The cool, relentless, Irish lilt of justice

Well, I mean, of course they vetoed the resolution to "deplore" the invasion of Ukraine. Look, I don't fully understand how the U.N. works, but it seems like if you're mid-invasion--that is, if you're in the midst of invading another U.N. country--it seems like you shouldn't be allowed to have a veto power on the organization saying that it's a dick move. And yes, I appreciate the irony of that coming from an American.

"Nyet! We veto! Instead I propose new resolution: Russian invasion is
smart move and President Putin is handsome, virile man, and everyone knows it."

-The Russian Ambassador to the U.N.

Above: Russian police heroically arresting
an elderly woman who had the gall to
protest their totally justified invasion.

Anyway, in case you some how missed this, or still read newspapers, Russia, spent the last couple of weeks putting its entire army on the Ukrainian border for "military drills." Everyone in the world was like bullshit, they're about to invade, but Russia was all, "Whaaat? No way! You're the ones making the situation worse." And then they invaded. Because of course they invaded. Because Vladimir Putin is a small, small man, still living in some weird, Cold War mindset and putting the rest of us through his boomer-nonsense.

Pictured: Joe Biden predicting every
move Russia was about to make.
Not Pictured: a crystal ball, because he
doesn't goddamn need one. No one does.

Sorry, I'll stop pretending that I know anything about geopolitics and just say that I think there have been two important takeaways here. The first is that the best thing you can do when someone like Vladimir Putin is spouting his borshtshit about how we're crazy for thinking he's totally about to invade the country he's massed his troops along the border of, is to go on TV and expose his plans--which the President did. And like I know he's probably our boringest President ever and his poll numbers are super-low, but that was pretty great. No matter what anyone says about him, you can't deny that he's now on record as having predicted exactly what was going to happen. 

Sure, everything was a scoop with these
people, but they asked hard questions
and didn't take any guff. Or sass.

Except that's what Republicans are going to do which brings us to the other takeaway: calling bullies on their bullshit. Did you see this? It's fine, you don't have to click on it, I'll sum up. Like I always do...sigh. Anyway, it's about an Irish RTÉ reporter called David McCullagh who interviewed Russian Ambassador to Ireland Yury Filatov yesterday. And by interviewed, I mean interviewed in the way that I think reporters used to do before the profession, as a whole, was reduced to out-of context tweets brought to us by Febreze Fade Defy Plug Air Fresheners.™

"Yes Mr. ambassador, could you please explain to
me, an Irishman, how invading another sovereign
nation is justifiable. And again, I'm Irish."

-David McCullagh, just warming up

Actually no, do click on the link. Here it is again. McCullagh's first question was when is Filatov's country going to stop it's aggression against Ukraine and then went from there. Filatov tried, he really tried to control the narrative and make this about Russia's hurt feelings, but McCullagh was all "Amnesty International" this and "Why should we believe you?" that. And the Ambassador, flat footed and sounding for all the world like Kellyanne Conway trying to make the phrase "alternative facts" happen, got his жoпa handed to him. Yeah, that's Russian for ass. I looked it up and anything. 

Pictured: Filatov seen here with his lying
mustache moments before it' was smacked off.

So then, McCullagh realizing that no matter how many verifiable facts--like there is footage of Russian bombs blowing up neighborhoods. I mean, has he not heard of the internet? Anyway, no matter how many facts Filtov was confronted with, he was still going to blame the Ukrainians for forcing them to fire rockets at civilians, so McCullagh ended the interview with:

"Ambassador Yury Filatov, Ambassador of Russia to Ireland. For the moment at least."

-David McCullagh, smacking the lying 

mustache off the Russian Ambassador

So what I would like, more than anything (except maybe for Russia to turn around), is for David McCullagh to cover our next election and bring his cool, relentless, Irish lilt of justice to bear on the Donalds Trump and the Rons DeSantis of the world. Yeah, I know that the habit, like the momentum right now is about letting liars and aggressors get away with their lying and aggressor...aggressor-ing, but at the least, the very least, they should get called on it to their lying, aggressor faces. It's just so satisfying. 

Above: David McCullagh, doing journalism.

Today in gay porn podcast titles:

I mean, of course Donald Trump immediately fell all over himself praising Vladimir Putin's recognition of breakaway provinces in Ukraine. Of course he did. 

"I, how you say, have heem wrapped around finger. Dah?"

-Vladamir Puti--what? He's a monster,

cartoony accents are totally in bounds.

Above: if you pictured something like this when you
heard about The Car Travis and Buck Sexton
Show, you're not correct, but also, you're not alone.

The former President and, God-willing, future defendant, went on "The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show" to--huh? Yeah, know, I thought it had to be a gay pornstar podcast too, but evidently it's a conservative radio show that only airs on weekdays, between noon and three on am radios in Dodge Rams and Ford F-150's. Anyway, after bragging about his high approval ratings (98% percent among people who totally exist!), geopolitical expert Donald "Shithole Countries" Trump gave his opinion of a move the rest of the planet regards as a flimsy and illegal pretext for invading a sovereign nation.

"This is genius. Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine -- of Ukraine -- Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that's wonderful."

-The guy that thought Yosemite National

Park was pronounced "yo-semite"

Hey, you know who thinks it's somewhat less wonderful?
The UN Security Council.

They're not so much there to keep peace
as they are to be an occupying force.
Which is different. How was he President?

Wonderful. Oh, don't worry, he went on to draw a racist, nonsensical parallel to immigration:

"That's the strongest peace force. We could use that on our southern border. That's the strongest peace force I've ever seen. There were more army tanks than I've ever seen. They're going to keep peace, all right."

-A man some, but at no point a majority, 

of Americans actually voted for

I hereby declare Texas independent!
Furthermore, I remove abortion restrictions, ban
assault rifles, and kids can read Maus in school.

Wait-what? Yeah, confused? Understandable because earlier in the podcast he complained about ten million illegal immigrants "bum-rushing" our souther border, which is, of course, nonsense, but whatever. Even if it were true--it's not--but even if it were, wouldn't they be the Russian tanks in this scenario? Like, Ukrainians aren't pouring into Russia, it's the exact opposite. If anything, Ukraine deploying tanks on their border would be a closer analogy. You can't just declare someone else's country independent. That's not how countries work.

So fine, Trump goes on a right-wing talk show to say dumb shit in order to return the favor to Putin for helping him win the electoral college vote in 2016. Whatever, it's literally his job right now because he lost the 2020 election. But people are still listening to him no matter how batshit, and that's what's terrifying. 

Lost an election, but gained a social media app so...there's that.

Pictured: not a cop.

Like, is it me or do Republicans at this point just take the opposite position of whatever reasonable people support? Police officers keep murdering Black people, but the right is all "Blue Lives Matter." There's a pandemic, and doctors say get vaccinated and wear a mask so the right holds rallies against mask mandates and literally applauds COVID death-rates. Some kid drives to a Black Lives Matter demonstration, murders two people and now he's their hero and getting job offers instead of prison.

So of course when an ex-KGB agent turned autocrat invades another country, the leathery, spray-tanned faced of the GOP goes on the radio to tell us all how "wonderful" it is, and of course their base eats it up. These are not reasonable people. These are lunatics still butthurt over the fact that we had a Black president one time, being stoked by a narcissistic goon into acting out because of some white nationalist's victim narrative about how they're being replaced. Look, I'm no Reagan fan, but he must be spinning in his grave.

If they keep this up, Reagan's corpse is going to rise from the dead and start
smacking Republicans in the face. Right in the face. God, I'd love to see that...

Have these people never played chess?

Although if we're being honest, I don't really know much about it either. Chess I mean. But I do know that the Queen is probably the most valuable piece on the board. She can move in any direction and any number of spaces and without her, the game's basically over.

For hundreds of years, high-level chess players
have regarded the Queen as OPAF.

"Please, we both know there's no
cage built that can hold me."

-Queen Elizabeth II

And I know the U.K. has been doing this whole monarchy thing since the dawn of time or whatever, and far be it from me to question them, but how hard is it to keep the hereditary ruler of your country from getting COVID? Did Elizabeth II give them the slip and go out partying? And look, as you may know, I'm a quarter Canadian and am therefore genetically predisposed to be one quarter pro-Queen. I therefore wish the Queen a speedy recovery from this, but she's ninety-five-years-old and the Queen of a hundred and fifty-one million people. Put her in a room and lock the door until this is over, right?

Pictured: Charles, future King of
Great Britain and the Commonwealth of
Nations, and I don't know, some lady?

The British royal family are basically indoor cats yet somehow, the Queen, along with Prince Charles, and her daughter-in-law Camilla whom the Queen recently decided would be--wait, now that's interesting. Charles and Camilla had COVID like, a couple of weeks ago and right around the time the Queen announced that Camilla would get to be Queen Consort when the time comes. Which isn't the same as Queen Regnant, but is still kind of a big deal, because up until now, the plan was that Charles would be the King and Camilla was going to be--officially speaking--just that woman he married. 

There can be only one...

But after decades of rolling her eyes every time Camilla walked in the room, the Queen finally warms up to her and says ok, fine, when I die you can be Queen. Then, suddenly, the Queen comes down with the plague, right after Camilla? I'm not suggesting that Camilla, in some kind of elaborate, Game of Thrones-style long game, deliberately weaponized her respiratory illness, but did she in some kind of elaborate, Game of Thrones-style long game deliberately weaponized her respiratory illness? Ok, no. That's crazy, even as internet theories go, but it's not flat earth or microchips in vaccines crazy, so who knows? 

Got COVID and then hoped in an SUV with
his security detail exposing them all to it
for a photo-op. Yeah, don't miss him at all.

Anyway, my point with all this is that Elizabeth II is just another in a growing list of European monarchs to come down with COVID after Queen Margrethe of Denmark and King Felipe VI and I just can't help but wonder, where are their handlers? When Trump got it, we were all like, of course he did. He was a septuagenarian toddler with the keys to the nuclear arsenal, no accountability and no regard for the safety of others. Of course he got COVID. But these are heads of state we're talking about.

Regular people can get COVID despite being careful because we have to go to work and to the store and live lives, but these peoples' job is to be the living embodiment of political authority for their respective countries. You'd think their staffs would be better at this. Like, there's a reason we keep the Constitution in a case at the National Archives.

Ok, yes, obviously so Nicholas Cage doesn't steal it,* 
but the other reason is so that it doesn't catch COVID.

(source: what passes for civics education in)

*Update! March 27th, 2022: I see now that in National Treasure, Nicholas Cage steals the Declaration of Independence and not the Constitution, but I'm going to stand by the joke on the grounds that a copy of the Constitution is also housed at the National Archives and that National Treasure is an incredibly dumb movie. And yes, believe it or not, I do sometimes go over old posts looking for typos. Wich happens a lot actually.

What if that, but more of that?

No. Just no. Look, I won't pretend to understand the technology behind phone cameras and I'm not like against innovation or anything, but no to this:

Trypophobia: noun, an irrational or disproportionate feeling of
discomfort or revulsion at the sight of clustered holes or bumps.*

I lived through the console wars of the early
90's. You don't know the things I've seen...

That lovecraftian horror show is a new Galaxy phone. and to be clear, this isn't some weird brand loyalty thing on my part. I'm not an Apple fan. I've stuck with iPhones because they're familiar and I don't want to have to learn a new thing, not because I think they're great. I'm a prisoner of my own laziness. So just know that I'm not picking on Samsung for not being Apple. That said, what even is all this? We have two eyes. Two. What possible benefit within the range of human vision can five lenses offer? Well, six if you count the forward facing "selfie" lens (but let's not).

"Uh-oh. Better switch to ultra-wide."

-almost certainly no one, ever

According to the website each one serves a different function...kinda. Two of them are wide angle (wide and ultra-wide) which is laudable given that the only correct way to take pictures or video is to hold the phone sideways and use landscape mode. Portrait mode is trash. But why two different wide-nesses? And equally confusing are the two zoom lenses. One is 3x and the other 10x...but doesn't the 10x encompass 3x as well? Why have both? And what's the fifth lease for? They won't say. Maybe it's just a light sensor. Maybe it sees your thoughts. 

Although in fairness, Bing is no
dumber a word than Google, so really
it's just about who got there first.

The site also touts the phone's new "Nightography" which, because I get words, I understand to be night photography. But nightography is not, nor will it ever be a word. Nobody's going to start taking "nightographs." "Nightographer" will never be a profession. It's some nonsense marketing chimera that only exists because Samsung can't trademark the words "night" or "photography." It's like how Microsoft keeps trying to make Bing a verb. It's simply not going to happen. But that doesn't mean they're not going to try and bribe people with Gamepass.

But what do I know? Maybe "nightography" absolutely requires five slightly different cameras app pointing at the same thing to work. Cool. But I also can't help but think that it's just an arms race. Like, someone at Samsung looked at the three camera lenses on the iPhone 13 and said: "That gives me an idea..." That idea, of course, is what if that, but more of that?

"What if that, but more of that?"

-someone at Gillette at some point,

probably got a promotion too...

 

*do no, I repeat: do not do an image search for trypophobia. Trust me.

So long Gary Bowser!

So long a sentence that is...Forty months? Forty months? That's what Gary Bowser got for running a group that sold mod chips for Nintendo Switches. And it's a lot, right?

Yeah, so about the title, I'm not trying to be a jerk, it's just that at the end of
Super Mario 64 Mario swings Bowser around by the tail and says something that, thanks
 to garbled mid-90's technology, sounds like "So long gay Bower" and I couldn't resist.

I mean, just wait a few decades
until it falls into public domain.

To be clear, I think that the theft of someone's intellectual property is 100% a crime. In fact, it doesn't even matter what I think, because it is actually a crime. Even if it is one that usually only hurts massive multi-national corporations. And speaking of, it's a crime Amazon, which sells knock-off game consoles loaded with hundreds of pirated game ROMs, seems to have been getting away with for years. Anyway, it doesn't matter. A good policy is just to not pirate other people's stuff. 

So in all, $14.5 million. Of money. Kind
of makes Nintendo look a little, I don't
know, What's the word? Wario-esque?

Gary Bowser's crime was that he was the public relations person for a group called Team Xecuter--dumb name--which made and sold kits that people could use to modify game consoles so as to allow them to play pirated software. He was also doing some wire fraud and money laundering, but pled down to distributing circumvention devices. Nintendo also sued him in civil court and he agreed to pay them 4.5 million in restitution and then a judge added another ten million on top of that.

Yeah, I'll stop harping on this when the
GOP admits its members bear responsibility
and expels everyone involved. So never.

And yesterday, Nintendo released a statement thanking and praising the efforts of the FBI, Homeland Security (what?), and other agencies involved in protecting their intellectual assets and there's just something a little, I don't know, gross about all this? Like, there's no denying that Bowser and presumably the other members of Team Xecutor (still dumb) committed crimes, but it's not like they defrauded people out of their retirement funds, jacked up prices on life-saving medications, or stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the government. 

So yes, crimes, but crimes against business, not against say humanity or democracy. It just seems like Homeland Security and the FBI and the DOJ should have better things to do and maybe Nintendo should, I don't know, seem a little less proud of sending someone to prison for three years.

I think this scene in New Super Mario Bros. where Mario drops Bowser
into lava and then watches with satisfaction as he flails in agony before
sinking beneath the flames, neatly encapsulates Nintendo's behavior here.

Put your rubles where your mouth is!

Huh...good for you, faceless game development company, good for you. Look, I don't want to praise a corporation for making a decision that's probably just as much about profitability as it is doing the right thing, but Maxis, the developer that makes The Sims games, has decided against releasing their new wedding-focused DLC content in Russia.

Guess why? No, really, go on. Guess.

When Shari Lewis did it it was adorable 
because she was a beloved entertainer and Lamb
Chop didn't have the power to declare war.

Russia, you may remember, is the burnt-out husk of a world superpower, now run by an autocratic mob boss who's one tracksuit away from being the ultimate Russian stereotype, and boy-howdy are they terrified of the gays over there. They passed a law back in 2013 criminalizing the "propagandizing of nontraditional relationships" which is rich coming from Vladimir Putin whose own nontraditional relationship with Donald Trump was essentially that of sock puppeteer to sock puppet--which isn't a sex thing, just I'm saying that he had his hand up Trump's ass and worked him like a puppet for years.

The law is deliberately vague and used to crack down on whatever social conservatives see as a threat to their unchecked power. It was even used against a diary company because their logo included a rainbow. Our former Cold War adversaries everybody...

Hey, remember that time Russia beat us into space?
Yeah, now they're afraid that milk is going to make the kids go gay.

Pictured: Rick DeSantis.
Not pictured: a hint of irony.

Sure, we can laugh at the transparent pandering to an ignorant and hate-filled right-wing base, but I mean, this is exactly Florida right now and their "Don't Say Gay" bill. Like, exactly.

"They (the schools) need to teach them (the kids) science, history. We need more civics and understanding of the U.S. Constitution, what makes our country unique, all those basic things."

-Florida Governor Rick DeSantis,

no really, he said these things

Let's not lose sight of the real victims of
slavery and institutional racism: white kids
who have to learn about it in school.

Wai-wai-wait. Governor Rick DeSantis? Of Florida? He's calling for a focus on science, history, civics, and the Constitution? This is the same Rick DeSantis who, despite all scientific consensus fought mask mandates tooth and nail? The same one who signed a bill last year baring schools from teaching about slavery in a negative light? He's insisting that schools teach science and history? Is my eye twitching? I know you can't see me, but from the writing does it seem like my eye is twitching?

You know, the rating they give to 
Mortal Kombat and Grand Theft Auto.
Because of all the gayness.

Sorry, didn't mean to go on a screed there, but Rick DeSantis is the worst. So the Sims, a spin-off from Sim City, has been around for ages, but in case you're unfamiliar, it's a people simulator in which you create, uh, people, and then run their lives. You have to make them eat, sleep, and shower, go to the bathroom. Everything. It's not my bag, like, I do these things in real life, but for some people it works. Anyway, the new content is wedding focused, and while same sex marriages have been a thing in the Sims for awhile now, they've been slapped with the Russian equivalent of an M rating. 

In a statement, Electronic Arts--the company that owns Maxis and really needs some good publicity right now--had this to say:

"We at Maxis want you to know
that we're A-OK with gay!"

-Maxis

"As we moved through our development and brand storytelling process, we became aware that the way we wanted to tell Cam and Dom's (a fictional couple featured in the game's marketing) story would not be something we could freely share around the world...Holding back Cam and Dom's story meant compromising the values we live by. We are committed to the freedom to be who you are, to love you who you love and tell the stories you want to tell."

-EA's Director of Queer Validation

Which, again, exactly Florida.

And I mean, obviously Maxis and EA are out to make money, so everything they do is a calculated move designed to maximize Q2 profit synergies or whatever but--what? Don't look at me like that. If I'm cynical, it's not like it's without good cause. And besides, go back and re-read the phrase "brand storytelling process" and then tell me this wasn't written by people who have stock options. But soul-less corporate speak aside, I'm glad that the company has taken a vocal stance on representation, and called attention to Russia's backwards, hurtful, spite driven laws. 

I'll take ulterior motives over hurtful and spite-driven any day. And sure, it could be that the company is just making a big deal of their skipping the Russian market as a way of showing support, but that just feels like a kind of next-level cynicism that I'm just not ready to admit to yet. Let's just choose to believe that the people who run this company are trying to make their LGBTQ+ fans feel seen...and if it just so happens to bring them positive brand association or whatever it is capitalists crave, then so be it.

"Remember to pick up our new DLC...unless of course you
support Vladimir Putin's homophobic and oppressive regime..."

-Cam and Dom, pretend 

people you can make kiss

Put a cape on it, you cowards!

Have you seen this things about the leaked designs for the new Royal Air Force uniforms? About how everyone's making fun of them for looking like something out of Star Trek? I mean, not being British, or in the Royal Air Force, I don't really have an opinion about them, but they look like this:

If I did have an opinion, I guess it would be: I dunno, whatever.

Brought to you by Supermarionation
and, one presumes, LSD.

Anyway, as someone with an internet connection, I do feel obligated to have something to say on it, so I'm going to focus on the reaction to the uniforms. It's widely been one of ridicule owing to the general sci-fi vibe they give off. Like I mentioned, comparisons are being drawn to the uniforms from Star Trek, but I've read some tweets and articles saying that they look like Captain Scarlett, which again, not British, so I had to look it up. It's a sci-fi puppet show about a secret agent whose also an alien duplicate and also immortal, and ok, the uniforms kind look a little Captain Scarlett-ish? Maybe?

Lo, I have seen the future, and it is grey.

I think people are just trying to make sense of the bland, form-fitting jumpsuits and reaching for whatever cultural reference makes the most sense to them. In any case, both comparisons are way off, as they are clearly lifted from Mass Effect 2. But I think we can all agree that they are, by far, less dumb than the U.S. Space Force's outfits. And yes, I'm going to punch down a bit here, but in my defense, that organization was created by a reality TV autarch who once advised Americans to drink bleach.

In addition to stealing the Star Trek arrowhead emblem, Space Force also cribbed their uniforms from Battlestar Galactica, and I--huh? No, the reboot Battlestar with Edwards James Olmos, not the Lorne Greene one with the earth tone velour capes. 

Although, I would have had some grudging respect
for the choice of earth tone velour capes. 

Because someday we will have progressed
beyond the need for fashion...and zippers...and
the need for anyone to take us seriously.

Anyway, yeah, all of these outfits are unimaginative, bland, futuristic nonsense. It's like whoever designed them went on some kind of sci-fi marathon and distilled all the most generic elements of the costumes into off-brand and inoffensive future-ware. But I mean, I suppose there is some point at which it stops being imitation and inches towards inspiration, right? Like, the costumes on say Star Trek or in video games or whatever, tend to use clean lines, neutral tones, and synthetic materials because that's what we've come to expect from the future, but we expect it because we've been absorbing all this sci-fi. Art imitates life and then life starts to imitate art. I'm not saying the jumpsuits look good, but I think the idea here is that it's the future now, so we might as well start dressing like it.

That's how fashion works, right? Things start out looking ridiculous and then, over time, we get used to them and they become the norm. Take neck ruffs. They're objectively preposterous, but became status symbols in the sixteenth century. Finally, rich people were able to show off how much lace and starch they could afford. Obviously, Elizabethans had weird priorities, but I think my point stands: laugh now, but in twenty years we might all be rocking the grey lycra unitard.

Execution by beheading was also super-popular back then, so maybe they
also evolved as a defensive measure. Like, good luck getting an axe through all that.

Today in meaningless, arbitrary constructs:

As it happens, the blame for a lot of
things wrong in the world right now
can be laid at the feet of dumbs.

I'd like to reclaim my time here...specifically the last two years. Today is, and I'll pretend you didn't forget--again--my birthday. Which, I'm sure the card's in the mail, but whatever, this will be the third in a row spent cowering in isolation because dumbs couldn't be bothered to take the pandemic seriously. Obviously in February of 2020 we were still in that pandemic honeymoon phase, where we figured it would probably blow over, so I'm willing to write that one off, but there are at least two solid years wasted dealing with this so I'd like to make a proposal: we all get to shave two years off our ages. 

Not as easy as say, getting one's hands
on a firearms, but still, pretty easy.

And I'm not just saying this because of my ever-increasing oldness--although that is why I'm saying this, it's just not the only reason--I'm saying this for all of our collective oldness. Sure, there will probably be a few whiners, say, people who turn twenty-one this year, but for the vast majority of us, each passing year is little more than reminder of our own mortality. Sure the kids on the cusp of legal drinking age might be upset, but they'll thank us someday when they're old. And besides, was it really that hard to get your hands on booze at nineteen or twenty?

"Sure, we could use sequential numbers,
but what if--and hear me out--we went
with a repeating cycle of animals?"

-Some astrologer, circa 1400 BC

Age, like they say, is just a number and time but an arbitrary construct without which everything would happen at once. And it's not like the calendar we use hasn't been tinkered with extensively over the centuries. Julius Caesar added two months to the calendar before getting shanked by the Senate on an unrelated matter involving a power-grab. Then over time that calendar got so out of synch with the seasons that in 1582 the Pope just added like ten days. Also, it's not the only calendar. It's the fifth of Rajab 1443 on the Islamic calendar and Adar I the fifth 5782 on the Hebrew. Oh, and it's Chinese New Year, so Happy Year of the Tiger everyone!

My point is that if everyone in the MCU can just pick up where they left off after Thanos's finger snap, we can agree that I get to roll the odometer back a bit. C'mon, it's been a rough pandemic, let's treat ourselves.

Pictured: the evolution of the universe over fourteen billion years, from the Big Bang to now.
Not pictured: anyone who's going to miss a couple years on some meaningless calendar.