The Weekly Weigh-in (Inaugural Edition)

Well, guess what? Your friendly BBPO just went and got himself a job. Which explains the shortage of posts this week. See, I figured I'd get to just sit around in my sweatpants surfing the web all day like most bloggers, but through a series of strange coincidences and (what I can only assume to be) misunderstandings, someone decided they would pay me to sit at a different desk all day - and I don't even get to wear sweats! :^( But, money is useful ("Explain how." "Money can be exchanged for goods and services."), so I figured I should take it.

Unfortunately, jobbing significantly limits the time I have for blogging, so I decided I'll have to scale back the frequency of my posts. And so, I give you the Weekly Weigh-in, a short summary of some of the BBP's more disgusting activities:

1. We start out - why not? - with our old buddy Larry "Wide Stance" Craig, who has announced that he will indeed fight to retain the Senate seat he had just said he'd resign the week before. Crazy. Not much else to say that I haven't said, except that it's a bit amusing that Craig now wants to take back his resignation, much like he now wishes to recant his earlier guilty plea on the disorderly conduct charge (which led to the resignation). Sounds like somebody needs to think things out a little more clearly before he makes his major decisions.

2. Iraq's top corruption fighter has resigned, basically saying that the Iraqi government is so corrupt he was fighting an unwinnable battle. What's more, he had begun to fear for his life, on account of all the death threats. Not altogether unreasonably, he suggests that the US should stop supporting said government, although it's not entirely clear that any alternatives would be any better. Indeed, it remains hard to imagine any way that Bush can extricate America from the mess he's made over there, regardless of whatever Pollyannaish spin General Petraeus spouts in his testimony before Congress next week.

3. And finally, another disturbing story about the Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA. Seems they approved an implantable microchip that causes elevated rates of cancer in lab rats. To be fair, it's not clear that there will be a similar risk for humans, but the evidence is disturbing enough to have prompted a number of doctors quoted in the article to say that further research ought to have been conducted. What's more, seems that former head of the HHS and laughable, non-candidate for president Tommy "Tom-Tom" Thompson was given scads of cash and stocks by the maker of the chip mere months after leaving the department. Illegal? Probably not, given the almost non-existent anti-corruption laws in today's America. But shady as a snake's belly? You bet.

But then, they gots ta feed the ol' BBP.