Happy Birthday, Hobbits: A Children's Treasury of America's Middle Earth

 
 It's the last day of summer, everybody! Technically, anyway. Summer has been extended by a few years for many parts of the United States, especially Texas. But you know whatelseis important about this day before the Autumn Equinox? It's the birthday of fictional hobbit celebrities Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins, both born on this same day in England in we guess the 1930s or wheneverThe Song Remains the Samehad its theatrical release. Happy birthday, hobbitses. Let's use this occasion to compare American Politics 2011 to the popular characters of the world's best-loved stories if you're a sysadmin.

In the great Ren Faire of U.S. public life, there is no document more important thanLord of the Ringsand its various slash-fic spinoffs such asThe HobbitandThe Twin TowersandHR Pufnstuf. In these majestic texts, we find all that defines America, or "Middle Earth." Here are some of the beloved nightmare-fuel creatures of the United States and their real-lifeLoTRcounterparts that helped create the stinking sulfur toilet where we all live today ("Mordor"). 

There is a tortured soul that's all wrinkly and creepy and spends all its time crawling around and shrieking about "my precious." This is Texas Congressman Doctor Ron Paul, and his beloved "precious" is a gold trinket, just like poor Gollum is driven mad by his own delusions abouthisgolden trinket in some kind of orc septic tank in the Belgian animated edition ofThe Hobbit II. Old Ron "Gollum" Paul will continue to cry and moan about his precious for the next 5,000 years, until the Age of Men has ended.

 
 If Ron Paul is the Gollum, then who is the Gollum'smom? John McCain!

Old Walnuts tried to make us forget that he is actually the Gollum'smomby talking about hobbits recently. But like anything McCain talks about, he screwed it all up and somehow managed to infuriate the people he was trying to win over with hobbit talk. Anyway, he is the Gollum's mom. This is in the extended edition ofReturn of the King, the unrated version, when he chases the hobbitses out of the Capitol for not bringing him a bribe from Arizona.

Regular orcs, possibly seen here, are some kind of genetic mutant mix of "dumb white trash" and "garbage troll." They frequent the comments section of important cultural websites such as The POLITICO and the various teevee network sites. Being orcs, they only have two or three things to say, and they say them again and again in ALL CAPS so the other orcs can tell it is important, we guess. They are all going to be drowned in a pit of sewage when the Trees fight back, as seen in the Chinese bootleg alternate Blu-Ray cut ofDungeons and Dragons.

There is a great evil in the world that will not die even when it is repeatedly killed by doctors -- we are speaking of Dick Cheney. The best government-employed military hospital surgeons in America have been trying to kill this evil sonofabitch for thirty years, but you cannot kill that which has never lived. Whenever Cheney "dies," which is often, he simply retreats into a hell-dream and imagines himself stomping around some burning Pompeii scene, strangling children with his own entrails. Then, eventually, enough dried Muslim blood is held under his nose that he is able to regain control of his human body (actually thousands of radioactive rats in a skin-like condom shaped loosely like a gross old man) and he goes on Jay Leno or whatever, to kill poor people with his eyes. This is what happens with what's his name, "He Who Cannot Be Named," in the audiobook ofThe Silmarillionas read by John Tesh.

The Dark Lord bred an especially offensive subspecies of obese orc called the "Uruk-hai," and those are obviously our modern-day Teabaggers. The Uruk-hai were bred by evil corporate death priests (the Koch Brothers) over a long and terrible generation, beginning back in 1980. The monstrosities were finally ready in 2008, when they were called to burst from their gestation sacs by the election of Barack Obama. Ever since, these awful things have stomped across the land, eating all the hamburgers and scaring minority children. According to biblical prophecy, they will all be killed by a poison asteroid in December 2012 when they gather at a "free Rascal scooter convention" in Denver.