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I try to resist the temptation to go slogging around through the sewers of the internet looking for things to dissect, and in fact it is rarely necessary. The mainstream cadre of wingnut bloggers and columnists are so tenuously tethered to reality that they provide all the stupid I could ever hope to FJM in a lifetime. But beyond "respectable" wingnuts like Malkin, Coulter, Beck, etc. – the kind who are clearly insane yet still regularly invited onto news shows – there is another layer of crazy, a wingnuttosphere so wacky that even most Republicans dare not make eye contact with it.

In the brown, sticky layer of detritus on the bottom of the internet barrel there are sites like Renew America to bring us the thoughts of people who might have politely been asked to leave a John Birch Society meeting for being too crazy. Long story short, I was weak and I succumbed to the temptation to go on a canned hunt. I bring you Renew America's Carey Roberts ("Carey Roberts is an analyst and commentator on political correctness. His best-known work was an expose on Marxism and radical feminism.") in his revelatory new piece "2010 Will Be the Year of the Man." Isn't it about time men had a year?

Before we proceed, please be aware that this is Carey Roberts:

Oh hell yeah. It's about to get all crazy up in hee-are.

"Granddad, why are all those football players wearing pink shoes?" That was the topic of conversation this past Monday evening as my 13-year-old grandson and I watched the star-crossed Minnesota Vikings take on the New York Jets.

"Because they're a bunch of homos, Billy. Back in my day, gridiron warriors didn't need all these helmets and pads…in any color! Bronko Nagurski! Now that was a football player. This Favre fellow looks like a poof. Look! Look right there! He's a-tryin' to give the center a reacharound!"

"I think he's just lining up to take the snap, Granddad."

"Horsefeathers! Can't you tell a homo when you see one? Why they're practically humping right there on the field!"

I sagely explained that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. His logical mind now ratcheting into overdrive, he tried to pin me down: "So when do the players wear blue shoes for prostate cancer awareness?"

I don't think he knows what "sagely" means.

Carey, I don't know you. And I'm not going to call you a liar. Wait, yes I am. There is no way in hell that this was your 13 year old grandson's response. None. It's going to turn out that you don't even have a grandson and this whole conversation took place in your head, isn't it? You know, like Fight Club. I'm sure you've read Fight Club.

That proved to be a harder question.

A) Because the season is 4 months long and they can't devote a month to every possible disease that needs curing
B) The Komen Foundation is incredibly well-organized and media savvy

The most time consuming part of coming to this conclusion was typing it. All told I'd say it took 10 to 12 seconds from question to typed answer.

In 1992, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Patty Murray, and Carol Moseley Braun swept into the Senate in dramatic fashion, instantly inspiring the catch-phrase, "Year of the Woman." After the 1992 influx, female legislators continued to score steady gains, and now represent 17% of lawmakers, by interesting coincidence in both the Senate and the House.

Yes, it certainly was dramatic, the fashion in which these women swept into the Senate. Murray arrived in a burning, crash landing 737 from which she parachuted into the Capitol moments before it exploded. Moseley Braun leaped the Potomac on a dirt bike before barrel-rolling into the White House and crushing two Mountain Dew cans on her forehead. Feinstein was held hostage by the Shining Path. Boxer walked into the Senate calmly defusing a bomb.

(By the way, "interesting coincidence" is wingnut speak for "insidious conspiracy.")

But this coming November 2, the number of women in Congress is predicted to decline, the first time that's happened since 1978. David Wasserman, analyst at the non-partisan Cook Political Report, is now forecasting the number of females in the House will drop by 5-10 persons. In the Senate, the current count of 17 female lawmakers will be lucky to hold its own. Although the Chicken-Littles are already yelping about the impending social calamity, the reasons for this sudden reversal of political fortune deserve scrutiny.

Has anyone – ANYONE – thought about this for one second over the past year? Has anyone written or even thought about this election in terms of the gender balance in Congress?

Carey, I'd say your guess about why this is happening is as good as mine. I would say that, but unless your guess is "Female Democrats happen to be running in states in which things look good for Republicans," your guess is nowhere near as good as mine.

First and foremost, women are more likely than men to be of the liberal persuasion.

Really? After all the GOP has done to reach out to women? Apparently the ladies of this great nation haven't been paying enough attention to incontinent old men who write exposes of radical Marxist-feminism!

As columnist Allison Brown once put it, "Most women are natural socialists."

*spit take*

Well, the word of columnist Allison Brown is all the evidence I will ever need. Where is she a columnist, you ask? Why, LewRockwell.com, of course! The refuge of people who get kicked out of the Ron Paul movement for being bonkers. One step up from writing op-eds in the Michigan Militia's monthly newsletter. Yes, that LewRockwell.com. Members who sign up today receive a free 30-round magazine (5.56 NATO) and an email telling them when and where they are to report for their mandatory blowjob of a transvestite prostitute made up to look like Murray Rothbard.

That fact doesn't sit very well with a disaffected electorate that has been moving steadily to embrace the tenets of conservative philosophy.

'Bout time we give conservatism a try in this country!

It wasn't too many years ago, of course, that female candidates openly voiced the view that female lawmakers are more trust-worthy and less corrupt than their greedy male counterparts. Remember Hillary Clinton's chestnut that "Research shows the presence of women raises the standards of ethical behavior"? Hillary's declamation was instantly self-refuting, of course, in light her notorious Travelgate incident, cattle futures scam, and other ethical escapades.

Travelgate? Travelgate?!?!?! Jesus Christ, Carey. I realize that your cultural reference points are all from the Harding years, but bringing up the B-list Clinton era scandals, the ones no one cared about when they happened…which was twenty years ago??

And remember Nancy Pelosi's vow to run the "most ethical and honest Congress in history"? Then came the steady drumbeat of Democratic congressmen and women who were discovered to be delinquent on their taxes, forgetful with asset disclosure forms, or deceitful in funneling scholarship monies to family members.

Conservatives really believe strongly in paying their taxes. Really, ask Joe Miller, he'll tell you all about it. They are also above nepotism. Ask Bill Kristol. And they would never "forget" several million dollars in assets on disclosure forms. Ask Nathan Deal.

It's a political truism that fiscal conservativism appeals primarily to men. According to an April 18 Pew poll, 52% of men, compared to only 42% of women, favor cutting back government programs.

I like political truisms, like the one that statistics like this are only used to justify arguments by lazy hacks who don't understand how little numbers like these actually mean. But congrats on being able to use Google to sift through old surveys until finding one that says what you want it to say, Carey! That's more computer-savvy than I expected from you.

For the millions of men who gave the nod to Barack Obama two years ago, the turning point was the news that Obama had jiggered the stimulus package to favor school teachers, social workers, and other female-dominated government jobs, leaving millions of unemployed male factory hands and construction-workers holding the bag. Shuttling millions of formerly well-paid men onto the welfare rolls — that's what progressives call "social justice." And that's what Barack Obama meant when he told Joe the Plumber, "when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

Is this a joke? Does Carey Roberts exist or is he the creation of some smart-assed journalism grad students in Brooklyn? Obama's plan was…to screw over men? To…favor women? By "jiggering" the stimulus package (from Congress) to favor "female-dominated government jobs"?

As a result, the perennial gender gap has tacked strongly in favor of men. "Men make up a larger share of the likely voter pool," according to Quinnipiac pollster Doug Schwartz. This year is "among the bigger gender gaps we've seen," reveals Democratic pollster Celina Lake. And a Marist poll conducted last month found 48% of Republican men were "very enthusiastic" about voting, while only 28% of Democratic women rated themselves in like manner.

In January, we saw the gender gap bare its hairy chest in Massachusetts race. While 52% of the female electorate pulled the lever for Democrat Martha Coakley, 60% of the smaller but more unified male vote swung sharply in favor of Republican Scott Brown, handing the political unknown a stunning upset victory.

According to a statistic I just made up for this post, 64% of gay Hindus preferred the Delta Airlines in-flight meal over any of its competitors. However, follow-up studies show that they were less satisfied with their flight experience if the in-flight movie featured Mary Steenburgen.

But hey, this guy really knows how to selectively use poll data. That's not something you're born knowing how to do. It's a skill, and it can only be acquired through a diligent regimen of practice and barium enemas.

Commenting on recent presidential races, former Brandeis University professor Linda Hirshman explains, "With the possible exception of 1996, women have never voted a candidate into the White House when men thought the other guy should win."

Meaning…what?

Now back to the pink football cleats, pink gloves, pink chin straps, pink wrist and biceps bands, pink-crested baseball caps, pink towels, pink lapel ribbons, and of course the pink-themed Half-Time Show.

THANK GOD! I NEED CLOSURE ON THIS ANECDOTE! But seriously, check out these Pro Writing chops. Start the column with an anecdote, and then…wait for it…conclude by returning to it! Begin and end with the same pointless, made-up anecdote involving an utterly implausible conversation between Carey Roberts and his imaginary grandson named, for the sake of argument, Gulliver.

Seriously, why isn't the National Football League giving equal play to prostate cancer? After all, funding for prostate cancer has long lagged behind research for breast cancer. "Answer that question," I counseled my droopy-eyed grandson, "And you'll understand why 2010 is destined to be the Year of the Man."

Yes, that makes perfect sense. Yes, yes, of course. Tell me more.

*slowly lures Roberts toward a waiting van*

I know, I hear the voices too. Yes, I see that Gulliver's eyes are droopy. No, I don't know why. Why do you think they're droopy, Carey?

*prepares to drop giant net on the disoriented man shambling across his lawn*

Yes, I promise we'll take you to a male doctor. He's so male, it hurts. His name is Sergeant Ian Bonesteel and he doesn't cure diseases, he punches them. No, there won't be any women in the hospital. I know, I know, they're all Bitches, Granddad. You've warned me many times. Yes, we've heard all about the prostitute who gave you the Drip on that island after the Battle of Corregidor. Yes, we know you don't believe in insurance; Dr. Bonesteel accepts payment in buried yard gold. Just relax, Granddad. Relax. Here, have another prune. That's the best cure for what has you so cranky.

(New to FJM? It's defined here.)

I am about to do something mean.

Atlantic Monthly comedienne Megan McArdle labors mightily, and almost always unsuccessfully, to write columns that do not immediately collapse under the weight of mild scrutiny. It counts as a victory when she writes something that seems logically consistent for the length of time required to read it, even if for no longer. In short, at her top-dollar best she attains contemporaneous plausibility. Readers of her work might, provided they are not well versed in economics and tend to believe everything they read in Serious Media Outlets, think "Hey, this makes some sense!" in real time. That what they just read is stupid beyond comprehension hits them like a thunderbolt only in hindsight when she is on her game.

That's McArdle at her best. When everything goes right. It's McArdle as Michael Jordan scoring 63 over Larry Bird in Boston Garden in '86. Given that, it's almost cruel to subject her writing to the withering glare of hindsight. Something that seems ridiculous a day after it is written is not going to look much better a few years down the road.

Or will it?

No. No it won't. And I'll prove it. Because I am a dick, I present you Megan McArdle (back in the pseudonymous "Jane Galt" days) on March 26, 2003 musing on the cost of Dick & George's Iraqi Adventure in "How much is the war going to cost?" Ho ho ho. Hoo boy. Heh. Ho. Hah. Oh man. Let's do this.

I've seen a number of claims like this one from Eric Alterman:

The first $75 billion is just a downpayment. Expect to pay hundreds of billions in the short-term, trillions in the long run. Expect it to come out of your schools, your police forces, your highways, your future and your children's future

Megan introduces her piece with some wild, hysterical predictions from a Liberal Blogger about the cost of the impending Iraq War.

Anyone who's sat through a budget meeting

Which excludes Megan, of course, although she had yet to reveal her identity when this was written. It sure helped make her seem like a person who had sat through a "budget meeting" (technical term) rather than someone who has never had a real job, save a few months at the firm of one of her dad's pals. And this sweet-ass columnist gig.

knows that almost everyone overestimates their successess (sic), underestimates their costs; it's easier to go back for money later, when you can wave a nice hunk of sunk costs around, than say up front that you think whatever it is you're proposing will be expensive as hell.

Wait a second, I think she WAS sitting in on White House budget meetings! That was Dick Perle's argument. Almost verbatim. Wolfowitz chimed in with "Yeah, fuck 'em!" while Robert Kagan tore apart a Muslim doll with his teeth.

But trillions? US GDP is roughly $10 trillion.

"Roughly. Because I have never figured out how to look up a number." I bet no one knows what the GDP really is. It and the fate of Judge Crater are the only real mysteries left in this world. I asked Google "What was the GDP in 2002?" and all I got was lines of code like the Matrix and a horrible, piercing klaxon.

Alterman is saying that over the long run, this war is going to cost us at least 20% of GDP. That's nuts, and it's not the first time I've seen those sorts of numbers around.

Hee hee. Ho ho ho. Hoo boy. Oh.

Reality check: the entire US military budget is in the range of $350b.

Therefore, by definition this sandy misadventure could not cost more. Unless…the administration repeatedly went back to Congress for "emergency" supplemental funding requests? Nah. No one would fall for that.

Saying that this war will cost trillions in any term short enough for us to care about (I mean, he's probably right, if we use a timescale of several hundred years, but that's not very useful)

McEstimate: it will take several hundred years for the war to cost "trillions." Kids, this is why you shouldn't make a lot of predictions in a medium that archives everything.

is saying that this war is going to cost nearly as much as the entire military budget, year in and year out, for decades. For reference, the next six months are estimated to cost $60b on military spending. (I'm excluding the humanitarian and domestic segment of the budget submitted by the President.) Even with a fudge factor of 50%, that's $90b over the next six months, $180b a year. At that rate, assuming you do absolutely no discounting at all, it would take us over 10 years to get to $2t, thus meeting the "trillions" criteria.

UNLESS…nah. We already went over that. But here we see McTardle Tactic #1A: including lots of numbers parsed with high school algebra skills to create the appearance of precision and the reassuring veneer of facts. Everyone knows that half of $180b is $90b, and half of a year is 6 months. This is the kind of thing you learn at University of Chicago's MBA program.

Which is madness.

It sure is, cubby!

By that logic, we were spending as much on WWII in 1953 as we were in 1943.

WWII was over in 1953. But I see the point because the Iraq War will be over in, like, 6 weeks! And with no casualties. In fact, I think the pre-Iraq War plan was to send over one Marine to wipe out the Hussein regime by himself. It was totally plausible because it's a really big Marine and he's armed with Mjolnir. And once the Iraqi Army is defeated, the war is over, DUMBASS. What don't liberals get about that?

If you don't know, military spending during WWII was over 50% of GDP

Ixnay on the condescension, Chet.

it was in the 10% range during Korea, and dropped sharply thereafter. This while we were still occupying Japan, still garrisoning Germany, had a mandatory draft, and were building up for the Cold War. Even if you attribute the entire cost of the Cold War to WWII, and none of it to Stalinist imperialism, you still don't get the kind of numbers required to make the occupation cost as much as the battle. The difference is even more stark now, for you must remember that we have an all-volunteer army, which gets paid whether or not they're in Iraq.

OK, just to review, apparently her argument is that since our military is all-volunteer and we are paying their salaries anyway, the Iraq War really isn't going to cost much of anything at all. Everyone get that? Good. "For you must remember" it.

The extra, non-labor cost of the war is heavy on things like ordnance

Well I guess she's allowing that it will cost a few bucks. But remember: 6 weeks!

which we won't be expending once we control the country.

(requires sound)

"Which we won't be expending once we control the country." I could not make this shit up if I tried, people. And I have. Lord how I've tried to make up something as funny as McTardle. I subjected a number of baboons to severe head injuries in an effort to replicate her style. It didn't work, and the Animal Liberation Front has burned down my house three times.

Where do they get these numbers?

Certainly not from the ironclad reserves of logic and basic math that lustily fornicate to produce McTardle's numbers!!!!111!!!!one!

With gems like this from James Galbraith, son of the amiably paranoiac pop-economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

That's not a sentence, but OK. Here I have redacted a lengthy quote from Mr. Galbraith, which you can read here and in which he makes some outlandish predictions like that the war might take 5 years or 200,000 troops. Put down the crack pipe, dude!

He offers vague possibilities, making no attempt to quantify them, much less calculate their probability

Yeah, Megan's a real stickler for sources, attribution, and precision.

He conflates all sorts of costs into one big amorphous bundle. He only looks at costs on one side; for example, discussing the cost in lives of the war, without discussing the cost in lives of Saddaam's regime and the sanctions that are the likely alternative to the war.

What we need is a close look at the specifics, not just a bunch of hypothetical bullshit.

If we kill 300 Iraqi civilians and 300 American troops ousting Saddaam (sic), and Saddaam's (sic) secret police are murdering 1,000 people a year, and 5,000 people a year are dying from the humanitarian crisis brought on by sanctions, it is not a net "cost" in human lives.

There is nothing I could write that would be funnier or sadder than this. 4,000 U.S. dead later…but how about those 300 civilian deaths!

Oh.

Likewise, he examines only the negative consequences the current uncertainty might have on the economy, without mentioning that, for example, a successful war might boost the consumer confidence dampened by fears of terrorism,

Yeah, it boosted the shit out of the economy. Especially because…

or that lowered security risk in the Middle East might result in both lower oil prices, and higher investment in highly oil-dependent industries.

…post-2003 oil prices fell like a stone. God, it's like she was staring into a crystal ball.

He offers unsourced references for large numbers — "One estimate for the cost of rebuilding Iraq runs to $2 trillion" — in order to give his claims a false patina of precision.

If anyone can find an example of a Megan McArdle piece in which A) numbers are sourced or B) the sourced numbers outnumber the hypothetical made up numbers, you will win Megan McArdle's home address, a one-way bus ticket to said address, and a flaming suitcase full of dog shit. Do with those what you please.

He cites any number of highly speculative, unquantitative "costs" in terms of US prestige and other such intangibles that have nothing to do with economic costs. He posits "opportunity costs" of not doing things that many of us don't want to spend federal money on in the first place. An opportunity cost is a precise economic term: it means the next-best alternative use for your money.

Thanks for the econ lesson, professor! Boy, anonymity was McTardle's friend, wasn't it? She sounded more authoritative before she revealed that she has no economic training or experience of any kind, and in fact is just a talentless rich kid with an absurdly high opinion of herself and the good fortune that twentysomething glibertarian tools find her attractive.

You can't claim that our failure to institute national health care is an opportunity cost of the war when such a thing would cost far more than the money being spent on the war

Well, it cost way more than the One Marine Swinging Mjolnir version of the War, but not so much the Reality Based one.

Thus, Eric Alterman is enabled to claim that the cost to the US taxpayer will be over $2t, even though most of the larger costs cited by Galbraith aren't going to be borne by Americans either directly or indirectly, but by Iraqi oil.⁶

Ah, yes. Remember, the war that really isn't going to cost anything to begin with (because we're already paying the Army, stupid) was going to be self-financed by Iraqi oil. Note that this sentence is followed by a footnote, which reads in its comedic entirety: "Am I suggesting that the Iraqis should pay for occupation expenses? Nope. We can afford it, and there's something repellent about making impoverished Iraqis pay for a war foisted on them by an evil dictator. But most of that $2t, if it is any sort of a real number, will be stuff for Iraqis: roads, schools, hospitals, government buildings, power plants and sewers and all the good stuff that lets us live like citizens of the 21st century. That stuff should come out of Iraqi oil revenues."

Again, there isn't much I can add to this. I tried. I got nothin'.

The war will certainly cost more than the $60b and change that the President is asking for. But it is not going to run us several trillion dollars (though even if it did, that would work out to less than 0.1% of GDP over the next 20 years.)

To recap: "The war isn't going to cost us anything much of anything, although it will surely cost more than the amount Bush requested, and even if it does cost a lot it's not so bad so long as we look at the GDP over this arbitrary 20 year timeframe I just pulled clean out of my puckered butthole."

I don't know how much more, and neither does anyone else, although I'm sure the military has better guesses than I could make.

"This is unknowable. The military knows."

Megan, they can tell us with some precision what various scenarios will cost. The fundamental problem here was that the scenario posed to them – a six week war costing only a few grand for Private Smith's salary and a couple of weeks of Mjolnir rental at standard rates – was retarded.

It's important to think about the economic cost of the war — the pro-war side has mostly dropped the ball on this, and it's an important calculation when we consider whether or not to go. But making up ridiculous numbers in order to support your predisposition isn't helpful — and when the war doesn't cost us $2t, people are going to remember that the next time you talk about the costs of a program you don't like.

The first draft had a footnote here: "And when it does, I will look like the biggest (idiot/tool/brain-dead sycophant) this side of an audience at a county fair tractor pull."

This…this article almost FJMed itself. I think the best way to enjoy this is simply to click through and read her original post. Read it again and again. Marvel at it. It's like a time warp back to 2003. Remember 2003? Remember how awful it was? How 70% of the country thought this was a good argument? Six week war! Oil riches to pay the tab! 100 casualties, max! Well, I want you all to do something for me. Think of one person who you really, really wanted to punch in 2003 because this torrent of shit spewed so readily from their mouths. Send them this column. Fire off a quick email and let them know that no matter how hard the McArdles of the world pray that we will forget, we remember.

Ideally this would make him or her feel embarrassed – Megan, if you ever read this (and I sure hope you do!) I have no idea how you can look back at what you've written and do anything other than either die of shame on the spot (something roughly akin to Obi-Wan becoming a Force Ghost on the Death Star) or come to grips with the fact that maybe writing isn't for you – but we know we are dealing with a kind of person so intellectually languid that he or she is incapable of feeling shame. Shame requires being intelligent enough to realize that you were wrong and, more importantly, that it matters that you were so incredibly wrong.

What is this, number four for Mr. Very Serious Brooks? It may seem like he is given the Treatment far too often, but in reality I applaud myself for showing almost superhuman restraint in featuring him in this format as rarely as I do. Every word he writes begs for this kind of response. Every New York Times column, not to mention every television bobblehead appearance, is like a massive nuclear explosion producing a giant cloud spelling out "Ed! FJM me!" It is so tempting to comply. His web archive makes me feel like a kid in a candy store whereas actually trudging through his columns makes me feel like a diabetic kid in a candy store…I can see all kinds of treats on the Times website but I can't have any of them. I have to read goddamn David Brooks.

Being the good Sensible, Adult Moderate that he is, Mr. Brooks must take the occasional stab at liberal cred, which is as difficult as you might expect for someone who is basically a less hirsute Mitt Romney. But DB sure does try, most recently in last week's excruciating "The Long Strategy." The nondescript title does not betray how bad the ensuing column really is. Let me put it this way: if you ever wanted to meet David Brooks in his high school years, this is as close as you can get. Now that I've really sold it, buckle up. This FJM is made possible through the generous support of the Sanctimonious Pud Foundation.

I was a liberal Democrat when I was young. I used to wear a green Army jacket with political buttons on it — for Hubert Humphrey, Birch Bayh, John F. Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt.

"Don't you think I'm cool now? I was also into Foghat. I knew Timothy Leary. I played tambourine for Country Joe & the Fish for a couple of years. I banged Squeaky Fromme. Ever hear of the Baader-Meinhoff group? I was Baader."

I even wore that jacket in my high school yearbook photo.

PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.

It’s a magic green jacket.

Holy shit! Can we call it the Dream Coat from now on? Oh. I guess that's taken.

But the moral of the story is that no one F'ed with DB in high school, not with his Cloak of Invisibility and +3 Bag of Holding.

I can put it on today and, suddenly, my mind shifts back to the left. I start thinking like a Democrat, feeling a strange accompanying hunger for brown rice.

Ha ha! He knows 1960s liberal stereotypes! Oh, that's rich.

When I put on that magic jacket today, I feel beleaguered but kind of satisfied.

"Not unlike that time I barfed in Morley Safer's bathroom but mostly missed the toilet. He's a dick. God, we drank so much Keystone Light. You wouldn't tell by looking at him, but Ed Bradlee turns into Wolverine after a sixer."

I feel beleaguered because the political winds are blowing so ferociously against “my” party. But I feel satisfied because the Democrats have overseen a bunch of programs that, while unappreciated now, are probably going to do a lot of good in the long run.

Wait…they did things right? Things that David argued against when proposed?

For example, everybody now hates the bank bailouts and the stress tests. But, the fact is, these are some of the most successful programs in recent memory. They stabilized the financial system without costing much money.

Brooks on Charlie Rose, 2/9/09: Bank bailouts = bad.

The auto bailout was criticized at the time, but it’s looking pretty good now that General Motors is recovering.

Nov. 2008: "Bailout to Nowhere." Auto industry bailout = bad.

But the magic jacket-wearing me is nervous about the next few years.

Regular jacket-wearing you was nervous about the last few, too. Good thing the government didn't listen to him.

I’m afraid my party is going to get stuck in the same old debates that we always lose. First, we’re going to have the same old tax debate. We’re going to not extend the Bush tax cuts on the rich. The Republicans will blast us for killing growth and raising taxes as they did in 2000 and 2004.

"And I'm certain of it, because those will be my next three columns as soon as I take off the Magic Jacket and replace it with my Dickhead Sportcoat, Smug Slacks, and a size 10 pair of Platitude Shoes."

Then we’ll get stuck in the same old spending debate. We’ll point to high unemployment and propose spending programs too small to make much difference.

Right, we will settle on spending programs too small to make a difference after people like non-Jacket David Brooks rail endlessly about how the proposal is too expensive.

The Republicans will blast us for bankrupting the country with ineffective programs, and the voters are so distrustful of government these days that they’ll side with the Republicans on that one, too.

Have to go with DB here; they pretty much have this one down to a science. Run the government into the ground, campaign on "small government", and assume that people aren't paying enough attention to figure it out. Brilliant.

So I sit there in my magic green jacket and I wonder: What can my party do to avoid the big government tag that always leads to catastrophe?

"Now that we all agree that big government is bad, how can the party accused of favoring it run against the party that consistently implements it?"

Then I remember President Obama’s vow to move us beyond the stale old debates. Maybe he couldn’t really do that in the first phase of his presidency when he was busy responding to the economic crisis, but perhaps he can do it now in the second phase.

Oh crap. You all know what's coming, right? You've seen this before, right?

It occurs to me that the Obama administration has done a number of (widely neglected) things that scramble the conventional categories and that are good policy besides. The administration has championed some potentially revolutionary education reforms. It has significantly increased investments in basic research. It has promoted energy innovation and helped entrepreneurs find new battery technologies. It has invested in infrastructure — not only roads and bridges, but also information-age infrastructure like the broadband spectrum.

Well, that's all pretty tame. But yeah, most sane people would think those are good ideas – meaning that about 60% of the American public does.

These accomplishments aren’t big government versus small government; they’re using government to help set a context for private sector risk-taking and community initiative.

No, they're SOCIALISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where have you been, David? Liberal fascism! Hitler! Stalin! Neville Chamberlain! FEMA internment camps in the desert! Sharia law! Death panels! Reparations! My precious fluids!

They cut through the culture war that is now brewing between the Obama administration and the business community. They also address the core anxiety now afflicting the public. It’s not only short-term unemployment that bothers people. What really scares people is the sense that we’re frittering away our wealth. Americans fear we’re a nation in decline.

Well, for once, Americans are fuckin'-A right.

So I sit there in my green jacket, happily chewing on a Twizzler that I probably left in a pocket in 1979,

"Probably?" That's the kind of thing you would know, David. You'd know. Also, how many times are you going to bring up this jacket?

and I think: What would happen if Obama sidestepped the fruitless and short-term stimulus debate and instead focused on the long term? He could explain that we’re facing deep fundamental problems: an aging population, overleveraged consumers, exploding government debt, state and local bankruptcies, declining human capital, widening inequality, a pattern of jobless recoveries, deteriorating trade imbalances and so on.

Yes, those are our problems. Also bear attacks, and those two astronomically expensive wars.

These long-term problems, Obama could say, won’t be solved either with centralized government or free market laissez-faire. Just as government laid railroads and built land grant colleges in the 19th century to foster deep growth, the government today should be doing the modern equivalents.

That sounds like a good idea. What is the modern equivalent of a system of enormous, well-funded state universities and a nationwide network of railroads?

Not much is going to get passed in the next two years anyway, but the president could lay the groundwork for a whopping second-term agenda: tax simplification, entitlement reform, a new wave of regional innovation clusters, a new wave of marriage-friendly tax policies.

David, even for you this is pathetic.

Some kind of regressive flat tax, privatizing and/or slashing Social Security, gutting Medicare, and coming up with some new tax breaks to reward people for…getting married, I guess? Which one of those is like the railroads, David?

If the president is looking for a long-term growth agenda, he could read “Path to Prosperity,” co-edited by Jason Furman and Jason Bordoff, or “The Pro-Growth Progressive” written by Gene Sperling. Some of these guys already are on his staff.

Yes, he needs to listen to even more people telling him that the key to succeeding as Democrats is to support all of the policies of the Republicans. Because what the American public really wants is a Republican Party with some sort of different name.

Eventually, I see a party breaking out of old stereotypes, appealing to entrepreneurs and suburbanites again, and I start feeling good about the future. Then I take off the magic green jacket and return to my old center-right self. A chill sweeps over me: Gosh, what if the Democrats really did change in that way?

Well, then we'd have a one-party system like the Soviet boogeyman that you and your kind can't stop bringing up even though it means almost nothing (at least nothing accurate) to most of the country. Is this really your dream, David? Is this the Big Change you want to see in the world? The Revolution According to Brooks: a Democratic Party that completely buys into Alan Greenspan economic theories but is a little more liberal than Tom Tancredo on social issues.

As a small child, David also dreamed of being an average player on a 4th-place baseball team. Of joining NASA and being the guy who greased the gimbel joints on the Saturn V. Of moving out to Hollywood and being a grip. Of being the soundman for a mediocre band. Of writing the Decent American Novel. Of winning a Bronze medal…at the Pan-American Games. Of someday living in Kearney, Nebraska. Of winning honorable mention in a pie-eating contest.

David Brooks: always dreaming big. And insisting that if only the Democratic Party was more conservative its success would know no limits.

Picture this: a grown woman is driving around the Chicago suburbs and encounters three little girls with a lemonade stand. Upon learning that they are giving away the lemonade for free, the aforementioned grown woman goes after them like she just found the fucking Taliban making VX in a garage in Palatine. At the end of this psychotic episode, she writes about it with the intention of publishing it because she is proud of what she just did.

Did you picture all of that? Good. Now do it. Do it and you too can be a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. You can be the next Terry Savage. It is not often that I read a simple opinion column and conclude that the author is quite lucky to have avoided ending up in police custody as a result of it. This ("There is No 'Free' Lemonade") is one such occasion. In fact it is the only such occasion I can recall aside from Doug Giles' ill-advised 2001 column "A List of Problems I Have Solved By Raping Things."

I ask if you are ready only rhetorically today, because having read this column I know for a fact that you are not.

This column is a true story — every word of it.

Well there goes the insanity defense or the ol' "It was satire / artistic license!" argument.

And I think it very appropriate to consider around the Fourth of July, Independence Day spirit.

Please keep this line in mind as she explains what she did. This is what she likes to do in celebration of major holidays. Check back in November for her column about beheading a vagrant in the Thanksgiving spirit.

Last week, I was in a car with my brother and his fiancee, driving through their upscale neighborhood on a hot summer day. At the corner, we all noticed three little girls sitting at a homemade lemonade stand.

Why, this just sounds like a Norman Rockwell painting. How sweet. How all-American. How totally not a reason to lose your shit and go after three little girls like you are a starving dog and they are wearing dresses made of honey baked ham.

We follow the same rules in our family, and one of them is: Always stop to buy lemonade from kids who are entrepreneurial enough to open up a little business.

Aside from wondering why your family feels the need to have such an esoteric rule, I find it regrettable that the Savage clan does not have rules about the basic tenets of human interaction. They might have come in handy here.

My brother immediately pulled over to the side of the road and asked about the choices. The three young girls — under the watchful eye of a nanny, sitting on the grass with them — explained that they had regular lemonade, raspberry lemonade, and small chocolate candy bars.

I see nothing out of the ordinary here. Then again, I am not Terry Savage.

Then my brother asked how much each item cost. "Oh, no," they replied in unison, "they're all free!"

OH SHIT. OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT.

RUN.

I know you still can't see how this could be a precursor to a rage-filled outburst for any normal person but RUN. THERE ISN'T TIME. I WILL EXPLAIN LATER.

I sat in the back seat in shock. Free? My brother questioned them again: "But you have to charge something? What should I pay for a lemonade? I'm really thirsty!"

Note that 99.999 percent of…well, actually, everyone on the goddamn planet except for Terry Savage and Brother Savage…would have said "Aw, how cute! Thank you so much!" and enjoyed a cold Dixie cup of Country Time Imitation Lemonade Substitute at this point. That, I daresay, would be a normal response.

His fiancee smiled and commented, "Isn't that cute. They have the spirit of giving."

Well, one person in the car was relatively normal.

That really set me off, as my regular readers can imagine.

OK, from this point forward this reads like a police report.

No, Terry, we can't imagine. Even your most devoted readers cannot figure out why you are about to start yelling at three little girls for offering you free lemonade. Your motives are as comprehensible as a Japanese game show.

"No!" I exclaimed from the back seat. "That's not the spirit of giving. You can only really give when you give something you own. They're giving away their parents' things — the lemonade, cups, candy. It's not theirs to give."

Well, presumably this stuff became theirs to own when THEIR PARENTS FUCKING GAVE IT TO THEM. Wait a minute. Why am I debating you on the minutiae of your "argument" when the real question here is broader: What in the hell is wrong with you?

I bet the fiancee was profoundly thankful for this lecture. And she certainly did not turn the car ride home from their visit with you into a "If we have to see her more than once a year, we're getting divorced. In fact I have the divorce paperwork prepared. It needs only a signature." conversation for your brother.

I pushed the button to roll down the window and stuck my head out to set them straight.

Oh good.

Adults should always pick fights with kids in furtherance of "setting them straight." It's not only smart, it's socially acceptable and indicative of a healthy personality.

"You must charge something for the lemonade," I explained. "That's the whole point of a lemonade stand. You figure out your costs — how much the lemonade costs, and the cups — and then you charge a little more than what it costs you, so you can make money. Then you can buy more stuff, and make more lemonade, and sell it and make more money."

"You must charge something for the lemonade," I explained…TO A GROUP OF SEVEN YEAR-OLD STRANGERS. Kids, if you're reading this, take Mr. Ed's advice on something: if an adult stranger ever says any of this to you, one member of your group should run to ask an adult to call the police and the remaining two should attempt to make a lot of noise and stand together to create the impression that they are a large animal.

True, that is actually how one should respond to brown bear attacks. But it will also work on Terry Savage. Trust me. And don't get between her and her cubs.

I was confident I had explained it clearly. Until my brother, breaking the tension, ordered a raspberry lemonade. As they handed it to him, he again asked: "So how much is it?" And the girls once again replied: "It's free!" And the nanny looked on contentedly.

I would like to hear this story from the girls' perspective. Or perhaps the nanny's. This part would be something like "So after this bitch started lecturing us on classical economics, they asked us how much it cost. We wanted to see if we could make their heads explode, so we told them it was still free. The driver man swore at us and the old lady in the backseat pulled a stiletto knife out of her purse. Then they saw Officer Harry's car at the end of the block and they ran away."

No wonder America is getting it all wrong when it comes to government, and taxes, and policy. We all act as if the "lemonade" or benefits we're "giving away" is free. And so the voters demand more — more subsidies for mortgages, more bailouts, more loan modification and longer periods of unemployment benefits.

Wait. Did you have some lemonade or not? I need closure on this anecdote, not a segue into the worst metaphor in recorded history. "Some nice kids tried to give me lemonade for free, and I decided that the lemonade represents everything that is wrong with society. Because I am psychotic. I pick corn from my own crap and glue it back on the cob. Then I eat it again. And again."

They're all very nice. But these things aren't free.

You know what was nice as well as free? THE DAMN LEMONADE.

The government only gets the money to pay these benefits by raising taxes, meaning taxpayers pay for the "free lemonade." Or by printing money — which is essentially a tax on savings, since printing more money devalues the wealth we hold in dollars.

She is now explaining that when we give the government some of our earnings, we often demand benefits in return for giving them said money.

Slow down, T-Bone. We're not all economists here. Is there any scientific effort to study and explain this bizarre behavior? Personally I am surprised that people want the government to provide things other than the Joint Strike Fighter in exchange for keeping a quarter of our paychecks.

If we can't teach our kids the basics of running a lemonade stand, how can we ever teach Congress the basics of economics?

Reach further, Terry! Reach higher! Reach! This lemonade transaction (or was it a non-transaction? I NEED TO KNOW.) represents everything that is wrong with America. It also explains why Congress doesn't understand "the basics of economics (but I bet Terry does!) The lemonade also represents AIDS in the developing world, the problem with the music industry today, and 19th Century institutionalized racism.

The other day I was shopping and I saw that wax paper was on sale. Of course my first thought was, "This is why we won the space race."

Or maybe it's the other way around: The kids are learning from the society around them. No one has ever taught them there's no free lunch — and all they see is "free," not the result of hard work, and saving, and scrimping.

I think it is valid to conclude that "no one" has ever given American students the hackneyed wisdom that "there's no free lunch."

Maybe the lesson the parents hoped to teach was that sometimes, especially when you are a person of considerable wealth, it is nice to do things for your fellow man without expecting to be paid. That it's OK to give someone 1 cent worth of powdered lemonade just to be friendly. That parents don't want their kids to grow up to be asocial assholes like Terry Savage.

If that's what America's children think

"And based on my random, double-blind study of these three girls, it is fair to conclude that they do,"

– that there's a free lunch waiting — then our country has larger problems ahead. The Declaration of Independence promised "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It didn't promise anything free.

Right. It promised us a government that would allocate the resources we grant to it in ways that are to our benefit. Who ever said we expected the government to do all this stuff for us "for free"? We work. We contribute. Oh wait, I forgot how the Metaphor of the Lemonade explains how we all want things for free. Good point.

Something to think about this July 4th holiday weekend.

Or, you know, fireworks and barbecues.

And that's the Savage Truth!

This is the most embarrassingly bad catchphrase I have ever seen. I recommend something like:

- I Am Completely Fucking Insane!^tm
- I Can't Be Trusted with Your Children!^tm
- Fluids! My Precious Fluids!^tm

Despite the fact that I've trademarked that, Terry, you are free to use it. You've more than earned the right. What's that? No, it doesn't cost you anything. You can use it for free. I don't care. No. I don't want anything for it.

Oh jesus. She's advancing on me with that murderous glare again. You all slip out the back while I distract her. This may take a while.

Hey, I spend a lot of time in the classroom, so when I see a column entitled "Our Kids Deserve Balance in the Classroom" I perk up like an chemically stimulated prairie dog. All along I have been under the impression that Your Kids deserved to be given accurate information and taught how to process it. How wrong was I. It turns out that what kids really deserve is "balance"! You know, two sides to every story. Teach the Controversy.^tm But I doubt that Steve Mroczkiewicz – scholar at the Independent Women's Foundation project Balanced Education for Everyone – would raise such an issue lightly; he's a goddamn expert on Balance. Move over, Flying Wallendas. Let's discover how Unbalanced our schools are with the ultimate goal of Balancing them like the scales of justice.

This FJM is made possible through a generous grant from the Steve, Shut The Fuck Up Foundation. SSTFUF: A Better Tomorrow is Possible if Steve Shuts His Piehole Today.^tm

We as parents have a lot on our minds these days. Too many of us are out of work and struggling to pay the bills. While trying to pay our mortgage and prepare for retirement, we are also trying to save to help our kids go to college. Of course, we are also concerned about the quality of our children's schools, though few have the time to follow closely what goes on in those classrooms each day.

OK, Steve isn't a professional writer. This much will be abundantly clear. Regardless, there's something inherently dangerous about opening anything other than a letter to the Penthouse Forums with this many industrial strength platitudes. And don't worry, parents who lack the time to follow what goes on in the classroom each day – Steve's on it.

As a father of six—five of whom still attend Attica, Indiana public schools

Remember this. It's going to be relevant in a minute.

I know first-hand the difficulty of keeping up with all the responsibilities that parents face. Yet I also know how important it is to remain engaged in our children's schools to make sure that they get the education they need and deserve.

This passage was nominated for the 2010 Award for Redundancy Award of 2010.

It has been more than a month since Earth Day, and most of our children are finishing their studies for the year. One area that I would encourage all parents to pay extra attention to is what's happening at your school regarding climate change education. Ideally, it is supposed to encourage students to consider the importance of preserving our natural resources. Unfortunately, too often it's used as a platform to push a misleading, ideological brand of environmentalism.

Ideally…according to whom? This sounds an awful lot like a segue into the classic "My kids are not being told that my beliefs are correct, so it's time to change what they're taught" argument.

I’m a Ph.D. scientist

And yet you can't figure out how condoms work, according to the earlier admission.

I’m a Ph.D. scientist and work as a Field Research Scientist for a global crop protection company, so I have a special interest in how my kids are taught the subject.

Great. You have a biology Ph.D., proving that you have mastered titration and whatnot (I don't know if titration is relevant to what biologists do, but it's one of the most phonetically pleasing hard science-y words I know). This makes you an expert on many things, including global warming. I also have a Ph.D., Steve, so when I get done writing this I'm going to draw up architectural blueprints for a skyscraper and invent a new state of matter.

To me, teaching science properly means presenting all sides of scientific theories and helping kids develop their own critical thinking skills.

Teaching Science Properly by Steve Mroczkiewicz is apparently the least useful book ever written. It receives serious competition for that honor only from The Encyclopedia of Phrenology, Modern British Dentistry: A Practical Guide, and On Diplomacy by Ariel Sharon.

Steve, teaching science properly means presenting the "sides of scientific theories" that are either correct or have evidence to support them. Not "all" sides. We can, you know, skip the ones that are wrong or utterly devoid of merit. When we teach the shape of the planet, we generally do not give Round and Flat equal time.

Regrettably, it seems that too many in our public education system see their role differently.

Strangely and regrettably, most teachers don't see the value in teaching unsupported crackpot theories or industry-funded denialist claims. Baffling.

I first became concerned about how my children's school was teaching global warming last year when a group of teachers orchestrated a school-wide showing of An Inconvenient Truth during class in celebration of Earth Day.

They showed a multi-multi-award winning documentary by the former Vice President in a public school? My god. What country do we live in?

I was alarmed that parents weren't even able to pull their kids from this assignment (fortunately, with some work, I eventually got that policy changed).

Ooh, goodie. We're playing "I was alarmed by…" I love this game. OK Steve, I was alarmed by the suggestion that parents – parents who might be, and often are, dumber than a bag of hammers – should be able to decide what their kids are and are not exposed to.

OK, your turn.

The problem isn't just that the school shows An Inconvenient Truth, a movie found by a judge to be riddled with serious scientific errors and which grossly exaggerates the potential damage of man-made global warming. It also fails to provide any counterweight to this environmentalist propaganda.

Aww, I thought we were playing. Anyway, Steve, no judge accused the film of scientific errors or "gross" exaggerations. A British judge in a civil trial agreed with an attorney's claim that the film exaggerates the potential damage of human-induced climate change – which is a pretty strange argument, by the way, given that both the judge's and the filmmaker's exercises are inherently speculative. But like any documentary, I won't argue that the film in question is strongly argued and probably includes some exaggerations by zealous True Believers. Documentaries are never "fair."

Schools do have options. For more than a year now, I've been trying to get another film, Not Evil, Just Wrong, shown in our school to provide some balance.

Awesome. Schools have options, like showing a straight-to-video piece of shit (funded by a wealthy Irish nutcase) that repackages every tired global warming denialism argument of the past 30 years. Do you understand how bad a movie has to be before it can't secure a theatrical release? For christ's sake, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed opened on 1000 screens and it was so bad that most people who paid to see it shot themselves.

Maybe part of the problem is that the film begins with the tale of how hysterical environmentalists got DDT banned and caused 40 million people to die of mosquito-borne illnesses – ah, the perils of scientific Chicken Little-ism – which is a great point except that DDT is still used to kill mosquitoes and always has been. And it's uphill from there!

Not Evil, Just Wrong thoroughly reviews the flawed science of global warming, specifically addressing the many errors and gross exaggerations in An Inconvenient Truth. Our children deserve to hear this information so they don't believe that there's only one truth about this important issue.

Read that again. "…so they don't believe that there's only one truth about this important issue." Our goal, of course, is to have them believe that there are many, equally valid "truths" about important issues! Why, that just sounds great. What a great world we would live in if everyone thought that opposing sides of objective issues were equally valid.

Unfortunately, getting balance into my children's school has been an uphill battle. I’ve spoken to teachers, the principal, the superintendent and the school board. I’ve loaned copies of the film so teachers could see it and make an informed decision.

Are you getting the sense that Steve is "That Guy" in his school district? The one who harasses the administrators to an extent that verges on stalking and who rises at every board meeting to deliver the same harangue about Communist water fluoridation or free energy suppression or Noah's Ark or whatever his idiotic pet issue happens to be? I bet he's quite popular in his community.

Yet only two teachers in the whole school bothered to view the film, and none of them would show it.

Shocking.

I made my case publicly during the open session of a school board meeting.

I bet you did, Cubby.

The only result was that a group of teachers publicly complained to the board for giving me a hearing.

Well that could mean a few things. You've been at this for a full year, so let's assume they understand your argument. Either they are closed-minded, ideologically narrow bigots hell-bent on suppressing your Truth, or your argument is entirely without merit and no amount of explanation is sufficient to make you understand that.

Most recently, the superintendent declared Not Evil, Just Wrong isn’t suitable because it lacks the endorsement of the National Earth Day Foundation. You can see what I’m up against.

I more clearly see what the school district is up against, but yeah, I feel for you. Going up against reality and facts is hard.

This isn’t just ignorance of the science behind climate change, this is an ideological position. I will continue to fight for our students to be taught rather than indoctrinated.

Steve, your point of view as expressed here makes clear that you loathe indoctrination. You just have the very reasonable and open-minded view that your children should only be taught what you want them to be taught irrespective of its accuracy.

I haven't been able to change the curriculum so far, but I have succeeded in raising awareness of the problem. I would urge other parent to do the same.

"No one is listening to me. It's lonely here at the helm of the USS Batshit. I need 30 stout men for a voyage to where there be dragons."

Ask questions about how global warming is being presented in your school. Find out if movies like An Inconvenient Truth are being used on Earth Day or as pillars of the science curriculum. Make sure that your kids are hearing the other side of the story.

(The one with no evidence to support it.)

We should encourage our schools and teachers to address this imbalance during the summer break.

Once again Steve shows his keen understanding of reality by stressing that the best time to get the attention of educators is during the summer.

I realize many of us are busy, but our children's education starts at home. You shouldn't trust that your local school is providing the balanced education your children deserve.

"Just homeschool your kids already. That's the only way to keep them Pure of influences other than the voices in Mom and Dad's head. Isn't it about time you took dictatorial control of every piece of information that reaches your child? How else can we ensure that they will grow up creationist, heavily armed, and utterly unable to function socially?"

Thanks Steve, whoever the hell you are, for taking the idea of scientific inquiry out behind an abandoned warehouse and fingering it. I can think of no one I'd rather have in control of the future of our educational system. Being lectured on objectivity and balance by Steve Mroczkiewicz is like having Bible study with the Pope himself.

This is where I usually do a quasi-witty intro. Today, I've got nothing for you. This is honestly the worst opinion column I have ever read. It reads less like an opinion column than the final Facebook post of a lone wolf militiaman before he sets out in his weapon-laden 1988 Ford Econoline van to kill as many Latinos as he can find. It's part suicide note, part ransom note, part plea for psychological help, and part woefully failed attempt at humor. Doug Giles, who previously took an FJMing with a column that I naively thought represented the nadir of the English language in print, is still giving this writing thing a try for some reason. After you read this masterpiece of satire ("Mexico's Calderon Condemns the Country that Keeps His Haggard Land Afloat") you will join me in wishing that Doug would take up a career more suited to his skills and personality, such as working in a prison, being held for observation and psychiatric care, or wrapping his lips around the barrel of a gun and trying desperately to think of a reason not to pull the trigger.

This is…not good. I warned you.

Y’know, there’s nothing like being chastised by the president of a parasitical border nation whose trespassing citizens are wreaking havoc on our soil.

"Y'know"? Some 14 year old girls called, Doug, and they want their Livejournal post back. They called me because Doug Giles is not allowed to receive phone calls from minors pursuant to the provisions of Suzie's Law and an out-of-court settlement in the matter of Girl Scouts of America v. Doug Giles in a Clown Suit.

Mexico’s Presidente Felipe Calderon carping about our country’s laws on our turf this past week in D.C. is like a fat tick complaining about the dog he’s sucking the life out of. Hey Felipe, haven’t you ever heard the maxim “beggars can’t be choosers”? Evidently not.

Mexico is sucking the life out of the U.S.? Do you understand how illegal immigration works, Doug? They come here and do shit work for peanuts to subsidize the price you pay for produce. I do not think you have properly conceptualized the tick-dog relationship. If the ticks risked their lives to reach your dog so they could clean the caked dung out of the fur around his butt for $1 an hour, that would be a good analogy. As it stands, it isn't.

One must hand it to Calderón for having the cojones to condemn the country that’s keeping his gaunt nation buoyant. I wouldn’t have had the courage … or stupidity, or indecency … to do that.

Oh, don't sell yourself short, cubby. You're plenty stupid. Plenty.

Matter of fact, if I were president—or better yet, King of Douglandia

If this little hypothetical makes you cringe, you may want to get a drink before tackling the rest of this column. Doug thinks this is really, really clever and he's going to clutch it to his chest and break into a dead sprint like his ass is on fire and the nearest water is at the end of the column.

and Douglandia happened to have milked, oh … let’s say … $21 billion last year from the prosperous border country to our north

Curious about this oddly specific figure, I did more research than Doug Giles has done cumulatively in his life – which is to say I googled "Illegal immigrants $21 billion." It turns out that this is the amount that they sent out of the country as remittances in 2009. So "milked" is a strange choice of words given that A) they earned the money, mostly by B) doing horrible shit-work for which American businesses actively recruit illegals they can pay in change and Jarritos. As far as I'm concerned – and this is where Doug and I differ – someone who works 10 hour shifts cleaning slaughterhouses for $4/hr can do whatever the hell they want with the money. Mail it to Mexico, blow it at a casino, put it in the bank, set it on fire…once you've cleaned the rendering tank at a ConAgra slaughterhouse you make the call.

all the while my residents were:
- Creating chaos in our generous neighbor’s land by the exportation of tons of drugs to their kiddos,

Mexican illegal immigrants make your kids smoke pot. If there were no illegal immigrants, American kids would not have drugs and hence would not do drugs.

- Kidnapping and killing their citizens

This is just an epidemic. And again, without illegals this would not happen.

- Trashing their ranches and national parks,
- Disrespecting their laws and flag,

Is "disrespecting" a law the same as violating it?

Nothing is quite as sad as watching an adult deliver any variant of the "Flag-burning should be illegal!" argument. It indicates a failure at some stage of one's emotional development, the one that teaches you that symbols only mean what we decide they mean. In practice, it doesn't bother me much when people, legal or illegal, "disrespect" the fifty cent made-in-China piece of plastic bearing the pattern of the American flag. People who venerate an object are modern descendants of the barbarians who made offerings to please the sun.

- And spawning political turmoil in our over-gracious buddy’s government

Yes Doug, it is Mexico's fault that you're bursting a blood vessel in your neck over this issue and flying into a pant-shitting rage over the shocking idea that the people who pick your tomatoes for a buck an hour might not be in this country legally.

I wouldn’t dare open my stupid mouth

Oh, I doubt that. Wait for it…

and complain about the Constitution and the cops of the nation my civilians happen to be violating if I were invited to be speak in said nation.

Swish. Nothing but net. Giles 1, things that doubt Giles 0.

Yep, if my crew caused all this crap in another country and I were asked to address the land that folks from Douglandia were pillaging, my speech would be very short and very sweet:

Can you pretend that you've been invited to speak in Edlandia and work that short/sweet magic here? Because every word of this is like rolling a giant boulder up a steep hill. I pray for a merciful death in lieu of reading another sentence. This is like watching Uncle Larry get ripped to the tits on peppermint schnapps at Thanksgiving and deliver one of his patented monologues about the coloreds or the vaccine-autism link or the Jews or free energy suppression or the children he stabbed in Vietnam.

It would mirror Borat’s sentiments toward the USA, and I would say, “Hello. My name is Doug from Douglandia. I like your country. It’s very nice. Please forgive what my gypsies have done to your land and people. I will discipline them upon my return like I did my sister when she tried to sell her sexy bits.”

Giles: "Ha ha! I saw a movie once." And what are the odds that TownHall readers (average age: 97) have seen anything released after Serpico?

After that gratitude-laden speech I would pass out patriotic Frisbees celebrating their land to all in attendance and offer free airfare passes on Douglandia Airlines to our few quasi-decent resort destinations to all the pusillanimous politicians who were aiding and abetting the raping of their nation by my criminal constituents.

Reading your column, Doug, I can't figure out why Mexico's president did not react this way or offer anything but obsequious gratitude to the American people. Why, he should have been giving Obama a reacharound as he addressed the crowd. Free trips to Cancun, everyone! Why? Because Mexico needs to repay us for that demeaning work that our businesses pay its people to do!

Yep, after my broke joke nation had received billions of dollars I sure as heck wouldn’t be complaining about the land I was milking (at least not to their faces).

"Broke joke." Hey, that rhymes! Radical, dude. Gag me with a spoon.

Are you ready? It gets a little unhinged at this point. Yes, even compared to what he has already said.

Matter of fact, on second thought, I would have gone the biblical extra mile with the violated country after my brief lecture. Indeed, after my gracious speech and the distribution of parting gifts, I would have pulled out my Butt-Smacker magnum-sized lip balm and commenced to literally kiss the backsides of everyone in attendance in gratitude for not building a wall between our nations so huge it could be seen from Pluto.

Read that again. I've got nothing. Literally nothing. This reads like he is shouting it to a police negotiator over a bullhorn right before he starts executing hostages. And just to be clear, he is literally suggesting that Mexicans should be kissing our asses. I wonder why they don't like you, Doug.

Upon my return to my dog-eared land-of-no-opportunity, I would immediately dispatch squadrons of maids and trash picker-uppers to go and clean up all the mess my people had made trashing the countryside when they “migrated” to the great northern feeding grounds.

YES, DOUG. IF ONLY MEXICO WOULD SEND SOME MAIDS AND "TRASH PICKER-UPPERS" TO THE UNITED STATES. IF THERE'S ONE THING MEXICO HASN'T SENT HERE, IT'S MAIDS AND PEOPLE TO PICK UP OUR TRASH. Does this guy know what an illegal immigrant is? Does he know which people are the Mexican ones?

In addition, I would immediately capture and incarcerate those criminal miscreants who had made it to the Land of Plenty and acted untoward to such a benevolent place, as their bellicose behavior could possibly cause the faucet to shut off on the multi-billion dollar chunk of change we were getting from our benefactors.

Doug Giles is a shining example of our benevolence – as if I needed to point that out. And I wouldn't worry about that faucet shutting off. The only thing that will stop the flow is to pay Americans minimum wage to do the work immigrants do. And we know that is about as likely to happen as Doug Giles reading a book that has more words than pictures.

Yes, that’s what I would have done if I were Calderon, but then again, my mother raised me right.

Aside from his obvious and crippling anger issues and assorted other mental problems, does anyone else get the impression that Dougie wrote this column in about 10 minutes? The last three or four paragraphs scream "past deadline" like nothing I've seen since the last time I degraded myself by reading Andrew Breitbart.

I know Intellectual Chernobyl doesn't have much in the way of journalistic standards, but even with that in mind I am shocked that they ran this. It quite literally reads like a transcript of an unstable person coming unhinged and screaming at passing cars. Even Teabaggers who agree with Doug about his substantive message here (which I believe is "MEXICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANS! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!") aren't going to read this incoherent dreck. The author they do read, Glenn Beck, is the Tiger Woods of hate speech. In comparison Doug Giles is like a suburban golf fanatic who bends his clubs in half and punches out a caddy after failing on his 15th attempt to get out of the sand trap.

With age comes experience, and with experience comes the ability to recognize the exceptional when it flutters through one's life. I see a lot of FJM-worthy material, columns with pedestrian names like "Why Liberals are Stupid" or "Tea Parties: a New American Revolution?" These pieces are fun to dissect but they lack greatness. They are run-of-the-mill conservative boilerplate. This is why alarm bells start ringing when I see something entitled "Discrimination is Necessary: Subjecting kids to weirdos undermines standards of decency" by the editorial board of the Washington Times. This promises to unfasten its fly and piss excellence all over America. Prepare for a golden shower of wisdom and logic. While enjoying the moist, salty waves of truth you should ponder the mystery of why the Times is bankrupt, fired most of its staff in December, and is searching for a buyer. You know, the same Washington Times founded and owned by the Moonies and so far to the right that even most Republicans can't take it seriously. On the plus side, since the paper can no longer afford proper maintenance for its office the remaining staffers must contend with meter-long black snakes in the building as they pretend to work and search desperately for new jobs. So that sounds exciting.

Grab an umbrella, kids, because the Moonie Times is about to go all Pacman Jones on us and make it rain.

First-graders should not be forced into the classrooms of teachers undergoing sex changes.

Whoa. I didn't hear about this. Media: fail.

Religious broadcasters and faith-based summer camps should not be forced to hire cross-dressers.

This neither. Why wasn't this all over the news? Certainly it derails the Levin-Sanders Pre-Op Tranny and Transvestite Fairness in Summer Camp Employment Act currently occupying most of the Senate's time.

Women should not be forced to share bathrooms with people with male body parts who say they want to be females.

Huh. This is getting weird. This all sounds quite controversial. Should be on the news. And for the record, while I understand the logic of separate bathrooms based on one's genitals, how in the hell does anyone know what the person in the next stall is using to urinate? I mean, someone could walk into a women's restroom in a dress, close a stall door, and pull out a penis – or a nice novel, or an otter pelt, or a gold-plated kazoo, or the Shroud of Turin – and you'd be none the wiser. And it really wouldn't make any difference, would it?

Yet those are some of the likely results if Congress passes H.R. 3017, the so-called Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which is due for a vote this week by the House Education and Labor Committee.

OK, now I see why I haven't heard about any of this: because you just made it up. It's your fevered, juvenile imagination playing the slippery slope game and trying to shock whatever remaining shut-ins and Teabaggers are still reading this rag. And while we're here, what does "so-called" mean in this context? Am I reading the so-called Washington Times? It's the name of the damn bill, not a proposed new state of matter. It's not the shadowy leader of an underground gang of supercriminals. It's not a tip on the whereabouts of Judge Crater.

ENDA purports to "prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity."

Does it "purport" to prohibit those things or does it prohibit those things? I'm really enjoying this alleged column by the purported editors of the so-called Washington Times.

Clever politically correct wording aside, this is a direct attack on common sense.

I don't think you people know that adjectives have actual meanings. They are not simply things inserted in sentences to make them sound prettier. How is this "clever"? Speaking of bathrooms, I have read better things scrawled on the walls of a few in my life. Like the bar in Bloomington that briefly had "FUCK BILLY OCEAN" on its bathroom wall three-foot-high letters. That was way better than this.

On some matters, it is good to be discriminating.

Choice of newspapers? Yes, then you should be discriminating. Equal application of basic rights? Not so much.

It is right to discriminate between honesty and dishonesty, between politeness and impoliteness, between right and wrong. And it assuredly is right to be discriminating in choosing who teaches our children. ENDA would make it impossible for a non-church-based charter school, for instance, to remove from the classroom a "she-male" who insists on exposing her pupils to her unnatural transformation.

Slow down there, Professor Science! I can't keep up with these medical terms like "she-male." I thought the proper term was "Chix with Dixxx."

This is no idle threat.

No one suggested that it was! Who would take lightly the hypothetical prospect of a child at a non-church-based charter school – and who doesn't have a few of those? – whose teacher gets a sex change? That has to include, what, like 50% of America's teachers? Maybe 70% in our non-church-based charter schools.

ENDA would supersede the laws of 38 states that do not have laws treating those with an unusual "gender identity" as a legally protected "class" of citizens.

That "sounds" like the segue into an "interesting" "argument" by these "writers."

Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition wrote in the April 20 edition of Roll Call

Well this seems like a good source – the kind of group that should be deciding who gets what legal protections.

about several examples of cross-dressing or sex-changing teachers who claimed protections under state disability laws (in the 12 states that do indeed protect "gender identity") and were able to remain in the classroom despite parents' protests.

Wait, you mean schools don't just bend over and do whatever hysterical and in some cases barely-literate parents demand they do? Well this whole system is just broken.

Perhaps the worst was at California's Foxboro Elementary School, where a music teacher underwent surgery to become a man, but parents originally were not even notified because administrators feared running afoul of medical privacy laws.

You mean their well-grounded fear of violating privacy laws by arbitrarily sending home a letter to let parents know that a teacher had an elective surgery? Shocking.

Even if California wants to be so foolish, the residents of the 38 states without such absurd legal strictures shouldn't be forced to do the same. States have a sovereign right to set standards governing behavioral – as opposed to immutable – personal characteristics.

Wooo! Chalk up another noble cause for the States' Rights argument.

ENDA does provide supposed exemptions for churches and church-based schools to refuse to employ sex-changers and cross-dressers. But the exemption is far less than meets the eye.

Look out, St. Michael's Summer Camp for Pale Young Boys! This means you, Camp Hope for Unwed Teenage Mothers! The trannies are a' comin'!

Even religious organizations, under the standards cited, are prohibited from making employment decisions based on the worker's sex. ENDA opponents rightly cite last year's 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals note in Prowel v. Wise Business Forms that "the line between sexual orientation discrimination and discrimination 'because of sex' can be difficult to draw."

Note that this passage has absolutely nothing to do with the previous statement about alleged holes in supposed "exemptions" for purported churches.

In short, courts easily could decide that even parochial schools must hire she-males to teach their kindergartners.

Flawless. Just flawless logic. "Here is an exemption that disproves the weak-ass point we've been making. Here is basically an unrelated case from a low-level Federal court. In conclusion, the exemption is clearly meaningless." It's like Clarence Darrow rose from the grave, which is ironic given that we are reading the modern-day William Jennings Bryan.

Similar problems abound in this bill, which treats a conscious decision to choose a new or different sexual identity as if it were an inherent, unavoidable condition. But it's not. It's actually a psychological disorder, officially listed as such by the current American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Well, gender identity disorders are listed. Sex change operations aren't, which makes sense given that they are a treatment for said disorders. If you believe something is a psychological disorder (which is debatable, but let's run with it) it wouldn't make a lot of sense to oppose someone taking steps to address it.

Our children and our co-workers should not be forced by law to be held hostage to such disorders, nor should employers be forced to have psychologically troubled persons as the public face of their businesses.

I'd actually take my chances with a trans person than one of the thousands of teachers in America – right now – who believe the Earth is 6,000 years old. Or one of those teachers who bang 13 year old boys. Yeah, I'd definitely go with the post-op over that.

It seems like there are two larger problems here. One, parents want the state to step in and save them from having to explain things to their children. Yes, this could be very difficult for young kids to grasp. Maybe it would be beneficial for teachers to have these procedures done over the summer or on a medical leave before starting fresh with a new class in the fall. I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the underlying argument here – 6 year-olds might not be able to process this. That they should be legally protected from it because it is "wrong" or whatever is an argument undeserving of my sympathy or that of anyone else.

Second, the Moonie Times is clearly in its death throes and pursuing a fairly logical strategy in response to its desperate situation: running as far to the right as humanly possible and hoping to carve out a niche as THE newspaper for people who hand-load their own ammo and homeschool their 11 kids. There's an inherent flaw in this plan to corner the Teabagger/neo-Bircherite audience: they don't read newspapers. Not even a newspaper that spits back what they want to here in the simplest English will find enough subscribers among this demographic to remain solvent. Reverend Moon is rapidly discovering that there is a very small market for a newspaper aimed at people who reflexively hate reading.

When you want the bottom line on health care reform, to whom do you turn? If you're anything like me, you make a beeline for the website of Concerned Women for America to hear world renowned public policy expert Janice Shaw Crouse discuss…what's that? Her claim to fame is a book called The Strength of a Godly Woman and having taught a summer school course at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Dallas? I know that is supposed to make me less apt to consider her an expert on health care, but I'm an open minded person who prefers to read her ideas and let the argument speak for itself – especially when the speaker has been feted numerous times by organizations such as the Abstinence Clearinghouse and the Center for Decency. You know, someone who really knows the ins and outs of health care, Congress, and public policy in general. As usual, Intellectual Chernobyl is on the ball, bringing us "What You Get With Free Health Care." I'll tell you what you get with Janice Shaw Crouse columns – you get enough awesome to kill an adult brontosaurus. Be careful…

Most of the arguments supporting the health care reform bill just passed by the Democrats in Congress were myths. These myths were exposed as early as 2008 in a book by Sally C. Pipes, president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute.

Sally Pipes? THE Sally Pipes? Of THE Pacific Research Institute? Well holy shit. Let me offer a partial list of people and organizations who are more credible on health care related issues:

American Medical Association
Kaiser Family Foundation
The Brookings Institute
Catholic Charities
AARP
American Hospital Association
American Miniature Mule and Donkey Association
Cloud Appreciation Society
The starting lineup of the 1994 Hartford Whalers
The Marshall Tucker Band
That Japanese guy who eats all the hot dogs
Jim Varney
Former KC Royals slugger Steve "Bye Bye" Balboni
Shining Path
Todd Bridges
Carlos the Jackal
AeroForceOne – the Official Aerosmith Fan Club
John Hinckley
The average wino or local Council of Winos

Her funny little book skewers everything we’ve heard via the ObamaCare demagoguery. Others, since then, have been equally devastating to the arguments used to ram through ObamaCare.

"I'd cite some examples or perhaps offer links, but I am intellectually dishonest and not sure how to hyperlink something."

In fact, the so-called miracles sold by today’s health care hucksters are about as real as those sold by the shysters of old.

And who doesn't remember the shysters of old? I sure do. There was Hymie, Knuckles, Snacks O'Brady, Toothpick, Frankie the Wop, Legs, Reacharound… Man, those were shysters. That was back when shystering meant something. Today with free agency and the YouTubes, kids just get into shystering for the money and exposure. Pickles McGillicuddy is rolling over in his pressed-board coffin. He was a gamer. He knew what it meant to shyster.

However, most Americans see through the political spin, and they are not buying the snake oil. Vision is much clearer outside the Beltway.

Outside the Beltway? Why, that's where Real Americans live!

Further, as John Adams once said, “Facts are stubborn things.” This week, four different polls (Quinnnipiac, Bloomberg, CNN and CBS) show the same result: less than 40 percent of Americans approve of the health care bill that the President just signed.

Hmm. Might want to update that, shooter.

Numerous states are concerned about the way ObamaCare infringes on individual rights.

Yeah, those lawsuits are definitely going to work. I hear the Montana Freemen also have grave concerns about their individual rights being curtailed. If someone expresses an opinion, it automatically becomes valid.

In addition, there are significant constitutional questions about requiring citizens to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. Many state attorneys general are noting that ObamaCare is the first time Americans would be forced to buy a good or service.

Wait, the title of the piece includes the phrase "Free Health Care." Did you write that before or after you started complaining about how everyone has to buy it? Also, there is little precedent for Congressional authority to make these kinds of individual economic decisions. Medicare, Social Security, taxes, etc…all voluntary.

All of that didn’t matter to those determined to see their utopian ideology enacted into legislation. Congressional Democrats, disregarding the will of the people and dressing their action in high-sounding rhetoric, rammed through Congress their unpopular and disastrous plan for “transforming” America into a Cuban, British, Canadian or French image.

Ooh! I know this one! "What are four countries with a higher life expectancy than the United States, Alex?"

One of the prime arguments used to sell ObamaCare was that it would reverse the financial crisis and save the country a gazillion dollars — with benefits beginning in its first year. Sadly, somebody’s arm got twisted to produce Congressional Budget Office (CBO) figures — nicely timed for the House vote — to supposedly back up the Democrats’ arguments.

This stands in stark contrast to their earlier estimates of the cost of the Iraq War and the economic growth that would follow the Bush tax cuts. Jesus Christ were those accurate. So accurate that they are currently being used to calibrate the Large Hadron Collider.

Nobody seemed to understand that the CBO figures were just estimates.

Wait, you mean they can't see ten years into the future? My faith in the prescience of the Congressional Budget Office is forever damaged.

They add, “Given the central role of medical technology in cost growth, reducing or slowing spending over the long term would probably require decreasing the pace of adopting new treatments and procedures or limiting the breadth of their application.” How’s that for dispelling the claims that quality will remain high, rationing won’t happen, and technology will continue to expand while costs go down?

Well, it doesn't have anything to do with the first two red herrings. As for the third, I'm not sure if there's any fat that can be cut from the current research & development landscape. I mean, with the continuous need for newer and better big dick pills, hair growth treatments, varicose vein removal techniques, and drugs to treat the scourge of insufficient eyelashes, innovation can barely keep up with our problems as is.

(boring, repetitive paragraph excised for space)

Everybody wants affordable, accessible, and high-quality health care; there are proposals on the table for changes that would make significant improvements in those aspects of U.S. health care.

Oh man. This is going to be awesome. I wonder what such proposals would entail? Single payer? Tighter regulations?

Those proposals would unleash free market competition, improve quality, and lower costs for health care in the same way that it has done for other national industries and businesses.

Deregulation improves all industries, like airlines, banks, cable television…the prices went down, and holy balls did the quality improve!

A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that American health care is very efficient, with only six percent of the premiums going to administrative costs and fully 86 percent covering the actual costs of care.

Wow! A full 86% of our premiums go to the bloated costs of care. At least among people who have insurance. But the system is still pretty damn efficient for the rest of us. There is no doubt that the health care industry is extremely efficient in processing the uninsured.

But cost control is not the purpose of ObamaCare.

What was your first clue? Mine was when they said that the purpose was to insure everyone, with the cost reductions purely secondary.

ObamaCare is all about redistributing wealth and putting a vast segment of the economy under bureaucratic control.

Some estimates of health care spending run as high as 20 percent of the U.S. economy by 2016.

Well if someone made these estimates, surely they're credible! I estimate that health care spending will be -5% of the economy by 2016. I estimate that Janice Shaw Crouse's body is 46% partially hydrogenated corn oil. I estimate that 12% of the people who started reading her column attempted suicide before reaching the end.

Under ObamaCare, Uncle Sam becomes Santa Claus. But sooner or later, the bills come in and all those “gifts” turn out to be pretty expensive after all.

Wow, that's some metaphor you've got there. When Barack Obama becomes the Chupacabra, those goats aren't going to look so happy after all!

Right now, the U.S. has the “world’s best cancer survival rates” — Sally Pipes reported

Michael Richards
Omar Bongo
Norman Schwarzkopf
Afroman
The surviving members of the Warren Commission
The Harlem Globetrotters
Falco
Dog the Bounty Hunter
Captain Phil Harris (R.I.P.)
Art Bell
Bizarre from D-12
Alger Hiss
The Kraken
Ron Popeil
The original cast of Small Wonder

that Americans “have a better survival rate for 13 of the 16 most common cancers” — a fact most appreciated by those victims and their families who benefit from the expensive drugs that result from years-long research and clinical trials.

Since there's clearly no way for drug companies to make money under the new system I guess they'll stop doing clinical trials. But cancer survival rates are nice. How about we compare those to rates of developing cancer in the first goddamn place. Uh oh. America's health care system ain't quite #1 there.

Most Americans are personally satisfied with their own private health insurance coverage

Yes, most Americans who have private health insurance coverage are "personally satisfied" with it relative to the alternative of not having health insurance. Brilliant. Tell us more, Professor Kickass.

and appreciate the medical advances that save lives and provide miracle cures.

Is this based on any kind of data or is JSC just making things up here? This does not look like any poll question I've ever seen. "Do you appreciate medical advances that save lives?" "Do you support miracle cures?" "Do you like happiness?"

Others, too, depend upon American health care. Tens of thousands of foreigners come to the United States for treatments not available or rationed in their home countries.

Take that, Burkina Faso! In your face, Guatemala! Suck on this, Vietnam! Our health care system is better than yours! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Most Americans are also aware and appreciate the fact that government-funded programs already provide for those Americans who are truly poor.

Uh…

Hospitals are not allowed to refuse treatment to those without insurance.

Yes, this is a good example of a government-funded program to provide for the truly poor. Except they receive an enormous bill and collection agencies will hound them until they die in an effort to liquidate their assets to settle the debt. And it's not like the rest of us pay for every service rendered to an uninsured person. No, that money comes from Santa.

Medicare, Medicaid, and other special programs for children, veterans, and specific population groups provide care for those with special needs.

"These things that conservatives have spent decades trying to dismantle do much to provide for the young, the old, and the indigent. But now we are huge proponents of these things that we suddenly realize are quite popular. Yes, Mitch McConnell tried several times to pass the Fuck All the Old People, Kids, and Indigent bill. We regret that unfortunate incident and look forward to many years of scaring old people about Democrats taking away their Medicare."

Nobody claims that these government-run programs provide the quality of care that those with private insurance enjoy. In fact, the false promise of something for nothing — the utopian scheme of everybody having top-quality health care coverage and it not costing anybody any more than they are currently paying — is the biggest myth of all.

I'm confused. Are we all being Forced to buy insurance or is health care now free? JSC is recklessly flopping back and forth between the two. It is as though the area between these two very different concepts is lined with a dessert buffet.

Sally Pipes quoted P.J. O’Rourke, “If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it’s free.”

Wow, three Sally Pipes references in one column. This brings the total number of references in print to Sally Pipes and her think-tank that she runs out of the utility closet of a Sizzler in Barstow, CA to…three. But we all learned a valuable lesson here: the government is wrong to force you to buy something, because once everyone is forced to buy something then it will be free. And then we're really fucked.

Well said, Janice. Well said.

Intellectual Chernobyl represents the full spectrum of right-wing crazy: the vacuous stupidity of Marybeth Hicks or Jackie Gingrich; the blood-curdling rage of fat white guys like Doug Giles and John Hawkins; the insane, untethered "I smear shit all over myself and why do the editors keep taking 'spick' and 'towelhead' out of my columns?" ranting of Michelle Malkin and Star Parker; the fake non-partisanship of John Stossel and Michael Medved; and the grandfatherly crankiness of Dennis Prager. That DP comes off as one of the more reasonable voices on IC is less a compliment than an indictment of his surroundings. But it's true. He's a hybrid of Andy Rooney and Morty Seinfeld, as likely to complain about Congress as to complain about how the kids listen to their damn boom-boom music instead of Chopin. DP was in pure Andy Rooney form when watching Super Bowl commercials this year, apparently, and a cranky old man does not need to try very hard to find something to bitch about during that extravaganza of offensive masquerading as clever. That's how we end up with "The Doritos Ad was Not Funny", which also happens to bear the most abstract title for a creative work since Snakes on a Plane. I hope you're ready for 1000 words of recollections about The Good Ol' Days and the occasional anecdote about Paul Harvey, because here we go.

By far, the most popular ad shown during the latest Super Bowl was the Doritos "House Rules" ad. Tens of millions of Americans saw it as hilarious.

Is there some evidence for this? It is not only the most popular but "by far." Something tells me this is based on a double-blind survey of Dennis Prager's wife – who I am forced to assume is named Lorraine – and his collection of ointments from the 1950s. The ad was pretty popular, but why leave it at that when you can make shit up?

That is unfortunate. Anyone aware of the manifold social pathologies the ad depicted did not find much to laugh about. Here is the ad:

I will note two things. First, I actually agree with DP. The ad was insulting. Second, when he says "Here is the ad" there is no link to the ad. I am not sure he understands YouTube. I am not even sure he has a solid handle on VHS or microfiche yet. But here is the ad.

A man knocks on a door. A pretty woman answers it. He hands her flowers and she thanks him. He has presumably come to take her out on a date. She introduces her young son to the man and excuses herself. She walks back to her room. The camera focuses on her shapely legs, quite visible given that she is wearing a miniskirt. The man stares, indeed leers, at her legs and makes a facial gesture suggesting, shall we say, sexual interest. The boy, who appears to be about 5 years old, sees this and drops his toy. The man sits on the couch and helps himself to a Dorito. The boy walks up to the man, smacks him hard across the face and says, "Keep your hands off my mama. Keep your hands off my Doritos."

Is is nice of DP to summarize this for his aged audience. But it certainly could be called offensive, what with the Diff'rent Strokes-style negro slang dialect, single mother who appears to be about 14, and leering rapist-to-be male.

Here are the major elements of dysfunction this ad depicts.

Good. Here we go.

First, a child smacking an adult across the face is not funny.

What the fuck.

Seriously? Is this, like, a problem? This is an issue? An epidemic of child-on-adult slappage is America's most pressing social problem. It narrowly edges out our 15% unemployment rate and the alarming shortage of Barnaby Jones re-runs in Dennis Prager's mind.

It is, in fact, one of the last things society should tolerate.

THE LAST 5 THINGS SOCIETY SHOULD TOLERATE, by Dennis Prager

5. Man-on-dog
4. Sass, backtalk, and/or guff
3. Murder
2. Females appearing unveiled in public without a male chaperone
1. Children slapping adults

I will deal with the widespread defense of the child's action — "he was only protecting his mother" — later. In real life, a child who hits an adult needs to be disciplined.

O…K. I am very hesitant to agree, but…I agree.

If a child did that to me, I would grab his offending arm and apply enough force to make it clear that he will never do that again.

Well, we were just barreling down Cranky Boulevard and we took a sudden right on Creepy. What does "apply force" mean? Are you cranking his arm behind his back cop-style? Squeezing it until something comes out the end like a tube of Crest?

After I mentioned this on my radio show, some psychotherapists sent me e-mails disagreeing with these views. They noted, for example, that "violence breeds violence."

I bet DP knows better than those fancy-pants with their degrees and books and infrequent application of force to young arms.

Some cliches are true; I find this one meaningless. The truth is the opposite: Immoral violence breeds violence; moral violence (such as just wars, police work and appropriate parental discipline) reduces violence.

Like that just war in Iraq! That reduced the ever-living shit out of violence in Baghdad. Police use of force also has a lengthy track record of reducing violence, as evidenced by our increasing incidence of the former and plummeting rate of the latter.

So to summarize: you should use force against kids because it will work out as well as law enforcement and the Iraq War.

I am well aware that vast numbers of Americans (and Europeans) believe that engaging in any physical discipline of a child is wrong. I, too, held this belief for most of my life, and I never hit or spanked either of my sons.

The remainder of this column is dedicated to making you very, very skeptical of this claim. Or imagining what kind of tortuous, proprietary definition of "violence" he concocts to exclude the heavy sack beatings to which he routinely subjected his children. I bet his kids are real well-balanced.

I have changed my mind because of all the fine people who have called my show or written to me about how they were spanked and now believe that they are better adults because of it.

OK. Not only is this completely retarded and piss-poor evidence under the best of circumstances, DP's argument is "I believed something until lots of people told me not to so I changed my mind."

It is a given that I do not defend physical — or any other form of — abuse against a child. Of all the world's evils, child abuse may rank as the greatest. But a properly administered spanking is not abuse.

Dennis, this is far, far from a given. And you are about to prove it.

The New York Times recently published an article titled "For Some Parents, Shouting Is the New Spanking," in which it noted that many parents now regularly scream at their children in part because they cannot spank them. I am not at all certain that being screamed at by a parent is an improvement over spanking.

And scientists at the University of Logic have determined that being neither screamed at nor spanked is an improvement over either.

The Doritos kid deserved a physical response from this man — as in pressure on the offending arm.

Still don't know what this means, still kinda creeped out by it.

With regard to the argument that this man was not the boy's parent — and the terrible fact that there is far too much hitting and abuse of children by stepfathers and boyfriends — I do not believe that only parents may physically respond to a child.

Awesome. I mean, I don't see how this could go wrong. Let's give anyone who can legally buy cigarettes carte blanche to "apply force" to children and I'm sure that everything will work out great. Reeeeeeal great.

Teachers, for example, should be permitted to do so

SWEET! This was done when the Baby Boomers were in school and look at how completely not emotionally screwed up or violent they turned out!

I was physically dealt with by a number of teachers, and in every case, I deserved it.

Saying "I deserved it" is the most convincing possible evidence that someone is not abused. Let's see if that holds up in court. Or, you know, reality.

I also did so as a camp counselor — to great effect.

*falls off chair*

*rubs eyes*

Um…

Anybody? Anybody mildly troubled yet? Or does sending Billy and Suzie off to Lake Winnepasaki for 12 weeks of campfires, wallet-making, and Dennis Prager's "Great Effect" sound like a good idea? Something tells me this also involved the application of a lot of pressure.

And so should the man whom the child in the ad smacked. In an ideal world, all adults raise all children in some way.

Hit back. That is a fantastic life lesson. Hit back or you are failing the children.

(The remainder of the column covers the racist stereotypes, which I both agree with and am mildly surprised that DP would catch. Although he probably threw it in to deflect criticism from his remarkable creepiness.)

So, to summarize: children slapping adults is an problem of pandemic proportions. Any and every adult is deputized to apply some kind of physical retribution to children. There is no risk that adults will start to lose whatever inhibitions they may have against hitting kids. Dennis Prager did not hit his kids, as he told us to make us think he is father of the century, but he slapped around, "applied force" to, and, who are we kidding, probably sodomized a bunch of summer campers.

I'm glad we had this talk. Stop waving that rake at the kids on your lawn, Dennis. Wouldn't it be better to apply a different and perhaps more emphatic punishment?