If only

Stephen Colbert on BP, anger, Obama, fancy pants, and what should really happen to Tony Hayward.

You wouldn't like Barry when he's angry

Much of the anger directed at President Obama over this whole massive oil catastrophe has been over his perceived lack of tangible, screaming, shaking his fist at the sky anger. Because apparently they expected Obama's calm, measured... almost comatose behavior in the face of nearly any obstacle or event would somehow now change. But that's what we, as a country, have decided to get mad at the President over. You know, instead of that thing where he continued the policy of dangerous deference and hiring industry cronies to look after the industry they were meant to me regulating.

But now you may be getting your wish: competent regulation of the oil industry MAD OBAMA! Yes, the man has practically shown a tangible emotion. And that emotion is rage! Sure it's deeply buried under what almost seems like a medicated calm, but it's there. Obama is pissed.

"I was down there a month ago before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the Gulf," Obama told NBC's Matt Lauer. "I was meeting with fishermen in the rain talking about what a potential crisis this could be."I talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers -- so I know whose ass to kick," the president said.

After that he dramatically put his sunglasses on, took the lit cigarette from his mouth, said something about the oil being as black as BP CEO Tony Hayward's heart, flicked the cigarette into the pool of oil that Hayward was standing in, and then laughed as the flames engulfed his tortured screams. Then as the President walked away slowly he cocked his shotgun and said he was coming for the CEO's of Transocean and Halliburton.

Oh no, he wasn't done yet. Barry then talked about how he would have fired Hayward after he made all those idiotic statements about "wanting his life back" and how the oil spill was small... when compared to the entirety of the water contained in the world's oceans. Obama then knocked BP's corner cutting safety measures and how he hasn't talked to Hayward because he's not interested in the CEO's cheap words... he's interested in action.

So there we are, the President is maaaaaaaaaad. It only took several weeks, but now he's using curse words on the TV. Soooooo... I guess everything is fixed now? No? But the news said he needed to get mad. Maybe he has to say "fuck" to Katie Couric, slug a Saudi sheik in the jaw, and go desecrate the grave of Edwin Drake. Then we'll be on the right track.

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.

Comic of the day

Via Prose Before Hos comes a look at the odd world of right wing rage. I think the tears of blood in front of the mushroom cloud kind of understates how the Tea Baggers are taking it, but no one actually knows what the personification of evil looks like ravaging the personification of liberty while the world burns, so I'll cut them some slack.

Festval of Whites

The Daily Show looks at the recently completed national convention of pissed off old white males that is otherwise known as CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference.

The last honest man

If you didn't already really, really hate Joe Lieberman with the fire of a thousand suns, our great newspapers have taken it upon themselves this week to try and take that loathing and crank it up into the two or three thousand sun range.

First there was the Wall Street Journal's epic paen to Joe, in which thousands of words are spent memorializing and lauding self-aggrandizing narcissism, hypocritical self-interest, inflated egotism, spite vendettas, and self commissioned statue building. The story really should become the dictionary definition for fellatio, or at least "media fellatio."

The Washington Post took a different angle, showing why everyone hates Joe Lieberman and attempting a pushback on the large bullshit parade he attempt to lead any time he opens his mouth. It's a nice catalogue of grievances, but at the end of the story, while discussing his disdain for the public option, it drops this little nugget:

“He keeps saying over and over that we can’t afford the public option, but the question is whether we can afford the subsidies,” said John Holahan of the Urban Institute.

Confronted with the cost-saving assessments of a strong public option, Lieberman concedes the point, but he says an aggressive government-run plan would put undue pressures on medical providers and force them to shift costs to private insurers. Put simply, he opposes the public option in any form, regardless of whether it reduces costs.

That's right, his "principled" opposition to the public option fully concedes that it would save money. If he knows that, he knows the stronger a public option is, the more money that it saves. Yet still he opposes one. Yet God is still refusing to hit him with a flaming rock from the sky.

So there, just mull that one over as you get to read over and over that the public option was just removed from the Senate health reform bill. Swish that one around the 'ole palate. Push the rage deep down inside and save it for another day, so when you see the inevitable news story praising him for his "contributions" and "action" during the health care debate you can explode out with an emphatic "THATFUCKINGSONOFABITCH", perhaps directed at a loved one or small child. As you think over how hard this man worked to take money out of your pocket and degrade your health care options, one thought will rattle around in your head: "Thanks Connecticut. Thanks for electing him." They're welcome.

The new disappointment

With the health care debate largely over and only the scope and size of the public option left to get to get blindingly angry about, the choice of whether to allow people access to it was successfully fobbed off onto states (states rights, bitches! eat it Lincoln!), and the spectacle of largely conservative, right wing states enacting a hilarious process of screwing their own citizens on health care with the tacit tea bagging approval of those citizens, Congress now moves on to a new debate for us all to get immensely worked up over inevitably leading to anger and disillusionment in government as intelligent plans based on science and research are diluted and made terrible by the dumbest and most politically craven members of the Democratic Senate caucus: the environmental debate! The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee starts public hearings on climate change bills! Whooo!

With a clearer picture on health care, the Obama administration and Congress today are pivoting toward climate change legislation.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee began hearings this hour on Chairman Barbara Boxer's bill, with President Obama's Green Cabinet expected to testify.
...
With just over a month before climate change negotiations begin in Copenhagen, environmental advocacy groups have been pressuring the White House and Congress to take action so world leaders have a framework to build upon.

Administration officials have stressed for weeks they are comfortable with negotiators using the House-passed bill as a starting point, but the activists closest to the issue say that's not enough.

Sorry activists, hope you like getting less than what's in the House bill you think is inadequate. Hell, I hope you like getting less than what's in the Kerry/Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733) that the hearings are going to be about. Because the lesson around here, and we try to impart it on a daily basis, is that the Senate is a stupid place and legislation only goes there to be made worse. The climate bill has been ordered to pass through the land of wind and ghosts and we can only hope that it emerges from the other side in a manner that doesn't worsen climate change, only fails to inadequately and effectively address it and fails to help set up the American economy to grow and expand into green technologies.

It matters not that people support cap-and-trade measures by a 60% to 37% measure and that the numbers are even higher for people under the age of 50. They felt the same way about a robust public option and we all saw the bruised, battered, and dismembered body that is still trying to drag itself out of the US Senate's shame basement. No, the future of America is clearly coal, so coal state Democrats (and God there are more of them than the ones who opposed a strong public option) will make sure that climate change legislation reflects the wishes of the coal industry that will fuel our economy into the 22nd century. Get ready, we've found the next Country Polarizing Thing To Hate that everyone on both sides can get angry about: climate change legislation! Get your teabags and haikus about Mother Earth ready.

Shep~!

It's time for another episode of Shep Smith: Man of Conscience. The show where Fox News' constant unending shilling for the GOP and corporations finally drives humble broadcaster Shep Smith into a furious rage, whereupon he must find a victim and smash them to death with facts.

The poor bastard on the receiving end this time? Sen. John "I didn't goaltend for any Penguin Cup teams" Barrasso (R-Wyoming). What was Shep pissed about? Lies about the public option and the fact that the insurance companies own our government lock stock. Shep starts getting some of that Taibbi-style righteous fury going. All-in-all it has been a pretty good day for publicly shaming health care liars on the TV. Enjoy.

Broken In Brief: Man wishes jerk would ‘unkindly fuck himself’

TUCSON—Motorists massed on Interstate 10 today to hear local motorist Dan Upshall announce that the “…asshole in the tan Datsun that just cut me off” could take the physiologically baffling step of unkindly fucking himself. The thick layers of thoughtfulness and sarcasm commonly associated with ‘kindly fuck yourself’ were reportedly stripped from the phrase due to the traffic infraction that resulted in Mr. Upshall's caramel mochachino landing squarely in his lap.

Sources close to the incident say this unnamed asshole, careening across lanes in a reckless attempt to merge, refused even the most basic gesture of recognition of his social breach. After this failure to recognize his faux pas, Mr. Upshall offered forth two fingers worth of rude gestures and used his horn to signal to society that he had been egregiously put upon and oppressed by another inconsiderate motorist.

Observers report that Mr. Upshall hopes that by combining these gestures together with the increased vulgarization of his insult that he has bestowed the mantle of ‘automotive pariah’ onto the driver of the tan Datsun in the eyes of surrounding motorists, somehow gaining a measure of restitution for his spilled beverage and ruined slacks. Drivers close to the unnamed man noted an almost faint change in his aura and a glint of recognition in his eyes, as if it had already dawned on him that the way fellow citizens would now view him had imperceptibly changed.

When confronted with the fact that his reaction to being cut off had now doomed this man to a lifetime of ostracization, therapy, and yearning for redemption in society’s eyes, Mr. Upshall was heard to remark “Serves him right. That was a $7 dollar coffee!”

Blame Game

Time has decided to provide us with a useful service today. Instead of reporting on news or providing analysis, they've given us a something to channel our finance based rage into. No, not a large pinata filled with food stamps shaped like Bernie Madoff. A Top 25 "Whose To Blame" list, where people can vote on who they think is most to blame for this crisis. It's interactive and provides real time blame updating. As of this writing our friend and mentor Phil Gramm is leading the field with a #1 ranking, 9 blame rating, and over 49,000 votes.

As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee from 1995 through 2000, Gramm was Washington's outspoken champion of deregulation. And he got it, by playing a lead role in the writing and passage of the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which had separated commercial banks from Wall Street. Then he inserted a provision into the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that exempted derivatives like credit-default swaps from regulation.

Basic facts burn! Second is possibly blind, deaf, and dumb SEC chief Chris Cox, who still might not be sure there was some funny business going on over on Wall Street and he was in charge of a large regulatory organization capable of what we in the business call "doing something". Third is Angelo Mozilo, founder of Countrywide, the genius who first popularized giving exotic mortgages to iffy home buyers. #4 is Joe Cassano, founder of AIG's financial products unit who banked everything on credit-default swaps. Rounding out the top five is Frank Raines CEO of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, I didn't bother reading.

In last place is Burton Jablin the director of programming for Scripps who created Designed to Sell, House Hunters and My House Is Worth What?, Flip That House, Flip This House, Flip A House, Flipping Houses, Flipping House Hunters, Flip Some House, Honey? Some Guys Are Here About A House Flipping, Has This House Been Flipped?, and the Hugh Laurie medical drama House. Clearly this man is a sick individual, but I'm going to put his culpability somewhere ahead of mine and behind everyone who worked in finance, banking, regulation, or our government. Bush is only #16, marking the only time he will be outside of the top 10 in an un-ironic worst list for the next five decades.

So go on over, register your rage, and re-channel it into something productive. Like finding a job or creating working voodoo dolls of all 25 list members.

Stiller Sunday

Another week and another game. Another game where we don't hopefully give the game away like a bunch of choking sisters to teams we're owning and pwning (Giants and Colts, I'm looking in your direction), wicked hard, until the shambling horror of our offensive line, RB injuries, and mental stability of one BR7 combine to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory with ill timed penalties, drive killing sacks, and mind shattering interceptions inside our own 30. YOU CAN SHOW UP FOR OBAMA, BUT NOT FOR THE COLTS GAME?!?! Excuse me, I just got very mad. I will now leave the room to break something and kick up to two dogs.

Back now. Let's not dwell on the fiery raging anger, raging in a fiery way inside us all anymore. Hey, the Pens have won six in a row. We all like the Pens, right? Drive those BR7 INT's out of your skull with thoughts of Jordan Staal selling his soul to the devil for some swank goals over the past couple of games. Here's this week's Yinz Luv Da Stillers, replete with a RHCP "Give It Away" theme and a Ernie Stautner reference.



This week, my pretties, we face the San Diego Chargers replete with the probably washed up LaDanian Thompson, the excrement headed, annoying, ape faced, Gomer Pyle goon, fantasy points machine Philip Rivers, and head coaching pariah Norv Turner. They drag their 4-5, "Lost in London", mediocre in a bad division, asses to Heinz Field for a rowdy dow. Good news everyone, LaMarr "Scary Human" Woodley brings his 9.5 sacks back into the lineup this week along with Hasty Bill Parker aka Quick William. Today sees the CB starting debut of William "My jersey won't be a big seller because my last name is" Gay and the debut of Fernando Bryant in the triage unit known as the Steelers CB corps.

Sad news, as WR Dallas Baker got cut this week. Everyone wear their Dallas Baker jerseys in remembrance of him and his one catch for 6 yards today.

Vegas line is us giving 4.5. The Chargers have a 0-12 lifetime record in Pittsburgh for the regular season. I'm sure I just jinxed that. Kickoff 4:15. Exultant joy or crippling depression & fury around 7:30'ish.

Steelers Week Three

If you were to kick in the door of the next Steelers offensive line meeting and started blasting away with a shotgun, you would hit somebody who deserved it and nothing of value would be lost. Comically this was the week where every sports writer dusted off their "Steelers O-Line is really playing well" column. I'm sure it'll all seem funny by Thursday.

Thank you for almost getting Roethlisberger killed. You might have fucked us big anyway if that hand is a long term injury. He was able to dodge the typical one guy you let wander through, but wasn't able to handle the other 3 that waltzed through. Take two weeks off and quit. That he or Tomlin didn't throw you all under the bus after the game is a testament to their professionalism, not your play. Large Benjamin saved about 5 more sacks from being added to your tally by diving across the line of scrimmage. Maybe the gameplan was to tire the Eagles D out by having them run into the backfield so much that they got gassed. I don't think it worked.

You also fucked my fantasy team hard with your hamhanded run blocking. Now Tony Romo has to bail me out by passing only to Jason Witten.

Kindly die.

Regards,
Steeler Nation.

P.S. Big sarcastic thanks to Kendall Simmons wife. You couldn't have had that baby yesterday or this morning? We could have really used Kendall to be nowhere near that field today.
P.P.S. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!
P.P.P.S. Alright, breathe. It's only week three.

Petty rage of the day

Fuck the south and their pickle infested chicken sandwiches. I don't know if a place exists in the south where they have chicken sandwiches with pickles on them, but you somehow inspired every fast food place to make one that way. Now I can't watch TV without seeing 6 ads for 4 fast food joint's southern chicken sandwich with pickles.

Cram them with or sans gerkins. If they start making vanilla or chipotle versions I'm really going to lose it. I likes my chicken the way Ulysses S. Grant liked it: northern flavored and served to me by a demoralized confederate whose city and way of life I've just destroyed.