There is good news on the ground. The University of New Mexico's women's basketball team beat the crap out of Florida Saturday night. An 11 seed, UNM came out shooting early and never looked back. This is the kind of leadership we need to see more of. This is the kind of enthusiasm that brings a country together.

Of course, it tears the country apart, as well. Only half the teams win on a given day, meaning half the teams leave their fans in tears. They have to wait seven or eight months before they can feel the joy again. What can fill their hearts when the hearts have been so broken?

Maybe alcohol will work. This last week was, as the Guinness ads have said, St. Patrick's Season. It's not just a day anymore, it's like a reverse Lent. Drink, drink, drink, for this is how we celebrate our Irishness.

There is some merit in transforming a one day drinking binge into a whole "season" of drinking. If you just drink on the one day, and drink heartily, you might very well have a nasty hangover the next day. But if you train, build up tolerance, and are ready for that one glorious night of bacchanalia, then the next day won't be so bad. I, personally, had my worst hangover in months on Wednesday morning. I'd gotten into some Irish beer with high alcohol content on Tuesday night (I was in training), and it whiplashed me the next morning. But I was fine on Saturday, after the big tournament night of Friday, March 17th. My training (and pain) paid off.

I woke up this week to find the US military in Iraq celebrated the 3rd anniversary of the war with a PR stunt. A major airstrike or air offensive or operation of some kind occurred. Over half of the troops were Iraqi security forces (700 US, 800 Iraqis) to sweep a sparsely populated wilderness. No one was killed! As a matter of fact, there were just as many soldiers taken into the region as there were civilians (only 1500 civilians lived in the area). Victory is at hand!

Y'know, I kid because I can't shout anymore. I can't go out and protest to people driving past in cars. I can't write letters to anyone. I can bitch in bars and make loud pronouncements when drinking whiskey, but otherwise, what can I do? Nothing matters. We have no say over our military presence in Iraq. No one in authority really cares what we think. And they will not listen to us naysayers.

So happy third birthday New Iraq. I don't remember much about turning three, but I don't think there were any car bombs involved.

Which kind of leads me back to drinking again. Because what else works?

Oh yeah, basketball. Entire days are lost. The offensive against slovenly living is fighting an uphill battle against 24-hour a day college basketball. Even on days and nights off from the men's tournament, there seems to be a game on. Luckily we do have a timetable for withdrawal. There are only a few weeks of this a year. March Madness, truly a season unto itself, will be over in early April.

But what of the growing sectarian violence between South Park and Scientology? Who will win this epic battle of snide remarks and Isaac Hayes? South Park, some might say, made the first attack with their episode revealing the true nature of Scientology's "religion" (they believe they are aliens or aliens are inside them or in some volcano or in a closet or something) back in November. Everyone I know has seen the episode. I never knew there was this silent majority of South Park viewers.

Then Rolling Stone did a big "investigative" report about Scientology and mentioned the South Park episode and the fact that Isaac Hayes (who, from time to time, voiced the character of Chef on the cartoon) was a Scientologist. Well, Hayes decided South Park supported "religious intolerance" and quit the show (he claims he has not seen the offending episode). The makers of South Park rightly point out that the program has made fun of religions of all kinds (which is, most definitely, true), so why is Hayes mad now?

No one knows where this war of words will lead to. But I do know one thing: a new season of South Park starts this Wednesday night on Comedy Central.

Which is probably the point of this war. See, the US military aren't the only ones doing big time PR these days.

Matt Worley will watch the new South Park, but probably stay away from all of the 3rd Annual Operation Iraqi Freedom award shows.