Shit that Pissed me Off – 1/26/18
School System Blames Late Busses on a Weather Report They Already Knew About
OK, so a little perspective.
Last year, my band had a holiday show scheduled on a day that was forecast to have a horrible snow storm. Even though we didn’t know how bad the story would end up being, we chose to cancel the show and refund the tickets because driving was supposed to be dangerous. The snow happened but it wasn’t nearly as bad as predicted and we could have done the show.
Earlier this week, a gigantic storm was predicted by every weather service. The local school systems opted to close school slightly early and the result was a lot of busses trying to get kids home in the midst of the worst of it. Some children were stuck on busses until past midnight.
That, my friends, is a logistical failure.
Who (aside from every meteorologist in the country) could have predicted this would happen?
Now far be it from me to add to the outrage culture in a weekly blog entitled “Shit that Pissed me Off” but the problem here is the fact the school system then blamed the weather forecast with the implication they never could have known how bad it was going to be. This ignores from the fact they were told how bad it was going to be.
It wasn’t snowing in the morning. I know because I dropped my kid off at school and it wasn’t snowing. By noon, it was horrible. Again, I know because I drive for a living and I was driving in it.
The issue here isn’t the fact kids got stuck on school busses. It’s easy to say “they should have known because they literally did know” but when do you cancel school? Before the storm hits? What if we only get an inch? So they tried to send kids home early once it was clear the storm was going to be as bad as predicted but the end result was they waited too long and some kids (and their parents) had a really shitty night.
Where they screwed up was in blaming the weather report rather than saying “we screwed up.”
The weather report was right. They didn’t act fast enough. They should simply blame themselves.*
*Note: Later in the week, the Superintendent of the St. Paul Schools sent out a very well worded apology that blamed their own shortcomings. So good for him.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 1/19/18
Douchebag MRA Makes a Fan Edit of The Last Jedi to Remove all the Women
It has been a month but this next bit is going to include Last Jedi SPOILERS! Read not forward, dear friends, lest you learn too much!
The edit is 46 minutes long and pulled from a bad videotape of the movie someone made in the theater. Because when women are given power, it is important to strip away that power as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Now one might think this is a parody. Perhaps, you imagine, some person with a sense of humor saw all these nerdbros bemoaning the fact that Princess Leia rightly criticized Poe Dameron for failing to follow a direct order or that Admiral Holdo wasn’t a dude and thought “I’m going to make an edit that takes out all the girls because that would be hilarious.”
Nope. that’s not what happened. Instead, this shitbag literally believes that Leia was in the wrong when she demoted Poe for getting every Resistance bomber destroyed in an attack that served no purpose. So he edited it out to make Poe look like a hero who didn’t have to learn anything.
Does this look like a guy who should ever have to take orders from a woman? I didn’t think so.
And you know why? It isn’t because that was a bad story arc. No – it’s because the person teaching Poe that lesson was a woman.
The edit also removes Rey (of course) because the Jedi are dudes! Just look at them waving around that phallic laser sword all the time! Girls wouldn’t want to do that! They should be in the kitchen pouring blue milk!
What truly annoys me is that this guy might have a girlfriend. Or a wife. Or a daughter. He definitely has a mother.
But who gives a fuck about the women in his life, right? He probably loves them a lot. It’s just the women in his movies that he hates.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 1/5
It is a new year and late last year, I had trouble putting this column out every week. I’m going to do better this year but I have to tell you, this shit is hard.
It isn’t hard to write but when the White House is such an amazing shit show, things get a little tiring. I could write 1000 words about the asshole in the oval office every single week but I just hate even thinking about the guy.
So for the folks who look forward to my weekly rants, I’m sorry they’ve been so inconsistent. Let’s just start with the dick in the White House, shall we?
Donald Trump Responds to a Threat from North Korea by Making a Dick Joke
Does it bother anyone else that the most mature person in an exchange is Kim Jong Un? I don’t want to speak out for the guy who is the head of a recklessly oppressive regime that seems more interested in developing a nuclear bomb than they do in feeding their own people.
But when he rattled his saber, at least he didn’t do so by referencing his dick size.
Trump pointed out that Un is an oppressive leader by observing he has a “depleted and food starved regime” which, for once, was accurate. Then he proceeded to point out that he had a much larger dick nuclear button than Un.
I mean, maybe Trump and Un regularly exchange dick nuclear button pics so he has some knowledge of their comparative size.
It’s also a really bad analogy. This doesn’t look anything like a penis.
Thing is, we need to remember that our President is a sexual predator. He is always thinking about his penis. It is the central obsession of his life.
When he makes a tax proposal, he is thinking about how it will affect his penis. When he appoints a justice to the supreme court, he is thinking about his penis. Making a dick nuclear button joke on Twitter is one of the most honest things he’s ever done because he is pointing out that when he thinks about nuclear war, he’s thinking about his penis.
He sends unsolicited dick pics to himself. And he likes it.
Three more years (oh please) of this asshole.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 12/15/17
Roy Moore Lost But He Is Just as Much of Petulant Asshole as Ever
I mean, I guess we should applaud Moore, who has a history of not listening when those who wield more power than him (be it the Supreme Court or the people of Alabama) tell him no. He may be stubbornly refusing to concede an election he lost but at least he’s consistent. You have to admire a guy who will always stubbornly marshall on even when he has so clearly lost.
Except you really don’t. The thing to do when you lose an election is to admit you lost the election and move on. Hell, even Hillary Clinton was able to deliver a concession speech and she was beaten by Donald Trump.
Oh boy – this is gonna suck worse than the Benghazi hearings.
Let me tell you something, Roy Moore, the only thing worse than conceding victory to Donald Trump would be conceding victory to…you. Given that, I think you should be able to concede an election to Doug Jones.
You don’t have to wait long. You can run again in 2020. And even though you are a racist, misogynist, child molester, you only lost by 1.5 percentage points. If you can figure out a way to get just a few more white people to the polls, you can deliver one hell of a victory speech.
For now, however, why don’t you try to exhibit some class and concede?
Shit that Pissed me Off – 11/17/17
I almost didn’t write a post this week. I mean, I knew this was the big story and I was going to have to talk about it because it pissed me the hell right off.
But fuck.
As many liberals have pointed out, you can’t say that Roy Moore is a pedophile (he is) and Donald Trump is a sexual predator (he is) without also acknowledging that Franken’s behavior (which he has admitted) is also unacceptable.
You can’t be that hypocrite on the left.
If you are on the right, you can totally be that hypocrite (as our hypocrite in chief quickly displayed). On the left, we accept that if we are going to go after right wing predators (like our President), we can’t just ignore when our heroes do the same shit.
So fuck Al Franken for doing what he did. Fuck him for being the same as so many other guys out there.
And I’m not saying this because I think he’s a bad guy. I’m not saying this because I don’t think he respects women. I’m saying this because I think he is a good person and he does respect women.
But like so many other men, he didn’t understand what that really meant.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 11/10/17
After Historic wins for Transgender Candidates, a Minnesota Politician is a Douche on Twitter
It should be no surprise that Twitter is where people go to be insufferable assholes. I mean, our President has made it his career (because he clearly doesn’t enjoy being President).
This week, off-year elections went pretty well for the non ruling party. I mean we are looking mostly at city council races, mayoral races, and a few governor races but still, the Republicans didn’t do great.
One could argue that happens when the highest ranking member of your party is an incompetent, bigoted sexual predator but perhaps that’s just me.
In case you were wondering, this is the incompetent, bigoted sexual predator I was taking about.
In Minnesota, Representative Mary Franson was a bit disappointed by the fact four transgender candidates won elections this year so she took to Twitter. Because that’s what you do when you want to make sure as many people as possible know you’re a transphobic jackass.
She tweeted “A guy who thinks he’s a girl is still a guy with a mental health condition.”
Which was her way of saying “fuck these transgender candidates, I’m going to publicly call them crazy.”
She didn’t call them “crazy,” of course. She used the more acceptable term “mental health condition.” Which I suppose I should applaud.
But everyone knew she meant crazy. And in an environment where the conservative talking points around gun violence are always about mental health, there is a veiled implication these people are one step away from shooting up a school.
Would she have made the same tweet if even one of these candidates was a Republican?
My guess is yes. Because she’s an awful person and if she wasn’t a Republican state representative in a heavily conservative district, she’d probably be out of a job in the next election cycle. But she is. So we’re stuck with her until she decides to quit.
Sigh.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 11/3/17
Trump Corner – Trump Insults the Press in Front of Their Children
Our President (who is a sexual predator) was taking part in a photo-op with children of members of the press. Basically, he was just supposed to be nice to the kids and give them some candy. If this was any other President, it wouldn’t be a problem.
But this is Trump and the parents were members of the Press. And that means there was no way he could get through a stupid photo-op without taking a stab at the them. Even if the they represented parents of the kids in the photo-op.
In addition to fat shaming kids by saying it was OK for them to eat candy because they didn’t seem to have a weight problem, he made sure he reminded the press how unfair they had been to him. I will remind you this was in front of their kids.
Mommy and the President are fighting again!
He told the press they did a good job with their kids. Which was nice, I guess. Then he pointed out they hadn’t done such a good job with him. Because if he was going to give their kids a Kit-Kat, he needed to point out how nice he was to do so given that their parents really hated him personally.
Trump does and says horrible things constantly. He’s a petulant six-year-old. But it is moments like this – moments where almost nobody is looking – that you can see his true personality in all of its grotesque glory.
He takes a photo opportunity and can’t resist making part of it about how awful everyone treats him. He’s a billionaire and the fucking President but he can’t stop being angry at the fact not everyone loves him.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 10/20/17
Trump Corner – Trump Makes Dead Soldiers All About Him
This is what our President (who is also a sexual predator) does with everything. He makes it about him. He makes the suffering of the Puerto Rican people all about him. He makes the death of American Soldiers all about him.
And he lies about it.
So when asked if he’d contacted the families of Green Berets killed in Niger, he talked about how difficult it was to make those kinds of phone calls. He talked about how hard it was to write letters to the families.
And I’m sure it is.
But who gives a shit? He didn’t lose a son or a daughter or husband or wife. He just has to talk to the person who did.
I don’t like talking on the phone either. That’s one of the many reasons I never wanted to be the President you whiny jackass.
He also made clear that other Presidents (like Obama) didn’t write letters and/or make phone calls. Because he wanted to look better than them. Specifically Obama. He wants everyone to know that he is better than Obama in literally every conceivable way.
Except it was bullshit. He had no idea what other Presidents had or hadn’t done. And when he was called on it, he said, basically, “well, that’s what I heard.”
So it wasn’t his fault. Somebody told him that.
Nobody fucking told him that. He just wanted to make himself sound better than anyone else who has ever been President. Except Andrew Jackson. And that should tell you a lot.
Also, when he finally called the family members, he fucked that up too.
Also, and this is important, our President is a sexual predator.
Shit that Pissed me Off – 10/13/17
Judge Gives Rapist Joint Custody of His Child
With all the news of Harvey Weinstein and Ben Affleck and the fact we elected a known sexual predator President of the United States (fucking fuck), we should remember that this is all part of a culture that actually rewards rapists and sexual predators.
In this case, a 12-year-old girl was raped by a much older man and she chose to bear the child that was conceived as a result. Her body, her choice.
But when she applied for Government aid, she was forced to reveal the name of the biological father. And then that biological father took her to court for custodial rights. The prosecutor claimed the young woman had approved of allowing her rapist to spend time with his now eight year old son.
Thing is, she didn’t. And the judge didn’t fucking check.
Maybe they used some sort of alien mind control.
The whole story is out now and the judge has suspended the order pending another hearing but that likely means the young woman has to sit in court with her rapist just to explain why that fucker shouldn’t get parental rights to a kid who isn’t that much younger than his mother was when she was raped by his father.
All I’m saying is that women shouldn’t have to fight these fights, should they? Read More…
Shit that Pissed me Off – 10/6/2017
Sorry I’ve been gone for almost a month. Over the last three weeks, I’ve been out of town for my 50th Birthday (yay me) and playing at a funeral for someone who died much too young (boo the inevitability of death). Thanks for waiting patiently and not filling my e-mail with angry messages.
So anyway – here goes!
It Took Less Than Two Days for Conspiracy Theories To Pop Up About the Las Vegas Shooter
Here’s the dirty little secret about this kind of conspiracy theory: It never seems to happen when the shooter is a person of color. At least nobody seems to spend a lot of time talking about them.
I know someone is going to point out that there are conspiracy theories around 9/11 and the attackers there were (allegedly) people of color. Yeah, but I’m talking about mass shootings.
And the thing that seems to come into play here is that people don’t believe white guys would do this sort of thing. Not unless those white guys are members of the CIA or the FBI or Interpol or whatever the fuck these people think.
When a person of color shot up an Orlando nightclub, nobody started saying that it was a cover up. It was terrorism.
But white guys don’t commit terrorism. They are lone wolves.
Which is bullshit because wolves don’t even have opposable thumbs
So the alternative is to look at an act of senseless violence and think “I understand Islamic extremists. I don’t understand some 64 year old dude shooting up a concert so it must not be that.”
By the way – they don’t understand Islamic extremists either. But that’s for another day.
It is kind of remarkable to me that some of us can’t wrap our heads around a guy shooting up an elementary school but we can totally wrap our heads around the idea that some shadow agency decided to stage the event so they could get gun control legislation passed.
Which they can’t so what the hell is that about anyway?
Thing is, at least some of this is racism. Some of it is our inherent response that we’ve been taught the more pigmentation you have in your skin, the more violent you are.
Conspiracy theories are dumb. One guy shot all those people in Las Vegas and we will probably never know why. But it was one guy. And he was white. Deal with it.
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