Covert operations are the best kind. You get to dress up all stealthy like in a makeshift renegade ninja suit, jimmy the locks to your neighbor's house undetected and take a huge dump in their washing machine. You know, ‘cause they have a washing machine. Or something. Not that I would know. Remember that song by Shaggy? "It wasn't me?"

Realistically speaking though, I believe the love of the covert stems from everyone's need to feel naughty and mischievous. Be it wearing women's underwear to your Bar Mitzvah, harvesting kidneys to sell on the black market (Covert "Operation"…get it? Ha! I slay me.) or donning a nun's habit, the “rebel cause” always gets you a smidge wet.

So, in honor of the covert, I divert thy spirit to didactic [news] stories of thine brethren of questionable moral decrepitude in the form of Commandments (the most blatant of teachings)…just to be a little subversive. And in true Commandment form, we rate the covertness of their tales on a scale from One to Ten.

First Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Be A Stupid, Stupid Turd.

An Australian television personality, Grant Denyer, most widely known for presenting the weather and hosting a family-oriented TV show, when asked live on a morning radio show, "How are you?" responded: "Let me say I'm feeling like I had sex with a black man right now."

I think we can all agree that was a dumb way to start the morning considering Australia's spotless genocide record. So spotted it is solid, like the black panther to it's non-black cousin. Ahh, Zen masters and their life riddles. In fact, his comments are so entrenched in ineptitude that there is little else to say. How much teeth bleaching must one endure to lose control of one's mouth? (Observe example to the right.)

Covert rating: 2 – Not sneaky at all but how many people really listen to Australian morning radio? The true puzzle in our hearts and loins: Does that mean he felt good or no?

Second Commandment: Thou Shalt Be Smoother With The Ladies

Salt Lake City, which is the holy grail of fun news, reports on a woman who battered her husband. How? Sneakily. She told the man she had a surprise for him, covered his addled noggin, led him into the basement, and addled his brain some more. With a hammer. A hammer. This is what happens when one bears the pressure of a man's man's man's man's world.

Covert rating: 8. Plus 1 for utilizing the crutch of sexual arousal, then minus 4 for letting the bastard get away and reach the cops and plus 2 cause the coppers are still investigating. That comes to a total of 7. And I guess you really can't excuse her craziness just to the weight of social pressures despite their thriving and hammer-swinging abundance in the Mormon homeland. You want to know what patriarchy is like? Ask my sixth wife. She's three. She's learning to form complete sentences, but why bother, I'm just going to tell her to shut the hell up.

Third Commandment: Thou Shalt Realize That When Naked, All Bets, And Clothes, Are Off.

Here is where it gets tricky. A woman walks into a bar. She gets up on stage, looks at all the leering guys cheering her on and says "Fuck you" and takes all her clothes off. Yeah, feminism! Yeah, taking back gender inequality! Yeah, objectifying myself for a quick buck! Yeah, what the fuck am I talking about?!

The idea is that, and all you L Word fans know it well, by embracing the act of stripping, where a little chickadee is the subject of the "ultimate objectification" (ritual gang-bangs not included), the woman is subversively gaining power, monetary benefit, and a sense of control.

The opposing idea is that no matter what you might believe, participation in an industry that caters to the homogenized image of beauty is backwards and furthermore supports the notion that a woman can be bought.

Sticky, right? And not even in the good way.

So I invite you to take a gander and decide: Is making the conscious decision to strip your clothes off to make a living a covert feminist operation?

Covert rating: ???

In lighter news: it appears that there are fewer babies floating in the rivers of China.