- Animal rights activists are the best. By the best, of course, I mean that they are overzealous freaks who provide comic relief for the rest of us as they wage their insane campaign against people who dare to eat meat, serve meat and wear clothing made from animal fur. Unfortunately, the animal rights crusaders have gotten to the good folks at Burger King, prompting BK to change its policies on buying the pork and eggs it uses for its food. Now, you PETA honks will have to bear with me, as I am typing this while eating a big, juicy steak with a side of chicken wings and bacon, sitting on a bearskin rug, wearing my fur coat and beaver-pelt hat and resting my computer on a table made from the ivory of elephant tusks, so just give me a little leeway. Burger King has agreed that it will begin buying an increasing amount of its eggs and pork from suppliers that do not confine their animals in cages and crates. Free-range chickens and pigs, super idea, except for the part where we’re concerned about the living conditions of animals while millions of people in our country are poor and homeless. But I’ll even give you the chicken issue, because after all, the chickens who produce those eggs aren't going to be killed and slammed into a sando. However, who the frick cares if the pigs used to make bacon, pork and other pig-related food products are kept in cages or crates? They’re going to be freaking killed, people! Whether you keep them in a crate, cage, pen or let them roam free, ultimately they will still be executed, so what does it matter? Do you want to go down to the farm and see the smiles on their little piggy faces as they run free, all the while having the knowledge in your mind that they are going to die anyhow for the sake of making that bacon and egg breakfast sando that Joe in Milwaukee will order at his neighborhood BK? Yup, animal rights activists still suck.
- U ain’t in America anymore, Ugueth Urbina. That sentence was brought to you by the letter “U” and that statement is pointedly directed at the former Major League reliever who has been sentenced to 14 years in a Venezuelan prison for his alleged role in a gasoline-and-machete attack on workers at his family’s farm south of Caracas. The attack on the workers involved (again, allegedly) Urbina and several other men dousing them with gasoline, beating them and attacking them with machetes. The charges on which Urbina and his compatriots were tried included attempted murder, illegally depriving the workers of their freedom and violating a national law against vigilante justice. In America, if a rich, famous athlete committed a crime like this, he would walk away free and clean, thanks to the best justice money can buy and a jury of people not smart enough to actually avoid jury duty. O.J. Simpson essentially decapitated two people and got away with it, so attempted murder would be a step below that in this country. However, Urbina has the misfortune of being Venezuelan, and in Venezuela, apparently perpetrating acts of violence and abuse on innocent people actually does earn you a conviction and substantial jail time. Tough fortune for ya, U. However, I’m sure that the prisons in Venezuela are verrrrrrry modern, clean and sanitary. See you in about a decade and a half, Ugie.
- There are more than enough stories about disenfranchised segments of society rioting and clashing with police in Europe, Asia and South America over social, political and economic issues, so how’s about a good old fashioned story of angry “bands of youths” clashing with John Q. Law for no real reason? That’s precisely what happened at a busy Paris train station, where the police and approximately 100 angry teenagers got after one another, a clash that led to nine arrests and riot police busting out with batons and tear gas. This wasn’t a protest or a rally of any kind, just a bunch of kids getting out of hand, smashing some store windows and generally doing what disenfranchised youths do. But since no one was killed or seriously injured in the melee, let’s go ahead and chalk this up as a successful riot. If you can create a little chaos, piss of the cops and have 91 percent of your group not get arrested, I think you have to count that as a victory. Gare du Nord, the site of the incident, could probably use a little livening up anyhow, what with all of the America-loathing, snobbish, un-showered French people milling about, doing their best to look as pretentious and important as possible.
- A win-win situation for 99.99999% of America in the case of the Justice Department v. Walter Anderson, the successful telecommunications entrepreneur accused of cheating the feds out of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. Anderson was sentenced to nine years in prison and required to repay about $23 million in back taxes, but the U.S. District Court in D.C. ruled that Anderson could not be made to repay the government between $100 million and $175 million more because the Justice Department’s binding plea deal listed the wrong statute. Ah, the feds screwed over by themselves because they cited the wrong piece of bureaucratic BS in a lengthy legal document, there’s a certain beautiful symmetry to it. Judge Paul Friedman explained that he could have worked around the gaffe by including the repayment of the money as part of Anderson’s probation, but the feds omitted any talk of probation from the paperwork, so they’re simply out of the money. Thus, America gets to see a convicted criminal brought to justice while also receiving the humorous benefit of watching the federal government screw itself out of money when normally all the feds do is find ways to screw the average American out of his or her money. Again, some nice symmetry to the whole story, as well as proof that the government is as inefficient, blundering and mistake-prone as we all believe it to be.
- Any high school students planning to transfer to a school in Tajikistan for their senior year (and there are a lot of you out there, I’m sure), you’re going to want to reconsider your decision after reading this bit of news. President Emomalii Rakhmom has banned high school graduation parties in the country, another attempt by the Tajik regime to cripple the cultural and social aspects of life in the central Asian nation. Why so down on the idea of celebrating a momentous occasion, E? How can you not be down with a proud graduate inviting over a couple hundred people, many of whom he or she doesn’t even know, in the hopes that they will drop a few extra dollars in his pocket and slam down some cake and hot dogs? Where’s the harm in a bunch of people drinking too much, playing some drunken volleyball and horseshoes and celebrating a special day in the life of a young person? Rakhmom wasn’t done, though; in his attempt to wipe out of all the aspects of high school that make it fun, he’s also banning cell phones and private cars at schools. Basically, dude is taking away everything but classes, books and teachers’ dirty looks. No cellies, no students with their own cars, no graduation parties - why not just slap inmate numbers on the students’ backs and force them into manual labor, E? I know, I know, Muslim nations like Tajikistan don’t have the same take on cultural and societal matters that Americans or Europeans do, but my main man Emomalii needs to find a good proctologist so he can have that massive stick removed that’s stuck up his butt.
- Nice try, Chris Henry, nice try. The oft-arrested Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver, who has tallied four arrests in the past 14 months, must have heard my lament about his Bengals falling short of the dream ten-arrest season I and so many others had hoped for, and Henry sprung into action. He was dinged by the police in Cincy for driving with a suspended license and making an illegal turn, but his brush with the law doesn’t do anyone any good. For one, he wasn’t actually arrested, so who cares? Two, the season is over and now the Bengals, like every other team, have to start from zero in the arrest column of the standings. Thirdly, the NFL is enacting new, tougher player conduct rules, so now players will be cut or suspended long before they can reach the lofty standards that Henry and his cellmates, er, teammates set last season. Thanks for nothing, Chris.
No comments:
Post a Comment