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.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.21

Moritz Resl's 2010 FIFA World Cup.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

A St. Pat's miracle!

Today is St. Patrick's Day. What, you thought it was last Saturday or this Saturday or whenever there's an abundance of green beer? No, it's an actual day and because the Irish are so great we allow it to be celebrated early and late to accommodate for whatever massive liver damage you want to do to yourself.

But this is not about Catholic holidays dedicated to drunken street fighting, this is about an honest to God miracle. Someone sobered up Shane McGowan enough to convince him he looked like a homeless derelict and convinced him to finally get fake teeth. Hallelujah!



The man drank so much he lost all of his teeth. Granted some of that was because he got so drunk one time he faceplanted off a wall and onto some bricks, but the rest were knocked out by years of savage, savage alcohol abuse. Now he looks normal, almost unrecognizable. So to celebrate this miracle of St. Patrick, booze, and quality dental work, here's a Pogues song.

Compassion

Michael O'Leary, CEO of budget Irish airline Ryanair, on trying not to lose money because people don't want to travel and catch swine flu compassion:

But the outspoken head of Irish budget airline Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, played down the danger of the virus to travellers.

"It is a tragedy only for people living... in slums in Asia or Mexico, but will the honeymoon couple from Edinburgh die? No," he told journalists.

O'Leary said that "a couple of Strepsils (a brand of throat lozenges) will do the job."

That's right. Swine flu isn't a deadly disease that the WHO says "can not be contained" or has us at a "turning point", it's a tiny little problem that a cheery attitude, a cheap ticket, and a lozenge can take care of. Everyone is overreacting. Thanks for dropping the knowledge Dr. O'Leary. Fly Ryanair.

Quote of the day

Lou Dobbs, with his xenophobic fears of the oppression of St. Patrick's day on people without any cultural background.

Yesterday on his radio show, anti-immigrant crusader Lou Dobbs attacked St. Patrick’s day as a needless “ethnic holiday.” “How about an American day,” he proposed. He also wondered whether other groups, like Jews or Asians, had “ethnic holidays,” but he couldn’t think of any:

Is there a Jewish ethnic holiday? Is there one? No. Okay. … How about an Asian ethnic holiday? Is there one? You know, St. Jing-Tao-Wow?

Nice. Did you have St. Ching-Chong-Chang all ready to go, but decided it was a little too racist? Still though, as Think Progress points out, other than Independence Day, Presidents’ Day, Martin Luther King Day, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, Veterans Day and Memorial Day, there is no day to celebrate America. That's before you even remove MLK day as too black, Columbus day as too Italian, and Thanksgiving as too respectful of British immigrants and Indians. It's as if America has been forgotten.

On behalf of Sean and I, both born of shiftless potato farming stock, we would just like to apologize for our cultural heritage giving this country an excuse to get blackout drunk over the weekend and possibly again in the middle of the week. We're sorry we turned a guy eradicating snakes from Ireland into one long booze parade and created the greatest holiday ever. We won't do it again. Lou can replace it with St. America day next year. I thought Lou would have liked St. Patty's, it's religious and involves drunkenly telling Protestants to stick it. I guess too many laypeople confuse the green with 'Irish colors' instead of 'Catholic colors' for Lou to take much enjoyment.