What the Fuck Just Happened in Texas: TL;DR Edition.

You may have noticed that the interwebs have been blowing up over the past 24 hours or so with stuff about the Texas Senate and hashtags like #standwithwendy. Amidst all the tweeting and tumbling, I've noticed that there have been a few people who have no idea what's going on, probably because they couldn't seem to find anything about it on the news. I know that a lot of people don't have the time to wade through hundreds of posts on multiple sites  to piece together the whole story, so I've compiled a quick tl;dr guide to get you up to speed. You're welcome.

So, it basically started when Governor Dick Perry called a special legislative session and gave them last-minute instructions to pass an anti-abortion bill that would shut down all but five clinics in a state that's close to 800 miles across in both directions.

Here's what the bill looked like:

So Senator Wendy Davis announced that she intended to filibuster:

They told her that meant that she had to speak—without stopping—for 13 hours, and couldn't sit, lean, eat, take a drink of water, go to the bathroom, or stray from the topic:

She was eventually told to sit down after 11 hours because talking about sonograms (which are required to have an abortion in Texas) wasn't "germane to the discussion":

Every major news outlet while all this was happening:

Except CNN, who were all:

MUFFINS!

Then Senator Van De Putte called out the President of the Senate for ignoring parliamentary procedure and refusing to recognize her because he was trying to force the vote and didn't want to:

"At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over her male colleagues?"

The President impotently tried to quiet the cheering crowd after that burn:

But the entire gallery was like:

They tried to vote on it anyway:

The vote was too late to be legal, so they tried to change the journal to say it happened before midnight:

Just kidding. Those assholes aren't nearly cool enough to be the Doctor.

But the entire Internet already had screenshots:

So they had to concede:

The End.

P.S. I'm sorry for all of this.

I read it in the paper, so it must be true.

I'm not sure if we've hit some kind of weird generation cycle on the interwebs, or if it's suddenly 1998 again, but in the past week or so, I've seen like a shitzillion posts about things like the Robin Williams peace plan, lottery winners giving out millions of dollars if you share their pictures on Facebook, and Super Venom Ass Spiders. We're just a gas station AIDS needle and a stolen kidney/bathtub full of ice away from fucking Snopes bingo, people.

Apparently, all you have to do is attribute the story to somebody vaguely influential and maybe add a picture, and people will believe it, no matter how batshit crazy it is. Here's how it works:

YOUR HISTORY TEACHER LIED

Everybody needs to read this RIGHT NOW! It will blow your mind!

Historians at Humboldt University in Berlin have just discovered a cache of lost documents from before the Second World War. The following is a speech that Adolf Hitler gave in Berlin on August 31, 1939 (translated from German, of course).

This picture of Hitler giving a speech totally proves that he actually said all this.

"My fellow Germans, I have a few things I would like to share with you on this beautiful late summer day.

I really like unicorns and rainbows. Also flowers and happiness. I think everybody in the world should be allowed to live the way they want without being discriminated against by bigoted ass clowns.

Last night, I had this awesome dream about wizards. There was this little boy in England who was attacked by an evil wizard, but he didn't die because PROTECTION MAGIC, BITCHEZ! The spell reflected back and hit the evil wizard instead, so now everybody thinks he's dead, but he's not, and he wants to come back to kill the boy. I think I'll write a book or seven about it.

Also also, I had this great idea for this thing made out of electricity and silicon that will allow people around the entire world to have instant access to information and pictures of adorable cats.

Finally, with the weekend coming, I urge everyone to be careful and not do anything foolish, like invade Poland or commit the worst genocide in the history of humankind."

And that's how Hitler wasn't a genocidal fuckhead and also wrote Harry Potter and invented the Internet.

P.S. If you don't share this with everyone forever, you hate puppies and love cancer.

P.P.S. Facebook is going to start charging this summer, but it will stay free for you if you hit Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Enter on your profile page.

A day without Internets.

So, I forgot to put this up last night, but the half-dozen or so of you who read this, snark is on strike today. You've probably noticed that a lot of sites are doing this today. This is what the Internet could look like after SOPA or PIPA.

You can learn more about it by watching this video:



Or by checking out some of these sites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

http://americancensorship.org/infographic.html

http://sopastrike.com/
http://theoatmeal.com/

Wikipedia has set up a page where you can find who your state's representatives are. Here's another one.

UPDATED: You're welcome, Internet.

So, I warned you the other day that I had been planning to do this, and today I did it. I know. I'm surprised, too.

I've been quietly claiming little bits of the interwebs for myself lately, and now I'm forcing them upon sharing them with you! I'd meant to do this last week, but didn't. If you've stopped by since last Saturday, you already know that story.

Here's what you've been missing:

I have a Pinterest now. I've been collecting awesome stuff. You're welcome.
http://pinterest.com/snark/this-stuff-is-made-of-awesome/

Also, Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/causticsnark/

And stuff that has nothing to do with me, but that you should check out anyway.
The Rejection of Anne Frank. This is exactly how it would happen today.
Reasoning with Vampires. It's really hard to go wrong when you're making fun of Twilight.
Vampire Moths. It's moderately terrifying until you realize they're basically just giant mosquitoes.

In case you haven't heard, the Rapturepocalypsequake happens again today, so you can probably expect to see more of this. Also, lots of recycled dinosaur jokes and REM lyrics. In case of Rapture, you can have this blog. Not because I expect to go, but because if it does happen, I'll be too busy dealing with the zombies and figuring out how to find food to update it. Plus, it probably wouldn't exist anymore anyway because if God really wanted to destroy the world, He'd probably start by shutting down the Internet. In the event that doesn't happen, I'll be back tomorrow.

P.S. This is real.

So, this is happening. Again. It's like the Halley's Comet of social media hoaxes lucky breaks for everyone on the Internet:

"Its official. Signal at 12:20 it even passed on tv. Facebook will start charging this summer. If you copy this on your wall your icon will turn blue and Facebook will be free for you. Please pass this message if not your count will be deleted. P.s. this is real, the icon turns blue. Please put this as your status."

Also, in case you missed the last one, the Apocalypse is scheduled to happen again on October 21st. If you post this as your Facebook status, you will be teleported to heaven, and Bill Gates will send you a check for $144,000. This is totally real. I promise.

It's brilliant how Facebook saves all that money by not having a marketing team or any sort of communications department. It's a testament to the power of social media that they can put their message in the hands of just one orthographically-challenged tween and watch it spread, like the T-virus, until everyone has been exposed to it. Also, props to them for announcing the new charges mere days after the launch of Google+, which may be their first serious competitor. Well played, Facebook.

If I ever start a company, I'm totally copying Facebook's business plan:
1. Totally steal somebody else's idea, probably.
2. Get 600 million customers.
3. Send all important announcements as typo-laden chain messages. IMPORTANT: Remember to say "this is real" so people know it's not fake.
4. Make everybody pay, except if they post a message for you once, ever. Then it's free.

Until it suddenly isn't.