You know it's a slow week when weather is on the front page everyday. There's hurricanes a brewin', but no one is really worried yet. We don't know where these little boys and girls are gonna go next. Are they really going to grow up into full-fledged killers or are they're just full of hot air. So we sit, we wait and marvel at all the pictures of cars driving through deep water.

No matter how bad it gets outside, there are still people who think they need to go to work or the store or something. No one wants to sit still--it's just water.

But we are mostly in a standstill this week. Not much moving forward, not much moving at all.

A few Republicans are beating the dead tax cut horse. They've already lost. Clinton's on vacation (i.e. raising money and house hunting), and he's not even stumping against the evil eye anymore. Because we've heard all this before, and we're not falling for it. We know that a tax cut doesn't mean anything tangible. When most families will see less than a grand over a year of time, we know which pig this trough is feeding.

My prediction: dead by the first day of fall. It won't even come close to shutting down the government. The Republicans can't risk it because they can't win. They hold the majority in both the House and Senate, and they can't do a damn thing they want. And they say Clinton is the lame duck.

So we sit and wait for the winds to come. A little rain, a little wind. Never hurt nobody. Plywood and nail sales go up, a few people decide to buy power air hammers, and most decide the manual model will do fine as long as it's accompanied by a case of cheap beer.

No denial? No nothing from the Bush (G.W.) camp this week. They're trying to silence the whole thing out, but it'll resurface again. Coke isn't the issue--this is the same Catch-22 evading the draft used to be. If you've committed a felony (using, holding, selling, doing anything with coke is a felony everywhere) and gotten away with it, how can you justify spending money to hunt down and prosecute people who have done the very same thing. True, using coke isn't the same as selling it (because, like always, everything goes back to taxes--the government ain't making nothing off drug dealers), but it's still a felony. And felonies, unlike misdemeanors and the occasional grope, are serious business.

My prediction: G.W.'ll come clean, but with conditions, and it won't really hurt him much. Much like Clinton and his blow job queen, we already know G.W. did it, we're just waiting for him to actually tell us. That's all we want, just come clean. And we'll all wash ourselves down with the national holy water and feel better in the morning. Albeit, there will be more coke jokes at the water cooler than usual.

And finally, what are we going to do with Janet Reno? Now she wants to get to the bottom of Waco. This is akin to finally revisiting old relationship memories and trying to figure out why that beautiful girl left in the early 90s. Was it the conversations? The sex? Maybe the incendiary tear gas capsules I shot at her Ford Bronco as she peeled out of the driveway? Does it really matter anymore? What can we learn from this?

Or maybe even more pertinent, do we learn anything from any of this?

Nope.

Hurricane paths still mystify us, thousands of potential presidential candidates go one toke over the line, and law enforcement agencies occasionally overstep their bounds.

It's human nature. Or just nature. Or maybe it's all God's fault. At least, that's what V.P. (and presidential candidate) Al Gore would like local governments to sort out. The cool thing about creationism is that there is one answer to everything. That's the way God wants it.

Simple. To the point. Easy to understand.

Of course, I still don't really know why that beautiful girl left all those years ago. And God hasn't been answering my e-mails.

Matt Worley would like to set up Santa.com and God.com, so we can e-mail these all-knowing entities and get responses like, "Your request is currently being evaluated. Action will be taken if possible. No further contact is necessary. Thanks for praying."