60 Minutes' heartbreaking report on the economically decimated Wilmington, Ohio

Earlier today, I finally got around to watching the episode of 60 Minutes that aired last Sunday. The first report of the show, done by Scott Pelley, was on the town of Wilmington, Ohio, the epitome of Anytown, USA if there ever was one, with a population of about 12,000. Until recently, about a third of Wilmington's residents were employed by the local DHL shipping facility. I say "until recently" because DHL closed the plant a short time ago and moved its US operations overseas, sending thousands of people in one small town to the unemployment lines.

What follows will just break your heart...



I just about lost it near the end of the segment when Wilmington resident Mike O'Machearley, who recently lost his son in Iraq, said the following..."Call it ground zero, Wilmington is ground zero. We've got to get back to being America. Because right now we're losing sight of what my son died for. And what those other 16 soldiers died for. We're losing sight of it. We need to fight hard to get it back."

Yes we do Mike. We certainly do.

"Stains" the dog wants a cupcake, dammit!

This made me howl. No pun intended. Poor fella...

About that lil' ole football game this weekend

(via Deadspin)

Oh yeah, I almost forgot...this Sunday is the Super Bowl. Um, yeah, I might be watching that. And I might just be pulling for the Arizona Cardinals. I mean, really, how could I not? Regardless of the fact that my friend Will Leitch, he of the infamous cookie sheet incident, is one of the only lifelong Arizona Cardinals fans in the known universe, and arguably the most famous, which is quite a sad statement, the Cardinals are the underdog of all underdogs, one of the perennial doormats of the league currently on one of the more improbable playoff runs in the history of team sports, and are now facing off against one of the NFL's more storied franchises, the Pittsburgh Steelers. If all of this were a movie, I'd probably walk out of the theater, because I just wouldn't be able to accept it as being even remotely believable. It'd be just too fucking cheesy. Charles Pierce, a rather esteemed scribe writing for Slate, called the Cardinals run to the Super Bowl "fluky and disgraceful."

This, of course, is horseshit. It's real. It's very real and quite beautiful. And as a lifelong fan of another longtime NFL doormat, my beloved New Orleans Saints, I can't help myself from pulling for them. Not that I have anything against the Pittsburgh Steelers, mind you. Unlike other NFL powerhouses with multiple championships to their credit like the Cowboys and the Patriots, it's hard not to like the Pittsburgh Steelers, for whatever reason.

But there's one thing about the Super Bowl that I don't like...it always carries within it, at least for me anyway, an underlying sadness. I think the sadness comes from two things...first is my firm belief that my team will never get there, and secondly that the Super Bowl signifies the absolute end of football season. The months between the Super Bowl and the start of the next football season often seem like a lifetime. It sucks. Truly. But I think this Super Bowl and corresponding off-season will be different. Way different. The playoff run of the Arizona Cardinals infuses me with hope that maybe my own team can get there someday. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm pretty big on hope these days.

Rudy Giuliani should just shut the fuck up

I swear. I used to actually like this guy. And now just the sight of him makes me clench my fist. Earlier today, Judith let him out of his cage long enough to spew his unique brand of idiocy about Wall Street bonuses. From CNN...

When Giuliani ran for the GOP presidential nomination, pundits said his stances on issues like abortion rights separated him from self-proclaimed Reagan Republicans in the field. Not up for debate is Giuliani's alignment with the 40th president on "trickle-down economics," the theory that keeping the rich wealthy creates jobs and solvency for the lower classes.

"Those bonuses, if they are reversed, are going to cause unemployment in New York," the self-described fiscal conservative said. "I remember when I was mayor, one of the ways in which you determine New York City's budget, tax revenue is Wall Street bonuses.

"Wall Street has $1 billion, $2 billion in bonuses, the city had a deficit. Wall Street has $15 billion to $20 billion, New York City had a $2 billion, $3 billion surplus, and it's because that money gets spent. That money goes directly into the economy. First of all, it gets taxed as income. Secondly, it gets taxes again when somebody buys something with it."

Look, I'll concede that technically, this is all true. Wall Street guys infuse the city with cash through income taxes and retarded levels of consumer spending. And I've stated here previously how interesting it'll be to see how the end of the ridiculous Wall Street bonuses will change the tapestry of the city. Will it lead to a desperately needed re-infusion of color and character as the cost of living recedes and makes it easier for non-banker types to live here? Or will complete chaos break out as basic services provided by the local government are forced to scale back? Both perhaps? Whatever, the fact remains...this can't continue. New York City just has to fucking deal with it! It's either adapt or die, just like anything in life. The game has changed and New York has to change in order to survive. Period.

Giuliani's comments completely ignore that fact that the bonuses now being paid out are being subsidized by American tax dollars which have been infused into a system on the verge of bankruptcy brought about by grossly irresponsible financial decision-making, such as paying out BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF BONUSES TO EMPLOYEES OF COMPANIES THAT WERE BLEEDING CASH!

Fuck these people! For the longest time it's irked me to no end that these cheesedicks were pocketing millions each year without really contributing anything to society at large other than their own absurd consumer consumption. For doing little more than playing chess with other people's money, they've lived like kings while people like teachers and scientists struggle just to put hot meals on their table. Look, I'm a free market guy and have never advocated the government stepping in to try to redistribute that wealth, but the second they accepted federal dollars to stay afloat they lost all free market privileges in my mind. The party's over assholes, and you've got nobody but yourselves to blame! You got yourselves all cracked out and then burned your own house down when you passed out and left your crack pipe burning at the foot of the drapes. So eat a big bag of dicks and like it.

Giuliani's statements here also illuminate a larger part of the problem in the country...politicians acting in their own self-interest rather than the interest of the country at large. As the mayor of New York, Wall Street sucked his decrepit cock on a regular basis and funded his campaigns for mayor and president, so it stands to reason that he'd be the guy out front and center to defend this horseshit. But politicians like Giuliani are part of the problem, and it is my sincere hope that they'll be flushed down history's shitter when this is all said and done. I doubt it'll happen, but a boy can dream, can't he?

Picture of the day

A reader named Laura snapped this driving around New Orleans. Is $100 for two gold teeth a bargain? This is outside the area of my expertise...

John Grisham on The Charlie Rose Show

The other day I got a text message from a friend saying that he was in the Barnes and Noble in Union Square about to watch Charlie Rose interview John Grisham. At the time I was bummed because I was in the middle of something and just couldn't break away to run over there and catch it. Thankfully, the interview was taped and aired on Rose's show on Tuesday night. I found Grisham, as always, to be a extremely compelling and honest interview subject, especially when it came to talking about writing and the writing life, subjects that took up a great part of the interview, so I've decided to post it here...

Cats are occasionally stupid when it comes to mirrors mounted on walls

You just know what's coming here, but it doesn't make it any less funny...

Quote of the day II

Deep in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, in a little cinder-block office that used to be a motel room, Carole Stevens is surrounded by memorabilia from her former students. There's a publicity shot from Robin Thicke's last record, a clipping of Toi Cook playing in the Super Bowl. She's proud that so many of them showed up for a recent ceremony commemorating the school's much-beloved founder. And she smiles with real happiness when she remembers the teenage boy who always wore the Cushman Academy sweatshirt even though it was against the rules. When the principal walked by, she would make him go into her bathroom and hide. Then he'd turn it inside out and make his escape. He was always like that, skating right on the edge of trouble, a charmer and a scamp, always turning other people into his accomplices. His best friend was a kid named Shane Conrad, and they were always thick as thieves, plotting one mysterious adventure after another. He was popular with girls and brilliant in the classroom, but he always had another agenda. And he always used to say, "Miss Stevens, I'm going to be a famous director. I'm going to win the Academy Award." And then he grew up to become Paul Thomas Anderson, the acclaimed director of Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, and There Will Be Blood. It's wonderful to think about, almost a fairy tale.

But then Stevens stops, puzzled and even a little sad. Although Anderson is one of the most autobiographical filmmakers of his generation, drawing heavily on his childhood in the San Fernando Valley, most stories about him offer some variation on "very little is known about his early years" or "little is known about Paul's childhood." He has stopped talking to most of his friends from those years, and none of them can say whether he just moved on naturally or broke with his past for some secret reason.

"When he did Magnolia," Stevens says, "I sent word through someone who worked with him to tell Paul it would be great if he could come back for a visit. I'd love to see him. And the answer came: 'Paul doesn't go back.'"

She pauses for a moment. "Isn't that strange?"

-An excerpt from John H. Richardson's engrossing profile of Paul Thomas Anderson in the current issue of Esquire.

Wafa Sultan has a huge set on her

Last night a reader named Jennifer emailed this video of a someone, a woman no less, a woman named Wafa Sultan, who took to the airwaves of Al-Jazerrra in 2006 and essentially ripped the radical wings of the Islamic religion a new asshole. A couple of months later, she was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. In that article, they credited her with having "given new meaning to the word 'bad.'"

The interview below took place on Feb. 21, 2006, and within days Sultan, a Syrian born psychiatrist living in California, became a lightning rod of controversy in the Arab world. Some hailed her as an enlightened reformer, others branded her a heretic and an infidel and called for her death. Whatever anyone thinks of her, she has balls. Big fucking balls.

Below is the aforementioned talk show interview, which I'd sadly never seen prior to last night, that made Wafa Sultan a household name across the Middle East. The last two minutes of the thing almost made me want to stand and cheer at my computer, as she closed her arguments with the following dagger into the heart of radical Islam...

We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.

Anyway, enjoy...

Quote of the day

That is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful. And part of what we’re going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility. There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses. Now’s not that time. And that’s a message that I intend to send directly to them.

-Barack Obama

Picture of the day II

(via The Sugar Sheet)

The first thing that passed through my mind after seeing this image of a dead man's legs sticking out of a sheet of ice in a frozen elevator shaft in Detroit, is that the same thing could very easily happen in certain parts of New Orleans, if only it ever this cold down there.

Scattered thoughts 1/29/09

-A while back, must be about two years ago now, I remember seeing famous Floridian/novelist/crime reporter Carl Hiassen profiled on 60 Minutes. A good part of the focus of that interview was focused on Florida, the state where Hiassen lives and centers much of his writing around. The thing that I remember most about that Hiassen interview was his expounding greatly on why it is that Florida is such an axis of absurdity, a place he called "a paradise for scandals." The basis for his theory was twofold...one part being that the state's tropical aspects attracts dreamers, and usually where there are dreamers there are people who gravitate their way in order to take advantage of them. The second part of this theory isn't so much theory as it is fact...that Florida has some of the more ridiculous bankruptcy laws in the country, laws that provide great protection against seizure of property and assets in legal proceedings. Think back to the OJ Simpson murder trial in the 90s. As soon as he was acquitted, what did he do? He immediately moved to Florida, the one place where he'd be most protected from a civil suit by the Goldman family.

So, with all of that said, the first thing, or first person if you will, that I thought of a few days ago when I first heard about former Lehman Brothers honcho Dick Fuld selling his own 13 million dollar house to his wife for $100 was Carl Hiassen and the 60 Minutes interview I'd seen him profiled in. Of course, only in Florida could someone so flagrantly attempt to skirt justice for robbing people blind and possibly even get away with it. Let's not forget that it was in Florida that a dozen or so Arab men who could barely speak English were able walk into a flight training school and pay cash to learn everything but how to land a fucking plane and not raise any suspicion. One of their guys went to Minnesota and tried the same thing and was arrested in under 24 hours. Thanks a lot Florida. Thanks a fucking lot.

-I can't really explain why, because up until about 6 months or so ago I had no trouble with it, but lately I can't remember how to spell the word "exercise" for the life of me without the help of spell check. I just can't fucking spell it. It happened again just right there a few words back...I had to spell check it after the red squiggly line popped up underneath it. WTF?!

-You know, there's been a bunch of bitching about Obama closing down Guantanamo from the right-wingers. They say that the terrorists are going to get off easy now and will be set free to roam the streets of Americana and rape and murder everyone's children. But I've long thought that it'd be more torturous for these dudes if they were locked up in an American prison with some real hardened American street criminals than huddled with all of their like-minded buddies in an island off the coast of Cuba. I'd love to see one of these guys sent to, say, Angola State Penitentiary back home. I have a hunch that the locals wouldn't take too kindly to Muslim terrorist dudes and that the threat of being ass-raped nightly by a guy named Claw is more coercive than water-boarding when it comes to getting someone to spill secrets. Just a hunch.

-I've been getting lots of spam in my Gmail accounts that claims to be coming from Gmail/Google itself and it's sort of beginning to piss me off. The emails usually contain one of two types of messages...one being that I've won some sort of cash prize for merely existing, and the only being that something I'd sent has violated a profanity policy (actually kinda plausible). I'm not sure how they're doing it, but these emails are getting past Gmail's spam filter and into my inbox. Anyone else getting these? And can someone at Google please read this and fix it, please? Thanks.

-Speaking of email/gmail, you people, with the exception of a select few of you, have been lax in sending me tips of late. WTF?!?! If you run across something on the the net and find yourself thinking, "hmmm...I bet Cajun Boy would find this interesting," just send it. Please. Thank you in advance.

-I was never really a big fan of John Updike, in fact I've never even read any of his books, but I've been reading a bunch of the stuff that's been written about him since his death a few days ago and I might just have to read some more of his work solely based on the outpouring of love from people whose opinions I respect. I read his short story titled "A&P" last night and really enjoyed it.

-I've got a really bad cold right now. For a while I thought, cockily, that I'd make it through the winter without getting sick once, and, well, so much for that. Shit is really kicking my ass too. I tried to avoid taking anything for it but last night it got so bad trying to sleep with the coughing and stuffy nose and all that that I ran out to Duane Reade at 5am, bought a bottle of Nyquil, and downed about a quarter of it on the walk back to my apartment. I slept very soundly. But now I've got one of those Nyquil hangovers, you know, where you walk around in an almost zombie-like state as the residual effects of the drug linger in your system. In fact, I think I'm gonna go lay down again right now and take an old man nap. Yes, I'm definitely going to do that.

"I'm Good, I'm Gone" by Lykke Li performed live in the back of a cab

I love these Black Cab Sessions videos because they completely strip away all of the synthetic sound enhancement gadgets that so many performers use today. With that said, I think I fell in love with Lykke Li after seeing this one...

Picture of the day, or Meet Tim Treebow

Florida chainsaw artist Sam Knowles unveils his latest creation, a seven and a half foot wooden idol of Florida's epic tool of a quarterback and President of the Foreskins for Jesus club, the one and only Tim Tebow.


(via WithLeather)

And where else but Florida is a skill like "chainsaw artistry" a marketable skill?

Bill O'Reilly tells Stephen Colbert that he doesn't report rumors, then promptly reports a rumor

Art Buchwald once said, "You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it."

I couldn't help but think of this quote when I watched this clip from The Colbert Report. Colbert just sits back and lets O'Reilly's use his own words to bury him, which to me is satire at it's finest...

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

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Thanks for sending this over Shane!

Quote of the day II

Charles and Emma (Darwin) were married for 43 years. In his last years, Charles renewed a fascination with worms and wrote "The Formation of Vegetable Mold through the Action of Worms with Observations on Their Habits," a bestseller in its day. Emma, never much interested in science, found herself joining him in his obsession. They spent hours together watching the worms in the garden of Down House, side by side.

Although they never were able to see eye-to-eye on the question of religion and God, they were able to reach their hands across the gulf. In the end, each of them accepted and, it seems, truly understood what the other believed.

If it is a sign of intelligence to be able to hold two opposite thoughts or opinions in your head, then it is a mark of a successful marriage to be able to truly see the other person's point of view. This is also the mark of a successful society.

There is an apocryphal story that Darwin accepted God on his deathbed. The true story is this: When he suffered his last and fatal heart attack, Charles told Emma that he was "not the least afraid of death." And as he slipped away, he told her, "Remember what a good wife you have been to me." Emma held Charles in her arms as he died.

-Deborah Heiligman, the author of "Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith."

Some cats really enjoy having their butt scratched

This cat's "oh" face is fucking hilarious...

Quote of the day

In an interview with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC, (John) Thain used the specious, contemptible reasoning that other executives use to rationalize why they’re keeping their bonuses as profits are plunging.

“If you don’t pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise” and they’ll go elsewhere, he said.

Hello? They destroyed the franchise. Let’s call their bluff. Let’s see what a great job market it is for the geniuses of capitalism who lost $15 billion in three months and helped usher in socialism.

Bartiromo also asked Thain to explain, when jobs and salaries were being cut at his firm, how he could justify spending $1 million to renovate his office. As The Daily Beast and CNBC reported, big-ticket items included curtains for $28,000, a pair of chairs for $87,000, fabric for a “Roman Shade” for $11,000, Regency chairs for $24,000, six wall sconces for $2,700, a $13,000 chandelier in the private dining room and six dining chairs for $37,000, a “custom coffee table” for $16,000, an antique commode “on legs” for $35,000, and a $1,400 “parchment waste can.”

Does that mean you can only throw used parchment in it or is it made of parchment? It’s psychopathic to spend a million redoing your office when the folks outside it are losing jobs, homes, pensions and savings.

Thain should never rise above the level of stocking the money in A.T.M.’s again. Just think: This guy could well have been Treasury secretary if John McCain had won.

Bartiromo pressed: What was wrong with the office of his predecessor, Stanley O’Neal?

“Well — his office was very different — than — the — the general décor of — Merrill’s offices,” Thain replied. “It really would have been — very difficult — for — me to use it in the form that it was in.”

Did it have a desk and a phone?

How are these ruthless, careless ghouls who murdered the economy still walking around (not to mention that sociopathic sadist Bernie Madoff?) — and not as perps?

Bring on the shackles. Let the show trials begin.

-Maureen Dowd

Dowd wants them shackled. I kinda still want blood.

The Daily Show on John Thain and the fight over the Obama economic stimulus package

As is often the case, pitch perfect and quite funny...

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Financial crisis inspires vapid, gold-digging whores to birth whiny website about perils of vapid, gold-digging whoredom

(From left, Dawn Spinner Davis, Christine Cameron, Laney Crowell, Alexandra Pennington and Megan Petrus, members of Dating a Banker Anonymous.)

As a few of you may recall, in December of 2007 I created a minor ruckus when I posted a fake Craigslist ad posing as a young, recently single, Goldman banker with a fat bonus and a cock "like a baby's arm" looking for someone to lavish with money and gifts during the holidays in exchange for, well, a vagina to fuck. The responses flowed in by the hundreds over the next few days as the ad was circulated around the Internet and reported on in the "mainstream media." In the ad, I created a character who was about as big of a loathsome jackass as a loathsome jackass can be without becoming a complete cartoon character, yet the sheer mass of ladies seeking to curry favor with such a twatwaffle just to score a rich boyfriend was startling. This wasn't exactly a new revelation to me, as it's hard not to notice the power that money has in the way of attracting women living in the financial center of the world, but still, it was somewhat shocking. And I'd be lying if I were to sit here and tried to deny that it'd didn't effect my view of women in New York City, because it did. I became much more cynical and hardened of heart. Again, I'd be a liar if I said that it didn't. And I defy any guy to read through the emails that I received, many of them sent from corporate email addresses with full contact information available in their signatures (I mean, they didn't even think to reply anonymously!), and not be at least a little bit altered.

So it probably goes without saying that I felt overcome with a little twinge of glee earlier today when I read a piece in today's New York Times titled, It's the Economy, Girlfriend, about a group of despondent banker-loving broads, one of which I happen to know, who have started a website called "Dating a Banker Anonymous" as a sort of group therapy session to cry over the wretched turn their fabulous lives have taken since the financial markets have went into the shitter...

In addition to meeting once or twice weekly for brunch or drinks at a bar or restaurant, the group has a blog, billed as “free from the scrutiny of feminists,” that invites women to join “if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life.”

Theirs is not the typical 12-step program.

Step 1: Slip into a dress and heels. Step 2: Sip a cocktail and wait your turn to talk. Step 3: Pour your heart out. Repeat as needed.

About 30 women, generally in their mid- to late-20s, regularly post to the Web site or attend meetings.

If that's not enough to make your heart break, try this...

Once it was seen as a blessing in certain circles to have a wealthy, powerful partner who would leave you alone with the credit card while he was busy brokering deals. Now, many Wall Street wives, girlfriends and, increasingly, exes, are living the curse of cutbacks in nanny hours and reservations at Masa or Megu. And that credit card? Canceled.

Raoul Felder, the Manhattan divorce lawyer, said that cases involving financiers always stack up as the economy starts to slip, because layoffs and shrinking bonuses place stress on relationships — and, he said, because “there aren’t funds or time for mistresses any more.”

(One such mistress wrote on the blog that when she pouted about not having been taken on a trip lately, her married man explained that with money so tight, his wife had taken to checking up on his accounts.)

Out of curiosity, I took a look at the "DABA" blog to sort of revel in it's misery. One post titled "Good 'Ol Days" was particularly heart-warming...

Remember when together you and your (banker boyfriend) felt like you could conquer the world? It was great to be in New York, in love, and young (FYI non-New York readers, Young = under 40). There was nothing you two couldn’t do. No velvet rope that couldn’t be lifted, no secret handshake you weren’t privy to. Together the two of you were going to ascend the corporate ladder and then, after you had stashed away enough cash, you would turn your attention towards more philanthropic and artistic pursuits. Libraries and universities would bear your surname. You were going to be the Carnegies and Rockefellers of the new millennium…But those were the aspirations of BR. Dares’t we now dream of more than a brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn?

I hate to do this but I. Just. Can't. Help. Myself.....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Welcome to the real world assholes. Deal with it.

And for the perspective of a young girl living in Manhattan who finds herself quite revolted by vapid golddigging, check out this post on the new lady blog selfabsorbed.me.

Lisa Wong wins the talent competition at the 2009 Narcissus Pageant, hands down

I'm don't know anything about the Narcissus Pageant, but if it features talents like these regularly, book me a ticket to Hawaii, because I'm so there. This was truly amazing....I sat mesmerized through the entire thing. And don't skip ahead! Patience grasshopper!


(via Videogum)

Sarah Palin's first 2012 attack ad against the black negro Muslim terrorist Barack Allah Obama

She's already on the offensive...


(via Wonkette)

Picture of the day

(via KSK)

Pittsburgh Steelers kicker Jeff Reed, the man whose leg could determine the fate of this Sunday's Super Bowl, parties it up in Tampa with some nubile young Tampans. (Seriously Tampa...where do you find these little blond, big-breated broads who all look identical to each other...are they created in a lab or something?)

The "huge vagina" episode from Curb Your Enthusiasm

Yesterday I watched some old episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm just for the hell of it, and in doing so I was reminded of the hilarious "huge vagina vs. small penis" conversation that Larry and Jeff have in a hospital over the bed of a coma patient. I dug around on YouTube and found this compilation of the entire "huge vagina" storyline from that episode, and I still laugh every time I see it...

Quote of the day

Merrill Lynch lost $27 billion last year, and yet still managed to rush through $4 billion worth of year-end bonuses in the days before it was taken over by Bank of America.

Because both companies have been the beneficiaries of the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, news of these bonuses was met with predictable uproar: Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of New York threatened to investigate; any elected official with access to a microphone joined in a chorus of “shame on you”; and around every water cooler and on every cable channel, pundits offered up scathing commentaries of Wall Street greed.

Merrill Lynch is not the only irresponsible institution out there. Despite a year of record losses, despite all the taxpayer money being injected into our financial institutions, bonuses for 2008 were, in some cases, down less than 50 percent from those the previous year.

This is shocking, of course, but what’s been missed in these discussions is how completely the culture of executive compensation has permeated the financial industry. One need not even be an executive to receive a bonus far in excess of the yearly salary of people in most other professions.

Bonuses, which typically consist of some multiple of an employee’s base salary, are doled out to everyone from the 22-year-olds just out of college (these are called analysts) to managing directors (banker parlance for the most senior rank attainable).

Honestly, I’m not sure if I should be more offended as a taxpayer or as a shareholder of Merrill Lynch. I suppose there’s no difference nowadays, because we taxpayers are among the largest shareholders of many American financial institutions.

Regardless, financial institutions clearly relied on Uncle Sam’s largess when they agreed to authorize 2008 incentive compensation packages. Politicians will continue to wag their fingers at the greedy executives, but Washington’s actions enabled these bonuses to occur.

Without the United States government’s open wallet, after all, these teetering companies would have had to decide between offering healthy bonuses and complete insolvency.

Luckily for them — and most unhappily for us — it was a choice they never had to make.

-Dave Krasne

Geraldo hearts Blago

This skit from last night's Daily Show on the Blago press gang-bang tour made me laugh and scratch my head...

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NY Post gossip fossil Cindy Adams on bat-shit crazy, fake baby birthing church lady Sarah Palin: "She's planning to be president."

Heavens to Betsy. What to do about Sarah Palin? She's apparently determined to do everything in her power not to go away quietly into the cold, dark, Alaskan night for a life of white trash soap operas, moose chili cookin', and shady pregnancies. She really wants to be leader of the free world and will stop at nothing to achieve her maniacal plans for world domination, thus opening an all-you-can-eat red meat buffet for all of the blood-thirsty, "pathetic bloggers" she so professes to loathe to dine at on a regular basis. Here's what the barely readable, withered old cat-lady Cindy Adams reports in today's Post...

Ask not what Sarah Palin can do for your country, ask only what you can do for Sarah Palin. And the answer is, pay attention. Trust me, Alaska's governor is moving faster than those glaciers.

Traveling with one of her ladies-in-waiting and invited by a rich GOPnik, she'll be at Saturday's invite-only/political mandarins-only Alfalfa Club dinner in DC. This club began back aways to honor Gen. Robert E. Lee whom, you may recall, did a little something in the Civil War. Why it exists, I don't know. What it does, I don't know. I only know it's too exclusive to include someone like me and is so high-powered that sitting US presidents attend, which means Obama should show. Anyway, Sarah will be there, and that's meaningful because this lady may only leave the frozen tundra two days a month.

She's also launching her national political action committee. Registered in Virginia, patterned after Hillary's HillPac, Sarahpac.com is to support ideas and candidates who share the Palin vision that energy independence is this country's future.

Next month she addresses a Washington gathering of prominent conservatives. She's going ahead with a book. Her Facebook page has 410,000 friends. She wants to influence policy knowing the nation must turn to Alaska as its energy resource. She's planning to be president.

The temperature in Sarah's state was recently 78 below. Question is what will she wear to this Alfalfa dinner - Manolo mukluks?

Well, maybe this explains some of her baffling behavior of late. She's trying to keep a public profile after all! Part of me is deeply saddened by this because, as I've stated numerous times previously, I really wish she'd just go the fuck away and leave us all alone. But I have to admit, there's another side of me that just loves to launch rhetorical skuds in her direction. She's like a slow-moving hog fumbling around in the brush for a berry...how could any big game hunter not place her in his crosshairs? So frankly, honestly, I'm quite torn by this development.

But then there's the other side of all this, the sadder side...that for a large swath of this country's population, this woefully inadequate retard of a candidate is some sort of bright shining beacon of future hope. I mean, not only can she not speak in complete English sentences, half-assedly manage her own "traditional" family, or govern a shitty fucking town of 7000 straight out of a David Lynch film, this trashy-ass woman didn't even have the common decency to put the six figure city-slicker duds bought for her and her family by the RNC onto, you know, clothes-hangers like most normal, civilized, non-barbarian type folks would do. Instead she stuffed them all into a trash bag, A FUCKING TRASH BAG, and handed them over. What a piece of shit!

If there was ever an incident that served as a microcosm, and God knows there've been many to choose from, as to why Sarah Palin is unfit for leadership, it's that one right there.

"The History of the Internet"

Pretty interesting little film...

PETA's rejected Super Bowl commercial

I'm not really a fan of the PETA organization, but I've gotta admit, seeing this ad kinda made me think about going vegetarian for a split second...



Others are not that enamored with it.

Quote of the day III

You will recall that Bill Kristol was the droolingest of the drooling dorks who went over to Sarah Palin’s house for a crabcake orgy while he was cruising the frigid waters of Alaska with all of his National Review and Weekly Standard friends, who up until that point were all virgins. After this transcendent crab-fucking fest, Kristol decided that Sarah Palin had to be the vice president, and he badgered a feeble-minded old war veteran into nominating this succubus under the theory that the only thing Americans like more than a pretty lady is a pretty lady who snarls angrily about “big city values” in an election that will be decided by urban voters.

Sarah Palin, who might otherwise have settled into a long and uneventful career as a muklukked mother of eleven living on the tit of Alaska’s oil lobby, was unwittingly thrust into the national spotlight, where she failed repeatedly to formulate a single sentence with proper subject-verb-object agreement. She was an offense to intelligent two-legged mammals everywhere, particularly ones with breasts.

Thus! Bill Kristol has been wrong about everything, ever, but he was particularly wrong about Sarah Palin, who turned out not to be a shining light for the future of American conservatism but instead was the delusionally self-important and willfully ignorant little maggot who crawled out of American conservatism’s festering corpse, wearing a pair of red pumps and winking naughtily as she tap-danced on its bones.

-Wonkette's Sara K. Smith. Wonkette's been on fire of late with its evisceration of Bill Kristol.

In related news, Bill Kristol has challenged Matt Damon to a debate. For serious.

From the mailbag...

Below is part of an email I received last night from someone in Eastern Europe, Bulgaria to be precise...

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

This quote from Obama's inaugural address, (translated into Bulgarian) was quoted --a lot-- at a public protest Jan. 21 in Sofia against against proposed state security surveillance of electronic communication in Bulgaria (the parliament is considering a "Patriot Act" type law here and people, after living through Communist repression, are unhappy with it). It is fascinating and awesome that quotes from Obama's speech, roughly 30 hours after he made the speech, are translated and cited in Eastern Europe to make a case for maintaining civil liberties.

I just thought this was all kinds of neat. It's sort of nice to have our President be someone that the world looks up to once again, don't you think?

Citigroup to American Taxpayers: "We didn't use bailout money to buy $50,000,000 private jet...We had that shit staaaaashed!"

Despite my best efforts, I truly can't seem to wrap my brain around the cascading waves of dipshittery produced by this whole Citigroup private jet purchase thing. Here's what they said in response to the growing controversy in a statement released on Monday...

It is important to note that TARP funds will not be used for (private jet) purchases. Citi will continue to comply with all TARP requirements.

Oh, so what, did you guys have a separate bank account set up for the bailout money or something? And you guys wrote a check from the other account? Oh, okay, and that's supposed to make this all chicken nuggets and cherry pie, right? Oh, ok, I see.

WHAT. THE. FUCK?

Are you freaking kidding me?!?! What...I don't...I truly don't have any words for the audacity on display here. Let's make up a pretend "real world" scenario and see if it helps us to understand it and feel any better about it, shall we?

Let's say you've got a friend, or a brother or a sister or a cousin, someone that you're close to, who has a drug problem, a severe drug problem, so severe that it's caused he or she to lose their job. So he or she comes to you and asks to borrow say, oh, I don't know, a grand, to help them get back up on their feet while they kick the habit and rebuild their lives, because they've spent all of their money and they've got no job and the rent is now due. You, caring deeply for this person and worried what the ramifications will be for you and your immediate circle if you didn't pony up to help out, loan them the grand to pay rent, buy groceries and gas and all of that sort of stuff.

Now, fast forward to a week or so later, and you show up unannounced at the home of the person you loaned the money to, and the first thing you see upon walking through the door is a big mountain of cocaine on the coffee table. You confront your friend, cousin, brother, sister, whatever the person is to you, and basically ask, "what the fuck motherfucker?!" How would it make you feel if this was the response you got in return...

"Well, um, yeah, but I didn't use any of your money to buy that cocaine. I bought it with some money I'd been keeping under the mattress for a while!"

Would that make you feel any better? I think the fuck not. You'd feel like an idiot, a Goddamned sucker, and rightfully so, because that's exactly what you'd be. And you know what? That's exactly what we are in terms of bailing out these Wall Street pricks. I've fucking had it. Obviously. I almost want somebody's blood at this point. Seriously.

Now excuse me while I go do some deep breathing exercises or something to bring my heart rate back down to normal. Maybe I'll just punch some random guy wearing a suit and carrying a copy of Barrons under his arm. At least that'd make ME feel a little bit better. I think.

UPDATE: Wow. Our new magic negro Muslim terrorist President, Barack Allah Obama, has killed the purchase of the jet. Apparently he set Rahm Emanuel over to Citi's corporate offices and he held bitches out the window or something. From HuffPo...

ABC News has learned that Monday officials of the Obama administration called Citigroup about the company's new $50 million corporate jet and told execs to "fix it."

Citi officials then released a statement this morning stating "We have no intent to take delivery of any new aircraft."

Quote of the day II

So, the New York Times. The Times is a junk-rated company with an op-ed page read by certain brands of mean liberals. Rich teenagers are the first group. They get free hard-copy delivery at their boarding schools and are required to read the whole thing, every day, by their liberal professor, Allah. At first they only like the Bono column, but then they think, hey, Tom Friedman is a pretty cool dude with his rich people columns about “green” BlackBerrys he saw while jet-setting in Java and Fiji, and that Maureen Dowd sure is a stitch, and how cool is it that Nicholas Kristof gets to fly to Africa all the time.

In college, however, they start to hate Tom Friedman and throw pies at him. They think Kristof still does an able job but eh, so boring after a while.

As for Maureen Dowd, well, this is the key to everything. Those who go through college and *still* think that Maureen Dowd is funny or witty or worth reading at all, they become the die-hard Times opinion page readers for life. You may know some of these people. They hold mid-size dinner parties with white wine and bruschetta. All of their favorite albums are soundtracks. They complain non-stop about the quality of the produce at their grocery store. And so on.

As for the other group of mean liberals — the ones who discover in college that alliteration isn’t really the best vehicle for humor, and that it’s actually sort of offensive for this Maureen Dowd person to have 800 words in the Paper of Record twice-weekly — they just stop reading the Times op-ed page entirely, and then the other sections, one-by-one, until they’re only checking out NYTimes.com for ~3 minutes each week to study the latest revelations about John Yoo’s torture memos.

-Wonkette's Jim Newell in a post on the New York Times and Washington Post giving space on their op-ed pages to Bill Kristol.

Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" visits New Orleans

Finally. FINALLY!

Since it first aired last year, I've been occasionally scanning YouTube, Vimeo, the Travel Channel's website, fucking everywhere, looking for video of the episode of "No Reservations" that focused on New Orleans. Finally, last night, I found it. On YouTube. Jesus, Mary, and Moses, it's about fucking time.

It's split up into 5 parts. Here's part one of the five, which features one of my favorite New Orleans area writers, Chris Rose of the New Orleans Times Picayune, who takes Bourdain to his favorite po-boy joint for an "off the menu special." Enjoy...



And if you're interested in seeing more, the remaining parts of the episode are linked below, where Bourdain visits Antoine's, Cafe Reconcile, pops in on his old nemesis Emeril, and visits the recently profiled in the New York Times Donald Link of Herbsaint and Couchon Butcher.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

And below is the Amazon link to the page for Chris Rose's book, One Dead in the Attic. I recommend it highly.

Quote of the day

What does the contemporary self want? The camera has created a culture of celebrity; the computer is creating a culture of connectivity. As the two technologies converge — broadband tipping the Web from text to image, social-networking sites spreading the mesh of interconnection ever wider — the two cultures betray a common impulse. Celebrity and connectivity are both ways of becoming known. This is what the contemporary self wants. It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be visible. If not to the millions, on Survivor or Oprah, then to the hundreds, on Twitter or Facebook. This is the quality that validates us, this is how we become real to ourselves — by being seen by others. The great contemporary terror is anonymity. If Lionel Trilling was right, if the property that grounded the self, in Romanticism, was sincerity, and in modernism it was authenticity, then in postmodernism it is visibility.

So we live exclusively in relation to others, and what disappears from our lives is solitude. Technology is taking away our privacy and our concentration, but it is also taking away our ability to be alone. Though I shouldn't say taking away. We are doing this to ourselves; we are discarding these riches as fast as we can.

-William Deresiewicz

Ex-Merrill CEO John Thain on why he spent 1.2 million dollars to renovate his office: Black predecessor Stanley O'Neal's tastes were "very different"

If ever there was a living, breathing caricature of Wall Street executive douchebaggery, it would be John Thain, the man who spent over a million bucks renovating his office as his company was kicking employees into the shitter and hemorrhaging cash out of every orifice, not to mention pissing away the hard-earned money of it's clients and investors. Earlier today, Thain took to the airwaves on CNBC with The Money Honey to explain himself. Epic fail.


(via Eric Spiegelman)

New York Magazine's Jessica Pressler has been doing some great work on Thain. Here's a good recap of his evolving into the new villain of Wall Street.

The story of Kihachiro Onitsuka, founder of the Asics shoe company: "Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection"

This short film was infinitely interesting. Did you know that the idea for the grips on the soles of basketball shoes was inspired by a piece of octopus in an Oriental salad? Neither did I!


(via Ashley Simko)

Quote of the day III

I'm reluctant to pick on Billy Joel. He's been subject to withering contempt from hipster types for so long that it no longer seems worth the time. Still, the mystery persists: How can he be so bad and yet so popular for so long? He's still there. You can't defend yourself with anti-B.J. shields around your brain. He still takes up the space, takes up A&R advances that would otherwise support a score of unrecognized but genuinely talented artists, singers, and songwriters, with his loathsomely insipid simulacrum of rock.

Therefore, I decided to make a serious effort to identify the consistent qualities across Joel's "body of work" (it almost hurts to write that) that make it so meretricious, so fraudulent, so pitifully bad. And so, risking humiliation and embarrassment, I ventured to the Barnes & Noble music section and bought a four-disc set of B.J.'s "Greatest Hits," one of which was a full disc of his musings about art and music. I must admit that I also bought a copy of an album I already had—Return of the Grievous Angel, covers of Gram Parsons songs by the likes of the Cowboy Junkies and Gillian Welch, whose "Hickory Wind" is just ravishing—so the cashier might think the B.J. box was merely a gift, maybe for someone with no musical taste. Yes, reader. I couldn't bear the sneer, even for your benefit.

And I think I've done it! I think I've identified the qualities in B.J.'s work that distinguish his badness from other kinds of badness: It exhibits unearned contempt. Both a self-righteous contempt for others and the self-approbation and self-congratulation that is contempt's backside, so to speak. Most frequently a contempt for the supposed phoniness or inauthenticity of other people as opposed to the rock-solid authenticity of our B.J.

-Slate's Ron Rosenbaum in a hilarious evisceration of Billy Joel's music. As someone who never really "got" Billy Joel, I fucking loved this whole piece, but there's a small part of me that feels sorry for the guy.

I do not, however, harbor any sort of apologetic feelings about hating Bruce Springsteen's music. Just for the record.

Picture of the day

Hey y'all, look what Citigroup just bought with 50 million dollars of our money! A shiny new private jet for its super-smart and very important old white men to jet around in while conducting important business-type stuff that you're too impossibly stupid to understand, which is why our government gave thme 45 BILLION dollars in bailout money to light fat cigars and wipe their pasty asses with, right?



What's even better is the company's reaction to reporters who had the audacity to question the purchase. A spokesperson for the company essentially told reporters for the NY Post to go fuck themselves when he was questioned over the weekend...

"Why should I help you when what you write will be used to the detriment of our company?" replied Bill McNamee, head of CitiFlight Inc., the subsidiary that manages Citigroup's corporate fleet, when asked to comment about the new 7X.

"What relevance does it have but to hurt my company?"

Well, isn't that just fucking dandy?

Quote of the day II

In a lunchtime incident significant enough to warrant you pause, an employee at the fast food Mexican restaurant Chipotle has just dispensed to you a smaller serving of rice than the customer ahead of you.

Though it appears likely the less-generous helping of rice was a simple oversight on the part of the employee, and was in no way a personal slight against you, you reportedly cannot help but think that you deserve just as much rice in your burrito as any other paying customer.

Since noticing the rice disparity moments ago, you have considered a number of tactics to rectify the situation, including hesitating slightly before advancing to the beans and meat in order to convey your concern; staring intently at the other burrito in hopes of drawing attention to its incongruent size; and simply asking the Chipotle employee for a little more rice.

Witnesses at the scene are currently waiting for you to move down the line.

"Black beans or pinto?" the employee has just now asked you, seemingly unaware of the heaping amount of rice spilling forth from the tortilla only 18 inches to the left of yours. "Sir?"

Adding to your frustration are new reports that the customer behind you has received the same amount of rice as the customer ahead of you, thereby confirming your suspicion of wrongdoing. However, if an earlier incident at the coffee shop or yesterday's conversation with your landlord are any indication, you are expected to take this lying down, like you always do.

-The Onion, in a piece titled, Chipotle Employee Just Gave Guy In Front Of You More Rice

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich takes his crazy train to The Today Show, compares self to Nelson Mandela, Gandhi and Martin Luther King

Wow. There's crazy, and then there's crazy.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Guinness makes up for all of those annoying "Brilliant" commercials with the best and worst beer commercial ever

I'm not sure how I've gone since August of 2008 without ever seeing this, but it was well worth the wait...



Thanks for sending this over Sean.

Quote of the day

What women want is a real dilemma. Women want to be thrown up against a wall but not truly endangered. Women want a caveman and caring. If I had to pick an actor who embodies all the qualities, all the contradictions, it would be Denzel Washington. He communicates that kind of power and that he is a good man.

-Marta Meana, a "sexologist" quoted in a NY Times Sunday Magazine article on female sexuality titled, "What Do Women Want?"

For the love of God, can't someone in a position of authority in this country call bullshit on "Jeff Paul's Shortcuts to Internet Millions?!"

As someone who doesn't typically go to bed until the wee hours of the morning and who occasionally channel-surfs during this period, I've noticed a substantial proliferation in infomercials promising easily attainable wealth to viewers of late. I suppose this stands to reason. After all, this country is in the midst of a recession and the scoundrels who make their livings scamming other people have historically thrived during these sort of times, and they're definitely out in full force right now. Hell, I've even seen the impossibly-coiffed former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmie Johnson hawking seminars that claim to teach stock-trading secrets which promise to make money "no matter what the market is doing." But unquestionably the most egregious of all of these sort of ridiculous scams is "Jeff Paul's Secrets to Internet Millions."

(click on image to enlarge)


This guy's infomercials are everywhere. Perhaps you've seen them and found yourself staring in slack-jawed "surely people can't be that fucking stupid" befuddlement just as I have? There have even been times where I've seen them running on different channels simultaneously in the same market! Anyway, here's the setup in the Jeff Paul spots that have been running in this area...

The "show," which can be viewed on the homepage of Jeff Paul's website, is hosted by two cleavage-baring spokesmodels named Stacey Hayes and Carmen Palumbo and is set poolside at some sort of douchey resort in southern California. It's mentioned in the intro that knowledge of the Internet or how to merely work a computer is completely unnecessary, as Jeff Paul's shortcuts will turn your computer into a "money-making machine."

Throughout the program Hayes and Palumbo take turns conducting numerous awkward, poorly acted "interviews" with people who claim to be thriving financially using Jeff Paul's "secrets," some of them to the tune of "up to $100,000 per week." These are people of both sexes and multiple races who come from all walks of life and offer background stories that seem specifically tailored to strike a chord within every conceivable gullibility demographic known to modern man. They all testify to how little actual work they do in return for the lavish lives of extravagance Jeff Paul's secrets have granted them, complete with trips around the world on private jets, multiple homes, the finest cars and jewelry, etc., etc., etc. After all of the buildup is complete, the pitch is finally delivered...for $39.95 plus $15 in shipping and handling costs, you get ten free "money-making websites" that are already set up and generating revenue. There is no indication as to what these websites sell or do, but it's hammered home that there is no inventory to sustain and no customer service to worry about dealing with whatsoever. Nothing. So you can just sit out on the deck of your yacht with Petra, your new Russian model girlfriend, and the checks just keep rolling on in.

But wait, it gets better...each month that you stick with the program, Jeff Paul gives you ten more free websites so you'll have even more money coming in! A huge emphasis is placed on the fact that Jeff Paul personally guarantees his program's success "in writing," which immediately brought to mind that line from Tommy Boy about taking a shit in a box and marking it "guaranteed," but I suppose that this is an effective tool for soothing the fears of those leery of being scammed. Finally, as if to sweeten the pot to make it almost impossible to say no, it's noted that if you're not satisfied with the program, you'll get your money back AND you get to keep your ten "money-making websites."

Now, let me just state that even if I wasn't someone who held an intimate knowledge for how the web works and how revenue is generated from it, I'd like to think that I'd be smart enough to see this whole thing for what it is...complete and utter horseshit. I mean, you'd really have to be a fucking retard to fall for something like this, but alas, this is, as we're all too aware, a nation overrun with retards, so there's obviously a market for this sort of thing.

My question in all of this is simple and direct...HOW THE FUCK IS THIS SORT OF THING ALLOWED TO EXIST? Isn't there some branch of some agency buried deep inside the bloated belly of our beached whale of a federal government that's supposed to police this sort of thing? Again, the infomercials for this crackpot outfit are running everywhere! If government regulators couldn't smell a shitty rat in Bernie Madoff's 40 year Ponzi scheme, can't they at least do away with the crap that's directly in their faces and specifically designed to prey on the poorest of the poor within our society? And do the managers of the television stations that sell airtime to feature this horseshit have no moral accountability whatsoever?

And what about the two aspiring actresses or whatever they are who took the jobs to host the show? Did Stacey Hayes and Carmen Palumbo really think that attaching themselves to "Jeff Paul's Secrets to Internet Millions" would enhance their careers in some way? Ironically, one of the first things one notices upon visiting Ms. Hayes' bimbo-y Myspace page is the following quote..."I may work in the candy shop but I ain't no sucker!" Interestingly, despite sharing a wealth of personal information about herself and her multifaceted career, there is no mention of Jeff Paul on her Myspace page. Neither is there any mention of Jeff Paul on the resume of Ms. Palumbo that I found on her website. Funny, you'd think that maybe Jeff Paul would have shown them how to make "up to $100,000 per week" themselves so that they wouldn't have to continue trading their surgically-enhanced flesh for dirty dollars, but alas, he's just a prick or they're just both fucking stupid I guess. And as a side note, both of them reside in the Los Angeles area. Naturally.

Below is a short Jeff Paul commercial I found on YouTube from early 2008, so apparently he's been around for at least a year. How? I've no fucking idea. Your guess is as good as mine. But maybe Barack Obama's "change" efforts can rid the country of this sort of scourge?

Picture of the day

Speaking of idiot "fans," this was sent in by a reader named Paul standing in line for a burrito at a Chipotle somewhere out there in "real" America earlier today...



If any of you see one of these bumper stickers on sale somewhere, please pick one up for me. I must have one.

Drunk Florida sorority girl craps all over herself at the BCS National Championship game

This first came to my attention over a week ago and I have to admit to being a bit hesitant to post it despite its unfortunate hilarity. Why? Well, it seems as though anytime I do such a thing, like when I posted that video of a drunk Florida sorority girl getting knocked out by a stadium bathroom stall door, I always (predictably) seem to get accused of secretly hating women or something, and maybe I've become a bit sensitive to that, despite such accusations being completely nonsensical.

But since this weekend has morphed into idiot sports fan weekend here at CBITC, I've decided to let cautionary editorial discretion not get the best of me, so fuck it, I'm posting it. Here's some background of the, ugh, incident, compliments of raging Florida fanboy Orson Swindle at Every Day Should Be Saturday...

My buddies and I were tailgating when one of us noticed this girl popping a squat and peeing — or so we thought. The worst thing about it? She was 15 feet from two toilets.

We laughed at her, and when she was finished, she came over and tried talking to us. This did not go as she planned. Meanwhile, we have no idea she’s shit herself. So she’s standing there slurring some story about her sorority sisters and being lost, when one of my buddies starts giggling like a girl and motions for me to look at the streak on her leg. She shat herself.

We all pulled away from her Demps-like. Even Rainey would’ve had none of this girl.

(Ed. note...Meaning they pulled away from her at 4.2 speed. Impressive.)

Then we looked at the spot and, sure enough, there were shits for about five feet — look at the picture, there are turds in the grass to her left. So she started shitting while she was walking! If she hadn’t gotten it all over her leg, I would remark that this is a skill I’ve not mastered.

But as she made a mess of it, she deserves credit only for the attempt.

So without further build-up, here's the photo of the drunk-pooping Florida sorority girl, with her face blurred out of course. Now, the photo below is pretty benign in its standard "blog size," but it becomes a little more graphic if you choose to click on it, thus enlarging it on another page.

Consider yourself warned...



And I'm sorry, call me immature if you want, but stories of people shitting on themselves in public make me laugh. And stories of drunk Florida Gator fans shitting on themselves in public are even funnier.

Giants fans are quite pathetic, especially hysterically crying Giants fans

If this guy were a Saints fan, he'd have killed himself by now...


(via Kissing Suzy Kolber)

Yes, they are really that insufferable.

Um, what's wrong with this picture?

Further proof that LSU has morphed into a complete "football school," the fans attending our home basketball games don't even seem to know the new head coach's name. Hey geniuses...It's Trent JOHNSON!



You'd think if they were going through the trouble of making a poster in an effort to attract the attention of the ESPN cameras during the LSU/Xavier game, they'd use the magic Google machine to check the coach's name or something. Or maybe Trent Richardson is the name of the team trainer of something and his cousins are at the game? I would maybe hope that that's the case.

UPDATE: Apparently, there was some high school kid in attendance at the game last night who runs very fast with a football in his hands whose name is Trent Richardson. Thanks to those who took the time to inform my "ignorant," "stupid," and "embarrassing" self of this fact in the comments. From here on out, I promise to devote more of my useless time as a not "real" American who has betrayed his Louisiana roots for big city life by keeping closer tabs on the whereabouts of teenage athletes.

And just for the record, I'm not the only one guilty of such an egregious crime.

As you were.

"A Thousand Words"

Better than anything on the tube today. Whoever scored the music in this is great...


(via Will Leitch)

Photo of the day

This photo went with a story in today's New York Times, yes that New York Times, about wacky European road signs.

Quote of the day

I am a completely horizontal author. I can't think unless I'm lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I've got to be puffing and sipping. As the afternoon wears on, I shift from coffee to mint tea to sherry to martinis. No, I don't use a typewriter. Not in the beginning. I write my first version in longhand (pencil). Then I do a complete revision, also in longhand. Essentially I think of myself as a stylist, and stylists can become notoriously obsessed with the placing of a comma, the weight of a semicolon. Obsessions of this sort, and the time I take over them, irritate me beyond endurance.

-Truman Capote

Former Louisiana Governor/current federal inmate Edwin Edwards reads the Top Ten movies of 1988

I don't what it is, maybe it's his thick Cajun accent, or the irony inherent in the fact that one of the films on the list he reads is Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, but stumbling across this clip of Edwin Edwards doing a guest spot on a local television show in 1988 made me break out into hysterics. You might have to be from Louisiana to get the joke, but whatever...

Dave Grohl of The Foo Fighters performing Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" on Craig Kilborn's show

Yesterday I posted a video of Dave Grohl performing Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" on Craig Kilborn's old show on CBS and a commenter mentioned this video of him covering "Stairway to Heaven." It's funny as hell because it seems pretty impromptu and he forgets the lyrics in a couple of spots, but comes back to nail it pretty well in the "kick-it-up" climax of the song. Enjoy...



Yes, CBITC is now the unofficial Dave Grohl fanboy blog.

The new Cadbury Eyebrow commercial may actually be more hilarious than the Cadbury Gorilla commercial, if that's even possible

This made me almost jump out of my chair...



And if you've never seen The Cadbury Gorilla spot, you can view it here.

"The biggest clusterfuck in the history of clusterfucks"

Over the course of the last couple of days I've been confronted with a few "I can't believe you were offered tickets to the inaugural and didn't go" greetings from friends and assorted Internet people. My reasoning for not attending, again, was three-pronged...a) I would have had to travel to DC and back in one day and that would have made for a travel nightmare, b) I DON'T LIKE BEING EXPOSED TO DONG-SHRINKING COLD WEATHER, especially for hours at a time, and the weather in the northeast on that day was most definitely dong-shrinking, and c) the whole thing was being run by the United States Federal Government, so it was assured to be a clusterfuck! And I'm to the point in my life where I do everything I can to avoid clusterfucks. The reason I didn't go to the inaugural are the same reasons I've never been to Times Square on New Year's Eve. Period.

I will, however, make a point in attending any event in which one of my friends gets smashed in the face with a cookie sheet, but that's neither here nor there.

So, anyway, I have to admit to taking a slight bit of satisfaction in knowing that EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. I know that went has conveyed to me that their time at the inauguration was a complete clusterfuckish experience. I've also come across the stories of people I don't know who have conveyed the exact same feeling about their experience, that the whole thing was indeed an exercise in clusterfuckery.

And then I saw this report on the inauguration from The Daily Show's John Oliver the other night, an event he termed "the biggest clusterfuck in the history of clusterfucks," and I took an even greater sense of satisfaction in knowing that I was right. It's pretty damn funny as well, which is why I'm posting it here.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Inauguration Day Unity

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Now, with all of that said, I'm not trying to gloat here people, don't misinterpret me, but I have to admit to being somewhat relieved that the thing did turn out as I predicted it would, otherwise I'd really regret not going. But to those of you who did, I hope that it was worth it in your minds and hearts, because outside of that, nothing else really matters.