Surviving 2016

2016 was a Negan of a year.

For those of you who don't watch the Walking Dead, Negan is a sociopathic warlord who takes half of evreything you have, half of everything you grow, half of everything you make. And "half" is whatever Negan decides "half" is.


That's the kind of year 2016 was. Oh, you have musicians you love? Well, I'm taking Lemmy. I'm taking David Bowie. And I'm taking Prince. Oh, and what is this? You've been holding out on me! Is that a Leonard Cohen I see? Well, that Leonard Cohen is mine now. And just to teacj h you a lesson about holding out, I'm taking Ralph Stanley and Bernie Worrell too.

You enjoy a good laugh? Well, you'll have to do without Gary Schandling and Kevin Meaney. And I'm just going to go ahead and take Patton Oswalt's wife, see how that affects his ability to make people laugh.

You get the picture.

So, in good Walking Dead fashion, let us now thank 2016 for all the people it could have killed but didn't.



Sir Tom Jones


Sir Paul Mccartney



Wanda Jackson




Willie Nelson



Igyy Pop




Steve Earle



Fats Domino



Loretta Lynn




And, somehow, Keith Richards!

Good News and Bad News

The bad news is that horrible evil people like this exist.

White Supremacist Planned. . . to Murder Obama, Muslims

Like so many right-wingers, he proclaimed his intention to "take his country back."

By Kali Holloway / AlterNet

December 20, 2016

 

And that they've been emboldened by having as their president-elect a man they see as, if not one of them, at least someone who is sympathetic to their evil cause in Orange Julius Caesar (tm)

The good news is, they're mostly stupid as fuck.

White Supremacist Planned to Use 'Death Ray' to Murder Obama, Muslims

Like so many right-wingers, he proclaimed his intention to "take his country back."

By Kali Holloway / AlterNet

December 20, 2016

And speaking of horrible people who are stupid as fuck. . .

Texas Republican: Gay people were sent by Russia to destroy America

1^st November 2016, 8:16 PM

I guess it's an older story, but someone posted it on Facebook yesterday.

A Texas Republican activist has compared gay people to termites, claiming homosexuality was created by the Soviet Union to destroy America.
Steven Hotze of Conservative Republicans of Texas made the shocking comments at the ‘Stand 4 Truth; evangelical conference, which was held over the weekend in Houston.

Stand for Truth Conference? Now there's an ironic misnomer.

In the speech, snipped by Right Wing Watch, he warns: “The homosexual movement has really infiltrated… think of them like termites.

Nope. Not gonna do that. I believe I will continue to think of them as my friends Mark and David or my friends Cheryl and Eva, or. . . well, you know, like just people? Not insects?

… think of them like termites. “They get into the wood of the house and they eat away at the very moral fabric of the foundation of our country.

 “This is exactly what the Marxist movement was all about… If you remember, [Soviet leader] Khrushchev came and said we’re going to get your country one way or another, and the way they want to do it is to destroy the moral fabric and create moral anarchy in our country so that our people no longer live righteous lives but they’re living lives that are ungodly."

 Wow. Where to even begin? First of all, the Marxist movement was more about the workers owning the means of production and the equitable distribution of goods and services than it was about who does sex with whom.
 Secondly, what  Kruschev said  was "we will bury you," which was not a threat to destroy America, but a boast that Soviet-style Communism would outlive our system. It's like when you say about an old person "oh, he'll bury us all." You don't mean "watch out for Oldie Olsen, he's going to murder us!" You mean thjat he'll still be going strong when we're all dead and buried.

Third, the Russians had nukes. If they wanted to destroy us, they could have nuked us. Instead of somehow undermining the "moral fabric" of our country and waiting while somehow this leads to some sort of decline of. . . something. . . that would eventually. . . oh, come on! this is so stupid! Why would they possibly choose the slowest possible method of destruction? Their entire empire collapsed while they were waiting for Errol Flynn and Georgia O'Keefe to bring down capitalism by sexing same-gender partners?

Also, the Soviets rather famously were not religious people. One of the tenets of their system was atheism. Why the hell would they have thought that they could hurt us by causing us to be less "godly?'

“When you do that, you lack moral courage, because you can’t very well stand up and oppose people doing wicked things if you’re participating in the same activities.

SERIOUSLY?

Are you sure about that?

Because it's never seemed to be a problem before.

“Now you’ve got pornography… it’s legal to have pornography on the internet, but we, in some jurisdictions of the country, you can’t stand up and say that homosexuality is wrong or immoral activity, whether it’s the promotion of adultery or premarital sex, we can’t say that that’s wrong because that’s hate speech.
“But it’s perfectly legal according to allow pornography to be perpetrated upon our public, and even in our public schools to be taught and shown.”

Oy.
Okay, first of all there re exactly ZERO jurisdictions where you are not allowed to say that adultery or homosexuality or premarital sex is wrong. ZERO. Expressing your stupid shitty opinions is 100% legal in all 50 states. You'll probably get a lot of eye-rolls, maybe some snickers, and hopefully someone will confront you (verbally) but there is nowhere in America where you are not allowed to say those things.

Second. You know you have to actually seek out pornography, right? Not that it's hard to find, but you have to actually go into a liquor store and say "I'll have a copy of Giant Wangs Monthly, please," or go online and type in whatever kind of weird stuff you're into. It's not like you're going to be walking down the street and see Betty Blows Baltimore playing on a jumbotron in the town square.

Oh, and you know what actually is illegal? Showing pornography to school children. I would very much like you to name one single solitary public school in which pornography is shown and/or taught and I will go there right now and audit a couple of classes. Go ahead, name one. We'll wait.

Yeah, that's what I thought.


And this guy is even more shitty and stupid than that guy:

A Texas pastor recently prophesied that paedophilia will soon be renamed ‘happy’ and legalised.
Rick Scarborough of Vision America made the claim while preaching at Trinity Family Church in Forney, Texas.
He fumed: “What’s next? Paedophilia?
“When we called homosexuality, instead of sodomy, ‘gay,’ it changed everything because everyone wants to be gay. So let’s just change paedophilia to ‘happy’ and we’ll have all kinds of leagues of happy people and we’ll have the lobby for happy people.

Oh my God, I had no idea! The reason gay people exist is because the word gay sounds so nice! It all makes sense now! Everyone goes through some down times, times when they feel the opposite of gay. Gay as in lighthearted, carefree, don we now our gay apparel, etc. So obviously, a young fella who's feeling down and would like to feel happy could easily fall into the trap of looking up the word "happy" in a thesaurus, see that "gay" is listed as a synonym and think "oh, all I need to do to be happy is go get nailed by a dude! That will stop me from despairing of ever finding a girlfriend!"

I guess the part that I don't understand is, if that works, if changing the word works, why the holy fuck would you want to change the name of pedophilia to something positive? I just do not get these freaks at all.

2016: The Year in Television, Part IV

Best Drama:  Rectify





Sadly, this was the last season of Rectify. I still have the final episode sitting waiting in my DVR, I hate to think that once we watch that one, it's over.
If you haven't been watching it - and since it's on Sundance Channel, I assume a lot of people haven't, Rectify is the story of Daniel Holden , a man who has spent his entire adult life on death row for a crime he may or may not have committed (he honestly isn't even sure).




 



 It's about him adjusting to real life after 19 years in quasi-solitary confinement waiting for death.


 


It's about dealing with the aftermath of trauma, it's about family dynamics and the fragile bonds of marriage. It's a bit intense. And this season especially has been pretty sad. But it's beautiful.The cast is amazing. The writing is perfect, it's shot beautifully, if you don't mind how slowly it moves, it's about as close to a perfect show as you're going to see.



Best Action/Adventure/Mystery show: Orphan Black




The story of a woman who discovers that she is one of a series of clones and her investigation into the tangled web of government and corporate espionage behind the cloning experiment might sound a little silly (I was skeptical at first) but Orphan Black might just be the most compelling mystery show of all time. ( and don't say LOST. LOST was dumb)


And what makes the show even more amazing is that five of the main characters, and a few minor ones, are played by the same actress:
the Performer of the Year: Tatiana Maslany





Every character she plays has a different affect, a different accent, a different vocal timbre, different mannerisms, etc. It's easy to forget that they're all played by the same actress. Often, she has to play multiple characters in the same scene, conversing with each other, it must take ages to film each episode. If she only played Sarah Manning or Allison Hendrix, or the terrifying and hilarious Helena, she would be a front-runner for best actress, but considering she plays them all. . . wow! Amazing!



Best Comedic Actress: Kristen Schaal




Either as a live-action performer in Last Man on Earth, or the voice of precocious troublemaker Louise Belcher on Bob's Burgers, Kristen Schaal was killing it all year.

Best Comedic Actor: Rob Delaney





I've only just started watching Catastrophe on Amazon, but so far it looks like it might be the funniest show of the year. Possibly. (And I know the season I've been watching came out in 2015, but I'm watching it now, so it counts as this year. My blog, my rules.) And this is pretty much all due to the two co-stars, Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan, who also produced the show and wrote all the episodes.



 In fact, Sharon Horgan would have been in the running for comedic actress of the year had it not been for Kristen Schaal.
Watch Catastrophe if you've got Amazon Prime. If not, follow Rob on Twitter. @RobDelaney


Other TV shows we've enjoyed or loved or were entertained by this year:


The Americans




Full Frontal with Samantha Bee




People of Earth




Better Call Saul





The Last Man on Earth





The Walking Dead




And I'm probably forgetting at least one.

West Virginia's Drug Problem About to be Solved!

West Virginia has a serious problem with prescription pain killers.

Drug Companies Have Been Pumping Opiates into West Virginia

Nine million oxycodone doses into a town of 392 people.

In six years, drug wholesalers showered the state with 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills, while 1,728 West Virginians fatally overdosed on those two painkillers, a Sunday Gazette-Mail investigation found.

So this is serious business. This is a serious public health crisis. But don't worry, Joe Manchin (alleged-D) has a plan!

JAKE TAPPER: What do you want president-elect Trump to do about this problem, sir?

SENATOR MANCHIN: We need to declare a war on illicit drugs. You talk to most addicts -- and I go to these spots and talk to the recovering addicts. we have got some places that are really having some success rates, Jake. most of them are run by reformed addicts. they got started out as a kid smoking occasional -- what we call recreational marijuana.

Seriously? Your answer to the opioid epidemic in your meth lab of a state is to crack down on marijuana? A drug that is not addictive and is impossible to overdose on?  That's your answer?

If the Walking Dead were happening for real in your state (and I have no evidence that it is not) would you decide to crack down on vampires?

Hint: these are not vampires, so probably.

Sorry, that's a terrible analogy because vampires would be really dangerous, at least as dangerous as walkers.  Also, from what I can tell, being a vampire is pretty addictive.

But I digress. So, Senator, what happens after the kids start with the recreational reefer?

from there it led into prescriptions, taking out of their parents or grandparents medicine cabinet and become a cool kid. Then it turned into where they were hooked. now heroin comes on. Now the fentanyl comes on. it's unbelievable. President Trump needs to say day one, we're not going to lose a generation. we're going to fight this and crack down on the FDA and crack down on the DEA and make sure we look at this.

Crack down on the DEA? You know the DEA is the group that combats drugs, right? I think you might need to crack down on the drug companies who produce and distribute these pills. And the pharmacies that function as cartel middlemen, you might need to crack down on them. You don't "crack down" on the agencies that are tasked with preventing drug problems. If anything, you might want to give the FDA some teeth, maybe an enforcement budget? Maybe you might want to re-direct the DEA's priorities into busting up these opiate rings instead of busting cancer patients who smoke pot to  ease their suffering?

It's good to see that Manchin has such a strong grip on the problems his state faces in these modern times.  Maybe he can do something about these gas lines and get our hostages out of Tehran too.

South Carolina to fight scourge of self-love

Bill seeks to put porn block on computers sold in SC

Okay, that seems reasonable. Every computer has to have porn-block software so that parents can switch on the blocker when their kids have access to the computer. Seems fair that people should have that option. Oh, wait. This is South Carolina. I must be missing something.

An Upstate legislator is hoping to prevent anyone who buys a computer in South Carolina from accessing pornography.
State Rep. Bill Chumley, R-Spartanburg, said the Human Trafficking Prevention Act would require manufacturers or sellers to install digital blocking capabilities on computers and other devices that access the internet to prevent the viewing of obscene content.

 

 Okay, first of all, Human Trafficking is an extremely serious problem. It's an incredibly heinous crime and for you to lump consensual adults getting it on on camera in with this atrocity is not only dishonest, but really shitty.

 The bill would fine manufacturers or sellers that sell a device without a digital blocking system installed. But any manufacturer or seller that didn't want to install the system could pay a $20 opt-out fee for each device sold. 

How is that a law? You must do this. Unless you don't want to bad enough to pay twenty bucks. 

 Any buyers who want the filter lifted after purchasing a computer or device would have to pay a $20 fee, after verifying they are 18 or older.

 

 Best twenty bucks this guy ever spent!

 So not only do you have to pay money to not have the thing you didn't want in the first place, but you have to swear out some kind of statement verifying that yes, I am over 18 and I enjoy jerking it! South Carolina may not be able to legally prevent their citizens from masturbating, but they can at least shame them for doing it.

 Chumley said the effort, co-sponsored by state Rep. Mike Burns, R-Greenville, would combat crimes against children and protect children from exposure to sexually explicit materials.

 Right, because it's not like young people could figure out a way around a filter. No one is less computer savvy than kids!

“If we could have manufacturers install filters that would be shipped to South Carolina, then anything that children have access on for pornography would be blocked,” Chumley said. “We felt like that would be another way to fight human trafficking.”

Um, I'm sorry, what exactly is the connection here?
How is preventing children from seeing pornographic images (a laudable goal) connected to fighting human trafficking (another laudable goal)?

Ha! trick question. It isn't.

Look, South Carolina, just come out and say it. You want to stop folks from pleasuring themselves. You are just so afraid that someone might have a non-reproductive, non-marital climax that you're willing to pass laws putting blocks on computers because oh my god, what if someone see a boob?

Why, they might get impure thoughts! And a man might be tempted to touch his own penis! And honestly, a man touching a penis? How is that not gay? Looking at naked ladies might turn men gay! And then where would we be? All our men leaving South Carolina to move to San Francisco or New York City or wherever those types live! It's a slippery slope from seeing a boobie to the entire population of South Carolina dying out!

Plus, it might make Jesus sad, and isn't that the real reason we have legislators? To make laws that keep Jesus happy?