Political Irony

© Signe Wilkinson

I’m not sure if this is a joke, and I suspect it is, but a few sites (here, here, and here) are reporting that a (suspiciously unnamed) Russian luxury yacht company is offering pirate hunting cruises off the coast of Somalia.

Not only do they hope to get attacked by Pirates, they guarantee it (or half your money back). They deliberately cruise at a slow speed of five knots and play music to attract attention. Not only that, but you can rent an AK-47 for only $7.50 a day (plus $10 per 100 rounds of ammo).

The rumors may have been started by the Somali Cruises site, which even includes testimonials like the following:

Six attacks in 4 days was more than I expected. I bagged three pirates and my 12yr old son sank two rowboats with the minigun. PIRATES: 0 – PASSENGERS: 32! Well worth the trip. Just make sure your spotter speaks English.

I haven’t had this much fun since flying choppers in NAM . Don’t worry about getting shot by pirates as they never even got close to the ship with those weapons they use and their shitty aim.

I got three confirmed kills on my last trip. I’ll never hunt big game in Africa again.

“Oh. Marital infidelity. You are just another run-of-the-mill human being whose simple moralizing about the sanctity of marriage is only marred by the complexities of their own life. Well, just another politician with a conservative mind and a liberal penis.” – Jon Stewart

“Did you hear about Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina? He mysteriously disappeared last week and nobody knew where he was. Today, Sanford admitted to having an affair in Argentina. I’m like, great, now we’re outsourcing mistresses.” – Craig Ferguson

“Last night, we talked about the strange disappearance of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. The media reported he was hiking the Appalachian Trail and forgot to tell anyone, including his wife and sons, over Father’s Day weekend. We here reported that he had actually gone into the woods to chase a coyote and f*ck it. It turns out, we were both wrong. I apologize to you, sir, for implying that you were a coyote f*cker. Clearly, you went to Argentina to have dirty, dirty sex with a capybara, a giant rodent indigenous to the Argentine region.” – Jon Stewart

“Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina — this just keeps getting weirder. He was missing for five days. He finally showed up. He claimed that he was just hiking in the Appalachian Mountains. Then just today, he revealed that he was not hiking in the Appalachian Mountains, he was in Argentina the entire time — in Argentina, where he was having an extramarital affair. Wow! It all seems insane until you realize who his mistress is — Carmen Sandiego.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Anybody here from South Carolina? Their governor down there, Mark Sanford disappears. He’s gone for four days. The first time he said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Okay, I’m just dumb enough to believe that. Then he says, ‘No, no, no, forget the Appalachian Trail. I was in South America.’ Now, I’m not sure I’m with him. Today he said he woke up in Las Vegas, hung over with a tiger and a baby.” – David Letterman

“I have to be careful here. I haven’t had much luck with jokes about governors, so I have to be careful.” – David Letterman

“Today the governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, who’s the head of the Republican Governors Association, held a press conference to reveal he had an affair with a woman from Argentina. People were shocked because Republicans traditionally don’t do well with Hispanic women.” – Conan O’Brien

“Well, you know what they say, in the way that no man can resist the wiles of an exotic Argentine woman, those same women are equally tantalized by middle-aged, fiscally conservative Episcopalians.” – Stephen Colbert

“‘Come on, honey, let’s f*ck. You’re giving me blue state balls.'” – Jon Stewart

“But now it turns out that he was in Argentina with another woman. A married guy, got a family, he’s in Argentina with another woman. And here’s what I want to know — why can’t he be like our former governor and use a local escort service? What’s the problem?” – David Letterman

“The past couple of years there have been a whole bunch of scandals involving governors. You know things are bad when the most normal governor of the last decade was Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura.” – Craig Ferguson

[When Sanford’s wife didn’t appear at his press conference:] “Good for her I say! Good for you! Finally! I never understood why these women had to stand by their douchebag at the press conference. He’s like, ‘Oh I did this I did that then I took off her dress and then we went to Hooters’ … I think what the wives should do is just wear a t-shirt that says ‘I’m with stupid.'” – Craig Ferguson

“Needless to say, this not great news for the Republican party. So many prominent Republicans have been caught in these situations lately: Mark Sanford, Larry Craig, David Vitter, John Ensign from Nevada. And do you want to know why this is happening? The gays. They’ve destroyed the institution of marriage and now this is what we get” – Jimmy Kimmel

“You know about this Bernie Madoff, the weasel? The guy – I mean, up to a couple of weeks ago, he was the most hated man in America. And then I had my trouble with the governor of Alaska.” – David Letterman

“Well, they’re getting ready to sentence the guy and they’re talking about he could go away for quite a long time, and he’s now asking the judge for a reduced sentence. Did you know you could do that? I had no idea you could say, ‘Well, you know what? I was thinking more in terms of, you know, maybe a weekend now, and a weekend after the holidays.'” – David Letterman

“Yeah, Bernie is asking for a sentence of 12 years. Nice to see the guy hasn’t lost his sense of humor.” – David Letterman

“But in addition to the sentence, he is also banned from trading securities. And I thought, well, they nipped that in the bud. Way to go.” – David Letterman

“You guys remember Dick Cheney? Vice President for eight years? Listen to this – and by all means try to stay in your seats when you hear the news. Don’t be rushing out to bookstores. He’s written a memoir about his life. Not just a memoir, a thousand pages! It’s a great book. You can actually use it to stand on to reach a better book.” – David Letterman

“Former Vice President Dick Cheney is in the news. Cheney has signed a publishing deal to write his memoirs. I don’t want to spoil anything, but it ends with him killing Obi-Wan Kenobi.'” – Conan O’Brien

“This guy doesn’t say anything for eight years, and now he’s got a thousand-page book? Talk about torture. There’s your torture right there.” – David Letterman

“Anyway, the book is fantastic, and you better get to Barnes & Noble early for the book shooting.” – David Letterman

“You folks been following what’s going on in Iran? Listen to this. They’ve been going over the voting results, the presidential election, and the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, received more than 100% of the vote.” – David Letterman

“But the Iranian supreme leader says the election results are official. He said, ‘It’s over, the election results are official. And besides that, it costs too much to rig another election.'” – David Letterman

“Hey, two Columbia University students who major in statistics say the Iranian election was rigged because they found there were too many sevens and not enough fives in the vote total. Then the students admitted that they have too many free evenings and not enough girlfriends.” – Conan O’Brien

“And President Obama, this guy takes everything seriously. He’s very upset about what’s going on in Iran. As a matter of fact, today he announced that he’s going to stop smoking Camels.” – David Letterman

“The ‘Transformers’ sequel came out today. One of the ‘Transformers’ is a Chevrolet. Fortunately, it has a sidekick that transforms into a tow truck.” – Conan O’Brien

“Toyota has begun production on a Prius Hearse which they say will be better for the environment than the traditional gas-powered hearse. Experts say it’s the perfect way to tell everyone at your funeral procession, ‘I’m judging you from beyond the grave.'” – Conan O’Brien

“On July 14th, everybody, President Obama will throw out the first pitch at the All-Star game in St. Louis. That’s pretty cool. Yeah. But Joe Biden will be on hand to commit the first error.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Here’s a big story, ladies and gentlemen. Yesterday, there was an earthquake in Alaska. I’m kind of afraid to say anything.” – David Letterman

“Have you been following what’s going on in Iran? Oh, it’s crazy. They had the election. Now it looks like there was some monkey business going on. And now people are demonstrating in the streets. And the government has imposed a curfew, in Iran. I was thinking, whoa, I just hope this doesn’t ruin the swinging Iranian night life.” – David Letterman

“Ahmadinejad has declared himself the winner of the election and is planning his inauguration. And I said, ‘Well, why not? The country is really in a party mood. Let’s go. Let’s get those plans in order. Let’s have some fun.'” – David Letterman

“And the leader of Iran’s opposition party, Mousavi, the guy who apparently lost in the election, says he’s ready to become a martyr. Don’t kid yourselves. It’s tough being a martyr nowadays, really. I mean, with the economy and all the budget cuts. When you die now, because of the economy, you’re only going to be greeted by 35, maybe 40 virgins, tops.” – David Letterman

“The Navy has dispatched a destroyer named the U.S.S. John McCain to deal with the North Korean ship that may have illegal weapons. Well, actually, the Navy didn’t dispatch the John McCain, it just kind of wandered off on its own.” – Conan O’Brien

“The mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, announced he is not going to run for governor of California. Villaraigosa realized he had no chance of becoming governor of California because he was born in this country and you can understand every word he says.” – Conan O’Brien

“Do you know anything about this swindling weasel Bernie Madoff? He’s in jail now and they haven’t even sentenced the guy yet. But he’s in the cooler right now. And he is barred — I heard this today — barred from working in the securities industry. I’m thinking, well, great. How is the guy supposed to earn a living when he gets out of jail in 150 years?” – David Letterman

“And his attorney is looking for a shorter sentence. He wants 12 years. Bernie wants 12 years. Well, you know, if anybody deserves a break, it’s this guy, really.” – David Letterman

“Bernie could be going away for 150 years. Whoa, man, that’s a long time. I mean, when he gets out, the Republicans could be back in.” – David Letterman

“Anybody here from South Carolina? Well, their governor, their Governor Mark Sanford just disappears for four days. Literally, takes a hike. He’s out. And now, he’s back. And he says, ‘Well what’s the big deal? I was just on a vacation to clear my head.’ You see, we never had that head-clearing problem with Bush. You know what I mean?” – David Letterman

“This is a big story because his wife, the governor’s wife, had no idea where the guy was for four days. And today he gets a call from Bill Clinton saying, ‘Hey, who’s your travel agent? Who, where, how do I — how do I get in on this?'” – David Letterman

[from haarm.org]