A Canadian rages against Hoboken, NJ for trying to prevent traffic deaths.
The Canadian in question is psychology professor and social media polluter Jordan Peterson, a man whose main skill is making a fool of himself. Reacting to a news story which described how daylighting - eliminating parking spaces close to intersections- helped reduce Hoboken’s traffic deaths to zero over the last seven years, Peterson took to Twitter to expunge his bile at what he ascertained was yet another example of "wokism." Since you're likely confused by this, let me explain the best I can (I'm not fluent in right-wing crazy). Woke is now the catchall term used to describe anything that tries to improve our lives or help people in anyway. The very idea that I should have to park a few feet further away to prevent accidents is an outrage and an abomination. What about my freedumb?
Sigh. It’s come to the point with the far-right that no matter what liberals say and do, it must instantly be attacked and discredited, usually with the aid of some made-up conspiracy. There is apparently no such thing as a good idea anymore. On even the most basic issues - supporting Ukraine against an evil regime, protecting the environment from catastrophic emissions, minimal gun control, etc, the Right takes positions that are guaranteed to cause harm to our society. These people are so damaged that negation of anything good is their only response. They really have become a death cult.
A media firestorm erupts because of a speech by an NFL kicker.
Almost no one (even football fans) knew who Harrison Butker was before last week, and it would have been great had it stayed that way. Butker is the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs football team, which means he is paid a lot of money just to occasionally kick a ball. His uniform stays clean and the worst injury he is likely to get is a pulled groin. Anyway, Butker is also a Catholic fundamentalist who, when recently tabbed to give the commencement address at Benedictine College, spent the entire speech detailing his social grievances. To summarize, Butker said women should only be mothers and homemakers, gay people deserve neither rights nor respect, and that IVF, surrogacy and euthanasia were “degenerate.”
Predictably, the media jumped all over this. Some immediately called for Butker to lose his job, but that reaction is exactly wrong. Much like Peterson, Butker made a fool of himself. Sunlight has always been the best disinfectant, so why would we lend credence to this buffoon by banishing him and turning him into a martyr? There is a fanatical element in Christianity that believes this crap, and we need to let them continue to embarass themselves with their own words. For these people, religion is just a cover to justify their own depraved urges to dominate and subjugate. (Apparently, many of the boys in the crowd stood and cheered after the speech; let’s see if they feel the same way when they try to get a date.) And guys like Butker are always supreme hypocrites. His mom is a medical physicist who has worked her entire adult life. Different rules for different people, amirite?
Four bootlickers show up at Trump’s New York trial dressed exactly like him.
These last few days of Trump’s criminal trial for illegal use of campaign funds have featured a steady parade of Republican suck-ups hoping to curry favour with the ex-president by showing up at court and telling anyone who will listen that Trump is being persecuted by Joe Biden, the Deep State, a sleazy porn star, the media, and probably Santa and the Easter Bunny, too. But nothing topped the four politicians (see the picture below) who showed up dressed in blue suits and red ties- which is Trump’s standard costume - in the ultimate act of fealty. I’m not sure why they didn’t just dye their hair blonde and apply an inch of orange fake tan to their faces, too.
One of the things that drives me crazy is when people tell me “all politicians are the same.” It isn’t even remotely true, especially in today’s nuthouse environment. If they all seem the same to you, I would suggest you aren’t really looking hard enough, or thinking all that clearly. To whit, any politician that would debase themselves in the way these four did is telling you all you need to know about their utter lack of character. Although most of the morally bankrupt are today found on the Right, this isn’t always the case; the Left has had its dirtbags, too. As voters, we need to hold all politicians to a high standard of personal behaviour and moral integrity. Without that, politics devolves into the clown show we see right now.
A recent poll of Americans would make Pravda proud.
The poll asked people a series of very simple questions about the economy, and half the people got them completely wrong.
56 percent believe the US economy is in recession.
Fact: GDP has been growing since the end of the pandemic
49 percent think unemployment is at a 50 year high.
Fact : Unemployment is near a 50 year low.
49 percent think the stock market has been dropping.
Fact: The stock market went up about 24 percent in 2023 and it is up 12 percent so far this year.
What does this tell us? Well, a couple of things. First, all of these things are easy to Google, so it seems to me that about half of the American population is unable or unwilling to perform a very simple task. Secondly, right-wing propaganda is working very well. The Right spends every minute of every day making up ridiculous junk to convince people that President Biden is destroying America. The USSR had Pravda and Izvestia constantly lying to Soviet citizens. Now the US has Fox and assorted others doing the exact same thing. It shouldn’t be this easy to fool people, but apparently it is.
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