This week's nominee for Cop of the Month

At times I poke a bit of fun at the protectors of the people for their foibles. Perhaps it is time to stop that, to give them credit for the hard work they do in taking those who prey on the people off the streets. You know, like when the "rowdy teens" have to be dispersed so the cops come to protect us from the teens...and shoot each other in the thigh.

Yes, for somehow missing the sky and hitting your partner on the leg, you are my nominee for cop of the week. Lets keep those dangerous guys off the streets, I thank you for doing your part. Kind of a two-fer, come to think of it.

Is it graffiti or is it art?

Bowing to the realization that the graffiti "artists" were out of control, the cops came up with a "great" idea; they would build a wall where graffiti "artists" could practice.

Just stop and think about that for a few seconds: we will give criminals a place to practice their crime. What a great idea! And it has so many possibilities. We could build obstacle courses for get-away drivers, banks for them to practice their robberies, hashish dens so they could...what, that has been done already?

Well, apparently, someone though the idea of having a specific place for graffiti was a bad idea. So to protest...they did some graffiti of their own. Oddly, though the wall is dedicated to graffiti...they will be prosecuted. Apparently it is a crime to put graffiti on a wall designed to be painted with graffiti.

In other words, law-breakers will be rewarded by having a place built to perform their lawless deeds but those who abide by the laws and resent it will be punished for performing the same acts the lawbreakers will be performing in the same place.

I think my head just exploded.

Udder disaster

Holy cow, someone must have steered us in udderly the wrong direction. I know, you are wondering...what joke is he trying to milk now? Will your calves hurt from running away? Have I lost it?

Probably. You see, our friends across the pond have a problem. They misplaced something. Well, several somethings. Like...20,000 mooing, smelly animals. Cows to be exact. How ridiculous is that? I would understand if they lost 19,999 cows...but 20K? That is just over the top. 

Because it is MY team, that's why

How are politics like sports? I think I finally figured out the connection and it worries me. It is a sign of a huge flaw with democracy and republicanism (the political definition, not the party).

While I would not classify myself as a fanatic by any stretch of the imagination, I will admit I do enjoy a good deal of sports. I like to watch Monday Night Football if any of my myriad of teams I "like" is playing, will watch Thursday night or Saturday college ball if a game intrigues me, like to watch baseball and hockey during the playoffs, and basketball just about anytime.

One thing you quickly find out about sports is a lot of people have the WWI soldier's ideal; "Right or wrong, My country" only in this case it is "right or wrong, my team". Their players can do no wrong. If the opposing receiver goes out of bounds, takes three steps, and then gets blasted full speed they will complain about the penalty. If their favorite player picks off a rebound, goes the length of the floor on one dribble and dunks, they will complain if traveling is called. Conversely, if the opposition blasts their QB while he is looking down field they just know it was a late hit. And so forth.

In short, no matter how stupid, inane, or unreasonable the actions on the field or court, they will back their team because it is their team, not because they want to see the correct outcome.

Politics have become the same way. There are people who will back their party regardless of whether it is the right move or not. I must credit Mark Evanier for putting it in a form that crystallized what was bothering me.

Why on earth would anyone ever just punch the party ticket? Do they care that little about who represents them or the outcome?

This forthcoming election is a crucial one. We have two horrific choices; we can go with McCain who has become the new face of shifting positions and has not built any moral base to stand on or we can go with Obama who will do to health care what FDR did to welfare. Can this country withstand that level of stupidity and destruction?

But the problem lies not with this election but rather with the decades of people who have mindlessly punched the party ticket not because it was a wise choice or represented them but rather because, "I am a Destructocrat" or "I am a Republicant". What a stupid-*** reason to **** up this country and leave us a choice between the lesser of two evils.

Find any supporter of either Obama or McCain and ask them, "What are the top 10 issues where he is a good choice?" Not, "Why is he better than his opponent" but rather a positive, "My guy is good because".

It is easy to tear down. Putting noted plagiarist Joe Biden, a guy who said Obama was not a good choice, on his ticket is enough to disqualify Obama if you want to tear down, at least for me it is. You will never see me vote for someone who has demonstrated that level of moral turpitude.. Flipping multiple times on an issue such as abortion is enough to disqualify McCain. No need to look any further. If I wanted, I could find a dozen reasons to vote against either of them. But it is much harder to find a dozen reasons to vote FOR either of them.

So why do we not have legitimately good, across the board, POSITIVE choices? Because there are so many voters who throw away their votes by either "voting for the lesser of two evils" (while claiming someone voting FOR someone instead of AGAINST someone is the one "wasting" their vote) or by mindlessly punching the party ticket because "they are my team. Right or wrong, my party."

Voting that way has got us where we are today; a body of lawmakers with a higher percentage of scofflaws and financially inept people than any other institution in the country outside of prisons. *

So stop voting the party ticket. Use your brain when you go to the polls. Don't vote the lesser of two evils. Find someone worth voting for, no matter how "unelectable" someone is. Vote for good, not for evil. Because you might perceive of it as "voting for the lesser of two evils" but the message politicos hear is, "I am what they want".









* From an oft-passed e-mail that I have not bothered to vet, mostly because I suspect it understates the case:

36 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71,repeat 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 currently are defendants in lawsuits, and
84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year
Can you guess which organization this is?Give up yet? . .
The 435 Members of the Congress
********
If their math is correct, that is 380 of 435, over 87% who are certainly not worthy to be making laws.

What country did THAT happen in?

Inspector: "Nice looking road."
Builder:"Thank you. Meeting another one just like it."
(Inspector turns, looks, sees no other road)
Inspector:"Where? It looks like you are done here."
Builder: "We are done. We just missed connecting with the other road."
Inspector: "Just missed? I don't even see the other road. Where is it?"
Builder:"They ended about 5 miles over there."

So later the inspector goes to a second job.
Inspector:"Nice looking tunnel."
Builder:"Thank you."
Inspector: "What is it for?"
Builder:"For trucks. We built this tunnel just for trucks to alleviate traffic."
Inspector get out tape measure. Measures it. "Uh, Mr. Builder...do you realize how tall this tunnel is?"
Builder: "10 feet"*
Inspector: "Are you aware trucks are 11 feet tall?"
Builder:"Yes."
Inspector: "So how will that work?"

Same country:
Inspector:"Nice looking tunnel."
Builder: "Thanks, just finished it."
Inspector" What is it for?"
Builder" Trains"
Inspector pulls out tape measure. Measures.
Builder" 10' high, just like we planned it."
Inspector: "Isn't it unfortunate trains are 11' tall?"

Wow, that is some pretty good planning. And it isn't even done in the US!



* Heights are made up

Today I am angry

If you are stopping by for a laugh, which I normally try to provide, you have stopped by on the wrong day. Unlike the jokes about making Dad into a tea pot or restaurants themed like coffins, this one is NOT designed to garner laughs. I wrote this somewhat in anger. I had to wait a couple days before writing this reply, a reply, by the way, that I hit "reply to all" on in the email I took it from. So first...here is the email that was sent to me:stop by on the other side for my response.
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OFIR members and supporters:
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, (FAIR), is going to organize another, 'Hold their feet to the fire' rally and lobbying effort September 8 - 11 in Washington DC. OFIR has sent representatives to previous events.

You may recall that the Hold their feet to fire rally is an event in which talk show hosts from around the U.S. do their programs live. Victoria Taft and Lars Larson attended previous ones. There are usually about 8 talk show hosts who do their shows live at the meeting headquarters. If you attend you will have the opportunity to meet them personally. Lou Dobbs will be at this year’s rally.

This would be a wonderful opportunity for American citizens to go to Washington DC and lobby their U.S. Senators and Representative about the impact of illegal immigration. FAIR will organize the rallies and lobbying efforts. When I attended I had the opportunity to talk directly to many Congressmen including Representatives Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo and members of the Oregon delegation.

Lee Vasché, co-founder of the OFIR PAC, will represent OFIR at the Washington DC event this year.

We encourage OFIR members to attend. If you are interested please let us know and we will get the program information to you. You can e-mail OFIR at o4ir@excite.com or call the office at (503) 435-0141.

Jim Ludwick

Wonderful late news today!!!! – Notorious amnesty supporter and Open Borders fanatic, Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) has been ousted from Congress! Jason Chaffetz routed the La Raza Republican by over twenty points in the Utah primary yesterday. Chaffetz was strongly supported in his campaign by Team America PAC for his Tancredo-like immigration positions. He was outspent by Cannon by $600,000 but still won!

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And below is my reply; read all the way to the end because it does not end the way it starts.
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This absolutely seems like something everyone should support. I mean, it can do nothing but show our care for our neighbors. It reminds me of Manny and Julie and the difference these policies have made in their lives. With their baby boy they were literally starving to death. Desperate, they did not know where to turn. But some family helped them out and they were able to move to where the economy was not so horrific that there were literally no jobs...not just not life wage jobs, there were no jobs plain and simple.

With help from their family they were able to put a roof over their heads...to be sure, it relied on the generosity of their family but at least they got a roof. And Manny found a job. It was several miles away and the only way he had to get to and from work was to ride his bike on dark roads but at least he had a job. Sure, it did not pay a lot...certainly nowhere near enough for he and Julie to have a place of their own with their kid but they have a place. So off he goes to work, literally risking his life should a car no see him and accidentally swerve onto the shoulder. At least they had food and a roof over their head.

We should be proud that our efforts allowed this success story. Except the fight is not over and neither is the story of Manny and Julie.

Because through our efforts his job situation has changed. You see, because of our constant efforts to show our love for our fellow man, Manny was unable to renew his papers. Julie's are still good for a while...but Manny's ran out. Yeah, he was a legal immigrant with a temporary visa.

But since his papers ran out he was fired from his job. He now must find a way to pay his way home which is a return to the poverty stricken state that put him in the place where they were starving to death. Julie and their boy can either stay here until her visa runs out while Manuel returns home to starve to death...or she can go back now and start starving to death early. What a great choice that we, the most loving people on earth, have directly and actively made possible. I wish to thank each and every one of us.

You see, our hysterics and hatred towards the illegal immigrants have made it where once they return to Mexico it will be 10 - 15 years before their case will be reviewed. We have made our country safe once more so some high school kid can rake in enough money to ensure herself a nicer prom and the hard working guy who tried to feed his family is back where he belongs.

After all, Manuel is just the kind of guy we don't want in this country. He works hard, studied to improve his English, took care of his family in extremely difficult circumstances and for a brief time it seemed he would be able to make a life.

But we stopped it. And if we keep working we can keep on stopping stuff like this with our over the top, blind hatred and unreasoning, borderline non-sensical fear.

Yeah, the tone here is pretty sharp, bitter and biting, largely because Manuel, Yuli and their kid are both friends and relations to me and my immediate family. And seeing the direct result of the idiotic policies we as a country are adopting, including but not limited to the billion dollar wall being built, are not the sort of attitudes and behaviors I have any desire to be associated with. Quite the opposite.

For the first time in a long time I feel moved to action. As a general rule I stay out of politics. But when they get into the realm of immorality, as this one seems to be doing, then it is time we the good people of this country make a stand.

So I encourage everyone to stand up and do what we can to ensure that the policies we work for are not the policies that lead to the destruction of lives to sate our hatred and make sure we can buy 2 televisions instead of one.

I for one cannot take the hatred any longer, though. Yes, the system is broken. The right way to fix it is not the way we are trying.

Drew

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As a general rule I try not to be strident and angry. There are times when, frankly, it hits to close to home. If you were Manuel, what would you do? Would you legally pack your bags and head back to a hopeless situation? Or would you illegally stay in the country, do whatever you could to stay under the radar to care for your family? Would you start working "under the table" and take your chances? To me...pretty much a rhetorical question. I know what I would do.


There is a reason many of us...and in the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you here I am a registered Republican though I have never, not even once, voted the party ticket and very seldom indeed voted for any candidate from either major party...but there is a reason many of us from both parties favor some sort of amnesty.

Are there bad people that come across the border? Unquestionably yes. And yes, it drives me nuts when I see people flying the Mexican flag here, I have no interest in speaking French or Chinese when I go to order a smurfing Big Mac...but I also am not so spiteful and hateful that I want to sentence people to death to satisfy my own sense of seemingly righteous indignation.

I am very angry about this and not writing clearly at the moment so I am going to give it a rest. But expect a return to this issue in the near future.

Obama or McCain?

To be honest, I think it is a foregone conclusion the US electorate will put Obama in the White House. I just can't see any scenario where McCain is elected regardless of who his opponent is and in this case I think the groundswell of support for Obama would defeat far better candidates than McCain. But I still need to determine who I am going to vote for...I don't vote based on who I think is going to win, I vote based on who actually represents me. On the rare occasions that person is a major party candidate...okay, so the next time that is true will be the first time...I vote for them, otherwise I find someone who does and vote for them even if their victory is hopeless. I refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils and that is what I would be doing to vote for either McCain or Obama.

Fortunately, I have found my candidate. George is a great man. He has honesty, integrity, and humility. He led our country in a desperate war against overwhelming odds and kept us together. He refused a third term because he wanted to limit the power of any one man. He even has his picture on quarters and dollar bills. I am speaking of course of George Washington.

Now, you might be saying, "Weasel, Washington died. Like...200 years ago. Dead people can't be elected to public office."

They can if they are the best candidate. Don't believe me? Ask Romania.

A disconnect from reality is evident

Washington DC is to the United States of America what the Zydern Nebula is to the Milky Way...the thread connecting them is tenuous at best. In fact, to the best of my knowledge there is no such thing as a "Zydern Nebula", I believe I just made it up. It is pure fantasy, a made-up world subject to whatever rules and interpretations I choose to put on it.

See the similarities?

Washington DC is awesome. You can have a convicted felon crack-addict Mayor get re-elected because he is doing such a wonderful job presiding over the highest homicide rate in the nation. You can, in front of the whole nation, commit a felony, receive oral sex while dealing with national security matters, and have it dismissed as unimportant by large blocks of people. (I am pretty sure that if I were caught receiving oral sex on the job at my job which, by comparison, is about as important as if I were standing at the end of the on-ramp with a clever cardboard sign collecting change from the gullible, I would be searching for a new job instantly. But that just goes back to how different life is in Washington D.C.)

You can, as the current Congress has, have the lowest approval rating since 1994 and a near-record low, and yet decide you are worthy of a raise. In fact, other than Congress, it is rare to be able to decide to give yourself a raise when other people are responsible for paying your salray, but the rules are different in D.C.

You can be convicted of obstructing justice when no crime was committed.

You can have your jail sentence commuted while still being responsible for a fine and probation.

Bush's decision was immediately denounced by Democrats. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who had demanded that Bush promise not to pardon Libby, called the commutation ``disgraceful'' and said, ``History will judge him harshly for using that power to benefit his own vice president's chief of staff.''

I am willing to bet the hypocritical Harry Reid was against the prosecution of Clinton for perjury and for the prosecution of Libby. The 2 positions are irreconcilable if you take politics out of the equation and replace political ideas with justice. Other than Washington D.C. you cannot have a place where the same crime (perjury) should not be prosecuted on the one hand and should not have a sentence commuted on the other.


Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of Illinois said Bush's action cements his legacy as one of ``cynicism and division'' that ``placed itself and its ideology above the law.''

I am laughing so hard at that statement I almost cannot even type. Simply awesome. Also all I need to see to know Obama has the same chance of receiving my vote in Presidential elections as Hillary Clinton has. Which is slightly lower than the chance of finding intelligent life on Capitol Hill. Which is not a high a chance as you might think.

For someone from the party of cynicism and placing its ideology above the law to recognize that trait in another party is simply too stupendously awesome an irony to gloss over. I tend to agree with his statement...I just find it a case of the pot calling the kettle a cooking untensil.

D.C. is a fantasyland in which whether something is a crime or not depends not on justice, not on legal precedent, not on morality, not on right or wrong, but simply on which party a person belongs to. It took less than 3 hours from the denial of Libby's appeal for his sentence to be commuted. Only in D.C. was that time lag "too long". This is the city where a man was once pardoned for a crime he was not even indicted for, where a publicly committed and admitted crime was a cause celebre showing how a prosecutor lauded for his integrity ended up being called and treated as an evil man for doing his job while a violator of the moral terpitude and felonious portions of his responsibilities became a hero for those reasons, where the same crime was later committed by another man, prosecuted be a much lesser, morally speaking, prosecutor and in this case the prosecutor was a hero.

For my money, in Washington D.C. the primary travesty is that Libby was prosecuted in the first place. If you are going to selectively enforce a law, to pick and choose when it matters, then take the law off the books. Yes, he should have been convicted...and the pardon should have been in his hand about 30 seconds after the gavel struck the podium. "Victimless crimes" such as the last 2 high profile perjury cases are purported to be should either be punished equally or not wasted time with in the first case. Then again, this is fantasyland we are talking about, so what difference does it make?

Learning from our mistakes

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" goes the old expression. The theory is that a person might be fooled once by something unexpected but if the same thing happens and he is again fooled it is his own fault. This is why magicians never do the same trick twice in a row. The second time almost every person will discover the secret and then the thrill of seeing the impossible is replaced by the disappointment of "Oh, that is all it is?"

So you would think that once something showed it did not work a lesson would be learned. For example, if someone built a high-tech robot to perform police services...surveillance, reporting crimes, and so forth...sent it out on its first test run and rain shorted it out, would the proper response be "Oh, that was an expensive mistake" or would you rather hear "Officials have said the robot is a prototype but more will be produced in the future."

Excellent. No more sunshine crimes in Russia but if it starts snowing or raining you are okay to go ahead. They will be busy repairing their robot.

When it sucks to be a plumber

I will be the first to admit that I do not understand the appeal of showing a persons' undergarments in public. The hip-hop inspired trend of oversize, baggy trousers seems quite counter-productive to me. Seriously, how attractive are skid-marks? (for the unitiated, "skid-marks" is a slang term for a brown streak left when a person fails to wipe properly after using the restroom. For the initiated...it is still disgusting)

But some places take the fashion to seriously. They are trying to outlaw "baggy pants which sag to the point where undergarments are revealed". The Mayor says he will sign it into law. No word yet on whether the plumbers union will allow this to pass.

I was blinded by the brilliance

I have really never been too good at construction. My paper-mache never papered or mached, my birdhouses tended to look like pieces of wood with nails sticking out of it, and my doghouse...well, suffice it to say I never touched it during construction. The easiest way to know that was true is it actually looked like a doghouse!

I worked, of course, on numerous tree forts. The most successful one I ever built consisted of nailing a broken sheet of plywood between two tree trunks...on the ground. So I might not be the best one to talk to about construction techniqes.

For instance, I would never imitate the contractor who was building a bridge and decided to revise the blueprints. Not only did he revise the blueprints, he did it without checking with an engineer or, for that matter, drawing new blueprints. After all, he was only building a bridge. How important could that be?

Well, fairly important, apparently. His bridge collapsed. You would think the blame would fall on the contractor. And to some extent it did. But MORE blame was applied to the 2 government officials who hired him to build the bridge, allowed him to revise blueprints on his own, and somehow, some way let one little fact about this contractor who built the bridge which collapsed slip through the net; the contractor who redrew the plans by hand? He was blind!

A judge learns reason

A while ago I wrote about a truly offensive moron. It was about a man, a representative of justice...a judge. This is a man at the pinnacle of our justice system. If we cannot trust the people responsible for making sure the law is upheld equitably and fairly then the system will crumble. There can be no trust whatsoever and we teeter on the brink of anarchy.

So my critique, while intended to be humorous, was also serious. Well, today I am proud to announce that Judge Pearson saw the error of his ways. He agreed with us that, in demanding 67 MILLION DOLLARS for a missing pair of pants he was, in fact, being outrageous and ridiculous. So in a spirit of being reasonable he rescinded his unreasonable demands. Now he only wants a much more reasonable 54 million.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, whose the worst driver of all?

It is an iron-clad crime movie cliche; the incompetent cops will crash, usually into each other, while the smooth criminal skillfully negotiates the most impossible of traffic situations. It does not matter whether the cops are the heroes (Bad Boys, Bad Boys II, Rush Hour) or the bad guys (every other flick in recent memory....) or even an old tv show (have you ever wondered how much more money Boss Hogg could have embezzled if not for the millions...and millions of dollars he spent repairing the damage done to Hazzard County police cruisers in fruitless chases by Roscoe P. Coltrane and Enos?), you know one thing is for sure...the cops will crash.

The question this brings up is whether the cop-driving incompetence of movies is creative license for better movie making...or based on the 2.3 million dollar bill UK police have run up backing into things....

Government theft gone awry

Parking meters are a horrendous scam. We pay taxes already to establish and maintain roads. Where, then, is the justification to further charge people to park their vehicle on publicly built and maintained roads? Ridiculous. Furthermore, they often make decisions of questionable integrity and legitimacy even beyond the initial parking charges. For example, a couple years ago they extended the time needed to pay from 6 until 7 p.m. and upped the charge from a buck an hour to a buck and a quarter. I was still at PSU at the time and found my parking fees more than doubled overnight from 4 bucks a week to 9 bucks. Thanks, City of Portland, for your greed. Except it did not work out for them. I just changed my habits and instead parked much, much later and thus they cost themselves money because they ended up getting less than 4 bucks a week. Whatever. It was still a stupid move by stupid people.

But not as stupid as the Huntington, West Virginia parking meter runners. In their thirst for vengeance on the meter overrunners, they purchased a couple new little carts for the meter people to monitor meters in...the only problem is, the carts they purchased are illegal to run on the streets. So to write the tickets to the malicious parking offenders...they have to risk receiving a ticket for illegal use of the very streets they are protecting.

Let me be the first to say "Ha!" It couldn't happen to a nicer group. Well, maybe legislators...

"we woulda won the war if it hadn't been for those meddling vibrators"

The military sometimes makes strange decisions. It has long been a running gag about 1000 dollar toilet seats, 10,000 dollar hammers, and so forth. But what else do you expect from an organization that feels threatened by remote control vibrators?


I guess the next question would be why they need a range of 6 meters...are they being used by Gumby? Is it some perverse form of torture? As in, "Ha ha! Cook dinner, woman, or I shan't turn on this deceptively powerful matt silver love egg!" Why the guy had the remote in the first place is an interesting question. Why the military of Cyprus needs to ban it is just a better one.

I can foretell the past with a 60% accuracy rate

I really don't have much respect for the astrological, tarot card, and psychic nonsense. I guess the last word kind of makes the rest of that sentence redundant...but you probably saw it coming.

Well, how much respect can I have for an industry that makes its money by telling people what is about to happen....when it just got shut down by something that happened 30 years ago?


Well done, Philadelphia. And I will say this...as ridiculous and backwards as I find the practices, as little empathy and/or sympathy as I feel for the stooges who spend their money on that nonsense...I also find the law ridiculous. Of course, as we saw a few posts ago, laws need to be obeyed...but isn't it time to get some of them off the books?

No doubt she is the next Ma Barker

Okay, brief history lesson for those who did not spend time studying 30s gangsters. Ma Barker led her family on a crime spree of robberies and murders that reached truly horrific proportions. She was bloody and cruel and vicious.

And now she has been topped by Anne Mees. This 81 year old Grandmother is indeed a horrific criminal. You had best have a strong stomach to keep reading.

Mees needed some work done on her roof. So she hired it done. I, for one, am outraged, and I hope the remainder of the populace is equally outraged. How dare she attempt home improvements! Why, if she were to do that she might prevent damage to her dwelling and retain the value. We cannot allow that. After all, by fixing her roof she might be blocking bird access to their nest! She makes Hitler look like an angel. It is a good thing those police showed up before this got out of hand.

What is in a name? Hint: not the ingredients

Well, we may not know where Paradise IS...but we certainly know where it isn't. It isn't at the Sgt Bun Bakery in Weymouth, Dorset where the ace baker must rename several misleadingly named concoctions.

Who knew her Paradise Slice was not from Paradise? All these years that cruel, cruel woman has been deceiving people! And all of you who thought you were enjoying some tasty bird? Well...her Robin Tarts also deceived you. Ha ha! That was not delicious Robin you were tasting...no word yet on what bird it was.

Thankfully the Trading Standards people are on the ball and the outrage of 16 years of mis-named food products will come to an end.

I guess that way if you see something that says Robin on it you really will be eating bird. No word yet on how this will affect Easter Bunny candies.

Point of departure: Bill O Reilly

For the most part Bill O Reilly is a non-factor for me. I have never watched his show (or listened...to be honest I don't even know if he is radio or television. Or care.) I do know he arouses a great deal of vitperation and calumnation from people who are no fans of his but I have never actually checked out if it was deserved.

I read a piece of his this morning. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first bit of his work I have ever read. It is not brilliant but neither is it banal. He actually makes some pretty solid points. Should you care to you can read it here.

I disagree with some of his comments...such as saying Virginia's gun laws are too lenient. My Dad actually sent me an intriguing article pointing out that states which specifically allow people with concealed gun permits to carry them even in schools have not experienced this wave of stupidity. Virginia does not allow that. I have often seen the arguments that these shootings do not occur in Texas with the theory being it is because when one idiot starts shooting random people there are likely to be armed people shooting back. It is an interesting theory with some merit. Note that in Virginia only outlaws were armed...remember that classic bumper sticker "When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns"?

Of course, one common argument is registering guns. Let us not forget the first nation to have complete registration of guns...Germany, circa the 1930s.

But where I really have a bone to pick with O Reilly is his arguments about the 2nd Amendment. He argues the amount of firepower available to the populace should be limited. This clearly demonstrates his misunderstanding of the point of the 2nd Amendment.

It was not written to give citizens freedom to go target hunting on Saturday. It was not written to ensure they could go hunting. It was not written to guarantee them the right to hang a family heirloom on the wall. It is much more subversive than that.

Check the word I used there. The government itself had written into its guide and authority a subversive clause.

The entire point of the 2nd Amendment was a government that is able to disarm its citizenry has then no check on its powers. The 2nd Amendment is there specifically to allow the citizenry to overthrow a government that grows to oppressive.

When we see repeated news stories of abuses of police power, of governmental invasions of privacy, of a government derailed from any moral compass, inflicting legalized murder as a "right", putting in programs of enforced sterility (that is part of our history. Look it up.), overtaxing the citizenry, and so forth then the 2nd Amendment was written to give the citizens the ability to perform their duty and overthrow the government.

You read that correctly...the Founding Fathers believed it was the DUTY of the citizens to overthrow a government that had grown corrupt and invasive. They prepared the citizenry by guaranteeing them the right to defend themselves.

Yet more and more calls will be heard in the next few days to disarm even more of the citizenry. Let me point out the innocent people in Virginia who died...were unarmed. The innocent people at Columbine who died...were unarmed. The innocent people who died in Springfield....were unarmed. The times these sprees have been stopped early have been when someone who was innocent and armed stopped it. The lessons are clear but, like most lessons, will be ignored.

It all seems so unfair

A brief timeline;
couple marries
couple divorces
dude wants to remarry; is unable to
dude decides certain people are keeping that from happening
dude (allegedly) kills 3 people he holds responsible for keeping the remarriage from occurring
dude goes on ledge of 8th story hospital room and threatens to commit suicide
to keep from not being able to prosecute him with a capitol offense it becomes necessary for the police to enlist the help of the fire department who subsequently shoot him off the ledge with a water cannon
dude goes to court to be tried for his life...


question: instead of putting the air cushion under, why not just shoot him off the ledge, say he jumped and be done with it? if someone is going to threaten suicide, I say...help them along.