Current Events Activity 4.1 - Texas Tea

1.
Glenn Hager is the Texas that comptroller and a man trying to keep the Texas Democrats from making a fuss about the price of oil. Royce West, a state Democratic representative, asked him a prodding question about the price of oil, which has plummeted down to around $30 a barrel. State government is vile. The Democrats are a bunch of whiners who haven't been in charge since they were the party of white people and the Republicans have free reign to do whatever the hell they want with impunity. Hager pointed out that the Texas oil industry isn't some miracle economic weathervane and that the state had actually gained 179,000 jobs in the last 12 months. The state may have lost some money from severance taxes on oil and natural gas, but that doesn't mean that Texas is going to fall off the deep end and into a recession.

2.
"Trump says he won't take party in Thursday's GOP debate" Well shucks, he was the only reason anybody was going to watch the show, but now there is faux outrage and a controversy and Fox News issued a statement and who knows what the Donald will do next. So here's what I imagine, the seven other candidates get on stage and Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace or whoever are there at the moderator's desk and the crowd is sort of tense and then Jeb! Bush tries to make a joke about Donald Trump and then a voice calls out "NOT SO FAST!" and then a cloud of smoke fils the backstage and heavy metal music starts playing and the curtains part like the red sea, a spotlight shines down to illuminate HE, the greatest presidential candidate of all time, the ten billion dollar man, the miracle from manhattan, Donald Trump, in full WWE attire, with a huge f-off belt and flowing locks of combover hair. From below the stage, a new podium rises, embellished in gold and diamonds, and on the front, in big bold letters, TRUMP. All kidding aside (again), it doesn't matter if Trump makes it to the debate or not, he's like 20 points ahead of all of his competition, and wether he is selected for the candidacy or not, he has made this probably one of the coolest got damn election cycles to watch probably ever or at least post-Lincoln. The Democrats, meanwhile, have buckled down for a serious competition between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, between the old line centrist democrats and the new left-wing idealists, a true challenge to the party's established doctrine of incrementalism and pragmatic third way solutions with new radical ideas creating some sort of socialist(?) utopia like Denmark of Ikea or the other one. There may or may not be a debate on Feb. 4, and that really isn't the big issue, what is interesting is who is going to win in Iowa, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. Whoever emerges victorious from that competition will likely have a much better chance at attaining the nomination, especially in Bernie's case. A loss for him on monday means that New Hampshire may be one of his only pickups in the primary race.

3.
Brazil is trying to eradicate a mosquito which carries the Zika virus, a disease which the WHO now believes is linked to microcephaly, a condition where babies have small heads and developmental problems because of the aforementioned head size. Brazil has deployed the troops literally to go door-to-door to give pregnant women mosquito repellent, which is a great plan. Imagine if we did stuff like that in the United States. Instead we just occasionally mail people cheese. The WHO doesn't like that the Brazilian health minister said that they were losing the war with the mosquitos, and they may have a point. Nobody is going to want to go to Carnaval or to the silly olympics if mosquitos are gonna give their babies tiny heads.

4.
So you can now have a gun concealed on a university campus, and Steven Weinberg, a nobel laureate is going to ban them in his classroom, perhaps. The Chancellor at UT, Bill McRaven said that the university would be complying with the law. The preparations for the guns in the classroom bill had started when the bill passed on August 1 and starting January 1 the law has been made effective.

5.
Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General and all-round shitty guy does not like Muslim or Arabs, really he's not a fan of people who aren't white. He knows many of his constituents share in his nativist, racist, islamophobic sentiments and so he continues to blow the stupid dog whistle in hopes that, what? Obama is just going to turn around and say, the Pigheaded racist bigot is right! We shouldn't allow refugees in this country. That would be the day. Paxton tried to tell a judge to stop resettlement plans, and the judge said that Paxton's reasoning was speculative hearsay, which is a really polite way to say it was bullshit.

6.
Texas Women's Basketball is close to winning 1,000 games! Wowee! The team is 18-1, and ranked sixth or second depending on who you ask and they would be first if it weren't for all of the turnovers. Texas just needs to hold on to the ball or play more passive or something I don't know but what I do know is they are gonna beat the shot out of Kansas and win their 1,000th game! Go Lady Longhorns! Is that possible though, it's like being a lady bull, wouldn't you just be a longhorn cow, or do both male and female longhorns have horns? I don't know.

7.
Abe Vigoda, of Godfather fame, died at 94. I preferred the New York Times lede, mostly because I felt like the information was more readily available and it felt like it had more consistently stuck to the orthodoxy of obit writing. I honestly don't really care all that much for the obituaries, it would be a much better tribute to just watch the godfather and appreciate the man for who he was and what he did than to read a silly article that entails it, but those are just my two cents.

2015: Voyage to Nostalgiastan

First we gotta talk about all the sick pics taken in 2015. Look at these beauts.

Pic #3

Photocreds: Goran Tomasevic - Reuters

This is a picture of a protester to President of Burundi and all-round mean guy Pierre Nkurunziza. To hide his identity, he has covered his face in grass. I kind of admire the bravery and the symbolism, which, as we all know, is symbolic. He just feels very intense and impassioned about his cause.

Pic #2


Photocreds: Dogan News

This dead baby, Aylan Kurdi, got a bunch of people to care about something they previously did not care about: human beings. People tend to not pay attention to stories about thousands of people suffering somehow somewhere else in the world, but people do love themselves some dead baby.

Pic #1


Photocreds: Fabrice Coffrini - AFP/Getty Images

Sepp Blatter, a man who has never done any soccering in his life, was previously the president of FIFA, the people who do something involving Soccer and a great amount of fraud. As it turns out, the only reason someone decided to hold the most prestigious international sports competition in Qatar, a country famous for it's sand and imported slave labor, was because the people of Qatar were willing to throw in a little bit of a whole lot of money. Anyways as usual America found out and saved the day and the silly Swiss man was showered in cash and now the rest of the world has to stop calling it football.

Ok now that we are through with those pics time to answer some questions.

Q: What was the best song of 2015?

A: I Don't Know



I have no idea what the best song from 2015 was. For me, 2015 was a good year in music but not like to great and I wasn't too hyped about the new Kendrick Lamar album or the Weeknd's incessant pandering to pop culture or Drake's two not real albums but Rihanna did make BBHMM which was pretty rad but I can't decide so I'm leaving the box blank.

Q: What was the best movie of 2015?

A: The Martian

 

The Martian is a movie about a science fiction book (lame) with Matt Damon (Matt Damon) and I didn't think it would be good but I saw the trailers and I was like how can he grow a potato in space if there is no sound in space? I watched it and as it turns out it was a perfect 5/7 movie.

Q: What was the best news story of 2015?

A: Same Sex Marriage is Legal



There were a bunch of news stories this year about mass shootings or terrorist attacks or disasters both natural and manmade, however most of these stories generally have a lot more news clout than the less fantastical and sensational good news stories of 2015. It's true, people bought a lot of papers on September 12, 2001 just to keep as memorabilia, and people have a tendency to gravitate towards stories that anger or scare them despite the fact that it may be in their best interests to avoid them. So, having stood on my soapbox, the best and most monumental news story this year was probably the announcement of the legalization of gay marriage.

Q: Who was the most important person of 2015?

A: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Talk about coming out of nowhere, the leader of ISIS really made a power grab and just took over areas of Syria and Iraq late in 2013. ISIS aren't particularly good at anything, and almost nobody likes them, which is kind of cool and edgy in a sense. ISIS has successfully created a time warp to the seventh century and they beat North Korea on the list of most realistic hell on earth, and that is probably more important that a transsexual racist or some other celeb.

Q: What was the most important sports/entertainment story of 2015?

A: FIFA is crazy.

 

Do I know this is the same picture twice? Yes.

So the ridiculous thing about this story is that everybody has known for a long, long time now that there is a strange spoils system that allows certain members of the International Federation of Association Football (IFAF) ((FIFA)) (((It's called soccer))) ((((IFAS)))) to logroll some of the most watched and followed sporting events in the world, for instance for some reason everybody thought it would be a good idea to hold the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, a country with no stadiums in the middle of the desert in the summer, not that the choices of Russia or South Africa or Brazil were all that informed either, but I digress. As of previously there was no proof of all of this, but this summer in Switzerland, the FBI decided America was going to save the day once again by laying the law down on Sepp Blatter (real name) and his cronies. Some weird legal stuff is going on right now and the legal delineations of soccer are almost as boring as the sport so it's sort of a bore to follow but the moral of the story is America #1 the game is called Soccer only real men play Football.


HOW WAS MY VACATION?

You mean me?
Well, for starters the most memorable thing that happened to me was for Christmas I got a pony it is named Toby and he likes me but not my sister Carrie Anne who Toby occasionally kicks in the face because she is a girl. Toby eats carrots and is six hands tall and likes apples too. Sometimes Toby is sad and mama says it's because he has no pony friends to play with but it's okay because we are all family now.

My 2016 resolution has already been broken I said I would try and brush my teeth every single day of the year but I want gingivitis so people will think I had a rough childhood and how can I do both?

I am looking forward to the election in 2016 except not really because I like Obama and besides if he is gone who am I supposed to blame when there is no prize at the bottom of my cracker jacks? Hillary Clinton?