My soapbox page was getting too big, so I split off the old stuff. Here is the old stuff. The most recent item here is from the end of 2002, and it goes back to 1997.

 

In USA, Annual Drunk Driving Deaths > Five 9-11s

You remember how pissed you were on 9-11? Pissed that 19 mass-murderers would slaughter over 2900 Americans who were just going about their lives? Mad that they would do it on American soil?

You should be about five and a half times as pissed each and every year, at the American losers who think that our drunk driving laws can't possibly apply to them. Losers like this killed 16600 people in 2000 (check the above site for the reference), over five and a half the death toll from 9-11.

Except for the rare win-win when a drunk driver hits and kills another drunk driver, this is over 16000 cases of people having their lives stolen from them.

Get mad.

 

Palestine

I just finished War Without End, by Anton La Guardia, a history of Israel/Palestine, and I unreservedly recommend to anyone with an interest in the MidEast situation - though it won't fill you with optimism about the future.

For the first time, I saw the Palestinian perspective... the UN voted in 1947 (in a wave of global sympathy for the horrific Holocaust) to kick the Palestinians out of their land, and in many cases out of their homes, so that Diaspora Jews could move into those same homes and occupy that same land. We certainly wouldn't do that today... but we can't rewrite the past either.

It made me (Merkin) think about how I'd feel if the U.S. government threw our family out of our house so some N.A. Indians could move in.

In the past, I've been critical of the Palestinians for cheering the slaughter of innocent human life (ex: any suicide-murder & even the WTC)- and while I don't want to excuse that - let's look at it from their side:

They get kicked out of their homes and land with no recompense, and no one outside of the Arab world cares. They are forced to live in squalid refugee camps for decades, and no one is concerned. Innocent people are slaughtered by a heavy-handed Israeli military response, and no one is all that worried about it. In addition to Israel, they have fought with Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan regarding national borders and occupation. Couple this with inept (to put it mildly) leadership - and, is it any wonder we haven't exactly seen their best side?

 

Between Iraq and a Hard Place

Here's a table that helps me think through possibilities in the U.S. / Iraq situation. The U.S. picks a column, Iraq picks a row

   USA attacks Iraq unilaterally USA doesn't
 Iraq attacks someone unilaterally with new "improved" weapons of mass destruction, prior to a USA attack, if any.

 1) A potentially justified war with civilian casualties, arguably exacerbated by the USA, but Iraq will draw first blood.

Saddam is removed.

 2) The worst of the 6 outcomes. Bad scenario: Iraq lobs an Anthrax bomb into Tel Aviv, wipes out half of it. I don't think Israel could be stopped from nuking Baghdad. The survivors go to war. It is fear of this scenario that prompts U.S. consideration of a first strike.

Saddam is removed.
 Iraq attacks someone unilaterally, but without new "improved" weapons of mass destruction, prior to a USA attack, if any.

  3) A potentially justified war with civilian casualties, smaller than case #1, arguably provoked by the USA, but Iraq will draw first blood.

Saddam is removed.

  4) An unlikely scenario - Iraq attacks first, but with no more force than in '91. We have a replay of the a portion of the Gulf War, where Iraq lobbed some missiles into Tel Aviv. Saddam is removed
 Iraq doesn't attack first

 5) War, USA are the bad guys.

Saddam is out.

  6) Standoff, like today. The best of the 6 outcomes.

If we make the assumption that killing people is bad, we can order these 6 cases best->worst, like so:

6 (5 4) 3 1 2

Saddam may be a bastard - but even he has to know if he starts something, the world will take him out. For this reason, I think Iraq will not start something. Iraq is under the microscope, and I suspect that they will appear to behave.

This is elementary analysis - so why is the USA pushing so hard? Because as time goes on, cases 3 and 4 become less and less likely, and 1 and 2 become more likely. In this case, Saddam may choose to go with case 1 or 2. The result could be tragic for tens of millions of people. It is possible that the USA has intelligence information that has not been made public, that leads in this direction. We (the people) certainly don't know everything that Bush and his cabinet knows.

And, there is the possibility of a more insidious form of case #2... suppose Saddam brews some smallpox, and lets small amounts of it into Israel over time. Israel sees their smallpox rate (per person per year) go from .0001% to 5% with no apparent cause, with Saddam blustering ignorance all the while.

The other aspect that must be considered is the political. The USA will hurt its standing with most other countries in the world by choosing to strike first. Almost no one wants us to do it.

And the last time we tried to effect a regime change in a country was when we ousted Batista out of Cuba, and put in our man Fidel Castro... golly, that worked well!

So... there are reasons for and reasons against a preemptive strike. For the moment, I favor not striking first, and monitoring Iraq closely.

 

The stupidest lawsuit of 2002 - I hope

You remember that dude who sued a tobacco company because smoking is bad for you? (see below) That was stupid. And all those families of the 9/11 victims suing the airlines? (see below, again) That too was stupid. But this takes the cake.

Some fat guy in poor health is suing 4 fast-food franchises for making him fat and in poor health. I'm not making this up - check the link

This should be a quick case... the defense should say "Was there a man holding a gun to your head for the last 40 years, forcing you to eat this crap?" Unless The Loser can show that there was, this case should get tossed out in one second flat, and The Loser's extended family should be sterilized out to the 3rd cousin to nip these stupidity genes in the bud.

There's no difference between this suit and someone suing Craftsman because they hit their thumb with a Craftsman hammer!

 

Democracy is not a magic wand

I'm sick and tired of the Talking Heads on TV acting like democracy is an instant panacea to all foreign-relation problems between Murrica and (insert country here). Ya, I think it would be cool if, say, Saudi Arabia were democratic, but that's way down on the list of changes I'd like to see for that country. I don't care about the democratic opinion of a country that lacks freedom of the press, freedom of speech, that has a state-controlled education system, that lacks a fair system of justice, that lacks a constitution limiting the power of government, etc. All of these things are more important than whether or not they vote in a democratic way. (And, this just in: the USA is not a democracy!)

As if to underscore this point, here's a quote from the July 22 2002 issue of Newsweek:

"Last October the Saudi intelligence agency produced a confidential (ha!) poll of men between 25 and 41. Ninety-five percent said they approved of Osama bin Laden's cause."

That is a problem born of ignorance, and it is fixable (in the long term) by rewriting the rules of the education system, and ensuring freedom of the press. Until it is fixed - you want these people to vote?!

 

The Death Penalty / Runnion murder

I'm against the death penalty in theory... but in practice, I run across cases like the abduction, molestation, and murder of 5 year old Samantha Runnion, and I flop back to being pro-capital punishment. Thankfully, we have a suspect in custody, and there appears to be DNA evidence linking him to the crime. If he truly is the murderer, I don't want one thin dime of my tax $ going to give food to this animal. Just kill him. I don't care why he did it, and I don't care if he can be rehabilitated. The rule is: You never mess with little kids. Period. No exceptions. The suspect's mother said whoever committed the murder "should be burned at the stake, alive". I wish!

 

Fix Hijacking With Rocks

I've sent this to the FAA, but for some odd reason, they didn't drop everything and do it this way! Here's how to prevent future airplane hijacks: Put 3 fist-sized rocks in the magazine rack of each seat, and make it illegal to throw them unless the plane is being hijacked. Poof - problem solved, for about a nickel per plane. But, sadly, this is way too cheap and easy for the guvmint, I'm sure they'll come up with something far more costly and far less effective.

 

Pre 9/11 info: The Blame Game

One of the less charming things about America is our incessant need to point the finger. A perfect instance is all this new info coming out re: various intelligence agencies receiving pre-warnings of 9/11, and failing to act. Now, it is likely true that there was incompetence in the CIA, FBI, and just about everywhere you would look. But, let's be reasonable: The US probably gets daily threats from some defective humans, and it would be impossible to treat all of them as credible.

 

No Saudi Oil

There's an email making its way across the USA these days, arguing that by avoiding certain name-brands of gas, one can avoid purchasing oil from the MidEast. But the email I received contained no references or links to its data, it was just a column of numbers. Here at the House of Dave, we don't put up with that, so here's some referenced data!:

Here's a *real* reference from the US Department of Energy:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/data/summary.html

It shows chevron/amoco/exxon near the top, with significant ME imports.

And BP/Phillips/Conoco near the bottom - but not zero, as they were in the email I received.

According to this link, Shell imported only 69,000 barrels from the MidEast in all of '01, 2nd from the bottom, and yet they appeared at the top of my original email list& What gives?

Well, at the top of the list referenced above is "Motiva Enterprises LLC", which is Shell, which you can verify here: http://www.equilon.com/index.html. And, once you assign Motiva's barrels to Shell, Shell does indeed vault to the top of the list.

So, using Actual Data from the US Dept of Energy (available at the link above), if one wanted to avoid filling up with gas made from mideast oil, one would choose one of:

Diamond Shamrock
Conoco
Phillips 66
BP

These are the 4 I've heard of from the bottom end of the DOE list, who appear to have had minimal imports from the ME in 2001.

The ones Ive heard of to avoid, by this same metric, are

Shell
Chevron
Exxon
Amoco
Mobil

There are probably other relationships like Shell <=> Motiva that would kick one or more on the "recommended" list down to the "bad" list... I searched a couple names on Google, and was unable to find another link but I didn't search exhaustively. Update: diamond shamrock = valero, see http://www.valero.com/ This is making me doubt that there is any truly non- mideast-oil company!

I looked at the same list (as referenced on the DOE site above) from 1998, and the order was very different. There may be significant change in import practices from 2001 to 2002. In other words, the 2001 list referenced above may not be applicable to 2002. If not consuming MidEast gas is important to you, I'd recommend driving less! If that isn't a viable option for you, consider a hybrid car that gets much better mileage. And if that isn't viable for you either, see if you can start a grassroots campaign to pressure one of the companies at the bottom end of the 2001 DOE list to take their MidEast oil imports from minimal to zero in 2002 & advertise it that way. Many people would pay a 10 cent / gallon premium if they knew the gas they were consuming did not come from the MidEast.

 

Oh No, We're Losing France's Whole Support!

France is upset that the U.S. would consider the death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui (a French citizen), the alleged 20th hijacker, and is threatening to withdraw their support from the trial (re: providing evidence), and cooling relations with the USA in general:

Yo, homme, 3 points:

1) Your support has been bupkis for the last couple of decades.

2) Moussaoui is on trial for conspiring to murder thousands of innocent people. If he is found guilty, we'll administer justice how we darn well please.

3) You bunch of do-nothing hand-wringers haven't changed since you watched Hitler publicly rip up the Treaty of Versailles (the treaty made after WWI to constrain Germany) in 1935, and did... wait for it... nothing.

Thanks to Hamas, we're 20 years behind

OK, maybe we'll never have true peace in the Middle East. But - we could have at least had some kind of recognized truce and a sovereign Palestinian state. Hamas has continually worked to derail this process through their despicable and psychotic practice of targeting innocent civilians - most recently, of course, the slaughter of 20 Israelis, just as Israel and Arab leaders were meeting to discuss a long-term peace proposal. Smooth move - a Palestinian State was being discussed, but hoo boy, you put a stop to that. And you wonder why Israel would ever elect a hawk like Sharon... you have only your moronic, murderous selves to blame.

 

Kenneth Lay (former chairman of Enron), Master Of The Obvious

Enron was a large US energy firm that went bankrupt recently, and Kenneth Lay (and many other top execs) are currently being prosecuted for insider trading, shady accounting practices, and the like. Lay was getting a lot of public flak for hiding behind the skirt of the 5th amendment as he plead no comment in response to these charges during his trial.

As quoted in 2/25/02 Newsweek: "I am deeply troubled about asserting these [5th amendment] rights, because it may be perceived by some that I have something to hide." No! Really? People can be sooooo shallow and judgmental. I'm sure there are lots of other reasons... Like, uh... um... er...

 

More WTC lawsuits: OK, this is f-in crazy

Everybody in the USA feels your pain. Everyone feels and shares your anger. But some of the potential litigants in the WTC lawsuits are just plain nuts. Boeing? What did they do wrong? Why don't you throw Samsonite into the mix too - after all, I'm sure they made some of the luggage on board the planes. And who made the tires... Dunlop? Firestone? Sue them! Sue, sue, sue! Find some other deep pockets... this is the USA, so I'm sure we can blame them somehow. It sounds like a jobs program for lawyers.

Listen up: This country is already teetering on the brink of a recession, caused in part from the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Your worthless, money-grubbing, frivolous lawsuits aren't helping any - in fact, they're hurting. You don't need the money, you're already getting millions from the charitable pockets of the people of the USA themselves. Obviously, no amount of money can compensate for your pain and loss - but causing other people to lose their jobs and ensuring we all go down in a economic collapse won't bring anyone back either. Grow up. These companies are not at fault, and your government is already tracking down the scum who murdered your loved ones. If we do slip into an economic collapse, I'm suing you.

 

Assaulting a flight crew?

Are you kidding me? Some worthless bag of pus tries to light a bomb on a Paris->Miami flight, the passengers and crew forcibly stop him - and the charge is assaulting a flight crew? How about 197 counts of attempted murder? The bomb (some C4 explosive) was packed into his shoes. I say we throw the worthless bag of pus into a cell... and light the fuse. [this brilliant idea comes from my brother-in-law Tim]

Update: After reading my page (hah!), the worthless bag of pus (Richard Reid) now has a ton of more serious charges against him. He'll be locked up forever.

 

The first WTC-lawsuit arrives

Good grief - someone is suing American Airlines for wrongful-death in the WTC terrorist attacks. Splain to me zackly what AA did wrong... fail to predict the future? Put me in the suit also - I didn't see it coming either.

 

Osama's Momma sez he's innocent

Oh, OK. Sorry - guess we fingered the wrong guy. Thanks for clearing that up for us.

 

Issel, with the missle

Dan Issel, coach (and former player) of the Denver Nuggets pro basketball team, is getting raked over the coals for a "racial slur" he threw at a fan who was yelling at him after a(nother) losing effort at home.

As near as I can tell, this is what Dan said:

"<bleep-bleep>, you <bleeping> Mexican piece of <bleep>"

Now, the last time I checked, "Mexican" is not a racial slur. If it is, it is news to me, to several of my friends who call themselves "Mexican", and to thousands of Mexican restaurants.

Don't get me wrong - I think what Issel said was rude, vulgar, and entirely deserving of his subsequent 4-game suspension. But calling it "racist" is pushing the hisPanic Button.

It is interesting how in sports in the USA, the charge of "racist" is as bad as it gets. You can take illegal drugs (half of the NBA), steal money from a teammate, even beat your wife (Moon) or kill someone (Carruth) - and all that is more-or-less OK. But let fly one tiny racial remark that might be offensive to someone, somewhere - and you get pilloried in the press.

 

I'll start smoking for only 2 billion!

Well, you knew this would make my site. Some two-pack-a-day putz has decided (in true American fashion) that it can't be *his* fault that he smokes. A jury of intellectual midgets understands lame arguments like that, and awards the putz a total of 3 *billion* dollars. Let me clear a couple of things up for the feebleminded:

1) Cigarette companies sell cigarettes.

2) Cigarette companies want to sell more cigarettes than they currently do - but you don't have to buy them.

3) Smoking doesn't kill you, it just shortens your life. 100% of all nonsmokers die anyway, just like 100% of all smokers. Whether you smoke or not, there is a dirtnap in your future.

4) It is your personal choice to smoke. How hard of an addiction can this be to break, I'll bet 30 million people in the USA have done it.

5) The smoker who filed the suit said he wasn't aware of the negative health consequences of cigarettes until the mid-1990s. Did he live in a cave up till that time?

What's next, some fat dude suing Frito-Lay because their Fried Pork Rinds are unhealthy? If you think they are - don't eat them. If you think smoking is unhealthy (and everybody knows it is) - don't do it. Duh. It's your world, baby. Don't blame other people for your inability to make a choice that is fully within your power to make. And *if* you make the unwise choice to smoke, don't come crying to me if you come down with lung cancer a couple of decades later.

Oh - and if you're offended by any of the above, it's not really *my* fault. I'm this way cos of how I was raised!

 

The last Bill Clinton rant (2/15/01)

You couldn't do it, could you, Bill? You couldn't leave the office without one final act of stupidity. No, I'm not talking about the White House stuff that you and Shillary stole. That's small potatoes. I'm talking about your last-second pardon of Marc Rich. For those who haven't been keeping up, Marc Rich was charged with evading $48 million in taxes and trading with Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis. Marc skipped town over to Switzerland to avoid sentencing - and he's been there for 17 years. Now, he is free to reenter the USA due to the pardon. (oh, and I'm sure those Little Rock auto dealers were just as worthy as Rich)

Here's the truly damning evidence: Absolutely nothing changed about this case in the last 8 years. No new information, no new testimony - nothing. So, if Marc is deserving of a pardon now, he should have been deserving of a pardon in 1993, or 1994, or 1995, or.... you get the idea.

But there was one tiny little fact that *did* change: Marc's ex-wife Denise (who wants Marc back in the USA) began donating money (over 1.3 million) to various political contributions, ultimately aimed at Bill and Hillary. Denise also tried a word-of-mouth campaign, pleading Marc's case to several mutual friends. It is even possible that the money used for these bribes is traceable back to Marc.

Hopefully the Teflon ExPresident will twist in the wind on this one.

Question: Has any good ever come from this Presidential Pardon power? We now have over 200 years to look back on; with the wisdom of retrospect, has it ever been used well? No? Then let's get rid of it.

 

Hail to the Thief? Electoral college, changing the constitution.

I didn't vote for the shrub - but what is with all these "Hail to the Thief" dorks who are "protesting" the outcome of the 2000 U.S. election? Bush won the vote in Floriduh, he won the recount, he won the rerecount, and increased his lead during a posthumous examination of 10,600 previously-uncounted ballots. Based on this evidence - how can you logically say that Bore should have been prez? It's not like the loser gets the electoral votes.

People who say that Gore should be prez because he won the popular vote are living in some alternate universe where the popular vote matters. The USA is not a democracy, it is a republic. Gore may have also won the left-handed vote as well - but since that doesn't matter *either*, no one cares.

To people who say the Electoral College is an atavistic appendage left over from the 18th century... let's take a walk down memory lane. There were originally two reasons for the creation of the electoral college:

1) The people were considered too uneducated to vote "properly"

2) The EC gives more voting power (per capita) to the smaller states, so that the big states don't run roughshod over them.

In my opinion, the first of these rules has gone away - but the second has not. The EC is now enshrined in the constitution. We need a 2/3 vote in the Senate to change the constitution, and only 1/3 (at most) of the states have significant population. The remainder would be decreasing their political power. So - it'll never happen, and Shillary is wasting her time.

Now, that being said, perhaps the way the electoral votes are counted could change. Here's one possible proposal:

Currently, each state gets the # of electoral votes equal to the number of their Representatives plus the number of their Senators (2). We could let the two Senate-votes be winner-take-all and the Representative votes be allocated according to the popular vote.

 

2000 USA Presidential Election

An amazing election, it is probably the closest I'll ever see in my life. As I type this, 11/11/00, 4 days after the election, the outcome is still undecided, and the political infighting and posturing are getting nauseous.

 

Gack - the Carpetbagger is in the Senate

Evidentially the crazy people of New York were able to overlook Shillary lying for her husband, ignoring at least 20 years of marital infidelity, hiding the subpoenaed Rose Law Firm papers (later found in her bedroom), and using the Lincoln bedroom and the President as publicly-funded unfair campaign tactics. Congrats - hope you get the misrepresentation you deserve, and I'm sure you will. And, while I'm dishing out disses, 3 boos for the Republican party for nominating about the weakest candidate they could have, and 3 more for Guliani dropping out late. I'm not so much pro-Republican... but if option "A" is Hillary, I'll take "B".

 

Al "Anything for a vote" Gore and Bill "Worst Prez since Harding" Clinton

The oil-release fiasco is the latest installment of political stupidity and manipulation from the "most ethical administration in history" (BC's words.... I know, it's choice stuff). For those who haven't been paying attention, we have strategic oil reserves, about 400 million barrels, to be used in times of National Emergency (more poop). Only one other time in the past have we authorized the release of oil from this reserve in response to an national energy crisis. The Clinton administration decided to release 30 million barrels from the reserve, a day after orchestrating Al Bore to request the release. Bill Clinton, evidentially won over by Gore's eloquent entreaty, released the oil from the reserves.

This Just In: We are *not* in the throes of a national energy crisis now. Rather, we are in the throes of an incumbent VP's political manipulation and posturing that will evidentially stop at nothing in exchange for votes.

 

Shillary's Motel 6 at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Yo, carpetbagger, explain to me why I, a resident of Colorado, should pick up the tab for your fundraising efforts. The White House is not *your* house, it is *my* house - we let you live there because for some bizarre reason, we voted in your slimy husband twice. There ought to be some laws against behavior like this.

 

Washington Redskins

I can't believe it's the year 2000 (almost the New Millennium! :o) ) and we still have a NFL team called the "Redskins". What the heck is up with this? This should have been changed at least 20 years ago. In my book (though my heritage is not American Indian), team names like "Indians", "Braves", etc. are OK (though I think Wahoo needs to go) - but "Redskins"??? No way, no how. It's an embarrassment to the whole country - and the fact that they represent the USA's Capitol only makes it worse. Change the racist name!

 

Golf

Professional golf gets some heat sometimes for being a pansy upper-income non-contact sport - justifiably so, I guess. But one thing I like: The golfers get paid purely for performance. If they have a bad week, they have a bad paycheck I'd like to see some of that in the NFL and NBA!

 

The 2000 USA Presidential Election: Gush / Bore

There's 270 million people in the USA, and *this* is my choice for president? Two dudes seeing just how far they can ride on daddy's coattails. If their last name were "Smith", it's not clear to me that either of them would be elected president of their local PTA, much less the highest elected office in the land. I'd like to push the "flush" lever & start over...

 

Call for Congress to apologize for slavery

Civil rights advocates led by Rep. John Lewis re-issued a call to have Congress apologize for America's role in slavery. Check out the full story here.

This is the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time - and I follow American politics. The government of the USA fought and died to end slavery, this complaint should be directed toward Jefferson Davis and the Confederate government. How dare Lewis trivialize the blood sacrifice of the hundred of thousands of Americans - black and white - that died fighting for the Blue in the civil war?

And - even if the above weren't true, isn't there a statute of limitations on complaints like this? Does Lewis want Italy to issue a formal apology for killing Christ two thousand years ago? Does the government also owe an apology to women, for denying them the right to vote for 150 years, and according them de facto second-class-citizen status? Our society constantly evolves, and judging the past by the standards of the present is silly.

 

Disney's Kid Movies

I hate they way they perpetuate an objectified female stereotype. The women are so passive... Cinderella should tell her stepmother to stick the broom where the Sun don't shine & move out and get her own place. But no, they sit around and wait for their prince to come. Blech.

And another thing - all the heroines look like an animator's adolescent fantasy. All the good characters are good-looking. All the bad characters are ugly. We're pushing look-ism into the minds of our kids at a very early age.

 

Elian Gonzalez

Should live with his father. Period. Reverse the roles of Elian's parents, or make the Gonzalez family from Costa Rica, and we're not even having this debate. There are thousands of American children currently stranded in other countries, with bitter custody battles raging... we just weakened our side of all of them.

Al Gore has flip-flopped on this issue like a mackerel on a hot Florida beach... no real surprise, the only real difference between him and Bill "Worst Prez Since Harding" Clinton is that Al can keep it in his pants.

 

Christina Aguillera, Britney Spears...

Jessica Simpson, Molly Moore, Hoku... enough! Do we need more mall dolls with drum machines? Who buys this tripe? Mariah Carey has spawned an evil legion of bubblegum-pop ear-candy sound-alikes with zero musical depth. Just Say No.

 

Clinton's 1/28/00 State Of The Union Address

Blech. I liked it even less than last year (with the completely partisan crowd). Bubba just proposed that the world should be a better place. Of course it should, the problem is always in the means. Gore was leaning into the field of view like an 8-year-old trying to get on video. Between this and the debates... I'm thinking we should elect a president by lottery, like we do with jury duty. You get a note in the mail, and *bam*, you have to go be president for 2 years. Would it be worse than what we have now?

 

John Rocker

John Rocker is a pitcher for the Atlanta Braves who recently received more national attention than he bargained for for opening his ArchieBunker-esque mouth while in New York, and slandering several ethnic and socio-economic groups. The text of Rocker's remarks appear below, quoted, in dark blue.

"(New York is) ...the most
hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the [Number] 7 train to
the ballpark, looking like you're [riding through] Beirut next to some kid
with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS right next to some dude
who just got out of jail for the fourth time right next to some 20-year-old
mom with four kids. It's depressing."

On New York City itself: "The biggest thing I don't like about New York
are the foreigners. I'm not a very big fan of foreigners. You can walk an
entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English.
Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and
Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this
country?"

As a result of these remarks, Rocker is being forced to issue a formal apology and undergo a series of mental tests. Sportswriters are pondering whether his teammates will get along with him in the future, and wondering if he should be ousted from baseball. Several groups are calling for his permanent removal.

What the heck is up with this? If Rocker has a mental problem, then so do millions of other bigoted Americans who like to shoot off their mouth prior to loading their brains. As an American, doesn't John have the right to say stupid things? This whole issue is crazy... it's a PC witch hunt - and it establishes an unfortunate link between bigotry and mental illness. John isn't crazy and he isn't dangerous - he's just another jerk who said something stupid - which according to my constitution, he is free to do all day long if he likes. The whole issue smacks of intolerance-of-intolerance, the PC groupthink that says any lemming who has not been assimilated into the Borg must be defective... if I may mix my metaphors. Freedom includes the freedom to do and say stupid things. Rocker exercised his. Get over it - debate it if you must, denounce it if you have to - but do not for a minute advance the notion that Rocker had no right to say it, or that he must be mentally ill to hold his ideas.

And then the Atlanta NAACP, evidentially annoyed at representing one of the few ethnic groups that Rocker omitted from his comments, called for Rocker's permanent expulsion from the team. Get a friggin' life, people.

 

JFKjr/CB

I haven't seen anything funnier (in a macabre sort of way) than when they were questioning the Navy Rear Admiral about the search efforts:

Q: Will you be continuing the search tomorrow?

A: Absolutely. We have a couple coast guard crews on the way, some navy boats, and other local craft, all searching 24 hours a day for any sign...

Q: Is JFKjr getting special treatment because he's a celebrity?

A: Uh... um, er.... - that is..., nope. We'd do this for anyone who was missing.

Uh-huh. I believe *that*!

 

Deodorant commercials: Contrary to what commercials would have you believe, I do NOT worry about my personal body odor while playing basketball. If you play hoops with me (or with anyone, really), you're going to get some sweat on ya. I might even stink a bit. And you're supposed to deal with it.

 

Grammar: OK, ok, it's lame to criticize grammar. That's why I'm doing it in the privacy of my own homepage.

 

JonBenet Ramsey: I'm not trying to minimize the tragedy of JonBenet's death at all - the murder of a child is terrible. But - why in the world am I still (3+ years after it happened) hearing about it? Children get murdered in the U.S. every day, roughly two a day on the average. This means that over 2000 children have been murdered in this country since JonBenet's death. Why don't I hear about them every day? Is JonBenet's death somehow more tragic because she was cute (I prefer to reserve the oft-applied adjectives "beautiful" or "pretty" for people that have at least hit puberty)? The fact is that if she wasn't cute and from a rich family, we'd never hear about her. Proof: can you name any other child that has been murdered since? You can't, can you? You've forgotten Jessica's last name already.

 

Clinton/Impeachment Hearings

The whole thing makes me want to throw up. As I write this, 12/27/98, the U.S. House has voted on two of the four articles of impeachment. The sickening thing is the partisan voting. The Representatives in the House are voting on one of the most important issues they ever will face: the possible impeachment of a President (it's only happened once before, over 100 years ago), and 98% or 99% of the Representatives don't even think, they just give us the marionette knee-jerk party response (that is, all the republicans voted for impeachment, and all the democrats voted against it - with very few exceptions). Blech.

They should base their vote on one thing and one thing only: What is in the best future interest of America? If they were doing this, we would see significant variation within party affiliation. We don't. They suck. I'm voting anti-incumbent for the next several elections.

That being said, I'd like to see an investigation into the body-bag count that Clinton has racked up over the last decade or two, rather than investigations into abortive cover-ups regarding his ill-considered liaisons. I suspect he did technically commit obstruction of justice (depending, of course, on the definition of the word "of"), but I'm not sure that it is in the best interest of America to oust him for this.

If Big Willy could just keep Little Willy in his pants, we wouldn't have to even consider military-strike timing questions. We could just question the need for them in the first place.

 

Global Warming

It's pathetic, we're having this great conference in Kyoto on Global Warming, and we're not even discussing the energy technology that is orders of magnitude safer, cleaner, and more powerful than coal-fired power plants: Nuclear power. And Greenpeace - I can't believe I ever belonged to it - is there with a sign saying "No nukes! No fossil fuels!". If you're an environmentalist, as I most certainly am, and you're not pro nuclear power, you haven't done your homework. It's not that nuclear power is all that good, it's just that coal is so bad.

 

Dog People

What IS IT with people who own dogs? I don't have a problem people deciding to own 'em, it's a free country. But why do I have to hear about it? There are so many people who just can't wait to tell me some stupid thing that their dog did last night. Dog owners VASTLY overestimate the interest level of their audience. Either that, or I must have this genetic defect that makes me look like I'm extremely interested in the conversation when I am in fact bored outta my mind. My kids are 1000 times cooler than any dog, and I don't talk about them a tenth as much as some of my friends do about their dogs. So, anyone reading this who knows me personally and has a dog story they're just itchin' to get off their chest: I DON'T CARE. I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT. Unless your dog did something *truly* cool (like barking the Fibonacci numbers, or baking a cake) just keep it to yourself, or tell another dog owner. You deserve each other! There, I'm feeling better now. I'm still looking for the bumper sticker that says: Dog: The Other White Meat

Cassini and Nuclear Power

This topic is so special, I gave its own page.

Olympics

If I were king we'd have to change the Olympics around a bit. First, we'd only allow events that are a 1-on-1 competition (wrestling, etc.), or that can be measured in a fundamental way (height, length, time, weight, etc). Screw the events that have human judges. The way Skating is judged is a joke, and Gymnastics isn't much better. Events involving these activities could be devised so that they didn't have to be judged. Second, we'd have me, or people like me, in the competitions so that the viewers could see the difference between the average person and the Olympic competitors. Put me out there in the Men's 100 Meters, and you'll appreciate just how fast those guys are! But, I'll pass on boxing, pole vault, ski jumping, etc.

An event I'd like to add: We have 4 events where something is tossed for distance (shot, discus, javelin, hammer), I'd like to see something tossed for height as well.

 

State Lotteries

Does anyone else feel the state governments should not be in the lotto business? The message the states should be selling is something like: Work Hard and Get Ahead, not Hey, It Could Happen To You. It's also more than a little unethical for states to offer a game with such a low return that if it was offered by "legal" gambling businesses, it would be disallowed. It fosters a fiscal dependency on an income stream of dubious morality.

 

Miscellaneous

The Devil himself invented slot-head screws. Just had to share this.

 

TV

Why is America's Funniest Home Videos still on? How many times can you watch a dude get racked?

 

NBC's 1997 Asteroid movie

Absolutely every scene in this movie, from the opener of Annabella Sc-whatshername standing in a brightly lit observatory looking thru a scope reading off celestial coordinates, to the final scene of a couple battery-powered airborne lasers taking out a 5-mile diameter chunk of rock, was completely inaccurate from a scientific point of view. It was beyond ridiculous - they got *nothing* right. They spend 30 mil to make the movie, and they couldn't spend 3 thou (.01 % of their cost, I'd have checked the script for that much, and I'm sure there's any number of other geeks that would as well) to check their "facts". And it's not like the science was integral to the plot; it was more of a disaster-movie plot, human interest stories, etc. The science was peripheral. They didn't just get a couple of numbers wrong. They did (ex: it doesn't take an asteroid ~30 minutes to fall thru Earth's atmosphere), but the more serious errors were the premise behind the events.

A comet passes thru the asteroid belt, picks up some asteroids, and drops them off at Earth? Shaa, hright! Anyone with a bit of knowledge in this area can tell you that is absurd, fundamentally flawed. A comet doesn't have the mass to disturb hardly anything, and if it did, it sure wouldn't be big enough to harm Earth, and besides, it wouldn't carry the additional mass along with it. There were probably 100 events in the plot that were as stupid as this. Some threads went on in sci.astro and sci.astro.amateur on this topic; check there for more info.

Abysmal. Terrible. Sophomoric. Moronic. Insipid.

And then, to add insult to injury, TBS is doing its version of the same movie. An ad for this was in the April issue of Astronomy magazine. The full page ad shows a picture of Earth, with a bulls-eye target superimposed (looks like a near miss?), with the following text:

A rock with more destructive power than our entire nuclear arsenal is hurtling through space at 850,000 mph. Guess where it's heading?

Aaaaarrrrggghhh! They've done it again! There is only one number in this ad, and they dorked it up. Who are these morons? Why is it so difficult to get it close to right? At 850,000 mph, this object is not bound to the Sun. This velocity is way too big, by a factor of about 10, as any college Physics student could tell you. In fact, it's on the edge of not being bound by our galaxy. The movie is coming in a couple weeks; I'm sure we'll all carve it up on the newsgroups.