Boy oh boy was 2015 a great year in science. Do you even know great 2015 was? Of course you don’t you philistine. You make me sick!

Oh what wonders there have been. NASA scientists have given us high definition pictures of Pluto, the plucky little not-quite-planet that was demoted out of planethood a few years ago but never lost it’s place in our heart. In some of the more nightmare inducing and dystopian news, researchers have been able to grow a miniature brain in a dish, bringing us one step closer to treating several brain diseases and trauma, test drugs in a more reliable and accurate way, and ensuring that I continue to dream of flying detached brains with prehensile tentacles for at least a few years more. In even more futuristic news, IBM have created computer chip components only 7 nanometres in length, prompting refreshed fears of litigious AI from any company that currently calls themselves Skynet.

With all of these brilliant technological innovations and advancements, you would be fooled into thinking that the only way is up, as the great Yass once said, and the future is bright and rosy for humanity. Of course you would think that you adorable simpleton, aren’t you cute. Well stop right there bub, for there are still a few questions that your beloved ‘science’ has still yet to answer that must be addressed in 2016. Namely:

How is Men’s Rights Activism still a thing?

Anybody who has stepped foot anywhere near Twitter or Reddit or your social media platform of choice will attest to the fact that there are a loud majority of trash-talking fedora-wearin’ young men out there who feel that it is their responsibility to shout from the rooftops like a screeching banshee that men are actually oppressed, the feminist movement has gone too far, women falsely accuse men of rape ALL OF THE TIME, and women hold all of the power in relationships.

This despite the fact that domestic violence statistics in Australia are still shockingly and embarrassingly high, only about 2% of rape allegations are classified as false (and that’s out of the assaults that are actually even reported in the first place), and the gender pay gap is still a very real thing across full time workers in Australia nationally (18%, in fact).

So, begs the question, what would these festering pustules know about being in a relationship in the first place?

More importantly though, how can these poor misguided souls still believe that they are in some way oppressed freedom fighters in the face of embarrassingly overwhelming evidence?

I mean like, sure, it could maybe possibly have something to do with a  group of young disenfranchised young men lacking confidence and a sense of identity, not knowing who to blame for how bad they feel about themselves, finding an easy target and only ever paying attention to the evidence that supports their shaky believes in an endless cycle of confirmation bias.

But then what would I know. I’m only a man, and I’m totes oppressed. Step up, science. 2016 is your year.

The US still has a massive gun problem

According to this Washington Post article, up til October 1 the US had suffered 274 mass shootings (where 4 or more people are killed or injured by gunfire). That’s just until October. There were more, including the famous San Bernadino shooting at a centre for developmental disabilities that left 14 people dead in early December.

Holy. Shit.

I’m not going to go into the whole outdated Second Amendment landscape or talk about how America got to where it is at this point.

The fact is that those are too many dead people. And it happens year after year.

The ‘if everybody had guns, we would all be protecting ourselves and everybody would be safe’ argument lacks any knowledge of human beings whatsoever and is frankly such a stupid belief that I actually had an aneurysm typing it.

There have been calls from people who matter and can make a difference to follow the Australian example of tightening gun laws to the point where these shootings can and will fall, much like they have done in Australia. In a mindnumbingly predictable turn of events, this somewhat logical and helpful idea has also been lampooned with the revelation of the apparently secret fact that the cornerstone of Australia’s program was that it was actually compulsory to hand one’s guns over. It was a gun confiscation.

Yes, that is exactly the point you guys. That’s how it works.

So, the question remains, how do we  convince the people that matter, i.e. everyone with a deadly weapon and enough fear to accidentally use it on your son who is coming in late from a party, that the number of guns that  you have is proportional to the number of people that die without triggering the dreaded backfire effect?

Have a crack, science.

How is Donald Trump still in the running for Presidential candidacy?

This one is my personal favourite. It gives me the tingles you guys.

We are all familiar with the Trump Train and how it just keeps on rollin’. This in spite of the fact that:

• He called Latinos (Mexicans, specifically) criminals, killers and racists
• He promised to build a massive wall to keep said killers and rapists out of America
• He has been incredibly sexist for many years, but not least through his candidacy run
• He has mocked a journalist for his disability
• He expressed his admiration of the Third Reich by stating that all Muslim Americans should be identified and cataloged
• He expressed his feelings that the US should ban all Muslims from entering the country

And many, many more.

So how is he still chugging along, like some sort of hateful and mouthy Casey Jones?

It certainly couldn’t have anything to do with a bunch of racist and privileged white Americans getting all excited about a public figure saying the sorts of things that you just haven’t heard in this forum since the late 60s, and a bunch more bored apathetic non-voters just kind of waiting around to see how long the crazy train could roll on for could it?

And it couldn’t be that the Republican Party is still scrambling to work out how they can go about ousting him A S A fucking P is it?

Science, you’re up.

How is Pauline Hanson still getting airtime?

For those not familiar with Australian national treasure Pauline Hanson, she is a racist loudmouthed former fish and chip shop owner who inexplicably gained a short career in politics and who has been drawing ridicule from all rational thinkers in this country ever since.

Her most iconic moment was when, after being accused of racism by the wider Australian public and she was subsequently asked if she was xenophobic, she responded with a confident and resounding:

“Please explain.”

She is known for being particularly horrendous when to comes to opinions on our native Australians and immigrants from Asian countries when she firs shot to prominence, before mercifully disappearing from our radars for about a decade before her triumphant return to aim the sights right at Muslims in Australia.

I mean, pick a minority and stick with in Pauline, amirite?

Anyway, in recent times and contrary to any sort of common sense or decency, our struggling broadcast news outlets just frikken love the shit out of throwing to Pauline for her thoughts when something remotely foreign-ie or none of her business happens.

They just keep

fucking

doing it.

Why? Why continue to give oxygen to somebody who long ago forwent her right to say literally anything at all and who by all rights should have been consumed by the ignorance singularity by this stage?

Of course, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with that delightful ranga drawing a crowd with her flavour of the month extreme right wing xenophobic (please explain?) rantings in order to gain views and the last semblance of attention that they can gather before TV streaming services and online news outlets consume all of the rest of broadcast television’s dwindling viewership could it?

I dunno, what do you think, science?

What’s this growth on my back

And another one for you science, what’s this weird growth on my back? It’s about an inch in diameter and is slightly raised and bumpy.

It’s also slightly itchy when hit by direct light, and also it chants verses from the Necronomicon when nobody else is around and often says things to me about the Old Ones and sometimes I lose significant portions of time.

Anyway, I’m worried it might be contagious. Get back to me, science.