I am so surprised

Another day, another couple of stories that make you wish you could punch a physical representation of BP right in the sack. First was the story that the rig was damaged and leaking for weeks before the final, catastrophic explosion/mega-leak occurred.

An oil worker who survived the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion has claimed that the oil rig's safety equipment was leaking several weeks before it exploded, triggering the huge spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Tyrone Benton says that he spotted a leak on the rig's Blowout Preventer (BOP), the device that is meant to shut the well down if there is an accident. He told the BBC's Panorama programme that both BP and Transocean, who owned the rig, were informed of the leak, and the faulty part – a control pod – was switched off rather than being repaired.

Wonderful. It's not like the blowout preventer failure and leaks were a major part of the problem, were they? Oh, they were. Super.

But that wasn't all.

BP has been accused by a senior US politician of lying to Congress to reduce its liabilities, after an internal company document showed that the oil giant's own worst-case assessment of the size of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was 20 times its public estimate.

In the document, BP attempts to put a figure on the rate of oil spewing into the ocean. It notes that if the condition of the well bore deteriorates to the extent that crucial parts fall off, the rate could reach 100,000 barrels a day.

When the company handed the document to Congress, it was claiming the leak was only 5,000 barrels a day, and that at very worst the figure could rise to 60,000.

The document was circulated by Ed Markey, the Democratic head of the House sub-committee on energy and the environment.

Nice. Well, it's not like accurate numbers on the size of the oil leak is something that would have been useful.

Look, I'm just going to advise you all on a tactic that I've undertook in order to preserve some level of sanity during this whole mess. It'll help you and it'll also help BP. I'm generous like that.

In all circumstances and under all conditions: assume the worst. Right now your working thesis on the entire disaster is that BP, in conjunction with Hitler's robot brain and the Anti-Christ, purposefully exploded their own well and caused this leak in an effort to drive up the price of gas, ruin seafood restaurants, kill cute animals, destroy the world's oceans, and end all life as we know it. In an effort to conceal this fact, they have engaged in the systematic murder of anyone who has figured this out and are in the process of bribing every elected official and law enforcement agency everywhere in order to do their bidding and cover this up. Also, at some point, they drowned a burlap sack full of kittens in the Gulf for fun.

Now how does this benefit you or BP? Well, whenever you hear some new horrifying fact, some awful scientific study on the environmental impact, some new revelation about BP's lax safety records or their naked pursuit of money, or another story about dishonesty, lying, and cover-ups following the spill, you can look at your loved ones and say ''Whew!, Well at least that isn't as bad as the whole global conspiracy, Hitler robot, destroy the earth , murder cover-up plan I heard about. I am relieved.'' You'll feel better in no time.

You're welcome.

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.

Headline of the day

Was Hitler on Viagra? New book claims he used drugs cocktail of testosterone... and the semen of young bulls

Yes, nicely reported. The story also reveals that Hitler extensively took anti-flatulence drugs. Let me say unequivocally: I am for this very kind of historically tendentious slander of dictators. I can't get enough of it.

So... anyone have any historical cross-dressing accounts of Joseph Stalin to regale us with?

Quote of the day

Philip Spooner, World War II vet, on the gay marriage debate currently going on in Maine.

I am here today because of a conversation I had last June when I was voting. A woman at my polling place asked me, "Do you believe in equal, equality for gay and lesbian people?" I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her, "What do you think our boys fought for at Omaha Beach?" I haven't seen much, so much blood and guts, so much suffering, much sacrifice. For what? For freedom and equality. These are the values that give America a great nation, one worth dying for.

The quest to repeal gay marriage rights in Maine through the Question 1 ballot initiative is going to be voted on soon. And surprise of surprises the opposition to it is from the same groups that got Prop 8 passed in California. Numbers overlord Nate Silver of 538.com says the ban is likely to fail, but that it'll be close either way. I guess the question is do people in Maine hate freedom, liberty, veterans, World War II, the D-Day assault, the military, our victory against the Axis powers, and equality so much that they would overturn the rights of gays to marry and tacitly endorse Hitler's invasion into Poland and annexation of the Sudetenland? I guess we'll find out on November 3rd.

Late night anniversarial video dump

This week contained the 40th Anniversary of Monty Python's Flying Circus going on the air. As such there are various retrospective articles, books, tributes, pictures, and movies and documentaries celebrating that fact. Instead of inadequately adding to the praise, I'll just post up a few of my favorite sketches and advise you to go buy the original series on DVD and watch it. And if you haven't ever gotten into Python or don't really 'get it', I'll kindly ask that you leave here and not come back until you have some goddamn taste.

Quote of the day

President Obama, relaying a conversation he had during the G20 about the stupidity of American political debate.

"I was up at the G20 -- just a little aside -- I was up at the G20, and some of you saw those big flags and all the world leaders come in and Michelle and I are shaking hands with them," the president said. "One of the leaders -- I won't mention who it was -- he comes up to me. We take the picture, we go behind.

"He says, 'Barack, explain to me this health care debate.'

"He says, 'We don't understand it. You're trying to make sure everybody has health care and they're putting a Hitler mustache on you -- I don't -- that doesn't make sense to me. Explain that to me.'"

The President was momentarily taken aback by the question, as trying to explain Sarah Palin, the modern GOP, Glenn Beck, the American news media, Fox News, teabaggers, the Christian right, and the Senate Finance Committee in one sitting might have caused the unnamed world leader to despair so heavily at the state of the USA and their ability to lead in any future crisis that he or she would have gone out and committed suicide in front of the zinnias at Phipps. Instead, Obama told the world leader that if he "wanted to look into the empty eyes of evil" that they should go back to the hotel and watch 15 minutes of Hannity's America after the dinner. As a precaution he then had the State Department tell that country's protective services to remove sharp objects from the leader's hotel room and that they should prepare to see their head of state "go to a dark place."

It is unclear what world leader made this request, but unconfirmed reports had Spain's José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero leaving the summit in a wheelchair, his hair completely white.

Quote of the day

Michael "Don't mention my real last name is Wiener" Savage, using his talk show to attack British women...because the UK had the nerve to treat him as the crazy, ranting, racist maniac that he is:

"You see their girls, the flower of England, laying in the gutter with their legs spread open drunk at night. That's the England of today"

Well....I see. Just...as...a...curiosity, Priceline is offering flights to London leaving tomorrow at around $1474. While I plan my...."academic research trip", you go listen to the rest of his rant. It's pretty great, Savage compares himself to Churchill and valiantly swears he's fighting a similar fight as Winston was when he was warning the world about Hitler. I don't understand why England wouldn't want him in their country.

SI: South Africa

Quick question: how would you sell the newly imported Sports Illustrated to a South Africa yearning to read about sports and Peter King columns about Brett Favre? Here's a hint: apartheid.

Give up? By stressing Hitler and America's checkered racial history and ethnic divides. The whole black/white schism moves sports magazines, baby.



Another ad takes on the 1968 civil rights protest by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the Olympics, while a third ad takes on Muhammad Ali vs. the draft board. It would have been better if they were able to come up with a more South Africa-centric sporting event to sell a sports magazine to South Africa, but then I guess I'm the only one that remembers Nelson Mandela beating FW de Klerk in a 1-on-1 basketball match to end apartheid. De Klerk just couldn't handle Mandela's inside game and rebounding.

Why aren't we at war with Iran yet? Newt's getting impatient

Newt Gingrich is out hitting the old dusty trail, self flagellating for heightened tensions with Iran. Why? Because war is like an multi-year dose of Cialis shot right into the base of the GOP's penis. With Iraq winding down and Afghanistan not winding up enough, their war boner is is going limp and no amount of right wing wang flogging is going to get it up. Not unless Iran gets invaded. So Newt brought his case to the Jews, and he didn't forget his bag full of Hitler references.

"We need to recognize that there are some regimes we will never be able to cut a deal with because they are in fact evil," he said Sunday, the opening day of this year's American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference, drawing close to 7,000 delegates.

Gingrich likened negotiations with the current Iranian regime to negotiating with Adolf Hitler, and called for "enforcing the disruption of gasoline supplies until the Iranian economy broke, the ayatollahs were ousted and a new regime was in place without a single shot fired." That earned thunderous applause.

Gingrich also called for a military strike to destroy missiles in Iran and North Korea.
...
"There's almost an eagerness to take on the Israeli government to make a point with the Arab world," he said, speaking to the Post ahead of his speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual conference.

He called US President Barack Obama's program of engagement on Iran a "fantasy," and his Middle East policies "very dangerous for Israel." He summed up Obama's approach as "the clearest adoption of weakness since Jimmy Carter."

Wait, the same Jimmy Carter that negotiated a sill intact peace accord between Israel and Egypt? That son of a bitch. I bet he could have got an even better agreement if he missile striked one of the pyramids. I think it's just nice to know that Obama has moved from just being a Iran enabler, what with his declarations to actually engage diplomatically with them, to being objectively anti-Israel.

Who knew a pledge to have their diplomats go to lunch some time would spiral into all out Israel hating? Newt Gingrich knew...and he's not afraid to go into an AIPAC conference and start screaming "NEW HITLER!!!! NEW HITLER!!!!" and unveil his embargo plan (which coincidentally is the same plan he decries whenever a Democrat or the UN tries to use it against a non-Iran country) that will totally bring Iran to it's knees. He'll do anything to get you to see the danger.

Look at the comparisons. Hitler perpetrated the Holocaust. Ahmadinejad doesn't believe it happened. Hitler controlled vast armies, navies, and air forces and used them to wage the largest war in human history across multiple continents. Iran has no such forces, doesn't even have nukes, has started no war, and in any event Ahmadinejad doesn't have any control over the military. One had a mustache, the other had a beard. I forget which had which. Hitler triggered a conflict that killed millions upon countless millions. Ahmadinejad is a massive prick in all his public speeches. Fuck, I'm convinced. Let the nukes fly. Newtie needs his war boner back.

Torture has enabled time travel

Here I thought time travel would involve wormholes, advanced physics, Superman reversing the rotation of the Earth, a wish granting genie, smoke monsters/electromagnetism/mysterious islands, a DeLorean, or ring lasers. Turns out all you need is to dunk an Arab guy in water a hundred times and not only do you get information to stop a terrorist attack, but then you magically travel back in time a year so that you'll be able to use it to thwart an attack you already thwarted.

I was wrong about this torture thing, Karl. You are a have given humanity a great tool. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go kill the infant Hitler. Someone fill up my bathtub and find me a citizen of Saudi Arabia.

Quote of the day

Glen Beck, deciding that yesterday's Colbert induced castration wasn't really vicious enough, decided to speak up again.

It all adds up to me, having to admit that I was wrong. Our government is not marching down the road towards communism or socialism.

Oh, Christ, I'm sorry Glen. Looks like I jumped the gun and attacked you before I knew what you said. That comment showed some real contrition and humility and I....oh, you weren't done?

But now I have to tell you that they’re not marching us that direction. They’re marching us to a non-violent fascism. Or to put it another way, they’re marching us to 1984. Big Brother. … Like it or not, fascism is on the rise.

There's the Glen Beck we know and love: relentlessly stupid and paranoid! In Beck's defense he clearly went on to say he didn't mean Hitler/Nazi fascism.....then gave this little speech in front on a video wall running images and video of the Nazi's. Does anybody on Fox actually know what the words socialism, communism, or fascism mean? Someone get Beck a dictionary, a history book, and a 4th grade World Studies teacher.

I just want to thank Beck and his fellow conservative intellectuals. If it weren't for them how would I know that everything Democrats are doing is in some way comparable to Hitler, worse than Hitler, sending us on the road to Hitlerville, has that minty aroma of Hitler, or has rising concerns of Hitlerism? Now I know: everything is Hitler.

Who could have foreseen?: Hitler/pederast edition

Adolf Hitler Campbell Taken From Parents By Police

Adolf Hitler - the three year old, that is - is back in the news. According to New Jersey police, the state's Division of Youth and Family Services took Adolf and his two sisters, one-year-old Joyce Lynn Aryan Nation Campbell and 8-month-old Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, from their parents' home Tuesday night.

Who could have foreseen that the people who name their kids after mass murdering Nazis and white supremacist organizations while demanding birthday cake recognition for those names, are in actuality, bad parents? I guess the state of new Jersey didn't take the Campbell's suggestion that everyone "get over it" and "focus on the future and not on the past" before trying to co-opt Barack Obama's message of change for why it's OK for them to celebrate famous racist, genocidal dictators in the names of their children. Live and learn. Next kid you have, go for Joseph Stalin Campbell or Pol Pot Campbell, those are less inflammatory around these parts.

Sex offender who won Alaska lottery beaten with iron pipe

The man who won the state's first half-million dollar lottery was attacked on a downtown street this afternoon with a tire iron or metal pipe, according to Anchorage police. Whether the attack was motivated by Ahsoak's winning the lottery or the widely distributed reports that Ahsoak is a three-time convicted sex offender is not known.

Really Alaska police, you aren't willing to go out on that limb? I'm guessing it was a combination of the two events that caused the attack. Although, critically, the fact that he raped a bunch of 13 year olds came before the financial windfall probably had something to do with it. Also not helping? The fact that the lottery was held to benefit the nonprofit Standing Together Against Rape charity. Regrettably this did not happen in Wasilla. Word to the wise, if you are a pederast and you do win hundreds of thousands of dollars in a lottery, don't advertise the pederast part. Or at least use the money to make a film as good as Chinatown or the Pianist, then the pederast rapist thing becomes OK.

Cheap blogging crutch - 12.19.08

Just a few things I came across while cursing the subway for making me miss my train back to Pittsburgh for the high Christian Holiday...

Theft, Inc.
If your wallet feels a little lighter today, odds are it has little to do with the job market or Mandatory Consumption Day (NYSE: XMAS). No, credit your reduced weight to the one-two government intervention combo delivered by President Bush and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. The former approved throwing almost $18 Billion at an auto industry that could fuck up a free lunch. The latter warned Congress to open up the remaining $350 Billion in bailout money because, gee, he already spent the other $350 Billion on candy and records.

"I will be [expletive deleted]-ing vindicated"
Mr. Blagoo addressed the media today, pulling a "Fuck you, I'm denying everything" worthy of Ted Stevens. Early indications suggest the defense's strategy will consist primarily of equal parts "I was just kidding when I said those things" and "You can't prove shit, motherfuckers." This should go well.

Limbaugh, staying classy
Bravely seizing upon the opportunity afforded him by a criminal act, Rush today cracked wise about the mugging of Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski. Said Limbaugh, "What happened to Mika Brzezinski is exactly why we need permanent, across-the-board tax cuts. If we cannot keep more of our own money, muggers are going to have to work over time."

Crater of Doom a myth?
New evidence suggests that the Dinosaurs might not have been killed off by an asteroid after all. According to the Wired blog, "Huge volcanic eruptions that belched sulfur into the air for around 10,000 years could have killed the dinosaurs..." Creationist backlash touting this as evidence of the inherent flaws in science to commence in 3... 2...

Hail, Idiocy!
A couple who named their child Adolph Hitler Campbell is pissed at ShopRite for refusing to make a birthday cake with the lad's name on it. The couple, whose two year-old daughter is named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, claimed they just wanted to give their children unique names that no one else would think of. If they continue to procreate, Vegas odds currently 1:3 that the next child will be named Pol Pot Stalin Mussolini Vader Campbell.

Hitlerblog

When most scholars pontificate about the causes of World War II and the rise of Hitler some lay the blame at the feet of the Versailles treaty and others at a Europe to willing to appease a dictator. Nobel literature prize winner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio has decided to go in another direction: not enough bloggers in the 1930's.

In his Nobel lecture to the Swedish Academy, the 68-year-old Frenchman said an earlier introduction of information technology could even have prevented World War II.

"Who knows, if the Internet had existed at the time, perhaps Hitler's criminal plot would not have succeeded - ridicule might have prevented it from ever seeing the light of day," he said.

Ah yes, an army of bloggers giving Hitler the "Heh, indeed" treatment, followed by a timely LolHitler surely could have averted the world's biggest war. That said, if you have that "time travel back in time to kill Hitler" book raring to go, how about replacing killing his parents, killing him as a baby, stepping on a butterfly in the Mesozoic, or making Hitler a famous artist with disseminating a devastatingly snarky blog post from Humphrey Bogart on the 1934 Das Huffington Posten.

We all look forward to Le Clezio's next work "What if Genghis Khan had a bomber wing".

Hitlerware

From the world of porcelain guns, These Bastards is proud to present Charles Krafft's Disasterware. Using the technique of Delftware, Krafft has created a teapot that will brew tea to the Queen's standard, ghettoize your Fiestaware, and annex the Sudetenland. Take a gander at all his pieces, personal highlights are crucified Mickey and the God gun.