Consequences, or something like them.

Have you ever wondered exactly how racist you can be on social media before they kick you off? If you have, what's wrong with you? But if you must know, the answer is very. Especially if you're Donald Trump. But Twitch suspended him today, so chalk one up, right?

"Twitch: Slightly less tolerant of racism
than most other social media platforms."

-Twitch's new slogan

A statement from the President expressing
his outrage at experiencing consequences
for his actions, is expected shortly.

The streaming platform temporarily suspended the President's account today for rebroadcasting some of his greatest hits-that is, some of the rallies he's held over the years wherein he accuses Mexicans, like as a people, of being drug dealers, rapists and murders. No, really. Ok, so why now? Well, Twitch announced a few days ago that they'd be stepping up efforts to shut down hate speech on their platform and when Trump joined Twitch they said he wasn't going to get any special treatment so, it's not like they didn't warn him.

Remember that one? With all the
empty seats? Must have been embarrassing.

One of the examples Twitch specifically pointed to as motivating the suspension was the recent and poorly attended Tulsa rally wherein the President painted a picture of a post 911 world that-no, not post 9/11, post 911. Republicans love to deliberately mischaracterize calls to defund and reform policing as an end to all law enforcement, so Trump made up some bullshit about non-white people murdering your defenseless white wife while you're away on business. You can't make this shit up. Well, he can. Here's an excerpt:

Pictured: a profession that
totally still exists.

"Hey, it's one o'clock in the morning and a very tough, I've used this word on occasion hombre, a very tough hombre is breaking into the window of a young woman whose husband is away as a traveling salesman or whatever he may do. And you call 911, and they say: I'm sorry, this number is no longer working."

-Donald Trump, painting a grim

picture of things to come

But is his story racist? It is. Super-racist in fact. The not so subtle suggestion here is: Thanks to Democrats, this white lady was murdered by brown people. The "very tough hombre" he's been evoking his entire presidency is a sort of white boomer boogey man used to frighten ignorant people into voting for him. But is the fictional woman in this story white? Sure she is. How do I know? I've seen the audience at a Trump rally.

"Goodness! An intruder? But with my husband away traveling
salesman-ing, or whatever he may do, and with all police abolished
by Democrats, who will shoot this very tough hombre?" 

Pictured: some racist shouting
"white power" at a campaign event
validating my broad generalizations.

What? Don't look at me like that. Huh? Am I reading more into this that what's there because it fits my personal narrative of Trump and Republicans being a pack of ignorant racist goons? Could it be that I'm so blinded by my preconceptions and prejudices that I think everything he does and says is motivated out by a desire to pander to the worst elements of the American right? I don't know, maybe? But in my defense, a lot of racists sure seem to show up at his rallies wearing MAGA hats, shouting things like "white power," and kung flu? Just...kung flu.

Ok, well, I'm sure we're all waiting with bated breath for the White House response which will almost certainly accuse Twitch of censorship-which this is not, and violating the First Amendment-which this move doesn't. Until then, let's all bask in the schadenfreude that comes with seeing someone so used to getting away with everything, not get away with something. For once. For a little while anyway.

"Is the President racist? Or is he so un-racist that haters can't even handle it?"

-Kayleigh McEnany 

blowing our minds

Today in wistful skyward gazing:

So I was whiling away precious hours of my life watching videos on Youtube about nerds remembering video games from thirty years ago, when I came across this ad. You didn't click on it and I think we both know you never will, so I'll explain: it's a recruitment video for the United States Space Force.

So far they have a logo and this video,
so yeah, Space Force is really coming along.

The pandemic, white supremacists,
and four years of insane Tweets but I'm
 sure Space Force will be his legacy... 

No, not the critically shrugged at Steve Carell comedy series whose funniest moment was evidently when it beat the U.S. government to the trademark for the sixth branch of the military, but the actual sixth branch of the military. The one Donald Trump made up a couple of years ago in yet another fit of self-aggrandizement. Yeah, move over John Adams and your U.S. Marine Corps, the former host of The Apprentice just founded the Spaaaaaace Fooorrrce. Yes. You do have to say it that way. It's in the charter.

The video opens on a clean-cut all-American standard white male, standing on a beach at dusk gazing wistfully not only at the stars but also towards the future.

Pictured: a future American Space hero contemplating tomorrow
whilst almost certainly humming Faith of the Heart to himself.

Above: noted voice actor Morgan Freeman,
seen here being too expensive to narrate
a Space Force recruitment video.

Then a narrator with a pleasant, but not quite Freeman-level narrating voice says:

"Some people look to the stars and ask: what if? Our job is to have an answer. We have to imagine what will be imagined. Plan for what's possible while it's still impossible. Maybe you weren't put here just to ask the questions. Maybe you were put here to be the answer."

-the so-so narrator sprung for

by the U.S. Space Force

I mean, space isn't green, is it? Also is
wistful skyward gazing a job requirement?

Huh...maybe I was...but I have some questions. First of all, I don't want to be a jerk, but does the Space Force have actual rockets yet or just the low-texture polygonal ones? I know they're just getting started and I mean, the CG would be ok if this were a video game cut seen from 2015 but they'll eventually have real rockets, right? And why do the actors cast as Space Force personal wear camouflage? It seems like 99.9 percent of being in the Space Force is going to be on the ground in those sci-fi control rooms we see in the ad.

Speaking of the sci-fi control rooms we see in the ad, what's with that big room with the girders and blue squidgy lights even for? I get that this is supposed to be speculative, like what being in the Space Force might be like someday, but it's a bunch of people looking up (wistfully, one assumes) at a wall covered in holograms or something and I can't even begin to imagine what they're supposed to be doing.

What is this even for? A rave? A secret Stargate program? What?

"My mission statement is to attain
experience in the field of experience."

-Some college kid

Well, I guess that's the point then, imagination. Space Force is basically imaginary right now. It might be a real thing someday, but not anytime soon. It doesn't help that no one's really sure what it will do. The website says it's "...a military service that organizes, trains and equips space forces in order to protect U.S. allied interests in space and to provide space capabilities to the joint force." So the space force trains space forces? It kind of sounds like a college student trying to come up with something for a mission statement on a resumé. 

Even the ad doesn't know what the hell it is. The Space Force's job is to have an answer to "what if?" And to imagine what will be imagined? Is this a branch of the armed forces or the score from Man of La Mancha? Look, Donald Trump has pissed away plenty of our money (and international credibility) on racist border fences and golf trips for himself, but goddamn, shouldn't we be focusing on a vaccine or something? 

Is the vaccine in space? Because if it's not, this
kind of seems like a colossal waste of resources...

I mean, would you visit Earth?

Hey, did you know that there are thirty six alien civilizations out in the galaxy right now? And that they're almost certainly judging us? How do I know that? Science for the first part, and reasonable assumption for the second. I mean, I would judge us.

There are eleven seasons of Naked and Afraid. Eleven.
We're lucky the aliens haven't nuked us from orbit.

They don't want to look like fools.

Yeah but...you say. And you would be correct. Yeah, but how do they know? And who are they? The they are scientists from the University of Nottingham (as in the sherif of) who published a study recently in The Astrophysical Journal. And as to how they know, they don't. They suspect. They theorize. They extrapolate. They don't know. Because this is science we're talking about and unless said aliens are invading, probing, or asking us what this Earth emotion we call love is, science likes to hedge its bets.

"I don't have all day, give me the gist."

-Everyone

According to the study's abstract-because seriously, have you ever tried to read an actual academic study? Anyway, according to the abstract, the scientists used Earth and human civilization as an example and factored in "[g]alactic star formation histories, metallicity distribution, and the likelihood of stars hosting Earth-like planets in their habitable zones..." to estimate the number of intelligent, technological, extraterrestrial civilizations and that number is-at minimum-thirty six. So, like, where is everybody?

To be clear, the jury is still out on this one.

Settle down. The scientists are careful to point out that this number is based on a number of huge assumptions, all of which use Earth as a baseline. If our planet evolved intelligent lifeforms then it seems plausible that similar stars with similar planets might just have done the same. And even if happened, space is, you know, big. According to the study if aliens are spread uniformly over the entire galaxy, the closest one should be no more than 17,000 light years away. Which again, huge.

"Yeah, but the economy..."

-what it will say on

our specie's tombstone

So huge in fact, that the University of Nottingham study says that it's outside our detectable range meaning that if they're out there, they're too far away for us to do anything about it. And that's just space, time is also a factor. Just because we're smack in the middle of the information age, doesn't mean the aliens are. Depending on when they crawled out of the ocean, they could be in the middle of their Old West or Ancient Egypt or ten-thousand years ahead of us. Or dead. I mean, our planet is literally on fire and we're rolling back environmental protections.

I suppose there's like a 50/50 shot that
they'll want to gestate in our abdomens, so
 maybe it's ok that we'll never meet them?

Ok, so there could be thirty six alien civilizations out there. Or more. Or fewer. Or none. And even if there are, it's incredibly unlikely we'll even encounter them in our life time. So what's the point? I don't know. I don't know that there is one. Science doesn't really work that way. But there are an estimated one to four hundred billion stars in the Galaxy. That's billion with a "b." And of those, this study is pegging the number of planets with intelligent life forms at thirty six. Thirty six out of four hundred billion.

If there has to be a takeaway here, and again, that's not science's job, but if there is one, perhaps it's that we should think about the preposterously unlikely set of circumstances that resulted in life, and then complex life, and then intelligent life on Earth. And then we could, I don't know, bike more? Bring a reusable tote to the grocery store? Do something, anything to decrease the likelihood of our own extinction?

Hey, do you suppose other planets have dumb idiots?
Maybe that's why we've never encountered aliens...

It's German for this exact feeling.

Is it schadenfreude if I'm taking pleasure in the failure of a jerk? I ask because attendance at the President's first campaign rally since the pandemic was like, super low and, well, it filled that void in my chest where a heart would be with-whatta you call it? Hope?

Pictured: The smartest idiot in dumbsville.

Pictured: swaths.

The rally in Tulsa Oklahoma was held over the objections of local health officials and saw vast swaths of unfilled seats. Could it be that this is a sign that people are finally, finally seeing Donald Trump for what he is, or was it just his supporters staying away from a needlessly high-risk environment? Whichever it is, I am delighted to see him disappointed and herein lies my dilemma. Does that make me a bad person? To delight in another's misery?

Above: this.

Probably. And I'm probably worse for loving the fact that he had to cancel his remarks outside the BOK center because it simply wouldn't do to address the dozen or so people in the overflow section. Oh, and the urgent text to supporters from the campaign just two hours before the rally began telling them that "There's still space!" Chef's kiss. But the flailing response from the campaign is just icing on this layer cake of schadenfreude. Sorry, mixed metaphor...um, et's say the sriracha on these roasted Brussels sprouts...of schadenfreude.

"He's got us there. I mean, we just hate
America. And freedom. Oh, and the flag."

-Joe Biden

Ok, I'm a monster. But in my defense, the President's unhinged ramblings did include nonsense like this:

"If the Democrats gain power, then the rioters will be in charge and no one will be safe and no one will have control...Joe Biden is not the leader of his party. Joe Biden is a helpless puppet of the radical left."

-Donald Trump-without a hint of 

irony, on how a Biden presidency 

will result in chaos in the streets

In addition to outing the left as the America hating anarchists we are, Trump also called for reducing the number of coronavirus tests because when you test for COVID-19 you find more cases. Which is an insane argument. Did I mention that he called it "kung-flu"?

Because racism.

Just so we're clear, the Confederacy
fought for the right to own humans and
literally tried to destroy America.

Speaking of racism:

"The unhinged leftwing mob is trying to vandalize our history, desecrating our monuments, our beautiful monuments, tear down our statues and punish, cancel and persecute anyone who does not confirm to their demands for absolute and total control..."

-Trump leaping to the defense

of the Confederacy? I guess?

Ok, well, maybe I am taking shameful joy in the Tulsa rally's humiliating turn out, but in my defense, he is a racist, misogynistic goon running on a platform of anti-anti-facism, which is actually fascism, so in many ways, I don't care. 

Pass the pretzels, because I am leaning in to schadenfreude.

Never forget Wolf 359...

You thought I was kidding? That show is way
more bananas than you probably remember.

Happy Captain Picard Day everyone! Huh? What's that? You've never heard of Captain Picard Day? Well then, sit back and behold as I let the pedantry fly! So, Captain Picard Day is the day in the far future on which we will celebrate the contributions of Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise. Now the word hero gets thrown around a lot these days, but I'd like to think that in the case of Jean-Luc, it's apt. Diplomat. Explorer. 1940's private eye cosplayer. If anyone is deserving of a day to recognize his achievements, it is he.

But I think it's important to keep in mind that no one, not even fictional people, are perfect. So this Captain Picard Day, I'd like to discuss Jean-Luc Picard's less heroic moments.

Above: Captain Jean-Luc Picard himself seen here thwarting space crime
and heroically rocking metallic short shorts all while on vacation.

Space is infinite, yet these people can't
seem to go a week without getting their ship
stuck in an anomy of one kind or another.

Like that time he murdered himself. Yeah. Once, when the Enterprise encountered a temporal anomaly-sorry, that doesn't exactly narrow it down. It's the episode where the crew finds a time-reversed duplicate of Captain Picard in a shuttle craft. It turns out that everyone's trapped in a time-loop that ends in the complete destruction of the ship and crew except for Captain Picard who heroically hops into a shuttle and escapes, starting the loop all over again. Picard Prime realizes that the only way out is to break the cycle by phasering his doppelgänger, so I suppose you can make the needs of the many argument here.

You know, hero stuff.

Fine. But that doesn't excuse the fact that time-displaced Picard, got in the shuttle and escaped the destruction of the ship in the first place. I'm no expert on metaphysics of anything, but the Picard that escaped is arguably the same person as the Picard who saves the day at the end. He's just got a few hours (or days worth, depending on how you look at it) of experiences. Granted, watching his crew explode a few hundred times has got to mess you up but still, Groundhog Day or no, the Captain goes down with the ship.

Yes, worse than Star Trek V:
The One Where Kirk Fights God

And remember that time he went off-roading on a pre-warp planet? Look, Star Trek: Nemesis is bad. And one of the things that makes it so terrible is the impression you get that the writer and director were completely unfamiliar with the characters. The first time we see Jean-Luc he's bragging about how awesome he is at Riker and Troi's wedding. Then he tells Data to shut up. Then, the ship picks up anomalous readings (again, they love anomalies) on a pre-warp planet.

Ten Prime Directive violations
and you get a free sub!

So there's this thing on Star Trek called the Prime Directive. It's like Starfleet's most important rule and it basically means don't interfere with technologically primitive aliens. In fact, don't even reveal your presence to them. Avoid at all costs. So when thirty-year space veteran Jean-Luc Picard suddenly decides that the thing to do would be to investigate the planet full of primitive alien orcs on his dune buggy, and them shoot at them with phasers, we're left to wonder-who is this man, and where is Captain Picard?

Again, like I said, bananas.

And let's not forget that he was Locutus of Borg. Yeah, ok, I know what you're thinking. I mean, the Borg assimilated him, so while he's not technically responsible for the eleven thousand deaths at Wolf 359 including Jennifer Sisko, he did play a part in wiping out Starfleet. Sure, it left him traumatized and emotionally scared, but he didn't like, resign or anything. He just put on those metal bandage things and had a mud-fight with his brother. I don't know, I get that we're supposed to read this as him being a super-strong person, but goddamn.

Pictured: ex-Borg Seven of Nine talking to
some of the many Borg freed from the collective,
probably about how easy it is to get un-Borged.

But then he also gets annoyingly arrogant about his time as Locutus and loves nothing more than to Borg'splain. In First Contact he uses his Borg insight to held Starfleet and that's cool, but later when he sees a member of his crew getting assimilated, he straight up mercy kills him. Shoots his own crew member! Then he does it again on the holodeck when he kills the Borg-ified ensign Lynch. When Lily (played by Alfre Woodard), calls him out on it, he claims that there was no way to save Lynch which is weird coming from a guy who used to be a Borg himself.

I guess what I'm getting at here is no one, no historical figures or...uh...future-ical figure is without flaw. People have nuance and we have to take the good with the bad. Sure, Captain Picard is a shining example of Starfleet leadership and integrity, but he's also a (literally) heartless, mass-murdering ex-cyborg with the blood of thousands of his fellow officers on his hands. So uh, Happy Captain Picard Day!

Our hero everybody...

Especially when genitals are involved.

I know this may come as a shock, but I'm not a constitutional or legal expert. I am however pretty sure that the Trump administration's reversal of a 2016 regulation designed to protect trans people from discrimination is mean-spirited, petty bullshit. Oh, and also that J.K. Rowling should probably knock it off when it comes to opining about trans people.

The last thing the world needs is another white guy telling a woman to shut up,
so I just want to be super-clear that I'm referring specifically to some comments
she's been making that sound a lot like she's saying trans women aren't women. 

It just wouldn't be Pride Month without a
"fuck you" from the Trump administration
to at least one of the letters in LGBTQ.

Rowling, most famous for the Harry Potter novels, and then a series of spin-off fiction about culturally appropriating Native American religious beliefs, has now branched out into transphobic tweets dealing with her feelings about trans women which kind of brings us back to the Department of Health and Human Services thing. Last week, during Pride Month no less, the administration finalized the rollback of Obama-era protections for trans people. A move which, according to the HSS, is based on "the plain meaning of the word "sex" as male or female as determined by biology."

Pictured: one of the many American
puppies Donald Trump would drown.

And herein lies the aforementioned petty bullshit. For one thing, Barack Obama was just better at being president than Donald Trump is. How do I know this? Well, for one thing, not once in his presidency did he have to hide in the White House bunker. Anyway, the point is, Trump loves undoing things the Obama administration accomplished. Healthcare, environmental regulations...if Barack Obama had saved a puppy from drowning in a river, Trump would toss it back in. Because Trump hates puppies. Spread that around.

Obama is basically Voldemort for the
right, if Voldemort just wanted
everyone to have health insurance.

I mean, take a look at the HSS announcement in which they can't even bring themselves to refer to the Obama administration by name as if doing so would conjure him up or something:

"In 2016 the previous administration issued a regulation implementing Section 1557...that redefined sex discrimination to include termination of pregnancy and gender identity which it defined as "one's internal sense of gender, which may be male female, neither, or a combination of male and female."

-The Department of Health and Human 

Services, before going outside, spinning

around, swearing and spitting

Which is weird, because Trump is
clearly comfortable talking about genitals.

They say this like it's a bad thing. Admittedly, and as the HHS points out in their announcement, the regulations were already being challenged in Federal Court on, among other things, procedural grounds and weirdly the Religious Freedom Restoration Act-which was about protecting Native Americans from government intrusion-but I think this comes down to the right being confused by and hostile towards things they don't understand. Especially when genitals get involved. 

Restoring the rule of law? Why don't they
just shoot tear gas at the old regulations?

The Obama-era regulation was designed to expand protections under the law, while Trump's reversal seeks to take them away and that's just shitty and uncalled for. It's not, as the HSS announcement says, about "Protecting Civil Rights in Healthcare, Restoring the Rule of Law or Relieving Americans of Billions in Expensive Costs" [their caps, not mine]. It's about pandering to their base and their base is uncomfortable having their beliefs questioned and I guess the GOP would rather see trans people suffer than ask conservatives to educate themselves.

Anyone else like, way over Republicans
loosing their ever-loving minds over
 things they don't understand?

Look, I get that it's complicated and again, I'm not a legal expert, but the Constitution and statues related to discrimination are mostly coming to us from a time before transgender, like as a concept, was understood. And this idea that the rules should be based on a "plain meaning of the word sex when it comes to male and female" is nonsense because no such thing exists. Not for many people and not for biology. Some people are simply born wired in a way that is at odds with their physical characteristics, it's not politics, it's science. 

We know that sex and gender aren't the same thing. That's why we have two different words. And I guess what I'm saying is that it'd be super if the Trump administration, America's anti-discrimination laws and J.K. Rowling would just accept it and let people live their lives.

I mean, if  you're J.K. Rowling and you suddenly find yourself on the same
side of something as Donald Trump, you'd stop and reevaluate, right?

Cool strategy guys!

I guess what I want to know is how do they sleep at night? Republicans I mean. Yeah, fine, not all Republicans but for real, if you're still planning to vote a party that's making the case that voter suppression is a valid campaign tactic, then you're the problem. With everything. Yeah, one post about Elizabethan archeology and now I'm back on this again.

This just in: white guy with a blog suddenly notices that racism
exists in America. We'll have more on this as it develops...

What I'm saying is that we've been voting for
two hundred years, so why is it only an ordeal
 when Republicans are in danger of loosing?

Tuesday's primary election in Georgia was a shit show and yeah, corona virus is part of it. People, in general, would rather not die slowly from asphyxiation if they can help it. The solution then was to close and consolidate polling places which is not unreasonable in and of itself, but the fact that these closures disproportionately affected Black voters seems a little suspicious. Sure, coronavirus spreads more easily in densely populated areas and it's true that densely populated areas tend to have a larger Black population, but this is Georgia.

"What? He'll be fine, you can totally trust
me not to play with and then eat this mouse"

-This cat, seen here being

a metaphor for Republicans

Remember that time Brian Kemp was running in a tight race with Democrat Stacy Abrams-who is Black and a voting rights advocate-while at the time he was Georgia's Secretary of State? And remember how it was Kemp's job to make sure that the election was fair...the election he was running in? So he purged the voter rolls ostensibly to combat the zero cases of voter fraud reported every year. And then after disproportionately disenfranchising thousands of African American voters "won" the election by just fifty-five thousand votes and is now Georgia's Governor?

"Thanks Obama..."

-Raffensperger on how

not his fault everything is

Because that kind of makes it sound like Georgia and specifically state Republicans, have a history of systematic and racially biased voter suppression. And with Tuesday's election we add in to the mix broken machines, machines delivered to the wrong location, untrained staff, insufficient provisional ballots and a new Secretary of State, Republican Brad Raffensperger who quickly laid the blame for his state's goat rodeo of a primary at the feet of local officials and you have to wonder if maybe there isn't something up, you know? I'm not being paranoid am I?

Yates, seen here opening his racist word
hole, explained-without a hint of irony-
that systematic racism doesn't exist.

I mean, we're currently tearing ourselves apart as a nation over a debate-a debate! About whether or not institutionalized racism is a problem in America and an official from the Tulsa, Oklahoma police department went on local radio to say that:

"...we're shooting African-Americans about twenty-four percent less that we probably ought to be, based on crimes being committed."

-Major Travis Yates, Tulsa PD,

on how racist his department isn't

I'm not saying that Yate's comments are directly related to the situation in Georgia, but...aren't they though? Like, if it speaks to the underlying racist authoritarian milieux of America, then yeah, it's another symptom of the blind entitlement that makes Republicans in Georgia believe that they're on the side of the angels when they close polling places and drag their feet on voter reform.

"Hey, we're only suppressing voters to make the elections fair. I mean,
with our shitty policies and overt racism, we'd never win otherwise."

-Brian Kemp, the basically

self-elected Governor of Georgia