Is there any hope for the police?

Maybe, maybe not. It’s good to see someone breaking the “thin blue line” in defense of ordinary decency, though. In this case, a burly police sergeant is bellowing at a man who is arrested, in handcuffs, and in a police car — most ironically, he’s angry that the man “disrespected” one of his fellow officers. Then one of those officers pulls the rager away, which prompts him to then grab her by the throat, an excellent example of disrespecting a police officer.

The woman cop is being praised by her department, and the bad cop has been suspended. That’s the kind of incremental change we need.

The Giuliani crime family is doing their best to convince me that lizard people exist

I’m not saying David Icke was right, but Rudy’s son Andrew is running for governor of New York, and he too is something of a sick freak. Would you believe he’s talking about his baby daughter here?

She “made a promise to me on the first day, right? My wife was sleeping, and I’m holding her [my daughter] in my arms. And I get emotional thinking about it, but she made a promise with me. She shook my hand and I said, ‘I’m the only boyfriend till you’re 25 years old, shake hands.’

“Shook my hand. So I have changed the diapers. I have looked under the hood. She’s a woman. I’m gonna be the last guy in a long time that looks under the hood right there. But guess what? She was born a woman and she’s gonna stay a woman, it’s that simple.”

A spokesperson for Andrew Giuliani told The Daily Beast, “while Andrew does not claim to be a biologist, he can tell the difference between a male and a female.”

So he’s possessive and controlling — I hate to break the news to you, Andy ol’ boy, but in less than 16 years she’s going to be talking about boys (or maybe girls) with her friends, and pining for a prom date who isn’t her creepy old man. At some point, she’s also going to get on the internet and discover her dad was talking about peeking “under the hood” when she was 4 months old — or worse, her peers at school learn this — and you will learn about the revenge of a daughter you’ve made cringe.

TERFs are experts in anatomy

I bet you didn’t know that everyone is transgender. No exceptions. At a glance, these discerning experts in what constitutes a real woman can spot them with their TERF vision.

It’s nice that the Restroom Police aren’t going to have to check out your genitals. Now they’ll determine which facility you get to use by your interocular distance, and the length of your neck and thighs.

Uh-oh. I just realized, I remember the 1970s, and I had so many friends who had Farah Fawcett posters in their bedrooms. I had no idea all those teenage boys were actually gay! And all the girls with that feathered hairstyle — all trans!

Jordan Peterson’s motivation? I think it’s wrath.

Peterson is really losing it. Here he is in conversation with disgraceful pseudo-journalist Andy Ngo, explaining why Antifa is so evil and animalistic.

You can tell he’s deep-down angry about the existence of the Left — the way his lips writhe as he’s telling his canned Bible story, like some pissed-off backwoods preacher. It’s all about hating god, wouldn’t you know, and Antifa is just an echo of Cain’s sin. Never mind that it’s the other side that’s driving cars into demonstrators and prowling the streets looking for people to beat up. If anything is being echoed here, it’s the Christian martyr complex.

It’s also an indicator of how far the Right as a whole as lost it that these two pathetic, whiny losers are among their heroes.

I don’t understand a thing linguists say

Oh man, I got lost fast in this discussion. Anyway, there was an old Sumerian joke going around the interwebs a short while ago. It was totally incomprehensible.

Someone who is apparently an expert in Sumerian (I assume, I have no idea, they could be a highly skilled bullshitter) took the original text apart in an extremely detailed fashion on Twitter. I’ll just have to trust them. Follow the thread if you want to see the train of logic and obscure Sumerian grammatical rules. But they do come to a conclusion, an interpretation of the joke that actually makes sense.

I think it might be the oldest known Dad Joke.

The pandemic must end so my father’s ghost can rest

I know, it’s nowhere near ending, especially since policy-makers make stupid policies to appease right-wing nitwits. But I have a personal reason for getting this over with.

I had to shave off the beard so masking is more effective. This means that I have to regularly use a razor. Therefore, I have to use shaving cream. So I’m standing in the bathroom with a can of Barbasol in one hand, I look in the mirror, and instantly I am transported back half a century, and there’s my dad, teaching me how to shave off the unsightly sparse shrubbery sprouting from my face. He’s laughing, because I had no idea how much shaving cream to use, and had a gigantic mass of the stuff I was smearing on in great thick glops, making a big mess.

That memory comes roaring back every time I have to shave. There I am in the moment I’m about to dispense the stuff, and there’s the ghost of my father, hovering over my shoulder, chuckling and monitoring how much shaving cream I’m using. I don’t mind seeing Dad again, but then I have to disappoint him by using only a judicious quantity.

And that’s my personal reason for wanting the pandemic to end: so I can stop shaving, and stop triggering that memory, and stop letting my father down. Alternatively, I suppose I could indulge him and splat a big ol’ cream pie in my face every morning.

I never thought I’d sympathize with a church

This is an amazing photo series of an abandoned church in Ontario, documenting its decay over a decade. I feel ya, church.

It’s got the appearance of an apocalyptically sudden departure — there’s an old open bible in the pulpit, with a pair of reading glasses casually left on top. It’s like one day they were holding services, and the next day every one was gone, never to return.

Also interesting how it falls: it starts with a little water leak in the roof, leading to mold and rot spreading across the ceiling, and then one winter, ka-boom, the roof caves in.

It’s reminding me that maintenance is important. Little problems lead to big problems lead to complete system collapse, so tend to those little problems as you go.

(Speaking of which — this was a bad winter for me, with annoying tendinitis issues basically crippling me for months. I got these new shoes with a good fit and great ankle support two weeks ago, and it’s almost miraculous how much better I feel, walking around fairly freely now with barely a twinge. Appreciate your mobility while you’ve got it, it’s awful when a little problem messes you up. Get good shoes. Patch those roof leaks.)