canal. On the other hand, most people don’t want to be murdered. #6 probably squeaks in by a narrow margin. The next one is easy. If no one committed adultery you would not have decent singles bars or a reason to go to Victoria’s Secret. #7 is out. In an ideal world, ‘thou shalt not steal’ is a very good idea. It is clear, however, that we do not live in an ideal world. As long as we have politicians and personal injury lawyers, #8 probably has to go. #9 should be ok. People don’t need to bear false witness when there is so much truthful dirt to dish. As to coveting, if we all stop coveting, GDP goes in the tank. Scratch #10. So here’s the H I Winning 5: I, III,V,VI and IX. Conveniently, they fit on one tablet.

The Justices can relax, everyone can calm down; and, from God’s viewpoint, given mankind’s track record perhaps compromising on 5 out of 10 is not such a bad deal.

A Bard By Any Other Name

2005-06-27T07:34:00.000-05:00

The new Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre is nestled on the south bank of the River Thames near Blackfriars Bridge. After years of planning, wrangling and cajoling, it was finally agreed that all the political controversy was a Comedy of Errors and the new Globe was opened in 1996. The theatre provides a venue that would be familiar to actors and audiences who attended the original Globe from 1599 to 1617. There is only a partial thatched roof and much of the audience can enjoy London’s weather whilst enjoying a play. It can be very exciting to start Act I, Scene 1 relaxing in A Midsummer Night’s Dream to find yourself by Act 3, Scene 4 being soaked to your knickers by The Tempest. Just as in the original, patrons can arrive late, leave early, wander around during the performance and generally ignore the entire show. This is particularly useful for the 382 Japanese tourists whose bus is on its own schedule and who don’t speak English in any case. Going to the Globe is pretty much As You Like It.

Of course the new Globe is not an exact reproduction of the original. There is electric stage lighting for evening performances. Luckily the wiring is up to standard and functions reliably more than just every Twelfth Night. Public loos ensure that All’s Well That Ends Well. In addition, the entire structure conforms to the approximately 80,000 page European Union Directive on Reproducing Old Theatres although most Brits think European Union Directives are Much Ado About Nothing. American tourist groups can appreciate a day or night at the Globe. The ladies of the Minot, North Dakota Garden Club might meet Two Gentlemen From Verona. (As a warning to the maids of Minot, inviting two swarthy Italians back to the Holiday Inn might end in Love’s Labours Lost. Even worse, such dalliances can result in a serious case of A Lover’s Complaint.)

Next season’s programme at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre should be especially interesting because the incoming artistic director believes that Shakespeare actually wrote all this stuff. The current AD, one Mark Rylance, is of the opinion that a lower class hack from the Midlands could not possibly have been an artistic genius. Mr Rylance takes the collected works of Bill the Bumpkin Measure for Measure and claims that no one but a Londoner could have been sophisticated enough to keep track of 4 Henry’s, 2 Richard’s and a John. It is obvious to him that the real source of all this inspired writing was a committee of sophisticated Londoners. His candidates for this shady group of contributing authors include the Earl of Oxford, Francis Bacon, Queen Elizabeth I and perhaps several other upper class twits with time on their hands. After all, for the last 400 years London has been a recognised centre of shady committees and unemployed upper class twits. In the meantime, the bumbling denizens of the Midlands have not even been able to keep an MG Rover factory in business.

The incoming Artistic Director of the Globe Theatre, Dominic Dromgoole, plans to put Shakespeare back into the Globe. He is of the opinion that the committee theory is ‘baloney’. There is compelling evidence to support his position. In Act V, Scene 4, King Richard III sees that his position on the battlefield of Bosworth is hopeless. All is lost! He utters that famous line, ‘A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!’ Surely this is the work of a single genius. If it were the work of a committee, the last King of the House of York would have screamed frantically for a camel.

Moby Dick: 2 - Captain Ahab: 0

2005-06-24T07:24:00.000-05:00

The original Captain Ahab had a serious obsession with hunting Moby Dick, a Physeter macrocephalus - better known as a sperm whale. Modern Captain Ahabs seem to fancy Balaenoptera acutorostrata just as much. This creature can weigh up to 10 metric tonnes and can grow up to 36 feet in length. Although it is a mammal, it lives in the sea; and since 1986 it has been listed as a ‘threatened species’ and has been awarded the protection of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Its street name in the vast maritime ‘hood is Minke Whale

It might or might not be comforting to Minke Whale to be under the protection of the IWC. As stated, ‘the main duty of the IWC is to keep under review and revise as necessary the measures laid down in the Schedule to the Convention which govern the conduct of whaling throughout the world’. A better group of reviewers and revisers could not be found. There are 66 countries in the commission and, as expected, they bring a variety of interests to the discussion. Three of them (Iceland, Norway and Japan) actually like hunting and eating whales. Three of them (the UK, Australia and New Zealand) are implacably opposed to hunting or eating whales. Three countries (Togo, Gambia and Nauru) are mildly interested although apparently not interested enough to pay their dues to the IWC. Three landlocked Eastern European countries (Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) joined the commission apparently because Eastern European countries will join any international organization these days simply because they can. Although Mali and Mongolia are also completely landlocked, membership allows their representatives access to duty free shopping. Whilst jerk whale has never been a hot menu item for them, several Caribbean countries are members so they can sell whale quotas to the highest bidder. Given these varied backgrounds, the vote on Japan’s request to kill a lot more Minke Whales is a close run thing.

Of course Japan already pushes the limit of its quota of whales by claiming that it needs them for ‘scientific research’. Captain Yakamoto, of CSI: Tokyo must have a stainless steel table the size of a tennis court in order to autopsy the whales for cause of death. (The 12 foot, cannon fired, exploding harpoon sticking out of the whale’s head might only represent an incidental injury.) The Japanese really like to eat CSI: Tokyo’s leftovers and one school district has plans to put McWhale back on the menu. Perhaps the children will get lessons in the use of chain saws instead of chop sticks.

The IWC meeting has witnessed more deal making, back room intrigue, arm twisting and vote buying than a UN plenary session on raising delegates’ meal allowances to $850.00 a day. Japan has threatened to quit the organization and calls the limits on Minke Murder an insult to its cultural heritage! Defenders of whale quotas remain ‘relieved but concerned’ about the future of the Minke. Minke Whales point out that they share the concern and that eating Japanese people has never been part of their cultural heritage.

At the end of all this arguing and posturing, it appears that the demands of Japan to raise or eliminate the quota will be rejected. There will still be a need to police the oceans and enforce the limits. Perhaps, in keeping with its cultural heritage, the IWC could employ Inspector Jacques Cleuseau to patrol the high seas. What could be more appropriate than asking Captain Ahab-san, ‘Do yeu ‘ave a lasaunce for zat Minke?’

Milestones And Thanks

2005-06-21T13:31:00.000-05:00

This column has achieved several milestones and the Editorial Staff at H I are quite grateful for them. According to the blogospheric equivalent of a turnstile, just over 10,000 visitors have popped in since 13 March 2005. That is almost as many visitors as crossed the Mexican border into the United States yesterday; and, thanks to the power of technology, visitors to H I are documented.

Based on a thorough analysis of IP addresses, ISP names, Time Zones, Links, Feeds, Pings and Pongs, visitor profiles have been set up to assist in developing relevant future content. 53% of visitors stopped by in hopes of winning ‘credits’ before their eyesight failed or their brain turned to cottage cheese. 22% dropped in to get out of the rain. 9% thought ‘Homo Insapiens’ is Latin for ‘Mindless Same-Sex Romping’ and 3% thought ‘Homo Insapiens’ is Latin for ‘Photographs Of Our 11 Cats’. Several hundred people simply wanted to use the loo, 168 guests read something, 127 visitors left a comment, 46 folks left in a huff, 14 were left in the lurch, 9 were terrified they would be left behind and 3 refused to leave at all. Although the crush of visitors has exceeded the traffic attracted to the Fatima Shrine on an average Tuesday, luckily very few wheelchairs and white canes have been left at the front door. Of particular interest, 100% of visitors had access to the Internet. This overwhelming statistic will be particularly useful when considering whether to send future columns to readers’ homes via 2nd class mail or continue to use the current medium of distribution. A resounding thank you is due to all who have paid a visit, particularly those who have commented, subscribed, recommended to others, and included references to H I in their own websites.

Another milestone has also been passed. Including the occasional letters to the reader, over 50 columns have been posted. Here too, it would be remiss not to thank those who supported this effort. Particular recognition should be given to the hard working farmers of Northern Italy, Croatia, and Hungary who nurture the juniper berry. Thanks to their bucolic toil, ample supplies of gin have been available to lubricate journalistic aspirations and have allowed many ideas for content to be floated. In order to continue publishing at such a hectic pace, new resources will be added to H I over the summer months. Several cases of Pimm’s No. 1 have been secured.

Bubba, of Big Bubba’s Bait Shop and Bar in Pungo, Virginia and Nigel, publican of The Pig & Whistle, North London have been most generous in providing scientifically selected focus groups from amongst those patrons able to focus. Abby Taylor and Diogenes Freed have contributed invaluable technical information in the selection and arrangement of soft furnishings on the H I site.
Perhaps the highest accolades should be reserved for those who provide the grist for H I’s mill. These posturing politicians, religious zealots, tin-pot dictators, intrusive busy bodies, well meaning bunglers and self-serving power-brokers provide an endless torrent of subject matter. As a show of gratitude, Homo Insapiens will continue to publicise their contribution toward putting the ‘In’ in ‘Insapiens’. As always, all suggestions for improvement are welcome.

It is now time to return to the serious business of journalism. Hopefully the ice machine will be up to the challenge.

A Different Point Of View, #2

2005-06-18T07:24:00.000-05:00

Given the positive reader reaction to the first H I guest column, ‘Ask Pastor Duane’, here is another popular advice column that is making a difference in peoples’ lives. It is with pleasure that we publish a recent column by Grand Ayatollah Q’udsu Omar Ayt’bol for the interest of our readers. Ayatollah Ayt’bol’s column runs regularly in The Fundamentalist Times Picayune. It is normally read from right to left but the Ayatollah has graciously agreed to write it backward for the readers of Homo Insapiens.

Dear Mullah Ayt’bol: Our little Fatima is an extremely brilliant girl. She has been offered a full scholarship to study Renaissance Art and Literature at UCLA. Our Imam says that girls should not be educated. Distraught Dad in Damascus

Dear Distraught Dad: Normally I would agree with your Imam. However, if Fatima switches her major to nuclear physics with a minor in missile design I am sure a special fatwah can be arranged. PS: joining the cheer leading squad will still be forbidden.

Dear Mullah Ayt’bol: Is it true that Al Jazeera is going to produce a new show called Jihadi Nonsurvivor? Kewl! How can I get on it? Starstruck in Khartoum

Dear Starstruck: The gig is due to air in the fall. They are looking for bright 20-something guys and gals who don’t mind blowing themselves up. If you have a bomb belt, 2 kilos of semtex and a trendy ski mask, you might make it in showbiz! Get your kit on and wait outside the US Embassy for the casting call. You rock! Go for it.

Dear Mullah Ayt’bol: My wife and I are planning a vacation in the USA. Are there any souvenirs we can bring back that are not unclean or forbidden by our holy faith? Tourist in Tehran

Dear Tourist: You will not defile yourselves if you bring back the blueprints for the Hoover Dam.

Dear Mullah Ayt’bol: My cousin and I plan to destroy the Washington Monument by running into it head first. We need student visas to enter the land of the Great Satan. Should we apply to Harvard or MIT? Ibrahim

Dear Ibrahim: May I suggest entering the land of the Great Satan through Mexico.

Dear Mullah Ayt’bol: The water in our village well has suddenly become as golden as honey and as sweet as nectar! Is this a sign that all who live here are holy people? Achmed in Arabia

Dear Achmed: It is possible that your village is truly blessed and sanctified. On the other hand, you may want to have your camel tested for diabetes.

The staff at Homo Insapiens will continue to search the world’s press for more examples of writers whose views are shaping the attitudes of so many people.

A Slice Of Life

2005-06-15T09:56:00.000-05:00

The town of Sandwich in the County of Kent, England is one of the best preserved medieval towns in the UK. With a street plan that predates the Norman Conquest and defensive walls built to fend off Danish and French raiders, the visitor is immersed in over a thousand years of European history. The town of Sandwich, Massachusetts is also a historic jewel. It was founded in 1639 and is the oldest town on Cape Cod. The first Quaker Meeting held in the New World occurred there in 1672. The visitor here is only immersed in about 400 years of history but that’s almost all the European history there is in Massachusetts, or anywhere else in America. With a shared name and shared heritage, it would seem obvious that Sandwich, England and Sandwich, Massachusetts might also share warm relations. They probably would if it were not for John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792).

Montagu deserves a place in history. He served as Postmaster General, First Lord of the Admiralty, and he sponsored Captain Cook’s voyages of discovery. The original name of the Hawaiian Islands, the Sandwich Islands, was chosen in his honour. He also earned another distinction. Whether because he was a busy man or, as some say, because he didn’t want to be interrupted by a meal whilst gambling, he ordered a quick snack composed of a bit of meat between two slices of bread. The ‘sandwich’ was discovered! Several centuries after the last shot in the Revolutionary War was fired, his famous order, ‘roast beef on whole wheat, hold the butter, extra mayo’, is once again a call to arms on both sides of the Atlantic.

Mr Brian Clifford, owner of the Earl of Sandwich Motel on Cape Cod, purchased the internet domain name ‘earlofsandwich.com’ a while back. Meanwhile, Orlando Montagu, heir to the 11th Earl of Sandwich has been busily expanding the family business back in the old country. In case you have not figured it out, the family business is sandwiches. (Luckily for Orlando, the 1st Earl picked Sandwich as his title instead of the alternate offer, Earl of Portsmouth. A ham and cheese portsmouth on pumpernickel with mustard doesn’t have much of a ring to it.) The English Earl of Sandwich has offered to buy the domain name from the Massachusetts Earl of Sandwich but Mr Clifford understands the sandwich business: first come, first served. He argues that Sandwich, Mass was on the map 27 years before King Charles II gave the Montagu family the Sandwich title. Orlando says that he merely wants to protect the family name although apparently no one has threatened to start selling a peanut butter and jelly montagu on toast with a side of cole slaw. Both sides are preparing for the conflict. No Minutemen have been rallied, nor have any Hessians been hired. Instead, both sides have gone immediately to weapons of mass destruction: they have hired lawyers. Given the fact that there are 4 centuries of history to fight over, international law to dispute, and new cyber legislation to invent, the legal teams at Shyster & Tort (USA) and Meetem, Greetem & Cheatem (UK) should make enough $’s and £’s to eat club sandwiches, club portsmouths and club montagus for the next 50 years.

Meanwhile, as Royalists and Puritans prepare to fight a trans-Atlantic rematch of the English Civil War, Jewish delicatessens around the world are secure in the knowledge that that the sandwich was actually invented by some guy named Reuben.

The Yellow Brick Road

2005-06-12T11:04:00.000-05:00

The US state of Kansas has a reputation for being flat. In fact, it has been scientifically proven that Kansas is flatter than a pancake. After examination of NASA topographical maps of Kansas and laser microscope observations of test pancakes from an International House of Pancakes restaurant, it was determined that there is less relative difference in the high points and low points of Kansas than there is in a typical pancake. But, historically, Kansas has experienced significant differences between high points and low points. Its low point probably occurred before the US Civil War when the state was known as ‘Bloody Kansas’ and pro-slavery and anti-slavery residents battled each other. Its high point might have been being selected as the scene of Dorothy’s farmhouse in L. Frank Baum’s famous story, ‘The Wizard of Oz’.

In 1900, the big political battle was about whether the United States should remain on the gold standard or move to a currency based on a combination of gold and silver. Baum was a passionate ‘silver’ man and he wrote his story to show the dangers of gold. ‘Oz’, the name of the false wizard is, after all, the standard measure of the weight of gold. But that dispute is long over and the historical highpoint it produced for Kansas has been somewhat eroded. Of course, new interest might be revived in The Wizard of Oz. After all, Dorothy was probably on a heavy mix of Mexicali Mushrooms and Columbian Marching Powder when she imagined the whole thing. The Scarecrow could have been the illegitimate child of the Wicked Witch and the Cowardly Lion after a BDSM night gone horribly wrong. The Tin Man could feature in a safe-sex commercial.

What Kansas really needs is to be at the centre of a new big political battle. In an ingenious strategy to make their state more interesting than the topographical surface of the average pancake, some residents of Kansas have decided to go to court to force state schools to include the Intelligent Design concept as well as Evolution in the school science syllabus. Their point is that since the world is so complex it must have been designed by God. They use reasoned and balanced arguments to buttress their position. Mr John James argued that teaching evolution ‘leads to nihilism and the gates of Auschwitz’. ‘Are we producing little Kansas Nazis?’ he asked. Mr James’ logic could use a bit of intelligent design but he is obviously serious about his point. The pro-evolutionists are equally fervent in their stand. ‘They are trying to create a climate where anything an individual teacher wants to include in science class can be considered science,’ said Harry McDonald, a retired biology teacher and president of Kansas Citizens for Science Education. ‘They want to redefine science.’ (Students in Kansas are not convinced by this argument. They would actually like science to be redefined - as basketball, listening to iPod tunes and snogging in the bed of the family pickup truck.)

This is becoming a very nasty battle. Either there is no ultimate being involved in any of this or there is a God who designed the whole thing. The battle lines are drawn: either scientific reason or divine inspiration must be correct. There seems to be no compromise possible in Kansas. On the other hand, perhaps another Bloody Kansas can be avoided. Perhaps our world is not the result of a scientific process called Evolution. Perhaps the Deity is not responsible for everything. If science did not do it and God did not do it…perhaps the Wizard did it!

A Foreign Tourist's Guide To Washington

2005-06-09T07:15:00.000-05:00

Visitors to the United States can be forgiven for being a bit confused by Washington. This does not refer to George Washington, first President of the country, but to the two large areas called Washington. There are some easy ways to tell them apart however. One of them is about as far north and west as a person can travel in the country. That one has dramatic mountains, towering redwoods, a primeval coastline and even a fruited plain. It manufactures Boeing aircraft, develops Internet Email systems, and produces apples. The other one is tucked in between Maryland and Virginia, about a third of the way down the East Coast. It is a piece of formerly uninhabitable swampland. It subsidises Boeing aircraft, taps into Internet email systems, and produces nuts. As an aide memoire, the western Washington is referred to as Washington State; the eastern Washington is referred to as Washington, DC. In what must be one of the greatest examples of Biblical Justice, average people get to go to Washington State to enjoy the tranquillity, the excitement, the food, the wine and the majestic beauty. Politicians get to go to the swamp. So the confusion about the two Washingtons is not really so impenetrable. That allows foreign visitors to focus on the real confusion: who actually won the November, 2004 election for Governor of Washington State. (No one actually won the November, 2004 election for Governor of Washington, DC as there is no Governor, since Washington, DC is not actually a state. That’s a bit of confusion best left to another travel guide.)

In November of 2004, the State of Washington staged its election for Governor. Democrat Christine Gregoire and Republican Dino Rossi contested the battle hotly. After counting 2.9 million ballots, it was determined that Mr Rossi won by 261 votes. American politics being what they are these days, Ms Gregoire also won. The Republican may have won the Governorship but the Democrat won the right to go to court. It’s nice when everyone wins. After a machine recount of the votes, the margin stayed with Rossi by 42 votes. Rossi was still Governor and Gregoire got to go to court again. Since state law says that any election determined by less than 250 votes can be challenged, a hand recount was ordered. In this recount it was discovered that hundreds of valid votes were dismissed by faulty signature scanning devices and hundreds of convicted felons’ votes were illegally included. Gregoire won this one by 129 votes. In a less than surprising move, Mr Rossi went to court.

The contest has now been decided a bare 7 months after the election. In the latest legal round, the judge tossed in some votes, tossed out other votes, probably tossed down 3 bottles of Washington State Merlot, and decided that Gregoire had actually won an election at some time and in some place in the distant past by 133 votes. Of course Rossi automatically won the right to appeal the ruling to the state’s Supreme Court but he has decided not to take the case further given the political makeup of the high court. Tourists (and residents of Washington State) no longer have an excuse to be confused about who the Governor of The State of Washington is.

So, for our visiting friends from afar, Christine Gregoire is the Governor of Washington and no one is the Governor of the other Washington. And George Washington may have seen Washington, but George Washington never saw George, Washington. Hopefully that clears everything up.

It's A Small World

2005-06-06T08:35:00.000-05:00

One metaphor of that concept concerns a butterfly. If a butterfly in the rain forest flaps its wings, the ultimate result of that slight movement of air will be a typhoon in the Pacific. Many Americans have a different concept of ‘it’s a small world’. The world is bordered by Canada to the north, Mexico to the south, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to the east and west. There is, however, a new metaphor that might expand America’s world view: If a Polish plumber in Warsaw lifts his wrench, the ultimate result of that slight movement of air will be to blow billions of US dollars into a bottomless pit.

On 29 May, the French voted non to the EU Constitution. One of their gripes was based on the fear that European labour markets would open up and ‘Pavel, the Polish Plumber’ would arrive. The French word for ‘job’ translates as: ‘a welfare programme run by a private company’. Here comes Pavel, willing to work a full day, getting his hands dirty, settling for a reasonable wage, and actually getting the pissoir flushing again. The French stared into the pissoir and said ‘merde!’ Emboldened by the French, the Dutch quickly followed suit and, in spite of EU burocrats protesting that the constitution is only in a permanent vegetative state, it looks like it will get flushed - if the pissoir ever gets fixed.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair is having second thoughts on what he will leave as his legacy after almost a decade as Prime Minster of the UK. The original plan was to ‘put the United Kingdom at the heart of Europe’. There were two parts to this dream: adopt the Euro as the UK’s currency; and win a referendum on the EU Constitution. As to part one, suddenly the Euro is not even very popular in the countries that use it. There is even talk of ‘temporarily abandoning it’ in Italy. (Gutenberg may have invented printing, but the Italian treasury perfected the process when they were in the business of producing liras. If the lira makes a comeback, the EU rules that limit working hours will be waived for the guys down in the print room.) As to part two of the plan, winning a referendum on a dead Constitution is like winning 9th place in an 8 horse race at Ascot. Thanks to Pavel, Tony’s Legacy: Version 1 looks to be the next item to hit the porcelain reservoir.

Luckily for Tony, he has another legacy up his sleeve and this is where the Yanks come in. If he can’t put the UK at the heart of Europe, he might be able to put the UK at the heart of Africa. (Anyone who has ever waited in the ‘all other passports’ queue at London’s Heathrow Terminal 3 can be forgiven for thinking that Africa has already been put at the heart of the UK). Talk about a legacy! How about wiping out third world debt, eradicating aids and malaria, getting rid of poverty, settling civil wars, educating millions, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, curing the lame, giving sight to the blind…raising the dead! Damn the cost; go for Legacy: Version 2.

Tony is coming to see George to talk about the Special Relationship and to get a major contribution to the Legacy Fund. That should not be a problem since the US has apparently outsourced printing money to the Italians. The US Treasury will never miss another 1 or 5 or 10 billion.

So America, if a tornado hits the Red River Valley, blame that lousy butterfly. And if the US national debt takes another hit, don’t blame George or Tony; blame Pavel. It is indeed a small world.

Back To The Grindstone...And A New Column Below

2005-06-03T09:48:00.000-05:00

It is time for the conscientious staff of Homo Insapiens to resume publication. This is due to several factors. The level of human foibles is rising at an alarming rate. If some of the pressure is not relieved, the dam may be breached, drowning mankind in a sea of unreported stupidity. Of greater import, in spite of hiring a small army of local bearers to carry emergency supplies, it has become necessary to ration the gin. As a result, a return to what passes for civilisation and to the keyboard seems sensible.

It’s Vacation Time Again

2005-06-03T09:46:00.000-05:00

Planning the family vacation used to be simple. You could buy one of those map books that look like a diagram of the human circulatory system and wander around in your car. You could go for the LCD holiday plan: pick the lowest common denominator destination in an attempt to make everyone happy (and actually make everybody miserable). You could decide that your family is not worthy of a vacation and visit the in-laws instead. Or you could go to a travel agent for professional help and to look at pictures of the hotel that is 11 miles up the beach from the refugee centre you will be booked into. After the vacation it was simple too. You could go to a therapist for professional help. You could go to a divorce lawyer for professional help. You could find a nice boarding school for the kiddies in Kazakhstan.

The Internet has made things much more complicated now. The world is at your fingertips and the factors to be considered in designing that dream holiday are overwhelming. Unfortunately, high-jackings, bombings, and kidnappings have edged their way higher on the list than the recommended sun-block factor or whether little Johnny and Susie’s Activity Director will be sober after the previous night’s staff party. Thankfully, Aon Insurance has come to the rescue. Their crack team of actuaries has applied its skills to risk levels around the world. They have announced their annual list of the world’s most terror free countries just in time for the holiday season. Aon has brought simplicity back to planning the family vacation.

Forget most of Europe. London has the same terror risk as Kabul. (The fact that most of the male natives of Kabul are driving mini-cabs in London may have had an effect on this risk analysis.) Forget most of Africa. You don’t have to go through the websites for Chad or Djibouti. Scratch North America and most of South America from your list. A lot of Southeast Asia, Australia and the Middle East are unsafe as well. From the almost 200 countries that all have paid adverts on Orbitz and Hotels.com, the fun loving guys at Aon have whittled the list down to six: Uruguay, Vietnam, Botswana, Mongolia, North Korea and Greenland. Conde Nast Traveller raves about Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital. It is ‘contemplative, dusty, and with an air of decay’. Vietnam is fun and will be even more attractive after vaccines for avian flu and swine flu have been developed. Botswana could be the place. Being eaten by a lion or trampled by an elephant makes for some really exciting holiday snapshots. Mongolia is one of those ‘undiscovered destinations’ the holiday planners love to bang on about. Among the undiscovered features are running water, medicine, and any convenience foods other than yakburgers. North Korea is a paradise for the weight conscious traveler but security factors could change if the Beloved Leader decides to drop a nuclear bomb on Tokyo or Dubuque, Iowa. Greenland has real potential for Americans and Europeans. There’s time for three drinks from the trolley before it’s time to buckle up for landing. There’s no time to force feed you the rubber chicken. There’s also very little chance of little Johnny or Susie getting lost in a crowd. On the maps of most countries, the dots represent villages, towns and cities. On the map of Greenland, the dots represent individual people.

Could this list of exciting vacation destinations be based on more than rigidly researched statistical science? Is it possible that actuaries actually have a sense of humor?

On The Move...And A New Column Below

2005-05-11T02:04:00.000-05:00

The peripatetic staff of H I is moving once again. Having estimated the weight and size factors of the baggage required for this trip, it is clear that either the portable computer or the 6 bottles of gin will have to be left behind. In the best traditions of journalism, the gin wins. As a result, there will be no columns published from today until approximately 5 June. In the interim, readers may wish to peruse previous columns in the archives section. Subscribers will receive an announcement of resumption of activity as soon as the detoxification programme is completed.

A Safer America

2005-05-11T02:01:00.000-05:00

The Transportation Safety Administration has been in the forefront of making America safe. The TSA is responsible to make sure that potential terrorists do not earn any frequent flyer miles. Unfortunately they are not responsible to make sure that people who shower irregularly, the incredibly obese, or the Golden Age First Time Flyers Club of West Palm Beach, Florida are screened out. But even within their very limited charter, it costs a fortune to protect and serve whilst amassing the largest collection of sharp objects, dead batteries and, now, cigarette lighters in the history of the world. It’s a good thing that other threats to national security are not as pressing.

Protecting America’s land borders is not expensive. A terrorist arriving from Mexico is easy to handle. America does not negotiate with terrorists. Skip the negotiation and go immediately to a driver’s licence, free medical treatment, free schooling, and a gardener’s job in Phoenix. Forget Jihad and go for a Blockbuster’s membership. If Abdul is told to sneak across the Canadian border, he’ll either die of boredom in Montana or realise he might have to enter through Detroit or Buffalo. There are some things even a suicide bomber is not prepared to do. Protecting America’s ports from a ‘dirty bomb’ is also relatively inexpensive. Just ask people to report any shipping container that glows in the dark. So the budget can be put where it’s needed most: the TSA.

The new nerve centre of the TSA’s war on terror is in a super-secret location known only to a handful of agents and the publishers of the local phone book in Herndon, Virginia. The new $19 million command base is equipped with the latest weapons to defend the USA. There is cable TV in 45 of the offices to alert the ever vigilant agents of an attack as soon as CNN announces it. There is a 4,500 sq. ft. fitness centre, 2 watch floors, 55 offices, 12 conference rooms and 7 kitchens to hone valuable map reading skills. The fitness centre has contracted a towel service – no doubt so operatives can practice putting on turbans in Taliban Infiltration 101. $30,085 was spent on silk plants in case of attack by fanatical terrorists. Apparently the plan is to beat them into submission with faux forsythia. The list of contents of the 7 $3,000 sub-zero refrigerators is kept in the basement of the Pentagon (it is rumoured that Chef Emeril Lagasse also has a copy.)

The Secret Herndon Interdiction of Terror centre (known within the agency as the SHIT house) is the latest in a series of agency initiatives to protect America. In 2002, the TSA built a $410,000 office for its senior executive. A suicide bomber would die of exhaustion before he could run from the office door to the Director’s desk. In 2004, the TSA had an office party, perhaps to celebrate the fact that Tennessee was still there. 1,200 honourees and guests enjoyed a $461,745 event at the Washington Grand Hyatt. $81,000 went for award plaques, including a lifetime achievement award. Although the agency was only two years old, two years seems like a lifetime if you watch enough people take off their shoes. But the $1,850 worth of cakes and the three $500 cheese displays made up for the pressure of the job.

Of course some nit-pickers are upset about all this spending. The US Congress has announced that hearings will begin as soon as they determine the meaning of life. In the meantime, to control costs, perhaps the TSA could auction off the Zippo collection on E-bay to cover the hors d’oeuvres at the next hand-to-hand combat training session at the new Wynn Las Vegas Resort Casino.

Getting The Facts Right

2005-05-07T06:44:00.000-05:00

The arrest of Abu Farraj al-Libbi has put US news gathering organisations into a competitive frenzy. Mr al-Libbi is described as al-Qaida’s ‘number 3 man’, reporting to Ayman al-Zawahri, and as a close confidant of al-Qaida’s leader Osama bin Laden. In part, the competitive frenzy has been over the correct spelling and pronunciation of these guys’ names. The funny secret letters in their alphabet are confusing and even CNN has not been able to get hold of a Deadly Terrorist decoder ring. We await Geraldo Rivera’s announcement that he has found al-Libbi’s personal Deadly Terrorist decoder ring in Hitler’s secret bunker which was cunningly concealed behind a McDonald’s in Newark, New Jersey. All the TV news outlets have, however, been able to get hold of experts to comment on Mr al-Libbi’s capture. Retired US military officers, ex-CIA agents and authors of books on UFO sightings and Elvis appearances have been drafted in to provide the answer to the key question: what will the impacts be on the al-Qaida organisation?

Once again, the blogosphere delivers the truth and Homo Insapiens is proud to be on the cutting edge of this breaking story. It can now be revealed that al-Qaida’s press spokesman, Mr Farraj bin Zawahri al Laden, personally delivered a press release to H I’s letter drop at Bubba’s Bait Shop and Bar in Pungo, Virginia. Bubba himself is reported to have said, ‘some funny lookin’ hooter named Al dropped this letter off for you’.

For immediate release: al-Qaida Corporate Reorganisation

We are pleased to announce the promotion of Mr Osama bin Libbi al Farraj as Executive Vice President of Incredibly Nasty Plots. Mr Farraj brings many years of experience to the job and his record of performance as Vice President, Caucasus Region is to be admired. It should also be noted that Mr Abu Farraj al-Libbi deserves the thanks of all shareholders on his retirement. Mr al-Libbi is proof that the company does not value looks over talent. The new EVP of INP, Mr al-Farraj, will report to Mr Ayman al-Zawahri in his role as CEO. Mr Osama bin Laden retains his position as Chairman.

Moving up to take Abu’s position is Mr Libbi al Laden bin Ayman. Libbi has been brilliant in turning the Kuala Lumpur branch office around and his employee exchange programme with the Jakarta franchise has broken new ground in the best sense of the term. We wish Libbi well in his new position.

Mr Laden al-Ayman bin Abu has requested a transfer to the Suicide Bomber Division, headquartered in Damascus. The staff of the Cleveland, Ohio office will miss his leadership.

Mr Abu Musab Zarkawi retains his responsibilities as Brand Manager, Insurgency Products (Iraq Region), and as Cross Border Logistics Director, Syria. He will also give functional guidance to Mr Zawahri al-Zarkawi bin Osama al-Farraj, who is promoted from Trashkanistan Regional Cave Operations to Cleveland Branch Manager.

No expense is being spared to confirm this story. Homo Insapiens will attempt to contact a second, independent source in the gents’ at the Pig and Whistle in North London in the next several days - unless Geraldo gets there first.

A Different Point Of View, #1

2005-05-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

In support of open journalism, the H I Editorial Board has decided to feature guest columnists from time to time. Our first visiting writer is the Reverend H. Duane Surely, President of Praise Tabernacle Armageddon and End Days Inerrant Bible University with his popular column ‘Ask Pastor Duane’.

Dear Pastor Duane: I was born again in Christ last Tuesday. Can I get another Social Security number? I hear they are going on E-bay for $500! Redeemed in Missoula

Dear Redeemed: Follow your conscience and remember that contributions to my ministry are tax deductible.

Dear Pastor Duane: My husband does not want to be baptised because he is not sure his Rolex is waterproof. Desperate Housewife

Dear Desperate Housewife: The thought of your husband being left behind causes me much distress. Send me his Rolex.

Dear Pastor Duane: We have been home schooling Ezekial for 17 years and he has finally memorised the entire Bible (Praise God). Should we start teaching him other subjects? Proud Mom

Drear Proud Mom: It sounds like Ezekial has the potential to join our faculty. Get back to me after you teach him Ancient Hebrew and Principles of Tax Accounting.

Dear Pastor Duane: My daughter failed her 5th grade math test because she refused to write the answer to ‘2 times 333’. What can I do? Concerned Christian Parent

Dear Concerned Christian Parent: I will ask Proud Mom to reach out to you.

Dear Pastor Duane: We are boycotting the only pharmacy in town because they dispense birth control pills. My husband has ED and without Viagra I miss that ‘special feeling’ I used to have 5 or 6 times a day. Please help. Saved But Frustrated

Dear Saved But Frustrated: Come to one of my Let the Lord Touch You meetings and register for a private blessing session. In the meantime, check out the ‘Special Feeling’ section of the ‘When Jesus Saves, You Save’ gift shop on our website.

Dear Pastor Duane: How can I hurry up the last days? I can’t wait for my atheistical boss to go to hell and for my left-wing commie neighbor to disappear so I can get his SUV and for the Old Testament to replace the Constitution and for the UN to be eaten by the Beast and for the NRA to shoot all the activational judges and for the Ayrabs to get nuked. Rapture Freak

Dear Rapture Freak: Make a Let The End Days Roll gift and keep voting Republican.

On occasion, the H I Editorial Board will offer space for other points of view while there is still time to do so.

Go Stuff Your Bloody Ballot Box!

2005-04-29T16:45:00.000-05:00

We have had Bush/Kerry, Yushchenko/Yanukovych, and Mugabe/Mugabe (Mugabe won, by the way). Next up is Blair/Howard. The world is neck deep in paper ballots, purple ink, lapel buttons, platforms, manifestos, and absentee ballots covered in three gallons of correction fluid. Enough! Tyranny might not have been fun but at least the false promises were consistent and the neighbourhood wasn’t littered with posters. But for some reason, democracy keeps coming back like a nasty rash. The US is, of course, partly to blame. Holding elections is about the only American export product that the Chinese have not copied and under priced. In an effort to protect their domestic election industry, the European Union has decided to hold a series of referenda on whether the new European Constitution should be adopted. As with elections, when it comes to constitutions, Europe doesn’t need any lessons from America, thank you very much.

America’s constitution is not very impressive. The whole thing fits on about 10 pages. Aside from basic rights, the rule of law, and a definition of representative government, it’s about as interesting as a mobile telephone contract. It would barely cover the bottom of a large bird cage. Just about any idiot can read it and that opening line, ‘We the people’, is not very inspirational; it’s just about average people. If you want impressive, you need the European Union. With 20 official languages and counting, the proposed EU Constitution comes in at between 450 and 600 pages. If you want inspiration, you start a constitution with the words ‘We, the King of the Belgians’. This rousing opening phrase has inspired a whole new generation of Europeans to become stamp collectors.

The EU countries have taken different approaches to deciding on whether to ratify the new constitution through popular referenda. Six of them aren’t going to have one; three of them are not likely to have one; ten of them are sure to have one; five of them have not decided whether to have one and perhaps will need to have a vote on that. One of them, Spain, has already had a vote and voted yes. The Czech Republic is probably going to agree as well. After all, in Protocol 9, Title IV, Article 33, Paragraph 6, the Valchovny Plechu Frydek Mistek steel plant gets 292 million Czech Krone for restructuring the business. (That’s on page 225 of the English version of the addendum to the constitution. It’s probably on page 1,705 in the Czech translation.) Denmark will likely vote no. On page 298, there is the Protocol on the Position of Denmark. Most Danes like Denmark exactly where it is. The French appear to be favouring a no vote on the basis that the constitution does not reduce the working week to 20 minutes. The Irish are favouring a yes vote, hoping for European funding to build a new 18 lane motorway from Dublin airport to Cafferty’s saloon in Malahide. But even if the yeas carry the day in every referendum in 2005, there remains that troublesome island directly to the west of Europe; and a no vote in any one country will scupper the whole idea.

The United Kingdom will conduct its referendum in 2006. Many in Europe hope that the Brits will vote yes. Since Britons don’t think they are part of Europe, the outcome is somewhat in doubt. One clue to the attitude of the average British voter might be found in their view of the Channel Tunnel. Europeans think of it as a gateway to the continent, an artery of commerce and cultural exchange, a thoroughfare of understanding, and a sinew of continental unity. Britons understand it’s a 32 mile long, rigid, concrete, steel-reinforced barge pole that ensures that the UK will never drift closer to Europe. At least the EU Constitution is big enough to cover the bottoms of all the cages in London Zoo.

Down Under

2005-04-26T05:20:00.000-05:00

Before their arrival from across the sea, the indigenous population lived pretty much undisturbed. Then the newcomers arrived. This was a rough crowd, ready for a fight, and easily tempted by the good life. They were ‘transported’ against their will to do a hard job which they immediately decided was actually too much like work. The men were all pretty randy and the women were as tough as old leather. It didn’t take long for their numbers to explode and for the natives’ survival to be threatened. Australia’s aborigines didn’t have a prayer after their arrival.

You might think the year was 1788 and the newcomers were a batch of English felons, Irish revolutionaries and Scottish debtors. Actually the year was 1935 and the newcomers were a batch of Bufo Marinus – cane toads to you. 102 of these convicts were transported down under to work in Australia’s sugar cane fields. These were the first toads that had ever lived in Oz and the aboriginal frog population would never be the same after their arrival.

Bufo Marinus was supposed to be a hard working convict. He or she was supposed to toil in the sugar cane fields and eat beetles that attack the crop. Like so many groups pressed into forced labour, Bufo Marinus slacked off a bit. Instead of attacking the beetles high up in the cane stalks, they mostly just sat around looking at other Bufo Marinuses. Cane toads are good at many things but apparently they are not very good at jumping. After looking at each other a lot, they decided to do one of the things they are very good at. They started shagging their brains out. Each couple can produce 30,000 to 50,000 nippers at a go, and the kiddies grow faster and bigger than the native frogs. Really bigger: up to 4 pounds in weight and a foot in length. They will eat anything from insects to frogs, dog food to snakes, and birds to small mammals. They would probably eat the barbie as well as the shrimps if they were allowed to. Unfortunately, not many animals eat them. The fact that they are fatally poisonous might have something to do with that. Fish, snakes, birds and mammals sit down to an order of Bufo Marinus legs and keel over before they can swallow the first bite. These things are rougher on a crocodile’s metabolism than Mick Dundee.

There are now more cane toads in Oz than Japanese business men on a golf holiday. After escaping from the sugar cane labour camp in remote Queensland, they have happily colonised half of Australia. Much to PETA’s distress, Liberal politician David Tollner suggests employing a scientifically proven animal control method he used as a child. ‘We hit them with cricket bats and golf clubs and the like back then,’ he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. There may be a few problems with this solution. There are certainly more Bufo Marinuses than cricket players in Australia. Most of the other Aussies tend to go in for surfing and whacking a cane toad with a surfboard takes an incredible amount of dexterity even if the animal control officer isn’t drunk.

There may be another answer. Let the Japanese golfers do it. Instead of just bringing 11,000 digital photos of his golf vacation back home, Nakimoto-san could bring home the 11,000 cane frogs he bludgeoned to death with his new Tiger-san Woods 3-iron. Who knows, Bufo Marinus might become a new delicacy in Tokyo restaurants. After all, the Japanese eat poison fish don’t they?

What's In A Name?

2005-04-22T12:35:00.000-05:00

Imagine that you have just been elected Pope. Clearly, except for the odd Cardinal of the Holy Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church who is a regular reader of Homo Insapiens, that’s a difficult thing to imagine. But try to imagine it anyway. There are a couple of hundred thousand people waiting outside with more anticipation than the audience of The Apprentice. There are more bells ringing than there are at a glockenspiel players’ convention. Everyone who is anyone is dressed in red and you are being suited up in white. Six tour busses full of lepers are caught in traffic, an Irish bookmaker has shortened the odds on your being dead in 3 weeks, and a group of Druids has asked for a recount. There’s a mountain of crutches, canes and zimmer frames in the parking lot left by the people your predecessors cured. A billion people expect you to fix everything from eternal salvation to the washing machine; and some blond bimbo from network news who has not been to church since her fourth marriage is explaining the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council for CNN.

Do they give you a little time to figure out how to wear the new hat? Do you get to look over the sport feature package on the new Popemobile? Instead of being able to try out your new intercom system or having a good, stiff drink, some guy whispers in your ear, ‘don’t forget to change your name’. (Apparently this ensures that if an Australian is ever elected Pope, there will not be a ‘Wally I’.) Talk about pressure! Most of the good pope names have been used – some of them a dozen times or more. However, trendy is not a good idea. Fred isn’t very catchy, Bruce makes you sound like a waiter at the Hard Rock Cafe, Igor has PR problems, and Irving would really upset the Muslims. Better to stick with tradition.

You could go with Peter. But that might be like W changing his name from George Bush to George Washington; a bit of a stretch. There’s Callistus and Gelasius but no one is going to name their kid after you. There was a Pope Conon but Arnold Schwarzenegger has the royalty rights to the name. Alexander is iffy; number VI was quite the ladies’ man. Forget Sergius. Numero 3 had a son who became Anastasius III after bribing his way into the job. Scratch Anastasius as well.

The easy way out, choosing John Paul, could be embarrassing. You might wind up being John Paul, The Not As Great As The Other John Paul. The closest parallel to your situation is the Papal election of 461. The previous guy had called himself Leo and he became a saint and is called ‘The Great’. Under that much pressure, the new guy went for Hilarius. That has possibilities. Hilarius didn’t do much, he didn’t make anyone mad. Of course, being German, you have a problem with choosing Hilarius. The list of German stand up comedians is fairly short.

The guys in the monkey suits are getting ready to open the curtains. The Swiss Guard are doing their impression of very tall Munchkins in the Wizard of Oz. The Italian Army marching band has just struck up O Sole Mio in several keys. Vatican TV needs to go to a commercial. You have already lost the West Coast audience with the 9 hour time difference. Half the t-shirt factories in Sri Lanka are waiting - on overtime. It’s time to put up or shut up. It’s time to pick a name. And then you realise that God does work in mysterious ways. Sister Brunhilde slips you a double shot of Brandy & Benedictine to steady your nerves. You glance at the bottle, and the rest is history. Hallelujah!

Minority Rights

2005-04-19T15:37:00.000-05:00

In spite of the tragic recent record of inhumanity toward minorities, there are signs of progress being made around the world. Ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, the destruction of indigenous Indian tribes in South America and the slaughter of Tutsis and Hutus are terrible echoes of a less tolerant world. The story is not all grim however. Apartheid in South Africa has been dismantled, Catholics in Northern Ireland are less discriminated against, and the Kurds of Iraq are beginning to experience self determination. Hungary has also thrown its weight behind tolerance with its Rights of National and Ethnic Minorities Act. In the spirit of this emerging tolerance for the long-abused, a new ethnic group has stepped forward to defend its rights.

On the surface, it might be a bit difficult to feel sorry for the Huns. After all, these people were not exactly ideal next door neighbours. In the space of a few hundred years they frightened the Chinese enough to make them build the biggest garden wall in the history of the world. Having scared the hell out of the folks living on one side of the property, they decided to make life miserable for the rest of the neighbours. Not content with ruining the real estate market in much of what is now Russia, they drove the Ostragoths and Visigoths out of Eastern Europe, attacked the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, invaded Germany and France and had a swipe at Northern Italy as well. Their greatest leader, Attila, was known as the ‘Scourge of God’ and, except for other Huns, no one much liked him. His reputation for ferocity, carnage, slaughter and not having a sense of humour was famous from Beijing to Paris. Even today, some 1,600 years later, very few parents hope that their kids will grow up to be Huns.

In the face of this institutional racism, Mr Gyorgy Kisfaludy has filed an application for ethnic minority rights for Huns. According to Hungarian law, in order to gain ethnic recognition a group has to prove that it has lived in Hungary for more than 100 years and have 1,000 signatures on its petition. Since the Huns showed up over 1,000 years ago to burn Hungary to the ground, the first part is taken care of. As to the signatures, nearly 2,500 people have claimed to be Huns. But Mr Kisfaludy told reporters that as many as 100,000 Huns currently live in Hungary and beyond its borders. Americans may wish to confirm their hotel reservations and the fact that Munich is still there before the big family vacation in Europe this summer.

No doubt there is another persecuted minority that is closely watching the possible recognition of the rights of Huns. After all, if a group of bloodthirsty, thieving barbarians deserve respect and protection, there might be a chance for lawyers. If lawyers had been retained by the Roman Empire there might have been signs on the walls of Budapest saying ‘Warning: Huns Approaching These Walls Are Closer Than They Appear’. If Shyster & Tort had been on the case, the Visigoths could have filed a class action suit and settled for half of Rumania and the French Riviera (minus Cannes and Monaco as the contingency fee). If the legal professionals had not been treated like a bunch of chariot chasers, Western civilisation might have been spared the worst of the Hunnic invasions.

There is some reason for lawyers to be more optimistic about gaining protected minority status than Mr Kisafuldy and his blood curdling Huns. Marginally more parents actually want their kids to grow up to be lawyers.

Save The Children

2005-04-16T10:10:00.000-05:00

Parents in the US face daunting challenges. Not only are there the usual childhood diseases and accidents, but there are other risks to be dealt with. Drug dealers, violent gangs and the horror of paedophilia can be a serious worry. Issues from bullying to guns in schools to pornography are rightly talked about. On top of all this, a new threat has emerged that has not received the attention it deserves. No Congressman has called for hearings and the ACLU has not threatened to sue. The members of Social Busybodies Sans Frontieres have not said a word. Conservative talk shows have remained worryingly silent on this issue. Even the European Commission on Human Rights has been schtum on this topic. It has been up to one small group of parents at Daniels Farm Elementary School in Trumbull, Connecticut to rush to their children’s defence. They, and a few other schools around the country, have faced the challenge head on. The challenge is red.

This is not ‘red’ as in The Red Menace or the Red Tide. This is not about steroid abuse on the Cincinnati Reds baseball team, or the use of red Santa suits in the public square at Christmas. This red threat is the use of red ink to correct test papers. As the parents at Daniels Farm school rightly point out, ‘red is stressful’. Not surprisingly, concerned parents at other schools as far away as Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School in Pittsburgh and Snowshoe Elementary School in Wasila, Alaska have recognised the danger to their kiddies. As Joseph Foriska, an educator for 31 years, pointed out, ‘the color is everything’. Justin Kazmark of Public School 188 in Manhattan added, ‘my generation was brought up on right or wrong with no in-between, and red was always in your face’. Apparently answering ‘2+2’ with ‘3.8731’ is close enough for PS 188.

In order to crush the menace of red in schools, the teaching profession is apparently moving in increasing numbers to purple. The manufacturers of disposable pens report that they are making more purple pens in response to demand. There are no reports yet of a decrease in the child suicide rate or a drop in first graders’ visits to psychiatrists however. It must be assumed that purple is a gentle color, a supportive color, and a reinforcer of self-worth. Writing ‘Johnny is a miserable little sod with the intelligence of an amoeba and the social skills of Vlad the Impaler’ is likely to go down better in purple than in red. Purple is much better. Green can cause envy, blue can lower the mood, pink will offend the same-sex parents, black and white have racial overtones. Yellow stigmatises the Asian kids, and orange is too much like a commercial for Florida citrus.

Robert Silberman, marketing vice president for Pilot Pen sees the threat to America’s children and is very supportive of the educational reform. ‘Teachers are taking it to heart’, he says. He might be taking the replacement of 98 billion red disposable pens before they run out of ink to heart as well. Leatrice Eiseman, founder and president of the Eiseman Center for Color Information and Training also agrees. So much color training, so little time.

As long as purple is the new standard for pretending Johnny is capable of counting to seven, why not expand the educational horizon? Why be limited to purple when there are mauve, magenta and puce? Johnny might learn three new words and Mr Silberman and Ms Eiseman would be very happy indeed. There’s a lesson in that for Johnny as well.

Men In Tights

2005-04-13T07:13:00.000-05:00

Any non-US citizen who is interested in American politics might be a bit perplexed. The rift between ‘red’ and ‘blue’, conservative and liberal, right and left, is turning into a chasm. Arguments over gay rights, right to life, and public prayer are increasingly shrill and nasty. More time is now spent by the peoples’ representatives arguing over ‘values’ than is devoted to deciding what wine to serve in the Senate dining room or whether cactus farmers in Alaska should receive the same subsidies as cactus farmers in New Mexico. This civic hurricane is now gusting around the ‘balance of powers’ as defined in the US Constitution. A Far Right/Evangelical Christian coalition has decided that independent judges who serve for life are inconvenient in this moral debate.

Americans respect the architects of their form of government. Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin and the other ‘Founders’ still command reverence. This is in spite of the fact that by modern standards these guys had no dress sense at all. From the top of their pony-tailed wigs to the tips of their buckled shoes, the Constitutional Convention must have looked like the Hollywood production of Amadeus. But these were true statesmen. Although the debates were bitter, there is no record of Hamilton ever saying to Burr ‘I’ve seen better legs on a piano!’ In order to keep the cotton knee-sock wearing majority from discriminating against the woollen knee-sock wearing minority, a government of three co-equal branches with balanced powers was designed. Congress was to create the laws, the Executive was to implement the laws and the Judiciary was to make sure laws were created and implemented according to the Constitution. The genius of the system is that it works like a meeting of the Commission of the Mafia: everybody watches everybody. Realising that cable TV, the feeding tube and the hula hoop had not yet been invented, the founders also established a way to change the system. If enough citizens (enough being a very large percentage) voted to change things, the system could be changed. The Founders made changing the system possible; they just didn’t make it easy. They might have worn funny looking clothing, but they had wisdom.

There might, however, be an easy way to change things. Step 1: make sure only judges who agree with you get appointed. Step 2: get rid of any judge who does not agree with you. Of course Jefferson and Adams might be bothered by this idea, but Don Corleone would like it a lot. To make step 1 work, there’s the ‘Nuclear Option’. It is important that North Korea and Iran do not misunderstand this idea. Simply put, it means that instead of 60% of the Senate approving new judges only 51% will be needed. The alternative of electing enough Senators to make up a 60% voting bloc is tough. You have to get a lot of troublesome voters to agree with your ideas. To make step 2 work, there’s ‘High Crimes and Misdemeanours’. To impeach a judge, 51% of the House of Representatives and then 67% of the Senate have to agree. You’d have to be able to herd voters like long horn steers to get this done. Changing the lock on the judge’s office door over the weekend is a lot easier.

Representative Tom DeLay and a group of conservative politicians have decided to take up the challenge. Tom’s idea of a good judge is Charlton Heston in his Moses costume. He is supported by a committee of fair and open minded Televangelist preachers. This committee is very small. Tom and his allies may have the money. Tom may have the will and the guile. Tom might even look good in a wig with a pony tail. However it remains to be seen if Tom has the wisdom – much less the legs - to be a modern Founder.

Cherchez Le Web

2005-04-10T08:30:00.000-05:00

The Académie Française was founded in 1635 with a national mission. It was to define the French language, to determine its grammatical rules and to make the language understandable by all who speak French. Except for a brief period between 1793 and 1803 (when the French were too busy chopping peoples’ heads off to argue about how to spell ménage a trois), the Academy has been beavering away ever since. 40 members (The Immortals) of the Académie are constantly reviewing punctuation, spelling, noun genders, and arguing about how to pronounce the French word for frog. The desire to protect and promote French language and culture is indeed a noble one. Unfortunately, politicians do not do noble.

Jacques Chirac, the President of France, has been alerted to a vile plot to undermine l’etat, to attack la gloire of France, and to threaten les citoyens. The enemy is not Al Quaeda, English football supporters, Turkish guest workers, George Bush or even Britney Spears. M Chirac is calling for the French to rush to the barricades in order to defeat the looming threat of omnigooglisation.

Jacques has declared war on Google. Ably assisted by Jean-Noël Jeanneney, head of the Bibliothèque Nationale and Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, Chirac has condemned Google’s plans to make the great literature of the world available on-line. These guys don’t have anything against literature – as long as the barbarian Anglo-Saxons don’t muck about with it. On learning of Google’s intentions, Jean-Noël described the plot as ‘confirmation of the risk of crushing American domination in the way future generations conceive the world’. Perhaps Jean-Noël comes from the part of France that borders Germany; he can smell an invasion from miles away.

The real problem seems to be that Google ranks information based on popularity. If you belonged to a group of 40 people who have been arguing over the past perfect subjunctive verb form for over 350 years, popularity is not high on your wish list. In response, France has decided to create its own search engine. Actually it has decided to create its own moteur de recherche. Of course there will be arrosage blockers to limit spam, and the service will be free of bogues. But the really neat feature is that the ranking of information will be determined by – consider this – a committee of experts. The judges of culture and good taste will review and rank the world’s 8 billion odd websites to safeguard those impressionable Frenchmen who decide to go en ligne. It is not clear whether the number of judges will be expanded to 4 million Immortals or the time allowed them will be expanded to 4 million years.

Another issue is the budget. Google is planning to drop about $200 million in loose change on their project. Since the French budget for their idea is about $1.5 million, the plan is to get the taxpayers of Europe to pony up. Great Britain (which is full of Anglo-Saxon barbarians) might decide to sit out this war. Since 74% of internet cherches in France are done through Google, the average Gaul may sit it out as well.

Google does have a counter strategy. If you google ‘Académie Française’ you’ll understand it. Don’t worry about the funny little bits above and below the letters; Google doesn’t. Then ask for their English translation of the site and click round it a bit. How do you say ‘gotcha’ in French?

Oops!

2005-04-07T05:52:00.000-05:00

The crash was in some ways typical. While traveling at a high rate of speed, the braking system failed. Significant damage resulted and the emergency rescue team responded to the scene with serious concern. At least alcohol or drugs did not play a part in the accident. In other ways, the collision was somewhat unique. No lawyer offered to file a suit claiming $37 million for whiplash, lost earnings and emotional distress. No insurance adjustor rushed to the scene to get a release signed relieving the company of all responsibility. Of course the specifics of the accident were also a bit out of the ordinary. The vehicle had been involved in a head-on collision at over 200 miles an hour with the State of Utah.

If you ever decide to have a head-on collision with a US state, Utah is a good choice. At 84,904 square miles it’s tough to miss. With only about 27 people per square mile, the odds of winding up in a multi-person wreck are pretty low. That must be why Genesis decided on Utah instead of Rhode Island. Genesis is a space probe that returned to earth after flying about 2 million miles to collect particles from the solar wind emitted by the sun. The $267 million price tag not only covered the travel expenses. It also made sure Genesis was loaded with exotic collection panels and lots of technology to navigate its course, monitor its environment, and keep track of where it was. Everything was going according to plan until the parachutes failed to open on the return leg of the flight. Genesis, or the 10,000 plus pieces of Genesis that survived slamming into Utah, continues to be studied with some hope that there’s a few solar wind particles still attached, maybe to the seat belts or the CD player.

The problem of retrieving the solar dust is a very complicated one. It’s all mixed up with Utah dirt, dry lake salt crystals, powdered silicon and burnt up heat shield crud. Then there’s the brown stain. NASA’s Karen McNamara admitted that the brown stain is a mystery. ‘We have to look at the idea that something happened in space…outgassing or condensation of some type of material.’ The question of the brown stain has created some concern in the scientific community. If it’s an exotic life form that was picked up in outer space it might not be very happy to be stuck in Utah. Between the restrictive liquor laws and the fact that most of the heavily Mormon population tries to convince visitors to give up coffee, a lot of normal life forms are not happy to be stuck in Utah. The other concern is that this discovery might inspire some Japanese film company to make a new movie called the ‘Brown Stain that Ate Salt Lake City’. Even if the world is ready for an invasion from outer space, it is generally agreed that the world is not ready for another Japanese monster movie. The thought of comely nano-biologist Valerie Le Bonk (played by Paris Hilton) exchanging furtive, sex-charged glances with kindly old Dr Sakimoto Fujimoridu (played by Sean Penn) in the ‘raboratory’ is a real horror.

Perhaps the NASA scientists should focus their scientific efforts on the last few moments before the crash impact of Genesis. After all, this technological marvel was able to navigate. It did know where it was and it was able to sense its altitude and speed. It probably had the ability to compute the gravitational forces and the results of hitting the state of Utah at over 200 miles an hour. It certainly could count down the few remaining minutes and seconds until the point of impact. That foreknowledge, and the certainty of what was about to happen might explain the brown stain.

I Do, We Do

2005-04-04T13:19:00.000-05:00

September-September marriages have a very good chance of being successful. When the prospective bride and groom are in their 50’s or 60’s they can draw on life’s experiences. Although passion and emotion might fuel the relationship, compassion and reason can add to the liklihood of success. Family and friends can be supportive if for no other reason than Fred or Susie won’t be dropping by so often for a beer or Sunday dinner. Such a wedding ceremony has every chance of being a happy event – unless your names are Chuck and Millie.

Charles Windsor asked Camilla Parker Bowles to marry him some time ago. Charles’ full name is Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor, aka His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, His Royal Highness The Prince Charles, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of Cornwall, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. Camilla does not seem to mind that Charles has more aliases than a professional cheque forger. In fact, Mrs Parker Bowles seems to fancy Charles as much as he fancies her. They deserve a happy life together. It’s the little problem of the ‘Mrs’ that has oversahdowed the event planned for 8 April . (Make that 9 April as there’s now a state funeral in Rome on 8 April.)

Wedding planning is an exciting time for any bride-to-be. First is the question of where to get married. Plan A: The big cathedral in the city was out; too many memories for the groom. There was also the question of having a low key celebration. 700 Lords-a-Leaping, 950 Ladies-in-Waiting, the entire Household Cavalry, the Welsh Fusiliers, and two companies of the Royal Horse Artillery might have been noticed, even in London traffic. Plan B: Fortunately the groom’s family owns a very decent chapel in one of the family castles, St Geroge’s at Windsor. Unfortunately the Church of England decided that it could not officiate at the wedding of its future Supreme Governor to a divorced woman. There was also the problem of the license; not for the bride and groom, but for St George’s. If this couple could get married there, any couple could get married there. Before long, Windsor Castle would look like the Marriages R Us chapel in Las Vegas.

Plan C: People in England don’t have to get married in church. Anyone can go down to the Register Office in town and have a civil ceremony. Anyone, that is, except Charles. The Acts of Parliament that established and confirmed civil marriages (1836 and 1949) specifically excluded members of the royal family. Plan D: In a lot of ways, Scotland is a separate country from England with different laws. Why not jump into the Rolls, and do the dirty up north? Actually it looks a bit odd for the future King of England to make a run for the border to get married. Of course he is also the future King of Scotland but there’s that messy Act of Union (1703). Plan E: It’s back to the Register Office in Windsor after getting the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice and probably the Lord High Executioner’s view that it’s legal after all.

The Poet Laureate is preparing a suitable verse to celebrate the grand occasion. John Bain, aka Atilla The Stockbroker, Poet Laureate of the Brighton and Hove Albion football club is madly iambic pentametering. Meanwhile, although the Queen Mother-In-Law has not sent Camilla to the Tower, she will also not be attending the ceremony.

There is a clear message in this complex story that bears remembering. Ladies, be extremely careful when selecting your frog. If you kiss the wrong one, he might turn out to be a prince.

A Balanced Diet

2005-03-31T17:44:00.000-05:00

The US government has spent over $1.2 billion in the War on Obesity. Although this is less than it has spent in the War on Terrorism, it is more than it has spent in the War on Empty Political Gestures. After shelling out $1.2 billion, the National Institute of Health has released the final version of the Strategic Plan for NIH Obesity Research. (One wonders how many versions of a plan can be bought with $1.2 billion.) The plan represents ‘a multi-dimensional research agenda to enhance both the development of new research in areas of greatest scientific opportunity and the coordination of obesity research’. Anytime the government does something ‘multi-dimensionally’ it’s a sure thing that multiple contractors are involved. In this critical war, a new government research contractor has stepped forward.

On 28 March, Burger King launched two new breakfast sandwiches: the ‘Western Omelet Croissan’Wich’ and the ‘Enormous Omelet Sandwich’. The former weighs in at a respectable 320 calories and 17 grams of fat. As that’s not very useful for serious obesity research, the new Croissan’Wich will only be on the menu until 8 May. That should be sufficient time to confirm that relatively healthy food is relatively healthy. The Enormous Omelet Sandwich is a longer term offering - multi-dimensional research takes a long time. In the competition to be the government’s prime contractor in evaluating the impact of breakfast on obesity, Burger King outbid rival McDonald’s. BK’s new offering contains 730 calories and 47 grams of fat against a paltry 290 calories and 12 grams of fat for the Egg McMuffin. There’s probably a research lab somewhere under the Golden Arches testing the introduction of cinnamon flavored lard to the breakfast menu as we speak.

Russ Klein, Burger King’s chief global marketing officer, remarked ‘By expanding our indulgent breakfast sandwich menu, Burger King restaurants now offer even more alternatives for our guests who want a convenient and filling breakfast’. A 6 inch bun filled with two fried eggs, fried sausage, three strips of fried bacon and two slices of melted cheese can fairly be termed filling and indulgent. Except in North Korea where it might be termed breakfast for 17. And at a target price of $2.99 the Godzilla omelet is a real value. BK has reduced the price of a gram of fat to about 6 cents. Meanwhile, Lisa Brennerman, a spokeswoman for the company’s Canadian operations said the sandwich will not be available in Canada until 6 June. Perhaps this will allow the Public Health Agency of Canada time to recruit the 50,000 additional heart surgeons.

Burger King has not commented on any plans to compete to become an NIH research partner in the What’s The Effect of an Obscene Lunch study. Hardee’s pretty much has that contract in the bag. At 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat, the Monster Thickburger is clearly the preferred evaluation standard and happily appeals to the ‘decadent younger man’ segment of the market. It is not clear if KFC will consider switching from chicken to ostrich in order to increase the weight of the 18 wing family pack.

Clearly the forces of competition have once again brought out the best in the American business sector. As more people get hooked on Enormous Omelet Sandwiches for breakfast and Monster Thickburgers for lunch, the government’s cost of identifying and evaluating obese Americans will plummet. It will be simple. Just watch the customers who have to walk through the drive-in lane and see how far they get until they drop.

Let The Games Begin

2005-03-28T17:43:00.000-05:00

The contest is really hotting up as the days to final selection dwindle down. The selection of the 2012 Summer Olympics host city will crown the efforts of either London, Paris, New York, Madrid or Moscow. Each of these cities has spent millions showing off its transport infrastructure, new running tracks, athletes housing plans and love for the Olympic Games. (In the spirit of fair play, slipping Outer Mongolia’s Yachting Team Coach $1 million has been discontinued in the new era of open competition.) After all, the chance to watch a bunch of nubile, suntanned, bikini clad girls jump up and down in a tense, sweaty beach volley ball tournament is a once in a life time opportunity. Especially since none of the cities in question is within 1,000 miles of a tropical beach. With incredible cunning and determination, one city has stayed under the radar: Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Each state in the US has a nickname that usually hearkens back to its history or promotes its attraction. Illinois is known as ‘The Land of Lincoln’. Florida is ‘The Sunshine State’ and Texas is ‘The Lone Star State’. Wisconsin’s sobriquet is ‘America’s Dairyland’ and the state is thus the obvious place to host the Olympics of Cheese. Cheese is as important to Wisconsinites as parallel vaults are to South Koreans. When the US Government announced that it would issue commemorative 25 cent coins for each state in the order of ratification of the Constitution, Wisconsin went for a design that included a cow, an ear of corn and a wheel of cheese. At the time, an opponent of the decision complained that the design ‘represents a narrow slice of who we are as a state’. Supporters disagreed and suggested that a thick slice of cheddar might be quite tasty.

Charles de Gaulle, commenting on the post-war chaos of French politics, once remarked ‘How can you be expected to govern a country that has 246 kinds of cheese?’ President Bush might consider reopening the north 40 at the ranch in Crawford and moving back home. More than 1,000 cheeses have been entered in the Cheese Olympics from 25 states. Luckily Milwaukee has not had to spend $11 billion to construct a contestants’ village designed to house 25,000 athletes on tourist visas who will leave town after a month. There are several very nice Holiday Inns in town. There was also no need to build a pole vault field in the parking lot of the local brewery.

The opening ceremony saw the lighting of the Olympic Flame (no doubt under a massive fondue pot) and then the excitement really began. Judges in white laboratory coats and hats tasted, evaluated, graded, poked, squeezed and other wise interrogated havartis, camemberts, and goudas. After determining the point total, to Martha Stewart’s disgust, they spit the cheese out. This year, 7 new classes of cheese have been added to the contest, bringing the total to 42. The International Olympic Committee has only managed to come up with 35 summer event competitive categories in over 100 years. The judges bring years of experience and technique to their assignment. One observed ‘we breathe through our mouth and out through our nose, so if there’s any aromas that are coming with the cheese, then it comes right around through our nose’. Here is a technique that might be considered by the IOC for contestants in the Graeco-Roman Wrestling event.

All in all, the Cheese Olympics is an honest, fun contest that celebrates a nutritious food group and gives unsung emmenthal producers a chance at the gold. Luckily there are no longer any East German judges to come in with a 1.2 for the synchronized slicing event.

Brand Image

2005-03-24T19:26:00.000-05:00

The image of the United States around the world has taken a bit of a battering, what with the invasion of Iraq and the perceived greed of American companies. The rejection of the Kyoto Treaty, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and wise cracks about ‘Old Europe’ have not helped on the diplomatic front. Microsoft’s resort to the nuclear option in the browser wars, the sale of Marlboro’s to any African kid who can reach the counter, and the fact that Kentucky Fried Chicken ships more cholesterol than OPEC ships oil have dented the reputation of Yankee Capitalism. In an attempt to repair the image of America, President Bush has named close confident Karen Hughes to the post of Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy. In order to foster the image of a Comfy, Caring Capitalism, we have the Central Parking Corporation of Nashville, Tennessee.

Central Parking Corporation is one of those nifty, trendy companies with a slick website. They operate throughout North America, South America and Europe. Their site contains an ‘Our Philosophy’section, a ‘Vision’ and ‘Mission Statement’ and ‘Core Values’. This outfit is a consultant’s dream. The site also has tabs labelled ‘Client’ and ‘Customer’; perhaps clients get to have lunch with the boss whilst customers get to use the call centre in Bombay, India. CPC has assembled all of this corporate capability to provide ‘parking services’ to the city of Birmingham, England. Welcome to Alum Rock Road.

Parking, and for that matter driving, are never much fun in the UK. Motorists are treated slightly worse than Evangelical Christians in Fallujah. There are speed bumps, speed cameras, constant road closings, congestion charges, and detours and diversions. There are also Traffic Wardens (aka Meter Maids or the Parking Gestapo). In an effort to demonstrate the efficiency of the American Business Model, CPC has delivered results to the City of Birmingham well beyond its vision. In one year, along a 400 yard stretch of Alum Rock Road, its zealous minions have written £334,000 worth of penalty notices. That’s about $600,000; that’s also about $14 per inch. To help with the campaign, the parking rules are a bit complex. From 9:15 am to 1 pm, you can park on one side of the street. From 1 pm to 4 pm, it’s the other side of the street. Except you can’t park more than one hour on either side of the street (including the Sunny Side of the Street).

CPC’s fundamentalist Parking Polizei have also ticketed a milk delivery truck 6 times, a bus stopped at a bus stop, and a man unloading his son’s wheelchair. If it has wheels and it stops, it gets a ticket. They have even written up a motorcycle that was disabled in an accident while the driver was being loaded into an ambulance. It is safe to assume that if the motorcycle was a Harley Davidson and the driver wore a Nazi helmet, and they tried that in Birmingham, Alabama, the Meter Maid would have been loaded into the ambulance. In order to ensure this high level of productivity, the Traffic Wardens hide in side streets, waiting for the rules to change, the hour to expire, or the Number 14 bus to come to a full stop to allow 89 year old Mrs. Mavis Willoughby to alight. At £60 a ticket, Mavis may need to consider parachute training.

The difference between a client and a customer is pretty clear in this situation. The client is the City of Birmingham, England. The customers are the poor sods who just want to run into the local Indian restaurant for a take away. Perhaps they should call Bombay for a home delivery. Ms Hughes, with CPC carrying the flag, you are in for an uphill battle.

Congratulations...And A New Column Below

2005-03-21T19:36:00.000-05:00

The poll is closed and readers’ responses are appreciated. Based on poll results, comments, and e-mails, the results are a clear victory for democracy: a compromise. For those of you who receive automatic updates of H I to your web site, that feature will be expanded; H I’s Technology Division (headquartered in the Pig & Whistle in Nether Peover, Cheshire, UK) will endeavour to improve that function. For those who simply want a short email alerting you to H I updates, a suitable subscription box will be selected by the Editorial Staff (headquartered in Big Bertha’s Oyster Bar in Pungo, Virginia, USA). Considering the fact that the eligible voters included everyone in the world with an Internet connection, voter turnout was a respectable .000000012%. This exceeds participation in the last presidential election in North Korea; H I readers are to be congratulated.

Let's Pretend

2005-03-21T19:34:00.000-05:00

What happens when enough people pretend to be something they are not? The question is not about pretending to be happy about seeing an ex-spouse, or pretending to be a supporter of the winning team. This is about pretending to be something you are not by living your life in every facet as if you are the thing you are not. That takes dedication, hard work and attention to detail. If three characteristics give a pretty good definition of Chinese society, dedication, hard work and attention to detail are on top of the list. As to the enough people part, the Chinese have that covered as well.

In order to address the population problem in Shanghai (current population about 20 million), the government has decided to build a series of ‘new towns’ in the surrounding countryside. These are not going to be ramshackle collections of tin shacks. Nor are they going to be sterile high rise boxes or even reproductions of Ming Dynasty palaces furnished with vases from Marks & Spencer or J C Penney. These new towns are going to be exact copies of countries. It has to be admitted that Chairman Mao’s successors think big.

For starters there’s Thames Town. An empty spot of land 25 miles from Shanghai will be turned into an English village. With about a half million residents the village part might be stretching it a bit; but the imported post boxes, old BT red phone booths and the local pub will help. The timbered cottages and Victorian homes lining the cobbled streets will add to the feel of the place. The full size copy of the castle and garden maze and the cathedral are also nice touches. Just down the road is the village of Pujiang. No longer a dreary Chinese hamlet, Pujiang is destined to be Italy, complete with canals and a pizza joint. It is not clear if it will be renamed Pugeoli but the planned 100,000 residents will undoubtedly enjoy the Cinzano on the piazza and pinching the girls’ bottoms. The town of Anting is also in for a treat. The BMW plant is a good clue to its future: Little Bavaria. Undoubtedly the Shinzou kids will get lederhosen and the Sunday dinner of rice wine and duck feet will be replaced by pilsner and sauerbraten. There are also plans to create copies of Spain (restaurants open at 10pm on Weekdays, 11pm on weekends) and Canada (curling could become the new obsession).

The idea to have the people of China pretend that they are not Chinese has major implications for world peace. No longer will Americans cry ‘why can’t they be more like us?’ No longer will Europeans fear ‘foreign imports’. If there is one sure way to live more comfortably with 1 billion Chinese, it’s to have them be Brits, Germans and Italians. Of course the Chinese might find this all to be a bit worrying. When the pub closes in Thames Town and 300,000 pissed ‘Brits’ hit the streets it won’t be pretty. The local constabulary will have to learn how to say ‘all right you lot, it’s down to the nick’. When Pujiang Atletico plays the Anting Bayern Wanderers, it’s likely that tempers will flare on and off the football pitch. Pretty soon the ‘Spaniards’ will start fighting over whether to speak Castilian or Catalan and the ‘Canadians’ will develop an inferiority complex.

The Chinese government is clearly missing a trick here. In attempting to build more housing while maintaining a rigid control of society, they should build an exact copy of Shanghai. But they already have one of those.