In Which paleo Yells At Radio And Clouds (Maybe). Also, Awards!

Last weekend, while running errands on a Saturday morning, as is typical of Saturday AM radio all my usual radio stations had

“Use miracle Vitamin X-7, made from pressed anaconda. Cures diabetes; colonoscopy; hysteria and other typical female problems; and vaccine-based diseases such as autism and not missing a year of school because of a polio outbreak in your bedroom!

or

“Buy an apartment complex for no money down and retire by this afternoon!”

or

“The Fluoubeetazinc in organic raised eggplants will allow you to buy an apartment complex with no money down and give everyone polio by this afternoon!”

Blech. Hmmph. Scanscanscanscan what the everfucking love?

Okay, right wing clap-your-hands-to-save-Jesus-From-Well-Me radio, some clichéd tough guy calling himself Joe Pags, no link because he’s not the central point here, just another low-rent Michael Savage with dreams of moving up to become a low rent Mark Levin, who watches American Sniper while wearing both Depends and a condom. Mr. Pags and his acolytes were, near as I can tell, discussing the Tsarnaev trial and sentencing phase, in the common right wing Spirograph system, Obamaphones, Black Benghazi Panther Certificates, OMG Hitlery. Creationism was breached, and his Hostness proceded to educate his audience. Paraphrased, ‘if the earth’s orbit was just a couple degrees different, we wouldn’t be here, therefore the earth was created for us evolutionists eat puppies satan satan godidit.’

Well, hell, the first clause is nearly vaguely correct. If the earth’s orbit was a couple degrees different life as we know it wouldn’t exist, yes. I wonder why…

Oh, yes, because EVERY CRITTER ON THIS STUPID ROCK, THROUGH NATURAL SELECTION, EVOLVED TO SURVIVE ON THIS EARTH IN THIS ORBIT WITH THESE ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS. Creatures, including us, with adaptations that were best suited to allow survival tended to survive, hence, my ugly ass.

To steal a line, “Life Finds A Way.”*

If the earth changed orbit, and we couldn’t adapt (evolve), we would go away and confuse the hell out of some future Slappyborgian archeologist touring the remnants of the Solar system. If the earth had started in that slightly different orbit, but had the chemistry and survived the universal crapshoot for life to start, and that life then adapted to survive and thrive in those environmental conditions, the Quatloonian race of Clobetazole 7 might now be ruling this quadrant and beating the snot out of those damnable Slappyborgs. Fuckers – I hate ‘em! Ummm.

Joey, the universe is a neat and endlessly creative place without the need for a Hirsute Heavenly He-Man.**

As the Gyroscope Of Loonacide continued turning on the radio, they hit the Tsarnaev verdict again. This is where the stumpfuckers reminded us again that a.) they are not stable; b.) they are not xtians, if anything, they are Paulites and love the Deuteronomical laws, they have never read the Red Words and if they had existed coexistant to Rabbi Yeshua, they would have volunteered the nails and the hammer for the goddamn soshamalistic hippie; and c.) there’s a bunch of them, and the cravenly powers that be court their votes.

“Strap him to a pressure kettle bomb!” “Torture him first!” “They should do it on Pay Per View, like wrasslin’!” “The Bibbly says an eye for an eye!”***

I know that Joe and his esteemed audience are missing the gene for IQ, and molars, thumbs, not eating roadkill; so Imma speak slowly.

Under extremely stringent circumstances I can live with the death penalty. Stringent circumstance number one? MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT GUY.***** I’m good with the death penalty with many cases of rape, absolutely for pedophilia, if you hurt a kid, or terroristic acts. (I know, I know, I just described frat bastards, priests, priests and Republican legislators, and Dick Cheney.) The death penalty is not a deterrent. The death penalty should not be revenge. The death penalty is the result of those cases where someone has done something completely. fucking. wrong., and must go away. 

For as much as I’ve followed the Tsarnaev trial, it appears to me that the kid truly cashed his check and it’s about time to leave the building. Okay. (And so why can’t we get Cheney?!?) I have not followed that closely, and while I would like to know from anyone who has been paying attention if that is the case, for the sake of continuing this puddle of word, let’s assume he done genuinely earned himself a ticket to hell. Fine.

But torture? Effin’ Pay Per View? Wow, yer a dick. Seriously. “Well, paleo, eye for an eye, we have to do to him what he done to us ooops, pissed myself.” No. Thank you for playing, you’re dumb.

Do you even know why we supposedly do not allow cruel and unusual punishment? Or, if you are reading, torture, Mr. Cheney?

BECAUSE WE SHOULD BE BETTER THAN THE RAPIST, THE PEDOPHILE, THE TERRORIST. Or, we’re supposed to be – to judge by the raw bloodthirst Joey’s callers exhibited, they are not much better than Tsarnaev.****** I, for one, refuse to let the criminal drag me down to his level. Can you jackals even fathom that? Tsarnaev may have to go away, but that is no reason for us to throw away our humanity, our pride, or our justice system.

WHAT DO WE HAVE FOR OUR GUEST, JOHNNY?

Mr. Pags, I award you and your sycophants a free public education, as it is apparent none of you have taken advantage of the one offered you in childhood. I also give you sippy cups, as blood can be so hard to get out of your onesies.

AND SO, HAVING VANQUISHED THE MONSTER, paleo MUST awww, hell, what’s this?

A day later, returning home from work, I was listening to The Daily Report, local afternoon liberal talk. Couple of really good fellas, the host Ian and producer Wilhelm, check out their show streaming and as podcasts. (And occasionally you hear me, and occasionally I’m even polite.)

In order to explain the following rant, I have to dig into the weeds of Minnesota politics a touch.

Minnesota, under two whole years of actual leadership courtesy of Governor Mark Dayton******* and a fully Democratic-Farmer-Labor lege , boasted a near $2B surplus, and after 8 years of Guv. Wonderbread and Mayo Timmy Pawlenty, has a lot of stuff to fix, to fund. But (scare chord) last fall, the MN Pubbles took over the MN state House.

They just put out their legislative priorities. Schools? No. Environment? No. Take a guess.  Oh, I can’t hold it in -

TAX BREAKS!!! For a few people. They want to hand out every penny of surplus, plus some borrowed funds, in tax breaks, primarily, I know, shocked, right?, to the wealthy. You got yer school vouchers, no property taxes for corporations, cut the minimum wage for restaurant servers, and, if you’re a $50K household, you get $125.00 EACH YEAR for THE NEXT TWO YEARS! WOOOOait, what about transportation? No? K, gotcha. Every republican fellates derp.

Now, as Ian and William discussed transportation funding, a gentleman, who I suspect believes himself an economic realist and fancies himself a principled libertarian, called about light rail.

Light rail is fairly new to the Twin Cities, is quite popular, and needs expansion. (Particularly from my home suburb to my work exurb. Not gonna happen? Shit.) Caller ‘Chris’ brought up the strawman that light rail will never pay for itself, why do we have it, unspoken racism, unspoken classism, we haz to subsidize it oh noes, why don’t we fix roads********, especially in places far from the urban hellhole that is Minneapolis-St. Paul, like the intersection of Grandpa Braunschweiger Trail and Fire Road 11357 in Itaska Cty.

 paleo blinks, finds scotch

Chris? Ummm, sweetie, WHEN HAVE THE ROADS EVER PAID FOR THEMSELVES? HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF A TOLL ROAD THAT WAS NOT SUBSIDIZED BY THE STATE? How long, after you finished your interstate highway system, did it take for the riches to roll into your account?

I mean, I have not yet heard that Target put in a Paver selection, even online.

All. Transportation. Is. Subsidized. All transportation is subsidized, it’s a public need, a public good, and it cannot be done without tapping the public commons (ooooo, soshalamalamdingdong). ALL TRANSPORTATION IS SUBSIDIZED. Light Rail is much greener than auto traffic, solves a lot of downtown parking problems. Certainly road (and in MN, especially, bridge, thank you Lil’ Timmy) upkeep is a crucial part of the transportation puzzle, but a well-considered transportation plan requires light rail pieces.

And roads, bridges, and light rail will all be, and will always be, subsidized, and will NEVER turn a profit. They. Are. Simply. Needed. Deal with it, oh libertarian screwhead.  

BY THE SACRED COMMITTEE OF ME, I HEREBY PRESENT TO YOU:

Caller ‘Chris’, I award you 270,357 feet of MatchBox racetrack, from my parent’s basement. Some of the track may be dinged up, as they also made wonderful impromptu swords. If you can figure out a way to make public, well, anything pay, I’ll award you a subscription to a peer-reviewed transportation journal that you may enlighten us.

 

*Okay, from Michael Crichton, yeah, I know he was a global warming denialist and in general a twerp, but bitch could write.

**I guess personally I preferred She-Ra, because 11 year old boy and boobs, but actually I was a Warner Bros guy, and Bugs Bunny in drag neither fooled me nor jump started puberty.

***Actually, that’s a Mosiac law thingy, Deuteronomish, like don’t wear both silk and hemp.**** Jesus didn’t say a bloody thing about televising an execution by pipe bomb, he was too busy beating the tar out of peckernecks using religious buildings for commerce.

****Thereby probably preventing some extremely relaxed foreplay. BASTARDS!!!

*****Any review of the news or Governor Rick Perry’s terms in office in Texas show that being that stringent is something right wingers are not especially interested in.

******If they’re serious, that is – most wingers spend a lot of time in their basements watching Fox, trying to find dry underwear.

*******Except for the Viking stadium – why, Gov. Dayton, why?!?!?

********By the way, Chris, the slashed transportation funding? That included roads.