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Iraqi insurgent groups, in secret talks with resourcefully pacifying President Jalal Talabani, admitted they may have been fighting the wrong enemy. Upon hearing the admission, President Talibani slapped his forehead so hard he fell over backwards and was unconscious for approximately three days.

Upon being resuscitated, he continued the talks. Apparently, the insurgents, most of whom are Sunni Muslims, have slowly begun to realize that American and coalition troops, who they have been making their best efforts to kill, may not be the real enemy. It seems they are also growing disenchanted with the practice of blowing up a dozen or so of their fellow countrymen every day.

While it is far too soon to expect them to realize that coalition troops are actually the helpful heroes who liberated their country from murderous despotism and will be delighted to depart their sandy realm as soon as they can get their act together and run their own country, the groups have indicated a marginal willingness to consider giving up their various armaments and roadside explosives.

Behind the change in their sentiment seems to be, not only their longtime-overdue displeasure with dismembering their own nation, but the realization that they are dangerously bordered by their traditional enemy, Iran, as they have been for quite a few thousand years, and that, because of the continuing discord, Iran has managed to increase its influence in the country, particularly among their uneasy Mosque fellows, the Shiite contingent of the legions of Mohammed. This perception is especially upsetting to the insurgents, because, as noted above, most of them are rival Sunni “Mosque-ovites.”

Their infuriatingly slow realization of the error of their ways is likely to elicit hardly more than ironic displeasure from the many families, coalition and Iraqi alike, who have lost loved ones during their misguided rampage.

But at least their willingness to talk and to consider mending their detonative ways is a glimmer of hope for the families whose sons and daughters are still in Iraq, attempting to do the right thing by the Iraqi people, Sunni and Shiite alike.

May the day soon come when enough of the knuckleheads realize the error of their war so we and the other nations that are in the hot sands we’ve gotten ourselves into can finally get our much underappreciated troops the heck out of there.

The Federal Reserve took the unusually considerate step of raising the interest rate again while providing that banks could not raise the mortgage rates on people who already have mortgages with them.

While the banks called foul, the new head of the Fed commented, “I think it’s time to be forthright about how the Fed manages the economy and the consequences of it. As you know, when the economy slows down, we lower the rate to stimulate it, which inevitably results in people going out and buying homes for the simple reason that they can now afford them. Then when the economy picks up, we raise the rates, which has always meant the mortgage rates go right up with it. So a lot of these people can no longer afford their homes. Well, it’s time to end the carnage and come to the rescue of these poor suckers. Banks can raise the rates accordingly but only on new mortgages.”

“Ruined, ruined &ndash we’ll be ruined!” a spokesman for Citibank wailed, as it declared record profits.

“This will break us,” a spokeswoman for Bank of America bemoaned.

Their comments soundly reminiscent of the cries that have until now echoed through the hallways of homes that would otherwise, in the wake of rising rates, be foredoomed to foreclosure.

Startlingly enough, it looks as if the time will soon arrive when the USA will have to play catch-up with Cuba in oil exploration. The diminutive and destitute communist enclave that serves as Fidel Castro’s personal cigar plantation now realizes that it has enough oil reserves under its coastal waters to prop up its no-go economy for decades and, incapable of assembling the capacity to out the oil itself, the island nation has begun to license drilling rights to other countries, including China, the prospect of which alarms us, and Spain, the idea of which invites us to think of tapas.

In wisdom wrought from its neediness, the resourceful islet has also offered to license American oil companies.

Expectedly enough, the very prospect of Cuba scooping oil out of the ocean floor while America has outlawed it for decades has enkindled hot debate in Congress about the present wisdom of our self-imposed interdiction. The debate has rapidly blossomed into a gusher partly because America has even more proven oil reserves in its coastal waters, no doubt principally because it has even more coastal waters.

Persuasively enough in these oil-dear times, there seems to be enough of the black gold there to meet all of our energy needs for about 18 years, or long enough for all the leaders in the Middle East who we aren’t getting along with these days to go the way of leaders everywhere who, we determine, are irredeemably misguided.

Naturally, conservation societies have been galvanized into opposition by the mere prospect of an oil bit chomping into the emerald waters of our abundantly fishy coastlines in search of the liquid treasure below the reefs.

As the debate bubbles on, we can only consider a worst-case, best-case scenario. Worst case: we do nothing while foreign companies who don’t exactly have the most reverential reputations in ecological propriety drill away and, as time allows, send oil spills slithering onto our beaches. Best case: we race to catch up with Cuba and maybe even preempt the ill-advised entanglements that might otherwise drill down into our hemisphere.

Since we’re actually talking about drilling in our own backyard pond, we might also, one hopes, do it in ways that are less likely to lead to the shameful oil blights that fill us all with remorse and send fish and fowl off to tarry death &ndash derelictions that strange countries in a strange land might less assiduously labor to avoid.

While the usual expectation is that we are simple-minded enough to be caught up in the mass-media Tsunami created by The Da Vinci Code, now a movie starring Tom Hanks, so that we might all the better assist Hollywood in carting off its share of megabucks from this transient tempest for historical tots, let us explore how we might, instead, observe the refitted ancient frigate pass by on time’s wide and eternal river, as we lounge on the bank in supine placidity, or, as a generous gesture, consent to turn our eyes toward the flick just for the faux tension of it all.

Since we believe our readers wish us to address every issue that troubles us via the news without flinching, so that we may all find ease in seeing the sanely funny side of it, we assume you’ll allow this attempt to see the book cum movie as, in W. S. Gilbert’s bouncy phrase, “a source of innocent merriment.”

First, let’s consider the tooting of the ship’s horn in the light of history as it has actually come to be agreed on, to the extent that events 1,700 years or so ago can be rigorously sifted. As a soothing antidote in advance for our faithful readers, we advise that, as the council under consideration occurred in 325 AD, Christ had long since escaped to the realm where modification of his life, as the Gospels present it or as a paragraph in Roman history reputedly refers to it, was beyond the debates of ever-contentious humankind.

When our tidy history is over, we’ll also offer a few suggestions on which we may all pillow our world-thumped heads.

To provide historical solidity as a basis for our determinedly placid outlook, as much as a considerate paragraph or so can, let’s recount the facts as they have been bruited about now for some centuries.

When Constantine, later, The Great, became Emperor, the Roman Empire was, we are told, in disarray. The old faith, Paganism, had begun to lose its hold as a credible unifying force. The new Emperor noticed that a widespread heresy called Christianity was gaining more and more enthusiasts, who were by previous emperors, particularly Diocletian, later, The Dunce, rather regularly annihilated by being sent to the flames or fed to the lions. The incalculably optimistic idea occurred to the new Emperor, a fierce general now in the uncomfortable role of a make-nice diplomat, that he might unite the faltering Empire anew by making the nascent faith the official religion of the Empire.

Despite catcalls from the nobles who still adhered to the pagan pantheon, he forged ahead, only to discover that, once in open proliferation, many a Christian theologian began to tear at the sanctimonious fabric he had so carefully draped over the fault lines of the quaking Empire. Growing anxious that his grand tarp might be rent irreparably, he called the diverse debaters to gather at the ancient city of Nicaea to hash out their disagreements once and for all time.

So intent was he to wrest unity from the 300 or so colorfully garbed theologians who assembled there that he deigned to sit among them, on his golden throne, where he harkened to their hair splitting and tearing until he grew, as most imperious people are likely to do on such occasions, impatient.

The principal debate, presented here with appropriate brevity, was based on what continues to be known as the heresy of Arius, which revolved around the unavoidably various word “begotten.” What exactly did it mean that Christ was “begotten” of the Father? Was He actually flesh of His flesh or some sort of discontinuous emanation? There was also extensive rhetorical ping-pong with the equally quicksilver substitute for flesh, “substance.” Finally, Constantine arose from his majestic duff and dictated what the resolution of the conflict would be.

Ever since the landmark Council, and the resultant Nicene Creed, dutiful theologians have fretted their conning brows over such daunting concepts as The Holy Trinity, or “three Gods in one.” The widely admitted conundrum is one reason there has long been a divide less traveled by between acute theologians and devout acolytes of any faith afoot in the contemporary world; while one will deal with facts along with the retention or diminution of faith, the other wishes to profess his or her faith without an uninvited tap on the shoulder.

Now, what have we to offer in terms of peaceful council? First, if you are a believer, we invite you to do as our title suggests. Imagine yourself in The Sistine Chapel, lying on the marbled floor, while you gaze up at Michelangelo’s dramatic and inspiring presentation of God’s hand in the Creation. Venture to St. Peter’s Basilica, where you may stand before Mike’s delicately evocative Pieta. You might also travel to the surprisingly modest church of St. Peter In Chains, where the artist’s mighty Moses is on display, but be forewarned, the last time we were there, when you slipped your coin in the meter to illuminate the statue, all the better to view it, the spots did not shine forth. In summary, we suggest that you rest easy in the long and beautiful rendition of your faith and trust that it will go on.

If, on the other hand, you find yourself, as the dating services provide for the inclination, “spiritual but not religious,” you may make peace with the brouhaha by understanding that religion, beyond one that prudently grows out of an enlightened faith in life itself, is not primarily about what is credible to the strong but about what is helpful to the fragile and, in that inviting sympathy, find your own eternal ease.

Also, as others have noted, the imbroglio over the currently troublesome Code is an opportunity for all attendees to the altar of civilization to show their reverence for toleration as a potentially reformative example to the incendiary throwback of Muslim Fundamentalism, which currently encroaches on, and would very much prefer to incinerate, freedom everywhere.

Finally, remember there are many icons that have been around for so long people no longer care much about what they’re actually made of. They simply either like them or they don’t. And in this preferentially unexamined category we may find reverences as august as religion and trifles as mundane as Heinz Ketchup and Coca-Cola.

So, whatever you believe, we hope we’ve helped you lie back on the bank of time’s tripping river while the ancient-timbered Da Vinci Code slips by, even with its newly outfitted sails and come-hither tooting, without casting even a ripple on your own supine, and, we trust, inspiringly sublime placidity.

Bill Gates announced that he will transition out of his day-to-day role at Microsoft by July 2008 in order to spend more time working on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on global health and education.

His announcement reminded us of the plethora of graduation speeches that eager students imbibed across the land this spring. As we listened to the meritorious goals heaped on the recent graduates, so they might achieve goals the speaker’s generation has found impossible, we could not help but think, why doesn’t somebody come out and tell the youthful aspirants what the real challenge is?

Like it or not, today’s world, as well as many another age, is conducted by two primary forces: wealth and power, and, other than resort to firearms, power springs from wealth.

So if you want to influence the ways of this outrageously necessitous world, consider the stark truth that all power springs from the opening in a fat wallet. It’s called the economic basis of society but, in its current incarnation, in debilitating excess.

When we were recent graduates, we were not aware of such an uncompromising reality and passed up at least two opportunities to make megabucks because we wanted to preserve our mental energy to expend it toward the achievement of our ideals.

Had we been wiser, we would have set aside a few years to stuff our pockets with power and then, like Mr. Gates, have spent the rest of our days placidly pursuing those still-inspiriting ideals.

So we find ourselves, from our own experience, in the unlikely role of advising the most idealistic to enable their altruism by involving themselves, initially, in the activity they undoubtedly are convinced is not the most inviting.

Then, should you be fortunate enough to enable your financial independence, you may, like Mr. Gates, head off into full-time devotion to your undoubtedly meritorious idealisms.

Well, the speech probably would not have been one that would have inspired the administration to invite us back or that the students would have received with endorsement, but the sharp glass on the road through economic necessity is a fact not lightly to be dismissed. Ignore it and you may step on it with painful frequency.

European nations negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program initially offered the upstart threat a free light-water nuclear reactor. The President of Iran, however, responded by becoming petulant, calling the offer a “colonial” insult and demanding to know if we think he’s “a child.”

Determined to reach an agreement in a way that would avoid the unfortunate necessity of bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Europeans then opted to come right out and offer exactly what the fundamentally wrong mullahdom yearns for: step-by-step instructions on how to make an atom bomb, along with enough enriched uranium for its scientists to get to work on it haste post haste.

Unsurprisingly, the offer immediately had irresistible appeal to the cranium of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who stated, “Thank you, thank you so much! Now, we have everything we want.”

“The crisis is over,” French President Jacques Chirac assured an anxious world. “We have reached an agreement with Iran.” And, with his not infrequent implied backhand to the U. S., he added, “And notice we achieved it without having to go to war.”

The United States, in a surprise move, congratulated both sides, citing a geographical reason. “We think the settlement is just fine,” President Bush said. “After all, our European allies are a lot closer to Iran than we are.”

Israel continues to be the only holdout, expressing a geographical inconvenience. As Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert maintained, “Unfortunately, we’re even closer to Iran than France.”

Although a resolution of the standoff with Iran is now in hand, European nations still remain uncertain about the errant nation’s true nuclear intentions.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, having recently agreed to return one of the finest vases in its collection from the Classical Age of Ancient Greece, has also consented to return the collected toilet seats from the ancient Cretan port city of Ephesus.

The decision has come as a welcome relief to the Greek tourist board, whose embarrassed guides annually answer the same question that tourists ask approximately a thousand times a day. The innocent travelers behold the long cement benches with curious holes that grace an area of their walking tour.

Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Metropolitan Museum, stated, “I felt returning the priceless vase was the correct step for us to take. It was a pirated item, and I dress far too nattily to be imagined with a piratical patch over one eye. As far as the return of the toilet seats is concerned, we had kept them in storage, because space at the Met is limited, particularly in regard to items I personally prefer not to put on display. So, hearing about the plight of the tour guides, I decided that shipping these less-than-priceless thrones back to Greece is the thoughtful thing to do.”

Tour guides cheered the decision. It remains to be determined if the Greek government will consent to put one on display at Ephesus or will, as the Met did, insist on keeping them private.

Todd, out of town on business and looking for a bit of comfort, knew he was in trouble when the topless dancer he just couldn’t say no to slipped his next twenty into her silver garter, and, with a twinkle in her green eyes, asked, “Would you like to go to the champagne room? It’s more private in there.”

Although this was Todd’s first visit to this particular club, he had been trapped into that expensive intimacy once before at another topless spot in New York and knew, legally, she could offer him little more than he was enjoying in the crowded main room, except higher prices.

“Sure,” he replied, unable to put wisdom before attraction, as straightforward men have been unable to do from time immemorial.

Lila took his hand and led him toward the blue neon sign that heralded The Champagne Room. She pushed aside the black curtain and led him past it.

There, in the dim light, were about a dozen small tables, with topless dancers at work on their eager attendees. She looked toward an unoccupied table that was promisingly back in the right corner, offering what might be considered a little more privacy, and winked at him, as she said, “How ‘bout that one?”

He smiled and followed along, like a happy male puppy with the woman who supplies his every need.

When they arrived at the table, he took his seat, and Lila, to afford herself a rest from her physically demanding occupation, as well as to present the illusion of enhanced intimacy, took a seat beside him. Moments later, a waitress showed up, in her own scant black outfit, obviously with aspirations to join the big earners in topless entertainment, should the occasion arise.

“What would you like to drink?” she asked, cleverly taking their thirst for granted and looking at both of them, just so Todd would know that Lila also obviously had the right to a beverage.

He decided to make a show of his capacity for foolish extravagance, and asked, “Would you like champagne?”

“Love it,” Lila replied.

“Do you want to see the list?” the indulgent waitress asked.

“Yes,” Todd said, wary of the usual overpricing and hopeful of finding a halfway decent deal.

“Be right back,” the waitress told him, and off she went.

“I could use some champagne,” he said with bravado. “I’m tired of drinking beer.”

“I love champagne,” she replied, seeming distracted, and slid a little toward him. “We can be so much closer back here.”

Todd gulped. “I like it.”

“Me, too,” she told him.

Just then the waitress returned with the champagne list. Todd looked it over and noted that, as expected, each bottle was marked up about five times over retail. He avoided the cheapest bottle, a California brand with a tenuous French heritage, lest he take some glitter off the festivities, and ordered the second least expensive bottle, which was authentically French and had some credibility toward extravagance. Obviously, California “champagne” has not made as big a dent as California wine in French claims to being superior custodians of the grape. Price: just over a hundred dollars.

“We’ll have some Moet Chandon Brut Imperial,” he said.

“Very good,” the waitress replied, and off she went to get the valuable bubbly.

Todd reached down to hold Lila’s hand, feeling he had, by his unspoken agreement to overpay for the champagne, earned the intimacy.

She looked down at the sudden conjunction of flesh, and then, smiling, said, “You know we have a different way of charging back here?”

“You do?” Todd asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry but I have to charge you for holding my hand.”

“You do?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s part of our Intimacy Price List. Would you like to see it?”

“Naw,” he replied bravely. “You keep track.” Then, looking down at their irresistibly joined hands, he said, “But, tell me, how much am I spending?”

“Ten dollars,” she told him.

“Is there a time limit?” he asked warily.

“No,” she smiled. “Once you pay, you can hold it all night. Holding hands is one of our better values.”

“Great,” he said, and, feeling he had copped a bargain, took out ten dollars.

She tucked it in her garter.

The waitress returned with the champagne and held the label toward him.

He smiled, and soon he and Lila were toasting like a voluntarily enchanted couple.

“To a great night,” he said.

“With you,” she replied, and flicked her tongue at him, as if to intimate the possibility of more than the law allows.

He looked at her lovely, long blonde hair and couldn’t resist stroking it lightly.

“You’re very pretty,” he said, catching his breath.

“Thank you,” she breathed back. “You don’t mind if I bill you for that, do you?”

“For what?” the poor soul wanted to know.

“Caressing my hair.”

“Oh,” he said, and withdrew his hand. “How much is that?”

“Only ten dollars.”

“Is everything ten dollars?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, smiling as if to indicate that more intimate things would rightly cost far more.

He took out another ten and handed it to her.

As she tucked it, he was unable to resist giving her a little peck on the cheek, breathing, “Lila, tonight money is no object.”

“Thank you so much,” she said, “twenty dollars.”

“Twenty? For what?”

Wagging her finger at him charmingly, she replied, “Kissing my cheek.”

“Oh,” he said, “I should have known.” Then, feeling just a tad upset, he reached out and pinched her arm. “How much is that?”

“Thirty,” she said.

“For pinching you?”

“It would usually be only fifteen dollars, because it comes under Innocent Contact. But, since I could get a bruise due to its intensity, it comes with a fifteen-dollar surcharge.”

“I see,” he said, and took out his wallet. “Kind of inflationary, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t everything?” she asked cannily, and then added, “On my last job, I had to give them away.”

“You did?” he replied, wishing he had known her then. “Why?”

“I was a stewardess.”

“Oh,” he said, with understanding but certain that by now women’s advocacy groups would have overcome such a flagrant incursion into an unsuspecting lady’s space. He paid her for stroking her hair and pinching her arm and decided that for convenience, he would leave his wallet on the table. There didn’t seem to be anybody nearby who would run away with it while he had his eyes on her. “What else do you offer?” he asked with wily charm.

“Oh, lots of things,” she said, visibly excited.

“Like what?”

“Well, intelligent conversation.”

“You offer that?”

“Yes, a lot of men seem to want it. So we have to take a course in it. Pick any topic &ndash philosophy, politics, literature, finances. I got a Pink Pussycat in finances.”

“You did?”

“Yes. It’s the highest grade.”

“Good for you,” Todd told her. Being a bit of a literary buff himself and eager to dwell on romance, he said, “Let’s talk about Romeo and Juliet.”

“Sure,” Lila said, and, looking into the distance, as if reciting from something she had memorized, she went on, “Romeo and Juliet is a play by William Shakespeare. It is based on the timeless theme, ‘The course of true love never runs smooth.’” Her recitation complete, she turned to him, and said, “My personal choice for Romeo would be Brad Pitt.”

“Excellent,” Todd said. “Would you like to continue our literary discussion?”

“No, that’s enough for tonight.”

“Good,” she told him, and held out her hand. “Ten dollars, please.”

“For what?” he asked. “I didn’t touch you.”

“The intelligent conversation,” she let him know. “I had to study hard to learn that.”

“Oh, well, that’s understandable,” he told her, and slipped a ten out of his wallet, which, he noticed, was quite a bit thinner than it was when he arrived, fresh from a nearby ATM. “I seem to be running a little low on cash,” he confessed. “Would you like to buy some funny money?”

“Sure,” he told her. Lila waved her hand at the waitress, who happened to be nearby. She was at the table in a flash. “He needs to buy some funny money,” Lila told her.

“How much?” the waitress asked.

Uncertain of how expenses would mount and wishing to present the impression of throwing caution to the wind, he said, “Three-hundred dollars.”

“Would you like me to put it on your credit card?” the waitress asked.

“Please,” he said, pretty certain he had enough credit left on it to cover that amount.

When he had arrived, the club, being punctilious about matters such as money and identity, demanded custody of a credit card and his driver’s license, with assurances that both would be returned when he departed.

He turned to Lila, and, with a slight indication of passion, which he felt he had by now earned the privilege of displaying free of charge, and said, “What else do you offer?”

“Thanks for asking,” she replied. “This week we have a sale on games.”

“Games? Like what?”

“Oh, you know, scrabble, monopoly.”

“What about video games?”

“We don’t allow those. They’re much too distracting.”

“Then how about kissing games?”

“You want to kiss me?”

“Sure, why not?” he asked.

“Where? My hand, cheek or my lips?”

“I’ll take the lips.”

“For how long?”

“What do you mean, for how long?”

“Rates vary, according to location, duration, and tongue placement.”

“Tongue placement?”

“Oh, you know. Regular kissing or French kissing.”

“This place is amazing,” he said. “Is there anything you don’t charge for?”

“Not very many,” she joked.

“How’d it get that way?” he wanted to know.

“It was started by a dancer who saved up and got her CPA.”

“Really?”

“Yes. She worked her way through college by dancing. Someday I hope to go to college myself.”

“Going for your CPA, too?” he couldn’t resist asking.

“No,” she said, “I expect to be retired by then and just enjoy life. Maybe I’ll study art and paint.”

“That’s a nice dream. I hope you achieve it. But, please, don’t try to earn your entire retirement package tonight.”

“I won’t, you silly man. Now, back to business. Where did you want to kiss me?”

“The lips,” he said.

“For how long?”

“As long as I feel like it.”

“I’m sorry, Todd, I need a number. What if we say thirty seconds?”

“How much is that?”

“Tongue in or tongue out?”

“Out.”

“Oh, you are so sexy.”

“So how much did I spend?”

She added the figures in her mind assiduously. “Thirty dollars,” she told him.

“For one kiss? That’s a dollar a second.”

“Well, it is me.”

“You’re right,” he said. J

ust then the waitress returned and held out her hand. “Here’s your funny money, Mr. Watson,” she told him.

“Thanks,” he replied, and, as a token of his appreciation, he gave her back a twenty.

“Thank you,” she said, and off she went, to leave them to their extravagant privacy.

Clutching the funny money, as a moment of self-reflection intruded to incriminate his intellectual self-respect, he nevertheless resolved to proceed and leaned forward to give Lila the most passionate kiss he could manage. She returned the lip-pressing interlude, with only an occasional glance at her watch.

When thirty seconds had passed, she tapped his back. But he did not stop kissing her. She attempted to tell him his time was up but could not free her lips to do anymore than make an indefinite noise. She whacked his back again.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, breathless.

“Your thirty seconds are up.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No, but I have to abide by the rules. Or I could get penalized, even fired.”

“Oh,” he said. “If you got fired, does that mean I could date you for free?”

“You’re too funny,” she said.

“You know the saying? The best things in life are free.”

“But not here,” she told him.

“Maybe we should go back to lap dancing. It’s cheaper.”

“OK,” she said.

“Oh, come on,” he informed her, “that’s not even foreplay. It’s before-play.”

“I never thought of it that way,” she replied.

“And now that I’ve had you in my arms, how can I settle for just seeing you naked? I want to kiss you and hold you and &ndash you know.”

“We can do everything except, you know.”

He held up his funny money. “I have $250 left. How much can I get for that?”

“Oh, Todd, you say the nicest things,” she effervesced.

“I mean it,” he confirmed.

“You can kiss me &ndash and I won’t even watch the clock.”

“Take it,” he said, handing her the funny money, “take it all.”

She did, and he became lost in her wildly extravagant arms.

In the wake of having reported that God told him Tsunami-like storms were likely to hit the U. S. coasts this year, Pat Robertson appeared on his TV program visibly shaken, and announced, “God has told me something else, and it’s something I didn’t want to hear. He said, ‘Pat, you lost your mind.’

“Naturally, I was surprised and asked why he would ever think such a thing of me.

“God went on to ask, ‘Did you report that I told you America should assassinate Hugo Chavez, the leader of Venezuela?’

“’Yes, I did,’ I confessed.

“’And did you recently tell people I told you that this year I’m going to send fearsome storms to batter the coastlines of America?’

“’Yes, I did,’ I confessed again.

“’But, Pat, ask yourself, if I’m the benevolent being people expect me to be, how could I have said those terrible things?’

“You mean, you didn’t say them?’ I asked.

“’Heck, no! I’ve got my reputation to consider. What I actually told you is, on the first point, that America should invite the President of Venezuela to Washington to talk things over.’

“’You did?’ I replied, swallowing hard.

“’Yes, Pat. And on the second issue, I told you I felt Katrina was enough of a Category 5 hurricane for the time being and I intended to hold off on such destructive whirlwinds for years to come.’

“’Really?’

”’Yes, Pat. But what has happened? You misheard every message I delivered. Now, since I know you would much prefer to be my dutiful servant, I can only assume you’ve lost your mind.’

“Yep,” Pat continued to his enthralled audience, “that’s what God told me and, let me tell you, His mighty words gave me pause. So I said, ‘In the future I’ll listen more carefully.’

“But God wouldn’t have anything to do with that. He was just too upset with me.

“’I appreciate your good intentions, Pat, but I can’t take anymore chances. My reputation is already too damaged.’

“Then the Lord told me the most hurtful thing I can imagine.”

“’Pat, I’m not going to show up and talk to you anymore.’

“’Oh, God, no, please,’ I told him. ‘I’ll listen to your every word more carefully with all my heart and mind.’

“’I know you’ll have the best of intentions, but, I regret to say, the next time we talk is when you arrive at the Pearly Gates. I have to find somebody to appear to who can get the story right. But listen to me, Pat. If you do exactly as I say, I, in my infinite mercy, will forgive your every misinterpretation. And here is what I say. If you ever think I told you something in the future, tell yourself it can’t be true and you made it up. Do you hear me, Pat?’

“’Yes, God,’ I told my Lord and Master. ‘Not only that, I apologize for any damage I might have, through no conscious intent, done to your magnificent and forever undamaged reputation.’

“’Good, Pat, good,’ God told me, and put out His hand. “’I look forward to seeing you again in ten or twenty years.’

“’Thanks, Your Worship, see you then,’ I told Him.

“Then we shook hands and he disappeared.

“So let me just announce to my faithful listeners, that’s it, folks. I won’t be making anymore announcements about what God told me. I have gotten the message from on high that I am now out of personal communication with the Infinite. From now on I am as much a creature of the finite world as you all are.

“And I am confident that, because of this decision, God loves me and you more than ever. So please donate more generously than ever.”

Microsoft announced today that its new Vista operating system would support only products made by Microsoft.

The announcement immediately set off a tsunami of furious responses from all the other software companies and a renewed sharp eye from regulatory authorities.

The company effusively denied that the move is in any way indicative of monopolistic practices.

Microsoft CEO, Steven Ballmer, known to insiders from competing companies as The Embalmer, noted, “Since Vista is a Microsoft product, what reason on earth is there to support products made by other companies? If they want people to use their programs, they’re free to create their own desktop operating systems.”

His announcement did not sufficiently palliate representatives of other major software companies.

A representative from google lashed out, saying, “It wasn’t enough that the new version of Internet Explorer will have a default setting to MSN Search. Now, we understand when people click on options, there won’t be any. That just doesn’t seem fair, even though, I admit, he-he, google is the default setting in Firefox.”

Questioned about the contentious issue, Bill Gates stated flatly, “I have always been very influenced by my last name, and, in this case, as it appears in the well-know phrase, ‘Sorry, the gates are closed.”

It appears that the issue will finally be determined by how courts view the Microsoft insistence that other companies are still free to create their own desktop operating systems.

As far as the American economy is concerned, the most significant development seems to be that, as a result of the pending flurry of lawsuits, zillions of lawyers are currently gleefully employed.