So anyway…

The District Court document is an amusing and profane look at the world’s favorite four-letter word, from its origins in 1500 to today’s frequent use of the term by Eminem, Chris Rock, and Lenny Kravitz.

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I just read a statement from someone (an American, in case you wondered) regarding crime and punishment. He stated that he thinks the law should LITERALLY extract exact “punishment” from wrongdoers. You know, literally do the “eye for an eye” thing (which, by the way, was meant as a limitation, not necessarily as an absolute demand, but that’s another discussion).

He also stated that we should not only impose the death penalty on, well, pretty much everyone, I guess, but we should torture them first. Yes, he was serious.

I’m actually nauseated. This is someone who is walking around in society right now, and who was a member of the military. He’s advocating torture, mutilation, etc., as a matter of law. To hell with humane treatment (yes, he basically said that), and apparently to hell with the right to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. Let’s just TORTURE the bastards and then kill them, probably slowly in gruesome ways. That’ll teach ‘em!

He has actually directly advocated putting people on the rack. The RACK. Of course, I doubt sincerely he has any idea what the rack actually does to people (he also has asserted that other “Western” nations don’t have real freedom of speech and that only Americans do, so that shows just how ignorant he is, and also how great the American school system is).

The thing that disturbs me is not that someone would advocate this. People have been doing this sort of thing since they crawled out of the primordial soup. No, the thing that disturbs me is that people are walking around in supposedly civilized society believing, actually believing, that it’s okay to torture people. That when someone commits a crime or crimes (even evil, horrible, vile ones) they give up their right to be treated humanely, because their jailers should be as bad as or worse than the criminals.

This, of course, is pretty much the justification that abusers use. The victim did something to “deserve” the treatment they got. You talked back, you didn’t do your homework, you forgot to buy beer, whatever. You gave up your right to be treated reasonably because you transgressed the rules (real or imagined or even made up on the spot), and therefore you deserved it.

I just feel sick at the moment. Coming face to face with someone who apparently genuinely believes that people deserve to be tortured is very disturbing and deeply troubling.

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I’m starting to regard people who shout, “But it’s my constitutional right!” in the same kind of way I regard people who shout, “But it’s in the Bible!” as a means to justify their arguments.

NOT that I don’t believe in the U.S. Constitution. Quite the contrary. I’m a huge fan of civil liberties, and I think the Constitution of the United States of America is a work of eighteenth-century literary art. And I’ve got nothing against the Bible, either, while we’re at it. We’ve got some twelve or fourteen different English versions of it and a couple of Greek New Testaments and a Hebrew Old Testament (or two).

No, it’s that when certain people can’t come up with any sort of logical or factual support for their position, they suddenly shout that it’s their RIGHT because The Constitution Says So (even though they’ve probably never read the Bill of Rights or Constitutional Amendments). Same thing happens with the Bible. Can’t support your argument or position? Just say, “It’s in the Bible!” and then when someone points out that your argument is full of holes, call them a heretic (or unamerican, whichever seems the most appropriate).

I’m trying to think of some appropriately pithy ending for this little mini-rant, and I can’t seem to do it. But I don’t really have to. The Constitution guarantees that I don’t have to end my rants on a sensible note. Or is it the Bible? I can never remember…

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I’m a big supporter of artists’ rights and all that, but when a band tries to sue someone for using “two chords the band has been using since 1982″, that’s way over the top. Apparently, though, Metallica think they have exclusive rights to the chords E and F…
Although, since I can’t seem to find this article on MTV.com (it may be there, but I can’t seem to locate it), this may be a big sendup. I certainly hope so!
EDITED TO ADD:
Yes, it’s a hoax. I have heard from a friend (hi, Kat!) that the site on which it appears is a satire site (which I would have figured out if I’d bothered to look there, but I was too lazy to do it), and the link to “MTV” in the article originally went to a fake MTV site.
There’s a discussion thread about it on Fark.com if you want to read a bit more on the subject.

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The descriptions that accompany this collection of illustrations from the 1950s had me laughing until I had tears in my eyes. Mind you, the illustrations are very, very odd, bordering on fetish. Okay, not bordering on. The “artist” (and I use that term loosely) had some serious fixations with women whose underpants suddenly fall down in public (intrigued yet?). But, these being from the 1950s, they’re quite tame as these things go, and like I said, the descriptions are hilarious.

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Okay, apparently it’s actually a dense cloud of gas and dust about 8000 light years away, but maybe the universe (or God) is giving us a message…

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Well, we picked up the repaired car today. It’s smoooooth. It did need a new fuel pump, and also there was a computer controlled sensor that had gone bad (which is possibly what caused the fuel pump to die). So we had that fixed, and we got a tune up. No more rough idle when it’s cold, no more “tappa tappa tappa” at slow speeds, yay!

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I had a bit of a crappy time earlier today. The car wouldn’t start and Zoë was crying incessantly in her car seat, and that made Miranda cry, and it all just pushed me over the edge. Thankfully, we have another car we can use and we already had an appointment to get the car serviced on Monday and we’ve got RACV (Royal Auto Club of Victoria, like the AAA in the States) so we can even get free towing. But it was annoying and extremely nerve-wracking and I just lost it for a little while.
Once we got the other car sorted out and everything was a bit calmer and we were going out (we had actually intended to go to the market, but by the time we got moving, it was too late), I decided I needed to get out of my foul mood. I decided to find five things to be grateful for.
The first was easy. There was the most amazing, splendid, gorgeous firey orange sunset I’ve seen in a long time. The clouds were the thin, icy sort that reflect the light and it was amazingly intense and just incredibly beautiful.
The next was that we already had the car appointment and that it’s school holidays so that I don’t have to worry about taking Zoë anywhere while the car’s out of commission.
The next was that we had a really nice dinner in the city, quite on a whim, in a very pleasant restaurant where they had a live piano player and a very enjoyable atmosphere.
Then, when we had a walk in the city, I was grateful that I could walk without pain, and that the weather was nice enough to have a pleasant walk.
Finally, I’m grateful for my family. Andrew took me out to dinner because he thought I needed it (and he wanted to go, as well), and Zoë, despite being somewhat difficult at times (she does NOT handle disappointment and/or frustration well!), is clever and a really charming, fun little kid, and that Miranda is a good-natured, cute, and happy little toddler, and, most of all, that they’re all mine to enjoy.
Life IS good. Even if circumstances sometimes really, really annoy me for a little while.

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According to a spam I just reported (it was caught in my filter, bwahahah):

INCREASE YOUR SPERM VOLUME UP TO 300 % Bonni

Well… 300% of zero is zero, so I guess they really could increase my sperm volume to that level… (Isn’t math weird?)

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Companies that are major users of telemarketing calls are preparing to shift efforts to e-mail and direct mail once a new federal “do-not-call” list takes effect in October, according to a published report.

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