I don't know which I detest more... Kool-Aid Drinking Conservatives or Kool-Aid Drinking Liberals. At least with Kool-Aid Drinking Conservatives they can usually point to That One Thing which makes them a Kool-Aid Drinking Conservative. Let's pick abortion as an example. They are against abortion, everything else is secondary, so they live and die for their Republican candidates and the GOP no matter how big of a stupid Republican asshole ends up in office. Mitch McConnell has built his entire existence as a career politician relying on exactly this kind of idiocy. He can literally do no wrong and get away with as much hypocritical fucked up bullshit as he wants because his base will support him and believe him no matter what he does or how obviously he lies.

Whether it's abortion, guns, lower taxes, or the right of Christians to persecute people they don't like, Conservatives know exactly which hot-button issues sends them to the voting booth over and over again. And that's regardless of all the other issues Conservatives saddle them with that are against their best interest. There's always That One Thing which keeps them loyal. "Sure I can't afford health care, the water is poisoned, and I have to work three jobs just to scrape out a living, but at least my local hospital can refuse to treat queers!"

That's fucked up, but I can kinda respect it. I feel the same way about Daylight Saving Time. I fucking hate it, it's fucking stupid, and I am so fucking sick of it that I often joke about voting for whichever candidate promises to get rid of it forever. Asshole politicians come and go, but dicking with the clocks twice a year is (apparently) forever.

But it's not the same for Kool-Aid Drinking Liberals, is it?

Some of them have That One Thing... like a woman's right to choose, perhaps. But most of the liberals I know can't boil it down like that. They can't point to a single issue and say "THAT'S WHY I'M A BLEEDING HEART LIBERAL!" Their reasoning is usually far more complex and esoteric. Ask them and you'll end up with something like "I'm a liberal because I believe in human rights and equality!"... and then they will yammer on for hours to rationalize their blind devotion to the DNC. And I get it. Honestly I do. I usually vote for Democrats now-a-days because even though they are bought and paid for by lobbyists just like Republicans, at least I know that social issues which favor regular people over billion dollar corporations and favor oppressed minorities over religious persecution will (hopefully) be addressed.

I feel you on all of that.

But it's still horribly frustrating for me to understand drinking the DNC Kool-Aid and believing that Democratic politicians are above reproach and can do no wrong.

Take for example, Senior Senator Patty Murray from my home state of Washington.

Public domain photo provided by the United States Congress

I fucking despise her.

Well, I should clarify... I despise all politicians, but I really despise Senator Patty Murray.

I've disagreed with her on several matters. But my true loathing started after she voted against affordable drug re-importation from Canada. She offered up all kinds of fucking bullshit to excuse her stance... like questioning the "safety" of allowing drugs coming from Canada... but it was all crap. I mean, where are all the news stories of Canadians dying by the thousands due to bad drugs? You won't find them. What you will find is hundreds of stories of thousands of Americans who can't afford critical drugs and have to go without, damaging their health and ending their lives. No, the real reason that Patty Murray voted against drug re-importation was because she takes piles of money from Big Pharma and has a vested interest in protecting their profits.

Just like all the other politicians, Senator Murray has her price, and is willing to sell out herself and the State of Washington to anybody who will pay it.

And Democrats don't fucking care.

I've heard all the excuses, but this is my favorite: "She's a senior politicians with lots of power in the Senate! We can't lose Patty Murray because then Washington State will lose the power that we get from having her entrenched in office! We need her fighting for us!" To which I can only respond "What good is all that power if she uses it against us from time to time? Shouldn't we vote in a politician who won't sell us out for lobbyist cash?" But then Democrats just take another sip of the Kool-Aid and smile. They don't care. "Vote Blue No Matter Who isn't just a catchy slogan, it's a way of life. But why can't it be a different blue than Patty Murray?

And that brings us to good ol' Mitch McConnell and his love of taking a shit on The Constitution. Yesterday the US Senate voted to allow the feds to grab your online history with NO WARRANT and NO DUE PROCESS. They can essentially spy on you online with absolutely no oversight whatsoever.

Now, don't get me wrong here... I fully support our government agencies doing what they can to fight terrorism and keep us safe. And they should absolutely be given the tools to do that. No question there at all. But to have such sweeping power without oversight? To be able to intrude on our personal lives without cause or due process? Who the fuck supports that? Who the fuck thinks this is enforcing our right to privacy and freedom?

Senators Ron Wyden (Democrat, Oregon) and Steve Daines (Republican, Montana) asked this same question and came up with the same answer I did. We absolutely don't support warrantless intrusions on American citizen lives. And they drafted an amendment to prevent it from happening. 59 out of 100 senators agreed with them and voted to support it. But because you need a 60 vote majority to pass anything, the legislation failed.

Four senators... Patty Murray (Democrat, Washington), Bernie Sanders (Democrat, Vermont), Lamar Alexander (Republican, Tennessee), and Ben Sasse (Republican, Nebraska) didn't bother to vote. Had Patty Murray showed up to do her fucking job... the job we fucking pay her to do... the amendment would have passed.

Or maybe it wouldn't. Maybe the behind-the-scenes manipulations that go on in American politics would have still set up the amendment to fail because secretly all our senators want it to fail. And all of this bullshit is just a dog and pony show that endangered politicians can point to when they run for reelection. Who can say? All I know is that worthless piece of shit Senator Patty Murray who represents me didn't bother to go on record saying that invasions of our privacy should have oversight and warrantless invasions of American lives should not stand.

Which is why the cynic in me is thinking "God only knows what skeletons the FBI dug out of Patty Murray's closet to make her sit out the vote like this."

As you might have guessed, I am fucking livid.

Because as more and more of our lives is digitized and put online, we lose more and more control over what we choose to share of ourselves. Now the feds can LEGALLY perform a search WITHOUT a warrant and WITHOUT due process. They can break into your life on a whim whether you have done anything wrong or not. Your right to online privacy is gone. So what’s next? Senator Patty Murray sits out on a vote for legislation which says we can be dragged off to prison without cause as well?

Fuck that and fuck her.

We need to find somebody new to represent us who is serious about serving the people of Washington and supporting the legislation which preserves our right to privacy. Find somebody who will actually show up to vote on legislation which affects our lives. Find somebody who will actually do their job. That "somebody" sure as hell is not Patty Murray, so let's get her out of office and find somebody new who will show up for us. President Trump is constantly railing against "Do-Nothing Democrats," which is a laughable and provable lie (most of the stuff Democrats are trying to do gets blocked by Mitch McConnell, natch) but it turns out sometimes it's true. And we deserve better.

As I close out this rant on the horrors which pile on the "new normal" for American citizens, I'd like to leave you with this clip from the film The Pelican Brief (copyright Warner Bros. Pictures)... assuming it hasn't been taken down for copyright infringement...

Julia Roberts is right. They are wrong.

UPDATE: The Patriot Act reauthorization bill passed the Senate today in an 80-16 vote. Senator Patty Murray voted "no," but fat good that does us when she fucking knew it was going to pass. And that's awful. But it could have passed with an amendment to prevent warrantless invasion of privacy when it comes to our online lives. Whether this is due to Patty Murray's incompetence or indifference is anybody's guess. All she gives a shit about is that she can point to the Patriot Act and say "I opposed that!" when it's time for her to be reelected. And, while technically true, it's actually a lie. But what else do you expect from a politician?

Life in isolation may be better than no life, but your life is about to get measurably better... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Dough! I finally broke down and baked a couple loaves of my beloved SourJo bread. It was too hard going without, so I used the last of the flour I had been saving and went for it. The result was as delicous as it was beautiful...

I have decided to slice and freeze the pan-loaf so I can thaw it out as toast when I need a bread fix. The round loaf, however? That I'll be eating in copious chunks with butter and jam! I sure hope that flour, sugar, and yeast come back to grocery store shelves sometime soon.

   
• Various Corn! Oh look... John Oliver is back to drop some truth on the outrageous levels of stupid shit that have been plaguing us as of late...

The Below Deck: Sailing Yacht drop-in was particularly wonderful for those of us who are fans of the show.

   
• Terms of Agreement! HOLLYWOODREPORTER.COM: COURT RULES PHOTOGRAPHER GAVE UP EXCLUSIVE LICENSING RIGHTS BY POSTING ON INSTAGRAM. This is categorically absurd. A feature of Instagram is that people can embed and share what you post. Mashable wanted to use the image without embedding the Instagram framing. They offered money. The artist refused the amount of money. So Mashable just used the Instagram framing as it was DESIGNED TO BE USED!! If you don’t want people using your work in ways that social media was designed to be used... THEN DON’T FUCKING POST IT TO SOCIAL MEDIA! Especially a site like Instagram where you have to agree to their terms specifically allowing this kind of thing when you sign up for an account. Put your work on a PRIVATE SITE and EXPLICITLY STATE the terms of use (or lack of use) where you are sharing it. This is not rocket science. Nobody should be shocked or surprised as to what can happen when you post your work to social media. THIS IS WHY THEY CALL IT "SOCIAL MEDIA!"

   
• Sucks So Good! One of my favorite movies of all time is What We Do In The Shadows. It's hilariously funny in all the right ways. It spawned a television serious on FX that was every bit as well-done and hysterical. And now they've started their second season...

I was late to the television series (I didn't know it even existed), but now I'm crazy for it. I pre-ordered the entire season at iTunes because I just know that I will be watching them over and over again. Highest possible recommendation.

   
• Moo! Cows are truly some of the most gentle and beautiful animals. Part of why I can’t bring myself to eat them...

THAT is one content kitty right there!

   
• Color! This is probably the coolest thing I've seen all year. A series of RGB colorspace books which depict every color imaginable...

Image attributed to Brittany Schall

Photo by Vegard Kleven

You can read about the RGB Colorspace Atlas over at Colossal. You can see the work over at artist Tauba Auerbach's site.

   
• 'MURICA! And let's wrap this up with a shut-out to the brave nurses confronting IGNORANT STUPID FUCKING ASSHOLES protesting lockdown BY BARRICADING STREETS DURING A PANDEMIC WHEN AMBULANCES MAY NEED TO GET THROUGH...

Two nurses, who have witnessed first hand the toll Covid is taking in Colorado, stood up and peacefully counter protested. Here is how they were treated. I had join them.pic.twitter.com/iJnNcqZxSv

— Marc Zenn (@MarcZenn) April 19, 2020

I am so fucking sick and tired of this idiotic trash that I want to vomit. You can read about it here.

   
And that's all she wrote for bullets this Sunday.

Things seem grim indeed, but hang in there... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Wellington! I love penguins. In case you haven't seen it, The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago is letting them run around the place since there's no people showing up to entertain them. It's all kinds of adorable...

It's frightening to think of how zoos, aquariums, and nature parks are going to be able to continue to afford to feed the animals in their care if the outbreak goes on for an extended period of time.

   
• Bulbs! One of my favorite places in Europe... The Keukenhof in the Netherlands... is apparently not going to open on time this season due to the cornavirus outbreak. Lucky for all of us, they are giving a virtual tour of their amazing gardens...

A video is nothing like visiting in person, but better than nothing. Hopefully the quarantine will end soon so they can open for at least part of the season. Their opening season is so short any way, and all those bulbs are incredibly expensive to maintain. UPDATE: The Keukenhof has announced that they will not open at all this year due to the Netherlands having their safety measures extended until June 1. This is a terribly sad thing to have happen.

   
• Tumbling' Tumbleweeds! Leave it to CGP Grey to come up with a fascinating video over the most unlikely of subjects...

If you haven't gone down the CGP Grey rabbit hole yet and are looking for entertainment as you socially distance yourself... his entire channel is amazing.

   
• This Virus is Unforgiving. Dr. Emily Landon, chief infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Chicago Medicine, drops a hard does of reality on recent events...

We are in some serious shit. Taking things seriously is the only way we can get through it. The longer people stop taking steps to isolate themselves and stop the spread of COVID-19, the longer this is going to drag on.

   
• No Wipes! Good Lord. THINK, EVERYBODY: People Are Using Alternatives To Toilet Paper, And It Could End Up Clogging Sewage Pipes All Over.

   
• Wash & Sing! Everybody is sharing the songs they sing to make sure they are washing their hands for a fully twenty seconds. Here's mine... One One Thousand, Two One Thousand, Three One Thousand, Four One Thousand, Five One Thousand, Six One Thousand, Seven One Thousand, Eight One Thousand, Nine One Thousand, Ten One Thousand, Eleven One Thousand, Twelve One Thousand, Thirteen One Thousand, Fourteen One Thousand, Fifteen One Thousand, Sixteen One Thousand, Seventeen One Thousand, Eighteen One Thousand, Nineteen One Thousand, Twenty One Thousand. — You're welcome!

   
• Nasty! I hate to end this Sunday on a sour note, but it cannot be helped. You've probably seen this video popping up several times already. I honestly don't care. This should be shared until you're seeing it from every last person you know. This is not a partisan attack. This is a clear demonstration of a president who is a horrendous leader in general... and an even more horrendous leader in a time of crisis. Any normal, sane human being would have used this as an opportunity to reassure the American people that our government is doing everything possible to keep us safe and address the unfathomable events that are unfolding. Instead we get a 2-year-old in poopy diapers going completely unhinged at a valid question that deserves to be answered with compassion and understanding. We've gone way past our president being a disgrace to his office and this nation... he's an abomination to all humanity...

Un-fucking-believable. What Americans want is somebody who acts like they're in charge of the situation and getting things done to get us through this. Not a piece of shit who can't even answer a softball question that any normal president would have welcomed as an opportunity to allay fears and inspire confidence...

May God have mercy on us all.

   
And that's all I can stomach for tonight.

Today I got some rather bad news. A project I had been working hard to complete was outright canceled. But then, after giving it some thought, I decided it was actually good news. Sure it means I had been wasting my time these past three nights, but it also means I don't have to worry about it tonight or stress over tomorrow's deadline! Woo hoo!

In other news... it was announced that Vice President Pence was put in charge of the country's coronavirus response.

At first I was all "Well that's nice. It's terriffic that he has something to do with his time." But then I was like "Wait a second... isn't this the same Vice President Dumbass who said condoms don't work and smoking doesn't kill you? Holy shit!" And, sure enough, heeeeeere's Mikey!

The anti-science assholes running this country make me crazy.

But what doesn't now-a-days?

A busy, busy week for me has ended but I'm just getting started, because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Monster. I have been toning down the politics on Blogography because it's just so pointless. Unless you are living under a rock, you already know the horrific shit our president is doing, so there's really no need to repeat it here. But lately it's gotten so bad that my disbelief has escalated to a level I didn't even know I had in me. Fortunately John Oliver was back tonight to put one of the most tragically awful events into perspective...

Holy shit.

There really is no bottom. President Trump lives in a fantasy world where everything he does is perfect and everybody loves him for it. Somebody this detached from reality has no business running the country, and I hope that people are really, really scared about what damage could come next.

   
• Idiocity. And speaking of damage, I saw this headline on The Verge yesterday: Donald Trump wants the iPhone home button back. OH FUCK NO! With all due respect Mr. President, go back to using a flip-phone and leave technology advancements to those of us who know how to form complete sentences which people can actually make sense of.

   
• Good. When I was at Uluru (which the colonizers dubbed "Ayer's Rock") in Australia, there was a sign saying that it was a sacred place to the people who own it and they ask you not to climb it... despite there being a chain path to climb it. So I didn't climb it. There were also signs posted at a few points around Uluru asking you not to photograph it at that point because something sacred to people happened there. So I didn't photograph it there. I don't understand why it's so difficult to follow the wishes of the people whose land you are visiting. You're their guests, and should be grateful that they allow you to visit their home at all. I know I sure was...

By banning people from climbing on it after the month is over, Australia is righting a great wrong. I hope people respect the new ban on climbing Uluru and adhere to the Anangu People's request. It literally is the least people can do.

   
• Kangaroo Cats. I ran across an interesting Facebook post this week which was talking about the "primordial pouch" which appears on some cats. I think it’s genetic. Jake and Jenny both have big pouches. When they run, the skin flops back and forth... it’s kinda hilarious, but doesn't seem to bother them at all. For the longest time I just assumed they were mutants. But apparently that's not the case...

Interesting stuff, that evolution!

   
• Rhinos! Will of Burrard-Lucas Photography is the reason I selected the Antarctica tour that I did. His wildlife photography is the most inspiring and beautiful I've ever seen, and getting a behind the scenes look at how he does what he does is about the coolest thing you'll see on YouTube this week...

Thanks to his BeetleCam invention, nobody does wildlife photos like Will Burrard-Lucas. He amazes me with each new book he publishes.

   
• Pepper. You really do learn something new all the time. My homemade pizza sauce recipe calls for green peppers. I don't normally eat them because I prefer the sweeter red peppers, but the recipe tastes so good that I do what is called for. On Tuesday I came home from work and was already too tired to cook... but then realized that I actually needed to clean my kitchen before I could cook. Double the horror. It's while cleaning that I notice something strange... WHAT HAPPENED TO MY GREEN PEPPER?!?

It's then that my Facebook friends had to inform me that green peppers aren't ripe and, like tomatoes, they will turn from green to orange to red as they ripen. I honestly had no idea. Until Tuesday, I truly thought that they were all different species of peppers.

   
• Hallmark Moment. As you can imagine, I am in full-on Hallmark Movie Mode now that their 10th Annual Countdown to Christmas is in effect. I almost never watch live, choosing instead to DVR the movies so I can jet past commercials. But the new movies for 2019 I have been watching live, and this commercial came up...

Well done. Somebody at World Market really knows their Hallmark audience. I don't understand why any company spending the huge amount of money required for a national ad doesn't put this kind of care into creating them. Most ads are just terrible and something you want to skip. Why would you waste money like that?

   
And now... time to wash underwear so I have something clean to wear to work tomorrow. You're welcome, my co-workers.

Ask any blogger what the bane of their existence is, and they are certain to answer "Broken links." Well... not really... if you were to ask me what the bane of my blogging existence is, I'd answer "Hate comments and death threats," but I blog about politics and cats and stuff, so I bring that on myself.

But a close second would absolutely be "Broken links," and it's such a massively annoying problem for long-term bloggers such as myself that I'm tempted to never link to anything ever again. NEVER EVER EVARRRRR!

Some of it is understandable. Fellow bloggers shut down their blogs... companies go out of business... websites are lost... that kind of thing. So when I find a broken link on an entry I wrote fifteen years ago, I'm honestly not surprised. The internet is ever growing and changing.

But when I find a busted YouTube link in an entry I wrote TWENTY-THREE DAYS AGO?!?

THAT'S LESS THAN A MONTH!!!

This was from a Bullet Sunday entry where I was talking about one of the best new shows on television: Alternatino with Arturo Castro. I absolutely love this sketch comedy series, and want as many of my readers as possible to know about it.* And so I linked to the premiere episode that Comedy Central posted on YouTube.

And now Comedy Central has decided to take down the video for some reason. Which is pretty fucking stupid no matter how you cut it... YouTube is a massive platform for exposure of the show... but what makes it go BEYOND fucking stupid is that they left a broken link. Okay... you don't want to have the entire first episode available for people to watch. Whatever. But why not just overwrite the episode with an advertisement or a promo piece or something so people who shared your stuff don't end up with a broken link from your deleted video?

Some "social media consultant" making six figures probably doesn't understand how social media works and came up with this brilliant decision.

And when I scroll through my archives, I see tons of busted YouTube links. Even for advertisements! Why would you delete an advertisement for your product? I guess I can understand it if the product no longer exists or was canceled or was discontinued... but the vast majority of the time, that's not the case.

I'm not really sure how to deal with this.

For links, there's not much to do except delete the link and try to have my entry make sense without it.

For YouTube, there's not much I can do there either. I suppose I could scrape the video, re-upload it to my own YouTube account, then stream from that... but there's two problems there. ONE is that I'd probably get hit with a copyright violation. TWO is that I feel bad denying valuable clicks to the original content creator.

So I dunno.

Perhaps I just find ways of talking about the things I like without linking to them. Which kind of defeats the whole purpose of The World Wide Web... but short of spending my entire life monitoring links on my blog, what else is there?

   
*Seriously. You have no idea. The fourth episode just aired and it is epic. If you are not watching Alternatino with Arturo Castro, you absolutely should be!

The weekend's almost over, but there's still reason to celebrate... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• McFlerfin! This is a terrific read on the dumbass flerfer (Flat Earther) movement.

   
• NOKEA! When I was in Seattle last week, I finally took a minute to drop by IKEA and pick up a nightstand for my second guest room so I don't have to steal one from the main guest room whenever somebody needs it. I swear... the quality on IKEA crap worsens with each new purchase. From when I bought these three years ago, they have gotten cheaper and less solid, even though the look is pretty much the same...

But at least they gave me all the right parts so I could actually put the stupid thing together this time.

   
• Arturo! I thought I'd give Comedy Central's new show Alternatino a try after seeing Arturo Castro (who created and stars in it) on The Daily Show. It's nuts in the best possible way... and so good. And you can watch the entire thing on Youtube!

I have no idea if all the best ideas were put in the first episode and the rest of them are going to be crap, but I certainly hope not! Highly recommended.

   
• King's Man! The prequel to one of my favorite films, Kingsman (and not so-favorite film Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle), was just announced. Titled The King's Man, they released the logo for it. And the kerning (spacing between letters) is total shit. So I fixed it for them...

It's weird to me how these obvious mistakes keep happening. I mean, is it intentional? Surely they have actual designers working on this stuff... don't they? If so, then why don't they know to adjust the kerning when designing a logo? Or know how to structure it for clarity? I dunno. But it drives me more than a little nuts.

   
• Just in time for Pride Month! Diane Gramley (President at American Family Association of Pennsylvania) is such a peach. When she's not regularly equating homosexuality to murder, she's unleashing a whole host of bizarre bullshit. Like saying that the police officers who raided Stonewall in 1969 were trying to rescue a young transgender boy. “He was being used sexually and the police were trying to rescue him.”

Jesus.

She's a non-stop lying hate machine. Which begs the question... exactly what is she trying to distract people from in her own life? My guess is that it's putting pineapple on pizza, which is just one step below murder. But probably bestiality. "Everybody! Don't look at me... look over there! Persecute the gays so I can get fucked by this horse." What else makes sense when somebody is this overtly homophobic? So set your stopwatches. And when Diane Gramley gets caught in a stable being fucked by a horse, remember you heard it here first!

   
• No More Mr. Frosty! Does anybody know if there's a vaccine to inoculate against the bubonic plague and all the other dormant diseases that might be filling our atmosphere as I type this? No? Guess we're all fucked then.

   
And I guess that's a wrap. Good luck with that bubonic plague thing!

D-Day... the day that the Allies invaded Nazi-occupied France during World War II in order to liberate the country and secure victory on the Western Front... is a landmark event in world history. The United States, The British Empire, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Norway, Poland, and Czechoslovakia came together to fight a great evil to escape from an unthinkable future against incredible odds. That the Allied Forces were victorious is a testament to cooperation, courage, and sacrifice. On this somber day of remembrance, it's our duty to pay respects those who risked everything, including their lives, in service of all humanity. You will not be forgotten.

According to President Trump, it's also a time to air your petty grudges by calling Robert Mueller a "fool" and Nancy Pelosi a "disaster"...

Well, if there's anybody who would know something about being both a fool and a disaster, it would be our president... the pathetic, loathsome, disgusting, moronic, vile, horror story that he is. Boy it would be nice if he could go just one damn day without embarrassing us in front of the world, but I guess that's too much to ask.

Anybody, anybody at all, with even the tiniest amount of humility and decency would have declined to discuss this kind of ugliness on this day... especially when you are sitting across from the Normandy American Cemetery Memorial which honors those US soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice. All he had to say was "I'm sorry, but now is not the time or place to get into that... I'm here to pay my respects and honor the memory of some truly great American heroes and nothing else." But, of course, we all know that humility and decency are two traits that President Trump doesn't possess, and so here we are.

Can you imagine... can you even fathom... what the reaction would be at FOX "News" if President Obama had unloaded this kind of petty sniping under the same conditions? Can you?!?

If not, just Google it. Theirs was a non-stop parade of condemnation for far, far less offensives... or nothing at all... for the eight years that he was in office. As propaganda ministers for the Far Right that's their job, after all.

So... apparently we're headed towards war with Iran.

I wonder if all the people screaming "YEAH! BOMB IRAN BACK TO THE STONE AGE! MAGA!!" understand that war doesn't work like that anymore. Superior military strength does not insure a victory because advanced technologies are so cheap and readily available. Technology has changed the face of small-scale warfare, given rise to mass-scale terrorism, and redefined what it means to "win" a war.

I have no clue what our Commander in Chief thinks winning a war looks like. My guess is he is he pictures bombing raids obliterating Iranian cities as our soldiers raise the American flag over Tehran. Or maybe his "victory scenario" is distracting Americans from all the heinous shit he's been doing, and bombing a foreign nation is incidental? That's certainly a thought that's entered his head...

But who can say? Even when he attempts to explain his "thinking," it comes out as incomprehensible gibberish, so I honestly don't think anybody can say what his end-game is.

But here's the deal. Even if we manage to obliterate the bulk of Iran's ability to make war and establish a massive military presence in the country, we haven't "won." All we will have done is galvanize terrorists around the globe and create substantially more committed enemies for generations to come. Even worse, if the war is handled badly (it will be, given who is in charge of it) and innocent civilian casualties are huge, we're certain to lose even more of our allies as well. And what happens after we leave? We put some US-approved puppet leader into power who will have no ability whatsoever to fix a broken country, there's a coup out of desperation, and somebody with an even bigger hatred of the USA can come into power... this time with nothing to lose and a philosophy that no risk is too great to do harm to America.

There is no way this ends well for the United States of America. None.

Because Iran is not a technological backwater. Because terrorism isn't centralized. Because biological warfare is easy. Because powerful drones are smaller than ever and can deliver increasingly lethal payloads. Because American citizens travel outside of America and are easy targets. Because US allies are within striking distance. Because there are US interests outside of the USA. Because there are many, many ways into this country. Because a wall will do very little to deter a terrorist or stop a drone. Because you don't even have to have a military to reign terror and destruction upon the most powerful of nations now. Because... because... BECAUSE... this is the world we live in.

Yes, Iran is most definitely a threat. This is nothing new. There are many countries who are a clear and present danger to the United States of America, and they have been for decades (hey, we're "allies" with some of them!). And while war may have been a viable solution to deal with them in the past, there's no way that's true today. Most sane people realize this. Which is why the world put so much effort into the Iran Nuclear Deal. Was it perfect? No. Did it move us away from nuclear annihilation for a little while longer? All indications pointed to yes (despite what President Trump and his propaganda organization at Fox News say). Are there ways to work with Iran so that setting the world on fire is not a desirable course of action for them to take? Well, history has shown that there probably is. But so long as we have an incompetent 2-year-old with anger issues in The White House who won't listen to the people who know how to handle these things, what difference does it make?

The reason that war is a last-ditch effort is because it has to be.

Today more than ever.

Unfortunately the decision as to whether or not we go to war rests with the same person who thinks 1970 economic practices can be applied to the global economy that exists in 2019 (which is why we're embracing socialism by spending billions that we'll borrow from China to give to farmers who can no longer sell their goods to China).

I cannot fathom how this country will ever recover from the massive damage that is being inflicted on just about every possible front by our current government. Not just the president, but the dysfunction of the entirety of our government.

Assuming we can ever recover at all.

War with Iran would just be one more nail in the coffin of the country we are now. We will have to become something entirely different if the USA is to go on existing. Given where we're at now, I can't help but think that this might be a good thing.

This world is so full of stupid that I find myself becoming numb to it.

Sometimes, when the stupid on display is of such a massive scale that my brain can't even process how crazy it is, I try my best to laugh about it... but can't. Especially when the stupid in question is running the country.

Take this for example...

Good Lord... how does Rep. Thomas Massie even have the brain-power to speak, let alone breathe? Does he honestly not understand the words coming out of his mouth? Massie has two engineering degrees from MIT... how the fuck did that happen?

What truly kills me is that Massie and his supporters are bragging as if they exposed some huge "gotcha"... like Senator Kerry has been claiming to be a climate change scientist, but isn't really a scientist because his degree is in political science. Kerry (a person I loathe, by the way) has never claimed to be a scientist. He has only ever presented findings by actual scientists. You know... like anybody would do when speaking about a topic outside their wheelhouse. When you are a member of government who creates laws, it's your fucking job to listen to what experts tell you when making decisions. Kerry (in this case) did his fucking job which is why he was called as a witness in the first place. How is that so damn difficult to understand?

Massie is so incomprehensibly stupid as to just how dumb he sounds that he's actually bragging about his idiotic exchange by posting it on his Twitter, calling himself "sassy"...

   
After watching this on Seth Myers, I was compelled to see if Rep. Massie had an explanation... or a clarification. Surely there's some kind of statement which makes this less stupid! What I found was this...

"When I asked Kerry if he had a science degree, he answered 'no' but forgot to turn his microphone on. The left has been using his flub to conceal what this exchange proved which is Kerry admitted he doesn’t have a science degree, even though his degree says 'science.'”
— Twitter, 5:40 AM - Apr 11, 2019

HE NEVER CLAIMED TO HAVE A SCIENCE DEGREE IN CLIMATE CHANGE, YOU DUMBASS!

I tracked down the entire exchange so I could see where Senator Kerry claimed to be a scientist presenting his own findings. What I got was even more stupid...

Yeah... BACK WHEN THE PLANET WAS COVERED IN VOLCANOS AND SHIT, THE C02 LEVELS WERE UNDERSTANDABLY HIGH! BUT THEN THE EARTH BECAME HABITABLE FOR HUMANS AS THE C02 LEVELS FELL!

In all seriousness... what the fuck?!?

Claims to want to get "back to the science of it," but denies actual science. Sounds about right for Congress.

Lucky for me I'll probably be dead before any of this gets catastrophic.