Monday, November 30, 2009

Huckabye-bye

We here in the Northwest are generally pretty proud of most of our local law enforcement folks. When one of them is shot in the line of duty, everyone gets pretty upset.

We're pissed as hell right now. Some of us at Mike Huckabee, former Governor of Arkansas.

Four police officers in the Lakewood area of Tacoma were slain today in a coffee shop. A man came in to the shop, was sitting at the counter, and suddenly turned and opened fire on the four officers in what has been described as an assassination. Another officer fought with him, shooting him non-fatally, but getting shot in the process. As of this time today, he has not been found. This suspect's name is Maurice Clemmons. He is still classified as a suspect, but I would guess that if he doesn't turn himself in, he can be looking forward to death in some sort of shootout. As most cops will tell you, cop-killer suspects have a much greater life expectancy if they turn themselves in. Putting yourself at a patrol cop's "mercy" after executing four of them (even if you're only a suspect) is considered, ahem, foolish.

Why is this relevant to Mike Huckabee? Well, it turns out that he paroled this guy back in Arkansas. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then, but the suspect has recently been in court in Washington (he moved here) for both violent offenses and child sexual abuse. So there's going to be plenty of blame to share. But Huckabee paroled another guy, Wayne Dumond, who did far less after he got out of prison. And it pretty much scuttled Huckabee's ever gaining the presidency. After Mr. Clemmons, Huckabee's gonna have a lot of esplainin' to do.

Now we have another case, where someone appealed to Huckabee's Christian teachings, which, while noble, have nothing whatever to do with whether someone is reformed. If it is known that by appealing to the Governor's Christian feelings in order to get an early parole (Clemmons was due to be released in the year 2015 or so), you can bet every lifer is going to figure out a way to work Jesus Christ in to his parole statement. A little naiive, perhaps.

Update:

Maurice Clemmons is dead, shot by a lone patrol cop, who claims the suspect refused to remove his hands from his pockets when the officer demanded it (several times). In other words, I told him to reassure me he wasn't armed, he wouldn't, and he kept circling towards me. So I shot him dead. With a few bullets.

While I can't blame the police officer for trying to protect himself, this is a story I've heard before. It is also possible that Clemmons was looking to suicide by cop. We can't know. The only people who know for certain what happened are the police officer and the dead man. Obviously, the dead man ain't talking. If you shoot a guy in the leg (which policemen are NOT trained to do in such situations - it's always kill or be killed), you can at least slow him down if he's thinking about shooting you. Maybe.

I don't know. I hope that there is enough evidence to prove for a certainty that Maurice Clemmons was the shooter. I hope that the fact that he was shot does not end the investigation. If we take it as a given that everyone who gets their mugshot on TV is guilty, we're in trouble.

Not sure how to feel about this one. If Clemmons was guilty then he deserved life in prison. If he was nuts then he deserved life in a mental institution. If he's innocent...

FED Suicide

Well - egg on my face again. The rightwing bloggers are right - as soon as I saw the article about the guy hung from a tree with the word FED scrawled on his chest, I jumped to conclusions about the TeaBaggers and the various rightwing radio and TV screamers having influenced some lame-brain to lynch this poor guy.

Turns out he killed himself and tried to make it look like a murder so his kids would get his life insurance money, which they wouldn't if it had been a straight suicide. Which it was. He wrote the word FED on his own chest, then hung himself.

Sad.

(hmmm.... time to start my own rumor)

Or the local cops are on the payroll of the insurance companies so they don't have to pay out.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Toys R Death

Introducing the Zhu Zhu Pet, a little toy hamster that everyone really, really must have or someone might have to DIE.

On Black Friday, the day where shopping is more important than oh, thinking about Jesus, last year someone had to die for something. There was a rush at the opening of a WalMart in New York, and an immigrant from Haiti was crushed under the crowd. One of those ironies of life - all the way from the killing slums of Haiti to safe old America, only to be killed by the one thing we do well - consumption.

This is all due to a disorder in the DSM-IV-TR called "Holiday Shopping Frenzy". A dose or two of Adderal or a large amount of red wine usually calms the patient down, but the head-squeezing sensation of not having bought enough stuff will pester them until Christmas morning, after which it will be too late to feed the monkey; the aftermath of HSF is usually NYRD or "New Years' Returns Depression." The prospect of spending half of January in line at WalMart to return the ugliest purse you've ever seen cannot be ameliorated by any drug known to man.

Not all the feeding frenzies have been at WalMart this year, however. Toys R Us has had to deal with the madness associated with these little robotic pets. While the retail price runs around ten bucks, folks are scalping them on eBay for upwards of forty dollars a pop. Don't even include the little car. Pshaw.

I've seen several reports of police being called in to stem the tide of bloodshed.

There have been line-jumpers tased by more law-abiding non-line-jumpers, melees in WalMarts when folks started ripping open the shrink-wrap on pallets of merchandise that hadn't, you know, been merchandised yet. And apparently, a scuffle broke out in Sheboygan over GPS units. Not that big a deal, really, but writing "Sheboygan" is one of those rare pleasures.

My favorite awful irony is for the folks in Houston, Texas, whose cars were towed out of the Best Buy parking lot, because the tow-truck drivers assumed they were late night partiers at the bar/club across the way. Punished for being thought "a drunk," when all you are is "desperate to buy something."

Only in America in the 21st Century.

UPDATE

Not making this up:

One of Santa's little helpers charged with terrorist threats

'nuff said.

UPDATE

According to GoodGuide: "Antimony was measured at 93 parts per million in the hamster's fur and at 106 parts per million in its nose. Both readings exceed the allowable level of 60 parts per million, said [GoodGuide CEO Dara] O'Rourke, an associate professor of environmental science at the University of California, Berkeley."

I was just bein' a little sarcastic about the death part...

UPDATE

According to the Consumer Products Safety Commission, these things are actually safe after all.

I don't know who to believe anymore.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Categorical Nonsense

I gotta remember to stay away from the "local forum" site in my local paper. Besides the fact that a lot of non-local folks are doing the commenting (and why shouldn't they?), there are so many people who have very fixed ideas about certain topics and nothing - NOTHING - will change their minds.


First, the "Christians" who hate everyone but themselves. Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, etc., all of 'em - goin' ta Hell. Christians don't propagate violence against other people, only Muslims do that. Christians are always in a defensive posture. Like, oh, Iraq.


Near the "Christian" category are the "Palinites." They are more tolerant of other religions, but negroes seem to bother them, once said negroes achieve a level of power previously thought unreachable by dark folk. All Presidents who do not perceive the value of the Divine Sarah are liklely to be Socialists or Terrorists or both. Suggesting the assassination of such a President could be classified as "blowing off a little steam."


The "Birthers." They perceive any person who won the presidency that has the temerity to be darker in hue than themselves might have stolen the election, or worse, have conspired since birth to take over the country and destroy our way of life. This Obama person has been working (along with his minions in the Communist, Socialist, and Nazi parties - AKA SEIU and ACORN) since 1962 to figure out a way to become President. Talk about ambitious.


All of these folks currently reside on the pages of various newspapers and in the news. One doesn't know their actual numbers, as reliable sources seem to have trouble counting. Unreliable sources, such as Fox News, portray their numbers as a kind of variable, with different angles of the same event showing different numbers of people. Also completely different weather patterns, and dissimilar architecture from one shot to the next. But you know, LOTS of 'em.


They also reside in their own little fantasyland, where folks like Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, etc., reinforce their internal crazy by reiterating (for example) that people who believe the President might not be an American citizen as having "genuine concerns." I think they have "genuine concerns," too - but mostly about why their medication isn't working properly.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Breathless,

sputtering rage.

The Health Care Billwhacky passed the House last weekend, and I hadn't seen how wrong it was until someone pointed out this lovely post over at Welcome Back to Pottersville.

Oh.

My.

God.

$25,000 fine for the felony of not buying health insurance from some big damn insurance company, even if you can't afford it? And the cost for these health plans? $5,300 per year if you're single, and $15,000 for the "Family Plan."

I don't pay that much (I don't think). And my health care is pretty darn good.

And NO public option at all. WHAT THE F&*K?!?

This will be an absolute disaster if it passes the way it is. I've been a bed-wetting liberal a long time, and the only thing I can think to suggest is to throw all the bastards out who voted for this. And put in real progressives, not these damned, swindling, money-grubbing a-holes that have decided that thirty years on the public tit isn't enough, no - they gotta keep their corporate paymasters happy, or they might not get re-elected by the folks who ACTUALLY PAY THEIR BASIC SALARIES. WHICH INCLUDES HEALTH CARE, DAMNIT!!!

What have we learned, children? That until the election system in this country is completely seperated from corporate money, and until corporations are finally treated as fictional entities of law (not as people), we will have no say in what becomes of us as a nation.

We have no need for $600 billion a year for defense spending, unless everyone else in the world has suddenly developed a nuclear arsenal. We should leave Iraq and Afghanistan right away. But we stay there and blow through money as if we can print it at will. (oh... right.) And once our troops are home, free college educations for every single one that wants it. Or prison. Whichever is cheaper.

If I have to pay more in taxes to give everyone health care, I'll be glad to do it. We must end the "three strikes" laws wherever they have been passed. They do no good, and we now have the largest prison economy in the world. And the educational system has been gutted in favor of locking people up forever.

Rant finished for now.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Yet Another Film Quote

From Steven Soderbergh's Schizopolis:

"Newswoman: A New Mexico woman was named Final Arbiter of Taste & Justice today, ending God's lengthy search for someone to straighten this country out. Eileen Harriet Palglace will have final say on every known subject, including who should be put to death, what clothes everyone should wear, what movies suck, and whether bald men who grow ponytails should still get laid."

I think is what Repugnicans are hoping for - someone to straighten us all out, make it all work, and basically, define each and every little thing that is or is not permissable for human beings to do.

While letting corporations do as they please, of course.

This line has kept me from growing a ponytail with what remains of my hair, so we have someone to thank for that.

Liebermaniac

Joe Lieberman. Besides the late-night and Daily Show punchline that he has become, he is looking more and more like the worst politician ever to grace our hallowed Senate halls since the Teapot Dome scandal. But then I think, "what about Tom Delay?" and Joe drops back into the number two spot. He gave us unregulated stock options for salaries, hates the public option, supports Repugnican politicians, and of course, it's all out of "principle."