I’ll be away from the grindstone for a few days, maybe more, but that’s no reason for you to not waste time browsing Web sites for cheap thrills. As a courtesy, here are some places to go and things to see until I return with more ill-informed, half-baked, intellectually shallow, split infinitive-laden commentary. I do it all for you. I just give give give and never take.

Go here for some of the flat-out funniest stuff you’ll ever read about domestic life. You might have to visit a few times, though, because there’s more there than can be consumed in one sitting. Naturally, I went straight to the “Sex in the Suburbs” section, but that’s because I’m a pervert.

When you’re done with that, go here for the kind of intellectual nourishment for which you normally have to pay tuition. But I mean that in a good way. If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Say, I wonder if some pointy-headed Harvard professor could explain to me how the phrase ‘white-trash’ became a badge of honor?” then this is the place for you.

This is interesting, not necessarily because of what’s being said, but because of who’s saying it. The former Debra Winger-dating liberal senator speaks an inconvenient truth about Iraq: We have to deal with the situation as it is today, not as it was four years ago.

I’d hate for you to end on that somber note, however, so go here for one of those aforementioned cheap thrills. I told you I was a pervert.

I’ll be back. Keep checking in.

I’d feel better about North Carolina state senator Tony Rand if he at least brought me flowers and treated me to dinner before … uh, showing me a good time.

Hopefully, I don’t have to explain what I mean by “showing me a good time.” This is a family Web site.

Rand, the Democrat majority leader, is pushing legislation that would almost surely change the consumer-friendly status North Carolina enjoys when it comes to car insurance rates. As you might suspect, it wouldn’t be a good change – unless you’re an insurance company executive. In that case, you’d love it, all the way to the bank.

Rand wants for the state Insurance Commissioner to be stripped of his power to set auto insurance rates. Under state law, the commissioner decides the maximum rates that will be allowed if insurance companies and insurance department staffers can’t negotiate a reasonable compromise. It will come as no surprise to learn that insurance companies hardly ever like the terms they’re offered. They also hardly ever like the commissioner’s eventual decisions.

Ninety-nine percent of state’s remaining population thinks the system is just peachy. Why shouldn’t we? We’ve got some of the lowest car insurance rates in the nation, because the commissioner tends to keep a tight lid on increases.

I notice that Rand apparently hasn’t even tried to explain how this change could be good for consumers. There’s no rationale offered in any of the news reports I’ve read, nor could I find a press release from his office extolling the glories of this bit of corporation-friendly legislation.

I can’t say that surprises me, though. If ever there was a proposed law designed to good-time the consumer, this is it.

A carefully selected assortment of items that don’t warrant full pontification on their own, but blend nicely into a tasty, frothy whole. Enjoy!

(1) I got my credit card bill from Bank of America last week, and not for the first time did I ponder the utter shamelessness with which BoA seeks to ensure that its customers stay in debt. I actually had to search the statement to find the total dollar amount of credit charges I’d incurred. Not only was it not obvious, BoA clearly didn’t want me to focus on the total … because I might pay the balance in full, thereby robbing it of the opportunity to collect a finance fee.

Instead, there was a shaded box, to which my eye was naturally drawn, with “Total Minimum Payment Due” written next to it. The amount shown in that box, of course, was considerably less than my balance. Notice also how easy it is to glance at the phrase above and only see “Total Payment Due.” I’ve never used BoA for banking services – it acquired my credit card provider a couple of years ago as part of its effort to become the Godzilla of financial services – and this sort of foolishness is why I never will.

In the meantime, I do something devious and crafty every month: I pay my bill in full. No interest for you!

(2) Fred Thompson is my new political hero (but before you read too much into that, let me explain that I go through political heroes like Caligula went through lovers). Unlike almost every other public figure in America who’s found him/herself in filmmaker Michael Moore’s sights and either panders or runs in guilt, Thompson did neither. Instead, he performed a nifty bit of jujitsu using – get this – film. Go here to see what I’m talking about. Basically, Thompson swatted away Moore in a fashion that’ll be worth an extra million votes if he decides to run for president, as Peggy Noonan thinks he will.

(3) Boy, the things I don’t know. Somehow, the fact that Napoleon’s penis was severed by the cleric who administered last rites to the famously short and hugely egotistical French emperor has escaped me for years. Did you know that little nugget of history? Apparently, the penis came to be owned by a New Jersey urologist, who bought it at auction in 1977 and kept it safe for 30 years, until he died two weeks ago (presumably with his own penis intact).

The New York Times reports that in centuries past, people placed great value on preserved body parts or other artifacts associated with the great and famous. Mary Shelley, for instance, the author of “Frankenstein,” was married to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and after his death she kept his heart in her desk drawer. The Times also notes that museums are quietly divesting themselves of such items, for reasons of good taste and political correctness.

Presumably that means that the two artifacts that I, along with my childhood buddies, knew for fact were secretly stored at the Smithsonian – namely, John Dillinger’s penis and Jayne Mansfield’s breasts – will now be proven to have existed all these years. Ah, sweet vindication.