Homer: Well, he’s got all the money in the world, but there’s one thing he can’t buy.
Marge: What’s that?
Homer: A dinosaur.
— The Simpsons

I lead a very busy life. In between scouring caves in northwest Pakistan for a certain somebody, helping Peter Jackson ruin the upcoming Halo movie and knitting cat-themed blankets for my grandmother, sometimes it’s hard to come up with one of those award-winning ideas that makes Zubazpants.com the go-to website for dozens of people on Long Island and attending SUNY Buffalo.

So this week, I didn’t come up with any big ideas. In grand tradition of “Column As I See ’Em,” “Ten Things I Think I Thought” and “Lazy Opinion Writer Shortcut #7” here’s my random thoughts about random subjects I randomly thought about while randomly walking through random security checkpoints at the White House. Please note the perforations and lacerations randomly — yet professionally — created on my person by security personnel.

My employer doesn’t pay me enough to post on Craigslist all day! Waaah!
America is a land of people with great intellect, talents, skills and abilities. America is also a land full of whiners, complainers and crybabies.

Some (Indians, black people, etc.) have legitimate grounds for grievances. Others do not, such as Americans currently between the ages of 20-29.

I would assume the years from 20-29 would be among the best of a (middle class) person’s life. Going from the wide open atmosphere of college to taking the first steps into full adulthood, Americans in their 20s live in the most mobile and opportunity laden nation in human history. Compare that to what an 80 year old went through before he turned 20 (worldwide economic depression and genocidal war).

During this time in your life, you’re at the height of your physical attractiveness and vitality. Ask Mom and Dad about liver spots, stretch marks and why packages arrive at the house marked “Enhancement Supplement” every week.

And whatever choices you make (“No, Mom, my faculty career advisor totally assured me poets can get good jobs in New York City”), you have plenty of time to fix mistakes.

Granted, not everything is Peaches and Herb. Sure, some desert rats want to kill us because we don’t pray towards the right city five times a day, but we have 21st century solutions to their 11th century mentality. Our bombs are quite smarter than their bombers.

On the whole, we have it very good. As someone firmly ensconced in his mid-20s, I’m well aware of my high quality of life and the boundless opportunity ahead of me thanks to this great country. (Note: I live in the Washington, D.C. metro area, with one of the highest costs of living in the nation. Whoever uses a high-pressure hose to apply Nancy Pelosi’s makeup has a higher salary than I. I mention this to illustrate I do not make six figures while living in low-cost Casper, Wyoming. I’m certainly not complaining.)

Apparently, most in my cohort do not share my optimism, if one is inclined to believe published reports.

According this story, sixty percent of 18 to 34 year olds are struggling economically, straining for financial independence. This story — and the new crop of books that also chronicle this phenomenon — cite a host of reasons for the uneasy economic footing of America’s young. From skyrocketing health care costs, lower wages and a poor job market, every standard (and left wing) criticism of the economic outlook for young adults is dragged into the light.

But reading a tad deeper into these stories — always accompanied by anecdotes — a common theme emerges.

“Ms. Wingate's goal this year is to pay off credit cards,” according to the story. “She wishes credit cards were not so easy to obtain. ‘When you don't have any food in the refrigerator and a pre-approved credit card is on the counter, it's easy to open that card and activate it,’ she says.”

Hmm.

“Even an Ivy League education is no guarantee of instant financial stability. Jeffrey McDaniel graduated from Dartmouth and his wife, Meghan, from Smith. But in 2002, as they began paying her graduate school tuition and their wedding bills, they did considerable belt-tightening.” (Bold words my addition.)

Ah.

The author of Generation Debt writes “No employer has yet offered me a full-time job with a 401(k), a paid vacation, or any other benefits beyond the next assignment. I have a savings account but no retirement fund. I can't afford preschool fees or a mortgage anywhere near the city where I live and work.”

It seems that instead of rising healthcare costs, low wages and poor job markets, the real glide path to Hooverville is wasteful choices (opening new credit cards), extravagant choices (Ivy League school, expensive wedding), lifestyle choices (city livin’) and a horrible sense of entitlement.

Our parents didn’t buy us video iPods. We hope they die of AIDS.

The whining of people with the best years ahead of them is puzzling — and more than a little infuriating. In ten years — after their earning power has substantially increased (especially the married couple) — they will look back on their youthful naiveté with amusement.

I say, relax, stop trying to model your life after Carrie and Samantha and enjoy living in a Viagra-free household while you can.

What? That? The object that looks like a terrorist training camp? That is a milk factory.
“The former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to The Weekly Standard by eleven U.S. government officials.”

So goes the open paragraph of “Saddam’s Terror Training Camps” by Stephen F. Hayes in the Jan. 16 issue of the conservative magazine.

Hayes’ alleges that between the years 1999 to 2002 (when Saddam was “contained” in his “box” by UN sanctions and no-fly zones), approximately 8,000 Islamic terrorists trained with elite Iraqi military units. The article does not say what they learned (probably not baking cookies) nor does it allege significant al Qaeda involvement (though both the Sudanese Islamic Army and Algerian GSPC earn that all important “al Qaeda affiliate” endorsement that makes all the other terrorists on the playground jealous.)

The information comes from intelligence material captured after the 2003 invasion. Only 50,000 items (letters, video tapes, audio tapes, computer hard drives) of an estimated two million have been translated. So much, much more interesting information is coming.

Of course, caveats must be included. The Weekly Standard is a conservative publication, though that does not automatically mean Republican. The magazine supported the invasion and the re-election of President Bush. The documents themselves have not been released to the public. All we have to go on is faith in the veracity of a reporter and his editors (and his eleven (!) government sources).

And while the Sudanese Islamic Army and Algerian GSPC are not al Qaeda, the former could be Chad Johnson to the latter’s Terrell Owens in terms of headache-causing potential. These Islamic wackos aren’t the number one headache when it comes to Islamic wackos, but it isn’t for a lack of trying.

But, assuming the report is accurate (Hayes is a solid reporter by all accounts), it completely justifies the war. Indeed, if Hussein continued training Islamic terrorists in such large quantities after September 2001 the United States could be faulted for not invading sooner.

International Islamic terrorist organizations thrive when they receive as much state support as possible. Note that the most effective isn’t probably al Qaeda, but Hamas and Hezbollah. Both receive aid from nations across the Middle East, notably Iran, Syria and whatever ramshackle collection of incompetent fools make up the Palestinian government this morning.

So never mind Hussein’s repeated crimes against humanity. Never mind his blatant refusal to comply with treaty provisions he signed after losing a war. Never mind his financial support for families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Never mind his well documented harboring of individual terrorists guilty of committing crimes against Americans.

I am a secular dictator. Pay no attention to the Islamic fundamentalists behind the curtains.

If he destroyed his stockpile of weapons of mass destruction he once had (we still don’t know what happened to them), he simply created another delivery system in the form of 8,000 terrorists. Al Qaeda has stated it as a religious duty to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Though they don’t carry the same name brand as Osama bin Laden’s ilk, I’m sure the graduates of Hussein’s Connecticut School of Terrorism still give two thumbs up to spreading anthrax in American cities.

If true, Hayes’ story jumps out to the early lead for Top Story of 2006. We have direct evidence of Saddam Hussein’s substantive hand in creating a new generation of Islamic terrorists. So, how many in the Mainstream Media (MSM in blog lingo) examined the merits of this claim?

A search of Lexis Nexis turned up a single mention from a BBC website recapping a recap of the story in an Austrialian publication.

So one month after publication, not a single reporter from NBC News, Time or the Washington Post has seen fit to investigate the veracity of the magazine’s claims.

Great. Super. Thanks a lot, guys. At least they’ll have more time for cover stories about Bode Miller and Dick Cheney’s pink tie.

This is quite the big deal. Too bad others don’t agree.

Never mind that great tackle, let’s talk to Tom Brady’s Great Aunt Martha who’s in attendance tonight. Sam?
There are numerous reasons to loathe the Olympic games: inclusion of “extreme” sports like snowboarding, a continual habit of staging games in the capitals of dictatorships (Berlin 1936, Moscow 1980, Beijing 2008), and a reflexive anti-Americanism that knows little bounds.

But the best reason to loathe the Olympics by far is the athlete bio feature piece. Since NBC broadcasted all 200,409 hours of competition on their 47 networks, they needed to fill time and attract as wide an audience as possible. So, we are given the athlete bio piece to get us interested in the participants, because we clearly don’t care about the sports.

You know what I’m talking about. Filmed with the same lens they use to fuzz up Barbara Walters’ decaying visage, it starts with a shot of an empty ice rink in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota or empty swimming pool in Rat’s Ass, Texas. Then, an announcer, in his best Ron Burgundy voice, announces how Mom or Dad or the life partner had to drive little Jimmy or Susie or Kung Lao 100 miles to practice every morning at 6 a.m. Blah blah blah, insert anecdote about a dead grandfather/sibiling/pet, close with “All working towards this one shot at eternal glory,” and boo-bam — the Olympic athlete bio.

Just like Mad Cow disease spreads because the herd eats from the same trough, this notion of “personalizing” athletes spread to other sports. And NFL producers snacked quite healthily at the feeding pen. Did you know the parents of Pittsburgh Steelers’ running back Jerome Bettis have attended virtually every game of Bettis’ career? “Except the game he played in Japan, of course,” says the helpful announcer. Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle.

When the St. Louis Rams faced the Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV, my father, my brother and I counted the number of times Brenda Warner appeared on television. As the wife of St. Louis Quarterback Kurt Warner, Brenda played a key role in the Rams’ 23-17 victory. NFL analysts believe it was her nervous hand wringing that caused Rams’ Head Coach Dick Vermeil to realize, “Hey, maybe Kurt should throw the ball.”

We counted 10 times the camera cut to Brenda in the stands, looking pensive and worried. That was still five short the number of times then-Vice President Al Gore said at the White House Super Bowl party, “I’m from Tennessee, you know.”

The guys who produce and direct weekly football telecasts likely face pressure from their superiors to differentiate their game coverage from the coverage of rival networks. But that doesn’t mean random stuff should be included simply for the sake of including stuff. Football, boys. Just focus on the football.

Digital yellow line that marks the distance to the first down: good.
Talking with Deanne Favre about her handbag: bad.

I think The Onion, in it’s infinite wisdom, got it right when they published a photograph of Kurt Warner’s wife with the caption: “Wire-Haired Man Goblin Cheers Kurt Warner from Sidelines.”

Sure, Frogger is fun, but only because you’re not the frog.
I work in the heart of the capital city of the greatest empire ever — Coruscant. (That’s just a little Star Wars humor, ladies and gentlemen.)
(I so too have a girlfriend.)

Of course, I speak of Washington, D.C., the city without a state to call its own. Every morning I walk to work and every morning I wonder the same thing — what is that smell?

No, wait. That was when I worked in Chinatown. But now I work in the heart of the city’s federal/think tank/interest group axis of evil. Just slightly to my right is the White House. Mere blocks north is infamous K Street where Republicans learned that apparently limited government means “limited to three martinis at lunch.” The District of Columbia is home to noble idealists and venal morons. But nobody can deny the sheer amount of intellectual capital that resides in the city on the Potomac River.

Oh wait, yes you can.
Just try to watch them cross the street.

Except, you really can’t, because at any moment a 35-year old with his Armani suit, shiny wingtips and talking into a Bluetooth cell phone could become a smear because he tried to beat the 16Y Metro bus across the street. That would most definitely put a damper on the day.

I exaggerate for effect only slightly. Maybe it’s the residual swamp gas (D.C. was built on a swamp.)

Maybe it’s the inflated sense of importance (You haven’t lived my friends until you hear a gaggle of pasty 23 year-olds spout military acronyms like they’re ready to parachute into Kandahar holding knives in their teeth).

For whatever reason, a good number of D.C. residents and workers cannot cross the street.

If you don’t believe me, just stand at the corner of Pennsylvania Ave NW and 18th Street NW during rush hour and watch in amazement. It’s a wide street with two-way traffic that takes upwards of 15 seconds to cross depending on your gait.

Much like Fishman’s Gangs of New York, the District’s jaywalkers fit into a select number of defined categories. There are the Oblivious. These poor souls living on borrowed time are too wrapped up in the affairs of the moment (or their iPod) to notice the Ford Escape barreling down on them like that rocket launcher truck from the opening battle in Terminator 2.

A second species of pedestrian is the Minister of Silly Walks. Male, usually clutching at least two items, impeccably dressed, this character chooses dignity over survival. Crossing against the red, he spies an oncoming vehicle. Not wanting to relinquish his dignity gained through possessions and his Master’s Degree, he chooses not to run across the street. Rather, he trots/duck walks across the street with the dignity of a 18th British land baron with a butter churn handle up his butt.

The third and final pedestrian category is one intimately familiar, yet simultaneously alien – women. Their heels too high, their legs too short, each and every female jaywalker is a threat to the vital transportation arteries of our capital. Imagine a terrorist attack against the city. The National Guard snaps to action, mobilizing troops and — bam — gridlock because somebody wearing high heels wanted to look cute for the new intern and couldn’t make it across the road in time.

This list doesn’t include pedestrians who, while clearly possessing the right of way, stride boldly into the street at the exact moment large vehicles are turning right – and directly into them. Sure, you have the right of way, but, uh, a bus can’t stop on a dime. And I don’t know about bus drivers elsewhere, but I wouldn’t trust D.C. Metro bus drivers to be able to stop on a dime.

*Hic* I’m driving the bus. *Hic* In 1985!

When visiting our nation’s capital my advice is take the subway as much as possible. It’s relatively efficient, clean and safe. There are very few accidents. Riders are smart about personal safety and rarely stand too close to the tracks.

I hate that. I have to work that much harder to push the guy in the Armani suit on the tracks.

Questions? Comments? Islamic fundamentalist who trained in Iraq? E-mail me at mlucinski@yahoo.com

Michael Lucinski lives, loves and works in the Washington, D.C. area. He’s a graduate of the University at Buffalo and the George Washington University. If you attended an Iraqi terrorist training camp, please contact these guys too.