...And Justice for All?

My spotless driving record is now a thing of the past. Almost a decade of citation-free automobile use dashed in a single moment. The offense? Speeding? No. Rolling through a stop sign? No. DWI? No. The offense..."Failure to reduce speed when passing an emergency vehicle." That's right. Now under normal circumstances I'd take my licks and move on, however, several circumstances have forced me to stand and fight, figuratively of course. First, there's the offense. True it is illegal to pass an emergency vehicle without reducing your speed 20 mph or taking an available lane in Texas. However, circumstances in this situation are different. As I topped the hill, there was the police car, on a two lane road, pulled over onto the shoulder. With traffic behind me I was left with no choice but to take the other lane, as slowing my speed 20 miles an hour would have resulted in an accident. Second, the officer that pulled me over had pulled out of a convenience store a half mile before she got to the scene, thus setting the "trap". She wasn't assisting, she was waiting for some poor moron (i.e. me) to pass on that hill. I argued my case with her, calmly, to which she replied "If you knew any officers who had been killed on the highway..." I probably didn't handle the rest well, as I told her "don't give me that bullsh#t, I know plenty of cops." Could have handled it better. Third, it was in Runaway Bay Texas, population 1108. One major highway passes through this town, and it's well known throughout the region that this whole stretch of highway is a trap. I travel it no less than a half dozen times a month, and the minute I pass the city limits sign I'm rolling in stealth mode. So. I got a ticket. Turns out the ticket is good for $200.00, not to mention the increase in insurance premiums until the end of time. So I call the municpal "judge" and ask what I should do. She assumes that my ticket is for speeding (which indicates to me that she's dealt with several of these). I tell her no, that it's for failure to reduce blah blah blah, to which she replies "Oh, well that's a hefty little fine...260 dollars." Nevermind the fact that the state law says it's a maximum of 200 dollars. So I ask what I can do. Turns out that if she "approves" it I can take defensive driving. That'll cost me 103 bucks to the court, ten bucks to get my driving record, and then another fifty to take the course. IF she approves it. If she doesn't, I'm requesting a jury trial, during the course of which I will personally mentally beat down everyone in the room for hours. I'll have graphs, charts, Powerpoint presentations, witnesses that have nothing to say, the works. I will get my 260 dollars worth out of it. Chances are that won't happen. I'll probably take the defensive driving, eat 160 bucks, and call it a day. But I won't forget. Oh no. One of these days the Runaway Bay PD will need something from me. Could be money. Could be a lift. Could be a life (as this woman desparately needed one). But no, they'll get none of that from me. It will be a silent vengence to be sure. So this'll be the last you hear of my recent brush with injustice, unless I wind up in contempt of court and in a cell with Cletus. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

Template II

OK...after a little tweaking I've got things back up in order. Turns out my old template made things a little difficult to read, so the screw up actually worked out. This is a little easier on the eyes. I cleaned up the ads, because Google can keep the .03 cents that I've earned from them. I'll be doing a little more work, but for the most part, this is what you'll see from now on. Salame'.

Template

Well thanks to my jacking around I've screwed up my template and lost all my links. Not to mention the donation widget I just posted about. Too late to mess with it now. I'll get it straightened out soon enough. Like you care.

This Fred's for You

Well, with the '08 presidential campaign already in semi-full swing we've all had a chance to see what sort of candidates we're going to have to choose from. As I don't believe the Democrats have any actual candidates, I'm not going to mention them. It's my blog, and I'll do what a damn well please. So far as the Republicans go, it's a pretty shoddy lot of characters. John McCain? We all know this cat is a filthy democrat-lover (wow, that sounded really derogatory). What with all the "immigration reform" this and "it's not amnesty" jibba jabba, I'm not having it. Rudy's got something, but how conservative can a New York City mayor really be? Mitt Romney? He's got quite a bit going for him, except for the whole Mormon thing. I can't really think of any other famous Mormon's to step up for him except former Dallas Mavericks center Shawn Bradley, and if I were Mitt I'd pass on Shawns support. Ron Paul is as crazy as a crap-house rat. Huckabee has no chance. I don't even know the others, so they're screwed. Lets face it, we need a stone cold conservative up in here. A guy that'll take care of business. That man is Fred Thompson. You want immigration reform without the sissy "Z-visa" amnesty? He's got it. You want comprehensive tax reform? He's got it. You want terrorists to be blowed up real nice like? He's all over it. In all seriousness, the guy is about the only true conservative out there. He's not drafting bills with Ted Kennedy. He doesn't NEED to be president (unlike most of the other candidates). He's not Hillary Clinton, in fact, he's fifty times the man Hillary is, and that's saying something. So, from now on there's going to be a donation widget on my sidebar so that you can give Fred some scratch. He's going to join this race, and when he does, he'll need the cash to get in front of people. So, use some of that extra money that you've got laying around (hey, gas prices have been dropping) and pass it on to Fred.

Absolute Gold.

Enjoy this...let it's addictive beats and Poet Laureate caliber lyrics take over your mind.

Proof.

This week we Americans once again were forced to stare into the cold face of evil. Call it "insanity", call it "disturbed", call it whatever you will, but the massacre at Virginia Tech was perpetrated by evil, pure and simple. "Evil" is not a popular word these days, mostly because we're too politically correct now to differentiate between good and evil. People who do bad things aren't "evil", they're "disturbed". Bullsh*t. Evil exists, we see it on television, we read about it in blogs and newspapers every day. We don't like to believe that there's evil because evil can't be cured. It can't be explained away with psychobabble. It simply is what it is.

In the aftermath of an act so heinous, so unfathomable, we're forced to listen to thousands of knee-jerk, politicized excuses and solutions to such a problem. To be sure there are advancements that can be made in alerting students, or teachers, or employees, or whomever, that something is wrong. It would be irresponsible to not explore new methods in this field. However, it does not negate the fact that evil exists and that it will, at will, attempt to harm others.

So what to do? Ban guns? To paraphrase a famous quote, when having a gun is criminal only criminals will have guns. It is a basic right of this nation for a citizen to arm themselves for protection. But lets say that we do ban guns...what happens to the 250,000,000 guns we already have? Do you think everyone will turn them in? To believe that you would have to be dense, or pathetically naive. Such an act would strengthen criminals, and make criminals of normally law-abiding citizens. I could march out statistics that state things about how criminals fear armed citizens, about how guns kill fewer children than swimming pools every year, and so on. But honestly, you either believe in them or you don't. You either believe that a common citizen is responsible and intelligent enough to own a weapon, or you don't. I happen to believe that owning a firearm just makes sense. Criminals are armed, why on Earth wouldn't I be? When I played football I didn't show up to a game in shorts and flip-flops while the other team is in full pads...to do so would mean certain defeat. The stakes when you pit an unarmed civilian with an armed criminal are much higher than that.

The bottom line is this: Whether we have guns, sticks, knives, rocks, or just bare fists evil will find a way to harm people if it so desires. Granted, a fist cannot compare to the carnage that a semi-automatic pistol can produce, but would it if another person could defend themselves against it in kind? "Mutual destruction" is a powerful deterrent. If I plan on robbing someone and I find out that they have as much firepower as I do, I'm not going to rob that person. Evil, determined though it may be, isn't stupid.

The events at Virginia Tech sadden and infuriate us all. Such senseless loss of life has that effect on good people. My suggestion is don't try to rationalize the irrational. Cho was evil. His whimpering, pathetic, explicative-laced "manifesto" is trash; an attempt at rationalizing his own marginal existence. He will be forgotten. His victims will not.

May The Lord be with those who have suffered from this cowardly act.

What's the REAL cause of "Global Warming"?

It's that damn Sasquatch!