Category Archives: social

The things people say

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I have long believed that the only ones who actually listen to shows like Rush Limbaugh are far removed from me. I don’t mean in a partisan sense or simply based on ideology, I mean that I thought that those kinds of people lived in other regions of the U.S., regions far from here. Rush Limbaugh is only the first name that came to mind when I was trying to think of the very conservative radio shows, I am sure there are dozens of other names that I could have thrown out there had I been thinking about it. Not that it really matters for my purposes right now.

Hurricane Katrina was a horrible disaster that destroyed a major city. The same kind of devastation happens overseas fairly frequently but here in the good old us of a it’s pretty rare. Turns out that when it does happen we are woefully unprepared. For days before the hurricane actually touched shore it was common knowledge that it was going to be bad. I live in Arizona FFS and I knew it was going to be bad. When it hit, and when they got one of the worst case scenarios, everything went to hell.

Most of the people had already abandoned the city. The elderly, the poor, and the 24 hour convenience store clerks (which kind of fits into the last group) were probably about the only ones who didn’t flee. Why didn’t they flee? They couldn’t. People started offering up shelter for the victims by the thousands after the hurricane, before it though they would have just had to hike out of town and find a vacant lot to sleep in, hoping they could survive the storm in a vacant lot rather than their low-income housing unit. If I had been in that situation I would have hoped that the flood waters didn’t make it to my house, the other option seems a bit worse. I really doubt that the majority of the people who didn’t flee stayed back because they were stupid or stubborn. Poor probably but not stupid or stubborn.

The negligence of every agency charged with responding to disasters borders on criminal. From the City level all the way to the Federal level. There is simply no reason why it should have taken several days to get buses in there to start moving people out, why Wal-Mart (how I despise them) was the first on the scene with fresh water, water for christ’s sake, didn’t anyone other than Wal-Mart think that a city many feet deep in sewage and human remains might need fresh water? The response to this catastrophe was horrible at every level, I think that is a fair statement.

Today I overheard a conversation where I work, it was not pleasant. The man, whom I will call Cluelss, was talking to well, hell, I don’t know who he was talking to (the other person was behind me). Clueless started spouting some facts about the hurricane relief. “Bush had the National Guard on the borders of Louisiana on Sunday night. When they tried to get into New Orleans on Monday the residents were already shooting at them.” Only he didn’t say residents, he dropped the N-bomb, thus sealing his fate as being called clueless for my purposes. His racism aside though, does he really believe that? If the National Guard actually got to New Orleans on Monday, and if people started shooting at them, don’t you think it would have been pretty big news? The National Guard probably just wouldn’t have turned tail and run, it would have been a bloodbath. The only thing I ever heard about guns being fired in the beginnig was regarding people shooting into the air as helicopters hovered overhead, not shooting at them, but claiming the next shot was for the pilot if he didn’t land and carry them to safety. I suppose it will be quite some time before we know which of those versions is closer to the truth, but I am pretty sure that his version was spoon fed to him by someone on the far right of the political spectrum.

Clueless went on to say that our esteemed leader was actually in New Orleans on Tuesday (meaning the day after the hurricane hit) offering federal aid to the city. I just went and googled it up and it turns out that Bush didn’t actually visit New Orleans until the 12th (yesterday), a full two weeks after the hurricane hit, though in defense of Dubya it only took about a week for him to deliver on the Federal aid that he promised while he was in New Orleans still on vacation, national disasters be damned!

Clueless really believes that Bush did absolutely nothing wrong in this whole ordeal, not a damn thing. Stupid democrats are just trying to tarnish his reputation (as if we have to actually try to do that). Every bit of fault for the slow response is at city or state level. When the federal government tried to help New Orleans and Louisiana would not let them. I find that just as laughable as religion, but he sure seems to believe it. I guess a lot of other people are with him on that logic though, at least 50.1% at the very least. Somehow I doubt that that number is going to stand up after the federal handling of this disaster.

I was brought up thinking that this was supposed to be the United States of America. If the government isn’t supposed to respond to a disaster in a particular state then we would just be the States of America. That would mean that the federal government is a really evil, money stealing roughneck (sounds about right anyway). The funny thing is that people from every state in the union are stepping up and sending money and supplies to the ravaged area, some are even offering spare rooms in their own homes to the victims. That is what being United is all about. Common good. Not just common good for campaign contributors.

The apocalypse is nigh

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I suppose that I am a bit of a jackass, based solely on the title of this post. The world has been going to hell-in-a-handbasket for at least a couple of years (which I attribute directly to Dubya). Thing is that the weather patterns really are starting to look like my fuzzy memories from reading about the apocalypse. I mean with the tsunami’s overseas, then New Orleans turning into the biggest cesspool in recorded history, we may not have much time left.

If you happen to believe in any GOD, you really must be thinking that that GOD is really mad at us. If there actually is a God (or Gods) I guess I could see why. We have taken a beautiful planet and raped it. Invented chemicals that it can not break down; changed the course of many rivers to meet our own ends; placed lakes where they were never meant to be. Yes, if God created earth, people created earth 2.0 customized, which was good for a while.

Whether you believe in evolution, creationism or intelligent design, you must concede that the earth has been around for, at the very least, 3,000 years or so (what is the time frame for creationism by the way, I am far removed from my Christian roots). The earth went merrily about its daily business until pretty recently, probably the turn of the 20th century, then the shit started to hit the fan.

If there is a God, I am pretty sure that he never envisioned the day that mankind would start to screw around with the random rocks and chemicals that he left in the earth. Beyond that, I doubt that he would have ever thought that we would figure out how to create new elements from them that cannot decompose/degrade to start anew. If there is a God, he is obviously didn’t know that some of the chemicals we would manufacture would destroy the atmosphere that he spent so much time creating (though, in the King James version of the Holy Bible, he actually only spent one day on the Heavens and the earth, so not a lot of time). Still, we have found a way to destroy it. If there is a God, I guess now would be a pretty damn likely time for the apocalypse.

That all being said, I think it is just an odd coincidence that New Orleans has been turned into the largest, nastiest, bathtub on earth, so soon after the horrible tsunami’s overseas. Coincidences don’t have to have a divine meaning and, I, for one, think it is just that: coincidence.

Yet I ramble on…

The absolute worst thing about disaster is that it brings out both the best and worst in people. In times of tragedy there are two decidedly different attitudes: Help those in need, or, every man for himself. This is the truth in every tragedy that comes immediately to mind; For every man that offers his help to a stranger, there is someone that will lie, cheat or steal to make sure he survives.

It is extremely difficult to fault people who are involved in the tragedy for some types of looting; The stores are obviously closed, where do you get your diabetes medication? Considering that your house is now non-existent, and there is no one there to sell you the medicine, and you will die without it, how wrong is that, really? Of course stealing things like firearms, ammunition, electronic devices, etc. That is probably wrong. The news reports are never quite that specific though, they do tell the story when people raid electronic stores, or when firearms are looted, but what about the “looting” that is stealing medication for sick friends or family members? What about stealing pillows and blankets for people to sleep on while they wait for someone to come and help them? What about raiding the local supermarkets for canned food, as they watch the dead float by them?

I read a story today that said that another problem, possibly exclusive to the New Orleans disaster, is rape. Now don’t get me wrong, I have been pretty hard up a few times (pun intended) but I don’t think I would be able to rape other victims of the same tragedy (though put into that position who knows). It has to take some pretty weird logic to be thinking with “Little (add name)” when it is entirely possible that you may die. Come to think of it that is pretty sound logic; one more before I die… Not that I condone that sort of thing, just that as I typed it it seemed odd.

Of course, as usual, that one went way off course. The sentence where I said that “tragedy brings out the best and worst of people” was not meant towards any of the victims of the New Orleans disaster. I was going to go into details on the fraudulent “non profit” organizations that spring up after any tragedy. Though I don’t believe in a God, I hope those that try to profit through the suffering of others get their just due in this life (hopefully), failing that there is always the prospect of HELL, or being born again as a mistreated cat. All of which seem a bit too good for those that would try to scam people who just want to try to help out a little after such a tragedy.

The only organization that I would trust with my money for any donations is The Red Cross. They have been around a really long time, they do a lot of good, and they don’t telemarket. Also, if you have it in you, I am sure that there is going to be a huge need for blood (pun intended). The blood is free to give, the money comes out of your checkbook. Either way, I bet they will appreciate it.

That’s our Bush!

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Bush finally responds to the disaster in Louisiana. I don’t know exactly where I copied these lines from, fair use laws be damned!

Bush returned to the White House on Wednesday, two days early from a monthlong Texas vacation, to oversee relief efforts. Bush dismissed criticism that he didn’t return sooner as political sniping

Yeah it was probably just democrats trying to make him look bad, not that he needs any help.

“I hope people don’t play politics at this time of a natural disaster the likes of which this country has never seen,” he said.

Respectfully, Mr. Bush, that would be Way more believable had you not just done it yourself. With you avoiding it altogether for the week that it was coming, not caring for the first several days, then only coming home when you saw that it really was pretty bad…That is playing politics, mostly because you said that no one should be playing politics once you decided to come back. Everyone in the country, except you, seemed to know that it was going to be pretty catastrophic, now you dare to talk about playing politics?!!


On the return flight to the White House, Bush viewed the damage as Air Force One descended to below 3,000 feet over the hardest-hit areas, including New Orleans.
“The devastation I saw was very emotional. It is so devastating it is hard to describe it,” Bush said, adding that he observed flooded neighborhoods in New Orleans and “entire communities obliterated in Mississippi.”

So it’s all good. The leader of the country viewed it, briefly, from 3,000 feet…Many days too late…It’s all good!

Perhaps he needed to get a slightly closer look of the situation, you know, see the carnage, smell the stench of death flowing (well stagnating, as there is nowhere for the water to go) through the water… Something tells me that a 3,000 foot “fly by” didn’t really put him in mind of the actual situation. Bodies floating in a stagnant pool; people killing each other for a place on a bus out of there… It is bad. Bush actually said, on record, “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.” The truth is that everyone on earth, except him, thought that the levees would break. It is not Bush’s fault that they did fail, but it is entirely his fault that it took three or four days to make a plan of action once they did.

If you truly worship a god, Mr. Bush, please ask him to give you advice and advanced warning about events that might cost thousands of people’s lives. At the very least, find a god that wants you to help those in need (you know, the ones that are actually dying as a result of a hurricane while you are on vacation).

The longer Dubya is in charge, the more people that die because of his negligence, the longer it will be before anyone who is even slightly liberal votes republican. Do you have a death toll in mind, Mr. President?

Government proposes new SUV fuel standards

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I found this article on Yahoo today. My first thought was, “so it only takes the at the pump pricing to average $2.50 nationally before even Bush decides he, being an Oil Man, is really raping the American people.” But then I read the rest of the article. Of course since I found it on Yahoo it is most likely an edited version of some AP post. With that in mind, I am gonna comment on a few of the high(?) points of the article.

The proposal would require the auto industry to raise standards for most vehicles other than cars beginning in 2008. All automakers would have to comply with the new system by 2011.


Okay, so the problem has been building for all of time. It really began to show its teeth in the oil shock in 1979(?), now we are finally going to do something about it, after all this time! But, not right away. It will start in three years, then it will be a requirement in six years. Way to nip it in the bud fully grown, out of control disaster phase, then, wait another six years to go ahead and do anything about it.

But the plan would not apply to the largest SUVs, such as the Hummer H2…


Oh, so they don’t want to curb the fuel usage of the largest SUVS, they just want to make the small cars more economic with their fuel. What in the FUCK is that all about? Okay not really the small cars, just light trucks and other such, pretty much anything between an actual car and really big SUV’s are the ones that are covered. So light cars, since they have pretty decent requirements anyway, aren’t really covered. Huge SUV’s, since they don’t know the meaning of the phrase “fuel economy” are also not covered. It is only covering mid-sized trucks, which should have to have some sort of standard, but why not cover the really huge ones that consume the majority of the fuel? You know, the ones that the Bush administration gave people tax breaks for buying, the ones that only get 10-12 miles per gallon? Those ones are exempt, why?

Oh yeah.

“At a time when Americans are paying record prices for gas, the Bush administration has sided with its cronies in the auto industry and rejected real solutions,” said Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club’s global warming program.


This is a war on terror after all. How is it possible that becoming less dependent on foreign oil could possibly help America? That’s right! There is no way. It is our dependence on foreign oil that puts us into, and keeps us in, such quagmires as the situation in Iraq. That is obviously helping to change the world view of the U.S., we are now viewed as liberators (of the oil of whatever country we decide to invade next). And could it possibly be just a coincidence that the year slated for the beginning of Bush’s grand good passable new fuel standards happens to be the year that he leaves office?

Of course auto manufacturers are not at all set back by this, well, maybe a little bit

American automakers have cited a disadvantage against foreign competitors because sales of large SUVs, a major source of profits in recent years, must be offset by the sale of smaller models to comply with fuel economy standards.


So, they are at a disadvantage because they are selling huge, ugly, gas-guzzling cars, while other companies are selling small, sleek, cute, fuel-efficient cars? Why don’t they just go ahead and build some small, sleek, cute, fuel-efficient cars of their own? Oh, I got it. They can’t make ten thousand dollars per sale on cars that only cost ten thousand to the consumer.

Then there’s this:

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing nine automakers, said the “higher fuel economy standards will be a challenge, even with all of the new fuel-efficient technologies that are offered for sale today.”


These fuel-efficient technologies include such things as solar power, fuel cells, hydrogen (which most people are afraid of since a dirigible filled with the gas once fell from the sky), not to mention various patented technologies that vaporize gasoline before it reaches your engine (some engines in the 1970’s, running with v-8’s and carburetors were able to achieve more than 60mpg using that technology, and that was a simple consumer add on).

Do they really expect us to believe that they can’t do it? My guess is that, given the current administration, they won’t do it. I think the reason the fuel standards are supposed to come into play the year Bush leaves office is solely to make it look like he did something decent during his eight years. If Bush wasn’t an Oil Man, he would probably try to make standards to help curb fuel usage for generations to come, since he is an Oil Man, he offered a bill that slightly changes fuel standards, which will only come into play once he leaves office. He will leave office with very full pockets, but also as the least admired president of all time.

Mark my words.

Bush’s master plan

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Is it wrong to enjoy the fake news about Bush’s agenda more than the real news? Maybe. I will say that the fake news is far more realistic. Take this weeks top story from The Onion.

Bush Vows To Eliminate U.S. Dependence On Oil By 4920


Well at least there is a definite time frame there, something you would be hard pressed to get the Bush administration to assign to any of their current plans. Hell if the United States was led by Bush, or someone with similar goals, that might be far too optimistic of a goal. There would likely be more money going into deep space exploration to search for other planets with fossil fuels (which through some loophole would become the property of Bush’s successors) than to trying to harness all of the limitless sources of power that we already have, Solar and Hydrogen power for example.

The Onion frequently hits pretty close to home with its stories. This one is a bit too outrageous to fit into that context, but it is only barely satire. Bush is at the helm of the country, steering it with the confidence of a great and knowledgeable leader. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to realize that he is not a great and knowledgeable leader, and those around him only add to his confidence. My only hope is that his eight years of rule will not have soured the entire world to the U.S., and that, with more responsible leadership, the next generation of Americans will have a country to be loyal to, not a crater left by the simultaneous nuclear (nukular) bombings aimed here by every other country on earth. One can always hope.

There was one quote in that fake news article that made me write this post, one which I think is more truth than fiction;

The proclamation comes on the heels of Bush’s plans to pay off the national debt by the early 6300s, and win the war on terror by 7450.


Perhaps a bit too optimistic, considering the current administration, but certainly an achievable goal!

Pass me the duct tape!

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Kudos to NASA, who released this statement, “NASA: No Flights Until Foam Issue Fixed “. That should be a comforting thought, right? Well, when the article that it leads to is This one, I am not so sure. The last time an American shuttle left the ground heading for space some foam tore away from it, that led directly to the deaths of a bunch of people. What on earth were the people on the ground doing after that? I ask only because,

SPACE CENTER, Houston – NASA grounded future shuttle flights Wednesday because a big chunk of insulating foam flew off Discovery’s fuel tank during liftoff — as it did with Columbia — but this time apparently missed the spacecraft.


So they went ahead and investigated the whole spacecraft, yet neglected to look at the weird foam flying off issue? As if they didn’t have any knowledge that the foam would rip right off of the craft as it ascended towards the heavens (heavens meant as the clouds)? They had warning, it happened the very last time they tried to go to space…And people died.

This time was going way better though:

The chunk of foam flew off Discovery’s redesigned tank just two minutes after what initially looked like a perfect liftoff Tuesday morning. But in less than an hour NASA had spotted images of a mysterious object whirling away from the tank.

Wow, it took only two minutes for this mission to go horribly wrong. Is that a record? Probably not. As I recall the complete annihilation of the crew of the Challenger took only about, what, a minute? Technology is certainly making for better space flight (at least until they want me to board that death trap).

Was something done wrong to make the foam blow away? Were therulterioror motives behind the actions of those involved? I really don’t think so. Beyond that, I am pretty sure that it was good old ignorance that caused the problem, as opposed to terrorism. I certainly hopre that the crew make it back alive, yet, it would be a stern, in-your-face moment if they didn’t. That may sound crass, but the guy said:

“You have to admit when you’re wrong. We were wrong,” Parsons said. “We need to do some work here, and so we’re telling you right now that the … foam should not have come off. It came off. We’ve got to go do something about that.”

I didn’t put those words into his mouth. Though I would try crazy glue or duct tape before I sent the damn thing out again. It is a death trap as it is, not a lot of people going gung ho to jump on. I might, but I don’t really care whether I live or die. Perhaps that should be on thquestionnairere that you fill out. If you would rather live you are not qualified.

Stupid teen ruins it for everyone

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I must admit that when I was in my teens I would often fantasize about having sex with one of my friend’s Mother. Of course nothing came of it, not that I didn’t try, I even busted out the “I don’t bite either but I swing a pretty mean tongue” line. Still she wouldn’t succumb to my blatant sexual advances. She missed out on the greatest thirty seconds of her life.

But enough about me.

It seems that one mother was into fulfilling fantasies. She invited all the boys over for parties with alcohol, drugs, and sex! The trifecta! I am not sure that it is such a good idea to be giving the juveniles drugs, probably not alcohol either, for those offenses she should be punished, but the sex?


Johnson, who is free on bail, held parties for the boys almost weekly between October 2003 and October 2004, authorities said. She was accused of providing drugs and alcohol to eight boys and having sex with five of them.

Seriously now, those boys are in their teens, they have probably tried to masturbate with anything that they find laying around that has a hole in it. They have probably tried to buy sex from girls in their neighborhood, maybe even ruined an apple pie or two, who knows. Then someone just offers them sex, what are they gonna do? Damn right they are gonna take it. They don’t care if they have to fight off the crabs with a machete or scrape the puss away before they dive in, it is sex, the ‘Holy Grail’ of the teen boy.

As per usual, one of the kids had a big mouth and screwed it up for everybody.

Police said the investigation began after one of the boys told his mother about the encounters, and she reported it to authorities.

I’m sure that these boys have been traumatized by the experience, you know the no strings attached sex with an older woman. They are probably shells of the boys they used to be. That or they are so giddy about the whole experience that they went back for more every week for a whole damn year. I am pretty sure that the sex was consensual, if anyone was coerced into it it was likely not the boys.

Supplying drugs and alcohol to the kids was pretty stupid, but not unheard of. Better judgment could have been used there. But the sex, I am all for it. The woman did nothing more than give them what they wanted, is that such a crime (well I mean it is a crime, I was meaning that to be rhetorical).

An aside about teens and drinking. In my High School one student died as a result of driving drunk. The parents of the rest of the students decided that the best way to keep that from happening again would be to host (supervise really) the parties that they knew were going to occur (homecoming night and the such). There was alcohol at the parties, no illegal drugs though, and everyone in attendance was forced to surrender their car keys upon entering. Everyone had to stay in the designated house the entire night. The parents that were hosting the party had to get notice, in writing, from the parents’ of each of the teens in attendance. There were no more deaths due to drunk driving while I was in High School.

That plan (even though I doubt whether it was actually legal, yet everyone knew they were doing it, including the police) had the major problem of requiring the kids to tell their parents that they would be drinking, then the parents had to sign a paper allowing it. No one in my group would dare to tell their parents they would be drinking, much less ask for their approval. Instead we would just take our beer out into the wilderness (there is much of that in Oregon) to get wasted while camping out. In retrospect I am pretty sure that our parents knew what we were up to but thought it better that we do it while camping out than to try to drive home after. Probably a good call.

The same was true of lots of the other groups in my school though. I am not sure exactly how many people ever showed up to one of the supervised parties, but I can tell you that there were times when I saw half the school at a party on the hill. I have rather a humorous anecdote about the hill parties but I will save that for later. I have gone way off topic as it is.

Independence day

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Here in America the date July 4th has some significance, for virtually unknown reasons. In a survey that I saw recently, yet can’t find a link to, over half of the kids in America were not able to name the country that the USA declared independence from. Precious.

The actual event has lost so much meaning over the years that it is now more about a day off of work (for some), a day to drink excessively (for myself) or a day to just blow shit up. I know that a couple hundred years have passed since the war that liberated us from the British occupation of the states, but it is pretty simple to draw a few parallels between the British occupation of the U.S. in the 1700’s and the U.S.’s occupation of Iraq in the 2000’s.

In the 1700’s (and well before that), we were all just ripping off (and killing) the Native Americans. Every country on earth seemed to have had a hand in it. Name a nationality and marvel at what some representative of that country did to rape, pillage and/or plunder the virgin land and its inhabitants.

Now, instead of ripping off the land, we are focused on the oil. We are the oppressors, yet again. It may be disguised as a “war on terror”, that doesn’t change the fact that there is no way we would be in the war with Iraq (sorry, the war is over, we are trying to stabilize Iraq) if there was not a lot of oil involved. This is the wrong war to be fighting, at the wrong time to be fighting at all.

If the US media were not involved, and if you were to poll, at random, 1,000 Iraqi people, I bet that the number of them considering the U.S.A. “Liberators” would be a very small number. I bet that number would skyrocket if you asked the same group of Iraqis if the U.S.A. was an invading force that needed to be eliminated.

Iraq hates us, NATO hates us, all of the countries that are not in NATO hate us, what are you going to do now, Mr. Bush? Your legacy may well depend on the next decision you make about the war on terror. If you pull out you negate so many speeches about “staying the course”. If you continue to occupy Iraq there will be thousands more dead American soldiers…with no end in sight…I don’t care how good you were at the game “risk” as a child, this is life or death. And those deaths should be squarely placed on your shoulders, you made the call to go to war with a country that was no threat to the US, you forced a bill through congress to give you ultimate control, and you can’t dig yourself out.

Imagine the praise of the Iraqi’s when you finally make the decision to pull out. They will actually have democracy, and not the forced democracy of the oil crazed US, real democracy. I’ll call this pipe dreams 101.

Stereotypes

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Sure most stereotypes are a bit extreme; not all Venetians wear striped shirts and power little boats along with a big stick, all the while singing romantic songs (I suppose, although I have never been to Venice so I could be wrong). Most stereotypes do have a bit of a basis in fact though. Not necessarily when it comes to ethnicity, more so when it is about a certain demographic. Like the SUV driving people on cell phones.

Before I get into the story I want to make one thing perfectly clear, I am not intending to say that if you drive an SUV and talk on the cell phone that it makes you a bad driver, quite the contrary, I am intending to say that if you are a bad driver to begin with you are more likely to buy an SUV (for your own protection) and talk on the cell phone while driving it. I think that people who are actually good drivers don’t worry so much about the size of the vehicle, the number of airbags and such in their cars because it is their goal to avoid accidents, not to cause them and hope they live through it.

One other thing to throw out there before I continue, I think that SUV’s should not have power steering as an option. You should really have to work to move that big boy around. That would require using both hands to steer it, thus reducing cell phone use while driving. An added bonus would be that the ditzy little women who drive the SUV’s would not be able to steer it with both hands, making the roads safer all around. (Not everyone who drives an SUV is a “ditzy little woman”, not every woman is ditzy, there are also a lot of men that are every bit as ditzy. Lots of women would be capable of steering an SUV without power steering as well, just not the ditzy ones.)

While walking out of the local convenience store today, I was passed by a woman talking on a cell phone. She proceeded to get into her SUV (it was one of the larger ones, I think the Cadillac one, but I didn’t see the name plate), start it up and begin to back out of her parking space, never once looking anywhere other than straight ahead. A small sedan was attempting to pass behind her to get to the gas pumps, but was forced to stop to let someone walk from the gas pump towards the store.

Ms. Ditzy doesn’t know any of this of course, since it didn’t happen on her windshield and that was the only thing she looked at the whole damn time (I swear to god that woman’s eyes never looked towards any of the mirrors, she never turned to look behind her, she just started backing up).

The guy (I only found out it was a guy after the fact, not that it matters) in the sedan tapped his horn a couple of times to get her attention, but she never even looked around, she just kept backing up, pretty slowly, but still. The guy in the sedan locks up his horn for at least a full second, the chick in the SUV still doesn’t stop, doesn’t look in her mirrors, she just keeps talking on the phone. The guy in the sedan must have realized that it was pointless to keep honking, as he then turned to look behind him, and backed quickly out of the way. He honked a couple of more times after she got backed up, but she just put it in gear and drove off.

The guy jumped out of his car at that point and started running towards the SUV, but by then she was on the main street, merrily driving away, having no idea that she nearly just went monster truck on the guy’s little car. I went to talk to the guy (who I didn’t know, which is odd in this little town), and he asked if I saw what happened. Of course I saw what happened, but there was no collision, thanks to his quick reaction, so there was really nothing that he could do about it.

He did have a great quote though, “what was that bitch thinking?!” Well, if she had been thinking at all, she would have at least checked her mirrors before she started to back out of her parking spaces (yes, she was taking up two spaces with the SUV, well only the size of one parking space but she parked over the center of the dividing line). I asked him if he had insurance, he said that he did, so I asked why he didn’t just let her back right up over him (his car being at least fifteen years old). He made a pretty good point, his car was so old that the insurance payment wouldn’t be able to replace it, although he did say that he really thought about it.

Maybe the woman in this particular SUV was the exception, maybe the majority of ditzy bitches that drive SUV’s while talking on the phone are really good drivers, I dunno. What I do know is that she reinforced the stereotype (deserved or not) that SUV’s and cell phones don’t mix.

Proud to be an American?

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So it turns out that the state of Mississippi is no longer racist. Really. Check out the headline:

Ex-KKK Member Convicted in 1964 Killings

So, forty-one years after the crime they finally came up with enough evidence to convict one of the killers! That is great news! Unfortunately that is not the news at all. According to the article the same man was tried for the much lesser crime of violating the civil liberties of the victims in 1967 and walked away without a conviction.

I know this all happened a long time ago, at a point where the south was still pretty pissed off about the abolition of slavery and certainly not ready to treat people of color as equals. I will go one step further to say that I don’t think they are any better today than they were in the ’60s. That being said, you would think that there was some sort of concrete proof in this trial, right? Nope. Most of the people who testified in the ’67 trial are dead so their statements, from the court records in that trial, were the only thing that it took to convince a contemporary jury of his guilt.

The thing that really pisses me off is that the asshole isn’t being put to death, in fact he was not even convicted of murder. Why? It seems that, ” Killen, a bald figure with owlish bifocals, sat impassively in his wheelchair, an oxygen tube up his nose, as he listened to the verdict.” Yeah, he is an old dude, he used to be in the KKK, he killed (or had a hand in killing) three people (two white, one black) but, he is/was a preacher, therefore it never really happened? I guess the jury must have conceded that it did happen but would the charges have been reduced to manslaughter if he happened to be younger, or, heaven forbid, a man of color?

Another wonderful quote comes from some guy that doesn’t live anywhere near Mississippi (like me), but who also doesn’t seem to know the story, “On the one hand, this guy needs to be convicted. And on the other hand, the state needed to present better evidence,” said Paprocki, 54, of Philadelphia. Great sentiment, except that they had all of the evidence when the thing went to trial in 1967, since they had to use the testimony of dead people to get a conviction today.

I am just a bit skeptical about whether Mississippi is really trying to show that they are now an equal races state. If they really are, why didn’t they try the guy again years ago, you know, before he appeared to be a decrepit old man? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, they were figuring that no jury would convict someone in that condition?

Would you, if you are/were (a la Michael Jackson) not white, be comfortable walking down the streets in any town in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia or the rest of the deeply racist states after dark? I for one know that I wouldn’t be. Hell, I might not even be safe since I am 1/4 Native American, makes for darker skin you know.

As George W. Bush would likely say, “God bless America, and all the white people who live here.”