[High Praise! to Les of Nuking Politics for the inspiration on this]

One of these disgusting parasites is named after President Obama. You’ll have to follow the links to find out which:

The New World Screwworm is an obligate parasite of animals and is a unique brand of pest in Central and South America where it infects the wounds and mucous membranes of cattle, sheep and horses. Female adult flies lay their eggs and in 8 to 15 hours the 2-centimeter length larva hatch forth causing excruciating pain and itchiness. The larva’s body shape is encircled by bristly ridges along the length of its body, resembling a fat, white screw used to burrow into living flesh.

Nematomorphs, sometimes called hairworms, are parasites that live inside arthropods as larvae, but then exist as free-living aquatic adults. They often induce suicide in their insect hosts, by causing them to jump into water, where the worms then escape (see this previous post for another example). The adults typically seek out the opposite sex and can form “Gordian knots” of mating worms. Today’s species, however, is found in larger and faster-moving waters – and in these big, complicated habitats, finding a suitable mate can be really tricky. So, today’s parasite has solved this problem through the evolution of parthenogenesis. This particular species of nematomorph has completely given up on males. When brought into the lab, it only released female worms and nowhere inside these stringy parasites could male reproductive organs be found.

Uh-oh. Obama is focusing on the economy again.

I was starting to think that the economy might recover as Obama has been too distracted lately to mess with it, but now here comes the smiling toddler ready to help you build that house of cards. “Me smart! Me help!” At this point, the economy is like this traumatized dog, flinching at any sudden movement Obama makes, expecting the beating to come.

Quick! Come up with a social issue for Obama to waste time on! Something he can’t do any real damage with… um… I hear there are lots of problems with penguins in Antarctica. He should go there right away and fix things with the penguins. That would great for his legacy: penguin savior.

So, the Weiner candidacy for mayor is going about as well as expected.

Now people are calling for him to drop out, but that’s a bad idea. This goes by the fantasy that the New York City voters are capable of electing someone who isn’t horrible. I mean, really the best you can hope from them is to elect someone who at least has some redeeming trait to go along with the horribleness… but politicians aren’t really known for having redeeming traits — especially those in New York.

No, the beauty of Mayor Carlos Danger is that everyone now knows he’s horrible — there is no one at all left with the illusion that Anthony Weiner is a decent human being. How we get in trouble with politicians is that some people are dumb enough to trust them — look at all the people who don’t understand that Obama is completely useless — but if we can finally get some politicians in office that everyone understand is horrible, then we will all do the appropriate and American thing and undermine those politicians at every step of the way.

The last thing we need is yet another politician holding power that a large segment of the population is under the false assumption he isn’t a scumbag. That’s how we’ve gotten all our problems so far.