[A] federal judge released his father, Byron Perkins, from jail so he could complete medical tests before his son’s surgery.

At the time, Perkins was awaiting a possible life sentence following a conviction on drug, weapons and other charges.

Doctors said Perkins appeared to be a perfect match for his son.

On the final day of hospital tests, Perkins failed to show up. … [He] has been on the run ever since.

Good thing the kid didn’t need a heart transplant. Not much Dad could do in that department.

Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, whose recent comments have stirred controversy, says the United States is up against a faceless enemy of terrorists who “drive taxi cabs in the daytime and kill at night.”

I’m getting sick and tired of liberals excoriating an honest politician for doing nothing more than speaking an unpopular truth. Everyone knows that taxi drivers are statistically the most likely to murder after sunset. But God forbid someone actually mentions that fact in a public forum.

I mean, really, what’s next? Are we going to start criticizing our politicians every time they point out the well-known fact that blacks are better athletes because their were bred to pull plows, or that Jews control the world money supply from an underground bunker on Long Island?

Do we sound the alarm whenever a Republican makes passing reference to women’s well-documented intellectual inferiority? We all have mothers, wives, and sisters. We’ve all seen firsthand women’s diminished mental capacity. My wife can’t even lick a stamp without an instruction book and a 6-week correspondence course.

Jews eat babies. Black men render white women’s vaginas useless with their massive genitals. American Indians scalp white people with tomahawks and steal their booze. These are the facts. So why should we get bent out of shape when one of our elected representatives points it out in a nationally televised speech?

The campaign said Thursday that the senator was simply pointing out terrorists can be anywhere.

“The point is there are terrorists that live amongst us. Not only here, but in Britain and the entire world,” said spokesman Jason Klindt. “Whether they are taxi drivers or investment bankers, the fact remains that this is a new type of enemy.”

It’s really a question of clarity. If he had said we’re up against a faceless enemy of terrorists who “provide strategic advisory services for corporate mergers and acquisitions in the daytime and kill at night,” it just wouldn’t have had the same ring to it.

People would have been confused. They’d be thinking, “Wait a minute. Does this mean that Christian Witherspoon from the Churchill Club might be a terrorist?” Obviously, that’s not what the good Senator was trying to communicate.

Only one of these nocturnal killers drives a taxi. Can you guess which one?

By specifying that the faceless enemy drives taxi cabs, he is clearly distinguishing that he is talking about brown people. Usually with turbans and funny sounding names who smell like curry.

The taxi cab reference also helps us make the important distinction between terrorists and another dangerous breed of murderers who kill at night: vampires.

Vampires don’t drive taxis. Terrorists do. This important distinction allows us to focus our efforts on defeating the real terrorists instead of wasting time fighting an unwinnable war against an army of the undead.

Without Senator Burns’ insightful comment, we could find ourselves trying to drive a wooden stake through bin Laden’s heart, while 10,000 elite troops are sent to ferret Dracula out of a cave in Tora Bora.

A federal judge on Thursday struck down President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program, saying it violated the rights to free speech and privacy, as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

Here’s my problem with this ruling. I think — and I’m sure nobody will argue with this — that it’s worth giving up some personal freedom to protect this country from Islamofascist psychos with explosive Gatorade.

I don’t care if the government has a massive database that logs everytime I say “explosives” or “Logan Airport” or “vagina.” If that’s what they need in order to protect the country, so be it.

Where has all the trust gone in this country? This is the White House we’re talking about. It’s not some oligarchy of semi-fascist millionaires who abuse the public trust to further their own political and financial gains. It’s Uncle Dick and Cousin Georgie, just listenin’ in on your conversation at the church barbeque.

What do you care? Yer not sayin’ anythin’ illegal, are ya? ‘Course yer not! Yer just talkin’ ’bout your wife’s inability to orgasm and how yer daughter’s got the crabs again. So who cares if the neighbors have a listen?

I’ll tell you who cares: brown people. They’re just mad because they can’t have a conversation about fertilizer on a pre-paid cell phone with their uncle in Pakistan without the FBI rapelling through their skylights.

Well, too bad, Haji. You lost your right to seek international farming advice right about the time you forsake Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior and chose to worship a camel, or whatever you terrorists use for a god.

If you were truly patriotic Americans, you would only talk to Americans. White Americans. In America.

That’s what I do. When I want to talk to a relative, do I call Saudi Arabia? No. I call Poughkeepsie. Is that so hard?

And don’t give me that, “I don’t have any relatives in Poughkeepsie” bullshit. If you loved this country, you’d go to Poughkeepsie and find some. It’s nice this time of year. Take a drive. Make some friends. Drink some apple cider.

Just don’t take pictures of any bridges.

While perusing the site’s search stats tonight, I saw that someone arrived here by searching for “paris hilton’s anus.”

Imagine my delight when I saw that, not only does hategun come up in Google searches for “paris hilton’s anus,” but … IT IS THE ONLY SITE LISTED.

That means I am officially the world’s first and only source of information about the colorectal cavity of the world’s most vapid, talentless cunt.

My mother will be so proud.

President Bush on Monday signed a bill that would bar condominium and homeowner associations from restricting how the American flag can be displayed.

It’s about fucking time. I am so sick of my condo’s Homeowner’s Association telling me how I can and can’t express my patriotism and love for this great country.

I say, if I want to paint my scrotum red, white, and blue, and dangle it over my second floor balcony railing, that’s my prerogative.

I shouldn’t be beholden to complaints from my downstairs neighbor that my balls are blocking the view out her picture window. Tough titties, you Islamocommufascist hippie. Nowhere in the Constitution do I see anything granting you the right to a testicle-free view of the park.

I, however, do have a God-given and Congress-approved right to spackle my danglies with Old Glory glitter paint and hoist them over the railing for the world to see. And now there’s nothing the Torino Villas HOA can do about it.

Wait’ll they see what I use for a flag pole.

Richie says he has talked to his daughter about her weight.

“Of course, I mean, what are fathers for if you can’t point the finger every once in awhile,” he tells “Access Hollywood.”

I have to agree. That’s exactly what fathers are for. Pointing the finger. Preferably towards a cheeseburger and/or stomach tube.

Only one of these waifs is a multi-millionaire heiress. Can you guess which one?

Now that I’m a father myself, I’m looking forward to having that special father-daughter chat. You know the one. It goes like this:

“Hey, daughter. Got a minute?”

“Sure, Dad. But just a minute. Then I gotta shower and purge before I go out with Lindsay.”

“Okay, I’ll make it quick. Basically, it’s like this: I miss you being a sloppy, fat pig. Maybe it’s just me, but I think you looked better when I couldn’t see your common bile duct through your dress.”

“Oh, Dad. You’re such a square. Guys think it’s sexy when they can see my spine from the front.”

“And they’re not bothered by the fact that you look like a Death’s Head pez dispenser?”

“No! In fact, I’m more popular than ever.”

“Even with the vultures constantly circling overhead, waiting for you to collapse in the gutter outside Hyde so they can de-bone your carcass? And what’s that gurgling sound?”

“That’s the Ex Lax and flax seed smoothie kicking in. I better hit the john. Thanks for the talk, dad. And don’t worry about the vultures. The hyenas will totally drag me into an alley and eat me before the vultures even notice I’m down.”

In a search for an escape from the daily grind, I abandoned hours previously dedicated to a high-minded quest for truth in favor of something less taxing on the brain, like non-stop 24-hour Project Runway marathons on Bravo.

Every time a unicorn blows a load, an angel gets its wings.

In the interim, nearly a month went by without a single update to hategun.

Like you, I barely noticed.

So … what stirred me from my Heidi Klum-induced stupor? What primal scream bellowing from the blackened, twisted soul of the American pop culture psyche called me back to the blogosphere?

It was something powerful. Something awe-inspiring. Something true. Something that caused my soul to take flight like a snow-white dove soaring heavenward on an angel’s jetwash.

It was … Guys In Unitards Singing About Unicorns.

U.S. special operations forces fed some Iraqi detainees only bread and water for up to 17 days, used unapproved interrogation practices such as sleep deprivation and loud music and stripped at least one prisoner[.]

The report concludes that the detainees’ treatment was wrong but not illegal and reflected inadequate resources and lack of oversight and proper guidance rather than deliberate abuse.

When I read this, my first inclination was to make some kind of derogatory comment about how the interrogators were just puppets of some sadistic cabal of neo-con puppet masters who find the Geneva Convention to be a tad “inconvenient.”

But then I realized, “Wait a minute. Put yourself in their shoes. Not in their actual shoes — that’s how you get athlete’s foot — but in a suitable facsimile of their shoes purchased from the local Army surplus store.”

I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet. Then I stole his wheelchair because what’s he gonna do, chase me?

And then I reminded myself, “You can’t just put yourself in their shoes. It’s not right to judge them until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” So I loaded up on granola and bottled water and beef jerky, strapped on a bedroll and pup tent, packed up my Coleman lantern, folded up my portable hibachi grill, slipped some iodine water purification capsules in my pocket, inserted the cyanide capsule into my hollow tooth, and set off on my journey.

Three days and seventy-two blisters later, I had all but covered that fabled mile. But just a few hundred feet from my destination, I was hit with a revelation, as well as a massive case of explosive diarrhea. I’m not really sure which came first. All I know is that one minute I was bathed in golden, holy light, and the next minute I was frantically digging a latrine with a camp shovel in Mrs. Baumgarten’s front yard. Everything got kind of hazy after that.

I do remember one thing very clearly. About halfway into my journey, I looked down, and I realized that there was a second set of footprints in the sand, right next to mine. At first I was kind of freaked out because, like, what the fuck are those doing there, you know? I started screaming, and punching in the air, and at one point I even broke out my nunchucks.

But then I realized that it’s okay, because those footprints belong to Jesus. Or the Invisible Man. Either way, still kind of cool. So then I was like, “Yo, sorry about the nunchucks,” and Jesus (or the Invisible Man) was like, “It’s cool. I blocked all your hits with my wicked bo-staff.”

So I walked with Invisible Jesus for a little while, and we talked about all sorts of stuff, like world peace, and African debt relief, and how neither of us could believe they killed of Mischa Barton’s character on “The O.C.” And then, all of a sudden, his footprints were gone.

I was like, “Hey, man. I think you’re flying or something.” And Jesus was like, “No, I’m not. I’m carrying you.” And I was like, “What are you, high? You’re not carrying me. I’m standing right here.” And then he was all, “Dude, I’m totally carrying you right now. Can’t you feel that? I’m giving you the shocker.” That’s where things started getting weird.

“Do you believe in the future?” he asked.

“What kind of stupid fucking question is that?” I responded. “Of course I do. Who doesn’t believe in the future? It’s not like you’re asking me to believe in unicorns or something.”

“Do you believe in a future where the world is run by computers, where the government has been hijacked by vagrants and thieves, and where the only religion is the Church Of Corporate Greed?”

“Well, um … that sounds a lot like the present, actually,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, the future’s like that too. Except with more robots.”

Then he paused meaningfully, as if he was about to reveal a great universal truth from a future unknown to mortal men. As I braced myself to receive the Word Of The Lord, he spoke.

“I’m totally touching your balls right now.”

If I can give you one piece of advice in your life, it’s this: If you’re ever walking on the beach, and there’s suddenly footprints beside you in the sand, it might be Jesus. But there’s also a good possibility it’s An Invisible Pervert From The Future.

Anyway, I’m getting off topic. What I’m trying to do is tell you the revelation I had right before soiling Mrs. Baumgarten’s lawn with a torrent of liquid poo. It’s kind of a three-parter.

Part one: Never use water from a mud puddle to reconstitute a package of freeze-dried astronaut ice cream you bought during a trip to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum back in 7th grade. The ice cream tastes like chalk, and there’s a good chance that the mud puddle is contaminated with either anti-freeze or amoebic dysentery.

Part two: A mile is really, really far. Like, isn’t this why we invented cars? Who walks a mile nowadays, no matter whose shoes you’re wearing? Seriously! It’s ridiculous.

Part three: The reason that our interrogators abused prisoners was not because of a system-wide tolerance and advocacy of torture, but because nobody told them not to.

Now, at first, this third one seemed counterintuitive to me. Then I realized that I was guilty of the very same sort of behavior in my own life.

For example, I once thought it was perfectly acceptable to press my little brother’s face against a radiator until it made steam. Sure, I left him permanently disfigured and psychologically scarred … but does that make me a bad person? Of course not. My parents never explicitly outlined any rules forbidding me from turning my sibling’s face into a twisted horror of burnt meat and scar tissue. How was I to know any better?

After all, I was only 19 at the time.

The Bush administration has been criticized internationally, including by U.S. allies, for abusive treatment of terror war detainees. Late last year, Congress forced Bush to accept a ban on the cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners by U.S. troops.

When are we going to take a stand against these activist Congressmen who impede the concentration of absolute, unrestrained power in the hands of the President?

I hope on Election Day, America speaks loudly with its votes to tell Congress, “Stop imposing your Judeo-Christian idea of morality on us and let us blindly follow the semi-retarded Christ figure God has chosen to guide us in this time of woe!”

Anyone with even a passing understanding of the Bible knows that God has no problem with cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

That’s why he invented marriage.

“It is not my preference to send the National Guard, but there’s an important need to protect the border,” [Schwarzenegger] said.

Damn straight there is. Personally, I can’t sleep at night unless I know there’s a battalion of trigger-happy 18-year-old soldiers with PTSD still twitching from their fourth stop-lossed tour of Iraq guarding our borders. How else are we supposed to stop all these filthy immigrants from invading our country to clean our toilets, valet park our cars, and raise our celebrities’ kids?

I don’t think I’m alone when I say I’m looking forward to the day when I have to choose between working 14 hours in the blazing sun to pick my own strawberries, or mortgaging my house to buy a watermelon from the supermarket.

Right To Work: This Harvard grad will finally get to put his MBA in Business Administration to work when he starts his new job selling oranges from a stolen shopping cart on a freeway offramp.

I’m sick of all these wetbacks sneaking into the country, taking jobs away from good, hard-working Americans. Thanks to our porous borders, Manuel Rodriguez from Ixtapa has a job cleaning septic tanks for $2.50 an hour, and Stanford Whitmore from Connecticut is still looking for work. And I’m guessing that Manuel doesn’t have to pay back loans on a Harvard MBA. How is that fair? That’s right. It’s not.

Newsflash, Paco: If you want to come to our country, you don’t swim across a river of sewage, slip under a chainlink fence, and dodge your way across 8 lanes of traffic while under heavy automatic weapons fire.

Instead, you do it the legal way: sell your 10-year-old sister as a sex slave to a drug lord to pay for the $120 visa application fee, smuggle a balloon full of heroin in your anus for money to bribe the police to allow safe passage to the post office so you can mail the application, wait 4 years for the application to be processed and rejected, dig a tunnel under the perimeter fence at the Mexico City airport, sneak into the wheel well of an Aeromexico jumbo jet, and cling to the landing gear in an airless, sub-zero environment for six hours at 37,000 feet.

Sound too difficult? Well, too bad, compadre. This is America we’re talking about. The American dream doesn’t come cheap. You wanna come to our country and do menial jobs for less than a living wage? You’re gonna have to work for it. We don’t hand those out on a silver platter.

Remember … Washing dishes for 75 cents an hour is a privilege, not a right.

It also establishes rules of engagement prohibiting Guardsmen from handling detainees, but allowing them to carry guns. The rules are similar to those the California Guard follows when deploying to a riot, officials said.

This is an extremely important provision. Why handle a detainee when you can just shoot him from a sniper tower a half-mile away? It’s cleaner that way, and then there’s less chance of coming in contact with germs that could turn you Mexican.

According to the CBN Web site, Robertson worked his way up to lifting a ton with the help of his physician, who is not named. The posting does not say when the lift occurred, but a CBN spokeswoman released photos to The Associated Press that she said showed Robertson lifting 2,000 pounds in 2003, when Robertson was 73. He is now 76.

You hear that, Barry Bonds? You listening, Mark McGwire? Who needs steroids, when you’ve got JESUS? The Son Of Man is the ultimate performance enhancing drug. And believing in Jesus is totally legal, and is authorized by all major sporting authorities. (At least until the Jews and the Democrats get done with their War On Christmas and set their sights on The Battle Of The Jesus Muscles.)

Pat Robertson, shortly after shotputting a freight train over the Grand Canyon.

Here’s an example from my own life. Last Sunday, I was taking my normal after-church stroll through a meadow of daisies and wheatgrass. Suddenly, lo and behold, I stumbled across a small lamb pinned under the chassis of an overturned school bus. At first, it seemed like all was lost. There was no way I could find the strength to lift the bus off of the poor, helpless lamb.

Then, the most miraculous thing happened. The clouds parted, and a shaft of golden sunlight beamed from the sky, warming my face with its gentle glow. And suddenly, everything changed. I was able to drown out the distracting cries of the children trapped in the burning bus, and focus all of my energy on saving that little lamb.

I squatted down, wrapped my fingers under the bus’ twisted bumper, and looked up to the sky, praying for Jesus to give me strength to lift the bus. To my amazement, Jesus’ face appeared in the clouds, and he spoke the divine words of grace that allowed me to find my inner strength:

“Lift, motherfucker! LIFT! C’mon, you pussy! You can do it! Lift that bitch, you fucking pansy! Lift it or daddy will never love you again!”

Suddenly, my legs trembled with the strength of a thousand mountains. Or buffalos. Or mountain buffalos. I forget exactly which. The point is, there was a lot of them, and they made my legs feel real strong. I thrust my legs against the earth, lifting the bus several feet off the ground.

“Run, little lamb! Run free!” I proclaimed, tears of joy streaming down my face.

The lamb looked up at me with a look that seemed to say, “I would, if my legs weren’t shattered with multiple compound fractures. But thanks anyway.”

I looked around to see if anyone else was around to help, because I was, you know, still holding up the bus.

“Little help, here?” I called out. “Anybody around that can pull the lamb out from under the bus?” Seconds passed. “You. Kid over there was your hair on fire. Gimme a hand?” No response. “Anybody?”

Then a voice rang out from behind me.

“I’ll help you, my son,” the voice said.

It was Jesus. He was wearing Zubaz lifting pants and a half shirt, which was sort of unexpected. And he had a tan. Looked like one of those orange-y spray-on bronzers. But boy, was he buff. His pecs were like barn doors.

“Jesus,” I said, my voice strained by the weight of the bus, “can you save the little lamb while I hold up the bus?”

“That’s not a bus,” he replied. “That’s your futon mattress. And that’s not a lamb. It’s a Twinkie. And stop calling me Jesus. My name is Marco.”

The moral of the story? Know how your story is going to end before you start writing, because otherwise you may end off going off on random, sleep deprivation-induced tangents that are neither insightful nor particularly funny.