How the intarwebs works

Sarah Palin says something stupid and mangles the English language/intelligent thought in the process. Internet pounces. Sarah defends herself by comparing her creation of words/poor spelling and grammar/general status as a ill informed door stop to that of Shakespeare, nearly killing Roger Ebert in the process. Internet pounces.

T-shirts are made, memes are born. Shakespalin: the Bard of Wasilla. All of this happened in like three seconds.

The TB Internet Science Department is willing to surmise that it is official: Moore's Law applies to internet-based political t-shirts, internet memes, and the mocking of dim witted politicians.

What does this hold for the future? Quantum snark. We're thinking by 2015 at the latest.

It's a bold new world.

It begins...

God love RNC Chairman Michael Steele. He may be massively incompetent and unfit to run the RNC, but he is entertainingly dim. Only he could set the bar on crazy Elena Kagan statements mere hours after she was announced as Obama's pick for the Supreme Court. It was tucked away in a little statement after a jag on the "liberal agenda" she supports. See if you can point it out.

Given Kagan's opposition to allowing military recruiters access to her law school's campus, her endorsement of the liberal agenda and her support for statements suggesting that the Constitution "as originally drafted and conceived, was 'defective,'" you can expect Senate Republicans to respectfully raise serious and tough questions to ensure the American people can thoroughly and thoughtfully examine Kagan's qualifications and legal philosophy before she is confirmed to a lifetime appointment.

It's right there at the end: her support for statements suggesting that the Constitution "as originally drafted and conceived, was 'defective,'". Why that look innocuous enough, you might be saying. He's just taking the same "liberals hate the Constitution" track that every Republican takes after a hard day of working to undermine the Constitution.

But you have to look a little deeper into Kagan's statement to get the full breadth and depth of Steele's stupidity. Oh yes, she did agree with and describe the Constitution as "defective", but she and the man she was agreeing with, Thurgood Marshall, might just have had a point.

Just one problem -- Kagan was writing about comments made by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. And Marshall was referring to slavery.
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Marshall's speech gave particular note to the constitution's original definition of a slave as counting for only three-fifths of a person. Kagan wrote in her piece that "it was the role of the courts, in interpreting the Constitution, to protect the people who went unprotected by every other organ of government."

That's right, they were criticizing the part of the Constitution that legalizes slavery and treats blacks as three-fifths of a person. Now I know we have to pretend that the Constitution is an unflawed document handed down from God to Jesus On The Cross, who proceeded to sign his name all big like at the bottom with a blood soaked nail. But can we maybe agree that the parts that enshrined slavery and an entire race as second class citizens/fractional people were... I don't know... bad? Everyone doesn't have to do it. Maybe just people like, say, the black chairman of the RNC. No?

Still want to stick to that criticism of Kagan, Mike? Yes? Don't want to admit you didn't read anything she said before firing off a press release accusing her of not giving slavery its due? No? OK, then. Keep up the good work.

Broken News: Ludicrous building industry near collapse as Dubai economic crisis worsens

DUBAI—The recent opening of the 2,717 ft, 160 floor Burj Khalifa skyscraper was greeted with joy by many. However, the centerpiece of what Dubai officials are hoping will become the London or New York of the Middle East has been met with trepidation by several groups. Indeed, the number of vacancies in the $1.5 billion skyscraper, combined with the debt incurred to build such monstrous buildings, and the resulting collapse of Dubai’s finances, have signaled the death of one of the world’s formerly booming industries: immensely stupid construction.

In fact, with the Burj Khalifa completed there are no new plans for any new intensely idiotic building concepts or even marginally feeble-minded and functionally useless projects. Recent months have seen a dramatic scaling back or even outright cancellation of some of the dumbest and most ill-conceived architectural projects known to man.

All this has many wondering what lies ahead for the stupid building construction industry that fueled Dubai’s growth at the outset of the 21st century.

“Yeah, times are tough,” a mournful Henri Duplass, CEO of Duplass Merde, one of the largest builders of foolish structures in the world, noted. “I remember when we built that giant 22,500 square meter indoor ski slope and followed it up by building the world’s largest outdoor pool and fake beachfront 100 yards from an ocean beachfront. Those were heady times."

“Before everything went to shit, we were designing a fake Swiss lakeside mountain retreat. We were carting in a trillion tons of granite for our mountain, had drawn up plans to dig out an artificial lake the size of Lake Champlain, and were still tinkering with the massive air conditioning/sprinkler system that would have been required to keep natural Swiss flora and fauna alive in the middle of a 120 degree desert. It was going to cost $7 billion dollars and be of no use to anyone. It would have been so... so beautiful...”

“Now? We’ve been reduced to crafting practical structures that are of use to normal people. I designed some low-income housing the other day and almost vomited in my mouth.”

Indeed, the industry has taken a massive hit. In recent years, Dubai had boasted 25% of all the world’s cranes in operation, but has recently seen that statistic shrink to an alarmingly sensible level for a Middle Eastern country with little in the way of industry, culture, or population.

In addition to the Dubai Swiss Chalet project, the recent economic troubles have cause the cancellation or delay of numerous ridiculous projects including the Dubai City Tower, a 1.5 mile high 400 floor building that was to have a vertical bullet train instead of an elevator, a Hanna Barbara-themed amusement park on a hover platform, an artificial island shaped like a construction team building an artificial island, a five thousand seat stadium dedicated to women’s sports, a Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, a branch of the science department of the University of Alabama, a monument to human folly, a Catholic church, and a series of metaphorical buildings that were to be built on foundations of sand.

According to analysts most of the problems in Dubai result from a drastic overestimation of the desire of people to live there, resulting in numerous home and business vacancies combined with the sheer amount of debt the United Arab Emirates amassed to build these asinine structures. With estimates of $100 billion in debt for the state owned businesses that amassed them and little hope of recouping losses and filling vacancies in this economic climate, the outlook is bleak.

“Some would say that we’re up shit creek without a paddle,” observed Ali Mohammed Sahan, a spokesman for Dubai World, the government owned investment company that funded most of the retarded structures. “But I disagree. We have a paddle, it’s just that it’s over 600 meters tall, made of platinum and diamonds, and affixed to the ground through a complex jumble of steel trusses. It’s going to take an incredible sum and a greater influx of foreign capital for us to detach and use said paddle.”

But despite these setbacks and the massive contraction that the stupid building industry is about to go through, those close to the situation remain optimistic for the future.

“Somewhere in a backyard someplace, there’s some kid in a sandbox building some dumb fucking thing out of whatever he can get his hands on,” observed a prideful Duplass. “And somewhere there’s some rich idiot who wants to deficit spend his country into poverty and utilize the modern equivalent of slave labor to get it built. That’s the kind of thing that gives me hope for the future.”

“We’ll be back before you know it. Building, I don’t know, a bunch of skyscrapers that fit together like Tetris blocks or something,” Duplass smiled. “We’ll be back.

Quote of the weekend

Former Miss California Carrie "Jesus wanted me to get these implants" Prejean, vying to become the third most influential Republican behind Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin, on how large of a golden house God is going to give her for hating fags harder than any beauty queen had ever attempted to do during a beauty pageant.

"Even though I didn't win the crown that night," said Prejean, while pausing to fight back tears, "I know that the Lord has so much of a bigger crown in heaven for me." "God chose me for that moment because he knew that not only would I be the one to stand up for him and for the truth, but because he knew I was strong enough to get through all the junk that I've been through," said Prejean. "I feel as if I'm Miss Universe."

You aren't Miss Universe. That's a separate crown where the organizers also would have been horrified at your "God sez so" opinion on "opposite marriage." But you are set up quite well to vie for the crown in an even more degrading, emotionally crippling beauty pageant: the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary. You keep flogging that anti-gay, "free speech means everyone has to reward me for saying something repellent", dishonest, Bible thumping, ego mania and you might just vault Michelle Bachmann into the VP slot on Sarah Palin's White House run.

Is our Wolf Blitzer learning?

Not a misprint. Not a Late Night with Conan O'Brien sketch. Wolf Blitzer went on Celebrity Jeopardy and racked up a -$4600 smackeroo defeat. You know, Celebrity Jeopardy: the Jeopardy that dumbs down it's questions. That's "won't even allow you to answer the final question" territory. That's "take money from your chosen charity" territory. That's "Wolf Blitzer might be functionally retarded" territory.

It's not surprising. I mean any guy that has 8 pages worth of links on Media Matters listing his numerous inadequacies and mental shortcomings as a news host surely isn't going to be able to rattle off facts about Charlemagne or who played bass for Foghat. How could he? It's Sean's famous "anyone who remotely looks like Will Ferrell's version of Alex Trebek stands no chance on Celebrity Jeopardy" corollary in effect again.

2012: Now you know how it all will end

You want to know why the Mayans thought the world would end in 2012? Because they foresaw a future in which people would be dumb enough to not only think stuff like this, but also publish it in a widely read and respected newspaper:

At first, it seemed like a joke. Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto opined on Monday that -- if the 2012 election were to turn to national security -- "it's hard to think of a better candidate... than Richard B. Cheney."
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"The Republican Party needs to move forward and build on its past, not return to it," Alex Castellanos, a frequent CNN analyst and GOP messaging guru, told the Huffington Post via email. "But if the agenda turns to security, Obama is mired in a no-win mess in Afghanistan, and the Obama administration hasn't created a single job in four years after indebting the nation for generations, maybe Dick Cheney could run on a theme of 'Change'."

That's it. Cue the meteors from the skies, Skynet setting off the nukes and releasing the terminators, Hell overflowing with the damned, the dolphins leaving the earth,and whatever other horrors the Mayans foresaw. The only question is whether Cheney's third term would be the event that kicks the apocalypse off or merely the seventh and final trumpet blast. Here's hoping we'll find out soon if Dick wants the planet to flirt with apocalypse. I have my fingers crossed for a yes.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.21

Celebrating Cronkite while ignoring what he did
Glenn Greenwald on how Walter Cronkite can't even be buried yet because his body is spinning so furiously they can't get it into a casket. Why? Due to all the journalists who seem to praise Cronkite but don't seem to have the slightest recognition of how far their profession has fallen and how little of what they do resembles the kind of work he and men like him did.

Cocksure
Malcolm Gladwell on the banking and financial crisis and how it relates to the psychology of overconfidence, notably how we tend to overrate our accuracy and intelligence as we get older. I know what you're saying "I can't believe the financial industry is rife with self-important, over confident, self absorbed assholes!" Believe it. Read all the way through to the story of the guy who wrecked Bear Stearns getting standing ovations from various parts of the company as he left.

Teen pregnancy and disease rates rose sharply during Bush years, agency finds
What's that you say? The marked increase in abstinence only education during the Bush years led to sharp increases in teen pregnancy and STD's over that period? My God, who could have foreseen that shunning knowledge for religious moralizing and mythmaking would have disastrous consequences? Other than all those previous studies and medical analysis that said so. Next you're going to tell me that the areas that saw the biggest increases were in the south where there was the greatest emphasis on abstinence and the STD eradicating powers of Jesus. Inconceivable.

Eliot Spitzer not my only governor - hooker who worked for Kristin Davis
Just what everyone loves: needlessly cryptic hookers. In between talking about how weird Eliot Spitzer was and how cheap Bernie Madoff was, comes a tale of yet another governor who decided that he'd like to resign in disgrace. But alas, she deigns to name names. Lord Baby Jesus, I don't ask for much, I'm just asking that it be Mark Sanford.

San Diego menaced by jumbo squid
In a stunning gambit to claim the seas before the robots get any ideas, giant fucking squid have been attacking swimmers and getting ink all over San Diego. Did I mention they're giant? Yeah, I did. Did I mention they fly, have fucking parrot beaks, eat meat, and have been attacking swimmers? Shit yourself yet? Don't worry, when their icy tentacles grab you and they sink their beak into you, possibly while you're swimming in the pool or on the toilet, then you'll know who rules the seas.

Who could have foreseen....

...that financial institutions wouldn't learn anything?

Morgan Stanley plans to repackage a downgraded collateralized debt obligation backed by leveraged loans into new securities with AAA ratings in the first transaction of its kind, said two people familiar with the sale.
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Two years after the credit markets began to seize up, costing the world’s biggest financial institutions $1.47 trillion in writedowns and losses, banks are again taking so- called structured finance securities and turning them into new debt investments with top credit ratings.

You mean to tell the bunch of geniuses who barely even understood what they were doing when they bundled piles of shit together into one big pile that collapsed he world economy, aren't smart enough to know not to do it again? I'm just surprised by how quick they're trying to jump back down that hole. I expected we'd at least be out of the current collapse before some genius said "Hear me out. Remember how we destroyed the economy? Let's do the exact same thing but expect different results because we've ostensibly learned something from the whole collapse?" Nope. They aren't even doing something different that just sounds similar. They're doing the exact same thing, possibly with even the exact same bad paper. In case you're wondering if the economy can crash twice within a year, we'll we're about to find out that the answer is yes. I can't believe that they couldn't even find a way to fuck things up in a new way. I hate repeats.

...that the CIA would constantly lie to elected officials?

In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had “misled members” of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. “This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods,” said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers.

In an interview, Mr. Holt declined to reveal the nature of the C.I.A.’s alleged deceptions,. But he said, “We wouldn’t be doing this over a trivial matter.”

Oh my, not the CIA! Not our most trusted government organization! Not after Republicans spent all that time criticizing Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats when they said they the CIA was hiding information or misleading them on a number of fronts! I guess this is why its such a smart idea for President Obama to threaten to veto a bill that expands the disclosure of covert actions to entire House and Senate Intelligence Committees. I guess he just doesn't want them all to be lied to. You can't have entire committees with hurt feelings, its better they're kept in the dark. I'm just glad that, once again, nothing will be done. I think the order goes something like:

1. CIA admits constant program of misinformation and lies to elected representatives
2. someone uses the phrase "boys will be boys"
3. the CIA's hair gets tousled and they're referred to as a "scamp" or "rascal"
4. everything continues on as if nothing happened.

I fail to see how the CIA never gets the message that they shouldn't lie to Congress. How much more harsh a rebuke than "scamp" can we throw down? Must we traverse down the slippery slope of "ne'er do well" and "nogoodnik"? I'm sure they'll get the message this time.

Oh goody, they learned nothing

Here I was thinking that the major lesson that banks and financial institutions would pick up from this near apocalypse were to not tie up all their assets in poorly thought out gambles and to act like they had a shred of common sense. What was I thinking? No, what they learned is that they weren't being crooked enough and that there were quite a few corners that could still be cut.

Big banks in the U.S. say they’re on the mend. The five largest were profitable in the first quarter, rebounding from record losses for the industry in the fourth quarter. Share prices have jumped, with the KBW Bank Index doubling since March 6.
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The revival may be short-lived. Analysts who have examined the quarterly profits and government tests say that accounting rule changes and rosy assumptions are making the institutions look healthier than they are.
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Citigroup’s $1.6 billion in first-quarter profit would vanish if accounting were more stringent, says Martin Weiss of Weiss Research Inc. in Jupiter, Florida. “The big banks’ profits were totally bogus,” says Weiss, whose 38-year-old firm rates financial companies. “The new accounting rules, the stress tests: They’re all part of a major effort to put lipstick on a pig.”

Further deterioration of loans will eventually force banks to recognize losses that their bookkeeping lets them ignore for now, says David Sherman, an accounting professor at Northeastern University in Boston. Janet Tavakoli, president of Tavakoli Structured Finance Inc. in Chicago, says the government stress scenarios underestimate how bad the economy may get.

Wait, it still might get worse? I was fucking leading the diminished expectations of happiness parade in the previous post! Thanks for the heads up, now I look like a jackass.

But hey, pretend profits are a step up from actual losses. If you want to look at a silver lining, things used to be so bad that banks couldn't even use bullshit accounting to hide the damage. Now they can. That's progress. Besides, people are too quick to judge and too quick to throw out terms like "bullshit accounting". Other than Enron, Worldcom, and Arthur Andersen, what companies have destroyed themselves with accounting magic? Don't try to think of any, just accept that it was only those three. Besides, isn't the best time to start idiotic accounting practices right after you narrowly avoided death for your idiotic mortgage, loan, and securities practices? I mean what are the odds of two financial apocalypses in the same fiscal year? I'm sure nothing bad will come of this. It all sounds so very smart.

Someone want to slap Bernanke?

Bernanke Says U.S. Banks Must Test More to Identify Other Risks

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said efforts by U.S. banks to raise capital are “encouraging” and called on firms to identify other risks through internal stress tests.

The banks, especially those with “trading and investment banking businesses,” should keep monitoring “operational, liquidity and reputational risks,” which weren’t addressed by the exam concluded last week, Bernanke said in a speech yesterday at a Fed conference in Jekyll Island, Georgia.

Yeah Ben, I'm sure they'll get right on the self-testing. Just like they got on the self-regulation and self-correction during the Bush years. You know what's going to happen if you're relying on banks to self-test? Nothing. Nothing is going to happen. Why? Because financial institutions live to avoid regulation. The only financial innovation to happen in the last decade has been in discovering ways to circumvent rules, ignore rules, evade detection, and in new lobbying techniques to get current rules weakened.

You know we just handed out trillions of dollars. Maybe we should, I don't know, keep tabs on that ourselves? Just an idea I had. Maybe we should be the ones assessing the strength of banks and financial institutions so we can, I don't know, be ahead of the curve? Know what's going on? Find out whether or not this is going to happen again in 6 months? I know Benny, you just don't want to do your job. You thought reducing interest rates to zero would effectively give you nothing else to do. Now that black guy wants you to exercise a modicum of oversight on banks. You want them to do it themselves. It's summer. It's golf time. Does no one understand?

Maybe you should just pretend to do oversight. Pretend to stress test. Sure, failure of oversight and regulation helped grease the skids for one massive economic collapse, but it's never gone and caused two collapses back-to-back. History is on your side. Go get your clubs, the first tee awaits.

This all makes so much sense

Another day, another veil of conspiracy and treachery thrown back by the dramatic revelations of a Texas secessionist patriot:

In an interview, Mr. Sessions cited rising unemployment in asserting that the administration intended to “diminish employment and diminish stock prices” as part of a “divide and conquer” strategy to consolidate power.

Mr. Sessions, in his seventh term, said Mr. Obama’s agenda was “intended to inflict damage and hardship on the free enterprise system, if not to kill it.”

See by making more people unemployed and driving the stock market down...uhh...a machine...that consolidates...power...is powered. Then Joe Biden goes down to the White House basement where they keep this machine, fires it up (On one tug of the pull starter. He hasn't been working out, it's a Honda), and Obama's power is consolidated. If he consolidates enough power then he becomes invincible and can only be killed by a mythical sabre made out of the bones of Thomas Paine and removed from office from a vote cast on a Diebold machine made out of the flesh of a thousand virgins.

Pete Sessions knows this. Pete Sessions is trying to warn us. We must not let this come to pass. This...consolidation.

You're fired

Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, another ritual has come to pass. The firing of the first gay Arab linguist. It's a time honored tradition where we fire military personnel who are critical to our Middle Eastern and war on terrorism efforts because we feel all funny about their desire to put their wing-wangs in a place that God didn't say was kosher or rub lady parts together in a non Spring Break related context. It's all very serious and adult.

Aside from the one question we all have (why are seemingly all of the Arab linguists gay) I think the other is: why do we still have this policy? Or are we also kicking people out on the basis of phrenology, consultation of the bones, and bad omens in the sky? For his part, Obama does seem to feel totally bad about his legal requirement to weaken the defense of our country because some general was forces to think of one of his soldiers smooching with another person of the same gender. Obama wrote the woman a letter and everything, assuring her he'd like to repeal it but Congress is involved, so everything will be stupid for a little while longer.

At least PA Congressman Joe Sestak (RUN AGAINST SPECTER!) is promising action later this summer. Until then we'll just have to hope we won't need Arab linguists or that terrorists don't just start all their coded communiques with: "Dear, superior officer. I, the American soldier transcribing, writing and/or reading this, am a homosexual." That's just going to throw everything into chaos.

The unfortunate descriptions Michelle Bachmann uses

Hey, what the best way to say that you're concerned that the black president is running up too much debt? Did you say "invent a new fictional tax rate and then make thinly veiled slavery allusions"? You can't see me now, but I'm tapping my finger on my nose.

BACHMANN: Well, I tell you what I am concerned about are the current 19 and 20-year-olds that are going to hold this debt. And it’s the mother of all ironies, John and Brian, that the kids who voted en masse for Barack Obama are the ones being fitted with shackles and chains. And they’re going to wake up one morning and find out that their tax rate is 65% or higher.

Now say you're Michelle Bachmann and you want to complain about spending levels. Of course you'd immediately want to talk about ejaculation and group sex at a meat based buffet.

"During the last 100 days we have seen an orgy. It would make any local smorgasbord embarrassed," Bachmann said. She then told the crowd that April 26 was National Debt Day, which conservatives commemorate as the moment government spending outpaces revenue. As Bachmann explains, "The government spent its wad by April 26."

I don't know what Swedish restaurants she's going to, but I want to join her.

Picture of the day

Pictured: Shocking moment polar bear attacks woman who climbed into zoo enclosure

This is the terrifying moment a woman was attacked by a polar bear after jumping into its zoo enclosure.

The 32-year-old leapt over bars at Berlin Zoo during the bears' feeding time yesterday.
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She was bitten by one of the four older polar bears in the enclosure and not by the famous Knut, who took Germany by storm as a cub after he was hand-raised by a keeper.
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It is not known why the woman pulled the dangerous stunt but she initially appeared to be elated as she swam towards a bear in the enclosure.

What could be better than 'idiot German woman bitten by bear'? "Idiot German woman bitten by famous bear". But alas, we missed out. We did get good photography of the moment she realized her brilliant scheme of 'climb into bear pen, swim towards bears' might not have been as brilliant as originally conceived. Also: video.



No Jesus, Happy Easter to you.

Thanks Texas

You feel that little tremor last week? A sort of tremble in your brain stem and a cold shiver up your spine? Yeah, that was our country getting dumber.

The State Board of Education on Friday passed science curriculum standards that members described as a compromise between those who are critical of teaching evolutionary theories without scrutiny and those who feared attacks on evolution would lead to the teaching of creationism in Texas schools.

After the 13-2 vote, it was social conservatives on the board who were doing most of the celebrating while scientists expressed concerns.

The new standards remove current requirements that students be taught the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories. Instead, teachers will be required to have students scrutinize "all sides" of the theories.

I always like it when hundreds of years of tested and re-tested science supported by 99.9999999% of the scientific field is given the same weight as the people who added up all the ages of people in the bible and decided to wage a political battle over it. Some say this, others say this, who can tell the difference? If only science was a subject where testable hypotheses were used to prove and advance knowledge within the field. But it isn't, science is just people's opinions on stuff and thus all opinions must be debated with equal merit. 

Texas also decided global warming wasn't petro-friendly enough and put out an APB to stone Pythagoras on sight. Round earth? Texas doesn't think so Mr. a² + b² = c².

Added Bonus: Texas scrapping it out with Mississippi and Louisiana for the bottom rung of US educational rankings means the burning stupid is going to bleed into other states, as large states tend to set the textbook requirements. Thanks Texas, you are the gift that keeps on giving.

President Norris

I may run for president of Texas
by Chuck Norris

On Glenn Beck's radio show last week, I quipped in response to our wayward federal government, "I may run for president of Texas."

That need may be a reality sooner than we think. If not me, someone someday may again be running for president of the Lone Star state, if the state of the union continues to turn into the enemy of the state.

From the East Coast to the "Left Coast," America seems to be moving further and further from its founders' vision and government.

Don't let me stop you Chuck, please, do go on.

How much more will Americans take? When will enough be enough? And, when that time comes, will our leaders finally listen or will history need to record a second American Revolution?
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"If this country starts to spiral out of control and Mexico melts down or whatever, if it really starts to spiral out of control, before America allows a country to become a totalitarian country...Americans won't stand for it. There will be parts of the country that will rise up." Then Glenn asked me and his listening audience, "And where's that going to come from?" He answered his own question, "Texas, it's going to come from Texas. Do you agree with that Chuck?" I replied, "Oh yeah!" Definitely.
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For those losing hope, and others wanting to rekindle the patriotic fires of early America, I encourage you to join Fox News' Glenn Beck, me and millions of people across the country in the live telecast, "We Surround Them," on Friday afternoon. Thousands of cell groups will be united around the country in solidarity over the concerns for our nation.

There are times when I think that the satire pieces we run are just taking natural events within the GOP and tweaking them slightly out of proportion. Then Chuck Norris goes and declares attempts to save the economy as totalitarianism, advises secession and a possible second Civil War over the neutered measures the government is taking, and half jokingly vows to run for President of Texas.

Then SC Gov. Mark Sanford declares the US is Zimbabwe and Obama is Mugabe, right after he fucks his state's school system for $700 million, because the government passed a stimulus and he doesn't understand economics. It's about that time I realize that satirizing the GOP has essentially been reduced to just passing on what they did, while trying to comically/mentally blunt the repercussions of their actions.

President Chuck, please secede. You run Texas, I'll run the Islamic Caliphate of Mattsylvania. Start up your new awesome country based around the teachings of Glenn Beck. I promise not to miss Texas (maybe I'll miss Austin) if you promise to take Oklahoma, Kentucky, and most of the South with you. You can live in your tax cutting, Mexican skull busting, symbolic tea party paradise of New Freedonia and we don't have to let you drag us down with you. Go. Faster. Before the icy hand of health care is at your throat.

Enjoy your extended recession South Carolina

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford doesn't want your dirty stimulus money. Well actually he does want it, but only if he can spend it on things that don't actually help stimulate the economy. You see he's got 2012 ambitions and adhering to some bullshit Republican fiscal code with Bobby Jindal is a tad more important than listening to egghead economists and helping the citizens of his state. Priorities, the man's got GOP primaries to think about here.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford plans to ask President Obama for permission to use part of his state's stimulus money to pay down its debt, not on new spending, according to a letter he sent state legislators Tuesday.

A longtime opponent of the president's nearly $800 billion stimulus package, the Republican governor told his state's lawmakers that spending approximately $700 million in money coming from the federal government would only make the state's financial situation worse in the long term.

"[W]hen one is in a hole, the first order of business is to stop digging," Sanford wrote in the letter obtained by CNN Tuesday.

Yes, clearly what drove us into a hole was government spending. Government spending is clearly the problem and despite the suggestions from....every economist that only government spending on projects can make up the GDP shortfall and the sheer weight of historical evidence showing that government spending makes a difference in these situations almost directly proportional to how much is spent, Mark Sanford knows what's really the problem and whats really the solution.

John Boehner agrees, government spending is the problem. If the country was on fire, government spending would be the culprit. It's nice to know that a massive economic crisis has not deterred America's stupidest party from playing to the base and placing their perceived political future ahead of time tested solutions. The Peter Pan party never wants to grow up, never wants to be adults. I'd feel sorry for your impending extended misery SC, but you're South Carolina and you enabled this idiot. Suffer. Though, try not to spread the suffering outside your own borders. Some of us have states not run by monstrously incompetent base humpers.

Bismark: Where a woman's rights go to die

Above: A North Dakotan

In their defense, I can't see there being much else to do in North Dakota beyond arguing over legislation that would grant a zygote the same rights I have.

BISMARCK, N.D. -- A measure approved by the North Dakota House gives a fertilized human egg the legal rights of a human being, a step that would essentially ban abortion in the state.

The bill is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that extended abortion rights nationwide, supporters of the legislation said.

Representatives voted 51-41 to approve the measure Tuesday. It now moves to the North Dakota Senate for its review.

Eh, I'm in a good mood today, so I'll accentuate the positive. How nice is it to learn that there are 41 people in the North Dakota House who realize how fucking stupid this is? Surprising, yeah?

Sound the alarms!!!!!!

Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), rushing to fill the void vacated by Sarah Palin.

"We're running out of rich people in this country."

This among other insights, including: the stimulus bill not only gives ACORN $5 billion, but ensures your doctor can't make health care decisions for you, is a conspiracy to divert funds away from Republican districts, and that the "Community Organizer-in-Chief" is enacting some extra-legal conspiracy in conjunction with the Census Bureau to redraw all the congressional districts to keep Democrats in power for 40 years.

She was re-elected in November. You know Minnesota, maybe you don't deserve that second senator.

Broken In Brief: Mother of octuplets apologizes for being beyond parody

BELLFLOWER, CA--Today Nadya Suleman, the woman who gave birth to octuplets just two short weeks ago, called a press conference to apologize to the worlds of satire and comedy for being absolutely beyond parody. "I would just like to offer my sincerest apologies to all the hard working satirists out there who were baffled by the seemingly endless litany of oddities that keep coming out about my life. I must have made it almost impossible to come with any sort of joke about me, because almost anything you could possibly come up with, I've already done, albeit in a weirder and more disturbing form."

Ms. Suleman continued "Not only did I already have six children from a gay surrogate, I courted danger by attempting to spawn an extra batch by having six more embryos implanted in myself, two of which split into twins. Not only has the gay surrogate father of my 14 children begged me to stop using his sperm, my own family has questioned my sanity and fitness as a parent. And with good cause, seeing as I have no job, am on disability and food stamps, suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts, and I live with my six other children in one bedroom of a house owned by my mother, who I failed to inform of my intention to have even more children. Furthermore, despite my employment and financial status I still seemingly have the money for a nose job, cheek implants, botox, and collagen injections in my lips to fulfill by dream of looking like Angelina Jolie, whose life and looks I am trying to copy on a dollar store budget. How can you possibly top that?"

Outside of a reporter from the Modesto Bee's suggestion that she be genetically transformed into an possum, the creature her breeding habits most resemble, none of the assembled news media could come up with an idea. Ms. Suleman then plugged her Pay Pal site, having finally come to the realization her batshit insanity has made her the only woman to give birth to a litter of children and not receive free baby products from companies eager to get free promotion. She closed again with another apology to the comedy community and vowed to "...teach her children different musical instruments to start an oompa band", sending up an audible sigh of despair from a writer for the Onion who was furiously deleting a 'Suleman family band' piece.