Southern California’s Orange County may have emerged from Chapter 9 back in 1996, but the practical, if unofficial, end of its bankruptcy saga was marked by a recently approved bond-refinancing package. [Newsflash for vidiots: The O.C., unlike the Smallville or Genoa City inside your TV, is a REAL place.] Unfortunately, the fog of affliction still hangs over the beach with San Diego now on the brink of insolvency. Worse yet, a new bankruptcy law signed last month by President Bush means neither the city’s indenture to credit card usury nor its profligate medical expenses can simply be erased. Standard & Poor’s has suspended the municipality’s credit rating while investigators from the SEC, FBI, and U.S. Attorney’s Office skirmish over hidden documents and reluctant witnesses. Suspected of the same fiscal sleight of hand that felled Gray Davis and brought us the DUMBFUCKINATOR, Mayor Dick Murphy resigned to prepare for his upcoming defense. In his stead comes Deputy Mayor and City Councilman Michael Zucchet, currently under indictment for accepting bribes from a strip club. But here’s the good news: reversing a ban on lap dancing means San Diego could use strippers to recover the city’s $1.6 billion pension shortfall.

The difference between California and Florida is that a felon on the West Coast carries a briefcase and drives a Bentley while his counterpart works in a meth lab and lives in a trailer. Why just this week Governor Jeb Bush bestowed the coveted Points of Light Award to residents of the Lake Region Mobile Home Park, calling them “a shining example of a community.” The next day, Mr. Bush held Florida’s ceremonial pen as National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer signed Senate Bill 0436 into law. The statute grants any person “the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm.” Hammer explained: “I think the message to criminals is going to be; you break into a home, you run the risk of being shot. You attack people on the street, you run the risk of being shot. You glance sideways before making a lane change, you run the risk of being shot.” Rep. Dan Gelber (D – Miami Beach), a former federal prosecutor, was one of only 19 lawmakers to vote against the bill. “Two people in an altercation, that happens every day. Someone thinks you’re looking at their wife the wrong way, somebody spills coffee on you… Do we tell those people that they’re supposed to walk away, or do we tell them that you’re supposed to stand your ground and fight to the death?”

By way of contrast, you can, with insouciance, enter any bar in Phoenix or Tucson and ogle any pair of tits in the joint. Thanks to Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano’s veto, a law permitting citizens to carry weapons into establishments that serve alcohol (including restaurants, stadiums, and Catholic churches) failed to take effect. As such, South Beach is no longer the place to pick up chicks: Because even if you don’t take a bullet, you can still wind up with a mouthful of sperm.

Confining herself to oral ingestion might have helped a 13-year-old Florida girl who was denied an abortion by Judge Ronald Alvarez. The teen, known only as “LG,” is living under the auspices of the infamous Department of Children and Families. She had, according to a caseworker, run away from a state shelter five times, and was missing for a month when she got knocked up. That the DCF had failed during any of these episodes to notify the police didn’t sit well with the judge: “To say I am angry is an understatement.” Despite this and the fact that in 2003 the Florida Supreme Court struck down a law requiring parental notification, Alvarez pulled a Biden and sided with the agency. The ACLU quickly filed an appeal, arguing that forcing a 13-year-old girl to have a baby against her will is both cruel and unusual. More harrowing is the probability that LG will be forced, after delivery, to give her child up for adoption. As she told the court: “It would make no sense to have the baby. I’m 13, I’m in a shelter and I can’t get a job.”

Somewhere between your iPod and your neighbor’s TiVo lies advertising’s graveyard. Consumers fed up with Corporate America’s end-around attempt to deliver commercials over the Internet are fighting back with spam filters and pop-up blockers. Companies blessed with familiar brands (Nike, Mercedes) are thus left to crudely plaster their logos around like spray-can wielding taggers. A more sophisticated, if insidious, approach is the use of product placement. Because we tune out during intermission, companies have begun advertising within the narrative, like when Carrie Bradshaw fell in love with Manolo Blahnik or when Reese’s Pieces lured E.T. out of the woods. The first of its kind, the “E.T.” deal offered a new way of marketing; the film’s unprecedented success pushed sales of the Hershey’s candy up 64%. The scheme was originally pitched to Mars, Inc. (M&Ms), but management, crippled by the acumen customarily displayed by studio executives, saw no potential in a movie about an alien.

It looked, momentarily, like the folks over at Wendy’s turned the “placement” concept on its head when they garnished a bowl of chili with a human finger. Facing a lawsuit from customer Anna Ayala, the hamburger chain offered a $100,000 reward to the digit’s biological owner. Unfortunately for McDonald’s, the whole thing turned out to be a ruse and Ayala, no stranger to the spurious lawsuit, was arrested on charges of larceny. Still, even this bastion is under attack by a commercial-weary public. Movie Mask and ClearPlay, two software rivals, enable you to edit films without physically altering DVDs. Ostensibly designed to sensor sex and violence, these systems let you skip over any elements you deem problematic. Trying to keep your chubby youngster off junk food? Just zap out those salacious close-ups of Pepperidge Farm cookies or Lay’s potato chips lurking in “The Pacifier.”

Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville has had his fill, too. His honor will not let prosecution witness Kassim Abdool mention the “Vaseline incident” during the Michael Jackson trial. Disappointed prosecutor Tom Sneddon had filed a motion claiming that when Abdool returned to M.J.’s bedroom with a bucket of lube, the singer “appeared sweaty, aroused, and Abdool observed Jackson to have an erection under his pajama bottoms. There was a young boy, who he believed was Jordan Chandler [the 1993-94 accuser] in the bedroom with Mr. Jackson.” Melville remained unbowed though he did, after cautioning against identifying brands of bath products, allow another ex-Neverland employee to testify that Jackson blew the same boy in a shower stall. As for Abdool’s version of events, defense lawyers question the veracity of his excluded testimony, while others cynically theorize that the petroleum jelly producer was simply trying to get a leg up on the competition.

Whether they used Astroglide, K-Y Jelly or Big Jim’s Skid n’ Slide, the President and Crown Prince Abdullah did little to dispel rumors that, for generations, the Bushes have been in bed with the Saudis. When W. begged his Highness to lower oil prices, the hand was tipped as to who’s face would be in the pillow. No matter, Bush took it like a man and, unashamed in the aftermath of such diplomatic intimacy, held Abdullah’s hand in public.

Everyone, regardless of his or her particular sexual proclivity, is affected by the weather. No one, perhaps, more so than Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA). The senator was paid nearly $4,000 by executives at AccuWeather to introduce legislation banning the National Weather Service from posting climatological information on the Internet. You know, stuff that has no place in the public domain like tornado and hurricane warnings. Don’t get me wrong, Santorum doesn’t want to abolish the NWS altogether; under his proposal the agency would still receive taxpayer funding but would be unable to publish any data or forecasts. That would leave those of us who are packing for a trip or dressing the kids for school to pay again, this time to commercial outfits like AccuWeather and the Weather Channel. What’s next for Senator Rick, taking contributions from FedEx and UPS as a quid pro quo for keeping the post office from delivering mail? I guess nothing is beyond the imagination for a man who brought a dead fetus home to his 6-, 4-, and 1-year-old so the children could “absorb and understand that they had a brother.” Would that Santorum’s offspring could absorb and understand that dad is one sick fuck, better suited to the Norristown State Mental Hospital than the U.S. Senate.

Ever since the 2004 election, Ohio has displaced Florida as the locus of voter fraud, becoming, in effect, the tipping point for our demise. The good news for the tourist-hungry pimps at the Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce is that the Sunshine State will forever be regarded as ground zero in the Terri Schiavo crusade. One can only imagine the various “right to life” destinations (the hallway where she first collapsed, the operating room where her feeding tube was originally inserted) and cheap souvenirs (Terri’s official line of drool bibs and adult diapers) marketed to the hapless pilgrims pouring in from the Bible Belt. But beware; the most zealous religious fanatics won’t be easily swayed.

Some of these folks believe that Jeb Bush, who refused in the final hours to grant custody to the Department of Children and Family Services, became an instrument of Terri’s death. But we need to be fair to the Governor; there is no guarantee that the welfare agency could have kept her alive anyways. These are the same folks that lost 5-year-old Rilya Wilson. A subsequent review, you may recall, found caseworkers unable to account for nearly 1,000 children ostensibly under their supervision. Larry Pintacuda, the department’s assistant secretary of operations, explained the recovery process: “You just hope and pray that nothing happens, and you do your darnedest to find them.” Hopefully, the fate of these kids was better than that visited upon Sarah Lunde and Jessica Lundsford. Both Florida girls were recently sexually assaulted and murdered by registered sex offenders. The crimes, while heinous, were entirely preventable. David Onstott and John Couey should have been in prison but were out on parole because Mr. Bush, apparently, disagreed with the sentencing imposed by those out-of-control “activist judges.” And who thought Willie Horton would come back through that revolving door and bite the Bushes in the ass?

When a family dog goes to the Great Kennel in the sky, the household is invariably consumed with mourning: the kids won’t eat, their schoolwork slides and Mom completely let’s herself go – forgetting all about deodorant and shampoo. And then, all of a sudden, the black veil is lifted, slurped away by the wet kisses of a new puppy. The droopy ears, the clumsy mien. And with all that damn poop to pick up, no one even remembers Old Yeller anymore. And so it is for the Pope. One day his death watch is all over CNN, and the next he becomes a footnote.

Clearly, the laity doesn’t just pop down to the local pet store. So how does the Church anoint a new Pontiff? Simply, the highest-ranking prelates take a vote. In the old days, these things used to go on endlessly – Pope Gregory X was selected after nearly three years of squabbling – and so, over time, strict rules have been implemented to speed things up. Nowadays, the Cardinals are locked away in the Sistine Chapel and, while cut off from the outside world, elect the Pope’s successor. Yet, the Cardinals, during this process, are not to be alone. According to Univers Dominice Gregis no. 46, they are joined in their sequestration by several confessors, two doctors and a bevy of “service attendants.” Under rules imposed in 1274, food is reduced to bread and water after the third day of deliberations. Further motivation was instituted in 1555 when Marcellus II decreed that after the fifth tally, all young boys (read: service attendants) and personal lubricants shall be removed from the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

It’s no surprise, then, that it took only 24 hours and two ballots to confirm upon Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger the mantle of Pope Benedict XVI. Among Ratzinger’s eminent qualifications was his tenure as dean of the College of Cardinals and his membership in Germany’s Hitler Youth Organization. Herr Joseph wistfully recalls his participation while attending the St. Michael Seminary in 1941. So much so that his first official foray beyond the Vatican will be to Cologne in August to preside over the World Youth Day rally. Regrettably, Leni Reifenstahl won’t be available. There are 1.1 billion Catholics on this planet, and if each one tithed just one dollar to General Motors, the automaker could post a breakeven quarter, and, perhaps, the Church could atone for its latest sin.

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The presidential commission on intelligence and WMDs failed, in its recent report, to further illuminate the events encompassing 9/11 and the ill-advised invasion of Iraq. In short, the government willingly tossed aside the testimony of Hans Blix and Mohamed El Baradei, and chose instead to build a case for war on the pixilated histrionics of someone named “Curveball.” The FBI and CIA, to paraphrase, are inept, politically corrupt, sophomoric fraternities, consumed both by internecine skirmishes and interagency turf wars. Our borders are sieves, our ports unguarded and any semblance of intelligence sharing – which would have precluded the hijackers from entering our country in the first place – remains a matter of pure fantasy. In a word, we’re fucked.

Or are we? In a paradigm-shifting display of cross-departmental coordination, the FAA barred passengers from carrying cigarette lighters onto commercial airliners while at the same time a FDA advisory panel lifted the ban on silicone gel breast implants. Margie Grigsby of the Amalgamated Union of Flight Attendants beamed: “Now we don’t have to worry about our tits melting while we reach over to those window seats.”

The Senate, meanwhile, delayed a vote on the nomination of John Bolton as U.N. Ambassador. Bolton’s troubles stem from a series of statements in which he incrementally erases the world body from the administration’s consciousness: “It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law… If the U.N. Secretariat building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference… There’s no such thing as the United Nations.” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) was left to muse, “Where, then, will he go when he leaves for work in the morning?” To be fair, Bolton’s distain for the United Nations is well founded. Secretary General Kofi Annan’s son pilfered, without consequence, $700,000 from the Iraqi Food for Oil Program, while U.N. troops in Kosovo and the Congo routinely forced refugee children into having sex in exchange for supplies.

None of these secular consternations, however, could dampen the spirits of the Christian Right this week. Terri Schiavo and the Pope may have been lost to history, but Born Again fundamentalists are nonetheless trumpeting victory. It’s as if they pulled a Roman slave out of the blood-soaked maw of a Coliseum lion. Hallelujah for Eric Rudolph who joined the “culture of life” via a plea bargain with federal prosecutors. Authorities agreed not to pursue the death penalty when Rudolph admitted killing two people and wounding dozens more in four separate bombing attacks. Rudolph is worshiped between the pews because two of his blasts targeted abortion clinics while another hit a gay nightclub. Of course setting off an explosive device at the 1996 of the Olympic Games in Atlanta didn’t look so good, but, hey, no one’s perfect.

So you may lose a few along the way. The good news is that The God Squad, unlike the U.S. military, is having little trouble attracting new recruits. Guitarist Brian “Head” Welch formally left the nu metal band Korn to become, in his words, “a baby Christian.” The discordant ensemble inexplicably sold millions of CDs over the last decade, enough, even to justify a greatest hits compilation. One spin of their angry, anti-social lyrics and any mystery surrounding their success is swiftly dispelled:

Somehow, why lay
Broke, the pain between her thighs
I see your pretty face,
Smashed against the bathroom floor!

Or the ever catchy:

The rag I’m on, we are justified
Ball Tongue!
Congrats you just fucked up my make-up and shit
Ball Tongue!

Perhaps “Head” was miffed that The Library of Congress spurned Korn while selecting Nirvana’s Nevermind and Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet for archival preservation. Perhaps the well of poetry has run dry. In any event, Welch seeks to turn his young fans away from violence: “I want to say to them, ‘Hey kids, come over here. Let’s bounce back and forth and have fun.’” A solo act for less than a month and he already sounds like Michael Jackson.

In politics, as in life, hindsight is construed to be 20/20. This dorsal visual acuity should be unsparingly used, according to cynics, to back over anything you may hit with your car, as it is always better to commit a heinous crime without survivors than a lesser one with witnesses. Yet, on occasion, those beyond the grave stubbornly continue to operate among the living: Tupac still cranks out CDs, the Pope has scuttled Prince Charles’ apostatic nuptials, and Terri Schiavo is fast becoming the poster child for judicial reform.

Reviewing the Wreckage: Republicans passed a law wending Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube through the arms of the thankfully recalcitrant federal court system. Knowing that dissenting votes would be used against them in the next election cycle, Democrats again failed to stand on principle and scurried away like cockroaches during the klieg-lit proceedings.

Postmortem: The Left went all limp even though the vast majority of the polity believes legislators were wrong to tamper with the Schindler’s private battle. Joining that opinion is the 11th Circuit Chief Judge J.L. Edmonson who scorned “activist judge”-bashing members of “the legislative and executive branches of our government [who] have acted in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers’ blueprint for the governance of a free people.” Obviously, any law that applies to only one person by definition violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Nonetheless, lawyers funded by the religious right fervently, if unsuccessfully, continued up and down state and federal courts.

As the shadows grew longer, the Schindlers grew increasingly desperate. In an attempt to publicly demonstrate Terri’s capabilities (and, thus, potential for recovery) her parents pointed out that she managed to get Jesse Jackson and Tom Delay to lick each other’s balls. When the courts remained unmoved, the family decided to call upon the one man who could pull a rabbit out of a hat – Johnnie Cochran. Learning that Cochran had just died of a brain tumor, a defiant Mary Schindler said, “No problem; we’ll just get Jeb Bush to pop a feeding tube down his nose, and after a shave and quick shower, he’ll be more than ready for trial.”

This particular case was plucked, for strategic reasons, from the thousands of right-to-die decisions wrestled with every month. Republicans went so far as to distribute a memo calling the episode a “great political issue” that was “tough for Democrats” – especially Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) who faces re-election next year. Remember, even the Pope refused medical treatment at the end, preferring, as most do, to pass away at home. Oddly, what felled the Pontiff at the last was a urinary tract infection, probably contracted during the course of treatment at the Gemelli Polyclinic. Unnamed hospital sources in Rome acknowledge that one of John Paul’s caregivers may have exposed him to a case of figa sporca.

Through a Cracked Windshield: Before the government dictates when you should die, or, until that time, what brand of breakfast cereal you can eat, it’s best to know what lies in front of you. Hypocrisy.

And, no, Dr. Frist, this is not what’s meant by the Hippocratic Oath. The Senate Majority Leader and erstwhile heart surgeon admits to pulling the plug on failing patients “on a regular basis.” Moreover, in his book, Transplant, Frist advocates killing anencephalic babies essentially by performing a fourth trimester abortion.

Over on the House side, Tom DeLay likened his third ethics investigation to the vegetative martyrdom of Terri Schiavo. Calling her protracted torment a gift from God, he declared, “So it’s bigger than any one of us, and we have to do everything that is in our power to save [her] and anybody else that may be in this kind of position. This is exactly the issue that’s going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others.” Oh, did I mention that DeLay – a former exterminator – turned out the lights on his comatose father back in 1988?

George W. Bush, for his part, executed more people as Governor of Texas, than those two kids at Columbine High. He also signed the Advance Directives Act allowing Texas hospitals to disconnect patients from life support if a physician, in consult with either the hospital’s bioethics committee or billing department, deems the situation hopeless. Just last week a five-month-old baby was terminated against his mother’s wishes. Now as President he seeks to extinguish, by way of budget cuts and tort reform, the two sources of funds that supported Terri’s care: Medicaid and malpractice awards. At $80,000 a year they must have been filling her G-tube with foie gras and Veuve Cliquot, but if the Republicans wanted her alive they should have been willing to pay the freight.

Meanwhile, Florida Governor and White House hopeful Jeb Bush has loosed over 15 cases of a lethal strain of E. coli at two agricultural fairs. One death has already been reported. The state, apparently, failed to provide hand-washing facilities adjacent to petting zoos. Across the state line in Alabama, Republican Governor Bob Riley is trying to drop coverage for 13-year-old Lauren Rainey, a severely handicapped girl who requires a suction tube to breathe.

In the final analysis, a bunch of opportunistic politicians seized on the notion that a bulimic should be fed against her will and that you, despite your inclinations, should pay the bill. We have sent the National Guard halfway around the world to protect us from religious fanatics. Maybe it’s time to bring them home.