July 22, 2002 -

JOCULAR JACKASSERY!

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Ted wins the prize for 2002; there's Jesse,

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and more. Now, the details...

SISTERS, Oregon -- Our nominee for Arrogant Old Fool of the Year is Alfred "Ted" Goodwin, a patented fool who wrote the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion trying to evict "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. Teddyboy purported to be amused by the reaction to his opinion. "You just have to hunker down, like a jackass in a hailstorm, and let this thing happen," Teddy told an interviewer. Equinne Butz, president of the National Association for the Fair Treatment of Burros, said he plans to file a lawsuit against Goodwin. "Judge Teddypoo has slandered jackasses by comparing himself to one. Jackasses have enough of a public image problem without bearing the burden of Ted Goodwin," Butz said.

GREENFIELD, Wisconsin -- A man who might have been sufficiently stupid to serve on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was taken down by a gun-shop owner. Police said the 57-year-old Greenfield man was shot in the chest when he tried to rob the gun-shop owner at knifepoint. "He should have hunkered down like a jackass in a firestorm," said Federal Judge Alfred "Ted" Goodwin.

HOUSTON -- We shouldn't forget America's Premier Idiot, which requires us to mention Jesse Jackson. The Rev. Jackass recently called President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft "the most threatening combination in our lifetime." Now that would imply that Jesse is maybe 2 years old, or younger. Washington sources said Jackson's problems with Bush/Ashcroft are rooted in a fear that Ashcroft might seek special legislation to require Jesse to wear a condom.

PARIS -- Oh, our friends the Frogs. Seems that the noble French sports enthusiasts along the Tour de France bicycle race are booing American superman Lance Armstrong. Some of the estimable Frogs said the drugs Armstrong took on the way to a miraculous cure for testicular cancer might have enhanced his stamina. Ridiculous, but remember we are dealing with the French here. If memory serves, Armstrong had to give up one testicle to cancer surgery. That means he is only 100 percent more of a man that the average Frenchie booing him.

The Lance Armstrong experience gives luster to the historical memory of Zachary Taylor, one of America's more obscure Presidents. Illinois Heritage magazine reports that Taylor was indicted in 1814 for assault and battery in the beating of Simon Bartrane. Bartrane got Taylor's dander up for being the probable tipster behind an Indian ambush of Taylor's Army unit during the War of 1812. Taylor took the act very personally and beat Bartrane within an inch of his sorry life. There is no record that Taylor got his hands on the other Frenchmen involved in setting up the ambush. (Happily, the assault charge was dismissed.)

WASHINGTON -- The Washington Times cites federal data indicating that there are now more teen-aged virgins than there were a few years ago. Lowly placed sources say the increase in virgins probably is attritutable to the fact that former President Clinton has spent much of his time out of the country.

TOW, Texas -- Much of the unintentional humor we see comes from journalists at their most hemorrhoidically serious. Take a paragraph from a Reuters dispatch, reporting that Spanish police arrested three suspected members of al Qaeda and seized videotapes from a Terror Prep Tour of America. Reuters writes: "Two tapes showed mostly images of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York from all angles and distances and recorded before the Sept. 11 suicide attacks which killed about 3,000 people." Uh, yeh. If they had been taken on Sept. 12, we might notice the towers weren't there, even without help from Reuters.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- New Dork Times writer Dexter Filkins has a scoop. Dexter breathlessly revealed this week that people get killed in war. Dubious Dexter has found that more than a couple of Afghan civilians have been killed in the War on Terror. Filkins fibrillates that Afghan leaders "are demanding a say in how air raids are conducted. They are even hinting that if the mistakes continue, they may limit America's future military activities." Sources say President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have hinted that these Afghan leaders might want to consider an impossible sexual act.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Those wild and crazy Aggie engineers who populate the Lower Colorado River Authority are ecstatic over their handling of floodwaters on their fiefdom -- the Colorado river. The July floods in Texas provided the engineers with an opportunity to make a new test of a pet theory. "For years now, we have been debating whether a gaggle of Texas A&M graduates can consistently make water run downhill and we are proving it again," said Lowe Flowe, a hydrologist.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: If innocent dorks get killed in wars, why have so many reporters survived?