You missed the banking, auto maker and insurance bailouts. You couldn’t get to Miami fast enough to be the thousandth person in line for the 30 firefighter jobs. You can’t wait several years for the jobs promised by the so-called “economic stimulus” package; you’re not sure what a “green job” is...

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So you don’t have a job. Or maybe you do and just want a change.

You missed the banking, auto maker and insurance bailouts. You couldn’t get to Miami fast enough to be the thousandth person in line for the 30 firefighter jobs. You can’t wait several years for the jobs promised by the so-called “economic stimulus” package; you’re not sure what a “green job” is, and the last time you attempted to develop an “alternative energy resource” you had a firecracker mishap or were doing a Ben Franklin with lightning.

You undoubtedly regret not being elected to Congress. If you had just not paid your taxes, you’d still have a few dollars left and also be eligible for a cabinet position in the Obama administration.

Not to worry, though. The aforementioned Congress and Obama administration have jobs galore on the way. They’re just hidden and/or mislabeled in a $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill that could be voted on at any minute. That’s real money and it’s going to be spent right now, this year.

The reason you don’t know so much about the jobs potential in the bill is that the nubbins who are trying to ram it through don’t want you to know and those conservatives who are trying to stop it have been only calling it “pork,” riddled with “earmarks.” Well, it is pork and it does have 8,570 earmarks in it, and it does represent, according to an analysis by Senator Tom Coburn, “the largest increase in annual discretionary spending since the Carter Administration.”

But the bill is ever so much more than that. It is chockablock full of jobs that represent the sweep, swoop and economic diversity of this great innovative country, or, at least, the demented innovative chicanery of your duly-elected federal officials.

Why, there’s $1.6 million to the Washington State Department of Ecology for “citizen-driven environmental protection.” Don’t you want to be Director of that? Never mind that the federal government is paying for something that Washington State should pay for, if its citizens want it, or why it should cost taxpayer money for a “citizen-driven” project.

By now, too many people have probably learned of the $1.79 million project for Swine Odor and Manure Management for jobs to be still available there. Or, all things considered, maybe not. Try it anyway.

If you love the great outdoors, you’d better hurry, because there’s only $254,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute and $475,000 for the Bald Eagle Observatory in Alaska.

You could do termite research in Louisiana ($6.623 million), rodent control in Hawaii ($162,000) or weed management in Nevada ($235,000) or grape genetics in New York ($2.192 million) or dietary supplements research in Mississippi ($1.6 million).

Recognizing how much Americans love to fish, there are more grants for virtually every kind of fish, shellfish and other creatures that live under water than you can imagine. You could do Bluefin Tuna Tagging in California ($250,000), or fish management in Mobile, Alabama ($900,000) or Hawaiian sea turtle conservation ($7.1 million) and all that’s before you get to oysters, blue crabs, lobsters and the magnificent Lahontan cutthroat trout.

Obviously, when dealing with 8,570 earmarks in one bill alone, we cannot possibly cover all of the job opportunities hidden deeply within; you’re going to have to do something for yourselves.

We also must caution job seekers that the primary purpose of pork and earmarks is to reward supporters and special pleaders, so most of the jobs, whether they be in “Future Foods” or the “Iowa Vitality Center” or the “National Council of La Raza” are undoubtedly already committed. In addition, in the world of political patronage, it is not unknown for job holders to find it necessary to make certain “tributes.”

In the criminal world, such arrangements would be called “kickbacks.” But in the world of doing ever so much good for your country, you might think of them as an extension of your “patriotism.” Surely it cannot be patriotic to oppose a bill for which so many have labored so hard to think up such creative ways to spend taxpayer money. Can it?