Return of the Cheap Blogging Crutch - 8.16.10

Right? Right?

Slate's William Saletan dismantles the flimsy arguments against the Ground Zero Mosque Lower Manhattan Islamic Cultural Center with unsurprising ease. What I fail to understand is why nobody is protesting the destruction of the hallowed vacant Burlington Coat Factory.

Speaking of Islam's nefarious attempt to destroy the American way of life and replace it with devil worship, Fordson High School's predominantly Muslim football team is accommodating duties both to team and faith by practicing from 11 PM to 4 AM during Ramadan.

Nick Newcomen, an Objectivist with waaaaay too much time on his hands, drove over 12,000 miles in an effort to write out, in GPS, the largest literature review of all time. I guess it was shorter than writing "I AM A SMUG, SELFISH ASSHOLE."

And finally, after this light snack, I give you a refresher course on some truly impressive shit from fifty years back.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.29

WWII... exactly as it happened.

When you look at the financial crisis, the BP oil spill, and various problems over the last decade, is the problem you see one of too much government regulations? If so, get checked for a concussion or some other form of massive brain bleeding. On the other hand, you'll be really receptive to the GOP platform. John Boehner is proposing what he calls the REINS Act (Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny), which effectively subjects every regulatory action that costs over $100 million to Senate filibuster. I mean a Senate vote. Which effectively means any decent regulatory structure will be tied up in an unending morass of Senatorial hubris. But on the bright side, allowing industry to run unchecked hasn't resulted in a major catastrophe in the last week. That's got to be some sort of a record. Good luck, GOP.

I'm going to have to get up off the fainting couch, but I'm fairly sure our government actually made a semi-progressive and intelligent step forward in the farcical War on Drugs. Finally noting and changing the sentencing disparity between crack and powdered cocaine and realizing how that affected sentencing disparities between blacks and whites, poor and rich. It must have been purely accidental on the part of lawmakers and I'm sure they'll get around to correcting it once someone explains to them what they did. Now, if we can just get them to accidentally make progress on marijuana laws and the entirety of the War on Drugs....

So our appointed better, the Pay Czar, has taken a look at the wanton cash grabbing and money fights our corporate masters have been getting into and has deemed their pay practices lacking. So let's see, he finds that 17 financial firms that have been bailed out are also engaging in pay practices that are "ill-advised" and "exhibited bad judgment". So what's he going to do? Nothing, of course. Theorizing that going after such money would have been contrary to the public interest. Of course. So... all you're telling us is big financial giants are fucking around and getting rich off our dime? We already knew that! The point of a Pay Czar was to find out to what extent and do something about it. Oh sorry, he offered up some voluntary guidelines that they may or may not choose to follow. My bad. Everything's fixed now. Sorry to sound like I was complaining.

In the fight over immigration, many have been appalled at some of the tactics that states like Arizona have taken and the lengths to which supporters of Arizona's laws have gone to justify them. But that's before we learned one important fact: the Bible is for busting in the heads of Mexican interlopers. Yea and the Lord said unto Zedekiah "Them fucking' Mexicans are taking our jobs. Roust them the fuck out of here." It's in Paul's Letters to the Thessalonian John Birch Society. Sure, but what does God think about excessive government regulation?

In This is Kind of Interesting News, Chicago Mag has a story by Myra Daniels on her husband, sixties ad man Draper Daniels, the inspiration for Mad Men's Don Draper. While it does provide a good look into how the ad business worked back then, there's no word if Daniel's life and emotional state oddly synced up with the prevailing political and historical changes of the time. I'd like to read about the proto-Sterling, but that man probably drank himself to death in the fifties.

The sham that is Glenn Beck and those phony buy Gold/"Gold coins are the only way to protect yourself from the black President's inflation" companies... in graphic form. This is why I store my money under my mattress. Or I would if I had any money. Or a mattress.

For the child at heart: photoshops of the Pope in a hat.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.26

Would you be interested in drinking the world's strongest beer out of taxidermied animals? The probable serial killers at BrewDog would like to have a word with you and offer up their 55% alcohol creation: The End of History.

The news of the day is of course the Wikileaks release of the Afghan War Diary, a compendium of over 91,000 frontline reports of our Afghan adventure. If you don't want to read through the whole depressing dirge of slow failure, the Guardian has a nice round-up of pertinent information here, news stories about the release here, and the NYT has a round-up of experts reactions.

So a series of damaging reports showing that the war is going poorly, Pakistan is stabbing us in the back and we're paying for the privilege, the Taliban resurgence, civilian death totals, and the sheer disorganization of our war effort... this is news why? Don't we already know this stuff? Spencer Ackerman explains why this is relevant in addition to being depressing.

And so the dastardly Shirley Sherrod has escaped the clutches of the vast right wing attack machine with a stellar reputation being bolstered with every day she continues to act like a class act. Of course this means she must be destroyed. Surely this virulent racist deserves to be crushed for something else she probably did. Ah-ha! She claims her relative, Booby Hall, was lynched. False! A lie! He was only beaten to death by a mob on the court steps. How dare she lie in a way that isn't a lie at all. Fire her again, Obama Administration! Because apparently some people haven't sunk low enough in their campaign to destroy this woman for no reason yet.

Rejoice, nerds! It is now legal to jailbreak your iPhones and create your own apps outside of the Apple system, much to the consternations of Steve Jobs' wallet. So, if you can ever end up getting any reception, get right on switching providers and getting all those porn apps Jobs has been keeping from you.

In case you were considering ever eating at an arena, stadium, ball park or any large venue... don't. As ESPN's Outside the Lines informs us, you're probably eating expired roach meat. Hey, we always knew eating neon yellow cheese was a risk, but who knew that eating raw fish prepared in a kiosk behind the left field wall near the pigeons was also not smart to eat? On the other hand, insects provide lots of protein, so maybe this actually made the food healthier. Hey, at least you know what the cost of that $9 beer is going towards: not maknig sure raw meat isn't left out for undetermined amounts of time.

In closing we give you the Alvin Greene campaign rap video/LeBron highlight package. It may not have been made by the Greene campaign, but it is endorsed by it.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.20

Roman Polanski birthday cards. $5 or give 'em some champagne and quaaludes and see if you can get it for free.

Matt Taibbi pauses from pointing out financial reform vote buying and various Senate charades surrounding credit card reform to point out a new study from Maplight.org on contributions to our elected betters from our corporate masters during the financial reform process. The final tally: 38 Senators who opposed the bill received an average of $103,266 in campaign contributions from commercial banks, the 60 Senators who were yea votes took an average of $76,759. The amount of people surprised by this revelation: near zero.

In case you were wondering what exactly it was the Republicans planned to do if they got back in power this November, they held a meeting with corporate businesses, trade groups, lobbyists, and other black robed figures to hash it all out. Let me blow your mind here: they want more deregulation, strip out everything that was done over the past few years, lower taxes for rich people and corporations, cut capital gains taxes, no inheritance taxes, and they probably want to name something after Reagan. Whew, I was worried they might want to pause from repeating the same list of shit they've wanted for the last 5 decades to actually look at the state of the country and start addressing that. No? Same shit you always say no matter what the state of the country? OK.

What is the driving force behind our electoral process? I mean besides rage, bullshit stagecraft replacing any discussion of meaningful issues, and the misguided notion that we have two functioning political parties. Sports sports sports sports SPOOOOOOOOOOORTS! According to the National Academy of Science, Division I College Football wins within a week of an election can swing incumbents extra support. Other interesting facts reveal that windmill dunks are likely to increase support for more strict zoning and land use permits and Dan Marino refused to win a championship because he was afraid that it would lead to Floridians supporting development of endangered marshlands. The man did love himself some swamp fan-boating.

While you were out getting melted by the sun, science rendered a verdict on that whole Climategate thing. You know, when a bunch of right wing blowhards and oil shills accused a guy of fabricating climate data, thus proving climate change wrong once and for all? Turns out the guy didn't do anything wrong, it was a bullshit story pushed by dishonest brokers, and was a giant nothing story. Except for the part where it helped anti-science fruitcakes and industry bagmen push a fraudulent meme which the media ate up, helped misinformed people, and helped damage climate legislation. Surprisingly they don't seem to be eating up this "it was all bullshit" thing. Ah, who cares? I'm sure everyone will come around about a decade after it's too late to do anything.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.14

Modern Toss' Periodic Table of British Swearing. Click to embiggen you 71 with 76 and a 79.

Maybe you were clued into this fact when you went outside last week and your brain melted, your shirt soaked through, and you begged unsuccessfully for God to kill you immediately, but it was fucking hot. The hottest January to June in recorded history. If you were one of those douches who complain the global warming is a myth or hoax or were one of those shitbags who was yelling how there couldn't be global warming because there was so much snow over the winter, know this: next time it hits 90 and I have to listen to one of you jerkoffs spout off about Al Gore, I'm lighting you on fire. Spread the word.

In The World Is Full of Deadbeat Scum News, remember all that money every country pledged to Haiti and then patted themselves on the back for, it's citizens clapping and cheering for the gesture and then never bothering to ever check back on to see how Haiti was doing? Turns out only 1.9% of that money has made it to Haiti. Not that it matters. That money was about making us feel better, not Haiti. And we do feel better. What's Haiti? Haven't even thought about it in months. Mission accomplished.

Are you one of those people who thinks that a gas station sandwich is too luxurious a gastronomic delicacy to partake in? Good news, that's why science has created Candwich: the Sandwich in a can. Maybe the idea of eating a BBQ chicken sandwich in a Mountain Dew can doesn't seem appealing, but did I mention there was a candy surprise? On the bright side, this product is the result of SEC fraud and a real estate swindle, and how many awful foodstuffs can say that?

If you had to guess where the nexus of dumb parents, dumb school districts, fear of technology, misunderstanding of technology, misunderstanding of drugs, and fear of youth gone wild was, Oklahoma would have to come up early in the discussion right? That's where a school district is under the grip of kids downloading and listening to "digital drugs" and "i-dosers", sounds/songs that are supposed to create a drug like euphoria. *sighs* This sounds like a town ripe for the taking from a shady monorail salesman. Whatever happened to huffing gas and listing to Dark Side of the Moon? I think everyone should just abide by my one rule: technology is a witch, burn it. It is responsible for the Candwich after all.

As some of you are aware, the threat of robot attack is constant. But today I bring you news of an even greater threat: psychic warrior octopi. Of course we are referring to Paul, a German octopus who correctly predicted the last eight World Cup matches. Some might say that this is just random luck and that the octopus was probably just picking flags based on which one has more yellow in it. To them I say: octopi are probably color blind. I think it's much more likely it can see around the curvature of spacetime and into the future.

We all love Mel Gibson and his humorous awful misogyny and equal opportunity racism. Even if it did likely cost us a movie where he walked around with a beaver hand puppet and then committed suicide. But for those who didn't like Mel's various affronts to all human decency, would perhaps cute kittens saying his most heinous 20 quotes change your mind? C'mon, forgive him. Look at the beaver movie picture. That goddamn thing has to be allowed come out.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.08

Darryl Cunningham Investigates: Homeopathy

In You're Living Up To The Stereotype of Your Country News, Colombian police have uncovered an attempt to send 24 pounds of cocaine to Spain in the form of a molded World Cup statute. Don't plan that celebration, you still have to get through the Oranje first, Espana. Bonus points for creativity, you did find a substance that would make the value of the World Cup even greater. All that aside, if you want an even better story about Colombians and World Cup soccer, give the ESPN documentary The Two Escobars a look.

Let me see if you can follow this. The public sentiment is for cutting the deficit and cutting spending, while at the same time improving the economy and job market. If government were to focus on spending cuts and deficit reduction that would have a negative effect on the economy and job markets, making them worse. Economists know this and have been saying it for months. Our elected betters have been told this for months and should know it. Yet, cutting the deficit and spending is popular. So what is everyone going to do? Try to cut the deficit and spending in order to win in November. Because if we've learned anything over the past decade, it's that doing something smart isn't a good idea if doing something dumb and popular and destructive is. I'll see you in the bread lines.

After years of stalling anything and everything that Democrats could do, Republicans are riding high over thoughts of what could happen in November. They're even planning out their new agenda. But after hamstringing the Democrats on all their priorities, surely Democrats wouldn't be eager to help the GOP go after one of their priorities: gutting Social Security. I mean, that would be ridiculous, helping Republicans carve up one of the great progressive achievements in the country's history, right? Wrong. The Democrats are eager to help. And why not, fucking with Social Security is so very popular. Besides, old people love eating catfood. Good luck with that.

What if I were to tell you that not only was there an Illuminati card game that referenced a Gulf oil spill, but there was an oil company board game from the seventies that talked about the possibility as well. Surely you'd think this was just a decently thought out scenario that simply prefaced an easily possible bad scenario using the oil industry and the area with which they were working in, right? Nope. IT'S PROOF THIS WHOLE OIL SPILL WAS PLANNED ALL ALONG!! JESUS CHRIST, CAN'T YOU SEE IT? Man, the Illuminati, Parker Brothers, the Trilateral Commission, and the Egg Council were all planning this for decades. We're through the looking glass here people. Comb through Trivial Pursuit to see if there are any cryptic references to nuclear war and I'll see when Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots predicted the robots would take over.

Europe Is Better Than Us: #3,215 in a series. In this episode Europe, having surveyed the damage cause by global financial giants, sees that it might be smart to tie bonuses to little things like results, performance, and whether or not a collection of assholes toilets the world economy or not. This is just one of the many, better, steps that their continent has taken while we still dick around wondering if we should leave everything pretty much as is, or give the financial giants a little slap on the knuckles and tell the scamps not to do it again. Plus it comes right at the same time the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development pillories us for hamstringing our own recovery, employment prospects, and general social fabric. On the bright side, if we continue to ignore their good advice and follow their smart lead, nothing they do in Brussels will be able to stop the effects of the next mega crisis America enables. Who's the smart one now, Europe?

In closing, enjoy this racist cat.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.02

Zombie Meat. For when you want a blue peppered jerky snack that makes it seem like you're eating the flesh on a re-animated dead body.

In America Has An Awful News industry news, Adam Serwer goes into detail about how waterboarding moved from being "clearly torture" to "erm..... *clears throat, tugs at collar* a matter.... of.. debate?" in the New York Times during the Bush Administration because of politics and GOP messaging. It turns out that high level journalistic arts requires giving credence to both sides of an issue, even if there aren't two sides and one is just craven ass-covering.

Think Progress compiles a list of Senators who not only have successfully blocked extending unemployment benefits, pretty much the least thing we can do to combat the bad job market, but have also essentially helped block doing anything substantial about jobs. What's so great about this list? They all come from states with double digit unemployment that is much higher than the national average. Hey, when you're trying to sink the economy further to help your electoral prospects in November, you can't be concerned with little things like people or people who elected you.

Now we know why Arizona had to enact that Walking While Latino law. Apparently there are roving gangs of crazed illegal immigrants decapitating law abiding citizens. So says Governor Jan Brewer. Some liberals, media types, Latino groups, and people with common sense say that this is a completely fabricated lie intended to scaremonger about the Mexicanos, but I don't know; illegal Latin guillotine gangs sounds so plausible. Maybe this is a new breed of Mexican coming here searching for a job and a head (or cabesa as they call it). No dice, Pablo, those jobs and heads are ours.

Scientists believe they have found the earliest known form of complex cellular life: weird scallop things that are 2.1 billion years old. Do you know how they figure out how old the organism was? It was carrying an ancient bible and they just added up all the ages of the people inside it.

The Amazing Kreskin has offered up his services to the Pittsburgh Pirates, saying that unless they hire him they'll continue to lose for at least two more years and he'd offer his help to stop their 18-year losing streak. Unless Kreskin can go a solid 7 every five days and keep his ERA under 3 or has some serious gap power, I don't think he can do much for us. Unless he has no ethical qualms about hypnotizing Bob Nutting into committing suicide. Plus, the Bucs would never hire him; they can't lowball him in arbitration or trade him for several middling mentalist prospects.

In Rich People Have Too Much Money news, a Russian billionaire has commissioned an Australian goldsmith to create a $21,000 golden diamond encrusted vuvuzela. *dusts hands off* God, send the meteors, I think we've clearly bottomed out as a society.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.01

Gregg Peltz's Victorian Star Wars portraits

Health care overlord Comrade Obama has unleashed his health care scheme on us. Now he has informed us of the exact schedule of and options we will have under the oppressive bootheel of his socialist scheme. Healthcare.gov gives people the rundown on the new health care policy, from the exact time the spirit of Lenin will possess your youngest child, to the brainwashing camp schedule, to when you can schedule the shock troops to kick in your door and stick grandma with a Bowie knife.

Talking Points Memo recounts the saga and details of the Russian spy ring and finds them lacking. Almost comically inept. From not actually getting any useful information, handing over their equipment to undercover FBI agents, to stating their address as 99 Fake Street, they weren't struggling to make the Russian espionage hall of fame. Not that any of this matters, this is all a viral marketing scheme for Salt... OPENING JULY 23RD!

All throughout this massive global financial crisis, we have been able to say one thing: we may have a government rife with banking shills and financial conglomerate insiders, but at least they're working for us. Like, putting us on the hook for billions of dollars worth of worthless Bear-Stearns assets... and then lied to Congress about it. So lets see, that makes it Bernanke, Geithner, most of the White House, every elected Republican, significant chunks of House Democrats, and every key Democrat in the Senate working to largely look out for the interests of the financial industry over citizens. Goddamn, Boehner was right... that's not nearly enough protection for the financial industry.

Soccer is taking hold, America. Sure, the US National Team, as is typical, shit itself about a round before it should have to realistically maximize this World Cup, but it's making inroads. How do we know? Landycakes' winner against Algeria broke the intarwebs and all associated internetting tubes. It was officially the biggest driver of internet traffic ever. Socialized medicine, liberals in charge, and gay no hands/no hitting sports taking over our consciousness? We're almost Europe, people. Or, alternately, a third world country if you follow John Oliver's math. If we don't eat sufficient amounts of red meat and blow up large chunks of this country over the weekend, we're essentially indistinguishable from Portugal.

We would like to join the world in wishing legendary effects maestro Ray Harryhausen a happy 90th birthday. Your Clash of the Titans still looked more real than this summer's Clash of the Titans. In honor of the man, here are fighting skeletons.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.30

Ron English on the Kellog's cereal drama. I know Apple Jacks usually gives you diarrhea, but it wasn't supposed to this time.

Matt Taibbi takes out his well worn indignation bat to beat Lara Logan, the establishment media, and the notion of today's media that it is their job to protect our political betters lest the peasants learn what they really think. It's over the Rolling Stone McChrystal piece. Taibbi nicely sums up everything that is wrong with most of our media, from their subservience to power to their galling contempt for people who aren't as cravenly sycophantic as they are. Glenn Greenwald also jumps in and throws a few elbows.

#374B in Things I Am Disappointed With the Obama Administration Over: An Ongoing Series. In this episode, the White House goes out of it's way to help banking sycophant Scott Brown insert loopholes into financial reform so that they could lighten the minuscule financial burden on large banks, remove it from hedge funds, and shift it onto small banks and the taxpayer. As one does. Funny, when it comes to something like a public option or, soon, cap-and-trade, the White House can never seem to muster the energy to make even the tiniest effort to push for it. But shift reform burdens from hedge funds to taxpayers? They'll work up a sweat for that. Bang up job.

The 4th of July is almost upon us and thus it is our duty as Americans to use cheaply made Chinese explosives to light up our skies, blow up frogs that couldn't get away fast enough, and remove fingers and/or hands. Except that due to the budget crisis that many communities are going through, firework celebrations are being cut. I hope you'll join us here at TB in celebrating the first annual Imagination Independence Day! It'll help us all work out the kinks so that Imagination Christmas will go off without a hitch.

With a hurricane bearing down on the Gulf oil spill, one asks God "Jesus fucking Christ, what else can you do to make this worse you bearded son of a bitch?" Would you be interested in a tsunami... caused by BP? That's right, the relief well that they're drilling that will totally fix everything for honests, may set of a "supersonic tsunami" by igniting all the trapped underground methane. Nice. After that, the BP Board will go door to door for face macing and groin kicks. It's the only way they know.

We've been a little hard on Barry recently, but we will commend him on one thing: before arresting a bunch of deep cover Russian spies, our President went out munching burgers with Russian President Medvedev as those commie spies were being rounded up. It takes a stone cold motherfucker to have burgers with the man whose spies you are about to have exposed and incarcerated in a massive international incident. More please.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.28

The crime of San Francisco represented topographically. This is prostitution.

In shocking news, an incredibly old man died of incredibly old age. The shocking part isn't that Robert Byrd died or that, at 92, he wasn't even all that old by US Senate standards, it's that we still see fit to send 70+ year old men to serve and then get surprised when they don't understand the issues of the day and enact legislation at the same pace at which they fuck. This is sad for West Virginia because with Byrd's passing this is the last time anyone of note will remember that it is a state and worthy of attention.

Unsurprisingly, the easily foreseeable death of a man that we all should be surprised lived this long has thrown financial reform into disarray. Byrd was the 60th vote. So now an already weak bill that had to add in tons of loopholes, crooked deals, giveaways, and purposefully fails to address the problems that caused our economic crisis to get to 60 votes in the first place, will have to be weakened and compromised further in order to pick up one more vote. I'm just saying don't be surprised if it becomes legal for a Goldman Sachs employee to gun you down in the street in cold blood.

By the by, what's in that financial reform bill anyway? Wonk Room has an overview. FDL has an overview of all the cut rate, cheap shit, last minute carve-outs that were put in despite the fact they benefit no discernible human. Did you know auto dealers are exempt from any consumer protection agency? Because if there's a group of people with a sterling reputation for looking out for consumers, it's car dealers. On the bright side, Sen. Scott Brown scored a bunch of special deals for his corporate masters in order to buy his support... and he then pledged to vote against the bill. So of course this means they'll take out his shady deals and improve the bill, right? Of course not.

Not that any of this matters anyway. As Paul Krugman explains, we're entering a Third Depression: the Long Depression. And why is this? Because our elected betters and the elected betters around the world have decided to focus on imaginary problems instead of real ones. Namely focusing on inflation that isn't occurring and focusing on cutting back spending that isn't at adequate levels in the first place. On the bright side, suffering builds character. And a decade from now the world will have a shitload of character.

Every time Sean or I wants to write another one of the 'Our Betters' Joe Biden pieces, the Veep has to go out of his way to set the satire bar a little higher than we thought it could go. This time Joe was slinging ice cream in Wisconsin, calling people smartasses. We've said it time and time again: we have to make the VP a lifetime position and soon.

We end on a sad note today as we learn that Texas, bane of education and facts, actually can't afford to buy all those textbooks they want to have changed. The main culprit on kids not getting textbooks: their stubborn, grandstanding idiot of a governor, Rick Perry, and his insistence on not taking federal education aid because of the socialism and some dear that it'll somehow weaken their #49 ranking in percentage of adults who have completed high school. Plus, books is witchcraft. There's that.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.21

Moritz Resl's 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Alan Greenspan and Paul Krugman got into a economic slap fight over the weekend with competing op-eds. Greenspan arguing we need to focus on debt instead of jobs, Krugman arguing jobs instead of debt. Let's see, do we believe the tired old man who sat at the apex of this crisis unable to see what was going on or do anything about it, or do I believe the guy who just won a Nobel and has been horrifyingly right every step of the way. What's that? Unemployment is hovering at 10% and focusing on the debt by cutting spending will kill more jobs? Gee, hard to see who to listen to on this point.

On that point, the Washington Post looks at how our elected betters' myopic concerns over making minuscule "drop in the bucket" dents in the deficit is taking precedent over, you know, fixing the economy and getting people back to work. No worry about the massive state budget crises, the Senate has to make it look like they're listening to the ill-thought out concerns of voters by being fake concerned about the deficit. So a year from now when we're all eating catfood underneath an abandoned freeway, remember to thank them all for they way they knocked down the deficit by $5 bucks.

After 28 years the Bloody Sunday killings were officially ruled unlawful at the conclusion of a 12 year inquiry by Lord Saville. Apparently shooting the Irish under flimsy pretenses and then claiming they all had guns and you were under attack isn't, in the strictest sense, legal. But hey, they finally got to the bottom of it after three decades. See what you have to look forward to in 2038, Israel?

Simon Johnson looks at all the ways in which the soon to pass and soon to be heralded as a "serious fix to the an unforeseeable and unprecedented crisis" Financial Reform bill fails to do any of the shit it needs to do. Who could have foreseen that catering to banks and Wall Street and treating them as if they had credibility left would result in laws that failed to adress the things that caused the last financial collapse or deal with the fallout? But at least it's called "Financial Reform". They can technically say they passed "Financial Reform". There is that.

On the Bright, Shiny, Happy front, one of the men who helped eradicate smallpox has a message to the world: we'll all be dead in a 100 years, thanks for fucking everything up you soon to be extinct shits. There's a myriad of reasons, but mostly overpopulation and the fact that we're ruining the environment and only engaging in half measures -at best- to address those problems. He's 95, so he'll be dead soon. He just wants us to know that we caused it, we refused to fix it, and we should enjoy a hellish decades of existence that will result in our violent painful extinction. Way to depress everyone on your way out.

The Intertubes has found the only way to listen to the inane tweets and proclamations of the Tea Party set: by making them poot out the butt of a colonial soldier. They call it: Tea Farty.

In closing we give you Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age covering "What, What (In the Butt)."

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.17

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.15

Star Wars political cartoons... is that something you might be interested in?

How little have our elected betters learned from our horrific financial apocalypse? Almost nothing. The latest example is the Herculean struggle Al Franken is currently going through to get the Senate to maybe consider the fact that the financial sector getting to choose the agency which rates its products creates rather a large conflict of interest. On the side of randomizing the selection process: people who are smart. On the side of keeping things as is and trusting our financial betters won't game a shoddy system: a probable filibuster proof majority of Senators. Remember to put on your surprised faces when our next financial collapse comes.

Comically oil executives took to the Hill today to explain all the ways in which they were not like BP in their offshore drilling practices. The main differences? Uhhh.... they aren't named BP and none of them has a drilling rig named Deepwater Horizon. One candid moment was when the executives basically admitted they had no way to handle massive offshore spills. Oh really? I think we've noticed that lo these past two months.

People have started to call bullshit and nakedly manipulative bullshit on the timing and PR strategy behind the whole "Afghanistan has trillions in resources! We'll all be rich... RICH!!" story from yesterday. C'mon. How are we supposed to feel good about this war or as if we're getting something out of it if they don't trump up old shit the Soviets were trumping up in 1985... when they we in the midst of an unproductive slog in Afghanistan? Just keep telling yourself "Just a few more years of fighting... then we'll all be rich."

Were you wondering who was cheering for North Korea today during their 2-1 defeat at the hands of Brazil? It certainly wasn't any North Koreans. No, the Chinese government flew in supporters specifically for the purpose of cheering for Kim Jong-Il's future waterslide park invitees/torture victims (depending on how the tournament goes). Commies stick together. Maybe China can fly in some soccer supporters to the US after our team invariably is eliminated before the semis and we lose interest in the sport for another 4 years.

Media Matters has gone to the trouble of picking out choice excerpts from Glenn Beck's new fiction thriller/Randian teabagging circle jerk... The Overton Window. Amongst the gems; "rule number one is, don't tease the panther", various meandering/awful sections of prose, bizarre asides about the flat tax and Bill Clinton, examples where Glenn doesn't seem to remember things his own characters have done, and a Star Wars reference so hackneyed it would make Kevin Smith cringe. Essentially it's a less funny version of his "serious" non-fiction books. Anyway, it doesn't compare to the liberal writing brilliance of Who Blog In Darkness.

In closing, your daily "Oh shit, we're fucked" oil flow estimate is 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day. Up from the 20,000 to 40,000 from last week. It doesn't really matter; at this point it's like having third degree burns over 100% of your body and complaining about the sniffles.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.09

From Buzzfeed's Annotated Guide To Images From The Anti-BP Movement

In We All Know This Intuitively news the AP has kindly revealed that 58% of all the judges in areas affected by the BP spill have financial ties to the oil industry. Seems low. Just wanted you to know that in case you were getting any ideas in your head about "They'll get theirs through the legal system." Nah, kid, nah.

Breaking from years of established US government and official New World immigration policy, Native Americans have been allowed a legal victory that will seemingly come without betrayal from the white man, smallpox blankets, mass slaughter, some horribly inhumane forced resettlement, or a cloying portrayal as cat people in a James Cameron movie. It seems some in the justice system have forgotten the principles this country was founded on: fucking over Indians at all costs. Hopefully this is stopped before they gain the sense and legal standing to get justice on all that other stuff we, by which I mean all the white people who were here before my ancestors immigrated here, did to them.

With all the reports of environmental calamity coming from the Gulf, it's hard not to consider the worst case scenarios for the entire region, economy, and wildlife. But what about considering the worst case scenario for BP? Thankfully Andrew Ross Sorkin goes through what might happen and the possible future is quite a theoretical delight. Bankruptcy, cleanup costs going over $20 billion, $15 billion in claims, billions in Clean Water Act fines, Tony Hayward being pushed into a wheat thresher and then having pig excrement rubbed in his wounds, endless litigation, an unrepairable reputation, and BP being forced to break itself up are all possible options. All of them might happen. I'm crossing my fingers for the wheat thresher one. Just keep thinking positive and they all might happen.

In Punishing the Whistle-blowers, Not the Criminals They Expose news, the US Intelligence analyst who exposed the video of helicopter gunmen essentially murdering innocent civilians was arrested. It's nice to know what our priorities as a country are: arrest people who expose wrongdoing; let the perpetrators who flagrantly breaks laws off scot free while continuing their illegal policies. We have an awesome country.

Rolling Stone has put up an article on the BP oil spill and the Obama response. It should essentially be titled The Shit You Should Actually Be Mad At Obama Over. It goes over the hiring of cronies, the failure to reform MMS, and all the other problems we pointed out before. It'd be a good place for our media to start taking a look. But instead we'll continue to get stories about whether Obama needs to get angrier, the crisis over Obama not showing enough anger, and now: did Obama show too much anger when he said "know whose ass to kick" on the TV? Like I said, our priorities as a country are just super.

In closing we leave you with a review of Willow Ufgood/Wicket's biography Size Matters Not.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.04

Portland artist Alexander Rokoff painted a portrait of Modest Mouse frontman Issac Brock... standing in front of a boar whist wearing lederhosen. This is not that important, except for the part where it now hangs in the office of the mayor of the city of Portland, Oregon. Eat it, Eric Judy and Jeremiah Green!

Sean's off on a street corner, preaching from the bible he wrote and looking for "converts", so it falls to me to recount the things that happened today that weren't related to oil being everywhere. That doesn't leave much, so there's some oil stuff in here too. Fuck you if you don't like it.

Local Pittsburgh politician and future victim of having trash dumped on his lawn, Councilman Matt Drozd, has a bright idea for the Stanley Cup finals going on right now between Philadelphia and Chicago: he wants people in Pittsburgh to root for Philly based on some arcane tax revenue/yay Pennsylvania reasons. After my urge to stab him subsided, I decided to honor the Flyers in much the way I'm sure they did when the Pens were in the Finals the past two years... but then I decided against urinating on myself while decrying a league wide conspiracy against my team. Fuck you Drozd and don't ever suggest -even in jest- that we root for anything to happen to Philadelphia besides some epically Biblical smiting.

Let's check the score on BP and celebrities. Listened to Kevin Costner? Check. Listened to James Cameron? That's a negatory good buddy, with BP turning down the director/undersea documentarian's help in providing access to underwater equipment/technicians. Cameron responded by saying "those morons don't know what they're doing" and referred to BP's handling of access to video and the site as "asking the perpetrator to give you the video of the crime scene". Uh-oh, looks like I know who the thinly veiled, subtle as a sledgehammer, mustache twirling villains of Avatar 2 are going to be. Hurts, doesn't it, neocons?

In "Democracy" news, Diebold, the crooked, politically active, former makers of easily hacked and zero paper trail voting machines, had to pay $25 million to the SEC to settle a fraud case. The SEC will continue to pursue criminal charges against three of Diebold's executives. Gee, if this is the way they handle their books and their accounting, it really warms your heart to think about the way they handled all those voting machines.

In "This is how the world works" news, a recent lawsuit that attempted to sue pretty much every energy company for creating emissions and global warming conditions that helped exacerbate Hurricane Katrina -effectively a trial on global warming- will not be allowed to continue. Why? because so many of the judges on the 16 judge appeals court panel had to recuse themselves because of "conflicts of interest" with the energy companies, that no true majority opinion can be reached and thus the case cannot proceed. So that makes it pretty much all three branches of government that are completely entwined with private interests. I was worried it was only two.

A study recently published by two UCLA economics professors showed a surprisingly political effects between "nudging" people about energy conservation -i.e. providing energy saving tips as well as information on electricity usage to households- and energy consumption. Those who were registered Democrats who received the "nudges" tended to cut consumption by 3-6%. But those who were registered Republicans actually increased consumption as a result of the "nudges". They essentially scientifically showed that conservatives would actively act out against their own interests if they received what they perceived as a "liberal"/"pussy environmentalist" message on it. For further evidence of this phenomenon, I submit the past two decades in US politics.

Finally we close with the best orangutan/hound-dog buddy video of the week. Caution: you might overdose on cute and go into catatonic "Awwwwwww" shock.

Cheap Blogging Crutch - 5.20.10

Happy Everybody Draw Muhammad Day!

Hey, Internet, can you keep a secret? Good. I have something to confess. Remember a few days back when Miss USA won the scandalous competition after pictures of her pole dancing surfaced? I really should have mentioned it at the time, but I'm the pole. Yeah, I know, conflict of interest and such. But if you'd been me, would you have stopped her? Exactly. Envy me. And now, for delicious linkage:

As some five or six of you might have noticed, the World Cup begins three weeks from tomorrow. Given that most of our audience is American -- no, we haven't forgotten about our loyal following in Slovenia -- we wanted to pass along this handy guide from The Unlikely Fan, which translates the personalities and skill levels of all 32 World Cup qualifiers into easily recognizable American sports franchises.

Pennsylvania Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett has subpoenaed Twitter in an attempt to identify anonymous critics. We, for two, are shocked, SHOCKED that a state AG who, for purely political purposes, joined in baseless lawsuits questioning the constitutionality of health care reform turned out to be a thin-skinned prick willing to bend the law in order to intimidate and punish anyone who criticizes him. The best part? This awful jackass is going to force Matthew to vote for Dan Onorato.

Tea Party champion and enemy to balanced breakfasts everywhere, Rand Paul, won the Republican Senate nomination in Kentucky largely on his reputation as an enemy of federal spending and its overwhelming effect on our daily lives. That is, he's an enemy of federal spending unless cuts would take some of those juicy Medicare dollars out of his pocket. Yeah, that Libertarian streak always runs real hard... right up until its proponents have to apply it to themselves. I guess he's just not that big on the "hard parts of freedom," unless they're being endured by black people.

With all the recent oil spill coverage (ha!), Texas school board fuckery, and election news, the Catholic Church has been getting a bit of a pass on TheseBastards. First, we would like to apologize. Won't happen again. Second, we would like to point out that in Catholicism, if a Priest rapes and tortures innocent children, he is moved to another parish. If a nun at a Catholic hospital allows a woman to undergo a life-saving abortion procedure, she is excommunicated. Think if she'd raped either mother or fetus, they'd have let her stay on?

We leave you, on this glorious Thursday, with the best piece from this week's Onion.

Cheap Blogging Crutch - 5.18.10

Further glorious details here.

I was walking past one of Brooklyn's many mental institutions the other day. Several patients were standing outside chanting "Thirteen! Thirteen!" I walked over and peered through the chainlink fence to try and figure out what was going on. All of a sudden a mop handle shot through the fence and caught me right in the eye. The patients begin chanting "Fourteen! Fourteen!"

In today's THERE IS NO GOD news, Bristol Palin's people announced she will be paid up to $30,000 in speaking fees per engagement. Before you get your Irish up, allow me to make the argument that she is eminently qualified for this very public role. After all, she is the daughter of a materialistic, dishonest political train wreck and managed to compromise a presidential campaign by popping out a kid while she was still in high school. Not to mention the fact that... eh, do I really need a third?

Elvis Costello has joined Carlos Santana and Gil Scott-Heron in canceling scheduled performances in Israel. Costello cited Israel's "intimidation" and "humiliation" of Palestineans. After what went down with Professor Noam earlier this week, does anyone else smell a Costello-Chomsky collaboration in the works?

St. Joe Biden, Patron of Drunk Uncles at Holiday Parties, made light of his "big fucking deal" comment at a rally in Cedar Rapids today. Watch as Papa Joe goes from being "embarrassed as hell," to thanking the Almighty for killing his mother, to pondering why everyone finds the comment so amusing, to bragging about the pile of money the phrase has made Organizing for America. I don't even think he paused to blink while doing this.

On a more personal plug note, TheseBastards friends and occasional co-conspirators, Cry Fire, are finalists in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's "Pittsburgh Rocks" contest. While whether or not Pittsburgh does rock is a matter for debate, Cry Fire's lead guitarist and bassist personally guaranteed me that if I mentioned the contest in this forum, they would play their next gig pantsless. Go here and vote for Cry Fire.

Finally, I leave you with the Mr. Barry Popularity and Russian Putin hand puppet President Dmitry Medvedev, pondering whether or not they'd hit it. I'm sure you'll agree that, they would, in fact, hit it.

Cheap Blogging Crutch - 5.17.10

So a Mormon is visiting New York City for the weekend. Upon checking into her hotel, the Mormon says to the clerk, "I do hope your pornography is disabled."

The clerk replies, "It's just regular porn, you sick fuck!"

A Spanish mathematician has created a dynamical model based on the second law of thermodynamics. Why is this important? The model explains marital breakups. Still no conclusive proof of the female orgasm. Also, still no cure for cancer.

Newly crowned Miss USA, Rima Fakih, wasted little time in arriving at the mandatory scandal when these pictures of her pole dancing surfaced earlier today. The real tragedy here is that the public slut shaming is likely to distract from all of the "Oh noes, a Mooslim Miss 'Merica!" we would have enjoyed for the next week or so.

Speaking of our remarkable progress toward gender equality, this Joslyn James/Rachel Uchitel dust-up is turning into a heartbreaking commentary on the continued pussification of powerful American men. Tiger Woods has already coughed up $10 million in hush money. Frank Sinatra would've had both these broads killed months ago. Whither the mistress who keeps her yap shut if she knows what's good for her?

Two BP refineries in the US have been slapped with 97% of the "egregious willful" safety violations observed by federal regulators since 2007. Anybody else wondering why OSHA even has the "egregious willful" category? Shouldn't it just be the "shut the fuck down" category? Or is that reserved for violations that fall into the "malicious and vindictive evil" or "Bond villain type-shit" categories?

That's all for today. I leave you with the wisdom of Tracy Morgan.

Cheap Blogging Crutch - 5.11.10

If you're wondering about the picture above, I've got nothing for you. An image with that much Awesome packed into it requires no explanation whatsoever. To the links!

Last month a Seattle police officer detained an innocent Latino man and allegedly threatened to “beat the [expletive] Mexican piss out” of him. As much as I hope that justice is served and the cop is tossed in jail, where I'm sure he'll be very popular, I have to ask: why "Mexican piss"? Brevity suggests the universal shorthand "Corona" would be more appropriate.

While we're on the subject of criminal behavior on the part of the authorities, the Chicago Police Department will not press charges against a CVS employee who chased down and strangled to death a man who had shoplifted a tube of toothpaste. While an officer was on the scene, no less. One can only presume the predictably black suspect would have escaped with his life had he opted for the Extra Whitening.

Not content with war profiteering and murder abroad, Satan's cock wart defense contractor Blackwater/Xe has launched SnapScouts, a mobile phone application that enables America's youth to spy on on neighbors. I applaud this, as kids need to learn about mercenary armies and lawless international behavior as soon as possible. Actually, it turns out that this is fake, but you have to admire the satire, especially when it involves so many 1984 references.

The lovely and intrepid Daniela Perdomo points out that in the three weeks since Deepwater Horizon asploded, the American government hasn't exactly taken up the mantle of disciplinarian. In fact, while pistol-whipping the petroleum industry in the press and at pointless congressional finger-pointing sessions hearings, the Interior Department has quietly approved 27 new permits for offshore drilling. In similar news, Glenn Beck is PETA's new spokesperson.

We end, as always, with The Funny, today taking the form of the most epic Hipster text message break-up of all time. Ladies, when are you going to learn that you can't text message breakup?

Cheap Blogging Crutch - 5.10.10

Welcome back, kids, to the Newspaper Replace-O-Matic 3000, your Cheap Blogging Crutch. Sorry that this one was a little late. Matthew and I were frantically pricing World Cup tickets, now that new information has come to light.

News broke over the weekend that Comedy Central has in script development an animated series featuring Jesus Christ as its protagonist. The series will reportedly feature J.C. attempting to "escape his father's enormous shadow and to live life in NYC as a regular guy." Revolutionmuslim.com has so far been uncharacteristically quiet on this one.

Andrew Sullivan, one of the brightest and most pragmatic theists in the public sphere, calls upon fellow Christians to tear down and rebuild their theological architecture as the church "crumbles into archaism and fundamentalism." Somehow, he completely misses the problem of infinite regression in the process. Yep, it's turtles all the way down, Mr. Sullivan.

2009 saw Isabella become the most popular baby name for American girls. This trend has been dubbed the "Twilight Effect" by the Social Security Administration, which compiles the annual list. Given the enduring popularity of the Twilight series and the corresponding pussification of American youth, Isabella is expected to top next year's list of boy baby names as well. As Carlin said, "soft names make soft people." This country is doomed.

Have You Been Doing Your Kagan Exercises? Television and the noosphere are absolutely lousy with opinions on Barry's nomination of solicitor general Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. As much as we try to avoid self-fellation around here--I prefer women and Matthew just isn't that flexible--I strongly recommend the TheseBastards breakdown.

Finally, I give you the second-best pitching performance of the weekend, Rojo Johnson's debut with the Round Rock Express.