I just got the latest financial market bulletin. It beamed into a metal filling in a tooth in which I am receiving radio signals from a galaxy far, far away.

This is a device similar to that used by Democrat presidential candidates to get instructions from UFOs and aliens on drawing up their policy positions. It comes with a decoder ring in a Cracker Jack box.

When will we start drug tests on politicians? Do we not have enough drunks and junkies in public office already? It has got so bad, we're running short of deviants in the private sector, despite the efforts of many, including myself, to fight this disturbing trend.

But back to the radio beams.

All I heard was crackling and static till suddenly these words rang clear: "SELL, SELL, SELL!"

Then silence.

Sell what?

Then, "BUY, BUY, BUY!"

Buy what?

"THE THREE Gs, MORON!"

Obviously, this message was not for me, since I am loaded with guns, gold and groceries, plus a sliver of silver and a dab of oil. So it must be for YOU — if you are not.

In the same vein of fair warning, we got this in the newsroom a few days ago.

The Associated Press sent an alert. An alert is a one-sentence flash signifying BIG BIG or BIG BAD or BIG BIG BAD BAD WORLD IS ENDING HEAD FOR THE HILLS!!!! news.

Notice the rare and elusive four exclamation marks, exceeded in severity and alarm only by the five-exclamation mark/asterisk/dollar sign/question mark amalgam seen on comics pages or heard in Looney Tunes cartoons just before the heroic and fearless Wile E. Coyote plunges over a cliff — followed by a feather, a clump of dirt and a blacksmith's anvil.

And what was this earth-shattering, life-altering, second-coming news?

"WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton won the presidential endorsement of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees on Wednesday, an important union boost for the Democratic front-runner.

The union is the largest for workers in the public service sector with 1.4 million members nationwide. . . ."

Well, choke me with a spoon!

The "alert" was 30 inches long.

What we have here is a triple abomination — first, government employees; second, government employees who are unionized; third, government employees who are unionized endorsing a presidential candidate.

Guess who gets the screws in that deal?

Yeah, that's right — you, me and Wile E. Coyote.

Fire them all. Now. Their glaring conflict of interest — a slap in the face to their taxpaying employers (that is, us) and devoid of any semblance of ethics, justice or common decency — is writ large across the heavens.

They endorse the candidate they expect to maximize theft from taxpayers for their benefit. And, in the vein of major sucking up, that candidate, to be enthroned at the top of the political/government food chain, will more or less be their boss.

At the giddy prospect of this, leftist operatives posing as journalists got all tingly and hit the "alert" button at The Associated Press, which is the world's largest and most influential news organization.

Such news promotion begs the question: Do AP staffers wear their "Hillary for President" buttons to work or do they leave them in the car? And do the words "moron" and "shameless sycophant" appear in all AP job descriptions or just those of the top brass?

Last week, a mudslide wiped out a Mexican village. Most of the 600 inhabitants escaped. How? Before the slide started, their cattle ran into the hills and the villagers ran after.

Bovine ESP — the Mexican early warning system.

To go with the three Gs, I'm adding a cow.

Phil Lucas is executive editor of The News Herald in Panama City, Fla. Contact him at plucas@pcnh.com. To find out more about Lucas and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.