Tag Archive | Abortion

Shit that Pissed Me Off – 12/2

Donald Trump Doesn’t Like Flag Burners

President-Elect Trump (fuuuuuuuuck) tweeted this week that flag burners should go to jail for a year or lose their citizenship.  Nothing about how burning the flag is a constitutionally protected right and he just doesn’t like it.  No – he thinks people should lose their citizenship if they burn the flag.

While Trump fills his cabinet with individuals who will repeal or cripple the Affordable Care Act (which is sure as fuck going to affect me and my family), we talk about flag burning.

OK, so let’s talk about it.  And let’s ditch the “flag burning is a reprehensible act but it is protected” part of the conversation.  It’s as if we all need to hold up our hands and protest that we don’t like something because so many people are bothered by it.

And that is what pisses me off.  Who gives an actual fuck?  Has anyone ever been harmed by the burning of a flag?  I mean besides the person burning the flag who might have, you know, gotten a burn because they were holding a burning piece of cloth?

Why have we, as Americans, decided that burning the flag is a despicable act?  It’s a flag!  A piece of cloth.  It is not our country.

That the flag has become a sacred relic is embarrassing.  So let me step up and say I don’t have an issue with anyone burning a flag.  I’m reasonably certain that a country with enough nuclear capability to turn every other continent into a pile of atomic slag is strong enough to handle a few flags on fire.

shutterstock_47429077

Oh fuck! Someone’s burning a flag! Send in the tanks!

I’m sick of the feeling that before we say something (flag burning, abortion, Hillary Clinton) is OK, we have to acknowledge how awful it is.

There is nothing awful about burning a flag.  Our freedoms are not irreparably damaged when a flag is set on fire.  In fact, our freedoms are enhanced.  Burning a flag is an act of defiance but it is also an act of celebration.

It celebrates our right as citizens to openly criticize our government.  Have we forgotten how many places on Earth that is not allowed?  Is that really what we want here?

If it isn’t, then nobody should say “flag burning is a horrible act.”  We should, instead, say “flag burning is a celebration of our constitution.”

And the thing is – this is all a distraction.  Flags don’t get burned a lot.  In fact, they hardly ever get burned at all.  The fact we are talking about something that almost never happens is a ridiculous waste of time.

Our response should be “huh.  Someone burned a flag. I wouldn’t even know about this if it weren’t for the 24 hour news cycle.”

Now who the fuck is in Trump’s cabinet again?

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Shit that Pissed me off – 10/23

Another Hearing about Benghazi

In spite of the fact it has been publicly stated that these hearings are nothing more than an attempt to discredit Hilary Clinton as a presidential candidate, the Senate held more hearings about Benghazi this week.  In what should come as no surprise, the committee spent considerable time discussing Clinton’s e-mails even after claiming they wouldn’t.

The saber rattling by the right about Benghazi is embarrassing.  It is done.  We are done.

The public doesn’t fucking care.

I mean, that isn’t true.  The far right cares and can’t get enough.  They think somewhere there is a smoking gun.  Ignoring, of course, the fact that the one body completely unqualified to find a smoking gun is the United States Congress.

The US Congress even concluded J. Harvey Oswald acted alone. I mean, they were right. But that isn't the point.

The US Congress even concluded Lee Harvey Oswald wald acted alone. I mean, they were right. But that isn’t the point.

If you would like to beat Hilary Clinton (or Bernie Sanders), oh Republican establishment, can I suggest you do it with better policies and better candidates?

Or are you already aware that won’t work?

Iowa Right to Life Director Doesn’t Really Know Much about Birth Control

I will never understand why pro-life advocates are not strongly pro birth control.  I mean, people will have sex.  It doesn’t matter how many purity rings you sell or how many abstinence only sex ed classes you teach.

Hell, married people who don’t want to have kids will have sex.

And if some of those women who want to have sex get pregnant, they might want an abortion.  Why wouldn’t you be in strong support of something that reduces the odds of an unwanted pregnancy in the first place?

I’m serious – there should be pamphlets about contraception and condoms at every pro-life event.  They should be handing that shit out in front of Planned Parenthood.  Here’s a good slogan: “use protection so you don’t even need to consider having an abortion!”

But they aren’t handing out condoms. In fact, after statistics have shown abortion rates in Iowa dropped after use of contraception increased, the head of Iowa’s Right to Life said:

I think that contraception, by and large, has a huge failure rate.

For the record, she is totally fucking wrong.  Used correctly, the failure rate of most contraception is less than 1%.

So – and I ask this with all respect – what the fuck is this really about?

Road Rage

I’m going to be the first to admit that I fucking hate other drivers.  All of them.  They are in my way and many of them engage in random lane changing or hang out in my blind spot or tailgate or drive too slow in the fast lane or don’t pull into the intersection to turn left until the light turns fucking yellow.

So I really understand road rage.

I am so angry, I will shake my fist at you in the rain!

I am so angry, I will shake my fist at you in the rain!

I don’t understand a guy who pulls out a gun and shoots another driver.  Nor do I understand a dude who swerves to hit a motorcycle.

When I get angry at another driver, I honk my horn at them.  If I’m super out of control, I might do it twice.

I feel like it is the proper way to say “you drive like a douchebag” without, you know, shooting them.

I know regular readers will be shocked that I didn’t complain about guns here.  So let me be clear, I’m not happy some asshole had a loaded gun in his car and shot a four year old.  He doesn’t get brownie points for admitting he murdered a kid because some other asshole cut him off in traffic.

Road rage is certainly made worse by a loaded gun.  But it is always bad.  The solution, of course, is for everyone else to stop driving.

Anti Geek Bullshit

So maybe you know (or maybe you don’t) that this week contained the date Marty and Doc Brown travelled to in Back to the Future II.

You may also know that a new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer dropped this week.

Geeks were understandably excited about these two events.  The former resulted in a whole lot of jokes.  Many of which were repetitive and/or not very funny.

The latter resulted in blog posts dissecting every single shot.

And, of course, both resulted in a bunch of people railing against the geeks for being so fucking excited about something they personally didn’t like.

It takes all kinds, I guess but here’s the thing: if someone is excited about Back to the Future because they fucking love those movies, why do you give a shit?  If you are pissed that people don’t love your favorite movie, you need to learn something about art.

Love of art is subjective.  And yes – the Back to the Future movies are art.

Pop art, sure.  But still art.

You don’t have to like it.  But you don’t have to unzip your fly and piss on it either.

 

 

Shit That Pissed Me Off – 4/3

High School Orders Special Needs Student He Can’t Wear a Letter Jacket

The Principal of the school said he had considered everything and because the young man was only involved in extracurricular basketball, he would not be permitted to wear the letter jacket.  He decided to stick with official school policy.

Here’s what he said:

Teachers told the parents they would prefer he not wear the letter on his jacket. We have considered it, and our decision was no. We decided that it is not appropriate in our situation because it is not a varsity level competition.

It seems silly to me that anyone would care if a kid with Downs’ Syndrome wore a letter jacket.  If it helps that kid feel like a little less of an outsider, what’s the harm?  So you give those letters out as awards to other students.  So what?

The wrong person puts one of these bad boys on and the entire High School pecking order is blown to hell!

The wrong person puts one of these bad boys on and the entire High School pecking order is blown to hell!

Do you think those kids are incapable of understanding why that child who can’t participate in “official” sports would want, and deserve, a letter as well?

I just think it’s a shame that policy trumped compassion.  Whoever complained about this situation should have their hands smacked with a ruler.

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Shit that Pissed Me off – 1/23

The President Lays a SICK BURN on Congressional Republicans

Listen up Congress.

I know that you guys are all supposed to hate each other and I confess I think the Tea Party Republicans are kind of loony.

But here’s the thing, you could at least pay the office of the Presidency a bit of fucking respect.  Someday one of your people will hold that office again.  Do you really want the Democrats to act like a bunch of petulant school children when your guy (I’m just assuming it’ll be a guy) says he’s done running for office?

No lie - I typed "petulant school children" into an image search and this was one of the hits.

No lie – I typed “petulant school children” into an image search and this was one of the images that showed up.

If you can’t learn how to sit on your fucking hands for the fucking State of the Union address, you shouldn’t have applied for the fucking job.

Grow the fuck up.

If you didn’t miss it, that was pretty much what Obama said to you when he slammed the door on you hard.  So quit whining about what he did because you fucking deserved it.

Man do you assholes make me want to say “fuck” a lot!

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Shit That Pissed me Off – 10/10

Judge Forces Mom Change Her Son’s Name Because She Was Incapable of Making a Rational Decision

An appeals court had to overturn this idiotic ruling so I guess sometimes the judicial system works.  Eventually.

If we are to believe this “irrational” mother’s story, she chose to give her child her own last name after the father abused her during the pregnancy.  The judge in the case felt that she just wasn’t in the right mind to make that sort of decision and, I guess, thought it would case harm to the child if the child didn’t have his father’s last name.

I'll bet the judge would have ruled differently if the father's last name was HITLER!!!

I’ll bet the judge would have ruled differently if the father’s last name was HITLER!!!

An appeals court saw it differently and apparently felt the judge in the case was far more irrational than the mother.

This last name thing is problematic to begin with.  I like my last name so when I got married, I kept it.  That’s totally fine because I’m a dude and nobody questions when a man wants to keep his name.

Nobody questions when parents given their child the father’s last name.

But if a woman wants to keep her last name or give her last name to a child, well then it is time to take the case to court, I guess.

It’s a double standard.  And a  stupid one.

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Shit that Pissed Me Off – 4/25

Christian Comedian Asks A “Hilarious” Question That “Proves” It Is Crazy To Be An Atheist

This is pretty old and I just happened to click-through because I wanted to know if the question really proved I’m crazy.

Basically, his hilarious question is “why are atheists offended by ‘under god’ in the pledge of allegiance if they don’t believe in god?”

HA!  You got me there, buddy!  Forcing my kids to acknowledge a god they don’t believe in is totally OK.  Having a problem with that is completely insane!!!

If they object to saying “Under God,” they are COMMUNISTS!

Let me ask you, though, how you would feel if we changed the word “God” to “Allah?”  Or Shiva?  Would that be OK with you?  Or would you be upset because you were expected to say that our country was under a god you didn’t believe in?

The issue has nothing to do with the existence of god and everything to do with the idea that nobody’s god should be held higher than any other god in the eyes of the state.

So anyway, I don’t think the question proved I’m crazy.  You can’t prove a negative, however, so it’s impossible to prove that I’m not crazy.

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Shit that Pissed me Off – 3/14

Get Raped at Pensacola Christian College and…Get Expelled!

Wait…what????

Welcome to a right-wing Christian college!  We want to make sure that you follow the straight and moral path so if your boyfriend abducts you and rapes you in a construction site, we’ll ensure you know it is because you are a spoiled vessel who doesn’t deserve to be around decent people!  Especially decent men like your rapist boyfriend!

A regular by-product of fundamentalist religion (any fundamentalist religion) seems to be the shaming of women.  It isn’t enough that you are subservient to men.  You should, in fact, be ashamed of your gender.  If you are raped, it is your own fault for existing.

Actually, it’s Eve’s fault. Blame her for the fact being a woman is so awful.  The church isn’t run by a bunch of misogynist assholes.  It’s her fault!

As is frequently observed, this attitude is no more helpful for men than it is for women because it teaches men that they have no responsibility for their own behavior.  Basically, if you are a guy who sexually assaults a woman, it isn’t your fault.  You can’t control yourself.  She is supposed to do that for you.  If she fails to control your sexual urges, she should be punished.

Tell me again how religious liberty is under attack in this country.

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Shit that Pissed me off – 1/31

Oklahoma Lawmaker Wants To Ban All Marriages

There we have it ladies and gentlemen, the nuclear option!  If we can’t stop those pesky gays from getting married, we’ll just stop everyone from getting married.

We all knew this had to happen eventually, right?  While these people aren’t bigots or homophobes (just ask them), they are willing to carpet bomb the entire idea of marriage rather than allow that their idea of what marriage should be in not the only valid one.

When you write stuff down in your idea journal in the morning, sometimes it should stay in the idea journal

In the process, a party that seems really interested in preserving the rights of the small businessperson is willing to propose a law that will screw over thousands of them!  Every event planner, photographer, florist and baker in Oklahoma will lose a whole lot of income if there aren’t any weddings.

But who are we kidding?  Churches will still be allowed to perform weddings.  And because they are churches, they are welcome to discriminate (or not discriminate) in any way they see fit.

Convenient. Read More…

Shit that Pissed me Off This Week 12/27

Atheist Shoots Video of Himself Being a Total Dick

I complain about stupid religious people all the time so it is only fair that I get a little annoyed when an atheist is a complete jerk.

This charming fellow is understandably upset about a nativity scene set up on public land.  Especially given they have nothing representing other religions.  Only Christianity.  Totally unconstitutional, that.

So what does he do? He posts a video of himself in a profanity laden rant that completely undermines the whole argument.  Hating on Christianity (or it’s trappings) just shifts the focus to his asshole behavior rather than keeping it on the fact that you can’t put a nativity scene on public land.

Maybe if I get the gun a little closer, I can be sure I won’t miss….

It frustrates me when an atheist acts like the asshole so many people seem to believe the rest of us are because the conversation get hijacked.  Nobody is talking about the separation of church and state.  They are talking about a guy being a dick.

And the guy being a dick also happens to be an atheist.  So the conversation becomes about how atheists are dicks rather than how this one guy is a dick and he’d be a dick no matter what he believed.

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Shit that Pissed me off this Week – 12/13

Michigan Passes a bill Forcing Women to Purchase an Insurance Rider for Abortions

The bill specifically prohibits insurance companies from covering abortions except in cases where the mother’s life is threatened.

The idea here is to save certain people from the horrible guilt of paying into an insurance plan that covers abortions.  This way, only people who might want an abortion would be in the insured pool and other women would be able to enjoy guilt free insurance.

With a little fresh fruit, this insurance policy can be part of a guilt-free breakfast!

The problem is that the opponents of the bill are complaining that women have to basically bet on whether or not they will be the victim of rape or incest.  While that is true, it continues the dangerous trend of making the conversation about abortion all about rape and incest.

The basic idea that 50% of the population of Michigan is getting told that their insurance will be legally prevented from covering a medical procedure is a bigger problem than arguing about why they might want that procedure.

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