Picture of the day

Photographer Andrew Zuckerman takes some pictures of creepy ass birds for his book: Creepy Ass Birds.

Oh God, the talons! They'll claw my eyes out.

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.

Picture of the day

Via the Big Picture blog, the oil spill, it's effect on animals, and the cleanup.

"Can you believe this shit, Merv?" "No, Phil, I can't. I'm a fucking pelican."

"NO, YOU LOOK INTO THE CAMERA AND SAY 'IT'S A LIVING'!"

"So fresh and so clean clean! Right?" "I don't get the reference, Phil. Again: I'm a fucking pelican."

Things you need to know

• Whether or not Smithers picked Mr. Burns the most statistically dominant team of the era to play softball for the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant team. Perhaps he should have added Mordecai Three Finger Brown and scoured the Negro leagues a little harder, because that Steve Sax pick looks unforgivable even taking into account he was responsible for all the unsolved murders in New York.


• DJ Shadow has an internet radio station.


• Any street with the world Grape in it was probably a notorious road for prostitution and had it's name previously changed from the more advertising savvy and branding accurate Gropecunt Lane. Yes, the Middle Ages did entail a better class of street names.


• Birds are poisonous now. Possibly all birds, but definitely the Variable Pitohui, which secretes a poison similar to the Poison Dart Frog. And you thought the only danger from birds was them all going crazy and attacking Tippi Hedren. No, they can surreptitiously poison you now. DON'T TRUST BIRDS.


• The Director of Media Technology for the Penguins, Chris DeVivio, has a blog. As if I needed to tell you more than that, I will. It's called Backteching and goes into the process of the building of the new Consol Energy Arena and the kinds of technology and technological decisions that goes into building a modern sports complex.


• This is the kind of thing that would get your movie banned and you branded a purveyor of filth and lewdness in the 20's. Warning: there are female ankles... on full display.

Picture of the day

Via the Guardian comes this look at some of the winners in the World Press Photo Awards 2010.

World press photo of the year: by Italian photographer Pietro Masturzo, showing women shouting on a rooftop in protest at the presidential election results in Tehran

Spot news: third prize stories AFP photographer Palestinian Mohammed Abed came third in this category with his pictures of the shelling in Gaza

Spot news: second prize stories AFP photographer Olivier Laban-Mattei took a second place with his images of post-election protests in Tehran

Nature: first prize stories Canadian photographer Paul Nicklen, National Geographic, won first prize in this category for South Georgia, Antarctica

People in the news: second prize singles The runner-up in this category was American photographer David Guttenfelder for Associated Press, who showed US soldiers responding to Taliban fire outside their bunker in Korengal valley

Picture of the day

A group of starlings shows just what they think of the assembled masses gawking at them and the human race in general.

Oh, some might say that this was just a random event at high speed that happened to be captured by a camera and that birds could have no way of understanding our rude hand gestures and swear words. Oh no, they knew. The birds knew what they were doing. The animals always know.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.01

E.P.A. Moves to Curtail Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Tired of waiting for Congress to get off its fat asses and make an attempt to bungle climate legislation while it's bungling health care legislation, President Obama decided that "Hey, maybe I should use the agencies and laws I already have to do it." Brilliant stroke of genius, Barry. And so he did, enabling the EPA to menace free enterprise and business with the application of its dirty laws and legally mandated oversight. Hopefully soon, Congress will come up with a terrible climate change bill so that we can circumvent all this nastiness and get back to what's important: letting industry pollute without any enforcement of actual laws.

Reality Check: Trying to Turn a Point of Pride into a Moment of Shame
Ahh, the White House has finally snapped and started using its web-based blog bully pulpit to go after professional liars like Glenn Beck. What was it that set the White House off? Death panels? FEMA re-education camps? Was Beck trying to blame his 1990 rape and murder of a young girl on the Administration? No....*sighs*, Beck complained about efforts to win the Olympics for the US. And he used lies so minor, they basically count as Beck attempting to tell the truth. Yeah, this was the one you really needed to combat, White House.

Credit Rating Agency Analysts Covering AIG, Lehman Brothers Never Disciplined
Oh my star and garters. You're telling me that the concept of accountability that doesn't exist in banks or financial markets, doesn't exist in the businesses that rate them? But really, one does have to be shocked that the Government is mad at the A and AA ratings that Moody's Standard and Poor's, and Fitch's handed out. I mean an A or AA rating, in the fantasy financial world where everything is rated AAA, is the equivalent of a D- or F+ in the real world. Why should anyone be fired over not seeing the imminent collapse of some of the the largest financial institutions in the world? That's why pencils have trillion dollar erasers.

Tamiflu in Rivers Could Breed Drug-Resistant Flu Strains
OK, want to make sure that flu carrying animals aren't exposed to anti-virals flu medications and drug resistant flu strains aren't created? One simple step: if you take Tamiflu, afterward...never urinate. And especially don't urinate into a river. Tamiflu is expelled by urine, it gets into the water through sewage treatment plants, then into the rivers, then exposed to birds, then Captain Trips is created, then we're all caught up in an apocalyptic morality play as Boulder, Colorado and Las Vegas engage in the final battle of good and evil after a superflu wipes out 99.9% of the world's population. Is this what you want? No? Good, don't pee.

Iran Meets U.S. and Allies for Nuclear Talks in Geneva
And so begins the long process in which the world tells Iran that it shouldn't try to make nukes "Because" and Iran looks at open threats of destruction coming at it from large and influential sectors of the US political establishment, threats of preemptive strikes from Israel, continued Middle Eastern conflict, the fact that it just suppressed it's own population and rigged an election, and the fact that back water shit states with deep terrorist ties, like Pakistan for instance, are immediately treated with respect, dignity, and showered with billions just because they developed a nuke, and says "Wait, why should I listen to you guys?" It'll be great.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.29

Revolving Door Spins Ex-Hill Aides Into Lobbyists
I know this is something you probably didn't need to be told, but it seems that out of the 2,737 vultures swarming Washington on behalf of the health care and pharmaceutical industries trying to convince our unelected betters to forgo the pleasantries of lube when they screw us, 52% or 1,418 are former government employees/elected representatives. Duh! Do you really think a Senator wants to take corporate contributions and marching orders from a stranger?

Keeping Iran honest
One of those smug assholes who had the politically debilitating misfortune of being right about Iraq, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, has decided to stick his big nose and his "I know things about the Middle East and weapons" attitude into this whole Iran mess. Apparently this ass thinks that by calmly stating what is going on, explicitly explaining the international laws involved, and cogently using his knowledge of weapons systems and manufacturing capacity to tamp down fears of Iranian nukes, that he can somehow enlighten people and clam them down over what is happening. Hopefully we'll ignore this jerk-off before his dirty facts taint our precious "start a war or start a nuclear war" debate.

Four-Winged Fossil Bridges Bird-Dinosaur Gap
Listen, I know I caused a controversy yesterday when I, perhaps too hastily as it turns out, suggested that Jurassic Park was not as accurate a documentary as we all thought. It turns out I was wrong. It seems that, as Dr. Alan Grant postulated, that the thunder lizards just up and became birds. And now there's a fossil record. Of a transitional evolutionary species. That sound you heard was Kirk Cameron shrieking as Darwin planted a size 11 Timberland right in his groin. That's the scientific theories of Darwin/Jurassic Park - 1, the scientific theories of Growing Pains - 0.

Girl Talk, Working Memory and Creativity
One man takes a recent GQ profile of Pittsburgh musician and mash-up artist Greg "Girl Talk" Gillis and takes it as a jumping off point for how memory works in relation to music and specifically mash-up music. It turns out there's a little more to it than "Wu-Tang and Boston were always meant to be together."

Thousands of hyphens perish as English marches on
That's right, the Oxford English Dictionary re-opened its killing fields for another year and this time no hyphen was spared. Ice-cream is now icecream. Test-tube is now test tube. And both Sean and I are nervously awaiting the rulings on fuck-face and jerk-off for a piece on Glenn Beck. Who's to blame? The interwebs and all it's various assorted hyphen hating tubes combined with a populace that is just to damned lazy to use them. Don't worry about all those hyphens...*sniff*...they're with Jesus now.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.03

GE's silencing of Olbermann and MSNBC's sleazy use of Richard Wolffe
Glenn Greenwald on a story on how Jeffrey Immelt and Rupert Murdoch got together to decide that they should explicitly interfere with their news organizations for the purpose of protecting the corporate interests of their parent companies. Also: on using corporate lobbyists and advisers as "political analysts". Remind me again, why is the news industry dying and dragging us down with it?

Ahmadinejad’s Opponents Snub Election Ceremony
Talk about poor losers. Strike that, they actually did win. But still, can't the crybabies who had their election invalidated by a religious ruling council suck it up and go take a gander at the death of any notion of democracy they thought their country had? It is a rare opportunity to trainwreck gawk.

Land of Lincoln
Say happy 100th birthday to the penny! A useless, near valueless object of alleged legal tender that costs more to make than it is actually worth. Plus it just unjustly fuels the ego of Ghost Lincoln and is still a brutal reminder to all the surviving Confederate soldiers and the subjugation of states rights during the War of Northern Aggression. The penny: may we be rid of it soon.

Welcome to Svalbard, Here’s Your Bird-Defense Stick
A heart warming story of science, seed collecting, doomsday, blogging, smashing the fuck out of devil birds with a wood plank, menacing polar bears, Norway, and travelogue information should you decide to lose your mind and visit the Earth's northernmost settlement.

Scientists Drill a Mile Into Active Deep Sea Fault Zone
Why would they do such a thing? Certainly not to control the world's earthquakes. And if you believe anything to the contrary a bald, scarred man in a silver jumpsuit will be by later to slowly dip you into a pit of acid. The cover story is that they're allegedly trying to radically advance the understanding and gathering seismic data. They also had a mile long drill sitting around and really felt the need to use it for something.

Restart of Large Hadron Collider now November
Oh for fucks sake, will you nerds just murder God and suck us all into a swirling black vortex of death already? The project has been delayed as they have had to deal with helium leaks at their combination absolute zero cooling & birthday balloon station. Some goddamned idiot also misplaced a pallet full of particles, setting work back another week. Re-start in November, no work until December? How long is the world supposed to belay their excitement over particles colliding?

Planet of the apes: on schedule

Zoo chimp 'planned' stone attacks

A male chimpanzee in a Swedish zoo planned hundreds of stone-throwing attacks on zoo visitors, according to researchers.

Keepers at Furuvik Zoo found that the chimp collected and stored stones that he would later use as missiles.

Further, the chimp learned to recognise how and when parts of his concrete enclosure could be pulled apart to fashion further projectiles.
...
"We've done experimental studies, and the chimps in my mind show very clearly that they do plan for future needs, but it has been argued that perhaps this was an experimental artefact," Dr Osvath told BBC News.

"Now we have this spontaneous behaviour, which is always in some sense better evidence."

Yes, better evidence that apes will soon attack and overthrow us, provided our economic and societal conditions inch closer to their own. Their damn dirty hands will be all over us, putting us in nets, hiding secrets about destroyed landmarks, and giving us futuristic names like Nova while we worship unexploded nuclear bombs. See what we've been saying people? First coordinated Islamofowlist geese and bird attacks. Now a string of chimp attacks combined with scientific evidence that they can plan and prepare and plot and scheme and overthrow.

Furthermore this ape, named Santino or "Destructor" in ape language, collected these rocks while he was in a calm state, preparing his attacks for when he would be driven mad later in the day by the hooting and hollering of Swedes pointing out his nudity and lack of a colored ass. How messed up is that? The ape walked around thinking "Yeah I might be calm now, but later when these hairless baboons start gawking at me I'm just going to lose my shit. Better pile up these stones to hurl at their blonde heads. Soon I will be in control. Soon I will do the gawking at them in their cages. I AM SANTINO!"

Just one more thing to worry about. After our economic collapse not only will you have to worry about basic subsistence, you'll have to worry about coordinated bird and chimp attacks. Possibly separate, but maybe one day you see a lemur on the back of a swan. That, my friend, is when we know our run is over.

The Independent shits on your soy burger

The Independent today has come out with what it says is a list of some of the inconsistencies, misrepresentations, wrong ideas, and hard choices one has to make within the 'green' movement and the move towards greener living. Among the things discussed are the relatively lower yield of growing organic and higher carbon footprints of farming, genetically modified fruits and vegetables holding the key to dropping that footprint, the fact that when the building of a Prius and the materials used is taken into account it isn't very green, or that a diesel can out-mileage a Prius in real world conditions, the need for nuclear power, that it might be better to cut down older trees to replace them with newer trees with a higher C02 absorption, and the need to kill cute animals.

You may not have come across the Bewick's swan. The smallest swan found in Britain, it reaches our shores from its Siberian breeding grounds in October and, along with 65,000 other water birds, it splashes down in the wetlands of the Severn Estuary. It is, without doubt, very cute.

But soon, it will have to find somewhere else to feed. In a few years' time, hundreds of lorries and cranes are set to sling 10 miles of steel and concrete across the most beautiful and ecologically diverse of estuaries, flooding the swans' habitat. Could anything be more of an affront to the eco-minded? The call would seem to be as clear as they come: save the swans, say no to construction.

But it isn't that simple. All that steel and concrete will become the Severn Barrage which, by harnessing the tides, would provide 5 per cent of Britain's electricity, with no nasty carbon emissions. So, which to choose: clean electricity, or the protection of birds and beasts?

Fuck the swan, it's just a more radicalized version of it's Islamofowlist, plane crashing brethren: the goose. But the Independent does correctly identify some of the juxtapositions and choice that have to be made. Of course they also lean on bullshit like clean coal, which still involves pumping CO2 down into the ground and hoping for the best or compressing it into containers and burying them, and the paper doesn't see the benefit of carbon offsets funding green research and technology. They also say that when the Nazi's come for us at the train station we're going to have to choose whether to let them take Al Gore or Bono.......and I don't think I'm ready to make that choice.

But all in all a fine way to make you feel bad about trying to do good.

Bird found, enjoyed by all

The bird, as it appears on your menu

"Extinct" Bird Seen, Eaten

A rare quail from the Philippines was photographed for the first time before being sold as food at a poultry market, experts say.

Found only on the island of Luzon, Worcester's buttonquail was known solely through drawings based on dated museum specimens collected several decades ago.

Scientists had suspected the species—listed as "data deficient" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's 2008 Red List—was extinct.

I know that's my first experience when finding rare or previously thought to be extinct animals: document the discovery, then decide on broiling or frying. But there was a benefit to this. People only thought the bird existed, now they know it did/does AND they know it was delicious. A classic win/win if I ever heard of it.

Now someone find out if those Chinese River Dolphins still exist and whether they should be broiled or smoked and served with red or white wine.

The Islamofowlist menace returns

We warned you, now we unleash hell on you.

Bird Strike Is New Suspect in Helicopter Crash

Federal investigators increasingly suspect that a collision with a bird led to the crash last month of a widely used Sikorsky helicopter model that killed eight people in the Gulf of Mexico, according to industry officials and safety experts.

The Jan. 4 crash of the Sikorsky S-76C chopper, manufactured by a unit of United Technologies Corp., initially had stumped crash investigators, who had previously ruled out engine, transmission, electrical or hydraulic failures. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is heading the probe, also said the chopper didn't run out of fuel, hit some other aircraft or suffer a problem with its rotors. Now, investigators think a bird strike destroyed the windshield, which somehow resulted in nearly turning off the engines.

Is this going to be the new thing now? We had one famous plane crash as a result of a bird blitzkrieg and now every time a bird hits a kite we're going to hear about it? Birds hit 7,439 aircraft a year, mostly resulting in aborted takeoffs or emergency landings. I know, since 1988 birds have murdered 219 people in 200 air crashes, but it's not a menace to the airways quite yet. Is this the media's new Summer of the Shark? The late Winter of the Bird!

Relax and breathe, the birds aren't organizing. We went over this, they're controlled by al Qaeda. We can stop this with a simple billion dollar, multi-year conflict somewhere in the Middle East. Regain the skies!

Hudson Crash audio

CBS has got a hold of the black box audio recording of the pilots who safely landed the plane in the Hudson. Right now so many people are trying to listen to it that it kind of crashed the audio player they have, so I've decided to provide a partial transcript.

Pilot 1: Alright tower, we're in the air.
Pilot 2: You're going to want to look out for that huge flock of geese over there, maybe pull up a little.
Pilot 1: Shut the fuck up Johnson, shit like that is why you're a co-pilot and not a pilot.
Pilot 2: But sir, the engines...
Pilot 1: 'But sir'. You sound like a fucking woman. These are jet engines. JET ROCKET FUCKING ENGINES! I'll tear these birds up. Who can fly now, animal kingdom? FUCK THESE GEESE! FUCK THESE GEESE! FUCK THESE GEESE!
Pilot 2: Engine 2 is out and it's also on fire.

Now from right before the water landing.

Pilot 2: Don't you think we should get this plane over to LaGuardia for an emergency landing? It's very close, I think we can make it.
Pilot 1: Johnson, I swear to God if you don't give me all the money in your wallet I will smash this plane into a building!
Pilot 2: What the hell is wrong with you?
Pilot 1: Your mother is half Pakistani, they'll just assume you overpowered me on orders from bin Laden. They'll never suspect me, I'm a white man! Your money! NOW!
Pilot 2: Here you fucking lunatic, now try and make it over to LaGuardia.
Pilot 1: Fuck that shit, it's hero time! WAAAAAAAAAATER LAAAAAAANDING! Put on your hip waders Johnson and call my press agent, it's time for a dip.

The audio cuts out after that. Truly a heroic moment.

A message from your Islamofowlist overlords

WE CONTROL THE SKIES NOW!

Bring us crusty bread lest you anger us again.

Bin Laden came too soon

Behold the new face of Islamofowlist terror! This patriotic American thinks Bin Laden made his move too early. Better to wait for the new administration to settle in before launching this new round. You have shown your hand, OBL, and it will result in your destruction by the forces of Good.

In a brief moment of seriousness, everyone seems to be ok. The FAA reports that all passengers and crew are safe and sound. Plenty of first-responders on the scene and no shortage of helicopters and sirens in the air.

At this point, more than anything I'm eager to see how far downriver the thing drifts...