frican politics managed a rare chance to draw the attention of the western world when good-natured white boy Mark Thatcher, son of Der Iron Girdle former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, finally answered accusations he and other exceptionally-Caucasian financiers backed a coup of the African nation of Equatorial Guinea.

Equatorial Guinea, a sub-Saharan country in Africa, established its independence in 1968 from Spain and has lived under a dictatorship ever since. In 2004, a group of mercenaries were arrested and charged with plotting a coup in the country when their plane landed in Zimbabwe, those on board demanding they find a movie other than Kangaroo Jack to play for the rest of the trip. Authorities in Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, and South Africa charge a complicated web of white sugar daddies have fueled the coup attempt, and that Thatcher was among them.

Moss Chevalier, one of the wealthy foreigners implicated in the charges, denied personal involvement in a conspiracy, but praised the mercenaries and their efforts.

"Equatorial Guinea is a country suffering under the thumb of an oppressive ruler. Its people die in impoverished conditions while he channels the wealth of the country into his personal coffers. I have a great admiration for the generous—dare I say handsome—financiers who are risking their livelihoods to bring democracy to this long-suffering nation."

Coincidentally, Equatorial Guinea discovered off-shore oil in 1996, greatly boosting the country's economic value.

Overthrowing governments for oil are nothing new, even quite the rage in recent years, but the Equatorial Guinea case is a trendsetter for being a coup allegedly paid for entirely by citizens, rather than the traditional route of grassroots movements within the country or foreign governments. With the current U.S. administration trying hard to privatize Social Security and medical insurance coverage, could the privatization of colonialism be far behind?

"Obviously countries rich in natural resources have faced a history of invasion by private companies and corporations," said University of Trenton History Professor Bobby Shockes. "This goes back to the early days of capitalism, as well-backed private merchants brought their own bodyguards and miniature armies so they might claim native lands as their own. Traditionally, though, these eventually call for government intervention to protect them, such as the United Fruit Company incident in Guatemala, when the U.S. interceded on the company's half against the rule of that government in the 1950s. But this changes all the rules. The message here is a positive one for businesses and wealthy individuals: 'Don't wait for the people or our government to make for better business conditions—do it yourself!"

On Friday, Mark Thatcher left a South African court in Cape Town, saying it was "patently clear" he had no involvement in the attempted coup. The trial for the coup itself, ended in November 2004 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, while Thatcher's friend, Simon Mann, is serving a sentence in Zimbabwe for his role in the coup. Thatcher's involvement centered around the purchase of a helicopter that purportedly would have flown opposition leader Severo Moto from his exile in Spain to the seat of power in Malabo, upon success of the coup. Thatcher now plans on using the helicopter for personal Cape Town weather reports, or perhaps selling it to pay off the 3 million Rand fine he received for violating South Africa's anti-mercenary laws.

The White House chose not to respond to indignant questions from this reporter if they were interested in using the new privatized invasion style for Iran and Syria, or if they would prefer the time-tested CIA shadow-intervention plans.

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I'm not a bad guy, I go to church, I pay my taxes, so what I wanna know is: Hey, when's God gonna stop bustin' my balls? I swear, I get home from work and my belt sander throws a gear, my wife wants me to take her to see Ricky Martin, and my son, dat little tree yeah old fairy climbed inside a spare tire in the back yard and he won't come out for nothin'.

"Hey-oh, ay, those're my balls you're tramplin on up there, big guy! They're the ones that are all blue and swollen from bein' stepped on too much, ya big bum...". Not that I got a thing against God, mind you. Me and the big guy go way back to the third grade when I went to ask Wendy Fischer out onna date and when I sat down in the next seat over from her, some sick sonnofabitch had pissed the chair, I swear to Christ almighty, he was bustin my tiny, hairless balls even back then. I had to sit in dat chair straight through lunch and for the rest of the day until all the others kids had gone home so nobody could see that my trousers was as wet as Tony Danza's back in a raquetball match.

That's some serious stuff for a kid, too, let me tell you that. As an adult, you piss yourself and you can play it off, like "Woah! That Lowenbrau snuck up on me! I ain't been this drunk since da eighth grade graduation!" and that kinda thing. As a kid though, it's taken more as a sign that you ain't never mastered your bladder control and the cheetahs is gonna thin you out from the herd, boy.

One thing I gotta hand it to God, that guy's one hard-workin SOB! He ain't laid off bustin my balls for 34 years, and just when I think he's takin a break, my collie upchucks a canna Manwich onto my new Camaro's suede seats. You couldn't WRITE better ball-bustin' than that.

Even when I was inna prime a my life, eighteen yeahs old, God was there with a bicycle seat and a faulty retaining bolt. Me and Marie, we was goin' steady, and lemmie tell you we was goin' at it. We would have sex at the drop of a hat, and believe you me there was a lotta hat-droppin goin on back den. But we was safe about it, y'know? A Carbone don't ever go into battle unarmed, if you know what I mean when I say that. I always make sure Marie used a rubber, and so I figure we ain't got nuthin to worry about, right? Wrong. Turns out the dumb broad was eatin' the damn things, one of her girlfriends said somethin about oral contraceptives and she got all confused. Next thing we know, bang-bang, we got little Ant'ny taggin along and whenever Marie's got gas it's like a little kid's birthday party around here.

Now I ain't sayin I don't love Marie, and know dat I'm just talkin here just to talk so lemmie talk, but that woman's got about as much sense as a two-legged gopher tap-dancin in a microwave. Or two mountain goats screwin' on the Eiffel Tower, I dunno, somethin like that. Point is she's dumb as shit. We understand each other heah? Good, 'cause nows I can go on about God and my balls and stuff.

God continued to bust my much-maligned balls trew most of the 1980's. Memorable events include da time da Anaheim Angels kicked my motherlovin ass for pukin' in their dugout, da tree months I spent in jail for exposing myself to a boyscout troop, and dat time I came home to da wrong house and ended up punching out a pony and givin' tree armed policemen wedgies after they say I ruin some little girl's birthday party. I spend the weekend in the can after that little caper, but thankfully I'd stuffed enough hot dogs down my shorts on the way out that I was eatin' like a king da whole time.

But don't think that God's Carbone-ball-bustin' plans ended with the era of Regan and bolo ties and all that. Uh-uh. God kept his ping-pong paddle at the ready next to my family jewels for the whole of the new decade as well. Like the time I got caught in that pair of panty hoes with that wild boar, for instance. Or the time I was up on da roof, drunk as hell, tearin' off roof tiles with my golf cleats, and I'll be Goddamned if a stiff wind didn't pick right up and make me take a header off that roof and land on some little old lady who'd come by to sell Amway. For six hours I hadta listen to her bitchin' and moanin like "I think you broke my back! My ribs have perforated my lungs!" Jesus Christ, lady, do I look like a doctor to you? It took damn near forever for the paramedics to get there and a good four hours for them jaws of life to pull her on up outta da sidewalk. Dey almost had to drill under my foundation, the sonsa bitches. It's a rare time like that when God misses a chance to bust my balls further. He musta been off planning the Manwich thing.

The 90's ball-busting that takes the cake though, has to be the time Marie ran outta them contraceptive sponges, and she thought onea them kitchen sink sponges with the green scrubber side would do the trick just as good. Did I mention that Marie's dumber than ten pounds of dirt? When it was all said an done she was pregnant with lil' Jimmy over there and I hadta wear them elasticy beach pants for two months. Jimmy! Get outta the oven, Jimmy! You're too old to play in da oven now, ya little hangnail ya. There're snakes in there, howya like that? Yeah, I thought so.

I wondered all my life, when God's gonna stop breakin my balls. But ya know what? I'm tired of wonderin'. Vinnie Carbone's got a plan. See, I plan on bein extra special nice and good and all that shit my remainin' years of this life. So as I can get into heaven and all, that kinda thing. Then, when I meet God, you can bet I'm gonna give him one hell of a kick right in his hairy, omnipotent sack. I'm gonna strike a blow for the Vinnie Carbones of the world, and then I'm gonna say "Sorry God, but you was breakin' my balls, you was askin for it." And we gonna shake on it and go out for beer and pizza. It's gonna be nice.º more columns

Anyone who's known me for any length of time knows the simple truth: I don't like midgets. Woah now, hold your ripe tomatoes and ceramic bricks, I know it's not a terribly PC viewpoint, especially in these liberal, midget-friendly times. I know what you're thinking, and it's the same thing people on the street tell me every day. They tell me that it's unfair to be prejudiced against someone just because they're in a minority, and that if I really got to know some midgets, I'd realize they're not all the same. Believe me, I know and understand this argument, and can see its merits. I'm not some kind of drooling Neanderthal here. When my neighbor's dog dug under my fence and peed on my garden-hose caddy, I didn't go out and shoot every dog in the neighborhood. I just shot that one dog.

I know you can't judge a book by its cover, and that there are good and bad in every group. But I challenge you to argue that you'd take the time to read a book whose cover thoroughly creeped you out, or one that had just pissed all over the side of your house like some kind of water-witch lawn toy. I didn't think so.

It tires me when people drag out the old "prejudice" argument whenever the subject of my dislike for midgets comes up during a party or traffic encounter. The mere mention of the word practically brands you as a mini-Hitler for the rest of your life. But let's really look at what this is saying. To have prejudice is to pre-judge, that is to judge beforehand. The negative connotation of the term is that one would pass judgment on another before all relevant information has been collected. For example, just because watching one Adam Sandler movie caused you to lose faith in humanity and decimated your sperm count, it would be prejudiced of you to suggest that Sandler's next film won't be Oscar-worthy. In order to prove that you're not some kind of knuckle-dragging Archie Bunker, it becomes necessary to watch every single Adam Sandler film that comes out, even if it gives you a peptic ulcer in the process. I don't know if he originated the concept, but Sandler sure has made out like a bandit on this whole PC liberal guilt deal.

But like I was saying, whenever some midget-lover and I lock horns on this issue, I try to explain that my distaste for midgets is neither ill-informed nor unfair. Arguments concerning the fantastic virtues of midget-sized individuals and the great contributions that midgets have made over the course of history fall upon my deaf ears, as I've never suggested that midgets were not productive members of society. The simple fact of the matter is that I find their proportions creepy and unnerving. This being the very trait that makes them midgets, I hardly think my distaste constitutes any unfair previous judgment against the midgets themselves.

If anything, I think I've been more than polite to the midgets I've run across over the course of my life. Many will no doubt point to the fact that it was a midget doctor who failed to revive my mother on her death bed when I was a child. They are quick to suggest that this childhood trauma left me with an unfair bent against little people. Yet, whenever adult-sized people gather to toss midgets at bowling pins, will you find me in attendance? Most certainly not. I have never tied a midget to a kite before proceeding to drag him behind my car in some twisted midget-bashing version of parasailing. Nor have I ever cruelly used the last available booster seat at a fast food establishment merely to ensure that a deserving midget goes without. I have never once kicked a midget, nor have I ever dressed one up all in orange for the purpose of slam-dunking him through a basketball hoop.

In spite of years of backwards-talking midgets haunting my dreams and even the highly traumatic viewing of Under the Rainbow when I was a teen, when my brother Mitch choked to death on a Mike & Ike during the film's climactic midget swordfight, I have refrained from midget-bashing in all of its tempting forms. And yet, simply because I will not ferry a midget about in a specially-made tote upon my back, or allow one to marry into my family, I am seen as a monster by some. And for the most part it's not even the midgets themselves who think so, though the gross disparity in our body sizes might cause one of them to take me for a monster in a completely unrelated event.

Before you let your imagination run away with you, let it be made clear that I'm not suggesting the creation of midget death camps here. That would be completely Un-American, not to mention costly. But what would be so bad about creating a separate midget nation, more ideally suited to their smaller scale? Wouldn't the skinny portion of Idaho be perfect for such a project? It would be almost like a kind of merry theme park, where midgets could wear novel hats and curly-pointed shoes without fear of reprisal from normal-sized folks. They could lead happy and productive lives in Littleville, making toys and candy for export back to Greater America, and would no longer be at the mercy of fringe pornographers and David Lynch for employment opportunities. Normal-sized people (or "Bigguns," as they would be known) who are fond of midgets could visit on their vacations and buy midget crafts and bumper stickers, and have their pictures taken while sticking their heads into holes cut in pre-painted scenes that make them seem like the midgets for a change. It sounds pretty idyllic to me. Heck, I'd want to live there myself if the buildings and people were all normal-sized, though I guess that would kind of defeat the purpose.

For what it's worth, I'd like to add that although my distaste for midgets has raised the most controversy, I also feel the same sense of unease and nervous tension whenever I find myself around small children of similar size, and I avoid them with the same fastidiousness. However, somehow I think that this revelation will most likely earn me even more detractors, rather than serving to foster greater understanding and sympathy for my point of view. Sadly, this is the way of the world in the 21st century.

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