Plum Crazy

Same As It Ever Was

What's the punishment for beating up two black girls these days? Well, if you're a racist skinhead from a wealthy family, apparently it's 5 years probation, 200 hours of community service, and a couple of museum trips.

The D.A.'s response floors me. I realize that D.A.'s have to tread carefully around judges, but still.

"Judge Spurlock's sentence is one that addresses the very nature of the underlying offense,” said Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley in a written statement. “Obviously we felt that committed time would also have been appropriate, but this lengthy probationary term, with these strict and very appropriate conditions, is a wise and thoughtful sentence.”

"Wise and thoughtful?" I don't think so. How about "Far too lenient and entitling." I mean, really, how seriously do you think this guy is going to take a couple of museum trips?

Via Pinko Feminist Hellcat.

Battle of the Bulge Progress Report #5

No change in anything this week. The sprained tendon is still bothering me, and my weight remained at 161. Good that I'm not gaining, but I need to be more vigilant to start losing again.

Note to Dave Daubenmire

Your son has already hurt children. Oh, maybe not directly, maybe.* But by downloading child pornography, he has hurt the children who were forced to appear in it. He is supporting an industry that hurts children in one of the most vile ways. So spare us the talk of how your son is "a model guy." Model guys don't want to jerk off to videos of men raping young girls (or women).

With respect to the article itself, is it possible we could not refer to child pornography as "video of young girls having sex with adult men..."? The young girls are NOT having sex with adult men. The adult men are raping the young girls. There's a huge, huge difference between those two statements, and it's the first kind of statement that completely shadows the reality of what is going on here. It makes it sound as though the young girls are willing participants, consenting actors. It puts the emphasis on them as the subject of the sentence, and, as a result, removes it from the adult men who are committing the crime.

*I say maybe, because, really, how the hell do we know? You're certainly not going to find out by asking other adults (i.e., "the people he's coached with, the school system he's worked with..."). And I think there's a high correlation between viewing child pornography and raping children. Not a perfect correlation, but a high one.

Via ginmar.

Snakes On A Movie Review

What can I say about Snakes on a Plane? Perhaps that it achieves levels of awesomeness that only a movie featuring Samuel L. Jackson fighting snakes on a plane could achieve. Few things could be more awesome. Maybe Christopher Walken fighting snakes on a plane. Or, even better, Samuel L. Jackson fighting Christopher Walken and the snakes that Walken put on the plane. Either you will appreciate this, or you will not. If you won't, you will hate this film. Don't see it. But if you will, buy yourself a ticket.

If I were to level one critique at this film, it would be that the writer and director forgot that there is only one reason to see this movie. To see Samuel L. Jackson fight snakes. On a plane. They spent far too much time setting up the action. And for what? This isn't a great plot. It's not even a good plot. So why waste time trying to get it to make sense? It just doesn't. No criminal mastermind is going to try to bring down a plane by putting snakes on it. Cut right to the part where Samuel L. Jackson fights the snakes on the plane. No one cares why the snakes are on the plane; it makes just as much sense, and it gives the audience what it's waiting for sooner. But once you wade through the too long set up, the movie pays off on its selling point in spades.

BTW, best line in the movie is not, in fact, "Enough is enough! I have had it with these muthafuckin' snakes on this muthafuckin' plane!" No, it is not that. It is the line Samuel L. Jackson utters after the poisonous snake expert tells him that someone put a pheromone on the plane to drug the snakes and make them act aggressively. "Great. Snakes on crack."

UPDATE: Forget what I have to say about Snakes on a Plane. If you don't care about spoilers, go see what Geoffrey Chaucer has to say about it.

The Broom Is In The Room!

It's even more than I dared to hope for - The Yankees took all 5 games against Boston. At Fenway. Sweeeet!

Battle of the Bulge Progress Report #3 and #4

Didn't post last week. Here are the latest updates:

#3: Good mixed with bad. I put in a 5-mile run last Sunday and planned to extend to 5.5 miles yesterday. I was going along fine until I felt something in my right calf at the 2.5-mile mark. I had to stop and am still feeling the pain today. I'm assuming it's a muscle pull or strain. Hopefully, it won't take more than a week to heal. Weight is good, down to 161 from 164.

#4: Turns out I sprained a tendon in my right ankle last Saturday. The prognosis is 4-6 weeks for it to heal. Not sure what that means yet in terms of the 15k for December. Since it's not a stress-related injury, which was my fear, I should be able to start where I left off, at runs of 5 miles. The biggest concern is what the injury means in terms of dancing at the wedding. I felt better on Friday and took a dancing lesson. I reinjured myself and am having problems just walking right now. We'll see.

Weight was steady. Still at 161 lbs. Not great, but it's better than gaining.

Home from Dublin

The flight back coming from Dublin was fine. No major delays. The only thing I missed was not being able to bring my eye drops on board. I have very dry eyes. I generally put drops in my eyes every 3-4 hours, and I can't so much as doze off without having to put drops in my eyes immediately upon awakening. The hardest part of the flight back was having to keep myself awake for the entire time. So it's off to my doctor to get a prescription for eye drops, since I can't bring the kind I buy off the shelf in my purse on the airplane.

Anyway, a photo of the lovely Christchurch Cathedral in Dublin:

Note to John Aravosis

Not everything revolves around American politics. Especially since the people suffering the worst of this are the Brits. I have no clue what putting lots of Brits through massive amounts of trouble as they're about to go on their summer holidays has to do with Joe Lieberman. Wouldn't the conspiracy theory make more sense if Americans were the ones being most affected? Only, they're not. Honestly? I don't think Tony Blair, from his holidays, would majorly disrupt British air travel just for George Bush and Joe Lieberman. Especially when Bush could have accomplished everything Aravosis is accusing him of (and more) by claiming the plot was going to take place from an American airport. Whether or not it has anything to do with al Qaeda remains to be seen. And if he wants to question the red alert, fine. But It's the Brits who arrested the plotters, and the track record Aravosis mentions doesn't belong to the Brits. Mentioning Jean Charles de Menezes would have made much more sense. But that was just one extremely unfortunate mistake, and people really did bomb the London Underground two weeks prior to that, and unexploded bombs had been discovered one day prior.

Let me just say that as someone who had to fly out of London yesterday and who rearranged my flight home on Sunday to go direct from Dublin rather than through Heathrow, I was able to escape the vast majority of travel restrictions by doing that. Flying from Heathrow to Dublin yesterday, I could only carry my passport and wallet on the airplane in a clear plastic bag. When I fly back to the US from Dublin tomorrow, I'll be able to carry on everything I normally would except liquids and gels. Major difference. So if someone needs a conspiracy theory, concoct one about Tony Blair (as some Brits already have). At least it would fit what happened better.

Slainte!

I made it to Dublin yesterday morning, more or less on schedule. We landed only one hour late, which given I was flying from Heathrow, wasn't bad at all. I only had to wait on line for an hour to check in too. With everything going on yesterday, I count myself lucky. I have rearranged my return flight so that I'm flying directly back from Dublin, however. I was originally supposed to connect through Heathrow.

Dublin is a lovely and charming city. Some gorgeous Georgian architecture around Merrion Row. The streets are exceedingly narrow. This surprised me a bit. Yes, the financial district in New York suffers from narrow streets, as do parts of London. But if you venture a bit, you can find wider streets. Not so much in Dublin. Makes it hard to take photographs, as you can't really get far enough away from certain things to really get them in view. So less photos than hoped.

They also close things down here early (other than the pubs). Most stores close by 6 pm, even on Friday and Saturday. Nonetheless, I've managed to tour about quite a bit. Took a Viking Splash tour yesterday and walked around Grafton Street (the main shopping street south of the River Liffey). Today I headed out to the National Gallery, Oscar Wilde's House (which you cannot go inside, disappointingly), Trinity College and the Book of Kells, Dublin Castle, the Guinness Storehouse, and finished up at the Georgian museum Number Twenty-Nine. I also walked along the River Liffey, crossing over both O'Connell and Ha'penny Bridges. Tomorrow it's off for a closer look at both Christchurch and St. Patrick's Cathedrals. I have seen them both, but I want to see a bit more.

For your viewing pleasure:

Dublin Castle

Along the River Liffey

This Is Dedicated To The One I Love

In a change of pace, I'm sitting in the airport waiting to board a flight for London.* I'll be in London through Friday morning, at which time I'll board a plane to Dublin. I'll spend two days in Dublin (for fun!) and then fly home. Hopefully many photos will be taken in Dublin.

However, all is not sweetness and light about this trip. There is one person I will miss very much. He knows who he is, and this is for him.

Close your eyes and I'll kiss you,
Tomorrow I'll miss you;
Remember I'll always be true.
And then while I'm away,
I'll write home every day,
And I'll send all my loving to you.

I'll pretend that I'm kissing
the lips I am missing
And hope that my dreams will come true.
And then while I'm away,
I'll write home every day,
And I'll send all my loving to you.

All my loving I will send to you.
All my loving, darling I'll be true.

*If change of pace is defined as something I do pretty frequently.

Battle of the Bulge Progress Report #2

Not a great week. The hot weather and tiredness on Friday limited me to one run. I did push it to 3.75 miles from 3 miles and will go deeper today. I slipped with the weight gain. I don't remember exactly what I weighed last week - need to keep track of that - but I added a pound or two this week to 164. Too much midnight snacking. Wait. It might be the Jack Daniels and beer I pounded down. No, that's not it. It was the cortisone shots. Sorry, not that either. It was my thyroid condition. Whoops, not that either. It was dehydration. I'm sorry. I'm confusing myself with Tour De France fraud Floyd Landis.

Battle of the Bulge: Progress Report #1.5

Quickie update. The heat this week put the kibosh on any running. Plan was to go last night, but I was drained. Hope to get out there for 4 miles or maybe even 5 today. Lost an additional pound, but that may have changed after I made the mistake of buying peanut butter Thursday. Don't normally keep the stuff in the house because I pound through it in a nanosecond, but what with the heat and power problems, I had fear of a blackout Thursday. Never materialized. Update again Sunday.

Addition: Peanut butter is my second favorite food. Sushi is #1, but that doesn't work well as a staple during a blackout. Later.

It's Like Reality Television!

So thanks to Ilyka, I am currently totally fascinated by the blog feud between TBogg and Patterico. This is what I get for taking a day off work. I was considering going to see Pirates of the Caribbean and basking in the utter over-the-topness of Johnny Depp, but this has engrossed me!

Some good things that have come out of this fascination.

1. The comments to this post over at Sadly, No! Some nutter signing his comments The OJ Simpson Case was littering the comments with ridiculous accusations against Patterico. This spawned an entire set of allusions to other legal cases, which then led to all kinds of references to fictional conflicts (e.g., Godzilla v. Mothra). I could just keep reading that comments section and get more entertainment than I have had in the past week.

2. The above-referenced comments section contains one of the silliest mistaken identity occurrences, in which Patterico is said to be a member of The Eagles. Not on purpose, but it was pretty damn funny. To me.

3. My newfound knowledge that norbizness is also The Left. Which is a total relief to me, because I've spent years wondering who The Left was and how to find him or her. I mean, I kept reading over and over how The Left does this and The Left does that, and I just didn't know whom to hold accountable. Now if I can just track down The Right...

Some bad things that have come out of this fascination.

1. I swear, if I read another comment about how someone is a "pussy" or "a fucking girl" or a reference to Michelle Malkin as a "whore" (the last one is in the URL and references Malkin's site)... Aside from the obvious implication that women are weak and/or cowards, which is really what pisses me off, I have a few other issues with it.

I would bet that 90+% of the men who refer to other men as "pussies" have expended a reasonable amount of effort in their lives trying to get some, so WTF is up with that? I mean, really. Dissonance, much? Ditto that for "a fucking girl". How many times did the guy who made that comment wish he could find one? Maybe never, as he might be gay (and with a name like Clarke, I am assuming he's a man), but odds are against it.

Plus, do not MAKE me defend Michelle Malkin. I'm begging you, people. It is possible to criticize women in non-sexual ways. Try it some time. Not liking a woman's politics does not make her a whore.

2. The whole "blogging pseudonymously" makes you a coward thing. I really hate that. I'll grant you it's not precisely what Patterico said, but what he did say isn't really any better. What he more or less said is that accusing other bloggers who don't blog pseudonymously of being cowards or mocking the appearance of bloggers who don't blog pseudonymously while blogging pseudonymously yourself is cowardly. Sorry, I don't buy it, and it does play into the overall blogging pseudonymously is cowardly thing.

If you accuse someone of being a coward for reasons totally unrelated to the name under which they blog, it doesn't matter whether or not you blog under your real name. Either the person is a coward for the reasons stated or they aren't. Under no circumstance does your willingness to blog under your full name make a difference to that argument. Obviously if someone who blogs under a pseudonym accuses someone else of being a coward for doing the same thing, then that is relevant. But that wasn't what happened in the (completely unrelated to TBogg) case that Patterico mentions. He was pissed off because somone named Retardo accused Jeff Goldstein of being a "chickenhawk coward". Obviously a reference to Goldstein's position on the war in Iraq. Either the case against Goldstein stands on the grounds of his being in favor of the war in Iraq or it doesn't. [Personally, I'm not a proponent of the chickenhawk argument.] It does not matter that Retardo chooses not to blog under his/her own name.

As for the whole mocking someone else's appearance thing, there are two problems with that. One is the, I believe, unintentional implication that somehow it would be less offensive if one mocked the appearance of someone who blogged under a pseudonym. Which is patently BS. Speaking as someone who doesn't blog under my full name and has had my appearance mocked (and only by men who didn't even know what I looked like, mind you), it is absolutely just as offensive. I defy anyone to say that the asshole who once felt the need to inform me that "fat chicks also get raped" (no, really, Sherlock) was somehow less of an asshole than he would have been if I used my full name. We all know that's BS.

The other problem is the implication that mocking someone's appearance would be less disgusting if you did it while blogging under your full name. That's BS too. Really, why would it be? Yes, you can hold someone more accountable for their actions if they blog under their own name, but that would lead to a whole host of offline consequences that really shouldn't be faced by the vast majority of bloggers. No one deserves to be harassed at home for mocking someone's appearance. Anyone who does something for which they do deserve offline consequences (as in, be arrested or legitimately sued) can almost always be forced to suffer them regardless of whether they blog under their full name or not. ISPs have records of their customers for just those reasons. Those are matters, however, which should be left in the hands of the justice system, not hordes of blog commenters.

There are very legitimate reasons* why people do choose to blog pseudonymously. Ilyka once posted a very compelling reason why she does. As for myself, look, over my years online, I have been subjected to various unpleasant sexual remarks. While I recognize that the risk is low that one of those freaks might actually decide to track me down and act upon them, it's just not a risk I'm willing to accept. If anyone really believes I'm a coward for that, well, I don't have much flattering to say about them either. Especially since I know that if it did happen, at least some of those very same people would spout victim-blaming BS about my being "stupid" enough to blog under my full name as a woman. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I choose being damned if I don't. Which is not to say that I see anything wrong with women (or men) who do. It's a personal choice and in no way excuses anything that might happen.

*To be really honest, just feeling like it is a legitimate reason, IMO. FFS, this is blogging. Most of the time, it's just not all that serious, massive blogger egos notwithstanding.

UPDATE: OK, I badly worded that whole thing about why ISPs have records of their customers. Obviously they have records so they can bill them. However, they can be required to turn those records over when someone has done something for which they can be arrested or sued.

ANOTHER UPDATE: OMG, best conflict reference at a Sadly, No! thread or possibly anywhere! "Your Ass v. A Hole In the Ground". I swear, I'm still laughing! Because, yes, I am that childish.

No Thank You

I took a pass on United 93, and despite the positive reviews from the NY tabloids, I will take a pass on WTC as well. I lived through 9/11 and don’t particularly want any reminders of that awful day, at least not yet. Too soon. May always be too soon. I probably feel the same way that people who lived through it feel about Pearl Harbor movies. At a distance, born twenty-four years after Pearl Harbor, I have no problems seeing movies about it. I suspect that my Mom and Dad and other people of their generation would or did.