Cows will not rest until we're all dead, and blah blah Bears lose

I spent the last couple of days in agony. Agony because I was felled by a sinister plot hatched by our bovine nemeses.

I've written of this threat before, but evidently even I am susceptible to overlooking this clear and present danger to our American way of life. "Sure, they're always mooing, prophesying our doom, and seeing our extinction in their vacant black-eyed stares, but we eat them! Aside for some e.coli and Mad Cow, does anyone among us really suffer?"

I am here to tell you that I am on the bloody, smelly front in this gruesome struggle. Because I am one of the many who suffer from their vile biological weapons. And now I have to sleep on the couch because of it. Don't you see? These dopey bastards are attacking marriage, the fundamental pillar of our nuclear families!

I am lactose intolerant. This does not make me a bigot. I mean sure, I hate tall people, and men with very tiny chins. Women who can't pronounce the letter Q. Elderly folk who don't think it was better when they were young. And P.Diddy. But I am no racist. My intolerance is biological, according to my doctor, Nick Riviera.

Milk has its place. Milkshakes, cereal, mixed with Nestle Quik - not Ovaltine, because that's the devil's chocolate. Swiss Miss is a dirty whore.

Cows have developed this chemical as a weapon against the human race, to debilitate us so they can conquer us all. Lactaid is no shield - eventually our bodies acclimate to its power, and we are again relegated to the bathroom for hours, leaving it a dead zone, where nothing may grow again.

For three days after eating ravioli, an "innocent bystander," I was a noxious geyser of unpleasantness. Wife banished me to the basement. I haven't seen Child in a week. Someone with a deep voice was making Wife laugh hysterically last night - I can only assume Child has gone through puberty in my absence.

Once I warned you never to abandon the consumption of beef in all its forms. I come to you again with another responsibility:

Stop eating dairy. Stop drinking milk, stop eating cheese. Do not support the amoral, venal practice of keeping cows alive just so they can poison us with their parmesan cheese, their ice creams. It's a sacrifice, no question. I love pizza, and ice cream, and Wacky Mac macaroni and cheese. But I will not abandon my species for some cheesy fries. And neither should you. So put the mozzarella stick on the table, and back away.

Meanwhile the Bears lost to the Titans because their defense is intimidating in name only. You argue their run defense is amazing, and held Chris Johnson and LenDale White to under 30 yards total. I counter with the fact that KERRY COLLINS picked them apart like a three-day-old Thanksgiving turkey carcass.

Here's a fun fact about Kerry Collins that I don't think you knew - three months ago I was walking along the street when a homeless guy asked me for change, then fumbled the quarter I handed him. That man? Kerry Collins.

So don't tell me that the Bears defense is so great. They're getting by on reputation alone, and that's not even so stellar anymore. They're the new Ravens, which were the old Bears. So that means that in a few weeks Brian Urlacher is going to kill someone, then get away with it. That should be exciting.

Rex Grossman had another typical Sex Cannon-y day - 50% completion rate, 1 TD, 1 pick, 30 cheerleaders knocked up. Maybe a new nickname would be better: the Quarter. Flip it 5 million times, and half the time it comes up heads, the other half it gets picked off or fumbles the ball.

Who's really behind the Great Beef Raid of Aught 8?

By now you've all read about and digested the Agriprocessors raid. You know what it means for your local meat prices, for kosher meat processors in general. You may even have some thoughts of how it fits in with other immigration issues, and whether it matters that hiring illegal workers is standard practice in the meat packing industry.

But you don't know the real story. You haven't heard who dropped the dime on Agriprocessors, who set them up, who encouraged that nun to claim people were sexually harassed, all in the name of halting the production of sweet, sweet beef. And chicken, but those of us who wear the Fancy Pants (man, even I'm getting sick of the name) are less upset about the chicken. Because the secret, sinister cabal behind this whole mess is...bovine.

Yeah, I'm calling them out. You thought I forgot about them, didn't you? How could I forget my nemeses, comprised of an entire species? I don't want to go through the whole litany again - the stupidity, the whole tipping craze, the deliciousness - but cows are meant to be our food. And if we don't eat them, they'll start evolving. Once they start remembering how to turn it's only a matter of time before they figure out what we're doing. Then, a leader shall come, and it's tofu and wheat gluten forevermore.

And from this fiasco, it looks like they're finally wising up. Going after what is ostensibly and traditionally the most careful and ethical portion of the meat business is pure genius, because it then calls into question the rest of the meatpackers. This means they're organized, and thinking strategically. To anyone who loves their steak, this is a serious problem. We have to ask ourselves: how is this happening? Who is guiding the bovine insurgence? PETA can't even get out of its own way - although I will say their anti-fur ads with the naked ladies is compelling. It makes me want to be a naked lady who doesn't wear fur. Greenpeace is all about whales right now, so they're always at sea, away from fields and other places cows hang out. I don't know - bowling alleys? Is that a big bull market (I've tried pretty successfully to hold off on the puns. One won't kill you.)?

The liberal in me wants to blame this on Karl Rove. Partially because he's Satan's fat unathletic middle child, but also because he looks kind of like a Guernsey. But deep down, I know this can't be the case. All proud conservatives are carnivorous in keeping with Straussian philosophy. So I have to look at the blue states.

Massachusetts? No, not enough cows. Plus, even the cows have problems taking orders from someone with that crazy accent. And it won't be someone from Washington or Oregon, because marijuana and indie music combine to make a really effective bovine sedative. In fact, I hear some meat processors pump in the new Death Cab for Cutie album to make the slaughtering go more smoothly.

So California then. But who's got the stones, the sheer brazen audacity to turn on their own species? Who is so despicable, so fundamentally anti-human, that they would try so hard to take away our hamburgers, our milkshakes? Maybe this conspiracy goes higher than even I could imagine...

Beware the Revolution

I want to start by talking about a growing threat that only a courageous few even acknowledge, let alone actively combat. There is a serious danger in our midst, and not enough of you are taking it seriously. I have spoken of this menace with many of you, and some have been sympathetic, and others respond with a rolling of their eyes, or barely-stifled snickers. But you know what? If I don’t help ensure that the consumption of beef remains a patriotic, nay, humanistic imperative, we will be overrun by dirty, smelly overlords. Do you want overlords? Because I sure as hell don’t.

It is your duty as a man – or a woman; ladies, now is not the time to hide behind your domestic duties, your laundry, your soap operas – to keep cows from beginning their revolution. For those of you raised in rural areas, or who have been to petting zoos and dairy farms, you yourselves have seen the rebellious look in a bovine eye: disdainful expressions, masked expertly by child-friendly moos, and methane-filled flatulence. Sure, they can forget how to turn, and have no opposable thumb with which to grasp simple tools or a lectern. But if we, as a species, turn our backs for just one second, we’ll be out in an unheated barn, peering into our cozy former homes where, on E!, Bessy the supermodel wears Wisconsin’s newest couture: babyskin cocktail dresses, perfect for that elegant dinner of the finest Iowan grass. And I for one will not stand by while anything from Iowa is viewed as a delicacy, let alone their pedestrian herbage. Also, dresses made from baby’s skin are the worst sort of relativism; sure, it may be tit for tat, but it won’t flatter your udders for that new bull in town, with the nose ring and the thick, symmetrical horns. But I digress.

Some say we’re perpetuating this problem by devoting excessive resources to overstimulating our cattle, encouraging overpopulation. The only thing we’re over-ing is overeating. Anything other than beef, that is. Too long we have allowed Big Cucumber to set the health agenda in this country, and do you know who’s behind Lettuce, Inc.? That’s right: those four-legged, lowing herbivores, our nemeses in black and white. The more greens we eat, the more we’re just like them. Soon we won’t be able to escape their corn-fed broken wind; in our own homes, where we will have “smelt it,” we will indeed have “dealt it.”

So fire up that grill, layer an extra slice of pastrami on your sandwich, put another pound of ground chuck in that taco. Support the cause by eating as much beef as you can, if only so one day you can look your granddaughter in her baby blue eyes and tell her that, when the time came, you did your part in the great Man-Cow conflagration. And tell those traitorous vegetarians that they can choke on their perfidious parsnips, that you love mankind too much to chuck it all for some ratatoo- for some rattatowe – for peas.