Frankly, I’m tired of all the caterwauling by the pinko namby pamby atheistic types about what a bad year 2005 was.

I just received my year-end retirement portfolio. Modest as it is, there’s more paper moolah in there than a year ago. What’s to cry about?

Thanks to our beneficent Washington leadership, how-much-money-is-in-it-for-me is the new ethos. I’ve signed on. Life’s too short to fight it any longer. Cut me more tax slack and I’m a happy camper.

My goal this year is to hoard more cash for me. Like Roger De Bris as Der Fuhrer sings in “Springtime For Hitler,” “Heil Me!” I intend to crow about it loudly enough that Dub will grant me a photo op. He loves converts, don’t you know? Then I’ll have a signed 8×10 glossy of my new favorite guy and me on the mantle. Just like my all-America-all-the-time friends driving those Lexuses with the “W” stickers on the windshield.

Besides, we’re clanking our cohones in Iraq, and stateside we’re not sacrificing a single Lily’s dinner for it. That’s progress. The Middle East is going to be free from Muslim influence and will become a bulwark of American democracy. And all it’s going to cost is a few extra minutes in the security line when traveling abroad next summer, a small price to pay.

Really, now, what’s the big deal about Rita and Katrina and the alleged “havoc” they caused along the Gulf Coast? Sounds like made-up fable to me, like, I don’t know, the Holocaust. Certainly you agree this is all a little overblown? We sent ice and trailers and a couple of months’ rent. Besides, those beach-dwellers knew it was coming. They should have taken precautions.

As for New Orleans, forgettaboutit. It was a rancid town anyway, full of political shenanigans, sin, crooked cops and a murder rate that would made Baghdad seem bucolic. So what that it was the birthplace of Louis Armstrong. The guy couldn’t sing a lick. Besides, there’s always Red Lobster for shellfish and Branson, Mo., for a music fix.

It’s also time to give up those paranoid rants about governmental domestic spying. Sure, I’ve heard a click or two on my phone. Every once in a while an e-mail disappears from my computer. A couple days ago I heard voices in the crawl space under my condo. So what. This is America. I’m a good guy. Just to show what a patriot I am, I stopped eating at the restaurant around the corner that sells falafels. I know I’m safe. I stop to genuflect when I take my daily jog by Anne Northup’s house.

So what that there weren’t any announcements last year about significant new businesses with new jobs coming to town. We’ve still got Wal-Mart and Fourth Street Live! to make sure the homies have minimum wage employment. The moms and pops and sons and daughters who worked and owned businesses can always apply for the late shift in a red vest.

Prison abuse? Torture? Losing to UK two years in a row, now that’s torture. Besides that, what’s the big deal?

Otherwise, last year was boffo basketball wise. I’m a Cards fan. We went to the Final Four. This year it’s not so good so far. But I heard The Rick got special dispensation from the NCAA to schedule the Mercy Academy JVs. So there’s another W (that’s win, not The President).

On the music scene, local breakouts My Morning Jacket were just about to become the next R.E.M. Then Jim James went and caught pneumonia and the band missed a bunch of holiday season concerts. No biggie. Some OJ and chicken soup and the guy will back in front of the mic in no time.

Hey, I’m so pumped about last year that I’m not even fretting that my mortgage company might have “lost” my personal data when a backup computer tape was missing from a carrier’s truck. I know I’m safe because, hey, I keep my anti-virus software up to date on a daily basis. No identity theft worries here.

And my man Michael Jackson was cleared by a jury of his peers. No pedophilia, no problem.

So break out the wine-Iaced cola and porn. I am worry-free, riding high on the elephant, and looking forward to another annum as boffo as the last. Because this is America, land of the free, home of the brave, owned by China and protected by Halliburton.

Three more years like last one and America’s gonna really be the bomb.

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