Shit that Pissed Me Off – 1/17
Colorado Politician Creates a Bill Based on a Satirical Article
I’m going to briefly address the absurdity of a politician freaking out over a bullshit article suggesting that people are using food stamps to buy pot in Colorado. So convinced was she that this was actually happening that she wrote a law designed to ensure that it wouldn’t happen.
That’s idiotic.
But what the hell is with Fox News and other conservatives falling all over each other to freak out about legalized pot? Does this actually spell the decline and death of Western Civilization? I ask this as someone who has never smoked pot, doesn’t expect he ever will and doesn’t give a crap if someone else wants to.
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Legalized pot? How can we make it so easy for young people to get mind altering substances????
I thought Republicans are supposed to be the party of small government and yet they are the ones completely horrified at the idea of saving money in the war on drugs by cutting back on the number of fronts where we are fighting.
I’d think their problem would be more focused on the regulation of the pot industry. Maybe the pot dealers don’t have enough freedom and the assumption is they’d be more free with a deregulated but illegal industry? Or legalized pot is good as long as pot growers can do whatever the fuck they want?
It’s like they are smoking conservativism but they aren’t inhaling.
Shit that Pissed me Off 11/15
Self Rigteous Christians have a New Way to be Smug and cheap at the Same Time!
Apparently some enterprising producer of religious tracts has created one that looks just enough like a ten-dollar bill, you can leave it as a tip!
It looks like this if you leave it sticking out just right:
But it’s a lie! A lie meant to prey on the server’s greedy desire to make a living so they can pay their rent and maybe catch a godless movie once in a while.
Pull it out and you get this:
Flip it over and you get a sermon about how eternal salvation is better than money!
Bam!
You can jam god down your server’s throat and save a few bucks! Thanks Jesus!
Shit that Pissed me off – 10/25
Man Claims his Wife is an Unfit Mother Because She’s Had an Abortion
I don’t know what bugs me more – that this dude believes that an abortion proves someone is not a fit parent or the fact that his lawyers convinced a judge he was right.
Probably the judge. Especially considering the same judge who agreed to allow evidence of the woman’s abortion also refused to allow evidence of the husband’s infidelity.
Um…what?
You see, your honor, marriage is a contract. And in this contract, he got to bang whoever he wanted and she got to be OK with that!
If having an abortion means you are an unfit mother, doesn’t it logically follow that it was a really good idea to have gotten the abortion? Therefore, since you knew enough to have the abortion, you are actually a fit parent because you recognized your own capacity to care for a child.
But this fucked up logic aside, we should note that this asshole is a CEO of a major corporation and his lawyers are really expensive. That explains why they managed to convince a judge that evidence of an abortion should be introduced into divorce proceedings but not evidence of infidelity.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 9/6
DC Comics Won’t let Batwoman get Married
It seems odd that DC would object to the marriage of Batwoman on the grounds that she is getting married to a girl. Honestly, it is probably more likely that they don’t want Batwoman to get married because it limits the story line and we’d rather have superheroes be miserable. They can’t be miserable if they are happily married.
Still, when you have a high-profile openly lesbian character who can get married (seeing as she proposed to her girlfriend and everything), why wouldn’t you go ahead with it? Especially given popular opinion on such matters?
Is it likely that there is a large contingent of homophobes currently reading Batwoman? I mean, she’s also Jewish so Neo-Nazis clearly would want nothing to do with her.
DC is pretty quiet about the whole thing but it appears their decision to stop the wedding was part of the reason the current writing team has decided to leave the comic.
Apparently, lesbian kisses are fine. Just so long as they don’t lead to lesbian weddings.
Reading the article, I’m actually more concerned at the level of creative control DC has been exercising over the title. They don’t seem to trust their writers all that much.
I think they should have trusted their writers about letting Batwoman get married, though. Something tells me that issue would have sold a lot of copies.
Geeks Without God talks about a Wedge Issue!
This week’s episode of Geeks Without God was recorded in my hotel room at CONvergence 2013, which sounds dirty but really isn’t. My Twitter friend Finn Murphy was at the convention and she’s a co-host of the Skeprechaun podcast back in her native Ireland. Super cool! We asked her on our podcast and she agreed.
So what topic did she want to talk about? Abortion! A perfect topic for a comedy podcast, right?
Actually, it was a great topic. For all the issues we have with abortion laws in the United States, things are far worse in Ireland. It was a fascinating exploration of some really problematic legal choices.
Hey, I used the word choice. See what I did there?
Alphabetical Movie – The Return of the King
I have a framed poster for this film signed by Peter Jackson and it is hanging in my bathroom. There’s a picture of it on the left if you don’t believe me. Every time I poop, I see this poster.
I’m not saying that to brag. I mean, if I was trying to brag, I wouldn’t admit that I look at this poster every time I poop, would I?
OK, fine. I’m bragging just a little bit.
I’m not a big memorabilia collector. When it comes to autographs, I place far more value on a genuine interaction with another human being than I do on their signature. Still, it’s pretty damn cool that I got to see an advance premiere of Return of the King with Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson and Peter signed a poster for everyone in the room.
The story is a lot more interesting than the autograph, actually. I could’ve forged the autograph. It could have been stamped on by a printer.
Shit that Pissed me off – 7/19
Thing is, I didn’t think that there was a chance in hell that Zimmerman was going to be found guilty and honestly, I don’t think he should have spent the rest of his life in prison. I think he should have gone to prison but not for the rest of his life. Splitting hairs, maybe, but there you go.
While it seems probable that Trayvon Martin did attack Zimmerman, it also seems clear that Zimmerman would not have been in a position to be attacked if he’d followed directions and stayed in his car. He didn’t and a teenaged boy is dead.
In the end, nobody learned anything. Zimmerman feels like his actions have been vindicated. In fact, he feels like killing Martin was part of God’s plan. A belief that won’t be shaken given the verdict. Trayvon Martin can learn nothing ever again because he’s still dead.
Or – since it was all part of god’s plan – maybe he’s burning in hell and learning a lot. Too bad it won’t do him any good. Ha ha!
Is Zimmerman guilty of murder? Apparently not. I still believe that what he did was wrong. And it exposed something ugly about our country that a lot of us would rather ignore. Like the fact Zimmerman can go free while a black woman can spend 20 years in jail for firing two warning shots so her abusive husband would stay away from her.
Sadly enough, after the uproar about this verdict dies down, we’ll just go back to ignoring it.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 7/12
Death Valley Officials Have Asked Tourists to Stop Frying Eggs on Rocks and Pavement
OK, those National Park Rangers just don’t want to let tourists have any fun! I mean, why are we going to Death Valley National Park if not to engage in science experiments that…don’t work?
Turns out that you can’t just fry an egg on the pavement. It isn’t quite that hot. You could do it if you have a frying pan and the video that is inspiring all of this failed egg frying even mentions that it doesn’t work without one but facts are unimportant when you are trying to do science!
Check out the SCIENCE!
Cleaning up after yourself is also, apparently, unimportant. Better to just leave eggshells and unfried eggs all over the place because you were too stupid to follow directions.
The message here is clear: don’t tell people how to do cool science experiments because they will probably just fuck it up.
A Geeks Without God Double Date
We finally managed to get my wife scheduled for an episode of Geeks Without God! Pat joined us to talk about television, which is a subject that has been rather lightly covered on previous GWG podcasts. Sometimes our 30 minute format means that we only scratch the surface of a particular topic and this episode is a fine example of that problem. We briefly touched on a lot of different atheist characters and how they are depicted. It is a broad topic worthy of a lot more discussion.
I imagine we’ll have to ask Pat back.
Grail Diary 
Shit that Pissed me off – 11/1
Fox News Lies with Statistics
Normally I don’t bother writing about Fox news because they are a biased source and who really cares when they say stupid shit? The people who watch and believe Fox news will continue to watch and believe Fox news no matter how often the bias is shown.
But bad graphs really annoy me, you know?
Take this one:
HOLY FUCK! Look how many more people are on Welfare than have full time jobs! That’s a huge amount of….waitaminnit.
Actually, that’s only about 900,000 people but it looks like a whole lot more than that because of the scale they chose for their Y axis. When you look more closely, you will see there is actually no scale on their Y Axis. If we assume the bar on the right is equal to 101.7 million, the bar on the left, which is five times as big, ought to be equal to over 500 million. But it isn’t.
Because the axis doesn’t have a scale. They just picked a bigger bar and a littler bar and slapped numbers on them.
Their numbers, by the way, are also total bullshit. Even if they got the numbers right, though, this graph would be a travesty.
Being biased is one thing. Being biased and stupid is unacceptable.
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