This post is really important. It's about something you really care about. No, really. You care. A lot. A whole -- hey, where are you going?

So I'm sitting here watching "Fox & Friends Weekend" -- and before you even start, STFU, you vultures, it is a well-established fact that I only include that in my Saturday-morning viewing regimen because of Juliet Huddy -- and they're talking with Georgia congressman Lynn Westmoreland (R-Naturally) about the steroids-in-pro-baseball hearings going on before Congress right now. And Westmoreland is something like, "This is an issue the American people really care about." And I'm thinking -- um, really? Because I have yet to talk to a single person who gives one tenth of one shit about these hearings. In fact, I have heard more commentators insist that people give a shit than actual people on the street who will fess up to giving a shit. If I were filming this whole phenomenon, I'd show the baseball people and Capitol Hill people all talking very gravely about how important this is and how it has the American public's undivided attention, and then I'd pan over to a guy wearing a T-shirt reading "AMERICAN PUBLIC," sitting in a big fat easy chair with a Michelob in his hand, glued to a TV showing the NCAA basketball tournament, and after a few moments he turns around and says, all oblivious, "What?"

I guess what I'm saying is that if you actually give a shit about the baseball hearings, or believe that the general pulse of the American public is that they do, let me know, or else I'm just going to have to assume everyone on TV is stupid. Which, in all honesty, is kind of convenient for me, since I pretty much thought that anyway.

Westmoreland was also on to speak about the ongoing Terri Schiavo controversy down in Florida, and about the calls for Congress to step in and do something to keep the doctors from removing Schiavo's feeding tube. I just love how this Republican congress, which stormed into D.C. in 1995 proclaiming highfalutin promises that they were going to rein in the out-of-control overreach of the federal government and get it out of people's private lives, is now taking it upon itself to make the health-care decisions for one single family down in Florida. (But we can't have universal health care in this country, because that would mean the federal government would be telling you what to do!) Folks, maybe you haven't noticed, but between this and the out-of-control spending and the gigantic steaming turd that Tom DeLay has laid on any notion of Congressional ethics, it is officially f$#!ing Animal Farm up there on the Hill these days, and the Repubs are the pigs smoking cigars and wearing pants. You still think life doesn't imitate art? Oh, you poor little lamb. Go back to watching your baseball hearings.

Oh, and finally, F&F had Amber Frey on just a second ago to talk about her book and about the Scott Peterson case, and when one of the hosts referred to her as Peterson's "mistress," she got all miffed and said she didn't like to be referred to as a mistress. Hey, I'm sure Scott doesn't like to be referred to as a "murderer," but . . . well, look, if it looks like a mistress, and quacks like a mistress, and f$#!s married men like a mistress, then I'm calling it a mistress. Maybe Amber would prefer something more PC like "extramarital sex provider." I don't know. But somebody else run with that for a second, because I've got more important stuff to worry about, like Juliet rocking the leather boots again this morning. Baseball hearings . . . Juliet Huddy in a miniskirt and leather boots . . . yeah, y'all have fun laying into Mark McGwire. I'll be over here.