Number One: Watch Out For Those Side Effects

Um, this would be unpleasant:

Falling, Dead Pigeons Mar City Festival
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:11 a.m. ET

TEXARKANA, Texas (AP) -- Poisoned pigeons began nose-diving into pavement and dying on downtown sidewalks, marring the city's annual festival.

What's the deal? The mystery was solved when CapitalOne Bank President Lacy McMillen admitted that she had hired an exterminator to "to handle its pigeon problem" after a bird had broken into the bank and pooped on a customer.

Jarrod Horton, president of Anti-Pest Co. Inc. of Shreveport, La., said he had treated corn with a pesticide intending to sicken the pigeons, apparently hoping that the resulting tummy aches would send a strong message to the uncouth birds that their presence was no longer welcome in the bank.

But alas, according to Horton

"Death was sometimes an unfortunate side effect."

No shit. Maybe next time they should try harsh language.


Number Two: Driving US Crazy

First 9/11, now this. According to Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, Osama bin Laden's secret weapon is to bankrupt America. It seems that Osama

has made it clear that scaring the United States into an unsustainable spending spree is one of his aims. In a 2004 video, Mr. bin Laden, the Qaeda leader, spoke of “bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”

“He understood that one tool he had in waging war against the United States was to drive us crazy, into bankruptcy, trying to defend ourselves against every conceivable threat,” Mr. Chertoff said at a hearing of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

After all, there's so much to do: airline security, port security, chemical plant security, rail security, fences to control illegal immigration. No, we must choose our priorities carefully, said Chertoff, whose department earlier this year, compiled

a list of possible targets that included a petting zoo, a bourbon festival and a popcorn factory, while at the same time it cut antiterrorism grants to high-risk cities like Washington and New York.

And anyway, shouldn't part of the blame for impending bankruptcy be placed on the other side of the equation, on those who reduced the government's income, e.g. tax cuts right in the middle of a "clash of civilizations?"

Maybe we should poison their corn.

Just a thought.