Month: September 2015

Peeple

April Daniels
There’s a new app coming out that is basically Yelp, but for individual humans who are just living their daily lives, not, you know, companies engaged in public-facing financial transactions. It will let you give people a 1 to 5 star review, as well as leave comments about them. It will let *anyone* who knows you do this.

The article I’ve linked above doesn’t quite do the situation justice, so I’ve included some line edits here for clarification (helpful additions in bold):

“We’re creating a platform that allows users to provide a rating and commentary on the people they come in contact with everyday, on a level that we haven’t seen before,” said Julia Cordray, ominously. The self-described “female, emphatic” CEO then paused for a high pitched and somehow disturbing giggle fit before continuing, “We feel this is the ultimate social experiment. Let’s look at everyone in the three ways you could possibly know someone — personally, professionally and romantically — and let the world rate them, while allowing yourself to be rated.”

She said the app will help people to better choose who they hire, do business with, date, let babysit their kids, become roommates with or teach their children, among other uses. When pressed on what those other uses could be, she only replied, “You know. OTHER uses.”

Users will log in through Facebook and provide a cellphone number to verify their identity. Co-founder Nicole McCullough was more or less able to suppress a fit of laughter while she explained the service’s security measures.

“The aim of our platform is to showcase a person’s true character,” said McCullough, with deadpan sincerity. At press time, the company’s twitter account remains locked to the public.

They Rid Themselves Of The Man Who’s Name Looks Like An Erection

April Daniels

John Boehner forced the largest government spending cuts in United States history, and he’s still treated like a wimp and a sell-out by conservatives. Why? Because it was never about the money.

It was about forcing Obama to lose, about making the black man capitulate, about shoving him into calamitous ruin, and damn the consequences. They presumed that a black man in the White House would mean Armageddon, and when Boehner failed to deliver their apocalypse on time, they got upset.

Clearly the black man couldn’t be keeping his house in order without Boehner laying down for him again and again. Clearly it couldn’t be that Obama’s an effective and skilled administrator. They had been denied satisfaction, they had been denied their schadenfreude, they had been denied the spectacular demise of a republic they felt had betrayed them.

This is what happens when thwarted privilege and inflamed id are given the run of one of the two major parties. The Republican Party doesn’t have principles anymore, it has targets. It has grudges. It has an insatiable bloodlust–yours, theirs, anybody’s. Anything at all, any level of suffering at all, so long as it puts Obama back in his place.

But it won’t end with Obama’s departure from the White House. It’s gone too far. The next Speaker will likely suffer the same fate–surely HILLARY couldn’t avoid an immediate default without Speaker McCarthy’s constant capitulations!

Just you fuckin’ watch.