So, I’m pretty much sick of thinking and talking about Paris and Lindsey.  I’m over Anna Nicole, her monasery of man whores and her kid. 

Thank God there was something fun in the news today!

This dude, err, chick, err, well I think its still a dude, Robert Kosilek, wants the state of Massachusetts to pay for his sex change surgery.

Um. Yah.  He just isn’t happy being a he and isn’t going to be happy living as a he anymore, dammit!

Whatever.  This asshat killed his wife in 1990 after she dumped hot tea on his testicles.  I’d probably have dumped hot tea on his testicles too, but I would have run for the hills and not looked back.  Apparently she wasn’t that smart and he strangled her.  How I don’t know.  I can only assume that if I had hot tea spill on my nuts, I’d be in the fetal position crying like a baby.

Anyhoo.  So, this guy has been in jail for murder for many moons.  Now, I don’t know about ya’ll, but I am all for swift offing of anybody who is a murderer.  I mean, why are we wasting our tax dollars on feeding and showering these folks?  I am not tolerant of blatent evil or being mean for the sake of it, but I think there are way too many murderers, child molesters, and rapists in prison, living the good life, instead of getting a needle in the vein.

And this jack ass wants the state to pay to remove his penis and give him a vagina?   If they do it, I hope he gets molested by the biggest, baddest man in the prison. 

Any Tom, Harry, or Dick in society would be fighting with a multitude of shrinks to get the sex change, not to mention spending a small fortune on the operation itself.  How in the world could his request even have gotten so far as to have made it into court?  And not only did it make it into the courts, but an obscene amount of money has been spent on mental evaluations of this guy because he keeps threatening suicide.  Good God, let him do it!

Dang, give me the needle or let me have control of the switch, I’ll euthanize him and save the fine tax paying citizens of Mass. a whole lot of money.

That’s the question I heard as I picked up my to go order. I thought it deserved saying again.

People get murdered every day.

Why did this particular event become the headline? Why do I care at all about this particular event hundreds of miles from me and unrelated to anyone I know?

Why is this headline news on all the networks? Does anyone ever ask that at the network? Does anyone ever ask if they are hurting or helping both the victims and their families, and the viewers? Does anything but sensationalism and ratings matter?

I really don’t give a shit about these headline stories. They have absolutely nothing to do with me or anyone I remotely know.

News should matter to the viewers. It should have some relationship to their lives. It should not be a slow drive by a crash on the highway.

That’s sick.

     I had some blogs saved up complaining about a Web 2.0 meme I couldn’t finish (sorry), a Wikipedia Article, and the fact that I couldn’t find a suitable Time Lapse artist on the 2nd … So … Here we go …  

     Web 2.0 is an old concept.  We were using the term back in 1999 at a Web Design studio where I worked at as a lead developer… It had to do with the seperation of form and function, an optimized user experience with nearly seamless transitions from Desktop to Web, and ability to allow clients to manipulate that experience in a way that helped them make sense of the data they were viewing.
     Despite the Wikipedia article which says O’Reilly Media quoted it in 2003, the term’s been around for more than 10 years… Seriously, believing that is like believing Al Gore created teh Internets.
     Also contrary to popular belief (especially to a lot of anti-Microsoft asshats), the first real “Web 2.0″ app was Microsoft’s old Exchange Webmail client — thrown away due to its instability, instead of fixed and re-packaged — which boasted more features than even Roundcube Webmail can get away with now.

     This video, however, has only a little to do with any of that.  Instead, it’s a great piece of artwork which highlights the things that’ve happened over the last ten years and gives us some things to think about as we go through our cultural transitions.

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE)

Tip: Sir Rantzalot, more commonly known as Rantz, who, for all practical purposes appears to be a gentleman and a scholar.  Or something.  heh

     Now, Diva’s last blog, “Skank of the Week: Paris Hilton” was funny to me.  Most rational, thinking people think she’s a bit … well … Useless.  I mean, really, what makes her a celebrity?  Why the Hell should should anyone care, one iota, about her life in the least?
     Apparently, it’s because she’s rich, and totally enjoys making an ass herself, her family, exploiting the silver spoon, etc. etc. etc.  She’s a train wreck waiting to happen, a poster child for “Rich Bitch.”
     Everyone hates her.

     Free Speech comes to mind…

     We’re just past Memorial Day.  I didn’t blog, because I was busy living my life, being an idiot and having a good time.
     If I had blogged, I would’ve reminded people about all of the people who had died to make this a Free country.  Those are people who made an extreme sacrifice, whether they lived or died, that was dedicated to furthering our Freedom, or the Freedom of a given nation.  They’re people of conviction and character, who stood up and took action while others sat on their haunches waiting for the next episode of blah-blah-blah.

     I also would’ve reminded people about the ideals that those heroes stood for in defense of Freedom in this country.
     I’ve lived in a few other countries, some at others’ suggestions, and found out that Americans, as a whole, take those Freedoms for granted.

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NymRecFWgAs)

     You have the right to be offended.  You have the right to change the channel.  You have the right to read another blog.  You have the right to hate our politicians.  You have the right to vote.  You have the right to marriage.  You have the right to divorce.  You have the right to rant about them on a blog.  You have the right to free yourself of toxic people.  You have the right to file a restraining order against an abuser.
     So long as you’re obeying some pretty loose concepts of law and trying to be a decent person, you can do pretty much anything you want.  Nobody’s telling us what to do — we make our own choices, we lead our own lives, and there’s no Government standing over us to tell us what to read, what to think, what to express.
     That makes us unique in the world.  As much as people “complain” about the “loss of our freedom,” I’d have to say — go live somewhere else for a while, then get back to me.

     So it strikes me as funny, with all of those rights, how some people seem to feel think that they have the right not to be offended — how they might “sue” a blog for a deragotory comment which reveled no personal information whatsoever.  How they might file a gag order on a legal case to prevent it from being talked about, no matter how heinously ridiculous the case might be.  How they might file a “stalking” charge because someone put up a link to a video they didn’t like.

     Hippies ate a lot of Acid, pretending to be activists for Free Spech.

     So … What, uh … Changed?

     Remember Perry Caravello, the guy who’s so Internet Saavy he couldn’t even spell “youtube” — or get Johnny Knoxville name right — in a lawsuit?  This is to people like him.  It’s also to “celebrities” who might garner attention via research, and thus benefit, from a sarcastic dietribe…

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPhje8wepyg)

     G’night, kids.

     God bless.

Tip: Zacque Hitchcock, who found these two perfect examples of video

     There was a movie called Jackass, but Perry Caravello is King of All Jackasses.  Take a look at this bit from his Legal case against … well, everybody:

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES

PERRY CARAVELLO, Plaintiff
     v.
JIMMY KIMMEL, JOHNNY KNOXVILLE, DAKOTA NORTH ENTERTAINMENT, INC., DON BARRIS, ADAM COROLLA, KLSC, 97.1., VICE MAGAZINE, MTZ.COM, BLACKHOLE PRODUCTIONS, PARAMOUNT PICTURES UTUBES.COM, and DOES 1 Through 100, INCLUSIVE, Defendants

Case No. BC372039
Filed: May 31, 2007

COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES

1. ACCOUNTING
2. DECLARATORY RELIEF
3. COMMON COUNT (UNJUST ENRICHMENT)
4. FRAUD
5. NEGLIGENCE

[ skip to the good bits ]

FOURTH CAUSE OF ACTION
(FRAUD)
(AGAINST ALL DEFENDANTS)

[ skip to the good bits ]

     14. On or about September 27, 2006, plaintiff appeared on the Adam Corolla radio show as part of the promotion of the release of the DVD sales of Windy City Heat. Plaintiff was promise by Defendant JOHNNY KNOXVILLE that Plaintiff would be paid 10 million dollars if he placed his penis in a mousetrap. Plaintiff agreed to do so, and, much to his emotional tranquility and to his physical harm, was severely injured when the trap went on his manhood. As a direct, proximate result thereof, Plaintiff had to seek out medical assistance for said injuries, pain and humiliation. The afforementioned incident has without Plaintiff’s permission and consent been widely disseminated and circulated on the Internet, to his prejudice, humiliation and emotional trauama. The named Defendants did nothing to prevent the incident from happening at the radio studio, and actually filmed the event without his permission or consent.

     Ummm… WHAT KIND OF DUMBASS ARE YOU, PERRY?

     Children… Playground… One kids says, ”I’ll give you a million dollars to lick my spit off the rail!”
     The other kid licks his spit of the rail.  He smiles, and laughs.
     Everyone standing around says, “Ooooooooooh!  Gross!”
     He smiles and laughs.  He doesn’t expect someone to give him a million dollars.  He got the attention he craved.

     So what … You think the rules change when you are supposed to be old enough to know better?  Welcome to adulthood, Dumbass!

     I mean, Dude, your mashed your meat in a device meant to kill animals — what, did you think this didn’t include big lizards?  Trouser snakes?  Waxed dolphins?  You honestly think someone would give you $10 Million for mangling your missile?  Jamming your Johnson?  Pillaging your pud?  And how can you possibly fathon the thought that someone isn’t gonna make a video when you were the one STUPID enough to waste your willy?  Trash your torpedo?  Annihilate your antler?  Sabotage your schlong?  Toast your tool?

     That’s why you get the Asshat of the Day Award, Caravello: For going above and beyond the call of duty to prove that you could be a bigger Jackass than P. J. Clapp ever thought about!
     I’m glad you got a female judge — I’m certain that she’ll make the fallacy (pun intended) of your argument quite clear.  And maybe she’ll remember that P. J. Clapp is Johnny Knoxville’s real name…

     Seriously, the next time you have the urge to preserve your pecker, try not placing it in a mousetrap.

NASHVILLE, TN (Via the Web) - Nashville Investigators and Lawmakers who are using video from the website of porn star Barbie Cummings in order to file charges against Tennessee Highway Patrol Officer Moss are now being surreptitiously released from employment for browsing porn sites from a State Government-funded network.

The former employees are filing wrongful termination suits based on the fact that they were only doing their jobs in investigating the antics of Officer Moss.  However, the fact that they “somehow” knew where to find the video implicating the officer places “cart before horse” doubt on their litigation.

When asked about the merits of the former employees cases, State Defense Attorney, I. P. Freely responded, “Was it the chicken or the egg who came first?”

Attorney for the plaintiffs, I. M. Stoned, quickly retorted, “That’s totally irrelevant!  It was CLEARLY Officer Moss who came first!”

Also in the works, Governor Bredesen’s personal admin assistant, Anita Goodlay, and an additional female staff member known only “the one with the big tits,” have filed Sexual Harrassment charges against the Governor after being wrongfully terminated for refusing to, “Come here and check this out!”

Say, did you hear the one about the Tennessee State Trooper and the Porn Star??? Sounds like the start of a really bad joke, huh? Actually, it’s funnier than a room full of Michael Jackson impersonators whipping each other with wet spaghetti noodles, but it’s no joke.

James Randy Moss, of the Tennessee Highway Patrol, had an anonymous complaint filed against him by a cupie doll named Justis Richert in Nashville, TN.

We here in beautiful KnoxVegas should be proud to boast that Justis, a.k.a. Barbie Cummings *snicker*, is a Knoxvillian. Let’s pause and give Barbie some well-deserved kudos. She makes our community proud by being a big-time porn star who makes her living by flying back and forth to the City of Angels to shoot her fair share of scenes.

I would now like to paraphrase for you how the skinny goes down:

Occifer Perv-A-Lot (OP): Hey sexy, can I see your license & registration?

[Queue Saxaphone Music]

Local Porn Queen (LPQ): Why yes occifer. Here’s my license and registration.

OP: Well, these seems in order. (Hiking up pants, Barney style) Miss Richert, do you have any drugs on you or in your ride?

LPQ: Why hell yes I do. Want some? They are my happy pills, they make me happy and extremely horny. Oh, by the way, I’m a porn star. I can rock your world, baby.

OP: Realllllly now? You aren’t just saying that to get my manhood roaring and to get me into some serious trouble later?

LQP: Oh, no, occifer. I wouldn’t do that in a million and one years. Don’t you have a lappytop in your crusie-woosie. I can show you my work. By the way, my stage name is Barbie Cummings. *snicker*

OP: Well, first, Miss Cummings *snicker*, you’ll need to give me those pills so I can fix your problem. (OP scatters dim pills in da bushes) Now lets take a little stroll on back to my cruiser and we’ll see just how good you really are. How’s that sound?

LQP:  Well, okay.  I think that was really neat what you did.

(Getting into the cruiser and turning on lappy)

OP:   Wow, girl.  Look at you go.  Say, what’ll it take for a nasty, middle aged, perv with a badge to get up next to a sweet thang like you?

LQP:  Jeez, I don’t know.  Maybe if you tape it with your cruiser camera so I can remember you.

OP:  Fine by me.

Some various acts of a sexual nature were captured by Occifer DipShit as he rolled tape.  You know Barbie might have fear of performing action without the lights and cameras.

To make a long story even longer, this guy gives her a copy of the tape….  Where she….you guessed it… POSTED IT ON HER WEBSITE FOR ONE AND ALL TO SEE….

I wonder if this would actually be one of the lamest things I’ve heard?

     By now, most everyone has heard about what happened at Digg… but in case you haven’t…

     The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) started sending Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) requests to Digg, whose user-supported community were giving kudos to some little cyberpunks who decided to post Cracks which would allow users to steal licensed content from HD-DVD movies.  These DMCA requests merely asked Digg to take down links to the crack-codes, which their community users had posted.
     Users on Digg revolted as the company began complying with the DMCA requests, and posted thousands upon thousands on links to the illegal material.  Eventually, Digg was forced to concede to the mutiny, as it put an enormous amount of pressure on the dotcom’s small number of owners.

     This pissed me off.

     Digg shouldn’t've had to exhaust their resources trying to fight this stuff.  And this is the downfall of user-supported communities on the Internet… And the users who think it’s a matter of “free and protected speech” are actually just a bunch of thugs.
     There, I said it.
     And I’m right.

     Let’s think of it this way:
     Some guy is standing at your local Mall passing out keys that fit the front door of your office, along with a flyer that has your Alarm code on it.  Is that illegal?  Yes.
     The same guy goes and puts your office key and Alarm code on the bulletin board at a local University.  Is that illegal?  Yes.

     But if he went home, and posted the information on the Internet, along with a precise method to guarantee that you could create that same office key using materials you already own, then some asshat Lawyer would claim that it’s protected, free speech.  And that is completely wrong, and defies all logic.
     So I have to ask … What’s the difference between a guy doing any of those three things, and passing out “key” to crack an HD-DVD movie?

     There is no difference.  It is illegal.  It has been illegal.

     And anyone who helps the guy do it?  Aiding and abetting.  That’s been illegal for a few hundred years.

     But money talks… You can guarantee that right now, over this controversey, a bunch of Lawyers will get together with a plan to make money by setting ridiculous precedents, becoming experts and what can only be called bullshit.

     It’s happened before.  For instance…
     It was illegal to trade child pr0n.  However, a lot of people felt it was okay to do it via the Internet, and had Lawyers prove their case.  The overwhelming excuse by Lawyers was, “It’s the Internet — it’s not real.”  
     *cough*bullshit*cough*
     Finally, a bunch of other Lawyers got together and decided to make a law against “trading child pr0n on the Internet.”  Did we need that law, when “trading child pr0n” was already illegal?
     It was a way to make a bunch of Lawyers a pile of free cash from an unsuspecting public who felt that giving Lawyers and lobbyists some money was the only way to make it end — instead of starting a grassroots campaign to enforce the existing laws that made trafficking child pr0n illegal.

     It really sucks that people won’t realize that.

     If you call someone and threaten their life, it’s illegal.  If you do it over the Internet, it’s illegal.
     If you have a restraining order against someone and they harrass you, it’s illegal.  If they do it over the Internet, it’s illegal.

     Why do we keep letting pedantic Lawyers tell us none of this stuff is real?

     Tell your Representatives: if it’s illegal in real life, it’s illegal on the internet.  This kind of Legal seperation has to stop!

     Unless it’s between two consenting adults…

     [ Maybe I've watched too much Penn & Teller ]

Since I am a fan of the “News of the Weird,” a column regularly featured in everyone’s favorite free “news” publication in the KnoxVegas MetroPulse, I’ve have decided to share some exceptional news today.

Let us go north, thru Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Canadia — okay, maybe not that far — go southwest a little, and bam!  You’re in the Dairy state, Wisconsin.  Then within that state, we come to the lovely little city of Janesville, just on the state line.  Janesville is known as “Wisconsin’s Park Place”, even though it was originally founded on strong industry. Our story however comes from a different line of work entirely, one that is universal to all places nowadays: Real Estate.

Whether you are buying, selling, renting, leasing, or subletting, some truths should just be self-evident.  Never trust anyone who offers a deal that feels to good to be true.

1. Inspect the property.
2. If the neighborhood looks like butt, the property values should not be that high.
3. Don’t be afraid to do a bit of research.
4. Don’t forget, to sell a place, the worst thing you can do is have the actual owner present.  Hire an agent.

I can’t help but want to talk about the last one.  The reasoning behind it is the same as hiring an attorney, since we all now a similar adage:  The man who represents himself has a fool for an attorney.  The owner is too emotionally tied to the property to make a viable sales attempt successful. 

Now that we can be successful, let’s get on with the story.

While on location showing a home to a couple, a real estate agent heard a blood-curdling scream out of the female counterpart.  Assuming it was a mouse the husband and agent walk into the room.  To their surprise, it was not a mouse, but the owner of the property… Deceased.

All I have to say is, “Hey, the owner was trying to do the right thing… he was OUT!”

     A friend of mine sent me this cartoon earlier, and I find it perfect considering the media’s anti-gun standpoint in the wake of the mass shooting last week.

[ Copyright © Leo Garza / San Antonio Express-News ]

     Having been around guns since I was … well, born, actually … I learned to have a healthy respect for them.  As a child, I never touched them unless they were handed to me.  I didn’t tell my friends about them.  I didn’t ever show them to my friends.  I didn’t carry them around with me.  I certainly never took one to show-and-tell.

     Why?

     Because I listened to what my father told me.

     Flash forward a lot of years, and any time a child doesn’t listen to their parents and does any of those things with a gun, the media goes insane about it.  
     The problem isn’t guns — it’s in raising a child who has no idea about cause-and-effect relationships, no responsibility or consequences for their own actions.

     Guns should be kept away from children.  I agree with that.  Some people should not own guns.  I agree with that.  But making widespread sweeping changes and Federal bans on guns? 
     Congress doesn’t know enough about firearms to make any such distinctions.  There are any number of stumbling blocks here.  You can’t go out today and come home with a handgun.  You can’t go out today and purchase a fully automatic, military-style weapon — nor can you in two weeks.  Or a month.  Or six.

     We have enjoyed gun ownership since this country was founded.  There are plenty of them around.  Employing strict gun control laws only affects guns that the Government knows about.  Since we’ve been signing up for them, with background checks, for nearly thirty years, then what are we supposed to do?
     In essence, the Government would be saying, “Oh, by the way, that gun you signed for twenty years ago?  Give it here.  No, you haven’t done anything wrong.  But … Give it!  No, I don’t care how much you paid for it, and I don’t care what it’s worth.  I’ll give you to the count of three, or I’ll have to shoot you… 1 … 2 … I thought so.”

     “But you don’t need a Glock 17 that can hold 19 rounds!” some scream.
     I would argue that they don’t need an SUV with a 24-gallon gas tank that has to be refilled every 200 miles.
     Sure, my gun might, one day, give one person a really bad day if they come into my home with the intent of causing me harm.  But their SUV is nothing more than a carbon monoxide factory that is destroying the ozone layer and screwing it up for all of us.

     Which one’s really more important?

     On 19-Apr-2007, vehement gun control activists, The Brady Campaign, released a press statement, titled, “Cho Seung-Hui Was A Prohibited Purchaser Under Existing Federal Law.”

Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence President Paul Helmke issued the following statement:

“We believe that based on existing Federal law, Cho Seung-Hui should not have passed his Brady background checks and should not have been allowed to purchase firearms.”

     So, basically, they’re saying that even though there were laws in place to prevent Cho from ever owning a gun, he got them anyway, because someone broke the law.  Was it Cho?  The seller?  Those responsible for the background check?
     Whatever the answer, it doesn’t change the fact that no amount of legislation would have kept it from happening.

     Heed My Words: Gun control isn’t going to affect the massive number of illegal, untraceable guns that are out there, and it will leave a populace completely undefended against those who possess them.