Shit that Pissed me off – 6/24

Britain Votes to Exit the European Union

The people have spoken.  Democracy is a strange and wonderful thing. I guess.

Except I don’t think a lot of the people speaking really knew what they were saying.  The majority of the concerns with membership in the European Union have to do with immigration and it’s pretty clear many English have developed some level of xenophobia.

Although the Brexit vote doesn’t necessarily mean that England is going to close its borders, it would seem that a whole lot of people were convinced that was exactly what it meant.  They were convinced, of course, because that is basically what the pro Brexit camp was telling them.

Goddamn French people want your job!

Also, this week’s vote could result in Scotland finally severing ties with the UK.  I imagine most English don’t care about that either because they have a hard time understanding what the Scots are saying.

I mean, I do too.  But they sound damned sexy saying it.  Maybe the Brits are just jealous.

The result of this vote calls to mind the England of Children of Men.  And that isn’t a good thing.

Michigan’s Welfare Recipient Drug Testing Has Yielded exactly ZERO Positive Results

I realized the consistent narrative of the right is that welfare recipients are all a bunch of lazy pot smokers who are just using the government to fund their drug habit.  As such, they have been pushing all sorts of expensive programs to make sure that folks receiving government funds aren’t smoking crack.

Turns out they aren’t.

Maybe that is because – I don’t know – they can’t afford it.  Or maybe it is just because they aren’t drug addicts and that narrative is completely wrong.

In either case, it seems clear that the party claiming to be against government waste has, in fact, wasted a whole shit ton of time and money looking for a problem that doesn’t exist.

Parent Calls Police Over Kids Going Braless

The original story here is about a Montana teen who claims she had to meet with her principal because a male teacher found her choice to go without a bra “distracting.”

The principal claims that it was for a different reason.  Given I wasn’t in the room, I’m not going to address that meeting.  My hunch is that they are both sharing only part of the story.

However, in response to that incident, her classmates staged a protest in which the girls went to school without bras and some of the boys wore bras over their shirts.

And a parent called the cops.

Oh god. I haven’t even had a cup of coffee yet.

The cops did nothing, of course, because what the kids were doing wasn’t illegal.

It seems none of us are willing to call the cops when we see an assault happening on a street corner but BY GOD we will pick up the phone if a bunch of teenaged girls aren’t wearing bras.

Naturopathic Parents Killed Their Child And Blamed the Ambulance Driver

To paraphrase my friend Ronn Bauman, a common response to those of us who think Naturopathic remedies are dangerous quackery is “what’s the harm?”

Well, these people killed their child by treating bacterial meningitis with honey.  And they are so deep in the denial closet that they are blaming someone else for their own poor choices.

That’s the harm.  Even though it has been proven time and again that this stuff doesn’t work, people keep doing it.

Here’s the thing about this kind of thinking:  It is predicated on the idea that people didn’t die of bacterial meningitis until these “doctors” showed up with their “cures.”  Folks who aren’t a fan of modern medicine seem to forget that natural cures haven’t been working for thousands of years.

And before someone says “hey Tim, you have to remember that these pharmaceutical companies are just profit driven monsters who don’t care about making people better,” I’m going to remind everyone that the companies who produce naturopathic “remedies” are also in the business of making money.

They just include more pictures of happy people wearing hiking boots and backpacks in their advertisements.

Donald Trump Appoints Michele Bachmann to his Evangelical Advisory Group

I guess the choice is a good one since Bachmann beats the crazy evangelical drum better than most.

Still, I keep wanting her to just go away.

Can I just say that I love the internet for the fact this image exists?

But look – anyone who thinks that Trump isn’t going to cater to the religious right because he knows far less about the Bible than most atheists is going to be really surprised if he gets elected.  Associating himself with Bachmann and Jerry Falwell, Jr is basically saying “don’t worry, gay hating douchebags, I’ve got your back!”

Trump probably doesn’t give a fuck what Bachmann or Falwell think because he doesn’t give a fuck what anyone who isn’t named “Donald Trump” thinks.  But that doesn’t mean it should make people feel comfortable that Bachmann is being given a seat at the table of the presumptive Republican nominee.

Hey – Speaking of Jerry Falwell, Jr. – Who Cares What Magazine is on the Wall Behind Him?

Falwell tweeted a picture with Donald Trump earlier this week and on the wall behind them were a bunch of magazine covers featuring Donald Trump.  Because if there is anything Donald Trump loves more than himself, it is himself.

One of those magazines covers was Playboy.  Which, for those of you playing at home, is not exactly the kind of magazine most evangelical Christians approve of.

They still read it (for the articles), of course, they just don’t approve of it.

Actually, that’s unfair.  They don’t read Playboy.  They get their porn online just like the rest of us.

So a whole bunch of people are making fun of Falwell for failing to check over his shoulder.  And I guess he has that coming.

But honestly, it seems like a really silly thing to talk about, doesn’t it?  Falwell isn’t endorsing Playboy.  He’s endorsing Trump.

And you know, if you like Falwell, it should bother you to know that he’s that much of a hypocrite.  It doesn’t take a genius to realize Trump is a bad Christian.  I mean, in order to believe in God, he’d have to believe in something greater than Donald Trump.

If Falwell has a direct line to god, I would think god would be telling him “this guy doesn’t pray to me.  He prays to himself.”