Is it me, or is this whole Iraq thing not going well? I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know much about politics or war or the proper way to trim my pubic hair (apparently not everyone does it with shampoo and a warm kitchen knife), but I do read a lot of cnn.com. And every day it seems like there’s another major attack or we’re sending more troops or some other leader is pulling their troops out or there’s a new update about Mark-Kate’s “health issue” and how Ashley’s canceling her Asian trip to be with her sister (I always liked Ashley better).

And this beheading thing is kinda crazy. It’s gotta be a major issue for the upcoming election, and one that’s pretty hard to side-step:

Voter: “Mr. Bush, what’s going on with all these beheadings of Americans in Iraq?”
Bush: “Yeah, that’s a son of bitch, isn’t it?”
Voter: [silence]
Bush: “Well, I’d just like to go on record to say that I am against the beheadings in Iraq. My speechwriters, aides, and the other people I have around me who tell me what to say because I’ve never read a book, magazine, newspaper or map, have run out of ways to say, ‘We will not let these terrorists steer us away from the course of true liberty for all Iraqis.’ I’d like to take this opportunity to say that if these beheadings continue, they in fact will steer us away from Iraq and promoting freedom there. I’ll tell you, somebody told me they were crazy over there before, but those sons of bitches are crazier than, uh…crazier than those mad cows with the mad cow disease. Have you seen those mad cows before?”
Voter: [stunned, sad, and speechless] “Um, sure.”
Bush: “They’re crazy, ain’t they?”
Voter: “Well, yes.”
Bush: “You’re god damn right they are.”
[twelve to fifteen seconds of silence as Bush drinks some water, fixes tie, looks content]
Bush: “Ok, who’s got the next question?”

Last night, I watched Bill Clinton on “Larry King Live” and it was about five minutes into the program before I was singing Coldplay’s “Warning Sign” with tears streaming down my face. Because man, do I miss Slick Willy. Remember when you had faith in the intelligence and the ability in your president, even if he did get a beejer from a fat chick? What struck me most was how inconsequential that whole episode is compared to the current state of the nation and presidency. Back then, the president getting a hummer was the biggest political scandal around. Now we have Americans getting their heads lopped off and a president whose done a pretty good job of pissing just about everyone in the world off and boy do I miss the Clinton era.

This was all perfectly timed with a meeting that my department had this morning delineating our plan in case of another terrorist attack. Not fun. They gave us all these instructions and numbers to call for updates and even conference calls, etc, as most of the people in the office sat at the table shaking. Happy Friday everybody!

You know what my plan is in the event of another terrorist attack? Freak the fuck out and shit myself. That’s what I’ve got so far. I’ll continue to work on it, but I don’t know how much more I can add to the freak-out/poop-self plan.

[I promise this is the last time I write anything political. I can not promise that this will be the last time I write anything about pooping myself.]

[Have a good weekend]

My friend Bob Jones, who is going to law school and I guess works at a law firm, sent me this email giving us some more info on The Masturbating Judge (which, by the way, would be an awesome name for a professional wrestler):

Hey Mulgrew,

This [judge] story was the hit of the office this afternoon.
Someone got a hold of the complaint, and the thing
with the razor wasn’t, in my opinion, the nastiest
stuff in the complaint. Here’s some quotes from the
complaint:

a. Lisa K Foster was Judge Thompson’s court reporter
for fifteen years. She first started hearing a noise
that “sounded like a blood pressure cuff being pumped
up” in .
She saw him put lotion on his penis on more than one
occasion while on the bench.
…
i. Dianna Lynn Horath Stricklin was a minute clerk
for Judge Thompson for fifteen years and later a
deputy court clerk. She later held September of 2000. Three or four months later
she noticed a space she had not noticed before where
she could see between the judge’s drawed and a door on
his desk. Over the course of time, from where she sat
in her court reporter chair, Lisa Foster saw Judge
Thompson place a penis pump on his penis “maybe ten”
times during either a non-jury or a jury trial.

b. Ms. Foster saw Judge Thompson masturbate on a
number of occasions and during the course of her
employment, saw his penis fifteen to twenty times.
{This is where the penis shaving allegation goes