Tag: republicans

On conspiracy theories

On By Luther M. SilerIn Politics2 Comments

Okay. So you’ve noticed the shitgibbon’s long and abiding relationship with professional wrestling, and you know that wrestlers cut themselves on purpose all the time, and you don’t believe that a bullet fired from an AR-15 can graze someone for some reason,(*) and you think the assassination attempt was faked.

Okay. Fine. You go ahead and do that. Think whatever you like.

But before you spout that shit where I can see it, I’m going to insist that you explain the two dead people and the two injured people. And you’re going to have to do so in such a way that it makes more sense than that a nut job got ahold of a gun, took a shot at someone, barely missed, and the Secret Service, around someone whose single greatest skill as a human being might be his ability to surround himself at all times with utterly fucking incompetent people, fucked up.

Because I’m entirely willing to believe in a world where someone missed a shot and cops fucked up. That sounds just like America to me.

I have nothing else to say about this, other than the paragraph to follow, which is more about math than it is about politics.

(*) If it is possible for an AR-15 bullet to hit someone and blow their head off, and if it is possible for an AR-15 bullet to miss someone, than somewhere in between those two places there literally must be some distance where the bullet does damage– and an ear wound is going to bleed like a bitch even if it’s a small cut– that is not fatal. This isn’t even the first president who didn’t get killed due to amazing fucking luck. Teddy Roosevelt had a bullet basically bounce off a speech in his pocket. Andrew Jackson had someone come after him with two pistols and they both misfired, leading to Jackson beating the hell out of his assailant with his cane. The idea that it is impossible for a bullet to barely miss may be the dumbest conspiracy theory in a wild thicket of dumb conspiracy theories.

In which I haven’t failed yet

On By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

I was able to successfully get myself up out of bed and showered before 8:30 this morning. I had a cup of coffee and screwed around on my phone for a while, then spent an honest to goodness solid hour studying, and managed to successfully regain at least some of my knowledge of trigonometry in the process. I think what I’m going to do this week is spend the next couple of days filling obvious holes in my knowledge (“obvious” meaning “I remember knowing this, and now I don’t,” as opposed to, say, calculus, which is an entire domain of knowledge that I never really had a grasp of) and then take a practice test on Thursday. (Why Thursday? It’ll take a while, and Friday’s going to be busy. I’ll have time to study but not for an entire practice test.) If I do okay on the practice test, I may go ahead and take a shot at the real test next week and see if I can just knock it out. I only need like a 60% to pass, I think? If I do crap on it, I’ll stick with the original plan and study through June or until I can pass a practice test solidly. I don’t want to have to pay for this thing more than twice, and ideally, only once. I’ve also literally never failed a standardized test so I have some pride on the line here too.

In other news, school is out, and I’m finding that I don’t have a lot to say about that. This was a pretty good year, all told; it had its moments, like they all do, but my honors class was awesome enough to carry through the rest of the year and even my most annoying kids continue to pale in comparison with what I’ve had to deal with at previous schools. That said, I think I’m due for another round of reevaluating classroom procedures; everything I’m doing right now is still very COVID-informed and I’m seeing signs that certain policies may be starting to bite me in the ass a bit. I didn’t really try to reinvent the wheel when I changed districts, but I’m comfortable enough in the new place now that I think I can tweak some things. We’ll see.

I’ll end on a question: certain sectors of American society have been claiming that attempting to impose any sort of penalties or punishments for the obvious criminality of certain individuals was going to cause widespread civil unrest. Locally, I am aware of one (1) house that is now flying a very small (comically so, in fact) American flag outside their house, upside down. Is anyone reading this aware of any civil disobedience or protests literally anywhere other than the tiny little group that’s been outside the courthouse in New York since the trial started? Any downtowns flooded with fash lately? Trucker rebellions? Anything at all?

At least there’s meth?

On By Luther M. SilerIn Politics4 Comments

I couldn’t pass this up.

Compulsive masturbator and God-botherer Mike Johnson is, according to this brief but hilarious CNN article, having trouble convincing fellow Republicans to come to the House GOP retreat scheduled for next Wednesday and Thursday. Part of the problem, apparently, is that Johnson, who is so addicted to porn that he and his son share an app so that they can monitor each other’s special dinkie times, has booked a deliberately “family-friendly” resort in West Virginia for the retreat. The article does not explicitly say that the House members are pissed because they prefer their hookers to have more teeth than facial sores, but it comes awfully close for something from the mainstream media.

In which no one is watching

On By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

Tonight is one of those nights where I can pretty much get away with saying anything I want, because the whole world is distracted, in this case by the Taylor Bowl. I am, in accordance with my ancient traditions, not watching, but if you are I hope you’re enjoying it. I don’t much care who wins, although a Chiefs win will make me a tiny bit happier if only because it will make certain very bad people angry, and I like it when those people don’t get what they want. If you want the 49ers to win because you are a 49ers fan, or because you hate the Chiefs for some pre-Taylor-Swift reason, I have no beef with you.

Frankly, the fact that I can name both the teams playing makes this the Super Bowl that I’ve paid the most attention to in a long, long time. The unfortunate part is that on this Day of No One Paying Attention, I don’t have anything tremendously compelling, much less controversial, that I want to talk about. 

Anyway, I’ve got a heavy teaching load tomorrow, as both my Algebra kids and my regular 8th graders are starting a new unit, so I expect to be half-dead when I get home from school tomorrow. The good news is that, compared to systems of equations, slope, and graphing linear equations, which is what we’ve been occupying most of our time with since November, Pythagoras and basic factoring are absolute cake, which means that my job ought to get a little less stressful and their grades ought to come up. I’ve got about an inch of papers to go through sitting next to me and I suspect I’m not going to touch it tonight. This wasn’t much of a weekend– it wasn’t bad, by any means, but I really didn’t do much with it– but if I make it through the next four days, I get a four-day weekend. I don’t want to miss any more days in February so hopefully everything will go nice and smoothly. We’ll see.

A reminder that I know nothing

On By Luther M. SilerIn Politics1 Comment

New Hampshire’s happening tonight, and as of this moment there’s about 11% of the vote in on the Republican side and the shitgibbon is ahead, by a fairly paltry amount. I have no sense whatsoever of where in New Hampshire Nikki Haley might be expecting her votes to come from, so trying to drill down at all doesn’t make any sense, and it’s probably a good time to remind everyone that I don’t know anything at all about politics or how people think, because I still don’t understand how this illiterate, atheist con man got the Republican nomination the first time, much less what’s looking like the third. 

(EDIT: The AP called the race while I was writing this; at this point, I really feel like all we have left is to hope the fucker dies before the election. Preferably as soon as possible. Tonight would be cool. God’s in the bathroom again, apparently.)*

Meanwhile, Biden– who is not on the ballot– is pulling 74% of the vote against Phillips and Williamson. If this isn’t enough to convince a certain slice of what ought to be the Democratic electorate that there is not actually any desire on the part of actual voting Democrats for any other candidate, I don’t know what the hell could do it. I suspect these people, much like the shitgibbon’s cultists, are similarly impervious to reason, but we’ll see.

(SECOND EDIT: While I was writing the first edit, the AP called the race for Biden, too. Which is deeply fucking hilarious. Time for Phillips and Williamson to go.)

Meanwhile: snow day today, and freezing rain is being replaced by Hell Fog, and I’m fully anticipating a two-hour delay tomorrow, because quarter-mile visibilities and kids walking to school don’t mix. There won’t be a close, but my district has had Fog Days in the past, and two-hour delays don’t count against us the way actual closures do. This might bite me in the ass if I have to go in and plan a day on no notice, but … yeah, I’ll risk it. 

* I do actually think Biden can and will beat him again, but I’d prefer to not have to find out if I’m right about that. The fucker exists on cheeseburgers and his brain is made of pudding. Come on, God.

Look goddammit

On By Luther M. SilerIn PoliticsLeave a comment

Never vote for any Republican for any office ever again under any circumstances. The party has to be killed stone cold fucking dead for the health of the country. Enough of these fucking assholes.

Welcome to Indiana

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

For me, the best thing about this toxic stew of Jesus-addled jingoistic bullshit is the fact that it’s on a foreign car.

My second favorite thing I just noticed, and that’s the utterly inexplicable “Gosh” above the “this close” sticker. I have no idea, y’all, but I hate it here.

Also, it is somehow still Thursday. At this point I expect to wake up tomorrow and prepare for Thursday 3: The Groundhoggening.

In which I wish it mattered

On By Luther M. SilerIn Politics1 Comment

Whole lotta news today, chief among which is Tucker Carlson getting fired– probably, at least– by Fox News. They’re spinning it as “parting ways,” but when you say “see you Monday” at the end of a show on Friday and then go to work Monday morning and “part ways” with your company, I’m pretty sure you got fired.

As much as I would like to get all jubilant about it, I’m pretty sure Tucker Carlson is a Republican, and so is Fox News, institutionally at least, and so Rule One of Republicans applies: Republicans Always Get Worse, and Republicans Only Get Worse.

Carlson will somehow fail up into something even more prominent, and whoever Fox gives his show to will be worse than his was. I don’t make the rules, y’all, I just notice them when they’re 100% consistent over my entire life.