Shit that Pissed me off – 10/3
All this Hatred of the Common Core
The particular article I linked to calls it “Obama’s Common Core” even though the President had nothing to do with it. However, if you are conservative and don’t like something in government, you need to blame it on Obama.
Common core mathematics actually tries to teach kids how to do math the same way we already do it in our heads. As has been explained every time someone new complains about Common Core.
Suddenly, the whole thing has become a liberal vs. conservative thing. Look at how these liberals are messing up education with their weird math stuff!
Look at all these liberal numbers! Screw diversity! We are in a post-racial-numbers society!
Common core is a tool kids can use to learn math. Any good teacher will tell you that it is not the only tool and the more tools we give kids, the better the odds will be that they can learn.
Common core isn’t turning your kids into Democrats! Obama doesn’t want your kids to be bad at math.
He just wants them to commit voter fraud! They don’t teach that in Math class.
Shit that Pissed me off – 9/26
Worst marketing campaign ever.
Does anyone get the idea that pretending you are going to release nude pictures of someone is only slightly better than saying you are going to do it for real? Even If you follow your threat up with “ha-ha, we were just kidding! Those 4chan people are pretty awful, aren’t they?”
Well yeah. Some of them are.
You just defined yourself as more awful because you are pretending to be awful to show how awful you believe others to be. Which is just dumb.
Maybe not this dumb. But still pretty damned dumb.
In the meantime, you make Emma Watson, who had some really important things to say, feel vulnerable. Maybe you contacted her publicist to tell her that she shouldn’t worry and you didn’t really have nude pictures of Emma and even if you did, you weren’t going to post them because you were just sticking it to 4chan ha ha!
What did Rantic Marketing manage to do? They managed to make 4chan look really good. Talk about a complete failure.
PS: Do you really think that shutting down one bunch of assholes on the internet will get rid of assholes on the internet? How long have you been here????
Shit that Pissed Me Off – 8/29
Swimwear Company Massively Photoshops a Model’s Body and Gets Caught
I think we all get that standards of attractiveness/beauty are messed up in the fashion world. Here, you can see how much work went into taking someone who looked fine and creating a lie about her body.
What is most upsetting is the company’s apology. In essence they used the “everybody does it” argument. They took down the photoshopped picture but they didn’t put up the original picture to replace it.
OMG!! Look at her fail to sell swimwear because she’s not thin enough!!!!
Then they admitted that they made the changes to sell a product.
Well that’s honest, I guess. What they fail to recognize is the product they are selling when they do something like that.
They are no longer selling swimwear. They are selling body image. They are telling young women who look like Meghan Kausman that they aren’t thin enough to wear this product. Their apology indicates that they are completely OK with that.
I know (and I hope most of us do) that advertising is inherently dishonest. Fruit Loops have never been a healthy addition to a balanced breakfast. Pick up trucks don’t have great gas mileage. Ever.
Things are getting out of hand, though, when a size 8 is too fat to sell a swimsuit.
Shit that Pissed Me off – 7/25
Syrians are Destroying Sculptures Because Allah
Dear everyone in the world: Just because your particular strain of god does not approve of something is no reason to take that thing away from the rest of us.
When you destroy a sculpture that is thousands of years old, you can’t just make a new one.
This has existed for thousands of years and Allah has done nothing about it. Therefore we must!
Unfortunately, this sculpture ended up in one of those places where the prevailing belief system says that historical significance is not a good enough reason to keep something around if there is a face on it.
So thanks, religious extremists, for taking something away from the rest of the world because you believe it will lead to eternal damnation! You guys are the best!
Shit that Pissed me Off – 7/11
Candidate for Minnesota Legislature Exhibits His Complete Failure to Understand AIDS
I get that social conservatives don’t understand anything about homosexuality. How else can you justify someone claiming that sperm injected anally has an enzyme that burns…um….something and causes immune deficiency?
Clearly they don’t understand anything about enzymes either. Or sperm. Or anuses.
Apparently it only has this effect on male anuses. Or maybe this dude doesn’t believe there is such a thing as a woman who enjoys anal sex.
Quick, asshole, tell me what kind of sex this woman is into. You clearly know.
What continues to amaze me is how people like this guy continue to get annoyed when people like me call them homophobic.
Let me try to explain why I use the term “homophobe” to refer to you, sir. When you are afraid of something that homosexuals do because of bullshit reasons, you are a homophobe!
Shit that Pissed me Off – 6/27
Another Meme That Pissed Me Off
This one is about Global Warming:
Problem is, there was more sea ice in 2013 compared to 2012, true. But it was still far less than usual and it was, in fact, the sixth lowest amount of polar ice on record.
So look, if you, as someone with no scientific education whatsoever, are going to smugly post a meme about science, I would suggest you research the science first. The Google search to find out the truth of this meme took me two minutes.
You also need to learn a bit about trends.
You see, one data point is just that. One data point. If you see a graph that shows sea ice is gradually getting smaller and then see a data point that shows in one year the ice coverage went up slightly, THAT IS NOT A TREND!!!!!
Holy shit why isn’t that obvious? One data point is not a trend. Ever. There has never been a time in the history of data collection when one data point was a trend.
If you honestly want to argue with scientific consensus, use science. Don’t use a data point. Because that just makes you look stupid.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 6/6
Guy Threatens to Kill a Dad Who is Teaching his Daughter How to Ride a Bike
He didn’t just threaten to kill someone. He did it while holding a loaded shotgun.
He admitted he did so to police. He even said he probably should have fired.
At issue is not the question of whether or not people have the right to own guns. The issue is why people feel that casually producing a gun and pointing it at someone in the street is an acceptable act. This guy is a loon but his action is, I think, part of a greater movement that troubles me.
When people openly carry semi-automatic weapons into Target because they feel it is their right, we have a problem. This isn’t about the right to bear arms any longer. It is about the right to not have someone point a gun at you when you are shopping for produce.
I told you to get away from that lettuce!
I feel that if I like a different kind of Pop Tarts than you, I shouldn’t be concerned that we are going to need to have a showdown in frozen foods to settle the problem.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 5/29
The Earth Might be Struck by an Asteroid but it Won’t be This One
Thanks, CNN, for creating the most useless news source ever devised. They fired editors and other staff who might have vetted stories like this and instead they have a hoax masquerading as legitimate news on their site.
Either you are a news organization or not. Having a section of your website devoted to user-generated content is a pretty trendy thing to do but if you can’t be bothered to fact check what they post, you’d better be clear that people clicking through to this material should have their bullshit detector on high alert.
I understand you can get these things super cheap on E-Bay
Something everyone should remember, unless you can find a source for the article you linked to, there is a good chance what you are posting is either opinion or completely made up.
The only difference between this CNN article and Armageddon is I didn’t have to sit through an Aerosmith song to read this article.
Shit that Pissed Me Off – 4/25
Christian Comedian Asks A “Hilarious” Question That “Proves” It Is Crazy To Be An Atheist
This is pretty old and I just happened to click-through because I wanted to know if the question really proved I’m crazy.
Basically, his hilarious question is “why are atheists offended by ‘under god’ in the pledge of allegiance if they don’t believe in god?”
HA! You got me there, buddy! Forcing my kids to acknowledge a god they don’t believe in is totally OK. Having a problem with that is completely insane!!!
If they object to saying “Under God,” they are COMMUNISTS!
Let me ask you, though, how you would feel if we changed the word “God” to “Allah?” Or Shiva? Would that be OK with you? Or would you be upset because you were expected to say that our country was under a god you didn’t believe in?
The issue has nothing to do with the existence of god and everything to do with the idea that nobody’s god should be held higher than any other god in the eyes of the state.
So anyway, I don’t think the question proved I’m crazy. You can’t prove a negative, however, so it’s impossible to prove that I’m not crazy.
Geeks Without God Gets Cosmic
Last week Molly, Nick and I sat down to record an episode about “Cosmos” old and new. I’m almost sorry we didn’t wait another week because there was a lot to talk about in the most recent episode.
That was probably a risk we took by recording before the series concluded. I’ve been impressed with the way Tyson injects skepticism into every episode. He talks about how science finds answers rather than assuming that conventional wisdom is correct.
Like the classic “Cosmos,” which I also re-watched for this episode, the host is in love with science. I’m sure that some would say science is their religion but that isn’t it. They love the laws of the natural world and they love how each new discovery leads to something new. Tyson is a natural successor to Sagan.
So yeah, this episode is kind of a love fest for “Cosmos.” But what can I say? “Cosmos” deserves it!
I you love the show (or hate it), listen in!
Grail Diary 