First, apologies for not writing recently. We’re almost done moving, and it’s gone, well, less than smoothly. But we’re almost done, so that’s good.

Anyway, I just saw this article on ThinkProgress. Sharron Angle, who’s running for senator of Nevada, is apparently against abortion even in the case of rape. Why, you might ask?

She even took the extreme position that women should not have control over their reproductive rights in cases of rape or incest, because it would interfere with God’s “plan” for them…

“You know, I’m a Christian, and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.”

I’ve looked around a bit, but I can’t find a word that means “misogyny directed at one’s gender”. How much of a self-hating woman do you have to be to have a viewpoint like this? It’s just staggering. How sad and embarrassing would it be if the people of Nevada actually elected her to office.

Oil is spilling out all over the Gulf, and Sarah Palin thinks that something should be done!

Gulf disaster needs divine intervention as man’s efforts have been futile. Gulf lawmakers designate today Day of Prayer for solution/miracle

Yes, what a great idea. Let’s throw out all that science bullshit and pray. ‘Cause that’s ever helped.

After a glorious week in Ireland, I have returned. Awesome country and an overall great time.

I also took around a thousand pictures, and I’ve shared forty-four of them on Flickr. Take a look.

I’ve started a list of states that I will never visit, and I’m going to share it with you guys. This list certainly isn’t exhaustive and I will most certainly have duplicates, if only because these states are increasingly ridiculous. I could have started with Arizona – they’ve certainly given us enough reasons not to go there – but I thought I’d start with Louisiana.

Louisiana has been hit pretty hard by the BP oil spill. Huge portions of their coastline have been devastated by oil, with marine life dying left and right and fishermen out of jobs because of it.  Oh, and that part where the oil spill is the worst spill of all time. But despite all that, their governor Bobby Jindal, as well as some other higher-ups in the state government, want to reopen offshore drilling. Hell, Jindal even wrote a letter to the president.

Look, I understand that people are out of jobs right now because of this. But you want to continue doing that thing that caused the spill in the first place? Really? Are you really that greedy that you can’t take some time to sort out the huge mess that you’re in? Maybe you should take all those people and pay them to help you clean up the gulf.

So until Bobby Jindal and/or those other people are out of office, I’ll never go to Louisiana. I guess I’ll have to hit up some places in the city for authentic Louisiana food.

I’m sure I’m opening a can of worms on this one, but fuck it, I don’t care. DieHipster.com sucks.

I should first state that I more or less agree with their overall message. It’s true that hipsters a huge drain on this city and are making it a pretty terrible place. I roll my eyes and scoff at hipsters when I see them on the train, at shows, or just generally loitering around. But my main problem with the site is that it’s not fucking funny or clever. There’s definitely a way to make fun of the hipsters and to do it in a way that’s hilarious, but the guy (woman?) who runs DieHipster is just about as unfunny as you can get. Further, it’s not even original anymore, it’s just the same tired lines about how hipsters don’t shower and they have beards and mustaches.

Actually, I don’t know who writes the site, so I’ll refer to them as Phineas J. Wolcott, one of the most ironic names I can think of. Maybe not. I don’t know. Either way, I’m going to use this little series of mine to talk about Phineas’ posts and why they’re not funny. We’ll see what happens.

Let’s start with low-hanging fruit. Every… whenever, Phineas writes a post called “Today’s hipster beating”. It’s basically fanfic for doing something mean to a hipster. And it’s so funny!!!!! In one of the more recent ones, he wrote:

Today at the park, I saw Blake B. Nasalheimer eating a lettuce sandwich on artisanal 16 grain bread while smothered in SPF 300 sunblock, reading a local indie rock mag printed only for J train riding pioneering emaciated hipsters. So without a moment to spare, I tied his greasy, bed bug ridden,  Spin Doctor beard and hair to the bench and kicked the fucking shit out of him until the police came and took over for me. End of story.

See? It’s funny to.. someone. Hipsters eat artisanal bread and wear sunblock with a high SPF ’cause they’re pale… but then they’re also emaciated. Okay. So then our clever writer somehow holds Blake B. Nasalheimer – clever name! – down long enough to tie his beard to a bench and beats him until the cops come and continue beating him. This, of course, is a persuasive and logical explanation as to why hipsters are a detriment to the cities in which they live. Or maybe it’s just the pitiful writings of someone who couldn’t get a movie exec to read his Hostel IV script, and instead retooled part of it for their blog. Either way, it’s not clever, and it’s not fucking funny.