Stupid Pentagon tricks. (Off the Map).

** Chicago, where there wasn't any snow all December and the temperature approached 70 one day. Suddenly, even the liberals aren't so sure this whole global warming deal is such a bad thing.

Here's your problem.

On the one hand, you got your reporters asking all the General guys these impossible questions. You know, questions about targets and strategy, and what our next moves will be, and which Taliban leader's camel has the stinkiest breath, and why haven't all our bombing runs had pinpoint precision, and such. National frickin' security questions. Questions reporters know they could never get actual answers to because any self-respecting military guy who does answer them will disappear faster than free beer at a frat party after a homecoming win.

And yet they continue to ask the questions.

Why? Because they got to. That's their job. But they can't let on to us they know they have no real answers, so we get "Exclusive CNN Night Vision Coverage of America's New War." Which is a green screen interrupted with occasional sparks of light. "Here you can see Coalition forces advancing on a suspected Al Qaeda hideout.... No, wait, sorry, that's a security guard lighting a cigarette in the building next door."

On the other hand, you got your General guys who can't reveal a single solitary syllable, yet still have to pretend they're not annoyed at being asked these same stupid-ass questions over and over and over by the usual cabal of smirking, college-educated, blow-dried folks. (But having an admiral named Stufflebeem is one of the things that fills life's cracks with cake.) The Generals furrow their concerned brows and squint gravely towards the cameras, but all you hear is hedge and evade, dodge and divert. And nobody gets close enough to contradict them because we all know the enemy has satellite dishes, and, these days, Charlie does surf.

** Bora Bora, Tahiti, where the cost of a lobster is exactly the same as a cheeseburger. If you ask me, something has gone horribly, horribly right here.

We've changed in many ways since September 11. We've changed in many ways over the last two years. Excess has acquired a faint odor of decay. Decadence has become decidedly unpatriotic. Consumers are buying less. Major League Baseball has proposed sloughing off a couple of underperforming teams. Airlines are eliminating what were laughingly referred to as meals on many routes. These are all good ideas, but we can do so much more. And I'm just the guy to help.

Further necessary red, white, and blue contractions:

* Politicians. Lose a couple. Especially the ones stalling airport security legislation in an effort to protect their contributors. How about we all simply agree to find enough money to tempt the talent pool from McDonald's? Or make the politicians fly their families to D.C. every weekend.

* Restaurant prices. $40 entrees? Hello? Anybody home? Then they continue to cry because people have stopped coming. Makes you just want to hit somebody in the neck with a 10-inch saute pan.

* Banks continuing to charge 19 percent interest on credit cards while the prime rate has dropped below 5. I'm familiar with the protocol of conducting war crimes tribunals after the war, but then again, rules are meant to be broken.

* Bill Gates. Is there any way we can persuade the Justice Department to somehow compress his reach and ambition down to something approaching human scale? Kind of a unifying gesture. You know, for kids.

* Smiley faces. I know. I know. The ubiquitous face of American optimism and pluck. But for Christ's sake, give a guy a break, would ya? Just a wee tad too Forrest Gumpy. Makes you realize exactly why the French mock us. What, am I alone here?

Will Durst is the critical straw that stirs the cultural drink, baby.