I was running through my morning ritual of reading (I read until my lips get tired, and then take a break to read "My Pet Goat") when I happened upon a fascinating bit of literary jiu jitsu.
Scott Adams, yes, THAT Scott Adams, also has a blog online magazine, surprisingly titled "The Dilbert Blog".
This morning he examines jobs, and this must be the week for serendipity.
Yet another “third highest ranking al-Qaida leader” has been killed, this time by a rocket attack from an unmanned drone. There are a lot of jobs that I wouldn’t want, and “third highest ranking al-Qaida leader” is right at the top. But I can tell you for sure that if I ever got that job, the first thing I’d do is narc out one of the top two guys so I could move up a notch. Apparently one of the perks of being in the top two is having a really, really good hiding place. The number 3 through 10 leadership guys are pretty much scurrying between mud huts and looking at the sky a lot.
We've had this conversation over here at Main and Central. In corporatese, the synergistic paradigms are constantly revitalizing themselves, like something that keeps swirling around the bowl, but never going down the pipe.
I know that war is Hell and all that, but I have to think that the guy who fired the rocket by remote control loves his job. I have an image of him sitting in an air conditioned headquarters someplace, feet up on the desk, a bag of Cheetohs on one side, a Budweiser on the other, staring at his computer screen. It’s about 1 am and everyone else is asleep. The order comes through on e-mail saying something like “Blow up mud hut #4,7855.” So he takes a break from playing Doom and plugs that number into the GPS system and soon his drone is hovering over said mud hut, missiles ready to go.
Are you reading this, Jonah? Now there's a job in Iraq just perfect for you.
I find it interesting that the guy with the best job in the world gets to blow up the guy with the worst job in the world. That’s really rubbing it in. But I guess it’s not so different from a CEO downsizing the auditing department. It’s one of those recurring themes in life.
George Bush, Scott Adams, Donald Rumsfeld. The gifts that just keep on giving.
Comments
Personally, I think Dilbert and Adams are highly overrated. Once Berke Breathed shut down Bloom County (his post Bloom County work has been distinctly inferior), and Gary Larson (The Far Side) and Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) retired, the comics page hasn't been worth reading (though Doonesbury still has its moments).
Anyway, my favorite line on the aQ subordinates was a blog comment on the 30th or 40th announcement that we'd killed Zarquari's (sp?) #2 in Iraq: "Being second in command to Zarqari is like being Spinal Tap's drummer; I can't see why anyone would want the job."
I got to agree with you Len about Bloom County, The Far Side, and Calvin and Hobbes. But I gotta tell ya, my new favorite is The Boondocks by Aaron Macgruder(sp?). Very politically relevant as well as progressive. Check it out at UComics.com.
I think the truth is that nobody, especially Dear Leader and Co., really knows the size or the numbers of Al-Qaeda in Iraq or elsewhere. Of course, the longer we stick around, the more converts we get. Nice vicious circle we've got going there.
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