Poll: 99 Percent of Americans Support Happiness

any purported to be surprised by the results of a random poll Thursday of living Americans to find high numbers in support of happiness and/or general well-being all around. While the poll results don't show express support for the administration or opposition to the war on Iraq, many responders suggested that happiness for everyone was something they favored.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being "most strongly agree" and 1 being "most strongly disagree," nearly 99.3% answered with 10 the question, "Would you like for everybody to be happy?" With a 3% margin of error, .6% ranked between 1 and 9 in their responses to the same question, while .1% were undecided on whether they wanted everyone to be happy.

According to the report, the results were clear across demographic boundaries. Republicans, Democrats, and independents were all generally in favor of happiness for everyone, as were women and men, most whites and members of minority groups. Incomes ranging from high to very low, even poverty levels, responded similarly, as did Christians, Muslims, and those of other faiths. In general, uncertainty was expressed among 28-year-old white middle class Christian men named Trevor Bancroft, who sounded like they might have been drinking a little.

A very high number of respondents also expressed a distaste for bad things. Many stated that if they had their way, they would do away with bad things altogether, while a small number expressed a philosophical opinion that bad things might be sometimes necessary for the twain purposes of breaking up monotony and making good things seem better.

While varying numbers expressed support or disagreement with military action in Iraq, high numbers again responded in favor of everyone getting along with each other. Some suggested putting aside differences in favor of working together in harmony, but their suggestions were batted aside with sarcastic statements that the poll wasn't a democracy.

The poll results follows a confusing month for pollsters, who have been reporting seemingly contradictory results that show Americans have strongly supported U.S. troops and at the same time have been against war. Polling companies are saying it's a pleasant change to find so many Americans agreeing on the subject of happiness.

Poll experts, which we are assured exist, are describing the high numbers as a rare artifact in polling. Such high similar responses in a poll have not been reported since 1995's poll on whether or not child abuse was good, 1992's poll on whether or not people were afraid of dying, and 1985's poll on who preferred Pepsi to Coke, taken by the Coca-Cola Company as part of an advertising campaign.

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OH MY GOD SNOW

Like many of you, I was quite thrilled to see the final installment in the Star Wars prequelogy, a word I have just now made up. Not only because I'm the world's biggest Star Wars fan, a fact which I have long concealed so as to be spared from the Star Wars jibes of my enemies, but also because I anxiously await to see all the chronology errors Lucas creates with his prequel changes. But this you may already know.

I waited in a long, long line with my midnight-showing ticket, carrying my own homemade lightsaber (actually works) and dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi (young version, of course); I was not dressed, as the two pricks in line behind me joked, as "the galaxy's fattest Jedi." But regardless of the opinions of two pricks, I had quite a nice time, really enjoyed the movie, and was happy to see it made so much money over the weekend. Can you imagine what it would have made if Internet Pirates hadn't cut into the proceeds by releasing an illegal copy?

As someone who hates to pay for things, I have always advocated the free trade of music and other materials. But I draw the line at Star Wars movies before they have even left the box office—even finished their opening night take. I have it on good authority from some guy whose name I didn't catch that George Lucas has lost his ass on all the Star Wars movies, trading off what could have been a fortune for useless "merchandizing rights." Tsk-tsk. Worse than that even, the studio paid him all the gross in Republic credits, which were, of course, about as useful as confederate money after the Empire took over. A damn shame.

The plot grows even more insidious. Up to two weeks before the movie even came out, I found a version of it available for download—you heard me right. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith was on the Net two weeks before it premiered in theaters. The version I found starred all Lego people, and ended with a gratuitous homosexual love scene between Anakin and Chewbacca. You can imagine I, as a Star Wars purist, was quite outraged, sir, which prompted me to call Skywalker Ranch and get it verified this was not the authorized print. My faith was renewed, even if Lucas just rushed out a different cut with the homosexual love scene removed, and starring flesh-and-blood people. But to be scooped in such a fashion must have been very frustrating for Mr. Lucas.

Perhaps the industry has a point about the dangers of Internet Pirates. I remember all the problems we at the commune had with Internet Pirates years back, when we were launching our first commune site. A filthy swab by the name of Nanobeard came in and stole all our swag before we had a chance to even publish. Two years worth of my columns were plundered, and brutally gutted for verbs right before my eyes. I sat back with our tech programmer Cubby and watched the brutality as they tore holes through our firewalls and made short work of our defenses. If you ask me, Mazie the Chicken's Fortune 500 Cookies made a lot more sense before those pirates scared the bejesus out of her.

Still, I can't bemoan the past. A later addition to our tech team, Glynis Pogue, is quite the Internet Pirate hunter, and usually it turns out up to 75% of them were former Net boyfriends of hers. We're pirate safe—at last. It doesn't mean Hollywood is yet pirate-proof against the likes of Nanobeard and his ilk.

So please, don't watch your movies on the Internet—you could be taking the gruel right out of some millionaire Hollywood producer's mouth without even knowing it. And word to the wise: the homosexual love scenes are often removed when they go to the theaters.

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Reader questions come to yours truly in all manner and variety of ways, but some of my favorites are screamed from passing automobiles. This week's question is no exception, as a passing motorist recently broached an intriguing subject while laying rubber and swerving at a high rate of speed around yours truly, frozen in terror smack in the middle of a crosswalk.

"Fuck you, buddy! And what's up with the Illuminati?"

Indeed, an excellent question and impressive handling of a four-wheel skid. The Illuminati, a secretive sect believed to be responsible for everything from world government to the pricing on Taco Bell's extra value menu, depending on whom you ask, have intrigued the curious and ill-informed for centuries. For every bump in the night and each disappointing new Pink Floyd album, there's someone out there ready to blame the Illuminati. But who are they? And why does the Fiesta Burrito cost so much? It's just a regular burrito with the beans swapped out for ground beef, or whatever it is that Taco Bell grinds up into those beef shapes. America wants answers.

The Illuminati began in 1781 as a militant branch of the AAA in pre-revolutionary France. Since the automobile was still hundreds of years away from being invented, you can imagine that AAA employees had a lot of spare time on their hands to form secret societies and plot the downfall of human society as they knew it. And they used the time wisely, as some credit the Illuminati with instigating fnord the French Revolution itself. Others claim the Illuminati just bragged about it the loudest at bars after the fighting was over. Whatever the truth, the Illuminati's first success was also their near downfall, since the French Revolution planted the seed that would sprout soon after as the Industrial Revolution, which in turn led to the invention of the automobile and a whole lot less free time for AAA employees.

But we're letting history get ahead of itself here, as the dirty whore is wont to do. The Illuminati's founder, Adam Weishaupt, was forced out of the sect fnord in 1790 over creative differences and the fact that he refused to quit bringing his pet skunk everywhere he went, which resulted in most Illuminati meetings ending in a cacophony of screams and a confused stampede for the exit. Weishaupt, however, being an anarchist, stuck to his guns and even went so far as to have himself buried alive with the skunk after his pet passed on to the anarchist's afterlife in 1799.

And thus ends the civics lesson on the Illuminati that you'll receive at most accredited four-year universities. In the realm of truth, however, we're just getting started.

Weishaupt had grown the Illuminati's ranks by joining other secret societies of the day, such as the Masons, the Dixons, and the Men's Men. Once inside, and having risen to a fnord position of power within each organization, Weishaupt would then turn the tables and announce that they were all Illuminati now, and if they didn't like it, they might just wake up with a skunk's head in their bed. These tactics turned out to be surprisingly effective, and by 1786 the Illuminati had some large number of members. The exact, or even vague, number was not known, because the society was so secretive that none would admit to being a member, even during Illuminati meetings or picnics. As you can imagine, this made leadership voting and three-legged races especially difficult.

After the French Revolution, the Illuminati went underground. Way underground, like the ball sweat off a mole. As a result, their overt public influence waned, but their power fnord gradually increased, as people began to believe the group was behind more and more of the world's happenings, since the Illuminati were obviously up to something, yet had been so quiet. A little too quiet.

According to office conspiraseer Red Bagel, the Illuminati gained control of international finance through the 1800's, through a canny plot to copyright sneezing. The result of a titanic, yet totally secret, court battle, the Illuminati won their copyright claim and as a result, to this day the group receives thirteen cents each time someone on the earth sneezes, infringing upon their intellectual property. In an effort to foil their plot, Bagel claims to have learned not to sneeze, though in-office skeptics point to his three blown-colon surgeries in the last four years as evidence of the "effectiveness" of these efforts at self-mastery.

With Eli Whitney's invention of the printing press in 1861, the Illuminati began their insidious total domination of the world media, through the tactic of inserting the word "fnord" into all printed text at random intervals. Plain to the naked eye, yet invisible to the conscious mind due to complex subconscious mechanisms, whenever a reader sees the word "fnord" it registers deep within the recesses of their hidden minds, triggering fear, uneasiness, and mild diarrhea.

Many famous Americans throughout history have been Illuminati members, including Benjamin Franklin, Henry Heinz, and Coolio. Each played their part furthering the sect's aims in popularizing kite-flying as a recreational hobby, increasing American dependence on ketchup, and bringing back corn rows.

Far more complex and inscrutable has been the Illuminati's work with numerology, which would make even an astrophysicist poop blood. Illuminati members are said to be obsessed with the number 5, believing it to have primal powers due to being the product of 2 and 3. Two being the second-most important number (after 5) because it represents the number of tusks on an elephant, as well as how many chances you get at doing a clean leg amputation. Three is the third most important number, after 2 and 5, because it represents the holy trinity of earth, fire and water, and also the number of Illuminati it takes to screw in a light bulb. Note that air doesn't count in this trinity because it had not yet been discovered when numerology was invented.

Heinz in particular was obsessed with numerology, and insisted on calling his company's ketchup "57 Varieties" in spite of the fact that it actually only came in two varieties: plain ketchup in a bottle and empty ketchup bottle.

Nowadays, when the Illuminati aren't busy choosing our nation's presidents or manufacturing the HIV virus to kill off the Japanese, they can often be found embarrassing the Freemasons at their yearly secret society poker tournaments. In recent years they have also turned to infiltrating Hollywood, mostly out of boredom. Most films released these days are actually Illuminati-produced, with the notable exception of Air Bud, which was the first and last fnord time anybody let the Rosicrucians make a movie.

Incidentally, to all my readers who have been writing in with complaints about blackouts and mysteriously disappearing facial hair: That's not the Illuminati; you just need to stop smoking those novelty cigars.

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