Some right-wingers are making a low-budget anti-choice movie titled Roe v. Wade, which features the usual looney-tunes suspects, like Milo Yiannopoulos and Tomi Lahren and Jon Voight and Corbin Bernsen, and if you follow the link you’ll find lots of clues that this is going to be a flaming shitshow. But one simple point is a truly damning indictment.

Conservative actors Stephen Baldwin and Kevin Sorbo were initially cast as Supreme Court justices but left upon receiving the script. “That’s where it started as far as not sending out full scripts to actors, because they backed out and then it was a mad rush to find people to be the Supreme Court justices, and when they got on set they had no idea what they were doing. They didn’t get their lines until they got on set. They were kept in the dark,” according to a crew member.

The script is so bad that Kevin Sorbo and Stephen Baldwin refused a pay day? Holy crap. I’ve seen some of their previous movies, and I have a hard time imagining a movie that’s even worse.

That’s enough. I’m going to relax for a while. Carry on.

I stumbled across this article from Ben Rehder on Facebook. It sounded familiar.

I received an emailed pitch this morning from “an established, full service book publishing and book marketing publisher with global distribution and rights to help support book sales.” I googled the address they provided in the email and found their office:

Anyone remember Department of ProtoBioCybernetics and ProtoBioSemiotics of Origin of Life Science Foundation, Inc.?

Just a reminder that you can call your house anything you want. Why settle for “Bide-A-Wee”, or nothing at all, when you can christen your home “The Upper Midwestern Institute for the Accelerated Evolutionary Advancement of Cephalopods”? Well, you can’t use that name. It’s taken already.

I missed two concerts recently. The first was Roger Waters, who I did see last year, but he was in Scotland and so he had to modify his stage sets a little.

Heh. It’s not an slander, it’s true!

I regret not being able to see that show. I’m not regretting missing the one in St Paul last week, but we did get a glorious review of the Jimmy Buffett and Eagles concert. Read it. It’s one good thing to come out of the event.

I know I have. There is a lot of high sentiment in that ol’ declaration of independence, but 240+ years of this country failing to live up to them, and now deciding to just give up and abandon every noble principle expressed in it, doesn’t leave me feeling like commemorating much of anything.

This will be a good day for fasting, working, and watching the rain come down (it’s a thunderstorm day here in Morris, good for Nature for putting a wet blanket on the annoying fireworks.)

OK, this is a weird one: getting a “pedicure” by putting your feet in a tub with Garra rufa, a small fish that then industriously nibbles dead skin away. That’s not a pedicure, for one, and two, it probably doesn’t do anything for you, although it does feed the fish, and three…your toenails might fall off, probably due to secondary infections.

The CDC has a few things to say about the practice.

• The fish pedicure tubs cannot be sufficiently cleaned between customers when the fish are present.
• The fish themselves cannot be disinfected or sanitized between customers. Due to the cost of the fish, salon owners are likely to use the same fish multiple times with different customers, which increases the risk of spreading infection.
• Chinese Chinchin, another species of fish that is often mislabeled as Garra rufa and used in fish pedicures, grows teeth and can draw blood, increasing the risk of infection.
• According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Garra rufa could pose a threat to native plant and animal life if released into the wild because the fish is not native to the United States.
• Fish pedicures do not meet the legal definition of a pedicure.
• Regulations specifying that fish at a salon must be contained in an aquarium.
• The fish must be starved to eat skin, which might be considered animal cruelty.

Next step up: dunk your toes in a tank full of piranha.

Except Alex Jones, of course.

BREAKING: Democrats Plan To Launch Civil War On July 4th https://t.co/38AWiUFaag

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) July 1, 2018

Somehow, we antifa/commie/liberal Democrats are supposed to fire up this war on the 4th of July — in two days — and there has been no communication at all to us cannon fodder. But Alex Jones knows all about it! Apparently, it was announced in the liberal “Elite Publications” last year, but I missed it.

Anyone know what those publications are? Because I’ve also missed out on all of those.

Oh, well, I guess I’ll have to dig up my old uniform — birks, shorts, tie-dye t-shirt, and headband — put a flower in my hair and march off to San Francisco. Or wherever the old hippies have set up a staging ground. I wonder if we can get the Dead back together to play for the Revolution?

Tune in here at noon central time. I’m going to read a couple of mail items, and then open it up to whatever.

If you want to join in on-screen, email me and maybe I’ll send you a link.

I put up this video on my YouTube channel yesterday. It’s short, only 2 minutes long, and is a basic introduction to me.

I was asked why — I’ve been making videos for a few months now, years even, isn’t it a little late to be putting up an intro video? I’ll explain.

• I started this as an experiment, just dipping my toes in the water. I had no confidence that I could sustain it. Now I’m feeling like, yeah, I can put out one or two videos a week, no sweat, so let’s commit to the long run.

• I’m also getting more confident that I can get better at this — I’m not claiming I’m any good at it, but at least I’m recognizing where all the flaws are and can work on correcting them next time. It’s a productive exercise for me.

• There’s a provision in YouTube for including a channel trailer, that is, a video that is shown to unsubscribed viewers when they visit. I figured I’d finally get around to filling that slot.

• There are video creators on YouTube who are confusing — they have so thoroughly absorbed the internet custom of constant sarcasm that you don’t know whether they’re mocking a position, stating a criticism, or are occupying some undefined middle ground where they make stupid arguments with plausible deniability. I hate those guys. So I wanted to stake out where I’m coming from with complete clarity.

• Another thing I’ve grown to detest: people with crudely animated avatars doing all their speaking for them, with terrible names, like “The Adjective Atheist” or “The Pretentious Modifier Skeptic”. I hate those guys, too. So I’m using my real name, and I’m going to commit to at least begin all future videos with my real face on camera, even though it’s not going to win me any beauty prizes.

So now you know. The beatings will continue until you appreciate them more. Sorry. But I’m doing this for me, not for you.

Speaking of ongoing suffering, I’m planning to subject you all to another “Ask Me Anything” hangout tomorrow, Sunday, 1 July, at noon central time. To get the conversation rolling, I thought I’d share with you a couple of mail messages I’ve received in the last month. Real mail! On paper! With stamps and everything! Also, they’re not all bad, but there are a couple of creationist doozies in there.

I guess they were feeling the heat: RateMyProfessors has already dropped the chili pepper category from their rankings.

They still suck, though.