I’m about to write about political bullshit. Forgive me.
It’s a new year. Last year I tried (with only mixed success) to avoid commenting on political asshattery. Negativity, even when it’s true, is corrosive. For example, the debt is a big fat hairy deal ($19,952,345,294,485.00). I cannot conceive of a universe where America “pays off” that kind of value. (Perhaps I lack imagination?) More likely we’ll turn a dollar into a penny and pay off… nah we can’t even come up with that many pennies (Certainly that many physical pennies can’t realistically exist on the planet. Note I’m not saying “don’t exist” I’m saying “can’t exist”. These are very big numbers.) The point is, even though I fail, I endeavor to let it go.
Give me some credit. I haven’t bitched about the craptacular Chevy Volt lately. It’s hard y’all!
I also tried to avoid fanning flames during the election cycle. America’s voters; half of which (if you believe the press) are deplorable, rural, glue sniffing, misogynist, racist, trailer park bound, troglodyte, rubes and and half of which (if you believe me) are unemployable, clueless, nitwit, Marxist, urban sycophants were either up to the task… or not. I took a deep breath, chanted silently to myself (“the system can work”), and looked away.
OK fine, occasionally I fell off the wagon. Like when Hillary Clinton “was tired” on 9/11/16. This seemingly unremarkable announcement was followed by video of her being dragged out of her shoes into a van and followed by an explanation that she’d suddenly had pneumonia two days ago and shut up you fucking deplorable peasant; vote for vagina or you’re on the wrong side of history and will be the first hick lined up against the wall when the time comes. I’m pretty sure that’s a verbatum press release from 9/12/16. I fell off the wagon and wrote angry posts. I’m only human.
Now that Obama is the lamest of lame ducks, I’ve carefully avoided him. Why bother? I know he’s going to figure out what would most completely piss me off and then do it. Consider the options; maybe make a few victory laps, shit on Israel, coddle a dictator, pardon very bad criminals while ignoring those deserving of mercy, invite a couple million illegal aliens to move into the Lincoln bedroom, foment discord with Russia, gut a kitten on live TV and watch MSNBC try to spin it, maybe find a Republican senator and kick him in the balls? (Actually I’m OK with the last one.)
The point is that jackwits gotta’ jack. Let it go. Unfortunately I can’t let it go because I’m infuriated by this:
NASA Honors William Shatner With Distinguished Public Service Medal.
Whoops. Wrong link. I meant to bitch about a crappy president not an actor that played a pretend space captain. (You go Kirk!)
Let’s try again:
President Obama awards himself distinguished public service medal.
Nope. That’s not right either. I mixed up when cutting and pasting. Please click this link.
So, is it true? Did Obama just award himself with the one honor the Swedes can’t issue? Good thing we’ve Snopes to avoid fake news:
President Obama did not award himself the Medal for Distinguished Public Service.
Lets see if they can sort it out:
“According to Breitbart‘s own source material, Defense Secretary Ash Carter honored President Obama, and the President did not “[award] himself” a medal.”
Oh, it’s so clear now! I’m so deplorable that I thought Obama actually picked up the award and pinned it on his own chest; possibly while evolving into pure light and riding a unicorn. Snopes explained it all. It’s was nothing like that. There was this guy see, and he has a boss who can fire him at any time… and the boss was like “give me an award or be transferred to a job scrubbing radioactive bedpans in Guam”… so the guy physically pinned 15 pieced of flair on his bosses chest in a big ceremony… this honored his boss… so the guy got to keep his job. That’s totally different than “Obama awards himself”. Snopes to the rescue!
In keeping with this line of investigation I’d like to clear up the misunderstood public image of Ming the Merciless:
Ming The Merciless and Dale Arden at their blissful wedding. Note that Ming isn’t actually officiating the ceremony. There’s a priest dude to do that. Thus, Snopes concludes that Ming is totally not bullying anyone. There’s nothing to see here but pure love.
I was so touched by Obama’s totally honestly derived honor I’m providing a video of the ceremony here. Sure its got Ming and Dale’s happy marriage vows but all royal ceremonies are about the same.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go sit on my throne as the best dad in the whole world. I gave my kid some cash and said “buy me that mug or I’m going to make you eat kale for a month“. It’s such an honor:
I paid for it and ordered my kid to buy it. Thus proving I’m the best dad ever. Snopes will explain it to you rubes who are confused.
Oh, it’ll get paid off.
Probably in bottlecaps or aluminum cans.
Or “dollars” once the value is reduced to “less than toilet paper”.
You’re right. It’ll get paid off in the sense that someone somewhere will file a document or documents that say “it’s paid off”. Or they won’t and we’ll do the Zimbabwe/Argentina/Venezuela/Germany(1923) thing and later emerge with a different currency than the one we started with; meaning it’s “defacto” paid off. When something can’t go on forever… it won’t. For better or worse it’ll eventually resolve.
What bothers me is that current debt amounts literally exceed reasonable number theory for things we usually measure like “little green slips of paper” or “cars” or “bushels of wheat”. I don’t think that was always the case. Numbers like 19,952,345,294,485 exceeds things that we can rationally mentally grasp or physically possess. I know we couldn’t create that many $1 bills, bottle caps, or old cans. Not even in .22 shells… which would be epic currency. 🙂
Would a trillion bottle caps bury Manhattan completely? What about 20 trillion of empty beer cans; would that bury Rhode Island?
We hit a point where physically things aren’t reasonably possible and it gave me the heebie jeebies. Who wants a “grains of sand on a beach” or “stars in the sky” kind of number?
Then again… nobody asked me.
Something to keep in mind, the Boehner/Obama unlimited debt cap deal expires in March 2017. It makes almost doubling the debt from $10.6 trillion to $20 trillion the problem of any successor.