A Vindication of Part of “Eh”

Once I’d woken up and gotten a bit settled today, I read that an elderly man had started shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., killing one guard.  Tragic enough in its own right, but then it comes out that the shooter was a military veteran (albeit an 89-year-old veteran) and a racist, anti-Semitic white supremacist.

In other words, a right-wing extremist.

And again, I was reminded of the Homeland Security report, warning of right-wing extremists, and how scandalized that poor, innocent, and entirely correct report was.

And finally, finally, someone on the right – specifically, Shepard Smith of FOX News (along with Catherine Herridge, who appears to be the black sheep of the Fox Family) – admits that the report was right.

It isn’t often I find myself in agreement with so much as FOX News cameraman (their angles suck), so finding myself in agreement with Smith was a shock.  At least he was able to admit a mistake in scandalizing that report.

And that’s about all the shocks I can handle today.

VS – 6.10.09

Eh

I know, I haven’t blogged a word in just over a month.  Let me reassure my faithful reader that I am, in fact, still alive.  There’s just not much of interest to me going on in the world.

I know all about Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the US Supreme Court.  I’ve watched the right-wing pundits nitpick over the factual details of her career, looking for any reasionable grounds to oppose her and making up unreasonable ones when none have appeared.  Bored now.

The murder of Dr. George Tiller?  Reprehensible, shameful, and tragic; everyone says so, including the same right-wing pundits that did everything but call for his execution (looking at you, Bill O’Reilly, and regretting having to look at you).  That’s the expected reaction, along with people like O’Reilly and Glenn Beck vigorously denying that their inflammatory words had anything at all to do with any actual violence.  They’re just talking, after all.  Again, completely expected, completely predictable, and completely boring, though no less reprehensile, shameful, and tragic.  There is one facet of tye story that is of particular interest tio me, though:  the controversial Homeland Security report from two months ago that warned of a rise in “right-wing extremist activity.”  The report was instantly condemned by, of course, right-wingers, who even had the nerve to call for new HS head Janet Napolitano’s resignation.  Out of curiosity, now that one right-wing extremist killed three Pittsburgh police officers and another has murdered a doctor in cold blood, where are the public apologies and the hung heads admitting that maybe that report had a bit of truth to it?  Too busy trying to block an eminently qualified judge from getting to the Supreme Court or fighting much-needed financial and health-care reforms, I guess.

American Idol?  Don’t care.

NBA playoffs?  Don’t care.

Obama’s Cairo speech?  Awesome.  But not much to add or react to in it.

Anything done by Republicans? Super don’t care.

Backlash against Sacramento shock jocks?  Good to hear ignorant hate speech, masquerading as “humour,” being cracked down on.  Now go try FOX News, which doesn’t even pretend to be funny. Though, to be fair, neither do I.

Truth be told, there’s just not much on the stage catching my attention right now.  When something does, and I have something worth saying about it, I will.

VS – 6.08.09

You’re In The Mormon Army Now

WTF is wrong with Mormons?

I read on a blog today that the Mormon Church baptised a woman into their faith.  Nothing terribly unusual about that.  Except she was dead.  She had been dead for 13 years.  And she was Barack Obama’s mother.

According to AMERICAblog News, Stanley Ann Dunham, mother of our current President, was baptised into the Mormon faith on June 4, 2008.  Ms. Dunham died on November 7, 1995, and no family member approved of this.

Now, that’s just bizarre, and coming from the conservative church that rallied so hard against Proposition 8 in California, maybe it was a political move.  A strange, fucked-up political move, but a political move nonetheless.

Here’s the part that gets me:  they do this all the fucking time.

Jews have been pissed about it.  Catholics won’t ever turn over parish information to the LDS’s extensive genealogical records anymore.  Baptists are too busy drinking and being hypocritical to get pissed over this.  I’m going to guess that a large portion of the remaining populace doesn’t even know about it (it’s not listed in the public records anymore, as I understand it.)

If you read the comments on the AMERICAblog post, you’ll notice that a lot of them seem to ask, “what’s the big deal?  Why get pissed over this piddling crap?” (At least one of those came from a Mormon, who helpfully and dickishly explained that in the afterlife, the dead have the chance to refuse the “gift” of Mormonism.  For me, as a living being, if the choice is between Mormonism and chlamydia, pass the pennicillin and send the heavenly hookers over.)

It’s a big deal because we live in a country (America) that is all about religious freedom or, if one wishes, having no religion at all.  You can do that, in America.  You can choose to go your whole life without ever saying a single prayer or stepping foot in a church or even acknowledging that such things exist.  The essence of freedom is about choices, and one can choose in life not to be of any religion (many do) or simply not to be a Mormon (most do, and rightfully so).  That’s your choice; you’ve made it, and no one can take it away from you.

Except, apparently, the fucking Church Of Latter-Day Saints.

When people are re-baptised (or baptised for the first time) posthumously into the Mormon faith, without the permission or even knowledge of their families and loved ones, that’s not a choice that they made or that someone that knew them is making for them.  It’s an overruling of the choice they made in life, specifically, the choice not to be a fucking Mormon.  Who is the LDS to decide that your choice was wrong and should be overruled?  If someone wants to become a Mormon, they’ve got their entire lives to do it, and it’s not like the little shits Mormon missionaries are hard to find.  Just stay at home; they’ll come to you!  My point here is that the LDS is overruling your freedom to choose not to be a part of their silly inane blasphemous ridiciulous religion.  You made a choice in life; now that you’re dead and can’t fight back, the Mormons are making a choice for you.  That’s not only blasphemous against the deceased person’s religious beliefs, it’s a denial of their right to choose their own religion, if any at all.  It’s the antithesis of freedom:  denial of choice.

Fucked up, ain’t it?

Now, the Mormon apologist on that blog says that in the afterlife, the deceased can easily refute the “gift” of Mormon baptism, so, no harm, no foul, right?

Well, right. . .if the Mormons are right about the afterlife.  Show me one single goddamn shred of evidence (factual, not faith-based) that says that they are, and I’ll back off of this.  But what if they’re wrong?  What if Mormonism is not the One, True Religion?  What if their “gift” consigned hundreds of thousands of people to an eternity in Hell?  How many people are there, right now, burning and being tortured by demons and all the while yelling “FUCK YOU, JOSEPH SMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITH!”  (Hey, the Mormon Church is saying “fuck you” to your right to choose your path to God; it’s only fair to say “fuck you” back to them.)  Then there’s a pretty goodly amount of harm done, in what’s definitely a foul act.  The other story that the guy posted was that it’s simply a “just in case” measure, as in “just in case we’re right.”  I’ll stick with not being a Mormon, in life or in death, “just in case” you’re fucking wrong.

And you are, for baptising the unwilling.

VS 05.05.2009

Dangerous Words

Michele Bachmann, a Republican Representative from Minnesota, believes that Americans need to prepare for “orderly revolution,” in order to prevent President Obama from turning America into a Marxist society.  Her statement is, well, far-right-pandering bullshit.

Faux News host Glenn Beck and NRA President Wayne LaPierre warned viewers that President Obama is trying to erase the Second Amendment, by seeking to increase enforcement of already-existing laws on gun control in order to prevent the massive flow of weapons to Mexico, which is having a little drug-cartels-armed-with-American-weapons problem right now.  LaPierre goes so far as to say that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’s hard evidence that 90% of recovered cartel weapons in Mexico have been tracked back to American gun stores and gun shows (more about those later) is “a lie,” while offering no evidence of his own to support that claim (see link above).  Thanks Wayne, but I’m going to listen to the people with the numbers here, okay?

There have been others, of course, repeating the rhetoric that the Obama Administration is going to eradicate the Second Amendment, that the country is being taken over and turned into a dictatorship by a President who obviously cares alot more for the rule of law than, say, the previous President. This, in turn, has led to increased gun sales across the country.

Look, all the rhetoric is exactly that:  rhetoric.  It’s people that are scared of losing power and are playing to the base fears of small segments of the populace, to keep their support now that the majority of the country has turned against conservatives (see: the November elections).  I’m not even sure that these people truly believe what they are saying; I just know they’re saying it, and I think they’re trying to stir up a base of support for themselves by being provocative and controversial more than they are genuinely encouraging revolution or living in fear of an Obama dictatorship.  They just want power, be it by votes or ratings, and they’ll play to any fear necessary to get that, even the fears some people have of being left defensive against a cruel and violent world. . .you know, the people that fight like hell against any sort of attempts at regulating firearms.

But that rhetoric is dangerous.  It has a real-world cost.  And guns in the hands of the wrong people definitely have a cost on society.

When you play to people’s fears, for whatever reason, you gain their support for a moment, but you also make them more afraid.  People that are afraid, that view themselves as somehow being unfairly persecuted, are more likely to commit violent acts in what they perceive to be self-defense.   You tell them the government is trying to take their guns away, they go buy more guns. . .and they get scared of law enforcement, figuring the poor average cop, just trying to do his job of protecting society, is coming to take away their freedom, or that people around them, who are taking actions that might be intended to be helpful to someone or intended to protect themselves from that same person, are in fact their enemies.  You subsidize an uncontrollable paranoia when you play to fears.

I think that everyone, be it politicans, pundits, gun nuts, whatever, should be accountable fo the things they say in a public forum.  I own my words here; whether I mean them or not, I take full responsibility for saying them, and I don’t say irresponsible things or make claims, contrary to facts, that I can’t back up.

Bachmann, Beck, LaPierre, and others need to be held accountable for what they say.  Too many innocent people have paid for their words.

VS – 4.05.09

Rick Wagoner, GM CEO, Will Step Down At Obama’s Behest

I can understand the disagreement with the stance of forcing Wagoner out, but not forcing out any Wall Street CEOs. To that sentiment, though, I must say: be patient. Rome wasn’t asked to resign in a day.

Show Obama a little patience here; he’s been in office for about 66 days and has to handle Iraq, Afghanistan, an economic crisis, an escalating drug war, fights with the G-NO-P, Cabinet nominees with tax problems, the Designer Imposters version of him leading the RNC, floods in the midwest. . .I wouldn’t want to be him for anything in the world, and I am definitely willing to show him some patience while he sorts things out.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

News I’m Pretty Sure I Made Up

Well, kids, having moved into a new residence with people I actually like, I find myself with the time to write again on current events.  The problem is, my persuals of recent news items have left me wondering if I have somehow lost my grip on reality and have begun hallucinating while awake.  Some of these things just can’t be real.

For example, anyone that knows me knows that I would replace half the books on the shelves today with love comic books.  However, when I read the story about Spider-man saving an autistic child from a ledge in Thailand, I’m pretty sure I was drunk or hallucinating.

While I, like many Americans, have harbored various fantasies of Frank-Castle-like  punishments upon our corrupt and greedy financial executives who killed the world’s economy (though I’m not stupid enough or violent enough to actually make threats upon their lives).  After reading a resignation email by an executive who felt unfairly persecuted for the actions of others in his company, I’m pretty sure my reading about French workers taking a 3M executive hostage was just a vengeance fantasy.  (By the way, Mr. DeSantis, punishing in thought and/or deed an entire class of people for the acts of a few of its members is called either “stereotyping,” or “profiling,” depending on who you ask.  Either way, welcome to being a persecuted minority in America.)

Between packing, moving, unpacking, and arranging, I’ve been fanatically devouring watching epsiodes of canceled HBO atypical Western Deadwood (and if you’ve never watched it, I recommend it very very very very very highly).  I figure that me being so inundated with the Old West is why I dreamed/hallucinated/drank my way into believing that I’d read an article in the New York Times about the resurgence of cattle rustling in some states.  Really?  Cattle rustling?  I must have been making that up.

The saddest part of all these things that emerged from my subconscious?

That Cloris Leachman writing about “epic” sex with Gene Hackman in her authobiography was not a nightmare of mine; in fact, it really happened.

I’m never dreaming/drunk/hallucinating when I really, really want to be.

VS -3.26.09

P.S.  Really, go watch Deadwood.  It’s only 36 episodes and well worth the time.  Leave your ability to be offended by harsh language, occasional violence, and bare body parts at the door, and you’ll have be grateful to me for the rest of your bloody life.

Legal Follies

As much as I want to believe in the American legal system, it’s not perfect.  Sometimes it screws up.  Being made by imperfect beings, it can’t be anything but imperfect, and I understand that.

However, “imperfection” does not even come close to describing the absolutely colossal fuck-up committed by authorities in Alabama and Arkansas in the case of Benjmamin Bishop.

Bishop was charged with 74 counts of rape in Alabama years ago.  The authorities reduced the number charges to 10, and he was convicted of six.  It should be noted, according to one article, that all of the charges were against two young female family members.   While I didn’t find any info on the when he was originally convicted, him getting out of jail any time sooner than Jesus Himself could come open the cell door for him seems too light to me.  Not so in Alabama, where he not only didn’t get a sentence of life plus keeping his corpse in a cell for an additional 60 years just to make sure he got the point, he was paroled, marked as a level four sex offender (different states have different levels; Alabama labelled him at level four, meaning he was likely to re-offend) and moved to Earle, Arkansas, in 2007.  Surprise of all surprises, no one was notified of the dangerous status of Bishop and, of course, he sexually assaulted a female family member last week.  (Normally, I would say “allegedly,” but in this case, the benefit of the doubt has stepped out for a smoke break.)

So what happened?  How was a dangerous sexual predator even let out of jail, let alone allowed to move to another state, not registered as a sex offender there, and able to commit the same crime again?

According to Crittenden County (AR) officials, Bishop didn’t notify the county that he was a sex offender.  (Gee, he didn’t obey the law?  Who woulda thunk?)  In addition, Bishop was to be evaluated by Arkansas authorities in Pine Bluff, a process delayed from its normal six-month time frame by Alabama officials being slow to send his paperwork.  By the time the process was completed, which should have been done in June 2008, and Crittenden County officials found out he was a level four offender, it was March 12, 2009 – one day after he sexually assaulted a cousin.  The traditional maxim holds that “justice delayed is justice denied,” but in this case, justice delayed was an injustice perpetrated. (Also, Bishop did not appear on Arkansas’s sex offender website due to what one official called a “glitch in the system,” having to do with getting out-of-state offenders into the system.  Now that he’s probably committed a crime in Arkansas, I guess that glitch is taken care of, huh?)

In the case of Bishop, the system failed at every step to do what it’s supposed to:  punish the guilty and protect the innocent.  Their lapses and glitches and delays, not to mention the original mystery of sentencing that ever let him back out on the streets in the first place, left the people of Crittenden County at great risk for victimization. . .and one of them paid the price for those lapses, glitches, and delays.

But I didn’t come just to point an accusatory finger at the system.  See, sometimes the society that created the system fails, too.

Case in point:  In Chichester, New Hampshire, residents are upset that a local pastor, David Pinckney, took in Raymond Guay, a convicted child-killer, after his release from prison.  Guay served 35 years, which, while some may say is not long enough, is more than the 25 he was originally sentenced to.  One might assume that the extra ten years were added for his escape in 1982, during which he kidnapped a couple from Concord, and some time deducted for stabbing another inmate in a federal prison in 1991.  Nevertheless, Guay served his time, was released, and placed on parole – which, by a judge’s order, must be served in New Hampshire, and isn’t being forced to stay in New Hampshire just more punishment? (hint: yes)

Problem is, there was nowhere for him to go.

Guay went to a halfway house in Connecticut, but, no doubt finding it every bit as glaringly Causcasian as New Hampshire, was returned to N.H.  Without a home, and with no one willing to accept him, Revered Pinckney took him in after conversing with a prison chaplain and talking the matter over with his family.  This pissed off the rest of the town of Chichester.

Chichester is a small town, and one of the complaints made at a town meeting was that the small police force is inadequate for dealing with Guay.  Given that it’s a small town in New Hampshire, exactly what else do they have to do?  Are they so busy with speed traps that they can’t take a few minutes each day to keep an eye on one sixty-year-old man with an ankle bracelet that never leaves the house without adult supervision?  The guy’s not gonna steal a tank and go on a rampage here.

It really sounds like Reverend Pinckney does take this whole thing very seriously and is protective of both his family (his wife and four kids are also in the house with Guay) and his community.  I admire and commend them for that.

I look at it this way:  if he doesn’t get a place to stay somewhere, then Guay will be homeless.  While he’s with the Pinckneys, we know where he is and if anything comes up odd or suspicious, he can be traced and questioned.  If he wasn’t with them, he might well be homeless, and then there’s no way to know where he is and what he’s doing.  Is that somehow preferable to the people of Chichester?  Speaking for myself here, I’d rather know where he is so I can keep tabs on him than have to sleep knowing he’s got no ties, no roots, nowhere to call home, and absolutely nothing to lose by committing another crime.  Sure, one might argue, he would lose his freedom if he violates his parole, but if he’s homeless, all he’s losing is the chance to sleep on a park bench, while gaining a roof over his head and food.  That assumes he would get caught, and it’s harder to catch homeless people.

Basically, my point is that he’s better off in a house with people that are watching him and a roof over his head, and the community is safer with hm having roots and a home, i.e., something to lose if he gets tempted to commit another offense.  See, I find some comfort in safety in knowing where the criminals are.  I worry about the ones that haven’t been caught. . .especially the sex offenders.  From the many experiences related to me by friends, I know that the majority go unpunished – or commit more crimes than they’re eventually arrested and convicted of.

Between prison and society, though, are the courts.  And jurors are too busy using internet-capable cell phones to twitter and research cases to do their jobs properly.

One man not punished enough, one man punished too much, and juries of people who’ll ruin months of investigation and preparation to go look at LOLcats. . .man, our justice system needs work.

VS – 3.18.09

Assurances and Apologies

It’s a tough time to be me right now.

Personal issues aside, one of my favourite pasttimes, Republican-bashing, has been made irrelevant and moot by the recent behaviour of the GOP itself.  Their rampant flailing and gnashing of teeth in constant battle on multiple fronts (at the media, at Congressional Democrats, at each other, at the American people, and, in the case of Republican governors, their own state legislatures) make it obvious that while the party isn’t dead yet, it has definitely lost its head and we’re just watching it flab about the barnyard now, in a panic and presumably searching for a new head.

How can I make fun of them when they’re like this?  It’d be like picking on drunken kindergartners:  not wholly without amusement, but decidedly unfair.

Same for the Octomom in California who now has fourteen children (do the Spanish call her “Catorce-Mami”?).  That’s just too sad and pitiful to make fun of. . .and exactly who does she think wants to see 8 children pop out of her body?  I’ve already seen clown cars at the circus. . .huh, I guess I found a way to make fun of her after all.

Anyway.  My point, and I do have one, is that things in the news and current events are so funny and self-parodying on their own that there really hasn’t been a need for me to say anything at all.  It’d be like telling a joke about a joke, which isn’t really my kind of thing.

I assure all my reader(s) that I am in fact still alive, though struggling in the face a dearth of personal issues and news reports that read like I wrote them anyway.  When I find the funny, and by which I mean the informative, helpful, rant-worthy serious-but-funny funny, I’ll come back here.  Let’s hope it’s soon.

VS – 3.06.09

Hardball Time

So, this Senate stimulus package.

Leading economists say that the cuts made to appease 4 moderate Republicans could very well be disastrous to our economy.  You know, economists?  People who have chosen to spend their lives studying the economy, as opposed to being politicians?

I’m going to say this one more time, to Congressional Democrats and the Obama Administration:

Fuck the Republicans.  You have majorities in the House and the Senate.  You do not need their support.  If they want to filibuster the stimulus package, let them.  That delay will most likely harm our economy further if they choose to do so, but that’s their decision and you can be sure they will suffer the consequences of it.  They can read the reports of the same economists that I have, and if they do so (it’s called research, and I would think it’s what any smart politician would do when confronted with an issue they know little about) and still oppose an expanded stimulus based on party principle, then they’ve proven that they care more about sticking to outmoded, obsolete, foolish economic theories that run contrary to empirical evidence than they do the American people, and they do not deserve consideration, appeasement, or votes.

Basically, run the package Obama wants to run.  Remove these idiotic cuts and use your majorities to steamroll the opposition.  The GOP is a bunch of small, selfish, petty people, clinging to a unrealistic worldview, and they need to suffer the consequences of their ridiculous obstinancy to face reality.  Plow them under now so something better can grow in their place, and stop enabling this childish, foolish behaviour from them.  Please.  Remember, these people celebrated not voting for the stimulus bill in the House.  What kind of bullshit is that?

Oh, and a personal note to former Minnesota Norm Coleman, whose legal challenges of Al Franken’s victory are keeping Franken from being seated in the US Senate:  Listen, dick.  If God wanted you to serve, you’d be serving.  You’re not.  Take the fucking hint, jerkhole.

VS – 2.9.09

Disappointment, Thy Name Is Democrats

So, the Senate has announced that they’ve reached a compromise stimulus bill, one with major cuts to spending.  The old bill was roughly 2/3 spending, 1/3 tax cuts; the new Senate total fucking sellout compromise bill is now 58% spending, 42% tax cuts. . .and the education spending, as one person put it, took a “walloping.”

You know, I can understand the desire to make sure the bill will pass, and I definitely understand the urgent need to pass it.  Basically, as that story puts it, the changes were made to secure the votes necessary to make the bill filibuster-proof, and I can even understand the desire for that.  With Minnesota’s newly-elected Democratic Senator Al Franken still not seated due to Norm Coleman’s being a whiny little shit dragging out a legal battle over the election results, the Democrats courted four moderate Republicans and made the changes to appease them.  Understandable.

But still fucked up.

We need more spending for education.  Other developing countries are kicking our asses in educational terms.  Even Seattle is closing several schools this year to help make up a budget shortfall.  But cutting education isn’t, and never is, the answer.  Our children need a good education to be competitive in the global job market.  They need education to get good jobs.  Educated people tend to commit fewer crimes, go on the welfare rolls less often, have fewer unplanned pregnancies, and better private health care; ergo, increased funding for education kills many birds with one stone.  Educated people are, in general, a fincanical boon to their country, not a burden, and spending more on education now would not only save us more than we spent down the roads, it would guarantee more productive, tax-paying members of society down the road.  How could anyone oppose spending money for better, more modern schools?  How could anyone look in the eyes of a child with a thirst for knowledge and say, “Sorry, you don’t get new textbooks this year because we had to compromise to prevent a filibuster”?  Oh wait, I forgot. . .lower education spending is always on the Republican agenda (maybe because more educated people tend to vote Democrat?).

And the Democrats sold them out to appease four Republicans.

I’m pissed, and heartbroken.  Somehow, that message of change that an overwhelming majority of Americans voted for got lost between the White House and the halls of Congress.  We all voted for a change from the old ways, not more of the same old bullshit that got us so fucked up in the first place, and we should not stand for petty politics diluting that change.

Every Republican congressperson and every senator that either necessitated the compromise or sold our children out to pass this bill should be hanging their heads in shame right now.

Thanks for selling out my daughter’s future, you fucking pricks.

VS – 2.6.09