acing falling approval numbers that recently dropped lower than Bob Hope's balls, President Bush this week resorted to his usual tactic of becoming more conservative when threatened. The president may have gone too far this time, however, alienating even his core base of religious assholes.

After having his personal dog walker rejected for a seat on the Supreme Court, and his backup neo-Nazi facing a similarly tough uphill climb, Bush outlined a bold new philosophy in a televised speech on Sunday.

"Jesus was a fag," the president announced to a stunned roomful of didn't-know-Jesus-was-a-fag listeners. "Love everybody? The meek shall inherit the earth? Give me a break. The man didn't even have a reliable hairstyle."

"Women should be seen, not heard," continued Bush, attempting to carve out his own niche deeper in the dogmatic hinterlands. "But by 'seen' I mean just their eyes, as the rest of their sinful bodies should be covered up in padded dog-attack training suits to restore some modesty to this once great nation."

Over the course of the president's speech, Bush called for the dismantling of the Internet, a moratorium on all music, and the banning of all dancing that isn't line dancing. This latest development has renewed national debate over where the president is crazy like a fox, crazy like a cuckoo bird, or stupid like a bathtub.

Bush's approval rating dipped even lower during the speech, scraping audibly against some theoretical bottom of the barrel, and an instant poll immediately afterward pegged the president's approval at 12%, a record low for a US president and below even the ratings for Osama Bin Laden, syphilis, sour milk, Gigli and total thermonuclear annihilation. Political observers, however, were most impressed that a full 12% of the population still support Bush.

"Apparently more Americans than we had previously assumed agree with the president that Jesus was a homo," explained a stunned Walter Dumruch, of the McClurg Institute. "God knows how long they've been waiting for a political figure to give voice to their inner convictions. The president takes these results as a mandate to push forward with his new 'Screw Jesus' agenda."

By stepping off the edge of the political world and officially becoming too conservative for even the nation's the most extreme conservatives this week, the president embarked on a journey through uncharted territory that has left critics at a loss for words.

"It's weird, it's almost like he's wrapped around to almost being liberal now, but not really," mused Danby Frinkman, local man of letters. "He's lapped the field, in terms of conservatism, but no one's sure what that means."

What it most certainly means is that Bush will have to reconsider his nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. for the Supreme Court, since even a man so conservative that he doesn't believe in dinosaurs or long hair on dogs would be seen as too soft to be in keeping with the president's current philosophy. Several deposed foreign dictators and cartoon villains are likely to be considered for the president's next nomination.

Bush's political handlers hope these recent developments can be explained by an external trauma, like the president being hit in the head by a falling brick some time last week, or anything a shovel-hitting intervention might be able to correct. The president's handlers hope to jostle Bush back to his comfortably untenable "Jesus was Straight/Screw the Poor/Bomb the Brown People" conservative agenda by early next week at the latest.

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Like that faithful old pisser of a national monument out there in them park, one could always set their watch to the Great Burping German of Pistro Falls, Pennsylvania. When Ned was a boy he would often go to see that German down at the bookstore or the dog track to ask him questions or just to stand there and stare in wonderments. People came from far and near and places too near to be far or too far to be near just to see that eighth belching wonder of the world, as he sat with a little schnauzer dog named Blueten on his lap and burped the merry day away.

Some said that one could peek into the future by listening careful to them reverberant conflagrations of air and sausage fumes, like lookin' close at tea leaves or the part in Teddy Wetzembaum's hair. Others waxed and waned poetic 'bout them ringers like they was the music of the night, a waltz of the human iced with the frosting of the divine. Still others called him a big fat pig of a slob and wished he'd eat his dinner in some other restaurant. But nobody not here nor there denied that he belched, nor argued that it weren't frequent.

Once a scientist-type tried to catch one of the Burping German's belches in a great big balloon, like the kind them kiddies tie to their half-formed fists with a band of rubber and then proceed to punch at the thing until one of them is the loser. Needless to say, once he had that balloon he didn't have to wait long for the German to belch, and when he did, that scientist was lifted up in the air like a hot air balloon pilot. And we didn't see none of him for eight more months until one day he floated on back into town dressed up like a geisha girl and with two black eyes. Nobody never did ask him what happened on his trip when he was riding that magical belch but nobody argued that he hadn't caught a burp in a balloon nor that he didn't fly away like a squirrel taped to a blimp.

Some folks, like the owner of the opera house who'd never once put on an opera that wasn't punctuated by rafter-rattling burps, or the dental assistant who'd had her fillings shook out when she got too close to one of the Burping German's grade-A rumblers, and possibly the German's upstairs neighbors also, thought that we should run that German out of town by torchlight for disturbing the public peace.

But the rest of us remembered all that the Burping German had done for us, ever since the day many a year ago when he arrived in town mysteriously, being burped up out of the belly of a beached whale and all down by the shore. And unlike the Sneezing Chinaman of Cinder Nook or the Flatulent Finn of North Tonken, the Burping German never stopped giving back to them peoples, teaching little know-nothing children how to burp whenever they asked, and delivering a special belch sermon in church on Sundays.

So them next time you hear a sound not quite like a goat and more roundish than a foghorn, one that gives your earlobes a tickle and makes your hair feel electrimafied, before you go to your cabinet for that elephant gun remember that it may just be the Great Burping German of Pistro Falls, stopping by to see if you have any baking soda to spare.

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This week's story was unearthed by Vince Melbone of West Virginia, who forwarded it to me. Thank you, Vince—for you've helped shine the spotlight on a crass and cruel exploitation of children, and this time neither Kathie Lee Gifford nor Disney are involved.

The culprit this time is Chuck E. Cheese. Where a kid can be a kid? I think not. Where a kid can be an unpaid source of exploitable labor is more like it. And this doesn't happen in a third world country or Canada where you might expect it, all. This happens coast to coast in Chuck E. Cheese establishments.

I went to Chuck E. Cheese myself to investigate Melbone's claims, and was shocked by what I saw. Well, not all that shocked since Melbone explained it all intricately beforehand, but I was a little surprised to see it actually happening.

Kids, everywhere. Filling an area called the "play place" where they ran about untamed like wild frogs. Kids climbed through plastic tubes lining the roof, kids bounded euphorically into pits full of plastic balls, kids rode on electronic horses and mouse-driven cars all around me.

Without Melbone's heads up, I might have assumed it all innocent. Little would I have guessed kids are being fueled by sugar and run rampant around these restaurant "play places" in order to amass static electricity. Yes, for the price of a small Coke (with free refills) these unsuspecting kids are supplying Chuck E. Cheese with invaluable static electricity which is then converted to electricity to cook their pizzas, power their token-sucking video game machines, and yes, even keep the giant mouse singing in his country drawl.

I was aghast, Red Bagel-style. It was there before me the whole time but I never suspected. Signs asking the kids to take their shoes off before playing, kids then scraping woolen socks through these plastic tubes, acting like little generators. And somewhere underneath the walls all that electricity sinking back into the combine that is a Chuck E. Cheese franchise. On top of that, the pizza sucks and that whack-a-mole game is impossible to win.

I've tried several calls to the head of Chuck E. Cheese, but most of these calls are met with responses similar to, "What are you, a nutjob?" That's fine, Mr. Cheese, play coy. I've gone head to head with bigger fish than you, which is not to say real fish, but opponents in general, and I've always come out on top or somewhere in the middle or lower. This will be the same case.

In the meantime, we must combat this aberration in smaller ways. Vince Melbone suggested a nationwide boycott, but those never work, no one has yet to register my boycott of Brian Eno records. Instead I recommend going to Chuck E. Cheese with your children, taking up valuable seating space, but DO NOT ORDER ANYTHING TO EAT. And whatever else you do, DO NOT LET YOUR CHILDREN FUEL THE COMBINE. I cannot stress that enough, though writing in all caps certainly helps.

Also, it is of the utmost importance you do not attempt to play the whack-a-mole game, no matter how enticing it looks. You have to hit the moles like about a hundred times harder than is normal and it still doesn't register what is clearly a whack. I could write a column on that alone. In fact, I may start tomorrow.

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