Grr.

...with nodules on it.

It seems the new version of the financial services industry bailout bill that just passed in the Senate is full of pork barrel spending to make the deal palatable to members of Congress who shot down the first version.

Yes, lots of candy for the innies: a little bit of sugar to make the medicine go down.

Not a whole lot for the rest of us, the outties: just another bitter pill to swallow.

We'll see how far they get when the people don't have any more left to give except unparalleled and unyielding anger. Should we live so long.

That about sums it up...
Gov-Corp can kiss the rest of my student loan payments good-bye, as I decided that I need a bail-out, too. I've just voted to give myself one, and it passed overwhelmingly in the house.

Not so fast, there, Anna.

Ben Bernanke sez you don't qualify for a bailout.

For one thing, you're not the kind of financial institution that will give him and all the other political hacks in Washington jobs when their terms of government service are over.

For another thing, I'll bet you have never donated thousands and thousands of dollars to lots of Democratic and Republican candidates to help them see things your way. I'll bet you regret not doing so now, but you should have thought about that when you were squandering your money on food and shelter instead of high-risk securities shell games.

It's all about taking responsibility, Anna. We live in a free society. We're free to bail out reckless corporations; we're free to be governed by people who don't listen to us; we're free to have our every move on the Internet monitored; we're free to have our nude bodies ogled at by creepy Transportation Security Administration agents at airports; we're free to have our persons and belongings rifled at will with no-knock warrants; we're free to be subjected to random searches of our luggage, our cars, and our computers; we're free to be Tasered by police whose psychological profiles are virtually indistinguishable from violence-prone criminals; we're free to be lied to by men and women who want to have wars with people and nations who have done us no harm; we're free to be attacked and killed by insane jihdists who do their dirty deeds because our leaders are incompetents; we're free to be collectively punished with ridiculous surveillance because those same leaders were too incompetent to know the difference between a genocidal murderer and an American who wants privacy and peace; we're free to die for lack of funds to pay for simple medicines and procedures; we're free to have our children taken from us by do-gooder social services agencies that whip up the media into hysteria with no substantive questions about the motives, much less the right, of the state to blow through the door with all the subtlety and respect for due process of a freight train; we're free to have our bank accounts, Internet accounts, and school records seized without our ever knowing it happened via National Security Letters; and we're free to choose between two presidential candidates who are nothing more than the latest swill of inside-the-Beltway fealty to corporations, foreign interests, and wealthy people who contribute more in one campaign than we make in an entire year.

Did I miss any of our 21st Century freedoms?

I probably did, but I'm tired of typing, now.

I'm also tired of Obama and McCain drooling about the land of opportunity, freedom, and hope.

I'll tell them that to their faces, too, if I ever see either of those two shills.

The Dark Wraith has always been an over-achiever when it comes to curmudgeonliness.

A crisis obviously means different things to different people.

Of course, if things get as bad as our host has suggested they will, we may find out, up close and personal, what all those $trillions in "defense" are being spent on.

Anna, there is a solution to your dilemma. Just go back to school!

" Eima Hackey mam!"