- It’s a one-shot, limited-time offer, Arkansans. Due to a legislative faux pas, a law passed by the state legislature allows any person in the state to legally marry, regardless of their age, as long as they have parental consent. A single misplaced “not” in the bill, which was intended to establish 18 as the minimum age to wed but also allow pregnant teens to marry if their parents agreed to it, now allows even toddlers to marry if their parents will allow it. And I know what you’re thinking; I have the exact same fear. This loophole needs to be fixed before Michael Jackson gets wind of it and makes a beeline for the Arkansas state line, I concur. The bill does not affect your ability to marry your sister or cousin as far as I can tell, so stop asking about that, Arkansans. The governor and legislature may have to convene a special session to address the mistake, so those looking to take advantage of it, act now Oh, and I was just kidding about marrying your sister and cousin, Arkansas residents…..well, I was probably/maybe kidding……..
- Remember a few months ago when the city manager of a city in Florida (might have been Key Largo or somewhere thereabouts) wanted a sex-change operation while in office and to keep his/her job after going freak job and becoming a woman with a package? He/she was canned for that charade but apparently he/she/it would have been welcomed with open arms in Brazil. A court in the Rio Grande du Sol state there has ruled that sex-change operations must be offered for free by the country’s public health system. Yes, that’s right, for no charge you can indulge your inner perverted freak and change your gender. This is disturbing on many levels, but it has to be especially bothersome for one particular American, a former Olympian for whom this subject hits close to home. If only Bruce Jenner had been Brazilian and born about 30 years later, he/she could have avoided a whole lot of trouble and hassle………
- Maybe the NFL should just do away with preseason games altogether, because nothing good seems to come from these meaningless exhibition contests. Furthermore, an increasing number of teams aren’t even playing their stars at all in the preseason because the teams are petrified that those players might get injured. The Seattle Seahawks are sitting out starting quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and franchise left tackle Walter Jones. The Baltimore Ravens are doing the same with their star tackle, Jonathan Ogden, who was sporting a nice fishing hat with a chinstrap on the sidelines during last night’s game against the New York Giants. In San Diego, all-everything running back LaDanian Tomlinson not only doesn’t play in preseason, he doesn’t even dress for the games. He’s not hurt or in need of rest, he just doesn’t do preseason football. All the while, you have the majority of preseason games sporting scores and scores of empty seats all around the stadium because fans aren’t down with watching meaningless football games where starters play only a few short series if they even play at all. And oh yeah, the owners in the National Football League insist on charging full price for tickets to these exhibition games. Yes, you pay the same amount for a ticket to a game that doesn’t count as you do for a ducat to a regular-season contest. Why? Hmm…..could it be to pad the wallets and bank accounts of those same greedy owners? Me thinks so. Now the NFL isn’t going to do away with a cash cow like the preseason entirely, but they had better sit down and consider shortening it to three games per team and substantially cutting ticket prices for those games before fans like me take up our pitchforks and torches and storm their lofty castle in a full-out revolt.
- It’s been a decidedly bad week for dissenting and oppositional voices in China. Well, it’s never really a good week for dissenting voices in a repressive Communist state, but this week was one of the worse ones in recent memory. First a cyber dissident was sentenced to four years in prison for “advocating the overthrow of the government” on an opposition website. Chen Shuqing, an outspoken critic of the ruling Communist Party, was convicted on a charge of subversion against the state for his willingness to speak out against the injustices being perpetrated against he and his countrymen by their government. Sure, imprison a guy for being right and having the testicular fortitude to call your oppressive, backwards, ineffective government out for being an oppressive, backwards, ineffective government. Way to go, Communists, just refuse to remove your heads from your asses, you’ll be just fine. Speaking of brutal repression of free speech (a feel good topic in any language or culture), Commie officials in China have banned all state media from reporting on a deadly bridge collapse in the southern Chinese town of Fenghuang. After the bridge collapsed on Friday, media outlets from around the country raced to cover the story but were met with what I’ll call mild resistance. And of course, by mild resistance I mean that Commie officials punched, pushed, abused and finally chased off all of the media members before dropping the ban on all coverage of the bridge collapse. The ban comes courtesy of the Central Propaganda Department, and what else would you expect from agency with that name? I believe their motto is, “To lie, manipulate and distort the facts and attempt to create our own fake truth even when everyone knows the real truth.” This is good because the last thing you want is people knowing what’s going on in their own country, can’t have that happen. Speaking out against a tyrannical, fascist government is bad and so is relaying a tragic, major news story to the people of your country. What better illustration of the awful, oppressive political climate in China to contrast this bridge collapse incident with the thoroughly covered bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Where Americans have seen a lesson and are now using the tragedy as an inspiration to inspect other similar bridges in the United States to verify their structural integrity and hopefully prevent future tragedies, the Commies in China see only an embarrassment that they don’t want people to know about. You suck, Chinese Communists, screw you.
- The cops and community leaders of a city are generally pretty proud of themselves when they come up with the idea of a “Kicks for Guns” sneaker exchange or something similar. They believe they’re making their community’s streets safer by removing guns from those streets and are giving something back to those willing to help out by turning in their guns. However, I don’t think that police in Orlando were expecting someone to walk in with a 4-foot-long surface-to-air missile launcher and ask for size-3 Reebok sneaks for his young daughter. This unidentified man, a candidate for father of the year in my book, claims he found the weapon in a shed he tore down on his property last week. Umm, sure, because who doesn’t have a surface-to-air missile launcher lying around an old shed at their house? Most of us have an unused bike or two, maybe an old lawnmower and some half-used cans of paint….and military-grade weapons. Honestly, I’d say that the cops should have given that guy at least two pairs of kicks for his kid, partly because his weapon is way cooler than any of the other ones turned in for the exchange, but mostly because he went with such a blatant lie and did so with a straight face.
No comments:
Post a Comment