Arrrgggh! Arrrggh!

A passage at the end of this article had me spitting mad on Saturday. It’s an article about Roger Bentley’s sentencing hearing for his conviction for raping and murdering Jetseta Gage. The passage is describing the point in the hearing where the victim’s mother, Trena Gage, spoke.

The Gage family has become less trusting of others since Jetseta's murder, Trena Gage said.

"Don't trust anyone," she said. "Unless you know that person, their history or anything else, don't invite them in."

What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK? Jesus Fucking Christ, what more did you need to know other than the fact that Roger Bentley was the brother of the man who repeatedly raped your daughter over a three-year period? I mean, if that fact by itself wasn’t enough to make you stay away from anyone else in the Bentley family, it should at least have been enough to make you wary, to make you maybe talk to the police and check into Roger’s background a little. "Unless you know that person, their history or anything else, don't invite them in.” You knew all you needed to know, Trena. You knew all you needed to know.

You know, I do not believe in the death penalty. But let’s add “knowingly, willingly, and recklessly putting your children in contact with a sex offender” to the short list of crimes I could be convinced should be punishable by death (along with election fraud and Enron-level defrauding of the public).

Idol Thoughts - Separated At Birth?

More Reasons I Love My Job

Our insertion devices are equipped with thickness detectors.

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words, or Even 14,000

I was cleaning up my hard drive (no, that's not code) and found a bunch of pictures from various things. The following is worth posting, though it's old and you may have seen it before. It was from a realtor.com listing, and I can't remember where it was I originally found it. See if you can spot the, uhm, animal friendly feature this house has!

Spoilers. Beware!

I know I shouldn't be suprised - after all, if it can be spoiled, it seems like it will be spoiled - but I just discovered that there are AI spoilers to be had. See a list of the possible top 48 here, and the same list with speculation about the final 24 here.

Required Reading

Here's a great post from Glenn Greenwald that summarizes why the FISA/NSA issue is so important.

WTF????

President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, February 6, 2006

Don’t believe me? Watch him say it here at Crooks and Liars.

Four Things

Side tagged me with this, so blame her if you want. Course, Simplicity tagged her. Will the circle of tagging never end?

Four Things

Four jobs I've had:

1. Test Scorer
2. Video Store Manager
3. Grill Cook
4. Corn Detassler (Note: Mandatory job for kids growing up in small town Iowa)

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. Casablanca
2. Incredibles
3. Bull Durham
4. Joe Vs. The Volcano

Four places I've lived:

1. Williamsburg, Iowa
2. Iowa City, Iowa
3. Coralville, Iowa
4. North Liberty, Iowa

Four TV shows I love:

1. Lost
2. 24
3. Amazing Race
4. Celebrity Poker Showdown

Four highly-touted TV shows I detest:

1. Apprentice
2. Desperate Housewives
3. Office
4. Fear Factor

Four books I'd recommend to anyone, anytime:

1. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (fiction)
2. The Secret Parts of Fortune, Ron Rosenbaum (essays, perhaps my favorite form of writing)
3. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes (nonfiction)
4. WE3, Grant Morrison (comic series collected as tradepaperback)

Four places I've vacationed:

1. Walt Disney World
2. Branson
3. Mt. Rushmore
4. Yellowstone

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Plate
2. Saucer
3. Bowl
4. Satellite

or else

1. Stuffed Green Peppers
2. Grilled Iowa Chops
3. Authentic Jamabalaya
4. Kung Pao Chicken

Four sites I visit daily:

1. Firedoglake
2. Kung Fu Monkey
3. Dave's Long Box
4. Viva El Birdos

5. Circle Of - considering I'm a partial founder and a mod, I do need to pimp the place

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Home
2. New York City
3. Walt Disney World
4. Anchorage

Four bloggers I am tagging:

1. Alice
2. Carey
3. Jo
4. TanMan (yes, it's a blatant attempt to get him to blog again)