Let's Hobnob at Hobb Lobb!

Shhh...everybody shut up, Mike Huckabee has something to say! The titular host of Fox News' Huckabee is taking time out from judging us to make a heroic stand against women who would like their birth control thank you very much.

"Look out ladies, you've just been Huckabee'd!"

These people hate gays so much
they're willing to eat at Chick-fil-A.

In a move similar to his Let's Appreciate Chick-fil-A's Appalling Homophobia Day, Huckabee is standing behind craft supplier and moral compass Hobby Lobby which is fighting the Federal government over the part of the healthcare law that requires companies to offer insurance that covers emergency contraceptives. The evangelical Christian-owned company plans to defy the law and in doing so risks, get this, a $1.3 million dollar a day fine. Holy shit. Anyway, Huckabee's calling on supporters to show support by Chick-fil-A-ing Hobby Lobby today.

"Come down to Hobby Lobby
and save 30% on wicker baskets!"

-Matthew 13:11

Just how Christian is Hobby Lobby? Super-christian. Like Ned Flanders Christian. Check out this quote from Founder and CEO David Green:

"The foundation of our business has been, and will continue to be strong values, and honoring The Lord in a manner consistent with Biblical principles."

They're even closed on Sundays and their website has links to Christian sites just in case you needed some Biblical advice on what to do with your pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks.

You're welcome.

So yeah, they're not kidding about being all about the Jesus and maybe they have a point. Should they really be obligated to offer insurance plans that violate their religious convictions? Hey, remember the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? When those started I was opposed to them, so my tax money was set aside and didn't go to pay for them. Instead, my taxes between 2003 and now are only funding PBS, dolphin research and the secret Stargate program. Because that's how taxes work.


Ok, so I'm being kind of a dick here, but for serious, it really is a tough ethical bind and an issue that deserves more than a glib response by some jerk with a blog. After all, if the arts and crafts stores aren't looking out for your soul, who will?

"Ok, I'm out, see you later! If you have any questions, moral quandaries that kind
of thing just ask the people at Hobby Lobby that's what they're there for. Peace!" 

-Jesus, ascending into space or something

Michaels: Sign up for our Tuesday
knitting class or Friday pagan orgy.

On the other hand Hobby Lobby can totally go screw themselves. First of all, what their employees are getting from their doctors is none of David Green's business. Secondly, Hobby Lobby is either a for-profit company, or a church. Pick one. If you're going to be a business you have to offer health insurance and said insurance covers birth control. Tough shit. In fact, Hobby Lobby preaching at their employees seems to be a pretty common complaint among people who work there. Maybe Mr. Green would be happier just packing it in and turning Hobby Lobby into a church with a weekly arts and crafts night.

Man, you feed a few of them to
lions and they just never get over it.

Of course, Mike Huckabee's Hobnob at Hob Lob or whatever the hell he's calling it will probably draw Evangelicals out in droves. Convincing them that they're some kind of oppressed minority taking a stand against the Liberal Agenda is pretty easy. I just have to wonder if Huckabee has thought this all the way through. I mean, if things do swing in Hobby Lobby's favor, what else can companies weasel out of by way of religious objections? I mean, people believe a lot of crazy shit.

Lunch breaks are basically sloth, right? Oh, and don't 401K plans sort of assume that the employees won't get raptured before retirement age? I know the slippery slope argument is itself a slippery slope, but for real, parts of the Bible condone slavery so why pay people at all, right?

"Thanks for shopping at Hobby Lobby, come
back soon...unless the rapture happens."

Today in Jaw-Droppery...

Pictured: As little fanfare as possible.

Hey, remember last summer when that guy walked into a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises dressed in full tactical gear, armed to the teeth with some of America's favorite guns and opened fire killing 12 and injuring 58 others? Well, the movie theater is reopening. Hurray...? I guess? I mean the community probably just wants to move on and of course Cinemark is going to do the classy thing and just reopen quietly and with as little fanfare as possible. Right?

Actually no, the opposite is what's happening. Cinemark has taken the opportunity to not only enhance security but also to upgrade the theater with floor-to ceiling XD screens. What the hell is XD? I don't know, I'm guessing it's like HD only more x-treme.

"XD: ultra-clear picture and sound so real, you'll swear the bullets are flying right at you!"

-Cinemark's marketing department,

shortly before clearing out their desks

We're sorry for your loss. Please enjoy
this complimentary small soda!

Can't get ickier, right? Wrong again. The company's CEO, Tim Warner, sent a letter to Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan to tell him about how the theater will now be better than ever (you know, fewer massacres), and will offer free movies for the community.  And they'll even be kicking off the reopening with a 'special evening of remembrance' for the victims, and "specially invited invitees" (i.e. survivors and families of the dead, and of course a +1). The night will include a free movie and grief counselors. Holy shit, I wish I was making this up.

Above: Pretty much the reaction
Cinemark can expect.

So it's not so much a respectful night of remembrance as it is a crass marketing ploy of remembrance destined to backfire spectacularly. The families are understandably livid, and you kind of have to wonder what's wrong with Tim Warner and the Cinemark PR staff that they don't see that they shouldn't really be involved. Look, no one could have predicted the shooting and it's not really the theater's fault, but do they really think that the victims and their families are going to turn to the local bijou for healing? I mean shit, what with Netflix and all people barely turn to them for movies anymore.

Fine, re-open, that's cool. But don't try to insert yourself into the victim's grieving process. Sure, the town would like the theater back, but I don't think anyone would have been all that upset if an angry mob came along and razed the place to the ground and then salted the earth so that nothing will grow again.

Or if the angry mob just tore it down and put in an outlet mall or something. 

VAWA? Wah-wah...

Above: All of us.

Um, just so we're clear, the Violence Against Women Act was there to protect women, and not, as the name might suggest promote violence. I only mention this because House Republicans allowed the bill to die without a vote and I'm left to assume there must have been some kind of mistake here. Right? Like it's all a Three's Company style misunderstanding and we're all Mister Furley? Right? Yeah, thought not.

"Um, right guys? All a big mistake? Maybe you forgot what day it was? Hello? Hey, I'm talking to you!"

"Look, the GOP doesn't hate women,
we just don't give a shit about them."

-Eric Cantor, strutting

Look, I don't want to tell them how to run their batshit anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-everyone who isn't a rich white guy, no girls allowed club, but for real. What's their problem? I mean the bill is designed to help make sure that violent crimes against women are investigated and prosecuted. Well, the GOP seems to feel that the added protections are unfair. Yeah, ok whatever. My theory? The bill, passed all bipartisan-like back in 1994, just turned 18 and now House Republicans, like a bunch of creepy middle aged jerks on Match.com, have lost interest in it.


Am I being a jerk here? Maybe, but then I'm not the one who just let the VAWA expire so, you know. Man, like a brand new iPhone with a cracked screen, 2013 is off to a great start.

God. Damnit. 

RIP Perspective, we hardly knew ye...

Hey, so like Happy New Year. Our planet has now made two thousand, thirteen laps around the sun since a guy who may or may not have been magic was possibly, but by no means certainly, born.

"Happy New Year! Wooo 32 B.C.!
Hey, what the hell are we counting down to?"

-Some Roman

Pictured: Thomas Kinkade
pushing the envelope.

Anyway, New Year's is traditionally a time to reflect on the year, make resolutions for new one and for some reason rattle off a list of dead people. Now I should mention that part of the tradition is that we only bother mentioning famous people. You and me? No one cares. Doomed to obscurity. You know who does make the list? 'Artist' Thomas Kinkade. Yeah. Is that even fair? No, of course not, have you seen his work? There is no justice. Anyway, dead now are Dick Clark, Ernest Borgnine, Whitney Houston, Andy Griffith, Donna Summer, Gore Vidal, Maurice Sendak and George Jefferson.

C'mon, give me one good reason we can't
posthumously declare Ray Bradbury
Emperor of Mars. Just one good reason.

Cultists lost the King of the Moonies, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Sesame Street lost Jerry Nelson, the voice of the Count, S.H.E.I.L.D. lost agent Phil Coulson and everyone lost Phyllis Diller. Fans of space and the future were especially hard hit loosing Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, Ray Bradbury and Neil Armstrong. That's right, until this year we were all sharing the planet with the first person to ever set foot on the goddamn moon.

Hoping for a raise this year? Send a
couple of these Moloch's way and he'll
see what he can do.

No loss however, will be felt more keenly than that of our species' sense of Perspective. The cognitive ability to place one's own opinion and point of view into the context of the larger human experience succumbed to bullshit related analogies this year. Yup, 2012 saw smoking bans and gun control compared to genocide, the separation of Church and State compared to the crucifixion and gayness compared to the practice of sacrificing babies to the ancient Phoenician deity Moloch. Perspective, you will be missed.

Todd Aiken is still in congress somehow.
You can contact him here. Enjoy!

Perspective's untimely demise also coincided with Republicans using the word rape the way the rest of us use punctuation. For example, disagree with something? Then it's just like rape. Oh and women who become pregnant as a result of rape? They're probably liars and were secretly into it according to Congressman Todd Aiken. Know what else? Sometimes God causes rapes because he loves babies so much. Don't think about it too hard, you'll only burst a blood vessel.

That was way, way too close people.
I mean, holy shit, could you imagine?

Of course 2012 wasn't all death and rape analogies. I mean, the President did win the election (despite the State of Florida), marriage equality referenda passed in three more states, and we narrowly avoided not one but two apocalypses (both the Mayan thing and Michael Bay's TMNT reboot). And in a move I certainly never saw coming, George Lucas has decided to turn Star Wars over to someone else and is now planning to give the billions of dollars he made off the deal to charity thus forcing us to take back every bad thing we ever said about him.

Now when I complain about Episode II sucking, I'm the jerk. Well played Lucas, well played.

Above: Obi-Wan Kenobi getting the low down from a cockroach in a space diner.
Idiotic? You bet. But George Lucas is giving $4 billion to charity, so shut the hell up. 

"Ever hear of the Medieval Warm period?
It proves that global warming is part of
a natural...glub....glub....glub..."

All in all 2012 was ok. In many ways it kind of turned out like The Hobbit: kind of slow in parts, with some moments that were just unnecessary, but otherwise well acted and with no shortage of trolls. Ok, so New York did almost slip under the waves like an overpriced Atlantis with no parking, but on the other hand we can point to the flooding in Queens next time some jackass dismisses climate change as part of a natural cycle, so you know, bright side...

One MacGuffin to rule them all...

Listen, I have a confession to make and it's not going to be easy for me to say. Ready? Here goes: I fell asleep during The Hobbit. I know, I know, I'm the worst.

I don't think I'm alone on this.

"Yoink."

-Bilbo, burgling the 

shit out of Gollum's ring

Look, in my defense I was really jet lagged and went to see a really late show. Oh, and there were like 15 trailers before it started and the movie was long. I mean really long. In fact, with a running time of just under 86 hours I think it's down right amazing that I only nodded off for a few minutes. Of course, those few minutes were during the Riddles in the Dark scene which is my favorite part of the book. If you're unfamiliar with the scene, it's the pivotal moment where our hero, Bilbo, heroically robs a deranged, fish-eating recluse living in a cave of his only worldly possession.

That worldly possession as you've probably guessed is the magic ring which Tolkien later retconned into the single most dangerous MacGuffin in Middle Earth which Frodo then spends three, three-hour movies trying to get rid of.

Clearly, Frodo has never heard of Craigslist.

Above: A battle scene from The
Hobbit...or maybe Narnia, hell this
could be Avatar for all I know.

But anyway, the movie itself was a little bit of a let down. Don't get me wrong, I can deal with deviations from the book, it's just that all the extra stuff felt like Jackson was trying to stretch it out (which he is). There were half a dozen samey epic battle scenes which I'm pretty sure weren't in the book, Saruman drops by for a pow-wow, Kate Blanchett's there for some reason and we spend like twenty minutes watching the birdshit-caked Radagast the Brown truck around on his bunny sled and somehow there're two more movies to go.

Look, I'll take all the Middle Eathiness I can get in DVD deleted scenes, but in the theater when I haven't slept I just want them to get to the bloody point. Yes, there's probably a really good movie buried under all the padding but holy shit. The only comfort I take is knowing that every sequel and prequel Peter Jackson can milk out of Tolkien's work is another few years of keeping New Zealand's economy afloat.

Like seriously, before these movies, all those sheep-herding kiwis had to
rely on for tourist dollars was the stunning natural beauty of their islands.

Where were you when?

He's like Walter Cronkite,
but with perspective issues.

Wow, it's been a rough couple of weeks here in America, and just when you thought we could endure no more, this happened:

"Call it the nightmare before Christmas. A lot of folks hoping to kick back and relax with a movie at home on Christmas Eve were out of luck, thanks to a Netflix outage that had thousands of unhappy customers taking to social media to vent their frustration..."

I'm sure that one day we'll all be telling our grandkids where we were during the Great Netflix Outage of 2012. Sure, The company apologized and the service was restored, but is sorry really enough? I mean how many people were forced to switch over to Hulu, or god forbid, talk to one another?

Do the Netflix people up there in their ivory tower even realize that
Hulu is like 80% Korean soap operas? Do they have any idea?

"Five channels and one of them is PBS?
Godammit, I hate the 20th century!"

Ok, so kidding aside, thousands of people went on social media to vent their frustration? Holy shit, for serious? Did people actually discover that Netflix was down and immediately hop online to commiserate with friends about it? What did we do in past centuries when the cable went out? Get on our primitive non-cellular phones and rail against having to watch regular broadcast television like a bunch of savages? Are we so fragile and internet-dependant as a species now that we can't go a couple of hours without instant access to full seasons of Project Runway? 

Above: Aliens taking a wise
preventative measure.

In a jaw-droppingly pathetic twist, it turns out that the outage was limited to devices which stream the service to your televisions like PS3's and Blu-Ray players and not say, computers. So people could have actually been watching Netflix on the very same computers and iPhones they were using to whine about being deprived of Netflix for a few hours. Let's all just remember this when the aliens come and obliterate us from orbit rather than letting us spread our stupid to the stars.

During the blitz, Londoners took shelter in the city's underground
tube stations while the Germans bombed the shit out of their homes.
Fun Fact: Not one of them complained on Twitter.

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Glock

Ready for a heaping helping of crazy? Check this shit out:

 "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

-Wayne LaPierre, the guy
 in charge of the NRA

Guns are also the only thing that stops paper, scissors and rock.

"No you idiots, guns don't kill people, Xbox
 kills people. I can't make this any clearer." 

Wow. In addition to reducing the complicated issue of guns in America to a simple formula that even we limp-wristed, Obama-loving, vegans can wrap our protein-deprived brains around, Monsieur LaPierre* explained that it's not so much the NRA's efforts against effective gun control and their insistence that it's our patriotic duty to be packing heat at all times that create a culture in which shootings are commonplace but video games. 

I'm not alone on this right? I think we
all picture her when we hear the word.

I'm no expert on video gam-oh, wait, I guess I kind of am and I kind of take umbrage at Gunny McToterton's desperate flailing for an easy scapegoat. I have wasted-er...spent an uncountable number of hours playing games, hours I could have spent learning how to play the guitar, getting a master's degree or interacting with my fellow humans, yet somehow I have never gone on a killing spree and am fully capable of telling fantasy from reality, so what else ya got Wayne?

In fact, video games have taught me many valuable lessons.
For instance, did you know that ham found in walls can heal any injury?

Finally, someone with the courage to
speak out against plasma grenades.

Look, I don't want to tell the gun nuts how to run their crazy gun club, but with all that's happened shouldn't they be stepping up efforts to educate the public about gun safety and the importance of responsible gun use instead of trying to fix blame elsewhere? I mean, people aren't out there murdering each other with Wiimotes, they're using guns. You know, the things the NRA has spent decades and millions of dollars promoting. Like, do they really think anyone's buying it? 

LaPierre went on to suggest that we should have armed guards in all the schools. His solution to gun violence is more goddamn guns. How is anyone supposed to take these guys seriously? There has to be some reasonable members of the NRA out there, can't one of them chloroform LaPierre and lock him in the basement before he opens his crazy hole? 

"Hey liberals, JFK would be alive today
if he was carrying. Now who's stupid?"

-The NRA

*It's french for Mister The Peter.