This is how you end up with Sentinels...

Hey look, a gayness detector! Researchers led by Dr. Tuck Ngun at the David Geffen school of Medicine in Los Angeles say they have developed a way to predict whether or not someone is gay by examining their genes. Wait, wha-how-why?

"Wow. That's a lot of gayness..."

So midichloirians. Ngun's team
 discovered gay midichlorians. 

I'm not like a sciencetician, so take my explanation with some NaCl (it's science for salt), but the team compared pairs of identical twins of whom one brother was gay and the other straight. Since both twins started with the same genes, the only differences would be epigenetic meaning they occurred after conception. Isolating the differences between two otherwise genetically identical brothers and then comparing these across sets of twins allowed them to identify certain factors that homosexual twins had in common with the others in the study. Still with me? Yeah, me neither but the findings seem to indicate that in some cases sexual orientation may determined by environmental factors rather than simply genetics. Nurture not just nature.

"See? What'd I tell you? Prison sex."

-Ben Carson, even 

more insufferable

But wait, does this mean that being gay is a choice and that the right-wing shitbags have been right all along when they rant about the homosexuals ruining 'merica with their Obamacare and their gay wedding cakes? No, of course it goddamn doesn't, but that's all we're going to be hearing about for the next few days. Human sexuality is incredibly complex and this study, even if it turns out to be right, only suggests that homosexuality in some instances might the result of epigenetic and genetic factors.

"Well, would you read 'The Amazing Acute 
Radiation-Sickness-Man?' No? Then shut up."

-Stan Lee

Here, let me put this in comic book terms. Take Kitty Pryde. She's a mutant and thanks to her x-gene can do cool shit like walk through walls and travel through time. Neat, right? Then you have someone like Peter Parker. He wasn't born with an x-gene, but instead was bitten by a radioactive spider and thanks to Stan Lee's questionable grasp of how science works, gets spider-powers instead of hair-loss and tumors. Both have super-powers, they just got them through different means. Exactly like gay people (source: science).

Or you could, you know, just ask
someone if they're into dudes...

So why did Ngun and his team devote all this time and math to something that can be gleaned from a person's OkCupid account?

"Sexual attraction is a fundamental part of life, but it's not something we know a lot about at the genetic or molecular level. I hope that this research helps us understand ourselves better and why we are the way we are."

-Dr. Ngun, on why all the gay

Ok, they were invented for research, but
how long before they invent tiny gay pigs?.

To broaden human understanding. That's cool, right? Yes it is but you can see how it could also make people a little nervous. We humans love to mess with shit on a genetic level. Geneticists in China recently invented a new kind of micro-pig just for the hell of it. Identifying a 'gay gene' (which again, is not what this study does) kind of sounds like the first step in screwing with it. Also and some what more plausibly, there are some pretty shitty parts of the world where being gay is illegal and a functioning gaydar is an unsettling prospect.

Look, I'm totally a science fan. I mean, I'm not good at it and don't understand all the sciencey parts, but I appreciate it and think we should always be expanding our knowledge of the world around us. That said, we should also be super-careful about what people will do with studies like this one which can easily be seen as, but are way more nuanced and complicated than, 'hey look, a gayness detector.' Because, to extend my earlier nerdnalogy even further, that's how you end up with Sentinels.

"Gay-gene detected. Surrender or be destroyed."

-Giant Purple Robots

Yet another winning combination!

Have you ever been on a bike and thought to yourself 'hey, how come I'm not drinking?' Well good news: Governor Jerry Brown just signed a bill that makes beer bikes legal in California begging the question what the hell is a beer bike? Spoiler alert: it's a bike with beer. Behold...

Above: Jerry Brown sitting on a beer bike and signing the Beer Bike Bill
into law. He also signed a bill yesterday that makes doctor assisted suicide legal
in California which-wait, he did go back to his office for that one, right?

'Drunk: The only way to experience
beautiful downtown Minneapolis!'

-The Twin City Tourism Board

The idea is that it's sort of like a pedal-powered tour bus that serves beer. Usually beer, I suppose they could serve wine too. Everyone sits at the bar and pedals and one person, presumably the least wasted, steers. There's a company that rents them in Minneapolis and since opening in 2006, their bikes have been robbed by a flash mob, pelted with water-ballons and rear-ended by a drunk driver in an accident that sent eight people to the hospital. So, as track records go they're not exactly-huh? Yeah. Minneapolis, I noticed that too. I guess if you're vacationing in Minneapolis, alcohol would have to play a role.

"Woooooooo!"

-Everyone

Anyway, I'm not trying to be like cranky nay-sayer here, but nay, says I. I'm just not sure that more slow-moving pedal-powered vehicles is something California needs. Look, I actually don't have anything against cyclists, I really don't, it's just that there's no way these things are going to fit in a bike lane. Traffic is already pretty bad here, even outside of large cities. Now if you're driving and need to get somewhere, there's a decent chance you're going to be late because you got stuck behind someones rolling bachelorette party.

Yes, I know that we love things that are also other things. Phones that are cameras. Chicken sandwiches with bread that is also chicken. But can we, as a species, seriously not just sit down and enjoy a beer with our friends? I mean, is the throbbing pulse of Minneapolis' city center really not enough without having to drink? Ok, bad example, go back to my first one.

Pictured: A bunch of losers drinking at an
old-fashioned, stationary bar. Bo-ring...

Let's hear it for bleak optiminism!

I don't want to tell Donald Trump how to run his crazy, possibly not even for real campaign for president, but I'm not sure that a shrugging acceptance of the inevitability of a future full of mass-murder is necessarily the best route.

I say 'possibly not even for real' because I'm not convinced that he isn't just
up there to make the rest of the GOP 's field look less batty by comparison.
Standing next to Donald Trump adds like a +10 to your reasonablity role.

Vote Trump: The future's going to
suck either way, so what the hell?

Referring to last week's shooting in Oregon, George Stephanopouluos asked Trump what he'd do to avoid this type of violence he said:

"I can't tell you that people say, oh, we're going to stop it. It doesn't work that way. This has taken place forever, from the beginning, and it's going-you go out a million years from now and you're going to have problems."

-Donald Trump, the grim over-

coiffured harbinger of doom

"Gor blimey, wot a pain in the arse..."

-Brit'ish pee-pol

Really? I'm not an historian or anything, and I'll agree that humans were being goddamn horrible to one another for ages before the first firearms, but gun-related mass shooting have not been taking place forever. For the first couple hundred years of guns, reloading was like a process. Soldiers would shoot at each other and then spend the next ten minutes stuffing powder and balls (what?) down their musket-holes. Fortunately, everyone back then was gentlemanly enough to wait for the other side to re-load, but the Revolutionary War must have been bo-ring (source: history).

As for the future, there's something bleakly optimistic about kicking the can a million years down the road. I mean, holy shit, a million years?

Won't somebody please think of the Morlocks?

"Out of my cold dead hands..."

-Jean-Luc Picard, President of

the National Phaser Association

First of all, when you think about it, that's a really long time in the lifespan of a species. Even longer when you consider that we're already facing climate change, pandemics and the possibility of a Trump presidency. Secondly, if we are around a million years from now, won't we have evolved or something? I'm not just talking extra fingers or throbbing telekinetic brains, but socially. I'd like to think we'll grow up eventually, that we'll outgrow whatever petty bullshit makes us think more guns makes us safer.

If a hundred years from now, or a thousand or a million we, as a species, are still arguing about whether or not the second amendment was written with blasters and disruptors in mind, we've got bigger problems. But whatever, just because it's been a problem for a long time doesn't mean we shouldn't even bother trying to do something about it.

"People are always up our asses about curing things, but
what's the point? Humans have been dying of diseases for ages."

-Doctors

Some of the Pope's best friends are gay...

Above: Just some of the Pope's child slaves.
(source: massive supposition)

So the Pope had kind of a week, right? First word leaked about him meeting with Kim Davis, the county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples because, you know, Jesus or something. We all freaked out and thought the worst: that Francis, the cool Pope and champion of the poor and disenfranchised, is actually a big huge fraud. That despite his reputation as a reformer, he secretly hates gay people and forces orphans to sew knock-off designer shoes in the basement of the Vatican.

But then his staff came forward and tried to walk it back. While they admitted that he met with Davis, they insisted that it doesn't mean they're like, going steady or anything:

From Federico's lips, to your ears.

"Pope Francis met with several dozen persons...Such brief greetings occur on all papal visits and are due to the Pope's characteristic kindness and availability...The Pope did not enter into the details of the situation with Ms. Davis and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects."

-Rev. Federico Lombardi,

Vatican spokesperson

"So, where are you registered?"

Alright. Well played. The Davis visit was a scheduling snafu. Some Vatican staffer set it up and the Pope was just put in a room the current champion of the homophobic American right. It wasn't an endorsement, they probably just shot the shit and the U.S. media made a whole thing about it. But then the Vatican revealed that shortly before meeting Davis, the Pope also met up with Yayo Grassi, a former student of his, along with Grassi's boyfriend. There's pictures and everything.

See? No need to worry. He probably just met with Davis because the pontiff traditionally caps off state visits by meeting with low-ranking local officials from obscure backwaters.

What? They have a lot in common. He's the supreme religious authority for over 1.25
billion Catholics worldwide, and she stamps forms and files your vehicle registration.

In a surprising move, the Vatican
introduced new priest's garb today.

Clearly his meeting with Grassi is an indication of his unqualified support for the LGBT community and means that the Catholic Church is just one step away from reversing centuries of resistance towards the ordination of women priests, lifting the celibacy requirement and recognition of gay marriage. Hurray! Thus beings a whole new age of inclusiveness for one of the world's oldest and most conservative institutions. Unless...hey, you don't suppose that despite his relatively progressive stance (compared with previous Popes) on a lot of issues,  Francis is still the head of a massive, byzantine (there may be a pun there, I can't be sure) organization that took 500 years to forgive Galileo, who, by the way, was right? And that maybe we shouldn't necessarily expect to see him grand marshaling the NYC Pride Parade anytime soon?

And similarly, maybe just because he shook hands with the evangelical right's poster-child for intolerance, we shouldn't take it as an indication of support for her entire political agenda? I mean, whatever is wrong with Kim Davis probably isn't contagious.

Still your eminence, I'd wash my hands if I were you...

Today in yes, this again...

Carvel's been using cake to voice
anti-Irish sentiments for decades.

Yes. This again. You might remember Aaron and Melissa Klein, the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, the Oregon bakery and last bastion of free speech in America. Huh? No, you're thinking of Jack Philips, he ran the cake shop in Colorado that refused service to gay people. The Kleins were the ones who-What's that? Crystal O'Connor? No, she ran the pizza shop that refused to make pizzas for gay people. Anyway, back to-who? Brian Klawiter? I think he runs the auto-repair shop that refused to fix gay people's cars...holy shit this happens a lot. Anyway, back to cake and how Aaron and Melissa's cake-related freedom of expression was so brutal curtailed.

"Blessed are the internet trolls
who harasseth the gays..."

-Jesus 

Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer were getting married and needed a wedding cake so they went to Sweet Cakes by Melissa, because cakes. The Kleins however, are apparently members of whatever denomination of Christian uses the version of the Bible where Jesus rails against gay people. Nohomostarianism, I think. Anyway Aaron and Melissa refused to put two bride toppers on the cake and when the Bowman-Cryers complained, the Kleins posted the couple's names and address on Facebook so all their homophobic friends and supporters could help harass them. Classy, right?

No, of course it isn't. Also, it's illegal and resulted in the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (or OBLI, if you're short on time) ordering the Kleins to pay the Bowman-Cryers $135,000 in damages. Wah-wah, sad trombone right? Nope. Their harrowing plight of being legally compelled to treat gay people like, you know, people, so outraged their fellow homophobes that they started a bunch of online fundraising campaigns and raised, get this, $500,000 in hate-sympathy money.

"Everyone's so concerned about gay rights, but what about our right to be discriminate
against gay people and expose them to threats and harassment? This is all Obama's fault."

-Aaron Klein, on how the terrorists have already won

"They're full of shit."

-Math

$500,000 is a lot right? Probably about $500,000 more that these two asshats deserve and certainly more than the $135,000 they've been ordered to pay the Bowman-Cryers, so it's a little confusing why they haven't settled up yet. According to this, the Klein's lawyer is saying that paying the damages would result in 'financial ruin' for the Kleins. I'm not great at math, but I ran the numbers myself and it seems like they got slapped with a fine for discrimination, won the adoration of the homophobic religious right and even after paying off the people who lives they tried to ruin, they'd still have $365,000 left over.

Right about now, you're probably asking yourself if this could get any stupider. Well, good news! Here's Aaron Klein to explain how:

Antonin Scalia's clearly been a
lifetime fan of free speech.

"What it really comes down to is artistic expression, which the Supreme Court has said is speech. Now, the other thing you have to understand is that uh, when it comes to a wedding cake there is so much more involved than just baking a cake and sending it out the door. Even the baker who made the wedding cake for these girls said that they were a part of the wedding...and so you have to look at it from an artistic standpoint as well..."

-Aaron Klein, assuming
that we're all idiots

Oh, I get it. This isn't about stubbornly refusing to pay court-order damages, and it's not about defrauding all the like-minded homophobes who donated to keep your business from going under. It's about freedom of speech. That's cool. So what exactly are the Kleins saying with cake? I mean other than how much they hate gay people and the law?

No, for real. The only difference between a straight wedding cake and a gay wedding
cake is the cake topper. Show me the part where your artistic expression is being compromised.

Today in things that are not aliens...

So that big huge NASA discovery that we've been waiting all weekend to hear about? Liquid water and potential life on Mars! Did your head just explode?

"This is tremendously exciting. We haven't been able to
answer the question, 'Does life exist beyond Earth?' But..."

Great opportunities to investigate?
So nothing. You've got nothing...

That's James L. Green, NASA's director of planetary science raising our hopes of discovering alien life on Mars. Now, let's dash them by completing the quote:

"...following the water is a critical element of that. We now have, I think, great opportunities in the right locations on Mars to thoroughly investigate that."

-James L Green, crusher of dreams

Pfft...water? We have
that here on Earth.

Yup. NASA called a press conference to announce that they've found the 'strongest evidence yet' that there's liquid water on Mars, which while exciting if you're the director of planetary science at NASA, is perhaps somewhat less press-conference worthy than Green might think. When they announced that a major scientific discovery would be revealed on Monday, I kind of thought, you know, aliens. Or at least alien microbes or fossilized alien microbes. Something more interesting than water.

Mars could possibly have potentially
favorable conditions for life to maybe
exist. We think. But who knows?

Sure, the implication is that the presence of liquid water could open up the possibility of life on Mars, but that's not the same thing as finding life. Here, check out the study's co-authors and how careful they are when they talk about their findings:

"Our results point to more habitable conditions on Mars than previously thought."

-Mary Beth, Wilhelm

co-author of the study

Or at least evidence of smoking gun
molecules detected from orbit...

"It is very likely, I think, that there is microbial life somewhere in the crust of Mars."

-Alfred McEwen, another

co-author of the study

"What we see now for the first time is an actual detection of the water molecule so it's basically the smoking gun."

-James Wrey, yet another co-author

'Point towards,' 'very likely,' see? Careful is good. This is science, you don't want to go around making broad claims without evidence to back you up. And look, liquid water is great. We've been enjoying it for years, but making us wait three days to tell us about the water they already told us they were pretty sure is there? That just seems like they wanted to hold a press conference. 

"Ladies and gentlemen of the press, thank you for coming. Today, we we wanted to show
  you this cool thing Steve found in his desk. It's got wires and several screws. We think it
might be part of the old copier, but we won't be sure until we run some tests. Any questions?" 

What, do you hate kids or something?

"I hope you enjoyed tonight's episode of 
Scandal, because now your soul is mine!"

So remember back in 2012 when One Million Moms tried to get everyone to boycott J.C. Penny? Here, click this. No? Fine, I'll sum up: The retailer's spokesperson at the time was Ellen Degeneres, and OMM didn't want shoppers catching the gay. Holy shit right? How hate-filled and vitriolic do you have to be to go after Ellen? Very. They're a 40,000 member sub-group of The American Family Association (one of the Prop 8 organizations) who are tasked (by themselves) with warning people about how Satan-y the media is.

Above: the titular Sex Box whose opacity was
far more instrumental in the show's cancellation
 than OMM would have you believe.

How effective are their campaigns? Well, they claim to have been responsible for canceling WeTV's Sex Box, a U.S. version of a British show in which couples have sex in a sound-proof, opaque box while a studio audience sits around awkwardly. Then, when they emerge, everyone discusses. We talked about this awhile back. The show was cancelled after five episodes, which I'm pretty sure had more to do with how stupid and terrible it was, and not because a bunch of sanctimonious self-appointed media watch-dogs turned their collective frown upon it.

Anyway, why are we talking about these obnoxious Helens Lovejoy? Because now they're angry about The Muppets.

The heads of all 40,000 members of One Million Moms just exploded.

Above: The Muppets encouraging
pantslessness since 1955.

Specifically the new Muppet show which premiered on Tuesday. Its format is closer to The Office or 30-Rock in that it's a single camera, fake documentary that follows the Muppets behind the scenes of Miss Piggy's talk show. Their outrage stems from, well, some sort of personal issues I'd imagine. I'd rather not speculate, but their problem with The Muppets, is the show's slightly more adult content which, c'mon, I don't know if you've seen it yet, but it's like PG at worst.

"I just don't know what to do. If only
there was some way to turn the TV...off."

-Concerned parent

But that's subjective I guess. The group's complaint is focused on the idea that unsuspecting parents might assume that the series is for children and will then have to explain all the filthy, filthy jokes to their kids. Eww, right? I mean, who wants to prepare kids for the world around them? Or, God forbid, monitor their children's television watching? Not these mothers. You'd think they could just post a simple announcement on their website along the lines of 'Attention fellow humorless evangelicals: the new Muppet show challenges your worldview. Avoid at all costs."

But no, that would be too reasonable. One Million Moms (again, it's just a name) demands that the series halt production, all copies be burned, buried and then that the earth be salted so that nothing may grow where it lie. Because the children. The children!

I'm sorry are you saying that you don't support One Million Moms and their efforts
to clean up the media? Why do you hate the children so much? You're just the worst...