Big Idea #7, Ban Recycling, > Pink Wizard, guest columnist.

Dear Beethovenians,

When I was a young wizard, knee-high to a hamster, I was told of the virtues of recycling.It will save the rainforest, blah blah blah.

When I was a teenager, I began to question authority. So for no reason at all I decided that recycling was stupid. And I listened to Green Day but that's another story I'm too embarassed to tell.

A couple months ago I saw an epispode of Penn and Teller's "B.S." in which they did an exposee on why recycling really is pointless, thus confirming my long-held suspicion. According to the show, recycling facilities pollute a whole lot with their smokestacks and mac trucks, and we aren't running out of trees since we get paper from tree farms. And we aren't running out of landfill space either. And in addition to being pointless, recycling is expensive. There were some other points but I either forgot them or can't articulate them.

Now I'm a little embarassed to say that I get my scientific information from Penn and Teller. So I just did a google search and found some fancy report on why recycling is pointless. I did not read this report, but at least now I can cite the report instead of Penn and Teller. And you can read it if you are so inclined. If you're not, trust me recycling is dumb. Don't do it.

If the democrats took up the anti-recycling position they would get lots of republican votes and they'd win the election and everything would be hunky dory and all problems in the world would be solved and gay people would get married and have abortions and everybody would have health care and Karl Rove would go to jail where he would be raped and NO TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH and the government would only spy on people if they got a warrant from Judge Judy and there'd be a gas tax and we'd celebrate diversity and certain guns would be illegal so nobody would get shot unless in a hunting accident and there'd be no more hurricanes and if there was it wouldn't be a problem because FEMA would help black people and all Supreme Court nominees would be approved by Ted Kennedy and there'd be no death penalty unless your husband says you wanted to die if you ever went into a coma and then BAM you go into a coma HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY PATRIOTISM? and Elian Gonzalez would be rescued from the Halliburton compound in Waco where he is being held hostage by Pat Robertson and Clarence Thomas who are gay like Dick Cheney's daughter not like there's anything wrong with that and there'd be no more wars because Dr. Phil would be the head of the UN and everybody would just work out their problems at the UN security council therapy sessions and the 10 commandments would be removed from the courthouse and replaced with a statue of Michael Moore with his arms chopped off like the Venus di Milo and Jimmy Carter would be cryogenically frozen along with Ted Williams and Strom Thurmond's illegitemate daughter would become captain of the USS Enterprise with her husband, Warren Beatty who invented Ultimate Frisbee in 1962 with Vladimir Nabokov who incidentally would oversee the Swift Boat Vets in their musical adaptation of "Great Expectations" based on the classic novel by Charles Dickens, who by the way, would be given a holiday in October to replace Columbus Day which is offensive to Native Americans who had their land stolen from them by Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, who are now using the Indian land to cultivate a unique hybrid of marijuana and maize which they call "maizeajuana," and this herb will be smoked by victims of glaucoma in Oregon where Harry Belafonte will advocate their right to ban Wal-Mart and so on and so forth.