Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder Gives Us The Moment We Need

The boulder that fell on this Colorado highway
prompted a most glorious Tweet that
made everybody's day. 

This past week on a snowy mountain highway near Telluride, Colorado, a big rock fell off a cliff and landed smack dab on the eastbound lane of Highway 145.

Not exactly a national news story until the San Miguel Sheriff's office Tweeted to the public: "Large boulder the size of a small boulder is completely blocking eastbound lane of Highway 145 mm78 at Silverpick Rd."

Everybody, including me, said, "Huh?"  

This odd tweet went totally viral, as deserved.  The absurdity of it was a winner in a week of grim tweets over impeachment, coronavirus and other lovely developments.

Reactions were classic:

"Did a self-conscious small boulder write this?"

"This is how I want to be described in my obituary."

"Americans really will use any other system of measurement than metric won't they?"

Someone else explained why this incident happened:  "It came off a large mountain the size of a small hill."

One Twitterer helped the sheriff's department by providing this update to the situation on Highway 145: "Road is closed while emergency crews bring in equipment to break it into larger, smaller boulders." 

One person cautioned people on Twitter to "not take these things for granite," to which someone else replied, "I marble at your sense of humor."

That fun tweet also inspired lots of gloriously bad puns.

OK, I love bad puns.

Someone else wanted to delve into the technicalities by asking whether a large boulder the size a small boulder is heavier than a small boulder the size of a large boulder.

Personally, I'm glad that the San Miguel Sheriff's office never deleted the tweet, and only updated motorists about the situation on Highway 145.  

Even better, a woman named Susan Lilly who works in the San Miguel Sheriff's office disclosed she was the one who wrote the now-famous boulder tweet. On Wednesday, she tweeted: "I am the author behind this now viral tweet. I own my mistake and now I rock it."

Which is the second best tweet of the week, behind the original large, small boulder missive.

I love Lilly's attitude.  She explained that she meant to write that it was a "large boulder the size of a small car," but that would have made sense and would have been no fun.

As one person replied to Lilly: "You are the reason that Twitter became a lighthearted place for awhile."

Personally, I hope the Colorado road crews saved that boulder and will put it in a prominent place. It will be labeled the "Susan Lilly Memorial Large Small Boulder."

Everybody Is Flushing Trump's Toilet Talk Down The Um, Toilet

I'm going to go against my better judgement here and talk about toilets.

Donald Trump made the same mistake when he discussed this plumbing feature last week.  It's old news now, but worth revisiting.

To wit, he said as Vox and just about everybody else reported:

"'People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once. They end up using more water,' Trump said, complaining that water flow in other fixtures has slowed to a trickle. 'You can't wash your hands practically, there's so little water comes out of the faucet, and the end result is you leave the faucet on and it takes you much longer to wash your hands, you end up using the same amount of water.'"

Let's set aside for a moment that you'd think the president has bigger things to worry about than low-flow toilets.  I guess he's against regulations that make toilets use less water.  Maybe he poops a lot more than you and me.  Some people call him a shithead, so there's that.

Although early models of low flow toilets did seem problematic to us non-shitheads, as far as I'm concerned they fixed the problem.

So if I, and I presume most people need just one flush per poop, what is Trump pooping that requires 15 flushes to go away?  I really don't want to think about it, but still.

As usual, Twitter came to the rescue with this crisis.

One of my favorite tweets in response to all this was the following:

Susan Stone @SusanStone12

Replying to @chrislhayes

To be fair to the POTUS, it's hard to get the whole Constitution and Bill of Rights down in one flush.

 Referencing Trump's recent mysterious Saturday trip to the Walter Reed Medical Center: 

Anthony Chergosky@achergosky

Replying to @atrupar

Now we know why he went to Walter Reed

Maybe some corruption is involved? 

Eric Ranschau @eranschau

Replying to @chrislhayes

Christ… Was he trying to flush his tax returns?

And finally, here's a good diagnosis: 

The Artful Roger. Diamond of many Facets.@Rojodi

Replying to @chrislhayes

Wow! Proof he's full of sh*t!

Halloween Proved Donald Trump Jr Is Stupid

Donald Trump Jr. took this Halloween pic of
his daughter Chloe to make a stupid political point,
and boy that did not go well at all. 

I got a chuckle over the mini-uproar reacting to a Tweet sent out by Donald Trump Jr., son of our "illustrious" president.

He took a sad pic of his young daughter Chloe at Halloween with this message: "I'm going to take half of Chloe's candy tonight & give it to some kids who sat at home. It's never to (sic) early to teach her about socialism."

As many respondents and The Guardian pointed out, this was a, um, flawed analysis of socialism. Of course he was also using his young daughter as a political prop and demonstrating his own selfishness, but we've come to expect that from the Trump family.

 A good response came from Elite Bear Agents: 

"My man, 'socialism' was her getting that free candy in the first place. You taking half for reasons she can't understand is capitalism."

Ouch!

Then there's nice from Nick Pettigrew:

"Your kid went begging from hard-working people for candy. The kid who stayed home got theirs because their parents worked to pay for it. In your simile, if anyone's the socialist, it's Chloe." 

I liked this response from Matt Blackwell, too:

"It's telling that junior thinks that 'walking around getting gifts from people' is a good metaphor for 'earning money.'"

The ever-reliable and wise J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, also responded beautifully with this sarcastic missive to Junior:

"Fill her bucket with old candy left by her great-grandfather, then explain that she has more because she's smarter than all the other kids."

I'll close with my favorite snipe at Junior, given the tax "reform" plan Junior's dad is pushing: Amir said this: 

"Or you could just take 99% of Chloe's candy, eat it, and tell her to wait for it to trickle down."

Perfect!

NPR Unwittingly Provides More Proof Some Trump Supporters Are Really Stupid

NPR tweeted out the Declaration of Independence on
the Fourth of July and some Trumpsters got confused

On the Fourth of July, NPR thought it would be a cool idea to tweet out the Declaration of Independence.

Actually not a bad idea. If 1776 had Twitter, I'm guessing the Founding Fathers might have tweeted out the declaration.

Turns out some easily confused Trump supporters didn't get what NPR was doing. But of course.

One person decided NPR had been "hacked like crazy." Another person reacted to the NPR tweets this way: "So NPR is calling for revolution. Interesting way to condone the violence while trying to sound "patriotic."

Here's the part of the Declaration of Independence that seemed to irk some Trump supporters: "A Prince whose character is thus marked by ever act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the rule of a free people."

Hmmm.

"This is why you're going to get defunded," a Trumpster named Darren Mills tweeted in response to NPR.

Yet another confused person dismissed NPR's Declaration of Independence as this: "Propaganda. Is that all you know how? Try supporting a man who wants to do something about the injustice in this country."

I suppose we could all support the country if we figured out what the Declaration of Independence actually is.

Donald Trump Loses It More Than Ever On Twitter

Donald Trump is the world's most obnoxious tweeter, we know that.

And what's with the millions of Twitter bots that he or one of his minions appears to have purchased. (You can purchase fake Twitter followers to make it look like you have a lot more followers than you do.)

Anyway, this tweet from The Donald went up early this morning, and stayed up for a few hours. Don't know where he was going with this:

If you click on the copy of the tweet I've put in this post to make it bigger and easier to read, Trump gave us this bit of profound wisdom: "Despite the constate negative press, covfefe."

Not sure what "covfefe" means, but I'm sure we can come up with some good definitions, right?

Sinkhole At Trump's Mar-A-Lago Is Entertaining Millions Today

Today's little sinkhole in front of Mar A Lago. 

A four-by-four foot sinkhole opened up on a street in Palm Beach, Florida, today, which normally wouldn't make the news.

Of course, the sinkhole formed in front of Mar-A-Lago, Donald Trump's ritzy resort and "winter White House," so that made the whole thing a lot of fun.  

It's the ultimate metaphor for what many of us see as a sinking ship, amid the, how shall we say, hiccups in the Trump presidency.

When the Palm Beach Post tweeted out the story of the Mar-A-Lago sinkhole, with a "Breaking News" headline, somebody responded via Twitter: "Breaking: God Sends Really Obvious Sign."

Another wag on Twitter, Elizabeth Schwartz said, "Surely, this is somewhere in revelations."

Somebody named John Maguire imagined on Twitter Trump's reaction to the sinkhole this way: "But it is a beautiful sinkhole. The best sinkhole in history. A model sinkhole for all future sinkholes."

Several people brought up that bizarre photo from over the weekend in which President Trump was seen holding a glowing orb with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Journalist Jonathan Chait said, "This is because of the orb, isn't it?"

Another observed: "The sinkhole formed right after the orb was touched."

Somebody out there want to write a great science fiction plot about this?

Quite a few other people suggested the sinkhole is the swamp draining.

Don't we wish.

This Republican Wants Another Kent State To Teach 'Em Good!

This idiot from Michigan was just
wondering if shooting a couple
protesters would help end all those
anti-Trump demonstrations. 

Every once in awhile, a public official accidentally tells us what he or she is really thinking, with disastrous, jaw-dropping results.

Our latest exhibit in this wall of shame is Dan Adamini, the Secretary of the Marquette (Michigan) County Republican Party. And possibly soon to be former Secretary.

Adamini was apparently upset by a demonstration that turned violent in Berkeley, California and forced the cancellation of a talk by odious weird right-winger Milo Yiannopoulos.

Adamini tweeted this gem in response:  "Violent protesters who shut down free speech? Time for another Kent State. Perhaps one bullet stops a lot of thuggery."

He also went on Facebook and said this, grammer issues included:

"The violent protests at universities certainly indicate Portage acacian at the lower level. I'm thinking another Kent State might be the only solution protest stopped after one death. They only do it because there are no consequences at all."

That's quite a bit of word salad there, but you can see what Adamini seems to be suggesting.  Just shoot somebody and that will make people just shut up already.

Kent State, as you might remember, was the 1970 anti-Vietnam protest at Kent State University in Ohio. Some of the protesters threw rocks and such at police and National Guardsmen. The Guard opened fire, killing four of the demonstraters.

So yeah, that's right,  Adamini was suggesting what happened at Kent State back in 1970 was a swell idea.

Of course, if you want demonstrators to quiet down and stop, maybe shooting them isn't the best idea for many reasons, beyond the crime of killing people.

It'll backfire, pardon the awful pun. People were so outraged by Kent State that many believe it hastened the end of the Vietnam War. Which wasn't exactly what the Nixon administration wanted back in 1970.

Would violence against anti-Trump protesters hasten the end of the Trump era? I frankly don't want to find out, and I'm sure most other people feel the same way.

Since posting and taking down those offensive posts in social media, Adamini says he's against violence, too.

He posted this on Twitter, says MLive:

"Taking a lot of heat for a very poorly worded tweet yesterday. Sorry folks, the intent was to try to stop the violence, not encourage more."

Well, maybe, if he considers all demonstrations against Trump and his actions and his minions "violence." It doesn't seem to daw on Adamini that telling people to shut up when the criticize an elected official is also an attempt to squelch First Amendment rights.

I'm being Captain Obvious here, but sometimes, you gotta spell it out.

Calling his bad tweet "poorly worded?" I think the problem here goes way beyond grammar issues.

Professional Anarchists And That Terrible Bowling Green Massacre Humor Social Media

Here's one image of the "Bowling Green
Massacre" that's been making its way
around the web

Say what you want about the Trump administration: When somebody there misspeaks, we get a torrent of online humor.

Hey, you need something go get you going.

Today's humor came from President Trump's unfortunate wording in a tweet complaining about protesters opposed to him.

"Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the point of the millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" Trump wailed in a 6:48 a.m. tweet Friday morning.

In case you haven't noticed, "professional anarchist" is more than a bit of  an oxymoron. By definition, anarchists aren't professional..

Then there was the Kellyanne Conway comment about the "Bowling Green Massacre" as justification for the so-called "Muslim Ban" executive order by Trump. She obviously misspoke, since there has been no "Bowling Green Massacre" that anybody can remember.

To be fair, Conway later tweeted that she misspoke, and was referring to a couple terrorists who had allegedly been plotting something around Bowling Green. There was obviously no real life massacre.

More on that in a minute.

It looked like quite a few people were ready to sign up to be "professional anarchists" if the pay was right.

One wag asked: "Wait, how do I become a 'professional' anarchist? What's the pay like? What paperwork do I have to fill out? What qualifications do I need?"

The Bowling Green Massacre got a lot more play, however.

One of the most popular things that popped up was the Bowling Green Massacre Victims' Fund.  If you click on the link, you get automatically transferred to the ACLU donations page.


I saw a tweet from Jimmy Kareliussen (@JMKareliussen) that said: "February 30th will henceforth be known as "Bowling Green Massacre Memorial Day."

Also on Twitter, mormonLIBERALmafia (@VoteMorales) said. "More people would have attended the @realDonaldTrump inauguration but they all died in the Bowling Green Massacre. Sad."

Natasha  Rothwell, (@nathasharothwell)  referencing what looked like Trump's confusion over whether Frederick Douglass is a living person, tweeted, "Saddened and sickened by Frederick Douglass' silence surrounding the Bowling Green Massacre. 

Others counseled people to tone it down regarding the massacre. Justin Shanes (@justinshanes) noted: "Finding these Bowling Green Massacre jokes to be a little too soon. Out of respect, we should wait until it takes place." 

More ominously, outside the jokes, Conway again whined that people aren't "respecting" Donald Trump. The common theme from the Trump folks seems to be that the media ought to just shut up.

I guess they don't want to do things that attract, you know, scrutiny and challenges.

Conway described the media approach to Trump this way, in an interview with radio host Sean Hannity:

"It never took on the aura of respect that it deserved, and if you are nt showing the President and his main spokespeople respect, then you're not showing the office respect, and you are inciting mob mentality if not mob violence."

That's so rich coming from the Trumpsters. Like they show anyone respect. Plus, you gotta earn it, bub. Act like a president and people might start treating you like one, Donald.

And yes, it's the job of the media to inform people. If they choose to protest based on the information about the Trump administration they can, since there's this little thing called the First Amendment.

Besides, with a few exceptions, most of the demonstrations against Trump have been quite peaceful.

So Kellyanne, Quitcherbitchin' and get back to work. And no more alternative facts, please.

Deplorables Now Trying To Kill Journalists? Harass All 'Enemies"?

Journalist Kurt Eichenwald, who has epilepsy,
was sent Tweets with flashing lights to induce
 seizures. People who can't stand to see
Donald Trump criticized sent them, and now
these assailants might face legal trouble.

One of the reasons I worry about the rise of facism in America at the expense of democracy is some of Trump's biggest fans.  

They are truly The Deplorables, badly attacking, sometimes physically,  anyone who dares criticize Trump or anything he does.

I know this is familiar territory to anyone who reads this blog thingy here. I'm always complaining about the undemocratic, un-American Deplorables who make up the core of Trump's most base base.

However, they must constantly be exposed, called on the carpet and mocked into irrelevance to rid ourselves of this cancer.

And like cancer, it takes repeated treatments, repeated exposure to powerful medicines, to get rid of it. This is my small part. Everyone should partake in providing these "treatments." Mockery is good medicine.

That's becuse It really feels as if the Deplorables believe they have a license to be Trump's "enforcers" making sure any dissent is squelched. If violence is necessary so be it.

Unfortunately, it often works. People are afraid to speak up if they are going to get harassed, threatened, hurt, maybe even killed.

This isn't the M.O. of most Trump supporters, of course. Generally, they just prefer his politics and his way of doing things, and will pretty much leave everyone alone. Totally fine.

It's the still-too-many Deplorables that are and will cause all kinds of havoc during the Trump administration.

This week we have a report of Deplorables attacking a journalist who has epilepsy with messages designed to trigger grand mal seizures. All because the Deplorables don't like what the journalist says about  Trump

THE JOURNALIST

One person brave enough to take the Deplorables on is journalist Kurt Eichenwald. He has a form of epilepsy in which grand mal seizures can be triggered by certain types of light patterns.

Some of the nation's Deplorables know this, so they sent Eichenwald tweets, emails and such that contain these light patterns, in addition to the usual death threats against him and his family, for having the temerity of calling out what he believes are the worst of Trump's excesses.

Like I said, though, Eichenwald is fighting back.

Eichenwald is working to find and press assault charges against the people who send him these seizure-inducing strobes, and also working to get them off social media platforms like Twitter, reducing the Deplorables ability to troll.

The only thing I can say that Eichenwald is doing wrong is trying to appeal to the Deplorables' humanity, or at least trying to get others to encourage the Deplorables to put a lid on it.

One of Eihenwald's tweets read, "Look at how many Trump followers seem to think it's funny or deserved that someone used my disability a weapon. What's wrong with them?"

A lot, but that's not going to stop them, unfortunately.

Eichenwald also tweeted, "How have so many ppl become such sociopaths that they think it's OK to assault someone if they write political stories they don't like?"

I'm not sure, but they certainly have their share of supporters and abetters.

Eichenwald is seeking out the people who sent him the seizure tweets and plans to press charges, which is good. It was an assault, so it should be treated as such.

Twitter, citing its user policies, said it would turn over data that would likely lead to the person who sent the seizure-causing tweet.

Of course, we're all free to criticize Eichenwald's reporting and writing. He's human and capable of being wrong. He's a big boy, he can handle criticism. It's part of the job.

But trying to induce seizures? Sounds to me some of his critics are too afraid to take Eichenwald on intellectually, so they resort to this.

The defense of the seizure tweets by obnoxious web sites like Twitchy, Breitbart the Daily Caller is the usual story: To them, Eichenwald is lying and being silly to boot. Because the Deplorables never do anything wrong, uh-uh!

The Daily Caller the other day seemed to suggest that Eichenwald was lying because a police report hadn't been filed yet.

Twitchy re-ran tweets from some of the worst of the Deplorables who pretty much all said that Eichenwald had a psychotic breakdown, not a seizure. But then, the Deplorables probably are too dumb tell the difference between the two.

I'll let "Ursulafaw," writing in Daily Kos, to say what's on my mind, since they do a great job of summarizing how I feel, and how the rest of us should feel:

"It is beyond deplorable that anybody would lash out at a reporter like the Trumpites have lashed out at Kurt Eichenwald, literally trying to destroy the man. Inducing a grand mal seizure is not something that responsible people choose as a viable tool to express their disagreement with something that someone has written. Not in a civilized society, where divergent opinion in the free marketplace of ideas is the order of the day. 

Post 11/09 we no longer live in a civilized society that much is made manifestly clear by the headlines of each and every day. There are literally two countries now, the United States of America and the Trump States of America and I am not talking about Democratic or Republican. I am talking about civility vs. barbarism, about decency vs. degeneracy. The bottom feeders of Trump supporters defy description."

But the bottom feeders will continue bottom feeding. It's going to be a long four years, and we all need to call out the people who do this kind of thing. Even if it's exhausting.

Donald Trump Junior Is Choking On His Skittles.

The infamous Trump Junior Skittles Tweet. 

You have to admire Donald Trump Jr, the son of the Republican presidential candidate.

I don't know if admire is the right word exactly, but it certainly is an accomplishment to make so many mistakes in one little Tweet.

As you might have heard, the Tweet from Trump Junior heard around the world this week showed a bowl of Skittles with a caption that said: "If I had a bowl of Skittles and I told you just three would kill you, would you take a handful? That's our Syrian refugee problem."

OK, let's list all that went wrong here:

1. The Skittles metaphor Junior used seems to have originated a guy named Julius Streicher back in the late 1930s. He was a dedicated Nazi who was hanged for crimes against humanity at Nuremberg back in 1946, says The Intercept.

Streicher wrote a children's book that compared poisonous mushrooms to Jews. In his awful book, a mother tells her son, "Just a single poisonous mushroom can kill a whole family, so a solitary Jew can destroy a whole village, a whole city, even an entire (nation.)"

Yeah, lovely.

2. The guy who took the photo of the bowl of Skittles in Junior's Tweet is David Kittos of Guilford, Britain. Kittos was himself a refugee, having been forced to flee Cyprus in 1974, says the BBC.

Kittos uploaded the Skittles bowl photo to Flickr in 2010, and that's where the Trumpsters apparently found it. Kittos made it abundantly clear he did not give the Trumps or anyone else permission to use the Skittles photo, and he vehemently opposes using the photo the way it was used.

"In 1974, when I was six years old, I was a refugee from the Turkish occupation of Cyprus so I would never approve the use of this image against refugees," Kittos told the BBC. 

Kittos is highly pessimistic that Trumps will take the photo down, or that he will be paid for his troubles. Kitto's pessimistic is certainly realistic, let me tell ya.

3. The timing of the Skittles Tweet suggests Junior was reacting to that idiot who set off the bomb in Chelsea, Manhattan last weekend, injuring 29 people.

The moron bomber was not a Syrian refugee but a naturalized American citizen born in Afghanistan. So this particular incident had noting to do with Syrian refugees.

4. Candy companies tend to be pretty friendly outfits. So if you get candy manufacturer mad at you, you're doing pretty badly.

Mars, the parent company of Skittles, felt the need to spell out the obvious to Junior in this terse statement on Twitter: "Skittles are candy. Refugees are people. It's an inappropriate analogy. We respectfully refrain from further comment as that could be misinterpreted as marketing." 

A classy corporate response to a decidedly unclassy Trump Junior remark.

5. Junior doesn't understand how the First Amendment works. On the top of his Twitter feed Wednesday morning, he has this pinned Tweet from March: "Liberals love the first amendment until you say something they don't agree with."

No, nobody is saying that Junior can't discuss Skittles. But just as he has the First Amendment right to be stupid with Skittles and refugees, we have the First Amendment right to say Junior is stupid with his Skittles and refugees.

6. As is often the case, Stephen Colbert had the last word last night. He noted Junior brought up Skittles, not M&M's.

Colbert said: "Of course the Trump family prefers Skittles because there are no brown ones."

Ouch!

Milo Yiannnopoulos Can Just Shut Up Now, Thank You

Tech guy, all around troll and jerk Milo Yiannopouos
is whining that Twitter finally kicked him out
because of his abusive Tweets and how he
encouraged others to attack people online.  

Poor Milo Yiannopoulos.

He's this weird guy, a former tech startup sort of guy who is gay and seems to hate gays, loves Donald Trump, and is more than a bit of an Internet troll who also has a somewhat shaky background in the tech industry.  

Last week, he launched a Twitter attack against Leslie Jones, the comedian and actor currently starring in the "Ghostbusters" reboot.

That part is unremarkable. People criticize and troll public figures such as actors and politicians on Twitter all the time.

What happened next turned into a big fight over free speech, and how awful you can get with your free speech before somebody tells you to shut up already. Twitter told Yiannopoulos to shut up already.

A lot of people cheered that move. Others didn't.

Yiannopoulos has got a great big posse of fans. A lot of them are trolls, and as Yiannopoulos egged them on, the trolls unleashed a huge and unrelenting racist and sexist attack on Jones, calling her a gorilla, saying she was the source of AIDS, you know, nice things like that.

The "problem" largely stems from Ghostbusters. The misgynistic trolls can't stand the fact the new movie has a female cast. And worse, Jones is African-American. Egads! On top of that, she's not a toothpick skinny supermodel with breast implants the size of watermelons. How dare she!

Also, female comedians are supposedly not funny, according to these idiots. (I'm sure my fellow fans of female comedians starting with Lucille Ball and Phyllis Diller going all the way up to today's Jones, Samantha Bee, Tina Fey and many others would beg to differ.).

In any event, Yiannopoulos and the followers he was encouraging  finally got so odious that Twitter permanently kicked him out, says BuzzFeed News.

"'People should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter,'  a company spokesperson said in a statement provided to BuzzFeed News. 'But no on deserved to be subjected to targeted abuse online, and our rule prohibit inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others."

Yiannopoulos and his legions of follows  (almost 400,000 of them before Twitter suspended his account.) are crying foul, saying Twitter is suppressing free speech and squelching comments that don't adhere to a liberal, politically correct skew.

Yiannopoulous was quick to respond that it was just Twitter hating on conservatives. "With the cowardly suspension of my account, Twitter has confirmed itself as a safe space or Muslim terrorists and Black Lives Matter exremenists, but a no-go zone for conservatives."

Twitter does make its terms of service pretty clear. "You may not incite or engage in the targeted abuse or harassment of others" You could get kicked off Twitter if you incite others to harass another account or if the primary purpose of an account is to send abusive messages to others.

Twitter's terms of service do not say conservative opinions can't be held. There's tons of conservatism on Twitter, actually. Take a look if you don't believe me.

Still, Yiannopoulos said of his banishment: "This is the end for Twitter. Anyone who cares about free speech has been sent a clear message You're not welcome on Twitter."

First off all, Yiannopoulos is confusing Twitter with the government. The First Amendment says that the government cannot squelch free speech. Like it or not, a private company can.

Still, the more free speech the better, and it's always a good thing for social media and media in general allow a full-throated airing of diverse opinions.

I generally don't like it when any business or institution, say, cancels a speech because activists don't like the speaker's opinion.  But it's a different thing entirely when the speech becomes harassment. Would you want somebody constantly yelling on your front lawn that they want to kill you? Well you shouldn't be doing that on Twitter either.

If you don't like somebody, you can say so on Twitter. Just don't turn the dislike into threats and harassment. Look, I'm saying here that I don't like Yiannopoulos, and I bet Twitter won't throw me off. Especially since I don't want to see him suffer any harm and I DON'T  want armies of trolls attacking him online.

However, Yiannopoulos forgets that free speech has consequences. Free speech is a right and a responsibility.

When you start massively harassing a person, and get your friends to pile on, there's going to be pushback, and a lot of us will tell you to shut up already, just like Twitter did.

So quicherbitchin' Milo, and remember that just because you're yacking up a storm doesn't mean we have to listen. You don't deserve a special platform any more than the next guy.

Yiannopoulos isn't the first person to whine about not being guaranteed a free public forum to spew garbage and he won't be the last.

According to Tech Dirt, the odious Pamela Geller, she of her virulent, wildly wrong All Muslims Are Murdering Assholes activism, is suing the federal government, and by extention Facebook, I guess.

Pamela Geller is also demanding a guaranteed
platform on social media, but fuhgetaboutit
 n

Geller says that Facebook would take down her page somehow is wrong, and the federal Communications Decency Act violates the First Amendment because she says it enables censorship.

Says her lawsuit:  

"Denying a person or organization access to these important social media forums based on the content and viewpoint of the person's or organization's speech on matters of public concern is an effective way of silencing or censoring speech or depriving the person or organization of political influence and business opportunities."

But, again, the First Amendment bars the government from censoring people. All the Communications Decency Act does is allow private companies to take down content they deem "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable."

As noted, I do think major social media outfits like Facebook and Twitter have the responsibility to let people air controversial topics, and they do.  But legally, they can take stuff down. And if the content relentlessly harasses anybody, including Muslims and Jews like Geller, it should be taken down.

Still, we have First Amendment rights, but we don't have a right to use a private platform for whatever we want. Almost all businesses, including Twitter and Facebook, have their own ethics policy and are free to adhere to them, unless they discriminate against a whole class of people based on things like religious affiliation, gender and race.

As Tech Dirt states: "(Geller's) lawsuit is the legal equivalent of that idiot who claims that any company moderating content is violating the First Amendment."

But as we all know, there's a LOT of idiots on social media.

Everything Is Probably Safer Than A Trump Rally

This is probably safer than a Trump rally.  

As we well know now, Donald Trump rallies are not for the faint of heart.

You can expect the occasional thrown punch, kick, Donald Trump insult and maybe worse at any of his rallies.  

Where can we go that's safer than a Trump Rally?

Twitter, as always, came to the rescue with the hashtag #SaferThanATrumpRally that offers helpful suggestions on what to do that's less dangerous if you fear injury at a Trump gathering.

Check out the hashtag, but for Tuesday's time waster, here's a few of my favorites activities I found under that hashtag that are definitely safer than Trump rallies. Some of them are a little "incorrect," but deal with it: :

--- Hiding In Anne Frank's attic

Working in this hole beneath a boulder propped
up with sticks is safer than a Trump rally.  

---  Drinking water in Flint, Michigan

--- Answering truthfully to the question, 'Do these jeans make me look fat?'

--- Wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt to a KKK rally

--- Drinks with Bill Cosby

---- Being second in command in North Korea.

---- Gas station sushi

---- Black Friday at Walmart

---- Handing over your complete browsing history to your parents.

A three hour cruise is probably safer than a
Trump rally.  

---- Family hunting parties with Sarah Palin  

---- A 1975 Ford Pinto

---- Gay Pride in Russia

---- A high speed joy ride in the back of a Baltimore Police van

--- Being the subject of a Kanye Twitter rant

I'll add my own, more innocent suggestion: Telling my dogs that I'm not feeding them dinner.

Dramatic Reading Of Kanye West Tweets Is Theatrical Magic

Kanye West is an avid Tweeter and he has a wealth of famous tweets.

Humility isn't necessarily one of his stronger suits, which makes the tweets all the more fun.

What's more fun is when, at the Vanity Fair party following the Oscars, a reporter there asked famous actors and other celebrities to do dramatic readings of Kanye West tweets.

The result is some wonderful faux dramatic moments, that who knows? Maybe they will result in a future major motion picture. One that might be an Oscar winner.

You never know! Watch.

Immigrants Read "Mean Tweets" About Themselves

This immigrant is understandably confused by
a person on Twitter who said the Great Wall of China kept Mexicans
out of that country, so it would work here, too.

In the tradition of Jimmy Kimmel's Mean Tweets, an organizaton has asked some undocumented immigrants to read mean tweets about them.

It's a brief exploration of American ignorance, let me tell ya. Maybe we should allow these undocumented immigrants to stay, since they seem a lot smarter than the Tweeters in question.

A couple of my favorites are the guy who doesn't like being called an illegal "alien."

"I don't like the word 'alien' because I feel like green is not my color. I like being brown."  

Another immigrant, a woman, responds to a Tweet from a woman in Kentucky who is offended because she always seems to hear 94 different languages. It's America, everybody should speak English, the Kentucky woman suggests.

The immigrant reminds Kentucky Woman that speaking two languages makes you smarter, something that can't hurt a state like Kentucky.

One of the immigrants was understandably bewildered by a Tweet from somebody who doesn't think Donald Trump's idea to build a wall to keep Mexicans from entering the United States.

After all, the Tweeter says, China build a wall and they have almost no Mexicans.

Um....

The video was put together by an outfit called Define America, a media and culture organization using stories to try and shift the conversation about immigrants, identity and citizenship.

Here's the video:

Pharma Bro Shkreli and Shadenfreude: A Match Made In Heaven (Or Hell)

Martin Shkreli under arrest today, inspiring a huge wave
 of schadenfreude. But will he get the last laugh? 

I bet it's fair to say that one of the most searched words on Google today is "Schadenfreude."

"Schadenfreude" refers to the pleasure derived from another person's misfortune, and so many people, including yours truly, have been experiencing intense schadenfreude over the arreset of Martin Shkreli.

Martin Shkreli, the "Pharma Bro" train wreck I've been obsessing about because he raised the price of life saving drugs to sky high levels to make oodles of money, was arrested on fraud charges, according to numerous media reports this morning.

He's the guy who raised the price of a medication for people with HIV and other life threatening illnesses from $13.50 to $750.00. His logic is its his job to make lots of money, and if sick and broke people suffer because of it, too bad.

He's been busy getting reading to inflate prices of other life saving drugs, too.

According to MSN:

"Prosecutors charged him with illegally taking stock from Retrophin, Inc., a biotechnology firm he started in 2011, and using it to pay off debts from unrelated business dealings. He was later ousted from the company, where he'd been chief executive officer, and sued by the board.

In the case that closely tracks that suit, federal prosecutors accused Shkreli of engaging in a complicated shell game after his defunct hedge fund, MSMB Capital Management, lost millions. He is alleged to have made secret payoffs and set up sham consulting arrangements."

Everybody had a HUGE field day with this arrest, especially on social media, because Shkreli is such a vile creature.

Maybe this makes me a bad person, but the news about the criminal charges against Shkreli are making me a very happy man today. I'm in a good mood now. Like a lot of people.

When I Googled "schadenfreude Shkreli" this evening, I got no fewer than 6,250 matches.

Salon collected some of the best Tweets about Shkreli's arrest today, including, from @ohiotimmons3, "On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me a warrant for Martin Shkreli."

@John Fuglesang Tweeted: "Wait, Martin Shkreli in jail? Are the criminals OK?"

Probably not. As long as Shkreli is around, somebody's going to get hurt.

Over at Wired, they tell us that Dean Burnett, known as @garwboy on Twitter, noted, "Government warning: National schadenfreude reserves expected to run dry by the end of the week."

I have no doubt that's true.

Many people are apparently worried about a Wu-Tang Clan album Shkreli recently bought. It's the only one in existence, and he reportedly paid $2 million for it.

Yeah, I don't know why anybody would spend $2 million for the only copy of an album from anybody, but what do I know?

If Shkreli goes to jail, I guess he now has time to enjoy the Wu-Tang album he bought from all the money he's making off the backs of ill people.

This arrest will probably slow down Shkreli's quest to totally inflate the cost of life-saving drugs for other people, but at least it's a start.

Here's how lousy Shkreli is. He told a Forbes health care summit early this month that he screwed up. Did he mean he shouldn't have raised medication prices so much?

Nope. He said he should have raised them more.

Forbes quoted Shkreli thusly: "'My shareholder expect me to make the most profit," Shkreli said, a theme he returned to again and again. 'That's the ugly, dirty truth.'

'I'm going to maximize profits,' Shkreli addes later. 'That's what people (in healthcare) are afraid to say.'"

In other words, the only responsibility of a manufacturer of a life saving medication is to maximize profits. The patients who need it? Fuck 'em. let them die as long as I can make millions.

No wonder people as disparate as Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton hate him.

My dream? That Shkreli gets a long, long inside look living among the "Lights of Dannemora."

As in the really nasty Clinton Correctional Facility in New York.

My dream probably won't come true, though. As The Guardian points out, even when there's wild excesses like those of Shkreli, the big splash of publicity over the arrest will be for naught.

Most CEOs caught with their hands on the cookie jar are not convicted. Even when they are, they get what for them is a slap on the wrist. A fine of a few million dollars, which is really peanuts, and then they can go on ripping people off.

I'm sure several more medically needed people will die to satisfiy Shkreli's greed.

Then it will, unfortunately, become his turn to feel the schadenfreude when the rest of us can't afford the medicine to keep us alive. The medicine that the likes of Shkreli prices out of our reach.

Ideas For Bad Christmas Wraps

Another bad wrapping paper print
idea: Santa stripping

Once you're done buying Christmas presents, you have to wrap them, right?

Fortunately, Twitter came to the rescue with the hashtag #BadWrappingPaperPrints.

For those of you who have a life and can't or won't scroll through the bad ideas on Twitter, here are some of my favorites:

---Eviction notices.
---Screenshots of Bill O'Reilly ranting about the War on Christmas
---The faces of underpaid Chinese workers who made the gift
---Child support overdue notices
---Donald Trump nudes
---People of Walmart

Do you have even better ideas? Post a comment!

80s Classic Song "Tainted Love" Channels Twitter

"Tweeted Love" updates this Soft Cell classic

I'm a big fan of bad puns.

I love the Soft Cell classic song "Tainted Love"

And I'm addicted to Twitter.

Which made me LOVE this video of all kinds of Twitter handles, set to the song "Tainted Love."

As many of you know, "Tainted Love" is a very electronic sounding tune, full of beeps and whirrs and rumbles.

So you'll love the repeated Merp Merp in this version, called "Tweeted Love" But the whole thing is awesome. And uses peoples' Twitter handles to really punny effects.

Give it a watch and you'll never think of "Tainted Love" the same way again:

Donald Trump Temper Tantrum Hilarious Proves Case Against Him Being President.

Donald Trump unwittingly, hilariously demonstrates
why he would be a comical if scary president.  

On Fox News, that Republican candidate loving network, recently featured pundit Charles Krauthammer, who loves Republican candidates, saying Donald Trump "deserved" to be at the top of a list of candidates Republicans say they will never vote for.

Yes, yes, I know the poll results are totally from the realm of Captain Obvious, but not to Donald Trump, better known as Captain Oblivious.

And hilariously, Trump proved the point of the poll by Tweeting out his outrage that Krauthammer said he deserved to be on a list of least likely presidential candidates.

The Washington Post had it right when they said Trump Tweets like a 14 year old girl. Read their compiliaton of stupid Trump Tweets. 

Read the series, below, of Trump Tweets, as lifted from Crooks and Liars. Here's the series, as lifted from Crooks and Liars. 

Just think how trump would act if Vladimir Putin insulted him. Or the creepy terrorists of ISIS

And you wonder why people won't vote for him?