Today's Joke

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat on a lake below. She shouted to him:

"Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be an Obama Democrat.

"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "And you must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well, madam" said the man, "You don't know where you are; you don't know how you got here, and you don't know where you are going. You've risen to where you are, due to practically nothing but hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem for you. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it's my fault."

hat tip = FB friend Bill D, via quora.com

It Is To Laugh

Turnabout's Fair Play

When a Trump fans tells you to "respect" your president... SHO...
Let's re. how they treated Pres. Obama, shall we? pic.twitter.com/HALa9AbhkO

— vlh (@coton_luver) December 30, 2016

It seems at first blush I'd be exposing myself to the Hypocrite charge, but that presupposes Obama and Trump are the same and that fits perfectly into the False Equivalence fallacy.

Point being that Obama didn't have any of it comin' because it was all just a buncha made-up bullshit, while it looks like practically everything Trump's taking flak for is either true or has a pretty high probability of being true.

The GOP lost their minds and set the rules that are getting them bitch-slapped right now, so they don't get to whine about how unfair they think it is.

Karma's a motherfucker.

More Bad News

Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková will NOT destroy the earth this time around, so our long global nightmare will continue for (probably) another 5.25 years - until it comes back around.

Of course, with "President" Chaos in the White House, the odds improve greatly for the end to come a little sooner.

Sleep well.

Commerce Marches On

From WaPo today:

A new law in Michigan will prohibit local governments from banning, regulating or imposing fees on the use of plastic bags and other containers. You read that correctly: It’s not a ban on plastic bags — it’s a ban on banning plastic bags.

--and--

Bans and restrictions on the use of plastic bags are widespread in other parts of the country and around the world. The rationale is simple: Plastic bags are infamous non-biodegradable sources of pollution — although they will eventually break down into tiny pieces, scientists believe this process can take hundreds of years, or even up to a century, in landfills.

--and--

The new Michigan law was met with praise from the Michigan Restaurant Association for this reason.

“With many of our members owning and operating locations across the state, preventing a patchwork approach of additional regulations is imperative to avoid added complexities as it related to day-to-day business operations,” said Robert O’Meara, the association’s vice president of government affairs, in a statement.

Threaten the Cookie Cutter Cost-vs-Profit Structure, and the Rent Collectors will punish you.

And what was that about a powerful remote Central Government imposing its will on the noble local folk?

2016 In Review

So, looking back -
Death
Death
Death
Death
Brexit
Death
Death
Death
Death
Trump
Death
Death
Death
Christm...nope, wait - Death

Serious, fuck off already

hat tip = @Bristol52

Today's Quote

Arendt also coined "the banality of evil" - referring to how great atrocities can be traced back to the small seemingly unimportant steps taken by ordinary people who believed that were doing nothing wrong. Kinda like when the Trump transition team (eg) asks for the names of people at the Dept of Energy who attended Climate Change seminars.

We have to maintain an awareness of the Logical Fallacy of The Slippery Slope, but we must also remember that slopes do exist; and they can get pretty fucking slippery in a big fucking hurry.

Let's try to watch what we're doin'.

Once More From The Top

Test for truth:

The presence of Confirming Evidence

--and--

The absence of Conflicting Evidence

Test for bullshit:

The absence of Confirming Evidence

--or--

The presence of Conflicting Evidence

Today's Meme

Be the reason someone smiles today

Or the reason they drink

Whatever works the best for the most

Today's Quote

Not being loved is a simple misfortune. The true fatality is to not know how to love.

--Albert Camus (from a Spanish translation)

Obama's Farewell

Organism

Today's GIF

And here we have a great look at what we laughingly refer to as The Press here in USAmerica Inc, during the Trump Era.

via GIPHY

Today's Tweet

@ResolutePleb2 @jpbrammer Yes. Let's pretend white genocide isn't some shit a white dude made up because his ex likes black dick. 😂😂

— Jetstream Rev (@JetstreamR3V) December 26, 2016

The Trump Charity Thing

Fahrenthold and Rindler have been looking pretty hard for confirmation of Trump's claims to being generous.  Not much has surfaced.

Here are the first few pages of what they've found - the rest can be gandered at WaPo, and they have a nice breakdown of the timeline and various other tasty bits.

And shouldn't we be hearing some slight murmur from the Press Poodles about Trump's tax returns?