Picture of the day

From the Smoking Gun comes a look at the kind of man who, a few short days from now, is going to rappel down your chimney, eat any pastries you have lying around, "gift" you a present from his "sack", and leave on a chariot pulled by serially abused animals.

I don't know, I think half of these guys are Billy Connolly and the other half are Randy Quaid.

Your Christmas miracle

If you were hoping that in the next few days that a lonely rich miser would learn the value of humanity, sharing, and good will to all, that some workaholic father would learn the value of time spent with family appreciating the little things, or that a precocious mutt from the pound would reunite an estranged couple and teach the neighborhood the meaning of Christmas, well, you're out of luck. All the Christmas miracle sauce got used up this weekend by the Democrats to get 60 votes for the health care bill and what little was left over got used by the Steelers last night to beat the Packers.

Would we all have liked something a better Christmas miracle than Ben Nelson being sufficiently bought off by the Democratic leadership to pass a compromise of a compromised compromise health care bill? Yeah. But time are tough for everyone, even Santa, and all he could give us was a discount Christmas miracle. The first votes have been finished and things look to be on track for Senate passage of the bill by Christmas day. What did they have to compromise to get this passed?

Under the deal, states could choose to prohibit abortion coverage in plans offered through insurance exchanges that the bill would set up for people who lack coverage through their jobs. The compromise is less restrictive than the abortion language contained in the House bill.

Nelson also secured full and permanent federal funding for his state to extend Medicaid eligibility to everyone below 133 percent of the federal poverty level. The bill would require all states to do so, but Nebraska alone would not be required to pay a portion of the additional cost after 2016. And he won concessions for some nonprofit insurers and for providers of supplemental Medicare coverage from a new insurance tax, and he was able to roll back cuts to health savings accounts.

So under the abortion compromise, which may be unconstitutional, you essentially are at the whims of the states to decide if it's allowed and you have to pay for the transaction with two checks.Nice to see that as part of his principled objection to women paying for things with one check, he also had a principled debate over whether or not his state should get extra Medicare goodies that no other state got. He won that argument of course, but Harry Reid was able to keep out an amendment that declared Nebraska the "most ball out fuckin' radical state ever created." The Senate does have some principles.

If you want to read what's in the actual bill, go here. If you want to read someone lamenting the state of the bill, but saying the bill should still be passed, pick anyone but Howard Dean and Kieth Olbermann. But here are some good ones: Jacob Hacker "The Godfather of the public option", the Washington Post's Ezra Klein, Paul Krugman, and.. well fuck it, you have Google. Just type in "smiling while eating a shit sandwich" and it ought to take you to the most relevant articles. I swear on Sean's life that you won't find anything other than health care analysis if you Google that phrase.

Merry Christmas, you got health care, of a sort, to be put fully in place in 2014. Maybe some of this country will even be back to work by then. Enjoy.

Video of the Day

I work in Midtown Manhattan and as such have been inundated with Christmas cheer since just after Labor Day. While the High Christian Shopping Season does have its perks in Bloomberg's outdoor mall, by and large the last quarter of the year is fucking miserable for anyone with enough self-esteem to avoid validating themselves and their crumbling family relationships through crass consumption and feigned goodwill.

So what's a boy to do? Drink, early and often, of course. But might I also recommend clips from Bad Santa?



There. All better.

Buy things!

Need a gift for that person who started a garden to break away from the corporatist supermarkets, agribusiness conglomerates, carbon footprints of food transport, and the lax labeling standards on organic foods, but also wants a kitschy kick-knack to decorate it with/ward of evil spirits? Well then, via BoingBoing and the Nation's Bidding for Good drive comes the Garden Noam/Gnome Chomsky.


Not as cool as Chomsky's own van, but it'll make sure your arugula and tomatoes are properly influenced by the ideas of libertarian socialism, anarcho-syndicalism, and anarchism. Which is what we all want in our food anyway.

'Tis the season

With Christmas only a few short weeks away, Santa Claus has a few messages for you. First, as always, is to be good to each other. Secondly, 9/11 was an inside job!



St. Nick is a truther.

Buy things!

We at These Bastards are nothing if not rampant consumer whores who want you to buybuybuyfuckingbuy in the name of capitalism and Jesus based holidays. But we, as of yet, have nothing of our own to sell you as a pretense with which to steal your identity, so as such we will, from time to time, direct you to buy the goods and services of others to give as gifts for the Lord's birthday.

Being fans of both artist Brandon Bird and the ludicrous acting of Nicolas "No, not the bees" Cage, we would feel it remiss if we did not direct you to Bird's creation the Nicolas Cage Adventure Set!

The fate of Nicolas Cage is in your hands!

Each set includes a double-sided 8.5 x 11 inch play background (depicting "tropical island" and "haunted castle" environments) and one 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of nine vinyl cling stickers: 3 full-body Nicolas Cages, battle axe, skateboard, ice cream cone, scary ghost, parrot, and space helmet. Click here for a detail view of all the stickers.

At only $10 bucks, it's a hell of a deal. I mean a disheveled, leather jacket wearing Nic Cage vinyl sticker and a spooky ghost? No need to do any other shopping.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.16

Dem officials set stage for corporate-backed health care campaign
In case you were wondering how it came to be that Democrats handed out a multitude of concessions to health and insurance related companies in return for their "support" that included a bunch of terrible ads that ran a couple of times and a report that attempted to sandbag the process last week, the Politico is there to spell it out in all of its predictable detail. But hey, those ads were worth the tepid incremental reform, right? Right?

Sweden Turning Stray Rabbits Into Biofuel
You want to know how to get Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny to stop eating the carrots an cabbages of Mr. McGregor? Why you just exterminate everone he knows, deep freeze them, and then turn them into biofuel to heat homes in order to make an example of Peter's anti-farm food terrorism. Socialism, expansive health care, beautiful blond women, hockey, public transportation, and now rabbit heated homes. Is there anything Sweden doesn't have? I'm moving there.

U.S. Credit Conditions
Thanks to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and their research, now you can have a comprehensive county by county map of the US and the rate at which your fellow Americans have defaulted on their auto loans, bank cards, student loans, and mortgages over the last quarter. Well what do you know, every place in American has had a large increase in mortgage defaults over the past few months. Surprising.

Christmas myth dogs Obama
Just in case you were curious as to the next bizarre myth or conspiracy about Obama that is going to pop up is, here's a hint: Christmas. No, he didn't kill Santa or put extra funding into the war on Christmas. No, it's has to do with the fact that he's a Muslim and declared that this country isn't a Christian nation. That's right, he's going to abolish the White House Christmas tree. It isn't true, but you are going to receive several chain e-mails about it. The thing about the Obama's decorating the tree with bronzed aborted fetuses? That is true.

Edge of Solar System Is Not What We Expected
Science has once again been surprised by the cold dark recesses of space. This time the structure and energy spectra at the edge of the solar system are confounding our science overlords. If they're this surprised over what's going on at the edge of the solar system, I shudder to think what that means for their theories for what's at the edge of the universe. If there isn't a restaurant there, I'm going to lose it.

Something for the kids

Christmas off, moved to June

'Jesus was born in June', astronomers claim

They found that a bright star which appeared over Bethlehem 2,000 years ago pinpointed the date of Christ's birth as June 17 rather than December 25.

The researchers claim the 'Christmas star' was most likely a magnificent conjunction of the planets Venus and Jupiter, which were so close together they would have shone unusually brightly as a single "beacon of light" which appeared suddenly.

If the team is correct, it would mean Jesus was a Gemini, not a Capricorn as previously believed.

See, not only is it factual that Jesus was born, we now have the exact date. Alright, I know this changes our perceptions of Christmas forever. No more winter wonderlands, it's the sweltering heat of summer for our ritualistic gift exchange. Unfortunately this June 17th date will result in the movement of National Eat Your Vegetables Day and possibly National Fudge Day and International Picnic Day. But good news fudge covered vegetable and picnic lovers, December 25th just opened up. That is if the pagans don't want their holiday back. Does anyone still celebrate the feast of the Son of Isis? We are going to keep all the pagan rituals we stole for Christmas, you can't have any of those. Yule logs, gift giving, and blockheaded kids in yellow sweaters with zig zag lines on it are ours now, but you can have the day back.

Also, it says it happened in 2 BC, soooo it's actually 2006. Uh, constitutionally I'm not sure if this means Bush gets another two years or all the dates for everything get moved back two years.

Merry Christmas! Why is everyone running?

From the people at the American Family Association comes just the holiday treat sure to help you celebrate the reason for the season (Jesus!) and our new black President (not Jesus!): A giant light up five and a half foot cross that looks like it's burning! Hey black people, why are you running away? Finally all the that's good about a flaming cross (visibility), without all the negatives (gas is expensive). Plus it's reusable, no need to nail together two large two by fours each night and douse them in gasoline, just plug in and flip a switch. Show the neighbors you aren't waiting for Santa to bring presents, you're waiting for Jesus to bring the present of the rapture and you're tragically unaware of our racial history.

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