Videos aren't enough evidence?

I find it simply incredible that the pictures of the gunmen who shot two out-of-towners last year aren't enough evidence to warrant a trial. These guys were caught on surveillance cameras at a carwash shooting their AK-47's at two guys nearby who were badly wounded. I know, 'cause I was there!

Any moron with one eye and bad vision can see that these are the guys in the video. But according to Judge Arthur Hunter, one of New Orleans' fine paragons of justice, this isn't even enough evidence to warrant a trial! How much more evidence does he want? If that isn't enough to slough off your confidence in our "justice system," I don't know what is.

When the video was discovered and the arrests made, the police were thrilled that they had such a clear-cut case with irrefutable hard evidence. The residents in the neighborhood were overjoyed because these guys were terrorizing the locals. It was a victory for everyone. Now the only victorious ones are the would-be murderers.

Why do we bother having a police department? What is the purpose of the courts? Obviously to give Judge Hunter a forum to release documented criminals back on the street. America! What a country!

Why ever would the US leave Iraq?

Pretty wild that the U.S. would vacate Iraq if they thought America was unwelcome. What would ever give them that idea? If there's one thing that has characterized the war in Iraq it is the warm and loving welcome that US troops and personnel have recieved by all the Iraqi citizens.

What exactly does Mr. Bremer require to get the hint that US troops are not welcome? Obviously daily attacks on troops and contractors, televised beheadings of Americans and "U.S. get the fuck out" signs don't convey the message clearly enough. It reminds me of the Far Side comic where the couple has to feign death to get their guests to finally leave. There's an idea! Hey all you Iraqis reading this - pick a day and time and everyone just play dead. Believe me, all the invaders, er, sorry, "liberators" will get out quick 'cuz they won't want to have to clean up behind several million corpses!

It's worth a shot!

I'm not at all creeped out by death or anything, but I do think it's a little wierd to have to store your loved ones till the ground is thawed out enough to bury 'em. I mean, you get all used to the idea of Gramps being dead, only to have to haul him out from the U-Stor-It Death-O-Rama (2nd corpse half-price!) and go through the funeral and actual burial.

Why not have the funeral and all and just pay someone under the table to bury Gramps in the spring, real quiet like? That way there's not the pulled-off scab effect of dealing with it all over again.

Of course, I'm all about cremation! It solves so many problems! You never have to worry about finding a drawer at the morgue for your beloved, they can't exhume the body to see if you killed 'em, and you don't have to re-funeralize them months later if you live in Alaska. As an added benefit, you can cremate 'em right there in the graveyard and the funeral pyre can defrost the ground for the next stiff's burial! And sing campfire songs! 2 birds with 1 stone!

It's amazing what the human body can do, isn't it? People who can dive over 500 feet on a single breath, go for a mile-long swim in Antarctica or climb into the rarified air of Mt. Everest without oxygen! Incredible!

My question is Why? Why would anyone ever want to try any of those things? And how did you find out you could do them? Sounds like these feats started out as a drunken dare in college. Moreover, once you figure out you can pull off something like climbing Everest without oxygen, why would you go and do it again? This guy's climbed it 5 times, plus 12 other peaks! Did you get the part about the strongman's regimen? "Training 12 hours a week and putting away 25 pounds of beef and 14 supplement shakes every seven days." Gross! I can't imagine being willing to choke down that much cow and protein sludge just to be able to pick a wad of lead. And I barely want to do something that feels good for 12 hours a week, let alone pumping iron and tearing ligaments!

And it's not as if these are useful talents or anything. I might be more impressed by the guy who climbed the mountain to look for the cure for cancer, or who swam to Antarctica to rescue a stranded lifeboat crew. But these folks accomplishments are the athletic equivalent of being the trivia champion. I guess that's ok, but who cares?

Terrific! The service industry is growing! This means more jobs are available for the unemployed public!

But what does it really boil down to? If the service industry is growing, then what collateral shrinkage in the jobs market is occuring? Well, now that we have more positions available for waiters, hotel porters, check-out girls, bartenders and delivery people, those jobs will have to be filled by fresh college graduates or those who have been downsized right out of their professional career .

Yes, all those years of work, studying and brown-nosing will reap their huge reward when you get that coveted job at the grill in the Chik-Fil-A in the mall! Just think of all those $1 tips you'll rake in hauling luggage up to hotel rooms (which, incidentally, are being rented by your former co-workers on all-expense-paid junkets). And just imagine the stimulating conversations you'll have with your co-workers! In addition to other college grads bitching about their lot in life, you'll work side by side with the unskilled and uneducated working hard to get enough money to buy their next crack rock or bling-bling accessory for their baby-daddy!

America! Land of opportunity!

Mid-air meditation? An interesting idea. Especially in the wonderful world up in the sky, a little tranquility and peace would be a welcome relief from the unrelenting hassles of squashed seats, late landings, lost luggage and surly stewardesses. Maybe more airlines should offer such appointments.

My concern comes from the vehemence with which the unnamed Air Sahara official extols this service. He says, "believe you me, those who are meditating will become completely oblivious of what the passenger on the next seat is doing.” I'm not sure that while traveling in buzz tube 35,000 feet up I want to be that unaware of what's going on around me. What if I'm so lost in my inner Nirvana that I'm unable to open the emergency exit? Besides, what anesthetic gasses are they pumping in to guarantee this bliss?

And what about the other passengers who may not want to participate? All the meditators may find their peaceful place, but what if it drives some borderline personality disorder passenger over the edge and he gets all psycho over the chanting and lotus positions? I'm not sure that Air Sahara thought this idea through all the way.

The virus that causes the common cold may be a "hit and hide" virus. It may create a cold then hide in the body for weeks. Some people may act as carriers of it, like a modern Typhoid Mary.

And...?

I mean, whaddya want us, the workaday public, to do about it? There's no cure or vaccine for the cold. We already know how to minimize spreading disease (wash your hands, don't sneeze snot on everybody). Now what? Will this information help us disease-ridden individuals out here in the real world? I can't think of any way it would.

Must our brains be inundated with useless information masquerading as "news"? I can't think of a single reason that this story needed to be published. Doctors get their information from JAMA and medical sources, not MSNBC. I feel for the poor unsuspecting masses who will read this and think they learned something, but in reality there's nothing there that is of any benefit whatsoever. Of course, these are the same people who obsess over things like Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey.

Well, here's a frightening little tidbit for all you travelers out there. Everyone knows that you shouldn't think too hard about who's been in your hotel room before you, much less what they were doing. The AP has gone and quantified those subconscious fears by telling us what the dirtiest items in that mysterious hotel room are.

The grodiest object? The remote. Of course it is, because the weirdo who was there before you was flipping between porn channels with one hand while alternately spanking the monkey and gnawing pork rinds with the other. If they're still interested in finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, why not go put a few Iraqi hotel remotes in a Petri dish. I'm sure that shit'd qualify as a WMD.

Enjoy your summer vacation. Bring body condoms!

I feel better already! Thank God NORAD has had these preparations for hijacked aircraft. I can see that their preparations did wonders. One good thing about our government's preparations, they refuse to name the building that the "hijackers" in the exercise were to crash into. That's good, protect the innocence of the building. I'm sure it would be emotionally scarred otherwise.

No wonder their little plot wouldn't work: the 9/11 hijackers flew the planes into the wrong buildings! The one building that NORAD had planned to defend against wasn't the Pentagon or the World Trade Center. Does anyone else see a problem here? Wouldn't it make sense that NORAD's plans would be a tad bit more flexible? Is it not possible to train responses based on ideas rather than exact scenarios? It seems that the current ideology doesn't seem to leave a lot of leeway in preparations. I mean, after all, what if the wind is blowing from the south on the crucial day instead of the west? Or what if there are women hijackers instead of men? Have they prepared for that? I doubt it. It is not possible to prepare for every contingency, yet that is what the government seems bound and determined to spend our tax dollars on doing. Well, at least they can protect the innocence of the buildings.

I think this is a fabulous idea! Jesse Jackson negotiating for hostages. Because, you know, perennially running for president based on rhymey slogans and international hostage negotiations are practically the same thing.

What's really great is that he, a religious representative of the The Great Satan who has a large constituency of infidels wants to confer with none other than the religious leaders in Iraq. Yes the very leaders who instigate the rage and hate against the Great Satan, America, in the first place! What irony! You can't pay for this kinda stuff!

Possibly most telling is his advanced plan for contacting the necessary parties: "They watch CNN." That's so awesome! He's relying on some Muslim cleric in Iraq to be sitting there in his living room, toking on his hookah and happens to flip to CNN just as they're broadcasting Jesse's "appeal"! I hope he's not in the bathroom or something at the crucial instant. Wouldn't it suck for Jesse if the cleric's cable was out that day? Or if he had just gone to the fridge to get some leftover hummus? Good luck, Jess!

Of course nobody wants to buy software from a kiosk in the middle of a CompUSA. Remember the reason they're coming into CompUSA or wherever to begin with? These are the fucking idiots who can't figure out how to set up their e-mail or install a program. They're the ones who called you and said "I just bought such-and-such a computer" and then read off the feature list to you from the side of the box. "Is that a good one?"
Who's going to go into a store and then order something off a computer in the store? They could have ordered the software off the internet at home, if they had any sense. They come into the store because they haven't figured out the whole internet/digital thing yet. Their universe is made up of bricks and mortar, concrete and glass, wood and plastic. The concept of access to the world via GUI is simply way too much for them, too intangible and nebulous.
Figure it out, SoftwareToGo. Virtual sales in a brick-and-mortar store is far too incongruous for the ilk of people who are likely to venture there.

Are entomologists really worries about bug noises? This article seems to describe growing concern over an exceptionally large brood of cicadas, the "locusts" that fill summer and autumn nights with their buzzing from the trees. Why are they so concerned? The cicadas don't eat leaves, destroy crops, spread disease, summon demons or cause vandalism. They just buzz. I guess the entomologists were so fascinated with their communications or eating habits that they just never got around to napping in a hammock, lulled to sleep by the background noise of the cicadas. I say we find a way to have a cicada bumper crop every year!

I can foresee a whole new legal market opening up - that of lawsuits from people who buy wrecked cars from the U.S. and then sue the previous owner, the junkyard the insurance company and the guy who does the buying and shipping when the cars explode or the brakes fail or the radio causes deafness or whatever. You just know that if members of our litiginous society were engaging in such a practice, such lawsuits would be shot around left and right.
Apparently, at least for the time being, these Central Americans are happy with their totaled BMW's and Mercedes. Just wait till these rebuilt vehicles fall apart in some Nicaraguan jungle and the driver gets post-traumatic stress from being ambushed by cocaine smugglers. All because the jury-rigged vehicle he was in didn't come with a warning label: "Caution! This previously wrecked vehicle may cause death, mayhem and destruction of you, your family and assorted bystanders on the sidewalk. Rebuild at your own risk."

Well, I decided to go see The Passion of The Christ to see what all the hubbub was about. I'm still trying to figure out what all the hubbub was about. As you've certainly heard, there's no shortage of gore in this flick. It gets to the point that it's almost laughable. Particularly creepy is the scene where Mary kisses Jesus' feet while he's hanging on the cross. She comes away like a film vampire, her lips stained with blood. Ew.
If you're going to see TPOTC, I'd strongly recommend that you read the book first. I mean, at least read the gospels so you can get an idea of the whole point, because the movie delivers none. For instance, why did the Jewish priests and leaders hate Jesus and want him dead? Some of the irrelevant flashbacks might have been better used to expose Jesus' history with the priests and how they viewed him as a threat to their authority.
I did like that the film was entirely in Aramaic and Latin, eliminating all the silly accents and King James Bible thee's and thou's. In addition, I thought Satan was a nice touch, if I can say that, along with his little celebratory dance at Jesus' death. He was appropriately icky.
As for anti-Semitism, I can only say that I wish the film had a point as concrete as that. I left the theater with the visions of blood and ripped flesh in my brain without any idea why it was there. Anti-Semitists will still be anti-Semitists after seeing it, and non-anti-Semitists will be no different either. Non-believers and non-Christians will leave the theater knowing no more about Jesus Christ that they did when thay walked in.

Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Edition is now a crime. This kid got busted doing what millions of kids have been doing since the Swimsuit Edition first graced Americas shelves. Showing his friends. Big deal. I wonder how many of the teachers and officials at his school did the exact same thing? Only he gets suspended.
The principal said he had never seen the Swimsuit Edition before and was shocked. Yeah, right! Give us all a break! You get racier pop-up ads and spam on the internet. To think that this poor kid has to undergo the hassle of getting suspended (or the alternative - 2 days at the school for bad kids) is ridiculous.
When I was a 12, someone brought a Hustler to class. It made the rounds while the teachers back was turned until someone got busted with it. Were there any suspensions? Sentences to the bad kid's school. Visits to the principal? Scourgings and lashings? No. The magazine was simply taken away by the teacher and never seen again. I'm sure the teacher is still whacking off to Hustler today.
People brought the Swimsuit Edition all the time. It was openly shared. The teachers and coaches would take their turn gazing at the pages and then pass it on to one of us. It was encouraged (probably because I was at an all-boys school)! Be thankful your kid is reading the Swimsuit Edition instead of Modern Satanism. Go out and buy him a new pack of Kleenex.

Well, here's two more kids who are gonna die thanks to the intervention of American surgeons who decided to do a little human experimentation. Haven't they learned yet? These poor kids don't live through these separation surgeries! What's the point? If they just left them alone they'd probably have a better chance. And if they died of their conjoined-ness, they're still no worse off than after their “treatments” with these Dr. Frankensteins who have God complexes.
Besides this, how many hundreds of thousands of dollars are being spent on the survival of the weakest, when this same money could be used for hundreds or even thousands of people who could actually benefit from its use? If they want to medically help people, how ‘bout giving a few thousand doses of vaccines or vitamins or antibiotics?
Wanna know why they don’t? Because you don’t get your name in medical journals and announced on the news when you give out vaccinations all day. When you try a high profile stunt like chopping apart conjoined twins, you get all the fame and accolades and tenureship at universities. And when the twins die? “Unavoidable complications.” Betcha the complications could have been avoided by not trying such a hopeless experiment to begin with!

According to this report, there is a problem with the government censoring information from scientific findings in the spirit of Cold War Soviet Russia. Now this isn't especially hard to believe, given the recent revelation that "misinformation" on WMD's in Iraq was all the CIA's fault and not the administration's doing at all whatsoever, honest to goodness.
The scary thing is: what information are we not hearing about?
There could be little green Martians crawling all over Spirit and Opportunity, but do we see any of those pictures? No way. Is there a simple cure for cancer, diabetes and warts? Maybe, but we don't have that data. Perhaps it's the government censoring of data that limits what meteorologists can tell us, resulting in the wildly inaccurate "forecasts" we get. And you just know we're not getting the full story on marijuana use.
So now anytime we see news of scientific breakthroughs we'll have to wonder, as Paul Harvey says, about the rest of the story.

No Big loss.

I know that this flu thing is a big huge deal, epidemiologically speaking. But please can someone come up with a better name than H5N1? Maybe the "sexy flu"? Or the "death fever"? "Melting eye syndrome"? Anything would be cooler than H5N1, which sounds like a math formula.

Presidential hopeful John Kerry poked fun at President George Bush's presence at the Daytona 500 race the other day. Now I don't have much opinion on politics, or John Kerry, or George Bush or even car racing for that matter. But I do know style when I see it. And let me say that Kerry's style was just plain poor. Was he really taking issue with Bush's efforts to stay in touch with the American people? Do the people really want someone who stays holed up in an office day and night pondering policies and economic strategies? What will Kerry have to say when Bush participates in the annual White House Easter egg hunt this year? If Kerry gains the Presidency, will he have the Easter tradition and all other public "fun" appearances banished so he can meditate on national issues? Will he decline to throw out the first ball of the season so he can discuss foreign policy? Will he just say no to lighting the White House Christmas tree because his presence is needed at a Cabinet meeting? I hardly think so.
Regardless of what the public thinks of the President's politics, it is still an office rooted in "by the people, for the people." The people like race cars and Easter and so on. A leader who loses touch with those whom he leads is no leader at all.