richardcahill.net

Go Topless Day

8/28/2014

Celebrating GTD in Mexico

"The worst thing about summer in New York is not the heat. It's not the humidity. It's the fat guys with no shirts on!"—David Letterman.

It's Go Topless Day as I write this. I am proud to say I was already participating before I was even aware of the festivities; the benign summer clime of San Diego does not require upper body covering for any occasion except most jobs and funerals. I can sit here in solitary, bare-chested splendor and no one will complain, except for my Significant Other and then only if her daughters are coming over. There is an extremely local ordinance in place that forbids me from being topless in front of them.

But that is not the point of GTD. The holiday is meant as a protest against laws that allow men almost everywhere to doff their shirts whenever weather permits while woman almost everywhere are forbidden to do so. Before I go further, I'd like to point out that having GTD in August is Northern Hemisphere-centric. Nobody in Tasmania or Tierra del Fuego is going to be much inclined to celebrate toplessness today.

These laws are obviously unfair. Who would be against the elimination of such blatant discrimination? I can only think of a few constituencies offhand. Women's clothing manufacturers, for obvious reasons. People who own topless bars, because nobody wants their livelihood threatened. Policemen, because these laws are great for police morale. Policemen all over the world love arresting topless women.

Apart from them, there are only two other groups whose interests keep topless laws in place. 1. Men. 2. Women.

Ladies first. By and large, women who want to exercise their right to be topless are women who look good that way. Women who are less self-confident about their upper bodies because they have been rendered less than optimal by time or Twinkies, are fine with being required to wear clothing. They form the major voting bloc that keeps anti-toplessness the law of the land. And they have their own words to describe their shapely sisters who want to bare their mammaries to the breeze. Sluts, tramps and hookers are three of them.

I am not saying this makes women more jealous and vindictive than men. Consider that if men were granted the option to go pantsless ("Swing Free Day") likely only the guys with the most attractive and substantial members would participate. The rest of us would just grit our teeth and stay indoors. As a libertarian, I would of course support the rights of these guys to be trousers-optional. I just think that on Swing Free Day, they ought to be forced to spend at least fifteen minutes every hour in a walk-in freezer, as an equalizer.

But men are the number one reason topless laws are in no danger of being repealed. Guys stare, gawk and drool enough as it is. All of us have heard "I have a face," from a woman when we have been having a conversation with her cleavage. I've heard it so often that I have a standard snappy retort to it, which is "If you want me to look at your face, wear a turtleneck." I have to admit many women don't find this remark as perky and amusing as I do.

But that's the way we guys are. Most of us reach the age of forty or so before we become aware that our brains can be used for thinking about things other than sex. At that point, instead of constantly thinking about sex, we start thinking about clever schemes we can employ to get more sex. It doesn't make us any easier to deal with.

So it's good topless ladies are having a topless protest in which tops have remained at home. We guys will stand on the sidelines and cheer. But even after you girls achieve legal topless equality, when you are looking at your closet while getting ready to go to the market or the mall, you might start thinking about all the guys you don't want staring at you, brushing against you, making loud remarks about you to impress the pack of dolts they call their friends, or just following you around the grocery store with a look on their face that's halfway between love and a potentially criminal hormone imbalance, and you'll reach inside and grab a top.

And it will be all our fault. We guys, that is. What a world, what a world.*

*Last words of the Wicked Witch of the West, a member of the small but heavily persecuted minority of green-breasted women.

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Pope Takes Ice Bucket Challenge

8/25/2014

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The fad sweeping across America like an Islamic caliphate this summer is the Ice Bucket Challenge. For those of you have been asleep since June, participants in the challenge have to either douse themselves or be doused by a bucket of ice water or else contribute money towards the cure of ALS, or, as it used to be known, Lou Gehrig's disease. The Ice Bucket challenge has raised millions for ALS research, although how it does this, when accepting the challenge means you don't have to fork over the cheese, is a mystery to me and probably most accountants.

A word here for Lou Gehrig. I wish the disease was still named after him and I bet he does too, if he went to All-Star Heaven and still keeps up on the news. It was one of the few diseases named after a patient who had it instead of the doctor who discovered it, and rendering it as an anonymous acronym somehow denies all the good Lou did by having it, which was reminding poor people who didn't have anything, including the disease, to be thankful for that, and for giving a great speech when he retired from baseball.

Now that the summer is waning the list of people who haven't taken the challenge is growing shorter. Our President is the number one name on the list, but I'm pretty sure the Secret Service would be obligated to shoot you if you tried to Ice Bucket Obama, even though there are millions of people who really, really would love to do that. Since almost all of those people are white, this would result in a white man being shot for assaulting a black guy, which would at least be a change of pace.

Sadly, most politicians are banned from taking the challenge by complex federal regulations, so you won't have the fun of seeing John Boehner's suit getting ruined, cigarette being put out and wine getting diluted by a torrent of ice water anytime soon. In fact, if the regulations could be waived for the sake of charity and all members of Congress were to take the challenge simultaneously, and also were persuaded to leave the buckets upside-down on their heads for just one picture, it might easily be considered the greatest political portrait of all time.

Many, if not most of our favorite celebrities have taken the challenge. Some haven't, and here's a list of them. I'm sure some of them just haven't gotten around to it, or else they are afraid that being doused with ice water would sober them up, but Betty White is called out among that number. Come on, people! She's 90. If you think nonagenarians ought to be abruptly soaked in freezing water, go out to a nursing home and start Ice Bucketing them. When the police show up, try telling them you're a philanthropist. Let me know how that works for you.

Kate Upton, America's Sweet Thing, has taken the challenge, but if you follow the link, she looks like she's wearing at least four t-shirts. We know you're not averse to wet t-shirts, Kate, as we can plainly see in this gratuitous image, but wearing multiple ones defeats the purpose. Also, there's a suspicious lack of ice in that water. And you, Kate, you of all people couldn't find a bikini to wear? America cries out for a do-over.

Pamela Anderson, America's Groupie, will not be participating in the Ice Bucket Challenge, because she alleges that ALS researchers experiment on animals, which she is against. This is because Pamela Anderson thinks the lives of laboratory mice should he happy, wheel-spinning adventures and people with ALS should be with content with dying in Stephen Hawking wheelchairs while thinking, "Well, at least they didn't kill any cute rodents so I might be spared this most dreadful and humiliating of ends."

I don't have any lab animals myself, but I did spot a rat scampering along the condo fence the other night. It was moving too fast for me to experiment on it, but I did toss a bucket of ice water at it while shouting "Pamela Anderson sends her regards!"

Yeah, I do my bit.

Donald Trump will not be taking the Ice Bucket Challenge because nobody, especially him, wants to know what his hair will look like afterwards.

But the most obvious person who has not yet taken the Ice Bucket Challenge is the Pope, and I think this Pope is ready for it. I'm talking old-school ice-bucketing, like they do to football coaches when they win the Super Bowl. I see a bunch of red-hatted Cardinals sneaking up behind His Holiness while he's blessing things, trying not to giggle and cautioning each other under their breaths "Videte ne quis vos in hat."* The bucket will be filled with Holy Ice Water, naturally. The Pope will be making the Sign of the Cross and reverently muttering "In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti" when suddenly WHOOSH!

Amen.

If he does it, I'll do it.

*"Watch out for the hat!"

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The Big Bang Becomes The Big Toot

8/21/2014

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Too boring? Click for a gratuitous image of Kate Upton

Science marches on, and it takes damn few prisoners. The latest burst of news from leading astrophysicists is that they are on the verge of proving that our universe, far from being a unique entity that started with a self-important Big Bang, originated as a "bubble" quietly let go by another, better universe.

We all know what "bubble" is a euphemism for.

To put that in layman's terms, the real universe farted, and here we are.

Whether the moment of creation was an inadvertent, near-silent blip loosed by a debutante while plucking at a tray of hors d' oeuvres and covered up with an embarrassed smile or some slob's nocturnal natural gas explosion fueled by a plate of frijoles washed down with plenty of creamy cervezas science cannot tell us. Currently. I am sure they are working feverishly to find out. Likewise, whether our singularity emerged by itself or was birthed simultaneously with other universes has yet to be discovered. However, if the originating universe was suffering from gastric distress so severe as to be letting loose with an embarrassing string of two or three noters, additional universes would have been born alongside ours. We are unable to detect these universes. Fortunately.

Nor can they say whether our universe resulted from an audible bubble, or whether the original moment of existence was of the silent-but-deadly variety. Although we live in a locally noisy sector, most of our universe is very quiet, and much of it is deadly, so it shouldn't come as a surprise if science eventually finds out that we live in a real nose-wrinkler of a cosmos.

The discovery is another hammer for the atheists to swing as they try to demolish the concept of God. It is highly doubtful that a Supreme Being was blown out of the hole of Creation. The Big Bang closely resembled the origin of the universe as written in Genesis, as theologians were fond of pointing out, but now we find "Let there be light" was not nearly as likely to have been uttered during the first nanosecond as "Somebody open a window, for God's sake!"

We had already discovered that we were insignificant bugs living on a modest planet in a mundane galaxy in an unimaginably vast space filled with better planets and galaxies but now to find out that the starry vastness of the night sky is merely a brief, likely smelly, puff let loose by a superior plane of existence is ultimately humbling. All of our history of striving, from wars won and lost, feasts prepared and eaten, elections and money held and stolen is nothing in the grand scheme of things. We're not even the smallest part of the grand scheme of things. We're waste expelled from least grand part of the grand scheme of things.

I suppose one could find all this depressing but, oddly, confirmation of the utterly meaningless accident my existence is gives me peace. All those times I have derailed from the tracks of responsibility, from fundamental career errors to repeatedly pursuing dead-end relationships to my habit of always snatching the cheesiest nacho, weren't worth the brief moments of guilt they caused me, then or now, because they never really happened. Not in the real Universe, anyway.

I am filled with me a sense of inner tranquility. Or at least I would be, if I hadn't piled all those garbanzos on my salad at lunch.

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Superman is an Illegal Alien

8/18/2014

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Nice tights, people. Now let's see some green cards.

Now that illegal juveniles are no longer flocking in vast numbers to our southern border under the mistaken assumption that the United States likes brown kids and wants to help them, it is time to point the cop flashlight of fate into the dark corners where other illegal aliens lurk. I'm not talking about raiding some poorly-lit factory saturated with dangerous chemicals, or hitting a boring barrio and checking ID's.

I'm talking about taking action against illegals living brazenly and openly in our country, often earning plaudits from grateful citizens who don't seem to be aware that their presence here flaunts our laws. I'm talking about investigating the Justice League of America.

Don't get me wrong. Most superheroes are here legally. Batman and Spiderman are native-born Americans with inspiring backstories. Batman, born into wealth in America, nobly chooses to spend it gearing up and fighting crime instead of going to an Ivy League school on a lacrosse scholarship and then operating a series of hedge funds like all his friends did. Spiderman, born into more modest circumstances, but a native New Yorker nonetheless, gets bitten by a radioactive spider and swings around skyscrapers instead of going to a community college and repairing air conditioners.

Other superheroes operate in grayer areas. The Green Lantern is native born, but he got his ring of power from an illegal alien who crash-landed on the planet, totally evading Customs and the federal excise tax on superhero accessories. Wonder Woman? She's from Amazonia, which is in Brazil. If you look at a map, you see that Brazil is the country that seems to have successfully, quietly occupied most of South America, pushing all the other countries to the edges of the continent. Nobody takes exception to this. "Wow, Israel could take a few lessons from Brazil," is what you're thinking, but that's not the point.

Most women in Brazil are content to seek fame locally by trying to become Miss Bumbum Brazil, but not Wonder Woman. She's here, tiara, Lasso of Truth, invisible airplane and all.

"But she saves us from sinister villains all the time," you protest.

Sure she does. But is that her real motive? Or is she really just looking to have an anchor baby?

But the biggest and most obvious illegal migrant flying around in American skies today is Superman. If you recall, his parents put him on a spaceship and shot him towards Earth to save him from his home planet's explosion. If that's not the moral equivalent of sticking your little Juanita on the Beast Train and telling her Obama will be waiting for her at the border with free tacos, I don't know what is. The baby Supe is found by Ma and Pa Kent. Do these natural Americans notify the INS and the Border Patrol when they find the Super infant crash-landed in their cornfield, as they properly should? No. They clap their hands and say joyfully "Now we don't have to go to Russia to adopt a white baby!"

And here he remains, taking work and movie deals away from other, native-born superheroes. Oh, I know. Superman doesn't actually get paid for saving the Earth time after time again. But Clark Kent cashes his check every week, depriving some real American mild-mannered reporter of work.

Don't forget the economic ripples that Superman being here sends through the economy. The price of Kryptonite remains out of the average villain's reach, and every time Superman defeats another enemy, the bottom falls out of the evil lair market.

I'm not saying that we ought to deport the guy, especially since his home planet is now a smoking hulk of ashy death. But he ought to get in line, take a citizenship test, pay his back taxes and otherwise jump through whatever humiliating hoops we can think of to remind him that while we'll let him live here, he'll never really be one of us.

Of course, he probably realizes that every time he leaps over a tall building in a single bound.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE DEPT: This blog post was inspired by this blog post by Nina Flores.

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The Long Drunk Au Revoir

8/14/2014

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The last thing a Frenchman wants to see

A French hospital has opened a wine bar for terminally ill patients. Under medical supervision, patients with no expectations of ever getting well enough to slip out to the neighborhood bistro again can enjoy a glass or two in the company of others who also find themselves on the top of the Grim Reaper's to-do list.

We can only salute France for this innovation. The French have long been known for both their advanced medicine and their advanced alcoholism. In their own uniquely civilized way, they have solved their long-standing problem of terminally-ill patients out binge-drinking in the streets by providing them with a secure place in which to get hammered before they get embalmed.

The French buy-a-round-before-you-buy-the-farm-bar is a carefully controlled environment. Toasting is kept to a minimum, as the customary French toast, Votre sante, meaning "your health," is completely pointless, as is the Spanish "Salud!" and the German "Proust!" The English "Cheers!" is not likely to produce much mirth, but it's better than the Hebrew "L'Chaim!" (To Life!) which, under the circumstances, could be considered semi-sadistic. "Bottoms up!" is often a painful reminder to these patients of the position they had to assume to have medical things put up inside them. The only really appropriate toast is the Japanese "Kampei!" which, in the unimaginative way of the Japanese, means "Drink it all!" There you have it.

Wine is the only alcoholic beverage served. This is proper, because wine is the most somber of spirits, lacking the fizzy cheerfulness of beer and the sudden, violent happiness of hard liquor. Patients slurp contemplatively at their Cabernets and watch the bar TVs, which, instead of being tuned to French ESPN, constantly play shows like "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" and "Heaven is Real" to psych them up for checking out.

Besides the medical supervision the French so responsibly provide on behalf of their dying drunks, there is also a medically-trained bouncer at the bar's door to spot hospital patients who want to drink but are not terminally ill, so they can't get in and start fights.

The bar does have a "Happy Hour," but it is very sensitively publicized.

When can we expect this medical advance to reach American shores? Not before you've scratched that last item off your bucket list is the sad answer. Americans expect death to hurt. We don't even let dying people use their cell phones without shooting them dirty looks. Besides, we wouldn't be content with mere wine bars. Americans on the verge of kicking the oxygen habit would insist on a full cocktail menu of Kamikazes, Slippery Nipples, Fuzzy Navels and the drink most likely to bring on a near death experience if you're not enjoying yours sufficiently already, shots of Jagermeister. Instead of death panels we would have drink panels, and the whole high-minded project would be strangled in red tape, freighted with disclaimers and then sunk without a trace.

So now it will not only be romantic Americans and literary Americans, but ordinary drunk Americans as well, who long for the sight of France in their final moments and say to themselves wistfully, "I want to die in Paris."

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Open Carrying On

8/11/2014

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It is not often that this column prints a retraction, but when I am in error, I freely admit it and promptly make a correction. This is the case today. On the 7th of last month, I wrote that it was highly doubtful that male Open Carry advocates had any degree of attraction for the opposite sex. The publication of "My Parents Open Carry," a children's book devoted to that most fascinating of subjects for young ones, a fundamentalist interpretation of their Second Amendment Rights, seemingly proves that people who pack pointless heat are capable of reproducing, and when they do, they now have a book that their children can point to in self-defense when other kids, in the casually cruel way of children, tell them that their parents are wierdos.

I cannot reproduce the book in its entirety here, owing to copyright laws, but if you want to see its cover, click above. Or you can take my word that it is a family portrait consisting of three individuals with gaping hypnotic blue eyes, the kind you hate to see looking at you through a gun sight if you are a mall shooter or an illegal alien. Two of them are strapping chillers. The book is told from the viewpoint of Brenna Strong, the daughter of the armed nuptial unit. One of the most touching passages is reprinted below, completely unabridged:

The air filled with the delicious smell of my mom's baloney-and-cheese-wiz-casserole getting warmed up in the microwave. As I watched, she brushed against the counter. The custom pistol grip on her Glock 9mm collided with a bowl full of cake mix and the gooey chocolate contents crashed to the floor. I blushed as my mom took the Lord's Name in vain.

"That was Bundt cake for Cliven Bundy's bake sale," she said. "It's his favorite."

"Mom, why do you wear your gun while you're baking anyway?" I asked.

"It's your father's order," she replied. "Haven't you ever heard of home invasion robberies? Statistics show that most of them start right here in the kitchen."

I was glad that my mom was open carrying then, like I am when we go shopping. My thoughts went back to the first time my parents took me out to the Walmart while they were packing their gats. "Why are you and Daddy the only people wearing guns?" I asked.

"Notice how the other shoppers avoid making eye contact with us, especially the black ones? " she replied. "That's the way we like it."

"Why don't the black people open carry, too?" I asked.

"Because the police would shoot them if they did," my mom said. That's why I love my mom—she has an answer for everything. But that afternoon she seemed upset. She took off her gun—she has eight—Dad says it's more practical than letting her buy jewelry—but the Glock is her favorite. She put it in the cupboard next to the cases of chocolate Pop Tarts and Quaker Instant Oatmeal that we keep in case we want to have a nutritious breakfast if we ever need to hide out from FEMA. "What about a home invasion robbery?" I cried. "Or what if a bunch of undocumented teenagers got across the border and broke into our yard?"

"We live in Montana," my mom replied grimly, "ten miles from the nearest paved road. The gun can stay where it is."

"But what about what Dad said?"

"He won't be back for days. He's out training with the Montana Militia. He thinks I don't know they do nothing but drink beer and go out to strip bars and try to tuck copies of the Constitution into the girl's garters."

"Mom!"

"I'm sick of the whole Open Carry thing," she said. 'You know how tough it is to accessorize when you have to wear the same gun belt every day? And I'm tired of guys throwing me into the deep end at pool parties because they know my heater's going to drag off my bikini bottoms. Again. And no matter what your father says, camouflage is not a Christmas color!"

I was worried. "Mom. you seem really mad."

I could see was trying to keep from crying. "It's all right, dear. It's just that sometimes—well, now your dad wants me to wear the gun even when we're having—never mind."

"Sex, Mom?"

She whirled and looked hard at me. "WHERE DID YOU LEARN ABOUT SEX? YOU'RE ONLY NINETEEN!"

"In seventh grade, Mom. Before I started home school."

"Well, as long as you already know about it. Yes, that's it. Unless I'm wearing my gun, your father can't get locked and loaded, if you catch my drift."

"Aren't you afraid the gun is going to go off when you're, you know, having loving sex in a married relationship?"

"No gun made goes off faster than your father, Brenna. Trust me on that."

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Trumping Ebola

8/7/2014

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When Donald Trump chipped in on Twitter about the wisdom of allowing an American, Ebola-infected doctor back into this country for treatment—he's against it--he was greeted with a cacophony of criticism, much of which suggested that he had once again exposed himself as a heartless bunghole.

Knowing that there had to be more to the story than that, I arranged an interview. I must admit I secured the interview under false pretenses—I identified myself as a Republican political operative who wanted to see him run for President again.

"People told me there were none of you left in the country," Trump began by saying. "More proof that everybody but me is wrong. And I'm certainly right about letting this diseased doctor back in the country for treatment. Big mistake."

But this guy is actually a hero. He put himself at great risk so that other human lives could be saved.

"That whole concept of a hero confuses me, as it does many other Americans. Don't heroes carry guns and shoot people, or fight fires and pose for calendars? Except for sports heroes, who score a lot of points or touchdowns or whatever and get endorsement deals. Heroes don't go to Africa except to attack terrorist camps or prevent another Benghazi."

That doesn't make much sense, but I'm impressed that you know Benghazi is in Africa.

"My staff keeps track of places in the news where I don't currently have a casino and emails me updates. I know that Ukraine's in Europe, too. It's my foreign policy know-how that makes me a Presidential contender."

Aren't you afraid that thinking a solitary individual with Ebola, transported and treated with great care and hospitalized hundreds of miles away from you in Atlanta poses a danger to you makes you seem like a coward?

"First off, Ebola poses no danger to me personally because my comb-over protects me from most infectious diseases. That's what my hairstylist tells me, at any rate. So I'm only worried about other Americans, ordinary, hard-working Americans laboring hard every day and pulling away at the handles of my slot machines every night. To them I say, The Donald cares. And also I say, don't just walk away from that slot machine in disgust when you've lost all your money. Use the freaking Purell first."

Because they might have Ebola?

"Or anything. Lets get back to this Ebola person, shall we? Like I said on Twitter, we appreciate his sacrifice and everything, but going over to a foreign continent and catching an African disease is on him. No reason I need to have his back. He went over to some substandard country and mingled hard with sick people, and now he comes home whining for some untested vaccine? Where's his sense of personal responsibility? You can go off and sacrifice yourself for the greater good just to frivolously satisfy your need for moral superiority, if you want, but don't send me the bill! Make the rest of us feel like self-centered, money-grubbing jerks and then expect to get paid for it? Not in The Donald''s America!"

You really feel strongly about this, don't you?

"You bet I do. As far as I'm concerned, the guy might as well be standing on a median strip with a crude cardboard sign that says NEED MONEY FOR SERUM. Some people are going to give him the filthy change out of their ashtrays. Most people are going to drive right by. Some people are going to wait until the light changes and throw the rest of their breakfast sandwich at him, then look in the rear view to see if he eats it."

That breakfast sandwich trick--that's really nasty. Do you do that to homeless people?

"No, I have a limo. I have my driver give the guy a buck to distract him, and when the light changes, I whip the door open and try to grab his whole bucket when I go by twenty feet later. But that's just me."

So you're comparing this humanitarian doctor, who could be just seeing people all day for ten minutes each at a hundred dollars a pop and making bank but instead goes to the far reaches of the earth to save the lives of people who can't pay him a dime, to a homeless person?

"Well, now that you put it that way, no. At least the homeless person is trying to get paid for doing nothing, which is the American dream, which I personally live. This doctor is trying to be the Dalai Lama, or Jimmy Carter, or some other kind of person the average American doesn't understand and doesn't want to pay the consequences of worrying about getting Ebola because of his do-goodyism."

I think maybe it's you that doesn't understand him.

"I could if I wanted to. The way I find out a person's character is to have them do a big bunch of work for me for free. That infected doc is welcome to do that, as long as he keeps that Diver Dan suit on. We're thinking about doing a season of "Handicapped Apprentice." Just remember that the ramp rolls both ways."

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E.T. Phone Hell

8/4/2014

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Because you're probably going to need a reservation

Noted theologian Ken Ham took time off from his regular job, which is building a full-scale replica of Noah's Ark in Kentucky, last week to unleash this Biblical bombshell--all extraterrestrials are going to Hell.

Mr. Ham said this in order to discourage us from looking for alien life. He reasons that while the sin of Adam reverberated through the universe, blotching up its entire 26 quiptillion light-year expanse with evil, when Jesus covered mankind's history of unholy transgressions by getting crucified, the effects were only felt here on Earth.

It is up to Ham's laboratory, which was already grappling with the issue of what kind of saddles cavemen used to ride dinosaurs, to let us know how this is scientifically possible. Their leading conjecture is that apple that Adam bit into was loaded with subatomic sin particles (sintrinos) that propagated throughout the universe instantly, damning all of it to perdition before he swallowed his first mouthful, whereas apparently there weren't enough Higgs Bosons, or God particles, at the Last Supper to radiate salvation much above the stratosphere.

Whatever the source of this apparent miscalculation, the implications are huge. First, Heaven is much more scaled-down than originally thought. The majority of humans, not being Christians, aren't going to be there to crowd it up, and which few of Ham's fellow Christians are going to be admitted is a closely-kept secret. Possibly only people who have bought tickets to Ken's Creation Museum, also in Kentucky, are getting in. This means Heaven doesn't have to be much bigger than a largish amusement park, which would make keeping it clean and perfect forever much easier.

Hell, on the other hand, has to be truly vast. Not only are the souls of most humans going there, but every alien soul that ever hatched, coagulated out of a scary mist or budded off from its mother in the entire Universe is going to be bunking down there for all eternity as well. I'm thinking it's got to be at least the size of a galactic cluster.

The other conclusion that can be drawn from these recent revelations is that Mr. Ham is offering those scientists searching for ETs a valuable timesaver. Why bother scouring the electromagnetic spectrum hoping to catch an alien reality show or shooting star probes off randomly when, if you want to meet aliens, all you have to do is die and go to Hell, which most of us will effortlessly accomplish anyway?

When Mr. Ham first tossed this scriptural grenade, the thoughts of many of us went to the alien life forms with which we were personally acquainted, and oddly enough, his theology didn't seem quite so unbelievable. I mean, Predators and Aliens are obviously going to Hell. They seem to be from there in the first place, so it's home sweet home for them. Wookies and Klingons? They have their good points and bad points, but you'd hardly call them saints.

The legendary Captain Kirk, who treated the universe as his personal bachelor party during the first run of Star Trek, is obviously hell-bound and while he is human, many of the space tramps he had intergalactic intercourse with were not. They'll be frying by his side, along with gigantic cockroaches and crab people wearing spacesuits.

These creatures belong in Hell. But what about those Close Encounter guys and those cute little people who lived in a bus station locker in Men in Black? ET, for God's sake, glowing healing fingertip and all? Are they all doomed to bake in the wood-fired pizza oven of Hell forever? I was beginning to have my doubts, and expressed them to my Significant Other. She agreed.

"What about Uncle Martin in My Favorite Martian?" she said. "Way too nice to go to Hell."

"I hadn't even remembered him," I said. "Wow, you're old."

So now I'm living in hell.