Columnist Susan Snyder: Bad news has us deep in the boos

Friday, Oct. 31, 2003 | 8:27 a.m.

Boo.

The most horrifying Halloween tales this year have little to do with people in monster masks.

For example pets -- or rather, pet owners -- are scary.

Halloween costumes for ferrets. Bakeries for dogs.

And now, yoga with the cat? A self-described pet guru (his friends likely call him something else) says people can reduce separation anxiety for their pets by practicing yoga with them. And, of course, this limber New York state resident has written a book and hosts a website.

The only thing standing between separation anxiety and bliss for our cat is a can of tuna. Never thought of substituting the lotus position -- not without a box of Band-Aids.

Another truly frightful phenomena is the guy masquerading as president of the United States. The creepy parts of this story are more policy than poltergeist.

At the National Press Club on Sept. 17, U.S. Comptroller David M. Walker delivered a seven-page speech detailing the nation's fiscal outlook as outlined in the federal government's 2002 annual financial report.

"The good news is that as of Sept. 30, 2002, we had about $1 trillion in reported assets," said Walker, who heads the U.S. Government Accounting Office. "The bad news is that we had almost $8 trillion in reported liabilities."

Can you even visualize $7 trillion, let alone imagine owing it? Walker said it amounts to a $24,000 debt for every man, woman and child in the country.

Welcome to "Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue III."

Walker said that not only are we in a financial hole, federal officials "don't have a very good picture of how deep it is." He cited "several trillion dollars in non-marketable government securities in so-called 'Trust Funds.' "

"In the case of Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds, the federal government took in taxpayer money, spent it on other items and replaced it with an IOU," Walker said.

We're up to Page 2. I can't look any more. Fade to black.

Cut to environmental carnage piling up like bodies in a slasher movie. We're lashed to our seats screaming, "Nooo! Not in the garage!" at the clueless star who can't hear us.

This Texan's Chainsaw Massacre co-stars his "Healthy Forests Initiatives," his "Clear Skies" proposal and the "U.S. Patriot Act." Old-growth forests, factory air pollution controls and our civil liberties lay bleeding as the credits roll.

The Oval Office will be haunted for decades.

And finally, seeing as how we now unmask CIA agents, it probably is good that a couple of University of New Mexico researchers suspect cockroaches could make good spies.

Anyone who has lived where these creatures dwell (Earth, for example) know they thrive in a whole lot of places humans would not step -- like that icky space behind the refrigerator.

These guys figure they could attach a sensing device onto the back of a cockroach and send it into suspected chemical weapons factories to gather incriminating data.

Imagine. After all this time, money and loss of life, a cockroach with a teeny sensor in a fanny pack may turn out to be the only thing standing between us and weapons of mass destruction.

Boo.