Mammals & Madams & Menswear, Oh My!

It’s easy to get distracted from the depressing reports about unemployment, Army suicides, torture, money laundering and man-made natural disasters when there are cuddly creatures, sex workers and men’s fashion in the news this morning.

Yesterday, as I searched in vain for news that didn’t make me want to tell stupid people to shut the fuck up, I found out from Nicholas Kristof both that he’s part of a video game about women in the developing world (yes, I follow him on Twitter) and that Senator Barbara Boxer will be chairing a new subcommittee on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee specifically charged with women’s issues. Can we all just love Nick Kristof and Barbara Boxer a little this morning? Thanks.

Anyway, onto the dirty news of the day. The U.S. economy shed more than half a million jobs in January, more American soldiers committed suicide than were killed in combat that same month, and it’s entirely possible that one of the damns China built recently was the proximate cause of the earthquake that killed so many people last year. But, hey, don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain; Eliot Spitzer liked to fuck prostitutes without condoms and is a whiny little bitch.

In the mean time, the “negotiators” for Hamas who went to Egypt, it turns out, weren’t really there to negotiate as much as launder some money which, due to Egyptian interference, they didn’t quite manage to accomplish. Larry Summers is having as much trouble negotiating interpersonal relations as Hamas, as he’s busy thinking of ways to dick over and lock out Paul Volcker. Who knew he was Dick Cheney 2.0 (without the bum ticker)? And Cheney may have found his next move, if he wants to go work for yet another evil organization — Ticket Master probably needs a new spokeshenchman after they dicked over Bruce Springsteen and all his fans buy buying up the tickets to his event and then reselling them above face value on their own reselling site. But, no worries, there are cute mammals roaming the White House grounds!

In Administration news, CIA director nominee Leon Panetta is feeling less torture-iffic than his predecessors, Obama went and ralled his troops on the stimulus package and he’s having the Census Director report to Rahm Emanuel rather than the incoming Commerce Secretary, Judd Gregg, who, incidentally, tried to defund the department and politicize its functions. That sort of begs the question of why you’d nominate a guy you don’t fucking trust to do his fucking job, but maybe that’s just ’cause I ain’t had my Kool-Aid this morning. Anyway, Congress is delaying both the switch over to digital television signals because it’s even more of a clusterfuck than anyone imagined and Hilda Solis’ confirmation hearing because Republicans are still quaking in their expensive leather boots at the thought of Wal-Mart workers unionizing. But, hey, I was right and it turns out that Bush did go jacketless in his Oval Office despite all the carping from the former Bushies about Obama not being formal enough. So, I guess they can all shut the fuck up now. Oops, I did it again.