The Manhunt Continues

I often wonder what it must be like to work for the FBI, part of a national security team constantly striving towards catching the single most dangerous man in the world, and the most reviled in American history.

You come into work on Monday and stop at the water cooler to discuss how close you are with your co-workers.

"We'll get the bastard soon. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But soon. We almost placed a mole in there recently. Would've found the evidence we needed with that."

"Still, Bob, we'll get him soon. And thank God. He's been a slap in the face of this country for too long."

"Your right Jim. God I hate Barry Bonds."

Yup, that's right, amidst FBI's busy schedule of tracking down terrorists, safe-guarding the country, and finding that Bin Laden guy one of these days, they've found the time to focus on what really matters: Nailing baseball players who use banned substances that do no actual physical damage to anyone other than themselves.

For those who haven't heard, Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Jason Grimsley was recently asked to wear a wire buy the FBI in order to gather evidence against Bonds. A wire. To catch a guy who's infamous crime was CHEATING AT BASEBALL.

Thank God the FBI's here. It's about time they took the home run record from that cheater and gave it back to a player who earned it the right way: Mark McGwire.

But I'm not here to talk about the past. (Total number of readers who got that joke: 2)

So adding, "placing a mole in MLB" to the bulletin board of recent government activities, here's what we get:

-Debating an amendment to the constitution banning gay marriage despite the fact that Congress already passed a law defining marriage for federal law as between a man and a woman.
-Compiling a database of every domestic phone call placed in the country.
-Proposing debate over an amendment banning flag-burning (which is, I have to admit, a national emergency. You can barely raise a flag up a pole without some crazy flag pyro trying to set it on fire.)
-Attempting to find the body of Jimmy Hoffa
-Discussing English as a national language
-Safeguarding that most sacred of American freedoms: the knowledge the our home runs our manufactured only by chemical enhancements that we condone.
-Shooting a man in the face...hee hee the Vice President shot a man in the face...that's still funny.

Now, with the exception of number two on that list, all those items seem almost unbelievably inane. It seems shocking that our government would waste it's time which such ridiculously trivial matters. Number two on the other hand (the database of domestic phone calls) is moderately horrifying and the first time in my life I've wondered if all my crazy liberal friends who think Bush is a despotic tyrant are in fact right (and I fucking hate it when I have to grant the legitimacy of crazy liberal thinking).

The rest though, just seem like a gigantic waste of the taxpayers time and money, and you would think I'd be outraged that the Federal Government has such poor priorities.

You would, however, be very very wrong. I'm thrilled the Federal Government has such poor priorities. Every time I hear that the Gov is going to spend a day debating flag-burning or holding congressional hearings on baseball, I dance a little dance of joy.

Cause that's one less day they can spend fucking up my life.

Think about it. Would you rather have the government do what they do in an average year, or sit around with their thumbs up their asses getting drunk and trying to score with interns? (assuming of course you don't think that is in fact what they do in the average year) I'd much rather they do nothing. When they do something, it's usually something bad. Or something good, but done in a totally fucked up way.

People say that the government should be focusing on the war on terror. Here's a short list of what they've done when the focused on the war on terror:

-Compiled the aforementioned 1984-style database
-Threatened to prosecute the NY Times for breaking the news of said database
-Started a (largely unneccessary) war with a country that has been far costlier (in both lives and money) than they expected, and which has met with (at absolute best) moderate success.
-Ran a prison that the rest of the world seems to think violates basically everything in the Geneva Accords.
-Generally pissed the rest of the world off to a great extent

So maybe it's just me, but I think I'm fine with them not focusing on terrorists. If they get consumed enough with English as a national language, maybe we can keep from starting a war with Iran.

Some people want them to focus on the economy. I can't think of anything worse the government could possibly do than focus on the economy. I suppose they could just start kicking people in the junk on the street, but that seems unlikely (although the Vice President might shoot you in the junk if you aren't careful). Anyway, let Alan Greenspan chant incantations over a boiling cauldron, and other than that just leave it the fuck alone.

So please, hunt down Barry Bonds. And while you're at it, see what you can do about the Designated Hitter rule. I've never really cared for that.