merica from coast to coast set a personal best record Saturday when it was forced to announce, collectively, all resolutions made for 2004 have been broken since January 1st. The resolutions, some made half-heartedly to feel as if the maker was doing something different, and others made as die-hard declarations of change, were broken consistently in larger and larger numbers since the beginning of year.

Among the favorite quickly-broken resolutions are health concerns, resulting in promises of daily exercise or more attention to dietary needs. Resolution scientists at M.I.T. calculate approximately 63% of resolutions made address these concerns, and big fat America decided not to be concerned about the concerns entirely by Saturday. Excuses for ceasing daily exercise programs included: "Just don't have the time," "Just don't have the floor space," "Just don't have the energy," and "Just don'wanna." The most common cited excuse in quitting new diets was found to be attending a restaurant with friends where they had something really, really good, or the occasional explanation that a box of Twinkies woke them up, calling from the cabinet to be eaten.

Approximately 32,000 promises to go vegetarian or vegan this year were already broken as well, 12,385 of them because resolution makers just found out turkey isn't a vegetable. Resolutions to eat less fast food were abandoned when people found out how much easier it is to eat fast food than slow food, not to mention the comparative speed difference.

Other popular broken resolutions concerned finances, including putting more money into savings, spending less impulsively, and getting into the stock market. Frequent reasons for giving up these resolutions include being too difficult to save money, wanting to pick up something cute, and losing a whole ass in the stock market. One resolution maker reported the failure of his New Year's promise to save money when his dealer wouldn't negotiate a price drop.

Among rarer career-oriented resolutions were pledges to move up the ladder at work, especially for plenty of roofers out there. Quite often incompetence on the job led to quick dismissal of these resolutions, though researchers aren't ruling out complete unsuitability for a career or work in general, a total lack of motivation, and being universally loathed at the workplace. Steve Compson of Miller Beach, Florida, insisted his rejection of his New Year's oath was due to deciding he was happy not having all the troubles of assistant manager, and waiting to see if Lyle takes that sweet Burger King gig.

Resolution watchers found Americans are not only complete failures at controlling forces outside themselves, but the nation also does extremely poorly of holding true to promises of character improvement. Personal pledges to be nicer to people and listen to what they are saying were dropped like bad habits right away, frequently citing how much other people weren't nice or listening to them, with a few cases of he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about and the bitch just won't shut up thrown in for good measure.

Promises to have more confidence were brushed off when resolution-makers realized they lacked the personal power of change to do so. Several oaths to build self-esteem and fight depression ended with resolution-makers crawling into large tubs of cookie dough ice cream, and some still have yet to come out again.

On a more personal note, resolutions to get laid like cheap carpet haven't worked out for most either, often due to personal unattractiveness in non-reporter cases or incapability of saying anything without sounding like a smarmy ass. Then again, it's always possible women just don't give a brother no play.

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."

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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