If this is the stream of my conscious, then someone sue the Army Corps of Engineers

If the last two weeks haven’t been enough to make you want to test the Secret Service’s protection of presidential candidates, then you’ve broken through the tasteless store-bought pie crust of pop culture to find an incredible mince pie of such juicy morsels as:

– Austria, the only country stupid enough to elect a former SS officer as president and then ignore a well respected man about der stadt as he keeps a shadow family in the basement (the U.S. allows legions of scum to maintain secret chambers of horrors in their homes, but we’ve only managed to elect a wannabe fascist as vice president in the last couple of decades). If they would only use their powers for good – a good sachertorte.

– a presidential election whose attendance may very well have been eclipsed by the opening weekend of ‘Iron Man’ (and Robert Downey Jr.’s character flaws are so much more endearing and authentic than those of the current crop of presidential candidates). I’d much rather watch Downey shoot heroin, break in and fall asleep in a child’s bedroom, and then be sincerely contrite in court than I would watch Hillary down a boilermaker and claim to be one of the descamisados or watch Barack play another pick-up high school gym basketball game in that USMC sweatshirt or see McCain in whatever in hell express he’s named his tour bus these days.

– the U.S. oil industry, which continually amazes in its capacity to have butter melt in its collective mouth as it claims that its profits really aren’t profits.

– Paula Abdul’s ability to survive beyond 1990 as a celebrity. In retrospect, Toni Basil should have survived longer. My verdict: Abdul shouldn’t be allowed to teach dance classes for pre-teen pageants, let alone be on television for any reason.

– the American press’ development of enough backbone to ask Dubya why we should believe that Iraq is swinging our way after the past five years. Too goddamn bad they didn’t become vertebrates before the 2000 election.

– corn as the solution to our energy needs. It sounds like an episode of ‘Green Acres’ with Mr Haney, Eb and Hank Kimball as the weird sisters around the silver-soldered copper still as Arnold Ziffel stokes the fire and Lisa makes pancakes.

– I’d question Tom Cruise, but short crazy men have already made their impact on world history at least twice in the 20th century. Are you listening, Adolf and ‘L’il Kim’?

I’ve decided that I’m going to let this election happen in whatever mutated form it takes. I’ll vote, if only because it gives me the moral right to bitch long and hard about the result, but it looks like “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” will be next year’s beach read.