A list of things Obamacare leads to…

A few months ago I wrote on the absurdities that conservatives tend to invoke when they’re losing an argument that they’ve staked their reputations on. Back then, it was gay marriage. The list of terrible, World ending catastrophes that same-sex marriage was going to inevitably lead to, according to conservatives, was extensive and staggering. But now they’ve moved on to a new subject. And so I thought I’d present a comprehensive list of the most outlandish and absurd suggestions that US conservatives have decided are the product of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act:

A Communist takeover of government and the end of the Catholic Church in the US. Here.

Following the path of Hitler (you know, the guy who killed 6,000,000 Jewish people in gas chambers, and tried to establish a “racially pure” empire) and Stalin. here.

Worse than Watergate. Here.

Worse thing since slavery. Here.

Armageddon. Here.

President Obama killing a variety of old people. Here.

Kids having secret abortions at school ‘sex clinic’. Here.

The most dangerous piece of legislation EVER passed. Here.

President Obama starting a race war. Here.

The death of all prosperity. Here.

Mandatory microchips implanted into all Americans. Here.

The destruction of the institution of marriage. Here.

The work of Satan seeking to destroy freedom. Here.

Obamacare causes cancer. Here.

The reintroduction of Feudalism. Here

The Government murdering people based on how productive they are, and children with Down Syndrome being judged by a panel on whether he or she can live or die. Here.

Conservatives sent to concentration camps. Here.

The US becoming a leading outpost of an Islamic Caliphate. Here.

Health insurance companies going along with the Affordable Care Act, are no different to Jews boarding the trains to concentration camps. Here.

Systematic genocide. Here.

As destructive to personal liberty as runaway slaves being forced to go back to their masters. here.

A racist tax against white people. Here.

Worse than the Boston bombing. Here.

A gay man going to prison because he has no money, and is forced to play roulette, because of Obamacare. Here.

Schools preparing children to accept Death Panels. Here.

Naturally none of them mention the exact part of the bill that lead to their outlandish claim.

When I began this, I didn’t expect the list to be as long as it eventually turned out to be. We are apparently a generation that is gifted with access to information and fact on a level no previous generation has enjoyed. And yet, it seems that facts and reasoned debate are often drowned out by a deafening constant screech of absurdity that creates an atmosphere in which Michelle Bachmann and Ted Cruz are trusted with political power. They represent nothing more than a comprehensive failure of education and access to accurate information in order to form rational and well rounded democratic decisions. What a waste of a wonderful gift.

#MyDadHatedBritain

When the Tories unleashed the racist van a few months back, social media sprung to life in parodying it, thus rendering the miserable venture an episode in ridicule, taking the sharpness out of its nasty sting. Today, Twitter sprung back to life with similar humour, intending to render the Daily Mail’s vicious piece on Ralph Miliband, a piece worth nothing but ridicule. And they succeeded beautifully.

The Daily Mail accused Labour Leader Ed Miliband’s late father Ralph Miliband, of “hating Britain”. So twitter users took to the social media site to confess their own worries that their father might also hate Britain. Here are a selection of my favourites:

Wonderful. And it’s still continuing on Twitter as we speak. Ridiculing irrational slur stories, is a fine way to discredit and disempower the original piece.

My law on marriage

If we are to take the Biblical view, that marriage is between a man and a woman, we must look at what Biblical marriage stood for. Christians who oppose gay marriage, if they are going to use to the Bible to try to justify their prejudices, must be consistent and follow through with the Biblical guide to marriage. So perhaps we should use the Bible to structure a new Federal law on the Defence of Marriage. Let’s call it, Futile Democracy’s Defence of Marriage Act 2010. I took it upon myself to write it up:

Section 1 define marriage:
A marriage is defined as a union between a man and a virgin woman.
Deuteronomy 22:13-21
A marriage is also valid, in the eyes of God and so the eyes of the United States Congress, if it is between a man and his sister.
Genesis 20:1-14
The union also permits the man to take concubines whenever he sees fit.
2 Sam 5:13
2 Chron 11:21

Section 2 relating to women as captives:
If a man within the United States of America finds a desirable woman in a room of captives, he is entitled to marry her on the spot, without her consent.
After marrying a captive, it is required, by the consent of the United States Congress, that the man must first take her home, and shave her head.
Deut. 21:11-13

Section 3 relating to women as property:
Trading in women, is a perfectly acceptable form of property dealing, within the United States of America.
RUTH 4:5-10
Wives must not speak, or offer opinions, especially in Church, except in the company of her superior (husband) at home.
I Corinthians 14:34-35
If a man rapes a virgin, he shall pay fifty pieces of silver, and then marry her.
Deut. 22:28
If a woman is kidnapped at a party, this shall not fall under the law of the United States forbidding kidnapping, as long as the man marries the kidnapped woman.
Judges 21:19-25
When at war, is it permitted that you destroy their cities, kill all men and women and male children, take the female children for yourselves, and marry them.
Judges 21:7-23
Purchasing children of foreigners is acceptable in God’s eyes. You may marry them, as they are now your property.
Leviticus 25:44-46

Section 4 relating to adultery:
The punishment for adultery is stoning to death.
Death shall not be enforced before a quasi-trial is given for the wife. If the parents of the wife can prove that the wife is a virgin by spreading the cloth worn by the wife on a table to the City Elders, the husband must pay compensation to the parents and the wife is not permitted to see her parents ever again.
If she is found guilty, she must be put to death.
Deut. 22:22-30

Section 5 relating to pregnancy:
If a wife gives birth to a boy, she must spend a week in isolation because she is, by decree of the Congress of the United States, and God Almighty, unclean.
If a wife gives birth to a girl, she must spend two weeks in isolation, because she is, by decree of the Congress of the United States, and God Almighty, very very unclean.
Leviticus 12:5

Section 6 relating to the death of a husband:
Definitely don’t marry your dead husband’s brother.
Leviticus 20:21
Definitely do marry your dead husband’s brother.
Deuteronomy 25:5-10

Section 7 on divorce:
If a citizen of the United States of America abandons his wife and children, for Jesus, he will be rewarded.
Matthew 19:29
A woman who is divorced for a second time or widowed by her second husband, must not remarry her first husband.
Deuteronomy 24:3-4
Divorce and remarrying, is committing adultery against your first husband or wife in the eyes of Jesus and the United States Congress. This isn’t a law as such, just to let you know, if you get divorced, we think you’re scum.
Mark 10:2-12

Section 8 conclusion:
Marriage within the United States of America, is hereby described objectively as a union between a man, brother, rapist and a virgin woman, another woman, another woman, a few more women, a hostage, a rape victim, and the female children of parents who have just been slaughtered.
But NEVER let a homo marry. This is unnatural and immoral.

I think that just about sums up exactly what the new US law on Defence of Marriage should consist of, you know, if it really is about pleasing God, and not about simply being horrific bigots.

I found this poet, Alvin Lau, in a powerfully beautiful poem exploring the bullshit of Christian homophobic attitudes that are prominent on the American Right wing. I cannot think of a better way to put into words exactly how I feel on the subject of gay marriage, than Lau does:

The art of being boring

There is a sort of serenity when you realise that you are considered an invariably boring person. You start to appreciate your apparent self deluded sense of sanity and absorb yourself in the wonderment of cynical boringness. I still get a little annoyed and depressed when people call me boring, just for being me, but I am starting to learn to embrace and be proud of it. Let me give you a few examples.

I hate drunk people. Absolutely despise them. I do, and have always considered drinking to excessive amounts, a weakness, and I have no time for it; and not just because when you drink and drive, you ALWAYS run over a horse, as shown in the photo above. I hate how different people become when they drink. I hate that I cannot have a conversation with a drunk person, because it becomes utterly absurd and if I say the wrong thing, that at any other time would not be considered the wrong thing, they suddenly hate me, in their pathetic drunken state, and then I feel guilty, as if i’m the one who is lingering in the wrong. When I finally come to terms with my utter hatred of drunk people, I start to think….. fuck them….. I will ignore them until they apologise for being shit whilst drunk. And if they try to blame their shitness, on alcohol, then I will ignore them further. And it’s absolutely every time I am out with drunk people, that it becomes inevitably negative. I have no positive experiences with alcohol. But, this makes me essentially boring. Being 24 and having an intense hatred of drunkenness does not bode well for my social life. When out surrounded by drunk people, I cannot control the fact that I feel wholly uncomfortable and anxious, as if i’m aware that something negative is going to occur in the very near future. Ironically, the uncomfortable anxious feeling objectifies the negativity that I am waiting to occur. And yet, I like being this way. I don’t want to be a drinker. It doesn’t suit my personality. I’d have to change much of my personality in order to squeeze a tolerance of drunkenness into my psyche. I don’t want to squeeze a tolerance of drunkenness into my psyche. That isn’t to say that I don’t accept that other people enjoy drinking. It’s their decision and if they enjoy it, great. I just don’t enjoy it, and I don’t enjoy being around people who excessively enjoy it. They just work to annoy me.

I do not begrudge people who genuinely love clubbing. Good on them! They have found what it is that makes them happy, that’s great. It just doesn’t make me happy, and certain types of clubbers make me hate it more and more every time I go out. “Omg just enjoy yourself!!“……. no!! I genuinely do not enjoy it. Constantly telling me to lighten up and enjoy something that I don’t enjoy, is so futile, I would rather tell you to be quiet and spend that time banging my face on a nail. It’s like me handing a copy of Camus’ ‘The Outsider’ to a drunk in a nightclub and saying, “here, sit in the corner and just enjoy yourself…. lighten up“. I can’t imagine they’d enjoy it.

Clubbing makes me want to vomit. I enjoy clubbing less than I enjoy being wee’d on by a tramp. You queue up, you pay a fortune, you get threatened by a drunken cunt, you stand in a room that stinks, you go to a urinal that has piss all over the floor, you watch a few people dance for a few hours, you see a fight, you stink, you see a drunk girl with at least an inch of make up on crying because her friend is snogging the chav she wants, you go out into the street to be confronted by an idiot wanting a fight standing next to a slightly overweight girl being sick in the gutter with her minge on show, at the tax stand you walk past two cavemen fighting because one looked at the other “funny”, you pay extortionate rates to get the taxi back to the hotel, you go back to a hotel, you don’t sleep for the next four hours because people are running up and down past the door, you wake up an hour after you fell asleep and for the next 24 hours you feel like your brain has been raped. I find no redeeming feature in clubbing. It is like genocide. I am supposed to, apparently, acknowledge that Saturday night was created specifically for clubbing and enjoyment. Yet, in my land of boringness, the words “clubbing” and “enjoyment” are antonyms. They are completely incompatible, which means for me, Saturday nights being made for clubbing and drunkenness means I either embrace it, and feel like I’ve wasted my weekend watching the enjoyment of other people whilst myself edging ever so closely toward wanting to top myself, or enjoy it my own way, on my own terms, and actually be happy with myself. But to be happy with myself, and what I enjoy, means accepting that I am, infact, fucking boring. I now fully accept that.

The crock of shit they refer to as “dance music” doesn’t help the situation for me. It is awful. It is a constant banging noise. When my neighbours put up shelves, I don’t suddenly stand up and dance to it, and yet it sounds EXACTLY the same as absolutely every dance track ever written. Every now and again, they have a special guest to come and do a live set!!!! How exciting!! “Ziggy from Big Brother is live this week at Oceania!!! Do you want to come?” No, as I am spending that evening poking myself in the eye.

It is probably all down to the fact that I don’t particularly like people. I am cynical when it comes to humanity. We’re bastards. My apparent sense of misanthropy drives my feelings on clubbing and drunks. I can only stand to be around people for a small amount of time on any occasion, unless they’re asleep. I like my own company and my own space. I like being on my own. I like the sound of my thoughts which is rendered impossible by the sound of god-awful club music. I do not dance. I take myself too seriously. I have to be in control at all times. And I fucking like it that way, until people start to question it, as if being me, and not being them, is a problem for me. It isn’t. I quite like it. “You must be 60“…… fuck right off, i’m just not you….. I don’t have to succumb to your narrow vision of what constitutes fun, to enjoy myself.

I do not like the idea that the only enjoyable way for anyone to spend a Saturday night is to be slaughtered to the point of excessive vomiting for the early hours of Sunday morning. It doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest. I quite like to read books and essays and I quite like to sit in bars and talk and I quite like to watch a film or play football. To people who enjoy drinking and clubbing on every Saturday night, my feeling of utter boredom and anxiousness in a club, would be equivalent of making those people sit and watch me read a book for a few hours on a Saturday night.

Clubbing, whilst making me sad, also provides people with something to talk about on Monday morning. “What did you do at the weekend?” …. “I went out!!”. It provides people, who we have already established I do not like, with the opportunity to smile vacantly whilst telling me exactly how many drinks they had, and how drunk they were. As if I care. There is nothing in life I have ever experienced caring less about, than someone telling me how many drinks them consumed at the weekend. I have sat just now and tried to think of something less interesting, and I genuinely can’t. Someone could say to me “Either I am going to spend the next hour talking to you about coastal erosion in East Anglia since 1900, or telling you how many Smirnoffs I drank on Saturday night”, the history of coastal erosion would suddenly appeal to me like being told how to turn poo into gold. And yet I’m supposed to care. I smile and act like downing three thousands sambucas and puking over the taxi-driver’s face is in some odd way, heroic. It bores me to listen to them. I want to cry at how bored I am by their incessant need to talk about how drunk they were at the weekend, I literally want to sob.

I am starting to feel proud, when people consider me boring and 24 going on 50. They are attempting to sound superior as if they are privy to some sort of fun that I am not. In this attempt to seem superior, it makes me feel superior that I am not a sheep when it comes to this.

Do not even get me started on the type of drunk person who thinks everyone will find it fucking hilarious if they start to sing karaoke as badly as possibly whilst drunkenly laughing uncontrollably. I hate these people more than anyone else, including serial killers.

It is a social norm, and a sign of social status, in the collective mind of my generation, that the only way any normal, sane, exciting 24 year old could possibly enjoy them selves on a weekend, is to get horrendously drunk and wake up on Sunday intent on posting the Facebook status…. “….is never going to drink again“. I cannot think of a bigger waste of a weekend, than to go to a club and get drunk. I would disappoint and in fact, bore myself if I were to acquiesce to this terrible social norm.

Adolf, by Smith

Ash fashionised me in Paris.
I have cleared out my wardrobe.
Seven bin bags full of crap.
Six bin bags full of clothes to take to the charity shops.
That’s probably letting it get a bit too far isn’t it?
I’m a boy though.
We’re not known for our pro-activeness when it comes to clothes.
I have a new pair of trainers that don’t actually fit very well.
But they cost me £50, so they’re going to get worn.
Even if it makes my feet look like crow’s feet.
I had not been in my wardrobe for about five years.
It is now looking like a grown up’s wardrobe.
I feel like a real person.
I have a beautiful new cardigan from Zara.
£90 it cost.
It is hard not to get slightly fashionised when you’re in the fashion capital of the World, with a girlfriend who adores fashion.
Everyone just looks amazing in Paris.
Actually, there are two extremes in Paris…..
Amazing, and definitely a sex offender.
Ash knows every bag on the shoulder of every girl that walks past.
It makes me want to fall down to the floor and grab my head in pain, crying, when she tells me the girl who just walked past is holding a £15,000 bag.
On our last day in Paris we found a shopping mall.
It was an up market shopping mall.
I saw a plain white man shirt, for £900.
I cannot possibly comprehend that.
It is just a plain white man shirt.
Unless it doubles as a car and a speed boat, I will not be paying that much for a shirt.
It inspired me to create my own label.
“Smith” it’d be called.
I came up with four fragrances.
Molestation, by Smith.
Nonce, by Smith.
Faeces, by Smith.
Adolf, by Smith.
The TV adverts would involve Naomi Campbell running through a darkened Paris, searching through candlelight for a man.
He would be played by Johnny Depp.
They’d say something in French.
Faces would be close together, as they embraced.
Then a whispering voice would say “Faeces, by Smith”.
I think it’s perfect.
Ash took me into Primark yesterday.
I told her it was worse than genocide.
She bought things.
Two things for about 20p.
For 50p, she could have bought most of the shop.
God bless child labour in third World countries.
Today, I am going to dress well and criticise others for not matching.
I will also smell of “Faeces”.
Perfect.

I got angry

To the angry abusive intimidating bell end who shouted at me at my work tonight, for no fucking reason whatsoever; I hope you get AIDs and die. Slowly. I hope it hurts. I hope whilst it hurts, you accidentally get your scrotum caught in the mouth of a rabid rotweiler, and you contract rabies and then get your face raped on your way home by John Leslie, crying because you now have AIDs and Rabies and John Leslie’s unwashed cock in your face. And then I hope you fall and graze your knee, because grazed knees are the worst. I wish the very worst on you. You deserve the very worst.

“DO WHAT I SAY and don’t fucking argue with your fucking clients!!”

Don’t argue with your clients? Who made that rule? What if your clients are clearly trying to intimidate as many members of staff as possible, in the hope they will get free food and drink as some sort of apology for not being up to your level of satisfaction when you make up your own rules for the entire place? I will argue with you; I will absolutely argue with you. I wont be the one to back down to your nasty little games, you real life lump of unflushable, irritatingly relentless shit. Irritating relentlessly unflushable shit, regardless of if you put it in an expensive business suit; is still irritating, and it’s still shit, and you still wish it didn’t exist.

Oh and whilst you’re busy being an utter shit, it might do you pretty good, if you shaved the bit of hair that joins your eyebrows together. When you’re angry, and have only one eyebrow, it’s very difficult not to point at it and laugh when it moves up and down, because it looks like a hamster is fucking your face.

The fact that you exist, stealing oxygen from the rest of us, makes me want to vomit. And poo. Vomit and poo at the same time. That is an affect not many people have on me. You managed to achieve it within seconds of opening your arsehole (I was unable to distinguish your mouth from your arsehole. Seemingly both omit excrement).

Rant over.

I get bored

At work, when it is quiet, it is supremely quiet. I get bored quite easily. I usually take a book with me. Purely because the work itself is mind numbingly pointless. There is no social good. It is not improving my sense of self or helping to achieve any goal I have. So I take a book. However, yesterday I forgot to take a book. So I tried to concentrate on other things. Unfortunately, I was in a bit of a mood because earlier in the day, I discovered I had no milk to make tea. Being English, and having no milk for tea, is an horrific situation to find ones self in. Even now, I look back, and it makes me want to weep. When the Pope’s representative told the press that the UK was like the Third World (I watched that on my HDTV, which sits next to the XBox, and Laptop, near the second PC, in the window which over looks our two cars…… perhaps Bob Geldof should do a World concert for me and my obvious poverty stricken status), he meant with regard to lack of milk for tea, i’m sure of it. I had no milk for tea. Malnourished Ugandan orphans certainly have no milk for tea; quite clearly a link. We should listen to the Catholic Church more. They make SO much sense. So obviously it played on my mind all evening, to the point where I think I may have gone a little bit insane.

And this is the product of that insanity:

Contrary to the conclusion you may have drawn, I am not studying fine art.
I even gave him some new happy disco shoes, to celebrate.
I was trying to convey how my mood would change for the better, if I were to have some milk at home. Today I have milk at home. I thought this would make me happy. I even prepared to indulge in a happy dance.  And it did make me happy. For a second. But then, I spotted flying toward me, a flying spider. As if regular spiders aren’t horrendous enough. It had fangs, and blood dripping from them. It had a sting the size of a butchers knife pointed at me, and long hairy legs. Okay so I may be exaggerating. It probably wasn’t even a spider. They don’t fly. But this was huge. I kept my eye on it the entire time I made a cup of tea, and moved around the room methodically avoiding its evil gaze (when I wrote ‘evil gaze’ I giggled childishly because it sounds like ‘evil gays’. I’m not even Catholic. Or Right Winged American. Homophobic humour, I should get a job at Fox). I knew what it wanted, and what it wanted was to kill me. I am now locked in my bedroom, it is probably waiting outside. Although, it feels like it is on me somewhere. The same feeling I get if I walk face first into a cobweb. I presume the spider is on me. That is how this feels. It is probably waiting for me to sleep, and then it’ll bite me.  I will have to leave and enter my house from now on, through my second storey window, via a rope that I will craft out of old clothes. That is how serious this situation has become.

Anyway, after calming down a little, and deciding that having no milk is actually no big issue. I thought I would enter the realms of political and religious satire. And this is the result:

What an entirely pointless blog entry.

Futile Schwarzenegger

I have been frequenting the Gym again recently; purely to satisfy my own insecure vanity. I’ve never been too keen on the way my body looks. I’m just flat, like an ironing board with a hairless head and skinny legs. And given that I struggle to put on weight just by eating a lot, I figure my next option is the gym. It’s working too. After two and a half months of going to the gym five nights a week, and ridiculous quantities of protein, I am starting to tone a little. I feel much more active and energised too, which is always a bonus. Ash, being a physio taught me how to do a sit up correctly and most affectively, and what it has so far taught me is that my abdominal muscles are made out of really weak feathers. So that’s a good start.

From a mind like mine, that is always socially aware, and conscious of the absurdity of certain situations, the gym provides me with ample opportunity for bewilderment and amusement. There is no other place on the planet that it is socially acceptable for me to be bent over a bench, with one knee on it, lifting a heavy object, whilst an 80+ year old woman sits next to me, rolling around on a big ball and panting aimlessly. Nor is it considered socially acceptable for a huge man in a ridiculously tight vest to be holding the sweaty body of another man on a pull up bar, grunting incoherently what I can only assume are words of encouragement; whilst a woman with a John McEnroe style sweat band wrapped around her face holds a heavy ball above her head, and lunges around the room with her hands on her hips, swerving in and out of the people around her, who seemingly haven’t noticed how piss-your-pants funny this entire situation actually is.

After a chest and arm workout, I will sit for a minute or two, shamelessly admiring my handiwork in the mirror. I always think that this is good, I am getting bigger; women everywhere will drop around me in uncontrollable, heated astonishment at the epitome of masculinity they see before them, before they weep intolerably when I tell them I’m taken. But then, to shatter my dream, a perfectly toned smiling adonis of a man will stroll past the mirror, like a young Elvis, with perfectly shaped biceps, and i’ll look back at myself and the little man inside my head, will say “that is a real man. You, are a girly man. Go and hide in the corner, girly man.” And then out of nowhere, as if life wasn’t tragic enough at that point, a skinny kid will stroll past the mirror, panting because the 8kg weight he was trying to lift got the better of him on the second rep, and the little man in my head will say “how come there’s two of yo…..oh, it’s not you. It’s another girly man.” (8kg weights don’t get the better of me by the way, i’m up to 15.5kg dumbells. I’m like Arnie; when Arnie was about three years old).

I cannot understand much of what the huge grunting men say to each other. It is just noise. Ramblings of men whose neck muscles are crushing their vocal chords, but have some how devised their own language of grunts and pants that they can all understand perfectly. They touch each others biceps as they workout. It’s like their own special way of greeting each other. Perhaps that’s what men are doing now. Perhaps to be a real man, I need to walk up to men in the street and grab their muscles and say ”uuuugghh” and I will be in the club. That certainly wouldn’t be overtly homoerotic, would it?

The Daily Fail

The majority of us know that too much reading of the Daily Mail causes death by stupidity, because the majority of us know that the Daily Mail is a paper for idiots. Right winged angry old men who dislike anyone who isn’t like them. The syphoning off of every problem the UK has, on immigrants is beyond a joke now. It attempts to create anger and fear that really isn’t warranted. Those defending the Mail will claim it is no more bias, ridiculous and right winged as the Guardian is left winged and ridiculous. Laughable. And here’s why.

The Daily Mail over the years, between blaming everything on muslims, has attempted to tell us all that pretty much everything on the face of the planet, from hard objects, to abstract concepts like fatherhood cause cancer. Here’s a list of my favourite items and concepts that The Daily Mail has claimed causes cancer, and why the Daily Mail is the most manipulative paper, aimed at the most stupid members of the public……

Women who are 30 and pregnant
Working
Retirement
Fat babies
Aussies hanging the washing out
Being a black woman
Being a woman
Being a man
Blow jobs
Candle lit dinners
Having kids
Not having kids
Warm weather
Cold weather
Having a dog
Being tall
Hugging your dad
Having a big head
Being fat
Being thin
Shaving

I rest my case.