I've been assured my in-laws don't read my column. However, because of their mix of shame, guilt and blame, I'll be vague on some details. They've fallen on hard times. No one wants to talk about it, let alone have it written about and syndicated.But I think their story is illustrative.

By the time you read this, the world's billion-plus Roman Catholics may have a new pope. And when the black smoke of Tuesday's indecisive first vote has turned to the white smoke of final decision, don't be surprised if the cardinals have chosen... a Catholic pope.After the election of Benedict XVI in 2005, I wrote that the cardinals had correctly ignored the desires of some people to install a wimpish equivocator willing bend with the winds of compromise. I believe the cardinals will show the same wisdom in 2013.

In Reykjavik, Iceland there is the Icelandic Phallological Museum, which boasts the world's largest collection of penises. For around $20 you can gawk at the members of many different species: some human. Most in jars. Some more jarring than others. In Lima, Peru, the Museo de Larco has an enormous collection of pre-Columbian pottery. One section is devoted solely to "erotic pottery" some pre-dating the Inca and others pre-dating Christ. I'm not spoiling anything here: There are a lot of clay pots representing the male anatomy.

Take President Obama and his Cabinet of Liars, please. We all know what dirty tricks they played to try and stop the sequester's automatic budget cuts from happening. They spent weeks trying to frighten the America people into believing the country would collapse into chaos and suffering if the federal government's sequester-forced spending cuts went into effect.

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, now referred to as Factious Disorder by Proxy or FDbP, is where a parent or caretaker enjoys the attention of having a sick child so they exaggerate and sometimes induce their victim's symptoms. Children are made to be sick; parents are given sympathy for their seeming stoicism. It's adulation-seeking via child abuse.

Our Obama Economy is still stuck in a ditch by the side of the road. Our campaigner in chief is running around the country pushing for higher taxes and no spending cuts and crying, "The federal sky will fall!" if Congress doesn't stop the puny 10 percent sequester from happening.In Washington the incompetents and cowards in Congress can't get our fiscal house in order, and they're too stupid or self-serving to realize they are wrecking the greatest economic machine humans have ever created.

America has almost 12 million illegal immigrants.Many of them came here on visas and never left.But about 60 percent of them walked in from just one country -- Mexico. Though the stalled Obama Economy has caused about 900,000 to go home since 2007, there are still about 6 million Mexicans living in the United States who've sneaked across our borders.Everyone from Marco Rubio to John McCain and our golfer in chief are trying to figure out how to deal with the illegal immigrants we have already and prevent future waves of Mexican migrants.

Our failure in chief gave us his annual blurred vision of America again Tuesday night.Based on his State of the Union message, Barack Obama's eyesight is as ideologically impaired as ever.

In 2004, the families of eight gunshot victims sued the manufacturer and dealer of the Bushmaster XM-15 used in the DC Sniper rampage for negligence. They won. The New York Times reported, "Under the terms of the settlement, Bushmaster Firearms Inc. of Windham, Maine, the gun's maker, will pay $550,000 to the victims' families; Bull's Eye Shooter Supply of Tacoma, Washington, the gun dealer, will pay $2 million."

  The bosses of the Boy Scouts of America surprised everyone this week by postponing their decision on whether to allow gay leaders and gay Scouts to join their ranks.If the BSA's long-standing ban on gays is lifted by national officials in May, the choice to admit gays may be left to local Boy Scout chapters -- as it should be.

I'm getting tired of President Obama blaming Republicans for everything.

Phil Mickelson choked on a gimme putt this week, but it wasn't on a golf course.According to the AP's golf writer, America's most popular golfer "put his popularity on the line with polarizing comments about how much he has to pay in state and federal taxes."

In August 1925, The New York Times estimated 50,000 — 60,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan marched in a parade in our nation's capital. It was a huge public display of the once-secret group. H.L. Mencken called it "a full mile of Klansmen and their ladies." The man sitting in the White House, Calvin Coolidge, was a member of the Klan. The president before him, Warren Harding, was also a noted Klansman. The fraternity preaching pure "100 percent Americanism" (anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant, anti-non-white) boasted of five million members — nearly 15 percent of the population in the 1920s. They were in positions of power. They were everywhere. And here they were marching for hours around the National Mall.

What do Al Hunt of Bloomberg News, David Gregory of "Meet the Press" and President Obama have in common -- besides their liberal politics?They all send their kids to Sidwell Friends School.With campuses in Washington, D.C. and Bethesda, Md., the highly selective private school is where the Clintons and the Gores sent their kids, along with Joe Biden's grandchildren.

Are the left and the right in this country pretty much the same except for ideology? Are liberals and conservatives basically two sides of the same coin? One side you have one opinion, the other side an opposing view. Are the parties in America symmetrical?