“As the country was sinking into its worst financial crisis in more than 70 years, Security and Exchange Commission employees and contractors cruised porn sites and viewed sexually explicit pictures using government computers, according to an agency report obtained by CNN.” I’m not sure what everyone is so upset about here: These were bored office workers! What else were they supposed to do? Regulate? Investigate obvious cases of fraud and other financial chicanery? These guys already had one arm tied behind their back; I applaud them for at least using the other one to jerk off with.

“I simply have nothing to hide,” Mark Brooks, a Web consultant, told the Times during Brad Stone’s reportage of the 23,094th story about exciting new Internet companies that the Paper Of Record has run this month. Let’s see if he’s still embracing that stance now that the shared-shopping site Blippy — which is one of the sites profiled in the piece; Brooks uses it because he is apparently interested in having “a fun and easy way to see and discuss what everyone is buying” at his fingertips — has inadvertently leaked some of its users’ credit card data! Well, the possibility of that particular bit of oversharing certainly adds a new level of excitement to the online-shopping experience, although I’m not sure I would call it “fun”?

“Video from Zimbabwe on Thursday showed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Robert Mugabe, two presidents who remain in office despite claims from opponents that they engaged in electoral fraud, enter a news conference hand in hand at the start of a state visit by Iranian officials to a country with untapped uranium deposits.” I hope they aren’t exchanging too much information by way of the squiddy DNA strands in their hands.

Are the inhabitants of Knifecrime Island beginning to renounce their stabby ways? The latest figures from the British Crime Survey show a 7% drop in overall crime in 2009. Also: “Violent crime, burglary and robbery all fell last year. Only sexual offences showed an increase, rising by 2 per cent to 53,239. The level of gun and knife crime also fell, including a 21 per cent drop in fatal stabbings.” Bicycle thefts are apparently up, but that is cold comfort to those of us who admire the nation’s fondness for the dagger and the alacrity with which they wield it. Maybe it just means doctors are getting better at stitching up the many perforated Britons who arrive in the emergency room with such frequency. Anyway, must try harder.

USA Today would like you to know that Generation Y (which is now defined as “anyone born from the 1980s to 2000,” in case you’re keeping score), for all its millennial optimism, is overall pretty broke! Only 58% of them pay their monthly bills on time, says one firm, while another says that 43% of them are building up “too much” credit card debt. (The “too much” threshold is not explained here. But those late fees can’t help!) A Real Live Youth explains: “When you get a little bit of money, what do you do with it? Do you pay off your credit cards, put it toward student loans, make an extra payment on your house or car, or put it in your IRA? I don’t have enough to really make a big dent in anything. If you get a bonus, why not just spend it?”

When you take as a given that the point of the Bush administration was to undo government, to actually ungovern, really to take apart the management of the country through a combination of basic inaction and also to remake the country’s huge network of social services through the funneling of massive amounts of money to religious organizations-well, only then do stories like the exquisitely odd tale of Scott J. Bloch begin to make sense. Employed as the head of the Office of Special Counsel since late 2003, he was initially put under investigation because coworkers said he “tossed out legitimate whistle-blower cases to reduce the office backlog.” Bloch was formerly of the Justice Department’s Task Force for Faith-based and Community Initiatives, so he has been at the very heart of the administration’s efforts: both unworking and also helping to fund a Christian network throughout the country. He also infamously issued a memo to the staff that advised women to not wear tight pants and “before choosing a skirt to wear, sit down in it facing a mirror.” The memo, it would turn out, was plagiarized, from “student Web sites.”

When Bloch resigned, he wrote to the President and claimed that he had eliminated backlogs and presided over an uptick of 400% in “substantiated whistleblower disclosures.”

Here are some of his accomplishments:

An investigation by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has concluded that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen L. Johnson did not violate the Hatch Act when he appeared at a 2006 fundraising event for a candidate for U.S. Congress. Mr. Johnson attended and made remarks at a March 9, 2006 fundraiser at a Denver, Colorado law firm for Mr. Rick O’Donnell, a Republican candidate for Colorado’s 7th Congressional District. …. OSC’s investigation found that while Mr. Johnson’s official title was used in an e-mail invitation for the fundraiser, the invitation was sent by an organizer of the event, who was not covered by the Hatch Act.

You see? While the Hatch Act prevents fundraising by use of political titles, it doesn’t count if someone does it for you, Bloch’s office found. Dismissed!

That is one of 11 press releases issued by the OSC in the year 2008, and one of them was Bloch’s resignation. In previous years, most of the OSC victories were minor transgressions of the Hatch Act. In 2006, the OSC won a stunning victory against “quota politics.” What are quota politics?

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel reached a settlement that secured a faculty position at the Air Force Academy for a candidate originally chosen unanimously as the number one selection by a review board before quota politics intervened…. In this highly unusual case, the serviceman alleged that the U.S. Air Force Academy did not select him for a civilian faculty position because the he was a retired career service member…. The Superintendent of the Academy did not approve the hiring of claimant solely because the claimant was retired career service member and, by hiring him, the Academy would have exceeded its 33% target for retired career service members in the civilian faculty.

Quota politics!

In May of 2005, a year-and-a-half after Bloch took over, Congress commended the OSC. They had made three site visits. Their letter of commendation read: “At the end of this period of review, one previously critical Senate staffer informed us ‘we have satisfied ourselves that they did not throw any folders into the Potomac.’”

High standards.

This rating was based on such exciting investigations as this one in 2004:

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has filed a complaint for disciplinary action against Bonnie Cannan, a state employee with the Finger Lakes Developmental Disabilities Service Office (FLDDSO) in Rochester, New York. The OSC’s complaint, filed July 13, 2004 with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), charges Ms. Cannan with violating the Hatch Act’s prohibition against being a candidate for elective office in a partisan election.

Small potatoes? Perhaps. Bonnie Cannan, unsurprisingly, is a labor organizer and a member of the Green Party.

And early on, Bloch began his most famous act of weird, legal windmill-tilting. Bloch ordered a review of what the agency recognized as discrimination or retaliation characteristics under the law, and removed sexual orientation from the list of enforceables; he was forced to put it back, after complaint, but in fact refused to pursue complaints where sexual orientation was involved-for instance when a whistleblower at the Forest Service was hung out to dry after complaining about a coworker using the office to run a private business. Following this, Bloch’s chief deputy and at least nine others resigned; two gay employees were 86’d from the office.

And now, Bloch will plead guilty to a minor charge, for deleting all the work material on his computer, evading far more substantial charges. Amazingly? “Bloch told the House investigative staff that the data wipe was done to protect government and personal information on the computer, not to destroy it.” The Office of Personnel Management has an extensive report, yet to be released, which is sure to be a remarkable account of a remarkable time.

An Olympic runner is facing a two-year ban from competition for flunking a bunch of drug tests in which he tested positive for dehydroepiandrosterone (a.k.a. DHEA), a steroid that’s OK in over-the-counter products in the States but a no-no in Olympic competition. LaShawn Merritt, who won the 400-meter gold medal during the Beijing games, says that the failed test came from a “product that [he] used for personal reasons”; a person with “knowledge of the case” is claiming that the culprit was Extenze, the “natural male enhancement” drug that advertises late at night.

No, not the one with the smiling-Bob commercials and the whistling. That’s Enzyte! The Extenze ads are actually more horrifying and neurosis-inducing:

(For those of you keeping score at home: The That’s When I Clicked “Close Tab” Moment came after that one actress started enumerating all the family members of her “friend’s” small-membered suitor that she had also dated. Because it runs in the family! Oh ho ho arrrgh.)

Fear not, aspiring sportsmen who need a little natural male enhancement to get through the day: NASCAR seems to be more than OK with whatever stew of herbs, spices, and chemicals is thrown into Enzyte’s mix.

If you’re one of the many people with concerns about whether or not your cell phone will kill you with the cancer, there’s good news on the research front: “Thousands of people are to be studied over the course of 20 or 30 years to see if the long-term use of mobile phones increases the risk of developing brain tumours and other medical disorders, as part of the largest ever study into the subject.” So, you know, check back in three decades and we’ll have a much better idea. Until then, gab away. We’re all gonna die at some point anyway.

“A listing in the Connecticut Calendar in some editions on Sunday and on April 11 for an exhibition of sculpture by Karen Rossi running through Monday misstated the location, phone number and Web site of the venue. It will be held at the Funky Monkey Cafe and Gallery in Cheshire, Conn., not at the Funky Monkey Restaurant and Lounge in Morristown, N.J. The Cheshire gallery is at 130 Elm Street; the phone number is (203) 439–9161 and the Web site is thefunkymonkeycafe.com.”

“It’s not a big deal. It’s not going to make me a cupcake addict. In fact, it could be helpful. It might push me off sweets for a while.”
–Brooklyn resident and aspiring competitive eater Megan Daum looks at the long-term health benefits of forcing 24 chocolate cupcakes down her gullet during a 12-minute timespan in a all-amateur cupcake-eating contest scheduled for this weekend in Bay Ridge. [Pic via]