Well kids, 2009 is drawing to a close which means the first decade of the new millennium is as well.
I’m going to blab a little about a couple more recent news stories, but later in the entry I will bitch about the crap this decade will be known for.
First up, a little blurb on this: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091217/ap_on_re_us/us_old_rape_dna
“BARTOW, Fla. – James Bain used a cell phone for the first time Thursday, calling his elderly mother to tell her he had been freed after 35 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit”.
Okay. Why the fuck did it take people SO long to grant this guy a fucking DNA test? I don’t even have words for this. This guy was fucking kept in jail for thirty five years for something it was later proven he did not do.
I know back when he was “convicted” this sort of testing did not exist, so I can’t really blame people for that. It just makes me wonder how many times this guy tried to get dna testing only to be turned down. Innocent until proven guilty. Yeah, I know, he was sent to jail, but if there were a possibility for somebody to prove themselves innocent, why wouldn’t they be given that chance?
I don’t know what it’s like inside a prison, and I don’t know how it works, but it makes me a little more paranoid. What if something like this happened to me? And it was thirty years before I was proven innocent?
I doubt it would happen with the technology that we have, but it still scares me.
What bothers me, too, is the fact that he was convicted largely on eyewitness identification, the boy picked him out of a lineup.
I know in some cases this can help but… they would send someone to jail based mostly on what a person remembers? The brain is an amazing thing but people’s memories falter. They can convince themselves they saw something when they didn’t. They can remember wrong. Or remember what they pictured it as.
It frigtens me that we rely so heavily on witness testimony sometimes.
It said the purpetraitor had bushy sideburns and a mustache, that’s what helped the boy pick Bain out of the lineup….
Who DIDN’T have sideburns and a mustache in the 70s?
I could go on but I can tell I’m sounding less and less intelligent so I will move on.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091215/od_nm/us_france_jackpot
“TOULOUSE, France (Reuters) – A French court has split the jackpot from a casino slot machine between the woman who put in the money and the man who pulled the lever, ending months of argument between the two.”
This should have been an EASY case. If it was her money that was put into the machine, any winnings should have belonged to her. I mean, if this sort of thing happened to me, I’d have gladly shared, but the fact that they got into such a big argument over it is a little disturbing. And it was in FRANCE. I thought this sort of petty shit only happened in the US. I hope we are not rubbing off on them
NEXT!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091217/od_nm/us_newzealand_billboard
“WELLINGTON (Reuters Life!) – A billboard sponsored by a local Anglican church that shows Joseph and Mary in bed has set tongues wagging in New Zealand, with the Catholic Church condemning it as others found it funny.”
People get offended so easily these days. I personally think this is hilarious.
But like… it was put up BY a church. It was their intention to get people thinking. Is it such an awful thing to be provoked to think about one’s religion? Or do you just want to follow it blindly?
I personally question my beliefs every opportunity I get.
“The church can have its debate on the Virgin birth and its spiritual significance inside the church building, but to confront children and families with the concept as a street billboard is completely irresponsible and unnecessary,” Family First director Bob McCoskrie told news website stuff.co.nz.
Why not? Did you want them to question that somewhere less public? Do you not want people to see things that make people THINK about their religion? It’s not like it’s graphic or anything.
But then again, the people most offended are the uptight Catholics.
You know, I like to think that everybody has the right to believe what they want, but some groups of people just irk me. I have a whole issue with the Christian religion. I’m not trying to hate on them, because I distrust MANY other widely accepted religions. It just bugs me that people would believe such CRAP. The earth is 6000 years old? Carbon dating, children, proves that the earth is MILLIONS of years old. I lean towards believing in such deities as Krishna, but I even have issues with the validity of that stuff.
Like, if God or whoever made the earth, who made God? And the earth was made up of a bunch of space rocks, but… where did the space rocks come from?
But that is another debate for another blog.
Now, children, onward to some of the popular news stories of the decade.
Unless you live in a cave, I’m guessing you remember the incident at the 2004 Superbowl Halftime show in which Justin Timberlake ripped off part of Janet Jackson’s costume, revealing her boob.
Maybe that was a tasteless move, okay, that’s not up for debate. What bothers me the most about this is how many people were offended.
It was a boob! It’s nothing you haven’t seen before! Don’t tell me children shouldn’t be subjected to that kind of shit either.
I wouldn’t let my kid watch video of naked people or anything… but we let kids watch movies with tons of violence and we don’t even bat an eyelash, but show one boob for less than ten seconds, and parents all across the country will be calling and complaining. Echoing one of George Carlin’s ideas, I would rather have a child of mine watch a video of two people making love rather than trying to kill each other.
There is a reason the US has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates, and one of the higest rates of rape. There is no reason or excuse for us to be this sexually repressed at this stage of the game.
It’s like kids and alcohol. Kids in other countries are taught that it’s okay to have a glass of wine with their dinner. We wouldn’t even have to go that far. If we taught kids it was okay to have a small glass of WINE COOLER with their dinners, then when they reach their teens alcohol wouldn’t be such a forbidden fruit. It wouldn’t be “so cool” if they’d been brought up with it their whole lives. Same with people and the abstinence only crap. Handing out condoms and preaching mutual masturbation is not going to make kids become promiscuous sex fiends who play with themselves or have sex every chance they get. Safe sex is not horrible.
If you keep repressing natural urges like this, eventually you are going to go insane! Or become a rapist! If kids were taught to channel their sexual feelings into something like masturbation, we wouldn’t have so many teenage mothers! And if you believe in no sex until marriage, good for you, but don’t tell me any of you who believe this don’t get horny. There is nothing wrong with masturbating. It’s HEALTHY. I can’t say I do it but it’s not exactly an unnatural thing.
Kinda went off on a tangent there, sorry. Moving on.
”South Carolina’s family-values Gov. Mark Sanford missed the Appalachian Trail and ended up in Buenos Aires, with his Argentine “soul mate”
This urks me. We have so many assholes promoting the “marriage is between a man and woman only” family values crap, but they turn around and cheat on their wives? Really? You people would rather have an unfaithful straight man than two faithful gay men? Or rather an unfaithful straight woman than two faithful gay women? There is something seriously fucking wrong with that.
Speaking of wrong, anybody remember that time when Dick Cheny accidentally shot his hunting buddy? How fucking sad is that? All I have to say on the subject is “You don’t have to be a pornstar to get shot in the face by a dick”.
This is where I have to end it for now, but I have more to say about this decade, including GOOD things, so stay tuned.
