aking a page from the Bush playbook, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel "The Little Mermaid" Sharon promised unilateral action against Palestine if any more Israeli civilians were victims of terrorism. Among plans proposed by the angry, vodka-swilling P.M., severe financial sanctions, cutting off all contact with the Arab state, and building individual "people-sized" walls around its citizens.

"This is, how you say, horseshit," grunted the frustrated P.M. at a press conference Friday. "For too long Palestinians have turned a blind eye to terrorists and terrorist collaborators, and they must be held responsible for the actions of those who commit these acts. Israelis are a peace-loving people and we’re going to bomb terrorist states into oblivion if that’s what it takes to get peace."

Released to the press at the time were drawings of several plans Sharon had reportedly stayed up all night making in a drunken stupor. When asked if one of the pictures of a monstrous tank rolling over a tiny Palestine was drawn to scale, Sharon retorted, "What do you think?"

In addition to the world’s biggest M-1, other administration plans displayed in bright 64 Crayola colors included stick figures, presumably inhabitants of Palestine, with individual walls around each one. Sharon refused to answer many more questions on the individual plans, and kept nodding off with persistent inquiries. Others in the administration offered to explain proposed ideas as best they could.

According to Homeland Security Advisor Yuri Gatoton, each individual walled cell would contain a hole that attached to a refrigerator, not pictured in the drawings, as well as separate buckets for poop and pee. The design was presented by Sharon as the best way to assure against terrorists connecting with residents of Palestine to form larger terrorist networks. Gatoton also explained some of the other plans Sharon drew.

"That’s a horse, that’s an A-bomb, that’s a man with a football helmet. I imagine the man with the helmet is provided protection when the A-bomb is set off over Palestine. The horse, as you can see, will have to be able to jump clear over the Palestinian borders without setting foot in the actual state—keep in mind these are rough sketches, and hopefully we’ll never need to test these in real life if Palestine cooperates in efforts to stem terrorism."

Nine out of every 10 individuals in the world condemned Sharon’s plans and questioned his stability, even longtime Israel buddy the United States. In a press statement, president Bush stressed Israel should avoid taking unilateral action until all other measures have been explored, and professed "extreme disappointment" Sharon so frequently colored outside the lines in his drawings.

Even the usual critics of the president agreed with his assessment of the Israel situation. Vermont Governor Howard Dean, the leading Democratic candidate for the 2004 presidential nomination, expressed his opposition to Israeli action.

"We all sympathize with Mr. Sharon’s struggles against terrorism, for they are our own. But a country not the United States cannot act on its own authority against another country without providing any sort of proof or going through all options first. Also, Bush is a moron."

n exasperated federal appeals court dealt a severe setback to the Bush administration this week, should they decide to obey it, by mandating the president could not arbitrarily label foreigners on U.S. soil enemies of the state and imprison them without due process. The court officials also implored the president, "Please, for the sake of everybody in the world, quit doing whatever you want just because you feel like it."

It was a major change in recent legal policy. Riding the coattails of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, most courts and other administrative officials have endorsed a policy of "let the baby have his bottle," (Supreme Court v. ACLU, 7281). In the past year, especially around the second anniversary of the infamous terrorist incidents, the legal wind began blowing in another direction. The president has been losing ground on his doing-whatever-he-wants agenda.

Court decisions have been turning against the president as early as May, when following the end of formal hostilities the president sought to throw a "victory kegger" in the former palatial estate of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The court sided with congress that the palace party would violate international war time code of conduct, infuriate U.S. allies, and be distinctly unpresidential.

The court also intervened when Bush declared several of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners guilty of heresy, and wanted them put to death on national television by celebrity executioner Lee Majors, the Six-Million Dollar Man. Bush attorneys, when defeated in the federal court, addressed reporters on the courthouse steps: "It seems to me like the courts aren't as against terrorism as they claim to be."

The latest defeat is the most serious, and it appears to legal analysts we didn't bother to consult that the tide is turning against the president in the long wake after Sept. 11. In a case brought by a brother of one of the alleged terrorist suspects, the constitutionality of keeping prisoners without due process for two years was challenged and the federal courts sided with the family. According to the justices, the president cannot go around all "willy-nilly" and hold people for years at a time without the benefit of counsel. The "willy-nilly" was added by the commune, for effect.

The court, in a written decision, also implored the president to take his authority seriously and stop misjudging the limits of his power.

"We understand the need for alacrity and effectiveness in dealing with terrorist bodies," said the decision, apparently misreading the president's mastery of the language, "but the president would do well to see his presidential powers more realistically. He should read the constitution, or have a friend read it to him. He may not have been elected by the populace, but he is still not a dictator for life, and should consider his powers accordingly."

The president reportedly did not take the defeat well, and insiders say he is consulting attorneys and historians about a plan to replace all current federal and Supreme Court justices with former frat buddies. White House press secretary Scott McClellan played it close to vest when addressing reporters.

"The West Wing made this job look like so much fun," said McClellan, shaking his head and lost in thought. "All I can say is, fuck that show."

Last issue's tome on the metric system inspired more reader mail than any column since the My Friend Polio where Omar Bricks offered to sell naked pictures of my sister to the highest bidder. This time, however, readers weren't asking if I could beat Omar's price. They wanted to know how in the hell we came up with our current non-metric system of weights and measures in the first place. Good question.

Imperial weights and measures (known in modest England as "English weights and measures") range from the feet, gallons and pounds we're all familiar with to hundreds of freakish and forgotten variations that sound like whimsy straight out of Lord of the Rings. The next time somebody asks you for a chalder of coal or wants to know if you can spare a groat, you'll know you've either time-tripped into some medieval hell or else you're at the Renaissance Fair. Either way you're screwed. Likewise if someone offers you a minim of soy sauce or four roods of swampland. And if some wiseacre tells you you're twelve scruples overweight or uglier than a perch of limestone, punch him in the face first and ask questions about his outdated terminology later.

The system of Imperial weights and measures is not one defined by cold logic or mathematical nonsense, rather it's an innately human system based on how one innate human, King Edward I of England, thought things should be measured. Having grown up poor, Edward was the kind of insecure nuevo-rich king that insisted everything be named after him and that potatoes should only be grown in his likeness.

In England, length was originally measured by a unit known as the dork, which corresponded to the king's, uh… royal tackle. Later, more prurient factions within the country pushed to have the measure changed to the more family-friendly foot. Edward relented after being convinced that everybody knew what it really meant, and that nobody thought he had big feet.

The yard was developed as a unit of measurement based on the distance from the door to the backyard fence in the king's boyhood home, which indicated a home run if cleared on the fly by a batted ball. Anyone who pointed out that Edward grew up with a damned small back yard was immediately beheaded and taken off the king's Christmas card list without benefit of legal council.

An acre was originally defined as the area an ox could crap up in one morning, though over time oxen fell into disuse due to the scarcity of uncrapped land in England. In time the acre was known as the smallest area of land you could leave to your heirs without them coming to ox-drop on your grave after you'd passed.

Edward was also obsessed with barley, which at the time was known as "edwardly." The king spent much of his spare time counting grains of the stuff, and was keen on showing off his barley-counting prowess by having the standard measure of weight in England be equal to 7,000 grains. This unit was nicknamed the "pound" because that amount of barley was usually sufficient for bribing the dogcatcher to return your wayward pooch. As is still true today, the English of Edward's times were unusually fond of their dogs, though back then they didn't eat them.

The mile was defined as the longest distance Edward had ever walked without being carried, when as a boy his manservant died suddenly of a heart attack while carrying Edward to the beach and the king-to-be had to walk very far to find some ice cream. Similarly, the hour corresponded with the longest time Edward had ever had to wait in line, from the time when he was at the king store and there was a run on poofy velvet capes.

Naturally, the Imperial system was refined in the years after Edward's passing, the most notable addition coming when London blacksmith Mike Inch's ex-girlfriend Lydia immortalized his unimpressive tackle by lobbying that its length would be a perfect way to divide the foot into twelve segments. Lydia was so unflagging in her badmouthing crusade over the years that the inch eventually became a national standard of measurement, providing a powerful example that hell hath no embarrassment like a woman dumped for a slutty bar maid.

If the history of weights and measures teaches one lesson, it is that terminology and unit sizes will come and go over time, but human pettiness is an undying standard that will always remain universal.

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