I am utterly ashamed with America right now. On Monday, June 30th, 2014 the United States Supreme Court ruled on the Burwell versus Hobby Lobby case. The result was a 5-4 in favor of Hobby Lobby et al. The general gist of the situation is kind of like this.

• The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) mandates that employers provide health coverage for their employees.
• Part of that coverage includes contraceptives which more conservative business owners consider similar enough to abortion as to cross a line dictated by their religions.
• In ruling for Hobby Lobby et al, the Supreme Court has allowed these corporations to opt out of having to pay for contraceptives.

The ruling was made with reference to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was signed into law by Bill Clinton back in the early 1990's. That act prevents the government from interfering in the exercise of religion.

Monday's decision was seen as a victory by not only the corporations with at least 50% of the controlling interest being held by one family with clear religious beliefs, but also by folks who don't like Obamacare.

Both of those sets of people are assholes.

I don't care about the Affordable Care Act. I don't care about free exercise of religious beliefs. I care about women having access to birth control and other things which are entirely within their scope of what's known to some people as "their own decision."

Some people have made the argument that if you can't afford birth control you shouldn't have sex. Those people are even bigger assholes than the previous two groups. At least for people concerned with religious beliefs and people concerned with sticking it to the Commander in Chief, being a part of either group isn't inclusive of being a dick. If you can honestly say something as cold as, "If she can't afford it then maybe she shouldn't spread her legs," then guess what? You are an exemplary example of a ruthless jerk!

Anyway, while I do support all of the stuff that women are concerned about there's a much simpler reason for my ignominy and it stems from an even more base thing that Americans seem to have a problem comprehending: logic.

These same corporations, during their hiring process, cannot discriminate against potential employees who don't share their religious values. THEREFORE, the very same law that prevents such treatment also prevents the corporation from forcing those values upon said employees since that would be the exact same discrimination.

That's the end of the fucking discussion. That trumps the exercise of religious freedom - which, by the way, is a thoroughly disingenuous rallying cry for anything that anyone does in its name. Want to have a discussion about abortion? That's fine, it's a perfectly acceptable topic. But don't operate a for-profit business in the United States if the issue means that much to you because you're hiring from a diverse crowd who, guaranteed, will not share your views.

There's talk of liberal idiots saying to burn down Hobby Lobby stores and whatnot, as well. If you're a person of sound mind and you see talk of such things, please take appropriate action and report it. This is a tremendously important issue but it certainly doesn't warrant violence or vandalism.

Hey jerks, before I get into things, let me just make it known that I'm aware my choice of title for this rant is kind of counterproductive. It also grabs attention.

Okay: my special lady showed me this article that a friend of hers posted on Facebook the other day. If you don't want to read it, it's an article about public breastfeeding. It contained this sentence:

Anytime the issue of public breastfeeding is discussed, there is always a man who makes the statement that if a woman is allowed to "whip out her breast" in public, he should be allowed to do the same thing with his dick.

It then showed some screenshots of dudes saying pretty much that, and listed some pretty good reasons why penises do not equal breasts. I commend the article for taking on such a ridiculous comparison and they did a fine job explaining why that conflation is absurd. Despite my desire to do so, I could not do a better job. I did, however, wish to have a go at the opposition to public breastfeeding in general, since I have a particularly useful point of view on it.

This is quite clever. I approve.

Aside from my idiotic brethren who spout fallacious arguments like the one I quoted above, there are still innumerable people who are a little less malicious in their wording but nonetheless walking around with asinine views on the matter. One of the most common "less aggressive" things that people tend to say is, "Why don't women just cover up?" They are referring to nursing shawls, pieces of fabric mothers drape over themselves and the baby which allow breastfeeding to occur in a more covert manner. There are many women who prefer to do so and that is perfectly fine but nursing shawls, and the request - sometimes, the demand - to cover up centers around what I consider to be an even bigger fallacy than the penis::breast claptrap.

What you'll hear in almost all instances - be it a woman at a restaurant breastfeeding, a woman on the subway, a woman on a park bench - is that the breastfeeding is either offending someone or making them uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, miss, but your nursing is causing these other people discomfort." I've got two pretty simple words for the people who see a woman nursing and think it's gross or uncomfortable:

Grow up.

You see, I used to feel the same way as recently as five years ago. I hated kids, I hated parents, I hated everything having to do with children. As an extension of those things I so loathed, breastfeeding was just another unacceptable injustice I had to endure from "breeders." Aside from that, I was also of the opinion that it was gross. If I saw it, my internal monologue said, "Yuck, that is disgusting."

Well guess what happened? That's right, per my advice above, I stopped acting like a stupid child and put on my grown up pants. I'll have you know that some things haven't changed: I still don't think babies are cute, I'm still annoyed when my friends with kids post pictures of those kids constantly on Facebook, and I still get annoyed by screaming children when I'm in public. The big difference is that now I just deal with it. I stopped sexualizing everything around me and moved on, like an adult.

That's another part of the problem that society seems to have. There's nothing actually gross or offensive about a baby nursing. If I, a person who does not find babies to be cute, sees no problem with the act then that should probably be a pretty big sign. However, large swaths of people view breasts sexually and that is the only context they can see them in. From that point of view, I guess I can see how they would then jump to such a non-sexual activity being kind of off-putting. You guessed it, though: that's immature.

So mothers, nurse your babies in public. Here's a nice list of the laws and such surrounding the matter.

I was going to write a really long diatribe about how the United "States" are done for.

I was going to do that because of the combination of asinine Supreme Court rulings, the death of Net Neutrality, and the government thinking things like drone strikes or spying on its citizens are okay. In my mind, it would have been a magnificent piece that detailed the various failings of the country and some thoughts on when it all started to go wrong. I'd even planned to end with some humor: joking about how things were going to change when I became Supreme Dictator of Earth.

I became really depressed, however, as I was writing. This happened because things aren't going to change. The U.S. is just going to keep getting worse. Liberals and conservatives are going to disagree and divide themselves further, the same people on the effective payrolls of the same big businesses are going to keep getting elected and passing lousy laws that harm the people, and whichever President is in charge is going to keep making grandiose speeches about how Americans are a strong people who innovate and succeed.

The republic has failed. The United "States" are no longer a thing: corporations are king, and the regular people who continually get screwed over by them let it happen.

I was going to say something about how you should always vote the incumbent out of office, and how I envisioned that leading to politicians actually doing the right thing but that's delusional.

This isn't a country of innovators and people who succeed, nor one that promises every person a fair shot. This is a country of unethical thieves with the means to keep themselves in power.

America sucks, end of story.

I had to get some money out of the ATM today. (A Bank of America ATM!)

The bank I went to has the building, then a teller lane, then the parking lot, so there is a crosswalk over the teller lane. There's also a huge sign that says, "Please do not block crosswalk." If you can't figure out why that sign is there, even without a visual depiction of the area I'm talking about, you may not wish to read further.

I turned to walk back to my car after getting the money and there was a girl - like, mid twenties or late twenties, on her cell phone with one of those small dogs in her lap. I laughed at the situation because - first of all - since when do people younger than sixty use the drive up teller and - secondly - it isn't a particularly small sign. This is completely ignoring the fact that crosswalks are for pedestrians to assume some pseudo safety across a road that vehicles use. So I decided to take a picture, got her lined up properly with the sign in the picture and everything. She then rolled down her window and said, "What the fuck are you taking a picture of?" The dog began barking immediately. I'm pretty sure she'd lowered the phone, thus making it so that whoever was on the other end was just hearing yips.

I laughed and pointed to the sign, which prompted her to say, "So what, asshole?"

I said, "It's funny because the sign is clearly visible and yet you're blocking the crosswalk." Because it is funny.

Her response? "That's fucking rude," with one of those frustrated exhalations of air.

My reply: "It isn't rude. Either you didn't see the sign or you don't care: it's funny."

Then came the golden question, the one I used to love getting when I worked customer service since I have so many ways of saying yes to it: "Are you calling me stupid?"

I made a quick summation of her character and explained, "If you had a sign in your bathroom for male guests to either not pee on the seat or to clean up after themselves, and you found pee on the seat, what would you think about the guy who did it?" She was able to pick up what I was putting down and appropriately cursed at me, 800 words per second.

When she finally wound down she finished with, "You dumb shit, like you're mister perfect!"

I couldn't have asked for a better declaration. I said, "Well if the situation was reversed then I would either say, 'Oh man, I didn't see the sign, how dumb of me!' or 'Aw shucks, you caught me not caring about the sign!' and then I'd have backed up and that would have been the end of it."

Probably guessing I'd made her look stupid, the obvious only response is an ad hominem attack: "Whatever. Fuck you, faggot."

This caused me to laugh even more and I said, "Yes, since being a civil human is a characteristic that only gay people have." Before I could say anything else, though, she peeled off! Didn't even wait for the car in front of her to move up to the window - the girl simply drove off angrily!

It was then I realized: Shit! I didn't get the picture!

My only solace is that she probably was angry for the whole rest of the day, maybe composed a Tweet about it or something with hashtags along the lines of douchebag or hatersgonnahate. Oh, 'Murrica.

Welcome, potential person who has some skin in the gun control game (one way or the other).

Let me possibly confuse you, first thing: I don't want to take anyone's guns away.

Now let me clear that up: You get more views of your content via "shocking" or otherwise manipulative headlines. If that causes you some indignation (as opposed to other sites doing it and just not telling you) then I apologize and I won't be upset if you stop reading.

This is mainly about mental health. Before you go making assumptions, I realize that there are plenty of people on both sides of the issue who realize that mental health is a very important topic, and that they actually act on it. I also realize that there are plenty of people on both sides of the issue who proclaim they think it's an important topic but are really just dodging since they are the first to decry mental illness when it "helps" the perpetrator of something like a mass shooting avoid the death penalty.

My sister suffers from mental illness. I care for her greatly, even though I've seen her say and do some incredibly terrible things to other family members - and even to me a few times, whereas I'm usually able to talk her down - and every time she goes through a bad period I always find myself upset at how little is done for her by the people who are supposed to help her: mental health professionals won't take her in as a patient, the ones who do only listen to her for 15 minutes and then give her some drugs, the hospitals' concern only extends as far payment does, and the police only care that she isn't harming anyone if they even respond to calls from/about her. She is unable to hold a job due to her illness so she has to receive assistance from the state. My parents help her out when they can, as well, but my family is middle class: there's little to offer. All that wraps up to be a dire situation and when my sister tells me she's feeling depressed I can understand.

The face of an "evil" person?

The point is, the help isn't there for the majority of people. Even for those with the resources it sometimes isn't there. This is mainly because people either refuse to or don't understand what it means to be mentally ill. My example above about the mass shooting illustrates the point perfectly: most people still think that "evil" motivates an Adam Lanza into a mass shooting, as if he rationally sat down and told himself about what he was going to do. This, of course, is asinine - by its very definition those actions defy rationality.

Now, the crux of all my exposition on this topic is not to discredit gun control legislation. I am not a fan of banning things because it ultimately doesn't solve the problem but I certainly understand the argument: without access to the guns (especially in Lanza's case) there's most likely no violence - and I know that other countries have seen positive results from legislation. However, the real problem is getting the right help for people who need it so that someone like James Holmes doesn't even find himself in a position to "rationalize" killing people. The lobby against gun control is so powerful, as well, that politicians lose their seats as a result of even small attempts to legislate. Of course that isn't a reason to give up or move on, but imagine if mental illness got the same amount of power behind it that gun control has. People like my sister might be able to see a doctor instead of being turned away simply because she is a ward of the state. She wouldn't have to be placed into a hospital and discharged a short while afterward when she still isn't okay. The police would know not to patronize her or, if she does something worthy of an arrest, they would know to handle it gracefully. It would mean that the people who have previously felt there were no paths besides a Columbine/Tucson/Washington Naval Yard/Mission Valley mall would have support and, with any luck, lessen those types of atrocities.

If you're pro-gun and thinking I'm on your side, think again. As I stated above, I don't believe we should be outright banning guns. However, I doubt the candor any of the protestations given by the NRA and other supporters, though. Two, off the top of my head: 1) "Criminals don't care about the law," and 2) "What about gang violence?" They are, on the surface, decent things to bring up. Per my examples, a person who is going to commit a crime doesn't care if using a gun is outlawed and gang violence is still a very big concern - but here's my problem with that reasoning: Those things have nothing to do with the link between guns and mental health and as a result, you sound both uninformed and insensitive. Uninformed because a mass shooter isn't a criminal holding up a convenience store at gunpoint or a gang member for the very reasons I listed in the first part. Insensitive because those protestations only come off as red herrings, and they aren't consolations for people who lost loved ones; rather, they seem as attacks. Think about it - in reworked language, you're basically saying, "This material thing [the gun] is more important to me than the fact that you lost someone." (I get that it's about much more than the object.) The same query I posed earlier applies to the gun owners: Think about what would happen if the energy spent on those protestations and lobbying against gun control was spent on advocating for the mentally ill.

Both sides of the issue, in their hectic dance, overlook the importance of the killer - the root problem that needs to be solved. If your gut reaction to these terrible events is contempt for the perpetrator, or to immediately pull out the second amendment, or to immediately begin crowing about laws to get rid of certain types of guns then I don't think you are focusing your energy constructively. Like any other kind of social issue in this country it comes down to exposure and awareness. If you're interested in learning more there are a myriad of resources to look at - a simple Google search for "mental illness awareness" alone will turn up many good ones. If you are one of those folks who needs things to be shared to you, a good start is the NAMI website.

If nothing else, I hope that my words have caused you to think. Perhaps, if you are all too familiar with the struggles of mental illness - be it you or someone you love suffering - you'll share your story.

There's a web campaign I noticed today that is trying to end using the word "retard" as a pejorative.

http://r-word.org

Several of my friends shared it because today (March 5th) is their awareness day. I am not here to somehow defend the use of the word or to crap all over the people organizing the campaign, though. I am here to share an embarrassing story of mine as a show of support for this. While I generally don't mind insulting someone for things like their religion, personal habits, annoying Facebook activities, and a myriad of other criteria they all pretty much have a single thing in common:

You can choose to do or not do any of those things.

Granted, some people have addictions or mental illnesses, and I understand that. But most people choose (consciously or otherwise) to continually use hashtags or pick their noses in public. Someone who falls under the category that the word "retard" used to cover did not ask to be born like that. You'll probably find that a lot of the things I get super up-in-arms about boil down to that or, at least, are nuanced enough to be in the same vein. Note that I said, "used to cover," there - that's because it's a word that shouldn't be used to corral all kinds of disabilities together.

My story is this:

After moving to Long Beach, California earlier in my life I started to get more exposure to gay people. While I considered myself a supporter of gay rights I never involved myself in any way and I used to call things "gay" all of the time. "Oh, that shirt is so gay," and etc. Within some time, my friends started to tell me that while they appreciated me arguing for them with people on the internet and such, that my continual use of the word in a pejorative way was confusing. Initially, I responded in the way that most social Conservatives respond to that sort of thing - "Why are you being so sensitive?" "It's just a word," "I hate politically correct language," "I've got all these gay friends so I can't be a homophobe."

Of course, in time, I realized how undeveloped and puerile those points of view are. I developed a simple way to weed it out of my vocabulary. Whenever I called something "gay" I would also say, "as in bad." (To this day, if I slip and call something gay, you'll hear me add it.) That probably sounds counterproductive but what it did was put it at the forefront of my mind. "This traffic is so gay… as in bad." "What did that guy do? Wow, that was gay… as in bad." and so on. It did not take very long for me to realize how stupid and mean I sounded.

It's tough for me to specifically point out what people are using "retarded" for and to help develop ways to stop people from using it negatively. However, the picture I attached to this story is an example of what I mean. Campaigns like the one I mentioned are great starts and are making good progress. Calling people out for it also works if you're thick-skinned enough to deal with the kind of dolt who would call something retarded.

If you're someone who is mature enough to realize you shouldn't be calling things retarded, or labeling someone some sort of "-tard" yet don't have the self-control or vocabulary to weed it out, try to find something like I did. When you use it derogatorily like that, you're implying that there's something "bad" about having a developmental disorder.

Come to think of it, maybe replacing "retarded" with some of my criteria above or something may be worthwhile. "What are you doing? You're acting like such a Catholic right now." "Dude, stop saying that, you sound hashtaggy." "You just went full nose-picker. Never go full nose-picker."

I apologize for my "srs bsns" post here. ("Srs bsns," for those of you not in the know, means, "serious business," in a tongue-in-cheek way.)

Sign This Petition For Net Neutrality

On January 14th a federal appeals court struck down the FCC's rules for ISPs prohibiting them from restricting or otherwise managing web content. Not sure whether you want to sign the petition for Net Neutrality? Check this graphic out.

Since ISPs are not classified as "common carriers" regarding the services they provide, the FCC is now no longer able to keep them from managing their network traffic. Immediately following the ruling, the big companies released statements claiming that they would not do anything. Please double-check the graphic above if you believe that statement. They are corporations and, as such, that plan makes 100% sense from a business standpoint. It's a good structure to get more money out of people and they would, honestly, be complete fools to willingly avoid switching to it. So disregard their fake assuaging - it's going to happen at some point… unless we do something.

So sign the damned petition already!

(Credit for the chart graphic.)

A lot of folks are sharing this post from Vice magazine's "Noisey" which, from all appearances, was written by a high-schooler who just discovered them. The author claims to understand why people claim that The Beatles are overrated, and then goes ape shit with reasons and excuses about how great they are. I'm guessing people are sharing it for the same reason that the whole, "Who is OutKast?" thing circulated: a sizable number of people take their music seriously. (I'm one of them.)

This article is dumb, though. Let me first say, I like The Beatles. A lot. I have a friend who is beyond super obsessed with them so from time to time I'll rile him up by claiming they are overrated but there are two reasons for this:

• He knows that I like them and understand their significance.
• It allows him to get in some shots about Nirvana being overrated. (Nirvana being another band I like a lot.)

This is the problem with writing an article bashing Beatles-bashers. They fall into two types. One of those types, like myself, is the "pot-stirrer" who just loves getting you all annoyed with their words. You can't get mad and launch a tirade at them because then you're just going to look like a putz when they give you a shit-eating grin and ask, "You mad, bro?" The other type is the straight-up musical pedestrian. They may be a young person who absolutely loves utter shit like One Direction or the Biebs but they also may just be a normal adult who doesn't give enough of a shit, is tired of hearing you prate about musical geniuses, and wants to be left in their morass of Pitbull/Ke$ha/Miley Cyrus.

With the former of that group, they'll either grow up eventually and realize One Direction is audible feces, abandoning them for The Beatles/Joni Mitchell/Neil Young/etc. or they'll switch over to Hot 100 FM and turn into the latter. In the event they continue down the path of pop music consumers, there's nothing you can say or do or exhibit to them that will cause them to change their minds. They are content with filler noise like Katy Perry's, "Roar."

So, essentially, in either instance you're wasting your time. Or, since this is the age of social media, you've successfully drawn tons of hits to your site. Hmm.

Check this crap out

So Nigerian lawmakers passed a bill that invoked a jail sentence and some other dumb punishments for gay people - even for just having a gay organization. Today, Goodluck Jonathan signed it into law.

I commented on this development on Facebook but, unfortunately, Facebook is not a good forum for calling out this kind of stupidity:

• The majority of Facebook users are dumb. This is evidenced by their lack of attention to spelling or grammar, sharing of hoax articles, and presence of teenagers.
• here are religious folks on my friends list and while I truly don't care if I offend them for believing in Space Grandpa, I also don't want to hear them bitch and moan about how I'm rude or whatever.
• I mainly try to keep things only semi-serious where Facebook is concerned.

A head spokesman for GEJ said the following:

"More than 90 percent of Nigerians are opposed to same-sex marriage. So, the law is in line with our cultural and religious beliefs as a people."

On Facebook, I said, "Your cultural and religious beliefs are bad, and you should feel bad," in the style of Dr. Zoidberg.

Here, I say then that means that more than 90 percent of Nigerians are useless human beings. I'm glad knowing that I am smarter than them. Is there any way we can take all of the Fundies from America and ship them over to Nigeria? It sounds like they'd have a fun time. Of course, they'd have to contend with Boko Haram but since they are war-loving assholes it shouldn't be that big of a deal for them to adapt.

This wouldn't be Insult.org without commentary on the stupidity of Americans and this week it hit a hilarious low. Additionally, I would not be me if I didn't jump all over the opportunity to call someone a racist and/or a homophobe.

So you probably already know about the Duck Dynasty guy.

I'll forgo my typical tirade about the lunacy behind this man's motivations. I know, rare! Instead, I have something different to offer up mainly because there seems to be a huge portion of the populace that doesn't understand the concept behind freedom of speech.

This man has a right to say what he wants. The government did not retaliate against him, his company did. His freedom of speech has not been impinged. Most employers have conditions in the contract of employment you sign. It appears his did. What he said apparently violated a condition. It is legally acceptable to suspend or terminate him based on that.

It is perfectly legal and ethical to have an employment condition against hateful speech. It is absolutely not legal or ethical to have one against a person of a protected class. Expressing an opinion of a protected class (in this case, a religion) is not inclusive of the class.

The most offensive thing here is this man is part of a reality television show, which should not be a qualification for being interviewed by GQ.

His "beliefs" are stupid, yes, and anyone defending him is a racist and/or a homophobe. But there are two forces at work: the amount of inappropriate/outrageous required to maintain the attention of the trogs who watch this drivel and the amount of inappropriate/outrageous required to be noticed by the intelligent people who don't watch this drivel. The network certainly knew what they were getting into with this show - an argument can probably be made they picked these morons specifically because of their asinine beliefs - and this Robertson fellow crossed the line by bringing his nonsense to the GQ interview. The street of blame in this city of idiocy is not one way.

But to those who think this is a freedom of speech issue, your opinion is bad and you should feel bad.

End of discussion.