"Daddy, Daddy!" The little girl cried, tugging on her father's pant leg. "He didn't protect us from 9-11, Daddy!"

"And don't the people of New York think maybe he even let it happen?"

"And then didn't he start two 'wars,' Daddy? And aren't they both going badly? Won't those wars kill a lot of people? Won't that make millions of people hate us and make them our enemies, Daddy?"

"He made New Orleans worse by stopping all sorts of people from helping each other!!"

"Daddy, Daddy, the Emperor has no clothes!!"

"What are you saying sweetie? Try to show a little respect here. I'm watching the 6 O'Clock news."

"But Daddy, can't the Emperor take our house if he claims something else will make him more tax money?"

"And Daddy, can't the Emperor's guards come and 'disappear' you if he doesn't like you -- and all he has to do is call you 'enemy combatant?'"

"And Daddy, doesn't the Emperor have more than 3% of his subjects in jail or on parole or probation already?"

"What dear? They just said on the news they're going to build another new prison but governor Schwarzenegger says we can't afford to punish prisoners anymore. We have to 'rehabilitate' them instead."

"But Daddy, the Emperor takes half our money for his 'allowance' already so he can do all this!!"

"Ah, yes honey, and he's also run up an official government debt of nearly $8 trillion, and has promised old people another $72 trillion. That's quite a lot of money, dear, more than all Americans put together make in over six years."

"And Daddy, doesn't that make people poor, his taking all that money? Daddy, why do we let him do all this?"

"Ah, do all what sweetie? - - - Brokaw says that someone just stole more than $1 billion dollars in reconstruction money in Iraq . . ."

L. Reichard White has made his living by beating casinos at their own games for over thirty years and specializes in games theory and self-motivation in enterprises with uncertain outcomes. His current studies include the evolution of lying as part of modern enterprise, the ethnology of rebellion and the role of prediction in personal psychology. You can find some of his other work if you search Google for "L. Reichard White" and you can contact him here.

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