I’m not sure what I’m going to have to do on the gunshow page to get people to understand that I’m not a damn gunshow promoter.  The page itself has the following disclaimer:

I am not a promoter and do not have any official connection to the shows that are listed. If you have questions about the show or about promoting your product or service at a show, please contact the promoter directly.

And since I don’t publish an email address, you have to click the “Contact” link to get in touch with me.  The contact form has a disclaimer as well:

I am not a promoter and do not have information about tables or selling at shows. Please contact the promoters directly. Links to the promoters’ websites and contact information are contained in the individual show entries on this site.

Despite these clear (at least to me) warnings, I get a couple of emails a week from people who think I’m running the shows.  I get requests for table pricing, questions about whether a particular product can be sold at a particular show, and occasional complaints about things that happened at recent shows. 

I’m really starting to wonder just what it’s going to take to get people to understand that I don’t run the shows.

I need a JavaScript hammer or something.  Hammer.smite(idiot); 

il-leg-al
adj.

1. Prohibited by law.
2. Prohibited by official rules: an illegal pass in football.
3. Unacceptable to or not performable by a computer: an illegal operation.

n.

        An illegal immigrant.

It would seem that some DISD trustees aren’t quite up on the whole concept of illegal aliens.

Dallas’ school district has a shortage of bilingual teachers.

DISD trustee Joe May knows where he can find a lot of people who speak Spanish fluently and are already in the country. And he’d like to put them to work.

But there’s at least one big hurdle: The school district cannot knowingly hire illegal immigrants because it’s against federal law.

Mr. May wants to amend that so the district can hire illegal immigrants who are college-educated and can qualify for the district’s emergency teaching certification program. The issue will be discussed at the school board’s policy briefing today.

This is the sort of fuzzy-headed nonsense that we get for putting up with PC phrases like “undocumented immigrant.”  Language matters.  If one considers an “undocumented immigrant,” one is likely to conclude that this person somehow forgot to stop off at the office on the way into the country to pick up some papers.  It’s all just a formality.  It glosses over the fact that this person deliberately and knowlingly broke United States federal law by entering this country without permission.  It doesn’t matter now nice they are or how productive they are, they’re CRIMINALS.

Now, having said that, I understand that large parts of our economy rely on people willing to work for very low pay, and that most of these jobs are filled by illegals.  I’m not completely unsympathetic to people who are just seeking a better life for themselves and their families.  Regardless of that, though, we need to get a handle on this and establish a system that lets them come here to work while allowing us to control who crosses our border.  No one who breaks the law should be rewarded.  An “amnesty” program simply rewards people who have broken the law.

I also strongly oppose bilingual education.  If a student doesn’t speak English, that student needs to learn it before coming into the school system.  It galls me that the taxpayer has to pay for teaching English to students who live in this country.  I don’t have a bias against Spanish, so much as I have a bias against people who don’t assimilate to our country.  Further, we simply can’t afford to teach students in every possible language.  That way lies madness and the destruction of our way of life.

Anyhow, in the here and now, DISD already has programs to recruit bilingual teachers abroad, in a legal fashion.

Some districts, including DISD, go abroad to recruit bilingual teachers and help applicants obtain their work visas.

But getting a work visa isn’t an option for illegal immigrants already here, said Maria Elena Garcia-Upson, regional communications manager for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“While we empathize and sympathize with these individuals, there is an orderly fashion in which one can immigrate to this country,” Ms. Garcia-Upson said.

Given the current threats to this country, we simply cannot tolerate our leaky southern border any longer.  I don’t care whether we build a physical wall or an electronic one, but it’s time to close it up and get control of who’s coming into the country.

So just how do you tell if a groundhog has seen his shadow?  It’s not like he can suddenly turn around and say, “You woke me up for this?  Put me back in my hole you perv!”

Every now and then someone who appears to have been Googling themselves gets irate about something I wrote about them.  In this case, I received the following missive from Lindsey Crumpton, who was the subject of a November 16, 2004 posting concerning her killing an innocent person in her attempted suicide.

Just to let you know that I don’t appreciate the bullshit your giving readers about my personal information.  For a matter of fact asshole I wasn’t intending to drive in the other lane….I was trying to flip my car and instead the reaction was that you discussed.  And f.y.i. have you ever been to hell before??? Because I have and I don’t think you have the right to say anything without knowing the facts.  Also, you know the saying…“Don’t judge a book by it’s cover,”? YEA WELL IT GOES FOR YOU TOO ASSHOLE!!! And one more thing before I go….in order to have an opionated website on current things that you find amusing, I think you should think a little harder before you let the world know what you think.  Sorry to say, but watch where you go…..you may be stepping on eggshells for quite some time!!

I find this part most telling:  For a matter of fact asshole I wasn’t intending to drive in the other lane….I was trying to flip my car and instead the reaction was that you discussed.

That’s a good way of trying to disclaim responsibility for her actions.  I was just trying to kill myself.  I didn’t intend for that to happen.  Well, I call bullshit on that.  The fact of the matter is that she killed an innocent person while trying to kill herself.  That’s just stupidly evil.

Anyhow, not being the type to quietly go into that good night just because someone gets a little pissy, I sent the following reply:

Ms. Crumpton,

Real life is a hard place, so I’m not worried about someone being upset by something I wrote.  Further, being a rather stubborn type, I’m not one to give up my position just because someone is pissed off (and especially if that person can’t be arsed to use proper grammar).

Anyhow, your note seems intent on trying to say that I don’t understand or that I don’t have all the facts.  Frankly, given what you wrote, I’m convinced that I have enough facts to form an opinion, and that opinion is still the same as the one I had at first.

You wrote the following:
“… I was trying to flip my car and instead the reaction
was that you discussed.”

That, in and of itself, is sufficient for me to sustain the reaction I had.  Your INTENT is IRRELEVANT.  The RESULT is what matters.  And you must bear the responsibility for it (it sounds like you still haven’t taken responsiblity, though, given your anger towards me).  You KILLED an innocent person in your selfish suicide attempt.  That’s something you can’t take back, wish away, or get a do-over for.

So, given all the above, I stand behind my initial assessment of your actions, my wish for your future, and your overall character.

Finally, you should be careful issuing statements that someone should “watch where you go”, as that could be interpreted as a threat.  Given your current legal situation, the last thing you need is further trouble from the law.

Perhaps some may think I’ve been a bit harsh, but this is serious stuff, and reality is a harsh mistress.  Further, trying to threaten me isn’t exactly conducive to changing my mind on something. 

I like to have some music on in the background, and I found Chillout Lounge on 1.fm (beware the pop-ups) via WinAmp’s Media Library (it’s under “SHOUTcast Radio”).  It’s an interesting variety of mixes, most of which are fairly good for background noise.  However, every now and then they’ll pull out something that just stops me in my tracks and leaves me scratching my head and muttering, “WTF?”

Today, it was a remake of “White Lines,” which was originally done by Grandmaster Flash.  This one was a strange jazz version from a group called Barefoot (click through to the Flash page, hit the ‘?’ in the upper right corner, then you can listen to some of their music, including White Lines).

There’s just something very odd about an English woman reciting Grandmaster Flash…

I was awakened by the dogs around 3:00am Saturday morning.  They were barking at the police cars and wrecker that were sitting out in front of the house.  The wrecker was there for the smashed-to-hell SUV that was on the lawn across the street and the police officers were talking to its driver, who was sitting on the curb.  When my foggy brain comprehended what was going on I decided it would be a good idea to go outside and check my mother’s car to be certain that it didn’t get hit.  Fortunately, it was OK, but my neighbor across the street was not so lucky.

The young man in the SUV had been heading north on our street at a high rate of speed (the police estimated it at 50mph) when he came up on the curb and clipped a brick mailbox (it was knocked over, but intact with a few scratches).  His SUV then came across my neighbor’s lawn and smashed into the right-rear corner of the pickup, which was parked in the driveway.  The impact spun the truck’s front left corner into the garage door before the SUV pushed it into the middle of the lawn. 

In a way, it was lucky that the pickup truck was parked in the driveway.  Had it not been there, the path of the SUV would likely have taken it into the front bedroom of the house, which is where my neighbor was sleeping at the time. 

Oh, and the SUV driver?  He was taken away by KPD on a drunk-driving charge.  According to my neighbor the guy reeked of alcohol when he got out of the SUV.  Further, he appears to have been racing another vehicle, which my neighbor heard speeding away after the crash (the other vehicle was likely what forced the SUV onto the curb, since there was a car parked on the other side of the street there).

The SUV driver had almost made it home.  He was only one block from his house, which sits at the end of our street on the cross street.  You can see his house from here. 

Sometimes you just have to stop and stare slack-jawed at the bizarre crap that people do.

A Dallas cabdriver who showed little remorse for tainting a grocery store bakery display with fecal matter was sentenced to five years in prison Thursday.

District Judge Vickers Cunningham called the case against Behrouz Nahidmobarekeh one of the most disturbing of his legal career.

“It’s raunchy, repugnant, repulsive, vile and vulgar,” the judge said after the jury’s sentence was announced.

…

Mr. Nahidmobarekeh, a 49-year-old permanent legal resident who immigrated from Iran in 1978, testified Thursday that he hatched the plan after visiting an Old East Dallas Fiesta grocery store and felt employees had been rude to him.

Mr. Nahidmobarekeh said employees in the bakery had disregarded his complaints and refused to put out fresh bread. His revenge: He dried his own feces, shredded it with a cheese grater and returned a few days later to scatter the material over the breads, cookies and pastries in the case. (emphasis added)

Ewww…..  How the hell do you come up with the idea to do that?  (And how long until some dingleberry copies it?)

It appears that this asshat is somewhat unclear on the concept of community service:

A 19-year-old man from Salisbury was supposed to be cleaning up a cemetery last week as part of court-ordered community work after he broke into an apartment building last fall.

Instead, officials said, Neil J. Goodwin Jr. invaded the tomb of a Civil War veteran, pulled apart the 142-year-old skeleton, and then played with the bones, balancing the skull on his shoulder and posing for pictures.

‘‘It’s bizarre, absolutely bizarre,” said Lieutenant Richard Siemasko of the Newburyport police. ‘‘I can’t even imagine what was in his head. This is just a whole new level of weird for me.”

Whole new level of weird, indeed. 

As usual, it seems like these types delight in taking advantage of lenient judges:

Goodwin’s recent problems with the law began in September 2004, when he was charged with breaking into and entering an ice cream shop in Salisbury. That October, he was arrested on charges of breaking into and entering an apartment building in Newburyport with the intent to steal. Goodwin was placed on probation after both arrests. He broke the terms of his probation earlier this year by neglecting to appear for a court date. He then tested positive for marijuana on a drug test a few months later, again breaking his probation, court records said.

After all that, he was out of jail again and serving community service.  Obviously, he just can’t get his stuff together.  Some people may be serial killers, but this guy seems to be serial screw-up.  But he’s now charged with two felonies for this tomb escapade.  Let’s hope the judge is through being lenient and this piece of excrement gets some serious jail time.

Oh, and it turns out that there was a good reason this body was interred in the crypt:

Officials have not yet identified the Civil War veteran, Siemasko said, but according to court documents those interred in the crypt had died of tuberculosis, which is why they were placed in the tomb. Town officials could not say how many bodies were buried inside.

I don’t know how long the bacteria would have survived, but I certainly wouldn’t play around with bones without some kind of BSI gear. 

A family in Sacramento has covered their house with sheet metal in an effort to block radio waves.

“(It’s) a shield to protect against radiation, because microwave radiation is reflected off of aluminium, so it’s a protective measure,” resident Sarah D’Souza said.

The D’Souzas said the bombardment began after the first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that the radio waves have caused them health problems ranging from headaches to lupus.

If you examine the picture in the linked article, you’ll notice that they have a satellite dish on their roof.  Seems vaguely ironic that they’d have a dish if they were so concerned about this.  Satellite dishes receive MICROWAVE RADIATION and send it down a cable INTO THE HOUSE.  And I’m sure some small amount of MICROWAVE RADIATION leaks out of the unit, since it likely has to generate signals in this frequency range to decode the input.

I can understand some level of concern about RF exposure.  But unless they’re living next door to a satellite uplink farm or a TV station they really have nothing to worry about. 

Anyhow, the real problem here is that their sheet metal covering is UGLY, which is what the neighbors have complained about.  If they were serious about this they’d embed the covering in the walls.  It’s possible to be paranoid and stylish at the same time. 

As I was working in the back yard yesterday I heard engines overhead, but they didn’t seem to be moving very fast.  Looking up I noticed a blimp coming over the house, but it wasn’t like any blimp I’ve ever seen before.  I went into the house to grab my camera and by the time I’d gotten back out it wasn’t over the house anymore.  Fortunately, I was able to zoom in and get a decent picture of it. 

For your viewing pleasure, I present the pimp blimp:  (click for supersize)

This definitely isn’t your father’s Goodyear Blimp…