The Bush Administration has promised to hand over power in Iraq by June 30. It's a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, but I wrote a punch line to that which Dave Letterman used on the Late Show last Friday (February 20).

It's a tired saying, but it's oh so true: you just can't make this stuff up.

Click here to hear the audio (format: MP3, size: 157kb), or go to my Late Night Joke page.

Happy monday!

Like a shooting star, old Howard Dean has finally burned himself out. Luckily, I was able to cash in on him once more before he exited stage left. Dave used a joke of mine about the Deaniac on the Late Show this past Wednesday (February 18).

Farewell Howard! If only you could've been president, the world would've been a funnier place.

Click here to hear the audio (format: MP3, size: 258kb), or go to my Late Night Joke page.

Enjoy!

Martha Stewart's troubles = joke city. David Letterman ended his monologue on last night's Late Show (Thursday, February 12) with a joke I wrote about old Martha's legal woes.

The funny part is, I wrote this joke back on January 20, so I didn't even realize it was mine at first. Ha ha. Boy, isn't that a knee slapper?

Click here to hear the audio (format: MP3, size: 280kb), or go to my Late Night Joke page.

Enjoy!

The other morning I bought a chocolate chip muffin for my post-breakfast snack (ok, fine, call it “dessert”). When I took a bite I realized – much to my horror – that what I had bought was not actually a chocolate chip muffin but rather a chocolate chip muffin with nuts! The muffins were not labeled as containing nuts nor was it obvious by looking at them that they had nuts but, sure enough, the thing was chock full of them. I'm not sure what kind of nuts they were, aside from big and crunchy. All I know is that my whole morning was ruined by this unexpected and unwanted invasion.

I hate nuts. I hate all kinds of nuts. Nuts suck. It's time somebody took a stand against nuts. That somebody is me and the time is now. Allow me to elaborate.

Why do nuts suck?

There are lots of reasons that nuts suck. The first and foremost is (hold on to your hat here) nuts taste bad. Why would I eat something that tastes bad? Life is crappy enough as it is without having to eat things that taste bad. The one near exception here is peanut butter. Peanut butter (CREAMY peanut butter) tastes good. But this is only because it's made up of other good tasting stuff (like sugar) and because the peanuts have been pulverized into near oblivion. I'm not sure what peanut butter would taste like if you took the actual peanuts out, but I'll bet it would be good.

But, if, everybody else likes nuts, shouldn't I like them, too?

Please. Lots of people like heroin, cock fighting and Justin Timberlake, too. Shall I also take up those unpleasant habits while I'm at it?

If you're not convinced that nuts suck just because they taste bad, consider these other reasons:

Nuts are a pain in the rear to avoid. If you don't like broccoli, it's easy to avoid. Simply shove it to the side of your plate. People don't try to trick you into eating broccoli by grinding or shaving it and sprinkling it over your food or by baking it into your favorite sweets. When I discovered nuts in my muffin I picked them all out and when I was done, what I had left looked like something my year-old daughter had just finished gumming and mangling into a mess of unappetizing food.

Nuts can kill people. I'd say this is a pretty compelling reason all by itself why nuts suck. People die every year from allergic reactions to eating nuts. Call me crazy, but that's a good reason to not only not eat them, but not sneak them into food eighteen ways to Sunday. Some people are deathly allergic to bee stings, too, but I don't see people rushing to put bee sting juice in brownies. They might as well; it couldn't taste any worse than nuts and may kill fewer people.

Putting nuts in food goes against God's will. Ok, I'm not totally positive about that one. But I feel safe in assuming that HE is one my side in this matter.

Forget gay marriage; let's have a constitutional amendment to ban the use of nuts in food, like God would want.

It appears now like a foregone conclusion that John Kerry is going to win the Democratic presidential nomination, which means we're looking at a Bush-Kerry battle royale this November.

Whoopty damn-do, I say.

Is anybody excited about this matchup? I'm not. Just the thought of watching these two spoiled boners duke it out for – good lord – NINE (9!) months, is enough to make me rethink my decision to wear a seatbelt. Talk about boring. These two are bound to make C-SPAN look like a production of the WWE.

Don't agree with me? Well, Mr./Ms. Smarty Pants, let's review the material we have to work with here:

John Kerry is an honest to goodness war hero, which is good. But, let's be honest here. The man doesn't exactly invoke visions of, say, THE GENERAL Douglas MacArthur or George Patton or even Sgt. Hulka from Stripes. After coming home from Vietnam, he's accomplished ... what exactly? Let's see: he's managed to carve out a nice career as a United States Senator, which I hear is good work (with a good pension), if you can get it. Other than that, he managed to snag one of the more eligible ladies in his age bracket when he won the heart of Theresa Heinz, who herself came into a nice pot of dough by marrying the late Senator John Heinz, heir to the ketchup fortune. Naturally, a man can't help but admire a guy who can marry his way into that kind of coin. Aside from a hearty pat on the back, though, that's not gonna earn him much from me.

Then, of course, there's this whole Botox, thing. Now, I have nothing against a person wanting to look good but, um, BOTOX injections? And a chin job? Sure, it's a funny story (points there) but it's also a little too close to Michael Jackson for my liking. And what's with that campaign slogan of his? “Bring it on”? Is that the kind of inspired political speechwriting that we're going to get for the next NINE months? And don't get me started on his less than dynamic speaking abilities. I don't want to come out and say he's boring, but listening to the man speak makes me yearn for a little dash of the old Al Gore magic.

Now, let's check out the competition across the aisle, shall we?

George W. Bush is our current president. George W. Bush is our current president. I'm sorry, I still need to say that twice before it sinks in. We can't undo that (yet), so I guess we have to give the man some points for that. I mean, it ain't easy to override over 200 years of law and tradition in order to get yourself elected president without winning the popular vote, or the Electoral College for that matter. Well, ok, maybe it is easy if your FATHER was president and your brother is the governor of one of the states with the most electoral votes. But, look, it's not easy to get yourself born into a family that's rich and powerful. Believe me, I've tried.

As for accomplishments before becoming president, we know he wasn't a war hero. In fact, it's not all that clear what Bush was doing during the Vietnam War except that it probably involved drinking in a foreign speaking land (the deep south). He was a successful oilman but, please, how hard can that be in Texas? As far as I can tell, all you need is a plot of land and a hole in the ground to be a rich oilman, like that Texas woman who recently had oil spewing from her toilet. He did own a baseball team which is cool but, good lord, so did Marge Schott. As for his speaking skills, well, please, need we even discuss them? Watching him speak is like having a flash back to all those times in school where I had to stand up in front of the class and recite something which I couldn't, for the life of me, remember. The man's suffering from a permanent brain cramp.

I believe I can rest my case here. The upcoming presidential election has all the appeal of another trip to the skin doctor to have those funny looking things on my back removed. I guess, after watching The Apprentice and seeing what 16 random schmucks will do to get a job working for Donald Trump, I've got high expectations for what presidential candidates should do to win my vote.

Is there any way to get The Donald involved in this election?

Some people say that Bill Clinton jokes are too old to be funny. I say they're still pure gold, baby!David Letterman ended his monologue on last night's Late Show (Wednesday, February 4) with a joke I wrote about Bill Clinton and Janet Jackson.

Click here to hear the audio (format: MP3, size: 209kb), or go to my Late Night Joke page.

Enjoy!