Former Justice Department counselor Monica M. Goodling and former chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson routinely broke the law by conducting political litmus tests on candidates for jobs as immigration judges and line prosecutors, according to an inspector general’s report released today.Goodling regularly asked candidates for career jobs: “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?” the report said.

Gosh, I don’t know. That’s a great question, ma’am. A great question. Better than a worm like me deserves. Why do I want to serve Him? Because of His strong, pure will, I suppose. And His manliness. And because utter submission to a strong leader is the only thing that keeps my fragile ego from disintegrating entirely.

Do I get the job?

I know that I hung on a windy tree,
nine long nights,
wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,
myself to myself,
on that tree of which no man knows
from where its roots run.No bread did they give me nor a drink from a horn,
downwards I peered;
I took up the runes, screaming I took them,
then I fell back from there.

Hávamál, Odins Rune Song, Stanzas 138-139

I have just emerged from long and painful editorial revisions on my second book — thin and straggly-bearded, stooped and shuffling into the light — my eyes bloodshot and my typing hands cramped like claws — out of my office, which has become increasingly cave-like, and somewhat mildewy, and littered with scraps of paper like bones. At last, out of my office! From a thousand papercuts have I bled; my skin has grown pale, and slightly scaly.

For thirty days and thirty nights I have laboured in the editorial underworld, to bring back this:

What’s been happening in the world outside? It’s very hot and humid. Has Obama won the election yet?

whose blog is this?

who left this thing lying around here?

. . .

. . .

oh, right