We Americans have been lied to so often it's no wonder we're cynical. Steroids don't work, the government declared. But then when every ballplayer was taking them, that claim looked a little dumb. Oops! Maybe they do. Animals are heterosexual and monogamous, we were told. Until gay penguins started fucking in our zoos. Oops! Okay, maybe we need to look into that.

Now some of us are questioning a new advertising campaign designed to stop counterfeiting. Here in New York, counterfeit merchandise is everywhere. All over the streets there are people selling bootleg DVDs, fake designer handbags, ersatz designer jeans. The police occasionally catch some of these people, but ten more spring up to fill in the gap, so it's pretty much a permanent New York fixture. Perhaps realizing the futility of their efforts the city government has decided to fight the battle on a different front, by convincing the public not to buy counterfeit goods.

Their first argument is designed to appeal to our consciences. "Counterfeit handbags cost manufacturers $1.7 billion dollars per year," they proclaim. I'm still waiting for an explanation as to why this should bother me. I should worry that Coco Chanel Jr. will have to sell her maid's Segway? Jean-Pierre Prada will have to cancel his Shih Tzu's yoga class?

Plus, you know this is Stupid Math. Like when the cops proclaim they've seized eight million dollars worth of marijuana and then show a shoebox full. "Well," they say upon requests for elucidation, "if you sold individual hits for five bucks each, it might get somewhere near."

Right, anybody with a brain thinks. Robert Downey Jr. on a desert island wouldn't give you more than six thou for that sad little bag of stems and seeds.

With the handbags, they're assuming that if $10 fakes weren't available, all the folks who want them would be forced to buy real $700 Gucci bags.

News flash: Dudes, we're poor, not stupid. We can't just run to Biff and Muffy to borrow that extra $690. If the $10 fakes weren't available, 99% of the women in the Bronx would now be carrying their cash and makeup in ziploc bags with interlocking Gs written in marker across them.

When pleas to our consciences fail, the advertisers claim national security. "The profits from counterfeiting go to terrorists!" Yes, that's right: they're actually trying to convince us that Abdul and Mohammad, in their jihad to punish the West for crimes against Allah, have turned to manufacturing high-end women's accessories. That's one conversation I'd love to hear.

ABDUL: Allah wants us to continue with our plan, so to finance it I believe we should rob a bank.

MOHAMMAD: Here's an idea. We're handy with our hands. Why don't we knock off that kicky Hermes Birkin bag?

Frankly, this raises more questions than it answers. So, somebody can make an exact duplicate of a Louis Vuitton bag, sell it for $10, and have enough left over to bring down a foreign government? Wow. That's ingenuity. That's productivity. That's ambition.

Oops. On second thought, that is not what America stands for.