We've found our scapegoat

The UK papers are going mad over Obama and the entirety of the United States spectacularly hating on BP just because they massively fucked up the Gulf. That is when the papers can spare the time they're spending trying to drive Robert Green to suicide. You see, BP used to be regarded as a safe investment across the pond and as such was viewed as a safe centerpiece for pension investments and the like. Now with BP stock tanking and being rated as worth just barely above junk, that's looking like something that could be disastrous.

Of course to the nationalist press, that's all Obama's fault. They're much like our tea baggers. It's not so much BP spilling all that oil and failing to clean it up that's causing the stock problem, it's that Obama is pointing it out and complaining about it that's causing the problem. We, on the other hand, are giving England a right bollocking as if they were to blame for BP's awful, awful safety record, oil spilling, and attempted media chokehold.

Instead of fighting and misplacing blame on each other, let us place blame where it belongs. No, not a corporation. A scapegoat.

Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean.

And the Marshall Islands, a maze of tiny atolls, many smaller than the ill-fated oil rig, outsourced many of its responsibilities to private companies.
...
Under International law, offshore oil rigs like the Deepwater Horizon are treated as ships, and companies are allowed to "register" them in unlikely places such as the Marshall Islands, Panama and Liberia — reducing the U.S. government's role in inspecting and enforcing safety and other standards.
...
Different types of rigs are classified differently, and the Marshall Islands assigned the Deepwater Horizon to a category that permitted lower staffing levels.

OOOOH! MARSHALL ISLANDS!!! YOU ARE AT FAULT!!!! HOW DARE YOU!!!! THIS IS AN ATTACK ON US!!! Look UK, you hold the Marshall Island's arms and we'll punch them in the gut! Lax standards, loopholes, insufficient regulatory structure, uncomfortable closeness with and industry they're supposed to regulate... who do you think you are, Marshall Islands... us? A tiny country in the Pacific should regulate Gulf oil rigs better. For shame.

So world, if you're looking for the country to blame, it isn't the US or UK and it certainly isn't BP. Don't hate the player, hate the game. And a small collection of atolls with a population that could fit in an NFL stadium concocted the rules of the game and reffed it poorly. It's their fault. J'accuse.

Slap iron with the Lord

What's been our biggest fear ever since Obama was elected. Besides him stealing the white man's shit to give it to black people. Besides socialism. Besides him flaunting his Kenyan birth. Besides him letting Joe Biden use adult scissors.

That's right, Obama's jackbooted thugs kicking open the door to a church, dragging Jesus out in handcuffs, and tossing him in a jail cell to rot. Well, no more. You hear me Obama! NO MORE! Jesus will be protected!

Louisiana state Rep. Henry Burns (R) has introduced a bill in the Louisiana House that would allow churches to institute a "security plan" enabling congregants with concealed weapons permits to carry guns into churches and temples.

According to a Burns spokesperson, "we buy fire extinguishers in case there's a fire," and allowing churchgoers to carry concealed is just the "final stage of security" for places of worship.

House Bill 68 would allow a church or temple to authorize an unlimited number of congregation members to bring their guns into church, according to the individual church's own guidelines.

Glad to see there's not some pressing matter lapping at Louisiana's shores. Good to see that the elected betters of the state are able to move forward with this priority.

Let's just add church to the list of places where people feel that they are in danger of having someone goad them into an actual dick measuring contest and they feel the need to flash iron to avert a certain loss. That makes it Obama speeches, tea parties, bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, national parks, trains, schools, colleges, and... anywhere... without a permit to the myriad of news places where guns are viewed as needed. Why yes, that last example was from Arizona. Thanks for asking.

So now you concerns of "What if I'm reading Paul's letters to the Thessalonians and Gungans... and a pitched, John Woo style gun battle breaks out? Will the man finally let me legally whip out a glock and fire back?" have finally been addressed. Though only in Louisiana. Everywhere else the Lord is still in danger of taking a hollow point in the cross. We can't allow that to happen. He already used up His one resurrection.

Still, stay vigilant. I hear there's a plot that involves a man of Middle Eastern heritage showing up in flowing white robes and telling the faithful of how the end is nigh. That's when you're going to have to pull out the guns and tell him NOT ON OUR WATCH! Then it'll be safe for the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesus to safely come take us all up to Heaven.

Compare/Contrast

The 2010 World Expo in Shanghai is upon us. Since the last time we covered it, construction has been completed on the various country pavilions in preparation for the May 1st opening.

The theme of the event is "Better City, Better Life" and I assume the pavilions are supposed to represent better ways in which humanity can build and live. What the buildings really mean is what buildings at the World Expo always mean: giant fuck yous to other countries by means of architectural and design splendor. Grandiose signs of architectural hubris? Shouldn't America place pretty well in this contest? You'd think so, but, the results are a quite disappointing.

This is the UK's Seed Cathedral by Thomas Heatherwick, which encases a quarter of the world's seeded species from the Millennium Seed Bank inside a transparent acrylic filament.


The South Korean pavilion is based around the themes of convergence, symbol, and space as the building comes together to form letters of the Korean alphabet with a relief of letters and colored panels designed by Korean artist Ik-Joong Kang.


The Japanese Pavilion is nicknamed the Purple Silkworm Island and is meant to showcase themes of connection and incorporate an efficient use of natural resources.


The American Pavilion.... is the shed out back where they store all the cleaning equipment, sawdust for covering up tourist vomit, and spare hot dog carts.


For shame, America. If we can't tell the world to fuck off, architectural style, during an international event celebrating interconnectedness and unity, when can we? May I suggest for the next Expo we just build a large version of this:


Everyone loves The Simpsons and it embodies the whimsical menace I think we want to project. The building could also shoot fireworks and surface to Muslim missiles if the situation calls for it. Call me, we'll talk building and design.

Ah, merica

Courtesy of reddit.

An American show for Americans (i.e.: not you)

Sarah Palin's new FOX News show debuted over the weekend, but I'm sure I didn't have to tell you that. What was billed as a show where Alaska's former half-term governor would explore the stories and people that make America great, turned out just to be a Palin intro'd clearing house for hoary old special interest stories that had been gathering dust in the FOX vaults for years. Hey, anything for Sarah to make a couple million and for FOX to properly ingratiate itself and gain access to the next President/God-Queen.

The show was meant however, to “reaffirm our pioneering spirit and unmatched generosity, here and around the world” or some such bullshit. Just not the pioneering spirit of the liberal dipshits populating the portions of the country we call "where most of the people live".

“It’s not the kind of thing that’s going to excite you guys on the East Coast, but everyone else is dying to hear stories like these,” said one of her representatives who was not authorized to speak on the record but was authorized to slam the East Coast.

Turns out maybe she shouldn't have dismissed an entire sector of the country, particularly one where hundreds of millions of people live. She could have used the viewers, as her show debuted to middling/disappointing ratings.

Shame about that. I just want to congratulate Sarah for her new show and for how a show purporting to show "real American values" seems to cake itself in the value Sarah and her ilk seem to cherish most: telling the coasts and the vast majority of the country that they aren't real people living in real areas of the country and don't hold real American values.

And isn't that the most important American value? I'm asking that hypothetically. If you're reading this site you're probably on a coast and thus wouldn't know what a real American value is if it winked at you and wanted you to vote for it in two years. You're going to have to ask someone from Boise if you're really interested in knowing. But you probably aren't going to, which is why you're un-American. See, Sarah was right.

This post was written by one of our unpaid interns

There is no secret that Sean and I love unpaid interns. They're what makes TB Industries go. They shovel coal into the blast furnaces during their 19 hour shifts, they mine coal for the blast furnace, they burn as an acceptable form of fuel failing a timely delivery of coal or mine cave-in, they are excellent cannon fodder for our top-secret assaults on small island nations we need to control before we can enact Plan Beta, they go good with a white wine vinaigrette and provide an excellent source of protein, they seem to fight the genetic abominations our science department cranks out with a certain pluckiness and aplomb when they're armored up and forced into the Hellpit, and, most importantly, they're easily replaceable, their bodies are easily dumpable, and their causes of death are easy to cover up.

But for most recent grads, becoming an unpaid intern isn't a choice one makes just to become part of the greater glory of These Bastards. No, for most it is an opportunity, any opportunity, to grab some form of job experience during the worst job market ever. For most companies they offer unpaid internships for one reason: slavery is a good business model. But now it seems that old man socialism and the feddy government want to stick their noses into this racket and make sure it conforms to "laws" and "accepted labor practices". Fascists.

Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.
...
The Labor Department says it is cracking down on firms that fail to pay interns properly and expanding efforts to educate companies, colleges and students on the law regarding internships.
...
Ms. Leppink said many employers failed to pay even though their internships did not comply with the six federal legal criteria that must be satisfied for internships to be unpaid. Among those criteria are that the internship should be similar to the training given in a vocational school or academic institution, that the intern does not displace regular paid workers and that the employer “derives no immediate advantage” from the intern’s activities — in other words, it’s largely a benevolent contribution to the intern.

It goes without saying that the "six federal legal criteria", or "The Forbidden Restraints" as we call them here, are not allowed to be written or spoken of. Punishment for this industry killing knowledge is the filling in of the perpetrator's mouth with cement.

But our industry (blogging/the Onion wake swimming/megalomaniacal world domination/pointless furnace maintenance) is not like other industries. So for those recent graduates who do not wish to become part of the TB Killer Elite, this might be relevant information to have.

I mean sure the rise in de facto slavery and skirting labor, harassment, and discrimination laws through internships is a troubling response to a massive economic crisis, but how did you expect America to get back on top? By employing people, using sound business practices, and enacting laws, regulations, and programs that promote sensible growth and prevent this kind of thing from happening again? No, of course not. This is America after all.

So best of wishes to the new unpaid interns out there. Good news, in addition to the job experience you'll be able to put on a resume, this also qualifies as "Studying the labor and economic policies of Dubai". Congratulations, you just got a Social Sciences minor!

Broken News: Obama heralds passing of health care bill: "Look out Chile, we're coming for you"

WASHINGTON DC—After the final reconciliation measures were passed by the House yesterday and signed into law by the President early this morning the health care battle, at long last, seems to be over. The war, however, is just beginning.

At an afternoon press conference, President Obama pledged that these newly passed reforms were just the opening gambit in what he called a full-fledged assault on the United States not having as embarrassing a world health care ranking as it previously had.

“People of America,” the President began. “This is not the end of the road, merely a humble beginning. With the dreams of generations and the hopes of millions behind it, I say this: no longer with American health care languish in the low thirties of World Health Organization rankings, near such counties as Slovenia or Cuba. No, America is on a trajectory that will carry us at least into the low-30s or so. To the nations of the world, to Denmark, to Chile, to Australia I say, we are coming for you and we will not be stopped!”

In closing he added, “I’m serious. We’re fucking gunning for you, Chile! That #33 ranking is ours!”

The short speech confirmed what many had assumed to be one of the larger, unmentioned goals of the health reform movement: negating the “No, try 37th” response from other countries that greeted the American declarations of “US health care, #1 in the world, baby!” often punctuated by a “Yeeeeee haaaaaaaw,” the sounding of an air horn, the pained howling of a basset hound, the waving of a foam “#1” finger, or the throttled revving of the engine of a Harley-Davidson.

Indeed, while evaluating the fiscal impact of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the Congressional Budget Office factored in a decrease in the level of shame and self-delusion afflicting one who made the grievously inaccurate, yet unsurprisingly common assertion about about the supremacy of American health care.

As to to why the President has set his sights to squarely on usurping Chile is another question entirely.

“I know people might see Chile’s #33 ranking and ask if that isn’t too low-hanging a fruit and if we shouldn’t place our aims higher,” observed Douglas Elmendorf, head of the CBO. “Actually, strike that. Americans certainly wouldn’t be thinking about fruit; when they think of Chile they think of baby-back ribs or jalapeño poppers or something. Hence, the need for health reform. But still, I think that if this protracted legislative process has taught us anything it’s that the President is extremely pragmatic.”

“Extremely, infuriatingly, maddeningly, counter-productively pragmatic,” Elmendorf grumbled. “Besides, do you think we could honestly make a run at Finland at #31? Scandinavian health care? Uh-uh. Chile is the safe bet.”

Health analysts noted that Chile’s recent propensity for apocalyptic earthquakes and the general US-backed instability of the entirety of Latin America make it a prime target.

“They’re just one more 8.0 away from sliding into the sea,” observed health policy analyst Dana Garrett. “Given these new reforms and a spot of good weather, we ought to be able to crawl up a few spots and wait for Mother Nature to do the rest. If we can trust to the inveterate alcoholism of the Australian people, not to mention their well-known propensity for drag racing through the post-apocalyptic wastes of their homeland, we might have a decent shot at #32.”

Spokesmen for the government note that this should be a happy time for the country.

“Look, soon we’ll be able to hold our heads up with a mild sense of pride in what we begrudgingly allowed our health care system to become,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. “Be happy. Not as happy as you would have been had Congress and the President decided that something other than mandatory enrollment in the insurance industry's programs with minor tweaks to the law saying they can’t be as huge a group of bastards anymore, but happy nonetheless.”

Sources within the government say that the President hopes to have usurped Chile’s position by 2015 and have the country ready to make a move on Finland by the end of his second term, provided the insurance and pharmaceutical industries allow further tweaks to the health care system and factoring in a retasking of the CIA’s earthquake causing satellite to Helsinki.

Chart of the day

Floating Sheep strikes again with this map of Christianity in the US. You may remember them from their earlier work comparing booze and grocery stores.

Findings? Well I think you'll be surprised to know that the South is full of Baptists and that large sections of Utah are full of Mormons. It has however confirmed my suspicions that I am surrounded by Presbyterians. They have also gone to the trouble of mapping the world in terms of Christianity and Europe as well, which, contrary to popular belief, does believe in some form of God. He's in most of their old paintings, they're just trying to be polite.

On the other hand, faiths like Judaism, Muslimism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Buddhism, Atheism, and Science are not mapped because they are the devil's tools and the path towards damnation.

So sayeth the Lord: "Click to embiggen"

She word good

Minnesota's shame, Michele Bachmann, is not known for her intelligence. From rallying against filling out the Census until it was explained to her that if Minnesota lost any people in the Census population tabulations that her Congressional district would be the first to go, to her continually retarded (RAHM~!) proclamations regarding health care, to the litany of conspiracy theories she believes in that make Glenn Beck look well adjusted by comparison, Bachmann is a treasure trove of hilarity.

But in all the mockery we and all decent society does of her, we at least assumed she knew how to spell or at least hire people who knew how to spell. We were giving her too much credit.

"Michele Bachmann - Amaricas Congress Woman" reads the search banner for Bachmann's campaign Website"

For those of you playing at home, "America" and "Congresswoman" are the preferred nomenclature.

I'm just surprised. I thought someone that spent so much of her time railing against imaginary abuses of the Constitution and the American people, she would at least be able to spell America. That's a major demerit in the flag eating sectors of the conservative movement. Hell, spelling "America" is the first test they give you to make sure you ain't a Russkie infiltrator.

If you can afford it, please send a spelling book or at least some phonics flash cards to Bachmann's office. If they make one with an eagle crying in front of the twin towers on the cover, that's the one to buy. Please help her out, she is an elected official after all.

Broken News: Everyone and Everything a Nazi

THE FOURTH REICH—In a bombshell study soon to be released by the United States Argumentative Society, nearly all of Americans as well as their thoughts, words, deeds, and beliefs are as bad as the Nazis. Furthermore, thousands are equivalent to many high ranking members of the Third Reich including Hermann Goering, Henrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, and Adolph Hitler himself.

Perhaps the most shocking revelation of the study is that large chunks of the country are in fact worse than the Nazis and many Americans worse than Hitler.

“It is with heavy hearts that we reveal these results,” said a pale Dr. Helen Rourke, leader of the USAS research team. “We once we believed that America was a land of the free and a place of opportunity filled with decent, hard-working people trying to make an honest living. However, through close observation of American behavior, particularly that related to political issues, we have found that they view nearly everything and everyone as equal to, or worse than, members of Germany's National Socialist Party circa 1930.”

“Imagine my shock to learn that I was one of these people. I have recently found out that due to the rigorous standards I applied to this study and the strict manner in which I conducted it, some colleagues referred to me as a "Nazi." Even in my own home I am not free of these allegations. After I recently grounded my daughter and refused to let her go out with her friends following poor grades on her report card, I was deemed by her to be ‘worse than Hitler’.”

“I thought I was a good person… I thought this was a good country,” she said, weeping. “I had no idea… no idea.”

Indeed the revelation that everything in America is equivalent to one of the indisputable black marks in human history has come as a shock to the country, with most scarcely able to believe the new state of affairs. Still some are valiantly fighting against the concept that everyone in the country is a Nazi.

“The other day, someone called me a socialist Nazi just because I wanted better health care in this country. Can you believe that?” asked Jim Dale, a Ham Chaser at the Mobile Alabama Sugardale Hog Farm. “As if the one thing that defined the Nazis was cheap access to quality health care. They’re the ones who are the Nazis for calling me a Nazi, what with their free speech squashing and fear mongering. I ain’t no Nazi. Everyone who doesn’t agree with me is a Nazi.”

Mr. Dale highlights the singular contradiction that accompanies this revelation: that all people everywhere, on all sides of all debates, espousing ideas ranging across the ideological spectrum, are all simultaneously Nazis. From those who want cheap health care to those who want to keep the status quo, to those who want better bus access, a salary cap in Major League Baseball, the Edmonton Oilers to win the Stanley Cup, dollar drinks at their local bar, or to go watch their kids at the school play; all of these people are Nazis for one reason or another.

But why? One sociologist thinks he knows.

“It’s changing social mores,” said Dr. Herbert Hume, a sociologist and professional Naziologist at MIT. “Americans have placed such tight moral and ethical standards on their daily life and beliefs that they view any departure from that standard as equivalent to the ideals espoused by a group of people that perpetrated some of the greatest atrocities in all of human history.”

He added, “It’s certainly not because we’re a nation of hyperbolic children! Anyone who says otherwise is worse than twelve Adolf Eichmanns! TWELVE!”

While many scholars agree that America is a terminally insufficient nation full of monstrous, Hitler-like individuals, others feel that sometimes these comparisons go too far.

“Sure, most people are just like the Nazis and just like Joeseph Goebbels,” conceded Harvard historian Jane Williams. “But what about the others who are merely as bad as the Red Chinese or Stalin? Pol Pot was an asshole and many people are exactly like him. Let us not forget Nero, Genghis Khan, Caligula or various roving bands of horse thieves, rapists and horse-rapers. The point is, if Americans would broaden their historical horizons they might find that most of the people and ideas they so loathe have a different, more accurate, grotesque historical mirror.”

With scientists disagreeing when, if ever, Americans might be credited with anything approaching a comprehensive knowledge of world history, the nation must come to grips with the fact that it is chock full of people who are the same as the Nazis.

Chart of the day

Via the Floating Sheep blog come this statistical analysis of the United States of Freedom and our relationship with booze and food and the building of temples whereupon we can exchange money for said products.

It is a comparison of bars and grocery stores in the US and which areas have more of the former or the latter in comparison to one another. So if you wish to live in an area where it's easier to find a place to get blitzed than it is to buy bread, science suggests you should move to the Wisconsin area and outlying Midwest, as well as parts of Northern PA, New York and New England.

I would also just like to note, with pride, that our home town of Pittsburgh is clearly delineated with a giant chunk of 8 red dots, surely marking the city, greater Allegheny County, and outlying counties with a red badge of booze related truth I'm sure we already knew about deep down in our hearts. It has been mathematically proven that we are a drinkin' town with a football problem. Might I add: fuck grocery stores.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 02.03

Gates Makes $10 Billion Vaccines Pledge
Over the next decade the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will pour $10 billion dollars into the development, funding, and distribution of vaccines to the world's poorest countries. Why? Because apparently they base their scientific based philanthropic ideas on so-called science and not on the hankerings and notions of former Playboy models slash MTV dating game-show co-hosts. That's a mistake. I think all of Africa is going to have autism soon and I don't think Bono can write a song good enough to fix that problem. You've doomed the continent with your science and philanthropy, Bill and Melinda.

3 G.I.s Killed in Pakistan. Now Can We Start Treating This Like a Real War?
Hey, did you know we're essentially waging a secret ground war in Pakistan with special forces troops and air-strikes and all that good stuff? Well, 3 soldiers got killed in a battle inside the Pakistan border, that not only was in Pakistan and a Taliban stronghold (shocking), but had been declared to be free of militants/insurgents by the Pakistani military, so now you definitely know. Whoops! Much discussion ensues about when we can start admitting that this is an important front, probably the most important front, in the war on terror? Well, considering that we can't admit we're even there in a support capacity, I'm guessing those odds aren't good.

Iran Sends Mouse, Turtles Into Space
Here we are, cutting NASA's Constellation moon program and Iran is launching a mouse, two turtles, and a worm into space for what experts deemed "no scientific purpose." I think we know what the purpose is. With us seemingly abandoning our aim to return to the moon and Mars, Bitches! seemingly in flux, it seems that in the future America will rest it's head under a moon that is half Red Chinese and half Islamofacist. A Christmas themed satellite of terror and communism. This is our future, people: the moon has been ceded to our enemies. We beat everyone to the moon by 50 years and then spend the rest of that time ceding back that superiority in sad gasps.

Iraq war was illegal, Dutch panel rules
I know, what a surprise, but the Dutch have conducted their own inquiry into their own support of the war and have found the war not only to be inconsistent with Dutch government policies but with "no basis in international law". This to go with the ongoing UK Iraq Inquiry, which is finding generally the same thing, but just spent considerable time grilling former PM Tony Blair over his own conduct and complicity with Bush Administration lies. What are we doing? The sound you hear is crickets chirping because to take a look at the massive fuckup that was (and still is) the Iraq war, that would mean we were "looking backwards" and not "looking forwards". So we just have every other country on earth act like adults, review their and our conduct, and declare the whole thing a fraudulent sham that didn't improve anything, while we sit around and pretend everything is fine and don't even make our leaders answer basic questions about what happened. America, fuck yeah! We're adults.

Darfur Genocide Charge Being Reconsidered Against Sudan President Omar al-Bashir
Bad news for all you Omar al-Bashir fans out there. It seems that they might just add "killing a fuckload of people" and "concentration camp type stuff" back on to his arrest warrant. The only thing stopping them? No one could really seem to muster up the energy to care or even do something when the genocide was ongoing (and is still ongoing), so they're having the same kind of trouble mustering up the same kind of gumption it takes to add "and also for being a rotten, genocidal, murdering shit" onto the end of a warrant. Fair is fair. At least they're consistent. Here's hoping they can find the time to bother charging him with this and then trying him for it. I'm not really hoping for much though.

New United States

Don't like the fact that you live in a city with actual people in it and that legislative priorities you favor that benefit those areas with people in it are typically thwarted or largely mangled by lawmakers from states that don't have people in them? You know, like when the Senate health care bill was negotiated by the Gang of Six that represented 2.75% of the nation's population?

One man agrees with you: Neil Freeman. As such, he's devised a simple solution to fix the over-representation of small states and under-representation of large states in elections and legislative matters: redraw all the states!

click to embiggen

Each new state contains about 5,617,000 people, preserves the electoral college system which we seem to like for some reason, redistricts states and power like congressional districts, and let's us keep that 50 number we all like.

The negatives are we lose all those state names and barriers we like so much, "some county names are duplicated in new states", and new state laws will have to be drafted.

See: simple. I personally would love to live in a state called Allegheny (FUCK WILLIAM PENN AND HIS WOODS!), Okefenokee, or The Delta. But I also realize this is like looking at a map of Narnia and wishing you were BFF with Mr. Tumnus. I'll stop fantasizing about ways in which this country might work better and get back to the criplling reality of what actually is.

Seriously, two Dakotas?

Broken News: AMERICANS ARE DEAD IN HAITI!!!!!!!!

PORT AU PRINCE-In what was initially thought to be a minor geological event notable only for its proximity to the United States, reports made almost a week after the fact revealed something so shocking that America, and indeed the world, must now stand up and take notice.

According to reports filed by the US media, a minimum of 17 Americans were killed during the quake that may or may not have damaged areas outside of where these specific Americans were staying. Upwards of 5,500 Americans are also missing, feared dead as a result of events that we are now allowed to consider important.

“My God, the toll that has been wrought on America has been incalculable,” observed Red Cross spokesman Erica Paymer.

“Here we all were, thinking this was a minor curiosity of little importance that might allow for some pundit posturing or celebrity tax write-offs. But thanks to the vigilance of an American media that incessantly mentions 17 dead Americans, we now know the true toll of this horrific event.”

In addition to the dead Americans, there are also a number of other dramatic inconveniences to America as a result of the Haitian catastrophe. Initial reports point to a precipitous uptick in Wyclef Jean sightings, as well as some sort of correlation between the Haiti event and a decrease in backup supplies of food and water held by relief organizations.

In fact, several aid workers stationed in Miami noted that pallets of bottled water traditionally reserved for filling Super Soakers or moistening MRE’s consumed when nobody felt like driving to a nearby McDonald's had mysteriously disappeared.

Flights bound for Haitian resorts and connecting flights to other South American resorts have also been canceled due to an apparent increase in other kinds of airplanes flying into the Port-au-Prince airport for some as-yet undefined reason. But all of this pales in comparison to the hardships the earthquake has caused to cruise ships docking nearby.

“They cut our jet ski time in half and canceled the glass-bottom boat ride and never told us why,” lamented Helen St. Croix, a passenger on the Carnival Cruise Ship The Aristocrat. “Honestly, it was just a bit of ground rumbling, tragic though the deaths of those Americans were.”

“The worst bit was at the evening luau. We barely had enough local staff to dig the pig out of the fire pit and there weren’t nearly enough waiters. I had to get my mojito myself. You don’t think this earthquake thingy dingy affected people other than Americans… do you?”

This sense of dread seems to be growing more common amongst both the moneyed elite partying on the beach and those watching this tragic jet ski situation unfold back home. While most are content to believe that those brave, selfless dead Americans are the only story here, others are beginning to search for different story angles.

“You know, I keep trying to lead these searches for injured or missing Americans amongst these curiously piled heaps of concrete that seem to be everywhere. But all of these mocha-colored chattering and screeching obstacles keep getting in my way. I wonder what the hell they are,” wondered a puzzled Jim Ridgels, field correspondent for CNN Headline News. “It’s the damnedest thing.”

Others have more solid ideas about what is going on.

“I have come to learn that those annoying, intrusive figures Ridgels refers to are the native inhabitants of this island,” observed MSNBC journalist Stig Danforth. “Apparently they were also near the areas where American lives were claimed and were themselves also affected.”

“It is most important to realize that these swarthy humanoids are very much like us and deserve our compassion. That is why I have taken it upon myself to interject myself into their poorly organized rescue efforts. Viewers seem to like that I am helping these poor creatures. They're like children! Some might say ‘Stig, aren’t you just hampering these relief efforts in an attempt to gain face-time for yourself and taking away from the real story here?’ And to that I say, no. The story here is the dead Americans. The secondary story here is me and other enterprising journalists creating an air of goodwill for ourselves and filling airtime by being shown helping these poor, disadvantaged mud people that have been unfortunately drawn into this event.”

“Understand?,” he angrily finished.

But whether or not these stories of people other than Americans being affected are true or just the wanton exaggerations of fame-seeking journalists, one thing is clear: this is an uniquely American tragedy.

The country, for now, is expected to pay attention until such a time as stories of dead Americans stop coming out of this shapeless, faceless landmass which we don’t know the location of or are even completely sure exists. That, or until the Super Bowl kicks off. Whichever comes first.

Chart of the day

From National Geographic which charts health care costs over time, as well as average life expectancy, doctors visits and who has universal coverage. The conclusion: as always, we're getting pounded in the ass by costs and for little actual benefit.

The revelation is just how staggering the disparity is. But then again, socialism blah blah socialism blah bad socialism freedom blah blah America. Meanwhile the extremely contentious and minimally incremental action we are going to take is only going to combat this by a little bit.

Ah well, I'm sure plugging our fingers in our ears when anyone tries to point this out while yelling "AMERICAN HEALTH CARE IS THE BEST! AMERICAN HEALTH CARE IS THE BEST!" is almost as good as not paying twice what everyone else pays for worse coverage. That seems to be the conclusion our elected betters came to and who are we to disagree?

Broken News: America concludes, decade best forgotten

AMERICA—Today it was announced that, pending a final count vote tally, that exit polling had revealed this last weekend’s nationwide referendum on whether to remember, not talk about, or forget the previous decade had concluded with “not remembering” winning with a 74% share of the vote.

While the full scope and design of the willful forgetfulness America has elected to conjure on January 1st remains unclear, a preliminary panel has been convened to create both a plausible backstory for the memory loss as well as credible explanations for technological advancements and changes the country has undergone over the past 10 years.

Until some of the preliminary details are sketched out, Americans have been advised that when they awake of Friday morning, they are to act as if they were awaking from a long slumber, without any recollection of any of the events that happened over the past decade. Given that most of the country will have gotten black out drunk the previous night, this is expected to be rather easily initially.

Citizens are to keep from discussing history or make any references to the past 10 years until such a time as the Historical Revision Committee has issued an explanation for what happened.

“Look, it is essential that we as a country stick with this lie, I cannot stress this enough,” explained Dr. Samuel Seward, one of the newly announced members of the hastily assembled committee. “The longer we stick to it and the more forcefully we assert that it must be true, the easier it will be to convince ourselves that it is true. Just shut up, keep your head down, and when anyone mentions they can’t remember the last decade, just nod and say ‘Me too.’ Do not fuck this up for us.”

While no official explanation has yet been decided upon, sources say that the HRC currently is considering two ideas.

In the first, all manner of trees, plants, and various flora will have turned on mankind, releasing a memory altering neurotoxin that blocked out the past 10 years, much like the plot of The Happening.

One scientist on the project was overheard to remark, “People loved The Happening, right?”

The second and more popular idea floating around is that America was invaded and conquered by an alien race, who forced us to build them some great weapon for some nebulous intergalactic purpose that we couldn’t ever possibly comprehend. Once work was completed, the aliens left and wiped our memories.

“Personally I think this is the perfect explanation,” observed Adam Weiss, a historian tasked with eliminating a 10 years worth of news archives from the internet.

“First, it can explain so much. The high unemployment is from all the people left jobless now that the aliens no longer need us to build their weapon. It also explains our decaying infrastructure as the aliens would have moved all of our resources and efforts into building this space gun. It explains the shitty economy because the only thing that had been fueling our economy for a decade is now off to fight an intergalactic war. Plus it also explains why we haven’t made any progress on the environment or anything of note; because we were building a giant laser! It’s perfect!”

Following that logic, things like hybrid cars, increased internet speeds, HDTV, and the iPod would be explained away as technology we were able to steal from the aliens, which, at this stage, are being envisioned as some sort of giant space dogs that dressed like highly advanced Vikings.

When asked how this project was going to explain major events like 9/11, the war in Iraq, and the devastation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, group members were admittedly unsure. But, they did say that while they were working on solutions to those questions, they were not deeming them a necessary priority.

“It’s not like Americans even remember or discuss them now, so why should we try to come up with an explanation,” observed one panel member. “We’ll just classify it under the subheading of ‘unexplainable magic’.”

For now, American’s are being advised to “just go with it” and are being told that the only alternative is to not only remember what happened over the past decade, but to take responsibility for it.

“Who wants that,” asked Dr. Seward. “I have hopes that we’ll be able to use this collective lie we’re entering into to actually move us forward without any of the diversions of the past 10 years, but I’m not hopeful. At the very least this will allow me to pretend that Dick Cheney, the Black Eyed Peas, that guy with the puppets who is always on TV now, the American auto industry, and my lying whore of a wife not only didn’t occur, but also didn’t sleep with any of my lab assistants.”

He concluded, “Fuck you, Judith!”

For now, the country is expected to spend the next few days walking around confused, rubbing their eyes, and asking “What happened’ a lot. Soon after they are advised to marvel at the “new” technologies they find they have and remark with astonishment that a black guy is now running the country.

As the days move on, the Historical Revision Committee will issue findings and explanations which are then to be accepted and repeated as fact. After an appropriate cover story and whitewash of contrary evidence has been performed, society will be expected to move on with a new purpose. Those on the committee expect this whole process will take upwards of a month.

“Seriously,” Dr. Seward repeated forcefully. “Do not fuck this up for us.”

America word good

That's right America, for the first time since the invention of the TV, America's dependence on the boob tube declined as its reading levels actually increased with the development of new technologies. Sure, most of what we're reading is instructions on how to properly download porn, captions of cats who think they can has cheezburger, and news stories about the decline on newspapers, but it all still counts. The average American consumed 3.6 billion terabytes of information last year, or 11.8 hours of information consumption per day.

So walk a little taller, America. You may have replaced books and magazines with Twitter and texting, but you can technically be described as reading more. And isn't that the best kind of societal advancement; one divorced from any sort of context but adhering to such a rigid classification that it counts under a stringent interpretation of the rules?

Sorry, you probably didn't understand that last sentence. Can haz read moar? Gud hoo-man, gud read making. Iz samrter now.

America reflects on the last decade

As we look back on the last decade and see all that has happened, America is of one mind: let's all agree to pretend we've all just woke up from a ten year coma and don't understand why Bubba got replaced by a black guy. Either that or we're just going to have to start drinking heavily until the special happy Kentucky juice washes the pain from our minds and transfers it to our livers. In fact, if someone doesn't openly weep at the mention of the last decade they are to be deemed Not Trustworthy and A Suspicious Person. Let this poll explain.

Time magazine called the past decade (2000-2009) the "Decade from Hell." Respondents in the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll don't go that far, but it's clear that many didn't think it was a good decade.

According to the poll, a combined 58% said the decade was either "awful" or "not so good," 29% said it was fair, and just 12% said it was either "good" or "great."
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What's more, the poll shows that 48% believe the U.S. gained ground over the past decade on science and technology, and 40% say it gained ground on race relations.

But 37% said it lost ground on the environment, 46% said it lost ground on health and well being, 50% said it lost ground on peace and national security, 54% said lost ground on the nation's sense of unity, 55% said it lost ground in treating others with respect, 66% said it lost ground on moral values, and a whopping 74% said it lost ground on economic prosperity.

Yes, as long as we're counting science as a form of technology and not knowledge. Because if we're talking about the ability to find porn, stalk ex-classmates, embarrass oneself on the web, and find porn, then science has brought us much this decade. If we're talking about acceptance of scientific thought like, say, evolution or climate change... it's best not to mention the last 10 years. Still, on pretty much every other issue people look at the "progress", shudders to themselves, and then produces a flask from an inside jacket pocket, unscrews it slowly, and mournfully takes a sip. Who exactly are the 26% that doesn't think we lost ground economically? Have they already blocked out this decade? Perhaps we need to learn from their example.

Unfortunately the last decade was so bad it will reach it's icy black hand out from beyond the grave to strangle the early years of the new decade. But at least this will be good for 2020 polls, as there's no way anyone can possibly view the next 10 years as a regression unless a meteor hits and the humans that survive have to duke it out with rats and lizards for global evolutionary supremacy. Plus the last few years of misery combined with the aught year prefixes will make us some of the crotchetiest old men this world has ever seen. We'll be able to bring a grandchild to his knees with tales of the global financial apocalypse, Bush, and life without hover sexbots. So we'll have that to look forward to, if we survive. Which is nice.

Broken In Brief: America joins Heifer International catalog

LITTLE ROCK—Today it was announced that the United States had been added to the list of countries available for aid through the organization Heifer International, which for 56 years has endeavored to provide livestock to destitute citizens of countries with dilapidated economies and crippled infrastructure.

The move, though not all that surprising in retrospect, did take some by surprise, as Heifer Intl. has, since its inception, shipped animals mainly to South American, African and Asian nations.

“For decades now, we’ve been alleviating white guilt by shipping llamas and pigs to all corners of the globe,” said Roger Eberhardt, the program’s American director. “Frankly, this decision was made outside of my purview.”

In expressing his dismay, Eberhardt noted that the group’s longstanding tradition of promoting sustainable farming had already led to death threats from agribusiness conglomerates who felt threatened by the possibility that two or three non-corn producing farms might be encouraged to exist.

In an official statement, the agency’s executive director Salma Juarez claimed she understands that this move will come as a shock, but encouraged people to look at the positive side.

“Just think of all the good a cow could do in Detroit, or a dozen chickens in Cleveland,” urged Juarez. “Who are we to exclude Americans from receiving the same type of aid that other third-world nations have enjoyed for years?”

“Sadly this will mean the end of all the ‘heifer’/fat American jokes that we make around here,” she observed, citing one of the main negatives of expanding relief operations into the US. “But I think that just shows our commitment to the third world inhabitants of this tragically failed state.”

They learn so quickly

There are moments where you have to stop and take pride in your sccomplishments. Especially when you see the fruits of your labor with those you have mentored. You take them from a life of hardship and show them a new way, you bring them up and teach them the way you know best, and when they take those first steps out into the world it just wells you up with so much joy. Our babies are all growed up!

Lawless Somalia remained the world's most corrupt country, followed by Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan and Iraq, Transparency International said in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index.
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Afghanistan, which slipped to 179th place from 176th, has been dogged by corruption for years.
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Karzai's inability or unwillingness to tackle cronyism and bribery the past five years has given Taliban insurgents another argument with which to win support from the Afghan people. Nations supplying troops and aid are running out of patience with his government.

Transparency said public-sector corruption is rampant in Afghanistan.

Our eldest child, Iraq, was all the way down at 176. Us? We're slipping. Only 19th this year. It's unfair really, most of our corruption is institutional, whereupon lawmakers are just expected to do what corporations want in return for relatively small political donations and favors. Frankly that's a flaw that needs to be rectified, so we can at least get credit for the immense systemic corruption that essentially neuters and ruins anything that goes through it. I demand a corruption ranking system that takes into account all the high tech and invisible ways in which we are damaging the well being of our own country in exchange for money! A corruption BCS. We're like Boise State over here; not getting the credit we deserve.

I mean look at those Iraq and Afghanistan rankings. I'm not saying they aren't corrupt, Lord knows that they are barely functioning states consumed by drugs and violence, propped up by us. But that corruption? It's mostly us. Things we allow, things we encourage, things we let go. Hell, we're the ones probably buying off most of the government to do things we want, getting people we want installed into different government positions, getting trade, land, and resource rights that we want. I mean they count that shit for Iraq and Afghanistan, but it really should be a part of our ranking. 19th? I mean our corruption affects things on a global scale. The financial crisis, climate change inaction, energy....hello, remember them much? What's Iraq's corruption effecting? Somalia? Do they even have a government?

Bah! This corruption list is corrupt. Get it fixed. I'll make it worth it. *wink* Brown paper bag, underneath the park bench, 5 o'clock. We'll see if we can't come to an "understanding".