Headline of the day

What it lacks in brevity it makes up for in insanity. This took place in Ireland, so I guess that partly explains it.

During the evening Talbot, who was wearing an inflatable sumo suit, bumped into her. When she turned around, the accused said to her: "Keep smiling, c**t."

Later, a man dressed as a Snickers bar began waving at her and when she went to wave back, Talbot pushed her arm from behind. When she asked what the problem was, Talbot said: "Your arm's in my way."

When she again asked what her problem was, Talbot "flipped" and started screaming abuse at her.

Well, obviously your could see why this escalated. Is there a humorous coda to this whole affair?

The accused was escorted out and had to be asked to partially deflate her costume so she could get out the door.

There we are.

Broken News: Millions of American Protestants Thought Themselves Welcome at St. Patrick's Day Celebrations

EAST O KERRY, SOUTH O CORK—As inebriated street brawls were broken up and millions on tons of sawdust were thrown on millions of tons of vomit to officially close this year's St. Patrick’s Day festivities, millions of non-Catholics, specifically Protestants, remained ignorant that their presence was unwelcome at the Bacchanalian merriment.

“Whoooo! Another awesome St. Pat’s in the books! Whoo!” shouted James Kenny, an inebriated banker, Protestant, and part-time stand in and cipher for all the followers of Martin Luther as he tipsily walked down the street. “Good to celebrate the ‘ole Irish heritage with a bit of drinking and singing of some Irish folk tunes. It’s a great day to celebrate Ireland.”

When told that the St. Patrick’s Day holiday was not in fact a celebration of Ireland, but a Catholic religious holiday, Kenny initially seemed confused.

“Cath-o-what?” the poor man said, trying to steady himself as he pissed against a wall.

“Let me help you understand,” offered nearby Irish historian and parade rainer, Francis Connor.

“The first tip off that this is a Catholic holiday is that it is a day celebrating a Saint. You assholes use that phrase to refer to anyone who follows Christ and think our use of it is a kind of idolatry. We, more sensibly, use it to refer to those who have done magical shit in the name of God; like drive all the snakes out of Ireland. This is a basic schism in the Catholic-Protestant divide.”

“Nah, but… green and shit. Color of Ireland! Erin go bragh!” the poor foolish man said as he wobbled down the street.

“Point of fact, blue is actually the national color of Ireland,” Connor explained, hoping to ruin all further St. Patrick’s Days for this man. “More specifically light blue is the color associated with St. Patrick himself. Actually on the English Royal Standard, Ireland is represented by a harp”

“Harp ale! And a Guinness, my good man,” Kenny yelled to a barkeeper he had hallucinated.

“By a harp on a field of blue,” Connor pedantically continued.

“People traditionally use green to describe Ireland because the place is itself to green and is nicknamed the emerald isle. In actuality the use of green as a specifically ‘Irish’ color is only used by ignorant Americans. Green is actually the color of Irish Catholics. Orange is the color of Irish Protestants… and the Dutch. It’s all symbolized on the Irish flag: green on the left for Catholics, orange on the right for Protestants, and white in the middle to symbolize peace between them.”

“Did you see any fucking orange or light blue around?” Conner asked.

“Yeah, buzzat’s juuuscuz people donwanna get pinched,” Kenny continued, flagrantly violating open container and public intoxication laws.

“No, dear boy, the pinching of people who don’t wear green is just a low level version of another longstanding Irish Catholic tradition: violence against those who aren’t Irish Catholics,” explained Conner, whilst punching the shit out of two girls who were not wearing green.

“Ibbet your gonna try to ruin shamrocks for me now. Shamrock shakes too,” Kenny screamed.

“Precisely! Shamrocks were used by St. Patrick to illustrate the Trinity and also were a symbol of Catholic rebellion against religious persecution,” Connor continued, sucking the life out of a holiday that is now essentially about getting three sheets to the wind while listening to ‘Shipping Up to Boston’ on a continuous loop.

“Shamrock shakes, on the other hand, fucking own!”

With that declaration, a group surrounding the two men, hoping that they would eventually get into a bloody religious tinged drunken fight, broke into a raucous cheer and looked around for the nearest McDonald’s.

“Fuggoff, I just want to get drunk,” Kenny explained, before choosing a spot in an alley where he felt comfortable sleeping.

With those words, Connor smiled. Knowing that Kenny finally understood the true meaning of St. Patrick’s Day, he left to go find another Protestant he could give the same speech to. Hoping that the next time, he’d actually be able to goad the man into a fight.

Snow Day!

These Bastards is taking a Snow Day. Let me tell you that it is purely for completely adult reasons and not because some or all of us might be harboring skull crushing hangovers and deep regrets from Super Bowl Sunday. Congratulations to most of the Mid Atlantic, which still seems paralyzed by the snow, and to the city of New Orleans, whom we will be mocking in full tomorrow.

Costume of the weekend

I don't know what you dressed up as yesterday (a sexy cat, George Washington, George Washington dressed as a sexy cat), but chances are it wasn't as cool as this guy


Not only was he Cthulhu....he was Cthulhu with a crocheted ski mask. He wins the internet and Halloween. His costume was also better than the one you're wearing today: that of a drunk and hungover barely human wretch filled with self loathing.

Picture of the day

The 2009 National Geographic International Photography Contest is underway and below are some examples of past winners for the contest, which is in its third year. The deadline for photo submission lasts until the end of the month. So if you think that iPhone shot you took of your buddy passed out with the expertly drawn dick and balls on his face can place in the People category, you better send it in soon.

Boris

It's such an unassuming, boring headline: Secret interviews add insight to Clinton presidency. You look at it and go "meh" because you already know what's in it: Clinton talking about the sex scandals, impeachment, blow-ups with Gore over the 2000 election, health care this, financial regulation that, "I could have done more". But you really need to go through it, otherwise you miss a slice of fried gold like this:

[Clinton] relayed how Boris Yeltsin's late-night drinking during a visit to Washington in 1995 nearly created an international incident. The Russian president was staying at Blair House, the government guest quarters. Late at night, Clinton told Branch, Secret Service agents found Yeltsin clad only in his underwear, standing alone on Pennsylvania Avenue and trying to hail a cab. He wanted a pizza, he told them, his words slurring.

The next night, Yeltsin eluded security forces again when he climbed down back stairs to the Blair House basement. A building guard took Yeltsin for a drunken intruder until Russian and U.S. agents arrived on the scene and rescued him.

He just wanted a pizza! Sure there's that whole "die for the President thing", but after reading that, did you ever want to be in the Secret Service more? This does raise some serious questions, and not just "Was Matt Taibbi underselling the drunkenness in his Rolling Stone obituary of Yeltsin?" What do you think the booze protocol for Boris was? Did they fly around with an oversized steamer trunk full of booze for him, did some poor staffer have to make a run each time they hit a new city, or was there a staffer trailing the Presidential motorcade in a pickup truck with the cargo bed filled with Vladimir and Banker's Club?

Pull Murray Waas and Sy Hersh off of whatever they're doing and tell them to find this out. We don't need some new depressing story on who Cheney was ordering to have killed or what CIA agent was outed, we need to know the elaborate procedures for getting Boris Yeltsin properly soused and how the Russian authorities, and foreign authorities, had to wrangle him while he was completely lit up. There have to be a million stories like this. We need to hear them.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.12

What Happened to a Public Health Plan?
The New York Times asks several health care experts, scholars, and doctors to ponder why the public insurance option seems to be lying battered and beaten on the side of the road. No one says "because it was fucked to death by elected money grubbing cretins" so one does begin to question if this group is really the experts they say they are.

Stallworth allowed to leave home to train
The tale of Cleveland Browns drunken killer wide-out Donte Stallworth continues. It seems the piddling 30 days in prison he received for killing a man and the subsequent home confinement are too onerous a punishment, he feels. So he has filed a petition to let him out of his house arrest so that he can properly train for a NFL career he's no longer going to have. Ahh, to be a famous athlete. All my drunken killings always seem to come with harsher penalties.

Chevy Volt To Get 230 MPG City Fuel Economy Rating
How's that sound, Toyota Prius? Did America just stick it in and break it off? What, dawg, what? Do something! Now sure, this is GM, so there's probably some awful catch, like it runs on nuclear power, orphan blood, or somehow requires that you burn down a rain-forest to build one, but this is jaw dropping news. It's probably a lie, but still, who ever remembers the truth?

'Evil and Orwellian' – America's right turns its fire on NHS
I wonder how the UK is taking the constant barrage of attacks from Republicans on its National Health System. Oh, not well? It's actually affecting diplomatic relations and angering the government and civil service of England? I wonder why? Maybe it has something to do with the litany of half-truths, lies, and baseless attacks on their superior health care. Still, at least their outrage isn't backed by a staggering number of humiliating statistics on the cheapness, effectiveness, and superiority of their system.

£40m jewels stolen from London store
Gotta love the Brits. They're always good for a debonair, high-class, jewel heist. They used a chauffeur driven Bentley! In fact this jewel heist is almost twice as large as the previous heist record. I eagerly await the impending mediocre Jason Statham movie about this heist.

Our Fuzzy President Is About To Come Into Focus
Dan Froomkin has started his new gig at the Huffington Post with the same style he's been known for: witheringly effective critiques of politics from the left. In his first column he looks at Obama, his health care efforts, and the supposed openness of his government. The general theme being: we're about to find out exactly who Obama is and what kind of President he'll be.

Headline of the day

Drunk badger disrupts traffic in Germany

A tragic tale of a badger falling off the wagon, over-ripe cherries, a motorway taken hostage, and the police's tactical deployment of a broom. Other cruder versions of the story show an out of control police force slandering skunks and making jokes about this poor depressed animal.

Oh, to be a rich athlete

I want to be a rich athlete. Not because of all the money, fame, and recognition. No, because I want the freedom to drunkenly kill people with my car and fire off handguns in or around 'da club.

Financial agreement avoids lawsuit

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte' Stallworth took full responsibility for killing a pedestrian while driving drunk in Florida and began serving a 30-day jail sentence Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to DUI manslaughter.

Stallworth also reached a confidential financial settlement to avoid a potential lawsuit from the family of 59-year-old Mario Reyes, according to Stallworth's attorney, Christopher Lyons. Reyes was struck and killed March 14 by Stallworth, who was driving his black 2005 Bentley after a night drinking at a swanky hotel bar.
...
Stallworth faced 15 years in prison. According to the plea agreement, Stallworth needs to serve only 24 days of his 30-day sentence.

Hearing adjourned until September

Former New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress is negotiating with several NFL teams to return to pro football this season after a judge delayed his trial Monday on gun possession charges.
...
Outside court Monday, Brafman said it was "inconceivable" that Burress would face trial on the charge before 2010, said several teams were trying to sign his client, and "physically he's in the best shape of his life. He's ready to play."

First off, nice use of the word 'swanky' in a story about a drunken car murder.

Let's see here, not only is there stone cold hard evidence that Stallworth was over twice the legal limit, there's video evidence of him hitting a guy, and a dead body. All of this and he doesn't get more than 30 days? Burress on the other hand is charged with criminal possession of a weapon. Despite the fact that they have stone cold evidence that he was in fact not only in criminal possession of a weapon, but shot himself with the weapon, they can't seem to get a trail started within two years of the incident. Not only that, but a man who shot himself with an illegal gun is going to plead not guilty and try to argue that even though he had an illegal gun and shot himself with it, he wasn't in possession of an illegal gun. He'll probably win too.

What's that sound? It's Pacman Jones nodding with approval and Michael Vick wondering what the fuck he went to prison for. He got a year plus for killing dogs. Stallworth killed a human and won't even have to serve a full 30 days. I definitely should have become a professional athlete. When I get busted on for drunkenly waving weapons at dogs I've run over with my car I'll have to do real time.

For that extra classy drunk in your life

Skittles booze! Cheap candy + cheap vodka = taste drunksplosion. Mix That Drink decided to give you the blueprint towards making sure the rainbow burns when you taste it. Introduce yourself to the rainbow color mother nature forgot: black(out).

Distraction Junction

Five hours left. Tired of reading about Kurt Warner's personal relationship with Jesus. Did you hear that Ken Whisenhunt and Russ Grimm used to be coaches for the Steelers? That Larry Fitzgerald is from another planet? That Hines Ward injured his knee a couple of weeks back? Me either, but Matthew and I are working tirelessly to confirm these reports.

Must kill time. Given that there is no shortage of Steelers fans poking around TheseBastards, I figure I should at least attempt to provide distraction. This is more for me than any of you, but feel free to read anyway. Time for some linkage.

One of the smarter gents on the Intarw3bz, Atrios, picks the Steelers.

Pretty funny CNN interview with Christian Lander, creator of Stuff White People Like.

Also important sporting event: Nadal beats Federer in five sets to win the Australian Open.

Joe Lieberman, supporter of torture, thinks waterboarding is fucking hilarious.

Ann Curry has no business talking about football.

New RNC Chairman Michael Steele enjoys the distinction of being the only man to assume the post after having endured an "Oreo Cookie Incident."

For those of you keeping score at home, Steele also coined that "Drill Baby Drill" bullshit.

Courtesy of Mondesi's House, a collection of Steelers motivational videos.

Back to the whiskey. Large Benjamin loves Jesus more than you. James Harrison is the dominant Silverback. Hines Ward doesn't need no stinkin' knee. The Cardinals are a sucker bet. As you were.

Broken News: America indicted on 200 million counts of liver terrorism

WASHINGTON—In what amounts to a shocking post-New Year’s wake-up call, roughly two-thirds of Americans discovered today that the US Justice Department has indicted them on millions of counts of liver-related acts of terrorism and self-abuse. The indictments, which were mailed out today to midnight revelers and professional alcoholics posing as people exited for a new year, are part of the government’s new line of get tough policies on what's been described as “the American populace’s unending illegal war on their organs.”

“The war on terrorism has become so broad and vague as to become pointless,” explained Justice Department lead prosecutor David Danforth. “It is with this vacuum in activity prosecuting the supposed real war on terror and several provisions inserted into the last passing of the Patriot Act by teetotaling busybodies, that we are finally able to take some action and prosecute the American populace for acts of self terror and abuse on a scale comparable to a thousand 9/11s. With this indictment, we hope to finally stop American abuse of the smaller and more vulnerable organs, and stop this genocide against America's defenseless enemy: its own liver.”

He continued, “Frankly we’re just all happy to be doing some real work for once. It’s been all quiet on the terrorism prosecution front and there’s only so many times you can indict Tommy Chong before he learns not to mail bongs to co-eds. We’re glad to be able to knock some of these monsters off the streets and get some real billable hours in.”
If convicted, America faces up to 200 million felony counts of abuse, war crimes, torture, and making terroristic threats against themselves. Also included in the indictments were a battery of lesser charges, including fat girl buggery, street vomiting, littering, street sign theft, toplessness, sudden flash lesbianism, dishonest declarations that things are going to change this year, and overly gay man hugs.

“I dare you deny that this is a rash epidemic of incredible violence to a beleaguered populace,” observed government spokesman Michael Jameson. “Just look at their code: Irish car bombs, Jager bombs, acid bombs, Nigerian vodka knives, shooters, rusty nails, kamikazes, bloody brains, snake bites, B-52’s, F-16’s, and Soviet liver rapers. You tell me these aren’t part of a concerted violent effort on the part of a deranged mass of citizens determined to slowly render their internal organs inoperative. That doesn’t even get into drinking Banker’s Club or Vladimir. You can’t tell me that shit isn’t battery acid and piss filtered through used underwear. This is for their own good. These people cannot keep liquefying their insides with codswallop every time the calendars change. This unchecked aggression will not stand.”

Part of the problem in mounting a defense is that so many citizens have been recorded voluntarily making declarations about their intentions to molest their livers with swill and violently execute their few remaining brain cells. From drunkenly wandering in front of news cameras to videotaping themselves getting wasted, prosecutors are straining to remember when the last time so many so brazenly stated their intention to commit crimes in full public view.

“It’s like these kids don’t even care,” observed clinical psychologist Dr. Adam Denton. “You see them leave Facebook status reports like ’I’m going to get soooo fucked up’ and post pictures with captions like “Fuck you liver, I’m getting soooo fucked up right here’ and you wonder what they’re thinking. Then there are all the recorded phone conversations. I understand the government barely had to violate civil rights to get these people on tape. So many of them were leaving messages with the time and date telling friends to come ‘get fucked up’ or that they were ‘soooo fucked up right now’ and that they wanted them to join in the horrific destruction. It’s going to be an open and shut case. These caustic freaks are going to go away for a long time.”

As part of the government’s stance, there will be no negotiating or plea bargaining with these terrorists. After they are put before a military tribunal and convicted, most of America will be shipped to Guantanamo Bay, which has seen its chain link fence prisons expanded to accommodate the tens of millions of new prisoners.

Due to space limitations, the prison has been built both upward and downward, providing some with all the comforts of a Victorian floating prison while others will endure the inescapable horrors of an underground gulag, replete with mole people attacks. For the convenience of the millions of prisoners, all major religious texts have been preemptively placed in the mass latrine modeled after former Philadelphia Eagles venue, Veterans Stadium.

Prosecutors expect to have the military show trials started up by the middle of February and completed by the end of the same week. The Justice Department hopes that these trials and convictions will serve as a lesson to the remaining parts of the country and a more orderly transition from 2009-2010. Sources close to the department claimed that, next year, an actual celebration to take place instead of a combo drunken street brawl/orgy with confetti. If not, insiders say the government is willing to come down with a second round of indictments.

Broken In Brief: Drunk thinks you should back the fuck... off

YOUR FACE--Without pausing to consider the appropriateness of the comment or the repercussions of his actions, that drunk guy has decided you need to back the fuck off before something bad happens. He came to this conclusion after five boilermakers buffered by Jager bombs, plus that Prairie Fire the bartender goaded him into drinking.

Initial reports indicate that the man outweighs you by at least thirty pounds and has a nose suggesting he is no stranger to barroom violence. However, the pause inserted between "fuck" and "off" was not for effect but rather an involuntary attempt to hold back vomit. Your friends, having noticed this, are starting to think you should tell the guy to-- oops, guess you were too busy thinking to notice that pool cue coming in across your left temple. The blow drops you to the floor like a paper bag full of cold dog shit and you find yourself struggling to remember your own name.

"Now what, you sissy fucking bitch motherfucker?" Commented the drunk as he began laying kicks into your ribs. "Look at me again! Look at me again!"

With the pain resonating down through the side of your face and the blood beginning to pool between your cheek and the floor, sources say discretion, in this case, might have been the better part of valor.