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.

PETA Makes Bullshit Claim that Milk Causes Autism

Speaking of articles without a source, PETA would like everyone out there to stop drinking cow’s milk because harvesting the milk is cruel to cows.

If they stuck to that talking point, they’d have a little more support from me.  Not enough to get me to start eating soy cheese but that’s only because I’ve eaten real cheese and I’m not lactose intolerant.

However, they decided to suggest that drinking cow milk is linked to Autism.

If we go with the perspective that everyone who has ever had Autism has, at one time, drank cow’s milk, it would be difficult for me to argue with the article.

Not that difficult, of course, because it ignores parts of the world where goat’s milk is far more common but now I’m just being a smart ass.

What is really important here is the fact there is no research suggesting these two things are linked.  None.  PETA is just trying to scare people to get them to stop drinking milk.  That is called lying and it means that nothing else PETA ever says can be considered credible because we know they will make up shit to get people’s attention.

Vandals Damage 5000 Year Old Archaeological Site in Ireland

Yes.  I know how much this ancient archaeological stone resembles a dick.  It is not even a little bit subtle.

That does not excuse a bunch of vandals throwing enough paint on it to make it appear as if it had been given a dripping black condom.  While I don’t think that they were using latex paint to make a contraceptive joke, it wouldn’t matter if they were.

It looks like someone tried to paint a condom on the thing. There is no getting around it.

What they did with their completely unimaginative graffiti is destroy something that has historical significance.  It will still have historical significance covered in paint but now the first question people ask won’t be “what is the history of this dick shaped stone” but rather “who put the paint on the dick shaped stone?”

They were probably drunk.  They were certainly stupid.

That’s no excuse for this kind of shit.  If you are going to put a paint condom on a dick rock, you should put it on a rock that nobody cares about.

The American Family Association is Urging Members to Refuse Letters With a Harvey Milk Stamp on Them

This idiotic boycott makes me want to get a stack of $10 bills and a roll of Harvey Milk stamps.  All I’d need then is the AFA mailing list and I could send $10 to everyone on the list!  How much money would I get back?

The other major problem with this boycott is the idea that anybody actually uses the mail.  I send postcards to my mom when I’m on vacation but other than that, the only reason I’d send anyone a letter with a Harvey Milk stamp would be to support the fact there’s a Harvey Milk stamp.

This kind of stupid grandstanding isn’t going to get the USPS to stop distributing the stamp.  It’s probably going to backfire as a huge contingent of socially active philatelists rise up to buy any stamp that pisses off the AFA.

Maybe they would have better luck if they joined with PETA and told people the Harvey Milk stamp causes Autism.

Nobody Should Feel Sorry for Donald Sterling, OK?  Nobody

A deal was reached this week to sell the LA Clippers for 2 Billion Dollars.  Poor, misunderstood, not even a little bit racist Donald Sterling will be getting some of that.

I have no idea what his share of the team may be but let’s keep in mind that 1% of 2 Billion is still more than anyone we know makes in the average lifetime.  He’s going to be doing just fine.

I’ve had this conversation a few times recently but it bears repeating: free speech is not freedom from consequences.  If you say awful stuff to people, you could wind up having to deal with the fallout of saying awful stuff.  That’s the trade off.

Show me a rich white man who thinks his right to free speech has been violated and I’ll show you 1000 people with microphones waiting anxiously to hear what he has to say about it.

But before we feel too bad for Sterling’s “consequences,” we should remember that he’s still rich and the loss of the team will make him richer.  He may not be able to go to basketball games any longer but I’m sure he can still watch them in the new home theater he buys with proceeds from selling the team.

And by “home theater,” I mean a home that is a theater.

 A Utah High School Alters Girls’ Yearbook Pictures to Make Them More Modest

Girls who didn’t dress modestly enough were surprised to discover their yearbook staff had helpfully added sleeves, eliminated tattoos and covered up exposed cleavage.

I love the way these modesty police jumped in to passive aggressively ensure that young women in their schools have some good ideas for how to dress next fall.  If I was the parent of one of these girls, I would encourage them to wear even less next year for a couple of reasons.

First: fuck those people.  Wear what makes you feel good not what they think you should wear.  You should not be subjected to a standard of dress based solely on a chromosome.

Second:  The yearbook staff can use those “immodest” pictures to work on their Photoshop skills.  You could be helping them get a job later in life.  It’s the charitable thing to do!