Cheap Blogging Crutch 12.30

How much did Tiger Woods cost shareholders?
We all know what Tiger Woods' appetite for incredibly trashy bar skanks costs him: his status as the most ungodly boring athlete on the face of the planet, a perfectly good set of golf clubs that is now dented and covered in car paint, a car, and a number of endorsements. I heard John Daly walked up to Tiger and told him that he "really needed to pull himself together" because he was "acting reckless and damaging his reputation." There is no lower indignity. But what's happeneing to all the companies that hitched their wagon to the seemingly unstoppably mundane juggernaut known as the Tiger Woods marketing persona? They lost somewhere in the neighborhood of $5-12 billion in stock value. Ouch. Well at least Tiget got to sleep with some real classy ladies. I'm sure that's of real comfort to EA, Nike, and Gatorade stockholders.

How Algal Biofuels Lost a Decade in the Race to Replace Oil
Wired Science looks at how one of the best sources for biofuels, algae, got started and eventually fell by the funding wayside in the transition from Carter's alternate fuels programs to Reagan's OILOILOIL and tongue kissing Saddam programs. On the negative side, we lost decades worth of research into a very promising field. On the bright side, the recent stimulus package and increase in science funding has pumped money back into algae biofuel. The downside? That money is going to run out in a few years. If only we could get some way to turn algae into corn, there would probably be more support for the initiative.

Barley + Space = Space Beer!
Space beer. Do I actually have to say a third word? Fine, Japan (could it have been anyone else) sent up barley grains that spent 5 months on the International Space Station. Now, Sapporo is making 250 six packs and selling them through a lottery for $150. The money raised is going to fund science education. It should be used to fund more space beer. Is These Bastards the only ones who sees the possibility: moon water + space barley = zero G brain lubricant. Let's get on top of this shit Sapporo, if I can't actually visit a moon base, I want to be albe to get 3 sheets to the wind on space beer. Chop chop. Make it happen.

Star Wars Weather Forecast
I know what you're all thinking: what planet in the Star Wars galaxy does the weather outside most resemble? Well now, thanks to Tom Scott, you don't have to wonder. Just type in your zip code or city name and you'll know. It also helps you learn the Star Wars planet names if you're one of those uncultured swine who can't rattle off 40-50 imaginary planets in some macho display of nerd intelligence and misspent youth.

Not again! Giant Swedish Christmas goat statue gets torched
The good people of Stockholm are trying to create a Christmas tradition for their city: building a giant straw statue of a Yule goat, the Swedish precursor to God's son and the savior of man, Santa Claus. Unfortunately, Stockholm hooligans, most likely named Lars or Henrik, have decided upon their own Christmas tradition: evading the security surrounding the giant straw goat in order to set it ablaze. Guess which tradition is winning out? Fire trumps all.

Picture of the day

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

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

'Tis the season

Big Fat Whale chronicles the atheist yuletide traditions, even if they don't really count as real people.

'Tis the season

Don't worry Christians, CBS didn't forget about you.

Good morning to our Jewish friends

'Tis the season for Jesus and his much better older brother Santa. But just because Sean an I are nominally Catholic it doesn't mean we've forgotten our Jewish brothers and sisters. No, who can forget Hanukkah, the treasured celebration of...... that time...... Moses... freed.... the city of... Hanukkh.... from... Satan?

Irregardless, we didn't forget you and neither did Mormon Utah Senator Orrin "the Balladeer" Hatch. Hell, he not only remembers, he composed and performed a song on behalf of your people and what all we Christians assume is an important holiday. This is the kind of thing you have time for when you don't contribute in any way to getting health reform passed. Enjoy.

Eight Days of Hanukkah from Tablet Magazine on Vimeo.

Buy things!

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


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

'Tis the season

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



St. Nick is a truther.

Buy things!

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

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

The fate of Nicolas Cage is in your hands!

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

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

You know what they say...

Every time a recently divorced, newly unemployed aerospace industry worker straps on a Santa suit and guns down his former in-laws before setting their house on fire and committing suicide, an angel gets its wings.

Broken in Brief: Fringe religious cult celebrates the impossible

INTERNATIONAL--A marginal faction of deeply religious individuals reportedly commemorated yesterday the birth of their deity, a multidimensional Jewish zombie thought to have stalked the earth roughly two thousand years ago.

Supposedly, the twelve-day festival consists of group prayer and singing, as well as fractious, often intoxicated extended-family interaction. Most notable, however, is the ensuing colossal rush of petty consumerism that directly contradicts much of what the entity supposedly preached during his brief lifetime.

While specific details of the belief structure are not known, research indicates that adherents gather annually to celebrate the virgin birth of the entity, who is capable of granting immortality to his followers, with whom he communicates telepathically. According to the legend, all of Earth's inhabitants are born with an "original sin" on their "soul" that was placed there by the entity's father as punishment for the deplorable conduct of a woman hatched from a man's rib cage who followed the advice of a talking snake and ate an apple.

The FBI Center on Religious Extremism and Cults has warned that this fringe group has disguised their holiday to fit in with the more popular pagan celebrations of the Winter Solstice, the Saturnalia, and the Kalends, both to avoid arousing suspicion and to convert susceptible minds to their pilfered traditions. Lead expert Nicholas DePascha warns, "Do not be taken in by their appropriations of Asheria's love of the evergreen nor their bizarre conflagration of Norse mythology and Druid rituals into bizarre mistletoe kissing rituals. These are nothing but covers for a dangerous ideology that must be stopped at all costs."

Life Day

Hope your Christmas went well, or if you don't believe in the Lord I hope you at least got something useful done on the day off you received for our Jesustime. But now is not the time for talking about presents or drunken outbursts at inappropriate moments from relatives you have to suffer with every year. Now is the time to focus on what matters most during this time of year: Bizarre holiday themed Star Wars variety Christmas shows with Harvey Korman and Bea Arthur, costumes by Bob Mackie. As a gift to you, we give you the entire Star Wars Holiday Special. Try to look away, I dare you.

Santahmadinejad

It is the season for Christmas themed televisions shows. Rudolph getting to join the sleigh, Frosty being horrifically murdered by heat and de-hatting, Linus whining about pumpkins and shit, and all the new shows that aren't as good as the crappy puppet versions put together with couch cushion change fifty years ago. The UK is trying to forge it's own new traditions. No more with the Dickensian Victorian business, pantomime theatre, and wasseling, it's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a Christmas message of love.

Merry Christmas, "bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers."

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will deliver a Christmas Day broadcast on Britain's Channel 4 television, occupying a slot used to provide an often controversial counterpoint to Queen Elizabeth II's traditional annual message, the station said Wednesday.

In his recorded message, Ahmadinejad offers seasonal greetings to Christians and says he believes that if Jesus were alive, he would "stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers," an apparent reference to the United States and its allies.

That's nice, counter-programming the Queen on Christmas with a Holocaust denier who'll have to stand on a box to reach the microphone. Fa la la la la, la la la laaaa. We, unfortunately don't get any adresses from shady criminal leaders of rouge states, what with Bush and Cheney not having recorded a thing, all we get a mostly meaningless bowl games and three hundered viewings of A Christmas Story. Where's the hate? 'Tis the season.

Russian Christmas

Maybe you want that new fandangled iPod with the clicky wheel, or some damn bloop blorp video games with the horrible violence, or some lame shit like peace and love, or to not have syphilis anymore. Maybe you're a traitor to this country and it's Judeo-Christian founding and are worshiping the eight candle God or whatever the hell that's all about. But I know what we all wanted this Christmas: for Vladimir Putin to challenge our President-Elect by buying 70 new nukes while doing the Charleston on expiring treaties.

Russia is to increase sharply its production of strategic nuclear missiles, throwing down the gauntlet to the US president-elect, Barack Obama, who would have to deal with the Kremlin's response to US missile defence plans in Europe.

A senior government official in Moscow said the Russian military would commission 70 strategic missiles over the next three years. It was unclear whether sea-launched ballistic missiles were included in this figure, but military experts said it could represent up to a fourfold increase on the rate of production of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

The missiles would be part of a £95bn defence procurement package for 2009-2011, said Vladislav Putilin, a deputy head of the Russian cabinet's military-industrial commission in charge of weapons industries. Russia has produced only five to seven Topol-M ICBMs a year since the late 1990s and its stockpiles of several hundred heavy Soviet-era missiles such as the SS-19 Stiletto are rapidly reaching the end of their lifespan.

How much do you want to bet Vladislav Putilin is Vladimir Putin, but with a big phony mustache and a bowler hat as a disguise? But it's nice that Russia says it doesn't want to get left behind in a new nuclear arms race. I didn't know that we were in a new nuclear arms race, but there you have it, we are and we're behind. Merry Christmas, it's the Cold War!

Mommy and Daddy are grifting for Xmas

The American spirit remains undeterred. Can't afford presents or basic goods? Fuck it, take 'em anyway. You deserve them and so do your children. If Mattel didn't wan't your kids to get a Memphis Jookin' Elmo they shouldn't have made it so damn appealing and stocked it in stores that aren't susceptible to the snatch and dash.

Police departments across the country say that shoplifting arrests are 10 percent to 20 percent higher this year than last. The problem is probably even greater than arrest records indicate since shoplifters are often banned from stores rather than arrested.

Much of the increase has come from first-time offenders like Mr. Johnson making rash decisions in a pinch, the authorities say. But the ease with which stolen goods can be sold on the Internet has meant a bigger role for organized crime rings, which also engage in receipt fraud, fake price tagging and gift card schemes, the police and security experts say.

Don't we know it. The TB grifter ring has netted us profits in the thousands over the last few weeks. In fact if Sean or I gives you a gift this holiday season it was 100% stolen, either from a store or from a vulnerable person in a parking lot. You're able to get nicer things this way.

Just remember, if it's too expensive, you don't have to walk away. Just know where the exits are and don't stop running until you can't hear the sirens.

Tis' the season....for climate change skepticism

It's that time of year again, where some of us partake in time honored rituals fit for the season. Christmas? Hanukkah? Spiritual Literacy Month? Clerc-Gallaudet Week? The Saturnalia? No, bitching that because it is cold out climate change is a hoax and Al Gore is a mind controlling charlatan. Don't you saps see? I'm cold! It's cold out! There's nothing warming about cold! HOAX! Leading the charge this year are Roger Simon

Brrr… it’s cold outside here in LA - currently 34 degrees f...Every year around this time we all look at each other and say, “I can’t remember it ever being this cold.”... Still the global warming dispute goes on...If there’s ever been an argument with (excuse the metaphor) more heat than light, this is it. But what we often seem to have here is the AWG skeptics ironically in the role of Galileo with the liberal intelligentsia playing an ultra-conservative clergy led by Al Gore...Nevertheless, as I have said what feels like a zillion times, just because Al thinks something is so, doesn’t mean it isn’t.

and Deroy Murdock

Winter officially arrived with Sunday's solstice. But for many Americans, autumn 2008's final days already feel like deepest, coldest January...What are the odds of that? Actually, the odds are rising that snow, ice and cold will grow increasingly common. As serious scientists repeatedly explain, global cooling is here. It is chilling temperatures and so-called "global-warming."..."Global warming is over, and Global warming theory has failed. There is no evidence that CO2 drives world temperatures or any consequent climate change,"...As global cooling becomes more widely recognized, Americans from Maine to Malibu should feel comfortable dreaming of a white Christmas.

You can feel the intellectual rigor wafting off these pieces. "There was snow in someplace there hasn't been snow in a while. Game over Gore, you fuck! Warmth is warm, snow is cold!" You don't ever see these people chirp up when it's balls melting hot in the summer. Nor for that matter when scientists mention all that ice that's melting up north and blah blah blah C02 readings and catastrophe blah blah blah. You only get these deep think pieces quoting the five climate change skeptics with doctorates (in archaeology, astrology, and advanced Frinkonomics) when they realize it's gotten cold enough for them to churn out another piece of COLD~! brilliance. Here, let me have the fat lying charlatan explain it to you with maths+science:

Despite the fact that we had record-breaking October heat, apparently 2008 looks like it might be the coldest year in the past decade.

Of course, global warming denialists are loving this. They point out that not only is 2008 a cold year, but that there hasn’t been any statistically significant warming in the past decade if you consider that the record hot year of 1998 was caused by El Niño, a climate change refuge from Latin America.

But what I can tell you is that the denialists have it all wrong: we’re not talking about global warming anymore, we’re talking about climate change. As temperatures rise, the climate will change very rapidly and very unpredictably in all directions.

There are lots of ways that rising temperatures can produce colder temperatures.

Goreacle then provides examples and links to people's work that explains that, then drops some knowledge about statistical measuring models and DNA research. He even engages them on the intellectual level of "I feel cold, so this is all bullshit" too. These very cold people have been running our climate change policy for the past eight years. Comforting, no?

So instead of hanging stockings or exchanging gifts this year, we all need to partake in our new holiday tradition: abandoning science because we're chilly. We're all fucked anyway. See you in the sweater lines!

Bible of the day

Because He is the reason for the season, today we present you with the Brick Testament, a Bible enacted out entirely with Lego bricks. It is the most comprehensive illustrated bible in the world, or so it says. Caution: Lego nudity and Lego violence.

Merry Christmas, failures.

Bailed-Out Executives Got $1.6 Billion In 2007

Banks that have their hands out in Washington this year were handing out multimillion-dollar rewards to their executives last year.

The 116 banks that so far have received taxpayer dollars to boost them through the economic crisis gave their top tier of executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses and other benefits in 2007, an Associated Press analysis found.

That amount, spread among the 600 highest paid bank executives, would cover the bailout money given to 53 of the banks that have shared the $188 billion that Washington has doled out in rescue packages so far.

Some people might be mad that a bunch of failed businessmen raked in $1.6 billion for stinking at their jobs more than anyone is history has ever stunk at their jobs. But they rooked the government into completely covering those mistakes, so bully for them. Their collective muscling of world powers into bailing out nearly every moderately sized bank or financial institution in existence surely deserves a few extra dollars in the stocking.

Best of all is the fact that they aren't just getting piles of cash, but other fringe benefits as well. Company jets, company chauffeurs, company butlers, monocle fitting services, country club memberships, gold plating services, and most surprisingly professional money management. Really? Executives of large banks and financial companies need outside help from professionals to manage their money? The only perk that does make sense is free security, because now more than ever do they need Blackwater or some even more ruthless company protecting these billionaires home's from the peasants should they start an uprising. So take heart, in this the giving season, thanks to the shady machinations of the Bush Administration and every crooked financial institution, people who are terrible at their jobs are getting their full bonus packages. Merry Christmas!

Get 'em while she's hot

Just in time for the holidays comes the 2009 Sarah Palin wall calendar. Retailing for the low, low price of $15.95 and featuring "never before seen photos of Sarah, with Todd, Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig Palin," this item is sure to be a hit with the half-educated, moose-killin' political liability in your family.

Order now. Supplies, much like her capabilities, are limited.

Don't buy this - 12.2.08

Here comes one of the opening shots in what will inevitably become this blog's crusade against all of the dumb shit you'll be urged to buy over the next few weeks. While the fact that many of you will soon be more concerned with maintaining a minimal daily caloric intake and where to get Timmy's next shot of insulin, there are still plenty out there fortunate enough to possess disposable income. That makes you a prime target, regardless of demographic. Naturally, TheseBastards will endeavor to provide examples of shit you should not, under any circumstances, purchase. If this country's spending habits are any indication, we will be providing a valuable public service.

Our first item is a collection of six finger puppets commemorating public figures who chose, some even voluntarily, to shuffle off the mortal coil in 2008. The set, which retails for $90, includes Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Jesse Helms, Maharishi Maresh Yogi, Yves Saint Laurent, Charlton Heston, and because this is New York, Heath Ledger.

As for which luminaries made the cut, my guess is that Ledger was deemed more culturally relevant than Sir Edmund Hillary, Bobby Fischer, or hula hoop inventor Richard Knerr and that they couldn't pry Paul Neuman's likeness rights away from the salsa/salad dressing merchants.

The set is pictured below. Prepare facepalm.

h/t jsg via NewYorkology

'Tis the season

Sure, we're in a crippling recession and the economy is in a freefall, so how about buying a luxury sedan for Christmas? Your retirement is gone and you'll have to work until the day you die now, but leather seats and GPS navigation, nice huh? It's cheaper than a house and if you don't have many kids you can effectively live in it. There's no such thing as a car variable rate mortgage, what could possibly go wrong? Just ignore how incredibly tin eared this all sounds at a time like this and buy a fucking car already. It's Christmas. Don't forget the large bow. You can trade it for meat, burn it for warmth, or fashion it into a garment of some sort.