Today's Rechristening of the HoB

Today the HoB shall be known as The House of Common Sense until tomorrow. See the conclusion of this entry for a more thorough explanation.

The first pillar of this house shall be located here:

If you are a member of a legislative branch of government, whether it be state or federal, don't experiment and agree to write laws that don't do anything but create small pockets of commerce in China, Pakistan, India and Japan -- eg hotbeds of factories that pump out ineffective, easily-broken hands-free earpieces that don't work.

The short and long of it -- since both state and federal lawmakers apparently don't pay attention -- people who are thinking about things other than driving, which is what they do when they are driving and conversing on cell-phones, aren't focusing their entire attention on the road. Some are thinking about what they did last night, some are thinking about who they did last night, and some are thinking about what (and who) they're doing tonight. Some are hoping they don't get pulled over for being drunk, some are calling Moviefone to see what time the Sharkboy and Assgirl, Part III movie is showing at the Megaplex, and some are calling their grandmother to see if her arthritis is improving. The common-sense moral of the story is don't write a law until you understand and can solve the problem which the law you're writing, in theory, is attempting to solve.

The second pillar, while located far away in the rolling expanse of Germany, is located here:

If there's some assclown on a bike who is exceeding 150 mph, rather than capture him on video, here's a hint: pass a fucking law requiring motorcycles to sport a front plate of some sort so when this shitbird passes Dusseldorf on an autobahn near you, he will be identified. It's either that or start equipping the German anti-terror squads with Porsches and rocket launchers. Next time he's whipping by a motorcade at 150+, see how accurate your gunners can fire from the passenger seat. That ought to solve your mystery motorcycle rider problem in a jiffy.

The third pillar of the house is Dennis Miller's recent commentary on the Mid-East crisis involving Israel and the Palestinians, and the following comes courtesy of my other half, care of the home office in Marin County, California.

A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of theMiddle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need.

Here we go:

The Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was calledPalestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention. Before the Israelis won the land in the 1967 war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians."

As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big asbasketballs, what do you know, say hello to the "Palestinians," weeping fortheir deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation."

So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" anymore to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deathsuntil someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them whatthey are:"Other Arabs Who Can't Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death."

I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: "Adjacent Jew-Haters." Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don't. They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living.

That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the regionwant: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course--that's where the real fun is -- but mostly they want Israel.

Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel - or "The Zionist Entity"as their textbooks call it -- for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something.

It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim Mid east. Unless I'mmissing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.

Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; fiveMillion Jews. Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, andIsrael as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals.

Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding.

My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: just reverse the Numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not.

Or marshaling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab State into the sea?Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at themurder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horriblelies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children?

Disgusting.

No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.

Mr. Bush, God bless him, is walking a tightrope. I understand that withvital operations in Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a roomful of super models who've just had their drugs taken away.

However, in any big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight. We've already lost some. After September 11th our president told us and the world he was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them. Beautiful. Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every day) start to do the same thing we did, and we tell them to show restraint.

If America were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterranean and east of the Jordan.

The final pillar of this new house, of course, is my own vision regarding what all this -- America, Jerry Springer, the pro/anti-choice forces, those people praying to save the life of Terri Schiavo who are now back to hiding beneath the floorboards -- means. Yesterday our nation experienced another public spectacle, The Verdict. And we all watched, we all formulated opinions, and we all have something to say. But since this is -- for the most part -- a monologue, and it's irrelevant what any of us have to say about any of this, it seems to me that this new house should, at the very least, inspire its visitors to think rather than react, consider rather than eliminate, and, whenever possible, rise above rather than sink within.

And finally, this new house is the same as the old house; it features identical insight, analysis, opinion and thought. The only difference is today's version features an open house sign with the words "Common Sense" blinking day and night in neon-lit colors. It's up to each and every visitor to process the material herein, agree or disagree, and then, rather than dwell, instead move on.

There's the door. Don't let it hit your ass on the way out.