A World of Cheese, For your Pleasure

The New Straight

Wondering if that guy wearing Prada slip-ons is straight or gay?

According to the New York Times, the new Metrosexual is Gay Vague.

What is with the New York Times? First the Man Date, now this.

Hitman, your choice for contract killings

I would like to submit my CEO, Dick to the services of HITMAN. That fucker wouldn't know what hit him.

Gang-rape victim has movement restricted

A woman that was the victim of a vicious gang-rape in 2001 or 2002 has had her movement restricted says Khalid Tanveer of the Associated Press.

Allegedly, her 13-year-old brother had illicit relations with some girl in the wrong tribe, and as punishment, a group of men punished the woman. That's like starving your brother to death because your sister took the last Twinkie. And now the government of Pakistan wants to restrict her movement, as though she did anything. They want to try to keep her from her lawyer, it seems, since that's what she really wants and needs to do.

But who knows? The justice system in Pakistan is neither logical nor effective: half the men who did this crime were immediatedly acquitted, and the other half who originally were sentenced to death have since been acquitted and re-arrested, except for one. (The other man had his sentence commuted to life in prison, but we'll see where that goes.)

If the family of a victim decides not to press charges and seek justice, then the state can do nothing to the perps. This is why honour killings can go unpunished. I heard that there are about 100 cases a year both punished and unpunished in India, which is not a number that I can come close to believing.

This type of thing happens so often that if we actually realized the numbers, we'd fall off our chairs. The only reason that this is news is because she spoke out against it. And you know what? She does need protection. This restriction of movement could very well save her life, and the lives of anyone sympathetic to her. Tribes only seem to recognize laws when they see it to do so. I would think that they would want her as dead as possible, as quickly as possible.

Fucking tribes. I know that I only hear bad things through tainted news sources, but it seems as though nothing good has come from tribes in the last 500 years except war, death and oppression, which non-tribal authorities are only too eager to give us more of should we decide to get out heads out of our asses. Tribes are like all those annoying asshole busybodies from the small towns that want nothing to do with actually helping the community; they just want more money for their businesses and communities to thrive at the expense of everything else. The difference is that the tribe tribes often don't speak the same language (and don't care to), they recognize no law but their own and would as soon kill you and themselves just to make a point. (Hmmm...this could be Miami, couldn't it?)

Everyone gets an A for effort

It seems that grade inflation is an epidemic in universities these days. If I had known that when I did my undergrad, I would have put a lot more pressure on these profs. Of course, I should have actually done work and gone to class. But that's not the point. Students and parents have such a sense of entitlement to high grades that if Timmy doesn't get his A, then the teacher is an asshole, even if Timmy misses three assignments and shows up late to his tests.

Some believe that higher fees keep irresponsible, unintelligent or otherwise third-rate students out of the higher institution when all they do is keep poor students away. As it is, because people pay through the nose for education (whose value has steadily decreased over the last 30 years) they figure that they should damn well get what they pay for. It's no longer about getting the most out of your education, it's about getting the most out of a product, and raising hell if it doesn't work.

The people that should be raising hell about product are the students after they graduate. You know one of those Big Lies they tell you about going to school? They didn't tell you that it isn't about being successful in your chosen field; it's about being trained to be a highly-educated and well-trained cog in the machine. It's about bullshit. Science graduates are the new assembly-line workers.

But I am, of course, not saying anything new. I probably shouldn't blame the students or the parents. They're just trying to get a leg up on the rest of the masses by getting into master's programs that supposedly make job prospects start to look interesting. I should blame the employers who insist that a person fresh out of school that has never been inside an office except for those two interviews is a better candidate for something than a person who has done the job for five years but never received the title. As it is, you could lie about ever having gone to university and almost no one will check you out. On the flip side, it can be a good way for the inexperienced to get experience.

Oh, those poor students, having to actually work for grades. It's not like this is preparing them for real life; it's pretty much about who you know, not how good you are, isn't it?

Scary, spooky man

If this guy is real, he's the scariest guy I have actually seen in a while. I WOULD cross the street if he were approaching, and I can't say that about many people. Look at him:

Euuggh. This picture gives me the creeps. Let's look at him again:

Damn, that's fucked. Apparently this guy had a history of violent behaviour, and after one too many complaints against him he stabbed an elderly woman to death and "separated her husband from her thoughts", if you catch my drift. But the most amazing thing is that he ended up walking across the border with a bloody chainsaw. How fucked is that?

"Nobody asked us to detain him," Anthony said. "Being bizarre is not a reason to keep somebody out of this country or lock them up. ... We are governed by laws and regulations, and he did not violate any regulations."

Well, I don't think that it was just a case of someone looking funny. This man was carrying a fucking bloody chainsaw. Or rather, he might have been. People get killed by law enforcement for "might have been". But yet they felt they had to let this freak across the border without detaining him for longer than two hours. Well, he was a naturalized US citizen anyway, so due procedure was observed. I like to think that if he were coming here rather than leaving, there would have been a much bigger issue.

Homicide at age 7

The most sickening thing happened recently. Maybe you've heard of it. A 7-year-old beat his infant sister to death, and then lied about it. The worst thing is, he probably has no idea (and possibly will never have any idea) why what he did was wrong. All he knows is that he did something wrong, and the grown-ups are upset. I think that it was entirely possible that he wanted to permanently silence the girl, although he may not have realized that killing meant, well, killing.

Now of course, it's entirely possible that he did learn from this and will be appropriately punished. But still, the parents have to live with this killer. Every day. And they have to realize that he will grow up and may actually become as big a threat to them as he was to their daughter. I couldn't live with it. I'd give him up to the state, or go to jail for negligence. I simply could never deal. I would have lost not one child, but two.

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Me

Boing Boing had an entry on the lethal martial arts move, "Monkey Steals the Peach". It says, "...effectively ripping away the genitals. Massive blood loss causes death." That's quite a peach. Imagine this exchange:

Thug: Back the fuck up!
Punk: Fuck you! I'll show you my Monkey Steals the Peach™ technique!
Thug: Oooh, I'm trembling, muthfucka! I'm TREMMMBLING!
Punk gets ready.
Thug: Whatcha gon' go little munkey? You gonna steal my peach?
Punk steals peach.
Thug: YEAAARRRGGHH! My Sean John pants!
FATALITY.

Can't blame the Thug. It's just a little monkey stealing a peach, right? Wrong.

TO cops seize bike from homeless man-who paid for it

Toronto cops seized a bicycle that belonged to a homeless man because they figured that he couldn't own a shiny red bike like that.

The victim, who was pepper-sprayed over the incident, apparently saved for two months of panhandling to buy it, his one possession other than his clothes. And they stole his lock. But they must have had good reasons, right? He's probably caused trouble before, bothering people for money, maybe he has some priors, who knows? With the information in the article, though, these cops should probably be embarrassed if not ashamed or even reprimanded. They assaulted the guy and stole his bike, for God's sake.

How sad.

And yet Karla Homolka is going free

Junior Allen stole a 19" black-and-white TV in 1970 and has been in jail ever since (use 'veryfictional@yahoo.com' and 'nonexistent' if you need to log in). He has been turned down for parole 26 times. Society has been kept safe because they kept this animal, this black migrant farm worker in jail for so long. I suppose he should be glad; they probably could have had him killed.

Karla Homolka drugged and participated in the rape and (supposedly) accidental death of her younger sister. She also participated in the rape and murders of two other teenage girls. Because she could not have really been all that responsible for her role in it all, she sang like a bird and ratted on her man, Paul Bernardo, putting in him jail forever and netting her a sweet deal: 12 years, no questions asked, police incompetence and lawyer fuckery notwithstanding.

Is it just me, or does something seem unbelievably wrong here? Here's a little quote:

"When Junior came here, he was the bitter old man everybody expected," he said. "He had not a chip on his shoulder, but a VW. I told him, 'Junior, you've got to prepare yourself to get out, or you're going to die in prison.' "

So this man has had to kiss ass for almost 3 years, when the state of North Carolina should be kissing his for the rest of his life. It was a fucking TV. And he'll have to report to a parole officer and be watched between the ages of 65 and 70 like he's really dangerous. "During Allen's five-year parole, she said, he'll have to work, obey all laws and check in regularly with his parole officer. If all goes right, he'll be a free man at age 70." How fucking nice. I'm 30 right now, and my dad will be 71 tomorrow. Imagine that. I disappear and the next time I am seen anywhere, I'm my father.

Sure, these things happened two decades and a couple thousand kilometres apart. And sure, the law has changed in North Carolina. But I don't care. I consider these things relatively close in time, and not that far apart. Whoever was responsible for this nonsense in North Carolina, plus anyone supporting this crap, should have known better than to put anyone, even a super-dangerous animal like a black male, in prison for 35 years and counting for stealing a TV. He has seen rapists and killers go in and out (and back in and out), yet they felt it necessary to keep this petty thief in jail for 35 years.

And before anyone castigates me for playing the race card, ask yourself: do you REALLY think that a good ol' white boy would be in jail forever for such an offense? They changed the law for crimes of this nature, but I really don't believe that of all the people that got sentences of 20 years or more for these types of things that 90% of them weren't black or hispanic. It was 1970, after all. Only seven years after that debacle in Birmingham, AL. Maybe it was bureaucracy that kept him in there. Maybe his police record is as long as your arm. But he's in jail for stealing a TV. I imagine that most non-minority convicts that were convicted under the old law were released. I'd be interested in finding out.

Now, to be "fair", he refused the Mutual Agreement Parole Program, because all he wanted to do is go home. I suppose he could have been home quite some time ago, although I have no reliable information upon which I can base this. It's possible that they would have simply thrown him back in regardless. I don't know.

Lastly, just as an exercise, let's put yesterday's crime in today's terms. $140 USD in 1970 is $704.69 now, or $879.77 CAD on June 1, 2005. What can you get for nearly $900 CAD? A cheap laptop at Future Shop (limited time only). A hell of a fridge (although who would steal a fridge except as a prank?). A miniDV camcorder? Hmmm, come to think of it, I'd be pretty pissed if someone stole my camcorder. Throw the book at the fuckers, yeah.