This whole rant was actually a Facebook status update that grew too large. I now have to link to this page. Now, to preface this I'd like to state that politically, I consider myself a centrist who leans to the left, particularly on social issues. So it stands to reason that most of my friends fall to the left, if not far left. When I woke up today I saw a few posts about some offensive comments Rush Limbaugh made. Big surprise, the man is a professional buffoon for a living. Round about lunch time the fire over Rushgate had reached a fevered pitch.

"Man, I gotta read what he said! He must have done something like eat a live minority baby while peeing on the Quran!!!"

So I looked it up, and he made some rather harsh and misogynistic comments about the young lady who testified in that reproductive rights hearing the other day. Disgusting and crude? Absolutely. Worth a Facebook campaign and clogging up my newsfeed? Absolutely not. This isn't even in the top twenty of vile, bullshit comments that has issued for from this man's mouth over the years. As a sufferer of numerous neurological disorders, I was highly offended by his comments about Michael J. Fox. Did I go all Spartacus, proclaim that we should rise as a nation and demand this jackal be placed into a pillory? No. I realized that kind of attention would only serve his goal of kicking up controversy.

Then I started noticing the petitions and half-assed boycotts. Giving lists of companies that were BELIEVED to be sponsors of Limbaugh's show. Think about that for a second. Such was the ferver whipped up by an insult hurled at a now public figure, that boycotts were being called against companies were THOUGHT to have ANY tie to the Rush Limbaugh Show. That's shittier fact checking than Fox News. There were companies issuing public statements that they were not now or ever associated with Limbaugh's show. And some of the ACTUAL sponsors did actually pull their sponsorship.

Seriously, this guy is a circus clown. We should not get this upset over someone purposely saying outrageous shit to get ratings. If anything we should kick back, secure in the knowledge this jester is THE dominant voice of the republican party

So to all of you out there behind the clogging of my news feed, congratulations on your hard fought victory. Not the morally just and righteous victory for reproductive rights you won yesterday. No... the morally reprehensible and self-righteous victory against free and unpopular speech you won today. McCarthy and the PMRC would be proud.

Cameron Todd Willingham, Texas, and the death penalty

That's a 17 page article. If you don't want to read the whole thing let me summarize what happened.

Dude's house burned and his three kids died. He got convicted on the testimony of his town's fire inspectors, who cited certain stuff as evidence of arson. He declined a plea bargain for life in prison if he pleaded guilty. Years later, close to his initial execution date, this lady took up his cause because certain things didn't sit right. While he was probably abusive to his wife there were no records to indicate he was ever abusive to the children (in fact, there was evidence to the contrary, that those children were everything to him), indicating no motive. He was a troubled youth but his parole officer had testified he was turning his life around significantly. Most importantly, he continually maintained his innocence. Somehow, she was able to get some arson experts to review the evidence and it was confirmed that the fire was accidentally started by a faulty heater - in a nut shell, the town's inspectors were using incorrect methods and wrongly concluded arson. This was agreed upon independently by three different arson experts.

So, in other words, the dude was in prison because he was a dick who listened to heavy metal (during trial, they portrayed him as a heartless sociopath because he listened to Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden). Also, an inmate who was incarcerated with him claimed he'd confessed secretly. Obviously, you can throw the first one out without thinking twice. Jailhouse confessions are also useless. Said inmate later changed his mind twice about the supposed confession.

So with no motive, confirmation from three experts that it was an accidental fire, and him holding strong that he hadn't done it, he put in a final appeal to the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole. They ignored it. Rick Perry then declined clemency, saying that the facts of the case still held up. Note that every "fact" in the case is dismantled in the link above, which means he probably didn't even read it.

He was killed on February 17th, 2004 via lethal injection.

The Innocent Project found out about this case and brought it to attention. A committee was formed to investigate forensic evidence in Texas. They began finding tons of problems with arson cases. Shortly before they were to decide on Willingham's case, Rick Perry replaced three members of the board. They then ruled that any evidence presented before 2005 was useless.

My hope is that, with Rick Perry running for President in 2012, this stuff will be brought back into the forefront. It is of dire necessity, not just because Rick Perry is yet another ass-faced Republican but because - unlike Casey Anthony - it is 100% proven Willingham was innocent. Texas put an innocent man to death and because Perry could have stopped it and then subsequently tried to cover it up (he's denied this, lol) his path is the best way to achieve justice for Cameron Todd Willingham. Also, the final argument that people for the death penalty can be brought to by someone who knows how to debate (every other argument for it can be debunked or rendered null) is that it has never been proven we put an innocent to death.

Justice for Willingham means we put an innocent to death.

Today, the American public vented its collective frustration across the various social media sites and news outlets when the jury in the Casey Anthony trial acquitted her of murdering her daughter (along with some other serious charges). They did find her guilty of some lesser charges, but those were not enough to sate the tremendous thirst for justice that the people had. This is with good reason, because, if for nothing else, the case concerned the death of a two year-old girl. A two year-old girl is not capable of running a Fortune 500 company so she can't be a suit-wearing asshole smoking a cigar and fucking the public and her employees over at the same time. She isn't capable of robbing a bank. She isn't capable of breaking into someone's house and stealing their valuables. In all, a two year-old girl isn't capable of much that could be held against her aside from probably being annoying at times or not behaving or some other trivial nonsense. So it's understandable that people would be quite interested in the outcome of the trial.

What really got them going is that the two year-old girl was the daughter of a very young mother who appeared to have offed the kid because it interfered with her lifestyle, which is a reprehensible enough thought to have about your child sans the killing part.

The general consensus of the people is that Casey Anthony felt her daughter to be enough of a burden to "require" murder. This is because Casey Anthony told a lot of amazingly intricate lies during a month of behavior that is typical for a single girl in her early twenties when the reality of the situation was that month included her daughter being "missing." Also, it's because the remains of the child had duct tape over the mouth and nose, and that internet search history indicated someone was looking up how to make chloroform. It didn't help, as well, that several people were pretty certain they smelled that nasty decomposition odor from Casey's impounded car which would point to the body having been there for enough of a time. Needless to say, Americans were out for someone's head and it really, really seemed to be Casey who was at fault here.

During the course of the trial, all manner of things were presented as evidence and people found out the extent of Casey's lies. Experts were brought in to comment on the smell from the trunk of the car. Casey's father and brother were accused of molesting her. Casey's mother claimed she had been doing the searching for the chloroform. It was a general mishmash of opposing viewpoints and, apparently, a lot of conjecture from the side of the prosecution (which is not to say the defense has clean hands). What it really came down to was this: the cause of death could not, for certain, be determined.

A lot of courtroom dramas and movies make a big point out of reasonable doubt, burden of proof, etc. If someone is found dead with a knife wound in their chest and a murder weapon with DNA on it is found close to the scene you can safely determine that the person was stabbed to death and move on to the task of locating the responsible party. Casey Anthony's defense played upon the uncertainty about the cause of death by claiming the kid had drowned in the pool and that a panicked grandfather/mother combo covered it up. A lot of people are really angry at the jury and with the justice system but those groups actually did their jobs with what they were given. They observed the evidence presented and made their decision because they possessed a reasonable doubt about it.

The prosecution in this case did a masterful job of bringing to light how much of a douchebag Casey Anthony is/was. As stated earlier, it may be typical behavior for a girl of her age but it doesn't change the fact that she lied grossly. It doesn't change the fact that she pranced around like a girl who didn't have a kid, free of any concern for a month while her daughter was missing. It's so easy to believe she murdered her daughter because she's a bad person. So the idea of her feeling maladjusted as a result of her daughter, knocking the kid out with chloroform, then placing the unconscious body into the trunk of her car with duct tape over her mouth and nose is completely acceptable due to this perception. You can't convict someone on emotional suppositions, however.

Personally, I feel that she killed her daughter. I realize, though, that I am going off of my emotional response and my public perception of her. I don't know she's guilty and nor does anyone else. The circumstances presented make it highly likely, though not certain. What's truly sad here is what I mentioned in the beginning: a two year-old girl is effectively an innocent and she's dead. She was probably defenseless to what happened, be it a murder, a drowning or whatever else. We'll never truly know what happened nor how it happened and we'll never know that whomever is responsible for the girl's death gets punished.

Three thoughts upon hearing the news of bin Laden's death.

• Not that big of a deal in the long run. All this means with regard to our safety is that the person gunning for his position now has it.
• Now that we got the Grand Moff Tarkin of evil shit, can we get Darth Cheney?
• Looks like Obama's got 2012 locked down now.

This message is important: Stop filling out customer satisfaction surveys!

You know how you go to a store and they give you the receipt with the number to call or the web site to visit, then they ask you to rate your "experience" at whatever business it was? Or you call your wireless provider and they ask you to stay on the line for a brief survey? They ask you to rate from 1-5 or something on things like, "I felt like the employee cared about me," and other topics under the specious claim of improving their customer service.

Don't fill them out. A lot of places capture your e-mail address specifically to send you these surveys - they don't even care so much about selling your info to spammers any more. Feel free to give them your e-mail address or whatever (more on this later) but don't ever fill the surveys out. Why, you ask?

Customer satisfaction surveys harm the employees, regardless of the type of response, more than they improve anything.

The big companies these days keep a tally of "good" responses, "mediocre" responses and "bad" responses. The "bad" responses, when about an accurately poor experience, will help to some extent (though, if you don't want to be a passive-aggressive ninny you should talk to the manager immediately after the incident). The other responses, though, only serve as fuel to overwork the employees. This is exhibited by the comment, "Other locations in our business get great responses to their customer surveys, so that new policy works," when the employees question why they have to do even more work for the same amount of money in the name of customer service. Have you ever walked into a store and like five employees, who are in the middle of assisting other people, yell out greetings to you? That's a result of the surveys. It's really stupid because they could just hire someone to greet people yet they decided, instead, to stretch the job description of the existing employees. They back that decision up by pointing to their results, even though there is no aggregate link between the two!

There are probably places where the employees are genuinely slacking off but the overwhelming majority of places that I go to or deal with have decent employees who are doing their job. As an example, I had to deal with Charter a while back over the phone and then it directed me to a survey. The questions it asked were things like, "As a result of your call, do you feel like Charter cares about you as a person?" This is a useless question to base staffing or policy decisions upon. I don't give a damn if they care about me as a person, nor should anyone else and nor should they! (This, of course, is indicative of a bigger problem since there are people who care about this kind of asinine rigmarole.)

So all that filling out those surveys does is give corporations ammunition to use against their (mostly) overworked employees. Even worse, some companies give bonuses to managers who get higher scores while the people who earned them get pats on the back. Also disturbing, there are places who get graded on those aforementioned e-mail captures: the employees bear the brunt of people who don't give out their e-mail address so that's why I said it's okay to do that, at least. Again, just don't fill out the surveys.

And yes, I understand this is class warfare. At least I don't mask my dissidence with ostensible claims of a greater good or something - you know, like how the corporations try to say they want to improve your experience when it's really just about some executive being able to buy another Maserati? Actually, I'm honestly pretty tired of being bothered so much by employees at retail stores who are concerned about punishment, too.

Why can't these businesses take a gander at Best Buy? Best Buy clearly couldn't care less about customer surveys because I can walk in there and browse around, unhindered, and make a purchase. If I can't find something, I never have trouble locating an employee to assist me. All of this runs contrary to what I experience elsewhere - whether a physical location I go to or some agent I speak with over the phone. Of course, I hear it's hell to work there, as well. Hmm.

I'm really getting tired of all these anti-smoking laws and shit, along with how ridiculous we are with regard to second-hand smoke. You all know that I don't smoke, and nor have I ever, but I think smokers shouldn't have to curl up into a ball somewhere secluded from society. Think about the benefits in relation to the complaints about smoke.

Second-hand smoke is bad for children! Great! I agree. So don't let your mongrel spawn out into the world. Chances are that if you care enough about the subject, your children are just as much of douche-bags as you are. This means that I can go to a restaurant I like and enjoy a dinner devoid of babies crying and sociopathic toddlers refusing to behave. The same goes for movie theaters, malls, my apartment's courtyard, and a wide gamut of other areas.

Second-hand smoke is bad for me! I agree, again. Also, once again, I must point to the mewling fatuousness inherent in subjecting yourself to it and then objecting to it. Don't leave the house would be my recommendation. Smokers shouldn't have to modify the behavior necessary to facilitate their addiction for your pansy ass. The upshot of this is that I don't have to listen to whine about how there isn't enough room for soy milk in your faggoty latte, overhear your paltry opinions on Yeats nor have to see you in your asinine Crocs.

Cigarette smoke smells bad! Well this one, I just disagree with, actually. I quite like the smell of most brands. Granted, there are a few out there that make me wonder about the sanity of the person smoking them but I would say the vast majority of cigarettes are fine. Anyway, I digress: The point is that the smell brings me back to a time when the only cares we had were whether to get two boxes of cinnamon dough dabs from George's Pizza or three boxes.

That's all I have to say for now. Perhaps I shall revisit this topic, bitches.

I am going to be up in Branford on the weekend before New Year's. Anyone up for going out as a group to dinner on the 29th (that Saturday)?

Some interesting law news.

I hate mandatory minimum sentencing. Nah, but Congress does a terrible job of determining how long people should stay in jail for crimes - when they get involved with determining sentencing guidelines, they have a tendency to grandstand, opting to put excessive penalties on the books in order to seem like they're tough on crime. The Supreme Court made a couple of judgments recently that should weaken the control of mandatory minimum-type laws to dictate the lengths of sentences judges give to criminals, which is a good thing.

Also - for a long time, crack cocaine related crimes have been punished much, much more harshly than powdered cocaine crimes (a gram of crack = 20 grams of coke). Not surprisingly, the effect of that disparity was additional years in jail for blacks, since blacks are much more likely to be involved in crack cocaine crimes than whites. In the last week, Congress lowered the penalties for crack so that they were in line with powdered cocaine. That should cut a few years off the sentences of thousands of people in jail right now, and it'll make our legal system slightly more fair. Good stuff.

Stone

What the hell? Why are people getting upset that BEER COMPANIES are marketing their product to the most profitable demographic? At least they aren't pumping out ads for people UNDER 21. Sweet motherfucking pirate Jesus, what a bunch of crybabies.

Note that I also find it funny that nobody so far has gotten the last question right. I can understand mistaking or forgetting on the other ones, but I mean, honestly:

Calliander, keepin' it fresh since '21, you suckas.

I wish I could have gotten on here days ago to post this, but whatever. My fucking weeks have been so goddamned annoying and busy that I still get some smidgeon of enjoyment from it. Fuck you all.

Fuck Ronald Reagan. Good fucking riddance. What a worthless waste of space; they should have euthanised him ten years ago and saved us the trouble today. Worst wishes to his family and friends. He was a terrible president. Fuck the idiots waiting 12 hours to see a stupid goddamned casket. Morons. I spit upon his grave. Fuckers.

Go to hell and die, all of you.

I think that stone will be the only one to awnser this which is fine cus i pretty much just wanted to ask him but anyone who has an awnser is welcome to reply. i would like some kind of explanation as to what the difference between a caucuse and a primary is. ive been reading alot about the elections and what not to try and stay informed but i find myself at a disadvantage because i dont know whats these terms mean really. so if you can help awesome thanks. a link to a page explaining them would be awesome too. i just want to be more informed. thank you