teh Mexigogue

My ex calls me bitching about our son’s attitude problem. I have no frame of reference because he doesn’t have an attitude problem when he’s with me. She says (among other things) that she’s going to send him to boot camp to get straightened out. I think she’s out of the ballpark. “Do you remember being a teen ager?” I ask. Did you have to be sent to boot camp to get straightened out?”

“No, my mom sent me to my father’s house and that straightened me out. She didn’t have no problem with me after that!”

“How old were you then?” I ask.

“I was fifteen at the time.”

Long pause. She must have forgotten who she was talking to.

“(name), I met you when you were 17 and you were skipping school, smoking weed, and having sex. How then were you straightened out at 15?”

“But wait. The difference with that and this is because-”

I have no further questions.

The thing is I agree with her goals. She doesn’t want our son to get into trouble in school or go out and get some girl knocked up. But I don’t agree that fabricating your past is the best means to that end. By the time a kid is 15 he ought to be able to understand a rational argument. It would be more effective than setting yourself up as a paragon of incomparable virtue.

HMT posted a picture over at his blog that gives you World War II in a nutshell. That was my favorite war, particularly since the United States wasn’t eager to get in it. Before the United States entered there was a fairly strong movement in the US that favored non involvement. I’ve seen pictures from that era where demonstrators held up signs such as “The Yanks are NOT coming” and the like. But when Pearl Harbor was bombed all bets were off. The United States was kind of like Bruce Lee hanging back watching to see how the brawl develops until some idiot messes around and punches him making him taste blood.

It was a hell of a war to jump in. The Nazis were tearing through Europe with their blitzkrieg, a war tactic hitherto unseen. It had to be terrifying to be on the wrong side of that (think Buffalo Bills no-huddle offense with Jim Kelley at the helm but with explosives instead of footballs). The Japanese Empire was a formidable foe (vast understatement) in the East because they were ruthless, tenacious, and just kept coming. The horrors visited upon Americans and Philipinos in Bataan was decidedly balls. Americans (and some resident aliens) thronged to enlist in the fight against evil and were thrust into the very bowels of hell. That is why the Battle of Iwo Jima and the raising of the Stars and Stripes was a strategic and an emotional turning point and was extremely tits.

The allied victory in World War II marked the end of the Third Reich and raised the US to superpower status. Other ancillary benefits were stimulation of the economy, gains in US race relations due to a combined (if segregated) effort, and advances in military technology that carried over to civilian use like the microwave oven, the pineapple grenade cat-getter-from-the-tree-downer, and the Darth Vader helmet (modeled after the German Army’s). To those who say violence is never the answer I respond it is when the problem is violence.

Don’t make me stab you!

A woman is indicted for hiring a stripper for her 16 year old son’s birthday party. She is being charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and involving a minor in lewd acts. She would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for the meddling people at the drug store where she took her photos to be developed. The store employees saw that there were minors in the pictures and notified authorities. In addition to her son there were about 10 other minors at the party, some of whom were not related to the defendant.

Point number one: Next time use a digital camera. This whole mess could have been avoided.

Point two, I certainly wouldn’t hire a stripper for my son. But if this woman wants to make that judgment call concerning her own kid, I don’t have a problem with it. That is no business of mine and it’s not one for society either. If the kid is 16 we can presume he already has hormones and thinks about this kind of stuff every 30 seconds or so anyway. I don’t think with this act she has created a Frankenstein who is going to go and ruin society. Now on to the only real area of contention here:

Point three (you’ll note my numbers are sequential because I’m a genius): If parents of the other minors at the party wanted this woman prosecuted then I say go ahead with it. This woman has no right to make a moral judgment call regarding my child if my child is a minor (my property). But if she notified those parents ahead of time and they said the stripper thing was not a problem, that is what is known in legal terms as an ‘easement’. Kind of like two neighbors who live side by side and the one who owns the driveway gives the other permission to drive through it so he can get to his parking spot in the back. “I might get in trouble for having a stripper around your kid” “I don’t have a problem with it, I give you permission.” “Okee dokey.”

I am already aware that under criminal law consent is not required from the victim for charges to be filed and that the standing to sue does not rest with the victim but with the government in order to protect ’society’, but the will of the other parents should be the crux of the issue. In cases like this I contend that if the other parents gave their consent then society has not been harmed at all. And what is the legislative intent of codifying criminal law in the first place? To punish those who harm society!

A police spokesman quoted in the article is, predictably, not concerned so much with the protection of society as he is with the fact that the law was broken:

Police spokesman Don Aaron said minors are not permitted in adult establishments. “A person shouldn’t be allowed to circumvent that law by hiring a stripper, a lady who took all her clothes off and spent a good amount of time dancing around minors,” he said.

The law as an end unto itself indeed.

The prosecutor should consider using his discretion to drop this case. As a member of society I say I have not been harmed. My rights as a parent have not been violated because my children didn’t go. If the only kids who were exposed to the naked lady were there with the permission of their parents then no rights were violated there either. If this is the case then the only culprits involved are the photo developers and the evil prosecutor.

But if the parents of the other children present only found out after the fact then I say prosecute because in that case this woman made a judgment call she was not authorized to make.

There. I made it through a whole post about a naked chick without getting nasty.

I did a short run yesterday and then prepared to lift weights. Last week I took heavy weights and did two sets of everything and ended up completely spent. It took four days for the soreness to go away and I rested two additional days because I was playing America’s Army. Yesterday I added ten lbs to what I did last week and prepared to hit it again hard. Then I saw the cops out the window.

My house is on the corner and five-oh was parked in front of the corner house to my left. They were knocking on the door but nobody was coming out. I figured they were gonna come up empty because no one was home. Next thing I dig they are all over the house directly across from me. They get two people outside of the house with their hands up. Then after some shouts and warnings they send in the K-9s.

Now at this point I’m not really sure what’s going on because I’m lying low on my bedroom floor racking my brain trying to think of anything I’ve done wrong. It looked to me like they were just going door to door on outstanding warrants and for all I know I might have a library book out or something. What’s even worse is that the guy who lived in the house they were raiding got arrested just a couple weeks ago so I guess the cops got some unfinished business with the dealings going on in that house. What a neighborhood, what a culture, what a fucking way to live. After a while the cops went away and I presume so did some of my neighbors.

I ended up banging out my weightlifting routine and I can barely move my arms now. I need to look tough because I live in a thuggish neighborhood but truth be known I’m so spent from exercising I could probably get beaten up by a fourth grader today. Unless it was a fourth grade girl or a handicap. In that case I might be able to manage a tie.

I don’t like my drug dealing neighbors, I don’t like the cops, and I don’t like the church that’s parked at the end of my street. Each one of these groups are hustlers and I’m tired of being surrounded by them. I normally just mentally block out my surroundings but it’s getting kind of ugly here. I need to live in an underground bunker with a door cut into the trunk of a giant oak tree. Then I won’t have to deal with the thugs and the tricksters. And I won’t have to deal with the drug dealers either.

Out.

I’m usually the one who ignores people here at work, not because I have anything specifically against individuals, but because I hate people. To some I am friendly but the others to whom I don’t speak either can’t figure me out or regard me as decidedly anti-social. I find that funny as all get-out but now I find myself on the other side of that line.

Our office has an intern who speaks only when the situation requires it. She will give a perfunctory giggle if you say something friendly but she will then drop immediately back behind the mysterious cloak of silence. She never initiates idle conversation and if you are completely silent she will double the volume on her silence which just drowns yours out and leaves you looking stupid. What makes it even worse is that she sits at the front desk so there is no way to avoid it. When you go by you either have to speak and get almost no response or just pretend she’s not there.

It would be better if she rolled her eyes or something. I can deal with being despised. I have appropriate responses for that, some which include frozen orange juice concentrate and gasoline (thanks to Phelps for the homemade napalm recipe). What I can’t deal with is not knowing if the person is silent because she is just naturally quiet or because she is busy PLOTTING MY DEMISE IN SOME HORRIBLE HOME-ALONE FASHION BOOBY TRAP COMPLETE WITH FALLING ANVILS, ROMAN CANDLES, AND A CROSSFIRE OF RAPID FIRE NAIL GUNS!!! I just can’t take it. The suspense is killing me.

What is even more scary, when I wanted to find out some more about her I had her take an online personality disorder test. Back when I took the test I came out reactive for all sorts of disorders, paranoid, antisocial, narcissistic. You know, normal. But when she took the test, she came back as low for everything which, if that result is to be believed, means that she HAS NO PERSONALITY DISORDERS WHATSOEVER!!! WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE ARE THEY BRINGING IN HERE I AM TOTALLY UNPREPARED FOR THIS!!!

So now I stay here at my desk taking periodic trips where I have to slink past her area so I can get my coffee. I am gravely afeared. I don’t know how to react around a female who is not kind of evil or at least moderately psycho.

I roll my eyes every time an NBA player does something wrong and some idiot says he’s a terrible role model for our kids. He’s an NBA player. HE ISN’T GETTING PAID TO RAISE YOUR KIDS!! He’s there’s to rebound, assist, score points, and play defense. If you as a parent want your child to understand good moral values, then YOU teach it to them, don’t turn on the TV and expect the Phoenix Suns to do it. Or God forbid the Portland Trailblazers.

Hey, if I was an NBA player I would be trying to get this guy’s phone number. I would call him up and say you know what, you SUCK as a role model for your kids! HOWYOULIKEMENOW??

The argument I made yesterday was just an example of some fun I have with logical fallacies. The “either you want wild animals dead or you want to kill kids” line is a false dilemma. I was, of course, ignoring a third possibility that some people would like to find a solution where animals and people can share the earth in peace. Sometimes I just like to make absurd arguments because I get bored.

Arguing from a logical fallacy will lose you points in a formal debate but in real life politics it scores plenty. The reason is because even though there’s always going to be someone smart enough to point the fallacy out the great masses are stupid enough to be swayed by such arguments, so much that it’s more effective to use such tactics than it is to use rational arguments. This is not to cap on the current powers that be because both sides do this in their campaigns. If either side came forth and admitted that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that was doomed to failure from day 1, that side would sink any chance for election. People don’t want to look at the math, they want to hear pleasant and vague phrases like “working together to save Social Security.” You get more votes by promising a chicken, even if that chicken doesn’t exist.

Logical fallacies can also be used in the service of good. Assume you’re in power and you’re smarter than the general public. You need the voters to ok some tough measures that are going to be good in the long run. You give them a little jive talk, it passes, and you do what you gotta do. It doesn’t make you evil, it makes you pragmatic.

That said, let us suppose for a moment that President Bush thought that defeating Iraq and ousting Hussein were good for US interests in the long term. Not for filling his pockets or for oil, but good for long term strategic interests in the Middle East. Let us further presume that he knew that most Americans wouldn’t have the resolve to back a US invasion without some impetus. Is some misdirection on possible WMDs in that case an evil move?

What exactly is the role of the President? Is he supposed to reflect the will of the people by consulting opinion polls? Or is he supposed to steer the nation according to his best judgment (and that of his advisors)? If the long term interests of the nation are indeed best served by the present policy (and history has not rendered a verdict on that one yet) would that not justify the present body count? These are not rhetorical questions, answer y’all because I’m really asking.

From this abcnews article

On the other side of the country, Oregon lawmakers have been debating whether to rewrite an 11-year-old law that banned using dogs to hunt cougars, except in cases where a particular animal had been identified as a threat.

There have been increasingly frequent sightings reported in the Northwest, some by parents of small children who have seen cougars lurking in places where kids are around.

In Vancouver, Wash., across the Columbia River from Portland, two cougars roamed into a residential neighborhood recently, in yet another sign of how the lines are blurring between what might be considered humans’ turf and wilderness where animals rule.

“You can bury your head in the sand and lose a child, but do we want to err on the side of that policy? I don’t think so,” said Oregon State Rep. Jeff Kropf, a Republican from Albany, one of the lawmakers who want to reverse Measure 18, the voter-approved measure that outlawed the use of dogs, except when cougars are an identified threat.

Other predators that have been growing in numbers and threatening human settlements (after getting legislative protection) include black bears, mountain lions, gray wolves, and the north american angry midget. It’s time to take away these wrongheaded animal protections before somebody gets killed. What’s it gonna be you animal protection groups? The animals or the children? Which ones are you more eager to bury???
I don’t like wild animals encroaching on my territory. I once climbed a tree to chase a possum (and knocked it off of its perch with a 2 by four*). I hate nature! IT’S UNNATURAL! If I can’t even stand to have a possum in my community, I DAMN sure ain’t down with the bears and the cougars. I think it’s time to damn the legislation and take back the neighborhoods!

* I’m not trying to copy off Russ Martin’s possum hating, the above was a true story

I’m buying running shoes. Here is my “before” picture.

Jesse Jackson is still making noise about the controversial statement by the Mexican President Vicente Fox. Now Jackson makes a statement designed to get everybody in place according to his color scheme. According to this ABC news article:

He said Mexicans and blacks in the United States were the victims (emphasis mine) of U.S. policies that pit illegal workers against disenfranchised minority groups.

“The Mexican-Americans must not be pawns in that scheme, and African Americans must not be scapegoats in that scheme,” he said. “We must work together, fighting for the right to vote, and for health care and wages.”

Great idea. Let’s work together. And how do we do that? Apparently by nitpicking peoples sentences and trying to make something racist out of them! Back to looking at Fox’s original statement that started this entire controversy in the first place. I hate to beat a dead horse but I didn’t do the analysis justice the first time. I’ll try again.

Now understand I don’t like to lump people into groups so this is hard for me. People are individuals but if we’re going to divide economically into groups we have to recognize right off that ethnic minorities still make less per capita than white people do. There are a lot of minorities who are economically successful and who are making heaps of money but as a group we’re still behind. When Fox says that Mexican immigrants are taking jobs that “even black people don’t want”, that’s shorthand for saying “even the most economically impoverished group.” Very rude statement but like I said that’s why I don’t like to think in terms of groups.

Note here: according to the same economic table I cited earlier the poverty rate for Hispanics in 2003 was nearly the same as it was for the black population so I’m not bagging on black people. I’m saying that when you lump us all together you come out with some bad numbers and this is what Vicente Fox was referring to. And you know what? Jesse Jackson totally understood that. And how do I know that? Because when Fox said immigrants take “jobs that even black people don’t want” Jesse Jackson didn’t say “hey, he’s saying we’re inherently inferior”, he responded by saying there were more poor white people in the US than poor blacks. So Jackson knew that the Mexican President’s statement was in fact about economics, not about inherent value due to race (which would have been racist) and instead he pretended that the statement was about race. That’s why he demanded an apology.

And when you really look at Fox’s follow up statement, he didn’t apologize for making his statement at all. According to the ABC article he told Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton he was sorry for “any hurt feelings caused by my statements.” In other words, I’m sorry you chose to get so twisted over my statement. And that’s exactly what it was.

But the apology isn’t really what Jackson was after. He just wanted his day in the press. He milked it for all it was worth saying of Fox’s comment:

“It was offensive and inaccurate, but it was a diversion from the bigger struggle of workers rights.”

Fox’s statement was inaccurate? Really? In that case I would challenge Jesse Jackson to show me the American migrant workers, either white or black.

Oh, one more thing. The article said that Jackson also criticized Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for not personally responding to Fox’s comment. But I think the reason Condi didn’t comment on it is because she’s too busy dealing with issues that are actually important which leaves precious little time for political grandstanding.