Eat More Crickets—You're Gonna Love Crick-fil-A 

As everyone knows, the Mormon pioneers would have starved to death in 1848 after their arrival in the Salt Lake Valley were it not for a swarm of crickets. That's right, their first crops failed and they were thinking about eating each other when a cloud of crickets floated in. Praise the Lord—they had sauteed crickets with garlic and olive oil; roasted crickets that made crunchy jerky; they even made cricket cookies.

Pound for pound, crickets are almost as rich in protein as beef. Asians have been eating insects since forever. Malang tod is a medley of fried crickets, beetles, worms and grasshoppers. Rod duan are sauteed bamboo caterpillars. Hon mhai is deep-fried silk worms. But you really haven't lived until you've had Thai Blattaria—cockroaches al dente.

Worldwide, some 2 billion people eat bugs on a regular basis. In Africa alone, there are some 1,900 edible species. Insects can end world hunger but in the U.S., it's impossible to find them on a menu. Nonetheless, the future is coming and it won't be long before Grasshopper King restaurants are popping up all over with items like beetle nuggets and spicy deluxe tarantula wraps. McDonald's could offer combo meals of caterpillar fries and cricket burgers.

Don't laugh, the French eat snails and face it, if you'll eat Spam, you'll eat anything.

Free Money for Spoiled Kids
Them elitist swamp rats are at it again. Their gonna make us pay off the tuition debts of all them little bitchy college kids. That old leftist Joe Biden and his Marxist cadre are tryin' to sucker folks into voting for 'em. That's what this is all about—it's bribery, pure and simple.

Old Joe just waved his socialist wand and presto-chango, goodbye 10 grand in debt—for some it will be $20,00. So what if the average college kid graduates with $25,000 in debt and can't start a family and waa waa waa—it isn't the taxpayers' fault.

What about the rest of us? We got debts, too, but all we get is the shaft. (Except for the billionaires who don't pay taxes.) And don't let 'em start with that stuff about other countries with free college—22 of them. Half of 'em are free to foreign students so's they can brainwash 'em into socialists.

But we're capitalists and you gotta pay for what you get, even if tuition is outrageous—doubling in cost since 2000. Them kids knew what they was doin', like when they go to Starbucks and pay $8 for a cup of coffee. No wonder they have to live in their mother's basement when they graduate.

It gets worse, we pay their debt after they go to college to party down, smoke drugs and fornicate, and they call it—get this—a "Liberal Education." No wonder we're goin' down the tubes.

This Ain't No Friggin' Democracy
Hey stupid, the United States is a republic, not a democracy. That's what Mike Lee and his fellow right-wingers say. It's really code for "majority rule sucks."

The Heritage Foundation—the GOP's brain—came right out and said it: "The contemporary efforts to weaken our republican customs and institutions in the name of greater equality run against the efforts by America's Founders to defend our country from the potential excesses of democratic majorities."

So conservative power brokers reduce polling stations in red states like Georgia and then pass laws that say you can't give food or water to Black people standing in line for hours to vote. In Texas, they reduce the number of ballot drop-off boxes to almost none.

In red states, like Utah, gerrymandering is the strategy. In swing states, they'll secretly select their own electors. But hey, the word "democracy" isn't in the Constitution—well, except for that little phase in the preamble that says, "We the people." It does sound eerily like a democracy.

But we have to defend against the excesses of the majority, like the right-wingers new darling and strongman, Hungarian fascist Viktor Orban, who seized power by stifling news media, undercutting institutions, decrying immigrants and talking up law and order. Hmm. Sounds kinda familiar.

Postscript—That'll do it for another scortching, Popsicle-eating week here at Smart Bomb, where we keep track of missing top secret national security documents so you don't have to.

OK look, this has happened to everyone: The lease is up and you've gotta move, pronto. So you get some boxes from the liquor store and start packing stuff up. You've got a box of dishes, one of glasses and cups and on and on.

It's hideous work and you've got to hussle. You've got magazines and last year's tax returns and some top secret documents and you stuff them all into a George Dickel bourbon box and scribble "misc." on it with a sharpie. You throw it all into the U-Haul thinking you'll reorganize after you unload.

But at some point, you say "screw it" and push the rest of the boxed up stuff into a back bedroom and shut the door. So how are you supposed to remember that you've got a bunch of old magazines, tax returns and top secret documents that just happen to pose a national security risk. It could happen to anyone.

Moving along: Utah made the national news again when the BYU women's volleyball team was hosting Duke, which has an African American starter. A man in the stands called her the N-word repeatedly. No one stopped him. Well, as P.T. Barnum said, "There's no such thing as bad publicity." Ha.

Well, Wilson, it's a mixed up, muddled up world and we gotta seek out simple pleasures—like Popsicles on a hot day—where we can. Actually, the world needs more Popsicles. It's harder to be pissed off if you're sucking on a Popsicle. So why don't you and the band dedicate something cool to those cats at BYU:

And when God gave out rhythm
He sure was good to you
You can add, subtract, multiply and divide
By two

I know today's your birthday
And I did not buy no rose
But I wrote this song instead and I call it
"Popsicle Toes"

Popsicle toes
Popsicle toes are always froze
Popsicle toes
You're so brave to expose all those popsicle toes

We oughta have a birthday party
And you can wear you birthday clothes
We can hit the floor
And go explore those Popsicle toes

You got the nicest North America
This sailor ever saw
I'd like to feel your warm Brazil
And touch your Panama

But your Tierra del Fuegos
Are nearly always froze
We gotta see saw
Until we unthaw those Popsicle toes

Popsicle toes
Popsicle toes are always froze
Popsicle toes
You're so brave to expose all those popsicle toes
"Popsicle Toes"—Michael Franks