A fair warning to students: the First Amendment doesn't really apply to you. That's what the U.S. Supreme Court said last week when it ruled that Joseph Frederick's First Amendment rights were not violated by his high school principal, who suspended him in 2002 for unveiling a 14-foot banner that read, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus."

Frederick unfurled his banner on a public sidewalk during a school-sponsored trip to watch a Winter Olympics parade. Principal Deborah Morse (aka Principal Buzz Kill) confiscated the banner and suspended Frederick for 10 days.

The Supremes sided with Morse, claiming that any suggestion that the Son of God smokes weed constitutes a pro-drug message and is therefore a clear violation of the school district's drug policy.

Apparently the fact that Jesus's Dad created marijuana — according to Genesis 1:11 this occurred on the third day of creation and "was good" — had no influence on the justices' decision whatsoever.

Free-speech advocates blasted the ruling as yet another setback to the First Amendment rights of students, which are already in tatters. It seems that America's schools like to teach the Bill of Rights but don't particularly want to abide by it.

But if this wasn't a good ruling on the part of the Supremes it was at least humorous, for, in order to deliberate the matter, this bunch of high falutin' lawyers had to define the term "bong" first. And what did they in their vast wisdom decide?

Bong is a "slang term for drug paraphernalia."

So rolling papers are bongs? Coke spoons are bongs?

Idiots! Go pick the lint from your robes and leave us — and our water pipes — alone.

As Mark Twain once famously said, "God created idiots — that was for practice. Then he created school boards."

In an attempt to prove Twain right, the St. Vrain School Valley District's Board of Education postponed a vote on its new, comprehensive sex-ed curriculum last week in order to determine for certain exactly who will be able to speak with kids about sex.

It seems that recent events in Boulder — specifically the World Affairs Panel at Boulder High School — have St. Vrain's board of ed members shaking in their sensible, brown shoes.

Never mind that St. Vrain's current abstinence-only curriculum has failed abysmally, contributing to alarming teen-pregnancy rates. Rather than worrying about what will happen if infotainment-thug O'Reilly shows up in their town, they ought to focus on creating good public policy, one that provides students with the information they'll need to make safe decisions in the real world, where people have sex.

If the St. Vrain Board really wants to prevent their horny hoodlums from playing Hide the Weasel, they should give every female student an autographed photo of O'Reilly. After taking one look at that turkey-necked Limbaugh-wannabe, the thought of having sex with any man will make them want to hurl.

We realize that some folks may be undecided about whether Vice President Dick Cheney is a human being or a cruel, evil robot that spends his spare time taunting kittens and practicing his maniacal laugh (mwoohahahaha) — so this one's for you.

Contrary to what you may have been taught, the Vice President's office is not part of the executive branch. Weary of answering questions, Cheney stopped handing over documents to the Information Security Oversight Office in 2002. And now, when it seems that he might have played a role in recent affairs, ranging from illegal surveillance of Americans to the firing of federal judges, he's making it very clear that he's not subject to oversight laws that apply to the executive branch, because... well, like, the dog ate my Constitution. Who knows? It's all bushshit (as opposed to bullshit) anyway.

A.G. Alberto Gonzales, who apparently moonlights as Cheney's personal fluffer, was asked about his opinion on this issue in January and is still trying to get up to speed on the three branches of the government. Meanwhile, social studies teachers are redrawing their flow-chart diagrams of the U.S. government and wondering how generations of Americans could have misunderstood the Constitution so completely.

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