Best fire that destroyed an 1600's-era Pirate ship replica ever

These are not action shots of the new Pirates of the Carribbean film, which we have been told is going to be titled Redundan-sea. They are pictures of a circa-1650's replica merchant ship from the Dutch East India Company totally engulfed in fire. It was docked in Den Helder, the Netherlands. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Courtesy of BBC's day in pictures:

Of course this chick in the Netherlands has dreds.
Damned pot-smokin' hippies...

RIP Prins Willim. Say hi to Saint Pete in pirate ship Heaven.

Blog Outsourcing 1.2

Jupiter has been attacked.
NASA has confirmed an Earth-sized hole in the gas giant's atmosphere Monday night. Experts are saying "something large" has struck Jupiter in the last few days, most likely a comet or a block of ice. We're just glad Jupiter is bearing the brunt of all these cosmo-shenanigans, because if that thing came our way we would be needing a ride off of this rock.

Ed Rendell sucks worse than ever.
PA Governor Ed Rendell's job approval rating dropped to the lowest level it's been, according to a statewide poll. Rendell seemed confused when presented with this information, citing that the city of Philadelphia seemed to be quite pleased with him. The closest reporter to the governor began citing Pennsylvania's other 66 or so counties, but the comments were not heard as the governor, donning a Scotty Hartnell wig, began "going at it" with the Philadelphia Phanatic. Without getting too avant-garde with the details, we'll just reveal that a statuette of Rocky and a shellacked cheesesteak from Pat's were used in ways which God had not intended them to be utilized.

It's still really not cool to dress up like a Nazi, even in Romania.
You'd think by now people would figure out that this is not very acceptable anywhere. I'm pretty sure if you dressed like a Nazi in New Guinea that you would be accosted for doing so. But apparently, Romanian Mayor Radu Mazare did not follow the recent example of one of Britain's finest and thew on some 3rd-Reich inspired garbardine. Tom Cruise's role in Valkyrie is what allegedly gave him the idea to don the outfit. Vomit.

If you douse yourself in a flammable liquid, then sequentially get tased, you're probably going to burst into flames.
Pretty self-explanatory. Some crazy Australian bastard doused himself with "petrol" then charged a cop, and apparently the cop didn't hear the Aussie cry "Don't tase me, mate!" If you're a liberal and you get upset about this, go light yourself on fire for the rest of us. Seriously.

Guantanamo is still open.
Apparently the economy, health care reform, heightened tension in Afghanistan and (probably) Michael Jackson's death have preoccupied the folks who were in charge of figuring out what to do with the detainees who are actually dangerous. The innocent ones who were just waterboarded until they confessed are probably pretty bummed, though. Cheney isn't.

Another one bites the dust

Why are so many famous people dying this summer? Next on the chopping block is legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite, 92. Like Robert MacNamara before him, at least Walt was old and wasn't surrounded by scandals involving the molestation of children, or shot/stabbed by a girlfriend. I don't think we can handle one more of those.

Our only question is, who's going to do the voice of the Owl at the Bohemian Club now?

Cronkite the owl, just before Nixon and Reagan made someone
burst into righteous flames with Scalia silently observing

RIP, Walter. Thank you for the many years of narrating the most tumultuous times our country had seen. May you give Saint Pete the news story of the ages up there, big guy.

This looks familiar...kinda...

Okay, let's compare histories here.

We have a relatively young nation, first populated by aborigine natives, then as a colony before its inhabitants revolted and fought for its independence.

Early on, the nation had a spiritual awakening of sorts. There of course was a backlash, followed by a massive influx of religious fervor and fundamentalism that never really left the nation's identity, no matter how behind-the-scenes it got.

Now, this is where the histories of the United States and Iran divide, somewhat. We are not ruled by a group of clerics led by an Ayatollah. We're not conspiracy theorists, so we're not going to even go there comparatively. But we both, at the peak of our societal, scientific and technological abundance, elected crazy, fundamentalist, creepy presidents in a massively divided election.

Mahmoud is to Georgie what Luke is to Owen Wilson.

Both were (and are) people who are preparing for the Second Coming of their respective deities, both made their way into the political spotlight through essentially empty religious and moral rhetoric, and both were presidents wanting to make a name for themselves; especially when taking hard lines against their respective enemies (Israel for Mahmoud, Iraq for Georgie). Both of their respective parties have been accused of serious voter suppression, Mahmoud's being the obvious extreme case.

Both won both of their terms in nail-biter elections, and, again, this is where our histories divide. Tehran has burst into righteous flames; all we did after Kerry lost was threaten to move to Canada. Actually, we were sparked into more protests in 2000 than 2004.

Where are we going with all of this? Well, people are getting bludgeoned by plainclothes militiamen in the street, the youth are absolutely going batshit insane on anything they can get their hands on and Iran in general is on the brink of civil war. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of real reflections and assessments that can be made about how to handle this from a foreign policy standpoint, and what are our friends across the aisle saying?

Mitt Romney, whose creepy religious beliefs and shady past huckster practices not only got in the way of getting nominated a presidential candidate but also made Sarah Palin a better choice for a vice presidential candidate, says it's proof that Obama's "Apology" tour throughout the world is not working.

Listen up, Mitt. For the first time ever, Iranians have disobeyed the protest ban. They know the election, like your career, is a sham. To make a statement like that, to say that this is proof that running around the world apologizing to nations (something that President Obama has not done) is not effective is so asinine, so shortsighted and so blatantly opposed to whatever is "left-wing" that it is actually no surprise that it came out of your mouth and is representative of a (thank goodness) quickly dying political belief. Fuck you.

Okay, I feel better.