I saw this on Facebook recently:
I suggested a few possibilities and asked people to name their own and had hundreds of replies. Some of these did not exactly follow the concept, and instead just used synonyms or otherwise changed a band’s name to make it funnier.
So let’s rebrand this. Instead, let’s call it “Band names: First drafts.” Here are my favorite suggestions in no particular order (except my entries first because it’s my blog):
Michael A. Ventrella:
Terri Lynn Coop:
Mary Bacon:
Gerald Blackwell:
David Gerrold:
Steve Vaughan:
Lauretta Nagel:
Beth Waggoner Patterson:
Douglas Waltman:
James Ryan:
Mickey Blake:
Farber Burny:
Drew Bittner:
Billy Flynn:
Jay Pennington:
Ken Warren:
Randy Eberle:
Ryk Spoor:
Savannah Luther:
John Herring:
Sharon Lyn Terrill:
Mark Davis:
Kevin Gould:
David Edward Martin:
Steven Morgenlender:
Chris Meadows:
Raymond Lawson:
Lee Hester:
Charles Rowe:
Michael Engler:
Jason Harris Vichinsky:
Manny Borges:
Rich Weiss:
I’ll be doing other “first draft” challenges on Facebook to later post here; I think this could be fun. Suggestions are welcome.
The reason I don’t want to limit emigration from shit-hole countries is because we are rapidly becoming one.
I’m shocked that anyone is shocked that Donald Trump called Haiti and other countries “shitholes.” The man has used language like this before, he’s said racist things before, he’s bragged about his sexual assaults, he’s called nazis good people — really, where have you all been?
But seriously, the cursing isn’t the issue. Fox News is trying once again to distract us from what is really being said by claiming that we’re all upset that the president cursed.
No, that’s not it.
“Shit-hole country” really means “I don’t want those black people coming here” and you know it.
It’s like when he talked about grabbing pussies and Fox news said “Oh, you’re all upset that he used the word ‘pussy.'” No, the bad word in that sentence is “grab.”
Let’s not get distracted by the words, and instead look at what the shithead really is saying.
One of the Sad Puppies — a group of butthurt snowflake selfish white male Trumpites who whine about things like the 1% of female leads in science fiction movies — has been barred from attending a major science fiction convention after he planned to take disruptive action at the convention, having done similar things in the past.
This is literally the Sad Puppies logo. They’re apparently sad because people get mad at them for being assholes to everyone else.
So of course, he’s claiming he’s being “discriminated against” because of his political views. These Sad Puppies, along with all the other whiny white males, KKK members, nazis, religious fundamentalists and Trump supporters, consistently complain that they’re being discriminated against because they’re no longer allowed to discriminate against others like they’ve always done.
Look, genius: A private organization has the right to deny entry to anyone they think will disrupt their group, including for political disruptions.
You have every right to hold whatever terrible political viewpoints you want. That is guaranteed to you under the Constitution. You don’t have the right to demand that anyone else provide you with a place or a forum for you to express those opinions, nor do you have the right to demand that someone let you into their group when they believe you don’t meet their standards. No shirt no shoes no service.
Discrimination is when you are being prevented from entering because of things you have no control over, such as your race or gender or place of origin. If you choose to be the kind of guy people can’t stand to be around and they say they don’t want you near them, that’s not discrimination. You chose to be that person.
As Frank Zappa said, “It’s okay to discriminate against assholes, because nobody was born an asshole.”
It’s always amazing to me how these people who always scream about how the “market” can solve all our problems whine and scream like babies when the market decides to do just that against them.
Edit: Friend of the Blog Jim C. Hines explains this particular person’s history in more detail on his blog
I jokingly posted on Facebook right after New Years the following: “I wonder how many calls I’ll get in the next few days from potential clients saying ‘Those DUI checkpoints are entrapment!'”
This led to many questions. Let’s see if can address some here.
Entrapment is when the police lure you into doing something you wouldn’t normally do, usually coercing or bribing you into committing a crime (usually with codefendants). It doesn’t happen that often.
If the police sit near a bar and then start following cars to pull them over when they show signs of intoxication, that’s not entrapment. The police officer did not coerce you to drink and drive.
If there is a sobriety check point, that is not entrapment. (It may be illegal for other reasons, such as the police did not get approval from a judge first, or they are not checking drivers in a random fashion but instead are targeting people). Once more, they didn’t coerce you into committing a crime; they just caught you at it when you didn’t expect them to.
If an undercover cop is posing as a prostitute and you engage her services and then she arrests you, that is not entrapment. You could have said no to her offer.
“Entrapment” requires the police getting you to do something you wouldn’t have done absent their involvement and encouragement. If you say no and the cop insists and insists and finally convinces you, then your case is stronger for entrapment.
Just putting a prostitute out there and having someone take advantage of it is no more entrapment than having a bank there. “They entrapped me into robbing the bank by having it just sitting there!”
Here’s an extreme example to show what entrapment is:
“Hey, would you do me a favor and go buy some drugs for me? Here’s $100, you can keep $50 of it.”
“No, I’m not going to do that.”
“Okay, here’s $200, you can keep $150 of it.”
“No!”
“Okay, here’s $500, you can keep $450 of it.”
“Ooh, I could really use that money. Okay, just this once.”
“Caught you! You’re under arrest!”
Most cases where entrapment is used as a defense aren’t as obvious as that example but you can see the basic point. There is no bright line test. It’s up to a defendant to convince a judge or jury that he wouldn’t have done the act absent the cop coercing him to do it.
Where do our moral beliefs originate?
Religious people will tell you it comes from their god. But then they ignore all the things in their religious books that contradict that (slavery is fine, divorcees should be stoned to death, eating shellfish is a sin…).
Those of us who don’t believe come to our morality by using logic and empathy. We don’t act the way we do because of a fear of punishment in the afterlife we don’t believe exists; we do things because we think it’s right — it’s the way we want to treat others and how we would like to be treated in return.
And so do religious people, but they don’t always realize it.
For instance, if your religious leader suddenly told you to do something that you consider wrong, would you do it? If your preacher pointed to the Bible to justify children getting married at age 14 because the Bible allows it, would you say, “Well, that’s what God wants so I’m going to go marry a 14-year old”?
A better example may be gay marriage. Many preachers argue that this is a sin and that God hates gay people, but many religious folks have rejected that. They ignore their leaders — or they shop around until they find another church that agrees with their views.
See? Your morality is within you. It’s in the choices you make. Sure, your religion may offer you guidance but do you know of anyone who says, “Well, I disagree with this view completely but I’m still going to follow it”? Even a majority of Catholics believe that abortion should be legal.
You don’t need religion to have morality and, if you’re being honest with yourself, you can come up with many religious people whose morality is questionable at best.
And that’s why it is so insulting when religious folks tell atheists that we have no morals, because we came by our morals the same way they did.
ventrellaquest.com 