- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Okay, so this is a low-key edition of the Watch, but any act of social dissidence is a good act of social dissidence, no question about it. So when 10,000 angry Argentines march on the historic Plaza de Mayo in the capital, Buenos Aires, to demand more anti-crime measures, you know I’m down. The subject of toughening up anti-crime efforts remains a top priority among Argentines, as evidenced by the fact that there were other anti-crime marches throughout Argentina on Wednesday night as well. A series of high-profile crimes have occurred in recent weeks, including the killings of three police officers in Buenos Aires in recent weeks. Additionally, an employee of Argentina's most famous TV talk-show host, Susana Gimenez, was killed last month. All of this is creating a push to revive the death penalty in Argentina. The death penalty was outlawed in the country in 1984. That decision came a year after the country's military ended its seven-year dictatorship, during which some 30,000 people were killed. Those are the particulars, but what I care most about is that 10,000 angry Argentines (a good band name too) took it to the streets and made their voice heard. The organizers of the march went online to help get the ball rolling, setting up a Web page asking Congress to declare a national security emergency, and creating a Facebook page for the march. I didn’t get a chance to sign up, but I wish I had. “Andy is attending an angry march on downtown Buenos Aires,” a nice Facebook status to be sure. While I would have appreciated some looting, rioting and clashing with police, I can see where such actions would be contradictory to the casue of the march in this case. As such, gathering in the Plaza de Mayo, carrying photos of their dead loved ones and demanding that Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner focus more on crime will have to do. Seeing as her justice minister has defended the government's efforts, maintained that Argentina has one of the lowest murder rates in South America and generally sticking his head in the sand, those cries for change are much needed. Now it remains to be seen if one march is enough or if it’s time to kick this dissidence up a notch. I’m betting on the latter……
- It’s great that NFL players like Washington Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall are looking to battle childhood obesity, really it is. Anyone who wants to join the battle against America being FAT is cool in my book, no doubt about it. "Nowadays, kids aren't out playing in the streets and hanging out and having a good time," Hall said "They're sitting in front of video games, they're eating a lot of fast food. Even my kids -- I'm trying to get them away from that, too." That being said….isn’t it hypocritical for NFL players to be crusading against childhood obesity when so many of them are….well…..FAT? It’s not that I don’t support the players, lawmakers, , health advocates and men like Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank in their efforts to battle childhood obesity, which Hall rightly called an epidemic, but shouldn’t these people also be preaching that same message to NFL lineman who are going 6’3, 350 pounds? Maybe expand the FIT Kids Act to include flabby pro football players, for a start. Expand the proposed legislation that would require schools, districts and states to report on students' physical activity, and to give kids health and nutritional information. Include the NFL and its teams in the legislation, that way these kids would actually have non-FAT role models to look up to. One day of leading kids in jumping jacks, holding a publicity seeking press conference and signing autographs isn’t going to outweigh (pun intended) the sight of ginormous, fatty players lumbering around the field and on these kids’ TV screens on Sundays. Hopefully these sentiments will make their way to this new legislation’s House sponsor, Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis. Also, the other players who attended the rally - the Baltimore Ravens’ Jared Gaither, Jameel McClain, Troy Smith and Marcus Maxwell, and Redskin Fred Smoot - can encourage their teammates to take the same advice they’re giving to these kids……
- Dammit, I wondered where I’d put those 60 pounds of cocaine. It’s tough to keep track of your blow, so I have no idea how a supermarket employee in the town of Illertissen, Germany found my 60 pounds of Colombian nose candy inside two boxes of bananas when she opened them. As you might imagine, misplacing $2 million worth of cocaine is embarrassing. “This is obviously a matter of a logistical mistake," a spokesman for the Bavarian State Bureau of Investigation, based in Munich, said. A logistical mistake? Yeah, you could say that. I don’t know who in my Bolivian marching powder operation is responsible for this mistake, but rest assured I will find out and they will pay for it. I don’t grow, cultivate, harvest, cook, process and transport my blow to have some employee with the discount chain Lidl in some small town in Germany end up with 60 pounds of it inside a box of bananas. Whoever stashed them under those bananas, you’re on notice. You wasted 28 kilos, or 61.7 pounds, of perfectly good cocaine, idiot. Instead of going to those who would appreciate it, that coke went across the Atlantic to Antwerp, Belgium, then on to Germany and into the hands of police. "The drug courier obviously screwed up. He simply was not quick enough," the Bavarian State Bureau of Investigation spokesman said. He wasn’t quick enough, smart enough or capable enough and after this screw-up, he’s also not going to be well enough to avoid a visit to the hospital emergency room, if you catch my drift………
- If it’s free or nearly free, count on there being a) a line, and b) a brawl. Whether it’s discounted computers, free tickets to an event, free breakfasts at IHOP or Denny’s or anything else, if it’s being given away at a free or drastically discounted price, people will line up for it and they will fight anyone who tries to prevent them from getting theirs. Managers at Filene's Basement in Atlanta should have known this when they held their annual discount wedding dress sale, but they seem to have been ill prepared nonetheless. An estimated 1,200 women lined up early this morning to buy discount wedding dresses at discounts up to 90 percent. When the store opened at 8 a.m., the scene was akin to those at Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Toys R’ Us and other stores the day after Thanksgiving, when idiot shoppers literally trample each other to death to get the best deals on their chosen items. At Filene, these maniacal brides burst into the store in a mad stampede to grab as many dresses as possible, leaving at least one store customer badly rattled. “I was frightened," Amanda O'Donnell said. “I got to come in a little early so I was bombarded with women. I got into a fistfight, seriously. I was in a tug of war. First, I got away from being stampeded. Then, once I finally got some dresses, I had to get into a fistfight. So, it was terrible.” What a great contrast, these women who are going to do everything in the power to look as beautiful, glamorous and perfect on their wedding day, throwing down with other brides, scratching, clawing and throwing punches to get a cheap wedding dress. Never mind explaining how that blood stain got on your gown when you took a chunk out of some other woman’s arm to snatch it away from her, dammit, you got a dress for less than $50! "It was pandemonium, crazy but you know, I was throwing elbows left and right," Dannika Kamille Smith said. "We weren't going let anybody jump in front of us. We had adrenaline running, just excitement. We were ready." Listen to yourself, you psycho. You just ook part in an event known worldwide as the "Running of the Brides” and you actually sound proud of assaulting other women for wedding dresses. I’m not sure whether to be stunned, mortified or horrified that racks holding nearly 2,200 wedding dresses were cleared in about a minute. Apparently the concept is grabbing as many dresses as possible and hope to find one that works. If none of the ones you’ve ripped from the desperate clutches of another shopper fit, then the next move is to find someone to trade with. I do realize that many people are struggling financially right now in the United States, but personally I’m placing a slightly higher price on my dignity than these women do……….
- Why do police dispatchers, 911 operators and others in that line of work have such a tough time with a job that shouldn’t be all that taxing? Whether it’s legendary 911 operator Mike Forbes asking a woman who called in to request help corralling her two teenage daughters who were beating the crap out of each other if she wanted someone to come over and shoot the girls or people like police dispatcher Becky Hughes of Lebanon City, Fla. doing what she (allegedly) did, it’s mystifying to me. Hughes has resigned from her post after allegedly having sex while on the job. Lebanon City Attorney Mark Yurick claimed that Hughes was working the overnight shift two weeks ago when she invited her boyfriend, David Dakins, and a friend to see the dispatch center. Yurick said that once the two men arrived, Hughes put a call out over the intercom to see if any officers were in the building. When no one responded and she was confident that the building was empty, Hughes is alleged to have started performing oral sex on Dakins while his friend waited in the hallway. “In addition to the nature, the specific nature of the conduct, it was certainly inappropriate for her to be engaged in any kind of conduct that was distracting or could've potentially distracted her from doing her job," said Yurick. The problem for Hughes was that there actually was a sergeant in the building at the time of the incident, with surveillance video from inside the dispatch center appearing to show the sergeant walking in on Hughes and Dakins. In the internal investigation that followed, Hughes had the chutzpah to deny doing anything inappropriate and calling it a joke. “As soon as the radio traffic stops, I go down real quick to make it look like I was giving David (oral sex), which I wasn't. I will swear to you I wasn't," she said. “If I could take back those two seconds, I would.” Here’s where I run into trouble in regards to buying the story you’re selling, B.: you admitted that Dankins had his pants down in the dispatch center while you were working. I’m sorry, but if a guy has his pants down and you’re on video (and in your own words) as going down there with his pants down, you weren’t joking about anything. You did the deed, so don’t continue denying it and insulting everyone’s intelligence. Thankfully no emergency calls came in during the time you were servicing your boyfriend in the dispatch center, so no one was put in peril because of your idiotic actions. That’s about the only positive to come from this incident………
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