Wait...Where does this Train go Again?

After seeing yet another person (probably my third this week, and easily my 10th this month) get confused by the knowledge that there are two different metrolink lines, with two different sets of destinations, I am tempted to oppose any future metrolink expansion on the grounds that St. Louisans, are just too dumb for light rail.

Honestly, I wonder how the hell people can still be confused by MetroLink. THERE ARE GIANT EFFING MAPS BEHIND YOU. LOOK AT THE PRETTY RED AND BLUE LINES AND SEE WHICH ONE GOES TO THE STOP YOU WANT, YOU HALF-WITTED MONKEY SCROTUMS. THEN GET ON THE TRAIN WITH THE PRETTY SIGN THAT MATCHES THE PRETTY COLOR ON THE GIANT....EFFING...MAP.

There are signs on the walls. There are maps. There are destination signs on the trains. There are help phones. There are people all around you. There's a security guard at most stations.

Honestly, the only logical explanation for people to still be as frequently-confused by the MetroLink is that we, as a region, are idiots. We shouldn't be allowed to use knives and forks, or to wear neckties, or even to take a leak. After all, if those things can happen to SMART people, imagine what would happen to us here in the Ess Tee Ell!

Dumbasses.

Fear and Loathing in Las Mecca

So, I frequent a couple of chatboards here in the Ess Tee Ell, all of them centered around political debate (or what passes for it today, anyway) and current affairs in the region, state, nation, and world.

And it seems that there are two groups of people on these internet chat boards:
The first are reasonable, from all sides of the political spectrum, who are willing to admit to being wrong, but are also willing to defend those points they believe to be right through thoughtful, cohesive, fact-based argumentation.

Then there are the lunatics and general jerkwads who base everything the say off of talking points distributed by political operatives like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, or whoever is assigned to be the Democratic media darling of the week.

Earlier today someone posted on the STLToday boards a story purportedly written by an Egyptian woman (which, actually, isn't entirely correct) and, of course, became convinced that all of the terrible things that happen to a minority of people in a minority of majority-muslim nations are coming soon to a street corner near you.

My response, of which I am quite proud:

Why do people continually post things that happen in other theocratic countries as if they have any bearing on what will happen here in the US, or that in fact they should have any bearing at all on what happens here?

Here's a hint: at MOST there are three million muslims living in the United States. At no point has any federally-elected official, or any Missouri state official, suggested condoning, accepting, or adopting any of the actions that are going on at Saudi girls' schools, Iranian courthouses, Iraqi churches, or Pakistani maddrassas. And to claim that anyone here - liberal, conservative, libertarian, whatever - could ever want such things to happen, or could in any way relativize or minimize the evil that some very small-minded minority of peope commit, is an outright lie perpetrated by fear, loathing, and sheer idiocy.

I swear by all that is holy and good that some of you are by far the most paranoid, unreasonable, easily-frightened ship rats I have ever seen.

Have a nice evening. And don't let the boogyman du jour get you.