The Airing of Grievances

Casey Acquitted; Indignation Feigned

Okay, so Casey Anthony was acquitted of murdering her kid yesterday. You know the story...bones, duct tape, chloroform...I don't need to get into detail. I honestly didn't even follow it but I will say it's kind of weird how the jury convicted her of lying to the police and nothing else. If you think she was lying to the police, isn't the next logical question, "What was she trying to hide?"

Now this probably doesn't neccessarily qualify as a grievance but more of an observation, I suppose. After this verdict came up, Facebook absolutely blew the fuck up and I imagine that Twitter did as well. Chiles made Darden/Clark comparisons to the prosecution, Assman wanted the Melendez brothers set free, Newman was let down by his home state, and Whatley wanted to sodomize Casey Anthony...which had nothing to do with the trial outcome by the way. But outside of those clowns who actually have original thoughts, it really just turned into this network of sheep trying to make sure everyone knew that it upset them that a little girl died three years ago. Meanwhile, nobody said a fucking word about this kid since the day she died and all of a sudden it deserves the maximum amount of empathy because mommy didn't get the chair. For example...

"I can't believe Casey Anthony is innocent on all charges. There had to be at least one of thse they could have found her guilty on. However I will not make judgments on the jury as I was not in the court room with them. Casey Anthony will face her maker someday and justice will be served. God bless Caylee Marie Anthony."

"Dear Mommy...I see you smiling down there below...are those tears of joy you show? I'm glad your happy, although you lied...I'd love to be right by your side...but by your choice, I view from above...tell my Grandparents I send my love...it's Beautiful here, is all I can say...your life will go on...without me in your way. Love Caylee. XOXO. REPOST FOR A LITTLE GIRL THAT OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM LET DOWN!"

God dammit! All of a sudden, we care about the children, right? No...we don't. We care that people know that we care about the children. That's what this is all about. See, Caylee Anthony is easy for people. Terrible thing that happened to a cute (white?) child. You'd be inhuman not to feel any empathy towards that. It's so easy that it turns into a fucking competition. I think I had a point here...

Oh yeah. We've become completely desensitized towards genocide. I think the human mind likes small doses of tragedy but as that tragedy multiplies, the amount of empathy actually decreases. Just a little over a decade ago, 800,000 (mostly children) Tutsi people in Rwanda were hacked up with machetes over like nothing. I don't think word of this has even gotten to most Americans yet. So my theory is that there is actually an inverse relationship between the amount of empathy provided and the amount of tragedy that actually occurs. Kind of interesting to me. Someone smarter than me should do a study on it. Thanks.

Okay, since I'm me...I guess I do have one small grievance that goes out to all the righteous fuckers invoking Jesus to bring Casey to justice. You don't get to do that. I've said it before and I'll say it again...your justice system sucks way worse than this one. The only unforgiveable crime is apostasy and Casey Anthony is still completely eligible for an eternal paradise. If you're going to walk this earth acting like your sins don't count because you're credulous enough to believe in the sin-washing power of a 2000 year old blood sacrifice, then Casey Anthony gets the same fucking luxury. That's what you signed up for. You don't like it...good. Time to start thinking for yourself.

Oh and everyone who left their lights on all night the other night in memory of Caylee, what will you do to the environment tonight to remember the 5,000 three year olds that will die from cancer today?

BLAH...BLAH...BLAH...I CAN'T HEAR YOU VANDELAY!!!!

Really Texas...Really?

I can't with these people. I just can't. I'm still trying to find a way to believe this didn't actually happen but for now, I'll have to deem it to be true. A psychic called the police in Hardin, TX and told them that there's this mass grave with over 50 dead bodies somewhere up on some guy's property. What lead her to this conclusion? She's a fucking psychic!

Now, some people might think that it can't hurt to check it out anyway but those people are wrong and the reason they are wrong is that if cops should lend any credence at all to psychics who see crime scenes, why wouldn't they just hire fucking psychics to be cops? Is it maybe because it's all bullshit? No seriously...not a rhetorical question. I need to know this, now! Of course it gets better because when the local 5-0 arrive, they find some dried up blood on the porch of the house. Uh-oh...

State, local and federal agents combed the area around a rural home after a woman who claimed to be psychic called police twice to report the mass grave at in Hardin, Texas about 50 miles (31 kilometers) northeast of Houston. Soon, local media were reporting that as many as 25 to 30 bodies -- including children -- were found on the rural property.

Yes...the state police wasn't enough. They actually brought in the FB mother fucking I to investigate a god damned psychic tip. So how did the blood get there anyway you might ask?

Bankson told the KHOU-TV that his daughter's ex-boyfriend got drunk and cut his wrists a couple weeks ago and is now in a psychiatric hospital.

Of course. Fucking Texas, man. Steers, queers, and crazy people.

More Like "Beeyatch"-ification, Emmiright?

Swallowed up by the news of a royal wedding and the death of a mad man this weekend was the beatification of his holy highness, Pope John Paul II in front of 1.5 million of his closest fans. I don’t even understand the intricacies of this process by whereby people are made into saints. Canonization…beatification…sainthood…Greek. I do know that it’s a very long drawn out process and an expensive one at that only done for the sake of being able to say “This person was better than you.” Just another example among many that point to this shit being completely void of anything resembling humility. PJP-II himself beatified 1,338 dead people in his 27 years with that authority. Along with that authority of course comes the authority to certify a miracle and proof that you performed a miracle after you died is required for beatification.

So under this guy’s watch, we saw what may have been the biggest RCC scandal in centuries as thousands upon thousands of children were molested and raped in a sick fashion by people who were provided authority over them supposedly from God. This we know. It’s not up for debate. Throw in the condemnation of contraceptives and the spread of AIDS and poverty, the oppression of women and homosexuals, and the complete disdain for anyone who didn’t accept Christ as their savior…for anyone who may have been born into something different or simply wanted to be accountable for their own sins…and it’s clear that you have to question the sainthood of this man, immediately. If you believe in such things as he did, you should even argue that his fate should lie well in the other direction.

Osama Bin Laden

More like "Osama Bin La-Dead", emmiright? I was hoping to share some words on the disgusting beatification of the PJP-II today but apparently that story has been trumped. I have nothing to say that anybody hasn't. It's very emotional and stirs up memories of that day almost ten years ago when because of this man people found themselves having to make a decision whether to die by being burned alive or jumping out of a window 80 floors above the concrete. Mad props to the intelligence community and the military and one awesome Navy Seal that shouldn't have to buy his own drink for the rest of his life.

Okay Look...

...I'm not saying that BFF is a liar and a scumbag. What I'm saying is that she's either a liar or a scumbag. Seriously ladies...the picture above of a 37 week pregnant women posing with one of the aliens from Close Encounters of the Third Kind aside...if you knew you were giving birth to a baby with Down's Syndrome that required significant post-natal care, would you actually proceed to take a 20 hour trip home after your water broke?

Anyway, just read this when you get a chance. Yes, as of this morning, I thought absolutely nohing of that ridiculous rumor and I know this isn't necessarily proof of a conspiracy but the question should be asked...why didn't the "liberal media" look into this at all? They spent three months vetting the shit out of this chick and nobody thought this was even remotely relevant?

Well hopefully The Donald will get "his men" out of Hawaii and up to Alaska to get to the bottom of this.

Moral Majority My Ass

Last week, after the epic ruling to cut funding for NPR by the House, Anthony Weiner got up and gave a really sarcastic speech about how he's glad that the economy is fixed and so many jobs have been created so that we can move on to more important things like going after the enemy that is NPR. Weiner is entertaining but I kind of thought it was a dick move. At the very least, the House was looking for a way to cut unnecessary funding so tax money could go somewhere more appropriate or dare I say...into paying off the deficit?

So I probably have a little bit of a reputation for obsessing over religion and for anyone who thinks that...I probably have to just give it to you. I really do do that. Now I'd like to tell you why. First watch this video of Louie Gohmert the very next day making a motion to reaffirm "In God We Trust."

Japan

My wife told me this morning after watching The Today Show that she thinks Japan is just going to cease to exist. I'm not sure if there were actual scientists on there explaining how Japan is going to cease to exist or she just got sucked into Lauer's fear-mongering but the point remains...Japan is fucked. This is going to make Hiroshima look like whatever it is that makes getting an A-Bomb dropped on you insignificant.

In case you've been living under a rock for the past three days...a massive earthquake followed by a massive tsunami has completely detroyed Japan's coastline, killing thousands of people, and leaving in it's wake a path of destruction, terror, and mayhem the likes of which people only write about. If that's not bad enough, nuclear power plants are exploding all over the place* and depending on who you ask, there's a real possibility of a complete nuclear meltdown. So yeah...that would be horrific. Hey...at least the volcanoes still work?

It seems like the past 5 or 6 years have brought us an unusual amount of natural disasters (not to mention the man-made disasters) but what we have here in Japan could eclipse all of them combined. I don't really have a point here but your empathy for that place would be well beyond warranted.

*Bonus crazy rapture discussion in comment section under video

Preventable?

By now the entire country knows about what happened here a few days ago. I write about it for two reasons. One, because there is a discussion that can occur in light of tragedy. And two, because this event happened a few miles from me and was responded to by co-workers of mine. Needless to say, everyone is a tad shook up.

This is one of those stories that happens every so often in the Sports world. A kid, seemingly in the best shape of their life, playing a sport they love, all of a sudden drops dead from a heart attack, leaving a school or community in complete shock, wondering where they go from there. It is called Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, which, simply put (because do a lot of you really care if I go all techno-babble on you about this? No.) a thickening of the heart muscle that impedes blood flow out of the heart. Some of the more famous incidents include Hank Gathers, Chicago Bears Defensive End Gaines Adams and Oakland A's pitcher Joe Kennedy.

Now, in the face of this tragedy, the community is grappling with what to do. They secure a perfect season, given to them by this star athlete who hits a last second shot, then dies on the court minutes afterward. Do they play another game? How do they honor this kid? So on and so forth.

So is this what people locally are saying about this tragedy?

Not really. They're bitching at the school, parents, medical community, etc. "This should've been prevented" was one comment. "How many times will this happen before something is done?" was another. "Someone should sue the school district" was another. Really? A lawsuit? C'mon.

Look. I hate when this shit happens. It's always a blame game. I get that a 17 year old star athlete shouldn't die at all, let alone this way. So, what do you do? Cardiac Caths, MRI's and EKG's should be part of physicals for athletes of all ages? But then the bitching will start about cost, inconvenience, blah blah blah. So yeah, it is preventable, sure. But I'm pretty sure the kid would play anyway, regardless of those results. Why? Because it made him happy.

Does it suck? Sure. Is it preventable? Maybe, maybe not. Should we get all up in arms over something that is purely genetic and, shit, it just happens? No. People should think about that, mourn, and move on. He's happy he went out doing the very thing he loved...playing ball, celebrating a victory, living life.

We should all be so lucky.

Go Fennville.

Uh-Oh!

I'm not sayin'...I'm just sayin'.

Wait...I wasn't the first one that thought of that?

Talk Like a Pirate Day Suddenly Not So Funny

Confession...I never thought it was funny anyway. Sophomoric at best. Although my 4 year old is constantly telling the "Why did the pirate go to the movies" joke but the way she says "ARRRRRR" is so much more violent than you'd normally anticipate from a four year that it's actually quite hilarious.

So as you might have heard, two couples from California were travelling around the world on some sort of religious mission delivering bibles, because it's apparently very important to yuppies from Orange County that people in Somalia believe the same shit that they believe. Their boat was hi-jacked by pirates (obviously) and to make a long story short...they're dead.

At approximately 1 a.m. EST today, while negotiations were ongoing to secure the release of four American hostages, U.S. forces responded to gunfire aboard the pirated vessel (S/V) Quest. As they responded to the gunfire, reaching and boarding the Quest, the forces discovered all four hostages had been shot by their captors. Despite immediate steps to provide life-saving care, all four hostages ultimately died of their wounds... During the boarding of the Quest, the reaction force was engaged by pirates on board the vessel. Two pirates died during the confrontation and 13 were captured and detained along with two pirates already in US Forces custody. The US Forces also found the remains of two other pirates already dead aboard the Quest. In total, it is believed 19 pirates were involved in the hijacking of the S/V Quest.

Still some unanswered questions here of course. You might remember the last time that Somali pirates captured a U.S. Boat they were pegged off by some bad-ass navy seals. So what happened this time? Same approach but too late? Ransom money being asked was too much? We just don't negotiate with pirates? We just figured that people dumb enough to go into those waters on a nonsensical mission deserve to die?

Of course, I'm kidding on that last one. If we had that mentality, we never would have sent Bubba to get those two chicks that decided North Korea was safe.