ulshitzkizu, the Eastern European principality best known for its unjust laws and shoddy exports, shocked no one this week by taking home a record twelve gold medals, despite never having even been visited by a black person in the nation's entire 314-year history.

The 2006 Whiter Olympics continued as expected all week, par for the course for an event designed expressly to reward behaviors no self- respecting black person would be caught dead engaging in, like running your fool ass around out in the cold as if you haven't got any sense at all.

"The Winter Olympics were invented in 1964 as a way for whites to make up for losing all their medals to black athletes in the summer games," explained Olympic racism expert Tyrone Blackula. "They had to make up a bunch of sports black people had never heard of, like hockey, and other events where, by the very color of their skin, black athletes would be at a disadvantage, like Naked Snow Hiding."

The thinly-disguised ruse came to a head in 1988, when pressure from the 2/3rds of the world that isn't even invited to the Whiter Olympics forced the token inclusion of the Jamaican bobsled team during the Calgary games. Predictably, the Jamaican team was unfairly penalized for attempting to push their bobsled up the run in record time, a perfectly reasonable misunderstanding of the event's rules for anyone not born in Norway.

Bulshitzkizu neighbor Upper Scamistan also took gold medals this week in curling and other white man cold-weather hobbies too silly to name. Experts on white people agree that U.S. is likewise heavily favored in the upcoming ice farming competitions and the always popular 400-meter skin bleach.

Network executives for NBC have been bitching and moaning all week about the poor ratings for their cherished little white sports love-in, which has rated even lower than reruns of old black-and-white television shows like Leave it to Beaver. Or, as they would be more accurately known, old white-and-white television shows. The Olympic ratings have suffered due in no small part to the network's staunch refusal to dye any of their preciously white Olympic snow brown to make audiences of color more comfortable with the proceedings.

Though it hardly qualifies as news, no black athletes have yet been spotted in Torino, the closest being American downhill skier Bode Miller, who once accidentally kissed a black chick in the dark at a party. Though event organizers are said to have been divided over the decision to invite the racially-mixed United States to the Olympic Games, arrangements were made to ensure that the only American entrants would be from the black-free states of Minnesota and Vermont.

In a desperate last-ditch effort to boost ratings, NBC has begun to refer to Australians as the "honorary black people" of the 2006 Olympics, due to their poor showing and the arid climate of their home land. But word on the street is that the network originally wanted to save that designation for Chechnya, had the embattled Russian province been able to take a break from getting screwed over long enough to field their own Olympic team.

midst the controversy of insulting Danish cartoons and rioting Muslims throughout Europe and the Middle East, the U.S. has taken a firm stance against the editorial cartoon in question—not because it offends Islamic culture, but because it steals focus from the ever-popular anti-Americanism felt by Muslims worldwide.

"We will not stand for this insult to the United States," said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on Friday. "This administration has put far too much work into the Middle East to settle for second most-hated country in the western world."

Added McClellan, "I mean… Afghanistan? Iraq? The threats and endless implications of war in Syria and Iran… if anyone is the biggest threat to Islam, it's us."

Protests began following the publication of 12 cartoons portraying the prophet Mohammed in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten, an act prohibited in Islamic religion, and the protests have turned into violent rioting in many instances, including setting fire to a Danish embassy. The riots have spread throughout Europe, following the re-publication of the offending cartoons in other countries. As Muslim aggression turns against Denmark and the other European Union countries, the U.S. began to show clear signs of fearing second best.

"You think Denmark's offensive?" President Bush said at a press conference on Thursday. "We put a Koran on the toilet, if you remember. Not us specifically, and we don't condone that kind of thing—but that's American handiwork for you. Let's try to remember whose financial and military complexes you've suicide bombed. Ain't we the Great Satan, folks?"

Some scholars and media pundits, who make the real money in the field of academia, have suggested the cartoon controversy may be behind the administration's recent attacks on suspected Al-Qaeda targets, as well as the president's verbal gaff on Saturday.

"You know what's stupid? Long beards," Bush said to a small group of White House visitors on Saturday. He added, "Oops," in a less-than-convincing way.

Psychologists and political scientists both have tried to explain the effects of the Danish cartoon and the Muslim response, but if any academic field has gained the most from this debacle, it's the newly burgeoning area of politopsycho science. Happy to answer questions was the field's premiere and only representative, Professor Norm Chauncey of Newark University.

"Clearly the president, and to a certain extent the country and its administration itself, is dealing with a sudden loss of identity as the political landscape begins to change," said Professor Chauncey, who was kind enough to buy the lattes. "As these times become more turbulent, and anti-American sentiment grows all around the world, particularly in the Middle East and Islamic cultures, we in the west have found comfort in the most reliable feature of modern life—anti-Americanism. Can you imagine how disoriented we would all be if the French stopped being pretentious overnight? What a confusing, frightening world that would be. It's the same effect when the United States is no longer the first one to trample all over the nerves of Muslims. The Danes? If they're going to start being insensitive to cultural differences, we might as well go the rest of the full mile and stop interfering in everyone's world affairs. Let's exactly how whacked out we can all be."

Chauncey lectured further on the subject, but since he wouldn't throw in a biscotti, the commune doesn't see much reason to print that as well.

Few of you would have guessed who is the greatest peacekeeper in the world, if I didn't tell you right now it's me—Rok Finger. I do not own this title simply because I've bestowed it upon myself, and am too big and intimidating to keep people from taking it away again. I own this title now because I have brought together the two estranged neighborhoods surrounding me, with nothing but this silver tongue in my mouth. Never let it be said bodypaint didn't bring something good to the world.

Perfunctory backstory: I found out Poodlegrass, the neighborhood Ginger and I live in, is more properly called West Poodlegrass. This explained immediately why I have not been getting my mail, and I presume some hotshot over in East Poodlegrass has been enjoying that pubic hair comb & brush set I bought from eBay, but that's a rant for another time. The neighbors won't talk to me, of course, but they did mention to Ginger when she inquired about the mail trouble that West Poodlegrass and East Poodlegrass frequently had mail mix-ups.

This might have been enough for the unambitious female mind of my adoring wife, and the endless drones living around us, but Rok Finger had to wonder: Why West and East Poodlegrass? Had there been an irreparable rift between the two at some point in history? And if so, was this irreparable rift beyond repair? I didn't know what it was, but I didn't think so.

So, owning the gigantic brass balls that I do, I ventured into the hellish maw of East Poodlegrass and braved their idiot rabble and unintelligible accents to talk to their leaders—frightened and worried about what kind of bizarre government they might practice. Well, turns out they aren't all that different from us, although they do practice a strange kind of "democracy" where officials are chosen by the populace to represent their wishes as a government body that decides laws and enforces them. Quite a twist from our own secret oligarchy, eh? Red Bagel would be impressed.

Hmm. I got sidetracked. Quite unlike me. But anyhow, it turns out Poodlegrass was separated for purposes of deciding county borders. West Poodlegrass is in the traditional and respectable Pork County side of New Jersey, while East Poodlegrass resides in the forgettable and tragic Bowling County. Well, just give up now, I thought, you can't change county lines. Or could I? No, I couldn't. But I did have an entreaty for the president of the East Poodlegrass Neighborhood Block Association: "Mr. Gorblatt, tear down the wall that divides our two great neighborhoods!"

I was at this point informed it's not a wall at all, but a stalled-out train that's been parked on the tracks for a great number of months, and they were as interested in moving it as I was. What a thundering blow for freedom! All I had to do was get this train moving again.

A simple matter, of course. Whenever I want something big and ungainly removed and lack the ability to do it myself, I merely inform Omar Bricks that I overheard his old nemesis Johnshark Remnants say nobody could move it. Competitive he is, I'll give him that. By the next morning the train had disappeared, washing up off the Jersey shore and making quite a news story. But my interest ended there. I had done it: Maybe East and West Poodlegrass would still have separate names, but now residents could freely cross the tracks as they wished and exchange their correct mail with each other. Thanks all to me—and I guess Bricks gets some honorable mention in all this, if you're going to hold me to the wall on it.

What's next? I'm not sure. But I do think it's time those two Carolinas stopped all that fussin' and fightin'.

º Last Column: Headlice Fading
º more columns