he most aggressive attempt to undermine the Democratic nominee's war record came Friday, when an anti-Kerry group cheekily called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth denied the very existence of a Vietnam war.

"Since there was no Vietnam war," a creepy narrator announced in a televised ad Friday, "how can John Kerry be a war hero?"

The group, surprisingly funded by a rich Texas member of the GOP, has caused controversy with the ten people following the election in recent weeks as it challenges the legitimacy of Democrat John Kerry's record in Vietnam and slams Kerry for his denouncement of the war in the 1970s. Now, the group boldly denies Vietnam was ever a war at all.

"A police action, yes," said Swift Boat Veterans for Truth spokesperson Amil Muzz, "but a war? Nope. For a war to take place, an official declaration of war by the United States must be voted on by Congress."

In response, an anonymous spokesperson for North Vietnam replied, "Seemed a hell of a lot like a war to us."

A group called People Who Like to Denounce Things denounced the ads, saying they were disgraceful attempts to damage the efforts of veterans for the sake of political gain. They drew an angry response from a group called Shut the Hell Up, Seinfeld's On, meeting in the same bus terminal on Saturday night.

Among the sharpest criticisms from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth members, John Kerry portrayed American soldiers in an unkind light when he testified before Congress about atrocities and war crimes committed against the Vietnamese people during the war. To wit, they replied, since there was never an official war, how can war crimes even be committed? It boggles the mind. They said.

The Kerry Camp, where fat kids lose weight through positive reinforcement, described the allegations as desperate and unfair.

"To have the actions of veterans, even those not running for public office, so cruelly negated by a group doing President Bush's dirty work, it makes me want to vomit," said Kerry spokesperson Wendy George, though she admitted it could have also been the half bag of White Castles she had eaten for lunch.

The Democratic candidates aren't keeping quiet about the ads either, and have berated the president, who they say has been happy to gain mileage from the negative attacks, even if he may not be responsible for them himself. On Saturday, both Kerry and his VP nominee John Edwards called for the president to speak out against the ads.

"President Bush… if you have an ounce of integrity within you, you'll stop these ads," Edwards told a crowd of supporters at a fund-raiser Saturday, to which they responded by bursting into uproarious laughter. Edwards concluded, "No, seriously, Bush, quit it anyway."

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who really could have used a shorter name, launched a new commercial on Sunday following up on its recent declarations. In it, the same creepy narrator boasts of the president's war record while denouncing Kerry's military action.

"We all know Vietnam wasn't a war," the ad said. "So John Kerry has absolutely NO war experience. President Bush started his own war. We know we can trust him. How many wars have YOU started, John Kerry?"

ducators nationwide were dismayed by the Texas Board of Education’s decision this week to approve four new sexual education textbooks for use in the state’s schools, none of which mention sex, reproduction, or the human body in any way.

“Sex education should be about educating kids to never have sex, as the Lord intended,� explained Carl Lowell, a spokesperson for the board. “It shouldn’t be about giving them pointers on how to break the baby Jesus’ heart.�

Texans everywhere appeared to be eerily on the same page when it came to the topic of the board’s decision, leaving the impression that the entire state may only have one brain, buried deep underground in a Mason jar somewhere for safekeeping.

“It’s simple. If you don’t tell kids about sex, then they’re not gonna have any,� reasoned otherwise sane-looking Austin high-school teacher Reginald Barrow. “I mean, duh! Where else are they going to find out about it, if not at school? Hello? McFly! If we can keep a lid on this thing, we may just be able to save these kids.�

While the textbooks that have been in use in Texas classrooms for the last ten years have frequently come under fire for mentioning that condoms exist, as well as letting the cat out of the bag that you have to be naked to “do it,� the new books have received nothing but support from delusional parents and opportunistic politicians statewide.

“It’s time to strike a blow against the liberal pro-sex agenda,� reasoned Clyde Hamms, some kind of local blowhard. “Texas wants the world to know, ain’t no kids doin’ the devil’s dance here. Texas teenagers are too busy reading bibles and beatin’ on queers, God bless ‘em. Too busy doing the Lord’s work to be fornicating and pornobulating.� After strenuous cross-examination, Hamms admitted to making up that second term.

“Texas teens are too busy having a good time to worry about you-know-what!� beamed Houston-area sex-ed teacher Mandi Smith. “Between sock hops and making your own ice cream at home, who wants to derail the good time by messing with S-E-X? That sounds like something California teens would do.�

“Fuck you, rednecks,� answered California School Board president Arthur Cambridge, when informed of Smith’s remarks.

The new textbooks, understandably light on content due to their inability to even address the stated subject, are mostly filled with stock photography of nature scenes and kittens, overlaid with inspirational Successory-style quotations meant to bolster a Texas student’s assumed Christian faith during the difficult adolescent years. What little additional text the books do contain is made up of fun activities for teens to try as alternatives to sex, including boating, macramé, and skeet shooting. Also included are handy exercises for when you get “that funny feeling downstairs,� like hitting yourself in the nuts with a hammer or slamming a breast in a car door.

Though Texas has long had one of the nation’s highest rates of teenage pregnancy, residents of the highly-religious state insist that those numbers will come right on down once they’re rid of schoolbooks encouraging kids to hump with their descriptions of safe-sex techniques and ways to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.

“Those young bodies writhin’ and copulatin’,� lamented Amarillo high school principal Ed Haste, becoming audibly aroused after calling the commune offices late one night with an unsolicited quote. “It just ain’t right! That stuff should only be in magazines, kept locked up in the drawer under my nightstand, not in our schools. Kids not in sexy magazines shouldn’t be having sex until they’re married, if then!� sobbed Haste, who later admitted to losing his virginity in the back room of biker bar at the age of eleven, a strange non-sequitur considering this reporter had just asked what time it was in Texas.

Unfortunately for Texas, the new textbooks have run afoul of federal education requirements, which stipulate that public-school students must at least have some vague concept of what sex is by the time they graduate high school, lest they be taken advantage of by more savvy classmates and teachers in college. After the filing of numerous lawsuits this week, Texas legislators have begrudgingly called for the printing of an additional sex-related pamphlet to supplement the new textbooks, though even this conciliatory gesture has come under fire from educators outside the state due to an alleged loose handling of the facts.

Among other dubious claims, the proposed pamphlets teach that when a man becomes aroused, his penis swells to the size of a watermelon, often resulting in social embarrassment and death. The pamphlet also claims that after copulation, it is customary for the female of the species to devour the male alive, leaving no trace. This passage was originally written in reference to the praying mantis, but through cleverly positioning of the text next to a photo of Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction, the pamphlet obscures this context. And though the assertion is not as-yet verifiable by science, the pamphlet also claims that each time a young man comes, it makes the baby Jesus weep.

Coming under particular fire is the chapter explaining how teenage sex causes a mutation of fetal DNA, resulting in babies with sharp, dagger-like teeth that burst through the abdomen when their thirst for blood becomes too great to bear. But interestingly, the even more spurious references to large, clawed creatures that inhabit the areas near Texas’ borders, making ever leaving the state an unwise proposition, have drawn little criticism from educators who question the wisdom of allowing Texans into their own states.

Few popular hand gestures have as varied a meaning around the globe as the ubiquitous "thumbs-up" gesture, a poorly-named motion since it rarely, except in the case of huge assholes, is performed with both thumbs. But while the dual thumbs-up means "I'm a cock" in nearly every corner of the globe, the single-thumbed variety can mean anything from "I've recovered from my head injury" to "I think this would fit up your ass." Knowing the differences in local translation can save one not only from social embarrassment, but massive anal trauma as well.

Most modern historians place the gesture's origin in Roman times, when coliseum crowds would determine a fallen gladiator's fate by giving either a thumbs-up ("Fuck 'em!") or a thumbs-down ("Kill the shit out of him!"). The gladiator would die either way, but people in those days liked to feel like they had some say in things, whether they actually did or not. The only way the gladiator could actually be spared would be if the Caesar gave the dreaded "He's kind of cute!" hand-waggle, in which case the gladiator's wounds would be treated and he'd be dressed in a muscle shirt for the pleasure of the Caesar.

Art historians and the strange souls who have dedicated their academic lives to the study of hand gestures often argue and get into bar brawls over the meaning of the Roman thumbs–up/down gestures, some believing that thumbs-down meant "swords down" and others arguing that it meant "you're a dick." Confusing the matter further are the various gladiatorial paintings from the era, which depict Caesars sparing injured gladiators via both the thumbs-up and the thumbs-down, and one rare instance of a Caesar giving the coliseum crowd the finger. Historians say this incident was triggered by the Caesar's chariot being dinged in the coliseum parking lot the day before. Most believe that a gladiator was commonly spared with the thumbs-down gesture, and the one outstanding painting indicating the opposite was the result of a lazy French painter who just couldn't paint the thumbs-down without it looking weird.

All of this is hardly relevant, however, since the thumbs-up had already been in use for centuries, dating back to prehistoric times, when those cavemen who were slight of build used the gesture instinctively in an attempt to hitch a ride on the backs of larger cavemen. Modern hitchhiking has changed little, though due to advances in transportation technology, modern man has less time to yell insults after being turned down for a ride.

During Medieval times, Europeans would seal transactions by licking thumbs and pressing them together, fist-to-fist, a tradition they learned from Oriental traders who were only fucking with them. Nevertheless, this bogus Oriental custom survived for hundred of years in Europe, until people began to realize it was greatly facilitating the spread of the plague, and nobody could come up with a way to make thumb condoms that didn't unpleasantly reduce sensation.

Eventually, the thumbs-up gesture came to be used by American pilots in WWII to communicate with the ground crew since they were covered in so much Darth Vader bullshit that their thumb was about the only body part that could still move. This was in stark contrast to WWI pilots, who didn't even wear helmets, and were only issued two pieces of safety equipment: a book on birds and a bible.

The WWII pilots would give the thumbs-up to the ground crew when they were ready to take off, meaning "Everything's cool." This is what the ground crew chumps thought anyway, the inside joke among the pilots was that the gesture actually meant "I stuck this thumb up your girlfriend's ass last night." Thankfully for inter-Air Force harmony, none of the ground crew guys ever found out about this or the "You're an a-s-s-hole/OK" dual-purpose hand gesture either.

The ground crew guys, however, were about the only ones not in on the joke, and as the gesture spread around the globe wherever the pilots traveled, coming to mean "Up your ass" all around the world. Thanks to the uptight 1950's, Americans never caught on to the double-meaning, and continued to use the gesture to mean "Super." One notable exception was actor Henry Winkler, whose father had been a WWII pilot and who used his inside knowledge to give a counterculture edge to his character of Fonzie on the 70's sitcom Happy Days. Whenever Fonzie would give someone the thumbs-up and sneer "Heeeey, sit on it!" Air Force pilots and stoners everywhere had a good laugh at the expense of mainstream America.

Today the gesture is as popular as ever among Americans and foreigners wanting to secretly insult Americans. Though in all likelihood having your thumb stuck up someone else's ass would be even more unpleasant for you than it was for them, the thumbs-up gesture goes down next to "Go fuck yourself!" in the annals of nonsensical insults that still pack a punch.

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