Category Archives: what the actual fuck?

tactical yardwork

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I’m sure you’ve all asked yourselves this very same question: “What do I do when I’ve declared a national emergency and activated the National Guard to fight crime, but then there’s almost no crime to fight?” It’s annoying, right?

I mean, they elect you to be POTUS and they give you the entire District of Columbia National Guard to play with, so obviously you’d want to use them to guard the nation against something. Otherwise they’re just wasted, sitting there on the shelf. So, crime. Nobody likes crime. Crime is a good thing to fight. Everybody likes crime-fighting. It’s popular on television. It’s not YOUR fault there’s not much crime to fight.

Courageous National Guard troops, dressed in camouflage AND hi-visibility vests engage trash.

So there you are, you’ve got your troops all dressed up and no crime to fight. What to do, what to do? EASY! Make them fight trash! DC is host to tens of thousands of foreign tourists who toss trash all over the fucking place because that’s how they behave in foreign countries. Except, not so many people are coming to DC now, because they’re not really welcome. Besides, you’ve told them DC is a dangerous shit-hole. So the trash assault is a pretty short term event.

Courageous National Guard troops mulching like nobody has mulched before.

But hey, DC is also beautiful. Trees and bushes and all sorts of pretty flowers, and that shit has to be mulched. The National Guard may not be trained to mulch, but they know how to improvise, adapt, and overcome. Issue them rakes and hoes and other geoponic implements, and turn them loose. They’ll mulch the absolute shit out of whatever needs mulching.

Tactical yardwork is fine, but you really really wanted them to fight crime. That means you have to send the troops where crime exists. Fortunately, there are some pretty tough, crime-ridden neighborhoods in DC, neighborhoods where people don’t always feel safe at night, neighborhoods where news photographers are reluctant to visit. There’s no point in sending your troops there. However, you’ve heard from your pretty-eyed Vice President that vagrants–actual people without proper employment and/or lacking a fixed abode, like in those movies from the 1930s–have been loitering around Union Station. Vagrants are smelly (probably) and unsightly, like windmills off the coast of Scotland. We can’t have that. Also, somebody on your staff might have said something about maybe somebody they knew almost had their luggage stolen while at Union Station.

Courageous National Guard troops supported by an MRAP guarding carry-on luggage.

Now that’s crime worth fighting! Deploy the MRAP! Nothing discourages loitering like a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle. Ain’t nobody gonna sleep on benches–if there were any benches–at Union Fucking Station when your National Guard is on duty. Ain’t nobody gonna roll away some poor tourist’s Samsonite hardside, not when you’re in charge and you have a MRAP handy.

So there you are. You’ve ended crime in DC. Trash is gone. Plants are mulched. You’ve established peace through superior firepower. Now all you have to do is wait for your Nobel Peace Prize. It’s good to be POTUS.

completely batshit deranged

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I’m really beginning to believe that a line has been crossed. I’m talking about the line between neurosis and psychosis. I’m talking about Donald Trump.

A week ago, on August 30th, Trump sat down for a chat with Tiffany Justice of ‘Moms for Liberty’ (which, seriously? Is there a ‘Moms Adamantly Opposed to Liberty’ group somewhere?). The issue of trans rights came up and Trump said something completely batshit deranged.

“The transgender thing is incredible. Think of it. Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s gonna happen with your child. And you know, many of these childs [sic] 15 years later say, ‘What the hell happened? Who did this to me?’ They say, ‘Who did this to me?’”

That’s…well, as I said, completely batshit deranged. And as much as I complain about the news media ‘sanewashing’ the batshit deranged stuff Trump says, I have to admit that I did the same thing. I laughed with others about it, and basically dismissed it as Trump being a fucking bonehead again, exaggerating wildly for effect. Because, c’mon, ain’t nobody gonna to believe a kid goes to school and comes home days later (I guess the kid’s parents were busy and didn’t notice he was gone for a few days) with an entirely different set of gender tackle.

But then yesterday Trump held a rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin. And guess what? He basically repeated that same completely batshit deranged story. He said,

“Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day at school,’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation. Can you even imagine this?”

No. No, I can’t imagine it. In fact, I can’t even imagine any rational person saying it. I especially can’t imagine a fucking candidate for POTUS saying it. And I double especially can’t imagine a fucking candidate for POTUS believing it. But I’m actually beginning to wonder if Trump does, in fact, believe something like that is happening. I mean, if you say something completely batshit deranged once and it gets reported as being completely batshit deranged, a person who is NOT completely batshit deranged would know NOT to repeat it.

Completely batshit deranged?

But here we are. And all of a sudden, I’m hearing the lyrics to Psycho Killer in my head.

You start a conversation, you can’t even finish it
You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything
When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed
Say something once, why say it again?
Psycho Killer
Qu’est-ce que c’est?

Seriously, qu’est-ce que fucking c’est? It’s delusional, is what it is. And that brings me right back to that line I said may have been crossed in the opening paragraph. Back in January of 2021, in an article about Trump for Psychology Today, Dr. Stephen Diamond wrote this:

Once a person, including a leader, has crossed over the line from neurosis to psychosis, for, by definition, a delusion is a psychotic rather than neurotic symptom, that person has now become debilitated or disabled by a severe mental disorder, and may no longer be able to continue to perform or discharge their job responsibilities safely, efficiently and effectively. Their reality testing–which is different than neurocognitive functioning per se–has been significantly impaired.

Bingo. By repeating that completely batshit deranged story, I have to question if Trump’s reality testing has gone down the porcelain facility. It’s pretty widely accepted that he’s had a severe personality disorder for decades. But has he crossed that line? Is he actually delusional?

I’m thinking the answer is, yeah.

the end of kristi noem

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Like you, I was curious how the ‘patriots’ at Free Republic would respond to the story of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem killing her 14-month-old puppy, Cricket.

It’s possible you’re unaware of this story. It’s included in Noem’s soon-to-be published autobiography, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward. She suggests the young wirehair pointer was “untrainable” and “less than worthless as a hunting dog.” So she took the puppy to a gravel pit and shot it. And as long as she was in the shooting animals mood, she also fetched a smelly billy goat, took it to the gravel pit, and shot it too. Fewer people are concerned about the goat.

Cricket’s killer

Okay, maybe you weren’t really interested in how Freepers responded to the story. Maybe you hadn’t even given Freepers a moment of thought. Hell, you’d probably prefer not to think about them at all. And who could blame you? But because FreeRepublic is one of the more vitriolic and zealous branches of the MAGAverse, I’m inclined to see them through a canary-in-the-coal-mine lens. They can be predictive of MAGA behavior. So I periodically check in to see what these folks have to say about current events.

I assumed they’d defend Noem’s puppycide, and for the most part, they did. There was also a sizable anti-puppycide contingent. What surprised me (though it shouldn’t have) was a third group; people who were either pro-puppycide or puppycide ambivalent BUT were adamant that Noem’s problem was openly confessing to her puppycidal behavior. There were a LOT of ‘If you’re going to kill puppies, DON’T talk about it comments. In the interest of brevity, I’m only going to include this single example of this group:

How she could be so dumb to write about killing a puppy basically is beyond me.
by toddausauras

The discussion thread I reviewed was called This is The End of Kristie Noem Even if Trump Picks Her, so much of the ‘analysis’ and opinion was dribbled through a filter of her viability as a candidate for Comrade Trump’s vice presidential ticket. Maybe 15-20% of Freepers agreed that killing a puppy was, all by itself, disqualifying. Here’s a representative sample:

She can’t handle a simple 14 month old dog.
by NoLibZone

Noem said she “hated that dog” and deemed it “less than worthless”.
She killed it out of hate. And then she wrote about it in her book as if it were a perfectly normal thing to kill animals you hate. That is textbook sociopathic behavior.
by 10mm

Anyone that does something like this, and thinks it makes her seem like a leader, is a POS. Trump needs to pick a man, and skip the backward notion of women in high office. They try to hard to seem strong enough, and fail to realize that leadership and strength require thought as well as action.
by MagaMatt

While unlike Pit Bulls and some others, I think a wirehair pointer would quickly find adoption, and which should have been her choice. And where is the man of the house in all this?
by daniel1212 (Turn 2 the Lord Jesus who saves damned+destitute sinners on His acct, believe, b baptized+follow HIM)

A number of anti-puppycide Freepers seem to think Noem’s willingness to kill a puppy (and let’s not forget the male goat) had something to do with being a woman. I wasted some time trying to work out the misogynistic logic there. I mean, are they arguing that the puppycide could have been averted if only a strong man had been around to prevent her hysterical reaction? Or that killing a puppy is okay if a man does it? I gave up trying to reason that out; that way madness lies.

Cricket

The majority of Freeper responses fell into the pro-puppycide category. Some felt shooting the dog was acceptable though unfortunate. Most, however, defended her, arguing it was actually necessary for her to execute the puppy (and the goat). Predictably, some Freepers found it amusing; some actually reveled in the cruelty of the act. Here is a representative sample:

Puppy? Let me know when you adopt a “puppy” that attacks and eats your children.
by Responsibility2nd

A lot of people don’t understand that dogs aren’t only pets, some are actually working animals that are expected to do a job and their owners depend on their ability to do that job for their livelihood, and that if they can’t do their job their owners don’t have the resources either time or money to keep them as pets.
by Truthsearcher

She killed a dog?
Maybe the postal workers union will endorse her.
She may even become “Cat Fancier” magazine’s “Woman of the Year.”
by x (She’s only killing the dogs the illegals can’t be bothered killing.)

The joyful chicken killer.
Chicken Lives Matter.
How many eggs did Cricket produce?
by kiryandil

One of the biggest hopes America has of not going full-Islam is Americans’ love of dogs.
Regardless of how much sense can be made of her killing a dog, it won’t fly with the vast majority of dog owners.
We supposedly need some soccer moms to vote for Trump. Soccer moms are not going to vote for a dog-killer.
by who_would_fardels_bear

Noem did the right thing shooting the dog. You’re highly sensitive aren’t you?
by Macho MAGA Man

I find nothing wrong with killing a dog that wont hunt. or a nasty goat.
and a billy goat that is mean could hurt someone if it got out. and you can eat it.
by Ikeon (My only issues with stupid people are, they encouraged to talk and post stupid opinions.. )

I would like her even more if she made slippers from cricket’s pelt.
by Wilderness Conservative (Nature is the ultimate conservative)

These examples don’t show the actual scope of the Freep responses to Noem’s puppycide. There were several comments comparing shooting a puppy to abortion. Some ignored Noem and the puppycide altogether and just advocated other potential VP selections. And some comments had no obvious connection at all to the topic being discussed. But it wouldn’t be FreeRepublic without a bit of random casual racism, so I’ll add one more comment.

She had to have some Indian blood, as seen from the high cheekbones.
by nwrep

Noem, responding to folks to the anti-puppycide crowd, referred to this and other stories in her book as “real, honest, and politically incorrect.” Seriously, politically incorrect. As if there was a political stance involved in killing an adolescent dog.

It’s to be hoped that the title of her book is prophetic. Let’s hope there’s no coming back for her. Let’s hope the Freep discussion thread was accurate, that this IS the end of Kristi Noem.

EDITORIAL NOTE: We need to burn the patriarchy. Burn it and bury the ashes with a wooden stake driven directly through where its heart should have been. Then burn the stake. Burn the patriarchy and salt the earth where its ashes are buried. Keep salting the earth for generations. Then nuke it from orbit. Then tea and biscuits.

the US is the parent in the Gaza school shooting

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Remember Jennifer and James Crumbley? Sure you do. They’re Ethan’s parents. You know, Ethan Crumbly? Oh, c’mon…the 15-year-old kid who shot and killed four of his classmates at Oxford High School in Michigan. Ring a bell? The murders happened back in 2021, but a month ago Jennifer Crumbley was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter because she 1) failed to get Ethan the mental health care he needed, and 2) made it possible for him to have access to both a handgun and ammunition.

Here’s the thing: the US are Jennifer and James Crumbley. The Israeli government is Ethan. And the thirty thousand dead men, women, and children in Gaza? They’re the victims of an international school shooting.

Just like Ethan’s parents, the US (and the world) has known for a long time that the government of Israel has been a threat to the daily existence of Palestinians. We’ve known about the government’s support of illegal settlements in the West Bank, we’ve known about their harsh policies toward Gaza. And yeah, like Ethan, some groups of Palestinians have made matters worse because of their behavior. But the fact remains, the US has been aware of the dangerous and destructive behavior of Israel. And like Ethan’s parents, we’ve not only ignored the abuse and the risk, we’ve deliberately enabled it by supplying the Israeli government with all manner of weaponry.

And hey, we’re still doing that. Thirty thousand plus dead Gazan — a large proportion of which are children — and we continue to hand them weapons. Yes, we’re saying, “Please use these weapons responsibly” but that’s like buying your 15-year-old mentally ill child a handgun, helping him load it, and asking him not to kill his classmates.

Jennifer Crumbly has been found guilty for making it possible for her son to kill other kids. Her husband’s trial will be held in the near future; he’ll likely be found guilty as well. In any rational, responsible World Criminal Court, the US will…well, you can figure it out.

I’m sure Ethan’s parents feel horrible about what happened. I’m sure they wish they’d acted before it was too late. I’m sure they just didn’t realize how their parental failure would harm others. I’m sure they had no idea how much it would harm Ethan and themselves. I’m sure that if they’d been present during the shooting, they’d have at least tried to take Ethan’s 9mm handgun and stopped the killing.

The US could do that. We could just stop providing the Israeli government with the weapons its using to commit genocide against the Palestinian people. It’s far too late, of course, but too late is better than never. We could stop giving Israel weaponry; it would be the moral equivalent of taking away Ethan’s handgun after he’s shot a few classmates. There are already too many bodies on the international schoolroom floor; nothing is going to change that. But we could try to prevent more bodies from stacking up.

We could do that. But we won’t.

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.

all i can do is ask the question

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Hey, you guys! Remember five years ago today? Comrade Donald Trump and Vlad Putin got to hang out together privately for a couple of hours–no aides, no note-takers, just Trump and Putin and their respective interpreters. Just a couple of guys, kicking back, kidding around, bullshitting, having fun.

Afterwards, they held a press conference, during which a reporter from the Associated Press, Jonathan Lemire, asked the following question of Trump:

“Dude, Putin says he didn’t have nothing to do with the election interference in 2016. But every U.S. intelligence agency–and I mean every goddamn one of them–says Russia did. So, my question for you sir is, who do you believe?”

That may not be an exact quote. But here’s what Trump said in response:

“[A]ll I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, Dan Coats, came to me and some others they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Which was pretty goddamn lame, really. We all saw Trump shuffling into the press conference looking like he’d been whipped out back behind the garden shed (and not in a fun way). It was either an incredibly pathetic display of craven spinelessness OR a staggeringly stupid level of gullibility. Right? I mean, imagine…

Lord Eddard Stark: “All I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, they said they think it’s Lannisters causing all the fuss. I have Tywin Lannister; he just said it’s not his people. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Elliot Ness: All I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, they said they think it’s Capone’s mob smuggling liquor. I have Capone; he just said it’s not his mob. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.

Janet Leigh: All I can do is ask the question. People came to me, they said I should think twice before taking a shower in this creepy motel. I have Norman Bates, the proprietor of this fine roadside establishment; he just said there’s no reason NOT to take a shower. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why there would be.

Miss Elizabeth Bennett: All I can do is ask the question. That dreadful Mr. Darcy came to me, claiming Dear Mr. Wickham, whose manners are above reproach, is a cad and, dare I say it, a bounder and should not be trusted to keep company with my sister. I have Wickham; he assures me most passionately he is nothing of the sort and has only the purest and most honorable intentions toward sweet, foolish Lydia. I will say this: I see no reason why he should be denied entry to the dance.

Jim Hawkins: All I can do is ask the question. People came to me and some say they think Long John Silver is a pirate and potentiallyy a mutineer. I have Mr. Silver, who despite his severe disabilty has demonstrated a long career as a sailor. He said he is unaware of any treasure map has no plans to mutiny. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why he should.

John McClane: All I can do is ask the question. My people came to me and suggested Hans Gruber might be a terrorist. Others said he may simply be a greedy motherfucker acting under the guise of a radical political agenda. I have Harry Ellis, who actually works in Nakatomi Plaza, he says I should listen to what Hans has to say. I don’t see any reason not to listen.

scotus / minority report

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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.

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.