It’s the stupidity, Stupid 100.1: So it begins. Trump picks Climate Change denier to lead the EPA transition

We knew this crap would happen.  Many Most of the Trump  followers are climate change deniers.  Followers such as the big corporate farmers that grace the local landscape with whatever crop suits them.  Where I live, it’s mostly Almond Trees.  We are still mired in a four year, going on five year drought in California, and these harvesters of water hogging almond orchards want their water. 

Drought?  Not in their vocabulary.  Climate Change?  Not around these parts.  It’s just all one big California conspiracy to deny them the water they need so that we can have Almond Joy bars from now until the end of eternity.  I even saw one farm with a big sign blaming Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for not turning on their secret spigot, even though Republicans hold control of both the House and the Senate.  Well, I guess you have to blame somebody.

But now that Donald Trump is president, I have no doubt that they expect he will turn on the big heavenly water spigot in the sky and all will be right with the world.  Uh…huh.  How does that Joni Mitchell song go? 

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Til its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

With the harvest from one particular local farm bringing in 20,000,000 dollars, I guess it pays to keep denying the obvious.  Trump has taken his first step in giving them a helping hand by doing what we all knew he would do. 

Gut the EPA and fill it with Climate Deniers so that he and all his other buddies can drain the fuck out of Lake Meade so they can take a shower in their Vegas Hotel Suites.  Remember the name when you go to flush your toilet and that turd just sort of lays there kind of helpless like: Myron Ebell.

From Scientific America:

In a biography submitted when he testified before Congress, he listed among his recognitions that he had been featured in a Greenpeace “Field Guide to Climate Criminals,” dubbed a “misleader” on global warming by Rolling Stone and was the subject of a motion to censure in the British House of Commons after Ebell criticized the United Kingdom’s chief scientific adviser for his views on global warming.

More recently, Ebell has called the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan for greenhouse gases illegal and said that Obama joining the Paris climate treaty “is clearly an unconstitutional usurpation of the Senate’s authority.”

He told Vanity Fair in 2007, “There has been a little bit of warming ... but it’s been very modest and well within the range for natural variability, and whether it’s caused by human beings or not, it’s nothing to worry about.”

But whatever. So I guess Climate change isn't real, and with the GOP will be in control, I'm sure they'll be turning on those super secret water hoses they have stashed away at the White House just in time for spring. Meanwhile, here's Joni Mitchell while we wait. But just remember this: It's the stupidity, Stupid.

It’s the Stupidity, Stupid! - 100.0: Yes mom, women can be self hating misogynists as well!

One could argue that those who voted for Führer Trump, did so solely out of racism, homophobia, or misogyny.  And I’m sure most of those people did, although some still are trying to stay in the closet and pretend, “No, it was not I!”

But whether it’s just an acquaintance on Facebook, a friend (or as is more likely, former friend), or even a relative, trying to hide their White Superiority Trashiness, they’re fooling no one.  Least of all me.  

I read somewhere that many of the white bigoted Obama hating woman hating cowards who make up a huge chunk of the electorate, came crawling out of their rat holes to cast their ballots for the first time.  They did this because Trump spoke to them like a godly vision confirming that it was okay to hate minorities and people of color and to publicly cheer them on.  Even last night as Trump was making his victory speech, someone hollered out, “Kill Obama” more than once. 

trump supporter sayin "kill obama" while trump is giving a speech.. This is what u mean by make America great again? pic.twitter.com/J4i7zp8zFC

— . (@Iilcanon) November 9, 2016

But really, do we need all those labels?  It all boils down to one thing.  Almost half this country is wallowing in their own stupidity and seem to be damn proud of it.  And there is enough blame to go around for the fact that if these people went looking for their own ass to wipe, they’d probably be hard pressed to find it.

Case in point: Women who support Trump.  It’s not just that they are stupid in regards to their own glorification of bigotry, but when it comes to misogyny, they can out do any man on the planet.   Is it now any wonder that women in this country have such a time gaining equal footing when apparently half of them are filled with self-hatred for themselves and their own gender?

I’ve shared this particular disgusting picture of pure idiocy on Facebook more than once.  The shirt says Trump can feel her pussy, but you just as well put, “Yes, I’m stupid, and I hate myself and every woman I know” on the back.

 

It’s stupidity run amuck, and a woman who would wear this crap is either desperate for attention, or is so full of self-loathing that she needs a man to tell her she’s worth a plumb nickel.  Even one who makes a habit of bragging about sexual assault.  We can only hope this woman has no offspring to brainwash with her drivel, but that’s probably wishful thinking.

But it gets worse.  I ran across this article at Raw Story which was written before the election where we get these gems:

While it’s jarring to hear a woman defend sexual assault, Robertson isn’t the only female who attends rallies for a candidate who has demonstrated on numerous occasions that he thinks of women as second class citizens who deserve to be called “fat pigs“, or worthless if he doesn’t consider them attractive.

Wisconsin voter Debbie Shields says she believes that Trump is a “loving and compassionate father who was chosen by God “for a time as this.” Another Wisconsin woman who only goes by Shirley also told CNN that Trump’s character flaws aren’t really that big of a deal. She believes Democrats “have no issues they can win on, so all they can do is try to pick on Trump and his character.”

When TYT field reporter Jordan Chariton asked an unidentified female Trump fan whether she would in the very least be happy about the possibility of Hillary becoming the country’s first female president, she replied “Absolutely not. I don’t believe there should be a woman President…I just don’t believe it should be female leaders.”

The writer of the article, goes on to explain it this way:

What I never seem to understand about feminist-bashing conservative women is their inability to see how ironic it is that they attend political rallies, share their opinions and cast their ballots when the America they’re nostalgic about wouldn’t allow them to do any of those things. If a woman thinks that females have no place in politics, why isn’t her deplorable ass in the kitchen making her husband a ham sandwich? Women are not to be heard, right? And to be honest, I wouldn’t mind never hearing from someone that ignorant again.....

This election unequivocally proves that right wing Trump supporters don’t really care about the safety of women. Females have been a convenient prop to fit their discriminatory agenda, but when protecting them becomes inconvenient, the right kicks them to the curb. In fact, as soon as one of their own is accused of harming women in any way, they’re indifferent to say the least.

What I'm wanting to say is that it’s time for women to speak out against the ignorance of those other “ladies” who want to live their life as the ultimate female media stereotype: Dumb and stupid.  You can’t give them a pass anymore than you would Donald Trump, who could title his next book, “The Art of Misogyny: To Serve Man”.  Because unless more of you get on the same page, you’re simply treading water.

So when you see or hear from one of these self-hating, woman demeaning ladies just remember one thing: It’s the stupidity, stupid.

Q. What do you call it when a man grabs a woman's genitals without consent?
A. In America, we call it Presidential.

— John Fugelsang (@JohnFugelsang) November 9, 2016

Tonight’s Overnight Comedy Moment: Hosted by Sarah Palin

Tonight’s Comedy Moment: It’s a Recession.

Why Cable Monopolies and Internet Monopolies Continue to Suck the Life out of and Hold Their U.S. Customers Hostage.

Our designated cable company where I live is Brighthouse.  Brighthouse is in fact owned by Time Warner but operated by another company thanks to some fancy stock dealing.  In other words you can take it to the bank that when push comes to shove, in the end you’re still dealing with Time Warner. 

In my area where I live, the only way that Brighthouse keeps from losing customers is by bundling internet with TV and phone to make it look like you're getting a really good deal by combining the three.  That may be true if you can harangue them into a short trial installation such as those given by the Satellite companies, but after that expires they really put the screws to you and the deal is no deal at all.  But they figure you’ll put up with it because it’s cheaper then switching to Satellite for TV, and your phone service by another carrier, because they also know if you want any decent internet speed at all, you have no choice in the matter.

By the time I dumped Brighthouse, my bundled services were close to $200 a month.  The only pay channel I carried was Showtime because Audrey likes Dexter, Shameless, Californication, and some other Showtime stuff.  I also carried a smaller $6 package that included Encore and a few other lesser channels.   Well, it was supposed to be six dollars.

I had already made up my mind to try and get the bill down to a more reasonable figure.  We didn’t really need the phone service.  Everybody in this house has a cell phone so there was no real point to having it.  But when I told the Brighthouse representative I wanted to cut off just the phone service, the bill only went down about six bucks, even though the monthly statement always showed the phone service as being $30.  It’s called Monopoly math I guess.

When I said I wanted to get rid of the small encore package, the total price went up  because well, you see, I had been getting a deal and now I wasn’t.  It’s total bullshit nonsense designed entirely to discourage people from moving on.  But I’m smarter than that. I told them to shove the whole thing up their ass except for the internet.  I would have told them to choke on that service as well if we had one decent alternative.  But we don’t.

In most areas of this particular region, if you want good internet speed you really only have one choice.  That's Brighthouse.  They have a monopoly for the most part, although in some places in Bakersfield you can get Cox. 

So if you unbundle, Brighthouse jacks up the price for internet to $60  or more.  $70 if you want the mid range service which you practically have to have for streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu.  Well you do have a choice of the inconsistent slower speed if you don’t mind sitting and watching Netflix buffer the show you’re watching three or four times and hour.  The top tier will cost you even more.  Life is grand for big corporations with huge monopolies. 

The only internet alternative I have is AT&T who keeps sending us ads telling us that we can get fast internet service for the low “introductory” price of $14.99.  That "fast internet service" is in reality, "up to 3MBS".  In other words, forget streaming or doing much of anything besides browsing the internet.  Fine for a few, ridiculous for most.

This is after AT&T had promised the FCC that they would be providing better speeds in areas such as this.  That of course was total b.s.  It took them forever just to begin providing DSL service here at all.  I did use their service once, but that was before the days of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu etc.  As Google Fiber slowly works it’s way around the country, I’ll be cheering them up although it’s doubtful I’ll live long enough to see them finally give Brighthouse a run for their money.

But I still saved money.  I switched to Dish and for the first year,  even after paying Brighthouse their King’s Ransom for internet service, I saved quite a bit.  For the second year, I’m still saving about $30 a month over Brighthouse, and this is with a package that includes the same Showtime and Encore packages we had before.

Better yet, the new Dish Hopper beats anything Brighthouse has by leaps and bounds.  For instance, I no longer have to worry about setting up to record particular network shows from ABC, CBS, NBC, or FOX in prime time.  It records all of them automatically.  Every single one.  And if you wait until the next day to watch a recorded show, it’ll skip the commercials for you on those programs as well.  Add a two terabyte external hard drive as I did, and you have more than enough room to record whatever you want.  Not that the space already provided didn’t do the job.  I had well over 500 shows recorded before getting the external hard drive and still had room left over.  But I wanted to keep a season’s worth of episodes on a few series so this arrangement just made that easier. 

On the downside, Dish is really not much different from the cable company despite it’s lower price.  You have to buy “packages” and often the networks you want to watch  are upper tier packages as this is what happened in my case.  Who knows what would happen if people were actually able to pay for only those networks they watched.  I could do away with well over 90 per cent of what I’m paying for.

Most of the smarter people I know have given up Brighthouse for either Dish or Direct TV.  In this area you don’t have to worry about storms, snow, or clouds or any of that other stuff that can cause Satellite reception to go haywire but from what I read that’s not as much of a problem as it was in the early days of Satellite TV.

If I had my own personal choice though, I would put a decent antenna system up on the roof and say goodbye to Dish as well.  We live far enough from any local stations that rabbit ears just don’t work.  We are also hindered by the fact that the signal sent out by the Bakersfield stations are terribly weak.

Two things hold me back.  Girlfriend Audrey watches a lot of shows, and second for health reasons I can no longer go climbing around on roofs and install an antenna system on my own.  And I can’t find anyone around here who does that kind of work anymore.

But I’ll look into it again and will see if I can’t talk the girlfriend into giving pay television the big kiss off when our Dish contract is up next year.  This is the last season for Dexter coming up so she won’t miss that.  Most of her other shows and a couple I watch, would be readily available with an antenna, although we would probably have to invest in our own DVR initially.  No big deal.  We’ll  still end up saving money over the space of a year. 

And one more word of advice if you have Brighthouse.  Don’t ever never be late paying your bill even by a few days because you somehow missed it, or just over looked it.  Why? 

Because they’ll send a guy around to hang a threatening notice on your door to let the whole world know you slipped up as if somehow you’re a dead beat because you didn’t get them their internet ransom demand in a timely fashion.  And then, they’ll charge you an extra $10 for having experienced the privilege of being shamed. 

I had this happen once.  When I called the lady at the company, she said this was their “new policy.”  In other words, another way to squeeze $10  more out of you.  I told her that their policy was a bunch of crap (I used stronger language) and that I had never ever come home and found a notice like that hanging on my door and I didn’t give a damn what their pathetic reasoning was, especially when I had been a customer for years and had never missed a single payment.  And if you think the $10 dollars goes to pay the guy for putting that crap on your door, think again.  Most of them live in your neighborhood or are working there anyway.  As a matter of fact, there’s a Brighthouse employee that lives two blocks from me.  I know this because the company truck is always parked in his driveway.

One thing for certain, when it comes to internet service, cable, or cell phone service, U.S. customers are screwed thanks to their representatives in congress constantly lining their pockets with a mountain of cash from these media giants and their continuing flow of highly paid lobbyists.  Overseas, internet connections are faster and a whole lot cheaper.  People in Europe would not tolerate shit like this, so why do we?