Cell phones are an amazing technology. One small handheld device has the ability, from nearly anywhere in the world and across unthinkable distances, to cut you off in mid-conversation. For reasons like this, plus issues of national security, I’ve avoided getting a cell phone. So I was more than a little apprehensive when my preteen son wanted his own phone. You yourself might be having this same anxiety, and he’s not even your kid!

My son had been asking me for a cell phone for quite some time, at least since the eighteenth century, providing many convincing proofs as to its usefulness, including facts such as, “Everyone has a phone but me,” and “I guess you don’t really love me anymore.” Still, this was a big decision, and instead of simply acquiescing to his childish demands, I needed to spend some time researching cell phones and calling plans. Then I could acquiesce to his childish demands like a good parent should.

My research began with a thorough examination of the cell phone system, in that I took an educated guess of how it all works. Cell phones transmit the human voice through a “cellular network,” a distributed system of eighty-foot-tall radio towers that evolved over billions of years from simpler single-celled towers. These cells are placed strategically throughout the world, often disguised to blend in with the surrounding scenery; you probably even have one in your kitchen, near the Cuisinart.

During a call, a cell phone converts the caller’s voice into millions of digital bits which are passed to the nearest cell, where all but the choicest and tastiest bits are discarded. The remaining ten percent or so are sent to “the network,” a CBS TV station in central Nebraska. The call is then linked to the callee; the network connects to the target cell tower, the cell tower connects to the cell phone, the cell phone connects to the ear-bone.

All cell phone providers use this type of system. Regardless of which vendor is used, each call gets routed to the destination network in seamless and billable ways. So the selection of a cell phone company boils down to two simple considerations: (1) which provider offers the best coverage and features for the most reasonable cost based on a customer’s calling habits and financial situation, and (2) which provider’s contract promises the quickest return of a customer’s first-born.

Selecting a phone is a little more involved. There are dozens of phones on the market, and the selection changes three times per day. Especially popular are so-called “smart phones,” which include advanced features for managing a schedule, browsing the Internet, taking pictures, hacking into top-secret military installations, uploading videos to YouTube, and so on. Even the standard “stupid phones” include easy-to-use features that—and mind you, this is all without you needing to configure anything complicated—allow the phone to receive calls from unidentified numbers at 2:00 a.m.

In addition to selecting a phone, there is also the issue of “texting,” the ability to send short type-written messages to other phones that bear no resemblance to the English language (the messages, not the phones). All kids, including Baptists, text things to their friends all the time. It can be a little unnerving when you see a bunch of youngsters tapping mindlessly on their phones, especially when there are better ways for them to spend their days, such as tapping mindlessly on their portable game systems.

Households interested in using more than one phone should consider a “family plan,” so named because Vinnie, a member of the provider’s family, visits periodically to make sure the monthly payments are up to date. These plans also include a set number of monthly calling minutes that all phones on the contract share. Additional minutes are charged directly to the customer’s second mortgage.

In the end, I decided to get phones for the whole family. My son’s new phone includes a touchscreen, a flip-out keyboard, hundreds of family calling minutes, unlimited texting, and a can opener. It was a little pricey, but the costs are clearly outweighed by the sense of safety. As a loving parent, I can now take comfort in knowing that, in an emergency, my precious offspring will be able to text his friends about it.

[Image Credits: Pocketknife image with logo copyright (c) 2009 by Simon A. Eugster via WikiMedia Commons; cell phone from official Nokia 6275 promotional image.]

Christmas is a season of peace and joy, a chance to reflect back on the time long ago when Mary and Joseph made the difficult journey to Bethlehem, only to stay overnight in a stable because the innkeeper had burned down the hotel with too many holiday lights. Luckily, decorating your tree and home today involves much less bodily peril and only half the number of donkeys. To enjoy a safe and sane Christmas, use the following “Lighting Checklist” to help prepare your house for winter lighting conditions.

Purchase Your Lights. Before you make the long trip to your local major retail store to stock up on lights, figure out how many lights you need. For the outside of your house, many homeowners purchase strings of lights that look like icicles when lit up at night, and like broken fishing tackle during the day. These lights typically come packaged in twenty-foot long sections. Estimate one section of lights for every two feet of roof border, since manufacturers are required by federal law to keep these lights from being untangled by the consumer. For the Christmas tree in your house, always buy two strands of lights since nobody has the patience to go around the tree more then seven or eight times.

In every neighborhood there is always one house that pushes lighting to the extreme, covering the property with approximately the same number of lights used in New York’s Times Square, only brighter. You must resist all attempts to compete with such neighbors. Instead, visit these local Christmas elves and commend them on the fine job they are doing. Better yet, invite them over for some early Christmas cheer and eggnog. This will give your kids time to collect a few hundred feet of lights from their house, since the store will only have three half-open boxes of lights left in stock.

Test the lights. Many homeowners make the mistake of nailing up long cords of Christmas lights, only to discover that some or all of the lights in each strand fail to turn on. That’s why it is important to test your Christmas lights before putting them up. To properly test them, lay one strand out to its full length and plug the lights in. If any of the glass elements stay dark, move to each errant bulb and—taking care not to damage the delicate wires at the base of each tiny unit—strike it with a blunt hammer. Then return the entire section to the store for a replacement set, indicating how the first string was defective. Repeat this process until you find a set that lights up completely.

Install the lights. Attaching the Christmas lights to your house is the most dangerous part of the decorating procedure. You should adequately prepare for the task, being sure the take plenty of time to plan each step in the process. Five or six weeks should be enough. But if you have one of those nagging wives who drones on and on about how the kids would be heartbroken without lights, and if you have verified that they really are your kids, then it’s time to pull out the ladder and put up the lights.

You should not attempt the installation by yourself. Many people are severely injured every year while placing lights on their house, even when Al Gore is out of the country. To ensure your safety, call over some friends to help with the task. One person should hold the ladder steady, another person should carefully unravel each stand and be ready to feed the lights, and a third person should attach the lights to the inside of the eaves. To maintain the spirit of the season, be sure to ask these three people if they would like you to pick up something to snack on from the store, since you’re going out anyway.

All that’s left to do is to throw the switch and admire your handiwork. And after you’ve had a chance to stand back and admire the warm glow, you can take comfort in knowing that there should be a few additional spaces available in the stable.

[Image Credits: unknown]

Southern California is a great place to live. No matter how difficult the work week is, there’s always a sunny weekend ahead: a chance to get in your car, drive to the some scenic mountain or ocean recreation spot, and feel your skin warmed by the collective friction of millions of tiny ant feet.

At least that’s been my experience, because ants are everywhere in California. You can’t get away from them, even at home. For example, when you open the front door to your house and look down, you immediately see hundreds of ants crawling all over your homeless immigrant. And if you leave even the tiniest bit of food on the kitchen counter, the ants will find it within minutes and will, by working together as a cohesive team over the course of several hours, produce a new episode for Food Network.

I found this out first hand over the summer when a local gang of black ants moved into my house. These ants are tenacious, maybe even twelvacious, and refuse to leave. It’s possible that they are related to the creatures discussed in the classic 1954 documentary Them!, a film about giant mutated ants that, after escaping from the Nevada nuclear test range, move to New York to attend a special high school for gifted dance students looking to make it big on Broadway. Or perhaps that was Fame. It’s hard to tell the movies apart with all those moving legs.

I tried several different ant killers, including sprays, powders, and “ant traps,” which are more like “ant Sizzler salad bars” from the way the ants kept returning for more. The local home center offered a product that promised to make ants as scarce as that store’s employees, which seemed numerically impossible. I even bought one pesticide that was supposed to kill the ants and leave behind “the refreshing scent of oranges.” Ants love oranges.

Of course, the treatments did kill a few thousand ants. But the typical colony is made up of millions of ants, each working for the benefit of the nest and its queen: building homes, collecting food, responding to calls from angry cable TV customers. They accomplish all this and more because, despite having brains no larger than that of the typical Nobel Peace Prize committee member, they are highly social creatures. Ants communicate by means of chemical signals called “pheromones,” a term derived from the Greek words “pherein,” meaning “to transport,” and “horomone,” meaning “across a 3G wireless network for one low monthly fee.” This signal system is tremendously complex, and allows groups of ants to work on projects like a team.

My point is that killing ants doesn’t seem to be working. Instead, I’ve come up with another method: introduce presidential campaigns to the ant world. By breaking ants up into distinct political parties—including Democr-ants and Insect-pendants—and removing all restrictions on campaign contributions, those ants will be arguing social policy and voting for whichever ant has the best antennae presence in no time. In a colony where every drone and worker will dream of growing up to be the first black ant president, they won’t have time to worry about wrecking my home.

In that great and glorious day, I will finally be able to say “good riddance” to this plague of ants, and rejoice in never needing to see them in my house again. Unless they know of some way to get rid of this orange smell.

[Image Credits: unknown]

Over 200 years ago—or 634 years when adjusted for inflation—our founding fathers established a nation based on the principles of individual liberty, guaranteed God-given rights, and the elimination of government tyranny. They called this new country “The United States of America.” Unfortunately, that country was captured by the Swiss during World War I, requiring President Woodrow Wilson to improvise a new country on the fly.

Despite this change, today’s America bears a striking resemblance to the system founded by Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin, with just three minor modifications: (1) it has a few more states, including newcomers Alaska, Hawaii, and North Mexico, (2) the Chicago Cubs are not permitted to play in the World Series, and (3) in matters of social and fiscal policy, politicians are given decision-making powers at a level normally reserved for the Greek pantheon. While the first two changes are praised by Americans of all faiths and body mass indexes, many citizens take issue with the increase in government intrusion in their lives. And with the elimination of the death penalty in some states, elected officials are scrambling for ways to quell this uprising.

I became concerned about the unrestrained power of American politicians soon after the 2008 presidential election. In one of his first acts as president, Barack Obama moved his small family into a plush 55,000-square-foot house on Pennsylvania Avenue, in one of the most well-known sections of Washington, DC. That house is huge! It’s this type of political largess and corruption that has citizens up in arms over the role and size of government.

The problem is not with the politicians per se; their per se‘s tend to be on the small side. The problem is with the lack of restraint and the ease with which political power can be abused. Fortunately, there are things that we, as citizens and illegal aliens, can do about it. To start the ball rolling, I propose the following changes to our system of government.

1. All elected officials must pay double the tax rate of the general public, an increase of nearly thirty times what their lobbyists currently pay for them.
2. The existing ten-year term limit on the office of president will now extend cumulatively to all elected and appointed officials. Every governmental leader, from city councilmember to Supreme Court justice, can serve up to ten years before being required to find a private-sector job. Exceptions are made for United States senators, who must work one year as an official Washington, DC tour guide for each year served in the senate.
3. When not actively working in the capital, all members of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches must work at a customer service counter for their state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.
4. Before being allowed to vote on a piece of legislation, elected officials must copy out in longhand every word of the bill. Lobbyists who wish to influence votes in Congress must spend 200 hours each year grading these papers with red pens.
5. A copy of each legislator’s personal credit card statement must be mailed each month to the voters in that official’s district.
6. No public item—including bridges, government buildings, sandwiches at the congressional cafeteria—may be named after any elected official, a ban which remains in effect until the person’s death. After that time, members of the opposition party may name five public items after the late politician.
7. All political leaders and appointees, including the ambassador to the United Nations, must wear uniforms with cheery colors and a happy-smile badge.
8. Municipal leaders must commute by car to work daily at least thirty miles in each direction, and at the height of rush hour, even if this means riding around in circles for a while. One member of the city’s traffic engineering department must ride shotgun.
9. Elections for all federal offices, including cabinet appointments, will be replaced with a nationally-televised Dancing with the Politicians show, hosted by Tom Bergeron and Jim “Sweet Puppy Dog Eyes” Lehrer.
10. The annual budget of any government agency or department may be increased each year by using a complex formula that considers the previous year’s budget, the rate of inflation, the population growth of the relevant district or jurisdiction, and the percentage of citizens who voted in the last election. This number is then multiplied by zero.

By implementing these simple changes, it would take no more than a decade to return this country to its rightful place as the undisputed leader of the free world, assuming that the Swiss are content with their last acquisition.

[Image Credits: US Capital image copyright (c) 2005 by Ben Shafer (sxc.hu/bshafer); Drill image copyright (c) 2007 by Peter Huys (sxc.hu/DarkSide)]

The comic books I read as a kid often had a full-page advertisement from Charles Atlas. These cartoon-panel ads featured a 98-pound weakling getting sand kicked in his face by a tough beach bully. Fortunately, the puny youth signed up for Charles Atlas’s body-building course, and in no time he was able to confront the bully. Unfortunately, the bully was actually Charles Atlas himself, who pounded our hero into a heap of broken bones and sore muscles. To make sure this doesn’t happen to you, it’s important to learn as much as you can about muscles, in a lively question-and-answer format.

Q. What exactly are muscles?

A. Muscles are a type of bivalve mollusk found in either freshwater or seawater, and that taste great in the Spanish rice dish Paella. They have a large organ called the “foot” that lets the creature crawl around. Walking and kicking soon follow.

Q. Aren’t those “mussels?”

A. What is this, National Spelling Month?

Q. But what about muscles?

A. Muscles are a type of contractile tissue found in living creatures. And no, “contractile” is not a dirty word, so get your mind out of the gutter. In some animals, muscles join with bones and skin to form a “foot” that lets the creature crawl around. Walking and driving sports cars soon follow.

Q. Is the tongue a muscle?

A. Yes, the tongue is a muscle, and one of the most interesting. It’s the only muscle in your body that is attached on only one end. It’s also the strongest muscle in the body based on its size. It has more lifting power per cubic muscle inch (square Paella kiloliter) than any other muscle in your body, including biceps, quadriceps, or triceratops. In fact, if the tongue muscle was the same size as your thigh muscle, you would starve within three days.

Q. How do you keep your muscles healthy?

A. Regular exercise is essential for healthy muscles. Physicians recommend at least 45 minutes of vigorous exercise three times per week to keep the muscles in shape. But what do they know about keeping fit? Doctors used to smoke like chimneys, and we all know how bad smoked foods are for you, much less cigarettes. Years ago, you couldn’t visit a doctor’s office without having one of the medical staff hacking all over the tongue depressors. And they weren’t just casual smokers. Smoking was like a second career to them, after golf and before medicine. Consider this typical operating room conversation from the 1960s.

Doctor: Sponge.

Nurse: Here you go, doctor.

Doctor: Suture.

Nurse: Yes, doctor.

Doctor: OK, I think we’re done here. Go ahead and close.

Nurse: Doctor, should I empty the chest cavity ash tray first?

Despite this, we entrust these so-called “professionals” to dispense medicines for dubious conditions. What right does some quack physician have to determine who is borderline schizophrenic? It’s not like I threatened him. I’d like to see him try that again without the police escort and see who comes out of the room needing a prescription.

And dentists are no better. Did you know that only four out of five dentists surveyed recommended sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum? What’s with that fifth dentist? Getting regular kickbacks from the sugar industry? It’s health care miscreants like these that make me regret I even have muscles. Exercise, smexercise. Why don’t these doctors try getting some exercise for once? But no, they’re too busy chain smoking their way across the golf course with their commie-pinko dentist friends, plotting ways of marketing sugarless cigarettes to an unsuspecting public.

Q. Are muscles meat?

A. Yes they are. In fact, one of the fastest ways to build muscle tissue is to eat meat, including hamburgers. Your digestive system will always send muscle material to the right part of your body. People are always amazed by my lower abdominal muscles.

Q. What about sumo wrestlers?

A. Sumo wrestlers are also meat.

Q. No, I mean are sumo wrestlers mostly muscle or fat?

A. From a distance, sumo wrestlers appear to be nothing but layer-upon-layer of fat. But when you get closer, you learn that it really hurts if you ask stupid questions about their body-mass index.

Q. I’m thinking of going to the beach today, but I only weight 98 pounds. What should I do if someone kicks sand in my face?

A. Check the foot. It might be attached to a mussel.

[Image Credits: Copyright (c) 2004 by Bob Smith]

No matter what the Mac enthusiasts and twelve-step programs tell me, I’m still proud to be a user of Microsoft products. It’s been over 25 years since I embraced my first Redmond-inspired product—MS-DOS 2.0—and in that time the company has made several improvements to their products, however minor in scope. For Microsoft, it’s all about innovation. Still, I was a little surprised to learn that upcoming versions of their products will be used to control the weather.

I discovered this global power grab through an email the company sent me. The missive introduced me to Microsoft Office Labs, a web site (http://www.officelabs.com) that provides a glimpse into what the software behemoth foresees through future releases of its Office line of mandatory-use applications. I was especially intrigued by the “envisioning” videos that demonstrate, for various life scenarios, how Office products could be a full-time part of your daily life.

You can access all of the videos at http://www.officelabs.com/Pages/Envisioning.aspx. In each of the segments, you will find happy people living happy lives managed by happy software—happy Microsoft software. From the boardroom to the playroom, from the grocery store to the Apple Store, these snappy videos show utopia, Steve Ballmer-style.

Most of what appears in each video is a reasonable extrapolation of how we use computers today: students scribbling animated sketches of repulsive substitute teachers on the classrooms’ smart chalkboards; housewives using electronic shopping lists that guide them through the store with GPS-style turn-by-turn excitement; grumpy old men wiping the dog slobber off of their flexible Kindle-killing interactive color e-paper newspapers.

The scenes are all very quaint, but they are meant to distract you from the secret innovations that Microsoft really has in store for the day when we finally submit our lives to all things computational. Hidden inside the “Banking Future Vision” video (which shows almost no typical banking activities) is proof that the company intends to control the climate, possibly with PowerPoint.

The weather control device activates at 2:20 minutes into the video, when customer Anita Sarkozi—who is tracked through the bank by her implanted Microsoft Human ID device—finishes up her meeting with bank employee Jim Hamilton.

If you look at the screen behind these two willing participants, you will see the temperature on the news display change from 22°C to 54°F, a drop of nearly 12 degrees Celsius! That’s equivalent to 18 degrees Fahrenheit, one more reason to be concerned about America’s continued resistance to the metric system.

That’s technology. That’s innovation. That’s scary.

Given the level of difficulty that most people have had with Windows Vista, I never would have believed that Microsoft could even consider taking control of local weather conditions like this, much less flaunt the idea on their web site. It’s caused me to consider the world’s largest software company in a whole new light. I might need to rethink my preference for their products, perhaps even give them up entirely.

And who knows what other sinister plans this company of control freaks has up their proverbial sleeves for our future. Maybe it’s not just time for me to disown Microsoft products; perhaps it’s time for me to actively engage the enemy. I’d better get started on this now. With Microsoft’s level of innovation, who knows when they will have the technology needed to stop ppl lk me frm…oh no!

[Image Credits: Microsoft (!) ]

I ran my own company for many years. My purpose was to make a reasonable income for my family by providing a compelling product to the public at a competitive price, backed by a satisfying customer service experience. What an idiot I was. If the financial bailouts under by President Obama taught me anything, it’s that the sure-fire way to be a business success with a capital Billion is to run your company straight into the ground.

This seems to be the financial strategy adopted by Krispy Kreme (motto: “It’s got a hole in it, so it can’t be that fattening”). I had my first taste of Krispy Kreme doughnuts when a franchise opened in nearby Issaquah, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. The shop was a hit from day one: customers formed a line more than a block long, stretching past three Starbucks locations. It took me a month to reach the cashier and buy some of their nutrients, including the two hours I actually spent in line.

Those were pretty heady days for the sweets company back in the early years of the new millennium. Krispy Kreme locations were a lot like their product: rising by the dozens from a simple franchise recipe, fried to a warm glow by the boiling-hot oil of customer anticipation, and doused in a sugary glaze of junk food consumption. When the company went public in April 2000, the stock price quickly doubled, bubbling in the forty-dollar-per-share range.

As with the actual Krispy Kreme product, the company was destined to be ground up by the molars and incisors of Wall Street expectations, and passed through the digestive tract of American food fads. The once delicious stock went down to nearly one dollar per share this year, and rumors of questionable business practices haunt the corporate headquarters. Even worse, Krispy Kreme—in a clear oversight by upper management—offers neither fuel-inefficient automobiles nor questionable mortgages to high-risk customers, and was therefore not a beneficiary of the government’s 2009 stimulus package.

There are many reasons for Krispy Kreme’s business woes: the general downturn in the American economy, the increased popularity of “low-carb” diets, the difficulties in selling a product that shows what you will look like if you eat it. But I recently discovered the key to the corporate malaise: Krispy Kreme doesn’t sell its products to customers.

I found this out at that same Issaquah location. In Washington state stores, Krispy Kreme sells its own brand of coffee and milk-based beverages, and the most delicious drink option is to douse your beverage with several squirts of “Original Kreme Flavored Syrup.” A giant step up from the ordinary hazelnut syrups, Original Kreme is basically a 25-ounce bottle of liquid Krispy Kreme doughnuts, all at a mere 95 calories per one-ounce serving. It’s exactly what I needed to fill the doughnut hole in my appetite.

Since the bottle of syrup was already labeled for individual sale—complete with a Nutrition Facts panel and the happy Krispy Kreme fat-free logo—I offered to pay actual money for a full bottle of 2,375-calorie beverage goodness. To make it easier on the franchise, I said I would buy a complete box (six bottles) at a price and schedule that met their needs.

No. The answer was no. They didn’t even cover the refusal with a sweet vanilla glaze of reason or meaning; they just said no. No matter how many times I asked, they refused to sell me their product, and told me so with ever-increasing volume. I guess they had to say it loudly enough so that I could hear them over the lack of customers in the store.

No problem, I thought. I’ll simply move up the corporate ladder and contact the customer service department at the company’s national headquarters. Of course, this tactic assumed that Krispy Kreme actually had a customer service department at its national headquarters. There is a “Krispy Kreme Customer Experience” number you can call (“Press One for Glazed…”), but it reaches a third-party organization with no information or authority beyond what you can get by chucking a delicious doughnut at a store manager. Not that I recommend this. Nor do I recommend sending a letter to the corporate headquarters, since it (the letter, not the headquarters) will simply be forwarded to that same outsourced entity that can’t differentiate between Customer Experience and a Hole in the Doughnut.

The inability to obtain Original Kreme Flavored Syrup has left both me and my coffee a little bitter. If things continue the way they are going, I will be able to buy several cases of the syrup at the company’s going-out-of-business sale. But for now, I am flavorless. If Krispy Kreme has any interest in returning to its corporate glory days, I suggest that the company take a page from my old playbook and actually sell their quality products to customers, and offer some semblance of customer service. Or they could take all their dough and open a bank.

[Image Credits: Donut Smiling image copyright (c) 2007 by Mark Vroonland (sxc.hu/mark25)]

With the morrow comes the long-awaited inauguration of America’s forty-fourth president, Barack Obama. I, as a member of several of America’s most significant minority groups, will sit just inches away from my TV screen eyeballing the historic event. As he utters those constitutional words written down by the founders centuries ago, many like me will experience a certain amount of satisfaction in our genetic parity with the president-elect, and the victory over rampant discrimination that has kept people, especially me, from reaching the highest office in the land.

Take Obama’s height. He towers at six feet one-and-a-half inches, and I am proud to say that I, too, have the advantage of height, thanks to the genes he and I share in common. I myself am five feet ten inches. Well, I’m actually five feet nine-and-a-half inches, but that’s basically the same as six-feet-plus. Giants like us have had to endure the taunts and degradation of seeing our heights exploited year after year in the windows of so-called “big and tall” shops, and in televised spectacles such as the National Basketball Association. Other forms of discrimination have kept me from taking part in big and tall shops or the NBA draft, but Obama’s above-average height still resonates deep within my monstrous bones.

Then there is the issue of gender. Although his campaign did little to exploit this little-known aspect of his genetic makeup, Barack Obama is male. Like me, the soon-to-be-president possesses a Y chromosome. And like me, this has been used as a form of rampant discrimination. A full fifty-one percent of the American population is female, as were (I have been told) three of the last four presidents. The certain confirmation of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State this week, even after her devastating defeat in the Democratic primaries, proves the power that these women wield, especially in the Lower 48 states. That Obama was able to overcome the statistical odds gives me hope that, I too, will achieve great things. In Communistic nations such as China, governmental policies have evened the score, with men rising to nearly fifty-two percent of the population. An Obama presidency in such a nation would have been a slam dunk–excuse the height reference.
But he achieved the mantle of success in a nation where political parties hold virtually no sway of the lives and election decisions of the citizenry.

I have not even mentioned yet how I am a virtual Obama twin in terms of head-hair retention, use of the English language, and spending years in church without actually listening to my pastor’s sermons. All of these minority factors have brought years of turmoil and distress to white, middle-aged, middle-class Christians like me. And while Obama and I have severe disagreements on policies, and although I know he is sure to take this country in several giant steps backward, I still cannot get past how our similarities overshadow any of those side issues. Were it not for our common DNA, I might have dismissed Barack Obama as another slippery politician whose lack of real executive experience might doom this country to four or eight years of national hardship. Instead, I hold my head high, looking forward to my own future role as leader of this great nation, and reveling in the fact that our genetic similarities matter more than anything else.

[Image Credits: Copyright (c) 2007 by Rodolfo Clix (sxc.hu/clix)]

I have a confession to make. I’m an addict, and I need a fix. I’ve been hooked for about eight or ten weeks, although the blur of the last few months makes it difficult to truly gauge the time. And now, having been without a hit for three days, withdrawal symptoms are starting to set in. My drug: presidential tracking polls.

It’s not like I am easily tempted by controlling substances. Once, when my car broke down in front of the Greyhound bus terminal in Riverside, California, a thirteen-something punk offered to provide me with illegal drugs in exchange for money. The word “no” came out of my mouth as easily as water comes out of my leaky bathroom faucet. Whether it was a true lack of desire to use drugs, or if childhood conditioning by my parents was the reason, I was able to hold my head high, knowing that I had chosen the right path.

However, I allowed a strength in one area to mask a weakness in another. While offers of controlled substances had no effect on me, presidential opinion surveys seduced me immediately, drawing me into their deceitful web of dependence. It all started out innocently enough. I surfed over to my favorite news site to see how the presidential race was going. Then, out of the corner of my eye, like a wonton streetwalker, it called out to me. “Presidential tracking poll update…click here!” In my naïveté, I clicked, and I must admit, it felt great. I checked back again the next day. Over that weekend, I casually thought about getting back to my office Internet connection and checking up on the race. Still, I thought that I could walk away whenever I wanted.

About a week later, I stumbled onto another site that not only provided a presidential tracking poll, but it also had results on the approval ratings of each candidate. The site included graphics that were color coded. I had never known such ecstasy before. Realizing the shame I would encounter if a coworker came up at that moment, I quickly browsed over to Google. It was hard to get through that day, as the need for larger doses and increased frequency mounted.

As time went on, I found myself using expressions that gave away my addiction. To my embarrassment, verbal lapses caused by my condition popped up frequently in conversation. I would spout things such as “too close to call,” “narrowing the gap,” and “margin of error.” Whereas before I may have said to my coworkers, “We need to keep our prices in line with the competition,” I now said, “We need to maintain a pricing statistical dead heat with our competitors.” I even told my son that before he could have dessert, he must finish all of the vegetables on his plate, plus or minus four percent. Oh, the shame.

I kept moving from pusher to pusher, no longer self-conscious about the opinions of my fellow employees. My sickness reached a high point when another addict introduced me to his peddler, a site that combined all of the other tracking polls into a composite number using a careful formula, although now I see it as a formula for one’s demise. This new supplier not only gave me what I needed, but he provided quick links to all of the other sites so that I could continue to buy from them as well. I now see that they were in collusion.

Yet despite my understanding, the symptoms of withdrawal are overwhelming. The shaking, the nervous tics, the verbal gaffes all point to the painful expunging of the drug from my body. All of my suppliers have cut me off cold turkey. I have sought out cheap imitations from other sites, even lowering myself to check out user opinions of kitchen appliances on product review sites. But nothing else satisfies. The thought of having to wait four years for another hit pierces right to my heart.

I plead with all my readers, especially the young: do not be seduced by the lure of tracking polls. The downward spiral, the selling of your own life for the sole benefit of a peddler is not worth the price you will pay. And if you hear of a presidential tracking poll anytime before 2012, send the site address to me. I will take the hit for you.

[Image Credits: Copyright (c) 2007 by Sanja Gjenero (sxc.hu/lusi)]

With the presidential campaign in full swing, you’re probably wondering the same thing I am: What will happen to the battery industry once the polar ice caps melt?

I hadn’t thought much about this until I began reading reports of arctic ice shrinkage from The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), a quasi-governmental organization that has been “supporting cryospheric research since 1976″ from its headquarters at the University of Colorado in Boulder. It’s shocking news, really. Not only is there an organization that has been freezing dead people for more than three decades, it’s all being done at taxpayer expense. This certainly lends credence to the incessant rumors of well-to-do near-death citizens being frozen for later revival—people like Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, and vice presidential hopeful Joe Biden—once medical science has advanced to the point where it can defrost something in a microwave oven without half cooking it.

The NSIDC issued a chilling press release on August 26, 2008, bemoaning the shrinking of arctic sea ice to nearly half of its 1980 levels. Although the extent of the Arctic Ocean ice coverage is still over two million square miles, an extrapolation of the data leads to an inescapable and frightening conclusion: the Arctic Ocean has ice in it. It’s essential government-issued news like this that could have saved both the Titanic and Leonardo DiCaprio from certain destruction and overacting.

The press release included colorful charts and downward-trending graphs all based on such dubious sources as “actual readings” and “satellite monitoring” solely to drum up a mainstream-media-driven Global Warming Frenzy, which would be a great name for a Starbucks blended ice drink. The problem I have with such reports is that they always extrapolate forward in time, never back, as if there is something extra special about forward. Sure the data says that there won’t be any summer-time ice at the North Pole by the end of the century. But their refusal to only extend the data halfway hides a shocking truth from the general public: 12,000 years ago, ice completely covered The National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

I think the NSIDC—which can be ominously rearranged to spell “DC Sin”—has some explaining to do. What has it been doing with all that snow and ice that used to cover its campus? What type of maniacal evil was it cooking up before it began its expertise in “cryospheric research” three decades ago? When is it going to start regular monthly financial deposits into my PayPal account to keep me quiet?

While the backward-looking outlook for arctic ice is excellent, I do share some of the government’s concern for future reduced ice coverage. It was only a week ago that, in a foreshadowing of the coming collapse of the North American Free Trade Agreement, my local Taco Bell’s soda refill station ran out of ice. And I once stayed in a hotel where a sign on the ice dispenser warned, “Do not fill ice chests.” If even two-star hotels are starting to hoard ice, what hope do we have?

And what about batteries, which I suddenly remembered was the point of this article? If the predictions of ice loss at the North Pole are as dire as I’ve been reading, Jolly Old Saint Nick will soon be bobbing in the Arctic Ocean like one of those red and white fishing bobbers that bobs in oceans like the Arctic Ocean. Without Santa Claus to build and deliver his patent-pending batteries-not-included toys, the market for AA, AAA, and even Eveready brand 9-volt “lightening cat” batteries with its Nine Long Lives for One Low Price will surely plummet.

Looking to the government for solutions isn’t going to work this time. All three branches of the federal government—the legislative, the judicial, and that other one—are in cahoots with NSIDC. Barack Obama, despite his outward show of environmental concern, continues to claim that ice cubes are “above my pay grade.” And don’t get me started with John McCain’s VP selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and her ties to “Big Ice.”

It’s time for the citizens of this great nation to rise up, to escape the chains that have bound them to unreasonable ice policies of the past. It’s time for each of us to do something that will make a difference, something that will bring us to a time when we no longer need to worry about things like shrinking arctic ice and Boulder, Colorado.

I hope they’ll be able to thaw me out safely by then.

[Image Credits: Penguins from Microsoft Office clipart; Battery copyright (c) 2005 by Tijmen van Dobbenburgh (sxc.hu/386860)]