Now that Judgement Day has come and gone, minus the whole Judgement thing, we now return you to your regularly scheduled crazy...

At the recent dedication of a dam in Iran, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made statements about a plot to force Iran and other countries into a state of drought by use of high-tech sorcery to force clouds to empty out before they reach Iran.

That's right, people. The president of Iran thinks Western Europe is stealing its rain.

I said it when two Chinese villages went to war with each other over cloud theft a couple of years ago, and how can it not bear repeating- that's just blindingly fucking stupid. Ahmadinejad is an educated man- he has a Ph.D., for crying out loud, and he thinks they're out to steal his precipitation.

"Western countries have designed plans to cause drought in certain areas of the world, including Iran," were his exact words, which he based on reports on climate, "whose accuracy has been verified." Verified by who, the staff at the Weekly World News? This isn't a credible Bond movie plot, this is the plot of Superman III, for fuck's sake.

Also, typically, the second Ahmadinejad said this, it started raining. Maybe he should get together with Harold Camping for a speaking tour, since it is past the point of being painfully obvious that neither man has the slightest fucking clue what they are talking about. Rain or shine.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he's seen evidence that senior leadership in Pakistan did not know Osama bin Laden was hiding there in advance of the U.S. military raid that took him out.

Given the way things have gone, it is impossible not to be skeptical of what was known, who knew it, and for how long. Our government has shown itself to be a master of funding and or propping up corruption, then playing ignorant when the fit hits the shan, so it is the usual bit of fun karma then watching our government get caught in its own gears. Again. Like none of us saw it coming.

That skepticism is awfully infectious, as especially with an election cycle on the horizon. With some legislators wanting something resembling some answers before they continue dumping buckets of cash on Pakistan, it was less than surprising that Gates and Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen both called for the U.S. to continue providing aid and assistance.

Yep, can't wait to see some GAO report a couple of years down the road saying how little oversight there was over the gazillion dollars our government will have wasted on our behalf.

Adm. Mullen had to take the cake, as he said Pakistan's military image has been "tarnished" by the raid, and that the military should be given some time to deal with the "soul searching" currently underway.

Dare I say, if General Patton were still alive, he'd no doubt rise from his wheelchair and bitchslap Mullen half out of his dress whites. If I were aware the Pakistani military even had an image, I sure as hell didn't know it, and if I may be so bold, a tarnish on the Pakistani is like seeing a fresh

I don't know which outrages me more- the fact some dipshit wins $2 million in a state lottery and continues to collect food stamps, or the fact there wasn't a rule to prevent this kind of nonsense in the first place.

Leroy Fick, a man in Auburn, Michigan, won $2 million on the lottery's "Make Me Rich" TV show last July, has continued drawing food assistance ever since, as Department of Human Services officials informed him he would still get the help. Why? Because he took the lump sum option, so he still met the income threshold. I'll sit back for a moment while you facepalm, or throw something, which I was sorely tempted to do after reading about this.

State legislators say they are planning to urge the federal government to change the rules that make this possible. Good luck with that. Any change to any rule will trigger the call for welfare reform, and if you thought nothing was getting done before...wait until this debate fires up...

With continued charges by the public-at-large that our government is doing nothing about border security, I found it interesting that Obama fell asleep at the switch on the subject of who's going to run the FBI.

Robert Mueller, the current director, is set to step down on September 4, 2011 (the end of his one ten-year term), as required by law. Surprisingly enough (or not?), President Obama has failed to nominate a successor, preferring instead to ask Congress for a two-year extension, to September 2013.

Senior administration officials are falling back to the already dead and beaten trick of screaming "9/11!" to try and get their way. Insert "hope and change" joke here. It wasn't like they didn't see this coming, and this just casts a dangerously lazy shadow on how the Obama White House views national security.

The Government Accountability Office said in February that less than half our border with Mexico is under "operational control" of the government. Obama can paint the picture however brightly he wants to, but when you tilt it just right, you can see the illusion. My favorite so far from the El Paso speech was the statement that apprehension of illegal immigrants is down 40 percent.

Of course apprehension of illegal immigrants is down- the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has already said that deporting arrested illegal immigrants is not the best use of agency resources, so if no one is going to get deported, why bother making the arrests? Maybe that agency should be given a ten-year term to justify it's existence. Then we would see how serious people are about doing their jobs if there is a question mark at the end of that ten years.

Bottom line- President Obama needs to nominate someone for FBI Director now, and let Congress get off this issue, which shouldn't even be an issue to begin with. Same old nothing plus "9/11 Hail Mary" trick play equals the system you said you were going to change. Not sure how you read it into the polls, but we're still waiting on that...

Okay, so if I was supposed to be impressed by the oil company CEOs taking seats on Capitol Hill to allow Senators trying to score common man outrage points, I didn't get the memo. Of course, all I get from the so-called two major parties is requests for moneys, so I probably wouldn't have opened the damn memo even if it had magically appeared in my inbox. At any rate, I was fully prepared for a dog and pony show proper to kick of the summer months.

Okay, so while I was not impressed, they failed to disappoint. Hell, Sen. Orrin Hatch raided his game room and brought a portrait of a dog riding a pony. Sen. Charles Schumer compared the credibility of such an industry receiving those breaks to that of proclaiming a unicorn's arrival in the hearing room. Not to be outdone in the center ring, Sen. Pat Roberts saw Schumer's unicorn and raised him by saying unicorns could morph into rhinoceros.

Of little consolation was Sen. Max Baucus chickening out on wearing a rainbow wig and waving a 'Ruck Fules' sign.

Wait...what the fuck? Unicorns, if they did exist...can morph into a rhinoceros? Where did Sen. Roberts pick up this information, and how long has he known this? I mean, this is a national security concern if ever I heard. Even the double rainbow guy would need Chuck Norris to cope with that kind of encounter. Isn't that the kind of crap our Senators should be convening panels on? I don't know about you, but I'm perfectly willing to pay $4.15 a gallon if our mighty government-as-usual can protect me from morphing mythological creatures.

And what did this puffery, this manufactured outrage over high gas prices and tax incentives (they aren't subsidies, people) wind up accomplishing? The same less than nothing we have come to expect anymore. Who in their right mind thought differently? You have a collection of politicians who haven't pumped their own gas in years, not to mention probably beholden to three or four oil lobbies a piece, symbolically slapping CEOs' hands to gin up public support as some chase six more years of this crap. For all the answers being demanded, we the people already knew the answers. Wait, somebody did at least ask questions, didn't they?

We all know damn good and well there is little to next to nothing our government can do about the situation. With the average attention span of the American voter plunging faster than some fame-desperate teenager's neckline, in a matter of days (if not already) the public will have moved on to their next outrage, probably about a 16 and Pregnant or Dancing With the Stars story. Sure, they'll still bitch about the problem, but prepare for the thousand yard stare when you mention last Thursday's hearings.

Damn, President Obama must have been right. The illegal immigration issue must have been solved. Why else would the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) say that deporting five arrested illegal immigrants was "not the best use of agency resources?"

These were not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill illegal immigrants, either. They were arrested during a May 9 protest at Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels' office, and are currently out on bond for criminal trespass charges.

Let that sink in for a moment. Five illegal immigrants were arrested on criminal trespass charges at the governor's office. But ICE will not do anything about it (you know, their freakin' job), because that's not the best way to use their resources. Well then, what in the bluest hell would be the best use of resources? Getting the fleet of SUVs detailed, or does ICE just let the illegals they are not deporting get that on the way out?

Not to mention, what kind of idiot judge grants bond to an illegal immigrant? If anything at all in the known universe screams flight risk, it would have to be the phrase illegally in the country to begin with.

This is the same ole big damn government as usual nonsense that has allowed each and every single problem this country is facing to get worse by the day. Maybe President Obama, since he is getting good at declaring problems solved, should just rename the agency U.S. Customs Enforcement. Then, when they confiscate two joints at San Diego, Obama can then proclaim the War on Drugs a problem solved as well...

Well, Newt Gingrich has more or less made it formal, he is running for the Republican nomination for President. Would this be an example of the smell hitting the fan five minutes ahead of the shit?

The throwback conservative is not only not going to have to slog through a crowded and growing GOP field, but Gingrich is going to have to battle growing discontent among Republicans voters with the selection of candidates this election cycle. Somehow, I doubt the arrival of the former House Speaker and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is going to do a lot to light any fires on the right side of the aisle.

Both Gingrich and Romney have checkered pasts as far as new-school conservatives are concerned when it comes to one of the real hot-button issues: healthcare. Romney and his healthcare bill need no further explanation, and Gingrich helped create a health care benefits package while wheeling and dealing a balanced budget with President Clinton.

While popular opinion seems to hold that Gingrich and Romney entering the fray makes the GOP nomination race more "serious," I fail to see how Gingrich is a serious contender. He may not be Donald Trump-rich, but he is damn sure Donald Trump ridiculous, and that is not a crack about hair, either.

As for Romney, it's like he's been far enough back in the shadows for you to still realize he's there, but you just can't be sure what the hell he's been doing back there.

I guess at this stage in the proceedings, we should at least be thankful there are two more contenders people have actually heard of.