Waaasssuuuuuppppp!!!

Fun weekend in Dublin, GA with my brother and his wife, my sister and niece, and my own wife. Much to the rest of my family's chagrin, I taught my niece the wonderful greeting phrase above (I had to do something; being called "Shelaleigh" just wasn't going to cut it). I can already see my Grandmother holding up a picture of my wife and I and getting a "Wassssuuuuupppp!!!" from baby girl. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that one.

Due to the trip down, I was unable to participate in the live draft for Tim's fantasy baseball league. Therefore, I had to work mostly with the current rankings - I am loaded with pitching and not much else. Furthermore, the curse of the Rising Son has been placed upon all on my team; I assure you that by season's end, most of these players will have suffered some season/ career threatening injury. But it'll be fun... (that's what I keep telling myself; just tell me who to send the $10 to)

And finally, there is the loveliness that is Nascar. Their next bonfire was set for Atlanta yesterday afternoon, which was a terribly rainy day in the city (sidebar: how can that racetrack or the drag strip in Commerce be considered the "Atlanta" track(s); it's a full 50 to 60 miles outside of the frickin' city!). So needless to say as my wife and I were making our way back up to our humble abode, we were doing so with about 10,000 other toothless wonders that were crying in their beers in coozies b/c the precious race had been rained out. So there we were, surrounded by direct descendants of Generals Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Clampetts sitting in bumper to duct-taped bumper traffic with these fine specimens of the human genome. What should have been an easy 3 hours turned into just shy of 4 hours. Stupid Nascar...

Cops shoot child-beating father

In today's AJC:

Cobb County officers shot and killed a Mableton man early Thursday after he refused to drop a large rock he was using to beat a child, police said.

The officers entered the trailer and found the Hispanic man "standing over a child with a huge rock in his hand, and he had apparently been striking the child with the rock," Delk said.

The officers ordered the man to put down the rock, but he raised it over his head as if to strike the child again, Delk said. At that point, both officers fired on the man, killing him.

Thankfully, these cops didn't wait; the mother as well as other children already showed signs of being beaten.

What saddens (almost infuriates) me is that both of these cops will now be on administrative leave because they fired their weapon (note: it's my understanding that this is "policy" for any shooting, regardless of the outcome, though I could be wrong). I'm just wondering how much investigation do we need in this case? From just this report, the man was acting strangely and violent, had beaten others, and when threatened with his own life, still wanted to inflict harm on another innocent child. Maybe he had a deathwish and got the outcome he was looking for; regardless, he was obviously willing to "take someone with him"; how much more investigation needs to be done? Why should these two cops be "softly" punished and removed from an area they have already shown excellent judgement and self-control? Other officers may have acted very different. A pat on the back to these two boys in blue.

Georgia's gun laws

There has been much ado recently in Georgia about the possibility of amending the state law with what has already been done in Florida, a so called "stand your ground" law; essentially this law would protect citizens that are involved in a confrontation where deadly force becomes necessary from overzealous lawyers and DA's from prosecuting. Currently, there is no language in state law that requires the attempt be made to safely retreat from a potentially dangerous situation.

The AJC editorial board, not surprisingly, has come out against this:

If you believe the outlandish rhetoric at the Legislature, high school graduates in the state ought to be issued Glocks at graduation because they won't be safe making their way in the world unless they're armed, able to bring their guns to work and allowed to fire at the first provocation.

Now that's an idea; here's your diploma and a Glock 17. Happy hunting! Needless to say, the AJC editorial stance has been one of the same "outlandish rhetoric" they accuse the state legislature of. They make it sound like if someone flips a person off then this law will allow that person to open fire on the flipper - there are laws already in place that prevent that. The person that does shoot the flipper is most likely not a law-abiding, permit carrying citizen.

Not all is lost at the AJC; there is the wonderful Det. Steve Rose who writes a regular column on general safety and local crimes with a good bit of wit and sarcasm. He has written his opinion of the change to the state law:

The proposed legislation is a clear indication that violent crimes are up and your chances of being caught in the middle are better than they were a few years ago. "Wrong place at the wrong time"” can play a major role in a situation of deadly force. In such a situation, (such as on a sidewalk or parking lot, as the bill allows) having a weapon would give you the opportunity to save your own life. Your fate would not completely be in the hands of the bad guy.

He also relates this story of when he was approached one evening:

Once was in a parking lot downtown, about 9 p.m. A man walked up to me while we were leaving the circus at the Omni. He just walked up, looked around, and started asking why we left the circus so early? I wanted to thank him for looking around because it very quickly tipped me off that he was up to no good and it allowed me time to react.

I can still remember the look on his face when he turned back around and met my agent, Mr. Beretta. Mr. Beretta, who represented me for a few years, said we were too busy to be robbed that night, but thank you anyway. Mr. Beretta asked the man to run very fast in the opposite direction. The man ran and then jumped over the wall at the edge of the parking deck. As we drove out, I realized we were on the third floor of the parking deck. He was pretty young so he probably had some bounce in him.

In the comments section below there are several comments left by supporters and opposers, some ridiculous, some common sense. One of the things pointed out, though, is the fact that most private gun owners have sought out more training than most police officers. I have found this to be somewhat true; I've shot next to a couple of officers at the gun range before, and the lack of discipline as well as their atrocious shooting scores have proved it to me.

What it comes down to is this - only law abiding citizens will obey the law. Criminals will not. To highlight one more thing from Det. Rose: "Criminal(s) will tell you; they tell me when I see them at our class reunions, that there is an effective sub-culture and communication among them. From what I can tell, they don'’t like to get shot. This is evident by a temporary drop in crime stats in the area where a bad guy gets shot."

Quickies

Get your mind out of the gutter, Jeff pervs...

• A man tried to kill his wife four times, failed, then gets busted when his son, whom he goes strip-club-hopping with, wears a wire for the police. This is what happens when Mr. Incompetent marries Mrs. Naive. And of course, it's in Cherokee County...
• Scott Stapp, aka the former Big Tool lead singer of Creed, claims that someone is out to get him by releasing the tape of him and Kid Rock having wild times with some strippers/ groupies. Check the mirror Scott; you're sinking yourself.
• The 78th Annual Academy Awards are this Sunday. To tell you the truth, I could really care less. I'm sure Humpback Mountain will reign victorious over all. The only movie I saw on the Best Picture list was Crash (fantastic movie) and I actually hope it wins; however I doubt any of these will be graced by the dust of my DVD shelf. They're just not movies I could watch over and over again. I hope anybody but George Clooney wins - that would just fan this Michael Moore wannabe's flames that much more.

As fo tomorrow afternoon, Mrs. Misawa and myself are heading to the mountains for a long weekend. It's Spring Break for me, and after this past week, I'm ready for it.