This is why Iowa doesn't get pro sports teams

Iowa was recently awarded an AHL franchise. They are to be the minor league affiliate of the Anaheim Ducks. For local reference, the Penguins AHL affiliate is the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

Their name: the Iowa Chops. Their logo: an angry pig shaped like a pork chop.


Even better is that they don't even own the name. They licensed it for three years from the Iowa Pork Producers Association. Bad self rationalization follows.

“We really feel this name perfectly represents our vision of the new team,” says team owner Kirby Schlegel, CEO of Schlegel Sports. “It illustrates Iowa’s agricultural heritage while also playing into the definition of ‘chops’, having nerve, resilience and staying power. The word ‘chops’ can mean continually defeating someone, and that is the reputation we expect Iowa’s new team to gain in the league.”

It seems they invented a definition for chop that means winning or having nerve. They should have just said "We like money, the pig men gave it to us, now you have to root for a cut of meat." They then pulled a stunt so bush league that PT Barnum would have blushed: they offered Brett Favre a contract.

This is why we don't let the Midwest participate in pro sports. Green Bay got grandfathered in based on its proximity to Milwaukee and the Pacers and Colts reside in a real city. That made us feel dirty so we've all since decided that you can't be allowed to degrade our precious precious diversions with your rube-ish leanings. You've tried to get around that by stealing the Sonics out of Seattle and moving them to Oklahoma City, but that won't last. You can't even treat an AHL franchise properly. Don't make us take away your indoor football team. We're this close.

Broken News: Notorious War Criminal Discovered Posing as Game Show Host

UKRAINE--A saga that transfixed three continents and spanned half a century has finally come to a close as former The Price is Right game show host, Bob Barker, was arrested and charged with crimes against humanity. The genocidal mastermind, who had evaded authorities by hiding in plain sight for over 50 years, was apprehended in a raid on what authorities called a “shoddy Ukrainian carnival.”

"Truly, today is a great day,” proclaimed Adam Bergenthal, spokesman for the International Court of Justice. “One of the most sadistic, morally repugnant men to ever walk the earth is finally in custody."

The saga began last October when Barker was outed as Colonel Beto Cassacia, a fascist paramilitary leader responsible for 24,000 known civilian deaths during the Paraguayan Civil War. El Apergaminado Loco or “The Wrinkled Madman,” as he was known then, was notorious for stalking the countryside flanked by a perverse coterie of sideshow performers, forcing disobedient peasants to fertilize the cocoa fields with the ashes of their children before having all of the livestock spayed or neutered.

Perhaps the most egregious example of Cassica's cruelty took place at the village of Alto Horque in August of 1953. Villagers were forced at gunpoint, five at a time, to guess the cash value of clay pots, hand-woven decorative rugs, and other common household items. The villager who came closest to the actual retail price -- a foreign concept in what was then an agrarian barter economy -- without going over survived until the next round, while the remaining four were drawn and quartered.

When his faction lost the Civil War in 1954, it is assumed Cassica fled north through Bolivia and Brazil. A man matching his description was reported to be nutting goats with his bare teeth in the middle of the night, before escaping into the nearby salt marshes. Cassica eventually made it up through Mexico and all the way to the southeastern United States, where he murdered a transient named Robert Barker. The international fugitive then shaved his trademark bushy beard, known as "The Nest of a Thousand Tears," and assumed Barker's identity. After working his way up through the Los Angeles entertainment industry, Barker finally found a home for the demented parlor games that had made him the scourge of his native land: Daytime Television.

The first such show was Truth or Consequences, where incorrect trivia answers required the completion of zany stunts, as opposed to ritual disembowelment. The effort proved unsuccessful both commercially and as a vehicle for stoking the sexual ecstasy Barker derived from his sick games. He finally found his niche in 1975, though, with the launch of the revamped The Price Is Right, where he rose to prominence over the ensuing decades, never once giving any indication that America's favorite game show host was a bloodthirsty fugitive war criminal.

“The trail was cold for years,” said Juan Erico, chief investigator for the Simón Wiesenthal Center for Paraguayan Justice. “Then in late September of 2007, a Paraguayan Soy Farmers delegation was visiting the studio where they filmed The Price Is Right. An elderly farmer named Raul Arévalos recognized Colonel Cassacia."

Arévalos, though only a child at the time, was forced by Cassacia to play a crude precursor to "Plinko" using the skull of his older sister. While the course of time coupled with the Colonel's clean-shaven face made him difficult to recognize, Arévalos swore he would "never forget those eyes. Those cold, dead eyes..."

Erico went on to explain, "Cassacia must have gotten wind that we were onto him. Shortly after that taping, he fled the country before we could close in."

Almost immediately, CBS and Mark Goodson Television Productions concocted a cover story claiming that Barker had simply retired. They then hastily hired comedian Drew Carey as Barker's replacement while allegedly working through back channels to ensure Barker's safe and silent exile in Ukraine, one of the last areas of the planet where American daytime television had yet to gain a foothold.

Despite the well-orchestrated disappearance and financial backing, Barker's location was soon betrayed by an undisclosed number of global operatives. While the ICJ has been slow to release details, initial rumors suggested that Barker was captured while working as the ringmaster at a low-rent carnival sideshow in the Donets'k region of Ukraine, near the Sea of Azov. Lead Interpol agent, Jacques Yves, confirmed this rumor, explaining that the fugitive attempted to make a mad dash out of the dilapidated tent before being subdued and tranquilized by a team of operatives, several of whom had disguised themselves as inebriated circus patrons.

“We made our move after he [Cassacia/Barker] had been beating a sickly Siberian tiger in front of a burning hoop for almost half an hour,” said Yves through a translator. “The scene was... despicable. Goats wandered freely, there was feces everywhere, and I think the man sitting next to me was masturbating into a cage of infant ducks. Their so-called ‘Siamese Twins’ were two Koreans in the same pair of pants. It was pathetic."

Asked if the pursued put up any resistance, Yves explained, "When I tackled this Barker fellow, he screamed something about ‘glory to the South American fascist movement’ and tried to swallow a cyanide capsule. I wrestled it out of his hands and tranqued him. As he slipped into unconsciousness, a midget in a worn tuxedo circled and surveyed the scene on a motorized scooter. The dozen or so people watching began to applaud.”

Barker is being transported to Kiev where he will be booked and then turned over to the World Court at the Hague. The captive has steadfastly asserted his innocence, defending the crimes of which he is accused as, “the necessary conduct of a just war” and has vowed to act as his own lawyer at trial. Mark Goodson Television Productions has refused comment and is said to be conducting a thorough background check on Drew Carey, specifically the formative years he spent in Cleveland.

Bush ordered to follow subpoena law

Judge: White House Aides Can Be Subpoenaed

WASHINGTON — President Bush's top advisers are not immune from congressional subpoenas, a federal judge ruled Thursday in an unprecedented dispute between the two political branches.

The House Judiciary Committee wants to question the president's chief of staff, Josh Bolten, and former legal counsel Harriet Miers, about the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. But President Bush says they are immune from such subpoenas. They say Congress can't force them to testify or turn over documents.

U.S. District Judge John Bates disagreed, saying there's no legal basis for that argument and that Miers must appear before Congress. If she wants to refuse to testify, he said, she must do so in person.

Yeah, the Bush Administration done got told that it had to follow the actual law, not the law as they wished it. This seems to be some sort of a pattern: claim some vast new illegal power, claim its totally legal and that furthermore you are able to bend steel girders with your super strength, get sued by liberals who at this point have repetitive stress disorders from eye rolling and shoulder shrugging, refuse to show up while brandishing your brightly colored baboon ass to the country, be told by judge that you are crooked liars making claims with no basis in reality.

Now the liars get to be marched two by two into an ark and sailed over to the House, where they will give vague dissembling answers that fail to answer simple questions, stall for time, deliberately misunderstand simple questions, and hopefully start pleading the fifth, confirming that yeah they need to be screwed into their pants every morning. Ideally this and the Rove contempt vote would lead to the sound of the scurrying of rats as they slit each others throats in an attempt to avoid jail time. But nothing of the sort will happen, everyone will fuck around at the House, nothing will really get answered, no one will do time for breaking the law, and nothing will really get accomplished. Like always.

Bush reduces troop tours, I develop psychic powers

Bush has cut troop tours in Iraq from 15 months to 12 months, hinting at the possibility of further troop reductions later in the year and actually appearing to do a positive thing.

I haven't bothered to read the article because I wanted to perform an experiment. I am betting that Bush will still play up the dangerousness and tenuousness of the situation, to be sure. I am also betting that he will use the phrases "We are a nation at war", "Terrorists are dangerous" and "Terrorists are still determined to strike at us." Now I will go look.

Shit yeah! SAME SENTENCE! "We remain a nation at war," he said. "The terrorists remain dangerous and they are determined to strike our country and our allies again." I am the fuckin' all-seer. I know when you will die! I am a being of pure thought!

This will likely to do little to ease the arguments between Democrats and republicans about who Iraq loves more and wants to spend the rest of her life with. But if you're a soldier, or 'troop' as I believe jargon dictates, congrats: you get to spend 3 less months with sand in your crack......subject to typical Bush Administrations guarantees, prices and liscense may vary, not available in all stores. Go nuts.

Sad trombone for Exxon

Exxon today set the quarterly profit record, netting $11.68 billion on revenue of $138 billion. $1,485.55 a second.

But if you check their stock ticker, Exxon is dropping in value today. Why is that? Because despite making the most profit ever in one quarter, they fell short of industry revenue projections. They should've made $12.1 billion in profit on $144.4 billion in revenue. Apparently they spent too much on the hooker parties, tiger steaks, and money fights. Say it with me now: AWWWWWWWWWWW! Bloomberg tries to spin this as a bad thing and sounds gloom and doom alarms for why we should all feel sorry for oil companies.

This has at least led to some ideas from our elected betters on how to crack open Big Oil's skull and feast on the sweet sweet frontal lobe inside.

Congressional Democrats said they are having a conference later in the day to call for an end to tax breaks for big oil firms.

Several bills have been introduced in Congress to enact a "windfall" profits tax on these earnings, or at the very least eliminate manufacturing tax exemption oil companies now enjoy. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama wants to tax oil companies at a special rate every time crude goes over $80 a barrel.

Most plans would either use this newfound tax money to fund investments in renewable energy, or give it to low income Americans struggling with high energy prices.

Republicans predictably outraged, will attempt to block.

So remember when you fill up your car at the pump, get some gas to huff out of a sack, or buy a tall glass of oil to drink: you are disappointing the oil companies and not allowing them to hit their goals. Feel shame.

RAND dumps on Bush

Strategy Against Al-Qaeda Faulted

The Bush administration's terrorism-fighting strategy has not significantly undermined al-Qaeda's capabilities, according to a major new study that argues the struggle against terrorism is better waged by law enforcement agencies than by armies.

The study by the nonpartisan Rand Corp. also contends that the administration committed a fundamental error in portraying the conflict with al-Qaeda as a "war on terrorism." The phrase falsely suggests that there can be a battlefield solution to terrorism, and symbolically conveys warrior status on terrorists, it said.

"Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors," authors Seth Jones and Martin Libicki write in "How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al-Qaeda," a 200-page volume released yesterday.

But the authors contend that al-Qaeda has sabotaged itself by creating ever greater numbers of enemies while not broadening its base of support. "Al-Qaeda's probability of success in actually overthrowing any government is close to zero," the report states.
...
The authors call for a strategy that includes a greater reliance on law enforcement and intelligence agencies in disrupting the group's networks and in arresting its leaders. They say that when military forces are needed, the emphasis should be on local troops, which understand the terrain and culture and tend to have greater legitimacy.

In Muslim countries in particular, there should be a "light U.S. military footprint or none at all," the report contends.

"The U.S. military can play a critical role in building indigenous capacity," it said, "but should generally resist being drawn into combat operations in Muslim societies, since its presence is likely to increase terrorist recruitment."

More or less RAND just shat on the entire Bush/McCain post-9/11 strategy. Putting soldiers on the ground is counter-productive to US goals in reducing terrorism. We need to take on terrorism as more of a law enforcement problem. Essentially more Bill Clinton less George W. Bush. It is yet another in a long long line of repudiations to the failed polices we've engaged in that have made us less safe, hasn't fixed the problems we've needed to fix, and in many was has been completely antithetical to our goals.

Sources say Barack Obama broke out into a strut at yet another positive assessment of his policies and criticisms. John McCain reportedly grabbed a shotgun, fired it into a stack of hay bales, took off his shirt talkin' 'bout "Now who else wanna fuck with Hollywood Court?" Damn.

When visiting our fair city...

Please be advised that while the NYPD beats you with a steel baton, any defensive hand positioning or pleas for mercy will be interpreted as aggressive gestures and threatening language, respectively.



via HuffingtonPost

Fancy shoes, John

John McCain has extra fancy tastes, in case you cared. $520 Ferragamo calfskin loafers, to be precise. These are totally from Ferragamo's "Man of the People" line of expensive loafers.

McCain doesn't really understand taxes, social security, or the economy, but he understands style and fancy kicks. Wait, he married a heiress, buys large houses, jets around on his private plane, and buys expensive clothes. He does understand something about economics, at least economies of scale. He's got it, flaunt it.

But he's not an elitist. Christ no. He's knows his gardener's name and everything. She comes from one of the Southern Americas. Paragzil or something.

Obama hits ball off tee

I know some of you were worried. Don't be. Obama and the House Democrats are on board to work together to win the Presidency. I know, I didn't think it would happen either, but they were able to put aside their like-mindedness to work together to win in November. Obama was able to convince them or something. Furthermore, the House Dems are committed to change, can't wait to pass legislation that they all support, and want to work hard for the American people. Whew! I was hoping for 1 or 2 out of 3, but all 3?

Dreams coming true......magical......feeling....tingly...in...special...place.

Asked whether the subject of Obama's vice-presidential search came up, Ackerman said: "Are you kidding? There were 230 vice presidents in the room."

Let's not get crazy here. There are maybe 10 whole politicians in that room who are palatable to more than the handful of mouth breathers that elected these grifters. 3 could probably pass a background check that didn't turn up allegations of 'buggery'. And those 3 are probably too smart to want the position. The House is America's political short bus.

Sleep easy America, the Democrats are working together. For now. If he gets elected all bets are off.

Our ally Pakistan: Closer ties to militants than us

On Monday President Bush praised Pakistan as 'a strong ally in the fight against terrorists' and as 'committed to securing its border with Afghanistan'.

The reality? They aren't that committed.

A top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled secretly to Islamabad this month to confront Pakistan’s most senior officials with new information about ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to American military and intelligence officials.

The C.I.A. emissary presented evidence showing that members of the spy service had deepened their ties with some militant groups that were responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan, possibly including the suicide bombing this month of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the officials said.
...
The C.I.A. assessment specifically points to links between members of the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and the militant network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, which American officials believe maintains close ties to senior figures of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Maybe we need to give them more jets. Same story, we say we want them to do more, they say they are committed, they do nothing and possibly hinder our efforts in the border region, we say we understand their difficulties, we send money, we're worse off, repeat. Expect a few meaningless raids on border groups, no arrests, more statements about 'commitment', requests for cash in non-sequential bills, and further reports that the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse.

The New Media

You have a problem. You don't want to spend the money to do a real ad buy for an attack ad this political season. So what do you do? You make a really dishonest one, show if a few times in a few token markets, and hope the media picks up on it and shows it for free every five minutes. It's been working pretty well for John McCain this week.

The number of times Senator John McCain’s new advertisement attacking Senator Barack Obama for canceling a visit with wounded troops in Germany last week has been shown fully or partly on local, national and cable newscasts: well into the hundreds.

The number of times that spot actually, truly ran as a paid commercial: roughly a dozen.

Result for Mr. McCain: a public relations coup that allowed him to show his toughest campaign advertisement of the year — one widely panned as misleading — to millions of people, largely free, through television news media hungry for political news with arresting visual imagery.

That's right, the news media will rampantly run campaign commercials in their entirety if they meet the base standard of pretty colors and being political. Thankfully for at least the bare minimum of journalistic standards, this particular commercial has run often with the talking heads pointing out how dishonest it is. But it frequently runs with just chatter about "What will Obama do" and "Does this hurt Obama".

Which brings us to the larger problem of the news media: the death of objective truth. Used to be that when you told a lie you were corrected and if the mistake was willful, called a liar. Now, you just make misstatements. That's if they even want to call you on it. Most times you can say whatever you want and it will be presented as equal to the truth as long as it is a discussion within the political realm. "Some say the moon is made of rock and orbits the earth, while others say it's made of green cheese and earth orbit it. Both sides of the debate up next." Balance is defined as giving equal weight to what two people say no matter how inaccurate one or both of them is. If a Democrat says something truthful and a Republican counters with a lie (or vice versa), then both must be given equal weight because taking one 'side' might be seen as 'partisan'. That's why campaigns dredge up dishonest ads with the hope of getting free media coverage. They know the discussion will rarely be about the truth of the ad, only what the ad means to the horserace.

These Bastards Moment of Pride

Allow us a little bit of self wankery tonight. When you search for 'mccain stupid old bastard' we are the 4th site that comes up. I'm welling up with pride here. Thank you to the person from Sterling Heights, Michigan who found our site this way. We hope it was everything you dreamed of.

Everything is proceeding as we have foreseen. We are rubbing elbows with Think Progress and Gawker on "the google." Soon we will be #1 for 'mccain stupid old bastard', then #1 for 'mccain jugg fuckler' 'truncheon fuck' and 'O-bomb-a diggity.' Then the money, then the power, then the women. Then the mechanized terror-bots that fuck your eyes with drill bits, then project cost overruns on the space laser, then failure and ruin, then a new blog, then success again, then the arrest and trial. It'll be an exciting six months.

You've made Ted Stevens angry, you wouldn't like him when he's angry

When he is discussing issues that are especially important to him, Stevens wears a necktie with The Incredible Hulk on it to show his seriousness.

Ted Stevens, Hulk aficionado, the Senate Majority Project's "Drama Queen of the US Senate", creator of "The Bridge To Nowhere", the man who knows the internet is not a truck but a series a tubes, and longest serving Republican Senator, was indicted today on 7 criminal charges, severely clogging said tubes in the blogosphere.

They range in seriousness but the big one is for failing to report gifts in excess of $250,000 dollars that included a new first floor, garage, wraparound deck, plumbing, and electrical wiring for his vacation home, a Viking gas grill, furniture and tools. The gifts were, unsurprisingly, from oil services company VECO Corp. Stevens is, unsurprisingly, for drilling the arctic. He wore his Hulk tie to show how serious he was about drilling. For serious.

It's hard to see how Stevens got off so light. Fellow Alaskan congressman Don Young is under investigation for similar charges, VECO CEO Bill J. Allen admitted to bribery and in court papers acknowledged making $243,000 in illegal payments to Ted Stevens son Ben, an Alaskan state senator, and VECO VP Rick Smith also pleaded guilty to bribery. Everyone around him is going down for bribery and corruption and he's, as of yet, only been charged with making false statements and failing to report his graft and dirty dealings. He's vowed to fight the charges, but it's hard to see what his defense will be based on when essentially a company liked his stoogery and boot licking so much they decided he needed an extra story on his house and that his son could use a quarter mil in fuck around money.

Per Republican Senate caucus rules he can no longer serve as chairman or ranking member of a committee because of the indictment. Stevens is a ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Marvel Comics, Science, Tubes, and Transportation Committees. But he does get bonus points from the caucus for this scandal not being an embarrassing sexual one.

NOW has a corruption timeline and the Alaska Daily News has a rundown of everyone involved.

Dance wit' the one that brung ya

When you approval rating places you in the public esteem somewhere between colon surgery and Herpes, your administration just fessed up to a record-setting budget shortfall, a Democrat is tending your lawn in the eyes of the world, and even your speech writers have turned on you, there is but one way. Stick with what you're good at. In the case of our 43rd President, that means killing people.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush could have commuted the death sentence of Ronald A. Gray, a former Army cook convicted of multiple rapes and murders.

But Bush decided Monday that Gray's crimes were so repugnant that execution was the only just punishment.

That's right, folks. The brave cowboy who set the Texas record for state executions while governor is back at it. Only this time, he's not some hard-chargin' evidence-overlookin' guvnah'. No no, he's the C.I.C. who will go down as the first sitting president in 51 years to endorse the execution (as required by the Uniform Code of Military Justice) of an American soldier.

Irrespective of your stance on capital punishment, I believe the message here is clear:

Murder two American soldiers and you get the needle.

Murder 4,100+ and your get, well, a library and a bigger package.

Hooah!

McCain is not awkward

At dawn the applesauce strikes!

That may not have gone as well as he could have hoped, but McCain has vowed to not leave that aisle for 100 years, to show Mott's that they will never defeat America.

McCain has growths removed again

This really should be a bigger deal. John McCain, a man with a storied history of skin cancer and malignant and benign growths on his face, had yet another one that needed to be surgically removed. This in addition to one that had to be removed earlier in the year, that was hidden from the media.

Shouldn't the fact that McCain constantly has to have tumors carved off his face like he was the main course at a Brazilian churrascaria be a large concern for his fitness for office. Take away all the stupid plans he wants to enact, could this man even survive a term in office? Isn't a 72 year old man constantly getting face cancer kind of a problem? Not to mention the troubling mental gaffes: today he's back to liking timetables again, and he thinks Petraeus is chairman of the joint chiefs.

Seems like a somewhat mature society could have a discussion about the health of one of the candidates and.....oh shit I forgot, this is America. Does Obama love the flag enough to have sex with it?

Why I hate the media: Dowd and Cohen

It's no secret that I hate the media in this country. If you took every political journalist, put them on a boat, took it out 12 miles, sunk it, then shot anyone who was able to swim back, I think you'd dramatically improve this country and the way the government gets covered. More than anything I hate the columnists that drive the media conventional wisdom. You know what I'm talking about, the wisdom that always ends up wrong but every pundit spouts about for weeks on end. This week gave me two good examples for why I hate.

Today via the Washington Post's columnist Richard Cohen. His premise? If you count everything good John McCain did and don't count anything good Barack Obama did, McCain looks better. Furthermore if you count the things McCain did to serve his conservative constituency as good and count the things Obama did to serve his liberal constituency as inherently bad, then McCain looks even better. Also Cohen is too busy to bother learning about Obama, so that is a positive for McCain as well.

From Sunday, the New York Times' Maureen Dowd comes another line in the same column she writes three out of every four weeks: Every Democrat is an effeminate gay-mosexual for some ill-defined reason. This week Obama is total queer-bait (again) because he went to France and interacted with straight men.

A column based around "If you don't count this and only count this, then a different event from reality happens" Rich? It's the kind of column lame, homer sports fans write after every failed season. "If only the Pirates won 30 more games, spent more than the bare minimum, and fielded a complete roster of major league caliber players, they totally would have won the World Series." Furthermore he seems to be unable to even to the most basic level of research into a candidate: clicking on the issues tab on someone's website. But then we might have been spared his brilliant wisdom.

As for Dowd, every week they should just spin a wheel with every Democrats name on it and a wheel with common every day actions on it, then just fill both into the sentence "____ is effeminate because they did ____." "Russ Feingold is effeminate because he ate a foot long hot dog." If a woman's name comes up we just switch the slur to "dykey." Then we can spend 3 seconds reading it, know why they're gay, and you can go edit the cattiest High School gossip column in the lower 48, just like you always wanted.

You make millions, have a weekly national audience in two of the biggest papers in the country and this is the shit you come up with. I understand that it's hard to come up with a new idea every week. But can you at least put some effort into it? For my sanity's sake? No? I'm gay and if you don't count everyone worse than me I'm history's greatest monster? Fine. Would you like to come to this party cruise I'm having? Bill Kristol, Tom Friedman, and David Broder will be there.

Broken News: Local Woman Shocked, Shocked to Learn her Personal Blog Just a Commercial

NEW YORK— Long Island City resident Marissa Florentine was rushed to the hospital earlier today upon realizing that her personal weblog, HypomanicScenester, consists almost exclusively of product endorsements, lifestyle tips gleaned from celebrity magazines, and bragging.

Florentine, 26, was on her way to Understuff’d, a recently opened Chelsea Tapas bar, when the revelation occurred. Sources close to the Junior Marketing Analyst claim that when she collapsed in the cab, they thought it only a common side-effect of Florentine’s 500 calorie-per-day diet and stress induced by a conspicuous obsession with convincing everyone she was doing more and better things than they.

“I couldn’t believe what happened,” remarked Tiffany Burton, the victim's co-worker and primary shopping partner. “I read on Gawker and Daily Intel that self-obsessing to the point of nauseating narcissism was typical New York behavior. She should have been able to weather this phase for at least another few years, until a snarky remark directed at her during a gallery opening for a fecal artist at a Moroccan fusion bar devastated her to the point where she realized she was a little too old to be carrying on like that.”

A cursory examination of the blog revealed Florentine's fears to be well-founded, as the most recent four posts detailed, in order: a comprehensive, head-to-toe description of the week's outfits; a glowing endorsement of the new tequila she discovered on a business trip to Miami; the precise coordinates of three new “animal friendly” lingerie boutiques; and a link to Citygrrl.com encouraging visitors to purchase a “Groceries Are For Suckers” bumper sticker.

Upon regaining consciousness in the 24th Street New York Presbyterian Hospital, Florentine immediately broke into tears, exclaiming, “They were supposed to have the best grape leaves west of 7th Avenue!” Her equally slender and vacant dinner companions would have rushed to her bedside just then, had they not repaired to Understuff’d immediately after checking Florentine into the hospital.

Burton defended the decision, squealing, “It was 2-for-1 on Andalusian platters and half price on mint tea Fresca-tinis! The food was served on doll house plates so you could really be bad and get two or three. I had the Puntillitas and a grape leaf that had been waved in front of a starving Iberian pig. With Marissa out of action I had to blog about it on my blog, Welcome to Six Months Ago. I hope it gets linked by one of the blogs my friends write!”

“I can’t believe this is happening to me,” said a sobbing Florentine. “I was just writing about things I assumed I should tell everyone I liked. And I had this great post all ready about taking a Summer Friday, having this awesome session on the elliptical, finding an amazing pair of black, knee-length shorts at MUJI, sipping some great chai at Sympathy for the Kettle -- which is an awesome place to go when you just want to relax and read Time Out -- then getting an amazing mani-pedi at Sweet Lily, throwing on this great pair of Anne Klein capris with my awesome new tight black tank top and these amazing chrome ballet flats I've been dying to wear and then going to Understuff'd, which is supposed to be a great place. Just a normal amazing day, you know?"

A native of Parma, OH, Florentine arrived in New York City eighteen months ago determined to embrace the limitless cultural opportunities afforded her by a lucrative marketing job while, “staying true to my more altrueistic [sic] roots.” Sadly, mere days after arriving, Florentine contracted a virus scientists have identified as Midwestern Girl in New York Syndrome (MGNYS). Symptoms include shortened attention span, obnoxious self-involvement, smugness, infidelity, borderline anorexia, rampant and irreversible narcissism, and the tendency to be distracted by anything new and shiny. There is no known cure, although some physicians have recommended "shaking the bitch."

Further research into HypomanicScenester uncovered a penchant for attributing complimentary drinks to her outgoing personality and “niceness,” an inability to understand why "people get so down about the economy," and a complete failure to grasp the inherent irony of, in one breath, referencing the latest Atlantic Monthly exposé on Chinese clothing factories while encouraging readers to buy hip new brands whose products are made in China.

Florentine's mother, prominent Cleveland socialite and philanthropist, Guinnevere Florentine, who frequently visits her daughter in New York, is perhaps the most loyal of Hypomanic Scenester’s twelve readers. The senior Florentine was unavailable for comment, however, as she was parasailing in the Mediterranean at press time.

Upon being released, Florentine found herself conflicted over whether she should even bother posting about her upcoming visit with “an old guy friend” at his family’s oceanfront property in Kennebunkport, Maine. “Tucker is such a good friend, you know? We sort of had this thing in college but decided not to get serious. I really can’t wait to catch up.”

She is unclear as to what the next step is. “I don’t know if I can really subsume my identity further and commit to things on more than a superficial level. Maybe I can just post self portraits of me in front of a mirror with a camera onto MySpace? I just don't know! I need something and without the consumerist zealotry and self-reference there’s just not much there. I considered ignorantly posting about politics in a sarcastic manner, but that’s so hackneyed and unoriginal...”

Music industry figures out way to have less integrity

Chew on This: Hit Song Is a Gum Jingle

Sharp-eared pop-music fans may have noticed a brief reference to an old chewing-gum jingle buried in "Forever," Chris Brown's top-10 hit. "Double your pleasure/double your fun," the R&B singer croons in the chorus.

What listeners don't know -- and what Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. planned to reveal Tuesday -- is that the song is a commercial. R&B singer Chris Brown's 'Forever,' which hit No. 4 on the Hot 100, is also a gum jingle.

"Forever" is an extended version of a new Doublemint jingle written by Mr. Brown and scheduled to begin airing next month in 30-second spots for Wrigley's green-packaged chewing gum.

Finally. The music industry took a break from suing people to degrade itself further as a medium. If the entire rap industry being devoted to product placement, fashion lines, and name dropping expensive shit wasn't enough to make you shit standing, gum jingles disguised as pop songs should do it.

The campaign includes spots featuring R&B singer Ne-Yo doing Big Red's "kiss a little longer" jingle, and Julianne Hough on Juicy Fruit's "The taste is gonna move ya." Next year they hope to roll out Prince for Cadbury Creme Eggs, Metallica for Rice-A-Roni, and whoever wins American Idol will have a Coca-Cola logo tattooed onto their entire face.

This is what the music industry spends it's time on. Suing consumers, making music more difficult to get, retrograde contracts, and overt marketing superseding any shred of artistic integrity. No wonder their sale are dropping every year. They focus on shit that infuriates people instead of things that people like. Itunes had to be jammed down their throat and they don't even like that. Don't make it easier for us to download and access music, don't try to develop credible artists, give us more gum jingles and ad pitch men.

Could Barry blow it?

In a desperate attempt to refrain from making tasteless Robert Novak brain tumor jokes -- we're going to wait a day because we're classy gents -- Matthew and I have been pondering something sour, depraved and practically unthinkable. And no, not interviewing with Monica Goodling for a job at the Justice Department. What we've been kicking around the office along with the baby seal head is much, much worse.

With fewer than 100 days until the election, polling well, his opponent now bearing a striking resemblance to this guy, and the de facto Presidency already assumed, what would Obama have to do to actually lose this thing? After all, miserable failure in the face of great odds is a proud Democratic Party tradition and, admit it, even the most optimistic amongst you have that tiny flicker of doubt in the backs of your minds.

Here's what we came up with. The These Bastards Division of Statisticianry posits that any combination of three or more would constitute a fatal blow to the historic Obama campaign. So please pass this along to any volunteers or staffers you know personally and maybe it'll make its way up to the big guy in time.

How Obama could lose this thing:
-Drop baby
-Be found with live boy and/or dead girl
-Drown Ted Kennedy at Chappaquiddick
-Enact policy of extinguishing cigarettes on staffers' forearms
-Reveal that campaign is really just a precursor for run at President of Europe
-Admit to slipping brain-mangling neurotoxins into John McCain's root marm
-Drop two babies
-Leak more details of that meeting with Mohamed Atta in Berlin a few years back
-Go duck hunting on November 3rd
-Windmill Dunk on retarded kid during pick-up basketball photo op
-Divine right of Democratic Presidential Candidate to deliver groin kicks at will
-Become irradiated, quadruple in size, destroy downtown Peoria

McCain: Awful or Stupid?

Boy, this photo isn't creepy at all.

There has been some discussion between Sean and myself about John McCain. At this point are we just making fun of and heaping abuse on an old man who doesn't really understand things? Yes, yes McCain is really old. Does he have serious problems?

Just this weekend on This Week with George Stephanopolous McCain thought we were greeted as liberators in Iraq, called Maliki's timetable (which is basically Obama's timetable) a 'pretty good timetable' and then claimed he never said such a thing, then proclaimed that through sneering, grimacing, frowning and doses of shame he would get oil companies not to keep the increased profits if he got to enact his moronic gas tax plan, then railed against gay adoption and foster care in a system where half of kids don't get placed, then finished up with some old canards about affirmative action. Clearly not his finest hour, but it seems like a pattern this whole campaign. Is this because he's old and out of touch? Are we being too mean and taking advantage of St. John, a man with clear mental issues?

No! The man is a craven, fucking liar! Eat it you soft motherfuckers, he deserves our hate and scorn. He doesn't even understand the awful policies he advocates for in an awful manner. Public squares need to be built for people like John McCain, so we can put them in stockades and hurl rotten fruit and eggs at them as we decry their policies and methods. Yes he's old...an old sonovabitch who can't keep straight all his beliefs he sold out to get elected. He's knee deep in his own bullshit and struggles when confronted with quotes he made the day before. He can't even run credible smear ads. His campaign has devolved into pure fantasy. Boo this man.

More hate tomorrow.

Wave of bombings in Iraq

In case you forgot: Iraq is still really fucking violent and unstable. With our Presidential candidates Goofus and Gallant prattling on and on about how awesome the surge made things (Utopia...but not enough to leave or not-Utopia enough...but enough to leave and go to Afghanistan), you probably forgot the standard by which we measure things.

Iraq vs. a normal country = Makes things look pretty fucking violent and unstable.

Iraq now vs. Iraq a year and a half ago = Things look much better.

Iraq vs. Colombia during drug wars in the 80's = Iraq looks kinda safe.

Iraq vs. Gettysburg somewhere between July 1 and July 3, 1863 = Apparently McCain's comparison.

Things there aren't going that great. Try and remember for the next time some media hairdo tries to tell you how much better the surge made things. Only by earlier Iraq standards, not normal ones.

Attention Readers: Nothing is fucked here

What was surely the first of many, many Steelers posts has apparently angered a few of our more loyal readers, to the point where they tattled on Matthew via pissy emails to yours truly.

I, too was irritated by the sight of Steely McBeam on the site and have therefore informed Matthew that, starting now, he will lose one finger for each picture of The Worst Mascot in History he posts on These Bastards. If he persists, as he likely will, there are plenty of family members to kidnap.

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patronage.

As you were.

I sure hope you're hungry

Congratulations, President Obamccain. Here is the commemorative pile of fiscal shit we've cooked up for you to swallow during your first term.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The next president will inherit a record budget deficit approaching $490 billion, a Bush administration official said Monday.

The official said the deficit was being driven to an all-time high by the sagging economy and the stimulus payments being made to 130 million households in an effort to keep the country from falling into a deep recession. A deficit approaching $490 billion would easily surpass the record deficit of $413 billion set in 2004.

Honestly, we had no idea this would happen. I mean, who'd have thought that deep tax cuts, the bloated spending of patronage politics, and burying $560 billion (and growing!) in the desert would create a financially tenuous situation?

But we got us into this mess, so the least we can do is help sort it out. Why, I bet if we all just sit down and roll up our sleeves we could-- HOLY SHIT, WHAT IS THAT?!-- (door slams, heavy footsteps, sound of tires squealing).

The $40 million failure amidst the $1 trillion failure

Via the AP: Empty prison in Iraq a $40M 'failure'

Another story of fraud an waste in Iraq. This time Parsons, a California contractor, was awarded a $900 million dollar contract for 53 projects dealing with prisons, border posts, courts, police training centers and fire stations. If this were the US they would have needed to assign 50+ contract officers and specialists, they assigned 10. Of the 53 projects, 18 were completed. For their troubles Parsons has been paid $333 million so far. Half of that sum was for projects that were terminated or canceled, including the prison profiled here and in the Washington Post. The prison isn't even usable.

This of course is part of a larger story of waste in Iraq. The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, who should release a larger report today, estimated more than $4 billion of the $21 billion spent so far in the U.S.-bankrolled Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund was wasted. That's just in this one area, as much as $23 billion has been lost or stolen overall. And yet the White House stands in the way of stronger independent oversight and overhauling the contracting system, while the Pentagon pressures auditors to favor the contractors.

On the whole, compared to Iraq as a whole, the loss of a few billion is probably one of the smaller unforgivables of this whole fiasco. But then it just shows you that this war was a clusterfuck from top to bottom. Every aspect is tainted, corrupted and executed poorly. They can't even keep an eye on $23 billion, how could we have expected them to run a war?

Attention fellow Pittsburghers: Life has meaning again

Our Hero. Pride of the Steelers. Not embarrassing.

Camp Tomlin II, open for business. Life starts anew. Plan your next few months properly. Hardest schedule in the league, suspect O-line, no depth on D-line, oh yeah, this season's going to knock a few years off the end of your life.

Just how many people has Barack HUSSEIN Obama killed?

Via My Right Wing Dad comes a new e-mail list circulating about all the suspicious deaths surrounding on Barack Hussein Obama, the communist, islamofascist, black separatist, gay, socialist, blackity black, Muslim, black, Democratic, black candidate for President of Black America (Blackmerica).

What's funny is not the typical right wing crazy, but: 1) the fact that it uses Snopes to vouch for its accuracy, 2) the more overt than usual racism (“Rib shack” “Catfish restaurant” “Baby daddy” "Curtis “Pookie” Jackson" and numerous crack references are just a few of the good ones, apparently Obama hasn't killed anyone eating watermelon at a Popeye's...yet), and 3) the alleged ties these people have to Barack Obama.

Let's get it out of the way that most of the people on the list almost certainly do not exist. It would be more accurate to accuse Obama of shanking Mr. Tumnus for blabbing about a gay meth orgy (Shhh...I just gave you a preview for Obama Death List 2.)

First up is Gandy Baugh, a man they say died in 2003 while jumping from an 80 story building. He really died in 1994. How do I know? He's on the Clinton Death List from a decade ago. Another, Reverend David Manning, allegedly murdered in 1972 by Reverend Wright (to control Trinity Baptist because he knew someday two decades later he would meet and mentor Barack Obama), doesn't exist or is a reference to James David Manning, an Atlanta Rev. who hates Obama and is very much alive. Or is the David Manning that Sony invented so it could put fake movie raves from him in their ads. He liked Rob Schneider's The Animal. He had to die.

But above and beyond, my two favorites:

DARSANO RAHARDJO - Childhood classmate of Barack Obama when he attended a madrassa in Indonesia. Was found with his head cut off in a Jakarta alley way in 1970. Many children at the school attributed Rahardjo's murder to the young Barack Obama. It was likely done as an initiation ritual, since Islam demands that a boy spill another's blood before the age of ten to prove their loyalty to Allah.

HASAD AL SHAREEZ - FBI informant. Reported to his handler in January 2001 that he had a tape about of a person named simply “B. Hussein” meeting with 9/11 hijacker Mohatma Atta in Prague. Was found shot in the basement of a mosque in Dearborn, MI in October, 2001.

That's right Obama killed a kid in a bloody Muslim ritual and he met with Atta in Prague to plan the 9/11 attacks. For some reason this list refuses to reveal how Obama conspired with Eichmann and then ratted him out to the Israelis.

Is this really the man you want running your country? Remember that when you go into the voting booth in November. Remember me if Barack HUSSEIN Obama has me killed. I WAS A HERO!

New American lows: Yoo/Bybee II

The ACLU was able to get the release of the infamous Yoo/Bybee II memo that outlined acceptable interrogation techniques for prisoners held by the CIA outside US borders. Yoo/Bybee I contended that it would only be illegal for interrogators to inflict pain if "organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death" were to happen. It's heavily redacted, almost to the point of completely being blackened.

One of the more stunning sentences that got through was a little one that stated "To validate the statute, an individual must have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering...Because specific intent is an element of the offense, the absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture. ... We have further found that if a defendant acts with the good faith belief that his actions will not cause such suffering, he has not acted with specific intent."

Catch that? As long as the intent is to get information then anything you do is legal. As long as severe pain is only a byproduct of information gathering, it's legal. Unless you're a serial killer who silently tortures first, this basic standard applies to anyone who has ever committed torture. Our standard is now "At least be asking him about al Qaeda or something while you're crushing his scrotum." The other standard is that it had to occur outside the US, which is why the CIA ran (and still might run) black sites in countries such a Poland, Romania and Uzbekistan.

In case you had any illusions to the contrary: America did torture, is torturing, will continue to torture as long as Bush is in office. Or as Major General Antonio Taguba wrote, in the preface to a Physicians for Human Rights torture study on former US detainees, "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes."

In your name.

The point, my pedigree chums

Leftist tabloid HuffPo is predictably outraged over today's NYTimes piece on Zoriah Miller, the freelance photographer who was barred from photographing Marines after posting pictures of slain soldiers on his website.

While we're as frustrated as anyone over the obstacles placed in front of journalists attempting to cover the two wars in which this country is currently involved, bitching about the Corps' aggressive and demeaning treatment of Miller, or about flag-draped coffins at Dover five years after the fact, only obscures two very important issues raised by this very same Times piece...

Take this paragraph, buried midway into the piece:

News organizations say that such restrictions are one factor in declining coverage of the war, along with the danger, the high cost to financially ailing media outlets and diminished interest among Americans in following the war. By a recent count, only half a dozen Western photographers were covering a war in which 150,000 American troops are engaged.

In other words, while the military has pushed back at the press, usually couching the censorship in terms of safeguarding security or protecting grief-stricken military families, the press obliges for largely economic reasons. If cash-strapped media outlets -- these are for-profit entities tailoring product (news) to consumer (citizen) -- can't afford to cover the war as extensively as they might like, odds are they are compelled by dwindling public interest.

So go on, HuffPo. Strap on the righteous indignation pants and blame the military while giving news conglomerates and the citizenry a pass. After all, you've got this great picture of Arlington sitting around and nothing of consequence to say. It sure saves you the trouble of thinking too hard and, boy, does it ever fit the fucking boilerplate.

And of course you can finish that latest Miley Cyrus post first.

Slate entertains and depresses

From Slate, comes an interactive map of many of the crimes and perpetrators of the Bush Administration. It's immensely entertaining for about five minutes, then you just slowly build to a rage over the fact that all this and more was done and no one will ever pay for it. Enjoy!

Banks like taxpayer money

Banks' Fed Borrowing Rises to Highest Level Ever

Banks stepped up their borrowing over the past week from the Federal Reserve's emergency lending program, while Wall Street firms didn't draw such loans.

A Fed report released Thursday said commercial banks averaged $16.4 billion in daily borrowing over the past week.

That was up from $13.9 billion in the previous week.

To solve problems that entirely borne out of their greed and shortsighted stupidity, banks get to take taxpayer money to the tune of $16.4 billion a day to cover for their own poor decisions.

Next time anyone whines to you about the 'free market' and how regulation and oversight hinders big business, gouge out their fucking eyes and spit on their corpse. The free in 'free market' stands for free money.

It would be cheaper to invade another country.

We must defy the UN to show the UN cannot be defied

While the final year of the Bush Administration has seen its ups (the death of the 4th Amendment, DC v. Heller) and downs (the pending mortgage bailout bill, deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan, Maliki's endorsement of Obama's Iraq plan, bad dancing), one constant has been humor. Mostly unintentional humor, to be sure, but humor nonetheless.

The latest example is Bush's explanation today of why he has expanded US sanctions against Zimbabwe after failing to secure UN approval of similar measures two weeks back.

“No regime should ignore the will of its own people and calls from the international community without consequences,” Mr. Bush said in a statement that accompanied an executive order expanding the American sanctions.

We now have good reason to believe Bush's speechwriters are just fucking with him. And to those ballsy satirists, we say thank you.

Bale goddamn vindicated

Seems the Bale mother/sister assault thing is much ado about nothing. He yelled and screamed and might not have even touched them, they insulted his wife and demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars. Charges will probably be dropped.

Of course the charges will be dropped, the goddamn Batman doesn't have to respond nicely to veiled extortion threats from estranged family members. Bale is reportedly building a giant vault where he will swim in his money like his hero, goddamn Scrooge McDuck.

Americans still not convinced oil companies are looking out for them

From the Wilderness Society comes a startling revelation: Americans Don't Believe Bush, Industry Claims on Gas Prices, Poll Shows. 54% do not see more drilling as a solution to high gas prices, 76% want policymakers to focus on new energy technologies rather than expanding exploration and drilling for more oil, 63% said that the President's proposal was "more likely to enrich oil companies than to lower gas prices for American consumers."

This is surprising to me because last night when watching the television my remote broke and I was forced to endure almost 15 seconds of the Bill O'Reilly Mental Insanity Themed Programme. Before I heaved a lamp into the screen, saving my sanity, I heard him and a Republican strategist opine on how drilling was such a winner for Republicans. Because despite the fact that not one drop of oil will flow for at least a decade, despite the fact that the best case scenario is a barrel of oil going down 20 cents in cost, and despite the fact that land and coastline has been already leased for drilling that oil companies aren't even bothering to use, people will hear "drilling" "oil" and be convinced of it's rightness. Hell. John "It's not pronounced boner" Boehner could barely contain his glee as he flogged his drill boner and opined on how wildlife like oil derricks.

Drilling = good = Republican = votes could still be true, you'll be hard pressed to find the media actually discussing the consequences and repercussions of drilling, let alone the length of time it will even take for any thing to happen. This is standard media behavior, discuss the politics not the facts. But somehow that seems not to have happened, people seem to get that it won't help immediately. They get that money and time should be better invested in alternatives and they get that oil companies would liquefy and refine you if they had a method for it. I don't know how it happened, perhaps just rampant anger and cynicism after months of $4 buck gas, but it happened. Let's hope it stays that way so we can actually make an energy and transportation policy beyond "Fuck it, Jeb. Call the Saudis and buy more, the Hummer's bone dry."

Mukasey says jump. Democrats must not have heard him.

Mocking Mukasey

On Wednesday Attorney General Michael Mukasey proclaimed that Congress needed to enact a new law governing how courts should handle legal challenges from detainees. That such a law should contain provisions that "should bar the disclosure of classified evidence in the detainees' habeas proceedings, prohibit the detainees from being brought into a U.S. courtroom for hearings." Mukasey even waved around the possibility that failure to do so would mean that detainees would be released on the streets of Anytown, USA free to terrorize the Walmart and take the swing set of your kid's playground by force.

This display, otherwise known as the mating display of the bushus legalus horribilus whereupon they display their asshole and expect you to jam your face in for a whiff, was typical and to be expected. What was unexpected was the Democrats, perhaps not hearing him or possibly being too tired from caving over telcom immunity to so quickly cave again, didn't do anything. In fact they dismissed and were openly hostile to the idea. The Adjudicator Pat Leahy stated "The courts have a long history of considering habeas petitions and of handling national security matters, including classified information. The administration made this mess by seeking to avoid judicial review at all costs, causing years of delay and profound uncertainty."

Dear God, a cogent analysis of the situation then a refusal to act based on solid legal reasons and precedent. We're in uncharted waters here. What happened to the Democrats? Bush said jump. 'How high' is the response. HOW HIGH. I offer tentative, confused hand clapping and hope you accidentally take this line of action some time in the future.

Just desserts: Food industry edition

DAS CONTAMINATION!!!

Food industry bitten by its lobbying success

The most recent salmonella outbreak has cost the food industry $250 million.....so far. There have been alot of contaminated food outbreaks in the last few years prompting many expensive food recalls and expensive searches to find and fix the problem. Also thousands of illnesses and even deaths in some cases. Why has there been such a radical increase in the number and frequency of food borne illness outbreaks? Your favorite words and mine deregulation and self-regulation.

The industry pressured the Bush administration years ago to limit the paperwork companies would have to keep to help U.S. health investigators quickly trace produce that sickens consumers, according to interviews and government reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

The White House also killed a plan to require the industry to maintain electronic tracking records that could be reviewed easily during a crisis to search for an outbreak's source. Companies complained the proposals were too burdensome and costly, and warned they could disrupt the availability of consumers' favorite foods.

That's right, the food industries spent millions to lobby the government to decrease oversight and tracking methods. This administration was only too happy to oblige. Now regulations and record keeping methods that would have been in place (cradle to grave tracking) would have severely blunted or largely eliminated the spread and frequency of the outbreaks. Instead the industry opted for self regulation that they didn't do and lax methods and they're losing hundreds of millions of dollars (and there hasn't even been a lawsuit yet) and still aren't sure if they've figured out the source of the latest salmonella outbreak.

Quit whining and take the losses and the lawsuits. This is the situation you wanted and the only logical conclusion that could have happened with your lax tracking and methods. This is why regulation exists, to protect the consumer, but to also protect the business by making the mistakes easier to fix. You remember that and I'll try not to look high and mighty as a stroll past the tomatoes and jalapenos to buy something that isn't contaminated.

Broken News: CERN Shocker: Scientists Plan to Kill God

The Murder Chamber

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND--The world is in an uproar as top secret memos leaked to the press revealed that the goal of CERN's Large Hadron Collider was not to study particle collisions, but to be the world's first mechanism designed to flush out and kill God. More surprising than this revelation was the fact that scientists did not attempt to deny the accusation, choosing instead to verify its accuracy and gleefully proclaim their eagerness to murder God.

“It’s time,” cackled CERN Director General Robert Aymar. “For too long have we labored to discover the secrets of the universe, to find out the inner workings at the atomic level, only to turn around and hear someone say ‘God did it.’ We are tired of having our discoveries legislated out of classrooms and dismissed by fundamentalist groups because some Hebrew didn’t write it down on a scroll three thousand years ago. No more museums where you see Jesus riding dinosaurs. No more claims about the universe's age derived from adding up lifespans of Biblical characters. Once we kill God, there will only be science. Yes, only science to worship and follow.”

The Large Hadron Collider, or "Giant Science Cock," as it is known to the PhD set, is the world's largest particle accelerator. Its ostensible purpose is to carry out particle collisions at extremely high energy levels in an attempt to gauge the validity of the standard model of particle physics, informing on the origins of the universe. However, as the activation date -- currently scheduled for early September -- has approached, further calculations have shown that the LHC's goal would only be feasible if the machine made God appear so that He could initiate the chain reaction.

It turns out, only God can start the universe as only He knows the magic and secret words. This was initially devastating news to the scientific community. Discovering how the universe started (God did it) and by what means (magic words) enraged CERN's hierarchy. They couldn't believe there was no by-the-numbers scientific solution. Driven mad by the unknowable, they vowed to build the LHC to trick God into appearing for the supposed experiment, whereupon they would kill Him once and for all. The only question that remains is how God could not know what's going on.

Insiders of the eternal note that God's attention has been monopolized recently by the much-publicized Trinity breakup. These same sources also revealed that God never really has taken much of an interest in what he calls the "Talk Apes," particularly since the BC/AD switchover. He prefers instead to tinker in his workshop on new and better planets and civilizations that he feels will really cement his legacy as THE Creator.

“The Big Guy just feels like he's hit his stride creatively,” said one insider. “He saw the new crop of sci-fi and space movies and it gave him all sorts of new planet ideas. Water worlds, mountain worlds, weird fungus worlds, milkshake worlds, a planet with north-south rings AND east-west rings, a nebula that looks like a big dong, trinary stars, and solar systems that actually have more than one habitable planet. He really feels this could be his Beggar’s Banquet-to-Exile period. Truth is, he only looks at Earth to see the hot people shower and watch the more impressive Rally Car crashes. Especially the ones where the vehicle lands upside-down in a lake. Cracks his bearded ass up.”

“See, God doesn’t even care,” responded Aymar. “We can only get evolution taught as a competing theory because of His followers and He can’t even muster the interest to know that we’re trying to kill Him? Trust me, things will be much better once the scientists are in charge. We have statistical models, graphs, all sorts of stuff that to suggest it’ll be pretty fuckin’ sweet.”

Once the Hadron Collider tricks God into appearing, the plan is to knock him down with a salvo of particles to the face and groin areas. At this point the scientists plan to conjure the elusive and theoretical Higgs Boson, believed to be the next step in unifying the laws of physics, and use it to smash Him in the head until He’s dead. When asked why, after finally firing up a 25-year-old, internationally funded, $10 billion device meant to bring about a landmark step in modern physics, he intended to squander its bounty on pre-meditated deity murder, Aymar explained, "Once God is dead, we'll have all the time and resources we want. And no more of these silly distractions."

When pressed further on the plan for the LHC after God's death, Aymar explained that he didn't know. "We could probably fill it with water and do sort of a river raft ride. It’s pretty long. Maybe a water slide or a Jai-alai court? Low-income housing? I don’t know. We haven’t thought that far beyond killing God and the resulting party. It'll be a 'Fiesta Mexicano' theme.”

Asked if he feared retaliation from a vengeful Jesus, Aymar laughed. “I’ve read the Bible. Twice. That bitch is a pacifist. I doubt he has it in him. If he wants to use his fancy powers, we’ve got CERN Department for Religious Retaliation all ready to go with containment lasers, mystical shields, spears, and surface-to-deity rockets. If he wants to knuckle up, I’ve got 10 years of Kenpo to go along with my physics degree. Science can handle Jesus.”

Finally when asked if he feared the ghost of God haunting the LHC, Aymar shrugged and said, “Now you’re just being silly. Who believes in that kind of thing?”

Science hopes to have the transition to science-based worship ready to be made by early next year. Funds have been released for church renovation and acquiring textbooks devoid of intelligent design. After final testing and calibrations are made they hope to kill God sometime this Fall.

Obama and McCain today: Compare/Contrast

or

Obama just gave his big Berlin speech, text and video here. What did McCain do? He went to a German restaurant in German Village, Columbus, Ohio. He shoveled down Sauerkraut-Bratwurst Balls at Hans Gruber's Kraut Shack and Sausage Haus. Afterward staffers were seen exiting the restaurant and crawling off into a ditch to die of embarrassment, shaming all who knew them.

On Saturday when Obama is meeting with UK PM Gordon Brown, McCain plans to get kicked in the goolies during a soccer riot and eat spotted dick.

Obama promises that when he returns, he'll start acting like there's another guy in the race.

I smell another campaign shakeup coming John.

Berlin, Germany is the same as Berlin, Wisconsin

Where's Lambeau Field?

Barack Obama is going to give a giant speech in Berlin today. John McCain is going to counter that by......running attack ads in small American towns called Berlin. He better run them during the Obama speech or no one will hear them or see them. He also plans to order 100 bratwurst pizzas to Obama's Dusseldorf advance team without paying for them, step on the style of doughnut known as 'the Berliner' in an angry manner, disseminate a photo of Barack in lederhosen, and blame him for Krystallnacht.

I think this is a good move. America's chief concerns now are the economy, Iraq, and that the Bush Administration hasn't engaged in enough petty sniping and low-rent attempts at one-upsmanship.

McCain: On the surge and why you're too dumb to understand him

McCain denies he misstated timing of Iraq surge

Republican John McCain pushed back on Wednesday against Democratic criticism that he misstated when the troop buildup ordered by President Bush began, saying elements were put in place before Bush announced the strategy in early 2007.

He told reporters during an unscheduled stop in a super market that, what the Bush administration calls "the surge" was actually "made up of a number of components," some of which began before the president's order for more troops.

It's all a matter of semantics, he suggested.
...
McCain asserted he knew that and didn't commit a gaffe. "A surge is really a counterinsurgency made up of a number of components. ... I'm not sure people understand that `surge' is part of a counterinsurgency."

See stupid, when he refers to the surge he doesn't mean the commonly used definition of 'the troop increase' that everyone uses, he means the 'everything that happened before during and after the military conceived of adding additional troops into Baghdad' definition that he just invented. Of course he didn't get the timeline of the surge wrong, showing a staggering inability to understand what is supposedly his strongest issue, because the surge is everything. It is the one, the alpha, the omega, it encompasses all. How could McCain say something happened before the surge when everything in Iraq is the surge now, how could the surge create a burrito so big that it could not eat it? It couldn't, it is the surge.

Go find a hole to cry your tears of wrongness into, then drown yourself in it. John McCain is always right.

Vindication for Mosley!!!!

Mosley wins court case over orgy

British court ruled today the UK's News of the World breached World Motorsport boss Max Mosley's privacy to the tune of £60,000 in damages and £850,000 in court costs over claims that an S&M orgy he took part in had Nazi overtones. So congrats Max, you aren't a guy who has S&M bondage orgies with five hookers that have overtly fascist overtones, you're a guy who has S&M bondage orgies with five hookers that have overtly fascist undertones. VINDICATION!

He told the court that the publicity had been "totally devastating" for his wife of 48 years, and he could think of "nothing more undignified or humiliating" for his two sons to experience.

Well not unless they want to pay five hookers for the privilege of being humiliated like their old man.

News of the World editor Colin Myler said the paper was pleased at the lack of punitive damages, but added that "our press is less free today after another judgement based on privacy laws emanating from Europe".

Yes the important role of the press to root out freaky sexual proclivities of mildly famous people will be forever damaged. Once proud reporters will have to go from panty sniffing and paying hookers to talk to doing something seedy like rooting out government corruption or covering human rights. Truly a damaging day. I can see the toll it could take on your website: "Which one of our nude models looks best?", "Cristiano scores with two beauties", "Boxer's boys turned room into sex den" and "The truth about my lesbian sex tape" are just some of the important stories we'll miss out on because your inability to get facts straight on sensational tabloid crap made the press less free. I'll have to find a way to live without "Dubai romper wife swap" and "Royal thigh stress" in this new fascistic press world.

DAMN YOU COURTS, DON"T YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID? THEY MIGHT HAVE TO CHECK AND MAKE SURE THESE ARE ACCURATE NOW!!!

Thanks for all the nothing Pakistan, here's some jets

Plan Would Use Antiterror Aid in Pakistan on Attack Jets

Bush is trying to shift $230 million in counter-terrorism aid, nearly 2/3 of what we will give them in military financing, so they can afford to upgrade their F-16's. Strike that, so they can afford to pay their share of retrofitting the old F-16's till we give them new ones. I mean we're only spending $1.4 billion to buy them 36 new F-16's and $891 million to upgrade Pakistan’s old F-16s, why shouldn't we give them even more to tide ther fleet over till the brand spanking new jets arrive. Jets that they don't use for counter-terrorism, just for oneupsmanship with India.

Why not, we've only given them $10 billion in aid so far. $5.5 billion for counter-terrorism work that they didn't do. What's another $230 million for planes they won't use to help us. They've been so helpful, refusing to do counter-terrorism work along the border and kindly telling us to go fuck ourselves when we wanted to put special forces in to go look for bin Laden, a man their country is harboring. They deserve this. It's not like it matters, they weren't going to use the $230 million on c-t, why not let them spend it on planes they aren't going to use for c-t. Can we get them some missiles with pre-targeted Indian co-ordinates, I'm sure that will somehow help Pakistan fight terrorism too. I know I'll rest easier.

Didn't know he had been imprisoned

Peter Koechley at MoveOn needs to rethink things a bit. I'm all for free political swag, even if it does feature a pro-gun, pro-warrantless wiretap Democratic presidential candidate. But "Free Obama Button?"

Careful what you say, sir. The election is still four months out and the Bush Administration is still in power. Last I checked, any one of us can pretty much be detained indefinitely without an arrest warrant for no real reason whatsoever. Stop giving them ideas.

What McCain needs is more oil derrick photo ops in gale force winds

This fall from Jerry Bruckheimer...John McCain will bring...PEACE FROM WISDOM. Rated R.

McCain to counterprogram Obama in Germany with visit to Gulf Coast oil rig

So while Obama is cavorting around the Middle East and Europe meeting with foreign leaders, our military leaders and soldiers, giving speeches to hundreds of thousands of foreigners, and generally looking great, McCain is going to stand on an oil rig, possibly in a hurricane, so he can tell everyone we need to drill more so that 15 years from now a barrel of oil will be 20 cents cheaper in a snide and hectoring manner.

Maybe he needs another campaign leadership shuffle.

UPDATE: The event got canceled because of weather, but mostly because the weather caused a 419,000 gallon oil spill over 12 miles as a tanker got halved and closed down 29 miles of the Mississippi River. God hates you John.

Well, it's not shooting someone in the face, but we'll take it

From the We Couldn't Possibly Make This Up file comes the not terribly startling revelation that conservative icon and Coulter-spawning evil lunatic, Robert Novak, ran over a 66 year-old man with his black Corvette on K Street earlier today. Novak expressed regret and claimed he had no idea that he had hit anyone, despite the fact that an eye witness saw the elderly man, "splayed across the front of Novak's convertible."

Think Progress is all over it.