PAUL RANTS

Posted by Paul at February 26th, 2007

A teen speeds. Police ram car. Who’s at fault?

How about this:

1) Teach teen drivers to pull over for the police. Since when did it become acceptable to take police on high-speed chases (and then take them to the Supreme Court when the chase ended badly)? Pull the fuck over! You’re not a desperate fugitive, you’re some drunken kid. We never would have tried this when I was nineteen. We knew we’d get in far more trouble, if not seriously injured or killed. We certainly didn’t assume we could star in our own live reality show. Which brings me to my next point.

2) Stop broadcasting high-speed chases on television. I know, they can be exciting to watch, but that’s precisely the problem. If there’s no helicopter spotlight and no audience glued to their TV sets, the incentive to flee goes way down. That would leave just the truly desperate criminals, who should be chased (and yes, rammed, if necessary) in the first place.

UPDATE: Court sides with police

Posted by Paul at February 20th, 2007

It’s war profiteering as a science. The money made, relative to the amount of time and lives spent, shatters all the records. Of course CEOs of oil and contracting conglomerates don’t have to get their feet wet in Baghdad, yet they keep most of that money for themselves. The people they pay to be there make a small fortune as well. You need the highest paid security in the world to guard oil wells and ill-supplied soldiers.

The billions reaped for corporate America is a coup going on under our noses. Much of that money is unaccounted for; billions of tax dollars have been squandered frivoulously. What will a “surge” do other than distract from the huge profit they’re making from the American taxpayer?

The president’s advisers all have ties to oil and war contracting. They had their sites on Iraq long before 9/11. They even dummied up intelligence and convinced us of something we knew to be wrong. In fact, the 9/11 culprits are currently regaining power in Pakistan. Why? Aren’t those the bad guys? Oh wait, we need the bad guys out there so we can continue to pillage and rebuild oil rich nations.

At a crucial moment, the Bush administration diverted America’s military strength, political attention and foreign aid dollars from a necessary, winnable war in Afghanistan to an unnecessary, and by now unwinnable, war in Iraq. Al Qaeda took full advantage of these blunders to survive and rebuild. Now it seems to be back in business. — New York Times

And Hillary Clinton still won’t denounce her vote to authorize these jackals? Does she have some interest in all this? And if she really does want to end the war in Iraq as she claims, what’s her post-war strategy?

Posted by Paul at February 9th, 2007

Just a few months before Vicky Lynn Hogan — aka Anna Nicole Smith — dropped dead in a hotel room, her grown son died in the same hospital room where she had just given birth to a new baby. To grieve or celebrate — what a twisted state of affairs for anyone, let alone a paparazzi pursued drug addict with three golddiggers claiming to be the new father. Now, in death, Anna Nicole Smith will be picked apart, made the butt of jokes, blogged about (guilty), and autopsied. Sleaze merchants and various hangers on will try to hijack her memory. The television pundits will weigh in on her cultural impact. Although she aspired to be, she was no Marilyn Monroe, but of course the comparison will now be made; unlike Paris Hilton, she came from a poor family in small town Texas. At least she seemed to know she was something of a clown, never taking herself too seriously. But no, Anna Nicole Smith dying at thirty-nine is nothing to stop the news or wring our hands over. I guess a train wreck is just inherently more watchable than our democracy being subverted by neocons in dark suits. That’s not her fault, it’s ours. She played her part and we laughed or cringed or simply changed the channel. Filthy rich, dirt poor, lucky, cursed, skinny, fat, ridiculous, and ultimately tragic. Everything out loud. Did you see her? There she goes.