Broken in Brief: Whole goddamn neighborhood air-conditioned

ATLANTA-Residents of the Firebush Street section of the Haber Heights community must have awoken in complete fucking shock today as they found out that, contrary to the recent uptick in temperatures, their entire goddamn neighborhood had been goddamn air-conditioned to a cool, comfortable 65 degrees.

Authorities point to the source of this goddamn development being a local residence where the fucking door had been left open for 10 fucking minutes, causing the entire goddamn temperature transference.

Sources close to the home in question have revealed that an area man Tom Caruthers’ ingrate children had left said goddamn door open and this was not the first fucking time it had happened either.

Sources further reveal that this man, who works his ass off for a goddamn living, has repeatedly told his damn kids that this air-conditioning shit isn’t free and that they don’t know the goddamn value of a goddamn dollar or what it’s like to work for a goddamn living.

But that is of little value to neighborhood residents who are enjoying the cool temperatures and don’t even give a shit about the struggles Caruthers has to go through to put fucking food on the fucking table. They’re just a bunch of moochers just like his goddamn kids who don’t fucking listen.

According to estimates from the local energy concern, this is going to cost a fucking fortune and Caruthers isn’t made of fucking money. Furthermore if this happens one more goddamn time, Caruthers has claimed he’ll call up the local heating and cooling place and have them haul away the fucking air conditioner and then he’ll see how everyone likes it then.

According to neighbors, these threats have been taken with a grain of salt and Mr. Caruthers feels like he’s talking to a brick fucking wall. As of press time the goddamn front fucking door is still fucking open.

Guh?

It's no real secret around here that we at These Bastards aren't fond of elected Republicans. Or most Democrats, robots, Cleveland, the TV media, talk radio, pundits, the moon, all people, religion, Fritz Haber, God, and ourselves. That's besides the point. I mean how can one like the GOP when all they do is stuff like freaking out over Obama bowing to a Japanese guy...even though the rest of America doesn't care or trying to convince everyone that the health care bill makes everyone pay a monthly abortion fee? It's real pathetic scumbag shit that's worthy of scorn.

Maybe we need to save a little of that scorn for Republican voters as a whole. Maybe the John Boehner's of the world are just following the deranged whims of their voters, who apparently are all birth certificate conspiracy theorizing, concentration camp photo waving teabaggers. I mean just look at this shit:

The new national poll from Public Policy Polling (D) has an astonishing number about paranoia among the GOP base: Republicans do not think President Obama actually won the 2008 election -- instead, ACORN stole it.
...
The poll asked this question: "Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?" The overall top-line is legitimately won 62%, ACORN stole it 26%.

Among Republicans, however, only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% -- an outright majority -- saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided. Among McCain voters, the breakdown is 31%-49%-20%. By comparison, independents weigh in at 72%-18%-10%, and Democrats are 86%-9%-4%.

I don't think even Glenn Beck has been flogging this one or trying to claim it's true.

Wow...just....wow. You know America, I'm done with you today.
//throws hands up and walks away

I demand an apology on behalf of the female gender

If you happen to be in the mood for a little "Well, at least I'm not like that" pick-me-up, look no further than yesterday's NYTimes piece on the latest group to be hit hard by our collective financial ruin: vapid materialistic whores banker's girlfriends. Apparently, when times are tough and the legalized prostitution well runs dry, these soulless harpies have nowhere to turn but their favorite $27 martini bar.

In addition to meeting once or twice weekly for brunch or drinks at a bar or restaurant, the group has a blog, billed as “free from the scrutiny of feminists,” that invites women to join “if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life.”

I have to hand it to Ravi Somaiya for writing the piece with what appears to be a straight face. Honestly, a couple of dick jokes or a Fritz Haber reference and this is Broken News.

Once you've successfully choked back the bile from the Times article, be sure to head over to the Dating a Banker Anonymous blog, where you can enjoy the metaphysical musings of fine citizens like Courtney, who when not trolling Battery Park gin joints for an AMEX with a penis attached, busies herself by ruining marriages.

Suddenly, I found myself being taken out less and less frequently. A recent argument went along these lines:

Me *pouting*: You haven’t taken me on a trip since we went to Bermuda in September. What’s going on?

Charles: Honey, finances are tight right now so my wife has taken it upon herself to check up on all of our accounts. She will notice any big expenditures.

Me *cute voice*: Wellllllllllllll, what are you going to do to make it up to me?

Charles: Can we talk later sweetheart? I’m really busy right now.

Me: No. Give me an answer NOW. Don’t you realize what you have? I’m way too hot to be treated like this. (Disclaimer: Yes, I come across as bratty here, but it typically works when trying to get something out of him)

Charles *yelling for the first time in our almost two-year relationship*: I’VE GOT TO FIRE TWENTY PEOPLE BY THE END OF THE WEEK. Z has four kids, X just had a baby girl, Y just sent his son to college and I’ve got to get rid of two of those guys… and you’re complaining about vacations and dinner? God, you are so 24! GROW UP!

Me *stunned*: Okie dokie, let’s talk later lover.

And the rockets' red glaaaaare...

An open letter to our readers on this, an almost holy day

Dear Readers,

Be it later tonight or in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, when our loyal Filipino demographic checks in, TheseBastards will reach 20,000 hits. I think I speak for both of us in saying that when we launched in late June, we never expected to be anywhere near this point less than four months in. As a matter of fact, we expected much better, so stop fucking about and read the damn blog more frequently, you ungrateful dullards. We have caviar and mercenaries to buy.

Actually, we both assumed this mess would be abandoned within a couple of weeks. That we have stuck with it is less a testament to our work ethic than it is to the fact that, for reasons beyond our ability to understand, you all keep coming back, reading, spreading the blog around, commenting, etc.. My money's on you all being a bunch of inebriates. Matthew thinks this has something to do with a CIA-crafted nerve agent introduced to the water supplies of your respective communities. But he says that about everything.

So, y'know, thanks and shit.

Yours in Christ,
Matthew and Sean

Dictated but not Read

Broken News: Dying teen considered "not inspirational, kind of depressing"

FRAMINGHAM, MA—Last year when Kenny Barrett, 15, was diagnosed with a terminal case of Haber’s Syndrome, the local community rallied around the story of a youth who was not letting death get in the way of providing hope and inspiration to his friends and family. Now, with the end near, many of those same friends and family say Kenny is no longer inspiring, that his messages of “Hope,” once filled with moving dreams of the future, are now littered with depressing and morbid ruminations on his own mortality.

“Christ, it's dismal,” observed Sam Harker, Barrett's classmate and friend. “Kenny used to talk about leaving a legacy of hope and perseverance. He got a kick out of telling troubled kids to make the most of their lives, because they were going to have opportunities he never would. Now? We go out and he just sits in the corner of the party, mumbling about ‘What’s it matter anyway? I’m going to be dead in 3 months.’ And I'm like, 'Fuck, man, I just asked if you wanted a Coke or a Snapple, no need to go all Morrissey on me.'”

Lately Barrett has been unable to feign even the most basic level of enthusiasm that so many previously took as a personal sign of encouragement. The conventional wisdom around town suggested that if the dying kid still had hope, maybe eating a hollow point over your spouse’s persisting infidelities wasn’t the only remaining option. However, with Barrett’s newfound attitude, suicide levels in the community are already beginning to creep up.

Dr. Patrick Sullivan, clinical psychologist and author of If Cancer Boy Can Smile, So Can You, You Fucking Wretch explained, “Look, we knew suicide rates were going to inch up when this kid kicked it. Once the really pathetic people lose the ability to say ‘Well at least I don’ have it as bad as the dying teen. If he's rolling with it, so can I’, they tend to take that last step into the abyss. Or hang themselves. Either way, really.”

“Now that people see Barrett without his familiar cheery outlook on life’s foibles, they’re beginning to question the basic concept of hope. If they don’t have this kid to totemize as the recipient of all their self-obsessive feelings of pity then they quickly turn those feelings inward. It’s all in my book, now in paperback, for only $15.95. Can you put an Amazon hyperlink into the online version of this?”

But why the sudden change in attitude? While some would naturally point to Barrett's impending death as something that would make him reassess his outlook on life, others are pointing the finger at the symptoms of the disease itself, not its mortal consequence.

Haber’s Syndrome is a rare disease occurring in 1 out of every 25.5 million births. It typically manifests in children born to third cousins exposed to a 30/70 ratio of peyote and Johnny Walker Red Label during birth. The symptoms include loss of bowel control in the presence of attractive girls, sores in the shape of racist symbols, male pattern baldness, grey pubic hair, a pungent mustard-like odor, and complete organ liquidation.

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad, but I think that if his heart was really in it he could just muddle through the open sores in the shape of swastikas and give the people the emotional validation they need” said Barret's father and agent, Ken Sr. “I mean, even organizations that deal solely with dying kids are getting creeped out by Kenny. Make a Wish Came by to ask him what he wanted to do... and he said he wanted to curb stomp Sam Brownback for opposing stem cell legislation. I figured he would say he wanted to meet Tom Brady or David Ortiz like all the other deathbed kids around here. Murdering a US Senator, no matter how deserving, isn’t inspirational.”

He paused before adding, “This whole Obama thing isn’t helping matters either.”

Some point to the rise of the Democratic candidate for President, with his message of hope and his inspiring speeches as one of the main factors in Barrett's deepening depression. As he posted on his blog, Hopeblog, last month:

If some ‘normie’ can walk around inspiring people without a horrific disease, what use am I? I’m inspiring people by showing courage in the face of death, he’s inspiring people by wanting to be president. What kind of fucked up world is this where those two things are on par with each other? FUCK!! He even stole my ‘Hope’ slogan.

This revelation led to a McCain campaign radio ad, played throughout the greater Boston area, featuring Barrett’s name and words in an attempt to blame Senator Obama for Haber’s Syndrome and destroying the lives of inspirational teens. McCain hopes the ad will gain him ground among two key Massachusetts swing groups, Jai-Alai moms and NASCAR taxidermists, those traditionally believed to be the most susceptible to the exploitation of dying children.

With each passing day, Barrett is alienating more and more of the people he used to motivate. Most of his audience walked out of the Framingham Jaycees Fun Night after Barrett's speech on making the most out of what time you have left devolved into acidic meditations on the existence of the afterlife, the non-existence of God, and the reading of a list of people -- many of whom were in the room at the time -- whom Barrett thought deserved Haber’s Syndrome more than him.

While some are hoping Barrett will regain that spark of inspiration that brought joy to so many, others are simply banking on the rapid liquidation of his major internal organs. Be it a drum major with monkey pox, the valedictorian with an inoperable tumor at the base of her neck, or the cheerleader with AIDSbola, this sleepy community of Massholes is eagerly awaiting the next teen with an unbearable malady to give them the comfort and reassurance their fragile, empty lives so desperately need.

CERN gives us til April

You have til April. That's when CERN will fire up the LHC after they clean up the helium they spilled everywhere and then heat up and cool some magnets. Why April? Apparently after the 2 months it takes to reheat and cool the magnets, they have to shut down to conserve electricity. One can't open a black hole and destroy existence when one is paying 90 cents a kilowatt hour.

The world’s newest and largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, will not begin operations again until April, officials at the European Center for Nuclear Research said Tuesday.

The machine is built to speed the subatomic particles called protons to nearly the speed of light and then smash them together in search of new forms of matter and energy that cannot be produced in smaller machines. Two weeks ago, the center for nuclear research, which is outside Geneva, sent the first beams of protons around the machine’s 17-mile-long underground racetrack.

But last Friday the machine was shut down after an electrical connection between two of the superconducting electromagnets that steer the protons suffered a so-called quench, heating up, melting and leaking helium into the collider tunnel. Liquid helium is used to cool the magnets to superconducting temperatures of only about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit above absolute zero. Stray heat can cause the magnets to lose their superconductivity with potentially disastrous consequences.

I think we all know what really happened. The UN came through with the first payment of money in unmarked, non-sequential bills, to be left behind the statue of Fritz Haber at the University of Dusseldorf. The madmen at CERN have decided to give us til April to come up with the rest or they negate reality. Until then they'll just terrorize the Pacific Rim with their weather machine.

Send monies to
The "Please Don't Fucking Kill Us" Fund c/o CERN
CERN CH-1211
Genève 23
Switzerland

your wasted lives, our boosted egos

At some point today, These Bastards will greet visitor # 10,000. Let me be the first to thank you poor, bored people for driving up the hits and laying the groundwork for our eventual world domination. When the invasion comes, some of you will be spared.

Given that the average page visit lasts just over three minutes, Matthew and I have now wasted approximately 30,000 minutes of other people's time. That works out to 500 hours, or almost 21 days -- three full weeks -- of squandered productivity. If you think that's egregious, ponder how little Matthew and I must have going on, considering we waste at least as much time (occasionally more) actually writing the content.

Anyway, much like the corrupt political machinery whose zany hijinks provide our source material, These Bastards rewards loyalty. Therefore, if in the course of perusing one of Matthew's long-winded bouts of indignant snark or an obscenity-laced class warrior tirade of my own making, you happen to see the site meter sitting at a clean 10K, congratulations! You are our winner. Who's the big winner? You're the big winner. Our email addresses are to the right should you wish to claim your reward.

And please, claim your reward. In anticipation of this momentous occasion, Matthew has been baking pies all week. Meat pies.

ZOMG! Obama is gonna pick a veep! LOLZ!

So it seems this Obama character is going to stop being a Muslim long enough to pick a VP this week. How do I know this? Because I'm the fucking genius brainlord elect. But also because every goddamn news organization in the country is incessantly reporting it. Also because of simple common sense that dictates he will pick his VP sometime before the convention that starts next week. You know, the one where the VP and Obama speak and everyone holds up placards with two names on them, one on the top (Obama) and one on the bottom (our mystery date).

So no, it isn't really news to keep posting stories about how Obama is gonna be picking his VP this week. He has to, it's not news, it's common sense and simple fact. When is he going to pick the veep, February? But all the breathless speculation has centered on a few names: Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (centrist who would bore his own mother), Sen. the Juggernaut (he likes your raincoat baby), Delaware Sen. Joe Biden (demented loud mouth who could out filibuster a electrified talkin' machine), Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh (right leaning, helmet haired, DLC goon), Dr. Fritz Haber (may be worse on human rights than Bush) and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (vagina may alienate mental Hillary hardliners).

So all you leftist freaks holding out for a Dodd, a Feingold (~!), or a Schweitzer, put it back in your pants. It's going to a be a somewhat boring centrist you probably wouldn't ever vote for if you had to do it divorced from the Obama ticket. On the McCain side he might nominate their own helmet haired goon/man everyone dislikes: Mitt Romney, crazy Christian creationist and exorcist: Bobby Jindal, dimensional overlord and centrist: Krang, bridge collapsing evangelical: Tim Pawlenty, or phony, pseudo-Dem prick: Joe Lieberman. According to sources this may also happen before the Republican convention. Stay tuned for the boredom, shrugged shoulders and confused cries of "Who?"

Contingency

According to the Huffington Post, the Republicans have a plan for retaking back some of te seats voters have driven them out of with torches and pitchforks. Conducting themselves like adults? Changing their strategies to better reflect the beliefs of the American people. Showing up to govern sober? Voodoo?

Nope. Redistricting and gerrymandering. Redistricting could force a swing of almost 30 seats in the house, as districts so crooked and contorted that they'd give a yoga master a groin pull are fashioned out of pure contempt for the voter.

Brian Namey, spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association described Democratic governors as "a formidable line of defense against Republicans who would like to Tom Delay us out of congressional seats."

I don't think Namey knows what a 'Tom Delay' is. According to the New American Dictionary of Rank Perversion we keep on file here at TBHQ, a 'Tom Delay' involves a harness, a spotter, vegetable shortening, an electric juicer, and a pain tolerance rated at least a 7 out of 10 by a medical professional. Geting 'Delayed' is second only to a 'Fritz Haber', which is a dutch oven on steroids, on the NADRP's scale of Things Not To Do To Loved Ones. Not electing Republicans (sodomy through your pants) is #5 and not electing Democrats (a promise that things will be different, then sodomy through your pants) falls in at #9.

These Bastards laboratory open for business

After Friday's revelation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that tomatoes might not be the cause of the most recent salmonella outbreak, government researchers, along with farmers and grocery retailers, are desperately searching for answers. While some suggest that testing simply has not been conducted on a large enough scale, others suspect that the culprit instead might be other vegetables commonly served with tomatoes, such as the onions or peppers in salsa.

Despite these uncertainties, the CDC will, of course, continue testing. Still, Dr. David Acheson, associate commissioner for foods at the FDA, reminded reporters that the source of the outbreak might never be discovered.

We, These Bastards, believe we can offer some insight into this problem. After several minutes of careful reflection and exhaustive experimentation, we are prepared to offer this hypothesis...


Fritz Haber did it.

These 'Hussein' Bastards

Obama Supporters Take His Name as Their Own

So this is apparently the hip new thing on Facebook. 18 and 19 year old kids changing their middle names, on Facebook, to "Hussein". Which, if you don't know because of some immunity to race-baiting GOP press releases, is the middle name of Barack Obama. The one that proves he's a muslimofascist. Apparently the plan is to convince rural, white, low education, low information Republicans who are also on Facebook, that Barack Obama isn't a muslim.

This is well intentioned, but painfully, painfully, painfully, painfully white. So much so that I'm feeling an ache in my white bone right now. In fact, I'm a little disappointed it isn't up on Stuff White People Like yet.

#105 "Appropriating ethnic names to naively identify with a political candidate and hide the fact that you're painfully white."

Being painfully white and a member of "the Facebook", I was going to do this. But sadly my middle name is already actually Hussein. Not because I'm all that into Obama, but because my parents had it legally changed to Hussein in 1988, after Saddam Hussein. You see, they're really, really into chemical warfare. My original middle name was Fritz Haber.

Sorry white, Facebook loving, eighteen year olds, I'm gonna have to let this one slide by without the coveted TB blessing. Good luck though.