Can we get a 'Woot!' up in here?

Police Chief James Cavallo turned his son into the authorities for robbing a bank after recognizing a photo of him in the newspaper. He should be commended for his action.

What is humorous about the ordeal, is some of the comments levied at the story. Most were supportive of James's decision. However, there were a couple which caught my eye:

1. "I wouldn't turn in a family member for anything less than rape or murder."

This is an interesting observation, considering Cavallo's son threatened the bank teller and claimed he had a gun. If he had been allowed to continue, maybe the next time he would have had a gun and shot someone, or been shot himself.

2. "As it does far too often, the poll asks the wrong questions; gives us the wrong options. What would I do? I would accept the responsibility to TALK TO MY CHILD Loooooooooooong before such a thing could happen. Dad didn't even feel it because that is far too often in law enforcement today what cops don't do. They are too concerned with "The Law". Christians reading here may recall that the mission of Christ was to bring compassion to a law mad society. We need Him again. Parents that talk to their kids DO NOT HAVE near the problems of those who are too busy or just throw money at them to solve the problems. Not until you give of yourself do you truely give. The 'build more prisons' approach is failing and shall continue to fail because of the same failure in communication and leadership. Prisons are schools and the inmates are the teachers. We used to call this 'breeding ground for trouble'. The real heartbreak here is the failure of the parent to be human in the first place."

Although it would be interesting to find out how good of a parent James was, this was never mentioned in the story. In fact, the story did mention how James had helped his son break a cocaine addiction eight years earlier. If James had been overly concerned about "the Law" rather than his son's well-being, he would have been in jail eight years ago for cocaine possession, and if he had too much of it, with intent to sell as well.

Don't die.

Read a foreign author.

Normally, I don't cover local news, but this story is absolutely horrifying.

A woman in Lonedell, MO was stabbed several times and then had her throat slit. Unfortunately, her nightmare didn't end there. She woke up some time later (yes, alive) and stumbled into her baby's room to find the 1-week old missing.

Yeah. Some people are sick.

Don't die.

The homeless problem just isn't going to solve itself, you know.

President Bush needs to re-evaluate his morality. Let's examine a statement he made today:

"If there's any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it's flawed logic.

It's just -- I simply can't accept that.

It's unacceptable to think that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective."

IBC (Iraq Body Count) estimates that there have been a minumum of 43145 civilians killed in the war in Iraq. The organization estimates a maximum body count of 47921. These were the numbers at 1:30 CST today (I'm sure the numbers are higher on their webpage now). Many of these civilians, some of which were women and children, were killed by US soldiers in order to achieve an objective.

In war, civilians die, and die, and die to achieve objectives. The only argument one could make is most US soldiers do not intend to kill innocent civilians, where-as the terrorists on 9/11 knew the World Trade Center only had civilians within it. I stress "most" in the previous sentence because some US soldiers have been under investigation for killing unarmed, non-military targets. Now, philosphy afficianado's can argue whether a good intention which has bad results (say, attempting to destroy a military bunker of terrorists which kills innocent civilians because the missile missed its intended target) is more moral than someone with bad intention which has bad results (say, terrorists bombing the world trade center).

I'm sure there's more in President Bush's speech, but I haven't completly gone through it.

Don't die.

I think once a month is a good schedule to keep.

My website is updated with a new tale. It's untitled as of yet, because I don't know exactly where its going. I just keep writing it.

Don't die.

Forget the time - its just a corporate invention to control your life.

Senator McCain is one of the few Republicans that I can see actually voting for in the 2008 Presidential elections. The man has principles and morals. He is so determined to destroy President Bush's proposal to modify Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions that he is willing to alienate the Republican party to do it. Two other Republicans John Warner and Lindsey Graham stand with him. Colin Powell has also thrown his support behind Senator McCain.

Which brings up the next article, discussing the same showdown, but with a different focus: the election is eight weeks away and the Republican party is having a showdown between themselves. This does not bode well for the party and Democrats, seeing the advantage, have not weighed in on the issue. They're letting McCain fight for them. This is a fairly odd scenario near voting time.

Don't die.

Fate kicks you in the nuts when you're down.

When I first read the news all I could think about was: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! From the beginning, I've had a fear that the Wheel of Time series was going to end like the Dune series: hanging.

Robert Jordon, one of my favorite fantasy authors, has been diagnosed with a very rare, odd disease. You can read Robert Jordan's words here. Hopefully, he will be stubborn and strong enough for his promise to hold because I certainly do want to read those books he has in him.

Don't die.

Nightmares are the things candy is made of.

President Bush knows his NSA spying programs are illegal. To alleviate this problem, Senator Spector framed a bill which has just passed committee, and will head for a Senate vote fairly soon.

The bill allows the Attorney General to authorize wiretapping by himself as long as he places terrorism as its purpose. There is no oversight.

This bill is very, very frightening. Government power was seperated by our Founding Fathers for a reason: power corrupts absolutely. A single man with a huge amount of power, with no oversight, will always be drawn to abuse. Its been proven again and again and again.

Don't die.

Gwar is my hero.

Today, I found out iTunes 7.0 had gapless playback. For those who listen to the pop bands of the day, this isn't a big deal. Most of their songs aren't meant to be played back to back. Unfortunately, it is annoying when your listening to Pink Floyd and at the end of a track, the playing pauses before playing the next track. The gap can get particularly irritating for those for like Electronica/Dance, as well.

So I downloaded and installed the program. It looks nice, and began updating its database for gapless playback. It even has a nifty option to grab cd covers. I never got a chance to use it though. I played a song, and all I would get is static. I tried tweaking a few things in Quicktime (as recommended by Apple) but nothing worked.

Consequently, I'm back to v6. I've never had such a problem with Apple before. Its an interesting experience.

Don't die.

I don't own a single piece of bling-bling.

How a man can sneak a life-size replica of a prisoner into Disneyland is beyond me. But it was done. Banksy placed the figure beside the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and it stood there for about an hour-and-a-half before being carted away.

He's also done some other interesting pranks. Like, when he replaced five hundred Paris Hilton cd's with his own remixes.

He also graffitteed a Bristol building with a naked man, which was actually allowed to stay due to overwhelming popular support of the rendering.

Banksy--a prankster to be proud of.

Don't die.