CAT-astrophic immigration solutions

Are you tired of our immigration problem? Angry at your politicians, their political dodges and wishy washy half-solutions? Fret no longer. With great excitement I relay to you a solution to America's immigration problem. I'm also mailing an executive summary to my congressmen so he can write it into law. I invite you to contact your representatives, too, with a copy of this surefire policy, below. The more politicians on-board with this idea, the quicker it'll get done.

So what's my big idea? Two words: Mountain lions.

Inspiration stuck me a while ago when I stepped into my backyard to pull weeds. A couple steps out the door, I spotted motion in my periphery. I turned and looked and discerned a figure. Terror struck. My heart thumped. My limbs trembled with a fresh shot of adrenaline. The sight of the creature in my yard rendered me apoplectic. There it was: Amy Winehouse after an all-night desert keg party, looking for a place to crash. I kid, I kid. It was actually a mountain lion! I'm not kidding. In my yard was a freaking mountain lion, a champion killer, a hunting cat.

You don't know terror until you've stared into the eyes of a mountain lion, or some other kind of lion, without a cage or an inch of Plexiglas between you and the beast. This wasn't on television, or some caged beast you can mock while you're drunk at the zoo. I was face to face with a killer cat. Petrified, I couldn't muster a twitch. I was immobilized with fright. I was only a few feet from the safety of my back door, but it may as well have been a light-year. Had the mountain lion had designs on me, I'd be in ribbons. As it was, the cat took only a passing interest in me as he trotted along the perimeter of my yard and then cleared my 6-foot fence with a casual leap. Ferocity meets grace – with a dose of mercy thrown in for my sake.

Once I composed myself I reflected on the experience. That cat had a dramatic effect on me. And as I often do, I got to thinking. Before long, my mind settled on America's immigration problem. I'm a problem-solver by nature, so it didn't take me long to put the two together, like when the one guy accidentally dipped his chocolate in the other guy's peanut butter. The result – Reece's Peanut Butter Cups. That was it! Let's have mountain lions patrol and enforce our borders. They love the desert. They instill fear in man. They have a knack for hunting and killing. They can cover large areas with their keen senses, speed, stealth and cunning. They'll work for next to nothing. They don't need benefits or a retirement package. And you can't accuse of mountain lion of being racist, a rouge, abusive or corrupt, even if they're working for George Bush.

All we need to do, then, is teach these highly trainable cats to patrol the US border and terrorize the riffraff fixing to cross from the south. Should an illegal alien get too close, that's when Simba pounces. How do we train them to attack? Simple. Every time the mountain lion bites a Mexican, he gets a steak. Every time he bites a white fella, we squirt him with a water bottle. Roger, dodger.

This is more practical and less absurd than it sounds. How hard can it be to train a mountain lion? I saw Siegfried and Roy train a tiger to ride a unicycle. That stunt couldn't be further than what nature had in mind for a four-legged, 700-pound predator. But the tiger delivered. Don't be a Doubting Thomas and remind me that that same tiger later attacked and nearly killed Siegfried. I'm aware of that. But the mountain lions won't be biting into sexually ambiguous circus performers. They're biting illegal aliens. Much different. Plus, they're not working in the chaos of a circus. The mountain lion must do only what comes naturally: patrol, stalk, chase, savage the downtrodden would-be immigrant, then eat a steak.

Environmentalists will eat this idea up (much like the mountain lions will eat up the slower-moving illegals...rimshot!) Environmentalists love it when we solve our problems by using nature. Natural foods, natural medicine, natural energy sources, natural boobs -- they can't get enough of the romantic notion of Nature alleviating our ills. Well, what can be more natural than mountain lions patrolling their territory? Plus, it's a built-in conservation effort for the mountain lions. We're tossing them steaks and foreigners; might as well scratch them off the endangered species list right now. It's a win/win.

Here's another bonus. By installing video cameras at 10-mile intervals along the border, Immigration can sell footage to the Discovery Channel. They'll make a fortune! That means less of the federal pie going to border patrol agencies. People love watching hunting cats tear the crap out of animals who can't run as fast. Let the advertisement revenues flow!

I can already hear protests from the humanitarian crowd: “LBB, are you suggesting we sic savage beasts on people trying to escape abject poverty and strive for a better life?”

Pipe down, hippie. Of course I'm not. I just want to seal the border. And this brings me to the genius of using mountain lions. You see, mountain lions are the runts of the hunting cat world. They're not so tough. The vast majority of mountain lion attacks are non-fatal. They're not human killers so much as human deterrents. I know this from firsthand observation. I frequent an Irish-themed bar whose patronage, naturally, is mostly drunken Irish guys with shaved heads, goatees and shamrock tattoos. These guys fear nothing and fight anything. Things get pretty rowdy at the bar after a few rounds. Often quarrels are settled with wagers of physical prowess. Not so often, yet once in a while, the wager involves strolling into the desert covered in steak sauce and fighting whatever wild animal the poor bastard lures. If you're lucky, fortune will bring you a pack of coyotes, which the more intimidating guys can unnerve by kicking sand in their faces. Other times, a herd of javelinas will try their luck. The secret there is to identify the pack leader and punch him in the ribs. Once he goes down, morale plummets and the herd retreats into the desert. But sometimes a mountain lion shows up looking for an easy meal. Well, the jokes on you, mountain lion. The Irish hoodlum has been sucking back whiskey most of the night. And sure enough, Liam or Sean or Tyrone -- or whoever accepted the wager this evening -- makes quick work of the wild animal. The two fuse into a whirlwind of scratches, bites and Irish uppercuts. From the dust cloud ejects one disheartened mountain lion. Off you go, little fella. Better tell all your lion buddies the next time one of you feels frisky, stalk the gay bar on 9^th Street. Easy pickin's. Anyway, the point is, mountain lions aren't deadly – just wicked scary.

Once my plan squeaks through Congress and becomes law, you'll have me to thank for our impregnable borders and clean living. Also, the mountain lions will owe me a thanks, too. But I won't hold my breath. Mountain lions are ungrateful bastards.

April 4th and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Warning: Re-post.

Hot off the LBB wires...

The ACLU has entreated US Congress to repudiate the collective works of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. after discovering King was a deeply religious man whose philosophies derive from Judeo-Christian doctrine.

Wolfgang Lipshitz, an American history scholar who researched King for a dozen years and has recently published a comprehensive paper of his work, unearthed compelling evidence linking the civil rights champion Dr. King to the Christian faith. Among the most shocking assertions Lipshitz makes is that King was a Reverend. Lipshitz details King’s proclivity for Christian teachings and his habit of daily prayer. The paper also postulates that King sought God for His guidance on matters of public policy. Subsequent to Lipshitz's publication, civil lawsuits against King's estate are pending. Plaintiffs remain anonymous.

Commenting on his findings, Lipshitz said, “I was shocked and appalled to learn such a revered civil rights leader would be so religious. I’d expect this from a dolt like George Bush, but the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King? What a shame we in academia must now renounce everything King stood for.”

Already college campuses across the nation are mourning the loss of the crux of their social science curricula. A sophomore student at U.C. Berkeley expressed dismay for Lipshitz’s findings:

“Martin Luther King was, like, and idol of mine. I’ve got, like, 9 songs in my I-Pod that celebrate the work of MLK. They’re pretty good tunes, too. Now I have to find them shuffled in 9 Gigs of Coldplay and Dave Mathews and delete those f***ers. This is an outrage. Hey man, is this, like, for real. Did Kurt Loder report this? Or is it just another Fox News scam?”

Several students are organizing protests. Picket signs reading, “Separation of Church and State,” and “Keep your Bible off of my body, MLK!” are popping up on Berkeley’s campus and several other forward-thinking colleges. On one such sign, a student drew a likeness of King with the formula “King + Bible = OPPRESSION.”

The NAACP has declined comment, but anonymous inside sources have leaked a covert strategy to segregate MLK’s teachings from the organization’s agenda.

Meanwhile, the Muslim Anti-Defamation League has embraced Lipshitz’s work. Said its spokesperson, “We celebrate this discovery and look forward to the peace MLK’s religious teachings impart on public policy. Perhaps America will one day know the peace the Arab world enjoys thanks to its religious convictions.”

Bullet-ins

• I'm waiting for the class action lawsuit in which convicted sex offenders sue Apple, Inc. to discontinue using the name “iTouch” for their products.
  
• Back when gas was $1.30/gallon, I sometimes opted for the higher octane to give my car a special treat, like drinking premium tequila instead of my usual Walgreen's brand (I call it Walgrila). But now that a tank of gas costs about as much as a date with Ashley Dupré, I'm looking for the cheapest gas I can buy. I wish they had a lower grade than 87-octane. Can't they dilute the gas with something cheap? Because I'd buy it. How about a 50-octane fuel cut with Jolt Cola? Or, how about I spray a couple cans of Aqua Net down the tube and start it up with a Bic lighter?
  
• I was driving down the express way when I read a road sign: “Do Not Follow Trucks.” What am I supposed to do instead? Turn around and go home? What if the trucks are going to the same place I'm headed? Come to think of it, we're all headed the same place: down the fucking road. I'm not just following some of the trucks; I'm following all of them! Up yours, Mr. Road Sign Guy.
  
• Can you language buffs help me out? Is it coincidental or ironic that Christian rock is my personal version of Hell? I always confuse those two words.
  
• How strange that we love our cars but hate driving. Or that we love having sex, but that kids annoy us.
  
• I wish liberals were as obsessed with economic efficiency as much as fuel efficiency.
  
• In life, you have to go the extra mile to get ahead. For example, most guys merely masturbate. I make love to my hand.
  
• It's neat how the Bible has names for the chapters instead of numbers. For instance, it's not Chapter 1. It's “Genesis,” like the rock band, only not as boring. Also, the Bible has chapters like Joshua, Mark, Luke and Titus. Other books should do this. Jurassic Park, for example, could have chapter titles like T Rex and Dr. Malcolm and Hot Scientist Chick. And Ted Kennedy's memoirs would be a more endearing read with Chapters like John, Robert, and Joe. One chapter that you wouldn't find in Kennedy's memoirs – Lifeguard.
  
• I read in the news that citizens of Cuba will be allowed to buy toasters and air conditioners starting in 2010. Before then, these items are contraband. The government prohibits them because they use too much electricity. Let me get this straight. You can get first-rate health care in Cuba. You just you can't toast bread. I guess they power all those hospitals and clinics by burning tobacco.

Three for the road

It's funny when people with dirty last names try to change them by contriving some absurd, foreign pronunciation. For example, take the surname, Buttram. It's pure, undiluted vulgarity, and also funny. Yet Mr. Buttram will correct you and explain that it's pronounced “boo-TRAHM.” Nice try, dude. Why not just face it? You're named after a gay sex act. Here's another example: the surname, Fuchs. Mr. Fuchs will have you believe that you pronounce his name “FYOOKS” (rhymes with REBUKES). Bullcrap! Your last name, sir, as you well know, is pronounced FUCKS. And know that I'll will be addressing your as Mr. FUCKS at every opportunity, especially when I must have you paged overhead at a local pharmacy or a public sporting event. Come on, dude. How do you get FYUKES from Fuchs? Where does the “Y” come from? Best possible scenario, your name is FUCH (rhymes with “such”). And that sounds kinda gay.

When you accidentally bump your keyboard, how do you manage to press the most disastrous key or combination thereof? It's never just a couple of numbers or a semicolon or a harmless Caps Lock. It's always a permutation of computing chaos. I'm usually running a word processing program at the time. I accidentally graze the keyboard while eating or something. Crikey! The colors change. The display inverts. It highlights and deletes blocks of text. Pull-down menus I've never seen before appear – and they never have X-out, quit buttons. You can't get rid of them. They just hang out uninvited and with no plans of leaving, ever, like a drunk uncle at holiday dinner. And I can never figure out what the hell buttons I pressed so that I might undo whatever I've done. Meanwhile, I know my computer's up to something sinister because I can hear the hard drive grinding. I'm scrambling to click the save button before my work flushes into cyberspace. Also, when I accidentally typed those keys, I somehow agreed to install an Internet-based virus and order a 1000-count pack of party favors on eBay. Dammit! What the hell did I press?

Those of you who've been hating on the economy for the last 7 and ½ years, good news! A recession is finally on the way (you won't have to make-believe anymore). I don't base my prediction on macroeconomic facts and figures, unemployment or inflation rates, commodities prices or currency strength. I forecast the economy with my LBB Starbucks Macroeconomic Indicator. LBB's SMI measures how many SUV-driving, Apple Powerbook-toting, George Bush-haters are drinking $5 cups of coffee (often while decrying the economy). The SMI assumes that the more middle class people walking around with $5 cups of coffee, the better the economy. Bad news, folks. Starbucks reports flattening sales and revenues. The coffee peddler's stock is down. And they've stopped building a new store every 45 minutes! This, I'm afraid, is the precursor to a recession.

Manifestation of the subconscious mind

I'm an empiricist. That means I believe that if you can't observe it and measure it, it's balderdash. This is why I scoff at things like “global warming” and yoga. The only people who lose weight and get fit doing yoga are those who were already thin and fit, and queer. Empiricism, by the way, is why I don't believe in the subconscious mind.

Psychologists theorize a subconscious mind resides in each of us. Operating below our awareness, the subconscious mind exacts tremendous influence over our feelings, behaviors and perceptions. The subconscious is ubiquitous. It's part of our every mental operation. It composes the crux of personality (habits, likes and dislikes, temperament, etc). Indeed, some psychologist put mastery of the patient's subconscious as the goal of therapy and the touchstone of mental health. If you can reprogram the subconscious, psychologist explain, you can reinvent yourself into the person you want to be. Via the subconscious, you can tap into a cornucopia of knowledge and power. You can control your emotions, lose weight, learn the piano, lower your blood pressure, heal your body. You can even win on American Idol or pick the right suitcase on Deal or No Deal – all by tapping into your subconscious mind. Or you can just “program” yourself to actually enjoy watching those crappy shows. It's that powerful.

Psychologist explain that the subconscious mind works like a computer. You have to program it. Most people operate according to the default programs installed in our subconscious by parents, schools, society and beer commercials. But with effort we can delete all the bad programs and reprogram it with stuff we want. To that end, the sleeping person's subconscious is primed for programming. Sleeping people's conscious mind, the “gatekeeper,” is shut down (this is the goal of hypnosis, by the way). But sleeping people can still hear. Therefore, the ears are a ladder straight into the subconscious mind. I saw huge potential in this back in 1993. I had this girlfriend who was into naps. I waited until my girlfriend fell asleep and played a tape recording I'd made. It repeated the following: “You want to have sex all the time, and you love giving blow-jobs.” Three weeks later I caught her in my apartment's laundromat, in a trance, sucking off my landlord while still wearing her night shirt and her mineral mask. It wasn't all bad, though. I got my security deposit back without a fuss.

I abandoned the theory of the subconscious mind because I couldn't observe or measure predictable results after tinkering with it. Like the physics theory of aether, it withered away from lack of proof. My girlfriend's escapade notwithstanding, I was never able to influence my or anybody else's subconscious mind. I tried affirmations, hypnosis, positive thinking, self-suggestion. Nothing worked. No matter what I told my subconscious, I was still a pathetic douche bag.

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John Paul Satre declared, “Hell is other people.” If I may borrow the great philosopher's phrase, Hell is old people. What's my point? The point is, I hate old people. I don't really hate them. "Hate" is too strong a word. I just don't like them. Why am I an misagethope? One reason: they take an inordinate amount of time to do everything. Old people steal several minutes of your every day. Especially if there's machinery involved, like a car or a vending machine or something, old people distort time worse than a bad acid trip under a strobe light.

Most old people today were mesmerized by the locomotive engine, the phonograph and nickelodeon pornography. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that today's mechanical doodads perplex seniors. They need several minutes to apprehend the intricacies of say, the soda vending machine at Carl's Jr. Look at all those choices, Mildred. They've got half a dozen flavors of soda pop. There's lemonade. And then there's this damn “Gatorade.” Hell's Bells, Mildred. When did these kids start juicing alligators?

An old person will spend a minute and a half contemplating their senior-discounted beverage at the soda fountain. Such was the case when I dined at my local Carl's Jr. I purchased my Number 9 combo, grabbed my value-sized cup and beelined for the soda fountain. I spotted an old lady who, given her speed and trajectory, would make it to the fountain a moment before me. I had to act fast. The problem was, I injured my lower back earlier in the week. I couldn't bob and weave the way I usually do. My back was too sore to pounce ahead of Betsy Ross. This meant I'd be stuck behind her and have to wait until I was about her age before I could gun-up on Diet Coke. So, I queued up behind her. Sure enough, sure eh-goddamn-nuff, she stares in confusion at the fountain. Also, she's blocking access to the Diet Coke. Five, ten seconds pass. No movement, no signs of life. Was she having a stroke? Had the Good Lord seen fit to take both her and me out of our misery? No such luck. After a couple ice ages came and went, she raised her glass at a glacier's pace to the ice tea spigot. She tentatively shimmied her cup against the lever. Each spurt from the soda gun startled her, and so she recoiled. Imagine a teenager learning to drive a clutch. Come on, Betsy. You're not taming a cobra. You're filling a cup. Don't you have a few dozen pills to take with that iced tea?

I'd had enough. I conceived a plan that just might work. It had to work. I'd slip aside her, stretch my arm out and maneuver the glass underneath the Diet Coke spigot. She'd never know. Her glaucoma obscured her peripheral vision. As long as I loitered in the periphery, my breach of etiquette would go undetected. I could fill up, make my escape and hope she'd be done before I returned for a refill about 20 minutes later.

I executed my plan with success. Slipping aside her, I filled a 44-ounce glass to the brim with nectar of the gods, aka, Diet Coke. Now for my escape...

Just then, disaster struck. Or was it cosmic justice? I'll let the reader decide. You see, the awkwardness of my stance and the spasm in my back conspired to exact revenge/exact justice. I dropped my drink on the beverage bar and sprayed the old broad with soda. Yahtzee! The moisture liberated from her polyester pants the smell of mothballs and Bengay. My first instinct was embarrassment. But milliseconds later, an odd, unfamiliar satisfaction fizzed inside me. It foamed over into ecstatic joy, contemptuous mirth. It was that beautiful feeling you get when you witness someone taking a dose of their own medicine. Elation. The old bat paid the price for her indolence. And as it was an accident, I was blameless.

Still, prudence required the pretext of regret. I apologized several times: “Sorry. I'm sorry. That one got away from me.” The Coke-soaked old lady said nothing. She just sneered at me. I remember thinking, If only it were piping hot coffee instead.

As I ate my meal, I contemplated things. I reexamined my opinion of the subconscious. I'd ruled out its existence long ago. But now I had a big, steaming pile of empirical evidence substantiating subconscious behavior! What had happened was obvious. I internalized my anger. It settled in my subconscious where it fermented into malice. At the conscious level, my sense of civility prevailed; I simply endured the old lady's imposition. I remained calm, even stoic. Even the keenest eye couldn't discern my frustration. Meanwhile, my subconscious mind contrived an “accident” which it staged at the Carl's Jr. beverage bar, sniping the stimulus of my discord, namely, the slowpoke senior citizen.

Readers might attribute the dropped soda to chance: maybe it was just an accident. What readers don't know is, I don't drop soda. I've been drinking 7 sodas a day for 20 years. Haven't spilled one yet. I'd drop a newborn baby before I drop a soda. It's uncanny. The better explanation is, the subconscious mind rose and asserted its will.

What does this all mean? It means the subconscious mind is alive and well. The possibilities are endless. Now that I have a subconscious mind, I have to start programming it, posthaste. I'm no longer using my digital audio recorder for blog ideas. I'm recording affirmations to play while I sleep. To wit:

1. “I'm a kick-ass guitar player and a rock star. Attention: subconscious mind – I don't mean the video game craze, Guitar Hero. I mean the actual six stringed instrument. And don't forget to make me an actual rock star like Bono or someone like that.”

2. “I'm a kick-ass professional athlete. I'm super fast and strong, too. I'm like those UFC guys who can kick anybody's ass. In fact, I am a UFC Pride Fighter. Undefeated. And I've invented my own patented choke hold with a cool name that you, subconscious, will implant in my brain when I wake up.”

3. “I'm wealthy. I have tons of cash and a gold-plated house and a sweet-ass sports car. Imagine that Donald Trump fucked Bill Gates in the ass and then Bill got pregnant and had a kid. That kid is me. I'm every bit the entrepreneur, but I don't have a train wreck of a hairdo and also I'm not a dork.”

4. “I'm a graceful dancer. I'm even better than that Riverdance guy.”

5. “I can eat whatever I want and not gain weight. My body thrives on frozen pizzas, Mexican food and candy. My metabolism takes care of all that stuff so that I always look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club.”

6. “All the guys envy my savoir faire manner and the ladies, too, who all want my phone number because they can't resist me what on account of me being a wealthy rock star and UFC champ and because I'm a great dancer who looks like Brad Pitt, as I mentioned above.”

Goodbye for now, dear reader. I have a nap to take.