Category Archives: inexplicable shit

i should know better

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It’s been a while since I’ve held my breath and visited the mephitic swamp that’s FreeRepublic. But I was curious to see how Freepers would react to Comrade Trump’s massive fine for committing fraud in New York State.

I mean, I knew, of course, that they’d be outraged. They’re always outraged about something. What I was curious about was the direction their outrage would take. Generally, Freeper outrage falls into one (or more) of five categories. 1) They’re picking on Trump unfairly, 2) Trump is too big/powerful/strong/manly to be bothered by being nibbled on by ducks, 3) Trump will have his revenge, 4) It’s a Deep State conspiracy, or 5) Blame it on women, black folks, pedophiles/perverts, communists, Satanists, etc.

To my disappointment, not one Freeper mentioned Satan. However, they almost universally agreed Trump was being victimized unfairly. Here are a few folks who figured Trump will just shrug off a half a billion in fines:

Trump could easily take out a loan against Mara-Lago since it is valued at over a billion dollars.
by Newbomb Turk

He just made $4 billion in his truth social tech stock today, I’m sure this verdict had nothing to do with it. I’m sure his poll numbers ascended as well.
by FrdmLvr

Of course it will be dismissed. Trump isn’t going to pay a dime.
by Georgia Girl 2

But even if Trump could easily pay off those unfair fines, Freepers agree that Trump himself is absolutely blameless. He’s being targeted by people who hate him because of reasons (they’re not MAGA, they’re black, they’re overweight, they’re stupid, they’re perverts, they’re sadists, they’re less than human).

once this is appealed to a NON-DEMOCRAT court, it will be tossed out like the garbage it is.
by ThePatriotsFlag

Since a lot of horrible people are in positions of authority based on Kolor, kink, and Kin…and not on merit–we need a law stating government officials can not read statements written by others–or by themselves.
A half page of notes can be allowed.
It was sickening listen to that idiot Letitia James read a statement written by someone else that made her sound intelligent. Well, kind of intelligent considering what she was saying wasn’t rational.
by GOPJ

[They think the verdict] will make they women wet and the men wishing they could get hard. They love the idea of an “enemy” suffering greatly. There are tens of millions of them. Their sadists who would be thrilled to watch any one of us tortured to death. Does anyone here really want to share the nation with these animals?
by Wpin

But obviously, there’s a shady cabal behind all of Trump’s misfortunes. It’s simply not possible that Trump himself could be to blame.

New York is just the means to an end. Obama is behind all of this.
by Daveinyork

Good chance they’ll put Trump in jail and kill him.
by sopo

Regardless, Trump will eventually triumph. He’ll have his revenge. True American Patriots will stand up in numbers too big to ignore and fight for him. They’ll make those bastards pay.

Heard PISSED OFF Truckers for Trump are starting a boycott of deliveries to NYC. They started with 10 a few hours ago and now they’re up to 20 committed. It’s spreading! GO TRUCKERS!!! SPREAD THE WORD!
by RoseofTexas

Trump will have the judge arrested. Problem solved.
by nonliberal

We are about at the point where these lawless monsters be openly defied. We are entering second amendment territory. These are no longer legitimate courts. Once the legitimacy of the courts goes down and anybody that the powers that be want to throw into jail can be done so…it’s over….and it’s on….
by TalBlack

There you go. Truckers will starve Manhattan. Judge Engoron will be jailed. There will be Second Amendment solutions for Trump’s enemies.

There are reasons I rarely visit FreeRepublic these days. It’s not the consistent vitriol and ugliness that keeps me away, though that plays a part. And it’s not because of the level of ignorance and stupidity in their comments. I avoid FreeRepublic because visiting the site tends to make me react to its followers in much the same way they react to everybody else.

I become judgmental. I mock them. I feel a certain amount of disgust for them. I see them as uninformed backward rubes. Because there’s no way an intelligent, thoughtful person can believe Barack Obama orchestrated Trump’s fraud trial, or that a group of truck drivers will punish NYC, or that Trump is in any way a patriot. I read their comments and I think, “You hateful, pathetic, fuckwitted suckers.”

I dislike feeling that way about other people. I want to feel compassion for people who are so oblivious and gullible. I used to be able to do that. Now, not so much. I don’t visit FreeRepublic very often because I find their hate and bitterness and disregard for others is infectious. And I’m gradually losing my resistance to it.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This is a good time to remind everybody that we need to burn the patriarchy to the ground. We need to douse that poisonous plant with kerosene and set fire to it. We need to gather its ashes, piss on them, drop napalm on them and burn them again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Then read a good book.

box of glasses

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I don’t know about you (seriously, I can in all honesty say that I absolutely do not know about you), but whenever I come across a box full of old eyeglasses, I fall victim to a sort of mild compulsion. I feel the need to put them on. It’s not an irresistible compulsion; I could probably hold out against it, if I really wanted to. But why would I?

Perhaps you also feel that same impulse when you come across a box full of old eyeglasses. It’s possible. But like I said, I don’t know about you.

In any event, I did, in fact, recently come across a box full of old eyeglasses while clearing out some shelves in the garage. I don’t know how many pairs of glasses. Dozens, both men’s and women’s, both regular glasses and prescription sunglasses. And hey, I gave in to that compulsion. I gave in without any hesitation at all. I wanted to see what the world looked like through a series of lenses generated for other people.

[SPOILER: it looks blurry.]

And almost immediately I felt another mild compulsion: I wanted to see what they looked like on somebody’s face. But you can’t just ask somebody to sit and try on old eyeglasses that belonged to other people, all of whom are dead. You can’t ask somebody to do that just for your own amusement. I mean, you can ask them to do that, but it would be awfully presumptuous.

So instead, I turned to the Model of Primary Convenience. Me.

I don’t take many selfies. I know what I look like; I’ve had this same face all my life, so there’s nothing there for me to discover. And, in all honesty, I’m sort of uncomfortable taking photographs of myself (unless it’s a reflection in a window or something).

But there I was, under a mild compulsion, sitting at a table with a box full of eyeglasses and my Pixel phone in front of me. So, I put on the first pair of eyeglasses I pulled out of the box (women’s cat-eye glasses) and I took a selfie. And I looked at it. And it was sort of hilarious.

So I did it again, with a different pair of eyeglasses.

Here’s a True Thing about people who spend years shooting photographs: you sometimes stumble upon an idea that feels like it’s worth repeating. It becomes a project. Eventually, I tried on 25 different pairs of eyeglasses and took a selfie in each of them.

This wasn’t as simple as it sounds (and it sounds really simple). Lots of the glasses I put on were so strong they were disorienting. Others were so dark they were difficult to see through. I often had to guess when I was properly framed so I could press the shutter release (which, yes, I know, isn’t actually a shutter release; it was either call it a shutter release or the button, and the button makes it sound like I was launching a thermonuclear weapon).

I tried to maintain the same facial expression in all the photos because…well, I don’t really know. Some perverted notion of uniformity, maybe? Something to do with the notion of an internally consistent photo project. In any event, it was really difficult to maintain the same expression, partly because I kept wanting to laugh and partly because the glasses distorted my sense of reality to the degree that I often couldn’t see my expression clearly enough to maintain it.

Earlier, I wrote that I tried on twenty-five different pairs of eyeglasses and took a selfie in each of them. I probably tried on twice that many; I just didn’t take a selfie in all of them. A lot of the old eyeglasses were similar in design, so there was no point in photographing them. I mean, one pair of aviator-style glasses looks a lot like every other pair of aviator-style glasses.

A lot of those similar looking eyeglasses had radically different prescription strengths. It probably won’t surprise anybody to learn that trying on a few dozen different eyeglasses of various prescription levels will can you a whanging headache. So if I failed to keep my expression the same in all the photos–if, in some of the photos, I look confused or dazed or disoriented or dangerously unbalanced–now you know why.

I did all this entirely to entertain myself, of course. I’m sort of embarrassed to admit that’s my reason for doing a lot of the stuff I do. But having turned my personal amusement into something of a photo project–having shot a couple dozen selfies in various eyeglasses–I find myself thinking some of you might find it amusing as well.

Besides, I firmly believe in Stieglitz’s concept of practicing in public, of showing work that doesn’t quite meet your standards for what the work could be. He wrote:

[I]f one does not practice in public in reality, then in nine cases out of ten the world will never see the finished product of one’s work. Some people go on the assumption that if a thing is not a hundred percent perfect it should not be given to the world

Stieglitz talked a lot of bullshit, but he was spot on in this regard. I don’t feel any need for ‘the world’ to see the stuff I do, but I’m a firm believer in sharing anything I think somebody somewhere might find interesting. Even when it makes me look ridiculous.

scotus / minority report

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12

Hey, you guys. Remember when Tom Cruise made a movie about a government bureaucracy that allowed police in the future to arrest murderers BEFORE they committed any actual murders, based entirely on the “psychic impressions” of three weird bald folks floating in a tank? Remember that? Wasn’t that cool?

Tom Cruise ain’t got a thing on the Supreme Court of the United States! SCOTUS is now making Constitutional rulings based on FUTURE EVENTS THAT HAVEN’T EVEN HAPPENED YET! I am NOT making this up.

SCOTUS Minority Report consultants

There’s this woman in Colorado, Lorie Smith, who is right now being told that IN THE FUTURE she’ll be forced to design wedding websites for some icky gay folks who will IN THE FUTURE want to get gay married. And SCOTUS has decided that she shouldn’t be forced against her will IN THE FUTURE to do this thing that she hasn’t been asked by any actual real person to do…YET.

In her defense, Lorie Smith has said she was contacted THE DAY AFTER SHE FILED HER LAWSUIT by a guy named Stewart who was totally gay and he told her, that he and Mike (also totally gay) “…are getting married early next year and would love some design work done for our invites, placenames etc. We might also stretch to a website.” But on account of her firmly held religious Christian beliefs, Ms. Smith firmly told totally gay Stewart that she would firmly NOT design any wedding website for icky gay people when they ask her to IN THE FUTURE.

Sure, IN THE PRESENT Stewart claims he’s not gay at all, and that he’s been married to a woman for like 15 years, and that he’s never asked Ms. Smith for a wedding website celebrating his icky gay marriage to this Mike person who he doesn’t even know…YET. But obviously, IN THE FUTURE Stewart will discover he’s actually completely gay and will fall in love with Mike (also gay) and they’ll decided to get icky gay married and will IN THE FUTURE ask Lorie Smith to make them a website.

But now she won’t have to do that, because Minority Report SCOTUS has consulted those bald folks in the pool and they said “Nuh uh.”

“So you’re saying Stewart will…what? Dump his wife??!!”

Ain’t science great? Unless, you’re Stewart and Mike, who won’t get to have a Lorie Smith designed website for their icky gay wedding. Also, tough beans for the current Mrs. Stewart, who’s gonna get stone dumped at some point, poor thing.

please tell me this doesn’t say what i think it says

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Two semi-related things. First, I have a new bike (about which I will almost certainly write, because that’s the sort of thing I do), but I’ve also been uncharacteristically busy, so unable to ride it as much I’d like. I’ve done a few short jaunts around the area, but that’s it.

Second, over the last couple of years, I’ve developed a habit of stopping when I see bike path graffiti. Sometimes the graffito is chalk art, sometimes it’s bits of philosophy, sometimes it’s a sort of editorial opinion. Regardless of what it is, the notion that somebody has deliberately made their way down a bike path and stopped to express themselves pleases me. I keep telling myself I should start photographing all those graffiti; it might make an interesting project.

So last Thursday, when I took a short ride, and saw some bike path graffiti, I did just that. Stopped, read it, photographed it, then went on my way. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the graffito itself since a) my mind was largely occupied by what I’d been working on before I went for a ride and b) a word in the graffito had been smudged out.

This greenspace is located between a commercial area and some townhomes.

It wasn’t until later, when I actually looked at the photo, that I tried to figure out what the smudged word was…and why it had been smudged out.

The [blank] never happened… but it should have!!!

Google Lens has an image-to-text application, so I tried that first. It suggested The halogen never happened, which didn’t make a lick of sense.

I tried to think of things that should have happened but didn’t. Because a lot of bike path graffiti deals with either matters of the heart (you know, stuff like Chad hearts Becky) or inspirational comments (like ‘Life is Good’), I initially focused on words that would make the phrase sweet or celebratory. The first smudged letter seems to be a ‘b’ or an ‘h’. Boyfriend…no. Backstory…no. Bahamas…maybe? The Bahamas never happened, but it should have. Possible.

Then I just tried to find words that would fit. Hangover…possibly, if the writer was into self-punishment. Harlequin…unlikely. Horseplay…don’t think so. Hologram…probably not. Holo…oh, fuck.

I’m hoping this isn’t as ugly and hateful as I think it might be.

Holocaust? The last smudged letters COULD be and ‘s’ and a ‘t’. And Iowa has increasingly become a Red-MAGA state. Our governor and legislature have been actively encouraging and passing more hateful, authoritarian policies. So this sort of irrational hate is very possible. It doesn’t matter that Jews make up less than 1% of Iowa’s population; antisemitism is never based on reality.

As much as I hate to say it…or even think it…holocaust seems to fit.

In the first photograph, you can see there’s another graffito just a few feet away. One word, maybe one short line. I didn’t even stop to look at it. Again, my mind was largely elsewhere when I stopped. But tomorrow, weather permitting, I’ll get back on the bike and ride this path again to see what it says. Maybe it’ll add some clarity.

I’m really hoping somebody can decipher that smudged word in a more positive way. But even if there IS a better interpretation, I’m disheartened by the fact that my worst-case rendering seems so very possible.

EDITORIAL NOTE: We must burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Then nuke it from orbit. Then have tea.

Also? Include antisemitism.

ADDENDUM: I went back yesterday to look at the other graffito. It’s also been smudged, which leads me to assume it was equally ugly. I can’t make out the word, though it seems to start with ‘JE’. Here it is:

indelible

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I didn’t watch the Trump Show on CNN last night. The notion that any serious news channel would give Comrade Trump a national platform to speak was ridiculous and offensive. I understand CNN’s desire to draw viewers; viewers draw advertising and advertising pays the bills. I get it. But to sacrifice journalistic integrity in order to…wait. Who am I kidding? Journalistic integrity? CNN started sacrificing that when it saw Fox News making serious coin by openly prostituting itself.

So no, I didn’t watch CNN last night. That said, I will admit to being curious about it, especially when I learned Kaitlan Collins would be given the job. She always seemed like a solid reporter. I mean, nobody would be able to stop Trump from his firehose lying, but maybe Collins would find some journalistic equivalent of a whip and a chair, and keep Trump partially at bay. It seemed unlikely, but not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Reader, I was wrong.

This morning I’ve watched a few clips of that horrorshow. And Jesus suffering fuck, it was like that scene in Aliens when the xenomorphs are shredding the Colonial Marines. Kaitlan Collins tried her best, but she was overrun. Not just by Trump’s lies, but by the audience as well.

Since it was a supposed ‘town hall’ affair, I assumed there’d be a live audience. It never occurred to me that CNN — or any actual news organization — could be so massively stupid as to gather an audience “[c]omprised of Republicans and otherwise undeclared voters planning to participate in the 2024 GOP primary.” In other words, they invited a Trump-friendly crowd.

Let me just say that again. CNN voluntarily and knowingly held a ‘town hall’ meeting in New Hampshire, the most conservative state in New England (I mean, their goddamn motto is “Live free or die”), hosting the only twice-impeached POTUS in history — a man who fomented an actual insurrection in an attempt to illegally remain in office — the day after he’d been found liable for sexual assault, and then invited an audience of his followers to attend.

That is deeply stupid. That is stupid all the way down at the cellular level. CNN basically asked Kaitlan Collins to interview a great white shark in a pool of sharks and then spooned in chum. They fucking ate her alive.

At one point, Trump turned to Collins and called her a “nasty person.” And the audience laughed. Laughed and applauded. All I could think about was Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who testified under oath about being sexually assaulted by Trump’s SCOTUS nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. When asked why she was so confident about her memory of the assault, Ford said:

“Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

Emotional trauma is literally encoded on memory. The levels of norepinephrine and epinephrine in the brain sparked by the trauma sort of tattoo that experience onto the hippocampus — the part of the limbic system that consolidates information from short-term memory to long-term memory. Beyond the physical trauma of the assault, it was the casual, unthinking cruelty of the laughter that seared itself on Dr. Ford’s memory.

Cruel laughter. Trump called a respected television journalist a “nasty person” and his supporters cheered and laughed. It was exactly what they wanted. It’s what CNN gave them.

I was not surprised by Trump’s behavior last night; that’s who he is (and CNN had to know that). I’m shocked, but not surprised by the behavior of the audience; that’s who Trump supporters are (and CNN had to know that). But I am surprised and outraged that CNN, knowing who they were dealing with, deliberately brought those two explosive elements together and allowed them to detonate on a nation audience.

Fuck CNN in the neck.

a quick note on rights

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“They got more rights than we got.”

Jesus suffering fuck. This is Commissioner Mark Jennings and Sheriff Kevin Clardy of McCurtain County, Oklahoma having a chat about how just completely awful it’s been for them to be deprived of the right to hang black guys down at Mud Creek.

You may be wondering how not being able to just randomly hang black folks down at Mud Creek–or any other creek, for that matter–gives black folks MORE rights. Apparently it’s because you can’t do that anymore.

I should point out that the lowest geological spot in the entire state of Oklahoma is located in McCurtain County. So is the lowest moral and ethical spot. Also? The only documented area of Oklahoma that falls within the natural range of the American alligator is in McCurtain County. Some of them may hold elective office.

when gas stoves are outlawed…

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I have a lot of stuff I ought to be doing, and you may think I’m trying to avoid it all by loitering about in the feverish miasma of FreeRepublic — but I’m not. No sir, no ma’am, what I’m doing is a public service, putting the needs and wants of others before my own. And I know y’all have probably maybe been wondering just what are the patriots of FreeRepublic fretting about now.

People, they’re still babbling about gas stoves being banned.

You may remember back in January, Richard Trumka, a commissioner in the Consumer Product Safety Commission, noted that studies revealed a lot of gas stoves leak benzene (which can cause cancer) and certain levels of oxides of nitrogen (which cause asthma). Many gas stoves also leak methane even when turned off, which contributes to global warming. Some legislators, learning all this, have considered regulations to reduce the harmful effects, including 1) requiring gas stoves be sold with range hoods to improve ventilation, 2) issuing mandatory performance standards for gas stoves.

In response to a question, Trumka also said this:

“Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

MAGA conspiracy cranks and other delusional right-wing nutjobs immediately began to claim the federal government was planning to SEIZE OUR GAS STOVES! The federal government responded, saying, “What? We’re what? No, no, are you nuts? Jesus suffering fuck, I declare, you people.” Or words to that effect.

That denial, of course, confirmed the fears of Freepers, as you can see:

It wasn’t until America’s crooked fact-checkers said Joe Biden had no intention of banning gas stoves that I was certain Joe Biden would ban gas stoves. And now we know he is — 96 percent of them. — Red Badger

How did this jamoke come up with that number? Because only 4% of existing gas stoves would meet the most stringent potential regulations short of banning that CPSC has said it may possibly consider for gas stoves made at some point in the future. Got that? There are NO new regulations at the moment, though there MAY be some in the future. Any future regulation would only apply to gas stoves built AFTER that date. But Freepers interpret this as a ban on existing gas stoves, all of which will be seized by jackbooted government agents breaking into the homes of patriotic gas-stove-cooking Americans.

— It is clear to anyone paying attention that just about every government agency can be weaponized against the people. The mere existence of government agencies is an invitation for tyranny for when Democrats are in office. by ConservativeInPA.
— This is outrageous! Those liberal celebrity chefs better wake-up! by Chgogal.
— Department of Energy didn’t even exist until 1977. How did we ever survive without it? by shooter223.
— Not happening in my household. FJB. by Carriage Hill

And there’s always at least one MAGA-hatted Freeper who knows that EVERY problem is the fault of pedophiles and the ONLY solution to those problems is a real man forcing lesser beings to bend to his will:

— This is when McCarthy, if he was a real man, would spearhead legislation making it a FELONY for ANY Federal Employee, to use, own or possess ANY Product or item that uses Natural Gas or Propane. and SHUT DOWN THE HOUSE until the Senate passes it and the Pedophile signs it. by eyeamok.

So this is my public service announcement: If you have a gas stove in your home, you can thank real men for making it possible for you to continue to breathe benzene and methane in freedom, just like Jesus would want Americans to do.

You don’t have to thank me for doing this research for you. I’m always willing to sacrifice my time to…to do whatever the hell this is. I mean, it’s this or get a read job, right?

idea for a hunter biden screenplay

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FADE IN

STRIP MALL COMPUTER REPAIR SHOP — APRIL — DAY

A gotch-eyed, legally blind man, JOHN PAUL MAC ISAAC, stands behind a counter, peering through thick lenses at disassembled computer hardware. The door to the shop CHIMES. A PERSON enters. From MAC ISAAC POV we see a blurry figure approach the counter.

PERSON
Greetings, comrade. I have laptop. Is damaged. You can recover data, yes?

MAC ISAAC
Sure, I can do that.

PERSON
Data is chastnyy. How you say…private? Boring email. Family photo. Not of interest.

MAC ISAAC
Okay.

PERSON
You keep laptop, recover data. I return soon, pay you.

MAC ISAAC
Absolutely. I just need your name.

PERSON
Menya zovut Hunter. Hunter Biden.

STRIP MALL COMPUTER REPAIR SHOP — DECEMBER — DAY

MAC ISAAC stands at the counter of his computer repair shop, holding an external hard drive in his hand.

MAC ISAAC
How very odd. It’s been eight months and Hunter Biden has not returned to collect his laptop. What shall I do? Should I contact Hunter Biden and remind him? Oh, I know! I’ll make a copy of the hard drive and…and give it to Rudy Giuliani!