Premature Yub Nub!

Yup, nothing but smooth sailing for
the rest of the 20th century!

Hey everybody, today is Veteran's Day! Or Remembrance Day if you're British. Or Armistice Day if you're like a hundred and twenty. Today November 11th is about remembering veterans in general, but it started out as a day to mark the end of World War I. You know, the guns fell silent on the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month? Oh and the treaty was signed by eleven world leaders using eleven pens and then they all went out after and had eleven drinks. Anyway, in addition to remembering veterans, it's also a day to remember one of our stupidest conflicts.

Look, I'm not trying to disparage the people who fought and sacrificed in WWI, and all conflicts are pretty goddamned stupid when you get down to it, but holy shit. One dead Archduke and four years later eighteen million people are dead, Europe is a trench-ridden wasteland and one frustrated art student is gearing up for the sequel.

"C'mon men! Let's uh, avenge the Archduke? Win one for the Gipper?
Remember the Alamo? Wait, what the hell is this about anyway?"

It turns out baby Hitler was a more
formidable foe than Bush had anticipated.

You'd think we'd have learned some kind of lesson from the senseless slaughter but instead we went balls-to-the-wall crazy over the Lindy and flappers for a few years, suffered a global economic collapse and then spent the next decade slowly descending into an even bigger shit show all because a time-traveling Jeb Bush from the future couldn't carry out a simple mission and murder baby Hitler. Slow clap, Jeb, slow clap. Then we had the Korean War, the Cold War, Vietnam, the War on Drugs, the Gulf War, The Star Wars prequels, the vaguely defined War on Terror, Gulf War 2: Electric Boogaloo and ISIS. And it's not just wars between countries, we as a species have a serious aggression problem. In some states you can just up and shoot someone as long as you shout 'standing my ground!'

Hey maybe that's why we changed the name of this holiday. Armistice Day sort of suggests a state of peace, but in many ways we're like the Ewoks at the end of Return of the Jedi. Sure we're dancing around, playing bongos with the severed heads of Stormtroopers and celebrating the end of the Star Wars, but peace is boring and it's only a matter of time before the First Order or whatever swoops in and starts fucking things up in Episode VII.

The Ewok village about ten minutes before a squad of vengeance-crazed
Tie-Fighter pilots make their strafing run. Hurray for sequels!

T'isn't the season!

Not yet anyway. I mean, it's still early November and most people haven't taken down the charred remains of their Guy Fawkes Night effigies, so why are people already foaming at the mouth over Christmas decorations?

Pictured: British people preparing to burn would-be-assassin Guy Fawkes
in effigy. Because after four hundred years on, they know how to hold a grudge.

He's just asking that Starbucks
bludgeon customers with his religious
beliefs. Is that so unreasonable?

Here, click on this. It's a video from a guy called Joshua Feuerstein, who's upset that the holiday-themed coffee cups are just red and green instead of something more Christmas specific:

"You know in the age of political correctness, I think we've become so open minded that our brains have literally, do you re-lize that Starbucks wanted to take Christ and Christmas off of their brand new cups? That's why they're just plain red. In fact did you realize that Starbucks isn't allowed to say 'Merry Christmas' to customers?"

-Joshua Feuerstein, angry about-wait, 

when was Jesus ever on the to-go mug?

"Fine, you got me, 'Merry Christmas.'
Whatever. This isn't like my life or anything."

To combat the erosion of all basic human kindness symbolized by a coffee chain not reenforcing his worldview with every latte, he's oh-so cleverly taken to giving his name as 'Merry Christmas' so baristas are forced to hand him a steaming cup full of reason for the season. His hope is that you too will dupe the staff into wishing you a Merry Birth of our God/Savior Jesus in defiance of company policy and then take a selfie. Oh yes, it's a movement. Like, it's going viral or something. So slow cap Joshua Feuerstein, slow clap. I guess he's really put those secular humanists in their place.

Also enraging people is this mall's Santa. Well, ok, not the Santa himself, but rather the stark white 1960's ultra-mod living room he's for some reason living in.

This year all the children are getting the same thing:
a grim reminder of climate change and the impending
famines and water wars that will soon be upon us.

Originally Santa would visit children,
offer them a blind taste test and whip the
kids who chose Pepsi. Merry Christmas!

(source: history)

The mall's management was trying not to offend anyone with anything too Jesus-y, so they nixed Santa's workshop in favor of the set from Space: 1999, which I think can generously be called a misstep. I applaud the attempt to be more inclusive of families who don't celebrate Christmas or maybe aren't into the religious aspect, but does anyone really get offended by Santa? Is he really that religious? He was invented as a 1930's Coke ad (the soda, not like coccaine), so unless you have some serious religious convictions about soft drinks I'm not sure there's a whole lot to object to. 

Obviously there was a backlash against Santa's Fortress of Solitude, because 'tis the season for moral outrage. Campaigns on Twitter, Facebook and a petition on Change.org with, I shit you not, 16,000 signatures have prompted the mall to add Christmas trees and this seems to have made everybody happy, or at least diminished the holiday rage that burns in the hearts of Christians like a hell-fire of righteous fury and really, isn't that what Christmas is all about?

"What Christmas is all about? Oh for crying out loud, look, I don't
know. I mean it's like November. Why are we even on this already?"

-Jesus, pretty goddamn sick of this

Today in willful ignorance...

How will we choose? I don't know, maybe
a lottery or whoever can eat the most ribs?

So were you living every day secure in the assumption that presidential politics have gotten as stupid as they were ever going to get? Like somehow between Rand 'Liberty Never Sleeps' Paul and Jim Webb's near-aneurism during the Democratic debates that we, as a nation, should have just taken the hint and appointed a king or something. Well then you were a fool. We were all fools. It can always, always get more stupider. Now we are arguing about the pyramids.

sigh...It's an alien space portal that leads
to distant worlds populated by Canadians.

The Egyptian goddamned pyramids which GOP presidential hopeful Dr. Ben Carson thinks were for storing grain because of the Bible and the middle ages. Yeah, I know, stay with me. According to this, there's some Old Testament story about the Egyptians storing grain during a famine. Europeans in the middle ages figured they must have been using the pyramids as granaries because that's all they, like an alarming number of us, knew about Egypt. That and Stargate. What an idiot, right?

I'm also not an egyptologist, but I do play
a lot of Civ IV and if it's taught me anything it's
that it's usually just easier to build a granary

Well yes, but I don't want to jump on the 'let's all jump on Ben Carson for the pyramid thing' thing. While he sticks by this ridiculous, medieval theory in the face of the entire field of professional egyptology, he did say it like 17 years ago and an understanding of ancient burial structures is not necessarily a prerequisite for being president. Neither is being a homophobic blowhard who compares abortion to slavery, but hey, one thing at a time. Anyway, I mentioned that things could always get stupider and I wasn't kidding.

Pictured: actual egyptologists.
They've got the hats and everything.

Donald Trump is joining the debate and bringing his decades of real-estate mogul-ing and all the archeological credibility that comes with it:

"Well, I think it's a ridiculous situation. I mean, he's talking about the pyramids were made for grain. And if you look at the pyramids, they're solid I mean you know there's-they're solid other than...the pyramids were not..."

-Donald Trump noted

non-archologosist

Wanna see for yourself? Here, it's around the 12:55 mark. Yup, that's a reality show host giving a neurosurgeon shit about the construction and purpose of the ancient Egyptian Pyramids. Our political system is now officially broken forever.

Remember when Ben Carson didn't call Trump out on the vaccine thing?
Even when Jake Tapper teed it up for him? Way to return the favor dick...

"Pfft...that's easy. Doric, Ionian and
Corinthian. Next question Roberts..."

Ok, of course the pyramids aren't solid and maybe before he trailed off on a screed against immigrants or Obamacare or something Trump was going to mention the tomb chambers, internal ramps used during construction and that room they sealed Joan Collins up in. Fine, but why are we talking about the pyramids in the first place? It's great that egyptology has been in the headlines for a few days, but it's not, by itself, really relevant to the campaign. Unless we instituted some kind of inaugural ancient architecture quiz as part of the oath of office, which I'm all for.

Anyway, what is totally relevant is the willful ignorance. Why doesn't Dr. Carson do a Google search on pyramid interiors or look them up on Wikipedia or something? There's like five or six documentaries on Netflix right now about the pyramids and not one of them takes the grain thing seriously and now he's even got Donald 'vaccines cause autism' Trump making fun of him. You'd think he'd be better at picking his battles...

When Brendan Fraser movies know more than you
about a subject, it's probably good advice to shut up about it.

Slow clap Houston, slow clap...

"Booo...diverstiy, boooo..."

-Houston

Houston? More like Boo-ston. You know, like I'm boo-ing them. It's not like a Halloween thing, look just forget it, it was a terrible-anyway, yesterday Houstonians-I guess-voted against the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance or HERO. Yes, against equal rights. The ordinance would have established anti-discrimination protections for the LGBT community as well as strengthening protections against discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, you know, all the things jerks like to discriminate on the basis of. So what's the problem? How could Houstonininians vote against equal rights? Do they just hate diversity?

Of course not, so the only other explanation must be some horseshit scare tactics rolled out by conservative groups with persecution complexes. But what could possibly frighten Houstonites out of an equal rights ordinance? Oh right...bathrooms. Goddamn bathrooms.

Pictured: This asshole. Am I right?

"I told you Yahweh takes gender-
based bathroom assignments seriously!"

Yup. They made up some poppycock about how letting transgendered people use the correct bathrooms was basically the first step to Houston being destroyed in a blaze of divine wrath. Here, watch this ad from the hilariously alliterative Faith Family Freedom Fund. Classy, right? Huh? You didn't watch it? Fine, the ad is a shot of money being flushed down the toilet while the narrator implies that voting yes on HERO would lead to the brutal curtailment of everybody's right to worship and discriminate freely: ''If proposition 1 passes, you could be fined up to five thousand dollars for declining to participate in a same-sex wedding or simply objecting...to a man using a women's bathroom.' Holy shit...

"Dearly beloved, we are legally compelled
to gather here today by city ordinance..."

There is, as you can imagine, a lot wrong with this. Like tons. First of all, the disembodied voice of reason in the ad says 'you could be fined for declining to participate in a same-sex wedding' implying that if some random gay couple invites you to their wedding, you will be legally required to find out where they're registered or face heavy fines. This is omega-level bullshit. Business who refuse service to gay couples on the basis of just not liking gay people would face the fine. You can still check the 'will not attend' box if you want to. This is the gay wedding cake thing all over again.

Holy shit, is this like a thing in Houston?

And of course you won't be fined for 'simply objecting to a man using a women's bathroom.' You would be fined if you run a business and you refuse, like physically block a transgender person from using the correct restroom. Your small business owner's license does not actually empower you to determine a person's legal sexual identity. So yeah, the Houstonese just threw out a law which would have protected not only the LGBT community but also religious minorities and women from discrimination because they're afraid that it would lead to straight men pretending to be transgender so they can watch women pee.

And ok, yeah, men who fake gender dysphoria so they can sneak into the women's restroom for sexual gratification would be a horrible thing if it actually happened, but it doesn't. It's paranoid fear-mongering and yesterday's vote sucked. I mean, is our weird bathroom baggage more important than the right to be treated like people? And speaking of, is it me or is it kind of screwed that we put so much emphasis on our bathroom assignments? Seriously, we all need to calm down...

"Just checking. My religion requires that I only excrete
waste in the presence of other biological males."

Today in it's about goddamn time...

Buckle your nerd belts kids, because the EPS conduit behind your console is about to explode in shower of sparks and awesome: there's going to be a new Star Trek show.

Above: Ensign Monroe about to get a face full
of awesome...also, super-heated plasma. 

Pictured: Spock nerve pinching Khan atop
a flying garbage truck in Into Darkness.
Not Pictured: cohesive story-telling.

The gesture you're looking for is 'fist pump.' After more than a decade with only J. J. Abrams's big dumb action movies to sate our Trekkish appetite, there's finally going to be new Star Trek. Awesome right? Yes, mostly. Although I should probably also warn you that it's going to be co-produced by Alex Kurtzman, one of the writers of the aforementioned big dumb action movies. There, I said it. Most of the Star Trek movies were dumb. Entertaining, but dumb. I have high hopes for the new series though. Star Trek just works better on TV.

Above: Picard discovers what it must be like
trying to communicate with Star Trek fans.

Remember that TNG episode where Captain Picard is trapped on a planet with this alien who speaks only in obscure cultural references? And then the crew has to figure out the alien's language before their he and the Captain get mauled to death by TV-budget Predator? No? Go watch it. TNG, season 5, Darmok. I'll wait...back? There're barely any explosions and not a single fist fight on top of a flying garbage truck. Instead, it's 48 minutes of taut, anthro-linguistic action. Good TV, sure, but it would never work in a movie. That's why First Contact ends with Jean-Luc punching the Borg queen.

You see the Jem'hadar are-you know what?
I'll spare you the explanation. Just know
that it's an apt analogy and move on.

The new series is set to premier in January of 2017 and we know pretty much nothing about it. Re-boot universe, Prime universe, prequel, sequel, who knows? We do know that it's going to be online only. In order to see it you'll have to subscribe to CBS's subscription-based streaming service. For $5.99 a month you'll get not only the new Star Trek but also CBS's excellent line up of-sorry, I can't make it through that with a straight face. What do they have? Survivor? NCIS? I mean, I'll sign up for it. I won't feel good about it, but I'll do it. I'm like a Jem'Hadar and this is my ketracel white.

Anyway, January of 2017 sounds far off, but really it's only fourteen months away. Just fourteen months to move to LA and convince CBS that I'd be perfect for the role of Th'rah'ssk'Kdhke'll, the spunky young Andorian Starfleet Captain who leads the crew of the Enterprise-H into thrilling new adventures...and also enjoys tennis, I guess...

Here's an artist's rendering of the role I was born to play.
Incidentally, the internet is full of some seriously weird shit.

Reagan-locked

So here's a question: why can't I watch the GOP debate? Like, I'm not saying that I think anyone's going to have anything interesting to say, but sometimes it's fun to watch them claw each other's eyes out over who's the most Reaganesque.

I guess if I had to pick, the Reaganiest one would be...wait,
does that banner read "YOUR MONEY YOUR VOTE?" Seriously?

Set up an account? Why not? What's
another user name and password?

But when I try to stream the debate, the site asks me to verify my cable provider and the account isn't in my name and, well, you don't care. The point is that in order to watch, you kind of have to jump through some hoops. Hoops I'm unwilling to jump through. I don't want to be one of those smug jerks bragging about how I don't watch television, but I don't. Not technically. I watch tons of streaming things, but the television is for Xbox, not sitting through commercials and paying for three hundred channels I don't care about. Cable can suck it.

The upshot here is that instead of watching the debate tonight and then posting about how ridiculous they all sounded not believing in dinosaurs and moaning about Obamacare, I'll uh, not watch. And that's fine. I don't need to actually watch the debate to make fun of it.

Tonight in safe bets...Carson will say something anti-scientific, Trump will
say something misogynistic and then they'll all have a big laugh about Benghazi.

Above: The other half. What? It's the
GOP debate, who do you think's watching?

Look, I don't want to tell the GOP how to run their debates...wait, that's not true, I'd love to tell them how to run their debate, but they probably wouldn't listen to me. I guess the thing is that this is essentially a three-hour commercial for their candidates, and it seems like if you wanted people to watch you'd make it less of a gigantic pain in the ass. Unless of course they don't really care if we can watch it, which, I can understand. I mean, half the viewership is probably people like me who are only watching to see who spouts the most bullshit so they can go make fun of them on their blog.

Anyway, I did discover something while looking for photos to caption for this post. Did you know that if you do an image search for 'GOP debate' you get this:

Look close, upper right... 

...there it is. You got zinged GOP. Zinged by Google...

Today in things that are slowly killing us...

Bacon. Yes, goddamn bacon. The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (or IARC, if you're in a hurry) announced that red and processed meats cause colorectal, a.k.a. bowel cancer. As in cancer of the bowels.

Oh don't look so shocked, you had to know you
wouldn't come back from something like this.

Bacon is ranked as the #1 cause of
death among hipsters (source: science) 

They didn't say 'might' cause cancer or 'could possibly be a contributing factor' to cancer but instead in an unusually profanity laden statement said:

'Hey if you don't cut down on that greasy, carcinogenic smoked pig fat you've all been shoveling into your food-face, you will fucking die you stupid hipster schmuck.'

-The WHO

(direct quote)

"Mo'meat, mo'problems."

-Another direct quote
from Dr. Straif

Well, ok, to put the IARC's warning into numbers, 50 grams of processed meat per day increases the risk of bowel cancer by 18%. That's eighteen percent. Holy shit, right? In fact, the WHO is putting processed meat up there with asbestos, tobacco, diesel fumes and plutonium. Plutonium, as in the transuranic radioactive element we use for nuclear bombs and time machine fuel.

"For an individual, the risk of developing [bowel] cancer because of their consumption of processed meats remains small, but the rest increases with the amount of meat consumed."

-Dr. Kurt Straif from the IARC
not making us feel any better 

"Lunchables makes lunchtime fun! 
Until the test results come back..."

Wait, what? The risk 'remains small'? So it's just a small risk of bowel cancer? Ok, so eating processed meat every day doesn't actually give you an 18% greater chance of colostomy bags and an early, agonizing horror show of a death. It just raises your statical likelihood of developing bowel cancer from 5% to 6% which, through math, works out to be like an 18% increase. Since 18% is a way the hell scarier number, news sites go with panic and overreaction.* And I'm kind of ok with a little panic and overreaction. I just don't love cold cuts that much.

Did they really think they could say 'bowel cancer' and we wouldn't freak out about it? Like you can't just compare something people take for granted with smoking and the fires of a nuclear armageddon and then say 'but a little's probably ok.'

If bacon came with an 18% risk of venomous
snakes wouldn't we all kind of take pause?

*Correction! Yup, originally I used the 18% figure from the Huffington Post article because it was terrifying and therefore funnier, but then I was contacted by a scientist, an actual scientist who knows stuff and he explained why that number is kind of bullshit. Onward Stranger Fiction, now with 87% more science! (source: accurate science)