Last month, an East Pittsburgh police officer shot and killed (and thankfully is being charged, although we’ll see what comes of that) an unarmed 17 year old boy. Since then, protests have rocked the area (I’ve been detoured many times due to said protests, and honestly, that minor inconvenience is nothing compared to a parent waking up without their son, so I’ll deal).
In the wake of this, a challenger decided to run against the sitting District Attorney. This is great news, our current DA has a less than stellar record with charging police for crimes. But as it turns out, the person running thinks that being queer is a sin. His half-hearted apology does nothing to change the fact that if he were to be the DA, he would be viewing a large class of citizens as ‘sinful’ and would treat us differently.
DA’s are really important (and as a quick side note, I like to think that since the Batman Begins trilogy, we understand the role of a DA better. Or maybe the over abundance of Law and Order’s. Either way, I’m glad that we as a society at least better understand what kind of a role the DA plays and how important they are), and we need to make sure that who we elect treats everyone equally under the law.
While we’re talking about politics: are you registered to vote? Seriously, you have to vote.
When women, queers, POC, immigrants, religious and economic minorities urged you to vote for Hillary because our lives depended on it, you could hide behind your privilege. Are you listening to us now?
I hope everyone is enjoying their post-Thanksgiving turkey comas. Let’s see what we have today. First up, an insane 360-degree water slide.
I’m sure you voted in this last election, and if you live in Allegheny County, you can check out amazing statistics about how everything went (you can drill down to you voting district)
And speaking of voting, need help getting people registered for the so, so important 2018 election? Indivisible has you covered.
And lastly in politics, this amazing song from Randy Rainbow:
And lastly, I just finished it, but here is the trailer for Season 2 of Lady Dynamite. Maria Bamford is one of my favorite comedians, but she is a very acquired taste:
That’s it for today, I’ll be back with more soon as November wraps up, have a great one!
Alright, big update today, let’s see what we have.
So in outrageously offending news, the defense in the PA marriage equality trial are seeking the complete sexual history of those challenging the ban. So no matter how bad your day has been, at least the state isn’t asking for all the details of your sex life to continue denying you your rights. Sigh.
Want to see what it’s like to go ski jumping? Of course you do:
The divorce rate of evangelicals is higher than the general population. But even if you’re not and evangelical, if you live in a heavily-populated area, you have a bigger risk of getting divorced.
The rumor was that AHS was going to be subtitled “Circus” next season, but maybe not?
Remember the 14th Amendment? The one that says we all should have equal rights? Well, the OK attorney general says that it doesn’t apply to gay people.
If you haven’t seen the new Duracell commercial, you should:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2HD57z4F8E
As a reminder, when you operate a business, you can’t discriminate against a population. If you set out a sign saying you would not serve African Americans, it’s the same as saying you won’t serve gays. Not a hard concept (except when legal loopholes get involved). Or you can Arizona which is trying to make it legal to discriminate against the LGBT community because of religion.
I love the Muppets, even if they did get snubbed at the Golden Globes:
A great clip from Louisiana where a trans woman dared a bigoted city council member to put his money where his mouth was and stone her to death. He recalled his bill moments later.
Let’s see, quick update for everyone. First up, I finally found a cool voter resource. Put in your address, it pulls up your choices (down to local representative) and you can send to yourself an info page including polling place. Check it out here.
Remember how the republicans have been shouting from the rooftops about voter fraud? And remember how those who fight against something the most are normally committing it themselves? Yeah, republicans are committing more voter fraud.
The big Seattle newspaper is giving away free political advertising, but only to one party. They are stating it is to prove how effective their advertising is, so they can gain more business in the future. Kind of strange, and throwing objectivity out the window. Now, to be fair, they can throw it out the window, but then they can’t go back and claim to not have a bias. Anyway, a good portion of their writers have signed on to a letter, saying the policy affects their journalistic integrity.
Ben Stein went on Fox news and told them that to fix the economy we have to tax the wealthy. Also, I had no idea he didn’t believe in evolution. Guess he isn’t as smart as I thought.
This has been floating around, a great response (from a fake CEO) about maxi pad commercials:
Marriage equality is on the ballot in four states (and I have friends in each one of those states), so here’s a reminder: instead of you know, helping the poor, as Jesus said, the Knights of Columbus spent over 15 million dollars fighting equality. Guess you didn’t really need to help the sick either:
Alright, let’s see what we have for today, first up, a new version of Sim City:
The Great Barrier Reef is losing massive amounts of coral, partly because of climate change, but also because of the increase of a certain type of starfish, much like the reefs in the Caribbean are being ravaged by the invasive lionfish.
McDonalds is counting on the McRib to save Christmas. I’m hoping we can turn that into a heartwarming children’s special, or something like that.
The popinator may actually become a real thing, believe it or not:
Social networks can actually help to encourage people to go out and vote. Pretty awesome to see our online lives helping us to be politically involved.
Speaking of voting, it’s very vulgar (of course, it’s Sarah Silverman), but it’s important information:
