- What did I just freaking say a couple of days ago? I clearly remember writing that people who spend even one second of their time persecuting Barbie are tools, no question about it. At that time, I was addressing a certain ass-hatted state legislator in West Virginia who wanted to ban sales of Barbie dolls in his state because he felt the dolls encouraged girls to value beauty over intelligence even though Barbie is a piece of plastic and has nothing to do with intelligence, either in a positive or negative fashion. But perhaps Democratic Delegate Jeff Eldridge of West Virginia has some kindred sprits out there, and by kindred spirits, I mean morons. These morons would be the parents and groups who have worked themselves into a frenzy over the new "Totally Stylin' Tattoos Barbie,” which comes with a set of body art stickers to be placed anywhere on her body. The set also comes with a tattoo gun so kids can stamp designs on themselves. Overly conservative and backwards-thinking parents are bent that Mattel would dare to put out a doll showing that all people aren’t the same and that some people dare, gasp, to put tattoos on their bodies. Never mind that the tattoos for children are temporary and wash off, these parents are pissed. They believe the toy is not appropriate for young children and are spouting rhetoric like that words flying out of the pie hole of Jenn Alcayaga, a parent from Sacramento, Calif. She’s against the message the new Barbie could send to young girls. "It's attracting kids too young to want to expose parts of their body to show off tattoos," she said. A small flaw in your logic, woman: kids that young don’t have tattoos. Kids you’re referring to aren’t old enough to have tats unless they’re inking up prison style with their friends, and at that point I think them doing so would be a bigger concern than possibly dressing in a way that shows off their tattooed body parts. Thankfully, most people have a bigger, more functioning brain than Alcayaga and are fine with the doll, as evidenced by the fact that sales have exceeded Mattel’s expectations and the company says it has no plans to discontinue the doll, insisting it gives girls a chance to express themselves and be creative. Agreed and agreed, so can we all just stop wasting time hassling a plastic doll and move on to more important things……
- I love drug mules. What’s not awesome about people mutilating and shredding their bodies in order to jam some drugs into (or onto) their person and transport them for a relatively small payday? Typically this practice involves placing the drugs inside of a person through some sort of incision, but a 66-year-old Chilean man decided to go a different route in transporting some cocaine. The man arrived at the airport in Barcelona, Spain and made his way through police controls because of a cast on his broken leg, meant to elicit sympathy. The ploy worked initially, but because police were scrutinizing passengers arriving on the flight late Wednesday from the Chilean capital, Santiago, they gave everyone a closer look and when a luggage search found cocaine hidden in the man’s luggage, in a six-pack of beer and also in the aluminum legs of two stools he was transporting, they pulled him aside. Even though the leg was really broken (a fracture of two bones below the knee which police believe the man or his accomplices did intentionally in case the leg was X-rayed), police sensed something was amiss and they applied a substance to the cast, which showed that it was made of cocaine. Interesting, innovative…..but ultimately unsuccessful. The man, identified only by his initials J.S.P.F., was taken to hospital to have his leg properly treated. What, you’re telling me drug dealers putting casts made of blow onto broken legs don’t use proper medical techniques? Wow, never saw that coming. But hey, when looking to transport 10½ pounds of coke from one continent to another, some sacrifices must be made. I just find it amazing that people can get to a place where it’s cool with them if someone breaks their leg, slams a cast made of Colombian nose candy on their leg and sends them on a flight across the world to transport those drugs. Way to go drug mules, the depths you sink to never cease to amaze me……..
- Not that anyone needs additional reasons not to have a MySpace account, but here’s another one just in case. In addition to not being on a website with the highest per capita pedophile quotient on the Internet, how’s about steering clear of freaks who would prank you and set you up to receive dozens of calls from freaks looking to have sex with a person they believe to be a 16-year-old girl? Consider the case of a Seattle woman who found herself at the receiving end of numerous sexual propositions from strangers after someone pranked her on MySpace. Her saga began Saturday night when the phone began ringing off the hook at her home. The calls were sexual in nature, with all sorts of pervs trying to get her to have sex with them because they believed she was the girl they’d found on MySpace, advertising herself as a 16-year-old looking to have sex with anyone, regardless of their age. “It became a nuisance," the woman said. "I mean, you're sitting down to have dinner and people are calling, wanting to argue whether you're going to have sex with them or not.” In addition to the calls, there were text messages of the same nature, all asking if she was Ryann, the name listed on the MySpace page. One caller, insisting he had the right number, refused to hang up. "I got your number off of MySpace," the caller said. Well, clearly there’s no more credible source for information than a site that allows 10-year-olds to design pages with teddy bear themes and post their thoughts on what happened on the playground at recess today, but maybe you don’t want to be so sure about something you see on the site. The woman whose life was turned into a temporary nightmare has declined to be identified, but she did say that she'd never before seen the person featured on the page, and doesn't know how the person would have gotten her phone number. MySpace was contacted by this woman and within three minutes, the page was taken down. An explanation for why the prank was pulled and by whom may never come, but I think we can all learn a valuable lesson here, that lesson being that MySpace can be a giant suck on your time even if you don’t have an account…….
- Quite the wide-ranging academic cheating scandal you’ve managed to create, student-athletes at Florida State University. A total of ten sports, including football and men’s basketball, will serve four years' probation, and face a reduction in scholarships and other penalties due to what the NCAA described Friday as "major violations." The football team will also vacate an undetermined number of wins, which will cost legendary head coach Bobby Bowden his spot as college football’s second-winningest coach of all-time. Bowden would have entered the coming season with 382 career victories, trailing Penn State coach Joe Paterno by one win on the all-time list. Because of the scandal, Bowden will be forced to forfeit all wins during which ineligible students competed in 2006 and 2007. Other penalized programs at FSU include:
baseball, men's track and field, women's track and field, men's swimming, women's swimming, men's basketball, women's basketball, softball and men's golf . All face the same sanctions, with the total number of athletes involved topping out at 61. Of course, many will see this as an indictment of these athletes and the athletic department, but let’s look for a silver lining and find solace in the fact that athletes from so many different sports came together for a common cause: cheating. Normally, some athletes - especially those in lesser sports - can be ostracized and looked down upon by athletes in higher-profile sports. Here, these 61 individuals overlooked their differences and decided that passing classes for which they didn’t want to do the work was bigger than what separated them. Because of their actions, 10 teams will have to forfeit victories, as only one ineligible player would have had to participate in a game for the entire team record has to be vacated. As for the scholarship reductions, they’re not exactly substantial and won't really hurt the football program, as the team will be limited to 83 total scholarships in 2008-09; 82 in 2009-10; and 84 in 2010-11; the maximum usually allowed by the NCAA is 85. If you’re not familiar with the particulars of the cheating scandal, the NCAA determined that a former learning specialist, academic advisor and tutor gave "improper assistance" to Florida State athletes who were taking online courses. According to the NCAA, the former learning specialist typed portions of papers for at least three athletes and also provided answers to an online psychology course quiz by instructing another athlete to complete the quiz on behalf of the athlete enrolled in the course. Not exactly helping eliminate the stereotype of the dumb jock who is only in college to play sports, academic support staff at FSU. The school will remain on probation extends through March 5, 2013, although no word on whether the probation is double top super secret probation………..
- I suppose everyone has a different reaction to a warrant for their arrest being issued on war crimes charges. Some people might be heartbroken, others might be angry and you may have some who angrily start lining up their legal defense to tackle the charges against them. Then there’s Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was seen smiling, dancing and speaking to a huge crowd of supporters just one day after a warrant was issued for his arrest on war crimes charges. Dancing in defiance as international aid agencies were being ordered to leave the country in retaliation to the decision by the International Criminal Court to indict al-Bashir might seem classless to some, but when you really examine it closely……no, it’s still classless. Not as classless as presiding over six years of bloodshed in the country's Darfur region, but damn close. There’s not much to say about the tools who filled the streets of the capital, Khartoum, to support al-Bashir and raised their fists in a show of defiance. Some ass hats even made posters and banners featuring al-Bashir's face or the flag of Sudan. The one banner written in English read, "We are all with al-Bashir." Oh, how I wish I could have been there to hear al-Bashir’s speech full of lies and propaganda as he addressed the crowd and denounced the United States, its Western allies and Israel. How I would have loved to hear the crowd full of mindless sycophants chant in broken English, "Down, down, USA!” I’m not sure what music was used at this debacle, but I have always been curious what kind of tunes one rocks when staging a party to “celebrate” their indictment on war crimes charges. I mean, do you find a deejay to mix some bitchin’ beats, get everyone dancing? Do you go with angry, anti-establishment songs? Regardless, having a camouflaged helicopter swoop over the crowd was definitely a nice touch. Of course, all of this isn’t going to help al-Bashir’s case when he finally goes before the International Criminal Court at The Hague, Netherlands. The court issued the warrant Wednesday for war crimes and crimes against humanity, accusing al-Bashir of complicity in a campaign of violence against the people of Darfur, in the west of the country. The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict in western Sudan's Darfur region, and 2.5 million have been forced to flee their homes. For some odd reason, Sudan has angrily denied those accusations even though the rest of the world can clearly see that they are true. No one better exemplifies this inexplicable defiance than Kamal Obaid, Sudan's state minister of information and communications, who called the ICC a "white man's tribunal" and the arrest warrant "an insult." I’m just guessing here, but the countries represented by the International Criminal Court aren’t all white, so that’s not accurate. But hey, at least al-Bashir and his mindless supporters got to party together one final time……….
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