Things I Say

[Garrett Gilchrist]

No, Alicia Machado never recorded a "sex tape." But here's Donald Trump, tweeting at 5:30 AM because boy is he angry, and wants America to know she's "fat." How insane would it be to trust this guy with our nuclear codes?

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this month, some of the news networks start calling Trump on his bullshit. There have to be a lot of people there who are terrified of a Trump Presidency.

[Garrett Gilchrist]

The prospect of a Trump Presidency is a scary one. But we can't despair. Let's use this time to think, to focus on what's really important.

No. My glasses!

That's not fair. That's not fair at all. There was time now. There was all the time I needed...

[Garrett Gilchrist]

Interesting that Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast will feature an updated ending where Russia and the Feds kill The Beast, and arrogant uneducatable blowhard Gaston marries Belle and promises to make France great again.

Disney has also announced a four-year plan to rework every feature they've made so that the bad guys win.

[Garrett Gilchrist]

No comment here, no comment at all. We only wanted to introduce you to one of our very special citizens, Mister Donald Trump, age 70 going on 6, who lives in the White House in the capitol of a place that used to be The United States of America. And if by some strange chance you should run across him, you had best think only good thoughts. Anything less than that is handled at your own risk, because if you do meet Donald, you can be sure of one thing: you have entered The Twilight Zone.

https://theinvisibleagent.files.wordpre ... -22-pm.png

[Garrett Gilchrist]

"Story of Jesus Christ was 'fabricated to pacify the poor', claims a controversial American biblical scholar"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 70879.html

I wasn't aware that this was controversial. Although the details of this guy's theory, as stated here, can be questioned (and seem nonsensical and impossible to prove). Religion, and certainly Christian religion, are all about authoritarianism - becoming a flock of sheep who listen to what strong authority figures of the Church tell you what to do. To see your lives as worthless up until death, and to be controlled.

The Church is nothing more or less than a means of organizing and structuring society. It's a government in its own right, a form of building community and exercising control over the populace. And that energy has not always (or often) been used for good.

When people say they love Jesus, and that Jesus changed their lives, they mean that becoming part of a community changed them. When they talk about what Jesus said, they are talking about how the ministers and reverends interpreted the Bible in their sermons. Which have always tended to regressive authoritarianism. And which have now given us Donald Trump as holy Christian warrior. Please.

It's pretty well established that there is no historical record of Jesus Christ from the time when he's stated as living, and that this material came together a century or two later at the earliest. Which is fine, we all need our mythology. But what Christianity (as authoritarianism) did after that eventually plunged us into the dark ages. Literally. And will continue to do so.

[Garrett Gilchrist]

For the past two years, every sleazy supermarket tabloid in existence has portrayed Donald Trump as a perfect, strong, conquering hero who will defeat terrorism across the globe. They have also depicted Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as criminals who will be arrested any minute now.

Donald Trump pays off the tabloids and they've helped him win and pump misinformation to the gullible. I've never heard anyone talk about this though. And it's clearly some sort of news source for people. They're lied to every time they do their shopping.

The misinformation they're putting out lately is too specific to not be directed by Trump directly.

You know Bill O'Reilly is done because they're eating him alive. Meanwhile the tabloids portray Trump's wildest fantasies of being a superhero. All very specific stuff.

Roger Ailes described FOX News as a network for those "55 to dead." They grew up with a reverence for television and television news. There were only a few networks and they were supposed to tell the truth, rather than opinion. The same was true for newspapers.

So Ailes broke the model -- pitching to older viewers, knowing that they would believe what they were told by the "News" on television. Lie, lie, lie, lie lie.

Same with these tabloid "newspapers."

Sleazy tabloids, on Trump's urging, provide Pro-Trump talking points in form of headlines. Your relatives half remember and converse about it.

[Garrett Gilchrist]

Bill Maher said the N-word on his show. He called himself a "House [N-word]." No one called him on it. The audience laughed and cheered.

Bill Maher has always been garbage. His whole schtick has been being bigoted, especially toward Muslims, and then calling out liberals for not being as bigoted as him. Saying we need to get real and get bigoted. He's allowed a certain Neo Nazi on his show.

Conservatives consider him a liberal, the sort they love to hate. But Maher's political views are hugely bigoted and have no place on the left.

As a "provocateur" he is too much like right-wing commentators (Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter) and no leftie should be comfortable with that. The fact that he hates Trump (or the right) and religion generally does not give him a free pass.

I've tried to explain this to people for years, but their own hated of Islam blinds them. They think Maher is somehow doing some good. I hope he gets fired.

[Garrett Gilchrist]

The only funny thing about South Park and Family Guy these days is that they think they weren't 100% responsible for Trump.

What I want to know is: what does Mike Judge- the creator of Idiocracy- think of Alex Jones, who he has championed in the past, NOW? Does he still support that dangerous blowhard? Asking for a friend.

Beats me. Looking it up, Judge appeared on Jones' show in 2013. They're both local to Austin and Jones presumably reached out and befriended him. That was awhile ago.

Mike Judge is not a liberal but he's also not a moron, he's a very bright guy. I don't think he's ever gone along with the Republican party line as it exists now. I hear very little about his politics, but I'd call that a good thing in our current climate.

Idiocracy kind of reeks of Hitlerian concepts of Eugenics - that the "wrong people" (trailer trash, and also whites who act black) are breeding while "bright" (and more white/educated/affluent coded) people aren't. Which is gross. But it's also a wonderful attack on the dumbing down of our culture generally, which I think we should all be worried about, as it's certainly a form of control. I like to imagine it as not a Eugenics film but rather being about stupidity in the media and lack of education. That would have been much less problematic -- it's still a good piece of work.

I would never lump Mike Judge in with South Park and Family Guy -- his work hasn't gotten super political and has generally taken the high road, just making fun of what he sees as "stupidity" in general, and celebrating/satirizing the quirks of American life and culture.

The co-writer of Idiocracy, Etan Cohen, definitely spoke out very publicly against Trump, with Judge's permission. The two made anti-Trump ads with Terry Crews' character which were then blocked by Fox. I'm figuring Judge sees a lot of stupidity in the rise of Trump ...

At any rate, South Park taught two whole generations that the only villains in this world are people who clearly care about things -- AKA liberals, 90% of the time. That it's only cool to not care about things and think the world is all some bullshit joke. For them, the "real" enemy has always been Hollywood liberals. And they bleat on and on and make speeches about their view of the world as if it's profound. Sad to see, as their early work showed a ton of comedic promise. If they had kept it non-political, or had any political ideas which weren't awful, I'd still consider them comedy greats.

Seth MacFarlane's work has reinforced any toxic attitude our society has, constantly punching down at women, minorities and the vulnerable and making our society dumber and more foul. He also did an episode "praising" Rush Limbaugh, I'm sure at FOX's request. Sad to see, as he's clearly very talented. He just never took the high road. Not ever. His work was always cruel and mean when it didn't have to be. He now makes angry tweets about Trump, as if he wasn't part of the machine that made Trump possible.


I don't know who wrote it - I think in late 2015 - but this Reddit comment has stuck in my mind since.

Yeah, and Manbearpig was almost ten years ago. What an idiot Al Gore was to think climate change was real.

South Park has always been fundamentally reactionary; those pushing for change are wrong no matter what change they push for. Nothing is a bigger crime to Matt and Trey than Giving a Shit. Their ideology is apathetic-libertarian; whether you're on the left or the right, if you're asking me to change my behavior, you suck.

As it stands, the political left tends to push for more change than the political right does; as it stands, Matt and Trey admit they dislike conservatives and "really fucking hate" liberals. It isn't about left or right; it's about change versus comfort. If you're trying to change something, they think you're annoying. And they think you're lame, because caring about stuff is lame.

It's the same attitude that establishes "u mad" and "butthurt" as the ultimate trump cards in internet arguments: caring is for losers, and if you become personally invested in politics you're part of the problem. Uncritical, detached acceptance of the status quo is the only morally upright posture, and those who draw a distinction between is and ought are all smug bullies, outlandish freaks, and/or closed-minded zealots.

It's a show that teaches its audience to become lazy and self-satisfied, that praises them for being uncritically accepting of their own biases, and that provides them with an endless buffet of thought-terminating cliches suitable for shutting down all manner of challenges to their comfort zones.

South Park is a place where you never have to have your assumptions challenged. It's a place where you're always right, you shouldn't bother to think, and the people asking you to change your mind are annoying busybodies and prigs who should just shut up and leave you alone.

South Park is, if you'll excuse the expression...a "safe space."

[Garrett Gilchrist]

Built in 2012, my computer is a "Hackintosh" running Mac OSX on PC hardware, a decision made for budget reasons. Even at the time it was barely a step up from my 2003-era Mac.

I was warned not to update the OS, that this was a tricky business and would almost certainly brick the system. So I haven't updated the OS since then. Meanwhile programs like Firefox and Chrome constantly update. And they're not tested on older versions of OSX, or older computers generally.

Firefox and Chrome used to work fine, but with every update they run slower and take up more memory. Doing just about anything takes up 200% of system resources or more. The system stalls and nothing happens for ten minutes at a time. Simply browsing the web has become agony -- or at least can become agony in a moment. Running Firefox and Photoshop at the same time is a death sentence for the system. Running Firefox by itself is just as bad, if I ask it to do too much.

Programs like Final Cut Pro 7 have not updated and still work fine, as they did in 2012. I can edit video with no problem -- although I have to be careful, as other programs can really slow things down to a halt.

I have accomplished a lot on a system that is pretty much non-functional about 1/5 of the time, and very slow by today's standards.

It's frustrating. Everything is frustrating. Because I don't have the money.

[Garrett Gilchrist]

Still mad about how in Big Hero 6, Fred and his BILLIONAIRE father Stan Lee have a whole philosophy about never changing your underwear. WHY? You have ALL THIS MONEY and you CHOOSE TO BE DISGUSTING for NO REASON

anyway Donald Tru