The Blame Games

Yup, mass shooting again, I thought
kittens this time? Adorable, right? Take
your time, the news isn't getting better.

Well, I'm glad that's sorted. Perhaps now in the wake of two mass shootings within hours of each other, we'll finally do something about the underlying cause: video games. Wait, what did you think I was going to say? Violent right-wing terrorists and recklessly inadequate gun control? Ridiculous! If everyone would just man-up and walk around armed all the time, mass shootings would be a thing of the past. Here, by all means, let's listen to what House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had to say:

The idea of these video games, they dehumanize individuals to have a game of shooting individuals and others. I've always felt that it's a problem for future generations and others.

-Kevin McCarthy,

wordsmith

Above: actual footage of Representative Kevin McCarthy
attempting to lay the blame for America's near-constant gun violence
 at the feet of anything but the gun lobby and white supremacists.

Tragically, NRA spokesperson Dana Loesh's
hand has become permanently locked from
years of constant finger pointing.

Ok so, the idea of video games is to dehumanize individuals to have a game of shooting...what? No, it's not just you. His comments are gibberish. He's just stringing together half-remembered talking points the Republicans spout in the aftermath of America's increasingly frequent mass-shootings when they need to sound like they're doing something but in a way that doesn't require any soul-searching or hard truths and certainly doesn't risk the NRA money they rely on for reelection. He then went on to site some studies:

We've watched studies show what it does to individuals, and you look at these photos of how it took place, you can see the actions within video games and others.

-Kevin McCarthy and others

Although it's hard to tell in a medium close up shot like this, Representative
McCarthy's pants have literally combusted as he refers to "studies" he's watched.

At worst D&D might lead to
a vitamin D deficiency. 

What studies is he referring to? He's seen studies that link violence in video games with violence in real life? Holy shit, can we see these studies? Because all the other studies, that is, the ones carried out by people who know what they're doing and that Kevin McCarthy didn't make up or dream, show that there is no such link. Remember in the 80's when conservatives tried to convince us that Dungeons and Dragons was leading to satanism? And in the 90's it was rap music? Like, why does anyone still listen to these people?

What is it that most of these mass shootings, including the one at Walmart yesterday and the one in Gilroy, California last week do have in common? White supremacists. I know because I've seen studies. Anyway, what I'm saying is that when they raid the home of a suspect in one of these shootings they usually find racist manifestos railing against brown people and not say, old copies of Nintendo Power.

Breaking News: law enforcement raided the home of suspects Mario and his brother Luigi
early this morning where they recovered what officials are calling a virtual how-to guide of turtle
stomping along with maps of Bowser's castle. Authorities also discovered several unidentified yellow
boxes. The bob omb squad is on the scene and we'll have more on this as it develops.

Today in "Hey, look over there!"

Just so we're all like super clear on this point, it looks like the gunman who killed 20 people in a Walmart today was a white nationalist. A violent, anti-immigrant racist and not say, a member of Antifa.

We're about to talk about another mass shooting so before we start why
don't you enjoy this basket of puppies for a minute. Trust me, it helps. 

And after you clear your history, maybe
give it a once over with a microfibre cloth.

I mention this because this. Didn't click? That's ok, it links to a Fox News article, and if you do click on it you'll probably need to go and clean out your browser history. Here, maybe click on this link to an article about the Fox News story instead, or just wait until I explain. Anyway, it's about how in the hours after another, yes another example of a white nationalist with a manifesto and access to firearms shooting innocent people, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick issued a warning to Antifa to stay out of Texas. I think the "or else" is implied.

Above: A file photo of Dan Patrick promoting
his new Sentinel Program to deal with the
threat posed by mutants once and for all.

Wait, what the wah? Yeah, for some reason he brought up Antifa. 

"Stay out of Texas, basically. We don't need them coming in on September 1st. We didn't need them coming in before this happened."

-The Lt. Governor of Texas evidently 

having a different conversation than the 

Fox News reporter he was talking to

So he's referring to a ten-day planned convergence, wherein people opposed to U.S. Border poli-ok, Donald Trump's insane, xenophobic policy of locking people in cages, will gather and protest at the U.S./Mexico border in El Paso. It's got local authorities nervous because while not expressly affiliated with Antifa, the organizers' politics maybe overlap with Antifa and you know, they're just all a bunch of entitled millennials so same same.

"You kids better stay off my lawn with
your human rights and your twittergrams!"

-Conservatives in Texas

Lt. Governor Patrick then went on to
demand that Antifa cancel Good Omens.

So to sum up: a left-wing group that may or may not be linked a group* linked to anti-fascist counter-protests that have at times become violent, are planing a protest next month. Then Fox News asked Dan Patrick to comment on the latest mass shooting but he instead issued a vague warning to Antifa about a protest they're not actually organizing. But even if they were involved, when Antifa counter protesters do turn violent they're usually punching white supremacists, like the one in custody in connection with today's shooting.

Pictured: The allegedly Catholic Pope,
seen here doing whatever it is Pope's do.

Sorry, I should say allegedly, but the El Paso police chief is saying that he believes that the man they have in custody, Patrick Crusius, is a white supremacist and that his rampage today is motivated out of a hatred of immigrants, non-whites and Democrats. So, I don't know, shouldn't Dan Patrick be saying something like, Hey you white supremacist assholes, stay out of Texas with your racist nonsense? Like, instead of shaking a fist at an anti-white supremacy group who, again, aren't actually coming to El Paso?

Unless, hey, you don't suppose the Lieutenant Governor of Texas is deliberately trying to muddy the narrative and make people connect today's violence with left-wing activists instead of the right-wing shitheels that carry out like all the terrorist acts in the United States? Or at the very least distract from the inevitable, albeit brief and impotent calls for stricter gun control? You know, until a week from now when there's another mass shooting? If you need me, I'll be looking at those puppies in the basket again.

"I didn't say Antifa is responsible for today's tragedy, I'm just saying
Antifa as much as possible whenever someone asks me to comment
on today's tragedy. If they make the connection, it's not my fault."

-Dan Patrick, being exactly what's 

wrong with American politics right now

*update 10/24/20: I was just going back over old posts and I noticed that I kind of implied here that Antifa is more of a coherent organization that it is. Whatever right-wing conspiracy theorists may think, there isn't like a boss of Antifa or a newsletter or anything. I'm not sure if I was just uninformed at the time (probably) or misspoke (also a possibility). But I just wanted to acknowledge that antifa is just a term applied to people who are anti-fascist. Which should describe everyone, but here we are. 

To Boldly Shill!

Get it? Because he says he-yah instead
of...look he's British and-oh forget it.

Look, I'm a big huge nerd and fan of Star Trek, but the line, as they say, must be drawn he-yah. What line you may ask? Why the wine line. I guess it's not really the wine that's bothering me but just the-huh? Oh, right, I should probably explain. Remember how we about the new Star Trek show that's starting up next year? It's going to be about on an aged Jean-Luc Picard slipping on his unitard for one more adventure. You don't? Well we did. Like last week.

Anyway, the trailer has Jean-Luc tending his family vineyards in future France which is weird, because you'd think they'd have robots, but whatever. Welp, it turns out that there really is Chateau Picard vineyard in France.

In the teaser trailer, Picard's vineyard hint at his longing to
return to his old life in Starfleet. I guess they're saving his
mashed potato sculptures for the mid-season finale.

Oh! Good nose, sort of earthy with
a hint of...is that cross-promotion?

-Wine Snobs

Most of us would see a fun coincidence, but the people at at CBS saw an opportunity to leverage the shit out out of their IP and partnered with Chateau Picard and a wine company called Wines that Rock in a ménage a trois of synergistic brand recognition. The result? Star Trek wine. Yes, for just $120 you could be drinking limited edition pretend future wine. Well, I mean, the wine's real, they just printed vintage 2386 on it. And you just pretend that a fictional space captain made it-which is also weird, because on Star Trek there's no money in the future, so shouldn't this be free?

It's uh...well its...hey, remember that
time I saved the Earth from the Borg?

-Jean-Luc, on his side hustle

You know, for the betterment of all mankind or whatever? Which raises another point. Do we have any reason to believe that Picard is good at winemaking? If you're familiar with the series, and I'll assume you are, his brother was the vintner while Jean-Luc was off being a starship captain. He's only taking over the vineyard because he's eighty and retired and his luddite brother didn't believe in smoke detectors and died in a fire. He's at best an amateur. Do any of your friends make soap and sell it on Etsy on the side? Because that's the quality of wine you can expect.

Oh well, it doesn't matter I suppose because get this, they've already sold out. That's right, you have snost and lost. I guess they underestimated how much Star Trek fans like to drink. Anyway, while we're all eagerly waiting for the next batch, maybe it's time to stop and reevaluate our fandom. We could grab a box of wine from the grocery store, stream some TNG and just pretend our wine comes from the future. So my place? Say, eight?

Evidently it was a little too limited.

Of Hornblowers and Blumpkins

Now brace yourself for this startling revelation: your phone is listening to you. I know, right? But wait, there's more. There's always more. That's sort of the theme of the 21st century. Just when something sounds bad you wait a minute and find out it's much worse and no one's going to do anything about it. Climate change, the Mueller report and America's newfound love affair with internment camps. Welcome to the future!

Huh? No, we are going to talk about phones, but I just thought
I'd mention how we have internment camps again. Because we do.

Blow, blow your mighty horns!

Yup, our damn iPhones. A whistleblower came forward last week with-hey, can we stop calling these people whistleblowers? I think of of a whistle as piercing, shrill, obnoxious noise designed to get attention. Calling them whistleblowers makes them sound like hall monitors out to enforce petty and arbitrary rules. These are people who point out injustices and crimes at the risk of their jobs and sometimes lives. They're basically heroes sounding a call to action. I've got a better term: Hornblower. As in, holy shit, did you see that hornblower who revealed that Apple's been letting randos listen in on you having sex?

"The test results came back embarrassing,
so it's a good thing no one's listening in."

Because evidently they are. Listening to you. Having sex, talking to your doctor, planning a revolution. Everything. Yeah, Siri, the magical elf that lives in your phone is programed to 'wake up' whenever it hears the phrase hey Siri. But it's not perfect and will apparently activate when it hears anything remotely similar to the phrase hey Siri and then start 'listening' for instructions. That listening is the software recording what the phone hears and then trying to match it to a command. Ok, so your creepy sentient phone can hear you, big deal.

Pictured: a rando Lando.
Sorry, I couldn't not.

This is where the aforementioned randos come in. Apple, in there quest to make Siri work marginally better than it already doesn't (you heard me), is using outside contractors to analyze these recordings and Siri's responses and see where there's room for improvement. What our heroic hornblower has brought to light is that Apple doesn't tell us that they're sending recordings of our boning sessions to contractors who are under no obligation to maintain customer privacy. 

Holy shit, right? Well, yes. The slightly less alarmist side of this is that these recordings aren't associated with your name so really that could be anyone asking for a chili con queso honey bucket blumpkin.

Look, I'm not out to kink shame anyone, and I'm pretty sure that a chili con queso
honey bucket blumpkin isn't a real thing, but do yourself a favor and don't look it up...

"Apple: because resistance is futile."

-Apple's somewhat 

ill-advised new slogan

Anyway the point is that while Apple insists that there isn't really anyway to identify who's on these recordings short of recognizing the voice, the whistle-hornblower says: "These recordings are accompanied by user data showing location, contact details and app data." Soooo...like, which is it? Do we trust the concerned citizen who's putting their carrier on the line and possibly exposing themselves to legal action or the company that's been secretly making recordings of you having sex and sharing them with strangers?

I don't know, are we just supposed to take Apple at their word that they won't use this terrifying, god-like power against us or sell our private, most personal bumpkin-related secrets to the highest bidder? And before you answer, remember that this was the company that used to deliberately hobble your phone's battery life with updates every couple of years so you'd buy a new one.

Pictured: a chilling reminder that we are little more than
exploitable data points to the corporations that rule the world.
Also, did you know that you can make Siri British? 'ello 'ello!

Too old for this merde...

Didja see the Comic Con trailer for the New Adventures of Old Picard? Huh? Yeah, I'm still holding out hope that that'll be the title. For the time being anyway, it's the serviceable, if unimaginative Star Trek: Picard.

Does what it says on the tin, I guess.

Sir Patrick Stewat and showrunn Michael
Chabon seem eager to service the fans.
Wait, that came out wrong...or did it?

You know the drill. Buckle them nerd belts, because we're going to talk about Star Trek. If that's not your cuppa Earl Grey, bail out now. Still there? Thought so. If you haven't seen the trailer go watch it. I'll wait...well? Look, I don't have all day. There. Pretty good right? Now, if you're lying to me and you didn't watch the trailer or if you don't know what I'm even talking about, I'll sum up, but for real, it's like two minutes of your life. Cool, right? Yes. Although that might just be my nostalgia gland running at full tilt. The trailer is fan service incarnate. In fact, they should probably have called it Fan Service: The Trailer.

From what we can glean by obsessively dissecting the two minutes of carefully edited footage-and we will-it looks like an older, retired Jean-Luc Picard is still haunted by Data's pointless death at the end of Star Trek: Nemesis and I can't say I blame him. That movie sucked. Even the cast says so.

Pictured: That time Data shoved Jean-Luc out of
the way and hogged the heroic sacrifice for himself. 

Move over CG Grand Moff Tarkin.

So bringing a CG de-aged Brent Spiner back, even if he's just playing ghost Data or Lore or Data and Lore's dumber, prototype brother B-4, is still huge for fans. But wait, there's more! Jonathan Frakes is directing some episodes, and he'll be reprising Riker along with Marina Sirtis as Counselor Troi. Seven of Nine from Voyager shows up and we get glimpses of Romulans and even a Borg cube. This whole thing is like a big Star Trek stew.

I am pretty sure what I don't want though.

Is that a good thing? I don't know. Things like sequels and reboots and re-imaginings are on some level the exact opposite of creativity. I mean, paradoxically Star Trek is a show about exploring strange new whatevers and boldly going, but as a whole it's spent a lot of time reminding us of Star Trek we've already seen and based on the trailer Picard is leaning into that history pretty hard and I'm good with that. I guess I want new old experiences? I don't know. Like any good fan, I'm not sure what I want.

But retread or not, I'm there for it, even if it is just a greatest hits of Star Trek. Yes Picard is a spin-off of a spin-off and is 100% relying on my fond memories of Star Trek in the 90's to rope me in, but it's working. Huh? Yeah, earlier it was stew, now it's a greatest hits. I'm not great at metaphors.

You know who is though? These guys.

From the inventor of train in a tube:

So I have mixed feelings about Elon Musk cyborging people and I-huh? Oh, yes, Elon Musk, the ultra-rich crazy person who, like a pot smoking space Moses once wanted to lead humanity to Mars, has now turned his attention to jacking us into the collective via surgically implanted computer interfaces.

Pictured: that time Elon Musk shot a Tesla to Mars proving that just because
someone has money, doesn't mean they should be trusted with money.

Truly this is an age of miracles. 

Ok, let me walk that back a bit. So Elon Musk started up a start-up company, presumably with whatever spare cash he found under his sofa cushions, called Neuralink, and it's been working on brain machine interfaces. That is, technology that can link brains-just rats and monkeys so far, with computers. If that sounds like sci-fi nonsense, it's because it is. But then so were antibiotics, the moon landing and the technology to make old Robert Downey Jr. look like young Robert Downey Jr. so in some ways Elon Musk is a visionary.

But in other ways, he's a monster. I mean, he is essentially sticking USB ports into monkeys just to see what happens and in addition to the ethical concerns I'm just not sure monkey borg aren't just the worst idea in the history of bad ideas.

Is this what you want Elon? Is it?

Yeah, we're like on to you.

Ok, I guess in the interest of fairness, I should mention that if it proves viable, the BMI (their acronym, not mine) could have life-changing applications for people with diseases or injuries that damage their motor functions. And I think that's super, but you have to admit: Elon Musk wants to put computer chips in your brain is an unsettling prospect at first blush. I mean Neuralink is a business and Elon Musk is a business person. So this is about making money first and foremost.

Pictured: the President tweeting
something dumb, racist or both.

And I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the commercial aspect of all this. Again, no beef with people being able to walk again, but how long before Neuralink is selling this technology? Alexa could soon be literally in our heads and suddenly our every stray thought will be buying us Fire Sticks and Instant Pots whether we want them or not. And Twitter will basically be telepathy and do we really want everyone's constant, unfiltered running commentary clogging up our-oh, right...

Seriously though, If human history has taught us anything it's that we have a knack for turning every great technological advancements into either something that kills people or sells them shit. And this will be no different. But I guess that's all a ways off, I mean, remember the hyperloop? Where are we on that?

Like, for real, it's just a train in a tube. What's the hold up?

Our Rapid Spiral

Oh, I think I see the problem. The President is a racist and the GOP is a bunch of cowards. Here, let me explain.

Yup, the math checks out.

Yesterday as the House mulled whether or not to call the President's racist comments out as racist, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said:

"I mean, what's it going to take? A white
robe and torches? Because I give it week."

"...the President's comments about our collegues this weekend show that he does not share those American values. These comments from the White House are disgraceful and disgusting and the comments are racist." 

-Nancy Pelosi, being objectively 

correct about this one

Pictured: where they came from.
Which, incidentally does need their help.

She's referring to his racist suggestion that Congresswomen Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Pressley and Omar don't love America because they don't like him and that they should go back where they came from and fix those countries. Which was great because they are all of them Americans and with the exception of Ilhan Omar, born in the U.S. So like, yeah, what he said was undeniably based in his own, racist assumption that non-white people are by definition not American.

And then the House had like an hour long debate about whether or not Pelosi's comments were inappropriate. Wai-what? Because evidently the rules say that House members can't impugn the honor of fellow Congresspeople or a sitting President on the House floor. Holy shit, if only that rule cut both ways, right?

"We don't need to put something in here about the President maintaining a 
 sense of decorum when discussing members of the House, right? I mean it would
take a colossal miscarriage of the electoral system to put in someone so uncouth
and ill-suited to the office of President to need such a regulation, right?"

-The Founding Fathers, not seeing Twitter coming  

Pictured: Conway taking questions
from reporters yesterday.

Anyway, after a party-line vote-because we can't even agree on how openly racist a President should be-Pelosi's comments will stay on the record, and that's super. The President's comments were totally racist, and anyone who says otherwise is a shrieking Ringwraith lying to the nation's collective face. Huh? I didn't say Kellyanne Conway. Who said Kellyanne Conway? If you took my comparison as a slight against Kellyanne Conway, then that's on you. Although she did insist that a reporter disclose his ethnicity after asking her about the President's racist comments.

Anyway, I mention all this because the feigned outrage on the part of Republicans, the insistence that we're all overreacting, and the rationalizations given for his dumb tweets and shitty, thinly-veiled white nationalism are because they're a bunch of cowards. Fancy feckless cowards who can't let themselves admit for even a second that maybe letting Donald Trump hijack their party was the biggest mistake of their lives.

"We're quite happy with the direction all this is going, in
fact, I think we could lean into the open racism some more."

-Mitch McConnell, on America's 

rapid spiral into racist dystopia