can't pick your family.

The Piece of Human Garbage Award for the month of November goes to one Mr. Stephen Gerard, from Nashua, NH.

Stephen's brother is serving in Iraq. In his brother's absence, Stephen pocketed a few items from the home while he was over to help his sister-in-law clean. One of the pocketed items was his brother's military ID.

Stephen used the military ID to make a dozen or so withdrawals from two different bank accounts. One was an account set up for families of military personnel, which he cleaned out to the tune of $1,012.82. The other was an account set up by the family for his 1-year-old niece, for another $325.

He also took jewelry from his sister-in-law to sell at local pawnshops, again using his brother's military identification for ID.

Let's hope Stephen's brother comes home safe and soon from Iraq, so he can have a word with his sibling, and maybe test the hypothesis that "blood is thicker than water".

saudi justice.

A Saudi woman is gang-raped by seven of her countrymen.

The case goes to trial. The woman's rapists get two to ten years in prison.

The woman gets two hundred lashes and six months in prison...for violating the country's sex segregation laws, by being in the car of a man who wasn't a relative.

Why are these people our "allies" again?

I swear, that black shit in the ground has given wealth and influence to a dynasty and culture whose adherents would otherwise still live in tents and slurp goat eye soup. Somebody please invent a car that runs on nuclear fusion, so we can tell the Saudis--and the rest of the Middle East--to go hump some opposite-sex camels (wouldn't want to violate sex segregation laws!), and get their embassies off our soil.

These folks dabbled in algebra when most of Europe was still bashing each other's skulls in over the leftover scraps of the Roman Empire. Somewhere, somehow, their culture has taken a hard U-turn since then.

mad mothers.

I've been noticing increasingly outlandish campaigns by MADD over the last few years, and I've come to the firm conclusion that the Mothers Against Drunk Driving have morphed into the new American Temperance Society.

I read about a recent court case where two parents let their son have a party for his sixteenth birthday at their house. Knowing that the kids would most likely drink clandestinely at a different house otherwise, the parents let the guests drink beer at their house. They collected all the car keys from the guests upon arrival, and the party commenced, roughly half the teenagers present having some beer in the course of the evening. Everyone was picked up at the end of the evening, and there were no accidents or drunk driving arrests.

Well, somebody told their parents about this event, someone called the cops on the parents, and they were charged with Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor, thirty charges. The parents were convicted and sentenced to two years in jail each.

Now, whether you think they did a smart thing or a dumb thing by letting those kids have beer in a supervised and controlled setting, think about the implications of that punishment for a moment. Here you have two adults who will go to jail for two years, most likely lose their house and livelihoods as a result, and two teenagers who will be separated from their parents and forced to live with relatives or in foster care. Now, if the original reason for the law was the avoidance of harm to children, can such a punishment truly said to be in their interest?

There was a "Point/Counterpoint" talk on one of the news networks, where an advocate for the family squared off against a representative from MADD. The MADD guy (huh? when did he become a mother?) basically parroted that it was a just sentence, because "they broke the law". His entire argument was centered around that mantra, and he repeated it as much as he could. He tried to back up his argument with the anecdote of a kid from the same high school as those partygoers, who had died recently in a drunk-driving accident, and therefore there was some sort of message that needed to be sent.

From where I'm sitting, it looks like the parents did their level best to prevent drunk driving, and they succeeded--none of the kids got behind the wheel of a car, whether they had been drinking or not. The absolute best way to increase the drunk driving fatalities among teenagers is to forbid them from drinking altogether, thereby assuring they meet in out-of-the-way places without supervision, and then get killed on the way home.

It's funny how many conservatives can get bent out of shape about the liberal approach to guns and gun safety education. That approach is "Don't touch it, don't even think about it, and pretend it doesn't exist until you're twenty-one." Well, many of the conservatives use the very same approach with alcohol and sex...they know it makes no sense to introduce the thrill of the forbidden and couple it with a lack of education when it comes to guns, but they're shocked and dismayed when the same approach results in the US having the leading rates of youth drunk driving deaths and teenage pregnancies in the industrialized world.

Anyway, MADD is no longer against drunk driving, they're against all forms of alcohol consumption that could conceivably result in someone driving while intoxicated--which means they're against alcohol consumption, period. If they were for the prevention of drunk driving, they wouldn't applaud two parents having their lives destroyed and getting locked up with drug dealers and rapists for two years--and their kids having to go into foster care--because they told themselves, "Hey, the kids are going to have beer anyway...why don't we make sure they do it without harming themselves or others?"

better sell some property, fred.

This just in:

Crazy Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church was found liable in a civil lawsuit brought forth by the family of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, whose funeral was picketed by Phelps' inbred bunch of bigots. The jury in federal court ordered Westboro Baptist to pay 2.9 million dollars in compensatory damages for invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress.

Freedom of speech does not shield you from the consequences of that speech, and that's one of the reasons we have civil courts. That judgment will do more damage to Westboro Baptist than all the ass-beatings in the world, and it sets precedent for many more. I have a feeling that Westboro's picketing days are coming to an end.

Update: The jury has awarded an additional eight million dollars in punitive damages, for a grand total of $10.9 million. I'd say that'll make a dent in Fred's fuel budget.

what the fuck is wrong with people?

Once again, I find it necessary to use this space for a public service announcement:

If anyone--God, the devil, the neighbor's cat, whoever--tells you to kill your children, the only proper and correct response is, "Go fuck yourself."

i gots the sniffles.

Is it medically advisable to wash down Sudafed with bourbon-and-coke?

And on a related note, I so don't enjoy having my name logged at the drug store for insisting on the pseudoephedrine goodness of Sudafed, instead of the less effective crap they pass off as antihistamine these days.

But hey, if it only shuts down one meth lab, right?

un-frakking-believable.

Old man goes grocery shopping and gets hit by an idiot driver while waiting at the bus stop.

As the old man lies dying, people make off with his groceries.

If you not only fail to render assistance to a dying man, but also have the gall to stoop down and steal his groceries, you're human only by biological designation. If I were witness to such an event, only the prospect of spending a few decades in jail and away from my family would keep me from shooting out a few kneecaps on the spot.

senseless.

Three feral kids break into a rural home in North Carolina to burglarize it.

The only person in the house is the 12-year-old daughter, who's staying home from school with strep throat.

The intruders, surprised to find someone present, shoot her dead.

They are quickly captured, and found to be 16, 18, and 19 years old.

You know, whenever I read stuff like this, I want to crawl back into my bed and spend the day with the covers over my head. How do you deal with kids who not only think they're entitled to other people's stuff, but who also kill a seventh-grader without hesitation simply for being present? Follow the link and look at the picture...that girl couldn't have been a threat to those three, except maybe as a witness. A life snuffed out in a blink, all for some jewelry and a few household electronics to pawn.

What ticks me off almost as much is the snippet about the girl's classmates, and how the school is dealing with the situation. They bring in a bunch of grief counselors, and the principal is quoted as saying:

"Mostly, we just want to make sure the students are feeling safe, that they're feeling comfortable, that they can go on through the grief process..."

Are we not doing our children a great disservice when we lie to them in such a manner? Is it not wiser to make them aware of the evil that exists in the world--aware of the fact that life isn't safe? Don't we prepare them much better for real life if we tell them that there are people out there who will hurt or kill them without thinking twice about it? Instead, they coddle these kids, making sure they're "feeling safe and comfortable", and pretending that such events are really only bad dreams, and that it can't happen to them.

Life isn't safe. Sometimes, the wolves are at the door, and they won't listen to reason or compassion. That's a scary thought, but that's reality, and it won't go away by closing your eyes and wishing it weren't so.

tales from the queen's realm.

Via my friend Mark, a long-suffering subject of the Queen, comes this outrageous little tale from the Place Formerly Known As Great Britain.

The Cliff Notes: a woman is accosted by two hoodlums while dropping her son off at his house. One of the yobs blocks the path behind her car with three dogs, and the other jumps onto her hood and grins through the windshield, telling her that "she's not going anywhere."

She revs the engine, asks the yob on the hood repeatedly to move off, and honks her horn for a minute. Then she puts the car in gear, and weaves the front end a bit at 10mph. When the yob on the hood of her car still hangs on, she gives the brakes a tap to fling him off, unhurt.

She drives a bit, pulls over by the side of the road, and dilligently calls 999 to report the matter to the police.

They show up...and arrest her, for "dangerous driving". She ends up having to hire a lawyer and spend the next 18 months defending herself against the charge.

The two yobs are not charged with anything.

It seems that the powers in charge of the UK have lost the ability to properly distinguish between offender and victim. My friend Mark asked whether 1-800-MARINES was still the proper number to dial to request an invasion...I told him to just leave a message with his name and the country to be invaded, and the Gator Navy would be dispatched within 24 hours.

what has that rifle ever done to you?

Whoever did this sporterizing job needs to be taken out behind the barn and shot. Repeatedly. In the face.

Just in case the auction disappears in the next few days, here's a pilfered picture to record the butchery for posterity.



Yes, friends and neighbors, that is what used to be a perfectly fine U.S. M1 Garand, before someone got a hold of it and ruined it.

I'll grant that this is the most tasteful Bubba-izing I've seen in a long time, but it's still a major violation of surplus etiquette. You never sporterize a military surplus rifle. There are lots of Winchesters, Remingtons, Savages, and Marlins available for hunting use, and they make more every day, but the supply of milsurp rifles is finite, and dwindling every day.

Sporterizing a Garand (which may very well be a veteran of WWII or Korea) ranks right up there with dressing a survivor of Omaha Beach or Chosin Reservoir in Mossy Oak camo overalls and making him stand night watch at the local junk yard. It's just disrespectful.

do you kick kittens, too?

So yeah, we've ordered a copy of the last Harry Potter book. We pre-ordered it earlier this year, and Robin received an email notification from Amazon.com that our shipment would arrive on Saturday, which is the day of publication.

I like the books. They have their minor flaws, but on the whole, they're humorous, well-written, and imaginative. I'm looking forward to reading the final installment, and I have no intention of seeking out spoilers on the Intarwebz before Saturday. It seems that "spoiling the fun" has become a major sport, and there are lots of spoilers circulating online already, presumably originating with people who have received the book early by accident. (Some online retailer mistakenly shipped out a bunch of orders early.) Even the German newspaper I read online every day has a big headline about the "Harry Potter scandal", and their banner graphic breathlessly announces "Who Lives! Who dies! Who marries!", enticing folks to click on the story to learn more.

When the previous book came out, some people thought it to be great fun to drive to bookstores where kids were standing in line for the midnight release, and yell crucial plot information out of the window to spoil it for everyone standing in line. ("Snape kills Dumbledore!") People scanned the crucial page of the book, highlighted the critical information, and then posted it on discussion boards online, before the official release date of the book.

Now, some may think that the whole Harry Potter hubbub is ridiculous, and just a giant money making machine. Still, it's one thing to roll your eyes at the spectacle of midnight book launches and kids dressing up as wizards, and a different thing altogether to actively destroy the suspense and fun for those same kids. Sometimes I think that a significant portion of the population does not mature beyond high school age.

I'm not even reading reviews before Saturday, and I'm staying off the Internet for the most part, just so my fun isn't spoiled by some jackass with a scanner and an Internet account.

tales from the place where great britain used to be.

In this month's Reason magazine, we learn that an English chap called Brian Seaton got in a bind with the law for forgetting a Swiss Army knife in his luggage when checking in for a flight to go on vacation. The police in Leicestershire charged him with "possessing a knife in public without good reason".

It took Mr. Seaton nine months and ten thousand quid to clear his name.

The kicker: the Swiss Army knife in question was a retirement gift from his employer of more than twenty years...the Leicestershire Police Department.

***

In other news on the subject, the U.K. now has more than 20 percent of the world's CCTV cameras, even though it constitutes only 0.2 percent of the world's inhabitable land. In another article in the same Reason magazine (entitled "Tony the Nanny"), Brendan O'Neill lists the shameful accomplishments of Tony Blair in the field of civil liberties erosions. As of July 1st, smoking is banned in all pubs, clubs, and workplaces in the U.K., there are "anti-youth gadgets" installed in some public areas to drive away "loitering" youth by means of high-frequency noise, and the police have the right to issue so-called "Anti-Social Behavior Orders", where a police officer can forbid a citizen from walking on a certain street, using foul language in public, or even wearing a hooded sweatshirt, all without the need for proof of any guilt or misdemeanor.

The article closes to say that Blair's legacy is "life in a permanent state of parole" for the citizenry.

That, of course, is the only difference between the liberal utopists and the conservative ones: one group wants the government to be your mommy, the other wants it to be your daddy. You can bet your behind that someone in Washington has been taking notes on the accomplishments of Blair's New Labour in the field of public order, and those ideas are going to make their way over here sooner or later. And don't make the mistake to think that only the liberals are going to try a page out of Blair's playbook--there are plenty of so-called conservatives on this side of the pond who see nothing wrong with that kind of degree of surveillance and police authority, as long as they get to determine which kind of behaviors to suppress.

schadenfreude.

It pains me to even spill electronic ink on the subject of that ditz, but one Ms. Paris Hilton has been carted back to jail in tears. Apparently, the local county sheriff released her on Day 2 of her 40-some day DUI sentence, to spend the rest of the sentence at her modest four-bedroom home under house arrest.

The judge in the case said something like, "Nuh-uh!", ordered the little brat back to court, and had her transported back to jail to serve the remainder of her sentence. Miss Hilton had a tearful meltdown in the courtroom, crying for mommy as she was hauled off.

Is there a sorrier sight than that of a multimillionaire trust fund baby having a meltdown at the prospect of a 40-day sentence in a private cell? I mean, it's probably hard for her to comprehend that she landed herself in trouble daddy can't buy her way out of, but dammit, show some decorum and march off with dignity.

One would think she'd learn a lesson from all of this, but she'll be back on the club circuit the day after her release. I even smell a book based on her harrowing experience.

Just shows that you can buy an education, but you can't buy intelligence.

depressing.

This marks the fifth time in recent years where a Texas mother killed all of her children in a gruesome fashion.

For all you Texans out there, what's the deal with mother-perpetrated child homicide in the Lone Star State? It's simply puzzling.

As a parent (and I am by no means claiming to be an authority on the subject of parenting and kids), I believe that anyone who would harm their own offspring has some profoundly faulty wiring in their cranium. It's simply unnatural...just the thought of harming or killing my own kids makes me physically ill.

i'll take "frivolous lawsuits" for $1000, alex.

A while back, some guy drove his SUV into the back of a tow truck while intoxicated. Apparently, this is a big deal because the guy was a ball player, relief pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. (Note the past tense here, because the gentleman in question expired in the collision.)

Now his father has filed a lawsuit against the bar that served his son the alcohol, against the tow truck company and the driver of that truck for being in the road assisting another vehicle, and (for good measure) the driver of the disabled vehicle for having the temerity to break down on that particular spot.

Apparently, everyone is to blame for his son's death except his son, who drove the car with a BAC of twice the legal limit, while speeding and yakking on his cell phone, and neglecting to wear a seatbelt.

It boggles the mind, it really does.

crimethink.

It seems that "crimethink" is now an official offense in our nation's public school system.

To wit: a straight-A senior from Illinois was arrested for writing an essay that was "disturbing" to his English teacher. He was charged with Disorderly Conduct, and forced to attend classes elsewhere.

I repeat: the content of the essay (which, of course, has not been made public, and which was handed to the teacher in private) rated an arrest and a criminal charge.

With thought control and enforcement, with mollycoddling and book censoring, with "zero tolerance", with warrantless searches and see-through backpacks and surveillance cameras, what kind of adults is that kind of "public education" going to produce? We'll end up with a bunch of obedient conformists who are afraid to rock the boat, who are conditioned to yield to authority without question, and who look to that authority whenever any decision-making is involved.

Oh, and don't make the mistake of blaming the liberals for the travesty that is our national education system...one half of the community wants zero tolerance on guns and violence, the other half polices the library shelves and has no problems with weekly drug dog visits. No, this particular mess is the result of pushy folks from both sides of the spectrum, the sort that knows best how to raise not only their own kids, but everyone else's as well.

I know one thing for sure: my kids will not see the inside of one of those mediocre, soul-destroying, mind-numbing glorified day care centers. Quinn's schooling has already begun, and I fear that the quickest way to extinguish his already apparent love for learning would be to throw him into a pen with twenty other kids and have some state-paid career educator administer a curriculum that's a One Size Fits All solution for the bright, the average, and the slow.

No, thank you, and keep your frakkin' property taxes.

here we go.

The press is already taking the bloody ball and running with it. Major news outlet stories focus on the fact that Psycho Boy bought his Glock 19 legally, that it cost $570-ish dollars, and that the background check "took only a minute".

I have a feeling that the VT shootings are going to be to the United States what Port Arthur was to Australia, and Dunblane to the UK. There'll be a bill drafted within the month, and it will have a title that makes opposing it hazardous for political careers. (The other side of the aisle used precisely the same tactic with the "Patriot Act", so don't be surprised if the Friends of Sarah Brady in Congress take a book out of the conservative playbook.) It will contain a new version of the Assault Weapons Ban, a complete prohibition of gun purchases by non-citizen Resident Aliens, and anything else that Pelosi and friends can cram into it while the bodies are still warm.

I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but I'd be willing to wager a substantial amount of money on the likelihood that some congressional aides are already busy drafting the language. They'll introduce it at that critical time when the mass media has tilled the field with lots of reporting about how easy it was for Psycho Boy to get his gun, and before the public outrage about the crime has started to subside. (Of course, there won't be a word lost about how VT disallowed CCW on campus "to make students feel safe".)

Give it a month, tops.