Michele Ashbaugh has this YouTube series where she interviews people while in the bathtub, and she asked me to join in, so I did. Don’t worry, we’re both only seen from the neck and shoulders up, so you’re not going to get a show.

There are others in this series, if you’re curious what people sound like when they’re naked. Turns out they still sound like ordinary people.

Last year, in hopeful anticipation of a contractor finally getting around to giving us new siding, we hacked away all the brush and shrubbery and saplings sprouting all around our house. We were disappointed: he didn’t get around to us that summer (life in a small town: limited supply of available contractors, high demand).

So this year, he has promised! We gave him a giant bucket of money! He ordered all the supplies! So we took another look at the vegetation around our house.

It had all grown back.

So this morning we’ve been out with pruning shears and weed-eater, trying to destroy the jungle. I think I need a machete and a chainsaw. Or a flamethrower. Or to call in an airstrike. Thinking about exotic plant poisons, or hiring a herd of elephants.

See, this is why I was trained as a zoologist. Plants are apparently my nemesis.

A poll was taken in 1859, and nothing has changed.

YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS. (Reading Times, 1859) pic.twitter.com/l1pIOPS7tw

— Undine (@HorribleSanity) July 27, 2017

It’s true. I too wear one to avoid being taken for an Englishman.

Coke Zero is being discontinued. Hot on the heels of this pronouncement that Like it or not, life is all about successful reproduction and nothing else really matters, I’ve lost all reason to live.

Whew. I’m back from SDB, and after four days of solid science, my brain is full. I’m taking the night off.

But tomorrow…I have a couple of things I want to write up.

One of the minor annoyances of YouTube is their superficial algorithm for predicting your preferences, so they can help you with recommendations for what to watch next. Oh, you watched a scathing takedown of Thunderf00t? Here’s the whole Thunderf00t catalog of obsessive inanity, you’ll like that.

So I’m very happy to see a Google Chrome addon that kills all that crap, Hbomb’s YouTube Censorship Chrome Addon. It also wipes out a whole bunch of other assholes. Recommended.

^*By the way, it’s not actually censorship to voluntarily refuse to pay attention to someone; it would be censorship if the preferences of others were blocked against their will. It’s just fun to call it censorship because we’re refusing to watch the videos of precisely the kind of people who are unclear on that distinction.

I’m checked into the Doubletree in Bloomington for Convergence, and have a busy day ahead of me. In a quirk of scheduling, almost all of my panels are today: 5 of them, one after the other, that will completely tie me up all afternoon and early evening. Which leaves me with just one panel on Friday and one on Sunday, so after this I’ll have a light weekend and can enjoy just being here. Anyway, today I’m discussing invasive species, religion in the future, the cosmic perspective (all the things that make us inconsequential in the universe), apocalyptic plagues, and the state of science. Hmm. None of that is very cheerful or optimistic. Looking over my notes for the panels, I’m not bringing much levity, either. I’ll have to hit up some parties tonight.

The fine fellow who created the Trump/CNN wrestling video has been tracked down and identified (but not “doxxed”, as the wingnuts are trying to claim). CNN called him and confronted him with his inanity and his contemptible history of racism and sexism, and he scrambled to cover his butt with an apology.

I would like to apologize to the members of the Reddit community for getting this site and this sub embroiled in a controversy that should never have happened, HanAssholeSolo wrote in a Fourth of July post on Reddit.

…

On Tuesday, HanAssholeSolo said he was sorry for his remarks. I am not the person that the media portrays me to be in real life, HanAssholeSolo wrote. I was trolling and posting things to get a reaction from the subs on Reddit.

It became an addiction as to how far I could of with the posts that were made, the Reddit user wrote, calling the incident an extreme wake up call to always consider how others may thing or feel about what is being said before clicking the submit button.

Free speech is a right we all have, but it shouldn’t be used in the manner that it was in the posts that were put on this site, HanAssholeSolo said, before arguing he intended for the meme to be taken purely as satire.

I do not advocate violence against the press and the meme I posted was in no way advocating that in any way, shape or form, the user continued. Our First Amendment protect the press from things like violence, and we as American citizens should respect that even if the opinions of the press are not in line with our own.

I had no idea alone would take it and put sound to it and then have it put up on the President’s Twitter feed, HanAssholeSolo wrote. It was a prank, nothing more.

Apparently, we’re now expected to accept his apology and praise him for seeing the error of his ways. I don’t. I see the usual noise: Free speech! First amendment! It was satire! (said by someone who has no concept of satire). It was just a prank!

Worst of all, the denial implicit in I am not the person that the media portrays me to be in real life. Yes, HanAssholeSolo, you are exactly that person. We saw what you chose to be when you could skulk in cowardly anonymity, and that person is an ugly bigot who tries to curry favor with other ugly bigots. This was you before you learned that your anonymity was easily pierced.

HanAssholeSolo claimed he made the gif, writing on the pro-Trump subreddit r/the_Donald, Holy sh*t!! I wake up and have my morning coffee and who retweets my shitpost but the MAGA EMPORER [sic] himself!!! I am honored!!

Shortly thereafter, news organizations noticed a history of offensive posts, including casual use of highly offensive terms including n*****, goatf*cker and f****t.

500,000 dead Muslims is a good start, HanAssholeSolo wrote in one response. Kill the rest and I’ll be impressed. Good keep up the good work until the last Islamic piece of shit is wiped from the planet.

There are people who have to be anonymous on the internet, who express themselves as decent human beings…and they have to be anonymous to protect themselves from vicious petty bullies like HanAssholeSolo. I’ll be more amenable to accepting that apology when he admits to himself that the middle part of his nom de smear was exactly accurate and describes precisely what he is.

Right now, I have a suspicion that he has a couple of these shitposting account names and will be back seeking the approval of his fellow shitlords. Because that’s who he is.