Shit that Pissed me off this Week – 12/13
Michigan Passes a bill Forcing Women to Purchase an Insurance Rider for Abortions
The bill specifically prohibits insurance companies from covering abortions except in cases where the mother’s life is threatened.
The idea here is to save certain people from the horrible guilt of paying into an insurance plan that covers abortions. This way, only people who might want an abortion would be in the insured pool and other women would be able to enjoy guilt free insurance.
With a little fresh fruit, this insurance policy can be part of a guilt-free breakfast!
The problem is that the opponents of the bill are complaining that women have to basically bet on whether or not they will be the victim of rape or incest. While that is true, it continues the dangerous trend of making the conversation about abortion all about rape and incest.
The basic idea that 50% of the population of Michigan is getting told that their insurance will be legally prevented from covering a medical procedure is a bigger problem than arguing about why they might want that procedure.
Shit that Pissed me off This Week – 12/6
I missed two weeks. Apologies to my small by loyal fan base. This covers three weeks of stuff. I tried to be picky but you may want to expect that I’ll be more long winded than usual.
They can’t help it.
They are one of those states that has constitutionalized discrimination against same-sex couples and because they are constitutionally forced to discriminate, it’s the only way they can comply with the Supreme court ruling.
You gave benefits to legally married same-sex couples who are in the National Guard? GO TO JAIL!
Or some bullshit.
The gymnastics people go through to deny rights to someone who is serving our country makes me want to vomit. Especially when most of these people belong to a party that regularly talks about how much we need to respect our troops.
Well, you know, they meant the straight ones.
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 – 11/8
Player Response to NFL Bullying Incident is “Man Up”
NFL player Jonathan Martin just quit his job over alleged bullying by another player that included an incident where he felt forced to pay for that player’s vacation to Las Vegas. This is part of a wider allegation that a lot of rookie players are hazed by veterans in various demeaning and (sometimes) expensive ways.
The basic response from many corners is that the guy who quit needed to grow a thicker skin.
You don’t even need a thick skin. That’s what the pads are for, right?
Now I don’t believe I know everything that went on here but I have some experience with bullying and I have to assume that even as a “grown” man, there is a feeling of powerlessness that is hard to overcome. As a young guy trying to make the team, you will feel compelled to just deal with the bullshit because you want the veteran guys to accept you.
Inevitably, you will view that behavior as acceptable when it becomes your turn to do the same thing.
What has been exposed is a cycle of abuse. To defend it is to fail to understand that teaching a bunch of man/boy millionaires how to be grown-up’s is the most valuable thing that the NFL can possibly do.
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 This Week – 10/18
This Story of how a Small Town Harassed and Drove out a Rape Victim
So a 14-year-old girl was raped by the grandson of a Congressman and her family was driven out-of-town. And their house was burned down.
They burned down a family’s house because someone raped their daughter.
I don’t care to count the number of times I have personally witnessed women making a claim of having been assaulted and being met with hatred and disbelief. Beyond the fact that it is clearly human nature to try to blame victims of heinous acts (or we’d all stop doing it), we have the fact there were mountains of proof against the perpetrator of this crime.
Too bad he was a popular football player. We all know that football is more important than a young girl’s life.
How DARE that young woman allow herself to be raped right before the big game????
I read this story and had but one thought: aside from the victim and her family (who have nothing to be ashamed of) nobody involved in this situation should be proud of themselves. They have established a pattern that should never be established.
When teenagers do horrible shit like this and get away with it, they have learned a valuable lesson. They can do it again.
Shit that Pissed me off – 10/11
Saudi Preacher Found Guilty of Killing His Daughter and is Sentenced to 8 Years in Prison
Contrast this with four Saudi men who were convicted of indecent exposure for dancing naked on top of their car. They got ten years and 2000 lashes.
This dude beat his five year old daughter to death. That’s…worse, right?
Except maybe not. She was, after all, a girl. I mean, if he’s beaten a five year old son to death, he might have gotten ten years since that is clearly as bad as dangling your junk around on Youtube.
Hang on…that dude is walking today? I told you that we should have kept our pants on and murdered a little girl!
The fact this asshole is a holy man just means there are a whole bunch of people listening to what he says and believing that if he beat his five year old daughter to death, it was probably because she deserved it.
Shit that Pissed me off this Week – 10/4
New Ulm Creationists Torpedo a Production of “Inherit the Wind”
New Ulm is home to Martin Luther college, which is run by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. They believe in a literal interpretation of the bible no matter what observable evidence might suggest and “Inherit the Wind” has the nerve to suggest that maybe god whispered to Darwin.
Yeah, that line is in there. The play doesn’t deny the existence of god. It only suggests that maybe god works in allegories every now and again. And why not? He created them, didn’t he?
The bullying tactics engaged are what really get me riled up. The play is was being put on by a community theatre off campus. Unfortunately, the director and some of the actors attended the college. They, apparently, were placed under considerable pressure by their professors and chose to withdraw from the play.
Look! The play includes a big banner that says “Read your Bible!” How bad can it be?????
Is this play so threatening to their faith that they can’t just leave the kids alone? Are they afraid that one play will turn these budding conservative Christians into raving liberals who have the audacity to think that god whispers to them?
College should be where kids go to learn how to think. It would appear that Martin Luther college would like them to do just the opposite.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 9/27
Popular Science Shuts off Their Comments
Hey, I don’t really care if anybody comments on a Popular Science article ever again. Comment threads on the internet are typically the realm of madness.
Which is precisely the point. Popular Science shut off comments on their science articles because people are more likely to believe the comments than they are to believe the article.
Yeah. That’s right. People read an article with citations and evidence and they are less likely to believe that than a one paragraph rebuttal that is basically nothing more than someone saying “oh yeah? I know you but what am I?”
Everyone KNOWS that you can’t trust results from experiments that use beakers! Some guy said so on the internet!
We benefit from scientific research every day of our lives but somehow, in spite of everything science does for us, we are more inclined to believe FrankNFurther2098 than someone who is publishing a researched and peer reviewed article. The practical result is that Popular Science is turning off their comments so people will pay attention to the science and not the bullshit.
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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