AUSTIN, Texas -- One rarely sees a thoroughly bad idea advanced by government. Lots of stuff from silly to smelly gets done, but somebody usually benefits, even if it's not the American people. But can anyone see an upside to having an office of government propaganda with an official license to lie?

They say if you fight someone long enough, you become like your enemy, but this Soviet notion is such a bummer it was useless even to them back in the day. But the Bush administration is apparently determined to bring us not one but two bureaus of propaganda. The "Office of Strategic Influence" -- isn't that a beauty? -- at the Pentagon will use "the media, the Internet and a range of covert operations to try to influence public opinion and government policy abroad, including in friendly nations," according to The New York Times. "Strategic Information" will include both information and disinformation. Disinformation, in case you haven't figured it out, is made of lies.

Then on top of that gem, the Bush administration also proposes "a permanent office of global diplomacy to spread a positive image of the

The disaster that unfolded before our eyes on September 11th has generated a number of articles attempting to explain how this event could have occurred. The majority of these articles tended to start with one of two assumptions. The first assumed that the perpetuators of this crime were purely madmen, religious fanatics incapable of comprehension. Consequently, theses articles required little in the form of analysis, relying primarily on code words anchored by a crass nationalism.

The second assumed that the perpetrators while indeed criminals, nevertheless were not simply madmen and religious fanatics but driven to their actions by some force no matter how perverted. Consequently, these articles were less popular with the public given their seemingly non-patriot stance and more difficult to write since they required, to a certain degree at least, some self reflection primarily that of United States foreign policy.

AUSTIN, Texas -- As I write, the most riveting television drama imaginable is being played out on C-Span, of all places.

The U.S. House of Representatives is debating campaign finance reform, and it's one of those days when all citizens should be political junkies. It doesn't get better than this -- the stakes couldn't be higher, the tension couldn't be thicker, the theater is superb. Passion, drama, comedy, hypocrisy, devious plot devices, splendid villains, noble heroes ... this is just the best. The casting director has a spectacular imagination: Tom DeLay and Dick Armey alternating in the role of Iago -- wow.

Speaker Dennis Hastert himself called the innocuous-sounding Shays-Meehan bill "Armageddon" for the Republican Party. Actually, it's more like "The Perils of Pauline," in which the dastardly villain keeps tying the helpless heroine (in this case, the Shays-Meehan bill) to the railroad tracks again. They've tried to kill this poor bill so many times and in so many ways, it's become slightly ludicrous.

In the 19th century, when politics was a popular pastime, this

DEA Backs Down in Face of Imminent Court Action

ARLINGTON, VA -- The Drug Enforcement Administration handed a victory to the multimillion-dollar-a-year hemp food industry last night when they told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit they will extend the "grace period" for hemp food products that contain "any THC." The extension reassures retailers stocking and selling hemp food products that, for the next 40 days, the DEA will not commence enforcement action. Ultimately, the hemp food industry expects to prevail against the DEA's attempt to ban hemp foods because Congress exempted nutritious hemp seed and oil from regulation (see 21 U.S.C. §802(16)), and the trace infinitesimal THC in hemp seed and oil is not psychoactive and does not interfere with workplace drug-testing (see http://www.TestPledge.com).

Lawyers representing the Hemp Industries Association (HIA) and several major hemp food companies went to court Wednesday when it was apparent the DEA intended to enforce its October 9th "interpretive rule" banning foods with "any THC." DEA told Whole Foods, the

LANSING, Mich -- Here in the home of the Lansing Lugnuts, the local baseball team named after the town's premier product, is also to be found a unique work of art -- a statue of a lugnut on a tall column. Just further evidence of America's greatness.

Speaking of Americana, you can't have a scandal in this country without some special input from Texas, that famous je ne sais quoi for which we are so noted. We offer the following delicious details for your delectation.

Last June, Gov. Rick "Goodhair" Perry (he has very good hair) appointed an Enron executive to be chairman of the state Public Utilities Commission, because this is Texas and whom else would you put on the commission that regulates energy companies but an energy company executive?

The next day, Perry got a $25,000 donation from Ken Lay. We might have worried about this, but Perry has cleared up the whole thing. The timing, he said, was "totally coincidental." We were all greatly relieved to learn this, since some with dirty minds might have thought there was a