Rob me!

Click on the above picture and carefully read number 10. Now tell me how that worked out for them:

The winding hallways of Salt Lake City's Trolley Square became a shooting gallery for an 18-year-old gunman in a trench coat who fired a shotgun randomly at customers, killing five and wounding four before being killed by police, authorities and witnesses said.

I know I'm a broken record on this. But the fact of the matter is sheeple still don't get it.

Society has two kinds of people. One kind knows the rule and obeys it; the other kind does not. When sign says "No guns," it might as well say "we're as defenseless as the day we came in to this world - please rob me!"

Here's my challenge - those that like the idea of signs prohibiting guns, put one up on your lawn. Tell the world that your house doesn't have or allow any guns in it. Take it a step further and put a sticker on your car declaring the same thing. Let me know how that works out for you.

Thanks to John Lott for the picture.

Thanks for nothing, literally

Pop quiz - you're at home and you hear the sounds of a woman screaming coming from an adjacent apartment. What do you do?

Well, apparently, you draw your sword:

A man says he broke into an apartment with a cavalry sword because he thought he heard a woman being raped, but the sound actually was from a pornographic movie his upstairs neighbor was watching.

I really don't think I have to add anything else to this story, but I will.

Seriously, a cavalry sword? I mean, dude, they have these things called guns (which this guy should never, ever, own). But still, Michael Myers kitchen knife or Jason's machete would strike more fear. Unless it was going to be a sword (read between the lines, please) measuring competition.

Who listens to those kind of movies that loud? I'm sure you'd want to hear every little... thing, but come on! It's bragging rights if it's you and your wife - it's sad if it's the TV.

I think I can understand why the guy downstairs was so confused, though. I mean, he was living with his mom. He probably still has a poster of something in a bikini hidden behind his Darth Vader poster. That would explain why the sounds were so foreign to him.

Some people

You ever meet one of those guys that anytime you're around him, you feel like he's playing a game of poker? Always careful in his answers with words, very diplomatic and political with everything, never using absolutes, rarely saying yes or no?

I encounter them all the time. School, work, public, and sadly, church. I generally tend to not be in their general vicinity for long unless I just have to. But there does come the occasion that I must interact with them. I guess the latter happens more often at school and work for me, due to the nature of the environment.

One thing I know, whenever I meet Mr. Shifty, is that when I'm done dealing with him, I'm ready for a nap, shower, and/or retreating in to a cave, swearing off any and all people for a certain length of time. I'm usually mentally and physically exhausted. It's also disappointing.

For the most part, I want to believe that every person I meet and/or know is a genuine, good person. A measuring stick I use from time to time is not necesarily how nice they're being to me, but how I see them treating others. When Mr. Shifty is being nice to me, I think it's okay; when I see him being a jackass to somebody else for something that doesn't warrant it, I question why he was so nice to me. The general rule of thumb I've come to realize is that these guys are a mutated spawn of the "Gimme" generation - they're the "What's-in-it-for-me?" generation.

The WIIFM's are different, though, in that it's not easy to spot them up front (thus my observation of how they act towards others). They lie (usually by omission, but sometimes bold-faced) and cheat, but usually do so in such a demeanor that would make a snake-oil salesman proud, pulling the wool over innocent victims ensuring them of safety, tranquility, blah, blah, blah.

I just know that I'm exhausted whenever I leave their presence.

I also know this - they make lousy poker players.

Applying a band-aid to a disease

Original story here.
Follow-up here and sorta here.

Ever work on a post for a couple of days, tweaking here and there, then just before publishing, someone else comes along and writes it better, than you? Yep, happened to me. John Sugg of Atlanta's Creative Loafing has nailed the recent indictments of the police officers who illegally obtained an illegal warrant and ended up with Ms. Johnston dead:

The final insult to Johnston is that her death has become a gold mine for political opportunists. Last week, District Attorney Paul Howard, always adept at playing the race card, threw an entire deck onto the table. He announced plans to indict three white officers for murder, burglary and other crimes. Those aren't the appropriate charges. Manslaughter -- where the crime is an unintended death -- would be more appropriate. But it makes good headlines for Howard in a black community that sees itself under attack by police. Howard's political gambit has possibly undermined a careful investigation by the FBI by ending plea negotiations with the three cops. But that's irrelevant to the vote-hungry prosecutor.

Even worse, the three officers have told the feds that many, many more drug cases were based on evidence obtained by shortcuts such as lying to judges. Howard's theatrics are an attempt to obfuscate his role in prosecuting those cases. Did his office have knowledge of cops' tainted investigations?

These three cops, corrupt as they might be, are going to be the scape goats for a system run amuck with corruption stemming from the insipid "war" on drugs.

It's going to be bad when these three walk, too. No jury in their right mind is going to convict them for murder and burglary. Further, what happens then? I mean, once the case is over (which will probably take years), the feds will probably have moved on to something else. If they haven't, what do they have to offer the cops in exchange for their testimony of just how corrupt the system has gotten? They'll either be free as a bird or serving time for something the federal government can't get them out of.

Hat tip: The Agitator

How to shut up a heckler

Short version: just flat out beat the snot out of his team. Long version to follow...

In my younger years, I was a part of the pep band at GC&SU... alright, stop your laughing. Stop thinking of the weenie looking folks in the stands at a high school game that would like to be anywhere but there. Ours was all voluntary - you weren't in unless you wanted to be in.

We were the proverbial sixth man on the floor. We were loud. We were raucous. On more than one occasion, we were warned. Then we got louder.

Some shenanigans:

• By the time the opposing players left, they were not happy with the fact that their names, majors, what year they were and where they were from were printed on the program. It only took one missed dunk or airball for the phrase, "Give Bob the ball - he'll show you where the floor is!" or "Hey Eddie - the girl's game was earlier!"
  
• Immediately following a missed free-throw, one band member stated, loudly: "Hey Anna - remember when your mother said you could do anything you wanted? She was wrong!" The entire arena laughed, including the opposing coach.
• We made an opposing player cry. He gave us the bird. We gave him crap.
• During free throws for the women's game, one band member unrolled a large poster of a barely clothed well ripped male (we had a lady in a bikini poster for the men's game). During one particular women's game, the lady kept making the shots. During her next attempt, we displayed the girlie poster. She missed.

This past weekend was alumni weekend at our dear ol' alma mater. Apparently, one needn't graduate to be considered an alumnus. Anyway, in years past the alumni activities would take place outside of basketball season, thus a gathering of the old guard could not take place. This time, though, the stars and planets aligned correctly.

It didn't quite work out as planned.

For starters, the current basketball team blows. They started the 2nd quarter with a nice little run, but then pulled off their best impersonation of the Hellen Keller All Star B-ball team (translation: they couldn't hit a basket to save their lives). The other team (ranked 10th overall in the conference), hit whatever they wanted, when, and how they wanted. I think I actually heard them calling shots as they came down the court.

To add insult to injury, in the program guide was a listing for their number 14 - from France. And he was good.

Stupid French.

No words needed

Woman Watching Tips

A neat blog entry today by Theresa at AJC.com with tips on how women can engage themselves in the Super Bowl (or sports in general):

I know there are a lot of women out there who truly like sports, but I think there are even more women who have just learned to put up with it being on the TV all the time. During the last 15 years, I have developed my own coping mechanisms to survive watching sports with my husband.

One of her suggestions, I've been doing for years with my wife to keep her in to games. I pick out a player that has had some dramatic occurence that I know she would sympathize with, and then voila - she's watching the game with me instead of napping on me.

Just to let you in on the sports acuity of my beloved, whom I love and cherish deeply - for many years, including the first few of our marriage, she thought that Sportscenter and ESPN were two different channels.