Wednesday, August 31, 2016

GOP Witch Hunts - Wanking off on your dollar


Because sometimes a witch hunt doesn't deserve more than a couple memes which blow it to shit as the fake ass witch hunt and waste of tax payer dollars it really is.


In 1983, there was a US embassy bombing, and 307 people died (241 of them US Marines). No GOP witch hunt of anyone, especially not Sainted President Reagan, about why this happened.

And what about the "investigations" into President Bush and the failures of his staff?  Oh, wait, there weren't any.





Of course, it's been 30 years since Beirut, and the GOP didn't really prefect the waste-taxpayer-money-on-total-bullshit witch hunts until they wasted $60 million proving President Bill Clinton boinked a consenting adult, in the 1990s.  Well done, assholes.  That's $60 million the American people won't get back.




Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Robots should free humans to think, not force them to starve

I'm saying the first country that figures out how to give every citizen a living wage - so that every citizen can contribute to knowledge, entertainment, arts and science without having to waste most of the day just to survive is going to conquer the world.

Knowledge is power - the country with the most people studying robotics and electricity and coming up with better sanitation - instead of wasting time being sanitation people - is going to have the knowledge, technology and infrastructure to fuck everybody else.

This "robots displace humans is good for business" crap is ass backwards.


Saturday, August 27, 2016

Musical Monday - Rage on Baby!

(Says 97 dB output, and bloody well feels like it!)



Playlist? Check.
(see below)

Volume at 7? Check.
(Wait for it)

Air guitar? Check.

Air Jam Costume On?  Check


(I don't know who the model is, but fuck yeah, that's my air jam outfit! It's all about the bass, baby!)


Unleash the Rage!


AMARANTHE - Drop Dead Cynical



MEATLOAF - Life is a Lemon (and I want my money back)


HALESTORM - Daughters of Darkness



Old Mrs K knocking on the door, because I "forgot" to invite her, and she wants to do it again, so she can play the air drums this time, and we crank it to 9, because it bugs the shit out of Old Mr K?

CHECK!
CHECK!

Happy Fucking Saturday Morning!

Woooooo!


Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Why burning bridges before Inauguration Day is stupid

On Friday, January 20, 2017, the United States of America, and ALL her citizens shall have a new President.

If you don't hate that person on day one, give it a few months, because you're going to hate that person eventually. 2016 is that kind of year.

However, that person will be President. And if you're a citizen, that person will be YOUR President.

That's how it works. You don't get to claim “Not MY President,” because yeah, that's how it works. You don't want that person to be your President? Then renounce your citizenship and move.

You know, like Rush Limbaugh and Ted Nugent did. Oh, right. Whatever.

This is important, because right now - August 2016 - friends and family are breaking up because “Candidate X is evil!”

You know why that breakup is really fucking stupid?

Because in January, you’ll both have the same damn President, but you won't have each other.

Yep. In January, one of you - maybe both of you - will have a President other than the one you wanted. For FOUR YEARS. That's how it works.

And come February, you won't have your friend, or family member, to commiserate with, the way you used to, bitching about what a disappointment/dictator President Obama turned out to be, about how you were wrong/right all along?

Yeah, remember those good old days of protesting together and trying to figure how out to get Rep Paul Ryan to quit being an asshole and start/stop blocking some new initiative by that great hero/villain Rep Nancy Pelosi?

Yeah, but you broke up over some childish fight over which was the real Anti-Christ, Trump or Clinton.

Well, guess what. Someone will be President in January 20, and then the world will move on.

Arguing and debating and discussing? That's healthy adult behavior.

Burning bridges today over it is simply fucking stupid.







I'm not Taylor Swift; I'll tell you when I'm pissed at you

Taylor Swift has now become infamous for her "revenge songs," where she apparently tells old friends and boyfriends how much she hates them by selling a million copies of a pop song about how she's mad at someone.

I won't do that with a blog post. If I want to tell you that you're being a wanker, I'll tell you and move on.

If you've been a wanker, I may wax philosphical based on the experience, and make a philosophical blog post, but don't flatter yourself that somehow I'm being passive-aggressive toward YOU.

I'm deeper and more complex than that. I'm capable of choosing to tell you off, or choosing to drop it, and then still reflect on it and tell the world about some human behavior (not someone's behavior) that I think is stupid.

Moving on now.


(Taylor Swift is a bloody good singer, though.)





Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Just walk away

Sometimes it's better to walk away from a pointless argument rather than win it. The sun will rise tomorrow, and maybe the people you care about will be there, maybe they won't.

Friday, August 19, 2016

Discworld should be mandatory reading

I think the only Discworld book I haven't read is the cookbook. Everything else in the series I've read at probably at least three times. I think the core series should be mandatory reading in high school, and the Tiffany Aching books mandatory for all girls age 9 and older.

The buried lessons on ethics, civics and critical thinking are stunning. I think only Raising Steam went askew, partly because it was trying to tie up an entire epic saga of loose threads.






Morning commute Twilight Zone Experience

I'm on the commuter train. Sounded to Seattle. Friday morning. I keep double-checking.

I feel like I've drifted into an alternate reality.

I haven't seen any familiar faces yet this morning.

But, I'm in my usual seat, and the usual two other seats nearest me are full.

And the two people are doing exactly what the usual two do - the person opposite me is sleeping; the woman across the aisle is applying her eye makeup.

Exactly the same seats, exactly the same behaviors, totally the wrong people

Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, I'm in the Twilight Zone.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Corporate Monopolies benefit the oligarchy

This image makes me think of three things:


  • My back aches just looking at her (although props to her maintaining her diet regimen for that figure), and,


  • Reading the history the "Flying A" brand is like reading the decline of Western civilization - corporate consolidation all over the place, and fuck capitalism, because monopolies are good for the oligarchs.






  • The history of the "pin-up" girl is interesting, from a social perspective, if not necessarily enlightening ("Ooooh, men like to ogle women and just can't control their hormones! Big surprise!"). Anyway, here is a fun history. How do I know it's fun? Because the opening paragraph contains the sentence "Anthropologists are unsure if they symbols of fertility or erotic talismans passed around by horney hunters."  (And it actually is a good read, because it's informative, doesn't screw around, despite the opening, and is just fun to see the glimpse into history provided by this artform.)


Meme's that piss me off - false equivalency

And the false equivalency begins.  An interesting parallel, except the attempt to conflate this with Trump contains two major flaws:

1) unlike Trump, Clinton did not make a shout out to a specific audience ("you second amendment guys'), meaning Trump basically issued a call to arms, and Clinton didn't;

2) as the first serious black candidate for President, Obama was already being targeted by hate groups (he had received a Secret Service detail an entire year earlier than any other candidate, ever, because he was already the target of hate groups), so Clinton was stating the already obvious, rather than suggesting someone "do something."



Also, in contrast to Trump, Clinton apologized for the remark. Trump has not apologized, but instead blamed everyone else for misrepresenting what he said, and has done what he always does - double-down on his bullshit.

And finally, the meme totally mangles the English language.  Okay, that's just marketing to the illiterate target audience - "what happened don't happen" - the word is "doesn't" you morons (or should I say "morans"?).





Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Destroy colleges - breeding grounds of liberals

So, we've known since Reagan began the war on colleges and grade-schoolers that the GOP had figured out that the less educated are easier to control. Bush upped the ante with "no child left behind," and Trump wore the fucking lampshade with "I love the uneducated!"

Turns out that education makes people liberal thinkers, and college education makes them more so. Thus, it becomes obvious why the GOP block efforts to reduce the cost of college education, and why they make people afraid to be on college campuses by letting people carry guns on campus.

It's not rocket science, merely social science, and class warfare.


Ergo, it also becomes obvious why the GOP want more guns on college campuses - hey, you know, scaring quality educators and intelligent students away from colleges means less education, and easier to control sheeple.

And while we're at it, let's also sell the idea that college education is a waste of time and money - 


Because, you know, that's really the only reason to go to college, right?  To have more money?  Because money is the root of all happiness, right?  At least, that's the line of bullshit we're sold every day. 

I mean, hey, let's have those kids go out and get jobs, instead of getting educated.  Because, we all know that blue collar, high school graduates, with no unions to protect them, are easier to control.

...which is my whole fucking point.

So, go to college. Get smarter. Become a liberal.









Monday, August 15, 2016

Music Monday - Butcher Babies Monster's Ball

Unclean lyrics are such a bitch to pull off, especially with a female vocalist. This vid combines my rage expression envy with my fetish for body paint (Heidi Shepherd's zipper face is all the more creepy for managing to be sexy at the same time), a good mosh, and the fantasy elements that make "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" worth watching.

Combo with Carla Harvey's amazing rap-like statico and I'm burning mobile bandwidth needlessly banging my head on the bus ;)



As much as I love the seemingly effortless grinding delivery of Shepherd and Harvey, I think if I were to pull an Ursula and steal a singing voice, Elize Ryd would be my top, then Alissa White-Gluz.

Ryd's voice is so frickin' smooth, it's pure ear candy, even watching her in behind-the-scenes vids. I think I could seduce the world with that voice.

I love how Shepherd switches in and out of the unclean lyrics so smoothly, and she does a powerful MC delivery in this vid. Even so, I find White-Gluz has a deeper and slicker kind of rage thing that provides smoother expression, without Shepherd's hint of nails-on-a-chalkboard irritating harmonic tint (it works well for BB's sounds, but would turn me off quickly, without Harvey's counter part).

Heidi Shepherd (left), Carla Harvey (right)





Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Making the Presidential Debates more exciting

You know what would be cool? If All-Father Odin was the moderator during the Presidential debates. He wouldn't take any shit.



I mean, can you imagine Trump or Clinton trying to dodge and dissemble against the Divine Wisdom Odin gained by hanging himself from the World Tree?  

Yeah, Odin be all like "Well, that's nice, now stop lying and do try to answer the question this time."



Tuesday, August 9, 2016

All Olympians are worthy of RESPECT

Watching the Olympics and there's always that part of me that shouts "Oh, no! How could you miss that step?!"

And then the reasonable part of my brain kicks in with "She just flipped three times, leapt 15 feet in the air, spun around four times and LANDED ON HER FEET! How the crap did she not break every bone in her body?!"



That could be any sport. I mean, Synchronized Diving seems kind of weird, but holy cow, you see these guys move in total sync and slip into the water with barely a splash - that's serious mastery of skill.

Even the bad Olympians pour their hearts into their craft and can pull off skills the rest of us would suck at on a good day, and would kill ourselves on a bad day.

I have the utmost respect and admiration for the Olympians (yes, even the ones who are total arseholes back home).


I'm not "one of those people" so stick around for the ride

You know you're going to Hell for reading my blog, right?

I mean, in our binary morality nation, reading a blog by someone who thinks Trump is a champion circus leader, thinks Clinton is qualified to be President, thinks Sanders is a saint for mobilizing the masses, wants to hear Jill Stein debate Clinton, thinks we should tax the rich and gay people should be allowed to visit each other in the hospital. I mean, has your head exploded yet?

I mean, I just said something nice about Trump AND Clinton AND Sanders AND Stein.  Is that even allowed??

Real life isn't binary right vs wrong.

How many of your co-workers think you're a pervert for having tried oral sex? You know you liked it, too, you perv.

I don't think like normal people. Don't try to pidgeon hole me, because that's a rude disservice to me, because you're wrong.

If you really just can't live with yourself unless you unfriend me, because I'm "one of those people," well, then I'm going to miss you. Especially since your voice is one I really want to hear, because the only way I'm going to grow is by hearing different points of view. I hate living in an echo chamber. It's fucking boring.

And besides, come January we're all going to have a new President and we're all going to bitch about the dumb things that she - or he - is doing. So, let's just ride this shit out together and keep having fun, right?

Who knows - maybe through discourse and dialogue of sometimes disagreeable ideas we'll figure out how to solve all the world's problems.

Stranger shit has happened.



Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Jill2016 - in way over her head

I need a cartoonist to help me with this.

Great Cthulu rises from the depths, mashing the landscape.
His hand descends to grab some tiny object from the ground.
He stomps across the landscape.
The monster behemoth stops before two other giant figures. The three titans glare at each other:
- Cthulu;
- A cheap and pitted skyscraper with bad hair;
- A column of fire, with shattered military hardware at the base, and bad hair

Cthulu straightens a toppled pedestal and places a tiny human figure on top, presented before the other titans.
The view changes.
The tiny human figure  has a a floating bubble reading "Jill2016."
Cthulu has writing on his arm reading "The Berned."
Cthulu says "Okay, round two."


Tokyo - Soon to conquer the world



Okay, so a couple of take-aways - Holy Crap! but Tokyo is densely populated. I mean you hear stories about people whose job is to smush people onto subway trains, and "coffin hotels," and other insane things, but yikes!  (Actually, I first learned about coffin hotels from reading Shadowrun books.)

I did not know Canada had less than 37 million people. Now, it looks like Tokyo is the only city more populous than all of Canada, and mostly by technicality of "urban influence zone" (my term), but whatever. That's a LOT of people.
That's so many people, it has a GDP larger than all but eleven countries.  In other words, Tokyo is the twelfth largest country in the wold - by economic standards.

The concept of "nations" and "states" has been eroding for years, losing ground to economic impact zones, instead.  E.g.  
  • In a welcome counterpoint, even as the nation state descends into paralysis and democratic dysfunction, cities are reemerging as cross border problem solvers going boldly where states no longer dare to go.  (Source)
That means that Tokyo is, for all practical purposes, a country within a country.  If the leaders of the city of Tokyo decided to tell the national government to fuck off, there isn't a lot the nationals could do about it, because they don't want to risk tanking the economy of all of Japan, and by extension much of the surrounding region (including the US imports). Oh, it would have to be subtle, since anything overt would clash with the public mindset, and you've got civil unrest, blah, blah, blah.  But, you can wrap your head around my point. The new Governor has a lot of reach, simply because her sphere of influence is the twelfth largest economy in the world. 

Things like this are also cool to reflect on when thinking about science fiction worlds, or fantasy worlds.

I mean, in Forgotten Realms, you get the city of Waterdeep, which has enormous economic influence over the entire region.  Or, in Pratchett's Disc World, where Ankh-Morpork is a cesspit, but probably also the most influential city in the world, due to the economic power.  Ankh-Morpork is the largest Dwarf city outside Uberwald (or was it actually the single largest, I forget), so Ankh-Morpork dwarves - the liberated little buggers - cause massive upheavals and shifts back ome in Uberwald, because the liberated little buggers control enormous amounts of wealth (sending money "home," and importing goods from "back home").  That also means Lord Vetinari is a god.

So, studying the real world is fascinating, can give you insights into where the world is going, and can also help you build bigger and more exciting fantasy worlds!  Win-win! 



Tuesday, August 2, 2016

My Washington Primary Ballot

My Washington State ballot includes

The Republican Party
The Conservative Party
The Standupamerica Party
The System Reboot Party
The Fifth Republic Party
The Holistic Party
The Citizens Party
The Lincoln Caucus Party
The Democratic Party
The Independent Democrats Party


And...

Wait for it...

Goodspaceguy is running for Governor as GOP, Uncle Mover wants to be a Senator (yep, GOP again), and Zamboni John Scanneli wants to be a judge. I shit you not. Goodspaceguy. At least the batshit crazies all seem to be helpfully wearing their right-wing badges this year.

Who says no one is taking elections seriously?