Ah yes, the 4th of July. A day to celebrate our country's liberation from mild (but sudden) taxation to pay for a war on our behalf. And what, pray tell is the best manner of such a celebration of liberation from British food? To quote the great David Letterman: "More 'splosions!!!" That's right, over two-hundred years ago, our forefathers (and foremothers, for that matter) waged war on an evil force that sought to make us a part of (Gasp!) ENGLAND!!!! That's right, if it weren't for these patriots and their heroic deeds of valor, we would now have a fine grasp of British humor, a wonderful sense of responsibility to the international community, cool accents, incredible European intellect, and wonderful manners to top it all off. Yes, these horrifically UN-AMERICAN things would have been foisted upon us if it weren't for great men like George Washington, with his brilliantly stupid use of the tactic known as "RUN AWAY!!!!"; or people like Benjamin Franklin, who soon learned the follies of flying kites out-of-doors in inclement weather with metal bits on the string. Yes, this tradition of great stupid Americans lives on to this very day, in the lives of people like George W. Bush, who's stubborn belief that democracy is where larger, more powerful countries can simply replace legitimately elected leaders with people that are more "acceptable" has guided our great nation to this very day; or people like Dick Cheney, who has consistently stood from atop the moral high-ground, and looked away from the big oil companies (with whom he often did business) who were cheating on their accounting; or members of the U.S. Supreme Court, who were livid over the banning of the execution of mentally retarded people (after all, if you can't execute them, what can you do?). And so, it is in this vein that our great nation shall stumble along into the future, where it will die a miserable death, all the while thinking that it still has hope for tomorrow.

Author's note: the preceding was simply an accurate assessment of the state of our "great" nation. Don't take it personally. The author wishes to make known that he suffers from an acute case of American Self-Loathing, which, ironically enough was intensified by the events of September 11.