Blackmoor Vituperative

I don’t mind that the vast majority of Star Wars’ sequels and spin-offs have been declared no longer valid by Disney (what nerds call “canon” — or “cannon”, if they are exceptionally illiterate). I only wish Disney had taken the additional step of declaring it all no longer canon, and started over from scratch. The Force Awakens would have been vastly improved if it had not been dragging along the baggage of the last 40 years. Every time they trundled out the cast from the 1977 movie (including the robots), the film ground to a cringe-inducing halt. What’s more, the most egregious plot holes were directly the result of shoehorning those characters into the story.

Ah, well. The film appears to have served its purpose, regardless. It’s the most successful toy commercial ever made.

Or to put it another way: “Eschew petty criticisms.”

I posted a comment on a YouTube video this morning, “helpfully” pointing out that the alien in Alien (and sequels) is a xenomorph, not the xenomorph — that any extraterrestrial encountered in that film’s universe is “a xenomorph”. It occurred to me that this is the modern version of telling people that Frankenstein is the scientist, and not the monster.

And then it occurred to me how incredibly annoying it is to be around someone who talks like this, pointing out petty errors or inconsistencies in movies, comics, or TV shows. I don’t care if Nightcrawler has face tattoos in the comicbooks. I don’t care if The Purple Man looked or acted anything like David Tennant in the comicbooks. I don’t care if Gal Godot’s Wonder Woman costume looks like the one in the comics.

And even if I do care a little, listening to that sort of thing annoys the hell out of me. So I am going to try, from now on, to not be someone who says that sort of thing. If I like a TV show or a movie, I will say that I like it, and I’ll say what I like about it. Other than that, I’m going to try to keep my mouth shut.

Here is what I am using now in Firefox:

• bug 489729
• Context Search
• Cookies Manager+
• F.B. Purity (and hide the Trending pane)
• gtranslate
• Lastpass
• MapQuest search
• Tab Mix Plus (I set it to open my “home page” in new tabs, and to reload a tab when I double-click the tab)
• uBlock Origin
• Xmarks Sync (I synchronize bookmarks, but not passwords, and I turn Xmarks’ “Discovery” features off.)

In the future, everyone will be poor except the rich
In the future, everyone will have guns except the poor
In the future, everyone will be the color of cafe-au-lait
In the future, everyone will be beautiful
In the future, everyone will be obese
In the future, everyone will think they’re smart
In the future, everyone will be stupid
In the future, everyone will be happy
In the future, everyone will be angry
In the future, everyone will be sad

Replace the word “Muslims” with “Jews” and then ask yourself “Do I sound like a fucking Nazi?”

Here’s a hint: if you have to make excuses for it (“I’m not racist! Islam is not a race!”), then the answer is yes, you do sound like a fucking Nazi. So either change what you are saying, or be prepared for all of your descendants to be embarrassed to be related to you because you were an ignorant bigot.

A brief reminder of what’s real and what’s not.

1. Danger posed to us by immigrants: not real.
2. Immigrants fleeing imminent death: real.
3. Danger posed to us by Democrats going door to door to confiscate our guns: not real.
4. Danger posed to us by heavily-armed right-wing “patriots”: real.
5. Ghosts, angels, gods, demons, devils, ancient astronauts, bigfoot, flying saucers, homeopathic “medicine”, and cow-mutilating aliens: not real.
6. Being more likely to die of heart disease, cancer, or chronic lower respiratory disease than from all other causes of death combined: real.
7. Vaccines causing autism: not real.
8. Measles, mumps, and whooping cough making a comeback because parents decide not to vaccinate their children: real.
9. Conspiracy among scientists to promote “the global warming scam”: not real.
10. Global temperatures increasing faster than was predicted 20 years ago: real.

Superman reminds some kids how Americans are supposed to act.

Congressman (R): “Our veterans should come first! As long as one veteran is sick, homeless, or hungry, it would be an affront to them to take in any refugees! That’s why I voted to keep them out.”

Interviewer: “So you are a strong supporter of veterans?”

Congressman (R): “What? Fuck no! Those leeches can starve for all I care. They should have died in the sand like they were supposed to. I have voted five times to defund them. You’d think they’d take the hint.”

Interviewer: “So your argument for not helping refugees is because we don’t help veterans enough, and we don’t help veterans enough because of … you. So … you are the reason you don’t want to help refugees…?”

Congressman (R): “Eh. Whatever keeps my constituents happy.”

Interviewer: “So voters want –”

Congressman (R): “What? Fuck no! Those morons will vote for a turd if you call it a Big Mac. I’m talking about my superpac. Great buncha guys. We’re going to Cabo next weekend. You should come. We’re getting some Ukrainian hookers. Those girls will do anything. Well, they have to. (laughs) “

You are three times more likely to be killed by an acquaintance than by a stranger.
(https://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_10.html)

I find it disappointing to learn how many otherwise reasonable people are willing to say unkind things about people they do not know: i.e., southerners, gun owners, Muslims…

Prejudice and irrational fear make a poor basis for public policy.