MONDAY, AUGUST 19 Okay, so there's the slightest possibility we're feeling a tad guilty for coming down so hard on the hippies last week [see "Letters," page 3]. Therefore, we've decided to take a more "Buddhist" view of the world, and not judge people so harshly. And that includes psychopath celebrities. According to the latest issue of People magazine, the "often misunderstood" King of Pop, Michael Jackson has added a new child to his ever-growing stable of offspring. The new kid was first seen publicly in Las Vegas, when Jackson arrived at a Siegfried and Roy performance with three kids instead of two. Jackson introduced the six-month old boy to the tiger tamers as "my third child." So what's the kid's name? Who's the mother? How are we supposed to hold our tongue when there are so many great insults waiting to pop out? For now, the answers to these questions must remain a mystery. However, sources close to the "surgically intensified" celebrity say the kid is named Prince Michael II, apparently after his five-year-old brother, Prince Michael Jackson, and four-year-old sister, Paris Michael Jackson. Which is not crazy at all, is it? No sir, it's sweet. On behalf of everyone here at One Day at a Time, we'd like to wish only the best for Jackson, his similarly named family, his monkey Bubbles, his very good friend Macaulay Culkin, and his glass-encased skeleton of the Elephant Man.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 20 Whoopee! Another reason to dislike the French. (Which does NOT include French hippies, who we love.) According to Parisian author Thierry Meyssan, Americans have got the events surrounding September 11, 2001 all wrong. See, it wasn't Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network who crashed those airliners into the Pentagon and World Trade Center--it was OUR OWN GOVERNMENT! (Bum, bum, BAHHHHHH!) Which we're sure is a surprise to our government, who didn't have anything to do with it. Regardless, according to Thierry "Pepe Le Pew" Meyssan in his book L'Effroyable Imposture (The Appalling Fraud)--god, these people are pompous no wonder we make so much fun of them--a military faction of the U.S. government used "remote control devices" to take out the twin towers. And see, here's the funny part! Ha, ha! While you may have thought that was an American Airlines jet that slammed into the Pentagon, in actuality, it was a U.S. missile! So what happened to American Airlines Flight 77 and the 64 passengers aboard the plane? Meyssan doesn't have the slightest idea--but it didn't hit the Pentagon, that's for sure! Another thing he's sure of is that his book has been on the French bestseller list for nine months, and is due out in American bookstores at the end of the month. In anticipation of the book's release, Meyssan told reporters,"Ha! Ha! I will make meellions of glorious francs and be reeech!! Ohhh, sacre bleu! Zees Americans! They are how you say très gullible!" According to reports, some people are already lining up to buy multiple copies of the book if only to see how many they can shove up Meyssan's ass.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21 However, if you're looking for a real conspiracy, then look no further than tonight's shocking episode of American Idol. As if you haven't heard, the Whitney Houston-esque Tamyra Gray, who was the odds-on favorite to win this national talent show competition, was retired after failing to get enough phone-in votes. This means that Justin Guarini, Kelly Clarkson, and the increasingly unfortunate Nikki McKibbin are in the final three. While many viewers are blaming the producers for failing to stop those with highspeed internet connections from calling hundreds of times in a row, others have speculated that Tamyra was thought to be a natural shoe-in for the top three, and therefore didn't bother to vote. We here at One Day fell into the latter category, and voted for Kelly twice. But rather than place the blame on ourselves for Tamyra's unfortunate fall from grace, we've decided to use the rest of our votes to screw up the process for everyone else. Therefore, we implore you--vote for Nikki! Sure, she stinks, but this contest is already a sham, so why risk letting Justin win? Vote for Nikki, and when she wins, watch Simon's head explode into a billion egotistical pieces! (This message paid for by the "Elect Nikki for American Idol, and Watch Simon's Head Explode" committee.)

THURSDAY, AUGUST 22 Today President George W. Bush came to Portland. And while that in itself is not very interesting, it was interesting to note that he said the most ridiculously stupid thing any American President has ever said anywhere--and he said it here in Portland. While supporting Senator Gordon Smith's re-election campaign (paid for by your tax dollars; see page 9 for the maddening details), the Prez made time to push his new "forest management plan," which would "manage" to give all the trees in the "forest" to logging companies. Good "plan," huh? But he's not planning on handing the keys to our protected wilderness to Weyerhaeuser without good reason: according to him, thinning out the forest will prevent forest fires. Yes, he actually said that. And while the mind reels in wonderment of how a moron like this could have ever been elected, in a retarded third-grader sort of way, it makes sense. Wildfires can't spread if there aren't any trees. And by the same logic, pollution can't harm you if you remove your lungs, and we'll never again hear a stupid statement from President Bush if we simply hack off our ears.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 23 According to The Oregonian, The Transportation Security Administration is reconsidering the prudence of asking airline passengers those two pesky questions we all know by heart: 1) "Has anyone unknown to you asked you to carry an item on this flight?" 2) "Have any of the items you are traveling with been out of your immediate control since the time you packed them?" Seems there is NO hard evidence that the queries have prevented a hijacking or bombing. Also, some brainier types question the value of the questions, since anyone hoping to sneak mace onto an airplane would presumably lie about it. In fact, even those of us who have nothing to hide but perhaps did let one of the items we were traveling with out of our immediate control for just a teensy minute, would probably also lie about it. The questions also take up precious minutes that could be used perusing Elle at the concourse newsstand. Of course if the TSA discontinues the general questions, they will refocus manpower on conducting full body-cavity searches of all Arab-Americans, foreigners, and people who've made fun of hippies. But that's okay. Those people deserve it.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 24 The New York Times reported today that a salmonella outbreak at Walt Disney World in June sickened as many as 141 people, including organ-transplant recipients attending the United States Transplant Games. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta estimated that 141 people who attended the games might have had really nasty diarrhea. Contrary to popular belief amongst Northwesterners, salmonella is NOT caused by eating salmon, but instead is an infection caused by a gram-negative bacillus, a germ of the Salmonella genus. Salmonella lives in the intestinal tracts of humans and other animals, including birds, and is transmitted by the oral-fecal route. (This means eating foods contaminated with animal shit.) Contaminated foods usually look and smell normal. They are often of animal origin, such as beef, poultry, milk, or eggs, but all foods, including vegetables, may become contaminated. The outbreak was traced to pre-packaged, diced Roma tomatoes served at six Disney World restaurants. Thankfully, though there were several hippies in the park that day, all escaped infection.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 25 Authorities urged Florida Muslims to be on alert today (When should Florida Muslims ever NOT be on alert?), after a crazy Muslim-threatening podiatrist turned out to have more firepower than P. Diddy's entourage. While police were quick to assure Florida hippies that they were not in any danger, they were concerned when they found 40 weapons in the podiatrist's townhouse, including .50-caliber machine guns and sniper rifles and two M72 rocket launchers, as well as 30 explosive devices. But they REALLY got suspicious when they turned up a typed list of about 50 Islamic places of worship, sometimes referred to as "mosques" (pronounced MOSKS). It took the police 30 minutes to coax Dr. Goldstein out of his home, which was rigged with trip wires and surveillance cameras. Dr. Goldstein--who is NOT a hippie, and had no plans at any time to injure any hippies--was immediately committed for psychiatric evaluation.