Come on! I double-dog-dare you!

New York Daily News photo of Trump with face covered with clown emoji courtesy of Yoursr Truly, with headline that reads "Feds look to rename Penn Station, potentially for Trump, in transit priorities letter" and a blurb that says " In a letter sent Wednesday to Senate leadership on several committees, Duffy lists “administration priorities” for the federal rebuilding of the nation’s busiest rail hub."

This grand plan to rename New York’s Penn Station after Donald Trump has been kicking around for a while now, yet you may be surprised to learn that I AM ALL FOR IT. In fact, I cannot wait for this to happen!

It is a well-known fact that the sheer scale of this administration’s delusions of grandeur is matched only by its epic incompetence. Look what they did to a shallow pool ferchrissakes, and just imagine how badly they can fuck up a train station! (Note that this is not the part I am excitedly looking forward to, but it seems inevitable, with or without Trump’s name slapped all over it.)

It is also a well-known fact that much of our fair city holds a visceral disgust – dare I say hatred? – for the current president, a sentiment that stretches back long before he had any political ambitions.

A third well-known fact is that New York City is home to an enormous population of extraordinarily creative people, the vast, VAST majority of whom I’d venture are far-left terrorists lefties eager to protest the current political regime.

I think you can see where I’m coming from and where I’m going with this, which seems particularly apropos for a post about a train station.  [Read more…]

BREAKING: Me + my commenters = “all evil, evil people who God will someday judge.”

Once again, my post from the other day alerting readers to the death of human-shaped shitsack Rush Limbaugh and announcing the immediate commencement of our traditional grave dancing ceremonies has caused grave (<-hahaha – still funny) offense. And, once again, the ensuing comments have caused equally grave offense, since we are all subject to the same admonishment.

Last night at 10:33pm EST, someone with the handle Susan Apperson (whose email address is sapperson31@gmail.com) took time out of his or her or their busy day to issue this decree:

You people are all evil, evil people who God will someday judge. I would hate to be on all your death beds. None of you should judge…….God is the only judge!!. AND Karma is a bitch!!!

OMFG I love everything about this comment. Let’s break it down, shall we?

[Read more…]

BREAKING: Me + my commenters = “truly sick @$$holes.”

O NOEZ! It seems my post yesterday alerting readers to the death of human-shaped shitbag Rush Limbaugh and announcing the immediate commencement of the traditional grave dancing has caused grave (<-hahaha) offense. And grave offense was taken not only at my post, but at your amusing comments too.

Yes, this morning at 9:42 EST, someone with the handle “Dakota Al”* (whose email address is alandmoller@gmail.com) took time out of her or his or their busy day to enlighten us all with this important information:

You people are truly sick. Good luck with your newly appointed dictatorship ….. assholes.

I just thought you should all know right away.

I think in response, I just want to reply with something I retweeted yesterday:

“how would YOU like it if Republicans celebrate when YOU die???”

If I live my life in such a way that Republicans celebrate my death I’ll have achieved success beyond my wildest dreams

I’ll just keep right on dancing as I eagerly await my marching instructions from my newly appointed dictator.

__________
*Did I ever tell you about that one time I mailed actual coat hangers to every one of the Republicans (and some Dems) in the South Dakota state legislature who had just passed a statute outlawing all abortions? I included a personal note too, helpfully advising them to keep this very important tool handy for their wives, girlfriends, daughters, mistresses and/or themselves, because as anyone even slightly familiar with the abortion issue knows, outlawing abortions does nothing to stop them, it only maims and kills people who are pregnant and do not wish to be so. I signed off as The Coathanger Lobby. FUN TIMES.

But the whole thing was a time consuming and expensive undertaking, so I switched tactics. When I go for my annual pap smear, I have my gynecologist take a picture of my vaginal canal and cervix, so I can simply send the image as a courtesy to lawmakers and other conservatives who are inexplicably obsessed with what goes into and/or comes out of there. Surely they’ve been pleased to learn that my ladyjunk is in good working order.

Conservatives Eat Their Own, Hilarity Ensues.

Oh noez! Jared and Ivanka are not happy.

Seems some gaggle of wealthy, well-connected #NeverTrumpers started a PAC last year called The Lincoln Project. These self-styled “ex-Republicans” just put up two billboards in Times Square:

Photo of 2 billboards in Times Square. 1) Ivanka happily and gesturing toward statistics: "33,366+ NEW YORKERS. 221,247+ AMERICANS." 2) Jared smiling smugly next to quote: "[NEW YORKERS]" ARE GOING TO SUFFER AND THAT'S THEIR PROBLEM." (photo: Twitter via New York Daily News)

In case it’s hard to make out in the image, on one billboard Ivanka is smiling blithely while gesturing toward bold block print:

33,366+
NEW YORKERS.
221,247+
AMERICANS.

On the other billboard, Jared smiles smugly next to a quote:

“[NEW YORKERS] ARE GOING TO

SUFFER

AND THAT’S THEIR PROBLEM.”

[Read more…]

Dances with trolls.

[CONTENT NOTE: casual ableism]

Our troll story today begins as they almost always do: with an unprompted comment on an oooooold post. Behold my Facebook status from November 10, 2016:


Iris Vander Pluym
November 10, 2016 

JUST TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR: If you voted for Donald Trump, or you live in a swing state and voted for a third party candidate or declined to vote entirely, UNFRIEND ME. You are now and always will be dead to me.

Now I thought I was being clear and fair. Kind, even, if not particularly nice. I felt that not only was I was doing a service to myself and my own online spaces, but to those who would interact with me, or decide not to. I then went ahead and proactively blocked some people, and apparently I did a pretty good job since only one Trump voter slipped by:

[Former IRL “friend”] Really

Iris Is a dead person trying to communicate with me? No, that cannot be. I don’t believe in ghosts. (Unfriended/blocked)

THE END.

Oh, wait no. NOT the end. Eight months later:

[Read more…]

Jeezus is just not selling me on this one.

I take tremendous pride in my half-assed, poorly executed, semi-regular attempts to extract $82 billion worth of benefits per year from the Religion-Industrial-Complex on behalf of atheist U.S. taxpayers. I find this to be a worthwhile endeavor not only as a stinging retort to the appalling injustice of $82 billion in yearly taxpayer subsidies to the R-I-C, but also because I thoroughly enjoy mocking one particular church sign in the small town in Northern Maryland where my mother lives. Granted, it may not provide the full $82 billion in amusement value. But we have to start somewhere, people.

Today’s church sign does not disappoint.

churchsignprescool

THE BEST THINGS IN
LIFE AREN’T THINGS
PRESCOOL
ENROLLING NOW
TRINITY WORSHIP 9&11

Now let me underscore here that literacy privilege is A Thing, and generally speaking we should not mock those who do not have it. Earth is home to an astonishing number of amazing and interesting people whose ideas are well worth engaging, even if spelling and grammar are not their personal forte. This could be true for any number of reasons that come to mind readily enough: learning disabilities; neurocognitive effects of injury, illness or environmental toxins; poor nutrition; mental illness, including trauma from homelessness or abuse; and of course late exposure to non-native English. But here in these exceptional United States we have another problem. My friend CaitieCat explains:

Particularly in a US context, where educational options are very strongly influenced by class (and race, in an intertwined manner), riding the xenophobes for misspelling ‘illegals’ as ‘illeagles’, or “Muslim” as “muslin”, what we’re saying is, “You should have been smart enough to get yourself born to the right kind of parents, who’d give you access to the best education, who were educated themselves enough to teach you ‘proper’ English, and who were rich enough to make sure you never had to work after school instead of studying!”

So yeah, let’s not do that. Tempting as it may be to go after the low-hanging fruit, we can and we damn well should mock xenophobes for being racist and conservative and terrible entitled assholes. This way, the splash damage splatters all over racists and conservatives and terrible entitled assholes, not shitty spellers. Really, that’s the very least of our problems with these humans.

With all that said, if you accept (tax-free!) tuition money to indoctrinate educate 3- and 4-year old kids, and your curriculum explicitly states “Our students are exposed to structured centers enhancing emergent literacy skills (reading & writing),” WE GET TO FUCKING MOCK YOU FOR SPELLING PRESCHOOL WRONG.

Have a nice day.

Twitter bot mockery FTW.

A good friend and Loyal Reader™ linked me to this Twitter feed, with the comment “I swear you’re behind this.” It’s generated by a bot (named Joel Dongsteen) that replaces the word “God” with “your dick” in the tweets of the insufferable pastor Joel Osteen. Much hilarity ensues.

Hahaha. Awesome.

While I am deeply flattered by my friend’s complimentary* comparison to the fine work of Mr. Dongsteen, I never in a million years would have done this. I would have replaced “God” with “your vagina.”

__________
*A psychologist once taught me to take anything as a compliment if it can be reasonably construed that way. Depression-prone veterans of cognitive therapy will recognize this tactic as an antidote to taking everything—literally everything—as a validation of our worst and most irrational convictions about ourselves. But then I thought, why stop there? Instead of simply negating those persistent negative thoughts with reality-based assessments, why not take everything as a compliment that can possibly be construed that way, even unreasonably? I mean, if unreasonable interpretations of everyday messages and events are a core part of the depressive psyche, why can’t they be a really fun part of the cure? In any case, it’s very satisfying to deliberately react with ostentatious gratitude to intentional insults lobbed in your direction; you feel great, and it confuses the hell out of your enemies.