Greetings, loyal readers, and sorry for the lengthy pause between entries. Rest assured, however, that this will be THE GREATEST ENTRY EVER ON ANY WEB LOG AT ANY POINT IN HISTORY. (A new study shows that using CAPS LOCK increases believability...wait--A NEW STUDY SHOWS THAT USING CAPS LOCKS INCREASES BELIEVABILITY).

In case you'd missed it, Vice President Dick Cheney shot a man in the face the other day while on a quail hunt. Of course, history buffs will remember that the last time a vice president was involved in a shooting was in 1989, when then-veep Danforth Quayle, armed with multiple gatling guns, went back in time to put down Shay's Rebellion.

Now, I had the honor of watching a true douchebag, Scott McClellan, talk about the incident on TV yesterday. First off, on a sidenote, I hate the man. At what point do you decide money is worth making an ass of yourself daily, routinely claiming you'd answered questions before when you clearly hadn't, or constantly pleading ignorance or flat out dodging important issues? I have the utmost contempt for people who put their morals on hold for money, or who simply have no souls. Scott McClellan falls into one of those two categories. A day before Cheney would appear on TV to address the issue, McClellan claimed the administration had more pressing issues that the American people wanted to hear about. Really, fuckface? Now that the VP shot a man, you decide you should focus on 'pressing issues?' This doesn't coincide with anything the Bush administration has ever done before.

Now, since, as McClellan put it, "you can always look back at these issues and look at how to do a better job," I'd like to look back at a few notable occasions when the Bush administration could have done a better job paying attention to 'pressing issues.'

Hurricane Katrina:
With a category 5 hurricance headed for a particularly volatile region, it seems to me that steps such as evacuating the city would be fairly 'pressing.' But, this wasn't done. Why not? Because this country is run by a bunch of rich schmucks would would rather be quail hunting.

The Iraq War:
Nearly all of the rest of the world opposed the U.S. invasion here. I would consider searches failing to reveal the WMDs that were supposedly the catalyst to the whole thing as 'pressing.' Also, developing a strategy for what to do after knocking Hussein out of power. Again, though, I'm not the president (but I will be).

Spying on the people who elected you:
Bush may have a point here: "They fucking elected me again? Are you fucking serious? We'd better see what they're up to." Regardless, the fourth amendment states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I'm not sure what it is about this statement that leads people to believe the government has the power to spy on people at will.

The administration is gathering more info from web search companies as well. They can say that they can't trace the source of searches and whatnot, but Yahoo helped put two Chinese journalists in jail in the past few years, one of whom set up a supposedly anonymous e-mail account. Fuck you Yahoo, your 'bulk' folder in my e-mail account does not make up for this.

Violating everything this country stands for once elected, again, I feel is a 'pressing issue.' Double whammy here--maybe you should actually pay attention to the 'pressing' intelligence you have, rather than seek for other ways to stockpile more of it. Time and time again, it has been our government's failure to not act on what we already know that has cost lives, not their inability to invade our private lives more.

The federal deficit:
This issue was never 'pressing' when deciding to go to wars we couldn't afford, give tax money back to everyone on a whim or approve all types of crazy earmarks on all types of bills. It must have become pressing recently, though, when our government decided they would cut the deficit by taking away from the people who already have nothing. "Well, they're already fucked," I can imagine one of our fearless leaders saying of the poor whilst deciding it would be a good idea to elimate social services for our people but pump billions of dollars into the Middle East to establish a democracy, where another new democracy just elected a terrorist organization to head their country. Awesome.

These are but a few examples of 'pressing issues' the administration has ignored. I could go on, but I choose not to. Besides, I've already addressed everything else you wanted to know.

*Allright, so this probably wasn't the best entry ever in terms of what you would normally expect from this site. But years from now, THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT WILL LOOK BACK ON THIS ENTRY AS THE DOCUMENT THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF A NATION FOR THE BETTER. Don't believe me? Well, I know it for a fact after using Dan Quayle's time machine.