FUCKING IDIOTS « PAB: For the poorest of elites.

when the status quo frustrates.

Meghan McCain Has Tits- Conservative Community Shocked

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

This morning, I woke up and opening my eyes to the thin amount of light in my room caused shooting pain to go down my temples. Every cell of my body was crying that I needed more sleep, dammit, and they were not getting up for sex much less for working at the thrift store. Naturally, I appeased the demands of my oppressed body and called in sick to work.

A few hours of sleep later, and a couple tylenol with codeine, and I’m in a state where I can comfortably look at a computer screen while sitting (though not much else). My friend jumps up to send me this conversation(typos kept in because, fuck it, that’s why):
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15.10.2009 Punkass!, Advice, Culture, FUCKING IDIOTS, discrimination 5 Comments

Adventureland

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

Hi. I’m a 21 year old white male. I just graduated from Oberlin College and will be attending Columbia’s graduate program in journalism next fall. My still-married parents have paid for everything in my life to the point where I’ve not had to hold a single job. Ever.

BUT YOU REALLY NEED TO FEEL SORRY FOR ME BECAUSE I’M A SHY VIRGIN AND MY DADDY DRINKS AND MY PARENTS MAY NOT PAY FOR MY SCHOOL OR MY NEW YORK APARTMENT AND I LIKE THIS GIRL WHO HAS THE GALL TO BANG SOMEONE ELSE EVEN THOUGH I WAS JUST TOTALLY BROKEN UP OVER SOME OTHER GIRL I DATED FOR 11 DAYS LIKE 2 WEEKS AGO AND ALSO OTHER GUYS PUNCH ME IN MY NUTS OVER AND OVER AND I JUST TAKE IT SO NOW I’M WORKING AT AN AMUSEMENT PARK WHICH IS LIKE WHAT POOR PEOPLE HAVE TO DO WHILE I READ HENRY MILLER AS A STATUS SYMBOL AND MY FRIENDS ARE UGLY.

I need another movie about a depressed well-to-do white boy like I need someone to rip out my teeth with pliers. Enter Adventureland, one of the most tone-deaf comedies I’ve ever seen. If you like feeling sorry for privileged Nice Guys(TM) chasing cardboard cutouts of actual women, check it out.

Two thumbs up. Its own ass.

03.04.2009 Dudes, FUCKING IDIOTS, Looks like someone needs an intervention, Movies 7 Comments

A message to violent smegwads everywhere

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

Hey douchebags, listen up, it’s strategy time.

If you’d all just be a little bit smurfier to the ladyfolk, maybe we’d all get Some O Dat a whole lot more often.

Seven or eight years ago I read The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris. It had a profound effect on my thinking about the human race. He made the ultimate point that humans may pride themselves as being something other than animals, but at the end of the day, we are animals too. The instinctual urges that we think of as just part of an animal’s unavoidable nature affect us just as strongly. Different animals may have slightly different sets of instincts, but the fact is we have them too (and how!), despite our penchant for dressing them up with highly intelligent, baroque justifications.

Now, one tidbit from the book actually seemed to argue against Morris’s thesis in a small way (if I recall correctly), which was when he asserted that humans are the only species that engages in intra-species killing, also known as “murder”. And indeed, this was the conventional scientific wisdom until years after The Naked Ape was published, when Jane Goodall reported that the peace-loving chimpanzees she was famous for observing also seem to enjoy a spot of the old intra-species ultra-violence every now and then, as well. Thus providing more support for Morris’s thesis after all.

I am not down with whoever staged this photo

But there is some hope for us yet, according to neurologist and professional baboon observer Robert Sapolsky. In the early 80s, a baboon group he was observing in Kenya lucked into a garbage dump from a tourist lodge that had expanded its operations. Every morning, the combative, anti-social alpha baboons would raid the meat in the dump, and eat it all up before the more mellow baboons could get to it. And then… an amazing plot twist.

Tainted meat killed the majority of the baboon group… but also, every single one of the aggressive asshole Alphas.

24.03.2009 FUCKING IDIOTS, Philosophisizining, War HUH! What is it good for? 3 Comments

I Haz Tiny Little Gurlz Feet

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

My new job is at a construction site, and my old steel-toed non-slip workboots had finally given up the ghost after seven years of hard use. Now, I got those old boots via my first company out of college, which simply passed around a mail-order catalogue to its new hires with the allowed makes and models circled; we just picked out our own size in our preferred color or style and voila! two weeks later–workboots. The set of workboots I owned prior to that had been issued to me by the Army…you see a trend here..? In short, I did not realize what an ordeal buying my own steel-toed, non-slip workboots was going to be.

Now, I am not an unusually small woman. I am five feet eight inches tall, with a medium build and average bone structure. My feet are a very generic women’s standard width American size 8. I rarely to never have real trouble finding shoes I want or need that fit my feet, regardless of whether we are talking athletic shoes, dress shoes, casual shoes–you name it. The picture captioning this blog? I had no trouble at all finding a pair of those kind of boots that fit, as you can see.

After having spent the afternoon shopping for a new pair of steel-toed non-slip workboots, I am being forced to come to one of the following conclusions:

1. Women do not work on construction sites.
2. Men are vetted for construction jobs based on shoe size.
3. Gender stereotyping by the retail industry is alive and well.

I found exactly one line of steel-toed non-slip footgear for women, charmingly referred to as the “Amy” line; however, they are not boots. They are what is known as “factory shoes,” which are fine for manufacturing floors but not for construction sites–essentially, they’re not boots; they look like running shoes.

So, I was finally forced to buy the absolute smallest size workboot I could find, which is a men’s size 7. Whatever my foot size is in men’s boots, it is shorter by at least an inch than a men’s size 7–but I can keep the damn things on, at least, and that’s clearly the best I am going to be able to do on short notice. I’ve put in an e-mail to a friend of mine who works in the safety department of a previous job, who will hopefully provide me with some links to online ordering companies specializing in steel-toed non-slip workboots like whatever company it was that provided the boots for my first job out of college. But since I need these boots next week, for now, I am stuck with boots that do not fit and will probably rub my feet raw and fail to contribute to my gracefulness in navigating trip hazards on the construction site.

<—-pissed OFF!

07.02.2009 Asides, FUCKING IDIOTS, For the ladies, If I have to suffer you have to suffer, What Patriarchy?, Work 19 Comments

What the Bloody Fuck is Wrong With Burger King?

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

I haven’t eaten at Burger King ever since their “Man Food” commercials, (which wasn’t exactly a huge imposition since I didn’t think their food was that great in the first place); but if I ate there, this would be enough for me to kill it again.

Their newest ad campaign apparently decided that sexism wasn’t selling, so they went for the racism angle. The premise of it is this: they go to “remote” third-world villages, and give the people there a Burger King Whopper or a McDonald’s for the world’s “purest taste test”.

(My own Transcript after the Fold)
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10.12.2008 Corporate Idiocy, FUCKING IDIOTS, Media hackery, capitalism 17 Comments

I’m Broke, Not Poor

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

Somebody decided to post on, what I thought was, a dead thread. It is talking about some of the problems a poor person has to deal with that middle class people just don’t have to deal with, and the moralizing that goes on when poor people get “frivolities”: little things to make their life happier.* The moralizing inevitably had to do with how lazy poor people were and how they just couldn’t manage their money, and why should me, the epitome of pulling myself up by my bootstraps, have to fund their laziness and irresponsibility?

On some level, it’s easy to see where privileged people get this idea. In some ways, it does seem like you’re doing things on your own steam, when you’re in college and your just making ends meet. I work just under the 20 hours a week (Bar rules, no more than 20 a week while in law school) plus law school itself which is a hefty time suck. Hubby works a lot, and is barely home, but is generally not flying when he’s not home, so it means he doesn’t get his full pay-per-hour. We get paid crap: after working for 4 years in the same technician job I make a little over 8 dollars an hour, and after 200,000 dollars of student debt and an aviation degree, he makes a little over 12 dollars an hour. We fall under the poverty line, and we can’t purchase near what we want. He gets packed lunches, and 90 percent of our stuff is donated, dumpster-dived, or purchased second-hand.

But we aren’t poor. No one’s going to complain to me that I don’t deserve to go and eat out, or see a movie ever now and again. (In fact, the only time I get called “irresponsible” is when I donate to charity, funny that). My cat was a welcomed addition to our house, because she makes us calmer. My iPod was stolen out of my car, as was my contracts book. I waited until Black Friday, and purchased the slightly cheaper one: but I still got an iPod. No one said it was a waste of money (particularly considering I refuse to work-out without one, and I’m not immune from “concern” from my friends about my weight). I have enough to get a replacement Contracts book: I’m not going to fail (although the loss of my notes is a hard one). I got sick, and went to the doctor to see why: no charge (insurance through the Hubby’s work). The reason I’m “broke” and not “poor” is because unforeseen expenses don’t cause any life-shifting change.

And this is not because I’m particularly hard-working, nor is it because I’m particularly good with money. I leave my credit card at 500 dollars maximum because I can’t keep track of how much money I spend. I don’t think I’ve paid rent on time once. I have direct deposit on all of my bills that I can so I don’t have to worry about going into arrears. If I were poor, I would be fucked.

02.12.2008 FUCKING IDIOTS, capitalism 25 Comments

I’m Not Happy

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

“My”* guy won last night. We have elected our first black president in the United States; a date that will go down in history and I am predicting might be one of our generation’s “Kennedy moment”**. We will be asked by our children where we were when we heard that the first black president was elected.

Anti-choice measures all across the country failed tonight (including the 3-peat “Parental notification” measure that failed in California). Children won’t have to worry about being thrown out of a house or beaten because of an unwanted pregnancy.

Dole, the atheist-baiting bigot, was defeated in Nouth Carolina.

But, like getting an A on all of your classes but failing one, my disappointment today is about Proposition 8 in California. I was hoping against hope that people wouldn’t want to take away people’s right to marry. I was hoping against hope that even though they wouldn’t give the rights to people, that they would recognize those self-same civil rights when the courts were forced to step in.

But they didn’t…

And now, after a major stepping stone forward for the civil rights of one group, all I can think of is the civil rights lost to the ones who tripped and fell. They lost their right to legal recognition of their love, and all of the privileges therein. All of the rights of marriage: the health care from the partners insurance, the community property, the tax break, the visitation rights; all of the things that took me and my Hubby 15 minutes and 65 bucks; are being taken away from people who are my friends and loved ones.

All so people don’t have to tell their children that gay people exist. All so people get to keep the magical word “marriage” to their happy little heterosexual selves. All so “traditionalists” who don’t what the hell the word “tradition” means can stay stuck in their backwards, bigoted world, afraid of how fast the world is changing, and too lazy to want to keep up with it. And this is bigotry; plain and simple. This is not wanting homosexual people to have the same rights as heterosexual people, because some pastor said that a 2000-year-old book written by a bunch of bronze-age, nomadic goat herders about a megalomaniac, sadistic sky fairy that had been translated and re-translated a bunch of time through the centuries had a few, taken-out-of-context phrases that meant to literally say that “gays are icky”.

I’m disappointed, and I’m furious. I’m angry because I’m now going to be told that the gay rights movement just needs to ask nicer next time, and if they wouldn’t be so in-your-face about it, and just wait nicely, then they would have won. I’m angry because people are proud in their bigotry: they are CELEBRATING it under some sort of fuzzy definition of “values”. And I’m angry because anger is a much more productive emotion than sorrow.

*Technically, I would have preferred McKinney. But, Obama’s the one I voted for.
*That and 9-11.

05.11.2008 Punkass!, Culture, FUCKING IDIOTS, Family, Godbaggery, Human Rights, Soapbox, discrimination 14 Comments

Right.

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

My younger son just handed me a permission slip for his school’s sixth grade Friday Halloween dance. While I was dutifully filling out the “contact information” and signing it, I couldn’t help but notice his stifled giggles. “What?” I asked as I handed the permission slip over.

“Mom,” he said, “you didn’t read the information sheet attached to it yet!” Unable to contain himself further, he shouted out, “I’m not allowed to show any CLEAVAGE!”

Nope, he sure isn’t!–as a matter of fact, the information sheet has a highlighted, bolded section at the very bottom, entitled “Administration’s Costume Guidelines for October 24, 2008 Sixth Grade Dance.” Beneath it is listed the costume restrictions:

1. Not too short
2. No fake weapons
3. Not provocative
4. No Cleavage
5. No under garments showing

(Capitalization untouched from the original.)

Too short? Not provocative? No CLeVaGe? No undergarments showing..? Gee. What too short a costume could my eleven-year-old son possibly wear? What “under garments” are we talking about here–his boxers? And what the fuck is a provocative costume on an eleven year old–

OH, oh, oh–they’re not talking about what BOYS might be wearing! (slaps forehead)

I find the guidelines raise far more questions than they answer. To wit:

1. How many eleven-year-old girls have any cleavage to speak of? One or two at most?
2. Of all the others, if any part of their breastbone is showing in the costume, does the Administration get to humiliate them publicly and send them home for showing Cleavage?
3. What Administrators are finding anything any eleven-year-old girl wears, up to and including nothing at all, so provocative that that was the adjective that sprang to mind when formulating these guidelines?
4. If I show up to the school to chaperone, as they are begging parents to do elsewhere in the information sheet, can I bring a fake weapon and smack the Administration with it?
5. On second thought, can I just wear a “burqa” costume and tape copies of the guidelines all over the outside and hand out fliers for Pedophiliacs Anonymous instead?

21.10.2008 FUCKING IDIOTS, Shame on you for being a woman, Wankers 17 Comments

Fucking racists.

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

I have no further comment, other than a reiteration that I will do nearly anything to avoid breathing the same air as these people, much less voting for any candidate, any candidate at all whom they might endorse.

16.10.2008 FUCKING IDIOTS, Racism 3 Comments

The Fetusmobiles are here again.

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

The DNC seems to be bringing out all the protesters. Including the protesters who feel that both the number of (1) women killed by a lack of access to reproductive healthcare, and (2) the number of car accidents stemming from drivers being distracted by giant fetuses, are far below what we, as a nation, could achieve.

(Disturbing fetus picture below the cut.)

26.08.2008 Punkass!, Bodily Autonomy, FUCKING IDIOTS, Godbaggery, Reproductive Rights 8 Comments

How I Learned that the “P” in “PZ Myers” Stands for Paul

Saturday, July 12th, 2008

I’ve been following the Frackin’ Cracker story since its first appearance on the news, even before PZ’s first post on the subject. It’s turned into quite the bloody saga of PZ-hating (not to mention creative ways to desecrate a Holy Cracker) out there, with…oh, you guessed it…our bestest buddy Billdo carrying the lead torch and pitchfork to storm Pharyngula’s walls!

(First Kyso’s “ilk” and now PZ’s…wonder how many “ilks” I can associate myself with…I’m such a wannabe “ilker,” I’m ashamed, ashamed I tell you. I need to find my own person to offend.)

But anyway, PZ mentioned yesterday that there might be some mention of him in the Washington Times today. In case anyone was wondering what it would take for me to actually go online and deliberately try to find something written in the Washington Times, this is the first time that’s ever happened.

(A small side story: when I first moved to the DC area years and years ago, I bought a subscription to the Washington Post–even in Bumfuck Kansas where I grew up, I’d heard of the Post. My husband at the time remarked sniffily that I wasn’t going to get a complete unbiased picture of the news if all I did was read that bastion of blatant liberality and I should really also get a subscription to the Times as well–as I recall, he was motivated to suggest this from something some radio talk show host dude named G. Gordon Liddy said on his program. I pointed out to him that said dude might possibly have a personal reason to slam the Post, but I went ahead and bought a subscription to the Times anyway. I even tried to take the articles contained therein seriously, peppered with typos and grammatical errors as they were, but found myself unable to really swallow anything presented in such an incredibly unprofessional way regardless of the content that I gave up after a few issues. Maybe they’ve improved their print copy since then, though?)

Struck gold, too!

Professor solicits hosts to desecrate

With a super-cute picture of PZ even.

And I also now know that his first name is Paul.

An anti-religion Minnesota biology professor expects to receive dozens of consecrated Communion wafers in response to his public solicitation that people send him the hosts in order that he may publicly desecrate them.

They clearly pulled the wrong picture out of the archives. This one’s way more in the spirit of the story:

The University of Minnesota is coming over as pretty cool and sane, though, in spite of the obvious attempts by whomever was interviewing them to get them to say something juicy. Check it out.

12.07.2008 Punkass!, FUCKING IDIOTS, Godbaggery, Media hackery, Moronic Religions, Mutterings Of The Disturbed, book larnin' No Comments

It’s Almost Like Gays and Lesbians are Real Human Beings. I Don’t Know About You But I’m Just Shocked By The Idea.

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

Tomorrow’s NYT headline: Pope Finds He Is Catholic.

Gay Couples Find Marriage Is a Mixed Bag

15.06.2008 FUCKING IDIOTS, LGBT, Teh Gay 2 Comments