Resistance is Futile!

Geeez! Apparently the insurance industry decides which movies are produced and which actors get hired. http://slate.msn.com/id/2119328/

Open house at RSR

This is funny. RSR mentioned the fan club for the Star Wars character Admiral Piett in a post on May 20. On that day traffic to RSR jumped from an average of 15 visitors to over 1100. This blog hasn't seen that much action since Micheal Jackson was mentioned.

Sharp Pointed Stick Control

First they came for the gun owners...the drinkers...smokers...pot heads...cell phone users...

British Medical Experts Campaign for Long, Pointy Knife Control
'The authors of an editorial in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal have called for knife reform. The editorial, "Reducing knife crime: We need to ban the sale of long, pointed kitchen knives," notes that the knives are being used to stab people as well as roasts and the odd tin of Spam.' - Note: Does anyone know if this is a joke? It smells like Onion material. On the other hand, wearing a mask in public is now illegal in some states.

Bali Express

This woman is singing the "witting drug mule" blues.

20 years for 9 pounds

"The case has galvanized public opinion in Australia, with a recent survey showing 90 percent thought Corby was innocent, believing her defense argument that the drugs found in her possession were planted by baggage handlers in Australia. Corby's defense team was buoyed by news Australian Federal Police and Qantas Airways were investigating the role of baggage handlers in a cocaine smuggling operation."

Mac Heads

For all the Mac heads out there...click on this!

Starter Homes

DOH! Anyone know the median income in San Fran? Who the heck can afford a house at $760 a sq ft?

"Another reason San Francisco's children are disappearing: Family housing in the city is especially scarce and expensive. A two-bedroom, 1,000-square-foot starter home is considered a bargain at $760,000."

Finally, a Admiral Piett fan club!

Someone finally got around to creating an Admiral Piett fan club. Membership in the club is free. Everyone should join and show support for Piett because...

"It is a dark time for the Galactic Empire. The deaths of Darth Vader and the Emperor have left the Empire crushed, leaderless, and despondent... Into the vacuum of leadership steps ... [Piett] ... " ... blah, blah, blah. You get the point. Just join already. You know you want to, so do it now!

Speaking of girls & baseball

Katie is lucky she doesn't live in Rochester, Minnesota.

"In a league of her own Girl, 11, throws perfect game against all-boys team"
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS May 18, 2005, 1:07 PM EDT
"OAKFIELD, N.Y. -- Katie Brownell is a shy 11-year-old girl of few words...Brownell is the only girl in the Oakfield-Alabama Little League baseball program in this community about halfway between Buffalo and Rochester. On Saturday, that didn't stop her from accomplishing something league officials can't remember anybody -- boy or girl -- ever doing...She threw a perfect game for the Dodgers in an 11-0 victory over the Yankees. How dominant was she? She struck out all 18 batters she faced in the six-inning victory. She never got to a three-ball count on any of them."

"Mine is in my hand and ready to use"

"HA HA" funny quotes from Greg Gillespie's web site:
Wait...what is he talking about?...

"Mine is in my hand and ready to use"
"(bonus) accessible even when wearing chaps"
"How fast can you Whip yours out"
"Mine looks like this"
"In a real bad situation...I’d never let you touch yours"
"Wasted Motion is Wasted Time"
"So I just put every action on the planet to shame"
"Out and open with one handed operation"

"Big bulky thing on your belt...That thing [is] very slow compared to mine and also very predictable [. i know] what your next move is going to be. You have to pull it out. Your elbow leads the way across and away from your body. Also think about how hard it is to get that thing back in the holster... To me it looks like the world just slowed down . It’s so obvious that it is a big clumsy thing on your belt. Ridiculous."

Equally screwed

It would have been cheaper to just cancel the boys' baseball program and give all of the equipment to the girls' teams...

Lights Out (5/18)
"When the sun goes down, baseball games at Rochester, Minnesota's Century, John Marshall, and Mayo high schools come to a halt. All the fields have lights, and the school district has paid its electricity bills. But it decided it can't turn the lights on because of Title IX, the federal law that requires equal treatment for male and female students in athletics. Following a complaint from a parent, the school asked the federal Office of Civil Rights to look at its athletic programs. The feds said girls' softball fields didn't measure up to the boys' baseball fields. The school system put in new press boxes, bleachers, batting cages and sound systems, but it didn't have to money for lights, too. So, to even things up, it said the baseball teams couldn't use their lights. School officials say they never had any complaints from softball players or coaches about the quality of their facilities. " ROCHESTER, Minn.

National Socialist Movement on campus

WOW!
America's Nazi Party

From Wired News -
"TEANECK, N.J. (AP) -- Jordan Ingram always thought his history professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University was a little quirky. Jacques Pluss certainly had an unusual style, Ingram recalled. But Ingram, who is black, never thought his professor was a racist _ until after Pluss was fired.

Pluss said he was dismissed in March because university officials learned of his involvement in the National Socialist Movement, which bills itself "America's Nazi Party." School officials said he was let go for missing too many classes.
...
Just after dismissal, Pluss went on "White Viewpoint," a radio show on the National Socialist Movement Web site. He talked about FDU as a "Jewish plutocratic university" and
described the school's men's basketball team as "nigger to the core."

"They (the players) have absolutely no right to be in that classroom because they do not possess either the merit or the enhanced intelligence to be there," Pluss said on the show.
...
The group, whose members wear Nazi regalia at its meetings, sometimes has joint meetings with the Ku Klux Klan.

The party's 25-point platform includes limiting U.S. citizenship to non-Jewish, straight whites. Nonwhites should not be allowed to enter the country and those already here should be
"required to leave the nation forthwith and return to their land of origin: peacefully or by force," it states. "

Driving while pregnant? Enjoy being tortured?

Has anyone noticed Tasers are routinly being used to coerce suspects into complying with commands from police officers? Isn't inflicting physical pain as a means of coercion considered torture? Isn't torture illegal? Is torture justified in some circumstances?

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/223578_taser10.html The key sentence is "The officers testified that was meant as a final warning, as a way to demonstrate the device was painful and that Brooks should comply with their orders."

"Brooks testified she didn't even know what it was when Jones showed it to her and pulled the trigger, allowing her to hear the crackle of 50,000 volts of electricity. The officers testified that was meant as a final warning, as a way to demonstrate the device was painful and that Brooks should comply with their orders. When she still did not exit her car, Jones applied the Taser." Apparently the police applied the taser to the woman at least 3 times on different parts of her body.

Definitions from dictionary.com:

tor·ture
- Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.

co·erce
- To force to act or think in a certain way by use of pressure, threats, or intimidation; compel.
- To dominate, restrain, or control forcibly: coerced the strikers into compliance.
- To bring about by force or threat: efforts to coerce agreement.