I’ve been like one of these. But with less venom.

Hey hey, everybody! It’s me again. What? You’ve forgotten about me already?

Dang.

Well, I’m really busy these days, and the job I’ve got now has no Internets, so I don’t have enough time for readin’ and thinkin’ as in the past. That should change sometime in the future, but for now, I’m afraid I just can’t post as much as I would like to.

Anyway, I’ve got a roundup of a few things that have caught my eye, but I haven’t had the time to write about. First of all, as we all know, Mark Felt died. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.
Et lux perpetua luceat eis, etc., etc. And we all appreciate what he did. But, of course, the news coverage is wretched. I’ve avoided TV news on this topic, but I have been listening to NPR. And why, in the name of all that is holy, are they talking to G. Fucking Gordon Fucking Liddy about what he thinks? Attention all:That asshat is a convicted felon. When we start hearing what Joe Massino thinks of Joseph Pistone, or what Jeffrey Skilling thinks of Sherron Watkins, then we can talk to G. Fucking Gordon Fucking Liddy about his views on Mark Felt. In case you didn’t know, I’m not a big fan of Liddy.

Also, the death of Felt means that we see a lot more of Bob Woodward, who’s been coasting for the rest of his life on one good deed. Enough of this guy already.He said something a few weeks ago that really pissed me off (Warning–PDF. And it’s hard to imagine me pissed off, right?). It made the rounds on the blogs, but nobody that I read mentioned what got to me:

BOB SCHIEFFER (host): Bob Woodward, the
president, if all goes as expected, at 10:50 Eastern Time tomorrow will announce his new national
security team, to be headed by Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state.

WOODWARD: She never goes away, she
and her husband. It’s an amazing national security team that Obama appears to
have selected. It’s kind of like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” You’ve got too cool, which
might be — or at least appropriately
cool — General Jones
as the national security adviser; Gates is kind of just right, in the middle;
and Hillary Clinton, hot.

This is going to be a whole new
center of gravity for the news media, for the world.My assessment — without having any
knowledge, really — is
that the economists and the economic team around Obama convinced him that the
economic crisis is so deep and going to require so much time, go ahead and give Hillary and
Bill the world.

Emphasis mine. And that’s what’s wrong with our elite press in a nutshell. When you don’t have any information about a topic, keep your fucking mouth shut. Your opinion in such a case is worthless. Even if Woodward hadn’t admitted his total ignorance, his dumb-ass fairy-tale analogy should be enough to disqualify him from all future public opining .

In other dumb-ass news, George Bush is still President, and, since these people can’t go five minutes without being total dicks, he’s deciderated to implement a “conscience clause” by executive fiat. Of course, this is just cover for religious nuts to deny women reproductive health services. And we’re not only talking about abortions here–these fools can now get away with refusing to dispense birth control because they (doctors or pharmacists) don’t approve of it. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK? If you have a moral objection to dispensing certain medicines, don’t become a pharmacist. It’s not like your choices are:

1. Be a pharmacist
2. Homelessness

See, all the jobs I’ve ever held, if I refused to do some of the work because I “didn’t believe in it,” I’d have gotten fired. And with good cause. You know what I’m waiting for? A Muslim doctor refusing to treat a cirrhosis patient, because the Qu’ran says we should avoid alcohol. That’d go over like a fart in church, wouldn’t it? I know these fundie assholes are short-sighted, but don’t they understand anything about unintended consequences? When you open the door for people to refuse their professional obligations based on personal beliefs, you destroy the very concept of professionalism. Or, as Chief Lyman used to say, “You fuckers don’t have to like it, but you do have to do it.”

Speaking of Bush and fundies, guess what? He made a bunch of their heads explode about ten days ago. Turns out thathe doesn’t think that the entire Bible is literally true. Which anyone with three functioning neurons can tell you. However, when we’re talking about fundies and freepers, they can’t get over that astonishingly low bar. I know Tommy T usually polices Freeperville for us, but I think this one slipped by him. For the full, hilarious ride, go here. It’s fun to watch them do a 21st-century, extremely dumbed-down attempt at St. Thomas Aquinas’ Scholastic metaphysics. Yes, I did just make a theology reference. Without even swearing. But I won’t talk about angels dancing on the head of a pin, ’cause Aquinas never talked about that, you see. Seriously. Check it out.

Finally–about this new job. It’s crummy, but there’s one really, really astonishing thing. An older white guy in a cube near mine listens to Christian music in the morning and Rush Limbaugh in the afternoon. And he sits right next to a black man. How much of a dick can one person be? Stay tuned, and we’ll find out.