I have connected the dots and uncovered what is undoubtedly an organized global bovine conspiracy against the human race.

Tourist officials in Australia are advertising in 18 countries for a tropical island caretaker who will earn $150,000 for six months feeding fish, watching whales, cleaning a pool, greeting tourists and occasionally picking up the mail.

According to a story in The Washington Post, an airline and two officials with the Transportation Security Administration recently paid $240,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit alleging they barred an Iraqi-born U.S. citizen from a 2006 flight until he covered his T-shirt, which bore a phrase in both English and Arabic.

To recap last week’s preview of the first six months of 2009: President Barack Obama takes the oath of office to the delight of millions, but approval ratings plummet when he fails to fix everything in the first two hours of his administration. Flush with bailout money, Chrysler introduces the sporty Dodge Desperate, which runs on actual cash stuffed directly into the gas tank, according to new Chrysler CEO and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Newspaper readership and ad revenues rise when Americans realize that much information on the Internet isn’t true. Americans abruptly return to the Internet when they realize newspapers have far fewer pictures of naked people than the Internet.

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said, “Scott, what were the top monkey-related stories of the year?“ I wouldn’t have any money, but I would have the beginning to a column on the top monkey-related stories of 2008, as compiled by me, Media General’s senior simian correspondent, and the Monkey Action News Team, those like-minded readers who send in monkey reports from around the globe.

I was where I did not want to be: standing in a big discount store late on a Sunday afternoon smack dab in the middle of shopping season waiting on customer assistance that would never come. It started with a promise that was, at the very least, of debatable origin. “Daddy, can we get a Christmas tree this weekend?“

According to insufferably cute videos sent to me by several members of the Monkey Action News Team, readers who scour the planet via the Internet for monkey-related news they know I will enjoy and perhaps turn into a quickly written holiday-season column, Anjana the chimp has adopted two white Bengal tiger cubs at Florida’s Jungle Island, playfully roughhousing with them, comforting them when they cry and even bottle feeding them at supper time.

As much as I admire President-Elect Barack Obama, I’m reconsidering my offer to serve in his administration. It’s not because of ideological differences, it’s because I wasn’t aware of the written exam.

As an objective journalist, it would be unethical for me to publicly lobby for a high-level cabinet position in the Obama administration. That’s why I hired Cousin Junior, owner and operator of Cousin Junior’s Small Engine Repair, Discount Taxidermy and Certified Lobbying Services, to do it for me. I now turn this column over to him.

Painfully, I have learned which is my most important finger. And if anyone asks me to carve a last-minute pumpkin ever again, there’s a good chance they will get a look at my second most important finger.

So, here’s to all those who made a name-check appearance in a candidate’s stump speech on that campaign trail, a trail of terror that seemed to go on forever and ever and ever and ever like this sentence and eventually made me want to rip my ears off with a pair of pliers so I could hear no more of it.

The following is the Ridiculous, Often Hate-Filled Crackpot Political Form Letter to the Editor Packed with Idiotic Half Truths and Outright Lies (patent pending). I’ve done all the back-breaking labor. All you have to do is circle one of the two choices provided, mail the letter to your newspaper if it is still in operation and send me a $237 consulting fee.

You probably know the back story by now: The government bails out failing insurance giant AIG for $85 billion. Six days later the company spends $440,000 on a weeklong retreat at a posh resort. That includes $23,000 for spa services, or roughly what my wife and I paid for our first house.

I admire those who do wade into the intellectual deep end of the creek, and often ask them for help with crossword puzzles. What I don’t like is some snooty European goober named Horace insisting American authors couldn’t write their way out of a bucket if it was two-thirds full of multi-syllable words.

You could be tasered.