It's the question that screwed with me as a kid. Because there were two answers and maybe both were right--or wrong. That doesn't jibe well with a linear thinking kid who is used to having the right answer at his fingertips.

The chicken must lay the egg. The egg must bear the chicken. Circular logic is only fun when you're screwing with someone.

Barry Bonds hit his 714th major league home run yesterday after struggling for a week and a half. After getting hit, walked and booed most of the year. After many National League pitchers refused to be the guy to give it up, Bonds played an American League team and found his slut.

When the big home run boom started in the late 90s with Sosa and McGwire, it seemed fun. A resurgence of my favorite spectator sport. We were all watching with blinders on, though. We failed to appreciate what it really took to hit 70 home runs in a season. It took juice. It took the cream and the clear. It took pharmaceuticals meant for race horses (don't get me started on race horses today--so, anyone win their bet yesterday?). But when the guys had to stop their cranking and learn how to play without the super human serum, the truth came out. These guys lost it and lost it quick.

We don't have the blood tests to prove it, but we do have pictures. If you saw a retrospective of Bonds in the first ten years of his career and how he looked in the last five or so, there is a difference. The same can be said of early and late Sosa or McGwire. There was an extra bulk--and most of it was put on after they were 30. Not "fat," but big time muscles. This is not natural.

I'm not the commissioner of Major League Baseball, but it seems like this stuff is pretty obvious. All of these home runs would not have been hit without the steroids. We would not be reading about Bonds tying Ruth today. Without the 'roids, Bonds wouldn't have been close to tying Ruth, even if he's off them now. The single season records would not have been broken. McGwire wouldn't have cried in front of Congress.

Chicken wouldn't have laid the egg. Egg wouldn't have hatched. Or vice versa.

When asked if the United States had the credibility to get Iran to do what we want because of the debacle in Iraq, The Rice said today that Iraq and Iran are two different countries. When the interviewer pointed out that it seems as though Iran is more dangerous now than Iraq was when we invaded, she refuted this, saying, "We went to war with Iraq" thus Iraq must have been more dangerous than Iran is now.

Even though I'm skeptical about how dangerous Iran really is, it's hard to take any of this seriously.

But saying, by the grace of our invasion, that Iraq was much more dangerous (even though we have found out in the last three plus years that Iraq wasn't gonna do anything much to anyone for quite a while), then this deal with Iran isn't very important either. The chicken is squeezing out eggs faster than we can swallow them.

Republicans are arguing with each other about what to do with all these illegal aliens. Immigration and that "fortress America" idea (floated by neo-cons to great laughter before Bush took office in 2001) is now the great debate of our society. Why is this? What kind of animal laid this egg?

We want cheap produce, but us Americans aren't really into picking it in the fields. We want to build cheap houses and additions to our not so cheap real estate, but Americans want to be paid real wages for this. We want our houses clean, but we're never around to do it themselves (because we get paid way more to surf the Internet in offices than maids get for their work).

What would our standard of living look like if we didn't have "illegal aliens" doing all the stuff we don't want to do? Or, at least, doing it for much less money than most of us would ever consider (or even legal to pay citizens of this country)?

Did we lay this egg? Are we eating our own offspring?

How do you like your chicken? Fried? Grilled? Smoked?

Matt Worley likes eating both the chickens and the eggs.