Bruins

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Michael

4-0 tonight, series tied 2-2.

Filed under: sports | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Unfortunate trivia update

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Michael

It looks like I’m getting bumped from trivia next week. The owner of The Liberal Cup spaced and one of his regular subs is going to be hosting. It’s probably for the better since the summer crowd is making its way in and things get a little hectic for that reason. But I have been promised a chance to host in September, so I’ll post about it when that time comes.

In honor of my bump, watch this:

Incidentally, I had a dream last night where I had some sort of class with Matt Damon.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Officer fired after helping wounded officers

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Michael

David Sedmak, a Rice University police officer (not a mere rent-a-cop) was fired after he assisted two officers who had been shot:

The May 7 episode that led to Sedmak’s controversial dismissal began when Jesse Brown, 20, was seen with a pistol as he tried to buy a ticket at the Greyhound bus station in downtown Houston. When HPD officer Fernando Meza, working an off-duty job at the station, confronted Brown about the weapon, Brown shot him in the hand. Soon after, Brown shot another officer, Timothy Moore, in the leg.

Sedmak said he arrived on the scene and prepared for a confrontation with the armed suspect. Several HPD officers came in after him and took cover behind his patrol car. Brown, who had been accused of shooting a 3-year-old girl, her grandfather and another man on Halloween in San Francisco, then shot and killed himself as Sedmak and the other cops closed in.

So why was he fired? For only the dumbest of reasons, of course:

“Sedmak left his post when only two other officers were on duty and failed to notify his supervisor of his whereabouts for nearly an hour, which could have endangered the safety of our students and campus,” according to the university.

I’m all for holding the police accountable, but this is ridiculous. The guy has been a police officer for 17 years and he was assisting two other officers who were in an obviously serious situation. Yes, he should have said where he was, but let’s get real. His history, his actions, and the situation do not dictate a dismissal.

The Houston Police Officer’s Union has seen fit to give Sedmak a check for $2,500 while he looks for work. I can only hope that he gets hired once again as a police officer – just somewhere more responsible and intelligent.

Filed under: News | Tagged: , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Thought of the day

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Michael

Excusing the god of the Old Testament comes with three distinct problems. First, he still did those awful things. I say this because the most common excuse is that all the laws and prohibitions and commands of the Old Testament were really only meant for the people of the time – specifically, the Jews. But so what? That doesn’t mean God didn’t commit genocide or destroy innocent families for nothing but his own sinful pride. Second, this common excuse (in fact, it seems to be the only excuse) makes God a moral relativist. This is in contradiction with the beliefs of most Christians that morality is absolute and objective. (These people aren’t even coherent.) Third, if the Old Testament or significant portions of the Old Testament are only relevant to an ancient culture, then why bother with it? Or why not at least exclude the parts that are irrelevant? I mean, I know Facebooking Christians do love to exclude the evil of Deuteronomy and Leviticus from their cherry-picked status updates, but why not just throw it away?

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , | 3 Comments »

The Streisand Effect? Yeah, I’ve heard of it.

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Michael

I’ve had plenty of quacks threaten me with meaningless legal dribble, try to get me shut down, blah blah blah. Regular readers know the story. The result? The Streisand Effect. Now Kirk Cameron’s people are trying to avoid the posting of some silly picture. Naturally, I have to link it.

Enjoy.

Filed under: Humor | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

This is why you’re single

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Michael

Greg Fultz is an overweight, unattractive, greasy-haired middle-aged man with bad taste in clothing. One would think those things would be cause enough to keep a man single for more years than not. Yet despite these obvious shortcomings, Fultz managed to date someone. He even managed to have sex with her. For the sake of the poor girl, one can only hope Fultz’s full-body hygiene was not reflected in his hair.

But then Fultz had to go ahead and do something monumentally stupid. After getting his girlfriend pregnant, he took out a $13,000 billboard ad ranting against her:

Fultz said the billboard was inspired by a real-life experience.

The so-called father’s perspective on abortion was even endorsed by New Mexico Right To Life.

“I wanted to get out this message. I felt it was important and powerful enough to maybe sway one person’s mind from having an abortion,” Fultz said.

New Mexico Right To Life said this was the first time it ever agreed to endorse a billboard, and it will be the last.

“We contacted Greg and asked to have our endorsement removed from the billboard,” Betty Eichenseer, New Mexico Right To Life, said.

Eichenseer said one of the reasons the group wanted to pull the endorsement is because Fultz’s girlfriend might not have had an abortion. Fultz admits that he has no idea how his baby was lost but said the message on his billboard stands.

According to various reports, it looks like the girl had a miscarriage. Not that that is especially relevant. It just makes Fultz look all the more like the stupid ass he obviously is.

I’m not the sort of person to take the wild stance that a pregnant woman shouldn’t consider discussing her decision with the man who got her pregnant. I think it’s entirely reasonable, especially if the couple plans to remain together. That isn’t to say the man’s input is equal to the woman’s. It’s her body. But if she’s going to make a decision that affects another person, it isn’t some crazy thing to say it’s fair to consider that other person. It would be as if a man in a relationship decided to get a vasectomy. Sure, he can do that if he wants. He can even be secretive about it and never mention it to his girlfriend or wife. But that doesn’t mean he should.

But all this qualification obviously isn’t important to a piece of shit like Fultz. The guy believes his position is more important than hers. He’s a selfish, stupid ‘man’ who doesn’t have an appropriate perspective. Even if he had his facts straight and his ex-girlfriend did have an abortion, it is her right to destroy what constitutes a set of cells with potential. After all, that’s exactly what Fultz is doing every night now that he’s rightfully all alone.

Filed under: News | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

June 6

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Michael

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , , | 7 Comments »

Palin: I’m an idiot, but I won’t admit it

Posted on June 5, 2011 by Michael

Sarah Palin is yet another in the long line of Republicans who isn’t familiar or interested in American history:

Sarah Palin insisted Sunday that history was on her side when she claimed that Paul Revere’s famous ride was intended to warn both British soldiers and his fellow colonists.

“You realize that you messed up about Paul Revere, don’t you?” “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace asked the potential 2012 presidential candidate.

“I didn’t mess up about Paul Revere,” replied Palin, a paid contributor to the network.

She didn’t, did she? Let’s take a peak:

“He who warned the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms by ringing those bells, and makin’ sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.”

Here is the reality of the situation:

The colonists at the time of Revere’s ride were British subjects, with American independence still in the future. But Revere’s own writing and other historical accounts leave little doubt that secrecy was vital to his mission.

The Paul Revere House’s website says that on April 18, 1775, Dr. Joseph Warren, a patriot leader in the Boston area, instructed Revere to ride to Lexington, Mass., to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were marching to arrest them.

In an undated letter posted by the Massachusetts Historical Society, Revere later wrote of the need to keep his activities secret and his suspicion that a member of his tight circle of planners had become a British informant. According to the letter, believed to have been written around 1798, Revere did provide some details of the plan to the soldiers that night, but after he had notified other colonists and under questioning by the Redcoats.

Intercepted and surrounded by British soldiers on his way from Lexington to Concord, Revere revealed “there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the country all the way up,” he wrote.

Revere was probably bluffing the soldiers about the size of any advancing militia, since he had no way of knowing, according to Joel J. Miller, author of “The Revolutionary Paul Revere.” And while he made bells, Revere would never have rung any on that famous night because the Redcoats were under orders to round up people just like him.

“He was riding off as quickly and as quietly as possible,” Miller said. “Paul Revere did not want the Redcoats to know of his mission at all.”

Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

Milky Way look-alike

Posted on June 5, 2011 by Michael

This is an old image, but I’ve seen it in the news lately for whatever reason (maybe it was retaken?) It’s a galaxy in the Pavo constellation located about 25 million lightyears away. Known as NGC 6744, it is a look-alike of the Milky Way.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , | 5 Comments »

Stop gerrymandering

Posted on June 5, 2011 by Michael

As I’ve said several times in the past, gerrymandering hurts the nation:

Take Georgia, where jockeying has begun in advance of a state General Assembly session to redraw boundaries for seats in Congress and the state legislature. Some observers expect that U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop — a black Democrat serving a constituency that’s half white — will end up with a heavily black base after black voters are redrawn out of the district won last year by Republican U.S. Rep. Austin Scott. That way, Scott can concentrate on solidifying his support among overwhelmingly white tea partiers.

“In political terms, it’s resegregating the South,” Harpootlian said. “Without those majority-minority districts in the South, Republicans would not have come to the dominance they have come to.”

This article happens to be about racial gerrymandering, but this sort of redistricting is bad in all its forms. Whatever party gets the opportunity to redraw lines will do so in its own favor. This is a big part of the reason we get such polarization in our politics.

It will probably never happen, but there needs to be a constitutional amendment regulating how federal districts are drawn. There ought to be an objective formula that draws lines in box or near-box shapes based upon population. The only deviations should be relatively minor ones, much in the way time zones deviate for practical reasons.

We could get a few wingnuts from both sides of the aisle out of Congress if we were smart about this.

Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: , | 4 Comments »

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