Today in feelings that don't wash off:

Wai-wai-wait, so I know that Sarah Sanders is the White House Press Secretary and her job is speak for the administration, but did you see the thing about her calling all the women who have accused Donald Trump of sexual harassment liars?

Pictured: Sarah Sanders on how Trump's accusers are attention-
seeking liars and the President is, and always has always had respect
for women. Huh? No, I don't know how she lives with herself either. 

The exchange went like this: Jaqueline Alemany from CBS asked Sanders:

Holy shit, these reporters must be
sick of the phrase 'fake news.' 

"At least sixteen women accused the president of sexually harassing them throughout the course of the campaign. Last week, during a press conference in the Rose Garden, the president called these accusations 'fake news.' Is the official White House position that all of these women are lying?"

-Alemany who, in fairness,

must have known she was 

in for some bullshit answer

Aw, remember him? When he tried to
tell us the Inauguration was the biggest
one ever? That was cute, wasn't it?

A straight forward, specific question with no room to evade, right? Let's say yes. Then the Press Secretary, with the usual dismissive aplomb she rolls out whenever reporters have the temerity to ask her a question:

"Yeah, we've been clear on that from the beginning and the president's spoken on it."

-Sarah Sanders, giving

it the ol' Spicer try

Ok, first of all Sarah Sanders has literally made a career out of being unclear about everything she's ever said from behind the podium, but here she is agreeing that yes, it's the official White House Policy that the women accusing the President of sexual harassment are liars which...holy shit, right? 

Hey, remember back when Trump literally
made a career out of objectifying women? 

"Never....feel...clean...again..."

-White House Staff

What I want to know, is how does anyone who works at the White House, from officials down to cooks and clerical staff, scrape together the will to go in every morning when they work for a President who, in addition to being under investigation by pretty much everybody for everything from conflicts of interest to colluding with Russia to steal the election, has to have an official policy of calling the many women who have accused him of sexual harassment, liars? I mean, they must want to shower immediately after they get home.

Pictured: exactly how likely it
is that these sixteen women
are all just making this up.

Look, I don't know any of the people involved, and for all I know these sixteen women could be lying. They're not, but it doesn't strain the laws of physics as we know them. It's sort of like how aliens could have built the pyramids. Like, I can't really prove they didn't, but it's still preposterous. The fact that the Billy Bush tape came out during the campaign and he still won the electoral college suggests that neither Trump nor his supporters give a shit about how he treats women. 

Of course this man is guilty of countless incidents of sexual harassment. Of course he is. He's just managed not to get called out on it. That's not the same thing as being innocent.

It is however the same thing as being rich and powerful so...here we are.

Today in smoking piles of rubble...

'Are you for goddamn kidding me?' is what you'll likely say when you see this. What's this? you say, conveniently forgetting how to click on links. Don't worry, I'll explain. Here. maybe this will help:

Ta-da!

Here's a better shot...well, better isn't
the word...less unobstructed shot?

Ok, sorry, that helped not at all. Thanks street view...I think what we want to look at is behind the van. According to this listing on a real estate site, it's a one bedroom, 600 square foot apartment in San Francisco listed, without irony, for $799,000. Of money. Can you believe it? Oh, you can? But that's not that unreasonable for San Francisco... you might point out. Ok, and you'd be correct. After all, 600 square feet is actually a decent size for the city, and you know, just living in San Francisco does make one objectively more attractive.

Oh, and did I mention that you also get to
haul away the charred remnants of the last
occupant's possessions? No?  Because you do.

The preposterous thing-and I should clarify that that I mean preposterous even by the standards of Bay Area housing-anyway, the preposterous thing about this listing is that this house was recently on fire. As in, on fire. Yeah, like, gutted back in 2016. The listing is calling this a fixer-upper which usually means a place needs some paint or a new roof, but in this case it's referring to the uninhabitable, burnt out shell of a house that the current owner is sick of paying property taxes on. I suppose you have to admire the sheer, unapologetic cheek of asking eight hundred grand for a rubble-filled husk.

Holy shit, give it a rest...

I mean look, I'm not like a real-estate agent or anything, but I do know how to look things up on the internet so, well, I guess I am basically a real-estate agent, huh...anyway, similarly sized but not-burnt houses are listed for around the same price, so this listing is kind of the seller's way of saying 'fuck you, this is San Francisco.' And the depressing part is they're not wrong. It really is a great city if you can get past the lack of parking, rapidly spiraling out of control housing costs and, you know, hipsters.

Ok, so you're sold. Great. Sure, it's a pile of burnt garbage, but location right? The question then is how do you afford this unique fixer-upper/abandoned shell? Well, I don't live in the city, but from talking to people who do, you need to get into something called 'start-ups.' No one can actually explain to me what one is or what they actually do but it usually involves an app and makes a shit ton of money.

"Well, whatever it is we do is apparently very lucrative."

-Start-up people, leveraging

their brand or whatever...

Bezos the First

So did you, or your local city and/or town officials put in your bid to be the home of Amazon's second headquarters? Because if you didn't, you've let your city down as the deadline was last Thursday. Shame on you.

You can probably expect some sort of revolt when the
simple townsfolk learn what you did...or rather didn't do.

You know, the city of Tuscan probably
could've had free shipping if it'd just
ponied up for a Prime subscription.

But in your defense, the odds are fairly slim of your town getting picked. The company announced today that it's received 238 proposals from cities in the U.S. Canada and Mexico. That's a lot of competition. Especially when you consider the perks on offer. Sure, tax breaks, financial incentives, those are to be expected, but some restaurant in Pittsburg is offering free sandwiches for Amazon employees, and Tuscan Arizona tried to give the company a 21-foot tall cactus because what online retailer doesn't want on of those?

According to the company, getting picked will mean 50,000 new jobs and billions of dollars being pumped into the local economy which is super and almost certainly makes up for the way the company's business model is slowly destroying everything.

Above: an example of the 50,000 low-paying, soul-crushing jobs that
may be coming to your city soon! At least until an algorithm determines that
 humans are obsolete and workers are replaced with more efficient drones. 

"Say, that's a capital idea!
Bully for you Mayor Lary!"

-Some robber barron

But perhaps the most degrading offer comes from Mayor of Stonecrest Georgia who is offering to hand over a few hundred acres of Stonecrest, Georgia to Amazon. The proposed city would be called Amazon and the Mayor suggested that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos run it himself. Interestingly, Stonecrest, which is in DeKalb county near Atlanta, has only been a town for about five months. It was incorporated thanks to the efforts of Jason Lary who is now the Mayor. Look, I've never founded a city, but am I being a jerk if I say it's kind of weird that Mayor Lary's been running the city he helped create for less than a year and is already offering to slice off a chunk of it and sell it?

Pfft...bet Mayor Lary never had
to worry about Bowser attacks...

Probably. Look, I'm terrible at SimCity but even I know selling out to a for-profit corporation is almost certainly going to come back and bit them in the ass someday. I mean, holy shit, company towns didn't exactly work out well last time we tried them.

"Jeff Bezos can be the mayor, CEO, king, whatever they want to call it. He'll be the first person to actually have a corporate city."

-Jason Lary, apparently never 

having heard of George Pullman

Ok, couple of things. No, Jeff Bezos can't be king. We fought a whole war about that. Also, and this is admittedly a quibble, can a company have two headquarters? I mean, by definition a headquarters is the 'head' or principal quarters. So right away this is starting to sound like Jeff Bezos is just trying to scam free sandwiches and corporate fiefdoms out of gullible Mayors.

"I'll be great. Amazon employees could live in company housing, shop at the company store
-hey, they wouldn't even need to be paid in real money, just company scrip! He can call'em BezoBucks!"

-Jason Lary, soon-to-be former Mayor

Today in mysterious moon holes...

Hey, remember the moon? You know, Earth's largest natural satellite? We were kind of into it for a while and then, like an elliptical machine 2,159 miles in diameter, America lost interest. Fortunately, the rest of the world is still interested in space and yesterday, JAXA announced that they've discovered something exciting on the moon.

Tiny pencils and golf balls?

Look Japan, you do you, but
that's not how acronyms work.

Well, ok, something science exciting, so lower your expectations appropriately. JAXA is Japan's NASA and the acronym stands for Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and they-wait, hang on, J-A-E-A...you know for a bunch of literal rocket scientists they're not great at acronyms. Anyway, they have a probe called the Selenological and Engineering Explorer Probe, which by their own acronym logic should be called 'SEXP' but instead is called Kaguya after a princess from the moon in Japanese folklore.

Confused? Of course you are. I am too. I mean, what's up with Japan and moon princesses?

All I'm saying is that I don't live in Japan but I can now
name two completely different Japanese moon princesses
just off the top of my head. I didn't even have to Google.

Hey, what did we ever
do to the moon? Oh, right...

But I may have strayed from my point. Using Kaguya, JAXA has confirmed the existence of a vast, subterranean-ok, sub-selenian, tunnel. The tunnel, which selenololologists...lunologists...moon experts believe is a lava tube formed billions of years ago, is three hundred feet wide and 31 miles long. Yeah, miles with an 'M.' Yikes. It's basically the lunar equivalent of the Mines of Moria and JAXA scientists are hoping that it might be used as shelter from the extreme temperatures, radiation and micro meteorites with which the moon might try to murder us. You know, out of spite.

Three! Oh, wait, I think Rita Repulsa
might have been a witch. But she did have
a castle on the moon so...half credit?

Ok, hurray for science, right? Well, yes, but I'd like to sound a note of caution. If hackneyed sci-fi has taught us anything, and I like to think it has, it's that poking around in big dark holes, particularly big dark holes on the moon, usually ends in disaster. Cat Women, Deceptions, Inhumans, Nazis, Rita Repulsa, the point is, the moon is a distant, mysterious place and now someone's found a deep dark hole in it. Is it necessarily the best idea to go charging in? Well yes, of course it is. This is, after all science. But tin-foil hat crazy theories about what may be lurking up there aside, the most dangerous threat posed by this discovery may be, in a typical hackneyed twist, man.

I mean humans, not like, a man. Maybe I'm just paranoid and cynical, but everyone with a space program is going to want a piece of this mighty moon hole. It used to be just us and the Soviets, but now it's us, Russia, China, India, Europe, Japan and rich people. It's prime real estate for things like science and Newt Gingrich's child labor moon mine. Are we really going to rely on the spirit international sense of goodwill and cooperation to avoid some kind of moon war?

Because...you know...

Today in schadenfreude...

Sorry everybody, I don't know how to tell you this but...ok, here goes: Forbes just released their list of wealthiest Americans and Donald Trump, whom you might remember as the guy you, and in fact most people, didn't vote for, is now only the 248th richest.

Toping both the list of richest Americans and world's
 richest is Bill Gates with $89 billion, begging the
question 'How come he's not our President?'

Above: God Nisanov's
billionaire's yearbook photo.

If you need to take a minute, it's alright. There's no shame in crying, this is, of course, devastating news. Go ahead, I'll be right here...back? Good, good. We're going to get through this...together. Ok, according to this, Trump has slid down the list from 156th richest last year when he was worth $3.7 billion-yes, with a goddamn 'B', to his new spot at 248 with only $3.1 billion, yes also with a goddamn 'B,' which is, if you're counting and I know I am, is $600 million dollars poorer and 92 places lower on the list. Officially, at $3.1 billion he is as rich as and no longer richer than God. Huh? Yeah, no really. God Nisanov. He's a Russian entrepreneur and according to Forbes has $3.1 billion. He also enjoys diving and horse breeding. Now you know. Thanks Wikipedia!

"In my defense, these people were
stupid enough to trust me."

-The sitting President

So back to this sad, sad tale of a sad, sad man. A reasonable question might be, what happened? According to Forbes, the New York real estate market had a lot to do with it, which sounds weird because Trump owns property in New York and rent there is preposterous, but I don't understand business. There were also several lawsuits over Trump University. You know, the fake university scam the now leader of the free world was running? The one where he accused the judge of being biased because he's Mexican? Yeah, that cost him a $25 million settlement.

And of course the campaign was a factor. I would imagine that when you're an obscenely rich New Yorker famous for sexually harassing women, cynically exploiting faith and mocking prisoners of war, convincing rubes that you're one of them in terms of economic status and religious outlook must be expensive.

Expensive but evidently not impossible. 

Above: Elon Musk, one of the many,
many people with more money than
Trump. Also he's a crazy person who
wants to colonize the planet Mars.

Ok, all kidding aside, what's it to me if President Trump is slightly less rich? Well, nothing, really. I mean, $3.1 billion is about $3,099,949,000 more than I'll likely see in my life time, so is this just schadenfreude? Sure. We watched an unqualified goon bully, buy and lie his way into the White House, of course I love hearing about how he's been bumped down from his meaningless place on a stupid list of rich people. Of course I do. Especially since he strikes me as the kind of person for whom such rankings are like, super important. Is that petty of me? You bet.

I guess I'm just clinging to a fantasy, no matter how ridiculous it might be, that at some point he's just going to decide it's not worth it. The money, the damage to his public image. I mean, a lot of us hate him. Hate him. He's no longer a celebrity we just roll our eyes at for his stupid reality show, he's a monster that might start a war. So maybe if it gets bad enough he'll just, you know, quit and save us the trouble of 25th amendmenting him.

One favor though, if you do quit please, please, fire Pence. Like for real.

Kim-tolerance!

"Just to clarify, I never said anything 
about gay people. That's her baggage."

 -Jesus, distancing Himself

I know everyone's supposed to be the hero of their own story but goddamn, check this shit out. You remember Kim Davis, right? That county clerk from Kentucky who defied a judge and refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples even though gay marriage was totally legal and her entire grounds for refusing was "'cause Jesus?" She was thrown in jail for a few days but was let out because her staff was issuing the licenses anyway and besides, everyone was sick of ultra-Christians treating her like some kind of martyr for taking it upon herself to deny gay people civil rights. It was a shit show. They played Eye of the Tiger, Mike Huckabee took a break from being irrelevant to high-five her. But then she sort of fell off the radar.

Until now. now before I tell you what she's been up to, I'd like you to take a guess. Huh? Para-sailing? Nope, not even close. Selling yoga pants online? Good guess, but no. What's that? Traveling? You're getting warmer. You know what, I'll just tell you. She's visiting former Soviet shit-hole Romania.

Pictured: Romanians under Communist rule lining up to buy
cooking oil. Note that this is a color photo, it really was that dreary.

In Davis' defense, maps that recognize
countries not mentioned in the Bible are
illegal in her home state of Kentucky...*

Sorry, that was mean. Romania today is a developed, free country and a member of the EU. They even decriminalized homosexuality back in 2002, although they don't have marriage equality and may never have it thanks to a proposed referendum that would change to constitution to specifically make marriage between a man and a woman. Bullshit, right? Yes, of course it is, but the proposal is pretty popular and will likely pass. Enter Kim Davis. Sensing an easy win, even if it is in a country most Americans can't find on a map, Davis is heading to the former Soviet state to tell her sad tale of tolerance gone mad.

Kim Davis, seen here heroically
treating gay people like shit.

She and another American called Harry Mihet, who's with the Liberty Council-a group that represented her during her five day inconvenience-I mean, ordeal, in jail, have hooked themselves up with a conservative Romanian organization called Coalition for the Family which-huh, apparently it's not just American anti-LGBTQ groups that give themselves pretentious names. Anyway, the Coalition is hauling Davis around Romania as some kind of hero of standing up for what you believe in...even if what you believe in is shitty and tramples on the rights of others.

I bet these lesbians didn't even stop
to consider how their marriage would
make Kim Davis feel. Shame on them.

The message of Davis' nine-day intolerance tour of the country that gave us Dracula, is best summed by the Liberty Council who said:

"Same-sex 'marriage' and freedom of conscience are mutually exclusive, because those who promote the former have zero tolerance for the latter."

-The Liberty Council on how

intolerant we all are

Ok, so if you're for marriage equality you have zero tolerance for freedom of conscience? And by extension, two gay men who want to get married are oppressing people like Davis by not accepting her personal religious worldview that they're going to writhe in hellfire for all eternity and should just find a nice girl and settle down. Got it.

"Exactly! Well, we're just glad you're finally seeing things our way."

-The Liberty Council

"What? No what we're trying to do is
completely different...uh, because Jesus?"

-Mihet, tapdancing

According to Mihet, himself a Romanian immigrant who grew up under oppressive Communist rule, Davis's story resonates with Romanians because:

"...they can still remember the not-so-long-ago days when they were themselves persecuted and imprisoned for their conscience...and [they] are determined to prevent such injustice from ever happening again in their country..."

-Harry Mihet, apparently

unaware of the concept of irony

Wai-wai-wait. To be clear, Mihet is arguing for the ban on same-sex marriage. And to make his point he's comparing the plight of Romanian dissidents who suffered for decades under, before ultimately overthrowing an oppressive communist regime to Kim Davis's instance that her religious beliefs override other people's civil liberties.

Hey, you know who else can remember 'the not-so-long-ago days when they
were themselves persecuted?' All LGBTQ people everywhere since forever.

*yeah, I'm on a bitter streak here...sorry Kentucky and Romania! I'm sure you're got some really great things going on too. Like bourbon and Dracula tours respectively.

Today in things that are bad for country...

Pictured: just some of the seven
billion humans I find more credible.

Wai-wai-wait. The President is upset because he thinks NBC News is spouting bullshit. The current President. Trump. Donald Trump. Ok. So the bullshit or probably not bullshit story is that the President said he wanted a 'tenfold' increase in America's nuclear arsenal...which totally sounds like something he'd say, right? Besides, according to NBC it comes from three officials who were in the meeting this summer, he totally said it and seriously who are we going to believe? Donald Trump or literally anyone else on the planet? Living or dead. Real or fictitious.

Hey, while we're on the subject of
things that are bad for country...

Anyway, in his blind denials and Tweet flailing, the President threatened today to get NBC's FCC license revoked. Behold:

"With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!"

-President Trump on how

the press is bad for country

I know what she'll be doing tomorrow...

For crying the fuck out loud. So obviously the suggestion is A: a bone-chilling and fascistic assault on the First Amendment and B: not a thing he can do, but what the shit? He then reportedly followed the Tweet with a rare verbal comment, using his mouth and everything:

"It is frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write."

-The President...no, really

Frankly disgusting or the first responsibility of a free and independent press? Because I get those two confused sometimes too.*

He knows freedom of the press is like #1 on the list, right?
It's even before the one idiots think is about assault rifles.

*I don't, I'm just trying to be magnanimous.

Bring on the water bears!

You know in the midst of all the shit show that is everything right now, I almost forgot that today is Federation Day. Yes, Federation Day, it's a holiday celebrating-wait, you know what? I do this every year so I'm going to spare you the explanation, click here if you want to catch up but otherwise, Happy Federation Day!

The lesson here is when life hands you a core breach in slow motion
because of you know, tachyons or whatever, go ahead and draw a smiley.

Pictured: pretty much this,
but in space. 

And what a Federation Day this is. It's the first in like ten years where there's a new Star Trek show to discuss. A Star Trek show that's bananas. Bananas foster even. But that's not a bad thing. Since we haven't really talked a lot about it since it started, I thought that we'd celebrate Federation Day this year by discussing the many ways in which Star Trek: Discovery is already batshit insane. Oh, and I should warn you that I'm going to spoil some things about the first four episodes, so you know, bail if you're not caught up.

Still there? Super. So Discovery is about Mr. Spock's heretofore un-mentioned sister Michael Turnham who mutinies, gets sent to prison but then gets assigned to a starship that travels through space powered by mushrooms and steered by a giant water bear, but we'll get there.

No really, mushrooms and water bears. You probably think I'm kidding but... 

To boldly go where-where...oh shit...
did they just-I think I'm going to be sick...

Micheal Burnham, Spock's sorta sister, failed to recover her Captain/mentor's body from the Klingon ship at the end of episode two and last week we found out that the Klingons ate her...they ate Michelle Yeoh. I mean...holy shit. We all knew this was going to be a darker Trek, and this happened off-camera but goddamn. This is up there with that time Picard and Riker phased Dexter Remick's head until it exploded. In thier defense, Remick was the host for some kind of alien, mind-controlling parasite, but exploding head's aren't really something you expect from Star Trek where Starfleet's whole deal is that they're supposed to solve their problems with words and not exploding heads. Once again: exploding head.

Courtmartialed or murdered in a face-
lift machine. Yes, that actually happened.

Speaking of not very Star Treky ways to approach space, one of Star Trek: Discovery's major running storylines so far is the conflict between the ship's crew-who are mostly scientists, and the Captain who's a 'shoot first ask questions never because everyone's dead kind' of guy. Usually the phaser happy malcontents on Star Trek are corrupt admirals who, by the end of the episode get their commence, usually getting exposed as traitors to the Federation's let's all get along philosophy and end up courtmartialed.

"I...well...but I could...goddamnit..."

-Captain Draco's Dad

But not Captain Lorca. He's sort of the anti-Picard, and because there's a war Starfleet's put him in charge of finding a way to defeat the Klingons. His plan so far is to bring the tardigrade monster that they found in episode three onto his ship and have Burnham poke it until she can determine how to use it against the Klingons. He's sort of like a less smarmy Paul Riser in Aliens. Less smarmy and with an even stupider plan. I mean, first of all they have one monster and there's like, millions of Klingons. His plan is to sick the water bear on all of them?

And even if he could train the water bear to eat Klingons, wouldn't they have to get it onto their ships? Yeah, there was that episode where Scotty beamed a bunch of tribbles over to the Klingon battlecruiser, you know, as a joke because Klingons hate tribbles, but they weren't at war then. They're probably not just going to let Discovery beam over a six-legged murder bear. Maybe if they say it's a candy-gram? I don't know.

Pictured: Scotty, shortly before he callously sends
thousands of living creatures to their deaths.

If you said the writers are
on 'all the drugs,' you win!

Speaking of the murder bear, we also learn in episode four that it's the key to making the spore drive work. Yeah, the ship is equipped with a drive that somehow allows instantaneous travel anywhere in the universe. Because mushrooms. Anyway, Anthony Rapp's character helped invent the technology, but can't get it to work, probably because it's preposterous. Then Burnham discovers that the aforementioned monster is also a super-computer which-when properly tortured-can navigate the mushroom network begging the question how many drugs is the writing team on?

Sure, these things all sound absurd, but is that a problem? Star Trek has always been kind of ridiculous. Humans evolving beyond intra-species conflict, replicators eliminating hunger and poverty and aliens who speak perfect, unaccented English thanks to an invisible universal translator. Yes, the Discovery ship travels via mushroom physics, but is that any less believable than dilithium crystals? I say keep it weird. Anyway, Happy Federation Day!

No really, the Enterprises runs on sea glass.
Mushrooms are like way more science by comparison.