NATO: acronym:

• Not Any Too Operable; Now America Takes Over.
  
• The Parchment Tiger of Europe.
  
• Godfather to the Treaty of Maastricht.

NIMBY: acronym:
prime development real estate — optimum siting location for the extra jails called for by anti-crime measures.
Also, the best place to site new power plants, landfills, highways necessitated by my consumption habits.

Nader: n.:

• Middle English for a venomous reptile, a snake in the grass.
  It's remarkable how little the meanings of words change over time.
  
• Modern English for "Son of Ludd."

Naif: n.:
once a babe in the woods, now a babe in the lobbies and halls of Congress, a much more predatory environment.

Naive: adj.:
not having the organ of cynicism properly developed.

Naivete: n.:
the foremost character trait of freshman legislators.

Naked: adj.:
undecorated; contrast with nude, which is merely unclothed.
Consider, for example, the difference between "naked aggression" and "nude aggression."

Narcissist: n.:
an insufferable egoist who thinks he's prettier than I am.

Narrator: n.:
unseen source of the voice that explains what you're supposed to be seeing in what you're watching.

Narrow-minded: adj.:
unable to encompass and endorse my point of view.

Nation: n.:
an affiliation bounded not by the natural bonds of family or race, but by the unnatural bonds of politics.

National: adj.:
parochial on a grand scale.

National park: n.:
a parcel of public land held away from the harvesters and exploiters, so that the developers and hucksters can get their fair chance.

Nationalism: n.:
"My country, right or wrong . . . ," which only needs to be invoked when it is wrong.

Nationalist: n.:
one with so much religious fervor that it spills over from the pulpit to the podium; one who seeks to evangelize for politics as well as religion.

Natural law: n.:

1. one which does not depend on police for its enforcement or lawyers for its definition.
   
2. one I believe in.

Natural selection: n.:
the medium which defines "fittest" in "survival of the fittest;"
scientific name for "luck."

Nature vs. Nurture: myth:
a major philosophical conflict of our time:

• Nature: you were born that way; it's all in the genes; it's not your fault.
  
• Nurture: environment means everything; it's all your parents' fault; it's not your fault.

Navel contemplation: n.:
a difficult form of meditation, requiring one to move one's focus several inches from the center of one's interests.

Naysayer: n.:
one who styles his debating style on the writings of Ross Perot.

Nazi: n.:
short for Nazarene;

1. anyone who seeks to curtail my activities.
   
2. historical scapegoat for the popularity of anti-Semitism during the first half of the twentieth century.

Necessity: n.:
mother of Invention, daughter of Improvidence.
Nobody knows the father.

Negative political ad: n.:
Truth in Advertising, as filtered through the political campaign process.

Neglect: v.t.:
treat with the consideration that conservatives show for any group that does not have its own PAC.

Negligee: n.:
a (nearly) transparent plea for attention.

Negligent: adj.:
having allowed any act or event that inconvenienced me.

Negligible: adj.:
having the importance of the Second Amendment to a liberal Congress, the Fourth to a conservative Congress or the Ninth to any Congress.

Neighbor: n.:
someone who has the good fortune to be able to bask in our reflected glory.
Good ones build good fences. Perhaps they just don't want to be blinded by the reflection.

Neighborhood: n.:
the teenager who lives down the block.

Neighborhood Watch: n.:
painless community service for Peeping Toms.

Neo-Nazi: n.:
a walking illustration of Heinlein's maxim that "a generation which ignores history has no past and no future."

Nepotism: n.:
a benevolent institution by which relatives of officeholders are kept off the welfare rolls.
If, indeed, ability is heritable, this is probably a very good thing.

Nerd: n.:
an individual of deficient personality, "half a nebbish, half a turd," who is the one you have to go to to get your computer working.
A notoriously vengeful breed.

Nest egg: n.:
something of value, set aside in anticipation of its future maturity; routinely converted by inflation into a goose egg.

Neurotic: n.:
normal.

Never: adv.:
when campaign promises are kept, commercials are honest and taxes are lowered.

"Never again": slogan:
It's my turn.

New age: adj.:
describing a movement characterized by the fact that its followers act as though they were born yesterday. You can't get a much newer age than that.

New age music: n.:
mood music for those who subscribe to Stout's "Anglo-Saxon Theory of Emotions and Dessert": freeze them and hide them in the belly.

New Deal: n.:
another go around with the same old stacked deck.

New Frontier: n.:
the border probed when acquisitiveness and aggression are turned inward.

New World Order: n.:
Bush League of Nations.

News: n.:
propaganda, gossip, and editorial bias masquerading as reportage.
On TV, the programming element used to demarcate the boundaries of prime time.

News leak: n.:
a press release they need to be able to deny.

Newspaper: n.:
local source for coupons, sale announcements, want ads, legal announcements, the comics and yesterday's TV news. Noted for its utility in wrapping fish or old coffee grounds, or for lining the cages of birds.

Newspeak: n.:
the language used by the press. Orwell was much too optimistic and conservative in his estimates of how badly the press could redefine the public vocabulary.

Newt: n.:
a salamander wannabe: a slimy little mud puppy that's not evolved enough to qualify as the lizard it tries to look like.
Webster's gives an alternate definition as "EFT", which is the acronym for Electronic Funds Transfer. Life imitates art?
The benevolent and beneficial nature of the Newt's relationship to Mankind has been known at least since the time of Macbeth.

Newter: v.t.:
homophonious description of the Speaker's intentions for the Government.

Newton's 3rd Law of Politics: adage:
for every action, there is a reactionary

Newtralize: v.t.:
restructure Government so as to weaken those elements which empower the individual over the corporate entity, while strengthening those that work the opposite way.

Nicotine addiction: n.:
a deplorable condition leading to aberrant behavior, especially when manifested in Congressional campaign funds.

Nigger: n.:
the title of a book by Dick Gregory.

Night: n.:
time of sufficiency, as: "Once a king, always a king, but once a night is enough", which is heresy to a man in his 20s, pessimism to one in his 30s, boasting in his 40s, wishful thinking in his 50s, nostalgia in his 60s.

Nimby: n (from acronym):
The nymph of the Banana.

"No": expletive:
"'No' always means 'No.'"
By symmetry, "Yes" never means "Yes."
Welcome to the Wonderful World of Political Correctness.

"No Comment": phrase:
"I don't want to get into a pissing contest with someone who has the press in his corner."

No moss: n. phrase:

1. money, sex, drugs and rock and roll -- what the Rolling Stones gather.
   
2. a delicate produce harvested from little Hands of Stone.

"No pain, no gain": motto:
a philosophy espoused by manufacturers of pain relievers.
"Mortification of the flesh benefits the soul" updated to a sound bite.

Nobility: n.:
a character trait that occasionally allows one to act like a hero of historical fiction.

Noble gas: n.:
historically, a perennial source of amusement and topic of discussion among the aristocracy. See Twain's 1601, or Fireside Conversation As It Was In the Time of the Tudors.

Noble metal: n.:
the metals used as money or symbols of wealth. So called because of the propensity of the nobility to acquire them, no matter what the price to the populace.

Noble savage: myth:
an artifact of the human desire for balance and symmetry: if the nobility are so savage, then the savages must be noble.

Nominalize: v.t.:
freeze in time; to take a process and declare it as a thing.

Nominally: adv.:
in your dreams.

Non culpabilis: phrase:
lawyerese for "I am not a crook."

Noncombatant: n.:
a participant in a war whose job description does not involve using a weapon, except staff officers, who are considered to be honorary combatants.
Before the advent of long-range artillery and aerial bombardment, noncombatatants were at reduced risk of attack in wars. Now, it is a distinction without a difference.

Nondemoninational: adj.:
in the manner of my religion, but without naming my Deity directly. Used primarily in reference to government-sponsored prayer.

None of the above: phrase:
a shoo-in in any election he chooses to run in.

Nonfeasance: n.:
[criminal] failure to perform legally required functions.
So universally experienced in bureaucracies that it is no longer prosecuted.
The only saving grace of many elected officials.

Nonhuman: n.:
pagan; heathen; goy; untermensch; gentile; civilian; enemy; alien;
anyone who does not belong to a group approved of by me.

Nonpartisan: adj.:

1. describing my side's magnanimous position.
   
2. of an election, one where the political parties don't have to admit which candidates they're appointing.
   
3. lacking a sponsor among the power elite of either of the major parties.

Normal: adj.:
in science, standing straight up and sticking out;
out of science, lying down and blending in.

Nose: n.:
an organ at home in many places, especially in the air and in other peoples' business.

Nostalgia: n.:
exudation of a defective memory; the past, seen through rose-colored glasses.
Nostalgia is proof positive that hindsight is not always 20-20.

Nota bene: motto:
portmanteau term including NOTA, acronym for None Of The Above, plus bene, Latin for good.
A popular sentiment in election years.

Nothing: n.:
sacred entity to the Me generation.

"Nothing is worth dying for": mantra:

1. "Nothing is worth my dying for;"
   the rest of you are a different story.
   
2. "Nothing is worth killing for;" the pacifist philosophy that only survives when guaranteed by those who don't subscribe to it.
   
3. "Nothing is worth living for;" the world view of those with a justly deserved inferiority fixation.

Nouvelle: adj.:
French for "undersized and overpriced."

NRA: initials:
Nazi Republican Army, to the anti-gun lobby.

Nuclear family: n.:
parent(s) and child(ren) isolated from all others.
The "traditional family unit" of the nuclear age, so called because it's the right size of group to fit into a bomb shelter.

Nude: adj.:
attired in the garb designed by the Creator; therefore, blasphemous in the eyes of the religious.

Nudism: n.:
appreciation of the Creator's taste in design; sinful and sacreligious.
"If the Good Lord had meant for Man to be a nudist, we'd be born without clothes."

Number one priority: n.:
a problem common to Old White Men.

Nuremberg defense: n.:

• a legal ploy that was invalidated in the American legal system from the Truman administration until the Nixon administration.
  The validation was repeated during the Reagan administration.
  
• "I was only following orders."

Nut: n.:

1. old slang for "head", the traditional seat of intelligence;
   
2. slang for someone whose reason has left him (or her);
   
3. slang for the male gonad, which the feminists attribute as the seat of male intelligence.

Nuts: expletive:
appropriate response to a demand for surrender from the commander of an overwhelming force.

Nymphomaniac: n.:
a woman whose sexual appetites are greater than mine.