Shit that Pissed me off – 9/20
Indian Woman Becomes Miss America, Americans Become Racist
I don’t actually care about the Miss America pageant at all. I have to make that clear. Couldn’t care less who wins. I never notice when it is happening or look forward to it in any way.
But hey, this year’s winner is an American woman of Asian Indian descent. I point out that she is an American because a lot of folks on Twitter seem to think that Miss America should be an American and by American they mean “white.”
Some of them thought she was an Arab. Because they are fucking morons.
I’m not a Muslim? But I thought all women who looked like me were Muslims!
Some of them even thought that it was bad form to give the award to someone who was neither an Arab or a Muslim just a few days after 9/11. I guess they were upset because only white Christians died on 9/11.
Shit that Pissed Me Off This Week – 6/14
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is Off the Rails
Kennedy has long been an Anti-Vaccine crusader and I dislike the anti-vaxx movement with only slightly less zeal than the creationist movement.
I have two children on the autism spectrum. They were both vaccinated and I know two things:
1) Vaccinating my kids did not make them autistic
2) Even if it did (and it didn’t), I would rather have autistic children than children with Smallpox or Polio
You think this guy was happy he wasn’t vaccinated?
Kennedy and others like him have been pushing misinformation and, as this article proves, they are willing to name names. They people they name, however, never actually said what they are claimed to have said. Nor do the studies they cite actually say what they claim those studies say.
So all he is doing is engaging in character of assassination.
I get that big pharma is theoretically evil but here’s the thing – vaccines are not. Yes, pharmaceutical companies make money off vaccines. I guess that’s a price I’m willing to pay to ensure that my kids don’t get the measles.
Claiming vaccines cause autism is to make the claim that you understand a shitload more about autism than all the folks out there researching the condition.
And in the meantime, making people afraid of vaccines is contributing to the rise of diseases we thought had been eradicated. That’s what I call a lose-lose.
Shit that Pissed Me off – 4/26
Arkansas State Senator Nate Bell is a Douche
He decided to take a tense situation and make it all about gunz. As Bostonians were awaiting the results of a manhunt for a killer, he was wondering how many of them wished they had a semi-automatic weapon.
Ha ha!
I’m going to attempt some mind reading to suggest that the number he was looking for was damn near zero.
There were armed police everywhere. A bunch of civilians with machine guns weren’t going to make the situation any safer. In fact, the odds of an innocent bystander getting shot would have skyrocketed.
Maybe this was the gun they were wishing for.
Nate Bell loves his gunz. He loves them so much that he makes a fallacious assumption that people who don’t love gunz will automatically change their mind in a situation where a gun might have come in handy (although there is no proof that is the case.) He’s got that one wrong.
As with most things, the people on both sides of the issue have equally strong justifications for their choices and one fugitive is unlikely to change someone’s mind about how many guns they would like to have in their home.
Shit that Pissed me Off this Week – 3/29
Woman Complains about Sexist Behavior at a Convention and she gets Harassed and Fired
I just don’t get it, really. A couple of guys were making sexist jokes while sitting in the audience for a panel about women coders and an audience member thought they were in the wrong. Yeah. I agree.
She asked the conference organizers to tell them to stop. They were asked to stop and they did.
Then all hell breaks loose because one of the guys loses his job.
Look, I don’t think the guy should have lost his job for that but I wonder if it was really just for that? Isn’t it possible he was shitty at his job already? Even he was “just” fired for sexual harassment (oh the humanity), the logical response should not be for other people on the internet to attack the woman’s place of work and get her fired.
Hey guys! Let’s use our computers to teach this uppity bitch that she shouldn’t complain when we call her an uppity bitch!
That’s the sort thing dicks do.
Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of dicks on the internet.
Update: Clarifications in the comments below. And in this article. She did send a tweet to the conference organizers, not a public one (at least according to what I read). I question any firings happening and the harrassment is completely unacceptable.
Mea culpa on this one, though. I usually research the articles better before I comment on them. I didn’t look into this one deeply enough. If I had, I would still have commented on it but been more clear about all of the details.
The results of this situation – both firings – look to be classic overreactions by both companies and that still pisses me off.
Shit that Pissed me off This Week – 1/4
Woman Accused of Scamming People in the Wake of the Newton Massacre
There’s no better way to show compassion for your fellow human beings than by trying to make money off of their misfortune. In this case, a woman allegedly convinced people to donate money for the funeral of one of the Newton victims but kept the money for herself.
She, of course, denies that she had anything to do with the scam – even though it was run from her own personal gmail account.
Now, let’s be fair. Her account might have been hacked.
Maybe she got this message on her computer!
That still means some asshole was using her account to profit off of the murder of a bunch of kids. Who did it isn’t really the point, is it? Someone decided that they needed money and figured that they’d make it the easy way.
Let’s hope they never find themselves in need of real charity.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week, 12/7
Bill O’Reilly says Anyone who Thinks Christianity is a Religion is “Stone-Cold Dumb”
In his latest tirade against the “war on Christmas” he insists that the biggest problem is all of us idiots who think that Christianity is a religion instead of a philosophy. We are, in fact, “so stupid, it’s painful.”
Well I’m sorry to cause Mr. O’Reilly so much pain but I’m going to have to ask him in what way Christianity does not meet the following definition:
The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods.
Now perhaps Mr. O’Reilly thinks that Christianity is also a philosophy. That is a different conversation but it isn’t what he said.
The problem, in fact, is not what he said but the fact that when he says it, thousands of people adopt his position as truth. Instead of saying to themselves “holy shit – that is the most fucked up description of Christianity I’ve ever heard,” which they should because most of them are Christians, they are instead saying “he’s right! I don’t accept the divinity of Jesus Christ as part of a religion! It’s my philosophy!!!!”
However, let them believe that because if they want to argue that Christianity is a philosophy, then their churches need to start paying taxes because they are no longer exempt. And they can’t get all pissed off about people saying “Happy Holidays” either because we aren’t attacking their religion any longer. Since they don’t have one. They also can’t demand freedom of religion either. The first amendment doesn’t provide freedom of philosophy.
Let’s all celebrate Rene Descartes day! We’ll all spend the whole day thinking and therefore being! Thanks for opening the door to making it a Federal holiday, Bill!
You keep going with this one Bill. I hope you convince everyone who is watching your show that you are right.
Note: He backed off that claim a little bit when a Catholic Priest corrected him. Damn! I really wanted him to re-define Christianity as a philosophy.
Shit that Pissed me off This Week – 11/9
Pakistani Couple Killed Their Daughter Because She Looked at a Boy
A 15-year-old girl looked at a boy on a motorcycle twice. Her parents feared she was going to turn out like her older sister who had already “disgraced” the family. She promised she wouldn’t do it again but it was too late because her mother had already thrown acid on her.
The good news is that her parents figure it was her destiny to die like that. It wasn’t really their fault, you see. They were just tools of destiny.
It was also apparently her destiny to die because her parents waited almost 12 hours to take her to the hospital after they threw acid on her face. They would have taken her right away, you see, but it was her destiny to wait.
Let’s be clear: religious fanaticism didn’t kill that girl.
But it sure didn’t help keep her alive, either.
Shit that Pissed me Off this Week – 8/31
Apologies to those hoping for lots of stuff from the Republican National Convention. I just can’t get to riled up about a bunch of rah-rah speeches meant to serve as a sort of infomercial for the Republican product. I get as annoyed by the Republican convention as I get excited by the Democratic convention.
Not much at all.
Boy, that Paul Ryan is a lying douchebag, though.
Mitt Romney Pandered to the Birthers?
I have to hand it to Romney. Up to this point in the campaign, I haven’t given a shit about what he’s had to say because he’s been so unerringly dull. He finally said something (sort of) interesting when he pointed out that nobody has asked to see his birth certificate.
You know why that is, right Mitt? It’s because you are white.
Hey Mitt – if you could only ask to see one of these two guys’ birth certificates, which one would you ask?
I think we should start asking to see Mitt’s birth certificate, don’t you? Hey Mitt, where the fuck is your long form birth certificate? How do we know you aren’t Canadian? Or from some Nordic country? WE DEMAND TO KNOW!!!!
Shit that pissed me off this week – 8/24
Todd Akin says “Legitimate Rape” Rarely Results in Pregnancy
Yeah, yeah, a lot of people are talking about this one so it may seem pointless that I even bring him up so late in the week. Ignoring his messed up statistics and knowledge of biology for a moment, what really has me upset is the concept of “legitimate rape.”
Now by this I assume he meant to insinuate that many women who claim to have been raped are lying. That is a pretty common tactic. Point out that some cases of rape are not legitimate (which is true) and you cast doubt on all claims of rape.
Because we’re stupid, we think that if one woman lies about rape, any claim of rape must be viewed as suspect. That’s what Akin taps into here. He is trying to diffuse the question of abortion in the case of rape by suggesting that women are lying about rape in order to get an abortion.
He may have issued an apology but the language was no accident. He knew exactly what he was saying and to whom he was speaking.
Note that Akin has brought all sorts of other stupid people out of the woodwork who have interesting thoughts about pregnancy and “legitimate” rape.
Shit that Pissed me off This Week 8/3
Climate Change Denier Releases Study that, in Effect, says “I was Wrong”
I know, why would this piss me (someone who has long accepted the Global Climate Change is happening and is largely caused by humans) off?
Because it won’t change anything. No amount of data proving that climate change is happening will convince those who believe otherwise.
Not even when that data actually convinces a skeptical scientist. Unless 100% of scientists agree on climate change, the deniers will always have someone on their side. No matter that 97% (or more) of climatologists – the people whose field of expertise most closely focuses on climate change science – believe climate change is real and caused by humans. If one climatologist says differently, we still have a “controversy.”
I don’t blog much about climate change science because I know a lot of deniers and they are smart people who, I believe, are completely wrong on this one topic. My fear is the longer we argue, the more damage we are doing. That is a fear shared by many scientists who know a lot more about this shit than me.
Grail Diary 