News Round-Up - The Last 8 Years!

I thought it would be "fun" to do a news round up every month or so, but I realize that a lot of things have happened since the last time I had a blog (8 years ago), so I thought I'd go through some of the biggest news stories first so we can all catch up. I think this should be an amusing little trip down memory lane, and maybe we'll remember some funny news stories together.

I stopped updating the blog roughly around the time Trump got elected in 2016, so we'll start there.

DONALD TRUMP IS ELECTED PRESIDENT
I remember this felt like a real slap in the face to basically anyone who wasn't a Republican. We've had a lot of evil, contentious presidents in this country, but never one that seemed to be wearing it so blatantly. Much has been written about this, including by myself, and maybe I'll return to it another time but I don't want to dwell on it for now so we'll move on.

STANDING ROCK PROTESTORS ARE EVICTED
Do folks remember this one? The Standing Rock Sioux of North Dakota valiantly withstood police brutality, attack dogs, private security contractors, tear gas, water cannons, and freezing cold temperatures to protest the building of a pipeline through sacred land, and which could potentially damage the water supply. The protests went on for months, until finally, the Obama administration temporarily halted the pipeline construction, in what seemed to be a striking victory for Native rights, the environment, the little guy over evil corporations, the kids getting to keep their rec center, etc etc.

Anyway, then 2 months later Trump reversed the decision and chased everyone off, and the pipeline went as planned. I think most people had stopped paying attention by then. Ah well.

RUSSIAGATE TOOK OVER EVERYONE'S BRAINS
Intellectually, I know not to trust shady ex-intelligence agents with romance novelist names who are hired to do oppo research by political parties; emotionally, I will never let go of the idea that Donald Trump hired prostitutes to piss on a hotel bed because Barrack Obama slept there once.

FAMOUS PEDOPHILE JEFFERY EPSTEIN KILLS HIMSELF
Not much more to say about that I don't think.

UNITE THE RIGHT RALLY HAPPENS IN CHARLOTTESVILLE
Aww, the wil baby nazi's want a pwotest of their own. Oh, also, they murder someone.

ICE KEEPS KIDS IN CAGES
US immigration policy has always been evil. Our meddling with NAFTA butchered the Mexican economy in the 90s, our deportation of criminal gangs led to the more recent gang crises in Latin America. Basically, we fuck up other countries, then terrorize their citizens when they come looking for a better life. But also our economy depends on illegal immigration. It's a whole big racket of beating people on the head until we essentially create a grey market of near slave labor, here in the good ol US of A!

Even still, keeping little kids in cages and giving woman forced hysterectomies was at least symbolically a bit of an escalation. I'm basically a pacifist, but at the very least I think ICE officers shouldn't be able to go to a restaurant without getting their food spit in.

QANON BECOMES A THING
A bunch of citizens get together to play a fun ARG with each other. Unfortunately one idiot believes it. That idiot is your uncle Kevin.

COVID HAPPENS
As we huddled in our homes, nature purportedly started to heal itself. CO2 emissions and other pollutants dropped. Pumas and kangaroos explored our now abandoned cities... But eventually, we got tired of Animal Crossing, and Elden Ring didn't exist yet. Plus, it turned out that working from home was just as soul crushing as going in to the office. So we emerged. Some of us got the vaccine, and some of us decided that the vaccine was actually the most evil thing that had ever been invented. Covid kills 1 percent of the people who get it, so about 7 million people worldwide have died horribly, choking to death on their own fluids. Around a quarter of the people who catch it are at risk for a disability that we know almost nothing about. It is very "cool" that believing in a virus has become part of the culture war.

BASICALLY EVERY MOVIE IS A MARVEL MOVIE NOW
Though personally I only watch sophisticated movies for adults.

WILDFIRES GET REALLY GNARLY
I don't know why antifa decided to burn down all the forests of the Pacific Northwest, but I wish they'd knock it off!

MILO YIANNOPOULIS AND ALEX JONES EAT SHIT
This isn't that important or anything, I just hate these people and think they suck shit. Last I saw of them, Jones was bankrupt, and Yiannopoulis was hawking leg lamps on the Catholic Shopping Channel. Speaking of right wing commentators, Glenn Beck grew a ridiculous Colonel Sanders style beard, but thankfully he seems to be mostly irrelevant.

We thought Tucker Carlson was gone after Jon Stewart buried him alive in a coffin made out of bow ties, but unfortunately he used a secret technique he learned from his one day of CIA training (I believe it was called "having a lot of money") to break his way out.

We can't seem to ditch Ben Shapiro, unfortunately, but has anyone tried pantsing him in front of all the popular kids? Might be worth a try.

JK ROWLING BECOMES A FUCKING WEIRD FREAK
TERFS are weird freaks. Stop giving a shit where people use the bathroom.
Let the people piss you freaks!

TOTALLY COOL BRO-DUDE ALLEGED DATE RAPIST BRETT KAVANAUGH IS PUT ON THE SUPREME COURT
Looks like partying down is back on the menu boys!

THE 2020 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY TURNS INTO A BLOODY THREE-WAY BRAWL
It's down to Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. Biden get Warren pinned in the corner of the ring with the Stinger Splash, but she's able to retaliate with a well timed spinebuster. Sanders gets Biden with a clawhold, and it looks like he may be able to seal the deal, but then Obama hands Biden a steel chair from the sidelines and he's able to hone in for the victory. I hate it when they do that.

KANSAS CITY WINS THE SUPER BOWL
It seems like they're pretty good. Speaking of which,

TAYLOR SWIFT IS NOW THE ONLY MUSIC
Sorry fans of other kinds of music, but we found the queen and Taylor Swift is now the only kind of music. This will make my year end lists a lot easier.

BLACK LIVES MATTER RETURNS
Every protest I'd ever been to prior to this, I'd felt like I needed to adapt some sort of "objective" writer position, rather than actually communicate my own political views. Ostensibly, I think this was to write about it later, but I think I was actually just being kind of chickenshit. Well no more, so for the first time I went in intending to join the fray, with my own little cardboard sign and everything. Granted, the ones I went to (in OKC) were pretty peaceful; I think some kids got in trouble later for jumping on a car or something. Change happens slow sometimes, and it's hard for me to say for sure what we accomplished. I'm not sure that anti-war protestors in Vietnam felt like they were accomplishing anything either - but we never had a draft again. The anti-war movement against Iraq definitely seemed like it was a big fart... but I don't know if the US would ever have the stomach for a full on foreign invasion like that again (we try to outsource that stuff nowadays). Sometimes it just be like that.

JOE BIDEN IS ELECTED PRESIDENT
We all celebrate the traditional way, by drinking a glass of milk that is one-day expired.

A MOB STORMS THE CAPITOL ON JANUARY 6TH, 2021
Turns out they all just needed to use the bathroom.

LEFTISM TURNS INTO POST-LEFTISM
As far as I can tell, it's just neo-reactionism, but with more noodly guitar chords.

THE PENTAGON ACKNOWLEDGES THAT TOM DELONGE IS RIGHT ABOUT UFOS
If Tom DeLonge can actually find aliens, he will be a more important figure in human history than George Washington.

SOME WEIRD STUFF HAPPENS WITH BITCOIN AND NFTS
What if instead of having fiat currency, we instead utilized some kind of abstract symbolic currency that is barely tied to any sort of traditional concept of "value" and no one really understands? And weird freaks would trade it, and horde it, and use it to exert power over everyone else, because we'd all agree that it was "worth" something even though it would only be worth something because we all agreed that it was, even if we didn't really want to? God, I'd hate to live there.

RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE
In the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, life expectancy plummeted, the homicide rate rose by 300%, and hundreds of thousands of woman were trafficked into sexual slavery. Anyway, that was our fault and so is the current war in Ukraine.

ROE V WADE IS OVERTURNED
Looks like risky back alley abortions are back on the menu, uh, ladies.

MILLENIALS AREN'T COOL ANYMORE
We are no longer the top G's.

ANDREW TATE IS ARRESTED FOR HUMAN TRAFFICKING
And the kid's love him!

KETAMINE BECOMES THE GEN Z DRUG OF CHOICE
I'm not cool enough to hang out where Gen Z are, so I'm just writing this based on reputation, but I think ketamine is the one that makes you shit your pants and start talking in Shakespearean soliloquies, which must make for some pretty interesting parties.

ELON MUSK BUYS TWITTER
Now everyone on the site is a weird Nazi. Where did all these fucking people come from? How do we make them fuck off?

DONALD TRUMP IS CONVICTED OF A BUNCH OF CRIMES
Shouldn't have parked in that handicapped space fucker!

WE'RE DEFINITELY BREAKING 2C WITH GLOBAL TEMPERATURE INCREASES
You know I always thought this was kind of a dumpy planet anyway.

ISRAEL COMMITS A GENOCIDE AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE
No joke here, I think this honestly might be the worst thing the US has done in my lifetime. Adult life, certainly (the war in Iraq, the other contender, happened when I was a kid). I think even in the Iraq war, which was also based around a total lie, there was at least some sort of pretext of military decorum? Like, it seemed like there was at least some kind of army that we were trying to fight (poorly, and with lots of collateral damage and causalities). But the thing in Gaza is just a straight up massacre of civilians, with only the flimsiest of pretexts otherwise - lies that basically any sane person should be able to spot a mile away. No, I don't think the IDF needs to blow up every single family domicile to "fight Hamas" and if Hamas is truly hiding in every single living space, then maybe they need A DIFFERENT FUCKING TACTIC (setting aside whether they should be fighting Hamas in the first place). If there happens to be a terrorist living next door to me, then I would kindly ask the FBI or whoever not to blow up my house with me inside it to get to my neighbor. Like no fucking shit. Anyway, the goal is clearly to ethnically cleanse Gaza, and all us in the US get to pay for it with our tax dollars. We are truly God's special little boys, aren't we.

TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE TRY TO ASSASSINATE DONALD TRUMP
The band Tenacious D is so distraught that they commit seppuku over it.

JOE BIDEN PARDONS HUNTER
He forgot to be specific about which one, and now everyone named Hunter has a pardon to do crimes. Congratulations Hunter Michael Phillips, the kid I used to buy weed from in college. I'm sure you will do great things with this incredible gift.

WOKE CULTURE RISES THEN FALLS
Don't worry, it will be back in 10 years with a new name.

JOE ROGAN BECOMES THE MOST IMPORTANT AMERICAN
Joe, you idiot, that creature you made a deal with while you were high on DMT wasn't a funny little machine elf, it was literally Apasmara the demon king of ignorance and ego, and when he said he'd give you power beyond your wildest imagining but at a terrible price, he wasn't talking about a new weight training supplement.

AI REPLACES JOBS
AI decided to take over some of the jobs human's used to do, including things like writing, drawing, music, film making, cooking a delicious meal and then eating it, having sex, human companionship, and a few other menial tasks too I'm sure. They're just better at it. Look at this great picture AI made for this very blog!

Luckily the AI has decided humans can keep some of the jobs, including working on an assembly line, slaving away in a coal mine, cleaning a bathroom with a toothbrush, and being kicked in the testicles. Thanks AI!

THERE'S A BUNCH OF INFLATION
What happened to the goddamn dollar menu dude?

THE PROPAGANDA OF THE DEED RETURNS
Looks like political assassinations are back on the menu boys! Hopefully we'll get some good drugs and Beatles albums too.

DONALD TRUMP IS ELECTED PRESIDENT

Hey wait a minute, that's what happened the last time I had a blog. Fuck this.