Sorry, But You Have No Lifelines

Glancing through the headlines over at ESPN, today, I noticed an article that contained the family of Andrew Gallo's response to the backlash against their son, who recently killed Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart in a car accident. Basically, the family of this guy, especially his Dad, is particularly upset, because they feel their son has been portrayed negatively in the media and that he has been made out to be a "bad kid" and a "monster."

First off, let's just account for all the little details, shall we? Mr. Gallo did not simply kill Nick Adenhart in a car crash; he killed him in a car crash during which his BAC was 3 TIMES the legal limit. In addition to being a drunk driver (who killed not just Adenhart, but 2 others), Gallo also decided that it would be a good idea to flee the scene (on foot); so instead of calling an ambulance and trying to help the people he'd just run into, he jumped out of his car and ran away. Better yet, this arrest is his second traffic-related violation, with the first being a....DUI back in 2006.

Sounds like a great guy to you too, huh?

Nevertheless, in the spirit of the semi-post-modern, personal-responsibility-be-damned era in which we live, Andrew Gallo's father has come out and decided to set the record straight by blaming everyone but his son for what happened. You see, poor Andrew is no normal kid (notice, the spin starts right here, as, despite being 22 years old, Gallo is dubbed a "kid," instead of an adult, to help him retain that aura of child-like innocence). His parents divorced, and he took it hard. Plus, he has a good friend who is an alcoholic. Heck, he is an alcoholic. And besides, he's been "devastated" by what happened and, of course, he "never meant to hurt anybody, ever."

In short, what Andrew's Daddy is trying to say, without actually saying it (for the sake of subtlety, I suppose), is that the accident is not his son's fault. Don't blame my poor, innocent, helpless boy - blame the circumstances.

What utter bullshit.

Sorry Mr. Gallo, I don't care if your son never meant to hurt anybody - he did. In fact, he effing killed somebody; 3 somebodies, to be exact. Besides, this wasn't your typical, everyday car crash. You see, sir, your son was drunk. In fact, he blew 3 times the California limit for BAC, which is 0.08, meaning that his BAC was around 0.24, which, for those of you keeping score at home, is somewhere between "wasted" and "passed-out" on the drunk scale. And while that particular level of BAC may make for some great entertainment at your local college frat party, it makes you a spectacularly shitty driver and a complete freakin' moron if you actually try to test those shitty driving skills on a road.

Moreover, being an alcoholic doesn't excuse young Andrew from the responsibility of this crime. Alcohol is not necessary for survival. It cannot open its own bottle, nor can it force itself down your throat. Ultimately, you are the one who decides what goes in your body; which makes you responsible when what goes in has adverse effects on the world around you. At some point in his life, Andrew Gallo decided to become an alcoholic through the drinking habits that he, himself, developed, of his own free will. Those choices led him to the bottle, and that bottle led him, quite literally, to the scene of the crime.

That is no one's fault but his own.

Lastly, I don't care if he took his parents' divorce hard - over half of the marriages in this country end in divorce, but you don't see great numbers of the kids from those marriages running out becoming alcoholics and committing vehicular manslaughter, do you?

Simply put, there is no excuse for Andrew Gallo, as he chose to get behind the wheel of that car, despite knowing how much he'd had to drink. Furthermore, he also chose to have those drinks in the first place; and, moreover, chose to drink where he would need a ride home, without thinking to, oh, I dunno, designate a driver or call a cab.

Going out and drinking alcohol does not make you a bad person. Having had a painful childhood doesn't either. Heck, even being an alcoholic doesn't necessarily make you a bad person. Vehicular manslaughter while driving drunk, however, does. And there is simply no way around that fact.

On April 15th

Ah, taxes, such wonderful things. Indeed, nothing like having to file one's tax returns, is there? Sadly, this year, I had the, uh....genuine pleasure of getting to file my own tax returns for the very first time. And I must tell you that I have come away from this experience with a new appreciation for all things aimed at cutting, simplifying, or eliminating taxes. Moreover, I have also come to the conclusion that it is high time for the 16th Amendment and the IRS to die brutal and painful deaths.

I'd even be interested in suspending the 8th Amendment for duration of the execution process.

Seriously though, my tax returns were, supposedly, relatively easy to file - and they still frustrated and confounded me. Consequently, I can't even begin to fathom how the average taxpayer is able to go through all of this hassle and not come away thinking that taxes should be lower, that the tax code should be seriously simplified, and that the IRS should burn in Hell. I mean, how you could not come away from such an experience with a high level of sympathy for the Ron Paul conception of taxes is beyond me.

Finally, I would just like to publicly acknowledge my Father and many other adults who, for years, have been telling me that: "Everyone's a Democrat until they start paying taxes."

You were right. And I say that not because I didn't believe you before, but because now I understand why.

(And just in case you need a time-of-year-appropriate laugh, some P.J. O'Rourke:)

"I'm a 47-year old middle-class male with a job. Every hippy-dippy thing that's thought up - from heroin addiction to special vegan lunch lines in the local high school cafeteria - I get to pay for. Of course I'm a Republican.

"The mystery of Government is not how Washington works, but how to make it stop."

Maine Gives SexEd A Makeover

Ah, the strange things that can happen when your Moral Compass goes batshit and just starts spinning in all sorts of.....crazy directions.

Please, feel free to give that article a second read folks, because I can assure you that allowing birth-control pills to be given out in Middle Schools is one you haven't heard before.

Clearly it's in the best interest of our society to encourage little 11 year-olds to run around and have sex, Right? Especially when, assuming the parents have o.k'ed their child's treatment by the school Nurse, the parents of the kids don't have to be notified that their Middle-school-aged daughters are receiving birth-control.

Fun, no?

Oh wait, better question: given that the legal Age of Consent in Maine is 16, doesn't that mean that these School Board Members and Schools are aiding and abetting in Statutory Rape?

Oh, the joys of Modern Society....

***Update 10/26***

It seems that the answer to my above question is, indeed, 'yes' - giving birth control to someone underage is illegal; and the Cumberland County DA has stepped in to, ahem, remind these idiots at the Middle School that they have to report anyone having sex who is underage. I was, however, wrong on one point, as it seems that the legal age of consent in Maine may be 14 and not 16. Either way, there are still kids as young as 11 in the school in question....

Because It Couldn't Possibly Be Their Own Fault

I guess that once one becomes a fervent believer in the religion of global warming, blaming that religion's 'apostates,' if you will, for the world's problems is a logical next step. Well, at the very least, it is for the UN Secretary General, who, in Sunday's edition of the Washington Post, blamed the genocide in Darfur on, you guessed it, global warming.

No, seriously, he did.

But hey, some religious nutbags believe that 9/11 was God's punishment to us for tolerance of gays, others, that genocide in Darfur is God's punishment for not taking global warming seriously enough.

Or, at least, I suppose that's how the logic would go.

Philosophically speaking.

Thing is, religious extremism, no matter whether your religion is Christianity, Islam, or Global Warming, is unbecoming, stupid, and, well, a serious problem for those of us with brains enough to have remembered that age-old wisdom about taking things in moderation.

However, there is another, more important, and perhaps predictable, feature of Secretary Ban Ki Moon's editorial of which one should take note. That, of course, is the startling lack of responsibility he gives the very organization which he heads.

You know, the one dedicated to the principles of Human Rights, World Peace, and whatnot.....

Never mind that millions of people died in a genocide while his United Nations stood by and did practically nothing - just blame the whole shin-dig on global warming. Because, you know, when it comes down to it, that's a hell of a lot easier than looking into why your organization failed so miserably in attempting to stop or lessen the violence in Darfur.

With those kind of passing-the-buck skills, Mr. Moon will fit in quite nicely as the new head of the UN.

Moreover, Secretary-General Moon and his fellow global warming faithful will never be in short supply of that one thing which religious nuts of all kinds share in common: stupidity.

Abortion + Malpractice = Moral Chaos

Q: How do you know your moral compass is really spinning in all the wrong directions?

A: When you decide to sue your Doctor because she wasn't able to successfully kill your baby!

Oh, and as an added bonus, her Doctor failed to kill her baby, so she went to other Doctors, figued this out, and ended up not killing the baby, and now, when the child is a full 2 years old (and has not been put up for adoption, interestingly), she's decided she wants money? No, wait, scratch that, she deserves money. Hell, she's owed it by God's righteous law.

The word 'frivolous' comes to mind......among many others.

Stop Global Warming! Go Cow Tipping...?

Global Warming, as we all know, is happening. It's happening right now. It's all you and your evil SUV's fault. It's also happening so fast that the whole State of Florida is going to be underwater, soon. All the experts agree! Seriously, be afraid, be very afraid! Oh, and it's also all George Bush's fault! Well, at least that's the message of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, which I was unfortunate enough to have to watch for a Political Science class not too long ago.

(***Note to anyone thinking of seeing the movie!!!*** It's basically an extremely boring 2-hour Powerpoint presentation just without any cool animations or good background music. Also, it's interspersed with totally irrelevant personal stuff, Al Gore still whining about the 2000 Election, and, well, I'm not sure, I fell asleep and missed the ending.) (Yes, it's that bad.)

However, some rather interesting new research has come out that may be a bit, um, inconvenient, for Al Gore and other global warming fanatics. Apparently, cows, yes cows, emit more CO2 annually than "cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together." Yes, that's right; cows cause more global warming than evil gas guzzlers.

Excuse me for a moment - I'm going into spasms I'm laughing so hard.

Seriously, how much longer do we have to listen to all these doomsayers who keep telling us to watch out for global warming? I mean, if cows produce more CO2 than us humans, how exactly are we to account for, say the Oceans (which emit huge amounts of CO2), or volcanic eruptions (which also emit large amounts CO2)? Should we drain the Atlantic and put a gigantic stopper in Mount St. Helens?

Indeed, for me, the biggest problem I have with folks like Al Gore is not so much that they claim Global Warming exists, on this issue there's never been much doubt, but that they claim we as humans are most responsible for it. The way Al Gore tells it in An Inconvenient Truth; you'd think there was absolutely no other cause of global warming besides humans, an assertion which is certifiably wrong. So here's my solution, next time someone complains about me driving my Suburban and how that "causes global warming;" I'll go to the nearest farm and shoot the first cow I see. This will not only help the environment, but it will provide me with a nice steak for dinner as well!

DoubleThink - Draft = Bad...Must Bring Back!

What's the matter? Is that title a little bit confusing? Indeed, well so is the recent call by Representative Charles Rangel to re-instate the Military Draft; but here's the real stunner, Mr. Rangel is not one of those evil, warmongering, Nazi-like, Republicans; but a Democrat. And you thought my title was confusing!

Sadly, folks it's true, after nearly 4 years of warning the American public that they should vote Democratic because the evil Republicans and Bush would bring back the draft, Rep. Rangel apparently got tired of waiting and just decided to do it himself. No word yet on how he'll blame President Bush for the idea.

This brilliant idea, of course, comes from the same party that birthed the anti-war activist back in the 1960's during that whole 'Vietnam' thing. Oh, and I seem to have forgotten, what exactly were a lot of those liberals complaining about back then...? Oh, that's right: The Military Draft! So either Mr. Rangel is trying to employ some clever political move to re-energize all those old, smelly hippies with anti-war zeal or he's just a complete f-ing moron.

I'll take f-ing moron for $200, please, Alex.

The best part of Mr. Rangel's stupidity though, comes from this great line right here: "[Rangel] has said the all-volunteer military disproportionately puts the burden of war on minorities and lower-income families." Yes, that's right. He actually thinks the Draft will make minorities and poor people less likely to serve in the military. Clearly, this guy was smoking a lot of dope back in the 60's, because he doesn't even remember their talking points correctly! Reminder for Rep. Rangel - hippies no like draft; complain draft is unfair to poor people and minorities; also complain that draft exempts evil, rich people like George W. Bush.

Speaking of George W. Bush, wasn't his Vietnam military service labeled by Democrats as 'dishonorable' due to the fact that he, like all the other rich, white boys, had used his powerful connections to 'get out' of any real service? Wasn't this the reason why John Kerry was a 'hero'? You know, because despite being so rich and powerful he went to Vietnam anyways? Indeed, liberal talking points on the Vietnam War from the 1960's to the 2004 election have been based on the belief (and rightly so) that the Military draft placed more of the war burden on the poor and minorities.

So, Mr. Rangel, which reality is it going to be? That the all-volunteer Army overburdens the poor and minorities or that the Draft Army does? Please pick one; it's very difficult to argue with you when you take both sides.

In the end though, all sarcastic jabs aside, the issue of the Military draft comes down to one thing: choice. In a country that's based on Individual Freedom you can't mandate that anyone should serve their country in any way whatsoever (including the Peace Corp, etc.); or, to look at it another way, in the United States, Freedom means you have a God-given right to be a selfish asshole if you so choose.

Thomas Jefferson once said that "the tree of Liberty must be refreshed, from time to time, with the blood of Patriots and tyrants," and, as always, he's right. But he forgot one part; and that is this: a country that doesn't have enough Patriots willing to give their blood, deserves the tyrant.

Stop Protesting the 'Da Vinci Code'

All over the globe, as the movie "The Da Vinci Code" premieres, Christian groups are going out to protest the film. Of course, this is hardly unexpected, as this is merely a continuation of the discontent they expressed with the novel written by Dan Brown. However, I really don't understand why these groups keep going out to protest the 'Da Vinci Code' phenomenon; and I really wish they would just stop.

First off, it's fiction. When someone writes a story that they admit isn't true, there's no need to get angry. It's not like Dan Brown started a revolution within the church; I don't recall seeing any mass streams of 'converts' to the, shall we say, 'Dan Brown form' of Christianity. If, for whatever reason, Dan Brown's outlandish (fictional) claims about Christianity offend you, don't watch the movie or read the book. Furthermore, if the movie does offend you, don't start a protest to tell those of us who want to enjoy it how awful it is. We're just trying to go watch a movie; and honestly, at this point, protesting the 'Da Vinci Code' isn't go to do much.

Additionally, how can all these people be so offended by such a great book? I absolutely loved it. So, lay your sensibilities aside and just enjoy the novel for what it is: a well-written thriller. I, for one, can't wait to see the movie, and if you don't agree with me -- I don't care. And you know why? Because, well, it's just a movie.

BusHitler, and Other Liberal Myths

I was planning on writing about Colorado 'teacher' Jay Bennish as soon as I heard his rather interesting story. Unfortunately, I was able to listen to the audio of his 'lecture' and was unable to stop laughing until just now. In short, Mr Bennish gave an anti-Bush, anti-Capitalist, Postmodernist rant to his geography class, and was unfortunate enough to have it recorded by one of his students. He was suspended, but his students took up his banner by staging a walkout in support of thier rastafarian teacher.

I mention the walkout only because it humors me as much as the rant itself. Like it made a difference? They're just high school kids, stupid ones at that. Most could have cared less about their teacher; they just wanted to get out of class. I know if I was still in high school and someone came up to me and said, "We're leaving class in protest." My only question would have been "For how long? " or "Will it get me out of my Calculus test next block?" But what about the few who actually were sincere? Fight on, brothers! I mean seriously, anyone who has been in high school for longer than, oh say, 2 days, knows that picking a fight with High School administrators is just plain idiotic. (And fruitless, I might add).

But onto a select few portions of Mr Bennish's high-on-emotion, short-on-logic commentary:

First up: the Drug War. After delineating how cruel the United States is to third-world farmers etc, etc, Mr Bennish suggests that China and Iran have as much right to "invade America and drop chemical weapons on North Carolina," to destroy cigarette companies, as we do to destroy cocaine and marijuana crops in Bolivia. The first problem with this argument is that we are not invading South American countries and that we drop plant killing chemicals, not chemical weapons, so his idea seems a bit overboard. Further, as someone who has been, and will be, living literally less than a mile from the R.J Reynolds company headquarters (and who attends a University that gave serious consideration to calling itself 'Reynolds College' instead of Wake Forest) I can't say I'm much a fan of this idea.

The most important difference is that the rest of the world WANTS our cigarettes, we don't want Columbia's cocaine; thus, we have to try to halt the importation of it, and this often means getting to the (physical and theoretical) root of the problem.

Next up: Capitalism. The system that is "at odds" with "caring and compassion" and "Human Rights." Wow, this is where I really started to just die laughing. Was Soviet Communism more 'compassionate'?? Or perhaps he'd prefer the self-destructing French Socialism?? Perhaps, he wants a system that incoporates the 'Workers' more, so that the evil rich people have to show more compassion towards the common guys?? But no, that can't be true, because Hitler tried that (he was originally a member of the 'German Worker's Party') and, as you'll see, Mr. Bennish doesn't much like Hitler. (In fact, he thinks he's almost as bad as George W. Bush)

Most interesting is how Mr. Bennish neglects to mention that the two most generous nations in the world (the ones who donate the most governmental cash) are Japan and the United States: the two most capitalistic societies in the world. And he probably doesn't want me to mention that the massive amount donated by the American government doesn't include all the private donations that Americans make every year through the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, their Churches, etc. How uncaring and uncompassionate of us nasty Capitalist pigs!!

And last, but certainly not least: BusHitler!! On this ludicrous comparison, I will say very little. I have just finished reading Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz (detailing how he managed to live for over a year at the most infamous Concentration Camp). When the American Auschwitz opens Mr. Bennish can try this argument with me. (And no, the 3 square meals a day given at Gitmo or the grand total of zero deaths at Abu Ghraib do not count.)

The bottom line, Mr. Bennish epitomizes why most American's can't locate Iraq on the map: in class they get liberal indoctrination instead of, say, geography.

***I would however like to congratulate Mr. Bennish for completing this expansive and lengthy rant without once screaming: "HALIBURTON!!!!!!! "***