Dear Santa Claus....

When I was a child (notice how I didn't say when I was much smaller), I used to write a letter to Santa Claus every year, asking for the latest GI Joe Action Figure, Nintendo Game, or Alabama Man Play Set. Now that I'm older and have a job, I just buy the crap that I want and don't have to ask Santa for a thing. Lately though, there are some things that I want that I can't buy. And unlike the X-Box 360, not because greedy Microsoft didn't make enough of them. So I thought I would write Santa a letter and ask him for a couple things. He's apparently still quite good at this sort of thing, so I thought I would give it a try.

Dear Santa Claus,

How's it going? It's been a very long time since my last letter. Last time I wrote you, I was living in Wyoming in that red house, and I was asking for Final Fantasy for Nintendo (the original) and RBI Baseball. Thanks for the hook-up there, by the way. Lately there have been some things that I want that I was hoping you could help me with:

1) A new President of the United States - Our current President is a greedy liar. Back in the day, you used to give kids coal in their stockings for crap like he pulls. I'm not saying I want John Kerry as his replacement either, but that Mark Warner guy from Virginia might be a good possibility.

2) Deport the religious right wing of the Republican Party - I think people should practice whatever religion they want or have the right not to practice any religion at all. The minute the religious right think that everyone else is the damned or start trying to make it the official religion of Super Bowl XL, that's where I draw the line. You want control of a government, go invade France and start your own there.

3) Congressmen and Congresswomen should receive a severe beating for using the word bi-partisan or bi-paritsanship. It's been a long time on Capitol Hill since anything has qualified as such.

4) End the Death Penalty - Unless we're going to start executing everyone who commits murder, we're not going to be able to do it fairly or justly. "But Ryan, then we might kill innocent people." You mean like we do already? The only difference would be that we'd be killing more innocent white people, instead of just the poor black innocent people.

5) Eliminate check writing - Everyone has access to debit cards. There is not a single business left in the world that takes checks, but does not take cards. WHY IN GOD'S NAME DO PEOPLE STILL WRITE FUCKING CHECKS, aside from the obvious entertainment value in making me very irate while in the line at Target.

6) A lump of coal (or a turd, if coal is too expensive) for Bill O'Reilly - O'Reilly and the President are both liars, but O'Reilly is a smug liar who has complete knowledge that what he says is complete bullshit. He even gloats about how people accept his lies.

7) Call of Duty 2 for Xbox 360.

8) Public support for the poor - It's 7 degrees right now in Omaha, and there are people without a place to live. Santa, can you find a place for them to live or employ them to make toys at the North Pole?

9) More new episodes of Family Guy - I realize that it's on TBS, Cartoon Network and Fox, but I could use a few more episodes a day and more new episodes. It's not like Lifetime has a lot of great crap on during the day.

10) Bring home the troops - If I read one more letter to the editor, blog, or pundit's opinion about what a huge mistake we would be making if we brought the troops home from Iraq, I am going to shoot fireballs out of my ass. There is nothing magical that keeping the troops in Iraq for another 3 years will accomplish. More time will not end a century old civil war, and it will certainly not end the animosity among Muslims that fuels terrorism. Al Quada wasn't in Iraq until we invaded it. We need to focus on making the US more secure and having realistic responses to terrorist threats. No bigger lie is being told to the American people than "If we leave Iraq now, you're all going to die in a terrorist attack." If you die in a terrorist attack on American soil, you can bet your red, white and blue ass that it will be because we've squandered billions of dollars that could have been spent making ourselves more secure, not because we left Iraq too soon. The faster we get out, the faster we can accept that the entire operation has been built on lies from day one.

I think that's about it, Santa. If you're a conservative Republican, I'm sure you were pissed off before you finished the first one. Then again, no Republican I know would work year around purely to support the good deeds of other people without making a penny of profit. And you would berate the poor for not working hard enough. And call yourself compassionate despite berating the poor. And talk about freedom, while telling women what medical procedures they can and cannot receive. Maybe I just need some medication....