Condi And Moammar, Sittin' In A Tree

So now that Gaddafi's compound has been taken over by the rebels, we're getting a glimpse into some of the things that the man had a penchant for. Some are more surprising than others. Personally, I was hoping that they'd come upon something with his name spelled on it so that there would finally be some sort of consensus. Maybe like a utility bill or his driver's license or something similar. But as far as I know, nothing like that has turned up yet. What has turned up? Well, for starters, we have this gun. Behold! How come dictators always have lots of guns like this one, but yet when it comes time to fight, they're no where to be found. What good is a gold and diamond plated firearm if you're not going to use it? Then again, if you're a dictator, chances are you're probably pretty cowardly anyway, so I guess that explains it. What has yet to be explained is Gaddafi's apparent love for a one Condoleezza Rice. That's right. Condi. Behold! That's a little odd. I mean, I suppose that she's an attractive woman and all. I just have never thought of her as the sort of attractive that would have someone practically stalking her. Then again, this is kind of a crazy dictator, so I guess anything is possible. He's been quoted as saying "I support my darling black African woman...I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders. ... Leezza, Leezza, Leezza. ... I love her very much. I admire her, and I'm proud of her, because she's a black woman of African origin." Now, I don't know about you, but I hear "Leezza" and I think "Gibbons".Gaddafi was really into Condi, though. He didn't think "Gibbons" when he heard her name. No, he wanted her. Badly.

I don't know why I find this all amusing. I'm sure that everyone has their little quirks. I'm sure that everyone has a thing for a former Secretary of State and they keep photo albums of her. Right? No? Yeah, I didn't think so. I can't wait to hear what other things Gaddafi has in his compound. (You know there's porn. It's just a matter of what kind of porn.)

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His Shirt Was White

I can go on and on (and I have) about how the media sucks. But this is not a case of the media sucking. This is a case of the media lying. And just because something isn't said out loud it doesn't mean that it is not a lie. IN the case of the media, if you are "reporting" and you are editing, altering, omitting or in any other fashion misrepresenting the facts of anything, then you are lying. And the folks over there at MSNBC are reprehensible "journalists" and liars. (Please note that "liars" is not in quotes.)

The other day a one MSNBC newshole, Contessa Brewer, was doing a story with her cohorts, a one Dylan Ratigan and a one Toure. (That's his name. Toure. That's it. Like Prince. Or Cher. Only he's on MSNBC. What does that tell you? We're doomed, that is correct.) It started out going in one direction and ended up in a completely different direction. Perhaps all of the misdirecting was due to someone having their head up their arse. (Quite difficult to accurately navigate from that position I'm told.) I thought it was going to be on the Second Amendment issue, as there have been folks showing up to places where President Barry is speaking and
they have had guns in holsters strapped to their legs or strapped over their shoulders. My first thought upon hearing this was that the folks who were toting arms were way out of line. Upon further consideration, I realized that we can't just trample all over the Constitution of this fine land because something makes us a little uncomfortable or uneasy. I'm a huge fan of the right to bear arms (and to arm bears). Regardless, I thought it was going to be about that.

Turns out, it wasn't about that AT ALL. Here's what Contessa Brewer opened with: "Yesterday...A man at a pro-health care reform rally just outside, wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip....And if the scene looks familiar, that’s because it should, last week a guy stood outside Obama’s health care town hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with a gun strapped to his leg and police arrested a 62-year-old before that New Hampshire event for carrying unlicensed loaded gun. And the reason we’re talking about this, a lot of talk here, Dylan, because people feel like, yes, there are Second Amendment rights for sure but also there are questions about whether this has racial overtones. I mean, here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists or to their legs."

Um, what now? I'm sorry, I mean, WTF?!

Racial overtones?! Racial? Overtones?! So just because there was a white guy carrying a gun outside of where Obama was speaking, THAT implies that there are "racial overtones" to the story? What?

What's that?

Who wasn't?

Who wasn't white? The guy with the gun? Well, that wouldn't make any sense! How could the guy with the gun not be white?! She specifically mentioned that particular guy. And though she didn't say he was a white guy, when she got to her shpiel about the "racial overtones" she didn't NEED to! Everyone thought that the reason that there were "racial overtones" is because she told us that there was a white guy wearing a gun at a town hall meeting where the half-white president was speaking. How can he NOT be white?!

Oh. Well....his shirt was white.

What. The. Hell.

Not only did the trio of false reporting idiots fail to make the viewers aware of the fact that the man with the rifle slung over his arm was a black guy, they also failed to make the viewers consciously aware that they had edited the tape of this particular individual so that you could not tell that he was black.

Now, just because you can't tell that he's black doesn't mean that you wouldn't have been able to tell if he were white, either. IN what I would assume was the only unintentional part of the editing process, you do see the arm of a white guy in such a fashion that you don't consciously think about it, but the arm kind of looks like it could go to the guy with the guy. But that wasn't intentional. I'm positive of it. What WAS intentional was to take the footage which clearly shows that this was a black guy and edit it so that you couldn't tell what the race of the person was and so that newshole Contessa Brewer and her faithful sidekicks, Dylan and Toure, can make this issue about race instead of the Second Amendment. Nice job, newsholes.

What was the purpose in that? Why did they feel the need to MAKE it about race? WHY couldn't it be about the Second Amendment? Was Toure not up on his pop-culture 2nd Amendment references? I've never even heard of that guy until I learned of this atrocity, but he angers me. It wasn't enough for him to back up newshole Contessa Brewer and her reasoning that people were bringing guns to places where President Barry was speaking was because they were angry that there was a black President. No, he had to go just a bit more and suggest that:
"I’m not going to be surprised if we see somebody get a chance and take a chance and really try to hurt him or really-You know, and I mean it’s up to the Secret Service to make sure that it doesn’t actually become history, but, you know, I think we’re going to see somebody, you know, some sort of Squeaky Fromme, some sort of Mark Hinckley figure, because there’s so much anger in the country about him, about what’s going on with government."

:::: sigh :::: (He's pretty skinny looking. I think I could take him.)

First of all, it's John Hinckley. Perhaps he was thinking of Mark David Chapman, the tool who gunned down John Lennon. John Hinckley was the one who shot President Reagan. Squeaky Fromme was a delusional follower of Charles Manson. Is he suggesting that another Helter Skelter awaits us, but this time, at the White House? (Yes, I know she tried to shoot President Ford.) In all of these cases however, there is a common theme. The first one being that they are idiotic comparisons to what is being talked about. The second one is that I don't believe that any of those people had a valid permit for their weapon. But really, neither one of those is the point. The point is that IT'S NOT THE SAME!


Contessa the Newshole EVEN specifically made it a point to make this story about race by asking Toure "...do you think if Barack Obama were white, though...let’s say if it were Bill Clinton – you would not see people showing up with weapons strapped to their legs?" (Does Hillary count for the evaluation of that question? I'm quite certain that after MonicaGate, she probably DID have something strapped to her leg for a while. She probably strapped something to Bill's leg as well, but I don't think it was a gun.) His eventual reply, after Dylan suggested that it was unknowable, was "...that’s hard to say. It is unknowable. But you do see a rise in hate group activity throughout the country."

Oh. My. God.

In a state where you CAN carry a gun out in the open like that, if you have a permit, how does that constitute "hate group activity"? How does that NOT constitute exercising your rights under the Second Amendment? How? Where did they find this guy? 1961?I have no idea what the point of this stunt was, other than to ignore, disregard and blatantly dismiss every single rule of reporting that there could be in order to fabricate (yes, LIE) a story to fit a particular narrative that you have in mind. They simply created their own truths by taking the truth and making it into a lie.

I'm not one to go around and suggest that folks boycott something. Do you know how many successful boycotts of things there has actually been? Ever? Not many. The Montgomery bus boycott is the only one that comes to mind at the moment. Calls for a boycott are generally useless. (Most people have the attention span of a gnat is why they're not more successful.) And I'm not usually one to go around advocating for people to be fired. These folks and anyone else who was involved in the production of that segment should be fired.

This isn't a "I don't like what they said" issue. They're not Don Imus (who, by the way, shouldn't have been fired. He shouldn't have said what he said, but he shouldn't have been fired.). They lied. They purposefully and willfully misled the viewer into believing something that wasn't true AT ALL. It's more than just irresponsible journalism. It's rogue reporting. The media is supposed to be neutral. They are supposed to be presenting the facts without a slant so that people can know what's going on without having to sort through someone's opinion to get to what the issue is about. For some reason, Contessa Brewer and Toure (poor Dylan pretty much just sat there, but it's not like he wasn't aware of the situation) wanted to make the issue of people bringing LEGAL firearms to a public event an issue about racism. Personally, I'd like to know why. I'd like to know why they felt that it was imperative that they not only go that direction with the issue, but do so in a deceptive manner. I'd like to know the answer the that and then I'd love it if they were fired.

Look, when you hire someone for your business, you want to make sure that the person you have in whatever position can do the job. If they can't do the job, are you going to keep them at your business? I don't think that's likely. What if they were lying to you while doing their job? Would you keep them then? I think that's even less likely. Contessa Brewer and the Newsholes (which isn't that bad of a name for a band)cannot do the job that they were hired to do AND they lied to us. If they can't do the job, which they obviously can't, they should be fired.

And if I thought that was going to actually happen, I probably wouldn't have mentioned it until it did happen. But I don't think that's the case. The good folks over there at Politico contacted MSNBC about this issue and they responded that the claim was "utterly ridiculous" and that "Contessa was speaking generally and not about that specific person with the automatic weapon." Yeah. That's why the cropped footage. That's why the not mentioning that there were black people with weapons also. That's why not mentioning that the guy with the gun strapped to his side shown in the cropped footage was black. That's why only mentioning that white people were coming to these public meetings wearing firearms. Yeah, she was speaking generally.

The footage of Contessa and the Newsholes is below. And it frustrates the hell out of me.

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The Gaudiness of Drug Dealers

Down south in Mexico, America's...Shoe, the drug cartels are in full swing these days. To say that it is a big business would be a gross understatement. It's enormous. And they take all of this drug trafficking thing VERY seriously. So seriously that the drug gangs in Mexico are incredibly violent (they have a penchant for de-noggin-izing those who get in the way of their profiteering) and it's really not all that safe down in the non-touristy parts of Mexico right now. (Mexico thrives on the spots that the tourists frequent. without the tourism dollars, Mexico's economy would tank. The drug lords know this and basically stay away from the high tourist destinations. They prefer to keep their organized mayhem amongst the locals and let the visitors to their country see the sights. Aahhh, the sign of a good businessman.)

Now, the gangs and the cartels are all making an incredible amount of money with the whole trading of the drugs around. And like any capitalist enterprise, a percentage of the revenue goes back into the business and what is left after that is the profit. No sense in just keeping a big pile of money around. That would appear to be the line of thinking that the drug lords tend to go with. Thus, they spend it on items to not only enhance their standing within the gang-drug-trade profession/organizations, it also enables them to look as cool as they think that they are. That is to say, not very. "Shiny" would describe their purchases with their ill-begotten funds more than "cool" would.

When a drug lord gets busted (still not real clear on how or when that happens, but it apparently does on occasion) Mexico's Asset Administration and Disposal Service (the ol' SAE) gets to gather up their belongings and sell them off and then disperse the proceeds between the attorney general's office, the court system and the health department. Huh. Diverse.

And while it's a fine idea, my question is who is going to buy this stuff? Because it would seem to me that the people who would be in the market for some of these items are the exact same type of people that the items were seized from. The drug lords! Behold!

Here we have what appears to be Mexico's version of the perp walk, only instead of parading the suspects out in front of a live studio audience, they parade them past the cache of weaponry that has just been seized from their Tuf-Shed. Behold!

But if you really want to make a statement (not sure exactly about WHAT, but a statement, nonetheless), you can always go with something a bit more flashy....more gaudy....more...Zorro the Really, Really Gay Blade, But With a Gun. Like this!

And if you'd really like to show people what kind of a drug lord you are, you can wheel and deal on this gold and diamond encased cell phone (which would show that you're the type of drug lord who doesn't know when people are laughing at them), behold!

So do you think that the local shopkeeper who is looking for a firearm for protection is going to think to himself, "I wonder if they have any solid gold Colt handguns somewhere around here? Maybe Sears? Where would I get me something like that? Ooh! And a holster with rhinestones! Yeah, I WISH."

I ran the text of the placard there in the front through Google Translate and it returned this translation:

"marcotraficante staff of the weapon is also their working tool, it aims to express the symbol of his "power", hence the preference for larger sizes, at the same time the weapon is a showcase to display their wealth, through ostentatious cachas and recorded in the body of the gun." Translation of the translation: Penis extension. Doesn't matter the country, doesn't matter the language, it's a penis extension no matter how you look at it. (And hopefully you won't have to!)

I think if Scarface were gay and had a Vegas show with a gangster theme, these would be only some of the props.Sign translation: Someting about it being a Colt .45 and it was taken at a Gold Cup National Soccer Match. Huh. Why do you need a gold, silver and be-diamonded handgun at a soccer match? In case there's a bad call?

Here we have Jesus. No! Not THAT Jesus! Jesus. Son of God Jesus. You know Him! And what personal firearm would be complete without a small gold Jesus on the side of the grip? At least, I think it's Jesus. Could be one of those Saints that they have one of for everything over there. Violente, the patron saint of drug trafficking perhaps?

Below is a gold plated Versace gun and $30,000 in cash. Hey! I don't think that gun is REALLY a Versace! Did you buy the gun at the same place where they were selling designer handbags for really cheap? That might explain it. And I've got ten bucks that says that the owner of that gun wore Sergio Valente jeans as well.
And these are just the weapons. Can you imagine what their drug financed dwellings must look like if they bling-out their firearms like that? Let's take a look and see if a drug lords taste in weaponry is similar to his taste in home decor, shall we?

Well. Here's something you don't see every day. Thank God. What the hell is that? It's like a man-made cavern INSIDE of someone's house. Well, palace. OK, DRUG PALACE. Regardless, it's freaking weird! I can't tell if that thing in the water is supposed to be a floating shoe or a canoe or what.

What drug chalet would be complete without the cache of exotic animals to serve as pets (and to hopefully get them laid)? Here we have the everyday drug dealer pet, the black panther. These particular panthers are not wearing the traditional diamond medallions that are seen on some of the more commonly owned black panthers.

So, say I was a drug lord. Where, exactly, do I go about buying myself a lion? Behold!

It's kind of like how Michael Jackson's Neverland was; just substitute all of the children with drugs and they're practically the same. You have to have a cherub doing a handstand by the pool! If you don't, the other drug lords will think that you're a wuss.
In case you're thinking about picking up some of these gems for your own personal abode and wanted to know how to go about something as odd as that, according to The Telegraph, the auctions to sell these items usually take place in "upmarket hotels or on eBay". eBay?! Next to Sarah Palin's state jet or what? That doesn't seem right. Then again, neither does burning all of the drugs that they've seized once they've got Cokey Smurf behind bars. Behold!

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Would You Like A Felony With That?

If recent news stories are any indication, there would appear to be a bit of confusion regarding the protocol at fast food eating establishments. Lots of people seem to be incredibly unclear on the concept of what is and what is not OK. Therefore, in an attempt to minimize any more future missteps, I'm going to try to explain this whole thing in the best way that I can. Now, while not an incredibly complicated item to learn it can get tricky for some folks. But interestingly enough, it can also be quickly mastered if you just apply yourself! So fret not little softheads who are probably having someone else read this to them, fret not.

Here we go. Feel free to take notes if you'd like.

In general, 911 services and/or law enforcement should almost never be used in regard to your order at a fast food restaurant. In fact, I'd conservatively estimate that 99.995% of the time you should have absolutely no need for the police in regard to your order. I know, I know! It seems like there are SO many things that can go wrong with ones order. (How many times do they get it right on the first try? They can't really hear very well when you're shouting into that clown thing in the drive-thru.) It would seem almost (but not quite!) logical to wonder how law enforcement can NOT get involved when dealing with fast food fare. Oh, and if you're IN law enforcement, don't think that this doesn't apply to you, because it does! I'm here to tell you it most certainly DOES apply to you as well. It's just unfortunate that a one 29-year old Derrick Curtis Saunders with the Aurora Police Department in Colorado wasn't aware of this before he brandished his weapon because his order was taking too long.

What now?

Correct. From the folks over at CBS-4 in Denver we learn that the District Attorney in Arapahoe County will be charging Saunders with a host of offenses after he allegedly pointed his gun through the window at a McDonald's employee because he felt that it was taking too long for him to get his order. It was apparently around 3am and if you've ever been at a fast food drive-thru at 3am, you know that they're not exactly known for their speed and attentiveness. Granted, I've never seen inattentiveness that has warranted brandishing a firearm at someone, so I'm not condoning this sort of behavior. I'm just saying, I understand. To a degree.

And while Saunders is a cop, we have to remember that his assignment is the overnight shift at the airport. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm merely saying that there might be a specific reason why someone in particular is assigned to the overnight shift at the airport, a place where there aren't very many people that one would have to interact with.

There isn't much to the story, other than a guy with incredibly poor judgment. Saunders and another officer had placed their order in the drive-thru and then when they drove up to the first or second window (because you can never tell which one they mean and it's almost always the wrong one that you end up at while your food is at the other) and then had to wait for an amount of time that is unspecified, but clearly too long for our hero. That's when "...one of the officer's flashed his police badge and pointed a pistol through the drive through window in a threatening manner, before driving off without paying."

Tell me, what would it look like to point your pistol through the drive-thru window in a "non-threatening manner"? Of COURSE it was in a threatening manner! It's a GUN! The very essence of a gun IS supposed to be threatening! Who is that for?

Oh, all right! That's enough! Where was I?

The odd part of this story (aside from all of the gun pointing) which is not explained in the multitude of accounts is that this example of excellence in idiocy took place on May 21, 2009, but they're just now filing charges against Saunders. Why so long? Maybe they were just trying to ascertain that he wasn't the Hamburglar. Or perhaps the badge had the employees confused at first and they thought they had been threatened by Officer Big Mac. I don't know what the delay was and God forbid if someone "reporting" this story actually answered that question. Sadly, there isn't a mugshot or booking photo of this genius yet. But all in due time, I'm sure.

The DA will be charging Saunders with something called felony menacing. He'll also be charged with "prohibited use of a weapon, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct", that according to the The Denver Post. Felony menacing appears to be a Colorado law in which someone "knowingly places someone else in fear of imminent serious bodily injury." Basically if you try "to make someone believe they are going to get seriously hurt (at that moment and) not at some future date" then you're a felony menacer. Ironic that the menacing has to imply something is going to happen right at that moment, and yet it's two months after the fact before the charges were filed. And just in case you were thinking that he could say that alcohol was involved, being drunk is no excuse for felony menacing and you can't even TRY to use that as a rationale as to why you felt that the best way to speed up the drive-thru workers at Mickey D's at 3am was to point your gun at them.

So to recap, please don't involve or include any form of law enforcement or emergency services in conjunction with your lending your patronage to a fast food eatery. I don't care if you got an apple pie and you had ordered a cherry pie. I don't care if your fries are warm and limp instead of hot and crisp. I don't care if you have to wait for your food at 3am. Leave the police AND all guns OUT of it. Especially since you're just setting yourself up for trouble simply by just using the drive-thru because in the words of Joe Pesci from Lethal Weapon 2 "They f*** you at the drive-thru." Eat at your own risk.

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Stupidest Criminal In All The Land

You have to know that if you're being called "the stupidest criminal in the state of Pennsylvania" by a retired police chief (obviously someone who has seen his share of criminals, both the crafty and the inept) it's a pretty good bet that you are, in fact, the world's dumbest criminal.

Meet Jerome Marquis Blanchett (brother to Cate, that is correct. The resemblance is uncanny.).

The 19-year old Mr. Marquis was dubbed "the stupidest criminal in the state Pennsylvania" by a one retired police chief John Comparetto. According to the associates over there at the AP, Chief Camparetto was at a Holiday Inn and was walking "...out of a stall in the men's room when a man pointed a gun in his face and demanded money." (You'd think that he'd want to rob him when he was actually in the stall. It's not like he'd be able to chase you right away or anything. A head start is always beneficial. Just something to think about is all.) But aside from the semantics of this crime, the other issue at hand was that Chief Comparetto wasn't the only cop in the building. No, there were some "...300 other narcotics officers from Pennsylvania and Ohio" nearby at the time because of the Narcotics Law Enforcement Seminar.that was going on. In that Holiday Inn. At that moment. 300 of 'em. Yep.

According to PennLive.com, Comparetto "...handed over $138 and his phone" and our boy genius said that "...if he tried to follow him, he'd kill him." Uh-huh. Well, this shouldn't be too hard. And it wasn't. Comparetto waited for him to leave and then "drew a firearm from his ankle holster and went after Blanchett." How far did our hero get before he was caught? Not as far as you might think. He was taken into custody outside of the Holiday Inn. As he was getting into a cab!

So, he's so dumb that rather than high tailing it out of there, he gets a cab. Now, I don't know where he was planning on going, but if it's me and I have to resort to robbing someone at gunpoint in a freaking public restroom, I am certainly not spending any of my ill-begotten loot on a cab. I'm running! But then again, between me and Einstein there, only one of us is currently in jail and it's not me.

Captain Incompetent was charged with "robbery, making terroristic threats, reckless endangerment, simple assault, carrying a firearm without a license and illegally possessing a firearm." Well, that is quite a busy morning right there! If nothing else, he's a fairly competent multi-tasker as evidenced not only by this debacle, but also by the fact that at the time, "...he was awaiting trial of four previous robbery charges."

Comparetto said,"He was probably the stupidest criminal in the state of Pennsylvania. There was a big sign by the front door that said 'Welcome Pennsylvania Narcotics Officers Association.' He had to walk right past that sign. There were 300 cops in here. There were police cars all over the parking lot. He's not very bright."

At his arraignment in court, District Judge Michael J. Smith told him "You're a danger to have on the street" and then set his bail at $1 million. As he was being led out of the courtroom, a reporter asked him for a comment, to which he replied, "I'm smooth."

"I'm smooth"? What the hell does that mean? "I'm smooth." Does he have extremely supple skin that he is very proud of? Is he a seal? A dolphin? What other place in this story could "smooth" have if not in relation to one of those aquatic creatures?! (Which are known to some as 'charismatic megafauna.' Don't ask.) He's not smooth at all! He's Stooges material at best!

The screen shot below is from a video on KDFW Fox 4 News. If someone could explain to me why or how or what a photo of Mr. Marquis is doing propped up next to what appears to be a sink in (assumedly) a public restroom, I'd appreciate it. It's one of the stranger things I've seen in a news cast in a while and I just don't get it.

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