Today in people who are not a king...

A special thanks goes out to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott for clarifying that President Obama is not a king. Behold:

Yes. True. Not a king. Also, Texas is not a country
and has to abide by Federal law so, shut up maybe?

Oh, and he's also into putting the
Ten Commandments on courthouse
lawns, so yeah, all around toolbox.

Who said who's not a what now? I'm glad I pretended you asked. The who is Texas' AG, and jerk Greg Abbott, who you might remember as the guy who tried to re-ban gay marriage in Texas by cleverly pointing out that baby-making requires both thingamajig and a hootenanny and therefore the state was totally within its rights to prevent same-sex couples from enjoying equal protection under the law. Obviously this didn't work because his argument was preposterous and we have a Supreme Court ruling but he's back now and going after transgender kids.

Above: conservatives, right now
over this whole bathroom thing.

Yup, his tweet up there about how the President isn't a king is in response to a letter sent out by the administration and signed off on by officials from both the Departments of Justice and Education. It instructs schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom appropriate to their gender identity citing Title IX of the Civil Rights Act which protects against discrimination based on sex. Yes, the bathroom thing. Again. And it's why the Right is throwing one of their trademark pseudo-religious and borderline successionist tantrums.

Here, check out some of the tyrannical demands being brutally imposed on Texas:

You guys like Federal funds, right?

"As a condition of receiving Federal funds, a school agrees that it will not exclude, separate, deny benefits to or otherwise treat differently on the basis of sex any person in its educational programs or activities...A school's...obligation to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of sex requires schools to provide transgender students equal access to educational programs and activities even in circumstances in which other students, parents, or community members raise objections of concerns." 

No equal access, no funding. Sounds pretty Civil Rights Act-y to me, clearly these are the demands of a despot. The letter continues: "As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others' discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages particular class of students."

"But then what's the point of being a white, Christian, cis-gendered
male if everybody doesn't have to accommodate your discomfort?"

-Greg Abbott's entire argument

Pictured: Noted King and
Tyrant Barack Obama.

So how exactly is the President acting all king-like? Is he referring to himself as 'we?' Is he prancing about the Oval Office in a powdered wig and ermine-trimmed robe? No, he's just asking that schools comply the Civil Rights Act. The act bars discrimination based on sex, which is totally what we're talking about here. Sure, transgender wasn't a box you could check back in 1964, the term didn't exist at the time, but nobody's rewriting the Act, they're just applying it transgender students in order to protect them from harassment which is exactly what the Civil Rights Act is for.

What's the big goddamned deal? They're not asking Texas to grow up and stop telling kids that dinosaurs hung out with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden or to stop rolling their eyes whenever they say evolution. We're asking them to maybe stop being part of the super-hostile environment that makes life miserable for transgender students and lay off about the 'assigned at birth bathroom' thing. It costs them nothing or rather would if they weren't such unrelenting asshats about this.

Although since we're on it,
maybe knock that off too?

Not pictured: The Governor.

Here, check out what Lt. Governor Dan Patrick
had to say about-wait, Lieutenant Governor? Yeah, ok, let's hear what the 'back-up' Governor of Texas has to say about all this:

"Well, in Texas, he can keep his 30 pieces of silver. We will not yield to blackmail from the president of the United States."

-Dan Patrick, not the Governor 

chiming in about school funding

Um...First of all, I'm confused. Like, I'm not a biblical scholar, but is Dan Patrick Judas in this scenario? Like, Judas if instead of selling out Jesus, he refused school funding so he could continue acting like a bitter transphobic hysteric.

Maybe he's unclear about how much Federal school funding Texas gets.
I think it's like $10 billion and while I'm not super-clear on the exchange rate between
dollars and 1st century Roman Sesterce, I think he's making a pretty phenomenal mistake.

Becuase branding, that's why.

Look, I'm a grown-ass man who enjoys video games, so please understand that when I say 'please stop trying to make movies out of video games,' I mean it as constructive criticism. Here, check this out. In a stroke of synergistic cross-marketing nostalgia-milking, Atari has teamed up with a production company to create movie versions of two of their classic, narrative-less video games, Centipede and Missile Command.

"The idea tests very well among late-middle-aged comic book store 
owners who restore classic arcade machines in their spare time."

-Film industry execs growing 

the shit out of their brands

It should be noted that this doesn't
work on actual turtles. Do not attempt. 

The obvious question here is 'holy shit, why?' And I'm not sure there's a great answer for this. First of all, video games don't have the best track record for being movie source material. Street Fighter, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Super Mario Bros, were all varying degrees of terrible and those were based on really good games that at least have story elements to draw upon. Street Fighter has magic karate, Final Fantasy games have wizards and rideable chickens and Super Mario is, at its heart, a heart-warming tale of heroic turtle abuse.

Name recognition and cocaine.
Let's not forget about cocaine.

Sure, there have been some successful, if not necessarily good movies based on video games. There's been like 15 Resident Evils even though the world ended back in part 3. And the trailer for Assassin's Creed: The Game: The Movie came out this week and yeah it's probably two-hours of parkour and careful choreographed fights, but it's coming from a decent series with a solid premise so it might not be objective garbage. I guess my issue is more about how they're banking on name recognition alone.

There is nothing about these games to suggest a narrative arc. They, like most ancient Atari games weren't about story, they were just about getting buzzed bar patrons to feed quarters into the slots and then testing their reflexes and ability to keep a grip a joystick slick with pizza grease. Then they just increased the level of difficulty until players ran out of lives or money or patience and then went back to doing whatever people in the 1980's did.

"This sucks...hey, who wants to do some blow
and wait around for someone to invent MTV?" 

Sorry, that's not fair. Video slots tell
a story about addiction and sadness.

If you look at the box-art on the home version of Centipede you might be able to piece together a rudimentary storyline based around a chubby gnome or a hobbit or something using a magic wand to murder insects but that's it. There's nothing in the game to imply a narrative. Games back then didn't need one anymore than pinball machines or video slots do, but I can't imagine that will stop Atari from churning out The Centipede Chronicles: Rise of the Triangle Elf. In fact, I don't think anything can stop that now.

How much do you want to bet the trailer
features 99 Luftballons? All the money?

I suppose Missile Command had a little more to go on. You're like at NORAD or something and trying to repel a Soviet nuclear strike and that's cool. Movies right now are big into scenes of mass destruction and explosions. The only problem here is that like all games back then it didn't really have an ending. You just faced faster and faster waves of missiles until you couldn't keep up anymore and had to watch helplessly as your cities burned one by one and then, game over. So, War Games if it ended in nuclear war instead of making out.


I get that the film industry is grasping desperately at ways to stay relevant in the face of competition from streaming services and their taut, well-written serial dramas with intricate plots and full frontal nudity, but I'm not sure thirty-six year old bar-diversion nostalgia is the best way to go about it. Sure, I'm not like a movie executive, but I think my prediction of disastrous box-office losses will be borne out here. Prove me wrong guys, prove me wrong.

It's like they heard the dull wet thud that Adam Sandler's
Pixels made last year and say, 'yes, let's ride that train. All the way.'

Today in magnanimous ignominy...

Above: the future of journalism!

Hey, you know how Donald Trump-huh? Yeah, I was trying to do this thing where I avoid using the presumptive GOP candidate's real name just in case typing it somehow skews the algorithms and helps trend him on the Twitterbooks-but look, if he wins because we did one too many Google searches for the words Trump, leathery and orange, we should probably abandon this whole internet thing and go back to the printed word. Besides there's a decent chance civilization would get knocked down a few pegs, so it fits...

I mean, doesn't he have handlers?
Shouldn't an intern take his iPhone away?

Anyway, remember how Trump made that mortifyingly racist comment about how if elected he would ban Muslims from entering the U.S? And we all thought that there was no way he could possibly embarrass us more and then he did? Like repeatedly? I mean, the taco bowl thing, right? What was that? How quickly would he tweet us into a war? It chills the blood. So yesterday he upped the ante by magnanimously telling the New York Times that he'd make an exception to his Muslim ban so that newly elected London Mayor Shadiq Khan, a Muslim, could visit the U.S.

"I think it's a very good thing, and I hope he does a very good job because frankly that would be very, very good." 

-Presumptive GOP Candidate and barely

articulate gameshow host Donald Trump

In their defense, this is what they had to choose from.

"Thanks Donald, with your support I'm sure
I'll do a good job. Which would be good."

-London Mayor Sadiq Khan

The Times interviewer then asked Trump 'why' because when a reporter is confronted the babbling, leathery summation of everything wrong with the Republican party I guess that's all you have left. Trump replied:

"Because I think if he does a great job, it will really--you lead by example, always lead by example. If he does a good job and frankly if he does a great job, that would be a terrific thing."

-Donald Tru-holy shit is this for real?

"Please, we couldn't make
this shit up if we tried."

-The New York Times

No seriously, I'm asking. The article didn't say who conducted the interview or where it happened and I'm just some guy that writes a blog about nerd things and people freaking out about public bathrooms. I don't know how to corroborate this, but the New York Times probably didn't make the whole thing up, right? Like, I suppose they could just be screwing with us, but that doesn't sound like a thing they would do and besides, it is in line with the incoherent gibberish he's famous for allowing to trickle out of his face-hole.

"Jesus would vote Trump. Told
me himself. Huge supporter. Huge."

-Noted theologian and real-

estate mogul Donald Trump

Let me remind you of an interview he gave to some guy called David Brody back in 2011 about how he gets sent a lot of Bibles:

Brody: I understand a lot of people send you Bibles, is that true?

Trump: Well I get sent Bibles by a lot of people.

Brody: Where are those Bibles?

Trump: Actually, we keep them at a certain place. A very nice place. But people send me Bibles. And you know, it's very interesting. 

Yikes. Hey, if you meet a Republican today, give them a hug would you? They're going to need it. I know not everyone can be eloquent and charismatic and really that's not the end-all of being President but it helps to able to string a couple words together. Like, how does this man have buildings named after him? 

We're going to miss the shit out of you. Call us?

Today in poorly chosen battles...

Hey, remember last week when the Department of Justice gave North Carolina until Monday to knock it off with that House Bill 2 claptrap which, among other ridiculous bullshit requires transgender people to put aside a core component of their identity and use the bathroom assigned to their sex at birth? Remember that? Well it's Monday and this is happening.

What? Like anyone outside of North Carolina
 knows what the hell a tar heel is anyway...

Huh? No, they must have won. I mean all
the monuments in the South seem to-oh...

Yeah, Governor Pat McCrory is suing the Obama administration over what he feels is government overreach. After all, what makes the Justice Department think they can just come in with their jackboots and start bossing the people of North Carolina around? Like, just who do they think they are telling Pat McCrory and the sovereign State of North Carolina who he can and can not systematically discriminate against with humiliating, unenforceable laws in a misguided effort to protect against a nonexistent threat? This kind of Federal tyranny is why the South fought and won the Civil War. 

"Welcome to the men's room,
may I see your genital ID?"

Not to be outdone, the Justice Department is suing North Carolina because holy shit you can't go around treating people like that thanks to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and also, you know common human decency. McCrory's beef, expressed via Twitter because I guess that's just how our civilization functions now, is that the DOJ is skipping over legislative process and just willy nilly defending people's rights like jerks and that the suit is to make sure that the state continues to receive federal funding until this is sorted out. 

So that's great if you happen to be the the equipment manager for the UNC's basketball team, but less so if you're transgender and just have to pee.

Not sure I buy that this is about Federal overreach, nor am I convinced
that his mother is all that amazing. I mean her son's kind of a tool.

"Oh come one, we joined one rebellion
and you never let us forget it..."

-Gov. McCrory

You know, I think McCrory and supporters of the bill think this is about something bigger than bathroom assignments; like they're defending state's rights or something and maybe on some level it is. But they're also fighting for the sovereign right of North Carolina to be dicks to transgender people so it's kind of hard to see their side of it. I know it's kind of a stretch to compare this to slavery and the Civil War and that technically that war was about more than just slavery, but the Confederacy was the side fighting for the argument that included owning people and making them work for no money.

Look, I'm sure state sovereignty is like super-important when it comes to things like interstate commerce and I don't know, picking the state bird but holy shit North Carolina, you're suing for the right to discriminate and the best argument you've got is that the Civil Rights Act doesn't specifically mention transgender people despite them clearly being included in the spirit of the law. So yeah, way to shake that negative southern stereotype of backwards, ignorant bumpkins with an irrational fear of the unfamiliar.

Some causes are worth fighting for. This is not one of them. In fact,
 this isn't even in the top 100 and kind of makes you look like assholes.

Meanwhile, at the Department of Justice...

Hey good news, the Justice Department just sent an angry letter to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory's office letting him know just how egregiously his state is violating the Civil Rights act of 1964 with their ridiculous bathroom bill and giving them until close of business on Monday to grow up and stop acting like a bunch of transphobic jerks.

You all picture this when someone says Department of Justice right?
And you hear the sound too? Good. I'm glad it's not just me.

Pictured: Principle Deputy Assist-you
know, she just called out a governor,
can we maybe get her a title bump?

"Access to sex-segregated restrooms and other workplace facilities consistent with gender identity is a term, condition or privilege of employment. Denying such access to transgender individuals, whose gender identity is different from their gender assigned at birth, while affording it to similarly situated non-transgender employees, violates Title VII."

-Vanita Gupta, Principle Deputy Assistant 

Attorney General, on why the DOJ 

is finally catching up to XHamster

What are you going to do?
Secede about it? 

Cool, right? Yes. But I think the next question here is what's the Department of Justice going to do about it if North Carolina refuses to come around? I mean, they've already lost Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and Cirque du Soleil, what more can the DOJ they possibly do to-oh shit, right, all that Federal funding. By not complying with the Civil Rights Act, North Carolina could lose the $861 million (yes with an 'm' but that's still a lot) it receives in funding for its schools. 

This might seem a little counterintuitive since ignorance is sort of the problem in the first place, but I guess the hope is that State officials would rather yank the discriminatory bill than have to explain to parents that history class will consist of entirely reading discarded Snapple lids, and that all school sports are now freeze tag. Can't wait to see what happens next.

"You can keep your Federal funding, we'll just use the old textbooks until the Rapture happens.
Easy peasy. The important thing is that North Carolinians can rest assured that the person in the
next bathroom stall was born with, though doesn't necessarily still have, genitals similar to their own."

-Governor Pat McCrory on 'plan B'

Science: Haberdasher of Hope

Hey, get this, I met a writer the other day. Like an actual sci-fi/fantasy novelist called Charlie Jane Anders, she happened to be at the place that I work signing copies of her book, All the Birds in the Sky, which is excellent and should be read by you. Anyway, I accused her of crushing my dreams, which she was surprisingly cool about, but we'll get to that.

Where do I work? An author came in to sign copies
of her book...so, um...a hat store. I work in a hat store.

Waffles, planet-spotting, I mean, is there
anything Belgians aren't awesome at?*

So first a good news bad news thing. The good news is that Belgian space scientists have discovered three, count'em three totally new planets. And they orbit a red dwarf star, which is apparently totally unexpected. And they fit some of the criteria for supporting life-also unexpected. And they're only 40 light years away which, yeah, kind of expected. The bad news is, of course, that we'll never actually go there as we are but meaningless, fragile beings adrift in an incomprehensibly vast and hostile universe. Science: kind of a kick in the face.

Anyway, the team from the University of Liège spotted them last December. It's pretty early to tell, but they believe the planets are in the star's habitable zone and are tidally locked. This means that one side always faces the star and is a parched and fiery hellscape, while the other side faces away and is an unforgiving perpetually frozen wasteland. Imagine an entire planet that's half Arizona and half Chicago.

I propose we name it Chicagizona Prime, and then never visit.

I suppose we can leave the universal
translators at home on this one.

Despite this, the astronomers still think this star system might be a swell place to search for extraterrestrial life. Here on Earth, extremophiles can exist in super-inhospitable places like dry lake beds and in volcanic vents on the ocean floor, so maybe we'll find evidence of something like that on one of these planets, living on the line between dayside and nightside...you know, or something equally unexciting that just sits there being plankton. Alien life, sure, but not something that's going to ask us about this human emotion we call: 'love.' Small steps I guess.

It's a common scientific term
meaning 'not bloody likely.'

Very small steps. Tiny, infinitesimal steps down an essentially endless path towards a destination that neither we nor our remote descendants will likely ever reach thanks to the cold slap of scientific reality. Yeah, so not only are we talking about simple, mono-cellular shower drain gunk that may, or may not live on one of these exoplanets, the mathematical likelihood of us ever beaming down to take a disappointing sensor reading is exactly centaur according to astrophysicists. Which, I suppose we kind of knew, but still...

To be clear, this novelist is not
responsible for the untraversable
distances between stars. 

So back to the dream crushing, last week I read this article on sci-fi/sci-not-fi nerd site, io9. It was was about how if we're ever going to travel to an exosolar planet, we're going to have use cryonic tubes or download our minds into robots because space is just too damn big and warp drive is impossible. Shortly after reading this I ran into the author, the aforementioned Charlie Jane Anders, and got to nerd out with her for a few minutes about her article and geekery. She was delightful and gave me a t-shirt and I forgave her for crushing my hopes for an FTL drive.

"Existence is random and meaningless
and there's no afterlife. You're welcome."

-Science

But the fact remains that science loves to tell us how impossible this is while at the same time teasing us with exoplanets and the potentiality of a universe filled with life. Like, behold this thing on BBC about how light speed is the fastest anything can possibly go and we'll never build anything that can go that fast because science is a cold, open handed slap of math. There wasn't a new study or discovery or anything, the BBC just wanted to remind us that space travel is a preposterous fantasy. Which, ok science isn't there to make us feel good, it's there to be science, no matter how much of a bummer that can be sometimes.

But if it helps things are often impossible until they're not. That's the indomitable American sprit of optimism, right? We cling to hope even when things look grim, like mathematically grim, sticking with it until the bitter, contested end no matter how bad it looks or ultimately how damaging a prolonged-huh? No, I'm just talking about astrophysics...

Above: an unrelated photo of Bernie Sanders here for no reason.

*Yes, there is one thing Belgium isn't awesome at, World War II. They were like France's broken screen door, but still, thanks for the waffles.

Bryan Fuller: Crusher of Dreams

Hey, lookit this. Star Trek is moving to Toronto. Which is in Canada. Eastern Canada. I'll give you a moment to let that sink in.

"Hullo there. We're the Borg. We'd like to assimilate you if that's all right. Resistance is just fine too,
you know, if you'd rather not join the collective, we certainly don't want to pressure you one way or the other. "

That's why the Stargate always led to
overcast planets full of people who
say aboot and pro-cess. 

If this information made you just shrug and say 'so?' congratulations, you're probably a healthy, well-rounded individual. If you're like me however, you slapped an open palm to your forehead and uttered a high-pitched 'what the what?' It's not that I have any particular problem with Canada. In fact, as I mention frequently and often for no reason at all, I myself am a quarter Canadian. Also, a lot of sci-fi gets filmed in Canada. Battlestar Galactica, the X-Files, Stargate SG-1 and all nine spin-offs were done in Vancouver.

I guess when you're Bryan Fuller, and have
 an excellent jacket, Star Trek comes to you.

How come? Tax breaks usually. Making any tv show has got to be expensive, but when you add in futuristic sets, lycra unitards, lumpy forehead appliances and fancy digital effects any city willing to offer you a free parking pass immediately shoots to the top of your where-to-film list. Also, Bryan Fuller, the new series' show-runner (one who runs the show? I don't know), was already up in Toronto doing Hannibal and now he's starting on an adaptation of American Gods there and besides L.A.'s kind of a schlep, you know?

Above: An artist's render-what?
They can draw the abs on digitally.

Anyway my beef with all this Canadian chicanery is that-huh? Yeah, I actually have a beef with all this, but don't worry, it's irrational, I'm sure the show's going to be great. Like I was saying, my beef is that Star Trek is coming back to television (ok, streaming) and they're filming just a couple of hours from my hometown in upstate New York. My hometown where I no longer live. I moved 3,000 miles away to California, where the likelihood of someone from Star Trek's casting department approaching me on the street and bringing me in to play Th'rah'ssk'Kdhke'll, the heroic Andorian Starfleet captain who doesn't play by the rules but gets results damnit, just went from mathematically insignificant, to statistically delusional. 

Oh didn't I mention? In addition to being a prolific uh...blog-ist? Blog-person...I'm also an actor. You probably won't remember my breakout role as Gotham citizen # 18 in the The Dark Knight Rises because my scene was cut. Preemptively. At the extra's cattle call audition. The role just probably wasn't right for me. The good news is I'm available, so if anyone knows Bryan Fuller or is in a position to kidnap his house pets, give me a ring.    

I would have been somewhere in the background...you know, looking intense,
but it's fine. You don't want to overshadow the story or anything...it's fine.