Dashed off a wee bit of semi-journalism for the VeloNews.com gang and then took off for a short, slightly hilly ride into the Garden of the Gods. I looked just like a cyclist, only slower. Much, much slower. I’d blame the cyclo-cross bike and its fat rubber if there weren’t something even fatter attached to the saddle.

Head-clearing exercise was a must after glancing at The New York Times coverage of the trio of turds who somehow thought that dodging the taxman would never catch up with them. Housekeepers, cars and drivers, Jesus H. Christ. All that’s missing is the Zil lane so the Party bosses never need be delayed by traffic jams en route to the Kremlin.

The worst part of this is the insane sense of entitlement I get from these people and their Beltway buddies. Doesn’t everybody have a car and driver? A housekeeper? Well, yeah — I have a car and I drive the sonofabitch. Make the monthly payment and pump my own gas, too. As to the housekeeper, I’ve been married to her for nearly 20 years, but I’ve never checked her papers. I could be in deep shit here if Obama rings me up, asks me to be Minister of Cyclo-cross or something.

At least I know where our cook comes from. He’s a cranky, bald-headed old fat bastard from Annapolis, Maryland. And he pays his fucking taxes before the newspapers ring him up to ask why he hasn’t. You know you have a retarded cat when he doesn’t even bother trying to cover up his stanky shit. Welcome to the New and Improved Land of the Pharaohs.

I have despised American Express for two decades, ever since I got sideways with them after a layoff and they shit in my credit rating for seven years, falsely claiming that I never repaid the debt. This Boston Globe story does nothing to change my opinion of these loathsome loan sharks, who make the Mafia look like Santa Claus.

Today, Herself and I have excellent credit (none of it my doing), and for some time now American Express has been begging us via unsolicited junk mailings to dip a tender toe in their toothy pool. I’ve thought about sending them a cease-and-desist NastyGram®, then thought again. Let them waste their own time and money the way they did mine. Three-point-four billion these button-down vampires sucked out of the Treasury. Fuck ’em, face down, in the mud, with a big, red, rubber dick.

Thanks and a tip of the Mad Dog green eyeshade to Kevin Drum, who shares my perspective: “Bastards. I really hate these guys and their entire sleazy industry.”