My husband has just sent the following letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle:

"I heard on the radio this morning about our plans to rebuild post-war Iraq. One item that struck me was the plan to replace the textbooks for all of Iraq's children. I found this ironic since my child's middle school in Oakland does not have enough textbooks and educational materials--the teachers often use their own money to copy materials for their classes. This is common throughout the Bay Area.

"Thus, I propose that all of the Bay Area counties secede from the U.S. and create a new state ruled by the Berkeley City Council. The U.S. Government would then classify us as a subversive, terrorist state. Since we are the world leader in high tech and biotech and have Lawrence Livermore Lab, UC Berkeley and Stanford, we would possess Weapons of Mass Destruction and could easily produce more. We will have troops on our border in no time. We could then turn over Tom Bates and Jerry Brown and surrender, and we could finally get adequate funding for our schools, infrastructure and cleanup of our environment.

"It just might work (Viva Bayonia!)"