The bees are buzzing, the flys are flying and the flowers are budding. Everyone is doing the happy dance of spring. Halter-tops, short shorts and sunglasses abound. There is a smile on everyone's face and a thrill in all those pumping hearts because it's time to play the game.

A week ago an overzealous Chinese pilot got really excited and did a much too close fly-by a U.S. plane. The Chinese pilot ejected and is presumed dead. The U.S. plane was hobbled in mid-air but safely landed in...China. Which is a problem because China likes the sovereignty of its borders. They are holding the U.S. troops (24 of them) until our government apologizes. The Prez and everyone else in Washington says no go. We're regretful, but we're not sorry. And we're not gonna say it's our fault.

A few months back at work, I was setting up a project in China. We had sent them all of the information and material for the study, but a couple of things had gone wrong and had to be fixed. I proposed a quick e-mail fix, but this was rebuked. There is no quick fix, my Chinese counterpart said, you will have to send everything again. They were inflexible on this matter. I capitulated, in accordance with our company policy that we make everything as easy on our host countries as possible, and sent the entire package again, delaying the study by a week and costing a few extra thousand dollars. The quick e-mail fix could have been done in fifteen minutes and cost nothing. But since we weren't trying to piss anyone off, we went with the more expensive and time consuming fix requested by the Chinese.

And as a budget with a huge back-end tax cut passes the Senate (not as big as the Prez wanted, but when do you get everything you want?), we're gearing up for a tango with the only country in the world that could--if they wanted to--mess with our #1 ranking. Everyone is inflexible about this whole incident. The U.S. won't apologize and the Chinese won't give us the men back until we do. Obviously, this stand off must be resolved.

This is where the difference between business and politics comes in. In business, we have to get things done. Arguing about who's fault it is and who's gonna pay for it is not an issue. It doesn't matter as long as everything gets done with the speed that business is done today (which is faster than it was yesterday, but not as fast as it could be because everyone wants everything done yesterday--when everything happened slower than it does today). Our government is waving its dick in the wind and telling the Chinese that we're not putting it away until they take a really long look and tell us that, yes, it is quite an impressive dick.

We, as a nation, do tons of business with China. All of our clothing, action figures and plastic food containers are made in China. Wal-Mart would be put out of business if they couldn't sell goods from China. We Americans want our shit cheap (especially with this budding recession thing happening), and China has the labor force to get it done.

Maybe it wasn't our fault, but what do you do when your girlfriend or wife tells you that it is--or you ain't getting any tonight? You apologize, buy something and use that coo coo voice to get a little of what you want. What are we pussyfooting around for? We want our men back? Tell them we're sorry (y'know, we did this same thing a month or so back when our sub demolished a Japanese fishing boat, you morons) and worry about saving face later.

It's not like we have to mean it. The Chinese just have to feel good about us saying it.

All this standing firm and pissing in the wind isn't getting anyone anywhere. And it's springtime, dammit. Baseball is starting up, everyone is running around getting tan and looking for something pretty and sweet to suck on. The nectar is running like rivers and the flowers are just screaming to be violated. We don't want to bother with particulars, we've got more important things to do. And we want to do them now.

So get off the pot and resolve this thing already. Before that budget gets totally reworked so the tax cut turns into massive military spending for Cold War II: The Chinese Years.

Matt Worley is like a sprinkler right now.