MONDAY, MARCH 24
Dear readers: Week #2 of Operation Iraqi Freedom brought a predictably mind-numbing array of events, achievements, and horrors in the ongoing U.S.-led action against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. So here's a relatively benign item about an exploding cat. According to news group Ananova, the unfortunate saga began last week after a bevy of citizens in Lardal, Norway, reported seeing "a fire ball explode in the night sky and fall slowly down to earth." While word of the possible UFO sighting spread, local investigators soon identified the flying object--an unlucky cat, the charred body of which was found at the foot of an electrical mast, leading Norwegian authorities to believe the kitty climbed the utility pole, touched a live wire, and exploded. Still, Last Days smells a cover-up. (Or maybe just flash-fried cat.)


TUESDAY, MARCH 25
Speaking of hideous images: Today Last Days opened our morning e-mail to be confronted by the first truly horrifying photograph we've seen so far from Operation Iraqi Freedom. We're not sure how many photos of this sort are making the rounds, but the one we saw depicted a presumably Iraqi man carrying a presumably Iraqi girl-child in his arms. But no presumption was needed to identify the guts hanging out of the girl's midsection, or the bloody, jagged stumps where her feet used to be. (Actually, she may have had only one foot missing; we could only bear to look at the photo for about 15 seconds before God instructed us to delete the e-mail, empty our desktop's trashcan, and scrub our computer screen with an antibiotic towelette.) Still, we're in the midst of the U.S.'s first war of the Internet age, wherein images of the other side are readily available to anyone with a modem, and citizens can no longer rely on the tasteful protections of our country's "liberally biased" media to help keep our consciences clean. In other words: Go Luddite or get used to it.


WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26
Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Lawrence v. Texas, the case brought by gay-equality hero Lambda Legal to challenge the constitutionality of Texas' (and three other states') law against sodomy between members of the same sex. Smartly making the case that selectively legislated morality is a one-way ticket to fascism, Justice Stephen G. Breyer identified such gay-specific laws as "a possible instrument of repression in the hands of the prosecutors." Stupidly determined to find something to quibble about in this obviously clear-cut case, Justice Antonin Scalia acknowledged that homo-only sodomy laws have been repealed in all but four states, but wondered why this should matter: "Suppose that all the states had laws against flagpole-sitting at one time [and repealed them]? Does that make flagpole-sitting a fundamental right?" Last Days chooses to overlook Justice Scalia's painfully phallic metaphor, and hopes that the Supremes will do the obviously right thing. Stay tuned.


THURSDAY, MARCH 27
Nothing diverts the mind away from the horrors of humanity like a good, spicy conspiracy theory. So thank God for Autumn Sakai, who today sent Last Days the juiciest conspiracy theory we've ever encountered outside a Holy Bible. "As my coworkers and I sat around discussing the massive wrongness of the whole Elizabeth Smart kidnapping, the potential truth dawned on me in a blaze of Mormonity," writes Autumn. "It's no secret that Elizabeth Smart's father has bandied about plans to enter politics. [Suppose] young Elizabeth, thought to be the picture of what a Mormon girl should be, got pregnant. Ed Smart knows that nothing hurts a campaign more than a pregnant 14-year-old Mormon, so in a stroke of brilliance, he arranges a 'kidnap.' Not only will he get Elizabeth out of the public eye, he'll win TONS of publicity and sympathy votes. Elizabeth disappears but is kept fairly close to home for the majority of her nine-month (!) ordeal. Her burgeoning pregnancy is hidden beneath burqa-like clothing. When the time comes for her to deliver, she's taken to San Diego, where chances of her recognition are far less likely than in Salt Lake City. She recovers for a month or two, then miracle of miracles, she's returned to the loving arms of her family. Photos show her with a rounder face and a glow typically associated with maternal hormones. Her dad said it himself: 'She left us a young lady and returned a woman.'" Last Days thanks Autumn for her deeply cynical, deeply engrossing conspiracy theory. We promise to comment on it at length in next week's column.


FRIDAY, MARCH 28
After the rejuvenating narcotic of yesterday's brilliant conspiracy theory, today Last Days decided to pay some attention to the war. So we bought this week's issue of the classic checkout-stand tabloid Sun, whose cover garishly promised, "BIBLE PROPHECIES YOU MUST READ TO BE SAFE FROM WAR AND TERROR!" However, the biblical insights were upstaged by the hilarious density of Watergate-era male chauvinism running throughout the issue. Truly, Last Days hasn't found this much lunkheaded woman-bashing in one place since Almost Live. But at least Sun's funny, offering some of the most inspired misogyny we've seen since Showgirls. Case in point: "When Bible Girls Go Bad!"--detailing the wifely lessons to be learned from the beastly broads of the Bible, from "shameful sell-out" Delilah (Lesson: "The love of a good man is nothing to sneeze at") to husband-dissing Jezebel ("Don't demean your man--he's probably stronger than you think"). As usual, the majority of spite is reserved for Eve, who garners a hilarious slandering: "Adam and Eve had it all in the Garden of Eden, but was it enough for her? Nooooo. So she took a bite out of the apple--and talked Adam into joining her--and the rest is history: disease, suffering, death... the whole nine yards. The serpent didn't make her do it--it was her own free will that got her, and the rest of us, in trouble." But in the end, Sun makes it up to the bitches, via the heroically sympathetic medical story, "It's True, Women Worry Too Much."


SATURDAY, MARCH 29
Following yesterday's proposed quarantine of thousands of Toronto citizens who may have been exposed to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in Toronto's Scarborough Grace hospital, today the burgeoning epidemic known as SARS reached a horribly tragic milestone by killing the man who discovered it. According to the Associated Press, Carlo Urbani, an Italian epidemiologist at the World Health Organization's Hanoi office, discovered the first clue that a dangerous new microbe was beginning to spread around the globe. Within days, Urbani himself fell ill, and today the good doctor succumbed to the very disease he alerted the world to. RIP Dr. Urbani, and best of luck to the rest of us.


SUNDAY, MARCH 30
As War Week #2 comes to a close, Last Days longs to leave readers with some worthy words of wisdom. As usual, the world's deepest thoughts were best expressed by the writers of The Simpsons, who closed this week's episode with Homer beholding a beautifully starry night and murmuring, "I wish God were alive to see this."

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