How will we explain ourselves to future generations?

How are we going to explain ourselves to future generations? What are we going to tell our grandkids when they ask us why we allowed things to get this fucked up? (Full disclosure, I have no kids, so it will be my grand-nieces and nephews I'll have to answer to.) When they ask us why we allowed mass shootings to become a regular occurrence, what will we tell them? That we knew how to stop this, that Australia had provided the blueprint for stopping mass shootings with military-style assault weapons, but we chose not to act? Why? Why did our generation decide to accept this as the norm? What are we going to say/ "Well, we had a ban on these horrific death machines, but we made a conscious choice to let it expire? Because a very small group of people thought that being allowed to stockpile weapons of war meant 'freedom,' and we were afraid of offending them? It was better to let one of these lunatics snap and murder a few dozen people every once in a while than to have a serious adult discussion about the limits of freedom?"

What are we going to tell them when they ask why the government didn't do anything to help? "Well, kiddo, you see, a bunch of Congressmen and Senators were getting money from the gun lunatics, so they wouldn't do anything to stem the flow of money into the gun makers' pockets or the flow of death and misery onto the streets of America?" And when they say "why didn't you just vote these guys out and vote in someone sane?" What will we say?

Will we tell them about all the thoughts and prayers we sent after each mass murder?

And what will we say when they find out there used to be a time when it was unusual for large parts of the US to be underwater? Will we let them assume that we didn't know any better? Or will we be honest and tell them that we knew exactly what was happening. That we had scientists who spent their lives studying this exact phenomenon and they warned us what was going to happen and we just sat there and watched it happen? Will we tell them that there were some people who chose not to believe the experts? And that as a society, we made a conscious decision to humor them? That we decided to pretend that there were two sides to the story and each side should have equal weight? That the men and women who had spent their adult lives studying climatology were given the same weight as your Facebook aunt who says that global warming isn't in the Bible so it can't be true?

And when they ask "were the people who chose not to believe such a huge majority that their willful ignorance could not be overcome?" Will we admit that they were actually a minority? That most of us knew better, we just decided it wasn't worth doing anything about?

How will we look them in the eye? How will we justify our inaction? What defense will we offer when they curse our stupidity and cowardice? What will we tell them?

Fuck Hugh Hefner. And a couple other guys.

Fuck Hugh Hefner.

I mean, I don't hate him for publishing a magazine featuring photos of nude women. As long as there are women willing to get nude for money and people willing to pay money to see women in the nude, I don't think it's anyone else's business.(Although looking at Hefner's opulent lifestyle I gotta think he did not pay those nude women nearly enough. Well, that's capitalism for you. The ones who provide the value never make as much as the pig who buys and sells that value.)
Anyway, I have no objection to Playboy Magazine. What I object to is everything else. I object to this creep promulgating the idea that part of the  accoutrement of the sophisticated, modern Playboy lifestyle was women as playthings (or "playmates" as he called them).

Dressing up women as adult versions of stuffed animal toys and having them serve drinks to creepy, leering pseudo-sophisticates listening to jazz on their hi-fis and puffing on pipes really doesn't seem like it should have been a hallmark of urbane modernity.

Remember, fellas - if you achieve this level of success, you too can surround yourself with de-humanized women!

And of all the stupid tributes pouring out, this is maybe the absolute stupidest:

Hugh Hefner’s Legacy Is About More Than Sex

Hefner’s life will be derided as profane, but his work celebrates the sexual complementarity that has bound men and women together since the dawn of time.

Oh dear God.
Seriously, Hugh Hefner was the one who realized that penises and vaginas fit together?

Also, if that's his legacy, then how is his legacy not about sex?

You can read the whole article here if you want. I don't want to read any more about Hefner, because you know, fuck that guy,





Oh, and also. Fuck this guy:

 

 This is former unsuccessful football coach Rex Ryan. Rex Ryan is just so mad at Donald Trump!

"I'm pissed off," Ryan said on ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown." "I supported Donald Trump.
"I'm reading these comments and it's appalling to me. Calling our players SOBs and all that kind of stuff. That's not the men that I know. The men that I know in the locker room I'm proud of. I'm proud to be associated with those people."
[These comments] are appalling to me... I never signed up for that.

Oh, sure. You definitely didn't sign up for that. You signed up for "Mexicans are rapists," but not that. You signed up for "grab 'em by the pussy," but not for this. Not for insulting football players! You know, it's one thing to make fun of P.O.W.s or mock a handicapped person, or encourage violence against protestors, but when he insults people you know personally, that is just a bridge too far!

It's the Joe Scarborough scenario. Scarborough promoted Il Douche as much as any FOX sycophant throughout the campaign and never had any problem with his divisive rhetoric until tRump took a shot at Scarborough's wife. Then suddenly he's all hashtag resistance man. Fuck Joe Scarborough, too.

Random Thoughts Interspersed with Serval Kittens

I hate this argument:

Pastor Robert Jeffress, the megachurch pastor who is one of Donald Trump’s official evangelical advisers, has attacked NFL players who protested racism and defied Trump.
Appearing on Fox News, Jeffress — who spoke at Trump’s poorly attended inauguration — said players who directly rebuked Trump after he demanded that the NFL penalize them should “be thanking God” because they don’t have to worry about “being shot in the head for taking a knee like they would be if they were in North Korea.”

Every time someone points out something that's wrong with America and would like to fix it there's always some jackass who trots out the "at least you don't live in. . ." argument.

Women are complaining about inequality? Hey, just be glad you don't live in the Middle East where you'd have to wear a burqa and be someone's property! LGBT people would like to not be treated as second-class citizens? Just be glad you don't live in Uganda. They kill gay people over there.

There's always some place where you'd have it worse. So what? That's not a good reason to not improve things over here.

Okay, I know that Republican candidates for any elected office are required to demonstrate their love for firearms, but I'm not sure ol' Roy is doin' it right.

Roy Moore Pulls Out Handgun During Campaign Rally

Dude. That is a lady gun. Where'd you pull that out of, your purse?
The whole point of waving a gun around on stage is to look like a tough guy to people who have no idea what a tough guy looks like. When you're daintily holding that little derringer like you just pulled it out of your garter, it kind of defeats the purpose.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is clearly in over her head.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders suggested Monday that if NFL players who kneel during the national anthem at games are doing so because of police brutality, they should protest the officers instead of the song.

“I think if the debate is really for them about police brutality, they should probably protest the officers on the field that are protecting them instead of the American flag,” she said.

What does that even mean?

If you want to protest murder cops, you should protest these other cops who are just standing there doing their jobs? Are you saying you might as well protest them because it's only a matter of time until these cops also shoot some unarmed black men? 

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Sanders said. “I was kind of pointing out the hypocrisy of the fact that if the goal is, and the message is, that of police brutality — which they’ve stated — then that doesn’t seem very appropriate to protest the American flag.”

Oh thanks. That totally clears it up!

 

There's probably a template for this headline:

Trump Says NFL Ratings Are 'Way Down' Because Of Protests. They're Actually Up.

 All you have to do is fill in the blanks with two words or phrases that are opposites.
 "Trump says _______. It's actually____________."

 

Moms Reward John McCain With Cupcakes for Crushing Republican Health Care Efforts

 It is just so goddamm depressing that we have to have this much gratitude for elected officials who decide reluctantly to not kill a bunch of people.  Just not being a completely heartless psychopath apparently entitles you to being considered a damn hero now.

Roger Stone is a huge douche

Celeste Katz

NewsweekSeptember 25, 2017

Roger Stone has his plan—and his outfit—all laid out for when he appears before congressional lawmakers on Tuesday.

As to his strategy: “I will systematically go through the exact words of every committee member. I will take their exact words and I will shove them down their throats," he vowed.

As for his clothing: “Blue will be the theme of the day, because it connotes authority,”

Respect My Authoritah!

“They're standing there with nothing in their hands," he said. "After months and months of investigation, hundreds of thousands of tax dollars, they still have no evidence of Russian collusion. None at all. None that would hold up in a court of law.”

Which is totally what an innocent person would say. "You have no evidence. Well, none that's admissible anyway." That line always worked on every episode of Law & Otder.


Enjoy prison, asshole!

It's Your Fault We Have Trump

I've seen a few of these lately. These weird articles from conservative writers that basically amount to "hey, liberals. It's your fault Trump got elected." Which is odd in a couple of ways. First because no it fucking isn't. I mean, I guess we bear some responsibility for not coming out in larger numbers to vote for HRC, but Trump is your fault, conservatives. You own this mess. And secondly, you voted for Trump, you wore the stupid hat, you cosplayed as him in Charlottesville.

 

Some of you did this.

So why are you looking to put the blame on other people? You never hears conservatives saying "stupid libs, it's your fault we got Reagan" Or "Your political correctness is rthe reason Dubya got elected." Have you already fugured out that voting for Trump was a collossal mistake? 

Anyway, someone on the Twitter called my attention to this well-thought-out thesis:

Your Refusal To Date Conservatives Is One Reason We Have Donald Trump

By Jerrod Laber

September 19, 2017

 

 

Wow! Where to begin with this guy?

First of all do you want to date liberal ladies? Why would you want to date someone whose politics you find repulsive? Am I to understand that if left-leaning women were to say "oh hell yes I'd date a right-wing troglodyte," you'd be running to their doorstep with flowers and chocolates?

Also, maybe it's not "conservatives" that women are refusing to date so much as it is guys who look like this:

When you look like someone who is legally obligated to let his neighbors know he's moved in, I gotta think that limits the pool of eligible ladies who are interested in you. Have you ever thought that maybe it's just you? I mean, most conservative fellas seem to have no trouble attracting a mate.

Anyway, back to the article.

Your Refusal To Date Conservatives Is One Reason We Have Donald Trump

OkCupid will let users indicate their support for abortion. This type of assortive mating is one factor that allowed for the rise of a candidate like Donald Trump.

Ohhhhh, assortive mating! Sure. Of course. And here I thought it was "economic insecurity" or "blatant racism" or "hatred for the strong woman" that Trump rode to victory, but clearly it was "assortive mating!" Oh, it's all so clear now!

The popular dating website OkCupid announced Wednesday that it would make the online dating scene a little easier for progressives who can’t risk interacting with someone with whom they disagree (imagine the horror!).

Oh my God! You people literally created Conservapedia so you wouldn't have to interact with any facts that don't jibe with your narrative. You've built an entire infrastructure of FOX News, am talk radio and websites like the one on which you are currently posting so you would never be inconvenienced by a dissenting opinion. And you're complaining about proressives who don't want to spend their evenings making out with someone who reflexively shouts "Benghazi!" every few minutes?

They announced a partnership with Planned Parenthood that allows site users to put a badge on their profile signifying support for the nation’s largest abortion provider, much the way Facebook becomes saturated with similar kinds of profile pictures during the newest disaster.

That seems eminently reasonable. Seems like it benefits everyone involved. Conservatives don't have to waste their time chatting up baby murderers and progressives don't have to have their time wasted by someone they're going to break up with as soon as he mentions that he doesn't believe she should be allowed to make decisions about her own body. It's a win-win. 

Oh, wait. I forgot. For conservatives, everything has to be part of a nefarious plot against them personally. Sorry, please continue.

It’s hard to not see this as a reaction to the rise of President Trump

Well, it is if you're not obsessed with Trump. But, sure it's hard not to see how a multi-million-dollar for-profit company, a division of an even larger corporation, would obviously be a part of a liberal conspiracy against the Turd Reich. Duh!

 

It’s hard to not see this as a reaction to the rise of President Trump, as Planned Parenthood has long been a political football tossed back and forth between left and right, although dating sites have never made such an overt venture into politics. But, in our current bizarre world of politics, this represents a widening chasm between those who are most politically active, causing people to see an opposing viewpoint as an all-out assault on their personhood. The irony is that the type of assortative mating OkCupid is encouraging is one factor that allowed for the rise of a candidate like Trump.

Gee, I wonder how that chasm got so widened? Who could have introduced this type of eliminationist rhetoric into the mainstream?

      

I guess we'll never know!

The Effects of Assortative Mating

Assortative mating is when someone partners and starts a family with someone of a similar background.

Oh. So. . . what almost everyone does? And has done since the dawn of time? And that's what caused Trump to be elected? How did it take this long?

Assortative mating is when someone partners and starts a family with someone of a similar background. It can be based on innate characteristics, such as race and ethnicity, or socioeconomic backgrounds. People have always engaged in assortative mating of some kind or another, but as social scientist Charles Murray explains 

Woah, hold on there. 

Charles Murray? 

The "Bell Curve" Charles Murray? 

You're going to cite Charles Freakin' Murray?

You sure? You sure that's who you want to bring into this? 

All right, let's have it!

. . . as social scientist Charles Murray explains in his book “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010,”

Oh my God, you couldn't pick a book with maybe a less racist-sounding title?

. . . as social scientist Charles Murray explains in his book “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010,” there was a shift to a particular type of mating in the ‘60s which continues through the present day.

As cognitive ability became the most valued aspect of human capital––and the biggest predictive indicator for professional success––people began marrying others with similar intellect. Ivy League graduates marry other Ivy League graduates, and their kids do the same, and so on and so forth, causing severe economic stratification between what Murray calls the “New Upper Class” and “New Lower Class.”

Right. That never happened before the 1960's. Scions of wealthy families never married the daughters of the similarly well-placed until the Nineteen Fucking Sixties. It's not like the royal families of Europe all married each others' cousins or anything. 

This is all developing at a time of increasing polarization in politics. . . 

Polarization is a result of the emotional reactions that politics naturally bring out in people. The most politically active are the most extreme of each group––the most likely to surround themselves with only the likeminded, and the least likely to give an inch to an opposing viewpoint.
These groups also vote heavily in primaries, which pushes candidates further left and right. 

 Yes, which is why the Democratic Primary was won easily by Senator Bernard Sanders oh wait!


 And, as represented by the ascendance of the Tea Party, they demand ideological purity.

And I suppose you have a similar example for the Left? 

We're waiting. . . .

No?

Demagogues Love Tribalism

Assortative mating serves to intensify this polarization. It amplifies an already significant ingroup-outgroup mentality around contentious social issues. Social and cultural issues create severe disagreement because they trigger the emotional part of the brain: the disagreement challenges a core part of group identity. . . 

Trump was able to convince rural and working-class people that he was the answer to their collective malaise. Economic anxiety, which Never-Trumpers are so wont to point out as the reason for his success, is intimately tied to cultural issues, because the anxiety is seen as a product of unfair cultural decline.

Or, to put it more succinctly: Racism.

You didn’t lose your job because your skill set didn’t match a changing economic reality. Instead, it was the result of a rigged system that benefits the elite, liberal urban centers on each coast and their progressively government-dependent constituents, at your expense.

Are we going to bother pointing out what a load of bs that is? That Blue States contribute more to the federal government than they get back, while it is Red States who are suckling at the government teat?

Are we going to mention the way the system is actually rigged in favor of smaller-population rural Red States, in that a state like North Dakota gets the same number of senators as does California despite having fewer people than the city of Los Angeles? And how that system gives these small rural states an outsized influence on the Electoral College? 

In a less polarized environment, that schtick might be seen for the nonsense that it is. But in a world of ignorant voters and social stratification––in which progressives who live in wealthy ZIP codes and small-town conservatives share a mutual disdain for one another––you get stratification that populist blowhards can exploit.

Okay. Good. You acknowledge that this "schtick" is "nonsense." Good. But it's also nonsense to suggest that progressives are the wealthy elites while conservatives are good ol' salt of the Earth regular folk. 

But at least you seem to realize that the Trump voters are people who have been lied to over and over by the Limbaughs and Hannitys of the media hellscape, but somehow you still believe that these people voting for an unqualified senile malignant narcissist is a result of their dating habits? 

Humans naturally form groups, but when rampant partisanship is the foundation upon which the group lies, extreme politicians are those most likely to win their sympathy.

Hmm, interesting. Especially since, prior to the current occupant of the White House, the major party nominees for the presidency in the last few cycles have been Barack Obama, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton. Not an extremist among them. If this stratification has been going on since the 1960's, how is it that, for example, the Republican primary voters have managed to reject Pat Buchannan, George Wallace, Rick Santorum, Pat Robertson and Michele Bachmann without any of them making a real dent in the race? If this is a phenomenon that has been going on for five decades, shouldn't we have had a President LaRouche or a President David Duke by now?

If a progressive doesn’t want to date a conservative and vice versa, that’s perfectly fine. Everyone has deal-breakers. But as a political protest, this form of virtue-signaling is counterproductive in the long run.

Oh my God! Please, ladies. Please someone go out on a date with this creepy little weasel. It's the only way to prevent Trump's re-election! If Jarrod Laber doesn't get to second base with a liberal girl soon, he'll have no choice but to vote for Trump again! One of you gals is going to have to take one for the team.