Come back, Dave Futrelle!

He had been talking about this for years at We Hunted the Mammoth, how strange little nazi babies had been complaing about how video game women weren’t sufficiently feminine or pulchritudinous or pornified for their taste, and they’d go on and on about how they’d cracked open their calipers and determined that character facial structures were actually male. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never masturbated to Lara Croft, so those people were telling on themselves, I think.

Today, Stephanie Sterling is covering that beat. The nerdzis (her coining, I like it) are claiming that video game characters have “woke chins,” and think there is a conspiracy to inject obviously trans protagonists into their shoot-em-ups. Because they can tell. By looking at their chins.

I have the reverse problem on Instagram. I’m mainly interested in a few friends and macrophotography, but “The Algorithm” insists on sprinkling my doom scrolling with reels of random short videos of women with pathologically bloated breasts and butts who just stand there in skimpy clothing and jiggle, with comments about how they really like older men. I’m an older man with creaky old bones, and I glance at them and all I can think about is how much their backs must hurt. They aren’t enticing at all. But maybe those women ought to get together with the guys who think their cartoon characters aren’t sexy enough and find true happiness together.

Although…next time one of those bouncy women pop up on my phone, I’ll have to look up at their chins. Maybe they won’t be good enough for the gamer boys.

Weep for Oklahoma

The state of Oklahoma ranks 49th in education, according to one review (there are many such reviews that come up with different values, but none of them place the state higher than near the bottom of the barrel.) The superintendent of the Oklahoma school system, Ryan Walters, is surely aware of their abysmal reputation, and surely wants to make the schools in his state better, right? That’s his job! Walters has taken bold, radical action to fix Oklahoma schools.

Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters issued a directive to all public schools ordering them to incorporate the Bible as an instructional support in the classroom.

Doing so is a crucial step in ensuring our students grasp the core values and historical context of our country, Walters said.
…
In remarks to the board, Walters went further than his own memo, saying that every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom.

If I were teacher in Oklahoma, this is the point where I’d be sending my CV to schools in other states, and be preparing a lesson plan that, if I had to stay in the state for a while, would reveal what a pile of archaic shit the Bible was. That counts as teaching from the Bible, right?

The sad thing is that there are a lot of conservative Republicans who heard Ryan Walters’ plan and clutched their precious Bible and shouted “Hallelujah!” because they’re religious dumbasses, and they would run any teacher who criticized their holy book out of town.

Even sadder: thanks to the Republicans, the rest of the country wants to become Oklahoma.

Minnesota weird: we don’t have any native tarantulas!

Marisa Simonetti is a candidate in Edina, Minnesota running for the Hennepin County board. She is supposedly a real estate agent, but her license has been revoked, and she’s been accused of “fraudulent, deceptive and dishonest practices” — she’s been engaged in some shenanigans where she rents homes via AirB&B and then turns around and rents them to others. But worst of all, Simonetti is cruel to spiders.

Hennepin County Board candidate Marisa Simonetti said Thursday that none of the things that have recently landed her in headlines, including tossing a live tarantula at a tenant and allegations of fraud, are in conflict with her campaign themes of family values and being tough on crime.

The tarantula was rescued by the police and seems to be OK.

You will be shocked to learn that she is the Republican candidate for county office.

Joe must go

It used to be that the big political conventions were NOT PR sessions in which the Chosen One was anointed — the convention was where it was decided who would represent the party. There was back-room wheeling and dealing, the party leaders would negotiate and make promises, it was an ugly opportunity for corruption, and it might completely disregard the will of the people settled in primaries and caucuses.

I think we need to bring that kind of convention back.

In the debate last night, Joe Biden demonstrated that he’s not fit to run the country. Trump is worse, but pitting a doddering old man against a lying sleaze monster is no way to decide how to run a country. Both sides of that “debate” were disgracefully bad and an embarrassment to the USA. In August, the Democratic National Convention will meet in August, and it’s expected to be a rubber stamp event. “Democrats will rally around Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ nomination for President and Vice President of the United States,” says the DNC…but what if they don’t? What if all the representatives from around the country get together with their mandate to present policies favored by the people and then choose the best person to stand for office? That’s not an unusual way for political systems to work.

I’m with Jon Stewart on the debate. I watched it with an increasingly appalled feeling, and was angry by the end of it. Neither of those men should have any power. Trump needs to be in prison, while Biden needs to retire to a rocking chair on his porch.

I’m also pissed off by the incompetence Biden demonstrated after the debate.

Asked by a reporter how he thought he did during Thursday’s night debate during a post-game stop at a Waffle House in Atlanta, President Joe Biden said, “I thought we did well.”

No, Joe. You did very, very poorly.

I agree with Mehdi Hasan: Joe Biden has to go. We need a brokered convention in August.

You know, another bonus to doing that is that it would kill these long drawn-out ridiculous horse races that start a few years before the election. Make the final selection in August, and the campaign season begins then and ends in November.

I shouldn’t be watching the debate

But here I am. For sure, no one jacked up Biden on drugs before this thing started. He’s coming off as slow, old, and fumbling.

Meanwhile, Trump just lies and exaggerates, while Biden looks on like he’s stunned. Debates don’t get fact-checked apparently.

Not looking good.

Trump couldn’t answer any question, except with lies, and he was constantly turning every response into claims about immigration. The only problem we have is millions of people pouring over the border, apparently. It was most glaring when he was asked about climate change and he had nothing to say except immigration, immigration, immigration.

Fucking Christ. Trump brought up his “cognitive test” again — those things only assess a minimal level of function. He did not “ace” them. You can’t ace that kind of test.

Biden was competent in his policy answers, but dear god, he is reinforcing the idea that he’s old.

Final impression is that in Trump’s world, America is failing and is on the brink of WWIII, while Biden is planning to be a caretaker president, a bureaucrat coasting to the retirement. The whole affair was uninspiring, and there was not one spark of charisma anywhere.

Speaking of caretakers coasting to the end, Bash and Tapper were pointless and ineffectual — there was no moderation to speak of.

I hate debates.