Domo No-rigato!

It's like fifth century Rome except
 the barbarians wear scarves...

What's up San Francisco? Like, I get it. Thanks to Apple and Google and wave after wave of start-up entrepreneurs, the city is suffering from an epidemic of rich people. Cocktails cost twenty dollars, eating out can run into the hundreds. The median home price is over $800,000 and the average rent for a one-bedroom is $3,460. Some people commute from, I shit you not, Bend Oregon. By plane. Because it's cheaper. Others are just leaving California altogether. I wonder sometimes if it isn't a lost cause and if the rest of the Bay Area shouldn’t just be done with it. Collapse the bridges, wall it off and abandon it to the gentrifying, fedora-wearing beardos.

And that sucks. It was a great city back when you could park there, but it's no reason to take it out on robots. Yeah, you heard me, they're taking it out on robots. And self-driving cars, which are sort of like robots. If you squint and have have a loose definition of the term robot.

KITT from Knight Rider: robot, or just a fancy car with a sassy onboard AI?
I suppose there are some questions we may just never have answers to.

"Hang on, I'll get my violin."

-An actual cab driver

Just straight-up throwing themselves at self-driving cars. According to The Guardian, there've been two separate incidents recently in which pedestrians attacked autonomous cars. Which I think begs the question: what's their problem? Are they afraid that the self-driving cars are the first step towards some kind of machine uprising? Are they worried about these things putting their Uber drivers out of work? Or is this just a misguided attempt to work out aggression by substituting violence against machines for violence against the wealthy?

Maybe they could rebrand
it as a sex toy for Gundams?

It's not just the self-driving cars. Remember the Knightscope 5? It too has been victimized by this wave of human on robot violence, getting kicked, knocked over and even covered with a tarp rendering it helpless which, since the thing is marketed as a security robot kind of makes me question its usefulness. But why all the attacks? Well, the Knightscope is apparently goddamn annoying, and one did run over a toddler once (relax, the kid was fine), but the car incidents went unreported to police, so we may never know what that was about.

While the motivations will be a mystery for the ages, I can't imagine this has anything to do with humans being threatened by automation. I'm not an economist, but wouldn't there have to be jobs available for robots to steal? Like, apart from the tech companies, jobs in the Bay Area are either something in the service industry or life coaching so until robots start reading Tony Robbins, we're safe, right? Goddamnit...

"The distance between your dreams and reality
is called action. Also, who had the salad?"

-The Robots, coming for us all

Today in picking fights with awards shows:

I swear, I would really like to go a day without feeling like I have to address some idiot tweet from the President, but here we are. Promise, next one will be about Star Trek or video games or something. In the meantime, check this shit out:

Wait, is he giving them shit over ratings? Because...well, you know.

"What could possibly go wrong?"

-Caesar, early March, 44 BC

What a scamp. Hey, speaking of scamp, did you see his funny funny joke last week about how America should look into making him President for life? I guess in recognition of the super job he's doing. Look, I know that people on the right supposedly felt like we do now when Obama was in office, but they were upset about how he was a Muslim from Kenya who wanted to take their guns away. I feel like our beef is somehow more...I don't know, grounded in reality?

Like, they would have lost their goddamn minds if Obama ever, even jokingly, suggested that we should do away with term limits, much less declare him dear leader for life.

Where's his-oh, right because he's black...Also, shouldn't it read
'where're your papers'? I don't want to tell racists how to racist, but c'mon.

Fun fact: the 1st Oscars ceremony was 
the single most attended event in human

history until the 2016 inauguration.

So back to the Oscars which had the lowest viewership ever...which, it did. Sort of. The ratings for Sunday's broadcast were down almost twenty percent from last year's show making it the fourth year in a row where fewer people watched. Which is bad, but the first Academy Awards ceremony was in 1929 and it was more of a private dinner held at the Hollywood Hotel Roosevelt. While I don't have exact numbers, the ballroom probably seated somewhat fewer than 26.5 million, so I think it's kind of an unreasonable comparison.

And even if they did want to broadcast it, and owning a television in 1929 was kind of like having a holodeck in your home, so again, calling last night's show the least watched is a little disingenuous.

The Oscar's TV ratings did beat the 1791 premier
of The Magic Flute, so like, suck it Mozart.

Pictured: The incident I described.

(source: lazy internet research)

But whatever, suffice it to say the broadcast isn't as popular as it used to be, but it isn't because it's getting political. The Oscars have been political forever. Remember that time Marlon Brando sent Sacheen Littlefeather to decline his Oscar for The Godfather because of how Native Americans were portrayed in film? No, me neither, I had to look it up, but the point is that it's nothing new. Yes this year's show got political, but it focused on positivity and inclusion and I thought that was pretty cool.

So why the ratings drop off? Maybe people don't watch because it's basically just celebrities telling each other how awesome they are. Maybe they don't watch because they're into streaming television shows. I don't know. What I do know is that way more people would have watched if they decided to forgo the awards entirely and just let famous people rip on Trump for three hours.

Maybe more people would have watched if streaking was still
a thing. Go on, click the link, David Niven zings him, it's great.

Scapegoat Rodeo!

Of course, Punxsutawney Phil doesn't
make it a policy to call women liars,
so you know...advantage: groundhog.

Ok, so now this really is happening. That meeting between the President and the video game industry that Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced last week without anyone actually setting one up? Representatives from the Electronic Software Association as well as from the manufacturers of the three major consoles, have agreed to meet with the President this Thursday. At least that's according to Sarah Huckabee Sanders who, let's face it, is about as reliable as that groundhog people like to pretend can predict the weather.

You're probably wondering what they're going to talk about. Well, they're going to be discussing the things the video game industry should be doing to protect children from gun violence. Which...

"Uhh...he knows we make video games, right?"

-Reggie Fils-Aime, President

of Nintendo of America

Naahhh...

Good question Reggie Fils-Aime. The point of this meeting is a little confusing since the video game industry makes video games and not guns which would seem a more direct connection to the problem of gun violence. In fact, one wonders why gun manufacturers and the representatives from the NRA aren't being called in to address the epidemic of gun violence in America and lay out their strategy for keeping children safe from their products. Hey, you don't suppose it has anything to do with the super-tight ties Trump and the Republican party have to the NRA, do you?

"Yes. Fact-based. Absolutely. Huh?
No, I'm laughing about something
else. And now I have to go. Bye!"

-Sarah Sanders

Anyway, the ESA has been very clear that there is no scientific evidence of a relationship between video games and violent behavior and insist that the meeting will provide an:

"...opportunity to have a fact-based conversation about video game ratings, our industry's commitment to parents, and the tools we provide to make informed entertainment choices."

-The ESA's naively 

optimistic statement

Because if there's one thing this administration has been really good about, it's giving a shit about facts. I'm sure once they put some hard numbers in front of Trump, the administration will immediately drop their scapegoating of video games and focus on the real cause of gun violence...let's say rap music. Or maybe movies. Definitely not guns though. 

Oh! Energy drinks! Maybe it's energy drinks. Let's
get those Red Bull people in there to explain themselves.

Rated 'S' for Spurious!

Hey, remember last week when the President said-huh? Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. I'm super-sick of talking about him too, it's just that he's just constantly doing and saying ridiculous shit for the sole purpose of attracting attention. Well, not good attention, but like any reality TV show star, or toddler, I'm not sure he cares.

"Good attention, bad attention, what's the difference?
The important thing to keep in mind here is shut up."

-White House Press Secretary

Sarah Huckabee Sanders

The ESRB is also why I get carded by
clerks younger than my Dragon Warrior IV
save. But I guess that's just the price we pay.

Yeah, remember last week when the President, in a moment of pure inspiration, suggested that the film and video game industries should have some kind of rating system? Well he did and we all laughed because, you now, the MPAA's had one since 1968 and the ESRB was established back in 1994 to rate video game content. But Donald Trump, as everyone knows, is a man of action. The kind of man who would totally run into a building and single handedly subdue a gunman. So calling the gaming industry to task is like, no sweat.

According to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, he'll be meeting with 'members of the video game industry to see what they can do on that front.' 

"What am I as a member of the video game industry going
to do about gun violence? I don't know, vote for Democrats?"

Gaming has been linked to cosplay that
crosses into furry fandom, but not violence.

Except no, that's not happening. Nobody in the video game industry seems to be aware that they're being called into a meeting with the President, at least according to the Entertainment Software Association. In a statement they gave to Ars Technica, the ESA points out that  "[t]he same video games played in the US are played worldwide; however, the level of gun violence is exponentially higher in the US than in other countries." And that the scientific consensus is that there is no link between gaming and violence. 

Above: Another child led astray by
agriculture...when will it end?

Which, I don't know, makes sense to me. I've played video games for as long as I can remember and I don't feel particularly violent. And besides, if video games influence behavior in the way the White House is suggesting, wouldn't that cut both ways? Like, one of the most popular games right now is Stardew Valley; a farming simulator. Is there some spike in Four H Club membership we should be worried about? So if video games aren't contributing to the epidemic of gun-violence in America, what is? 

Is there some other element of our political landscape that doggedly promotes guns as an essential part of American identity while at the same time recklessly lobbies against any form of reasonable restrictions on gun ownership? 

"No, no, it's video games, no need to look any further. And I for one think it's
 time the video game industry took responsibility for promoting gun violence-did I
say gun violence? I meant just violence. Guns don't kill people, video games do..."

-Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA and

someone who can sleep at night...somehow

You know, like that parade the Pentagon
is putting together because Trump
 thought it would be neat.

But whatever, as far as the White House is concerned, the take away here is that the solution to gun violence is rating systems. Oh, and meetings. Meetings with the people who make the games that are not linked to the epidemic of mass shootings. So why then is this meeting happening? That is, if it even is happening and it isn't just some extemporaneous comment the President thoughtlessly rattled off and now his staff is having to scramble to set it up so they don't look chaotic incompetent.

Maybe it's because blaming violent movies and video games is like, way easier than addressing our obsession with guns and our underlying culture of violence and less politically fraught than challenging the lobbying interests that make weapons so easily accessible? I don't know, that's just a guess.

Hey, speaking of our taking a long, hard look at our culture, what is a
 reasonable number of assault rifles to lug around in a crowded store? Five?

More like MADimir...

Between bouts of maniacal cackling,
he assured the press that it would be fully
operational when our friends arrive.

You know, as is mutual assured destruction? No? Ok. Anyway, remember when the U.S.S.R. was a global superpower with whom we engaged in seventy years of brinkmanship and cold war? You do? Super. Because thanks to a combination of chest thumping antagonism on our part and an autocratic, ex-KBG President-for-life on their part, those days are back. Vladamir Putin speaking from what I can only assume must be some kind of hollowed out volcano lair, announced to the world that Russia has an all new, all different nuclear powered intercontinental ballistic missile system against which our puny missile defenses will be useless.

Good news if you're a fan of the threat of M.A.D, bad news if you enjoy being alive. I for one prefer not living under constant threat of nuclear annihilation, but not everyone feels the same way. And I respect that, as I respect all people's worldviews. No matter how short sighted and toxic.

Not sure which category you fit into? Here's a quick quiz that'll help:
are you sexually aroused by the works of Tom Clancy? Not judging...

I mean, has he seen the way the
electoral college, works? We barely
let our own people pick the President.

So what the shit are they thinking? The Russians I mean. Excellent question. According to Putin, Russia is sick and tired of the west not listening to them which is weird because we're in the west and an electorally significant chunk of us bought their line of bullshit and now a deranged gameshow host is tweeting away whatever credibility we have left. Ok, so they're clearly not hurting for influence, I mean, we basically let him choose our President, which I think was more than generous. What's his beef then? Or borscht. You know, because Russia. So what's his borscht?

"Huh, sound like anyone we know?"

-That woman we voted for

Turns out it's an election year over there and Russia is home to a huge voting block of nationalistic ICBM-humping goons who respond to this kind of alpha dog bullshit. Huh...I guess we can relate. Still though, using your new missile system to score points with voters seems a little unnecessary when you're up by like, 70 points and running effectively unopposed because you've made a hobby of getting your political opponents locked up and barred from running.

Yeah. So this is all pretty terrifying. On the one side we have a sabre-rattling goon recklessly threatening global stability for no reason other than to play to his nationalist base. On the other side we have Vladimir Putin waving his stupid new missile system around. Hey, did you see what I did there?

You know a society is comfortable with an autocracy when the
President can appear as a giant head on a wall-sized screen crowing
about how his new super weapon will make the world tremble before him.

So we should arm golfers?

So the President, thrilled I suppose to find someone in America more hated than himself, announced that unlike armed deputy Scot Peterson, he would have charged into Stoneman Douglas during the shooting earlier this month and personally wrestled the gunman to the ground and saved the day. Because he's a goddamn hero.

Pictured: A septuagenarian with no crisis training whatsoever, bloviating

about how awesome he'd be in a situation he will never have to face.

He also really believes he won the popular
vote, but that illegal immigrants secretly
snuck in and voted for Clinton so here we are.

Ok, I made some of that up, but here's what he said:

"I really believe I'd run in there, even if I didn't have a weapon..."

-The President, on how

he's basically Batman

Well, technically he just said he believes he would have gone in...but he believes a lot of things that are bullshit.

The only hero I see here is a leather belt.

But for real, no he wouldn't. No he wouldn't have. Like bullshit. I'm not saying I blame anyone for doing whatever they could to get out of going to Vietnam, but he got five deferments. Five. Anyway, he went on to compare the terrifying prospect of entering the scene of an active shooter in a school to golf. Fucking golf, which he claims requires both a similar skill set, and a comparable level of training and resolve. Yup, driving from hole to hole while someone else carries his bag made Donald Trump the American hero he is today.

Look, I'm not sticking up for Deputy Peterson. It was his job to put himself between the gunman and the kids and for whatever reason he didn't. But whatever, we weren't there, we don't know the situation. What I do know is that it was nothing like goddamn golf, and it's kind of a dick move to boast about how you totally would have done something different when you've got the Secret Service watching your back.

Above: nine or ten highly trained, armed bodyguards
each of whom is sworn to take a bullet for the Presdient,
but won't have to because he's like super brave you guys.

Today in not politicising tragedy:

Well that didn't take long-huh, you know what, that actually did take a week, so I guess I have to give the NRA some credit here. Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA gave it a full week before opening his big idiot mouth about the Parkland shooting.

Pictured: Wayne LaPierre, sporting his signature haircut: the Adolf.

Solutions like more fucking guns?

Here's some of what he had to say:

"We at the NRA are Americans who continue to mourn and care and work every day at contributing real solutions to this very real problem. Real, practical action to truly protect our children."

-Wayne LaPierre, speaking
from the void in his chest where
humans traditionally have a heart

Background checks? Pfft...that's a little
excessive, I mean, they don't let just anyone
into a gun show, you have to buy a ticket...

Strangely he went on from there to explain that jewellery stores and NBA games feature armed security but not America's schools. I say strangely because just a moment earlier he said the NRA was all about 'real, practical action to truly protect our children.' I guess he was talking about actions that in no way impinge on anyone's constitutional right to buy assault rifles anonymously, and without any training whatsoever, as long as it's off a folding table at a gun show. You know, like the founding fathers intended. 

"So fucking awesome! Wooo! Guns!"

-Ted Nugent, summing it up

Anyway, he continued talking, calling out the un-American monsters who are cynically exploiting last week's school shooting for political reasons. Those un-American monsters I suppose would be the survivors of that school shooting who've been going in front of the media to ask legislators to maybe do something before more children are murdered, but what they're clearly forgetting is how awesome gun ownership is. Instead all they seem to care about is human life. Like selfish jerks.

"In many ways the real victims here are

gun owners, the NRA and me personally."

-Wayne LaPierre, basically

But that's millennials for you, only care about themselves, right Wayne?

"Opportunists wasted not one second to exploit tragedy for political gain."

-Wayne LaPierre, speaking,
without a hint of irony or shame, from the
Conservative Political Action Conference

Yes. To be clear, the head of the NRA, America's favorite gun lobby whose entire purpose at this point is to fund candidates who will support relaxing restrictions on their favorite military grade hobby, is accusing the left of exploiting tragedy.

He went on: "They hate the NRA, they hate the second amendment, they hate individual freedom." Guess he's got us there. We really do hate freedom.

Democrats cackling manically. As is their want.

The important thing is that he isn't

exploiting fear for political purposes.

He then spooled off into a paranoid rant about socialism: "If these so-called European socialists take over the House and the Senate and God forbid the White House again, our American freedoms will be lost forever, and the first to go will be the Second Amendment to the US Constitution." Which, holy shit right? Socialism? Freedoms? Goddamn dude. You know, he kind of sounds like the kind of raving lunatic who shouldn't be allowed to have a gun.

Evidently not...

Look, not to be reductive here, but obviously Wayne LaPierre is a two-dimensional villain so blinded by his love of assault rifles that he can't see the harm his lobbying is causing. But that doesn't mean everyone in the NRA is. I mean, there has to be a compromise somewhere between no guns for everybody and limitless military hardware for all, no questions asked right?

In Rubio's defense, the NRA

does give him like, a ton of money.

I guess what I'm asking is could people like LaPierre please shut up and let the grownups talk about this? Grownups like Cameron Kasky, a student who survived last week's shooting, and at at last night's town hall meeting made a polite and not at all unreasonable request that Senator Rubio stop taking money from the NRA. It was great. This kid is a national hero. Sure, Rubio has no intention of turning down hundreds of thousands of dollars from LaPierre's totally not political political group.

But at least he had to look this kid in the eye in front of millions of people including other victims and their families and explain that he still plans on taking money from the lobbying group that stands between us and an effective assault rifle ban. It's not the same thing as action, but it's a start I suppose.

"Obviously I...uh...mumble, mumble cough, hey, look over there!"

-Senator Rubio, tap dancing