The Sack

Today marks two years since I started my hated job with The Company.

I was laid off yesterday.

Mixed feelings abound.

I was informed that my position had been eliminated, then offered a meager severance and told I had two weeks to meander my way out the door.


"So that's it? 'So long, good luck?'"

"I don't recall saying 'good luck.'"


So that makes; "car, girlfriend, job," in just under six weeks, if you're keeping track.

"Yes, Alex," you're probably thinking, "but I'm a selfish asshole. I want to know what this means for the future of Devious Nature. I don't want to live if denied your trademark potpourri of pseudo-intellectual pearls of wisdom mixed with sporadic nuggets of excrement." Well, I can honestly admit that I don't know what effect this will have on my e-progeny. I'd guess that you'll find out shortly after I do. I may find myself with more blogging time in the near future. I may also - ideally - find employment which makes use of my writing "skill" and perhaps gives me a professional outlet for my rage, snark, and sarcasm, thus leaving less room and less need for such in my off-time. We shall see. Needless to say, I will pray to my garden gnome for guidance in this difficult time.

The question that plagues me: Is there room out there for a liberal with a journalism degree and middling writing talent? I guess there always has been.

Caption Contest

Caption Contest: Submit your own caption in the 'comment' link below. The winner will be declared Tuesday, July 5th. Bring the love.
UPDATE 7/5: WINNER: "Anonymous" with "I once caught a fish 'this big'. I don't have any of it left, but the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." I know your secret identity. In the future, anonymous caption-submitters will be disqualified, and flogged at dusk.

You Can Never Go Home Again

...but I guess you can shop there. I had promised myself that I would end this week with a light-hearted post that positively overflowed with optimism and love.
Karl Rove took that idea and shot it through the head. Then the Supreme Court dug it a shallow grave and buried it forever.
Have a nice weekend.

Amendment To Be? (pt. 1)

"There's a lot of flag-burners who have got too much freedom,
I want to make it legal for policemen to beat 'em."

- The Simpsons, "The Day The Violence Died"

Every few years, a flag-burning amendment gets tossed around Capital Hill. The idea was actually the reason for the first letter I ever wrote to a politician. I must have been about 13. I wrote to Paul Wellstone using something called an "e-mail" saying that I thought flag-burning was part of our free-speech rights, and that the First Amendment was more important than a silly symbol. Therefore, I concluded, he should vote against the amendment.

I received a reply, assuring me that he had it covered.

I've been preaching to the choir ever since.

Can You Picture That?

...in the General Assembly? Heckling, taunting, belittling? While you wonder; whose hand is up his ass?

Osama is Wherever We Need Him to be

Apparently Porter Goss says he has an excellent idea where bin Laden is. But he can't be captured due to concerns about the rights of sovereign states. Since when do we care about a trifling thing like that? What happened to "either you're with us, or you're with the terrorists" and all that?

Naturally Goss didn't say WHERE Osama is, only hinting that he was privy to secret knowledge that he was not at liberty to share.

I eagerly await the satellite photographic "proof" that he's hiding in Iran.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to announce that I have an excellent idea of how to transmute lead into gold. What's the next question?

Lights On

Governor Pawlenty, I am a concerned citizen. I worry that a budget deal won't be agreed by the end of the month, causing a state government shutdown and a loss of work for 16,000 employees. I know you didn't listen to my idea for privatizing the roads, and that's OK, even though that kind of revenue could have solved this budget problem weeks ago. I just thought you were the sort of man to take that kind of risk, but I guess I was wrong. That was more my fault than it was yours, though, so please don't beat yourself up about it.

I don't blame you one bit for the state our mess is in. In fact, I commend you on your efforts to try so hard to break the stalemate, in blatant disregard to the views of your conservative taskmasters and putting at serious risk your delusional aspirations for Republican presidential candidacy. You don't care if, by going back on your no-new-taxes pledge, you'll lose any slim chance of attaining the White House. Oh no, not you. You certainly aren't the type to use the state's highest office as mere resume' padding, and we all appreciate that immeasurably.

So, having been inspired by your shining example of selfless philanthropy, I too would like to do my part to aid this beloved state of Minnesota. That's right, Governor, I would like to give back the State Income Tax Refund check I received this year. I want you to keep that money. You need it more than I do, surely. I had planned to spend it at the racino, but, well. . . you know. So what am I going to do with it now? Nothing, that's what. It's just going to go to waste. But you, you can put it to good use, Tim. You, the idyllic picture of gubernatorial excellence. I don't even care how you spend it - All on one program or split all over the state. There's plenty to go around. Maybe give a bit to the parks, a portion for the roads, some for the Department of Motor Vehicles. Heck, you can even take a little for yourself, I don't mind. You deserve it, Timbo.


I apologize for being so long-winded about this. I expect you'll want to call a press conference right away to tell the ladies and gentlemen of the media that our problems are solved. Maybe we can have it reissued into one of those giant-sized novelty checks and I can hand it over to you in a special ceremony, wouldn't that be fantastic? Have your people call my people. Let's do this. Together, we can make a better Minnesota.

AB

P.S: Under no circumstances is my money to go toward the funding of a Vikings stadium. Cheers.

The Fix is On

So has anyone read this new Downing Street Memo the U.S. media has just discovered? I'm starting to wonder if maybe the B*sh administration might have manipulated information in order to drum up support for its personal - and potentially lucrative - vendetta with Iraq. Can you believe such a thing? Me neither. It's shocking but it just may be worth consideration. I mean, the very idea that Our Leader would have sinister motives absolutely gives me the heebie-jeebies. It's unthinkable. I feel as if my whole world is crumbling. Next you'll be telling me that the moon is made of green cheese and that Michael Jackson isn't a child molester.

Apologies. Especially for the jacko humor.

See, this memo had been out there for a month and a half now, although you wouldn't know it to turn on a television or pick up a paper around here. Now that it's been dusted off (and perhaps broken down into smaller words?) for us in the U.S, the media keep quoting the line "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" and what we think they mean is "B*sh mostly just mentioned the facts that supported his argument," which isn't an entirely nice thing to say, but neither is it unreasonable. If you're going to make an argument, you're going to center on the facts that support it, of course. So what's the big deal? The big deal is that "fixed" does not mean "fixated." It doesn't mean "centered on," like we think. This is a British memo, people. "Fixed," for the non-anglophiles out there, means; rigged, cheated, illegally manipulated in such a way as to give unfair advantage. The memo says that he lied about Iraq's threat; the intelligence was fundamentally altered so that it supported his argument.
What's the matter, not surprised? Of course not, me neither. We knew he had been cooking this thing up for months, even years. But obviously damn-near half this country still thinks B*sh is in the right, and they need to remove the blinders from their eyes, the plugs from their ears, and their heads from out of their their asses and finally join the rest of us in reality, as scary and f*cked up as it may be.

Haikuski

After an agonizing and suspenseful delay, I win. Er, unofficially. So I offer an unofficial "thank you" to those of you whose votes helped unoffically make me the unofficial champion of the Batgirl haiku contest. You unofficially rock.

People Like Him

There's a pretty fair little article in the New York Times about Al Franken and his possible U.S. Senate run. A great many Lefties are already looking hopefully forward to the prospect - myself included. It sounds as if quite a few Republicans support his candidacy as well, absurdly reasoning that even a muppet like Norm Coleman can beat Franken, and that if Franken did make the Senate, he would become a national embarrassment to the Democratic Party, a la Howard Dean (in their opinion), and help the Republicans in the long-term. National wags cite the Jesse Ventura "experiment," saying that Minnesotans have learned their lesson on celebrity politicians.
Ha. We've done no such thing. Passion is never a weakness, my friends, for a politician or anyone. Celebrity doesn't enter into it. It's about passion and the willingness to never pull punches. I've long thought Franken a perfect fit as successor to Wellstone, for just that reason, and when the enough people finally see him as something more than a Saturday Night Live character and listen to what he has to say, and how he says it, I think he'll flourish.
We'll likely have to wait awhile before Franken announces anything officially. In the event that he decides he won't run, I hope he makes his decision at the last possible moment, just so we can all have the satisfaction of watching Coleman needlessly squirm his way through the "what do you think of Franken" questions for another three years. That at least is worth a good laugh.

Tonight’s Inevitable Jay Leno Joke:

Leno: "Well, Michael Jackson yesterday was acquitted of all charges of child molestation."

Audience: Some applause, smattering of boos.

Leno: Jackson says he plans to live out the rest of his days here in Southern California, playing golf with Ronald Goldman and tirelessly searching for "the real molesters."

Audience: "Tee Hee Hee, Haw Haw Haw."

Kevin Eubanks: "That's cold, Jay."

Johnny Carson: Spin Spin Spin…

"Of Course It’s Trash"

I'll never understand the celebrity allure of Scientology. Apparently Katie Holmes has loudly declared her conversion to the L Ron Hubbard faith as this week's chapter of her joint attention-mugging-efforts with Tom Cruise. My only point is that you'll never see me practicing a religion dreamt up by some hack sci-fi writer. Not when I've embraced the One True Faith, Bokononism.

Nothing, Really.

Driving across Wisconsin this past weekend, TV and I were naturally subjected to 100 miles of Wisconsin Dells billboards. As a general rule, we have a brief laugh over a couple of them, but then they're quickly forgotten. This time, though, we saw a good half-dozen "Noah's Ark" signs that featured a grinning pre-teen girl riding an O-shaped tube at a steep angle with water splashing around it with the large caption:

NOAH'S LOVIN'
HAD ME A BLAST!

Can someone explain that to me? I've tried adding all manner of punctuation - commas, periods, colons, hyphens - and I can't seem to find a way to make that phrase work. What does it mean? Do I even want to know? Is this some obscure central-Sconnie dialect with which I am unfamiliar? An encrypted invitation to an amusement park child-pornography ring? If anyone cares to enlighten me, by all means. . .

Hatchlings

I've been reading a bit about Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch's two daughters and their Chicago misdemeanor trial. First of all, I'd like to point out that I really don't think this story is particularly newsworthy. I bring it up despite this because allegedly Elizabeth Hatch at one point contemptuously asked the arresting officer "Do you know who I am?" which gave me quite a chuckle and I can't help but imagine the officer having had to stifle his own fit of giggles. I don't care how drunk they may have been, or how innocent they may yet be proven; the spoiled-little-brat "I'm-too-important, you're-playing-with-fire" scheme is the most nauseatingly pretentious escape-attempt imaginable. Too much Hollywood, ladies.
If only they had been from Illinois, they could have added "my taxes pay your salary, so technically you work for me." Oh well. A shame, that. Still though, I have faith that at some point one of them taunted "My daddy will see you busted down to crossing guard so fast it will make your head spin."

Dreaming of White Christians

Howard Dean never said that all Republicans are white Christians. Only most. So what's the big deal? Name one who isn't. No seriously, try it, name one famous Republican off the top of your head who isn't a white Christian. You thought of Colin Powell didn't you? Rice, perhaps? You sorry sucker. There are more - some that haven't been part of the W cabinet. I don't know any personally, but I'm under the impression that they're out there. The Republicans I know certainly fit Dean's cookie-cutter. Even the two who are also gay, which still baffles me to no end. And goes to show that there is some wiggle room in our Republican stereotypes. If not much. I'm just saying; put a gay Inuit Buddist Republican on the presidential ballot, and I'll vote for him in a second. As long as he's pro-choice. And anti-death-penalty. And believes in war as a last-resort. And pro-human rights. And anti-big business. And believes in birth control, euthanasia, stem-cell research and the separation of church and state. And is a Democrat.

A Request:

I have been named a finalist in the Batgirl Haiku Contest. Please vote. Preferably for me. If it isn't too much trouble. One vote per day allowed. Contest ends Wednesday night. Bring the love.

Sh!t or Get Off the Pot

Take THAT, activist doctors. We can NEVER allow a drug that people can grow themselves. At all costs, we must raise the stigma ever higher, block the research, and strike down state laws that attempt to bridge the gap, while marketing our "safe" (i.e. non-Canadian) laboratory-grown pills at a 500 percent markup. God bless America.
I mean, Marijuana's one of those gateway drugs, you know. Haven't you seen "Traffic?" One minute, you'll be having an innocent toke with Topher Grace, and then, WHAM-O, you're whoring youself on the streets for smack. Not only that, but illicit drug use helps the terrorists too. Or so Our Leader tells me. Are you so selfish, cancer-sufferers, as to ease your own pain at the expense of the lives of our fighting men and women? Are you so selfish, terminal AIDS patients, that you would while away your excrutiating, shortened lifespans attempting to ease your agony while helping al Qaeda operatives plot to murder your children? Every time you inhale, you put a bomb in the hands of a terrorist. You think about THAT next time you wanna get high, junior. If you don't like it, go back to Amsterdam, Cheech.