The recent cyclone in Burma was a terrible thing. But allow me to explain, dear reader, that I use the term "terrible" in the King James Version sense of "wondrous", for this murderous calamity allows me to write about the sole thing I know, which is that I don't like liberals. And so it came to pass that I used the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands to score cheap political points. Verily, this was the message that Christ came to spread.

I must add that it is a good thing that my editor long ago ceased reading my columns, for normally even the most feeble-minded redactor of a high school journal would have called a writer on the unsubstantiated and shaky assertions I make today. I manage to get away with claiming, for example, that the pinko media makes "little or no mention of direct U.S. or Australian efforts to bring aid to Burma." Source? Please! You may take my claims on faith - for I am David Warren!

Now even I cannot stretch this thin argument into the full-length column I am required to submit in exchange for my drinking money. It was for this reason that I decided to further exploit the massive suffering of the Burmese people to have a go at "the media" over a sin I claim - again without proof, of course - "they" committed over four years ago, when they failed to highlight to my satisfaction the role played by the US and Australian navies in delivering first relief to tsunami victims.

For good measure, I then equate delivering aid with invading countries and killing people, because of course the two are identical - only a fool could think otherwise.

It's good to be me. So certain about everything.

My quest to transmogrify myself into a kind of paunchy, effeminate and altogether less entertaining Ann Coulter is proceeding at a splendid pace. Today's column evidences this progress, for in it I manifest my not inconsiderable disdain for that altogether baffling area of knowledge known as "science".

Now do recall, gentle reader, that as a high-school drop out, my education in that field ended around the stage when it would normally just begin to take root in peers of similarly average intelligence. Furthermore, as I am now 54 years of age, it has been almost...where's that calculator...ah, yes, 40 years since I have allowed a new scientific fact to enter my brain.

While I spun out the requisite number of words to merit this week's pay cheque from Winnipeg, as is always the case, my argument can be reduced to a very simple one: as I do not like the way those who understand science use its evidence to undermine my wishful assertions, I attack all of science as flawed and biased. This creates a false equivalence with my make-believe world view. The rest is tactics: I breezily cite either non-scientists (Feyerabend) or controversial scientists (Peiser, Behe)--or, most daringly of all, invoke the names of brilliant scientists (Dyson) who would in all likelihood be appalled by such enforced association with an semi-literate scribbler such as myself.

And as usual, I manage to pull off this clumsy stunt thanks to an abject failure to impose editorial control, and a readership that is comprised mainly of bombastic, red-faced, anti-intellectual bigots such as myself.

"Stirling engine" - ha! That will have them googling. Never mind that even a small child could tell me how to resolve the dire dilemma I have constructed from Grade A Canadian Finest straw: use less oil and gas, and our Achilles heel with respect to Russia and other oil producers will vanish. No, because that might give succor to the eco-fascist crowd, and I would rather die in a Russian nuclear strike than see those environmentalist bastards win a concession, however inadvertently.

And finally: no, none of my written declamation concerning the distortions and arrogance created by "unearned wealth" could possibly apply to Alberta. For Alberta hath given us the Conservative Party of Canada, the other one true faith. Amen.

O, ho! It seems I have raised the ire of a few readers - how very satisfying! Well, this is clearly a vein worth mining. Never mind that every thing I write casts into sharper relief the painful reality of my weak and erratic "self-education" - my drifting years in the 1970s, when I kidded myself that spending a few hours a week in a library with some dusty tomes far beyond my meagre comprehension equalled an actual education. Yet I should not be so dismissive of this pretense, for as I have learned in recent years, the plebs are always easily awed by citations, however mangled, of Aristotle and other classics. So much easier than an actual academic experience, where my idiosyncratic and yet strangely pedestrian thoughts might have been challenged by my peers and (in vastly greater numbers) betters.

Tis the silly season in the world of media, a time when editors flee to their country homes, leaving snot-nosed punks to run the shop. And what better time can there be for me to wave a huge red flag in front of the raging bulls that are Darwinists. Never mind that I promptly trip over said flag and fall face first into a moist, steaming cow pat. Victory is mine, I tell you! For all that I need do is sneer. Cheap knock-offs of C.S. Lewis will do for this crowd - no need to cast pearls before, er, bulls.

Speaking candidly, I simply do not trust Chinese people. I think it traces back to the time a Chinaman put too much starch in my laundry, against my specific instructions, and then had the temerity to try to charge me extra! A most perfidious race, undone by their idol worship and failure to cleave to the Kingdom of God.

Now even I, a complete ignoramus in matters economic, understand that it is ludicrous to imagine that a Chinese government would deliberate crash the world economy (and rob itself of hundreds of billions of dollars in the process). But I know my faithful reader is a greater fool than I.

O, but I love this job!

My reader doth know that I am a humble man, but I would be doing myself an injustice if I did not declare the following: I believe today's column will in time be regarded as one of the best "Essays on our Times" that I have written. Such a pleasure to scribble phrases such as "I have not the space, in this short column, to enter into the deeper history of the Darfur conflict, which in turn requires some knowledge of developments in the region over the last six centuries" - as if I have such knowledge! In reality, of course, I just rented "Khartoum" (splendid movie, don't make 'em like that any more), double-checked the party line with a few evangelical blogs, and set to writing. But what my editor can't be bothered to figure out is unlikely to kill him.

One of the many delightful benefits of having neither an editor nor a readership capable of critical thought is that I am able to put pen to paper (as I still do - not for me the wickedness of the digital age) and address virtually any topic I choose, and at great length if I so please. Such was the case with today's column. My themes were quite simple: some animals can be dangerous, and people in cities are perhaps less aware of this than those who live closer to nature. Hardly a controversial theme - indeed, hardly worth noting. And yet with my characteristic élan I was able to turn these banal truisms into a minor skirmish in the Kulturkampf, lambasting all city dwellers as naive simpletons.

I freely admit that I added the final segment, which hinted that I believe democracy was perhaps not a good thing, simply to pad out my word count. But I was also curious to see if my editor was, unusually, paying attention. QED...

Post-scriptum: Several days after writing the mocking phrase 'I have frequently read the assurance, of naive urban writers, that "no animal will intentionally attack a human being,"' it occurred to me to perform a Google search for that phrase. Just as I thought: a single, unique hit, in my column! Expanding the search to a less specific set of key words uncovers remarks from actual field scientists to the effect that most animals are unlikely to deliberately attack human beings except under particular circumstances. To which I say: (a) Bah! science! and (b) Go away! My straw man doesn't like you!

At first glance, today's column may have looked like a poorly researched, xenophobic, chest-thumping and altogether third-rate diatribe. But as I have cautioned my reader before, appearances can be remarkably deceptive. Truer words could not be spoken with respect to my defence of Canada's Arctic sovereignty, for buried in these several hundred words is a concession of the first order: I admit that plate tectonics might be a fact. This is quite a risky business for someone who is generally much more partial to an anti-scientific view of the world. Even more astonishing is the near concession that perhaps it would be a good thing to govern such issues through the reasoned application of international law - a wet nicety for which I normally have little time. Happily, I manage to escape mortal danger by lurching back into my own sovereign territory, as it were: crazed denunciations of someone with whom I disagree, in this case the little Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

Slightly uncomfortable moment when I saw how the Ottawa Citizen had reworked this piece. Most awkwardly, the silly little copy editor decided for no good reason to change my rather droll title - "Permission to win" - to "You fight until you win". I worry that my rare intelligent reader might pause to wonder to whom the abstract "you" might refer - clearly not me, a flabby 54 year old writer with a gimp thumb, living in Canada of all places. Thankfully, very few of my readers are likely to win any intelligence contests any time soon!

I was, in retrospect, slightly more worried by my rather brazen attempt to paint Democrats as New World surrender monkeys. After all, none of the brains trust in the White House is a veteran of any war. But I have written what I have written - all that is left for it is to have faith that the Good Lord shall guide the minds of my readers away from treacherous shoals of non-Republican thought.

Post scriptum: Glenn Greenwald is a most irresponsible young man.

I shall humbly venture to predict that today's column will startle my reader. For in it I tackle not my usual dominical theme of humanity's continuing fall from Grace, but rather a soft news story that caught my eye, one concerning a cat said to be capable of predicting deaths in an old age home.

My shift was itself a bold move. Who before me has displayed the audacity to complain about the mainstream media's penchant for fluff? And yet I elected to push the envelope even further, by employing Swiftian satire to fashion today's column as my modest contribution to the dumbing down of news.

Now, some might protest that my own writings in this very column are simply another facet of the same decline of the fourth estate. After all, like the weaker links in the media, I have a pronounced tendency to write about issues that are well beyond my experience and knowledge. And as a columnist, I am freed from the codes which force mere reporters to present "facts".

But the more discerning, the initiated, understand the critical distinction: I command a vast fleet of obscure and archaic words, a vocabulary that can shake the very ground beneath us. And so, my fluffy, uninformed analyses gain gravitas.

Here endeth the lesson.

The recent (and, alas, timely) demise of Zahir Shah allowed me to strike a professorial pose before my keyboard. A classic David Warren column ensued. I established my credentials as an expert on Afghanistan by summarising some cursory web research on the late monarch and his land. I fortified this with hints that my brief and very safe foray into Afghanistan decades ago somehow made me an adventurer on a par with Lawrence and Thesiger. Finally, I added the usual chin-jutting demands for others to sacrifice their lives in fighting my fights. A job well done!

I am entirely gob-smacked by my own brilliance. To think: I know nothing at all about Turkey, and yet I am able to write a stunning insightful article on that country - and then, for my second act, extend this feat to draw lessons about the entire Islamic world! Ottawa's fair denizens - and indeed its swarthier ones as well - are truly blessed by my presence.

I am quite tickled that this column, grandly entitled "Stormwatching", made it past my editor. For as even the more mentally challenged of my readers might have noticed, it was about nothing. To summarise: I received an email containing a trite question ("why don't you write about nice things?"). I respond with a pompous & poorly constructed pseudo-sermon, something about people sometimes being good. Then, realising with some dismay that my column was still a few hundred words short, I looked out the window and wrote about the first thing I saw. Et voila, column finished. Total time: about 45 minutes, not including pee breaks.

Whew, after that difficult piece on my old friend Mr Black, it was a relief to return to form with today's column. I do enjoy making vague predictions (perhaps X, or Y, or perhaps not), spiced up with a few generalizations about Muslims, Pakistanis and other far-off peoples about whom I know so very little. I was particularly pleased with the casual reference to "quoting Persian poets," as if I actually read Farsi - good fodder for the doting dolts who imagine me to be a man of letters. That and the Dickensian phrase "by main force" and I'm golden...

This was a slightly awkward piece to write, requiring more than my normal Abu Ghraib job on logic. Fortunately my not very bright reader has probably forgotten that I was hired & well paid by the felonious Mr Black to vamp up his newly acquired Ottawa Citizen about ten years ago.

It was cheeky of me to complain that the jurors had "no background in business" - any sixth grader might call attention to the fact that I have "no background" in military affairs, science, diplomacy, religious doctrine, philosophy, ethics or indeed any of the subjects on which I pronounce in my column. This is why I rushed ahead with an even bolder proposition: that there is no such thing as earthly justice, ergo Mr Black's criminal conviction is meaningless. Ho ho!

There's nothing quite like pontificating about papal decrees. I must confess that this week's pronouncements from the Vatican about Latin masses and Protestant "communities" gave me secret pleasure beyond what I described in today's column. This provided another opportunity to depict the world as riven between the ignorant masses and an elite with special, superior knowledge.

Sadly, my own superior, special knowledge does not include a command of Latin; if it did, I would perhaps have caught my schoolboy-ish error in misusing "obviate" - such a lovely word, one I like to drop into conversation with just a hint of an English/colonial accent, but which, alas, is not quite right here. Never mind, my middlebrow reader does not know better.

Nice easy column. I basically just paraphrased a few ideas from Lee Harris, and added some self-centred observations about how I am so much smarter than other people. (I'm not sure why my reader likes this style, but it seems to work. I suppose that if you agree with me then you get to bask in the reflection of my self-asserted brilliance). Dumbed-down Harris + self-praise = one David Warren column. Ka-ching!

Not much to say about today's column. I did try to heed my own advice that "when they send our boys back from Afghanistan in boxes, it doesn't matter what our politics are." Briefly. Then it was back to bashing the French-Canadians, modernity, abortion, & indeed anyone with whom I happen to disagree. I know, I know, it smacks of exploitation, but my personal enemies are of course treacherous subhumans - I owe them nothing, least of all respect.

Hmm, after seeing this in print, I worry that my reader might briefly be alarmed by the combination of this headline and the phrase "I'm tired of conceding "rights" to people who do not recognize my own." Surely they wouldn't think...? Happily, by the second paragraph all becomes clear: I am once again bravely tackling the question of burqas, which as everyone knows liberals would have all women wear. I am probably at greater risk of being called on the obvious canard that allied forces are "fighting Islamists in Iraq", but in for a penny, in for a pound!