It’s too bad Sundays are slow for comments because this is a day rich in news. And in anniversaries. For example, today is the birthday of Renee Richards (author of the autobiography Tennis Without Balls), noted cigar enthusiast Bill Clinton, the nightmarish Mary Matalin, and equally nightmarish musician Ginger Baker. In honor of the last, enjoy Pressed Rat and Warthog.

Without further ado or anecdote about the goings on in the Candy/SP household (“Stop writing about me, people are going to start believing that shit!”), let’s turn to the news.

 

Rule of thumb: never go to anything called a Peace Picnic. It will not end well.

Three people were shot at a back-to-school peace picnic held at a playground in Chicago on Saturday night. A fourth person was beaten up at the event that was held to promote peace and community.
The picnic, which took place at Seward Park on the city’s North Side, was off to a safe start, but onlookers say the mood quickly turned when a group of young men showed up and started fighting.

So, which “reverend” will lead the next “protest”?

The Mormon Church is unhappy that it’s the Mormon Church. So whatever you do, don’t call it the Mormon Church.

The church, commonly referred to as the Mormons, really wants people to stop using that word. It also wants people to stop using LDS as an abbreviation. From now on, it prefers that people use the church’s full name, and when a shortened reference is needed, to just use “the Church” or “Church of Jesus Christ.”

Those poor Latter Day Saints, they had their name scraped off the door.

“Mormon is a long-standing nickname for the church and for the movement, but the church leadership has always been concerned that the nickname has obscured the fundamentally Christian nature of the church and the religion,” [professor of Mormon Studies Patrick] Mason told CNN. “Especially since they’re so many people who’ve criticized the church and have done so historically for not being Christian or orthodoxly Christian. The church leadership really wants to emphasize the fact that it is a Christian church.”

Orthodoxly?

In the Department of Fuck Government Schools, there’s always something new to prove that kids are being educated in ways that are perhaps unintended. In this case, that brainless bureaucrats who can’t get their actual job done will nonetheless try running your life instead. Some of the parents get it.

“At the end of the day, we want to be able to decide on our own,” Chris Swafford, a father of five kids in the school district, told Fox 4. “I thought it was overstepping at its finest. It’s up to parents what their children eat. Parents’ lives are busy. They sometimes have things going on, and sometimes, grabbing a 10-piece nugget from McDonald’s and taking it to their child shouldn’t be an issue.”

And inevitably, some don’t.

However, some parents support the district’s decision, saying it promotes lunch equality and healthier eating habits. “Oddly I support this. I would hope they are doing this for the right reasons though. That being it’s simply not right for kids who do not ever get these things to watch the other classmates eat it in front of them. Some parents can’t afford to bring child fast food.”

Lunch equality?

Kofi Annan is dead. At last. Of course, there’s the usual outpouring of sympathy and lionization of a fabulously corrupt leech who managed to completely bungle his role when it came to the genocide of millions. That’s the shit that gets you Nobel Peace Prizes.

“Kofi Annan was a diplomat and humanitarian who embodied the mission of the United Nations like few others,” Obama said in a Facebook post. “His integrity, persistence, optimism, and sense of our common humanity always informed his outreach to the community of nations.”

Rwandans are apparently not part of the “community of nations.” Well, mostly because they were slaughtered while Annan wrote reports and skimmed off billions in UN graft. But hey, he had a great voice and looked like Morgan Freemen!

So in Jew news, the United Nations is doing what it does best.

The protection of Palestinian civilians could be improved by the deployment of UN-mandated armed forces or unarmed observers, a beefed-up UN civilian presence, or expanded UN assistance, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on Friday in a report.

What a great idea! Ignore that it’s been done repeatedly and it’s been a disaster each time. THIS time, it’s gonna work because we wrote a REPORT.

I suppose we should count our blessings that this is one place where Bush-Obama-Trump haven’t stuck American armed forces. May it ever be thus.

OMG OMG OMG, TRUMP WANTS TO KILL US ALL!!!!!

President Trump plans next week to unveil a proposal that would empower states to establish emission standards for coal-fired power plants rather than speeding their retirement — a major overhaul of the Obama administration’s signature climate policy and one that could significantly increase the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The plan, which is projected to release at least 12 times the amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere compared to the Obama rule over the next decade, comes as scientists have warned the world will experience increasingly dire climate impacts absent a major cut in carbon emissions.

So let me get this straight- the panic here is because carbon regulation will get tighter, but not as tight as Obama wanted (but couldn’t have enacted into actual law)?

While EPA projects that the U.S. power sector’s overall carbon output will decline over time due to market pressures and other factors after the new rule takes effect, the policy shift would make it increasingly difficult for America to meet the international climate goals it adopted under the previous administration.

Oh-ho, so the problem is that the laws aren’t aligned with the Paris Climate treaty that we never actually ratified, but that Obama signed us onto unilaterally. And of course, let’s just dismiss the effect of market forces. And of course, cue the scary quotes from former Obama administration appointees.

The main purpose of dress codes when I was in school was to keep the place free of damn dirty hippies. Today, things are a bit different, the purpose is (to the horror of the Ferengi) to clothe our women.

“Yesterday we showed a dress code video that featured only female dress code violations, and was accompanied by a poor song choice. Construction in and around the campus prevented us from holding student orientation, which is typically accompanied by a fashion show that demonstrates what to wear, and what not to wear. We believed a video would be a good way to replace the fashion show, but this video absolutely missed the mark.”

Now, what’s really the issue here?

“Why are we still over-sexualizing teen girls?”

Any volunteers to explain it to this dolt?

Does Swiss Servator know about this?

A Muslim couple have been denied Swiss citizenship after they refused to shake hands with people of the opposite sex during their interview, officials say. They confirmed the decision on Friday, further citing the couple’s failure to integrate and respect gender equality. The couple, interviewed months ago, also struggled to answer questions by members of the opposite sex.

The couple were not asked about their faith, authorities said, though their religion seemed apparent, local media reported.

More importantly, could they identify the parts of a cuckoo clock, drill holes in cheese, and make a proper fondue?

Old Guy Music! And proof that you can never have too much Monk. Of course he plays the piano all wrong and probably had an IQ of 65 in the way we measure such things, and was likely deeply autistic. Yet somehow, the writing and performance were works of true genius, and he may have completely changed the way that three generations of musicians approached chord progressions and timing. But otherwise, what did he really do? (Maybe number one on my list of people I never got to see live and horribly regret not being able to do so) Here he is with Charlie Rouse, who uniquely understood Monk’s voice and was… just perfect here.