Thoughtless for the Day

Last night I caught a much too short documentary about "10th Level Experiments". For those of you who've never considered "Super Villain" as a career option, "10th Level Experiments" are those in which normal people are gently nudged into doing incredibly cruel things by authority figures, peer pressure, or the hypnotic stare of Little Debbie. The most famous of these are the Milgram Obedience Experiment, the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the Happy Days 30th Anniversary Reunion

Towards the end of the documentary Dr. Philip Zimbardo, the Goldfinger behind the Stanford Prison Experiment, was speaking about the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and he said a very profound thing. Zimbardo, who had appeared as a defense witness in the trial of a one of the soldiers accused of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, pointed out that everyone get repeating that the torture and intimidation had been done by "a few bad apples who were spoiling the barrel" when, in actuality it was the barrel had been the problem all along. In other words: it was the Army's propensity to turn a blind eye to the goings on at Abu Ghraib that created the opportunity for misconduct.

This brings us to the massacre at Haditha.

Or, to be more precise, the Haditha Drinking Game. In order to play, first get yourself a few beers* and then turn on FOX News (saw that coming; didn't you?). Every time a talking sphincter says "a few bad apples" take a swig of beer. Every time some pontificating rectum reminds us that "all the facts aren't in yet" (True. Many of the slaughtered children could've been al Queada operatives wearing ingenious disguises) finish what beer you have left in the can. Should you happen to catch some asshole make a completely incorrect statement about the massacre, you most immediately consume three beers as quickly as possible.

This means that you would've been would've been completely shitfaced by the end of of an episode of The O'reilly Factor which aired last week during Falafel Boy claimed that World War II's Malmedy massacre had been committed by American soldiers. OK, anybody can make a mistake. But it takes a special kind of evil bastardosity to cover those mistakes up: yes, the good folks have once again altered O'Reilly's transcripts. This time, they've changed "Malmedy" to "Normandy".

Like I said, anybody can make a mistake. That's the great thing about the internet. If you make an incorrect statement, you can always go back and fix it later (providing that nobody has taken a screen shot of your fuck up). For example, I could post the following:

Bill O'Reilly's father died of AIDS contracted after a lifetime of riding the rails sucking hobos' cocks. The senior O'Reilly's dying words were "I believe that slobbering all over a smelly transient's greasy tool is the most pleasant thing a man can do."

...and then just delete it later if it turns out to be untrue.

* Thanks to my good buddy Doc who provided the Molson 6.0 Cold Shots used to create the game.