Scary

Here - have yourself a scare.

http://www.mapsexoffenders.com/

We have one several miles from our house. Oddly enough, we're relieved that he targets adult women, rather than children.

Of course I worry about people being wrongly convicted...but some of these people have five or more convictions for assaulting and raping children. They should NOT have been released, ever.

Incidentally, one of my co-workers was in the process of buying a house. He looked up his new address on the site and found TWENTY-SEVEN sex offenders within two miles of his house, and three literally occupying the same spot - we can only assume that every single one of his next-door neighbors is a molester or rapist. Even more horrifying, the nearby playground has a CLUSTER of convicted molesters living right next door.

He has kids. He cancelled the sale.

Scary

Here - have yourself a scare.

http://www.mapsexoffenders.com/

We have one several miles from our house. Oddly enough, we're relieved that he targets adult women, rather than children.

Of course I worry about people being wrongly convicted...but some of these people have five or more convictions for assaulting and raping children. They should NOT have been released, ever.

Incidentally, one of my co-workers was in the process of buying a house. He looked up his new address on the site and found TWENTY-SEVEN sex offenders within two miles of his house, and three literally occupying the same spot - we can only assume that every single one of his next-door neighbors is a molester or rapist. Even more horrifying, the nearby playground has a CLUSTER of convicted molesters living right next door.

He has kids. He cancelled the sale.

Irresponsible Responsibility

[This was originally a comment on an entry in lubedpumpkin's journal, but I put in enough work on it to make it worth posting here. I've expanded it a little.]

Bush takes "responsibility"?

No, no, no, no, no.

If you read what he said carefully, you'll see that he doesn't actually take responsibility for misleading the American public. He's saying "it's my responsibility to lead America into war." The word "responsibility" has two different meanings; one is negative and one is positive. Example:

Negative: "I take responsibility for burning the pizza" means "It's my fault."

Positive: "It's my responsibility to make sure that no one ever burns a pizza again" means "I am the leader who bears the noble burden of making sure that the people who've let me down never do it again" - in other words, in this case it means "duty", and NOT "fault".

He carefully used the positive meaning of "responsibility" when he referred to himself.

Here, look:

"As president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. And I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities."

Does that sound as if he's admitting fault? If anything, he's proudly proclaiming his job duties. In fact, he's laying the blame on the intelligence community and saying that he has to clean up the mess that THEY made!

(Perfect sociopathic behavior - blaming others for what he, himself, did.)

I took that from the transcript of Bush's Wednesday, December 14, 2005 speech. And it's the ONLY point at which Bush talked about responsibility applying to him.

But he uses the words not in the "I take responsibility" (i.e. "It was my fault" or "The buck stops here") sense, but rather in the "It's my JOB to..." sense. There's no other interpretation. And the media is covering for him by focusing on the WORD "responsibility" without noting that his careful parsing makes it clear that he in no way accepts responsibility for the consequences of his actions.

How did he and Rove know that the media would play along, pretending that he'd accepted the blame when he'd actually refused it once again? That's what disturbs me - once again, the media bought the bullshit. You've got to wonder why. And how Bush and company apparently knew that they would.

Bush did use the word "responsibility" in the "mistake" sense later on in the speech, by the way:

"Some have launched irresponsible charges. ... These charges are pure politics. They hurt the morale of our troops."

Pure Rove. He refuses to admit responsibility, smears anyone who points out that he's a liar as irresponsible, and the media pretends that he's actually sucking it up and taking responsibility. Amazing.

The majority of the human species is insane. I have no other explanation.

Irresponsible Responsibility

[This was originally a comment on an entry in lubedpumpkin's journal, but I put in enough work on it to make it worth posting here. I've expanded it a little.]

Bush takes "responsibility"?

No, no, no, no, no.

If you read what he said carefully, you'll see that he doesn't actually take responsibility for misleading the American public. He's saying "it's my responsibility to lead America into war." The word "responsibility" has two different meanings; one is negative and one is positive. Example:

Negative: "I take responsibility for burning the pizza" means "It's my fault."

Positive: "It's my responsibility to make sure that no one ever burns a pizza again" means "I am the leader who bears the noble burden of making sure that the people who've let me down never do it again" - in other words, in this case it means "duty", and NOT "fault".

He carefully used the positive meaning of "responsibility" when he referred to himself.

Here, look:

"As president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. And I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities."

Does that sound as if he's admitting fault? If anything, he's proudly proclaiming his job duties. In fact, he's laying the blame on the intelligence community and saying that he has to clean up the mess that THEY made!

(Perfect sociopathic behavior - blaming others for what he, himself, did.)

I took that from the transcript of Bush's Wednesday, December 14, 2005 speech. And it's the ONLY point at which Bush talked about responsibility applying to him.

But he uses the words not in the "I take responsibility" (i.e. "It was my fault" or "The buck stops here") sense, but rather in the "It's my JOB to..." sense. There's no other interpretation. And the media is covering for him by focusing on the WORD "responsibility" without noting that his careful parsing makes it clear that he in no way accepts responsibility for the consequences of his actions.

How did he and Rove know that the media would play along, pretending that he'd accepted the blame when he'd actually refused it once again? That's what disturbs me - once again, the media bought the bullshit. You've got to wonder why. And how Bush and company apparently knew that they would.

Bush did use the word "responsibility" in the "mistake" sense later on in the speech, by the way:

"Some have launched irresponsible charges. ... These charges are pure politics. They hurt the morale of our troops."

Pure Rove. He refuses to admit responsibility, smears anyone who points out that he's a liar as irresponsible, and the media pretends that he's actually sucking it up and taking responsibility. Amazing.

The majority of the human species is insane. I have no other explanation.

Christmas War

I assume that everyone has seen this video about the War on Christmas? It's pretty funny.

Something funny: we were at Cracker Barrel a couple of days ago, and the cashier kept saying "Merry Christmas and have a happy holiday". An interesting way to cover all the bases. It stuck in my craw, though; every time she said it, all I heard was "The Cracker Barrel Corporation fears the religious right. But we don't want to piss off anyone else, either".

Of course, as someone wisely pointed out, Christmas and New Year's are a week apart...making it holidays. In other words, "Merry Christmas" doesn't cover New Year's.

Not that it matters. Like flag burning, this truly is a bullshit issue, intended purely for distraction purposes.

Christmas War

I assume that everyone has seen this video about the War on Christmas? It's pretty funny.

Something funny: we were at Cracker Barrel a couple of days ago, and the cashier kept saying "Merry Christmas and have a happy holiday". An interesting way to cover all the bases. It stuck in my craw, though; every time she said it, all I heard was "The Cracker Barrel Corporation fears the religious right. But we don't want to piss off anyone else, either".

Of course, as someone wisely pointed out, Christmas and New Year's are a week apart...making it holidays. In other words, "Merry Christmas" doesn't cover New Year's.

Not that it matters. Like flag burning, this truly is a bullshit issue, intended purely for distraction purposes.

Above

Tuesday was Teri's birthday. She drove up with Sebastian and my parents watched him while we went out for dinner and a movie.

We went to the Longhorn Steakhouse (it was what she wanted). While we were waiting for our food to come, we talked about what movie we'd see.

Now, we haven't gone to more than two movies in any one YEAR since Sebastian was born. The only one we've been to this year was "Pride and Prejudice", and you can guess who picked that one (hint: not me). P&P wasn't bad, actually, but it was a chick flick and so I made the obligatory jokes ("I think I'm starting to ovulate!").

Normally it would have been my turn to pick a movie, but since it was Teri's birthday I let her choose. She'd been talking about seeing "Memoirs of A Geisha", which I gather would probably have caused me to start menstruating immediately.

So we're sitting at the table, and she mentions that "Memoirs of A Geisha" is only being shown in select cities, and is NOT at the theater we were going to. I immediately clasped my hands prayerfully, raised my eyes to the ceiling, and said as gratefully as I could "Thank You!".

"Wait a minute," said Teri, well aware that I'm an atheist, "just who are you thanking?"

For a fraction of a second I scrambled, mentally. I'd been joking, of course. But ironically enough, help came to me from Above.

"Him!" I said, pointing to the enormous horned black bull head which was mounted on the wall directly above our table.

...

Hmm. I guess it's funnier if you've been to the Longhorn, and know the decor.

Above

Tuesday was Teri's birthday. She drove up with Sebastian and my parents watched him while we went out for dinner and a movie.

We went to the Longhorn Steakhouse (it was what she wanted). While we were waiting for our food to come, we talked about what movie we'd see.

Now, we haven't gone to more than two movies in any one YEAR since Sebastian was born. The only one we've been to this year was "Pride and Prejudice", and you can guess who picked that one (hint: not me). P&P wasn't bad, actually, but it was a chick flick and so I made the obligatory jokes ("I think I'm starting to ovulate!").

Normally it would have been my turn to pick a movie, but since it was Teri's birthday I let her choose. She'd been talking about seeing "Memoirs of A Geisha", which I gather would probably have caused me to start menstruating immediately.

So we're sitting at the table, and she mentions that "Memoirs of A Geisha" is only being shown in select cities, and is NOT at the theater we were going to. I immediately clasped my hands prayerfully, raised my eyes to the ceiling, and said as gratefully as I could "Thank You!".

"Wait a minute," said Teri, well aware that I'm an atheist, "just who are you thanking?"

For a fraction of a second I scrambled, mentally. I'd been joking, of course. But ironically enough, help came to me from Above.

"Him!" I said, pointing to the enormous horned black bull head which was mounted on the wall directly above our table.

...

Hmm. I guess it's funnier if you've been to the Longhorn, and know the decor.