Make good choices today!

"Pretty sure those were never helpful."

-The woman most of us voted for

I don't want to tell you how to do you, but maybe go vote today? Specifically for Democrats. We're well past the point of "There're both terrible, so it doesn't matter who I vote for" or "I'm voting third part because I'm sick of the two party system." Yes, there are jerks on both sides of the political divide. And sure, it'd be lovely if voting third party would somehow undo two-hundred years of two-party rule and usher in a new age of Bernie, but neither of there things are helpful today.

But to be clear, some of them
are indeed terrible people. 

Today is about making it more difficult for technical 2016 election winner Donald Trump to take us further down the shitty path of white nationalism, misogyny and angry Tweets. And I'm not saying that all Republicans are terrible people, but I am suggesting that there's not enough of them saying or doing anything to help. They're just sort of sitting back and letting everything go to shit because they're afraid of pissing off Trump fans, which, I don't know, might be worse than being Trump.

I'm saying I wish they'd stay 
home, not we should purge them 
from the rolls. That's their thing.

We should be going out of our way to piss off Trump fans. They're dicks. Not everyone who voted for him mind you, just the ones that have stuck by him as hate-based ineptitude of the Administration has been rolled out before our very eyes. Yeah, everyone has a right to vote for whomever they think is best for a given office, cool, but since the President and the GOP are deliberately stoking racial tensions, attacking the victims of sexual assault, and sending troops to intercept refugees, they can fuck right off. Their supporters are bad at voting and should sit this one out.

So yeah, vote and vote Democrat. Not because they're all great at their jobs, some of them are probably middling at best, but because they're not the party actively disenfranchising voters they believe won't vote for them.

This is not a hard choice. Just ask yourself which party believes
in equality and wants you to have access to healthcare and
which party closes polling stations so black people can't vote.

Wait, I'm going somewhere with all this:

Pictured: A charming festival where
communities come together and
pretend to burn a traitor to death.

Hey, it's the fifth of November which means tonight is Guy Fawkes Night! If you're unfamiliar, and I'm going to proceed as if you are regardless, it's the night British people celebrate the foiling of the Gunpowder plot by burning the conspiracy's most inept member in effigy. Because British people aren't all crumpets and Harry Potter you know. Anyway, the plot involved a group of anti-protestant conspirators who packed a bunch of explosives-filled barrels under the Parliament building, intending to blow up the government and King James I and then install Princess Elizabeth, James' daughter, as the new monarch.

"Watch it, peasant!"

-Noted Puppet Queen, Sara

If that plan sounds bananas, that's just because it was, to put it Britishly, batshit barmey. To sum up, this all hinged both on the rest of the country hailing the regicides who just blew up half of London as the right blokes for the job for forming a new government and the cooperation of Princess Elizabeth. You know, the nine-year old they planed to kidnap her after murdering her father and then marry off to a Catholic monarch so that she could spend the rest of her life as a puppet Queen? Yes, that Princess Elizabeth.

In many ways, this was history's most foil-able plot and everyone involved ended up gruesomely and publicly executed.

"Whaaaat? No, these aren't my thirty-six barrels 
of gunpowder...I'm just holding them. For a friend."

-Guy Fawkes, red-handedly

If the MAGA hat fits...

But I guess when you live in a monarchy and your leader bases their legal authority on God, gunpowder as a means of regime change probably looks like a reasonable option. Luckily for us, it doesn't have to come to that. Our leaders base their authority on winning elections or, failing that, eeking out a technical win by conning white people in electorally valuable states into thinking that they're the victims of social and racial injustice. 

But the important thing is we can get rid of them without resorting to ludicrous, explosion-based plots. Because this is America, where your vote counts...

...proportionately, based on a two-hundred year old system designed to give
underpopulated rural states exaggerated influence over national elections.

Let's get un-prescious!

I'm sorry. I have failed you. I missed this year's Federation Day. I don't know what happened. Maybe I was just distracted by the unremitting horror that is the news, maybe I was too busy commenting on how Klingons have hair again. Whatever it is there's no excuse for-huh? What's...what's Federation Day?

What's...? I...I don't know why I bother...

Pictured: all walks of life from
original series fans to DS9 fans. 

Federation Day, he said pedantically, is the one day a year where people from all walks of life, -well, not all walks...really just the nerds, come together to celebrate the future founding of the United Federation of Planets. You know, the space U.N. on Star Trek? Anyway, it falls on October 11th and traditionally I mark the occasion with a blog post about Star Trek, but since like every third post on my blog is about Star Trek anyway, I'm not going to sweat it this year. Instead we're going to talk about the new Star Trek show.

"It's probably cancer."

-WebMD

No, not Discovery, the other new Star Trek-no, not the new Picard show, the other other new show: the animated Star Trek comedy series. No, you're not having a stroke, there's actually going to be a Star Trek comedy series. Although incidentally, you might be having a stroke, unrelated to the news of a Star Trek cartoon, I don't know. I'm not a doctor, and can't see you. That's not how blogs work. If you think you are having a stroke please seek medical attention, or go to WebMD or something. Now, what were we talking about?

Oh, right, the Star Trek animated sitcom. It's going to be called Star Trek: Lower Decks and was created by Mike McMahon, the head writer of Rick and Morty, which...yeah, but he also has a Twitter account called TNG Season 8 which is a bunch of hilarious episode summaries of Next Generation episodes that never existed and has a much less toxic fanbase.

Yeah, you're not really supposed to like Rick...

Laughing at yes. With? Ehh...less
often, but sometimes I guess.

But still, Star Trek as a cartoon? Ok, yes, there already is a Star Trek cartoon. If you're unfamiliar, it was a half-hour animated series from the 70's voiced by most of the original cast reprising their roles from the series. It's not bad exactly...but you kind of have to be a fan. It also wasn't a comedy. Like, all Star Trek things have at least some humor, and there have been at least some comedic episodes. Star Trek IV: The One With the Whales is probably the closest to a straight up comedy, but for the most part, Star Trek takes itself more or less seriously.

"Aw, c'mon, we're right here..."

-Babylon 5

Well, ok, a Shatner level of seriousness anyway. The show will follow the nameless lower-ranked crew of an unimportant starship and in that respect, Lower Decks sounds more along the lines of something like a combination of Futurama's working schlubs in a sci-fi universe and The Orville's we're the Bad News Bears of Starfleet premises. But I guess the difference here is that instead of some thinly-veiled, off-brand, similar to-but legally distinct from Star Trek setting, this show gets to take place in the real Star Trek universe.

Which begs the most important question in the minds of fans, and the least important question in the minds of everyone else: will it be canon? Like, if it's about the janitors on the U.S.S. Michael Dukakis getting up to zany hijinks involving Steve Urkel and or Glomer from the Punky Brewster cartoon is that supposed to sit in the same continuity as dramatic episodes of other Treks like TNG's The Inner Light and DS9's The Visitor?

"Suck on this, verisimilitude!"

-Steve Urkel

"Women...amiright fellas?"

-Star Trek

And if so, will we, as obsessed fans, be ok with that? Probably not, but then we are fans, as in short for fanatic. There probably is a tendency among the trekiest of us to be a little precious about our dumb show about future people. I mean, the Star Trek canon already includes some questionable things: the crew of the Enterprise-D hanging out with Mark Twain, Captain Janeway and Tom Paris de-evolving into alligators and mating and the original series' finale was about an insane woman body swapping with Captain Kirk and taking over the ship because Starfleet doesn't let women be captains apparently. Like, that's how TOS went out, on a 'women be crazy' episode.

So if you're not sold on the idea of 'toon Trek, and I'm not sure I am, let's not let it be because the Star Trek canon is somehow precious or would be ruined by a comedic take. Because goddamn, Star Trek is already pretty bonkers whether we like to admit it or not.

Yeah, we're not even going to talk about this nonsense.

Wig out!

It's not just me, right? Like, Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia from the Witcher looks, and I mean this objectively, ridiculous?

Pictured: Henry Cavill cosplaying Vigo the Carpathian. 

Pictured: just some of the world's 38
million Poles who don't care what
I think about their language.

It's possible that you have no idea what I'm talking about, and if that's the case, I'd like to congratulate you on leading an active and social life. Here, let me explain. For reasons of synergy and branding, Netflix is turning The Witcher into a TV show. The Witcher, if you didn't know, is a series of short stories and novels by Polish fantasy novelist Andrzej Sopkowski about a monster hunter called Geralt who, you know, hunts monsters. And no, I don't know how Polish expects to get away with putting d-r-z right in a row like that.

Sort of like how no one cared about Harry
Potter until the GBA game came out.

(source: making things up)

Anyway, the books were written in the 90's but became super popular in the U.S. when they were adapted into a series of video games, particularly The Witcher III. And now, since everything has to be adapted into some other thing, Netflix is turning The Witcher into a TV series. While they're certainly going to be banking on the game's popularity, the series is supposedly based on the books, and I suppose that could explain why Cavil doesn't so much look like the Geralt most of us are familiar with, but holy shit, the wig. I mean, the wig...

Someone looked at this and said
"Let's do this, only terrible."

I've read a few of the Witcher books and played the game and they're all pretty great. And dubious as I am about TV series based on video games, or series that try to cash in on Games of Thrones' success (and of course it is) I'll probably even checkout the series. But I'm a casual enough fan that I'm not super invested in the character and don't really care how much the TV version of Gerald resembles the one in the game it's not really based on. I don't even have a strong opinion about Henry Cavill playing Geralt.

I do however have a strong opinion about things that are unintentionally hilarious and whoever put that thing on his head and then took a bunch of publicity photos should be ashamed of themselves. I mean, ashamed. 

Remember that time Cavill grew a mustache for Mission: Impossible, but was
contractually obligated not to shave it off when Justice League needed reshoots so they
just CG'd his upper lip? Well, this is no longer the most ridiculous Henry Cavil photo.

Today in this "Bomb" stuff:

I think it's important to take stock and remember the real victims of politically-motivated domestic terrorism: Republicans. Here, I'll let noted Twitter personality and technical President of the United States put things into perspective for us:

Wait, this "Bomb" stuff'? Does he mean the attempted
assassination of his political opponents by his number one fan? 

"What have we done? We call him out
on his bullshit, which is literally our job."

-Don Lemon, of the media

I think the story that gets lost here with all these bomb scares is how this might affect the chances of the party that ran a reality show host in the 2016 election. Sure, he spent his entire campaign and subsequent Presidency emboldening the white nationalists who are now mailing bombs and carrying out mass shootings, but what I think most of us want to know is what has the media done to bring people together? I mean, he's just the President-one that lost the popular vote by a wide margin-but the President, he shouldn't have to bring people together. He's got enough to do.

"What those lying shitheals on CNN
are talking about is how I'm bringing 
people together. Even those low-IQ
libtards who don't get how great I am."

-Trump, building bridges

Like whipping his hyper-partisan supporters into anti-media frenzies at the Kim Jong-Un-ian rallies he holds for himself. Here's what he had to say Wednesday in Wisconsin:

"As part of a lager national effort to bridge our divides and bring people together, the media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories...They've got to stop. Bring people together."

-President Trump, unaware of

the very concept of irony

Above: FBI agents hurriedly covering the
Donald Trump Party Wagon® the alleged
MAGA bomber was living in before
his arrest. Because optics. 

So yeah, let's not forget where the blame truly lies here: with the media. Sure, Donald Trump is routinely referring to them as the 'enemy of the people,' but it's the media that's telling us about it. And ever since the identity of the man arrested in the MAGA Bomber case has been made public, the media has been unfairly suggesting that he's a Trump supporter. But based on what evidence I ask you? His pro-Trump social media accounts full of photos of him at Trump rallies and rants and threats against the same people mailed bombs to? That's the liberal media for you, always trying to score points...

The President is up bright and early every day,
tweeting and going over poll numbers while
Hasselhoffing his morning cheeseburger.

Anyway, the important thing to keep in mind is that the President is trying to bring people together. To heal the divide the media has caused. I mean, look at that tweet again. You're probably wondering how hours before Cesar Sayoc was arrested, the President managed to have poll numbers indicating how media coverage of the mail bombs was damaging the GOP's momentum in the run up to the midterm. But that's just because you're brainwashed by the media. The President has his finger on the pulse.

The unsettling, accelerated pulse and accompanying dizziness right before a heart attack. So yes, he's right: 'Very unfortunate, what is going on." But just remember, by stoking partisan violence and hatred the President is just trying to bring people together.

Hey look, he is bring people together!

Today in way too little and far too late:

Pictured: Gianforte seen here at a
rally and not, strangely, in prison.

So in an unusual move, the President spoke out today against political violence. Which is kind of weird given that just days ago he was talking about how awesome it was that time Greg Gianforte body slammed a reporter and how he's Trump's guy. But today's remarks were a call for unity in response to pipe bombs that were sent to The Obamas, the Clintons, Maxine Waters, Eric Holder, CNN, George Soros, you know basically everyone the GOP puts in mailers designed to frighten old people into voting for Republicans.

Above: the President, usually the source
of threats, seen here, calling for unity.

The President, or at least some kind of robot programmed to simulate outrage at the idea of pipe bombs being sent to Democrats:

"...I just want to tell you that in these times, we have to unify, we have to come together and send one, very clear, strong, unmistakeable message: that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America..."

-President Trump denouncing

threats of political viola-really?

Finally, the Administration can
demand an investigation of a crime
the President didn't commit himself.

Huh...does he not know that everything he's ever said and done publicly is on the internet? Anyway, he went on as though we didn't know who he was:

"This egregious conduct is abhorrent to everything we hold dear and sacred as Americans. We are extremely angry, upset, unhappy about what we witnessed the morning, and we will get to the bottom of it."

-President Trump, something of an
expert on things we find abhorrent

Huh...egregious conduct...acts or threats...I wonder why neither the President nor anyone else from the administration is referring to this as a thwarted terrorist attack? 

"The President is unwilling to characterize these acts as terrorism 
until we can determine whether or not those responsible are white."

-Sarah Huckabee Sanders

(actual quote)*

On the one hand he came out against
trying to murder Democrats...on the other
hand, what does he want a cookie?

Anyway, first of all, and understand I'm swallowing some bile here, yes, that is what a person should say in a situation like this. Cool, so now, that that's out of the way, when did he start using the royal 'we?' Also, angry upset and unhappy are kind of the same thing. But that aside, the other day, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska suggested that Trump was just being 'playful' when he praised Gianforte's assault of reporter Ben Jacobs, and maybe he was. The problem here is that a lot of people who support Trump are goons.

Just...goons. And I don't know if that's rude or unproductive to say but for real: an unacceptable number of people who support Donald Trump are actual white supremacists who attack people in the street. And I don't think it's divisive to call them violent, ignorant, racist goons. I think it's just observation.

What I'm suggesting is that if there are white supremacists
marching in the street in support of the guy you voted for,
it's probably time to take a long, hard look at your decisions.

If the MAGA hat fits, right guys?

Speaking of violent goons, Alex Jones and Ann Coulter have already started in with broad and unfounded assertions that the entire thing is a left-wing smear job to make Trump-fans look like the kind of rage-filled extremists who might resort to violence and I'm not sure that's fair. Sure, people on both sides have gone too far at times, but the left doesn't actively court neo-nazis and Obama never called the press an enemy of the people, so maybe they should shut up?

Look, it's not that I don't appreciate the call for unity and the strong (-ish) denouncement of these attempted attacks it's just that I wonder if maybe the time to speak out against political intimidation and terrorism would have been before the pipe-bombings and wandering gangs of Proud Boys?

The President today directed the FBI to thoroughly investigate these incidents
within the next couple of days and to not waste time talking to anyone who might
know anything about who might be responsible. Get it? Because of the Kavanaugh
thing? No? I guess it'd be funnier if he wasn't on the Supreme Court for life...

Here, let me ruin Batman for you:

Strong opinions about pop culture
expressed on the internet? How novel!

I realize that this is probably something of a non-sequitur, but Christian Bale's Batman is, objectively speaking, the worst Batman. I mention this because I've recently found myself involved in three unrelated conversations about which Batman is the best Batman and I-huh? Yes, these are the kind of conversations I have...Don't judge me. Anyway, I just want to clear this up. Oh, and to be clear, while I don't care about Christian Bale as an actor, this isn't about him, but rather about the dreary, kind of overrated Christopher Nolan trilogy.

If the Rogue's gallery spent half as much
time on their schemes as they did developing
their themes, they'd have won years ago.

Ok, so everyone knows how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman. His parents get shot in an alley so young Bruce, filled with grief and justice trains for an amount of time to become a badass at the arts martial before dressing up and going out into the streets of Gotham to fight themed villains. Cool, so we see this origin story in Batman Begins for what seems like the three hundredth time, except that this time it's most of the movie. The movie is like seventy percent percent secret Tibetan ninja school, then Bale fights Liam Neeson's Ras al'Ghul who, for gritty reboot reasons is not magically immortal, but instead just some bloke with a beef against civilization. I guess he's pro hunter/gatherer or something.

Anyway, Batman wins and is then summoned to the roof of police HQ where Commissioner Gordon hands him a playing card in an evidence bag and tells him that there's a new villain on the loose. So to be continued. Ok.

Oh shit, I hope it's not Mr. Freeze...

It was the kind of explosion that burns
off half your face and makes you insane
 but leaves hair and eyebrows untouched.

That brings us to The Dark Knight, the second in the Nolan-tology. This film apparently picks up not long after the first as Heath Ledger's Joker is still a new threat in town. Anyway, after much hilarious murder, the Joker blows up the two people Bruce Wayne cares about who aren't his butler: his childhood friend/crush Rachel Dawes, who after suffering a brutal recasting, dies, and his pal/DA Harvey Dent who has half of his face blown off. Now a proper Batman villain with a theme and everything, he goes on a coin-toss based murder spree and Batman has to take him down.

Bummer, right? So much so that after apprehending the Joker, Batman and commissioner Gordon agree to blame all of Two-Face's crimes on Batman in order to keep the former D.A.'s reputation intact. Because justice. So Gordon smashes the Bat-signal and Batman, we learn in the next film, disappears...

On the other hand, it was really only useful if Commissioner
Gordon needed to contact Batman on a cloudy night.

"Mama mia! I know him! That's-a the
guy who cussed out the camera man!"

-Some Italian

...for eight goddamn years. Now we're at the last film, The Dark Knight Rises. Batman limps out of retirement to battle the incomprehensible Bane played by Tom Hardy along with Scarecrow and Talia al Ghul. Oh, and Catwoman's there...sort of. Batman defeats Bane and then fakes his own death while saving Gotham from a nuclear bomb. And then he moves to Italy. Leaving aside the conceit that Italy doesn't have access to TMZ and that the DC equivalent of Elon Musk can't just blend in, Christian Bale is now the Batman who retires to a Tuscan villa because being Batman is hard.

"I know I swore to avenge your deaths
by devoting my life to crime fighting,
but there's like, a lot of crime so..."

Batman's never-ending quest for justice, you know, the one he swore to undertake over his parent's graves? Well, in these movies that quest lasted eight years. It sounds like a lot, but if you do the math, he spends like six weeks actually being Batman, the rest of those years between Dark Knight and Dark Knight rises is spent sulking around Wayne manner because he had to kill Two-Face. Despite the critical and popular acclaim for the Nolan films, Bale's Batman is the briefest, emo-iest Batman who ever Batmaned.

Look, I'm not trying to yuck anyone's yum here, it's just that if we absolutely have to rank the Batmen, and we do-I mean, what is the internet if not a forum for nerds to construct and then endlessly debate meaningless lists? But if we are going to rank them, maybe we don't give first place to the whiney quitter. Yeah, you heard me: quuuuiiiteeerr.

Batman and Robin was an absolutely terrible movie and George Clooney is
basically just cashing a check in it, but he as an actor and it as a film understand
that Batman is about a billionaire who puts on tights and fights theme-crime.