Shit that Pissed me Off – 3/9/18
Utah State House Makes The Worst Rap Video Ever
Mostly this is so bad it’s funny but you have to be a little upset at the fact they made this horrible and cluelessly racist video that uses the theme from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (and titled “The Fresh Prints of Bill Here” – I’m not kidding) to educate children in a way Schoolhouse Rock did much better back in the 70’s at all.
Spoiler: This was not based on a song by Will Smith.
The mostly Republican and all white cast put together for the express purpose of teaching kids how legislation works while simultaneously setting poetry back several thousand years is hypnotically painful. Barely ten seconds in, there is a remarkable effort to make the word “chamber” rhyme with the word “there.”
It fails.
And while I’m sure whoever produced this video will argue that it is about how a Utah State Bill becomes law, it really is exactly the same process covered by a certain bill sitting there on Capitol hill. That video also didn’t feature a bunch of white people unironically trying to dance like black rappers.
The legislators featured in the video can almost be excused for their clueless behavior because it probably wasn’t their idea. But someone thought this up. And shot it. And edited it together. And at no point did it occur to them that what they were doing was going to be a spectacular failure.
Bill to End Child Marriage Delayed in Kentucky Because What if it’s OK With the Parents?
So I’m not Republican bashing because this bill is sponsored by a Republican and seems to have strong bipartisan support. It bans marriage under the age of 17 unless a judge approves the wedding.
Now this is, in part, because most women married under the age of 17 are being abused and experiencing some sort of sexual slavery. Also religion but we’ll just lay off of that for the moment.
So a conservative religious group (what a shock) is stalling the bill because it takes consent away from the parent and gives it to a judge.
I will set aside the fact that in many of these marriages, the person posing as the parent (or the person who is actually the parent) is the one engaging in abuse of the under age person in question. Which ought to be more than enough reason to table the objection.
There is, however, also the simple fact that a parent consenting to the marriage of a 13-year-old probably isn’t acting in the best interest of their child. My youngest is thirteen. If he came to me and said he wanted to get married I would first express surprise that he was romantically interested in anything that is not The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Then I would tell him no. Because he’s thirteen years old! Any parent that looks at a thirteen year old and thinks “yeah, they can make a responsible adult decision about something like marriage” should not be placed into a position to make that call.
So way to go, conservative Christian right! You just managed to make yourselves look creepier than the Catholic Church did back in the 90’s.
How about Tax Breaks for Civilian Enforcers on School Property?
I don’t think this has even the slightest chance of being considered but it is indicative of the kind of poisonous thinking that gun culture creates.
As we talk about what to do in the wake of another school shooting, we’ve moved on from arming teachers. Good.
One congressman (Mark Meadows from North Carolina) has suggested maybe we should just give tax breaks to civilians who own guns and are willing to volunteer their time to provide school security. And if you follow the link above, you will see only a tweet and it wasn’t by Meadows. So I looked for confirmation. And I found it.
I mean – what could go wrong with that plan? Let’s just have some retired military and/or police officers bring their legal guns to school property to protect the kids! And we can give them tax breaks because they would just do it for free! They’re retired anyway. What the hell else do they have to do with their time?
I’m so sick of fishing. I wonder if I could spend some time carrying my gun around a school?
More guns is not the answer. I just can’t believe that is the case. Even if it is the answer, I have to think guns being carried on school property by volunteer retirees is an even worse idea.
Gun culture basically says “how do we get more guns on school property to counteract guns on school property? Teachers? No? How about some random dudes with guns, then? That could work!”
Devin Nunes is Upset that Steven Colbert Made Jokes About Him
Congressman Nunes, whose recent memo has either completely exonerated Donald Trump or actually done nothing of the sort (depending on whether or not you are Donald Trump) was upset because Steven Colbert ran a segment on his show where he asked people to fill in the blank in a redacted memo that said “Devin Nunes is REDACTED.”
Nunes described the bit as a danger to our country.
While I’m sure Nunes would be quick to use the first amendment to argue for the rights of a photographer who refuses to take a picture of two guys kissing, he seems to feel that the first amendment rights of a comedian are problematic.
In our post how the fuck did Donald Trump become President world, we have to realize that it has become politically acceptable to attack the people making fun of you. It used to be that most politicians would just shrug and accept that it was part of the job.
Donald Trump has changed that. He has given lackeys like Nunes the ability to not just object to satire but to suggest the satire is dangerous.
It isn’t dangerous. Suppressing satire is dangerous. Steven Colbert made fun of Trump long before the Presidential election in which America said “I’d rather have a sexual predator in the White House than a woman who might have made some mistakes with her e-mail server that I frankly don’t understand but it pisses me off BENGHAZI!”
Trump still won. What Colbert does isn’t dangerous. In fact, he keeps a bunch of us laughing and that’s the only thing keeping us from burning this whole thing to the ground. You need Colbert, Representative Nunes. You need him far more than he needs you.
An Obama era policy eliminated this loophole because it seems that police officers were able to leverage the ability to seize property without a warrant into stealing property. Legally. More or less.
I mean, the policy was put in place because police officers literally did exactly that. They would confiscate property without a warrant and then keep it.
The police were taking your cats! No they weren’t. The Police are, by and large, dog people.
There are, however, times when police need to confiscate property without a warrant. I guess. Especially when they are trying to continue the war on drugs except marijuana in Washington and Colorado but including marijuana in other states. Their rationale is that police might not be able to get drug dealers behind bars if they can’t seize property without a warrant.
Clearly, this sort of thing could never lead to abuse. I mean it hasn’t in the past. Oh, wait, it actually has. Still…if Obama thought it was bad, it had to be good, right?
Meme that Pissed me Off
Thursday was International Women’s Day so this meme fits really well into our consideration of all the important ways women contribute to society. It is long. Which is the “joke.”
Ha ha ha! Aren’t women a pain in the ass?
I think the real question one should ask whoever created this meme is this: why don’t you date guys, then? Oh, I know why. Because then you’d never be able to decide which one of you feeds the other one, right? Since that is a woman’s job according to this meme.
And also because women possess the magical vagina of compulsion that forces men to sacrifice so much just to get laid!
I feel like the idea here is that women should just be fucking grateful that men are willing to put up with all of their shit. In fact, whatever guy put together this meme should be really grateful if he actually found a woman willing to put up with his shit.
Especially if she isn’t his mother.
Ken Ham Tweeted Something Inane
Ken Ham, who runs the Creation “Museum” has a rather distorted view of science. I mean, you have to if you are compelled by the Bible to believe the Earth is no more than six thousand years old. This week, he floated the following scientific idea.
So since humans look like god (or so the Bible says) and other animals don’t (because the bible doesn’t say that), we should just tell science they don’t know what the fuck they are talking about.
There is a problem with accepting the Bible as the source of scientific knowledge and that, of course, is the fact the people writing it had none. Now I know what Ken Ham would say. He’d say the Bible is the revealed word of god and god understands science because he created science!
Mic drop!
Then why, Ken Ham, didn’t god spell it out better? Why didn’t god say “yo – humans and animals are fundamentally different in spite of the fact that humans have literally every trait that determines something is an animal verses a vegetable or mineral?”
I mean, granite is nothing like trees. And trees are nothing like gorillas. But gorillas are (by every measurable scientific standard that isn’t the Bible) a whole lot like humans. Yet Ken Ham thinks that humans should get their own category because humans are special. The Bible tells us so.
Which is such a surprise. You wouldn’t expect a religious text written by humans to say that humans are the highest form of non divine life. That just seems completely unbelievable.
Gayle Jordan is a Democrat running for State Senate in a deep red state. Her chances in the upcoming special election are sketchy at best.
Thing is, she’s also an atheist and has the bad taste to be open about it. She, of course, is saying that she doesn’t want to make this about religion. Being an atheist isn’t the most important thing about her. She doesn’t have any quarrel with people who believe in god. She just doesn’t.
Her opponent, and his supporters are going all out. They call her beliefs “radical” and “dangerous.”
And she basically has to sit back and take it. She can’t point out how religious beliefs can be radical or dangerous. Because that’s not what atheists get to do. The moment they do something like that, they are the assholes everyone already believed them to be.
She won’t lose because she’s an atheist. And in my book, she wins because she endures all the bullshit attacks and keeps trying to talk about policy.
But someday, I’d like an atheist candidate who can fight back against this kind of campaign by calling out the hypocrisy of a system that requires she keep her mouth shut about religion while her opponents can win talking about nothing else.
Grail Diary 