Maybe God Only Saw Fit To Strike Him With Gummi Bears

In Indiana, a college kid decided to wear a devil costume to a screening of The Passion of the Christ. In the self-aggrandizing manner adopted by college students everywhere, the kid explains himself thusly:

When asked what he hoped to accomplish by his actions, Wendell said he likes doing things to get a reaction. He was also inspired by a biography he read about the Marquis de Sade.

De Sade was an 18th century writer who caused scandals with his libertine behavior in pre-revolutionary France. De Sade was once arrested for desecrating the Holy Eucharist to see if God really existed. Wendell said his stunt was along the same lines.

Wendell, an atheist, said, “If God really existed, He would have struck me down for dressing as the devil.” He also wanted to prove “that Christians aren’t as forgiving as they portray”. Wendell says his actions were also partially due to a genuine dislike of Mel Gibson.

Buddy, maybe God didn’t see your hijinks as worthy of the amperage involved in a lightning strike and had a more fitting punishment for you:

Once inside the movie, Christians began pelting Wendell with Gummy Bears, Ju-Ju Bees, and popcorn. Management got involved after a 75-year-old woman, Hazel Meyer, poured a 64-ounce Coca-Cola on Wendell.

(Link seen on Fark.)

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Sometimes the Punchlines Write Themselves

Headline in the Springfield News-Leader:

County’s gonorrhea cases increase

Rise linked to loss of a state-funded job to track sexually transmitted diseases.


Automatically-generated punchlines:

  • With more time on his hands, he could concentrate more on his true passion, spreading the clap.
  • With enough state-funded jobs, eventually all disease would be eradicated.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

A Stay at the Compulsory Resort

Just in time to take advantage of the new jail-term-for-illegal-parking described below, St. Charles, Missouri, has decided it’s going to send a bill to lodgers in its Compulsory Resort, previously known as the city jail:

The County Council voted Tuesday night to require such inmates to set up installment repayment plans within six months after they get out of jail. Failure to do so could spur the county to seize and sell the ex-offenders’ property to get some money back.

So after someone gets out of jail, after having his or her income interrupted, possibly losing a job if he or she had one, and making the next job more difficult to get, the lovely city will send a bill which might lead them to suing and seizing property–whatever’s left after the fines for the offense, that is. You city legislators have an interesting theory of reintegration and recidivism-prevention you have there, sirs.

Perhaps we should quote the article more fully:

The County Council voted Tuesday night to require such inmates to set up installment repayment plans within six months after they get out of jail. Failure to do so could spur the county to seize and sell the ex-offenders’ property to get some money back.

The council also passed a pay increase for council members elected later this year and a bill requiring council approval for naming or renaming most county buildings.

Policy made by a cash-hungry government makes awfully poor government of the government, by the government, and for the government. Fellows, you think police speeding ticket quotas suck? Wait until you’re slapped with a six month sentence at a double-occupancy government facility because the County Commission on Revenue’s assistant commissioner needs an office redecoration.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Because the Legislators Need Busy Work

True to form, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch starts this article on policy off with an anecdote:

Jennifer Bresee was infuriated by the note she found tucked beneath the windshield wiper as she finished shopping at Wal-Mart.

If you’re truly handicapped, you can get a license plate indicating such at the Missouri Department of Revenue license office. If you are merely enjoying the convenience of parking here at the inconvenience of a handicapped person, shame on you.

Bresee did indeed have handicapped plates. But the note’s author apparently noticed only how healthy Bresee looked as she got out of her car and walked into the store. Had the accuser waited a bit longer, the person would have seen Bresee limping all the way back to her car.

“I have multiple sclerosis, which is most times very invisible,” said Bresee, 26, explaining that even a short trip to the store can exhaust her and cause severe leg pain. “Many times, walking back out of the Wal-Mart you can tell, rather than walking into the Wal-Mart.”

So obviously, to make Jennifer feel better, the state must do something? I guess that’s the point the writer of this bit has in mind. However, the something that state legislators have in mind is the obvious: dial up the punishment for people who abuse handicapped parking privileges:

It also would make abuse of the privileges a Class A misdemeanor, punishable up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. The legislation would impose the same penalty on doctors who write notes for people who don’t need the special plates.

The measure (SB 1144) was approved 30-0 by the state Senate this week and now awaits a House vote.

A year in jail for illegally parking. Thank goodness our legislators are finally making laws that make sense rather than making feel-good laws with which no person with a heart can disagree.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Remember Your Position, Serf

Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lotsalager reminds citizens of their place regarding casino regulation:

It’s more important for the state to be able to regulate casinos than to let the public see the records, Lautenschlager’s opinion says.

The right of the state to earn revenue trumps the right of the public to keep tabs on what the state and the casinos are doing.

Because states’ rights, you know. Don’t think to hard on that, citizen; it’s a class C felony to reflect on the role of government.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Deep Thoughts

In today’s Washington Post, deep thinker John Handey Doug Henning Don Henley uncaps his fountain pen to decry the state of the music industry today.

To recap his wisdom:

  • The big corporations are squeezing out the small labels.
  • The big corporations are putting out crappy music because…..
  • Music executives don’t sign new artists that audiences really want because….
  • The big retailers are squeezing out the small record shops by stocking crappy music at high prices, but too low for small record shops to make a profit meaningful contribution.

Actually, I am not really sure what his wisdom is, much like he surely doesn’t understand how capitalism works. What the audience wants, someone will sell them, and the music industry is evolving beyond the traditional channels.

Others weigh in:

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Missouri Pay As You Go

The Sophorist links to a person who links to a story about Missouri state government offering taxpayers the opportunities to add money to their taxes for common programs:

If passed, this fund would allow ordinary citizens and every special interest in the state to contribute additional tax dollars to their favorite cause, program, or policy. It would afford the average hard working taxpayers the luxury of avoiding to pay higher taxes in these difficult times, but permit all those people and interests who believe state government should be bigger and should allocate more resources to contribute generously.

On the whole, I think it’s a good idea, but I would hate to think of how much “Give Us Money” advertising the programs would spend the extra money on.

Were the programs to receive enough funding through the opt-in tax payment plan, I suspect that the state government would start reallocating that percentage of the program’s original funding to other, newer, and more profligate programs.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

No Taxes for Ads

Today’s poster child for poor use of government funds: St. Clair County, Illinois, spends $500,000 to promote the only airline flying into MidAmerica Airport. An airport built with public funds an hour outside of St. Louis that had no airlines coming in when it was built. And now that Great Plains is broke, despite $500,000 of tax-paid promotion, MidAmerica Airport again sits idle, except for the tax-paid employees wandering around with nothing to do.

Which brings me to what might be the most blatantly bad waste of tax money. Advertising of any sort, for any reason. Particularly to promote private enterprises.

Whether it’s half a million to Fleishmann-Hillard to line the pockets of the influence industry in St. Louis or it’s a half percent tax here in Casinoport on hotel rooms to promote tourism–the government has no business redistributing wealth from its citizens to already affluent sectors. The government might claim it’s out to make the community better, but it means by community its tax base, and wasting tax money on advertising is only one more symptom of an organic government that exists to consume and grow, not to serve its citizens.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

And It’s The Frontier

This Chicago Tribune story (registration required) discusses the Ohio highway sniper and the journalists hazards a guess why the wires aren’t picking up her story and why she’s not been making the rounds of cable news outlets:

The shootings remind a lot of people of 2002’s sniper attacks in the suburbs around Washington, D.C., which left 10 people dead before two men were arrested and charged with the killings.

The Ohio sniper case has garnered what appears to be less publicity, perhaps because only one person has died.

Perhaps. But some of us (which means “Brian J. Noggle”) in the middle of the country with a chip on the shoulder (not a cow chip, heinzenjohnkers) suspect it’s not garnering much media attention because it’s the middle of the country. Were someone to squeeze off a few rounds over the course of a year on the Beltway, that person would get a lot of attention, even if he or she were not shooting to kill.

Because the important people would be in danger. Not mere citizens. The super-citizens who work for the influence industry or the government.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Tax Cuts for the Rich

Missouri Governor B. Holden announces a student loan forgiveness program for those who study life sciences and work in Missouri.

Why do I dare mock such a proposal? I mean, other than mockery is my first language?

This is a growth industry in our state, and it is an area that attracts the high wage jobs that we need in Missouri,” Holden said.

Because the johnking schnuck is going to forgive student loans for people who graduate college and then get high paying jobs in the state of Missouri. Because B. Holden thinks that eligible employees bring jobs to a state. Here’s a free clue, B. Holden: cheap labor brings jobs to a state, not a bunch of kids with college degrees and expectations of high pay. I guess that’s where you step in to offer other taxpayer-funded corporate welfare “incentives” to companies who would employ the graduates for whom taxpayers paid.

Instead of kids who can walk out of college into high-paying jobs, guvnor, how about some tax relief for the following:

  • Computer science students who end up as supervisors for UPS.
  • Liberal arts students who work as shipping receiving clerks, but who can recite the Porter scene from Macbeth when the delivery truck drivers ring his bell.
  • Drama students who serve coffee at Borders with flourish unmatched by others?

Those poor souls out there who went to college to better themselves but refuse to submit to cubicle, or laboratory, existence deserve more sympathy than fraggles who went to school and walked out of school into any job over twenty thousand dollars a year.

None of them, of course, deserve my fortuitously-earned tax dollars, though, but that sympathy’s better than your tax cut for the future rich you’re disguising as a program for the children.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Sometimes Recognizing a Slippery Slope Helps Stop the Sliding

I share the Chicago Tribune‘s Steve Chapman’s sentiments regarding the FCC’s investigation of Janet Jackson’s teat (registration required):

Freedom includes the freedom to be offensive, but in other media, we’d much rather make our own choices than let the government choose for us. The only TV Michael Powell should have the power to regulate is the one in his living room.

I’ll let him expand his powers to the televisions in his family room, kitchen, bedroom, and children’s bedrooms. I am a compassionate libertarian.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Elevating the Level of Discourse

Courtesy of Andrew Sullivan, I suffered through this article on the imbalance of political viewpoints in academia today. And I had to suffer through this:

“We try to hire the best, smartest people available,” Brandon said of his philosophy hires. “If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire.

“Mill’s analysis may go some way towards explaining the power of the Republican party in our society and the relative scarcity of Republicans in academia. Players in the NBA tend to be taller than average. There is a good reason for this. Members of academia tend to be a bit smarter than average. There is a good reason for this too.”

Burness also noted that the humanities may be particularly oriented toward Democratic minds. “If you were to look at most business schools, you might find more people that were Republican than Democratic,” he said. “If you look at the humanities in general, there’s a great deal of creativity that goes on. In a sense it’s innovation, and a perfectly logical criticism of the current society, in one form or another, that plays itself out in some of these disciplines. It doesn’t surprise me that you might find people in humanities are more liberal than conservative.” [Emphasis mine, and I wanted to embolden the whole thing because each word made me madder.]

Although my collegiate preparations should have cultured me to craft a proper response to this assertion, perhaps something as simple as a quip to deflate the head of the pompos squad here, dancing up and down and chanting his ignorance, instead my baser, city-bred id bursts forth with a hearty, and sincere:

Fock you!

I am sorry, gentle reader, if you were reading this blog with your children; you should probably browse from work where it’s safe.

This Robert focking Brandon is the chair of the philosophy department, so that should indicate how focking out of touch he is from real life. No, I forget, friends, not many of you managed to slough through a degree’s worth of philosophy, so you don’t understand. Within the humanities, philosophy and literature especially, it’s not just that the academics are isolated from real life, but they’re further isolated from dealing with real issues. Academics working in chemistry and sciences and whatnot are researching real things; philosophy professors research other academics. Let Brandon chortle about his probable misrepresentation of Mill (sue me, I haven’t read much utilitarian schmaltz). Mill’s been dead a long time, and his views of stupid people are irrelevant except to offer Brandon a cloak in which to hide his own fockedness.

But another academic at Duke suffers infinite monkey moment, wherein even a random collection of letters and syllables coalesces into a rational thought:

Burness added that the course imbalance Kitchens described was also not surprising. He argued that, because gender and race are lively forms of scholarly inquiry today, it is natural that a number of courses should treat these subjects.

To put it succinctly, Those who can, do, and those who cannot get TAs to teach their courses so they can write Marxist feminist inquiries into how television altered and enforced the hegemony of bourgeois taste in the post World War II period as filtered through relevant ads in House Beautiful and seminary Marxist/feminist tracts of the past.

Unfortunately, unlike other useful dreams of snakes eating their tails, this one doesn’t yield a loud enough Eureka! moment. Of course, academics tend to procreate; the ideas and viewpoints emphasized in college as worthy of study will be studied, and the next wave of untenured journeymen humanities professors will write and research the same crap as their mentors.

Meanwhile, conservative students with a broad and almost classical education will go out into the real world and make something of themselves.

In the midst of all my succeeding, though, sometimes I still get pissed.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Blackfive Tries Too Hard

Matt Blackfive’s got a really well documented entry about how George Bush is not responsible for the loss of 2.21 gigamillion jobs. I don’t know who he’s writing it for, though. People who will vote for Bush understand the limited effect the presidency and the entire government have on the grand economy (which is too much as it is, but not much overall). Some people who won’t vote for Bush mutter that those who lost jobs were all whistleblowers almost capable of exposing the vast Haliburton-Texas Rangers conspiracy.

So Matty’s wasting his time if he thinks he’s going to convince anyone with facts and reason. As a matter of fact, much as dogs only hear part of what is said to them, Bush opponents will only hear a certain portion of what Matt writes.

When Matt says:

Jobs lost in the first 8 months January 20th to September 11th is pegged at 1.2 million. How much of this is actually attributable to President Bush is the question. In April of 2001, the U.S. lost 423, 000 jobs. Can someone tell me exactly which policy was responsible for this?

Jobs were lost due to the teror attacks of September 11th (obvious ones like travel and lodging industry, aerospace, transportation). Boeing cut 30,000 jobs. New York City alone lost over 80,000 jobs due to the attack in the year after 9/11 . 22,000 jobs were in the vicinity of the World Trade Center. 800,000 jobs were lost in November and December of 2001.

The fact is that a lot of jobs were lost over the last few years for many reasons; however, it will be tough for Democrats to accurately pin them on the Bush Administration and not a world-wide recession, the dot-bomb bust, corporate corruption (Enron, World-Com) and 9/11.

Now, what about recovery?

The biggest indicator of an economic turn around, IMHO, is my place of employment. We were directed by our (very conservative) board to cut 20% across the company on October 1, 2001. I lead the IT Department. It didn’t matter if one department had a greater need or not, everyone had to cut 20%. This was a defensive reaction to September 11th. No one knew what would happen to the economy (which was already weak), and, when there is economic uncertainty, jobs get cut through various means – for example, hiring freezes and position consolidations. Also, think about your own spending after September 11th. Did you change your vacations, savings, will, retirement plan because of September 11th? I did. I put more into savings and spread it out among different banks. When you spend less money, less items are bought. When less items are bought, supply goes up and productivity goes down. When productivity goes down, jobs get cut.

They hear:

Jobs lost blah blah blah blah blah is actually attributable to President Bush blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah ?

Jobs were lost blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah 800,000 jobs were lost blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

blah blah blah blah blah a lot of jobs were lost blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah accurately pin them on the Bush Administration and blah blah blah blah blah corporate corruption (Enron, World-Com) blah.

blah what blah recovery?

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah cut 20% across the company on October 1, 2001. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah the economy blah blah weak, blah blah blah blah blah economic uncertainty, jobs get cut blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah jobs get cut.

Nice try, Matt, but you’re scolding deaf puppies on this one.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Unfair and Imbalanced

Number 1 headline on this Sunday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Dangerous Cargo on Our Roads, Rails. Of course, if you were expecting a good, balanced view of the sometimes dangerous but necessary transporation of hazardous materials, you should wait for the story in the Atlantic Monthly.

How’s the Post-Dispatch do? Well, let’s see what we have. Lead:

PALMYRA, Mo. – First came the early morning rap on the door. Then came the coughing, the burning eyes.

In the frantic moments that followed a May 17, 2003, hydrochloric acid spill on nearby U.S. Highway 61, Shorti Garner and her husband, Steve, woke their children and piled them into the family camper to flee their home.

“My kids – in blankets and all – I scooped them up,” Shorti Garner said.

A nice play-on-the-emotions anecdote. Anecdotes! Who can deny that it’s a frightening situation? I live within a mile of the confluence of two Interstate highways and have train tracks. (Well, I am not a naturalist, but I assume a train left them. They’re two big for cat tracks.) I am right in the danger zone for a spill, but I don’t worry about it.

Why? Because every year four hundred people die from these sorts of accidents. That’s not a high number, considering all the stuff travelling about. I would expect more hit and run deaths than deaths from hydrochloric acid exposure from these things leaking.

But that’s not the Post-Dispatch’s point. Now, they don’t delve into issues such as alternate means of transportation, such as dogsleds, homing pigeons, or anything that would be safer. They also don’t explain why dangerous chemicals are transported this way, that these chemicals are used to make things people want to buy.

No, I guess the only thing the Post-Dispatch wants to do is panic its stupid readers (whether it thinks its readers are stupid, or whether the people who read it and panic are stupid, I leave to history to decide) and blame the cause of the panic on big greedy corporations who behave irresponsibly at the expense of the little man. Unlike Pulitzer Publishing.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

Compare and Contrast Assignment

Class, here’s your compare and contrast assignment for tonight:

Police in the Middle West:

Three men from the West Coast were hauling more than horses Tuesday afternoon in their trailer, authorities said – they also had $835,500 in cash stashed in a hidden compartment.

An Illinois State Police trooper and U.S. Customs agents found the money after the trooper pulled the 1999 Dodge pickup over for speeding about 3:50 p.m. Tuesday on Interstate 55, north of Litchfield, said Trooper Doug Francis, a spokesman for the agency’s District 18.

The discovery wasn’t mere happenstance. U.S. Customs had tipped off police that the trailer might contain cash, Francis said.

When the three men allowed police to search the truck and trailer, a drug-sniffing dog alerted on the vehicle, Francis said. Officers did not find drugs, Francis said, but “something was there at one time or another.”

The Illinois State Police seized the cash pending further investigation.

Lt. Brian Hollo, the district’s interim commander, said that state and federal statutes give police the power to seize money if they believe it is drug-related.

Hollo said it was the largest cash seizure ever for the district, which covers Calhoun, Greene, Jersey, Macoupin and Montgomery counties.

But police had no legal reason to hold the men or their three horses, so they were free to continue their trip, Francis said.

As for the money – Francis said, “If they can come up with proof that the money is theirs, we’ll give it back to them.”

Police in the Middle East:

At night, the police presence is most evident. On the city’s central streets, they make high-speed patrols, at times in groups that make the task appear more like a joyride. There are no other cars to be seen and there’s virtually no one on the streets, save the employees of Baghdad’s single 24-hour shop and the handful of restaurants that stay open late, mostly to serve the cops.

The police, however, do not receive credit for the apparent drop in crime. “It’s because no one stays out,” said Hassan Mahdi, the owner of the 24-hour shop. “The police are no good.”

But just because the streets are filled with police does not necessarily mean they’re safe. A journalist walking back to his hotel at around 3am on a recent morning made the mistaken assumption that it would be fine because only police were out. He was stopped and asked for his identity card three times during the 10-minute stroll. The third group of police also took US$100 from his wallet, after he showed an American passport.

Extra credit if you can work in this joke (reprinted here from another essay:

I’m reminded of the joke about the man who offered a woman $1 million to sleep with him – her resonse was a hasty “Sure!” When he countered with an offer of only $50, her response changed to “Absolutely Not! What kind of woman do you think I am?” His response … “Lady, we’ve already settled that question – now we’re just haggling over price!

(Link to Iraqi story seen on The Art of Peace, where I browsed at the behest of Winds of Change.)

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories

To Coin A Phrase

To blight: (tr.v.) To condemn, as a city, the lawful property of one person or corporation to hand it over to another corporation or person, to enhance the revenue of the governing municipality.

Sample usage:

The Board of Aldermen in December 2002 agreed to blight the Target site, allowing the city to ask a judge to condemn it.

Put that in your usage guide and burn it.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories