What would Reagan say?

To sum up, Republicans hate Clinton so
much they'd rather let Russia put Trump
in office. Holy shit guys, even for you.

Um. We're not really just going to be cool with this, right? Russian interference? Vladimir Putin picking our next President? And that's like coming from the CIA. Oh, and, aaaand they told Congress? And because the GOP has the majority in both houses they just sat on this really important information until after the flyover states used their ridiculously exaggerated, gerrymandered up the ass electoral college votes to put Donald Grabby-Grab Trump in office over Hillary Clinton who has a 2.6 million voter advantage?

Sorry, just hyperventilating a little bit there. If you live in a red state, I'm sorry I called you a flyover. It's unfair and mean and kind of why the right hates the left. Although for real. What's wrong with you people? Again, sorry. Look, however this national clusterfuck shakes out, it's important to remember that we're all like, you know, Americans.

Except of course for this guy, who might have
just chosen the next leader of the free world.

(source: irony)

I mean, I don't want one, but I don't
have any particular problem with yours.

Everyone. Even the dupes...sorry, the voters who were somehow willing to overlook the misogynistic comments, the accusations of sexual assault, the racism, the Islamophobia, the galling lack of experience and shady business practices and still ticked the box for the former host of the Apprentice. They're still our fellow Americans. We have things in common...such as, um, sports? Like, people on both sides of the political spectrum like sports right? Oh and dogs. They probably love their dogs and kids. Just like some of us.

Sure, they tend to wear more American flag
shirts, but that doesn't entitle them to the moral
high ground. That just makes them bad dressers.

So if, and very likely when, that walking, word-salad spewing lunatic is sworn in in January, let's try and remember that we can still oppose everything he does, says and stands for without being a dick to the (minority of) people who voted for him, which I know, can be tough. Just keep in mind that they're not more American than the rest of us even though they act like it sometimes and that sooner or later they're going to be the ones feeling betrayed and dejected again. Me? I'm living for the day they feel betrayed and dejected again. Sour grapes, I know, but there you have it.

What I don't get is why the GOP is just letting this slide. A lot of them hate Trump as much if not more than they hate Hillary Clinton. And wasn't Republican President and semi-divine, raven coiffured conservative culture hero Ronald Reagan like famous for spending his time in office keeping us safe from the Russians? Shouldn't the GOP be ashamed of themselves? Like, you know, if they were still capable of feeling shame?

Hey Republicans, Reagan can see you, and he is not happy.

Yeah, ok, we're the Empire...

Ok, first of all, no, of course Disney didn't go back and re-shoot parts of Rogue One in order to insert anti-Trump scenes. That's preposterous and anyone whining about it is being ridiculous. Ridiculous I say. Take this guy who went on Twitter to complain about how Star Wars has betrayed him.

Noted preposterous Twitter whiner, Jack Posobiec
whining preposterously about things that aren't real.

Rome had the forum, we've
got goddamn Twitter. 

Supposedly the impetus for reading anti-Trump social commentary into Star Wars was a Tweet from Rogue One screen writer Chris Weitz who compared the Empire from Star Wars to white supremacists because they're all white guys and the Rebels are a diverse group both racially and uh...species-ally. He did this after the election as a pointed criticism about how Trump rode a wave of xenophobia and Electoral College shennanigans to victory and now Trump fans are all butthurt because their guy is being called a racist.

Which, first of all, nobody's calling Trump a racist. Well, that's not true. Lots of people are calling him a racist, but that's not really the same thing as him being a racist. Although, in our defense he says and does a lot of racist things. Also, he's got the support of racists. Yeah, racists love him. Love him.

Pictured: non-racists holding totally non-racist signs
about how racist they're not. (source: irony)

Above: Kathleen Kennedy
not looking terribly worried.

Oh, right, well in the great American tradition of refusing to do even the slightest bit of self-examination, Prosobiec has started a hashtag: #DumpStarWars and is calling for a boycott of the new film. Obviously Disney is saying there's no truth to the rumors and that the reshoots were in no way aimed at Trump and of course they're not. They happened way before Trump won-uh, technically won? Electoral college won the election and besides, Disney likes money, so it doesn't seem super-likely that they'd deliberately set out to piss off idiots. On the other hand they stand to make approximately one hundred trillion dollars off of Star Wars, so even if they did want to stick in some Trump trolling, it's not like a boycott from a bunch of wall-building Trump-humpers are going to hurt their profits. 

But whatever, Prosobiec later went on to Tweet a made-up CNN story to reinforce how Disney has ruined his birthday so at some point you have to wonder if this guy is even for real. Like, I'm ragging on him because he's hilarious, but I'm not entirely convinced that he's not just screwing with us.

You hear that Disney? You've ruined this racist guy's birthday.
I hope you're satisfied with yourself...oh, you are? Well, that's different.

In this scene from Rogue One we first meet
Grand Moff Tarkin, Emperor-elect Papatine's
controversial pick for Ambassador to Alderaan.

Ok, so who cares if a bunch of white-supremecist asshats don't go see Star Wars? Nobody, of course, they can go fuck themselves, but what I don't get is why they're suddenly making a connection between Star Wars and political commentary? I'm not saying these movies were ever overtly political or terribly insightful, but the Empire is a totalitarian oligarchy made up of people who all look alike, and who impose their draconian will on a diverse population through violence. The Rebels on the other hand are a diverse group of beings who despite their differences, cooperate to make the Galaxy a better place.

Read into that what you will, but all I'm suggesting is that if you find yourself complaining about how the Empire comes off, the problem might not be with Star Wars.

Because for real, what could be more Republican-y than an old white guy
 maneuvering his way into office by promising to make the Galaxy great again?

We can call her Chestnut!

So on the upside, this. No time to click? You know what, that's fine. This one's on me, I'll explain and I won't even sass you about it, because this is like, super-exciting news. Ready? Ok, here goes: scientists in China have found a tiny dinosaur tail in a hunk of amber.

Ta-da! ...what? That's not super-exciting?
Only mildly interesting at best? Wow, tough crowd...

The Burmese street vendor of course,
will spend the rest of his life toiling
in complete anonymity. Thanks, Lida...

Ok fine, it's not a unified field theory or aliens, but as science news goes, it's a kind of big deal. Besides, in these increasingly depressing times when the climate's spinning out of control and our next President is a game show host most of us didn't vote for, you've got to take it where you can get it. Anyway, a paleontologist named Lida Xing was checking out the crusty ancient tree crud market in Myanmar when he stumbled upon this unassuming lump which the seller said contained a bit of prehistoric plant. Lida recognized the science within, bought it, and has now rocked the world of dinosaur bits found in amber research.

For dinosaurs, evolution has been a 
bit of a disappointing trajectory.

The tail is from a baby coelurosaur who, 99 million years ago became stuck in some tree sap and died a slow, gruesome death. Bad for the coelurosaur but kind of great for paleontologists who now have a well preserved hunk of dinosaur soft tissue to examine. What's especially interesting about the find, at least according to scientists who, let's face it, spend a decent chunk of their time telling us why these things are fascinating, is that the tail has feathers. Yes feathers, because the one part of Jurassic Park that wasn't bunk was the part where that kid tells us that dinosaurs evolved into birds.

But the thing that I, as a non-scientist, find the most exciting is that the tail also gives some insight into what color this thing was. Chestnut brown with a white underbelly. Which, adorable right? Fuzzy, brown and white and had it lived would have got to be about the size of an ostrich. Throw in some large, darting eyes it uses to spot prey and you've got the next Vietnamese pot-belly pig. Someone should clone these things immediately.

Yeah, they start out cute but then the disemboweling begins... 

Wise fwom yor gwave!

So it's finally happened. We, as a culture, have finally run out of things to make movies out of. The bottom of the barrel has been thoroughly scraped and now we're turning to old Sega games. Yeah, Sega games.

"What do you want from us? There're only like 36 different stories and we've done them all.
Every last one of them. All that's left now are Sega games and reality shows about cake."

-Screenwriters

Yes! It's a game where you kill zombies
by typing quickly and accurately. Yes, really.

You know, it takes vision to look at the overcrowded film industry and say: You know what I want to do? I want to make a movie nobody wants to see. Nobody. But here we are. Sega and some production company called Stories International are Voltron-ing up to dip into Sega's oh-so rich well of intellectual properties like Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Shinobi and because there can't possibly be enough TV shows about zombies, House of the Dead. But no Typing of the Dead, which I feel is a disappointing oversight.

Look, I'm not knocking Sega. As member of the generation that still bears the scars of the console wars of the 1990's, I can tell you that they fought bravely and that back then story wasn't nearly as important as gameplay and graphics. And by not as important, I mean story was usually confined to the cover art.

Golden Axe II for example tells the story of, uh, well there's an axe...
Oh and a valkyrie, and a barbarian, and a disturbingly sexy dwarven warrior who
battle their way through some knock-off Frank Frazetta art. So maybe a CW series?

No, you only remember it being awesome.
 Go back and play it again. Or better yet, don't.

Or Altered Beast. Holy shit, Altered Beast. It was the Genesis pack-in game before Sonic was a thing, and while the graphics were enough to blow our tiny sugar-addled minds the story was, shall we say, minimal? The protagonist is a corpse waised from his gwave (digitized voices weren't so great back then) by Zeus to walk slowly and shirtlessly to the right, punching monsters and occasionally turning into wereanimals like a werewolf, a werebear, a weredragon and then a another werewolf, but a with slightly different color.

The game was objective garbage, so what's the draw? Nostalgia that's what. And safety I suppose. Studios don't want to take risks on new things and neither do we really. Every time we hand over 11 bucks for another sequel, reboot or adaptation of some fondly remembered thing from our childhoods we make shit like Altered Beast: Origins: Shirtless Guy Wising (working title) possible. It's how Michael Bay has been allowed to make a fifth Transformers movie. Fifth.

Above: A blurry, indiscernible shot
from Transformers 5. Be it on our heads.

Oh, and one more thing...

You know, I'm actually not done harping on this Donald Trump/Saturday Night Live/Twitter thing. Yes, I know I just blogged about this and I really am sick of talking about him but it occurs to me that in the day and a half since dozens of people were killed in a fire at a warehouse party in Oakland, Trump hasn't even mentioned it.

Above: just a picture of some adorable animals.
It's how I cope with terrible things. Expect to see
a lot of these in the coming months and years...

To be clear, Alec Baldwin being mean to
you doesn't qualify as a national tragedy.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I went to his Twitter feed and scrolled back. I see a thing about how awesome his tax cuts are going to be for rich people, a retweet of something Tiger Woods said and, of course, that thing about SNL, but nothing about the fire. No condolences for the victims' families, no my thoughts and prayers are with you. Nothing. Did I miss it? Like, I don't want to tell him how to run his Twitter account, but hasn't it become kind of traditional for public figures, particularly those about to assume high office, to offer support and reassurance in the face of calamity?

I suppose we're asking a lot if we look to Donald Trump to act presidential, it's just that I wish we could at least expect him to be a person. So anyway, let's all express our condolences to the families of the victims and send some thoughts, prayers, good vibes or whatever you've got their way. You know, because it's what people do.

Pictured: Donald Trump's Twitter Page.
Not pictured: a shred of human compassion.

Maybe if he tried not being so terrible?

It's like if you have a hook hand, you're
allowed to make hook hand jokes.

So it's all but certain that Trump's Presidency is going to be an unmitigated shitshow of irreparable damage to our civil rights, a complete collapse of whatever prestige America has left on the international stage, economic disaster, a disastrous erosion of environmental protections and probably some kind of The Purge situation. That's like a given. But at least we can look forward to the comedy right? I'm not saying it's a good trade, I'm just suggesting it's all we've got.

Like, Alec Baldwin's Trump sketches on SNL. Funny, right? Sure. The impression is spot on and the writing's good but the best part is that every time Baldwin does one of these, Trump gets on Twitter to complain about how mean everyone is to him. Behold:

No it's not, yes it is and he's got you down.

Instead of complaining about how people
are mean to him, maybe he could try
not being so terrible all the time?

I'm not sure what he's expecting, of course they're going to make fun of him. He's an endless source of ridicule because he doesn't seem to get why most of us can't stand him. He's a misogynist, he's a racist, he gets into Twitter fights with comedians, he threatens political opponents with prison and he's filling his cabinet with anti-gay rabid-foam lunatics. Oh, and when it was pointed out that his businesses posed a serious conflict of interest, he put his kids in charge of them. His kids. What's not to hate? Also, fear? Like with a cold dread that we just can't escape. Ever. 

We might as well try and find some brief moments of joy between all the Planned Parenthood closures, right-wing shithead cabinet selections and the Court-oh god, the Court. Hey red states, just remember you guys made it possible for the host of The Apprentice to choose Supreme Court judges.

Oh...shit, already? You'd think he could at least wait to be
 in office before he starts unraveling Sino-U.S. relations...

Today in things not normally meat...

Ok, they're not made of meat per se, but the new British five pound notes, which are made out of some fancy new polymer, contain tallow which is, you know, animal fat leaving many animals fans asking holyshitwhatthefuck?

"Baby panda fat to be specific. We've spared no expense."

-Some guy from the bank of England

Pictured: that feeling you get when you
eat a burger and absorb the cow's soul
and with it, its power. (source: science)

Because for real. Avoiding animal products is already an enormous pain in the ass, a pain that I, as a sometimes vegetarian have some familiarity with. If you're anything like me, you enjoy the sense of smug superiority that comes along with vegetarianism, but don't so much like how you can't eat any of the things you used to enjoy eating. Yes, you can find a rough approximation of a hamburger made out of beans and disappointment, but it's not quite the same as an actual burger.

Yes, they make vegan tattoo ink too,
so you can still get that ohm tattoo,
you kambucha-swilling hippie.

So the guilty omnivores among us are sort of left with two options: try not to think about it (sometimes it works), or be a vegan. Or a vegetarian, which is like lazy vegan. Either way, you're in for a commitment. Depending on your reasons for opting out of carnivorousness, it might not just be about cutting out meat. If you're serious about it, you can't wear leather, eat baked goods that don't have the texture of acoustic tiles or eat Altoids. Yeah, Altoids contain gelatin which is mostly hooves. Hooves! And did you know certain tattoo inks contain bone char? Well they do. We basically live in a nightmarish, murder-filled hellscape built on a foundation of dead animals.

Please. I mean, look at this.
This is a pie to these people.

So anyway, back to the new five pound notes dripping with the rendered fat of helpless animals. Obviously most British people aren't going to be eating the bills...well, I say obviously, but sometimes I think they'll eat just about anything. And yes, that's a dig about British food and no, I'm not better than that. Two words for you: stargazey pie. Anyway, the bills are certainly going to be a problem for anyone who has religious or ethical issues with animal products. It's a pain to avoid meat and animal products in food, it's going to be goddamn impossible to avoid using cash and that's why people are kinda pissed.

At first it might sound like militant vegans loosing their shit over nothing, but anyone who's ever been the only vegetarian at a party where the only food is a meat-lover's pizza will tell you, 'no, you can't just pick it off.'

So if the sausage on that pizza was say, made of cat,
like, cat sausage, you'd just pick it off? Uh-huh. Thought so.