Perhaps we can form a committee and invite America's presidential candidates to weigh in on this decisive issue and invite UN intervention given the world-wide impact on our international members.

In individuals, <insanity> is rare; but in groups*, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Many thanks,

To me, <keypusher> seems unfailingly polite. >

His politeness has failed him a few times, I can tell ya. Unless you consider posting the word <horsesh!#%> to be polite.

Also, he is out of his league when discussing WWII history, yet compensates for it with condescension and derision when he really should be apologizing for his ignorance on the topic, and promising to study up before polluting the discussion with more ignorance.

But of course you, <AI> cannot see that, because your knowledge of WWII is even worse than his, so it looks educated to your eyes. That was not meant to be an insult, either, <IA>. I am an expert on the subject and am just stating facts.

That is a relief.>

I've always enjoyed Ogden Nash's comic animal poems.

<Should you behold a panther crouch, Prepare to say "ouch."
Better yet, if called by a panther,
Don't anther.>

<Kangaroo, oh, kangaroo,
Be grateful you're in the zoo,
And not transmuted by a boomerang
Into zestful, tangy kangaroo meringue.>

<God in His wisdom made the fly, And then forgot to tell us why.>

<Some primal termite knocked on wood, Tasted it, and found it good.
And that is why your cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today.>

Oddly, though, perhaps his best poem of all was not comic. It was his "A Carol For Children."

<God rest you merry, Innocents; Let nothing you dismay.
Let nothing wound an eager heart
Upon this Christmas day.

Yours be the genial holly wreaths,
The stockings and the tree;
An aged world to you bequeaths
Its own forgotten glee.

Soon, soon enough come crueler gifts,
The anger and the tears;
Between you now there sparsely drifts
A handful yet of years.

Oh, dimly, dimly glows the star
Through the electric throng;
The bidding in temple and bazaar
Drowns out the silver song.

The ancient altars smoke afresh,
The ancient idols stir;
Faint in the reek of burning flesh
Sink frankincense and myrrh.

Gaspar, Balthazar, Melchior!
Where are your offerings now?
What greetings to the Prince of War,
His darkly branded brow?

Two ultimate laws alone we know,
The ledger and the sword —
So far away, so long ago,
We lost the infant Lord.

Only the children clasp His hand;
His voice speaks low to them,
And still for them the shining band
Wings over Bethlehem.

God rest you merry, Innocents,
While innocence endures.
A sweeter Christmas than we to ours
May you bequeath to yours.>

(Please excuse the messed-up formatting. There seems to be a bug in the forum software that combines some verses, but not others, into a single line, and the cure is worse than the disease: I'd have to put a blank line between *every* two lines of text.)

The one-l lama,
He's a priest.
The two-l llama,
He's a beast.
And I will bet
A silk pajama
There isn't any
Three-l lllama.*
>

To which Nash appended the footnote

<*The author's attention has been called to a type of conflagration known as a three-alarmer. Pooh.>

oh Daniel....

Now that we are on to a new week, would you kindly answer my question about <last> week?: