DUMMIES ON THE DEUCE. George Bush is a dummy. Saddam Hussein is a dummy. And Colin Powell is a dummy, too.

All three are on display in the lobby of Madame Tussaud's on 42nd Street. Of course, they're not the only dummies in the wax museum. Just outside, a sign invites sidewalk traffic to "E-mail Saddam Hussein Here." Two computers are set up for the task.

Hundreds of e-mail messages can be found in each Sent box. Many are festooned with exclamation marks. One declares, "America will not stand down to you Saddam!!!!" Another shouts, "NO WAR-NO WAR-NO WAR!!!!"

Others take what might be called a "diplomatic" approach. One suggests that the Iraqi leader "Go smoke a blunt and relax!" Another outlines a more detailed framework for disarmament: "Let's get rid of these weapons, come to NYC, gets some drinks and hit up the strip club, trust me you'll have a blast!!! NYC is so much fun!!!!!!!! So many fine women.!!!"

What the message writers probably don't realize is that the computers are dummies, too--more or less. Last week, a Madame Tussaud's spokeswoman told me that the email messages had so far stayed in-house. She thought that the messages might be sent to the Iraqi embassy in the first or second week of April.

"Do you think that might be a little late?" I asked.

"You're not the first person to ask us that," she said. "It could be."

For two versions of another report on world affairs and Madame Tussaud's, see these articles from travelchannel.com and South Africa's News 24. (I would have included a third version from Sify News, but it seems the link isn't compatible with Blogger!)

And in this older report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ken Leiser writes of how an American family at the London Branch "stiffened momentarily when they watched people throttle and throw fake punches at the wax figure of President George W. Bush."