You've probably heard that Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush's administration have been taking potshots at each other through their respective media outlets. For those who need to get up to snuff, Carter declared that the Bush administration had the worst foreign policy approach of any of the U.S. presidencies; Carter later rescinded that remark, stating instead that Bush's posse was merely worse than Nixon's. Meanwhile, in a rather ironic statement regarding the whole hullabaloo, the acting press secretary for our unpopular and politically isolated lame duck President dismissed Carter as an "increasingly irrelevant" figure.

The Onion's satirical "Man on the Street" section, "American Voices," offers its own take, including this gem:

Dear Santa,
I know that it is already the end of January, but I really need a small sidebar area where I can post things like my pirate quiz, "The Blog" picture, and links to Spamusement. The site advertises "poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam email subject lines" like "Large thighs, go away" and "Stop the pain indefinitely." See? Those are so funny, and they deserve to be linked to just to the right of my primary content area. I know Mrs. Claus will agree. I am sorry for getting this to you so late, but I hope you can work something out for an especially good girl such as myself. Remember, I leave you the best cookies.

Today is my sister's 18th birthday; tomorrow is Joel's 24th. In honor of Joel's birthday, I will not share an embarassing story about him that occured only last week. In honor of Alison's birthday, however, I will spill the beans about some particularly saucy escapades from our youth.