Let’s see, half the world is collapsing around me, and the thing that incites me to write is some inconsequential worm who bashes Ayn Rand.

I’ll pass on the opportunity here to link to what I’m referring to. Just understand that not one idea was discussed by this individual, let alone examined, and it was essentially what you might hear a drunk and schizophrenic bum yell at the five cubic feet of air in front of himself as you and a line of pedestrians pass him by unnoticed. With the recent biographies of Rand that have been published, the scumbags and the moral agnostics have come out of the woodwork to rewrite Rand for those who have forgotten or who have yet to read. Or just to spit in the face of those who understand and, well, shit, there’s a face and they know how to spit.

This scum ended his… I’m not even sure what noun to use, but it had words and appeared in something he designated as a blog… whatever it was, he ended it with the declaration that anytime he saw a “John Galt” bumper sticker, he breaks off a rear view mirror and leaves it on the hood of the car with a note identifying his act as “selfish”. This lying cunt (anyone who claims to have read Rand enough to understand her and still implies that a violation of someone’s property rights is something she’d endorse is a lying cunt), therefore, has publicly called for, in fact, begged for, an onslaught of damage to his own vehicle. You know, sort of like the Roark/Dominique rape scene that the Randophobics are so faux-freaked out by.

I spent a good ten minutes in the middle of my work day (I admit allowing myself to be so distracted) searching for just one website that would provide me with this scumbag’s license plate number based on his name and state of residence. Unfortunately, all of them required a fee greater than his worth. But I was dedicated, in those ten minutes, to posting his license plate number to his own comments section with a suggestion that perhaps this particular author doesn’t care so much for what’s happening on the rear end of his vehicle. What a bummer.

What turned my day around, of all things, was a photo of Sarah Palin. (My day had problems of actual import, in some small manner, to the lives of human beings, so I refer not to the above annoyance with a passing insect I was unable to swat.) The photo that caught my eye was the one of Sarah Palin on the cover of her book. Is it just me? Whenever I see that photo of Sarah Palin and the words “Going Rogue”, I imagine her without panties. Holy shit, Sarah Palin’s going rogue! Anybody have a camera on the end of his shoe?

Hearing that Sarah Palin were scheduled to appear pantyless is about the only thing that would get me to care about this person. If Playboy scored Palin, I might even spend some of my hard-earned free time to Google it. I’m sure some left-wing wanker would be sure to scan it and post. The idea that this woman need be discussed in a political context at all, let alone post-residence in a governor’s mansion, is a slight upgrade in insanity from the modern reading of a Jon or a Kate as a Perseus or Andromeda. Interest any which way in Sarah Palin, from my perspective, is the litmus test for one’s irrelevance to me and my life. If you love her or hate her, or even have a mild interest in her one way or the other, please respect my mental distance from you and step away. (Though, granted, the idea of this parody book is, dare I say, mildly amusing.) Chances are, while you’re asking me what I think of Sarah Palin, I’m probably more concerned with getting dip on my chip and heading immediately back to the fridge for more beer.

And then there was Barack Obama’s trip to China. It looks like that went about as well as his trip to New Jersey for Jon Corzine.

Barack Obama went to China, to give the poor dog a bone. He bent over, Mao Zedong took over! Oh! He gave ‘em a bone of his own.

(Let me digress for a moment just to say that, yes, someone on the discussion page of the Wikipedia entry on “Old Mother Hubbard” did in fact inquire as to whether an Andrew Dice Clay reference was called for. And yes, the geeks promptly shut him down. I beg to differ and stand by the rogue. NSFW without headphones.)

To read the AP/Reuters drones insert “cool, calm, wise, thoughtful, and brave” into every act this pussy makes is tiresome and barely one year has passed since his election. Because you can’t yet Skype an intercontinental asskissing, Obama had to get his on a plane. His lips, that is. China provided the asses. It’s customary, incidentally, to eat ass in China. I’ve placed an order of duck butts to go from Great N.Y. Noodletown and, though the guy with the cleaver actually, ehem, cracked a smile, he chopped off those six or eight butts for me right there on the spot. I bet President Jintao wished Barack’s ass had half the fat of those duck butts. No one told our president to fatten up before the performance.

You just can’t make this shit up:

“…the selection of music played by a People’s Liberation Army band included the pop songs, ‘We are the world’ and ‘I just called to say I love you.’” 

Oh, and on the agenda is “clean energy”. Anyone out there believe this? Asking China to be “clean” now is like asking James Dean’s character in Giant to switch to wind power. China has other priorities. Like imprisoning protesters against tainted baby’s milk. Take a closer look at that “far-reaching package of measures to strengthen cooperation between the United States and China on clean energy”. It commits China to nothing, with the exception of that one demand from which we can assume Obama will never back down: Here, have some free shit! On us! No, really!

Then there’s Obama’s cool, calm, wise, thoughtful, and brave approach to broaching the “human rights issue”. This tactful approach amounted to: “Hey, we enslave and torture people, so if we can act human once in a while, you sure as hell can.” What about that guy with the tainted baby’s milk who’s camping out in a jail cell? I believe Obama was boldly referring to this poor man when he said:

“Now, I should tell you that, as president of the United States, there are times when I wish information didn’t flow so freely because then I wouldn’t have to listen to people criticizing me all the time.”

What I want to know is, do you think the Chinese authorities actually employed those students in the town hall meeting? Or did someone just come out before Obama got there and say, “If anyone in this room feels like stepping out of line, just wait and see how many pieces of your parents’ brains you’re gonna need to scrape off the walls.” Either way, they stayed in line. (By the way, the White House really ought to pump up their bandwidth. I’m having trouble fast-forwarding the video to check out the Chinese chicks.)

This “town hall” (unfortunately, the language of modern society compels me to overuse the fuck out of scare quotes) is actually a rather poetic symbol of the Barack Obama media-made product. I do recommend you watch the video. (Here’s an extremely abbreviated version. Remember, Obama’s the black guy.) This is like the Curb Your Enthusiasm of town hall meetings. He’s got a script, but he improvises a little to make it seem naturalistic and to see, just for shits and giggles, whether inspiration might allow him to outdo his scriptwriters every now and again.

Right off the bat, I love the part when Obama explains to the students what a town hall meeting is, and how such meetings are common in the United States. I was waiting to see if he’d explain what that weird, phallic object was in his hand that he was talking into. Oh, wait a second. I forgot that China censors the Internet. Those robots playing the parts of human students might not have been web-enabled for direct access to the YouTube video of Howard Dean screaming like a fucking lunatic. (Yeah, I know that wasn’t a town hall meeting, but you get the point.) Speaking of which, were these students from the drama school? Even John Woo wouldn’t cast this crowd.

The charade, as I said, was a rather poetic symbol. Obama has the ability to talk about freedom and openness of communication directly to a bunch of bizarre, muzzled zombies without anyone picking up on the irony. This is something we’re quite used to here in the United States, and we don’t even have the Chinese army. From this perspective, I guess Barrack Obama’s trip was a success. His message of hope above reason was successfully translated into both Mandarin and Cantonese.

It really almost makes me want to treat myself to an Oba Mao T-shirt. In the purely Chinese sense. You know, because it’s a term of endearment.