The White House, now operating in the absence of the suddenly-vanished surplus, finds itself presented with a new fiscal conundrum: whether or not to urge approval of an $18 billion increase in military spending, while simultaneously reneging on an earlier promise to extend $28 billion in health insurance to 39 million uninsured families. It's seems to have come down to bombs vs. babies.

W Collection, our resident Hobbesian Strategist, suggests that a simultaneous solution may be found in the Nuclear-Tipped Child program. Under the NTC, poor families would receive substantial grants for each child they agreed to equip with a small, low-yield tactical nuclear device, contained in an attractive baseball cap of their choosing. In the event of nuclear attack, each specially-trained child would be launched and steer toward a selected incoming missile."It would give the kids something to do," says the Paranormal Philosopher, "and they'd get a bang out of it".

Children and weapons are a natural combination. The little tykes are equally useful as weapons or targets, as we realized when the editors of Child And Gun Magazine graciously permitted us to debut the poetic triptych entitled "Trigger Trilogy" . One caution, though: like their subject, these ain't all that funny.

Next week, returning to the fun side of things, we bring you Gumshoe George, the Shiftless Shamus, in a political noir about a betrayed babe and a perjured promise. Be sure to bring your trench coat to "The Big Bamboozle" .

By the way, If you happen to peek into the front window at Liberal Slant today, you may chance to see Mayday! Mayday! , my horrific account of how my little town faced the challenge of the Diversity Thing.

And, finally, if you find yourself feeling a little down about our present leadership, just say to yourself, "This is the best government we could get". And that should do the trick.

'Bye,
Hank