Video of the day

"1945-1998" by Isao Hashimoto. An art project which catalogs the staggeringly high number of nuclear tests that occurred around the world.

It starts getting good, by which I mean frightening, in the early fifties. But it has a happy ending: America dominates the scoreboard. USA USA USA!

Video of the day

Artists BLU use the mediums of paint, stop-motion animation, and too much free time to surmise the origins of the universe and the end of human life.

Our Betters: The Vice-President hosts an international gathering

EXT. BLAIR HOUSE


Secretary Clinton: Mr. President, while I appreciate the steps you’ve taken to neutralize his involvement in the Nuclear Security Summit, I’m still a tad wary of what you’re allowing him to do this afternoon.


President Obama: I understand your concern, Madam Secretary, but think of how it would look if we didn’t have one of the Unites States' most experienced foreign policy hands involved in these meetings? Rahm here has assembled a list of low-risk dignitaries to distract Joe while we handle the big dogs. Everything looking OK with Joe, Rahm?


Rahm Emanuel: I’m not vouching for a goddamn thing that man does. He requisitioned a large grill, copious amounts of charcoal and lighter fluid, and a meat slicer. I saw the carnage coming from a mile off and that’s why I’m over here with you. That shit is Axelrod’s problem now.


Obama: I wonder if David is familiar with White House fire drill protocols…


EXT. NAVAL OBSERVATORY


Senior Adviser David Axelrod: Mr. Vice-President, thing are all set for your Summit Luncheon. We’ve built the fire pit, gathered the assortment of various rare and endangered meats you requested for grilling, and have built the sandwich station so that you can make everyone your signature... (sighs)... Bidenwich.


Vice-President Biden: Twelve kinds of deli meat, Davey-boy! Whiz wit! Plus lettuce, tomato, onion and my signature Biden sauce. Two of the ingredients are dijon mustard and miracle whip. If you want to know the rest, you'd better have some sharp knives and the will to use them! I’m thinking the occasion calls for some sort of extra spicy nuclear hot sauce, you know, to get people thinking about the dangers of proliferation.


Axelrod: Whatever. For now, we need to move to the photo-op area so the press can get some film of you greeting the dignitaries as they enter your Summit Luncheon and--


Biden: Feast of a Thousand Meats and Beer Blast!


Axelrod: (clears throat) Yes, your Summit Feast of a Thousand Meats and Beer Blast. Just shake their hands, pause for a few seconds, and let them move on.


Biden: Pressin’ the flesh, meetin’ the people. This is literally what I was made for.


Axelrod: Fine fine. You did memorize their names, right? Remember last weekend, with the flash cards...


Biden: Forgot them the second you left. No problem, I’ll just wing it.


Axelrod: In hindsight I realize this is exactly what I should have expected. Christ, here’s the first one now.


Biden: Hey pal! How the fuck ya doin’?


Chilean Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno: Uh… not bad. Let me say how humbled I am to be included in this important world summit.


Biden: Fantastic! Look... you… guy. We’re just tickled that you could make it. You and whatever country it is you represent are critical to doing whatever it is we’re trying to do with nuclear weapons. So come on in, man. Kick up your feet, we got brews on ice. Dos Equis! Eh, eh! Just get your drink on and I’ll be back in a few to grill up some ostrich burgers. You ever eat ostrich?


Moreno: Can’t say that I have…


Biden: Damn, I thought you were from an ostrich country. Fuck it, just chill out, relax, chillax. We got lawn darts, bocce ball, the whole nine!

Biden: This guy! This... this is the guy right here!


Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboulgheit: My great thanks for extending an invitation to my nation.


Biden: No problemo, my man! How could we do this without... you!? You’re the guy, man! I'm guessing you're a big grilled-meat-on-a-stick person?


Aboulgheit: Sometimes. It is a popular dish in my country.


Biden: Fuckin’ nailed it! Scamper on back to the grilling area. I think you’ll find it’s a goddamn Turkish delight back there. Big hunks of rare meats on claymores roasting over a fire the size of the Lincoln Memorial.

Biden: NAJIB! You old pig-fucker! Bring it in!


Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak: Joe-Joe Dancer, you ornery son of a motherless goat! How have you been? I haven’t seen you since…


Both: The 1994 UN Summit in Kuala Lumpur!


Biden: Hell of a goddamn night! I remember waking up shoeless in a ditch on the side of the road with Boutros Boutros-Ghali puking into a hyacinth right next to me. I tried to call you to come pick us up, but…


Razak: I was passed out in the Imperial Garden of the Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong! Without any pants!


Biden: HAW HAW HAW! I still don’t remember most of that week! Shit, get your ass back to the grill pit. We'll get shitfaced and play Pai Gow… if you can keep your dong in your pants!


Razak: You know how I get when I drink in the sun! No promises, you son of bitch.

Biden: President Jintao, what an honor it is to meet you again.


Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung: You must be mistaken; I am the Prime Minister of Vietnam.


Biden: My mistake... Hey, Charlie don’t surf! Glad you were able to get past that whole "us turning your country into a charred crater" thing behind you and join us at a nuke summit.


Dung: Well thank you, we take the issue very--


Biden: Hey, you know what rhymes with nuke? Goo--


Axelrod: Mr. Prime Minister! Right this way, please. The luncheon is out back.


Biden: See you at the cookout, Dung. Hell of a last name. Hilarious.

Biden: ...President Jintao?


Indonesian Vice President Boediono: …No. I must say the tales of your personality and demeanor hardly do you justice.


Biden: Phenomenal. Thanks for the kind words. I gotta say, I was a little worried about today. I‘ve just been in a funk recently. I thought I was raking it in. Cleared $300k+ this year. Then I go and find out Barry pulled in $5.5 mil last year. He’s literally half may age! It’s goddamn depressing. Good to hear that I’m masking it well.


Boediono: Well, as they say, money doesn’t make you truly happy.


Biden: They do? Huh. Wisdom of Confucius I guess. Lemmee tell you what I’m gonna do special for you. Your Bidenwich is going to have the salami sliced extra thin! Just for you.

Biden: ...All... right... yeah... shit, fuck it. Another one? You’re not Hu Jintao either, I’m guessing. What godforsaken country are you from?


Thai Deputy Prime Minister Trirong Suwankiri: I’m from Thailand.


Biden: What? Do you even have nukes?


Suwankiri: Not as such…


Biden: What are you doing here then? What could you possibly be doing for nuclear security?


Suwankiri: Well we consider it our duty to stop prolifer--


Biden: Thailand? Thailand? This is what I’m reduced to? Where’s Gordon Brown? Where’s Sarkozy and that hot piece of ass he walks around with? Thailand?


Axelrod: Please excuse the Vice-President, he’s under a great deal of stress. This way, sir.

Biden: Thailand? Can you believe this shit, buddy?


Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud: I… uh… ooh… awkward. This is a most uncomfortable situation.


Biden: I’m Joe-fuckin'-Biden here. I’ve been on the Foreign Relations Committee since Lincoln was in short pants and the best I can do at a nuclear arms summit is a country whose chief export is transsexual whores? After the spread I set out? I bow hunted an elk myself…


Al Saud: I think I’ll just let myself out.

Biden: Now things are looking up! FROM MY HEAD DOWN TO MY SHOES! DAMN RIGHT, I AIN’T GOT NOTHIN’ BUT THE BLUES! Yeah!


Nigerian Acting President Goodluck Jonathan: I’m not sure I get the reference…


Biden: FROM MY HEAD DOWN TO MY SHOES! I CAN’T WIN CUZ I GOT NOTHIN’ TO LOSE!! Buddy Guy! At my summit bash!


Jonathan: No, I’m the Nigerian President.


Biden: Fuck! Nothing is going right today. I assume that unless the world has turned to real shit, Nigeria doesn’t have nukes either?


Jonathan: No. But in an anecdote that I am sure you will find amusing, my first name is Goodluck.


Biden: Goodluck? HAW HAW that is hilarious! That isn’t a first name! Lemme guess, that’s just what people kept saying to you whenever you said you were Nigeria’s President? Outstanding. And your last name is a first name! HAW HAW HAW! I’m gonna tell Davesy to give you extra ‘fixins.


Jonathan: I thought you would be amused by such banalities.


(Jonathan walks off, leaving the VP alone in his thoughts)

Biden: They fobbed off all the losers on me. Me… Joe Biden...


Axelrod: Cheer up. It was probably because they knew you’d make them feel important, like they mattered, like there was a purpose in having Morocco at a nuclear summit. They knew you’d treat them like VIP’s.


Biden: That must be it. Hell, you know how to buck a man up, Axehandle. Hell, it’s not so bad. Got some beers, gonna be cookin’ up some food, gonna show the world the culinary masterpiece known as the Bidenwich! You’re right, it’s gonna be a hell of a day! Where’s Najib? We're gonna tie one on and crank call Harry Reid!


Axelrod: Mr. Vice-President, please put your shirt back on.

Muslimification

The Daily Show on how the Obama Administration may or may not be sending coded message to its Muslim brethren through summit logo designs and how Fox News is either SS or kamikaze sympathizers. Also, as a bonus: John Oliver converts weights from metric to Americanese.



That's convincing and all, but we've already seen how Obama morphed a missile defense logo into a combo Muslim crescent/Obama campaign logo signaling that this country would soon be under Shariah Law, what's to stop us from baselessly thinking this is all also Muslim conspiracy related? I mean, have you seen this?


What about this?

Do I need to put you in a burka and then honor kill you or are you starting to get it yet? OBAMA IS SENDING MESSAGES OF IMMINENT ISLAMIC OVERTHROW THROUGH THE LOGO DESIGNS OF MINOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND SUMMIT MEETINGS! It's so obvious!

Look, when we're all praying five times a day towards Mecca and flying our own planes into our own buildings to teach us a lesson, don't say I didn't give you clear warnings that it was going to happen. It was in the logos!

Thanks for keeping us updated

Serial liar and toad-like goon Dick Morris had a busy morning on Fox News warning American about it's imminent death. And not the symbolic "death of freedom and liberty" type stuff either. Real death. Two separate predictions. That's a pretty good streak. Most completely unreliable liars can only get off one completely misinformed proclamation of imminent doom during an appearance.

Let's get to his first. You may have thought that health care was only going to gank your grandparents and yoke you to a system where tribunals decided whether or not you were fit to live or die based on a loyalty oath you'll take to the disembodied spirit of Vladimir Lenin. Nope, it' only the end of medicine... that is unless you vote for the GOP.

"If we are unable to defeat Obama in 2010... there will be permanent harms in the country and one of the big ones is a nation without doctors."

Clearly. That's the step after "cover everyone", "2. eliminate all doctors". It all makes so much sense now that's it's put in such clear terms. Uninsured insured -> elimination of practiced medicine.

Now tell us how we're all going to die a biological death from a snickering Kim Jong-Il because the President hates the country.

It's the most outrageous thing, I think, I've ever heard a president of the United States say. He's literally saying that if an American city were gassed or hit with a biological weapon and millions were dying in the streets coughing their lungs out, or in hospital wards dying of an incurable disease, we would not use nuclear weapons to reply? It is totally absurd. It's beyond belief that a president of the United States would say that and it shows that Barack Obama might be, might be the first anti-American president we've ever had.

He isn't literally saying that. Not in the slightest. If only there were a nightly comedy news show that tackled this.



But Dick can't be expected to do things like read treaties or watch comedy programming. So I pass on his warnings to you: elect Republicans or medical knowledge will vanish from the earth just like it did in every other country with socialismed medicine... which won't matter much anyway because we'll all be dead of nuclear anthrax because the President is anti-American. Clear? Ok.

Your morning nuclear holocaust bar lowering

We all know the scenarios in which a nuclear attack might be authorized: some other country's nukes are in the air or about to be in the air, we've been hit with a nuclear or large scale biological attack of our own, to kill some large nuclear irradiated monster created as a result of nuclear testing, to surprise Japan for the third time, and because a highly intelligent supercomputer from the seventies thinks it's playing a strategic war game with it's creator.

Well, did you ever think the nuclear attack bar should be lower? Like really, really lower? Well then, you need to call up Michele Bachmann and have a talk.

"If in fact there is a nation who is compliant with all of the rules ahead of time and they've complied with the United Nations on nuclear proliferation, if they fire against the United States a biological weapon, a chemical weapon or maybe a cyber attack, well then we aren't going to be firing back with nuclear weapons," Bachmann said. "Doesn't that make us all feel safe?"

“No!” shouted the crowd of thousands in Minneapolis.

Or maybe a cyber attack? Did anyone see the movie Hackers and think "Surely this is grounds for an atomic strike"? I mean Fisher Stevens was evil in that movie, but not that evil.

Well at least we know what the Bachmann Doctrine will be for her upcoming candidacy on the Palin ticket: guessing her e-mail password, a "denial of service" attack, references to "hax0rz" or "l33t skillz", or the unwanted posting of porn on a non-porn webpage will be met with the full force of America's nuclear arsenal. As it should be.

Picture of the day

From the blog Iconic Photos, which seeks to take famous or iconic photos and to not only explain some of the historical significance behind them, but also give a kind of background to the photographer that took them and how the photos were first displayed to the public. Quite interesting and worth your time.

Understatement of the day

President Obama has been taking heat from the crazy sectors of American politics for his recent decisions on nuclear policy and nuclear treaties. And why not? It's rare that these people get a serious chance to concoct ill informed rants about nuclear hellfire and World War III what with the recent conversation tipping so much towards health care and financial regulatory reform. Riffing on Obama turning America into an irradiated wasteland where men have to do battle with atomic mutants because of the failures of liberalism is so much more visceral than trying to concoct a doomsday scenario around increased regulation for financial giants.

To that end, the President was asked about reaction to his nuclear policy, specifically from future gameshow host, wholesale wine spokesperson, and Expert About Everything, Sarah Palin. To his credit, the President didn't wet himself laughing. He just kind of slightly understated what her commentary means to him.

OBAMA: I really have no response. Because last I checked, Sarah Palin's not much of an expert on nuclear issues.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the string of criticism has been out there among other Republicans as well. They think you're restricting use of nuclear weapons too much.

OBAMA: And what I would say to them is that if the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff are comfortable with it, I'm probably going to take my advice from them and not from Sarah Palin.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But not concerned about her criticisms?

OBAMA: No.

Yes, she isn't much of an expert on nuclear issues, among a vast multitude of other issues most people like to categorize under the header "All the Issues." Wait, strike that, if teen pregnancy, quitting, and snowmobile maintenance ever become national issues, she'd clean up.

I know what you're saying "How is Sarah not an expert on this issue, given that the treaty is with Russia and given her oft stated foreign policy expertise/coastal sight lines with Russia?" Ahh, dear reader, she can see Russia, thus making her a general expert on it and a sworn protector of the mainland from Putin's influence, but she can't see any of their nuclear or missile launch facilities from Wasilla, so how can she know that much about them?

So thank you Mr. President for taking the understated, classy route. You could have yelled "The bitch is crazy", "What is it you in the media think she fucking knows about anything?", you could have laughed for so long that it started to make interviewer George Stephanopolous uncomfortable, or you could have just dead eyed George and asked him "Are you shitting me? Sarah Palin?", but you didn't. You just hinted she shouldn't be listened to about anything, noted that you have actual policy and military experts that you consult, and kept the sarcasm to minimal levels. Nicely understated.

We will burn in nuclear fire

Today the United States and Russia signed a new nuclear arms reduction pact. It was a stirring ceremony where President Obama strode to the stage, took the irrepressibly tiny Dmitri Medvedev out of his right front pocket, set him on a toadstool, patted him on the head, and went and sat at his chair. Medvedev looked over to Vladimir Putin who flashed a thumbs up and released Medvedev's children from the secret location he was holding them, and the treaty was signed.

The treaty, if ratified, would require each country to deploy no more than 1,550 strategic warheads (down from 2,200), each would be limited to 800 total land, air and sea-based launchers (down from 1,600 permitted under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991), and would re-implement a inspection regime and legal framework that had lapsed last December with the expiration of START. It's sensible, is a reduction in nuclear weapons, restores critical inspection measures, and gets us back on good diplomatic footing with Russia... so I'm sure this will come nowhere near getting the 67 votes needed to pass in the Senate.

Indeed, with this and the recent release of the Congressionally mandated Nuclear Posture Review, only one question remains: how has President Obama just insured our nuclear death with these reckless measures towards our precious, precious A-Bombs? Well as right wing pundits quickly informed us: by apparently ensuring that we would not retaliate if comrade Lenin rose from the grave and sent a first strike at the heartland.

Watch Fox News freak out:


Mmm, so reckless towards our safety and yet... so hot. The way her eyes bug out as she contemplates Obama sentencing us to an irradiated exploding death... she cares about our future.

Of course it's bullshit, as we still keep our first-strike strategy, actually reserves the right of retaliation, reserves the right of nuclear retaliation in non-nuclear attacks, and our bombs still give our generals a 10 on the atomic war boner scale.

But just so you're aware of the new panic: we're all going to die as Obama invites a nuclear strike and then fails to retaliate. Maybe he'll even launch our nukes at us, who knows? What's clear is that we have effectively surrendered to Russia. So practice huddling under your desk for protection and come up with a cool pose for when your shadow gets permanently etched onto some wall, because the liberals have killed us for certain this time. All on account of renewing a treaty and releasing a Congressionally mandated review. Who saw that coming?

OH SHIT, THE NUKES ARE IN THE AIR! RUN FOR COVER!!!

Today the Washington Times has a lovely new article up giving us all a new sneak preview of our new serious, adult foreign policy discussion that will soon grip our elected and media betters: oh sweet fuck, Iran lied and has been working on THE BOMB and those fuckers are going to be able to nuke us any second now, KILL KILL KILL, BOMB BOMB BOMB, WAR WAR WAR.

But before we start ramping up the scholarly articles that will soon arrive talking about how to save the Iranian people and support the nascent Iranian protest movement we must bomb the everliving fuck out of them and lamentations that our un-negro dialected Muslim President is insufficiently willing to start a new war and protect the homeland, those gentile souls at the Cato Institute point out that there always seems to be a theme in intelligence estimates of Iran's nuclear capabilities.

“Late 1991: In congressional reports and CIA assessments, the United States estimates that there is a ‘high degree of certainty that the government of Iran has acquired all or virtually all of the components required for the construction of two to three nuclear weapons.’ A February 1992 report by the U.S. House of Representatives suggests that these two or three nuclear weapons will be operational between February and April 1992.”

“February 24, 1993: CIA director James Woolsey says that Iran is still 8 to 10 years away from being able to produce its own nuclear weapon, but with assistance from abroad it could become a nuclear power earlier.”

“January 1995: The director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, John Holum, testifies that Iran could have the bomb by 2003.”

“January 5, 1995: U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry says that Iran may be less than five years from building an atomic bomb, although ‘how soon…depends how they go about getting it.’”

“April 29, 1996: Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres says ‘he believes that in four years, they [Iran] may reach nuclear weapons.’”

“October 21, 1998: General Anthony Zinni, head of U.S. Central Command, says Iran could have the capacity to deliver nuclear weapons within five years. ‘If I were a betting man,’ he said, ‘I would say they are on track within five years, they would have the capability.’”

“January 17, 2000: A new CIA assessment on Iran’s nuclear capabilities says that the CIA cannot rule out the possibility that Iran may possess nuclear weapons. The assessment is based on the CIA’s admission that it cannot monitor Iran’s nuclear activities with any precision and hence cannot exclude the prospect that Iran may have nuclear weapons.”

And on and on and on. Iran is perennially one year away from gaining the bomb! Hell, even the new season of 24 has President Goodarab of the Islamic Republic of Genericstan *wink**wink*Iran*wink**wink**wink* one year away from the bomb and engaged in negotiations with the US to halt their program. It somehow all involves Jack Bauer caving a dude's chest in with a axe, Starbuck, and Freddie Prinze Jr., but they are negotiations nonetheless.

So before you whip yourself into a total war froth, just remember: Iran is one year away from the bomb, because Iran will always be one year away from the bomb. Two decades from now Iran will be one year away from the bomb. I know it'll feel really good to do a couple of bombing runs on Tehran in order to support Mousavi, or whatever reason it is our political betters will be advocating for, but let's remember that.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 01.06

Climate Activists Jailed For Saying ‘Coal’s Killing West Virginia’s Communities’
What do you have to do to get arrested in West Virginia? Well we know marrying your cousin, hunting Burt Reynolds and raping Ned Beatty during a canoe trip, bootlegging moonshine, or setting every couch in Morgantown on fire won't do it. But if you point out that coal mining and mountaintop coal mining damages communities, damages the environment, and damages the health of the men doing the work? You get imprisoned and held without charges for an offense that would merit a $100 fine. Stay classy, WV.

Japan Bomb Survivor, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, Lived Through Hiroshima And Nagasaki Atomic Attacks
Did you ever wonder who in human history had the worst week ever recorded? That would be Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a Japanese man who went to Hiroshima for a business meeting for his shipbuilding company, got nuked, suffered serious burns to his body, spent the night in the hospital, went back to his home in Nagasaki, and hot nuked again. I also think he banged his shin off a table somewhere in the intervening period between atomic blasts. That really hurts. Thankfully he lived a long a full life to the age of 93. So next time you think you're really having a bad week, just say to yourself "At least I'm not 'Two Nukes' Yamaguchi."

Iran soccer official resigns over e-mail to Israel
How great is Iran's hatred of Israel and how rigid is their punishment of government officials that recognize Israel as a state? So much so that the head of their soccer federation was fired for including Israel's soccer head in a mass e-mail of banal New Years' greeting he sent out to every soccer federation head in the world. That's sticking to your Jew hating guns. I don't know why they fired him. Isn't being President of Iran's soccer federation enough punishment?

Moon hole might be suitable for colony
Good news for those of us who think we should all have been living on fucking moon bases like a decade ago. Seems that a 312 ft wide 260 ft deep hole in the moon's Marius Hills would provide a perfect temperature controlled, meteorite protected place to put a fucking moon base already. Either the government needs to get on this or Sean and I are using it for the galactic headquarters of Moon Water Inc. I don't want to give away too much of our business model, but lets just say it involves multiple Sam Rockwells and a robot voiced by Kevin Spacey.

The Distant Executioner
Vanity Fair takes an extensive look at our Afghanistan policy of trying to avoid civilian deaths and what that means for combat, particularly in the usage of snipers. It follows around a Texas Army National Guardsman sniper who has dropped a Taliban fighter at 806 meters and believes God is on his side. Worth your time.

Russia: saving our asses

Space. It may seem benign, what with all the pretty pictures of it we post in our picture of the day feature, but in reality it is a ticking time bomb of murder just waiting to lob some Texas sized kill rock at us in a wanton act of aggression. I know this. You know this. Science knows this. Most importantly: Russia knows this.

Out there, right now, some large chunk of debris is out there waiting to do to us what they already did to the dinosaurs. But where the dinosaur's asteroid deflection technology was laughably inadequate, ours is strong. You see, the thunder lizards didn't have Vladimir Putin.

In an interview today with Voice of Russia radio, Russia’s space agency chief said discussions would begin soon over a plan to save the world from a collision with a massive asteroid.

It’s not clear how, exactly, the Russians plan to deflect Apophis, a chunk of rock the size of two and a half soccer fields that was first discovered by astronomers in 2004. Anatoly Perminov, the space agency head, promised that there would be “no nuclear explosions” and that everything would be done “on the basis of the laws of physics.”

Astronomers initially guessed that Apophis had a reasonably good chance of smashing into Earth on its first flyby; NASA now reckons that the chances of that have gone from slim (one-in-45,000) to almost none (four-in-a million). But despite the lower NASA estimate, the Russians aren’t so sure. Perminov said the asteroid “will surely collide with the Earth in the 2030s.”

You can't fool the Russian with your mathematical projections and theoretical models. There is one thing that everyone in Russia knows: that fucking rock is going to fucking end life as we know it and it's up to their country to stop it. Sure, the asteroid absolutely won't hit us in 2029, but there's an infinitesimally small change that Apophis will hit a gravity well and swing back around for the kill shot in 2036. Sure the chance that it'll happen is about the same as you winning the lottery while being attacked by a shark that's being attacked by killer bees, but do you think Prime Minister Putin wears a chain-mail suit and a beekeepers outfit every time he scratches off an instant lottery ticket? For fun? No, because he doesn't trust the odds.

So don't worry about that asteroid you weren't worried about and science says that you should in no way be worried about. Russia has got a handle on it and they totally swear they won't fire nukes at it. How will they do it then? Don't know. Maybe Putin will be flown up into orbit shirtless and he'll allow the asteroid to collide with his brawny chest, destroying the interstellar nuisance. Maybe they'll attack rockets to Apophis and move it out of position. They'll probably just end up firing nukes at it. In any event, we at These Bastards commend Russia for taking unnecessary space action towards a non-existent threat. Someone has to do it.

Art of the day

From Bibliodyssey and the people of Nuclear Engineering International, comes this graphical reproductions of nuclear reactors built in the seventies and early eighties. You know, just in case you ever get caught in Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong and not only need to what the condenser tube material is made of (titanium), but also need to know whether the in-core instrumentation room is next to the safety injection accumulator (it is). It happens to me all the fucking time.

Click to really, really embiggen.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.04

Italian court finds CIA agents guilty of kidnapping terrorism suspect
Well that makes one country that's actually serious about prosecuting torture, rendition, and kidnapping in the name of America's war on terror. Surprisingly it's Italy, who can't even convict its openly corrupt prime minister. That's a bit of a shocker. But Italy has tried and convicted 23 Americans in absentia for the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" that resulted in an Italian citizen being kidnapped and tortured. Sadly none of the convicted are named Bush, or Gonzales, or Cheney. Italian courts are also considering putting out international arrest warrants to capture the men. Someone want to roll up a copy of this news and hit the President and the Attorney General over the head with it?

Democrats’ healthcare bill would pay for ‘prayer’ treatment
Ahh Democrats, you could fuck up a one car funeral. Sure, you can't get a good health care bill passed and something simple like a woman have rights over her own body is going to prove to be a challenge, but you can make sure that the bill lets charlatans get money from the government by making "prayer treatments" actual medical expenses. Didn't you get the memo: prayer is basically most people's health care system of choice right now, and it's not because they want it that way. Do you think, maybe, we could just take that money and spend it on, I don't know, something that will actually improve the health of people or drive down medical costs? Or, we could just flush the money down the toilet in deference to the alligator god, who will in turn reward us with a healthy harvest. Doesn't that sound good?

Russia Leads Nuclear Space Race After U.S. Drops Out
Russia is seeking to take the lead in awesome when it has a $600 million nuclear spaceship flying into obit by 2012. Meanwhile the US is still dicking around with rocket fuel. This should allow the Russians to make their rockets twice as efficient and allow them to do longer and more elaborate deep space exploration and missions. We, on the other hand, will fart around in low orbit while Richard Branson and his Virgin: Galactic space tourists get within "flipping the bird" distance at us. The article also has an interesting history of nukes and space, if you wish to sigh at the path not traveled.

Flu fears help Clorox sales
Well at least this pandemic is making someone money, you know, other than the vaccine companies and the conspiratorial conglomerate of Nancy Pelosi/Barack Obama/the Bilderburg Group/the Secret Society of Jewish Bankers/the Yankees/Freemasons who created the disease for their own socialist political ends. Yes, bleach sales are driving a stock spike for Clorox as worried and paranoid parents buy it by the pallet to marinate their pork in it, make their kids drink it, and obsessively and compulsively wash their countertops with it in order to protect themselves from Porcine AIDS. It won't work, they'll all be dead while the last remnants of us fight it out in Boulder and Vegas, but it's nice that Clorox, as well as the makers of Glaad bags and Brita filters have profited in this time of irrational flu panic.

A Material Based on Sharkskin Stops Bacterial Breakouts
How badass are sharks? Even their skin pattern kicks the living fuck out of weak ass bacteria. That's right, using a sharkskin pattern on a protective film cuts the rate of disease and bacteria spreading because those rotten little microbes can't attach themselves to the sharkskin pattern. How slick is sharkskin? Scientifically speaking: slicker than greased goose shit. A man with a PhD said that, honest.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.21

House Cuts Health Bill Price To $871 Billion
The House, otherwise known as the tolerable part of government, has moved towards extending a large middle finger to the Senate by crafting a bill that is not only $871 billion, but reduces the deficit, and includes a strong public option. Meanwhile 52 members of the Senate generally support the same exact thing, but debate is held up by 5 conservative democrats who aren't sure and a debate over whether to have a debate about the public option. Don't you just love those little scamps.

Admiral: I can empty Guantánamo camps in 10 days
For all the talk and feckless handwringing about how the Administration just doesn't know if it can close America's Shame in the time it said it could, the military wants everyone to be clear that it isn't the one sitting with its dick in its hand. All he needs are some planes, ferries, or even those boats they used to storm Normandy on D-Day. Hell he can empty Gitmo in 15 minutes provided he has enough ammunition. The point is, as always, that it's Washington fucking up again.

Man of Extremes: The Return of James Cameron
The New Yorker gives an extensive look at the upcoming film Avatar and its creator, an apparently pompus man-baby blowhard James Cameron. Marvel at the monkey and football fucking related zingers he hurls at the crew. Gawk gape mouthed at the discussion he has with digital effects powerhouse WETA where he gets into an intense discussion and praise over tooth translucence, light transmission in gill membranes, and quadrate bones. Listen to enough interminable bullshit about how the digital effects are so good, technology, and how you won't be able to tell which is the CG character and which is the human that you know this movie isn't going to be good. But the light transmission in the teeth of CG monsters will be exquisite.

Iran To Consider Draft Russia Nuclear Deal, Say Diplomats
Diplomacy suffers another brutal blow as Iranian negotiations show support for a plan that would have them send their enriched uranium to Russia for processing, delaying their nuclear bomb capabilities, and ensuring that they can only be used as fuel in a power station, which is what Iran has been claiming it's for anyway. Now how are we going to get our war? We called their bluff and are in the process of relenting and accepting a plan based on the proposals of International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei. I'm sure we could have achieved all of this with a well placed missile strike.

Grandparents sued for keeping girl
It's times like these, when the economy is bad and the housing market is rough, that its heartwarming to see a community band together in the face of adversity. Shame that didn't happen here, where a neighborhood association is suing two grandparents for violating a rule which states that people have to be 55 to reside there, just because they decided to take care of their granddaughter after her drug addled mother disappeared. The grandparents can't sell the house because of the market, can't afford to move without the house selling because of the economy, and the lawsuit could result in the child being put in foster care. Yup, that was the sound of humanity hitting a new low.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.14

Russia: We’ll Nuke ‘Aggressors’ First
You know what really warms the cockles of your heart? Hearing that Russia is changing its military doctrine to allow for "preventative" nuclear strikes....even against countries without nuclear capabilities. Hope you weren't looking to sell your house in Chechnya or Georgia, because I think "potential nuclear holocaust site" tends to drop the value. As a bonus: this ought to really help get Iran in line on attempts to build nuclear weapons.

Latter day taint
An article on Glenn Beck's taint. No, not that taint, just the way the Mormon Beck traipses the bizarre fringes of Mormonism, espouses the thoughts and works of Mormon conspiracy theorist Cleon Skousen, and how all of this might damage the Mormon church. Yes, Glenn Beck is weirder and more of a fringe delusionist than you previously thought. This man has no ceiling on his insanity. We're living in a golden age.

Does Baseball Need Umpires?
The Wall Street Journal looks into the history of blown calls in baseball, the Pitch-f/x zone evaluation system, and whether or not a T-1000 should replace the fat guy hunched over the catcher with a wide strike zone. Sure the system is 100% accurate, but do we really want the front lines of the robopocalyse to be at America's national pastime? All I want to know is if they can create a cyborg that can stop the Pirates from losing ninety+ games a year.

Cleverness is no more. This is a dumb Britain
TV's Jeremy Clarkson takes a moment out from the celebration of Monty Python's 40th anniversary to praise them and to lament how the base foundation of their humor, often based around word usage, snooty novels, art, and philosophy, is incapable of being understood by a populace that wears stupidity as a badge of honor. Surprisingly he's talking about the UK and not America, but I'm sure if he watched CBS's lineup of alleged comedy programs he'd add us in.

Recruited by MI5: the name's Mussolini. Benito Mussolini
Mussolini got his start out in politics with a weekly wage of a 100 pounds from the MI5. In return for the cash he published pieces of support for Italy joining the allies in WWI and sent teams of young gentlemen to "debate" peace protesters with truncheons and clubs. I'm not much of a scholar on history, how'd all that work out?

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.01

E.P.A. Moves to Curtail Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Tired of waiting for Congress to get off its fat asses and make an attempt to bungle climate legislation while it's bungling health care legislation, President Obama decided that "Hey, maybe I should use the agencies and laws I already have to do it." Brilliant stroke of genius, Barry. And so he did, enabling the EPA to menace free enterprise and business with the application of its dirty laws and legally mandated oversight. Hopefully soon, Congress will come up with a terrible climate change bill so that we can circumvent all this nastiness and get back to what's important: letting industry pollute without any enforcement of actual laws.

Reality Check: Trying to Turn a Point of Pride into a Moment of Shame
Ahh, the White House has finally snapped and started using its web-based blog bully pulpit to go after professional liars like Glenn Beck. What was it that set the White House off? Death panels? FEMA re-education camps? Was Beck trying to blame his 1990 rape and murder of a young girl on the Administration? No....*sighs*, Beck complained about efforts to win the Olympics for the US. And he used lies so minor, they basically count as Beck attempting to tell the truth. Yeah, this was the one you really needed to combat, White House.

Credit Rating Agency Analysts Covering AIG, Lehman Brothers Never Disciplined
Oh my star and garters. You're telling me that the concept of accountability that doesn't exist in banks or financial markets, doesn't exist in the businesses that rate them? But really, one does have to be shocked that the Government is mad at the A and AA ratings that Moody's Standard and Poor's, and Fitch's handed out. I mean an A or AA rating, in the fantasy financial world where everything is rated AAA, is the equivalent of a D- or F+ in the real world. Why should anyone be fired over not seeing the imminent collapse of some of the the largest financial institutions in the world? That's why pencils have trillion dollar erasers.

Tamiflu in Rivers Could Breed Drug-Resistant Flu Strains
OK, want to make sure that flu carrying animals aren't exposed to anti-virals flu medications and drug resistant flu strains aren't created? One simple step: if you take Tamiflu, afterward...never urinate. And especially don't urinate into a river. Tamiflu is expelled by urine, it gets into the water through sewage treatment plants, then into the rivers, then exposed to birds, then Captain Trips is created, then we're all caught up in an apocalyptic morality play as Boulder, Colorado and Las Vegas engage in the final battle of good and evil after a superflu wipes out 99.9% of the world's population. Is this what you want? No? Good, don't pee.

Iran Meets U.S. and Allies for Nuclear Talks in Geneva
And so begins the long process in which the world tells Iran that it shouldn't try to make nukes "Because" and Iran looks at open threats of destruction coming at it from large and influential sectors of the US political establishment, threats of preemptive strikes from Israel, continued Middle Eastern conflict, the fact that it just suppressed it's own population and rigged an election, and the fact that back water shit states with deep terrorist ties, like Pakistan for instance, are immediately treated with respect, dignity, and showered with billions just because they developed a nuke, and says "Wait, why should I listen to you guys?" It'll be great.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.30

As Subprime Lending Crisis Unfolded, Watchdog Fed Didn't Bother Barking
It's things like this that make you well up with pride over our regulatory structure in this country. I mean who can doubt the logic of Alan Greenspan, who looked at the regulatory requirements of the Fed and said "the best kind of oversight is no oversight, I'm sure everything will work out if the subprime market is allowed to police itself." I forget, how did that work out again? This illustrates one of the fundamental flaws in the regulatory system. Sure it's useful to have government agencies with oversight on important areas, but it's also important that they not be staffed with dipshits.

Landmark Decision: Massive Relief for Homeowners and Trouble for the Banks
You may have heard of the recent Kansas Supreme Court decision that gave millions of homeowners a legal wedge to avoid foreclosure. It essentially ruled that the clearing system used for mortgages is, to put it charitably, unreliable. That, and that whole mortgage backed securities thing wasn't entirely legal either. Or, to quote Matt Taibbi, means that "half of the mortgage market has been run as a criminal enterprise for years." The ruling basically invalidates foreclosure proceedings on 60 million mortgages. Good times.

Is the media exaggerating the Iranian nuke threat?
Yes. *claps hands, gets up, walks away* Oh, did you want more explanation and perhaps specific examples? OK then, go read Juan Cole's opening salvo at just some of the preliminary exaggerations and outright lies that are already starting to creep into the debate on America's next Middle Eastern fiasco. If you're wondering what the media learned from the run-up to the Iraq war, the answer is: absolutely nothing.

Nike Resigns From The U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Board Of Directors Over Global Warming Disagreements
So, for those of you keeping score at home: Nike employing defacto Asian child slave labor to make shoes that the "workers" could never even hope to afford? Nike's cool with that. Being affiliated with the US Chamber of Commerce and it's global warming denialist tendencies? Nike's not cool with that. That's...an ethos....of a sort.

Roman Polanski Reviews 'Hannah Montana'
Screen Junkies gives and outlet to detained director/rapist Roman Polanski so that he can apply the film knowledge he gained during his three decades as a fugitive from justice to films that catch his eye. Hopefully, in the future, he'll be able to contribute more reviews so that the world will not be denied his insights just because the US is hostile to fugitive rapists.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.29

Revolving Door Spins Ex-Hill Aides Into Lobbyists
I know this is something you probably didn't need to be told, but it seems that out of the 2,737 vultures swarming Washington on behalf of the health care and pharmaceutical industries trying to convince our unelected betters to forgo the pleasantries of lube when they screw us, 52% or 1,418 are former government employees/elected representatives. Duh! Do you really think a Senator wants to take corporate contributions and marching orders from a stranger?

Keeping Iran honest
One of those smug assholes who had the politically debilitating misfortune of being right about Iraq, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, has decided to stick his big nose and his "I know things about the Middle East and weapons" attitude into this whole Iran mess. Apparently this ass thinks that by calmly stating what is going on, explicitly explaining the international laws involved, and cogently using his knowledge of weapons systems and manufacturing capacity to tamp down fears of Iranian nukes, that he can somehow enlighten people and clam them down over what is happening. Hopefully we'll ignore this jerk-off before his dirty facts taint our precious "start a war or start a nuclear war" debate.

Four-Winged Fossil Bridges Bird-Dinosaur Gap
Listen, I know I caused a controversy yesterday when I, perhaps too hastily as it turns out, suggested that Jurassic Park was not as accurate a documentary as we all thought. It turns out I was wrong. It seems that, as Dr. Alan Grant postulated, that the thunder lizards just up and became birds. And now there's a fossil record. Of a transitional evolutionary species. That sound you heard was Kirk Cameron shrieking as Darwin planted a size 11 Timberland right in his groin. That's the scientific theories of Darwin/Jurassic Park - 1, the scientific theories of Growing Pains - 0.

Girl Talk, Working Memory and Creativity
One man takes a recent GQ profile of Pittsburgh musician and mash-up artist Greg "Girl Talk" Gillis and takes it as a jumping off point for how memory works in relation to music and specifically mash-up music. It turns out there's a little more to it than "Wu-Tang and Boston were always meant to be together."

Thousands of hyphens perish as English marches on
That's right, the Oxford English Dictionary re-opened its killing fields for another year and this time no hyphen was spared. Ice-cream is now icecream. Test-tube is now test tube. And both Sean and I are nervously awaiting the rulings on fuck-face and jerk-off for a piece on Glenn Beck. Who's to blame? The interwebs and all it's various assorted hyphen hating tubes combined with a populace that is just to damned lazy to use them. Don't worry about all those hyphens...*sniff*...they're with Jesus now.

This'll learn 'em

The United States has standards, people. If you rig an election (in a way we don't want) and then brutally suppress the uprising, well, you'll just get a few cryptic statements about legitimacy followed by a few timid remarks about how you're treating all the people you're arresting under false pretenses. But build a reactor? Strike that. Find out that the US has known about the reactor you built for a good long time but that they didn't know that you knew that they knew? That's a paddlin'.

The Obama administration is scrambling to assemble a package of harsher economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program that could include a cutoff of investments to the country’s oil-and-gas industry and restrictions on many more Iranian banks than those currently blacklisted, senior administration officials said Sunday.

The administration also is seeking to build a broader coalition of partners for sanctions so that it may still be able to act against Iran even if China and Russia were to veto harsher measures proposed in the United Nations Security Council.

This combined with all those sanctions the world enacting for stealing an election and killing, beating, and arresting anyone who thought that maybe votes should be counted, really ought to put a serious damper on Iranian plans. Oh, they didn't get sanctioned for that coup/suppression thing? My bad. Well, at least these new theoretical sanctions that won't get past the UN Security Council, really ought to make Ahmadinejad's non-Jew rhetoric a lot more interesting.

But let that be a lesson to future Ahmadinejads. You say "democracy shemocracy" and we will stifle a yawn with the full brunt of America's might. But you find out we've been reading your diary, perhaps even writing "I know you're reading this America" into its pages, then we will try to place sanctions that will affect everyone but the leadership of the country. Why not? Those people have had a rough few months, they'll barely notice the extra hardship. If they didn't want it, they shouldn't have not elected Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.