Anyone who sat through the BCS National Championship this week got their fill of hearing about anything honey badger-related, given Brent Musburger’s insistence on dropping Tyrann Mathieu’s nickname on damn near every play. So it’s probably poor timing for Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers to tell reporters that they are using the honey badger as their inspiration or spirit animal or what have you in advance of the team’s playoff showdown with the Saints this weekend.

We’re not adverse to the little critter having crossover appeal. Far from it. Recall that KSK featured the honey badger in a KILL KILL KILL post a year and a half back. Our only suggestion is maybe go a little easy on the honey badger overkill, sports figures in search of cheap motivational ploys. Can’t hurt to give the Golden Eagle a chance at being an avatar of badassery. At least you won’t be piggybacking on a nickname that was widely mocked just days ago on a national stage.

Let’s do this, Rex. First order of business: BOUNTIES. A fresh whore to the man who supplies a Tebow part ripped clean from his body. Gotta settle for Jenn Sterger if you only draw blood.

[Bays for blood while beating knife and fork against kitchen table]

Oh, you shut up, Breer. We only like you because you serve as a handy counterexample to Peter King’s overpowering nutmeg-scented laziness. Don’t you start telling us things we don’t want to hear. “OMG HOW DO WE PREPARE FOR A QB WHO ONLY COMPLETES TWO PASSES A GAME?! PLEASE, JUST GIVE US ’07 BRADY INSTEAD. ANYTHING BUT THAT!”

We love animals here at KSK, which is why we like to watch them murder each other. Here’s a lovely 28-second video of a cow eating a chicken, its bites perfectly synchronized to the poor chick’s chirps of agony. I would like to deliver a semi-Kingishesque “Good for you” to that cow. Cows so rarely get to do some killing of their own. Usually, they get herded around and then led to a quick bloodletting in the abattoir. But this cow refuses to play by those rules. He’s the Winston Smith of beef.

(H/T to Anonymous)

Kill, we must, for the Breesus demands it of us.

Now, don’t you enjoy yourselves too much, New Orleans. Brian Williams is on the lookout for adult beverages.

During our first NFL offseason writing this blog, we came to understand the grueling boredom of writing about football when no football games were being played. In order to stay motivated, we regularly watch animal death porn in a segment we like to call KILL KILL KILL. Today: the African honey badger, also known as the Ratel.

Let’s get this out of the way right now: don’t read this without watching the video above first. Watch it now. Stop reading.

I said stop fucking reading and watch the video.

It’s okay, I’ll wait.

*whistles the theme to Disney’s animated Robin Hood*

We good? Okay. Let’s talk about the honey badger.

Holy shit! No, seriously: HOLY FUCKING SHIT. That’s a fucking pissed-off animal. It’s like a Skip Bayless column with fur and teeth and claws (and a spine). What kind of digging mammal CLIMBS A TREE TO FIGHT A COBRA?

But the last part of the video is by far and away the baddest-ass of non-stop badassery. I’ll let Badass of the Week describe it:

By far the most incredible aspect of the clip is when the Honey Badger takes on a super-deadly African Puff Adder.  Now, the Puff Adder is one of the most murder-tastic snakes on the entire continent.  One of these vipers possesses enough venom to kill 4 or 5 men, and they are so violent, toxic, and aggressive that they routinely account for more human fatalities than any other African snake.  But the Honey Badger doesn’t give a crap – he comes across a puff adder that is eating a rat, and his first instinct is to run up, grab the rat out of the snake’s mouth, carry it a few feet away, and then eat the rat right in front of the snake just to show the adder that he’s a bitch.  After eating the stolen meal, the Badger than decides, “Screw it, now I’m going to eat this damn snake too.”  This really takes being an asshole to another level, which is something I can appreciate.  The adder and the Ratel fight, and the Honey Badger kills the viper, but not before being bitten in the face and pumped full of enough venom to kill a creature three times its size.  The Badger succumbs to the poison, falls unconscious, but then – amazingly – somehow comes back to life and continues devouring the already-half-eaten snake.

So. Fucking. Hardcore. Bitch, you best get outta the way. Honey badger ain’t care.

While sharks get all the love on the internet, dolphins are often an afterthought. No more, friends. For if we sleep on these marine mammals any longer they will surely rise up and rule us with an iron flipper (Treehouse of Horror XI was a warning). Scoff if you must, but it’s happening faster than you think. Hell, they’re already mastering the iPad. By next week they very well could have those things playing Flash videos.

Once these creatures figure out how to leave the water for land we’re all doomed. And you know what? They’re getting pretty close.

Holy shit, that looks fun.

February. What a crappy month. It’s bitterly cold, it won’t stop snowing, and there isn’t a shred of goddamn football to be found anywhere. It’s enough to make me want to kill. Then kill again. Then kill for a third time. But that’s it. Any more than that would be overkill. So yes, it’s time once again to satiate our collective blood lust with a feature we like to call Kill Kill Kill.

This week we’re featuring the delicious tuna, and its many predators around the world. Above we have a seal dining in a shallow pool of bloody water on the Galapagos Islands. And really, who among us wouldn’t give it all up to trade places with that cute little guy?

There’s plenty more death after the jump, including sharks, whales, and the tuna’s deadliest enemy…

The seal was cute, but let’s let the shark show you how it’s done.

Next up is an age-old battle between fishermen and whales. To the winner goes the toro.

And now it’s time for tuna’s most feared predator, Japanese men!

Knife-a goes in, a-guts come out that’s what Osaka Seafood Concern is all about.

There’s good news and bad news today, folks.  Bad news first: the weekly mailbag won’t go up until later tonight.  I made the mistake of thinking I could tackle the mailbag and also help a friend edit a 12,000-word graduate dissertation last night.  The latter lasted until 3:30 a.m., so the former didn’t happen at all.  But the mailbag will be up tonight.  Scout’s honor.

But the good news!  The good news is that one of our more memorable emailers this summer, the gal with the giant truck and a wussy boyfriend with a Saturn, wrote in with an update of her life.  And we’re not ordinarily inclined to post follow-ups to your scenarios, but then most follow-ups don’t involve dead horses being torn apart in an explosion of maggots.  Read for yourself:

I wrote in awhile back with a story about my truck annoying my boyfriend.  So I don’t know if you even care about followups, but the truck has ended the relationship.

Two weeks ago we were helping a mutual friend clean up his new property.  He owns 5 acres which include a number of old farm buildings and an in-ground pool.  I was out using the truck to rip down the crap buildings and drag the remains over to the fire pit when it was discovered that there was a dead horse in the inground pool.  Yeah a dead fucking horse.  Some guys were pulling trash out of there and one of them pulled back a tarp to find the rotting remains of a horse, a big horse and plenty of maggots to go along with it.  Package deal.

Pity you didn’t have a shark in that pool.  They love dead horses.

After some consultation the brain trust decided that the best solution was to wrap the horse in a tarp and then drag it out with the truck.

So we’re pulling it out, two tow straps wrapped around the tarp-covered body when the horse/straps get hung up on some of the other crap in the pool.

“Tap the gas” they yelled, which I did, resulting in no movement.

“Roll back and get a running start” was the next suggestion from the brain trust.

I’d like to pause for a second here.  In her first email, Truck Girl spoke of driving to nearby Lake Huron, so she and her friends likely reside in either Canada or Michigan.  Just keep that in mind as you read on, wondering why they didn’t just remove the other junk in the pool.

“That’s not that best idea here…”
“No, no, it will work and don’t worry your tow hitch can take it!”
“I’m not worried about the tow hitch, but okay, you want it you got it.”

I back the truck up about 10 feet and then hit the gas and…

(horse leg flies off)

Yes, a leg flew off.  The entire horse was yanked forward, it and whatever junk the tarp dragged with it slamming up against the edge of the pool and the lip and wedging there.  The concrete wasn’t going to give, the 60,000lb tow straps we’re going to give, instead the rotting flesh of the horse gives.  One of the straps ripped right through the tarp and severed the leg and then whipped up, bringing the leg up with it.

My now ex-boyfriend was standing right here, watching the entire operation right until this leg whips out of the pool and slams into into him, a good part of the rotting flesh just exploding.  He had maggots all over him, just crawling around and rotting gobs of flesh coating him, along with a nice bruise from where the leg bones slammed into his thigh. He didn’t even have a hat on so he had maggots crawling around in his hair and –

No, we didn’t have a video camera on it, and despite the fact we did have three other legs we could try to recreate the event with, he wouldn’t do it.

My response to this wasn’t sympathetic enough for him.  I was laughing as I hosed him off and pointed out he was lucky the tow strap hadn’t hit him because then we’d be dragging him off in a tarp too.

Lady, I would marry you tomorrow if I weren’t so certain you’re a burly girl who wears a lot of flannel.

Pretty much everyone else was laughing at him as well and suggesting he take it like a man and I guess he felt I was supposed to be his shoulder to cry on.  He went inside to nurse the leg and I went back to work, whereas he expected me to come in and play nursemaid and fetch him icepacks.

After a few days of him sulking about it and avoiding me we finally had a fight and a break up.  After about a week of no communication at all I figure its over and I guess I should blame the truck.  It’s just too cute though, I can’t stay mad at it.

So in the end “dump him” was the correct answer as it turns out.  Thanks!

No no, thank you.

Two days left in July, people.  Then it’s August.  August is the preseason.  The preseason sucks but at least it’s something.  Your fantasy draft is coming up.  For the first time since the draft, there are flickers of life on the NFL fan’s EKG.

We can do this.  If we stick together, we can do this.  All we have to do is watch enough video of a shark eating a dead horse off the coast of Fiji enough times, and we’ll make it to the NFL season.  NOM NOM NOM.  That’s the sound of anticipation, friends.