Found Footage
John McCain, Joe Liberman, Al Franken, Mark Dayton and objections to additional time…

Who knew people actually watched CSPAN?

Here it is, patent number7617530. Thanks, USPTO, for giving Microsoft, which is already a monopoly, a monopoly on something that’s been in use since 1980 and wasn’t invented by Microsoft. Here’s Wikipedia’s description of sudo, which you can meaningfully compare to Microsoft’s description of its “invention”.

Read More, O.G.

“Unfortunately, America loves Guns. We love guns to a point where that uh we see devastation on a daily basis. You don’t blame a group.” – Mayor Daley, link heads to Founding Bloggers

What an interesting statement. I must agree that (and to me this is obvious) crazy individual people should be treated as crazy individuals. When there are groups of crazy individuals, the rules have to change.

It’s possible that Mayor Daley is politically posturing and spinning the tragedy into a rally call for stiffer gun control. Even if he is, such a statement would gain no ground and would make him look foolish if there weren’t already people who believe that it’s absolutely true.

There are people that argue with me about gun control, and 99% of the time, they start with a bad assumption.

• Less guns = less suicides
• Theives use owner’s guns against them all the time
• Innocent bystanders get shot by legally carried guns
• Fatal shooting accidents are just as common as murders
• More guns turns normal anger like road rage into killings

These assumptions are not backed up by factual information. It doesn’t seem to matter how many papers or statistics I cite, these arguments inevitably end with me being accused of believing false information. That’s rather convenient. Rather than have to find fact or theory that’s a credible defense of their point, they simply dismiss my sources altogether. So I stopped arguing about numbers and reality, I’ll meet them on the philosophical and anecdotal levels.

To their credit, I’ve never encountered one of these arguments in which I’m accused of lying or somehow craving death and murder, so that’s a good thing.

It’s amazing though how closed-minded the anti-gun movement really is. Actual shooting injury and death data are waved away outright or openly skewed to fit their imagination.

The original imagined scenarios aren’t completely without logic. The most recent discussion, which took place about a month ago, was with a coworker. She, with no prompt from me, jumped from road-rage to handguns. She said she just couldn’t understand why anyone thought it was a good idea to allow people to carry guns, (paraphrase): “What if all these people that yell and get out of their cars and carry baseball bats, what if they had a gun? Then instead of someone getting punched, well now they’re dead!”

Okay, sounds logical, but it doesn’t happen that way. My favorite example is a good friend of mine who has a permit, and also has the quickest, most fiery temper I’ve ever seen. He’s a good man though, and hasn’t gotten in trouble with the law, which is why they gave him the permit. When he carries, he’s a different man. Totally calm. There’s a mental barrier there and I know why my coworker doesn’t trust it and it’s a good thing. She doesn’t understand the barrier because her’s has never been tested. There’s a similar mental barrier that keeps people from being attracted to family members or to persons of inappropriate age. So yes, there’s people who cross that line, but rarely is it sudden and unpredictable, and when it is, I’d like to be armed so they don’t kill too many people before they’re stopped.

And that’s the second point: if there’s no guns, it means whomever has a bomb or other efficient weapon has enormous power.

I like to use metaphors to put things in a different light. Rape is worse than murder in some ways, at least in my opinion, and should be treated with a similar level of horror. So if the police were the only ones that could stop rape, would you trust them to show up? Would you trust them so much that you’d feel safe? Or is it easier to imagine that the vast majority of people, given the means and opportunity, would go to great lengths to stop or prevent a rape and not participate in one.

Stiff gun control forces the public to trust the government. Think about it. Do you really trust congress, judges, senators, state troopers to fight tooth and nail on your behalf? To make sound, just decisions more than you’d trust your friends (um, the ones who haven’t been convicted of crimes and have passed safety and legality courses)?

I’m not kidding.

Mariamu Stanford, a soft-spoken, 28-year-old single mother from rural Tanzania, has earned a grim distinction: She’s one of only two people with albinism — a group that has faced discrimination in East Africa — to survive a brutal attack by those wanting to sell the limbs of albinos on the black market.

Video story at ABC

Here’s the vid from Al Jazeera. Shock at 1:40, and the last 30 seconds nails the look of horror to your face.

Another vid, have a trash can near, in case of vomit:
Youtube Link … the “more info” part has a few more articles.

The basics are, Hamas hosted/funded a mass wedding for 450 couples. The men appear to be in their 20’s. The girls are half their height, appearing to be around 9-ish. Each couple is given cash (sources differ on the amount, $500usd or $612usd) to fund their journey into rape-ville.

There’s several articles published online from July 31st. Most are middle eastern, and the American ones have the least info. Several from Canada, Europe, Australia have basically the same story: Link.

The anti-radical-islam blogs have published it the most and have more photos than what is shown in the Al Jazeera video. Tim Marshall, of Sky News seems to be the first to dispute the apparent pedophilic wedding ceremony, claiming that he was there, and that the little girls are neices of the grooms, which is a cultural norm for weddings. Here’s a link to the best pro-Hamas event summary I found. Strange how Tim and other deniers of child brides can’t come up with one blasted photo of age-appropriate brides at this ceremony. Additionally, nobody I’ve read has yet attempted to explain the last 30 seconds in that video, and how incredibly obvious it seems that the little girl is getting into the rape-mobile and then gazing mournfully out the window of her marital home.

None of my preliminary searches have uncovered anything about nieces dressing up as brides for play during the wedding. Admittedly, most documents are a brief overview of the event such as this. There are however, several references (like this) to Islamic wedding norms that include marriage of an older man to a girl as young as ten. It seems odd that if pedophilia could in any way be suggested by these ceremonies, they would officially address it in an article like this.

But hey, I’m sure that we culturally ignorant Americans just don’t understand.

And I thought working at a bank was scary…

An Orlando Chuck-e-Cheese was robbed by three men at gunpoint on Monday.

I’m not sure why I’m so interested in this story. I guess it’s because I really can’t get my head around the fact that there are people who would excuse the rape of a child because the rapist is a movie director. Anyway, here’s your roundup for today…

More From the Horse’s Mouth
From the rapist’s memoirs – he vividly describes sex with multiple other underage girls, and goes into the details of the night in question.

I won’t excerpt it here. The excerpt at the link also spares you the most gruesome details. But there’s enough to get the point. It certainly doesn’t smack of remorse.

Feminists for Child Rape
Via the LA Times:

“My personal thoughts are let the guy go,” said Peg Yorkin, founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “It’s bad a person was raped. But that was so many years ago. The guy has been through so much in his life. It’s crazy to arrest him now. Let it go. The government could spend its money on other things.”

Interesting how everyone’s a fiscal conservative all of the sudden. It’s about the cost, or something.

A Growing Consensus?
Both stories that I already linked above mention that the faux outrage is concentrated among the “artistic elites” in both France and the US, and that rest of us are rightfully appalled.

Reason has a roundup of their own:

That comes one day after a similar editorial in The New York Times, and two days afer the hometown L.A. Times. An incomplete roll call of unsympathetic commentators would include Steve Lopez, Richard Cohen, Eugene Robinson, Peter Bradshaw, Joan Smith, Kerry Dougherty, and many more. Deserving special mention among that list is this brutal deployment of the English language by Salon’s Kate Harding: “Reminder: Roman Polanksi raped a child.” Even the French government is allegedly dropping its support, and one can more than seldom hear a discouraging word at the telltale heart of Polanskiphilia, The Huffington Post.

Hot Air also covers that beat.

Uh, I don’t think so, Harvey…
Harvey Weinstein, on the other hand, claims that Hollywood has the best moral compass. No really, he did.

In an interview, Weinstein said that people generally misunderstand what happened to Polanski at sentencing. He’s not convinced public opinion is running against the filmmaker and dismisses the categorization of Hollywood as amoral. “Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion,” Weinstein said. “We were the people who did the fundraising telethon for the victims of 9/11. We were there for the victims of Katrina and any world catastrophe.”

Oh Great, Another Petition
Big Hollywood, who has their heart in the right place, is attempting to marshal support for a counter petition. Sorry guys. I’m not sure why we’re still clinging to the petition thing as if they’ve ever changed a mind in the last 30 years. But A+ for effort.

A Fellow Victim’s Opinion
The must read of the day is this article by Robert Goolrick. The author, victim of child rape, makes the following point:

From where I sit—and I have sat exactly in this same spot for sixty years—the rape of a child is absolutely the equivalent of first-degree murder. Roman Polanski is a murderer, the murderer of a child.

And there you have it.

As promised, a roundup of the latest on the buzz surrounding Hollywood’s favorite rapist.

From the Horse’s Ass… er, Mouth:
We’ll start with the man himself. This gem of a quote from 1979 (right after he fled the country) resurfaced today. You see, he’s not a bad guy. Everyone likes little girls.

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!”

Uh, speak for yourself you sick bastard.

The Petition:
Z already covered the list of the morally challenged who signed this ridiculous petition. The only thing I’ll note is that child rape advocate Wes Anderson has a kids movie, The Adventures of the Fantastic Mr. Fox and his Quaaludes, coming out soon. So, probably avoid that.

Oh, Whoopi:
Whoopi Goldberg, T-Mobile Spokesman, tries to explain that Polanski didn’t really commit “Rape Rape” (no really, she did!) leading Jim Geraghty to suggest a new slogan, of sorts:

“Because in a head-to-head matchup against other phones, your product rapes the competition, but it doesn’t rape-rape the competition.

What if?
Over at ABC, a Jesuit priest reminds you that if it were Father Polanski that we were discussing, things would be different:

“Imagine if the Knights of Columbus decided to give an award to a pedophile priest who had fled the country to avoid prison,” Father Tom Reese, S.J., points out. “The outcry would be universal.”

A Rare Moment of Sanity:
Kirstie Alley wants to make sure that we know that not everyone is Hollywood is morally bankrupt. Noted.

R.I.P. Anne Applebaum’s Career:
Despicable Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum has apparently decided that career suicide is the way to go. Start here (or here) and follow the links for a round up of her reprehensible behavior.

The 3 second version: Her husband works for the Polish government and has lobbied on behalf of Polanski. She failed to disclose this conflict of interest, and instead of apologizing and moving on, she traded her spade for a steam shovel and just kept on digging.

Credit Where Credit is Due:
The commenters over at The Huffington Post aren’t buying it.

And… (is the world ending?) I agree with an editorial in the New York Times!

That’s as much as I can stomach for now.

OK, I admit, I knew that part before today. The part I did not know was that he pled guilty to said offense before fleeing the US.

Roman Polanski, for the blissfully uninformed, is a douchebag Hollywood director that has not been allowed in Hollywood since 1977, when he fled the country.

He was arrested in Switzerland the other day, and if there is any justice in the world will be extradited to the US ASAP. Predictably, the “Roman Polanski is a victim”, “Roman Polanski is a misunderstood genius”, and “Roman Polanski should not be held to account for raping a child because he is famous/talented” crowds have been out in full force since then.

If you are interested in the details of the story, Salon has them. But all you really need to know is the simple fact that Roman Polanski raped, drugged, and sodomized a 13 year old girl.

And the fact that we can’t get unanimous agreement that this worthless pile of shit should be rotting in prison instead of receiving lifetime achievement awards is a sad commentary on how far off track our society has become.