Things That Piss Me Off Today: The Shrub, Exxon Mobil, Alito Ass-Hito, Oprah Winfrey

In recent years, I have become more and more news-phobic and escapist. Unless I happen to hear it on NPR whilst driving around, or it's delivered to me by Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert (or even David Spade), I don't know about it. Ever since the "events of the year 2000" (yeah, I mean 2000), I have been increasingly imitating an ostrich—I bury my head in the sand in case I hear something that might make me go crazy go nuts. Pick your subject: how the idiot prince Bush and his family's cronies are turing our government into a personal home shopping network for oil and corruption, the total lack of affordable healthcare in this "first world" country, the puss festering maggots that are the whole insurance industry in general, our general lips-on-butt status with Saudi Arabia ("come on baby, you can hold my hand...") while Osama runs free, the BushRovian's deception campaigns of "look, over there!" while they run roughshod over ANWR, etc., and...brain heating up...Squidia angry...Squidia smash. You get the idea. You can see why I might need to avoid the news, for my mental health and for your health in general. Still, a few bits do get through, and so I have always have some things that are getting under my skin. Here's todays list:

The Shrub
State of the "Union" my ginormous ass. I didn't watch it, because...well...I just can't. Seeing Bush's squishy monkey face bunch up as he attempts to listen to the little voice in his ear and follow the teleprompter makes my brain inflate and steam to come out of my ears. Just like in Psychonauts..."[It] is so tacky, so hideous...I can't...look..directly...at...it. But, I know he blathered on last night about "freedom" and "staying the course" and all the usual scripted drivel of the last few years. Please, spare me! When we are spying on our own citizens without warrants, and when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refers to American citizens as "enemies" (as he did on NPR recently), we are no longer free! Freedom has left the building and is skipping down the street laughing like a maniac. God, 9/11 must have been a wet dream for Karl Rove and his minions: they wanted to spy on us and control us and Osama and friends made it so easy! Now we bend right over and say, "Please Sir, take away our constitutionally protected rights. Thank you Sir, now can you take away some more?" Face it people—Brave New World is here. We are living in a police state right now. Move over Malaysia or the Sudan, Big Daddy is coming. You know what else cracks me up? When The Shrub talks to the pre-screened audiences, "Oh President Bush, I was so honored to be able to vote for you, how does it feel to be our greatest president?" Remember that old Saturday Night Live episode with the asian chick going "Oh, Meester Presideent!". I'm telling you, we're taking it up the butt with no end in sight. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

Exxon Mobil
Hmm, gas and heating oil costs somewhere between $2.25 and $3.00 a gallon and Exxon Corporation has announced that it posted 10.7 billion dollars in profits for the last quarter of 2005 alone? That is 116 million dollars per day! For all of 2005, Exxon Mobil took in profits of 36.1 billion. 36.1. Billion. Dollars. The mind boggles. I think something is seriously wrong here. I'm just saying. I know, I know, Canada and Europe, quit your whining, I know we still pay less for gas and oil than you do; but, we pay tons more than you do for house, health and car insurance (that does basically nothing for us). So there. Think of all the dying old ladies who can't afford to heat their houses. Exxon Mobil, how can you sleep at night? For shame, for shame.

Samuel Alito Can Bite Me, (And Probably Will)
Well, I knew it had to happen, but I had deluded hopes that this ultra-conservative would not make the Supreme Court. Sandra Day O' Connor, why couldn't you just hold on for another couple of years? (And what does she know that we don't?) For the office pool—how long before abortion is illegal again? I've got 27 months, three days. Girl Kid thinks birth control will become illegal too, but I can't see that happening, I mean, my god! So, it will be back to the days of wire hangers and dead women in bathtubs. I can hear Europe laughing at us again. Rich women will just go to Canada to get abortions and birth control. Canada will soon become our official drive-thru doctor anyway, not just our pharmacist. They should consider offering low-cost Canadian health insurance for Americans, there's loads of us who need it. And don't give me a song and dance about the quality of Canadian health care either, 'cause I grew up there and I know the score. (I'll have to do post someday on how and why I'm not in Canada right now.)

Oprah Winfrey is a Dick
Oh puh-lease! So some dude got a little creative with his memoirs. I pretty sure EVERYBODY does that. Yeah, maybe Mr. Frey embellished a bit more than is typical, but if you can't jazz up your own life for the public, who can you jazz it up for? If every life is an act of self-creation, then your memoirs are the perfect place for a bit of razzle-dazzle. Come on! Damnation and hellfire to Oprah for withdrawing her support of the book and being such a jerk to Mr. Frey when he had the guts to come back on her show. What, the book's inspirational message somehow goes away just because it's only partially based in fact? That doesn't seem to bother anyone when it comes to the Bible, which is a whole hell of a lot less factual than A Million Little Pieces. Grow a spine Oprah! Of course, the press all leaped on this like hungry angry jackals. What, the Alito confirmation or today's death toll in Iraq is not sexy enough for you anymore? Dear God. So, James Frey, you have my vote. Write whatever you want, you magnificent bastard.

Kudos to Google
And now for something positive—snaps to Google for refusing to release our search data to the government (and "boo" to MSN and Yahoo! for caving like wet paper), we salute you! What is the Bush administration thinking? They can't process all the intelligence they get now! Bushels and tons and heaps more data will not make that backlog any smaller. In fact, I think that if our intelligence agencies are being distracted by the porn downloading habits of middle Americans, it will probably be all that much easier for Al Qaeda to attack us again. (Great, now I have a file with the NSA.)

Well, I'm off to watch a Lost rerun. Apparently there is a clue with Hurley (I love Hurley!) that we'll need for the next new episode, so we're watching it again. Toodles, my darlings. Until next time.