Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.17

For those of you wondering how exactly it was that famed Baroque painter Caravaggio died or where he was buried are in luck. Italian archaeologists are 85% certain that he was buried in a Tuscany crypt... and that he died of sunstroke while in a weakened condition from the syphilis he had. Odd, that's exactly how Sean is going to die. And he thought he didn't have anything in common with the great painters.

If any of our readers have enjoyed a Gulf oyster in the last few months, I hope you enjoyed the everliving shit out of it because you might not have another one ever. In a thoroughly depressing article, Mary Tutwiler catalogues the state of the oyster industry, oyster farmers, and the oysters. Shockingly the picture isn't pretty. On the other hand, if you hate oysters, this all worked out nicely for you. Congratulations.

Over the past few decades in American society, knowing how to do something like clean a pelican was left to pelican experts, zookeepers, and the perverse coterie of freaks on Pelicanfetish.com. But now with a large percentage of them covered in oil, it's something that we all need to know. Thankfully Buzzfeed has provided us with a step by step guide to cleaning up an oily pelican; whether it's from the Gulf or just a pet pelican that got into that barrel of oil you keep out back. On the other hand this might be a setback to BP's plan to soak up all that valuable oil with all those worthless pelicans.

The one constant so far in this year's World Cup, besides people getting outraged at plastic horns, has been shockingly bad goalie gaffes. Who is at fault? The goalies? The team defense? The head coaches who put them in? No, clearly the party at fault is the girlfriends of said goalies. The UK has already taken to blaming Robert Green's ex-girlfriend for his bungled effort against the Colonies, owing to their pre-Cup breakup. Spain decided to take that extra misogynistic step forward, blaming Goaltender Iker Casillas' sideline reporter girlfriend for not only distracting him during their 1-0 loss to Switzerland, but distracting the entire team. See what happens when you let women near sports? If there's a bear attack during a game, we'll have to completely ban women from girling up serious sporting events.

Have a dog? Might you like that dog to have everlasting life? Then I give you IMMORTAL DOG!!!!!

Elected Texas idiot Joe Barton finally had to come out and apologize for his apology to BP when even the leaders of his caucus took notice on how unpopular what he said was. But he's not done apologizing, so he set up the site Joe Barton Would Like To Apologize To in order to list the various aggrieved entities like BP who deserve our sympathy.

Our apologies

We here at These Bastards spend a lot of time warning and cheering on the apocalypse. Robot apocalypse, financial apocalypse, meteor strikes, supernovas, lizard people, war, war with lizard people, climate collapse, and alien invasion.But one of the ones we've been most interested in is a calamitous viral event or flupocalypse. Not only because we're certain we would survive, but it's also the plotline of one of our favorite books, the Stand. It'd be glorious, a cornucopia of good vs. evil, Boulder vs. Vegas, weird omens, cawing crows on fence posts, deaf guys getting exploded, mildly retarded men stealing nukes, and holy retribution.

That's why we were so excited about the swine flu, or H1N1... or Porcine AIDS. We thought it had the power to cleanse all you rotten bastards from the face of this earth. Well, turns out the panic over it might not have been on the level.

Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, claims major firms organised a "campaign of panic" to put pressure on the World Health Organisation to declare a pandemic.

He believes it is "one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century" — and has called for an inquiry.
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"The great campaign of panic we have seen provided a golden opportunity for representatives from labs who knew they would hit the jackpot in the case of a pandemic being declared.

What? Pharmaceutical companies hyping a virus to hawk expensive medicine? I don't believe it. I'd get up and march right over to this Wodarg fellow and tell him what's what, but don't you know, I'm not supposed to exert my legs too heavily, what with this restless leg syndrome I'm taking medicine for. Plus the pills for my nonspecific mouth pain disorder make me dizzy and a new ad makes me wonder if I'm suffering the ill effects of coal miner's pinky.

But still, isn't it the point when you discover a possibly dangerous and new type of flu related to that Spanish flu that killed everyone a while back, to overreact to it? Isn't that the point of any possible outbreak; to overreact to it? Isn't that how it gets stopped in its tracks? Isn't that how the fuckers who don't want everyone dead avoid a Stand-type scenario?

Plus, the was reported by the UK's the Sun, which means it was sandwiched in between topless women answering questions about "the issues" and horrendously bad headlines made out of puns, so your mileage may vary. But, if in fact we're all going to live and none of us survivors will be in a pitched battle for all mankind, well, we'd just like to apologize for getting your hopes up. Sorry, we're all going to make it.

On the bright side, there's always bird flu. And SARS, maybe that'll make a comeback. There is hope.

Everything's OK now

I know some of you are worried about the state of the economy, the jobs market, and the rampant inequalities and failings within our system of government, oversight, and regulations that allowed banks and financial giants to set fire to everyone's money. But that's all better now. Why? No, it's not because someone invented a time machine to go back and kill Phil Gramm and it's definitely not because things got fixed and the economy a job markets are back on track. No, the Chairman and CEO of Goldman-Sachs toddled up to the front of the class and apologized like a big boy. Everything's OK now.

Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., apologized for the firm’s role in some of the activities leading to the financial crisis.

“We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret,” Blankfein, 55, said at a conference in New York hosted by the Directorship magazine. “We apologize.”

Are you happy now, America and Matt Taibbi? Do you see what you've reduced this man to? He's apologizing for the things his company did and enabled! It's sickening that this country is so vindictive that we'd actually ask that of our financial betters.

I'm just glad that the apology is the only thing he's doing. I mean of course he's not going to actually give back the close to $50 billion he ratfucked out of our pockets during this whole post-apocalypse period, and he's certainly not going to think of not paying out the billions in bonuses to the people who helped set everyone's money on fire, nor is he going to renounce all the billions upon billions that they raked in while they were ensuring a global economic collapse, nor the billions they made betting on the housing crash while they simultaneously boot people out of their homes. They're keeping that money and you'll have to live with all the damage they helped cause, but he's sorry.

And while he isn't promising they won't do it again, you can rest assured that they help toilet the economy again, you'll get another nice apology. So go away and stop bothering your money emperors with your "complaints" about their "deeply unethical business practices."

Newt's "My bad"

Newtie is remorseful. He's decided that spending a full week yelling "RACIST!!!!" not only makes the throat red and inflamed, but is also intensely damaging to things like relations with the Latin community, elections, opinions of your sanity, and the reputation you're trying to cultivate as a conservative intellectual. He just wants to return to a safer place where we can all just demonize her for being a liberal. So now he wants to close the racism door on the racism barn after all those racist horses escaped.

My initial reaction was strong and direct -- perhaps too strong and too direct. The sentiment struck me as racist and I said so. Since then, some who want to have an open and honest consideration of Judge Sotomayor's fitness to serve on the nation's highest court have been critical of my word choice.

With these critics who want to have an honest conversation, I agree. The word "racist" should not have been applied to Judge Sotomayor as a person, even if her words themselves are unacceptable.

Yeah, I guess when your comments find you echoing the words of Tom Tancredo and allowing David Duke to re-enter the stage and throw his two cents into the political debate probably caused Newt to reassess some things. Like how far he's sunk and whether he's too old to get married for a fourth time. But only after he stopped crying and took the gun out of his mouth.

So you guys gonna take back all the hysterical/emotional/temperamental stupid woman attacks, or are we all still cool with those?

Quote of the day: Apology tour

Gremlins are to blame. Who knew?

Eliot Spitzer on whoring ruining his political career and the films of Zach Galligan:

"I, Matt, like most of us, I suppose -- I won't speak for anybody else. I have flaws. I've tried to think about it deeply, address it," he said. "As I say, there are no excuses. I've tried to address these gremlins and confront them. What I did was an egregious violation of trust to my family, colleagues and the state. I paid a price and appropriately so."

Later, Lauer asked Spitzer to "give me some ballpark, some estimation of how long this went on and how frequently." The former governor was vague: "Not frequently, not long in the grand context of my life."

You know Eliot, I'm fine with politicians whoring around and cheating on their wives. Really. Unless it's some moral crusader and shows some massive hypocrisy I could care less. But in our crotch obsessed media and elections process this stuff does matter. So when you go on your big apology tour it's best not to shift your mistake on to invisible critters you have to do mental battle with to not bang prostitutes. Also a good idea? Not to say your time spent nailing hookers was small compared to the epochal expanse of the entire history of the universe.

Next time anyone asks? "I like sex and didn't think about the political/familial ramifications." and "I only nailed hookers for a year or two." No gremlin, critter, chud, or mind goblin references. No attempts to weigh your choices against the breadth of human history.

Mahmoud's feelings are hurt

Iran's Ahmadinjad Demands US Apology

Iran's president called Wednesday for "profound changes" in U.S. foreign policy including an end to support for Israel and an apology to the Islamic republic for past misdeeds.
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"Change means giving up support for the rootless, uncivilized, fabricated, murdering ... Zionists and letting the Palestinian nation decide its own destiny," Ahmadinejad said. "Change means putting an end to U.S. military presence in (different parts of) the world."
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"We will wait patiently, listen to their words carefully, scrutinize their actions under a magnifier and if change happens truly and fundamentally, we will welcome that," he added. "The change will be to apologize to the Iranian nation and try to compensate for their dark records and the crimes they have committed against the Iranian nation."

Listen, I know we've fucked over Iran a lot. The whole toppling of your elected government in the 50's, the shah thing, shooting at your planes, the Saddam support, and let's not forget those goldbricking hostages who lived in your country for over a year without paying rent. I get it. But can the man demanding an apology for these transgressions not be the Jew hating guy whose demands for Obama to enact an agenda of change involve a few vaguely anti-Semitic rants, fucking over said Jews, fucking over their their nation, and letting Iran do whatever? Khameni? Rafsanjani? Larijani? Want to speak up? No? Alright then.

"That one" late-night host

John wants to kiss and make up:

[NYT]--McCain Schedules Make-Up Appearance With Letterman