Belgian Farting Pig

You gotta love a farting cartoon pig!!

Outlaws

Everyone wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads-They Might Be Giants

Alright already! I just read that someone has spent the last umpteen years of their life creating, perfecting, patenting, and now marketing, fake testicles. Not just for men but also for dogs! So that the dogs don't suffer crises of their doggy masculinity, the inventor said in an interview.
Incidentally, if you've lost a testicle (say, in a knife fight with your mother), now you can get a few ounces of plastic manliness to weigh down your sack in the swimming pool. Guys who have lost their balls can have two more slipped right back in, no questions asked about why in hell you were tea bagging a land mine. You can even get fake balls for your truck or motorcycle.

That's just what we need: trailer hitch testicles tea bagging every speed bump and pedestrian we run over. Getting to watch them swing viciously like a flesh-colored pendulum as we go speeding down the highway cutting off soccer moms and schoolgirls. What sort of message does that send when your car is hung better than you are? I'm waiting for a latex dong made especially as a hood ornament for oversized trucks - a nice rubber battering ram with which to part throngs of feminist protestors around the Capital. Rig it up on a spring so it'll flap sideways and leave mushroom-shaped bruises right at cheek height. That would make CNN, I'll bet!

Is this ball fascination the natural offshoot of our obsession with silicon genitalia? We have suitable replacement parts for sale over the counter in every town at that one shop no one ever talks about, and for a few grand you can get just about anything inflated or sculpted or enhanced or cut off and replaced with a model guaranteed for the rest of your life. Is this where vanity has taken us? Could you order a third, or even a fourth, and then entertain guests at a party? Could you order a few spares just in case you get kicked in the real ones by a ninja, or the place kicker for the Denver Broncos? I can imagine swapping the real thing for Memorex and laughing demonically the next time a girl kicks me in the junk…to no effect. I'll just keep laughing as she flails and pounds and starts crying, going for the Achilles tendon that is vulnerable no more.

The possibilities are endless. Tell the vet to give Fido four balls, graft an extra one of those motorcycle sacs on while he's at it, and see what happens out behind the doghouse. Get a handful of prosthetic testicles to launch from a slingshot. Crash your annoying coworker's party and slip one in with the meatballs. Color one pink next Easter and tell people it's a giant jellybean.

Does that say anything about us as a culture, as a country, or as an era-the generation that invented fake balls and then dangled them from animals and vehicles alike? In a national survey of Gen-Xers, their number one value was "caring for their pets". Have we taken pet worship to the level of cosmetic surgery for the dogs' sake, or ours? We have surgery to give women bigger breasts for pure aesthetics, and surgery to give dogs their balls back for the same reason. Have we objectified women and neutered dogs equally, or elevated both to the same plain? Could it be that neither is the case, and this is simply an instance of the market filling a perceived need for the sake of turning a buck? What the hell kind of a market needs fake testicles for motorcycle, trucks, and dogs alike? Our grandfathers fought a World War. Our fathers fought a culture war. We invented fake balls to put on trucks and dogs. Will this be our legacy?

Homecoming

We escaped just in time, it seems.

America now has three jail systems: federal, regional, and public schools. Some wardens stroll cinderblock corridors with clubs ready to over react on our most heinous offenders: murderers and arsonists and terrorists, the guy who got popped with two grams of weed and the civil rights protestor who blocked traffic. Truly vicious people - to the gas chamber with them all, post haste, mop up the mess when their bowels release with the writ of habeas corpus, the slime. The villains. Other wardens stroll cinderblock corridors lined with hand-tracing turkey drawings and paper plates with seeds glued to the edges, clipboards in hand ready to over react to the other most heinous offenders: ten year old Jokari Becker, the squirt gun assassin in the Penn Hills School District, and Adam Liston the honor roll psychopath in Davis High School, California. These children are surely as dangerous as Charles Manson, and if school officials get their way, would probably share a cell with the serial killer. Or at least Liston would - he's old enough to vote and die in combat and be tried as an adult. Too bad he can't legally have a beer on his way to the electric chair. You see, there's this thing called "zero tolerance" in schools, and the "Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994," each of which bend about as far as rebar. Schools should be bastions of safety and security for America's youth, right? I'd vote for that. And schools are supposed to be social institutions as much as learning institutions, where children are rounded as well as instructed, where the lessons about fairness and honesty and how to interact with others they learn at home are reinforced. Or that's the ideal, anyway - school should take impressionable minds and ultimately produce young adults who can read and write, do math and understand science, and interact with other people. It's hard to interact with Dylon Klebold through the sights of his Tec9, so schools first try to turn kids into upstanding individuals and citizens, and then fall back on rules to provide justification for punishing wrongdoers while there's still time for small punishments to correct small problems before they turn into the headline story on Dateline. You catch a small problem, you fix it appropriately, and the kid adjusts and grows into a normal adult.

This is how it's supposed to work, but something has failed to the point where we have "zero tolerance" policies and a "Gun-Free Schools Act" to underscore what should be taken as a matter of course: don't hurt each other. What happened to instilling and reinforcing those basic concepts - don't hurt each other, don't be a dick - that we're at a point to need such extreme policies and laws? There seems to be an underlying, critical failure here, if such extreme measures are imposed as the "answer."
The problems that zero-tolerance addresses are myriad, and include Jokari running amok with his yellow squirt gun. And by running amok, I mean the published reports that he kept it in his book bag, didn't point it at anyone or try to terrorize classmates... There's a report that he was turned in by a girl on a school bus who said he was squirting people with it, which was refuted by the school bus driver. So, the girl who turned him in was lying about everything but the presence of his toy, a toy that looks like a toy, and presented no threat to anyone. Now, he's expelled.
And I suppose I should be glad - we can't have little terrorists going jihad in school with squirt guns. Squirt guns are gateway weapons, after all. Next thing you know he'll be swinging a spiked mace in a sea of friends and classmates, screaming "Ich werde Sie alle toten!" And Adam Liston, oh that silly scamp, thought he could hide behind his honor roll status, the lauds he's received for years for being a model student and citizen, the praise of teachers and friends and strangers, the esteem he built working long hours to save money for a college he was accepted to there during the senior year in high school when the stress got to him and he lapsed. His memory lapsed, that is, and he left his brand new sporting shotgun - unloaded and in its factory box - behind the seat of his pickup truck when he drove to school. He was pulled from class, the superintendent searched his truck, and six police cruisers responded. The 230 pound mountain of a young man was reduced to tears as he was shoved in the back seat of a police cruiser and driven to the Yolo County Jail. A bright kid, a model citizen, a sportsman proud of the shotgun he bought himself for his recent 18th birthday, the son of the former PTA president, is now expelled and faces two felony charges. So much for getting top-end jobs, ever working for the government, or, you know, being able to show his face around his peers. And even one felony bars you from ever legally owning a gun. You don't readily get up from falling that far from grace. He ran afoul of the zero-tolerance policy, and his public school is required - because it receives federal money - to adhere strictly to the Gun-Free Schools Act. No leeway. No second chances. Not for a ten-year-old with a squirt gun, not for an honor roll student with a memory lapse. Not for the kids we've heard about who are expelled for pointing their fingers and saying "bang," not for those who have paint ball magazines taken away from them in study hall. No mercy... and no sense.

So why do I care about what's going on in high school, an institution I escaped last century? 'Cause in a few years we'll be hiring the products of these new prisons, and I don't want them to be paranoid, fucked up psychopaths with years of rage and teen angst locked behind stormy eyes. I don't want them to be broken, beaten-down and underdeveloped automatons either. The last thing we need is to stifle and break an entire generation, the next generation we'll tap for mailmen and dentists and other professions notorious for violent outbursts that take friends and family with them into the headlines. And someday a lot of us are going to have kids, whether we want 'em or not, and they'll eventually go through whatever cinderblock mind-fuck we leave in place for them - prisons of expression, prisons of freedom of speech (it was suspended in a Westminster, Colorado middle school in April) - places through which they must pass to become anything substantial in life... and yet places from which one can be permanently cast for pointing a finger and saying "Bang!".
Is this what has happened to our country?

(Sorry this one was kinda serious, a co-workers 20 year old son OD'd this week, so I wanted to take a break from the fun stuff for a minute. Thanks for reading.)

Hanso Exposed 8/5

It's almost time to start the countdown...

Special

Ok I don't know why this kinda crap always seems to happen to me, but here goes... true story:

Today, the love of my life and I decide to go to the oriental buffet on route 38, perhaps some of you are familiar with the place, maybe not, not important to the story. Sitting at the table behind us is a family of three. A mother and father, elderly, in their late 60's at least, and their daughter. The daughter, who appears to be a rough 40-ish type would fit nicely in my town. She comes complete with tight pink spandex top and no bra. Oh, did I mention the black eye? Anyway, they are ready to leave and they are arguing (the married snow tops) about weather to get the senior citizens discount card the restaurant offers to frequent buyers. It costs 10 bucks and you have to fill out an info paper for the card. The mother, who, by the way, walks not unlike Quasimodo complete with hump, is all for the card. The father, who while almost walks upright, does so while taking little 4 inch steps with his cane propping him up on a pair of legs that would make Barbaro laugh, is against such an idea because he says "I can't wait for all that.". This factualness of this statement becomes abundantly clear in the next few minutes...

While the three of them make their way to the door. Trailer park girl tells Ma and Pa that she will go get the car and bring it to the door for them. Alas, this is the last I will see of them, I think. Upon the families departure of my immediate area, we finish our meal, pay and get ready to go. We walk to the front door and guess who's parked right by the curb just outside the door?

Now here is the scenario, and I will paint it as accurately and vividly as I can. Ma (Hunchy) is already in the back seat on the passenger side which is the side of the car facing us. Pa (Tippy Tippy Pause) is in the process of going from a "catcher behind home plate crouch" to a standing position and is pulling up his pants... "HUH?" I thought... but ok no big deal. Now he starts to make the little baby steps toward the waiting open front passenger side door while the daughter begins to wrap a bath towel around his waist. At this point I stop in the Ves-ti-bule 'cause this is really weird now. (Now?) I begin to scan the area around the car and look towards the back where the old timer was when I first noticed him outside. It is at this point my lovely companion utters the sound "Ugghahhhwahh!?!?" or something like that. At that exact moment I notice the huge pile of shit he left on the sidewalk right in front of the door to the restaurant!

Now, this tells me a few things. First, I hope I never get this old, and second; when he said "I don't have time for this.", he really didn't! But it also tells me he knew he had to go and he passed the bathroom on the way out. Instead he dropped trowel right in front of the friggin' restaurant. Here's where I get to use my masterful power of descriptive story telling. The pile is a nice butterscotch pudding or coffee ice cream shade of light brown. It is so perfectly formed into a little pile of dung that it almost has the fake "Spencers Gifts Joke Pooh" look to it. It even came with the little Hershey Kiss loopy curl at the very top.

I exit the restaurant and make a wide birth around the family and the car. Noticing that there must have been some earlier salvo shots a little further towards the back of the car. These, unlike the formed pile, looked like spin art. We get to my car and get in, buckle our seat belts (click it or ticket) wind the windows down cause my air doesn't work, and start up the car. Meanwhile the entire family is now inside of the car and pulling away from the curb. WAIT!! Did the daughter actually help the father get into the car and then get in as well? Surely she must be going to move the car out of the fire zone and back into a parking space, then go back into the restaurant and at least tell them that there is a huge pile of shit on the sidewalk right in front of the door, right? No, she leaves. To which all the two of us can do is sit in the car and laugh our asses off until we almost got home.

Hearts and Minds

The Sounds Of Sex
Ok well if some people I know can have songs of summer. Here's my list of songs I put on my compilation CD of all time sexiest songs.

Let's Get It On-Marvin Gaye
Love To Love You Baby-Donna Summer
Your Body Is A Wonderland-John Mayer
I'll Make Love To You-Boys II Men
Fever-Elvis
Bolero-(Classical)
Crash Into Me-Dave Matthews Band
Superfreak-Rick James (Bitch!)
Slow Hand-Pointer Sisters
2 Become 1-The Spice Girls (shut up!)
Love Bites-Def Leppard
Naughty Girls-Samantha Foxx

Any others to add?

Whatever The Case May Be

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. --Henry Ward Beecher

Henry Beecher was an idiot.

Why do I say this? Because only a spineless Mama's boy could possibly think that love has anything to do with parenting. Never mind the court battles, the support payments, and pay no attention to the phone drama. Because any man who has ever fathered a child knows, his most defining moment as a dad is not standing at any altar, reciting vows like a parrot to the preacher. The most important thing a father can do for his children, is to make their mothers happy. Often!

Every story of parental pride, starts with the same thing- SEX. That's right, The Deed. Making the thing with two backs! All of us. The human race is not one we're going to win, but I must admit we wouldn't have made it nearly this far, if not for the ladies and their fertile crescents. Regardless of our nationality, ethnicity, or age of consent, conception is reality. All you have to do to join the club of Inadvertent Parent is push when you should pull. Now every mother out there will tell you about the wonder of having a life grow within them and how the long months waiting and agonizing hours of labor are a small price for the gift of motherhood. But I fail to see the romance and magic after all, we all start at approximately the same starting point. Yeah, that point right there. From there, Luck, Darwin, and God decide if you're going to get your roots in the dirt before the Great Flood washes you into the linens. Your mother has surprisingly little say at this point, and while your zygote ass is probably happy to find footing, Mommy Dearest is likely sitting on a toilet crying with a blue Preggo Stick in her hand. But your journey is far from over. There is no special Hallmark Holiday for those doting mothers who suppress their maternal instincts, and elect to postpone your descent from Heaven above. Weather it be birth control pill, morning after pill, "Wholly shit, did I really do it with that guy?" pill, (sorry, there is no such pill, but now that I think about it, there oughta be!) or other methods of stopping the natural flow of things, we all should be congradulated for actually making it this far. Not that I don't understand these "almost-mothers". I can scarcely imagine the myriad of horrors that must plague an expectant mother over the course of gestation. Especially if that expectant mother was shit hammered for the first two months of the pregnancy, and all her efforts to be a "good mommy" backfire and she gives birth to something a little left of the norm. This is where it gets cloudy, you see, I'm not against abortion. However, in some cases, I'm not for it either. Too many times have I heard of the situation that, well we'll call her "Little Miss Eggs-A-Lot" happens to get one fertilized by "Mister hey tough break but I can't be a father now". The outcome of some of these are a nice trip to the Women's Center for a quick fix. Being used as a way of birth control isn't what I support. If the mother is raped or it's a case of incest, I'm fine with it. If the pregnancy could threaten the life of the mother, I'm also good with that. If there is a chance the baby is going to be born with radical birth defect and does not stand a chance of a "normal" life, who's to say who is right or wrong, even in that situation.

Ok, it's the bottom of the ninth, two outs, you're at bat, no balls, two strikes. Your team is behind by two runs. You need to get on base to give the best hitter on your team, who bats right after you, a chance to tie this baby up. The pitcher winds and fires. That pitch looks like it's drifting a little high and tight. It looks like it's coming right at you. There's still plenty of time to get out of the way but even if you give it a half hearted attempt to move out of the way, (which the rules of baseball say you have to do) you probably will get hit anyway. Resulting in a free trip to first base. Folks, that's called leaning into the pitch. Taking one for the team. That team being the team of Humankind in my scenario. In nature it's called "thinning the heard". In a system of elitism it's called "selective breeding". I don't see anything wrong with that either, as long as you don't go all Hitler with it. Every mother wants her child to be "special" but not in that special sense. But maybe ordinary isn't such a bad way to be? Certainly, a nice "normal" child isn't going to sell the television for crack. But more and more babies are falling from the Womb Tree everyday, thus increasing the odds that one Gift from God might start spewing nonsense on a random blog website, while the next "miracle of birth" makes women want to run off to the animal shelter and get spayed. There are worse fates to suffer, I suppose. Most babies born with freakish defects die early in the game, but there are those anomalies who somehow survive and flourish. Two words: Michael Bolton. So thanks to all those mothers out there, including my own, who spent sleepless nights worrying and answering the phone at those odd hours. Your hopes of a happy life as a Mom were not in vain, though somewhat unrealistic. But then again, as a female, your likely unbalanced and your entire life is a lie anyway. So next time you got your legs in the air and are considering how wonderful being a mamma would be, do me, do our world, and your fetus a favor.

Recycle!

And keep the Earth green.

All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

Ode To Chlamydia

Pocahontas once said, and I quote; "The only this I still have from John Smith is Chlamydia." That's right folks, the "Silent Suffering" as it is sometimes called because an individual may suffer from this disease for a long time before realizing they even have the disease. Not only that but it is the most frequent reported STD in the US. That's right a nice festering case of "Clammy Crotch" is easier to get in the states than a picture of Tom Cruises new baby! An estimated 2.8 million cases are reported each year. The major cause of the wide spread disease is because the first symptoms usually occur anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks after contracting the disease, if at all. The first most commons symptom is a burning sensation when you go widdle. Usually this symptom is overlooked as a minor urinary tract infection and treated with water and cranberry juice. Nice if you want to mix in some alcohol and paint the town with chlamydia, not effective in treating the disease that is really causing your problem though. Now comes the fun part. Do not read on if you might get grossed out, you have been warned! I'll wait.................


Ok, you made your decision, here we go. The fun part starts when the disease spreads and causes that fun stuff we like to call discharge, or seepage. Usually this is a sign the disease has spread to the cervix, as well as the fallopian tubes and (gasp!!) possibly as far as the rectum! Keep in mind this is not exclusive to females, although they do have the highest reported cases. So guys, watch where you drill. Since the disease can be spread orally, vaginally, or analy, this disease does not care weather you are hetero or not. Yeah! Fun for everyone! In some rare cases it has also been found in the mouth and throat areas of infected partners. Now here are some of the long term problems this little bug likes to cause. First and foremost, sterility, usually in the female patients. Some men have become sterile from it but only after ignoring the burning sensation while urinating, the red swollen tip, the abdominal pain, and the swollen testes. If your ignoring all that my man, you probably shouldn't be making offspring anyway! It can cause fatal ectopic pregnancies, as well as arthritis, skin lesions, and Reiter's syndrome. It also makes females five times more susceptible to the HIV virus. Who knew? Ever see a baby born with pick eye or pneumonia? Probably cause mom had a tainted twat. That's what happens to infants when they come down the birth canal of an infected woman. What was that quote about the sins of the father? Guess you can add sins of the mother to it as well. The number one way of getting the disease is by being sexually active with more than one partner. 78% of all reported cases worldwide belong to women and girls 25 years and younger. Most cases when cured are often relapsed because they are cured but their partner or partners are not. Every time a new strain of the disease is contracted by the same person, the chances of long term complications triple. Recently Chlamydia was the title of an episode of the Denis Leary drama Rescue Me. Along with being the silent STD it is also the cruel fertility thief. And Denis Leary is a sometimes cruel fire chief. Ok, I don't see the connection but that's all I know about the episode, I don't watch the show. With that I close this entry.

Raised By Another

An open letter to Ms. Britney Spears:

Dear Britney,
I hope this letter finds you doing well. As for myself, I'm a little under the weather. At first, I thought it was herpes, but turns out it was just heat rash. I know you may be thinking why I'd write to you on such a public platform, but after 62 unanswered letters asking for various favors, I figured I'd show how much I lust for you, here, in front of the 3 or 4 people who actually read my editorials.
I know that your life, as of late, may be a little hard to deal with. I mean, you've gone from being on top of the world to the bottom rung of Scumville. Well, maybe the middle rung, but whose really keeping track? I could very easily blame K-fed for your spiral into the trailer park, but I'm not like that. I actually think your husband is a genius. Well, not Albert Einstein kinda genius, but a genius, nonetheless. How can I find fault with a guy who did exactly what I would have done, well, except for the whole impregnating you with my demon seed thing?
Listen, my little Possum Poon, I don't think it's too late for you to realize that I'm the man that needs to be in your life. Who cares that I despise kids, that's what our nannys would be for and if all else fails we can get my aunt Jane to watch those little bastards while you and I bask in our lust for one another, she did a fair enough job raising me as you can tell.
Now, I know what you're saying, something along the lines of "I'm Britney Spears, I can get any man I want." well Britney, that might have been true a while back when you were hot Britney, but you must find someone that can truly appreciate a dirty hobag. Coincidently, I happen to be that person.
Let me put it to you this way, I can appreciate your fat thighs and stretched marked body. Me! I'm the one you've been looking for. You see love, had you been smart enough to fall for me, we wouldn't be in this situation, because I would have never desecrated your temple by with my accursed baby batter. Sure, I would have been happy to deposit some anywhere else you desired, but I would have never impregnated you. Alas, there is no turning back the hands of time now, and there is nothing we can do but I can promise that I would not do that in the future.
Again, let me reiterate (that means to mention again, just thought I'd tell you, I don't want your head exploding 'cause your little urinal cake brain gets a terminal case of overload. Now doesn't that show you how much I care about you darling?) I'm not trying to say anything bad about your current love. Although I did think of something a little while ago while I was at the strip club, maybe he did this to you to force you into some sort of commitment. As a way of keeping you devoted to him and to continue to hand over the platinum Visa at his every whim. Seriously hun, why not send one of them little black cards my way. I'm one helluva guy when you get to know me. I even promise to pick you up something nice to wear at night.
All I am saying is if you were to drop that zero you would have much more money for yourself. I don't need that much, a little for some booze and weed, a few dollars for the ladies down at the Slap and Tickle Lounge and I'm golden. In return I can give you thirty-two seconds of pure, exotic, monkey passion at your request. Remember sugar, I dig fatties! Mostly because I, too, am one. I know what your going through. I know you secretly dream what it would be like to be that girl in the Johnny Depp pirates movie. All thin and sexy. Or even Lyndsey Lohan, who in her own right is damn hot despite the occasional bouts with dehydration (close quo-ta-tion marks, I think you know what I'm saying). I like you just the way you are, I'm wouldn't try to make you loose what is left of your self-esteem. I wouldn't be out spending your hard earned money like some people we know while you're locked in your bedroom eating girl scout cookies dipped in butter and smoking your life away like a chimney. I hope you understand where I am coming from. What I think is, it's time to give him his pre-nup money and bring in someone who knows how to treat a river pig like yourself. C'mon peaches, think about it, I come from a place and time where we know how to grab a set of sweaty love handles in the heat of passion. How to squeeze 'em just enough to make you dance around like a freshly decapped chicken. You cant learn these talents. Either you are born with them or, well, quite frankly are like him, a know nothing looser. We all know he wasn't born to ride the wave in. You're dirty, and I can't get enough of it. I remember when I saw that picture of you walking out of a public restroom bare foot. I knew I had to have you! You girl, that's who I'm talking about. So what if you look like a nightmare without makeup, I'm not trying to be with you for your looks, I'm trying to be with you for your cash. Wait sweetness, I didn't mean your cash; I meant your calves, those fat, luscious, hog calves that need to be slapping against my back.
I know you must feel a bit confused while pondering all of this. But rest assured, I would never force you to do anything you didn't want to do. Not even an ass to mouth, unless you wanted to. See, doesn't that show you how much I care about you. I mean if that doesn't, what the hell will? Now you might be feeling that little pang of guilt about not wanting to separate your children from their father, and I wouldn't want you too. I know, let him keep 'em. There's an idea. That way it gives us more time to be together to do all the wild things we want to do while we grow deeper and deeper in love as well as grow our waist sizes. It would be great babe, you know it would and I'm willing to forget about all of your shenanigans. Like that little 24 hour Vegas marriage thing or any of those times you almost dropped the baby. I don't need the old, hot Britney, I'm completely satisfied with the tubby one who walks around with that pudgy belly. Whaddayasay, baby cakes?? You, me, a bottle of Maddog, a blunt, and some Lynyrd Skynard (or however you spell it, they should have come up with a name easier to spell if they wanted to be more popular, right?) You know where to find me girl.
XOXOXOXO

Solitary

4 penguins die after truck overturns in E. Texas Tuesday, August 8, 2006 The Dallas Morning News

State Trooper Richard Buchanan started his Tuesday morning with this unusual phone conversation: "You have what? The penguins that run around in snow?" he asked his fellow trooper "Yes," said Trooper Gregg Greer of the Texas Department of Public Safety. "OK, I'll be there," he responded. As Trooper Buchanan headed out the door of his home, he called to his 4-year-old son: "Tell your momma that I'm going to go round up some penguins on the highway." A refrigeration truck transporting 25 penguins from the Indianapolis Zoo to Moody Gardens in Galveston flipped on U.S. Highway 59 about 4:30 a.m. Tuesday, leaving four birds dead and several running for cover. One Rock Hopper penguin died in the initial crash, and drivers trying to dodge the flock crushed three Gentoo penguins. The truck driver lost control of the small box truck about eight miles north of Marshall, rolling several times and ejecting the birds, exotic fish, an octopus and other sea creatures. "They did not just run out the back door after the wreck," Trooper Buchanan said. "These penguins were thrown from the vehicle. They were disoriented, and that's how they were run over." By Tuesday afternoon, the penguins were again on their way to Galveston. They're in Texas while their home zoo in Indiana finishes renovations on a new exhibit. Emergency workers searched for the missing birds in bushes alongside the road and corralled the remaining waddlers into a ditch, forming a circle around the bunch until they could be placed in ice. One suffered a broken wing; others walked away with lacerations. One penguin missing for four hours eventually was found alive – and hot – under the truck when a wrecker crew turned it right side up, officials said. A local chemical company brought in a refrigeration truck to take the penguins to Caldwell Zoo in Tyler. Most of the exotic fish and an octopus, which were being transported in plastic bags, were thrown clear and were found alive. "I saw a lot of police cars, and I saw a lot of penguins, and I saw a bunch of people herding penguins," said Evelyn Sepulvado, an animal control officer with the Marshall Police Department. "Obviously, it was very unusual for East Texas to have penguins running up and down the road." The Indianapolis Zoo spokeswoman Judy Gagen said "It was a tough day for the penguins. "They were a little shook up," Ms. Gagen said. "We just want to make sure they're OK and everyone gets settled in." John Allred, a veterinarian in Marshall who helped round up and care for the penguins, said most were in decent shape. A mural in his office depicts each new species of animal that he treats. "I'll have to find an artist to paint a penguin up there," he said. Dr. Allred said he gets some interesting calls from the sheriff's department because a lot of people haul animals down that road. He's even treated elephants and tigers in a circus act that winters near Marshall. "But," he said, "this was the first time I've ever herded penguins." Luckily, not a single one of the surviving penguins contacted chlamydia.

Confidence Man

Remembering SARS

It's an intriguing notion: hiding deep within uncharted rain forests, floating beneath the sea or drifting invisibly through the air, deadly microbes lie in wait - and if they combine correctly in such a way as to enter the human bloodstream, a merciless, devastating new plague upon humanity could be unleashed. In April of 2003, a rapidly mutating virus known as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) terrified top scientists, grew to the status of a red-alert international epidemic. The disease was spread by close person-to-person contact. Those who touched objects which had been licked, coughed upon or else wise contaminated with aerosol droplets were also infected. The most documented transmissions of SARS took place among health-care workers, a group of dedicated medical professionals equally susceptible to colds or the flu. The symptoms could sneak up on a person, moving beyond the typical nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, wheezing and stuffy head - into fevers of over 100 degrees, body aches and chills, difficulty breathing, dry heaving, muscle stiffness resembling paralysis, loss of appetite, rashes, blood coughing, diarrhea and death.

It was the next AIDS, the next plague, the next pestilence - and wouldn't you know it, the disease first gained notoriety in the land of the Chinese Yo-Yo. Officials in Beijing did everything they could to cover up SARS from prying eyes - pretending everything was okay while shuttling hundreds of persons (and their immediate relatives) in unmarked vans to sterile quarantine camps. When truth came to light, it was disclosed that nearly 10,000 were under quarantine, 4,000 people had been infected, and over 150 had died. Close behind was Hong Kong, with 2,000 reported infections and 150 deaths. Canada was placed a distant third, with 343 reported cases. Attempts were made to link SARS to terrorism, but the Center for Disease Control seized upon the SARS genome instead. CDC scientists worked closely with experts at academic institutions throughout the United States. "This is an active, working community of scientific experts who have been contributing their knowledge and expertise throughout this investigation," said William Bellini, Ph.D., SARS laboratory team coordinator.

Visions of The Andromeda Strain, 12 Monkeys and Stephen King's The Stand danced in people's heads. Nearly identical viral findings in the U.S. and Canada suggested the SARS problem likely originated from a common source - and the race to see which country could quarantine, sequester, and imprison the most people officially begun. The war on drugs, the war against pornography, the war against Iraq - those things were controversial in nature, and hotly debated. But a "war" against a killer disease? Who's going to contest that?

South Korean authorities dragged huge thermal imaging machines to airports in the hopes of screening both human beings and luggage for the disease. If you looked sick or cranky, if you appeared to be "warmer" than those standing beside you, you were pulled out of line. Toronto, Canada did the same thing, examining the body temperatures of each and every arriving passenger at international airports with infrared instruments. Officials were forced to direct the closing of hospitals, restaurants, schools, and workplaces. Within a few days, more than a thousand healthcare workers volunteered for home quarantine.

The World Health Organization imposed travel warnings upon Toronto - the only country outside China and southeast Asia where SARS had actually killed someone. Twenty-one deaths were reported in Toronto alone. The alert brought a storm of protest from Canada, and hundreds of millions of dollars hemorrhaged away from tourism, travel, and other businesses. The city shut down, but health warnings were removed less than a week later. WHO denied succumbing to political pressure. "The government of Canada and the government of Ontario are going to continue to do the work that is necessary to ensure the safety and security of all of the world's citizens," gasped Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement. President George W. Bush’s response to SARS was immediate, and equally informed: "We hope it will have a limited effect on the U.S. economy."

Disney was one of the first U.S. companies to claim a direct link between SARS and the worsening slump of its theme-park business. Intel (one of the first U.S. firms to get smacked by SARS) laid the groundwork for how many U.S. corporations followed suit: they told employees to cancel business trips, postpone meetings and send workers home. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, ignored warnings against business travel, continuing ahead with plans to open more than 150 new stores in China. Microsoft’s policies on how to handle SARS were set in Asia, inspired by hopes that the disease was just a temporary phenomenon. "We're confident of Microsoft's ability to bounce back," said Alannah Goss, a Hong Kong spokeswoman. Citizens of the United States who had long exhibited concerns about terrorism, or confusion about the war with Iraq, or an inability to find suitable employment, or an increasing reluctance to enter into conversations with European people of color settled cheerfully into SARS-related anxiety disguised as not giving a shit. Americans who prided themselves on rugged individualism were soon overheard making bland SARS jokes in web logs or the public discourse at large. On college campuses across America, SARS was the new Anthrax.

Interest in SARS infected America for about twenty-four hours. Even the animal world was falling apart. The San Diego Zoo could no longer in good conscience export Hua Mei, a giant panda bear - even though zookeepers weren't specifically aware of any genuine threat to the animal. The zoo had an agreement with China stating that any cubs born from the matings of loaned pandas must be returned to China after their third birthday. Hua Mei was born August 21, 1999 - the offspring of Bai Yun and Shi Shi, who has since returned to China. Shi Shi returned to Beijing, replaced by another wild-born panda, Gao Gao, who has since mated with Bai Yun. Other relatives include Bun, Yum Fun, Lum Tum and Sum Yung Gai. After coming clean about the SARS epidemic, Chinese authorities cared less about pandas and more about tougher quarantine measures. Two thousand villagers in Beijing torched a school after rumors surfaced that it might be used to quarantine those suspected of having SARS. The building was ransacked and set on fire. The mob then proceeded to the local education office and smashed it to pieces. Then they visited the town hall and broke apart the entire building, breaking windows, removing doors and throwing them in a burning pile. Vehicles were overturned and set on fire. When anti-riot police arrived, the villagers ran. The central People's Bank of China immediately put new cash into circulation, holding used currency for 24 hours in vaults before recycling them back into circulation. Dirty, unwashed bills were showered, sterilized, and subjected to ultraviolet radiation to kill the SARS virus. Customers were urged to use ATM machines so bank tellers wouldn't be infected. Paranoia about the relative "safety" of outdoor ATM machines expanded in scope, and transactions apart from those conducted on the telephone or the Internet screeched to a halt. This led to runs on banks, as financial managers considered hiring people to stand outside the bankruptcy registry coughing loudly to scare people away.

Beijing hospitals ran short of medications and surgical guards. Disinfectants and gauze face masks worn by millions of Chinese became scarce and expensive in Beijing. Imported masks sold for up to $20 in convenience marts. Villagers in southern Taiwan strapped bras to their faces as an alternative. Workers in a brassiere factory began cutting colorful cups apart to produce makeshift masks. Doctors and nurses were described as weary and demoralized, living in makeshift quarters and equally isolated from their families. Those employed in the health care industry were shunned by neighbors. A man in the Philippines stabbed another man to death after accidentally being sneezed upon. A man in China hanged himself after mistakenly believing his wife had contracted the disease. Three babies born to SARS-infected mothers were found to have the disease, and each was placed in intensive care alongside a panda. Elevator buttons, door handles, toilet seats - all the ways people typically pretend they got herpes were how people all over the world were contracting SARS. Chinese officials in Hong Kong hosed down filthy sidewalks outside disgusting eateries. Sticky, rubbery escalator handrails at shopping malls and food courts were sterilized with alcohol and antiseptic. One elderly patient resting in a hospital bed asked the day nurse if his testicles were black. Exhausted and cranky, the nurse yanked forth his sheets and pointed with an outstretched finger, stating loudly that the man's testicles appeared just fine and that SARS was exclusively a respiratory disease. Embarrassed, the patient pulled the heavy cloth mask from his face and informed her that all he wanted to know was if his test results were back.

Wholly crap I gotta go it’s Shark Week on Discovery Channel!

The Moth

RUB A DUB DUB - FIVE KIDS IN A TUB

Surprise! Another mom doped up on pills and postpartum depression successfully dispatches her children and gets away with it!

She sits in a jail cell, in a state of deep psychosis and twenty-four hour suicide watch. With her bug-out eyes, stringy hair, and pallid skin, she serves as an icon American males can recognize almost immediately. Andrea Yates represents every crazy, schizoid manic depressive you've ever accidentally considered propositioning for an evening of drunken, forgettable sexual intercourse. The crazy girl at the coffee shop telling lies to whomever might listen. The loudmouth techno-bopper taking off her clothes at Burning Man. The lady in that one cubicle with all the plants who likes to read. Get involved with any of these people and you'll regret it for the rest of your life. Everyone has an Andrea Yates lurking somewhere in his or her past. If you don't remember which one she is - you are that Andrea Yates. Let's look at the numbers. Yates is 36. Married eight years. Five kids ages 7 and under - that's a new one every 18 months. She attempted suicide after the 4th child before plowing ahead with number five. Noah, 7; John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2; and Mary, 6 months. Hey - nice biblical names. Were these murders part of some haphazardly thought out baptismal ceremony gone ridiculously askew? Never has there been more supporting evidence that the family who prays together dies together.

The Houston Chronicle was kind enough to draw readers a detailed map to Mr. Yates' house. Less than an hour after the story broke, his driveway became an impromptu memorial. People left cards, toys, teddy bears adorned with bows and ribbons on his front lawn - not for one second wrapping their minds around the fact that there are no longer any children living at that address. What the hell is Dad supposed to do with a wheelbarrow full of stuffed animals? Right away, CNN and Fox News both offered exclusive home video of the Yates family during a past birthday celebration. Look everyone!! The kids were alive but now they're dead!! Can you feel the eerie?? Thanks a bunch, you insensitive clods.

In 1992, Susan Smith drowned her kids: Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months. Remember how she drove her burgundy Mazda Protégé to the shore of John D. Long lake in Union, South Carolina? Michael and Alex were strapped in their car seats, sleeping. Smith climbed out and released the emergency brake. The car, with its headlights still on, slid down a 75-foot boat ramp into the lake. The car didn't sink right away - it remained on the surface, bobbing up and down. In a few minutes, it filled with water, and Smith watched as it submerged. This she did hoping her boyfriend Tom Findlay might love her more. Smith, then 23, had received from him the equivalent of a Dear John letter, in which he expressed a lack of interest in taking on the responsibility of caring for her two small children from a previous relationship. His letter was kind and straightforward. He thought she was “a great person.” Smith claimed her children were abducted, and went so far as to invent an imaginary black man whom she described in rich detail: forty years of age, dark knit cap, dark shirt, jeans and a plaid jacket. Her statement was far more enthralling than Yates's shopworn "I just killed my kids".

"I was stopped at the red light at Monarch Mills and a black man jumped in and told me to drive. I asked him why was he doing this and he said shut up and drive or I'll kill you. He told me to get out. He made me stop in the middle of the road. Nobody was coming, not a single car. I asked him why can't I take my kids? The man said I don't have time. The man pushed me out of the car while pointing a gun at my side. When he finally got me out he said Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt your kids."She described how she laid on the ground as the man drove away, both of her sons crying out for mom. Smith's subsequent interviews with police were filled with embarrassing blunders. She referred to Michael and Alex in the past tense, indicating an awareness of their passing. An FBI agent who administered her polygraph test noted she made “fake sounds of crying with no tears in her eyes.” Furthermore, the light at Monarch Mills remains green unless cars are traveling in the opposite direction. Like Andrea Yates, Smith crumbled. In her written confession, she filled two pages with loopy script, rounded-off letters, and little hearts. When investigators dragged the car from the lake, they discovered the Mazda's windshield had cracked from severe water pressure and a sudden change in temperature. The car seats, and the bodies of Michael and Alex were found dangling upside-down.

Insurance adjusters know the truth. The suggested Blue Book value of a 1992 Mazda Protégé - with air conditioning - is maybe $4,790. The Blue Book value of your life can only be assessed after you die. Your worldly possessions will be sold: homes, bank accounts, stocks and bonds, automobiles, computer equipment, stereo and CD collection - everything. Calculate the proceeds, subtract any debt consolidation, subtract lawsuits or designated bequeaths to living relatives. Imagine the final sum returned to the state. That dollar value alone is considered your worth. Nothing else is factored into the equation. White, college-educated older men are “worth” the most. They've had forty, fifty years to develop a rich suite of formidable assets the government can liquidate, back taxes already accounted for. Hit someone like that while driving your Mazda Miata, and guess what? Your life is pretty much over. How does the state place a value on the estate of a dead child? How can cold, critical numbers be assigned to the unexplored possibility of a young person's life tragically cut short?? Answer: they aren't. Potential worth is an illusion. Children and babies of any race are valued at next to nothing, unless they're heirs or they've been set up with a trust fund of some kind. They might be useful for parts - if the organs can be harvested quickly - but as of today, there's no uniformly defined dollar value associated with that process. Five children dead? Auction off their stuffed Pokemons, their diapers, their Marilyn Manson shirts and Tickle Me Elmos and you're left with a sum easily overlooked. I've got as much in my back pocket. Peter Singer is a tenured professor of bioethics at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton. He argues parents should be able to kill their newborns up to 28 days after birth, if they have a defect.

Singer writes: "When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed. The loss of a happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second." These days, it's safe to say the definition of disabled expands and contracts to fit most anyone's temperament, even angry young mothers like Andrea Yates, who did in fact believe each of her five children was in some way developmentally disadvantaged. With Mr. Singer's statement in mind, who's to say who's right?

What if everything went according to plan? Mr. Yates, a NASA employee, has unwittingly architected a brilliant maneuver of uncompromising serendipity - a scheme which miserable, overwrought fathers across America will soon be emulating. The premise: leave a mother ill with psychosis in charge of your children, and soon you'll be afforded the opportunity to start life all over again. Since the drowning, Mr. Yates has done something every single day which astounds experienced journalists. He's been addressing the press. Not just talking, either - talking and talking and talking. He speaks freely, off the cuff, looking directly into the camera, declaring love and support for his wife. And why not? What's he got to lose by doing so? He has the option of never dealing with her again. At every opportunity, he finds the strength to offer a statement. His thoughts, his feelings, his plans for the next few days and the future. In no uncertain terms, here's a guy who's just won the lottery. Whether you call it the Texas Tragedy or the Houston Massacre or the Crazy Lady Polka, the moral of this story is clear. Moms and kids sometimes just don't mix. Are you a disgruntled dad who longs for a vacation? Hide the Prozac. Hide the Wellbutrin, the Zoloft, the Lithium. Keep her in a constant state of knocked-uppedness. Leave the cutlery out within easy reach, and make yourself scarce for a good half-hour. The results just might surprise you. Now let the hate mail begin!