Today's rant: fall holidays

What’s the difference between “alternative facts” and “fake news”?  I think they can mean the same thing.  By the strictest definition of the word “fact”, there can be no alternative.  Facts are things that can be proven true.  Fact is not truth, thank you Indiana Jones.  Truth is subjective from person to person.  Since a fact is proven, there is no middle-ground or ambiguity.  Therefore, there is no “alternative” that is proven true.  An “alternative fact” sounds like something proven untrue:  a lie.  And the word “fake” means inauthentic, not genuine, not based in reality.  I could call “fake” a lie in the correct context.  To the current presidential administration, “alternative facts” is what you say when your people lie; “fake news” is what you say when you want people to think the other people lie.  To them, lies are just Jim Dandy, as long as they are coming from their people.  Well FUCK YOU, you shit-eating cunt!  That’s right, I’m upgrading Kellyanne Conway to official CUNT status, right next to Rosie O’Donnell, Nancy Grace, and those bitches from “The View”.

Don’t get me wrong, all major news is fake.  CNBC to Fox, HuffPost to InfoWars.  This is what gripes me about the president being selective about what he calls “fake”.  To him, everything is fake except that which agrees with him.  That’s not a red flag that something is wrong; that’s a crimson flag.  However, all of the major ones are more than guilty of selectively spinning events to purport a political agenda.  The two recent mass-tragedies are conclusive proof.  All you have to do is see those jabbering pundits talk non-stop of how the other political extreme is to blame and how the blame is being redirected back on themselves, while not actually blaming the perpetrators.  Verbal diarrhea, non-stop.  I’m not going to tell you where to get your information.  I’m telling you to question the tone and word choice the publishers and writers use.  Don’t be too fucking stupid.

…OK, I will at least tell you where to NOT get your news from.

- Anything that has a name that combines two or more words without a space in between (see the previous paragraph for examples).  That type of stylizing will make people retarded, which is probably their intention.  That’s what they did in 1984, you ignorant pricks!  They dumbed down the vocabulary to keep people from using critical thinking.  USE THE FUCKING SPACE BAR!  IT’S THE BIGGEST BUTTON ON THE KEYBOARD FOR A GODDAMN REASON!

- Social media, especially Facebook.

- Cable news networks.

- Any content a magazine that is exactly one page long and on the right-hand page.  That’s not a medical report, that a prescription drug advertisement.

With the verbal tick that is Dumbo Trump’s favorite phrase, “fake news”, I wonder why I’ve never heard of an instance of his use of the phrase to describe the online conspiracies that are in his political favor.  I’d really like to see a credible source.  Someone, even you Russians who occasionally look at these posts, anyone, explain where an anti-liberal story or conspiracy can be proven fake (with citations) and show me a citation where Trump denounces it.  Pizzagate, that’s a good idea.  The idea that Hillary Clinton was running an organization in the basement of a pizzeria for pedophelia.  You know, the story not-so-ridiculous enough that some conservative retard barged into the pizzeria with a fucking gun.  Show me where Trump said that conspiracy was “fake news”.

How come whenever I see a dead bug on the floor, it’s always upside-down?

As an adult, I have experienced three different intentions for Halloween.

- It’s a harvest holiday.  Being from suburban NY, we don’t harvest shit. (adapted from Lewis Black)

- It’s a children’s holiday.  Those fuckers run around all night burning calories to earn candy that will make up for those calories 100-fold.  It’s also the one time of year that my kids learn the financial concepts of “income tax” and “penalties”.

- It’s a sexy/slutty holiday.  This excuse was made up by adults to make themselves feel younger and experiment with role playing.  Good, wholesome fun as I’ve ever heard.

Happy belated Mischief Night, Halloween, All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Election Day, Veterans Day, school administrative holiday, Thanksgiving, and Black Friday (holy shit, that was a lot).

I know I rag on the Republicans a lot, but goddamnit, they give me a lot of good fodder.  I was willing to bet money that if the Republicans maintained control of both houses of Congress, Dumbo Trump will announce that is was the BIGGEST…VOTER…TURNOUT…EVER.  He’ll say it for either a midterm election or any other, but I don’t have that specific detail because his hyperbole is a slippery motherfucker.  As you’re reading those capitalized words, I know that you are mentally picturing the hand gestures accentuating every word that President Orange Julius is accustomed to making, and if you didn’t before, you are now.  He may even throw in some disproportionate approval ratings from women and minorities.  I’m not taking money bets on those, though.

Well, as it turned out, Democrats won majority of the House of Representatives.  That means that for the next 2 years, absolutely nothing will be approved by Congress.  Locally, referendums in my county approved a tax hike to spend on schools (I voted for) and disapproved with an amendment to the SC state constitution giving the governor power to choose a Superintendent of Education if the position is vacated (I voted against).  In short, I’m ok with raising my taxes for my kids schools.  Local kids will get smarter and that will trickle down into increased property value.  However, the Superintendent thing seemed like a power grab by our governor, the Trumpet (Trump puppet).  I don’t want someone like Betsy DeVos, who doesn’t know a goddamn thing about education and is in the back pocket of charter schools, to be able to be chosen to take the position.  When it comes to the position of US Secretary of Education, currently held by DeVos, I think it would help if that person at some point in their life was… maybe… a teacher?  The bitch is a career politician.  She has never worked a teaching gig in her life.  I believe this is the kind of person that would be sneaked into the position in SC if that kind of shitty amendment passed.  I will happily vote for a daycare teacher over someone like that, because I know the daycare teacher knows what the fuck they are talking about when it comes to education and children.

Remember, folks:  if you vote, then you have every right to complain.

Another one-liner:  Opinions are like assholes:  mine is awesome.

Here’s something that I’m surprised people don’t talk about in public:  how great it feels to pop a good zit.  You ever find one that looks like it’s been brewing for a few days and you’re surprised you didn’t see it sooner?  But once you get fingers near it, it starts feeling hot and irritated and you wonder how the hell it wasn’t bothering you until just this moment?  At that point, instinct takes over and you gotta pop that son of a bitch.  I’m talking “get this fucking shit out!”  I’m not sure what everyone’s technique is, but I like cornering the little fucker between the fingernails of my right and left index fingers and pushing them together.  There are 3 things that can happen that make me feel like the king of the world when popping a pustule.  Firstly, actually hearing it pop.  I feel a sense of accomplishment when I can hear it, because my hearing usually sucks.  It makes me feel l have super hearing.  Secondly, getting a really deep-seated one out because that fucking thing was bothering me all day long, building pressure with no place to release it.  It feels like it’s pushing through multiple layers of skin and tissue, and that fucker pops like a fucking volcano!  All red and smoky.  Thirdly, when a projectile of pus hits the mirror you’re standing in front of.  That’s a branch of projectile motion physics I’ve yet to see being studied.  Also, even though it hurts getting a really decent zit popped, doesn’t the pain feel good?  YES IT DOES!  That pain at the moment of popping is you crossing the finish line in a moment of glory.  You did it.  You got it out.  It’s over.  Remember, it’s over.  Don’t go back and start fucking with the area all over again.  I know it still feels pressurized like there’s something else in there.  There isn’t.  That’s just the area swollen and irritated because of the deep mining you just did.  Leave it alone; don’t irritate it more.  It’ll take longer to heal.  If you have to do something, wait an hour and scrape your fingernail lightly over it to get that little yellow pus crystal that forms afterward off your body.  Besides that, leave it alone until tomorrow.  Tomorrow, you can see if there is anything left in there to excavate again.

OK, back to holidays.  Cruising past Halloween and Election Day, we head to Thanksgiving:  the one day a year we express our appreciation for what we have and spend part of that same celebration planning to buy more stupid, frivolous shit the following day, because economics.  There are only 2 items on my Black Friday List:  a Rubbermaid set and new pillows, and I’m ordering those online to avoid the lines.  Besides that, everyone else can wait in line at the mall and trample each other to death like they’re rioting at a professional soccer game when they should be just eating, drinking, watching football, and passing out.  Once again, the sales start earlier and earlier.  2PM on Thanksgiving?  I’m not even going to be taking the turkey out by then!  Please, don’t go out shopping.

As I was perusing online news stories in my downtime, I think I found a nice gem worthy of submitting to the Darwin Awards.  This is from the British publisher “Daily Mail”.  The first line is awesome:  “A man was mowed down and killed by a Boeing 737 as it took off at a major Russian airport.”  HOLY SHIT!  He was run over by a commercial jet!  What the fuck was he doing on the tarmac?   Well, the man was being deported back to Armenia and needed to make a connecting flight in Russia.  “Albert Yepremyan, 25, had been deported from Madrid to his native Armenia when he fled the terminal during a stopover in Moscow, say reports.”  He was running away from the terminal and got “mowed down” by a 737!  Stories like these make me happy because it makes me feel smart.

today's rant: pride parade

My new car comes with a 3-month free trial for satellite radio.  I might have preferred a 3-month free trial of gasoline.  I think I like it enough to keep it.  I primarily play the 90s channel.  However, I have to change it when Hanson inevitably comes on.  Mmm… nope.  Not for me.  I’ve marked two channels as favorites:  the Vivid adult entertainment channel and the George Carlin channel.  I’ve openly admitted to my wife that I listen to the Vivid channel when I don’t have the kids in the car.  I don’t see anything wrong with that, and she hasn’t said anything bad about it.  It is not like I am going to fuck the radio while I am driving.  In addition, I have given her my login credentials to stream on her phone so she can listen to Billy Joel music all day long.  Everybody wins.

I really need to find out what there is to vote for next month.  I just had a sample ballot emailed to me.  Let’s see what it says…

Is it weird that my voting precinct location is at a school that’s not in my kids’ school district?  Ok, major one, governor.  Seeing that McMaster is Trump’s puppet (Trumpet?), I’m not voting for him.  That was easy enough.  There’s a spot for a write-in.  Maybe I’ll put down Santa Claus.  Next is Secretary of State.  I’m assuming it’s the one in this state and not the Secretary of State that’s part of the federal Executive Branch.  How do you discern the two offices?  Federal Secretary of State and State Secretary of State?

The National Hurricane Center categorizes the projected sustained wind speed of a hurricane using 4 letters: in order of severity, D, S, H, and M, with M being the strongest.  The letters stand for:

D:  Damn, it’s windy

S:  Son of a bitch!

H:  HOLY SHIT!

M:  MOTHERFUCKER!!!

Four months ago, my family went into Columbia to a festival called Outfest, an event produced by SC Pride.  We wanted to spend more time there than we did, but we cut it short because it was too damn sunny and hot.  We borrowed sunscreen from a group of people at a tent who were part of a Baptist Fellowship who are LGBT-friendly.  As a heterosexual male, I see a few different variants of the acronym, ranging all the way to LGBTQ+.  As a Pokémon Go player, just to keep it simpler for me, I was thinking of mentally calling members of that community “shinies” (cool variants of Pokémon with a different color pallet), but I’m not going to say that out loud.  Anyhow, 2 weeks after Outfest, we sat through a service at that Fellowship, and have kept going almost every week.  As the jaded fuck that I am regarding organized religion and its hypocrisies, I can provide first-hand observations that just because some people are not heterosexual does not mean they don’t have faith.  So suck it, you Leviticus-thumping asswipes.  On the plus side, I was called an ally for the first time.  To me, “ally” seems like one of those titles that only someone from a specific sub-culture can give out.  If I gave it to myself, that seems pretentious.  This ranks up there with a lesbian former coworker asking me to be a sperm donor for her girlfriend.

As of this paragraph, it is a Monday morning and my thigh muscles above my knees are burning.  I’ve spent the past 6 days continuously on my feet.  I’ve been walking and standing on a manufacturing production line taking notes and pictures, marching in support of a pride parade, and yesterday I played paintball.  I’m out of shape, so my legs are suffering because of it, feeling the burning sensation of muscles that haven’t been used like this in a pretty long time.  So my choices at this point are to continue using my legs in order for them to get used to the activity in the long term or consider getting my legs cut off at the knee like in the movie “Tusk” so I never have to feel this kind of muscle burning again.  I’ll let you folks know what I decide.

I dislike Trump’s presidency as much as I disliked W’s presidency.  With the midterm elections coming up in a few weeks, I think the best thing I can hope for is a stalemate in government for the next 2 years, where democrats are the majority in Congress.  That way, no more laws are passed.  Congress agrees on a bill, Trump vetoes it, and they get paid hundreds of thousands by the taxpayers and millions by their corporate masters to sit on their hands all day and play “the stranger”.  To me, that is the best-case scenario.

In the immediate aftermath of some guy in Florida sending the most undesirable kind of fan mail to Trump critics, all I know for sure is this:  the guy’s a Trump-thumping wacko.  That is to say he is a wacko who also just happens to be a Trump-thumper.  Not all Trump-felatio enthusiasts are wackos.  This guy is.  Once again, the mainstream discourse coming out of the event is pure bullshit.  Democrats and Republicans are going back and forth debating whether Trump’s asshole-ish rhetoric is to blame.  Really?  That’s what we need to talk about?  The guy was only just caught.  Sit back, let the authorities kick the guy in the nuts for a few hours, and wait and see what information comes out.  Maybe there was another reason he sent that “fan mail” to those specific people, and it didn’t have anything to do with politics.  Maybe they’re the most prominent subscribers of Hustler magazine and that’s the reason.   Spoiler alert:  it’s not.  The guy is an angry nutbar of a Trump-thumper.  That’s it.  I bet he’s white, too.  This is coming from absolutely no data; just a guess based on stereotypes.

2 hours later:  I TOLD YOU!  Old, pasty white guy who wants nothing more than to taste Dumbo Trump’s nut nectar.  Is Trump an enabler?  I think so, but I believe in personal responsibility more.  It’s this guy’s fault for being stupid enough to be influenced by an angry orange troll.  If you have to validate yourself by blindly aligning with the loudest voices and not logically form an intelligent opinion yourself, you deserve all the repercussions.

Today's rant: chicken hurricane

There are certain topics I do not talk about at work.  I have such a fucked up sense of humor and pessimistic outlook that a lot of people would have a problem with me.  Basically, if talking about a topic will disrupt the day-to-day business of the people I work with, I don’t do it.  One or two people around me could be way too uptight not to go to HR, and I like getting paid too much to risk fucking it up.

- Politics.  I hate them in general and I flat out will not discuss them.  No one else around me is dumb enough to either, so let’s just continue on getting through the work day.

- My social life.  I’m an introvert, but there are a few lucky groups of people who can get me out of my shell occasionally.  Social life is separate from work life.  As such, I don’t ask coworkers what their night life is like.  That has nothing to do with getting our shit done before 5pm.  At a previous job, I have known 2 coworkers who hooked up and had a kid.  I didn’t say a word about it because it wasn’t my business and should not have affected how they did their job except when the kid wasn’t feeling well.  I say “should not” because that’s the ideal.  I have no idea how others actually treated them afterward.  I hoped for the best.

- Money I make and money I have.  I have needed to explain to by manager the need of being absent to close on buying a house, but not how big or where or how much.  That’s my business.  I haven’t even told coworkers I bought a new car.  It’s common courtesy, but also I don’t like the idea of bragging when I’m pretty sure a lot more people who work here don’t make as much as I do.  Consequently, I feel awkward when my wife says how many square feet the house is to those whom I don’t give a shit enough to remember their last name.  I think she forgets poor people exist.

- College sports.  Long Island did not have any major college sports teams.  I can only say Stony Brook was a 16-seed in the NCAA basketball tournament some years ago.  Whoopy-fricken-doo.  Besides, they play real sports in NY, so why should I give a damn about 99% of players who don’t turn pro?  That’s what college is for, getting an education in case you’re not good enough to get paid to receive concussions.  Residing in South Carolina, I don’t care about Clemson vs. USC, nor about Alabama vs. Auburn.  I’ll cheer for whatever school gives my kids the most money to go there.

Speaking of no-no’s at work, I have some t-shirts I do not wear to work.  They are mostly concerning the topic of beer.  Today, I saw a guy at work wearing breast cancer awareness t-shirt saying “I Run For Boobs”.  I think it’s funny.  I’d wear that in public, because if someone was offended, it would be stupid of them to tell the police that they were uncomfortable watching me wear a t-shirt that said the word “boobs”.  I would not wear that at work, just because I wouldn’t want to be bothered by a small fraction of people going to HR and complain about me.  HR will do something that a cop would laugh at because they protect the company from liability from employees.  A stupid liability is still a liability to them.

I have very little trust in HR departments because I’ve only recently become aware of their true purpose.  Honestly, I feel stupid for not figuring this out earlier.  “Human Resources Department” is a misleading phrase for the true purpose.  To me, the phrase sounds like it deals with the liaising management’s processes and policies of to the employees having to do with things like conduct, benefits, prohibitions, and career advancement.  However, as I mentioned earlier, HR is meant to protect the company from liability caused by its employees.  It is not meant to protect or advocate for the employees themselves.  This is why I hear personal stories of people being fired for complaining about harassment or fired for taking legally protected medical leave.  It is less risky for some companies to terminate people for making waves than it is to provide a decent place to work.

I like scary movies, but they’ve gotta stop with this reboot/retcon stuff.  I bring this up because they are releasing another Halloween movie that completely ignores everything in the series that happened after the original in 1978.  Well, fuck!  What a waste of time I spent watching that shit!  It’s like creating an alternate universe like they did with Star Trek in 2009 or when they declared the Star Wars Expanded Universe non-canon.  This will be the 5^th different iteration of the Halloween continuity:

- Halloween 1, 2, 4, 5, 6;

- Halloween 3;

- Halloween 1, 2, H20, Resurrection;

- Rob Zombie’s Halloween 1 & 2;

- Halloween 1, 2018, and subsequent sequels

It’s getting harder and harder for me to suspend reality to be entertained by this shit when I have paid attention to one story, and now have to differentiate it from a totally new universe they are creating.  This is the same reason why I don’t like the latest round of X-Men movies with Fassbender and McEvoy headlining.  It’s not their fault, but Deadpool said it best:  it’s hard to keep up.  It is especially worse for scary movies because, like I said, it’s harder to suspend reality. 

And goddamnit, I am sick and tired of these non-numerical sequel titles!  Make it even harder for me to follow the sequence of the full story, why don’t you!  Fuck!  X-Men, X2, X-Men:  The Last Stand, X-Men Origins:  Wolverine, X-Men:  First Class, X-Men:  Days of Future Past, X-Men:  Apocalypse, X-Men:  Dark Phoenix.  In that last sentence, we’ve gone off storyline chronological order 4 times and completely erased one continuity.  It’s a cash-grab.  Here are a few more titles that I’ll incorporate or make up just to fuck with the timeline even more:  X-Men:  Onslaught; X-Men:  Cheese Danish; X-Men:  Wait, I forgot, Cyclops is supposed to be OLDER than Havoc; X-Men:  X-Force; X-Men:  FINALLY Something with Mr. Sinister, like cloning Jean or something, leading to…; X-Men:  Let’s Finally Acknowledge That Cable is Cyclops’ Son; X-Men:  Light Roast; and just to fuck with everyone all over again and start another continuity, Ultimate X-Men.

Here’s a quote from Wikipedia about Hurricane Florence:

“The death toll rises to 35. Also, about 3.4 million chickens and turkeys and 5,500 hogs were killed in flooding from Hurricane Florence as rising North Carolina rivers swamped dozens of farm buildings where the animals were being raised for market. (CBS News) (Washington Examiner)”

Holy shit!  Firstly, that is a shit ton of dead animals.  Secondly, there is sooooo much more detail about the millions of dead farm animals than there is about the dead people.

Following up on a comment I made earlier this year about the US finally having a conversation about sexual harassment, HOLY SHIT, did social media blow up during and after the testimonies about Dumbo Trump SCOTUS nominee Kavinaw (I don’t want to remember how to spell Kavanaugh, so until I do, he’s Kavinaw).  Honestly, I’ve been trying really hard to think of something that has not been already said, but I keep going back to:

- Why him?  Why not someone else who doesn’t have an allegation of being a douche? (although the obvious answer is political affiliation and the abortion argument)

- At least do an investigation and try to prove or disprove Ford’s story.

My wife and I are registered Republican.  Please understand that when I turned 18 and had to register to vote, airplanes were flown into the twin towers.  Also, at the time, NY Republicans were not that bad.  They didn’t 100% shit their pants when gay people wanted to be treated like everyone else.  They shit their pants a little bit, but not 100%.  Then I escaped that bubble when I went to college and learned to think for myself.  My wife, on the other hand, has been stricter with voting along party lines.  When we started dating, she asked me via AOL Instant Messenger (and now I’m paraphrasing) “You’re voting for McCain, right?”  It was harsh for her to comprehend that I couldn’t vote for someone who was endorsed by the worst US President of all time (at the time) and who had a retard of a running mate like Palin.  However, in the past year, I won’t say my wife has flipped political affiliation, but she openly proclaims her regret of voting for Trump.  Personally, I’m happy she came to this conclusion by herself without any influence from me.  The victim-shaming and abuser-enabling rhetoric that has dominated and been documented and publicized finally pushed her over the edge.  She started turning when the Trump Tariffs started costing her job a couple million dollars.  Now the argument that the current presidential administration is anti-woman is really grabbing her attention.  I understand not voting for Hillary.  I didn’t vote for either of them, and to be perfectly honest, I forgot which 3^rd party candidate I voted for.  Oddly enough, I was not upset at her voting for Trump.  I was upset that she voted for Trump and lied to me about it.  She initially said she also voted for some forgetful 3^rd party candidate.  She accidentally let it slip months later while we were driving.  My in-laws are so pro-Trump it makes me nauseous.  That sort of naïve blind devotion should only be reserved for children ogling over Paw Patrol and Doc McStuffins and adults ogling over Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits.  Fuck, those things are good.

On a personal note, now I don’t feel so bad about me being a too scared to talk to girls or go to parties in high school.  All you had to do was let me jerk off and give me WWF No Mercy on Nintendo 64 and I stayed the fuck out of trouble.  Notice that I didn’t put the wrestling video game first before the comment about jerking off in that last sentence.  Just wanted to make that clear.  I did not… have… jerk off… relations… with that video game… WWF No Mercy.

Today's rant: Unite the what?

It seems to me that once or twice a decade, California is set on fire.  I like fire, I like big fires, but state-wide fires are just a smidge excessive.

To me, the “Unite the Right” is a great opportunity for white Christian people to bitch and moan that their white privilege isn’t good enough.  Just so any readers of my shit knows, I really don’t like using the phrase “white privilege” because I wasn’t exposed to the phrase as a kid.  It’s still new to me, but I think white supremacy falls into the category of “white privilege.”  Another reason I don’t like the phrase is because I mistype it 90% of the time.  Fucking liberals.  Though honestly, I’m torn about how to react to these uniters of the righters. (aww, fuck you, spellcheck.  “Uniters” sounds like a word to me, so I’m keeping it) One side of me wants to ignore them and not validate their negative rhetoric.  Another side of me says that ignoring them also ignores the underlying problem:  they’re racist assholes who shouldn’t be allowed to let their ideas (or genetics) spread.  I so wish I could say “fuck the 1^st Amendment and cut their tongues off”, but that’s a dangerous precedent.  Although I must say, if the circumstances of the death that happened last year were reversed now, and one of those goofy tiki torch-carrying bungholes was killed in a riot, you bet your fucking ass I wouldn’t feel bad about it.  Yes, some people deserve to die.  I don’t get white supremacy.  It sounds like genetic and evolutionary stagnation to me.  Well if that’s what they want, fine by me, as long as they die off quietly and not bother the rest of us.  Weed out the inferior mentality and let us evolve as a society.  It’s their own logic about superiority turned around against them, and I fucking love it!  If you are one of these people trying to unite your right or whatever, here is my piece:  You are all really fucking stupid.  What you are doing is wrong.  You have way too much time on your hands to be worrying about other groups of people threatening your precious white privilege.  You deserve to have your pubic hair set on fire with those cute little tiki torches that you carry.  The universe does not care that your skin pigmentation is bland or care for your self-inflated sense of superiority. 

So some guy who works at an airport stole an airplane and crashed it into an island over the weekend.  HOLY SHIT!  I’d like to share some excerpts from the New York Daily News article I just read because they are spectacular!

-          “Russell swiped the commercial aircraft from Sea-Tac International Airport on Friday and performed some startling acrobatic stunts before going down.”  Now I wish I saw these stunts.

-          “As a flight controller tried to convince him to safely land the plane, Russell wondered aloud about whether he had enough fuel to make it to the Olympics, spoke about the view, and said he had a lot of people who cared about him.”  THE OLYMPICS!  Those were 6 months ago!

-          “He complimented the controller: ‘You are very calm, collect, poised,’ he said.”  At least he was polite.

-          “A friend who is a former co-worker told TV station KIRO that Russell was not happy with his job.”  Well what a fucking sendoff Mr. Russell did!

-          “Observers wondered how, 17 years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, someone can simply take a passenger plane from a major U.S. airport.”  Oooh, I can answer that!  It’s because the TSA doesn’t work, duh!

-          “Russell's responsibilities included towing and pushing aircraft for takeoff and gate approach, de-icing them, and dealing with baggage.”  Apparently, he dealt with too much baggage.

Living in the south now, there tend to be more religious folk down here.  Some in particular put little signs on their lawns for car drivers to read as they pass.  These are small signs, about the size that you see advertising home buying or more of those fucking signs.  These religious people sometimes put a sign up that says “Thank you, JESUS”.  The idea of putting up a sign like that puzzles me.  Do they really thing Jesus Christ can see the sign?  Jesus Christ doesn’t even own a car!  Do they think He’ll be slighted if He doesn’t see their affirmation in His teachings and miracles?  Why not write the sign in Aramaic?  Jesus didn’t know the English language or alphabet when He was nailed to a tree, and I’ve never heard a Pope say that He took a program like Rosetta Stone postmortem, so I doubt He can even read the sign.  I don’t think it has to do with actually communicating with our Lord and Savior.  I think it’s more a sense of self-righteousness, trying to tell the rest of us that they are suuuuuch good people because of their faith that they have to rub it in our faces.  God, don’t these people remember that pride/vanity is a deadly sin, too?

As the midterm elections start inching closer and closer, like a dick poking you in the back while you are being spooned, I thought I would share a piece of general advice.  If you see or hear an advertisement that is not for a product or service, and you hear or read the words “paid for by”, someone is lying to you for the purpose of political gain.  It doesn’t matter where on the political spectrum they are from; they are lying to you.  Get your information elsewhere.

The pessimist in me says that Trump will be re-elected because 1) voters are too stupid to do otherwise and 2) I don’t see any serious non-Republican contenders to run against him for the 2020 election this early on.  We really are an uneducated people if we swallow all the lies told to us, refuse to vilify unethical behavior, reward the liars for it, and cannot find anyone smarter to do the job better (yes, I’d say the same for Hillary).  If it couldn’t happen for W’s 2^nd term, it sure-as-shit won’t happen for Trump’s.  I keep remembering that the last two Republican presidents the US had lost the popular vote and only won via the Electoral College vote, which is all that matters constitutionally.   Fuck us.  It’s time for a refresher.  We’ve tried electing lawyers, we’ve tried electing veterans, we’ve tried electing businesspeople; let’s try something else.  It’s time to pick people who do not have a vested personal interest in gaining governmental power.  Ironically, I’d say let’s try electing smart people like teachers or engineers or doctors because of their education, but they’re too smart to do something as stupid as run for public office.

By all media representations of the current Pope, he seems like a good guy.  So, after 1000 kids were diddled by 300 priests in Pennsylvania for decades and decades, and the church did everything in its power to cover it up, at least he said something.  He released a letter condemning that kind of abuse.  I read the letter, and I read a few news stories about it.  What I did not read is any kind of plan about what to do about Catholic sex abuse.  The only thing I saw mentioned in the letter was “fasting and prayer”.  Um, well, I work in quality control.  Usually, if there is a problem, we have to identify the cause and (pay attention, church) make a plan to fix it and follow through with making sure the plan works.  If I went to a customer and said “All of the screws are falling out because they are the wrong size.  We’re going to fast and pray about it,” some contracts would get terminated pretty damn quickly.  I know that solution sounds stupid, because it is, but no more stupid than 3 years ago when pastor and mayor of Jackson, MS Tony Yarber, facing crumbling infrastructure, said on the Twitter (and this is why I’m glad that Twitter is not legally-binding doctrine) “Yes....I believe we can pray potholes away. Moses prayed and a sea opened up.”  On an unrelated note, he did not win the primary in 2017 when he was due for reelection.

So, supposedly President Dumbo Trump said that the market would crash if Democrats were to impeach him.  Firstly, Dumbo, I seriously doubt you’ll get impeached for paying off porn stars because 1) your Republican friends won’t allow it and 2) the American people are too stupid to elect enough Senators and Representatives in November who will allow it.  Secondly, I admire your ego because it makes me feel better as a human being, but contrary to what you tell yourself in the mirror every morning, the stock market does not depend on you.  Correction, it doesn’t directly depend on you.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  my economic theory is that stock market performance is inversely proportional to Americans’ confidence in government.  Bill Clinton blowjob = Dow Jones 11,000.  Relief that Clinton is getting out of office = tech bubble burst.  W’s 2^nd term in office = Dow Jones 14000.  Relief that W is getting out of office = housing bubble burst.  Trump so far = Dow Jones 25000.  I want him to keep fucking up and saying the insane, bat shit things he’s saying because my 401(k) LOVES IT!  However, if we get someone competent to sit as President, start cashing out & save it for the black market.  Anyway, as I’ve said, Dumbo, you’re not directly tied to the market.  You’re just a variable in the cycle.  I’ll tell you someone who is infinitely more important to the market than you will ever be and on whom our economy truly relies:  Santa Claus.

Today’s rant: 2 months worth

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today's rant: hanging out

Is hanging yourself the new celebrity fad?  First bag lady Kate Spade, then celeb chef Anthony Bourdain, both in the same week.  Why don’t celebrities that really deserve it hang themselves, like news media whore Nancy Grace, or really-aspiring sperm donor Harvey Weinstein, or businessman-turned-reality TV star Donald Trump?

OK, yes, rich successful people can be depressed.  Part of the problem is chemical or hormonal, which can lead to mental.  As much as I despise drugs, I am willing to hear the argument for medicinal marijuana.  I haven’t been willing before because of the credibility of the people trying to explain it to me.  Honestly, hearing the argument for medicinal marijuana from a stoner is like being recommended Adderall by a speed-freak or being recommended ephedra from a tweaking meth-head.  I’m still against recreational use, though.  The shit stinks like hell.

How in the hell have male SNL cast members hooked up with the likes of Scarlet Johannsen and Ariana Grande?  Does the “he makes me laugh” thing actually work?!  Damn.  In the end, good for you.  Don’t fuck it up.

I want a new phone.  I currently have an iPhone 6.  Like other phones of this model, the battery’s capacity is starting to crap out.  In addition, the ear piece part of the phone is barely audible, no matter how high I turn up the volume.  I can only hear clearly through speakerphone or my earbuds.  It’s about 3 1/3 years old, so way past the warranty and AppleCare expiration.  If it was just the battery, I’d get it replaced and be done with it.  However, since the “phone” part of the iPhone is not functioning completely, and the do-it-yourself repair is too complex for me to want to try, I’m just going to get a new phone.  I want a refurbished iPhone 7, and I haven’t decided on AppleCare or an AT&T insurance plan.  Goddamnit, it sucks that these things are intentionally engineered to crap out and have a short lifespan.  Why do you think Apple’s stock price is so high?  It is because people have to buy a new $1000 phone every 2-3 years.  Same thing goes for tablet computers.  I don’t like that bullshit.  I built a custom PC all by my lonesome as a college graduation present to myself.  That was 11 years ago, and I still use the fucking thing.  The only things I’ve changed on it are the RAM and the operating system.  I was forced to install Windows 7 because Microsoft stopped supporting XP Pro with updates.  Once again, a scheme to force consumers to buy upgrades.  There is a lot of money to be made for companies by creating a bullshit problem and selling a bullshit solution.