Senate Seals No-Contact Sex Assault Loophole

Ok, so as I read this article, lots of thoughts ran through my head. Like how sad it is that we need to have a law to tell people not to shoot a load in someone else's face without permission, why on earth would someone do this, anyway even when drunk, what does Kobe Bryant think of this law, things like that. But nothing I felt compelled to post about, until I saw this part:

The three men, according to the affidavit, watched a pornographic video on a computer and took turns ejaculating on the student's face and body. When the woman woke up, she thought she had drooled on herself, the affivadit says. The next day, the affidavit says, Skvirsky sent the woman an instant message that stated that they "were really drunk" and had ejaculated on her.

Ok, first of all, if it's on your face AND body, just what kind of drooling problem do you have, anyway? And if you can't tell your saliva from semen, then there is either something wrong with you, or something wrong with those guys. Whichever it is, someone needs to go see a doctor. But finally, of course, I have to wonder, if you got drunk and did something so incredibly stupid, then you somehow get away with it, why do you confess to it the next day? If the victim can somehow think she drooled on herself, just leave it at that, she's better off without knowing this happened to her. This is the kind of thing you should be ashamed of for the rest of your life, never tell anyone about, and never again speak to the other two guys who know what you did.

This is fucking awesome

Ok, so maybe that's a tad overstated, but this is a great video. As a Mets fan who started watching baseball seriously around about 1984 and someone who played countless hours of RBI Baseball (Graphics aside, the best baseball video game ever), this is great on a lot of levels. The nostalgia of going back to 1986 and reliving part of my favorite baseball game ever along with the great gameplay of RBI baseball.

Check out some of the comments on the video:

If 2004 hadn't happened, I'd be dead in my cube right now. As it is, this is brilliant. Excellent work.

Yeah, Red Sox fans should now idolize Buckner for helping to make 2004 that much more special.

Fantastic. I can't say I've seen anything cooler in my life, and that includes the birth of my first child.

Ok, so that's a bit much, but it shows that this thing can be appreciated even if you're a lousy father.

And my favorite comment.

This is the greatest achievement in the history of mankind.

As much as I remember this game, it's interesting to hear parts of it again that are all but forgotten. Most importantly, that the game was tied when Buckner missed the ball, so it's not like they win for sure if he gets it, which seems to be glossed over while everyone is criticizing the poor guy. Also as mentioned here, shitty job by the Boston bullpen. And finally, great job of hanging in on that at bat by Mookie Wilson. Ten pitches, and he fouled off six of them. Oh, and good job of foreshadowing by Scully by pointing out all the errors.

Finally, you have to appreciate the guy who put this together which must have been a pretty hefty task. Getting everything timed just right, and situations set up correctly must have been a bitch. I'm sure some of it could be handled with the editing, but some had to involve some pretty frustrating methodical gameplay. Especially when not being able to play Home Run Derby, which is really what RBI Baseball is all about, hitting the long ball. Anyway, that's after he must have found a working NES, and a copy of RBI Baseball, which he must have had to blow into for about an hour to get to work. And of course something to wedge it into the NES, since the springs on all those things ust be broken by now. Unless he did it on one of those newer models, in which case, he deserves far less credit. Anyway, check it out. Great stuff.

Thanks to Ace at Slack LaLane for finding it.

Bush the Terrible

I'm responding to John's post below, but it ran a little long for a comment. Very good post.

The escalation of this administration's abuse of power is clear and staggering. So now they assert the right to eavesdrop on citizens within the US without oversight. They've already asserted their right to detain American citizens without trial. What's to stop them from detaining citizens based on information obtained through illegal wiretaps?

The wingnuts will complain that this is war, and we just don't understand the dangers. That's an abdication of responsibility. If congress and the Supreme Court allow this shit to continue, the only check we have between democracy and tyranny is the goodwill of the administration itself. Even if we gave them the benefit of the doubt, and assumed that they really have our best interests at heart, that's still no consolation. Many dictators truly believe they're doing what's best for their people. And I don't believe the people in this administration have anyone's interests at heart except their own and their buddies.

So what can we do? Keep up the pressure by keeping these issues in the spotlight, contact our representatives, and hope like hell the Democrats get at least one house of Congress back this year. They may be spineless, but if they have a majority, I think it'll be much harder for Bush to get away with this shit.

Local Teacher's Run-In With Homeland Security Creates Insecurities

Thanks to Misty at Shake's place for this post, which describes a ridiculous and rather scary abuse of position by some goons from the Dept of Homeland Security. I live in Jacksonville and I hadn't heard about this until I read the post.

So these guys are officers. Big fucking deal. They could be FBI, CIA and NSA, and if they pulled into a school loading zone, they should be asked to leave or provide a good explanation of why they had to be there. I see that Mr. Pickett is suing, and I wish him luck. The people we put in authority have to show better judgment than this, and if they abuse their positions, they and the organizations they represent need to be held accountable.

Mom Dies After Boy's 911 Call Considered Prank

This is awful. My 6-year-old knows to call 911 in an emergency. I hope someone would believe her if she had to do it. I know that they get a lot of prank calls, but isn't a 911 call a case where you have to assume it's real everytime? Do what you need to do to crack down on crank callers, but I would feel much safer knowing I could trust the operators to take all the calls seriously.

Gonzales says calls in U.S. could be tapped without warrant

Well, this throws about half of the popular arguments in support of Bush's monitoring of international calls out the window. What's it going to take for people to realize that this administration is going to keep expaning their power until someone makes them stop? First, Bush wanted the Patriot Act, and so he stressed that any monitoring could only be done with a warrant. Then his illegal NSA program was revealed, and they stress that it's just about international calls. Now, apparently they wouldn't rule out monitoring domestic calls. Is it really such a stretch to think that some, just some of the calls they are monitoring have absolutely nothing to do with terrorism? I don't think it is. Especially since, if that were the case, all they would need to do is demonstrate that to a court somewhere and almost no one would give them any crap about it. Since they won't do that, there's no other logical explanation than that they are doing something different than what they claim. They may even be doing it with good intentions and the firm belief that it makes us safer, but that doesn't change the fact that it's against the law and is not their decision to make.

Also, I'm tired of all the roundabout legal explanations we get for why the President has authority to do these things. Besides the fact that they are all bullshit and don't really apply, they don't address the real issue. Frankly, I don't give a fuck that if the President has some obscure legal authority to listen to my phone calls through some loophole or legal manuevering even it is completely valid. The point is that he should not have that power. Instead of Congress tripping all over themselves to legalize what the administration is already doing, they should be telling the President that he has broken the law and needs to stop, and if he somehow manages to pull some valid legal justification out of his ass for why he has the power to do the kinds of things he's doing, then Congess needs to take steps to take that power away from him because he shouldn't have it.

American Inventor

I'm really enjoying this show. Not because it's particularly well done or anything (it isn't), but just seeing the people and thier inventions. Especially the extremes, the really good ones, or the really bad ones. The best part is the really bad ones where the people seem to have no idea that it's a terrible idea. If you've spent countless thousands of dollars, and years of your life on something, and it hasn't gone anywhere, you might need to consider that it's just a lousy idea.

Anyway, like on American Idol, this show seems to have people on it who are just out to get on TV by being ridiculous. Like the woman tonight with the CD of her repeating herself for some unknown purpose, or the human centerpiece that kept forgetting her pitch, and had to start over from the beginning each time no matter how far in she'd gotten. But with those car armor people, I just have to call bullshit. Those people had to be actors with a made up story. If not, then it just makes me sad for humanity. Anyone else watching this show?

Bush said to have approved leak of Iraq data

Back when all this stuff was swirling around Rove, and everyone was suggesting that Bush should just go ask Rove if it he had leaked the information or not, I posted something about Bush not needing to go ask Rove anything, because he obviously knew what was going on the whole time, and if he didn't explicitly authorize it himself, he probably led someone in that direction. Either that, or he's not really in charge of anything anyway. I'd look up the post, but blogspot is blocked here at work, and I'm too lazy anyway. Anyway, the point is that as big a story as this is, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. What might be surprising is that someone is actually finally saying things that are painfully obvious to anyone paying attention. Anyway, it seems that it's pretty much a done deal that Bush is above the law in the minds of most people who follow these things, so I doubt this will have much impact, unfortunately. Even if Bush came on TV and admitted to this, he would go on to explain why it was necessary to keep us safe from terrorists, and that would satisfy anyone in Congress with any power to actually hold him accountable for it.

Maybe, just maybe, if the Democrats can regain control of Congress in the midterm elections, something may come of this. But even then, although the Democrats are pretty anti-Bush, they're also spineless and reluctant to do anything that might indicate that they actually appreciate the position they hold. If they can't even get behind a censure resolution, which only seems to politely ask the President to follow the law, then I don't see why they'd do anything more significant. However, I still hold out hope that one day, someone in power in this country will remember the ideas it was built on, and decide to stand up for something for once.

Sources: Tom DeLay to leave re-election race

Good. And good riddance. I just wish he would take some of his buddies with him. I really like this line:

The reason for DeLay's departure was unclear.

Yeah, that's a puzzler.

Jesus Fucking Christ, his name is Billy DOnOvan, with Os

I just can't stand it anymore, why can't Billy Packer say Donovan? It's not hard to pronounce. All night long, Dunavun, Dunavun, Dunavun. Either shut up or say it right.

Rice admits multiple Iraq errors

Way to admit your errors. Nothing specific of course, or any offer of anything that might eliminate or even reduce future errors, just an offhand remark that she's sure we've made some. Way to go! It really says something about this clusterfuck of an administration that this little nothing comment actually makes headlines. I like this part too:

the US had no desire "to be the world's jailer", and that Washington wanted "the terrorists that we capture to stand trial"

That's interesting since they've pretty much thrown up every obstacle that they can think of to avoid silly things like trials. But I guess that will change now, I'll be holding my breath...


...


Any trials yet?


...


Ok, I give up. Anyway I thought their official position was that these people should be happy if we just don't torture them too much. Well, at least one thing I agree with her on, is that history will judge these decisions correctly.

NFL - No Fun League? NFL might rein in TD celebrations

Why does anyone in the NFL think this is a problem? Sure, a lot of endzone celebrations are uncalled for, bad, and we would be better off without them. But some are good, creative and make the game that much more entertaining. The best way to make them go away though, is not to make rules against them, but to ignore them. If the league is really so opposed to them, treat it like they do when a fan comes on the field, and turn the camera away. Of course they won't do that, though, because they want to have it both ways. Some celebrations are fun and add to the game, and some suck and take away from the game, but all these stupid rules against them only take away from the game.

Technology keeps teens awake, study shows

Why do people always want to blame common, ordinary problems on technology? Like all the people who seem to think that rude people suddenly appeared on the planet along with cell phones. When I was a kid, I used to read comic books under the covers with a flashlight, then when I got older, I would stay up and watch TV. If there had been an internet, or cell phones, I probably would have stayed up late using those. But it wouldn't have been because of those that I stayed up. Kids like to stay up late, technology or not.

Someone should do a study on why people continue to study nonsense like this while ignoring so many real issues in the world.

War on Halloween

I wish I had thought of this, but John and Robert mentioned this in the comments of the War on Easter post below, and I think it's a great idea. When October rolls around, we need to raise the call far and wide about the religious right's War on Halloween. Every time they have one of their 'Harvest Festivals' at some local church, we need to complain. It's an affront to all of us who love witches, ghosts and the walking dead.

Vision America: A 'war' on Christians? No.

If I was one of the Christians who was truly persecuted back in the day, I'd be pretty ashamed to be associated with this bunch of whiny little pussies. I don't know how our government or society could be any friendlier to religon in general without actually exstablishing a theocracy. And I know a lot of these nutjobs probably actually want that, but if we had it they'd still be whining because it could only possibly fit in with the beliefs of a small percentage of them. And because whining is what they do.

There are stricter limits on explicitly Christian expression in schools and other public settings. There is growing public acceptance of homosexuality and out-of-wedlock births, while television and movies seem awash with sex, nudity and profanity.

The only one of these things that's even slightly negative is the acceptance of out of wedlock births. But if these idiots really have a problem with those, they could actually start supporting the things that prevent them. Like birth control, freedom of choice, and sex education. As for the other things, I don't see any problems. There are stricter limits on Christian expression in public settings because everyone in these settings isn't a Christian, that seems pretty simple to me. As for acceptance of hommosexuality, that's called progress, and it's painfully slow anyway. Sex, nudity and profanity aren't bad things at all on TV or in a movie, they make it much more realistic. And if you're worried about your kids, then supervise them. If the worst thing they ever see is a fraction of a second of a partially uncovered breast on TV, consider yourself lucky.

Hollywood is producing more Christian-friendly movies while Christian news media, Christian music, Christian novels and other forms of Christian pop culture continue making their strong mark on society.

Very true. All anyone has to do is look at a book like Left Behind being on the bestseller list, despite being an incredibly poorly written, boring piece of crap to see that people are accepting of Christiam friendly entertainment even despite its lack of quality. Seriously, has anyone else read this garbage? It was easily the worst book I've ever read.

If these nutjobs are really so intent on feeling persecuted, ship them all off to Afghanistan. Maybe then they'd realize how good they have it here.

Former embryo (t-shirt)

After seeing stupid "pro-life" t-shirts like this one, I've decided to start my own line of pro-life apparel. Mine will say:

Former Sperm* - Pray to end Masturbation**

and

Former Egg* - Pray to end Menstration***

* Imagine cute little egg and sperm graphics
** I think this one may be a tough sell (not the shirt, the ending masturbation part)
*** I'm sure this one will be easier, no one really cares if women control their own bodies. I'm not sure exactly how to go about it, but I'm sure if we put our heads together, we can find a way. Won't someone please think of the eggs?

Thanks to Shakesspeares Sister for finding this nonesense.

V

So I went to see V for Vendetta over the weekend, and after my initial disappointment that it had nothing to do with aliens taking over, I found it to be very good. When I first heard about the masked guy, I was skeptical that that could be done very well, but it really was. I'd recommend seeing it if you haven't already.

One (extremely) small complaint. I noticed a Dell monitor on the inspector's desk. And while, I'm normally a big fan of product placement (I'd rather see a character drinking a Budweiser than some bottle that just says "Beer" on it), it didn't seem to fit in this situation. Since the United States was apparently in some kind of turmoil, I find it hard to believe that Dell would have ever even existed, much less become big enough so that people in London were using its computers. Maybe it was supposed to be a different Dell.

Anyway, good movie. Very timely.

'6/6/06' sky banner sparks concerned calls

People just get stupider and stupider. Can anything unusual happen anymore without someone freaking out and thinking it's terrorist related? It's not like we've seen some rash of terrorism that would logically make people think that way.

Noting that June 6 is a Tuesday, she drew the connection to Sept. 11, 2001, also a Tuesday

Wow, that's quite a connection. With parallels like that, it almost has to be terrorism related. There are six other days that it could have been, the fact that it falls on a Tuesday, like September 11, 2001 did is clearly far too unlikely to be coincidence. What are the odds?* And anyway, it's not like there's anything else at all significant about that date.

On a related note, I feel sorry for the all the little fetuses that are headed toward being born on that date. As annoying as it is when people make fun of you by calling you Howard the Duck, it's probably worse to be called the Antichrist.


* After some calcultions, I've determined that the odds are about 1 in 7. Wow! 1 in 7. Someone raise the terror alert level to 'Blind Panic" please.

Scalia = jerk

Two Scalia quotes about Guantanamo detainees -

"War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts," Scalia said in the talk at the University of Freiburg, according to Newsweek. "Give me a break."

...

Scalia, asked at Freiburg whether detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have protections under international conventions, gave the suggestion short shrift.

So they don't have any rights under US law or under international conventions. And you know, even if that was correct to the letter of the law (although I don't believe it is), it's obvious that that's not where Scalia's coming from here. He's comfortable relegating an entire group of people to subhuman status without benefit of due process. It's nice to know that one of our nation's highest jurists has such respect for his fellow man.

I know that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights doesn't have the force of law, but The 1968 United Nations International Conference on Human Rights decided it "constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community" to all persons. Oh, wait, I forgot, we don't listen to those UN pansies.

War on Easter

I was reading this post over at Shakes today. As an atheist who hosts an annual Easter party, I think it's safe to say that Easter, just like Christmas, is safe.

Clerics to West, Karzai: Back off Christian convert case

This whole case is ridiculous. The thing that strikes me is the way religious tyranny is addressed differently than secular tyranny. It's as if the fact that these immoral laws are Islamic gives them some sort of credibility. Here's a quote -

The trial highlights a conflict of values between Afghanistan and its Western backers -- notably American Christians who cheered the administration of President George W. Bush when it toppled the oppressive Taliban regime in late 2001.

So executing innocent people is a "value" now?

Gas Prices - MSN Autos

This is interesting. I'm always hunting for the cheapest price on gas. I'll have to check this out to see how accurate it is. If nothing else, it looks to be a good guide to what the average price is in the area.

Space Mountain Secrets

Yes, I suck. But I do have the Space Mountain video. For everyone who's ever wondered what Space Mountain looks like with the lights on, here it is. It's definitely more closely packed than the typical outdoor roller coaster.

Inside Space Mountain

Bush denies Iraq is in civil war

I posted about this quite a while back, but with all the talk about it recently, I thought it was a good time to restate my thoughts on Iraq Civil War. It seems to me, even though we've lost way too many Americans in this stupid war, the vast majority of the people killed have been Iraqis, killed by other Iraqis, or insurgents or terrorists, or whatever it is we call them this week. If that doesn't qualify as a civil war (and it has for some time), I don't know what does.

But much like the pointless debate about Tiger Woods' Grand Slam and whether it was technically a Grand Slam or not, the debate should not be about what to label it. Who gives a fuck? It's still the most impressive achievment in golf. And whether we call what's going on in Iraq a civil war or not doesn't change the fact that it's all fucked up over there, and whether we leave or stay, or whether we're right or wrong to be there in the first place, someone needs to come up with a better fucking plan than repeating how great things are going despite the fact that it's clearly bullshit.

I'm not dead

I just went on vacation. My brother was supposed to post during my absence, but he sucks. Anyway, I'm back now, and regular posting will resume whenever I feel like it.

We went on a cruise to Key West and Nassau, then when we got back, went to DisneyWorld for a few days with my brother and his family. We had a lot of fun on both trips. We got to see Space Mountain with the lights on. I have some cheesy video from my cell phone that I might post if I find the time, and my brother has some video of it from his camera that's probably better, but I doubt he'll post it, since, like I mentioned above, he sucks.

There were lots of things I thought of to blog about while on vacation, but I've forgotten them all by now, so you're all (whoever is left) deprived of my witty thoughts on tourists, exotic locales, and the happiest place on earth.