Friday, April 16, 2010

The Weekly Roundup

Ashen Grounding
Volcanic eruption grounds thousands of fliers across Europe
It’s a shame that all these people are stuck wherever they are, but that is probably preferable to glass forming in the engine blocks and the planes crashing into the oceans, the mountains, or whatever terrains they happen to be over at the time. Right?
Washington Post

Busting Billionaires’ Bundled Bad Bond Bets
A Wall Street Invention That Let the Crisis Mutate
So let me get this straight. They put all their bad debts into one fund, then told a whole bunch of people to buy them. Then the value increased and they told a whole nother bunch of people to buy them, while at the same time telling the first group of people to sell them, knowing that the whole thing would go south and people would lose a crapload of money and the banks would be able to cry poormouth and then get over $700 billion of bailout money. All this going on right under the noses of the SEC. Wow, these regulators sure deserve kudos, huh? I guess it’s understandable, though. This is obviously a complex and highly sophisticated scheme that is at least an entire generation beyond, “hey, I bet I can tell you where you got them shoes!”
New York Times

Visiting Hours
Hospital directive gives gays a victory without the fight
You can’t marry nor serve openly in the military, but get this: you can visit one another in the hospital. Oh, and so can everyone else. Score!
Los Angeles Times

Here We Go Again
IDF troops kill Palestinian in clashes at Gaza border
Even with all the signs of the Armageddon—the earthquakes, volcanoes, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, explosions on the sun, atmospheric irregularity, global warming—Hamas and Israel just won’t give up until they kill each other with guns.
HAARETZ

Love That Dirty Water
Ex-Blackwater president charged in firearms case
Well, when you tour the Budweiser brewery you get free beer. When you tour the Hershey factory you get free chocolate. When you tour the greenhouse you get a free seedling. What do you expect to get when you tour the Blackwater facility?
Reuters

Perhaps The Worst Human Being In The World
Police: Man tortured 4-year-old to death for wetting his pants
Life in prison is way too good for this man. This person would bring down the curve for the entire prison population. What should happen is, this guy should be sentenced to die by the exact method that he used to kill this innocent little boy, except that however long it took him to kill the boy, the sentence should be carried out in double the amount of time. I would gladly pay my own way to wherever he is to be a volunteer executioner. What kind of family is this, anyhow? Too bad the mother’s sister and her friends didn’t start jonesing for their drugs earlier in the day or the boy might have survived. Unbelievable.
CNN

Stand And Be Counted
Low Census Response Rate Will Cost Tax Dollars
It’s official: people will politicize EVERYTHING. The constitution mandates that everyone be counted every ten years. If you don’t like the way it is done or do not agree with the results, work to change the process or amend the constitution. But does EVERYTHING have to lead to accusations and counteraccusations between “liberals” and “conservatives?” I mean, seriously.
Newsweek

King’s Ransom
Lawyer Doubts Larry King and Wife Will Reconcile
Well, if the lawyer’s saying it, it must be true. Is Larry trying to catch up with Lizzy Taylor? All the news you need to know…
People

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

And The Ban Played On

The big news of the day in Massachusetts is that advocates for the mentally retarded want to ban the word “retard” from the vernacular. Read all about it:


http://wbztv.com/local/band.word.retard.2.1527813.html


This is an important issue, and one that brings to mind the larger responsibility that we all have as Americans, to get involved and ban that which we find offensive, distasteful, vulgar, profane, and inconvenient. As everyone who has ever paid attention in civics class knows, there is an unwritten passage in the Bill of Rights, the Right to Never Be Offended or Inconvenienced. Therefore, it is our duty as patriots to ban books, words, ideas and, yes, lottery tickets. As referenced on http://tjshome.com/dumblaws.php, dedicated citizens are exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right by the thousands. Here is a partial list of banned things:


-New York, New York, the city so nice they named it twice, bans car horn honking. You might ask, then, why have car horns at all? Shut up.

-the McAllen, TX School District has banned pleated skirts, belts with designs, shoelaces with designs, ass-slapping, hugging, kissing, hitting, unstrapped sandals, and spaghetti straps.

-Abbeville, SC, bans spit

-North Carolina bans both lottery tickets and fortune tellers (what’s the point of one without the other, anyhow?)

-Dayton, Ohio bans homeless people

-New York bans murder (I think we can all agree with this one, except in extreme circumstances possibly involving the Clintons)

-Kaysville, Utah (motto: Happy Kaysville!) bans the donation of nuclear weapons (but, curiously, not the possession of nuclear weapons)

-Wyoming bans albino monkeys

-Honolulu, HI bans loud singing

-Grants Pass, Oregon bans self-service gas stations

-Kansas bans bare-handed fishing

-Mumbai, Arkansas bans smoking in the movies

-until recently, Boston banned Native Americans


I have to admit, I’m a bad American. Not only do I feel it necessary to question our leaders on their decisions, something that the founders never intended to happen, but I have not started a petition to ban even one single thing that offends or inconveniences me.


The mental retardation folks have inspired me. If these selfless men and women can give so much of their time and effort toward furthering the banning goal in this country, then I should at least do my part. The problem with the whole retard thing is that their ban proposal is very nonspecific. What does it mean to ban the word? Their proposal spells out no consequences for not abiding by the ban. Well, I will not make that mistake. I have very clear ideas in mind of what should happen to people who refuse to abide by the bans I suggest.


Tonight I announce my intentions to pursue bans on the following:


-people in the grocery store that stand in the middle of the aisle blocking passage while they bend down to examine every single can of La Sueur Peas for five minutes to decide which can is good enough to feed their family. And they always have their cart blocking the aisle in front of the other canned goods that law-abiding citizens would like to select. I suggest no less than $100 fine and 10 days in jail per violation.


-fat people who wear spandex. You’ve seen these people; don’t deny it. Mostly women, but also men who are at least 30 pounds overweight walking in the park, on the street, at the mall, in church, with skin-tight spandex and no underwear. That is without a doubt one of the most disgusting things to see. There should be an automatic fine of $10 per pound overweight, and there should be a “Biggie’s Law” whereby these particular offenders would be required to advertise in the local paper and send postcards to their neighbors identifying them as fat show-offs, so that people can choose to banish them from the neighborhood if they wish.


-Last, but not least, anyone caught feeding pigeons outside of a building entrance or exit should be shot without trial. For those of you who, like me, have been the unfortunate victims of hair-poo or getting smacked by a runaway pigeon in flight, ‘nuff said.


Let me know if you agree with me on the above bans, and if you’re willing to sign petitions to that effect. If not, let me know what you’d like to ban. Most importantly, get involved! Rally your neighbors, call your Congresspersons. It doesn’t matter so much WHAT you want to ban, it’s that you PARTICIPATE in the banning process. It’s what democracy is all about.