he U.S. may have a new Attorney General by this time next month, one who makes John Ashcroft seem like a reasonable candidate for the job. Alberto Gonzales, possibly the world's most Hilteresque Hispanic-American, is set for confirmation and expected to get all the votes needed for appointment, even though he has still been defending his record on human rights. On Friday, Gonzales attempted to clarify some of his previous statements, including one made in a memo from September of 2001, stating, "America will feast on terrorists' bones when the sun falls on this war."

Gonzales, nicknamed "Francisco Franco-American" by this reporter just now, has been accused of creating the Bush White House position on human rights—summed up by the statement, "Human rights? Huh?" In his former position as White House counsel, Gonzales, miraculously keeping the president out of jail for four years, challenged that prisoners taken without evidence and without due process in the War on Terror were not subject to the same protections as other soldiers imprisoned during wartime under the codes of the Geneva conventions.

In other feats of jaw-dropping "what the fuck," Gonzales challenged the very definitions of torture accepted around the world. Previous definitions, based on ideas of "cruel and unusual punishment," were replaced with the even more ambiguous definition of "excruciating and agonizing pain." At least with this definition, Ashton Kutcher movies are now officially designated torture.

"Unusual punishment? What's so bad about unusual punishment?" defended Gonzales in Friday's seven-hour testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday. "If I get a bare-bottom spanking from Mamie Van Doren, it might unusual, but I say that doesn't qualify as torture. And those guys in Camp X-Ray—they got it so good it ought to be illegal. I mean, it probably would be, if it were on American soil. But you know what I mean."

Asked if the attorney's arguments against the Geneva conventions opened the door for the abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, Gonzales pretended not to hear the question. Asked again, he pretended not to know what Abu Ghraib was. After a lengthy recount of the many incidents of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, Gonzales gave a more definite response.

"Nah. Probably not," said the attorney.

Gonzales then took a firmer stance, saying the pictures of abuse, which he owned plenty of in his personal collection, were "people who were morally bankrupt having fun." At least, continued Gonzales, it "looked like a lot of fun."

The attorney, who had by now pitted out his entire suit with sweat, was asked to clarify the infamous statement on eating the bones of terrorists.

"I was paraphrasing the Jolly Green Giant," answered Gonzales. "Or whoever that guy was. The one whose home was invaded by the tiny terrorist who stole his golden goose. We will use their bones, meaning the terrorists', to butter our bread. That's all I meant to say. I apologize if the meaning was taken that we will actually be eating the bones straight out of their bodies. I don't believe that would be very appetizing for most Americans. Not at all. Anyway, if we do it, nobody has to watch—is that the problem here?"

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter comically threw all his papers up in the air at that point, mugged for the grandstand, and told the people, "Well, I frankly don't see a problem here…"

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First off, do you know the names of those damn Umpa Lumpas who released their wreath on me? I think I might have winged one of them with an empty whiskey bottle, but those buggers do scurry off rather fast. Really, I just want to give the thing back, it's a pretty nice wreath. Lots of little chipmunk heads on it, with nametags like "Alvin" and "Dale". Quite strange. I don't think I've ever seen a blue chipmunk before... "Smurfette?" Quite an odd name for a chipmunk.

Anyway, I left a note on the window of their Suburban (silly little Lumpas, running off and leaving their truck parked in front of my place) saying they could come by and pick up the wreath some time, but you know... I don't think those little buggers can read all that well. I've heard bad things about the school system in that Chocolate Factory. A terrible Lumpa-to-Wonka ratio.

That was phonetically a very strange sentence. Lumpa-to-Wonka ratio? Sounds like a Native American classic rock station. "You're listening to Loompatuwanka Radio! Keep on rockin' in the free Res!" Man, all I'm saying is get a piece of me now before somebody buys up the sitcom rights.

See what you people do to me? I'm babbling like a brook. And not even a very smart brook, more like a Brooke Shields.

I'm really starting to wonder if I returned that paperback copy of "Steel Magnolias" I was borrowing from Lil Duncan. Man, I probably put it in the drop slot at Hollywood Video again. I'm always doing that with my library books, dry cleaning, and urine samples. Though I have to admit the book was a bit of a disappointment. I though it was going to be one of those futuristic techno-thrillers. I mean, hell, if John Wayne's real name can be Busty McSugarhips then I'm willing to accept a half-man half-cyborg superhero named Magnolias. Uh...

Just to set the record straight right now, before it's a problem, I take serious offense at the bashing of my hometown. Regardless of what you may have heard, my family's ancestral Crack Plantation is a national tourist attraction and a serious boon for the state's economy. We provide the brain-shellacking nutrient-rich rock cocaine that makes life, and ABC's primetime line-up, bearable for over 20 million Americans. And I feel proud to come from a town where you can lean out the window of your car and scream "WELL I'LL BE DIPPED IN SHIT!!" at pedestrians without eliciting even the slightest reaction from their oceanized eyes. So there.

And right now, somewhere near Pasadena, there is a young man with a Rastafarian haircut who understands what in the hell that has to do with anything. Trust me.

-ding-

Ooooh! Junk-Email! No time!

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Modern mysteries come in all shapes and sizes, from the five-toed horny gorilla to the location of the island where they breed reality show contestants. But some of the most vexing mysteries of all come in the blandest of blandishments. Sometimes they slip under our radar in plastic-windowed envelopes, without any kind of Unsolved Mysteries theme music alerting us to their mysterious presence.

The only thing harder to read than an epileptic doing sign language or Spanish scribbled on a men's room wall is the modern cell phone bill. We live in a society where experts can catch a killer based on the velocity at which the blood hit the beanie baby display case, but there doesn't seem to be a person on the planet who can tell you what the fruity hell is going on with your phone bill. We have scholars who can read hieroglyphics, cave drawings and the handwriting in hip-hop album liner notes, but even they throw up their hands in disgust when you ask them what a Cross-Promotional Technolocality fee is or why you're being charged for Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Removal. And this isn't only because you called them up at home in the middle of the night from a bar and they couldn't hear your question over the Phil Collins blaring in the background. They just don't know.

However, all that is unknown may not be unknowable. It may just be that no one has ever had the balls to rip the phony rubber Richard Nixon mask off the truth. And believe you me, there is truth behind the cowardly jargon that clogs your phone bill like Cher's decapitated head stuck in a toilet. Icky truth.

Phone bill jargon is all about telecommunications companies needing to give you a "deal" to get your business, but being genetically incapable of actually giving you a deal. If they actually managed to give you a bargain, their fat-cat golfing buddies would never let them hear the end of it, and might actually call into question whether they're really white or actually a member of some deceptively near-white-looking minority group. That, and they're greedy as fuck. So you can rule out not being bent over the barrel by the phone companies, that's just a fact of life.

However, everybody likes to feel like they're getting a bargain, so the phone companies developed a clever ploy to lower their rates while actually raising their rates. They gradually shifted more and more of their expenses into itemized fees and taxes that aren't included in your standard rate. So now your cell phone plan is only $40 a month instead of $60, but they're charging you $22 in made-up fees and official-sounding taxes on the back end of the bill. Washington capitulated because they liked the sound of the word and wanted to put "capitulating" on their résumés.

So now you open your cell phone bill and it's like you let a bunch of greedy leprechauns loose who are running around and grabbing whatever they can get their dirty little mitts on. There's one called the Federal Programs Cost Recovery Fee. This is to reimburse the phone companies for all the money they spent lobbying to get all of these fees and taxes okayed by the bureaucrats. Another is called the Universal Connectivity Fee, which is universal because everyone has to pay it, and it covers the cost of the phone company making sure everything is plugged in.

Telephone Number Pooling fees cover the cost of phone company employees picking out phone numbers that spell embarrassing words on the keypad when they're supposed to be working. Wireless Number Portability is a fee to offset the money phone companies are losing to cell phones, while the Audible Proximity fee is to offset the money cell phones are losing to people being in the same room and talking.

Enhanced 911 is a feature that plays a little animation of a guy getting carjacked next to a funny cartoon policeman sleeping in his cruiser with little Z's coming out of his head while you're waiting for 911 to connect you with a dispatcher. The Relay Service and Communication Devices Fund covers the cost of connecting calls to land-based phones, while the Telecommunications Relay Service Surcharge connects you to phones shaped like footballs and other novelty items.

The Universal Service Fund Surcharge is a fee paid to Universal Studios to recoup their losses from people who are talking on their cell phones so much they're not scared by the big jumping shark on the tram ride. The Federal Exercise Tax is meant to recoup the strain on the health care system caused by you talking on your cell phone instead of exercising.

The so-called State Regulatory Fee is also known at the Don Knotts Surcharge, which guarantees that you will never, ever, be telephoned by Don Knotts at any time. The FCC Access Charge covers lawsuits against the phone company brought by people who've had movies, meals, sporting events, urinations, wedding vows and evening commutes ruined by some idiot yakking on his cell phone.

Last but certainly not least, the Trans-Continental Deactivation fee is the charge for them to pull their dick out of your ass after they're done fucking you.

Likewise, you're taxed by the states, counties, cities, and special taxing districts you're calling to and from, and by Burt Shyman from Oak Grove, CT, who invented the dropped call. And you're also paying to not have your phone number listed in Serial Killer Magazine, and for the expenses incurred by the phone company while they're selling your phone number to every disabled reindeer charity, opinion survey group and credit card company in the nation.

The deeper you probe into this mystery, the murkier it becomes, kind of like Ronald Reagan's brain. Stare too long and you may come away cross-eyed, or sterile. One thing is clear, however: If it's not cell phone radiation giving us these brain tumors, it's the bills.

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