Shit that Pissed me Off – 2/8/19

Hello and welcome to 2019! I’ve not been blogging a lot for the last several weeks because I was on vacation and on vacation I shouldn’t have to think about things like the Government shutdown that is (temporarily) over.

I mean, I still did because a bunch of stuff was shut down at Kennedy Space Center because the NASA employees were furloughed. And TSA agents were working without pay so I never knew if my travel plans were going to have a gigantic wrench thrown into them because of a sick out (which I would have been 100% behind but it still would have been annoying).

Oh, and I couldn’t visit a National Park in the Virgin Islands. For which you should not feel bad because I was still in the Virgin Islands.

So I guess I still had to deal with the shutdown a little. And it was annoying because that shit was stupid.

Anyway, I’m back on my bloggy horse. Let’s see what we’ve got!

Road Rage Dude Shoots a School Bus Driver

Here in Minnesota we have had some really shitty weather. This shouldn’t surprise folks because it is February in Minnesota.

Last week we had some really cold weather (I’m going to talk about that more later) and this week we just had stupid little snow storms that fucked up rush hour driving. For three fucking days in a row.

Now that sounds annoying and it is. But it is something we should be used to because we are from Minnesota and it happens ever year.

Know what we call this in Minnesota? Tuesday.

For Kenneth Lily, however, it was more than he could handle. After a fender bender accident, the security guard (who was a good guy with a gun until he was magically transformed into a bad guy with a gun) got out of his car and proceeded to five five rounds at the driver of a school bus. The driver, a 73 year old man who was clearly a threat, was hit in the arm and grazed in the head. Fortunately, he survived.

So did Lily, who claims he was in fear for his life (sure he was) and who waited for the police to arrive at which point he was arrested without incident.

Yes, he’s white. How did you know?

What have I forgotten?

Oh yeah – there was an eight year old child on the bus.

Lily is also free on bail pending a hearing.

I mean….what the actual fuck?

A white guy shoots an elderly school bus driver and he is free on bail? How do you look at a guy who fires his gun at a school bus and say “yeah – I’m OK with him not being in jail?”

Were the cells too full of marijuana users?

Because if they were, I have an idea…

Phil Robertson Slams Kamela Harris Over Medicare for All Because God

Duck Dynasty star and well known homophobe Phil Robertson is also a well known born again Christian.

Kamela Harris is one of a large number of candidates running to become the Democratic nominee for President in 2020. Harris (like most other Democratic candidates) is pushing for better health care. I imagine she is doing so because health care in America sucks.

Phil Robertson’s response (as a rich dude) is basically, why should everyone have to pay for everyone’s health care and who cares because if you are saved, you are going to have eternal life anyway.

When pressed, he said he never needed health care. So I guess he figures that diabetics (type one diabetics because those of us with type two probably kind of deserve it anyway) should just make sure they are saved and die rather than figure out how to afford insulin.

I mean, it’s great Phil is so healthy and I imagine he thinks that health was given to him by god even though he doesn’t need it because he’s going to heaven when he dies. He’s lucky.

Unlike a lot of other people.

But he makes the mistake that a lot of us make. He assumes his experience is everyone’s experience.

He’s been fortunate when it comes to health. But I’m guessing the real reason he hasn’t needed health insurance is because he’s rich.

It’s super easy for rich people to tell poor people they don’t need health insurance. Sometimes the excuse is god. Other times, they just tell poor people they need to “live healthier lives” or whatever.

Robertson is right about one thing – we are all going to die. A lot of us actually enjoy living so his “the afterlife is the ultimate health insurance” is a dodge that really means “I don’t know what I want to spend all my money on but I know it isn’t you low income type two diabetic fuckers.”

People Whining about School Closures

So if you missed it, we had a near record cold snap in Minnesota last week. Temperatures were closing in on thirty below and wind chills were worse. It was so bad, they closed schools.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Or rather, I know what you should be thinking.

You should be thinking “good call! Who wants a bunch of kids getting frostbite standing on a corner waiting for their school bus?”

That’s not how it works for some of us, though. Some of us say stupid shit like “I never got a day off for cold weather!”

Which may be true but since it’s been twenty years since it’s been this cold, someone could have never actually had a day cold enough for them to cancel school. Which they actually did do the last time it was this cold. Twenty years ago.

That’s right – our last cold snap this bad pre-dated the Lord of the Rings films.

So before you say “when I was young,” you need to ask how old you were twenty years ago. Were you young then? Shut up. Were you old then? Then holy shit are you super old now. BOOM!

It’s like we think “hey – I still have to go to work (except a lot of people didn’t) so screw those kids! When are they going to learn how to deal with dangerously low temperatures if we just let them stay home from school?”

Well rule number one of dealing with dangerously cold temperatures is: don’t go outside unless you absolutely have to.

So by keeping kids home from school, they learned lesson number one! The next lesson, which is about dressing properly for cold weather, can be taught when the kids aren’t going to get frostbite if the screw it up.

People need to cut it out with the “in my day we did it this way” bullshit. Because sometimes doing it the old way was better. But in the case of keeping kids out of dangerous weather, it really wasn’t.

The State of the Union

I could spend time talking about all the stupid shit our whiny, petulant man child of a President said. I could call out his fear mongering over border security. Or his fear mongering over abortion laws. Or his claim that we’d be in a war with North Korea if he weren’t President. Or his taking credit for all the women in Congress (which is technically kind of his fault because they are all Democrats who got elected because he’s so fucking unpopular).

I could also be annoyed at his transparent attempts to threaten House Democrats into ceasing the Russia probe because he says it’s a waste of taxpayer money. Unlike a useless border wall.

All of those things are, indeed, annoying. But what is really annoying is just the damn speech itself.

Every year, the President takes credit for the economy. Doesn’t matter that his policies have almost nothing to do with the economy. Also doesn’t matter that if you just pick the right statistics, you can almost always say the economy is doing better.

It doesn’t matter which President gives the speech, it never involves any really amazing ideas (that will go anywhere) or really brilliant rhetoric. Or even any particularly shocking revelations.

We all know Trump is going to keep saying we need a border wall regardless of the evidence. We all know he thinks that he’s the only thing saving us from World War Three. We all know that he’s super scared about the Russia probe because if he wasn’t, he’d stop talking about it so much.

It is the least interesting political moment of the year and it gets treated like the most interesting one.

A lot of anti Trump people were suggesting we boycott the speech because fuck Trump. And I’m all for ignoring Trump because if there is anything he truly loves, it is attention.

But I think we should boycott the speech because fuck the speech.