Words Fail Me category archive

If you are poor, there is no way out.

That’s just how stuff works.

Rap music has now been thoroughly co-opted.

I dare you to watch it all the way through.

(He must be doing pretty well; the store just moved into new quarters.)

Especially the stupid.

You couldn’t manage to make this stuff up.

Just go look.

Really, now.

Chad was ordered by a Juvenile Court judge to wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet as part of his sentence for a December arrest. Lynn, whose child-endangerment conviction was overturned on appeal last month, also was ordered to wear an ankle bracelet as a term of his release from prison.

But the Archdiocese’s responses to both court orders have been as different as night and day.

Lynn, 63, was literally taken in by the church, which paid his bail and is allowing him to live at St. William Parish in the Northeast while the District Attorney’s Office appeals to get his conviction reinstated.

Meanwhile, Chad, 16, was kicked out of West Catholic on Jan. 13 and told not to return until the ankle monitor is removed, according to him, his parents, Fred and Tiffani Baker, and his attorney.

Of course, one is a black kid accused of a minor crime and the other is a Prince of the Church accused of covering up child molesters.

Who more deserves Christian mercy is quite clear.

The snake-handling Campbell County (Tennessee–ed.) preacher whom a grand jury recently decided not to indict on charges of illegal possession of wildlife will not be getting his disease-ridden snakes back, according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

Nothing to add.

The police dog barked, then . . . .

Agents quickly stripped searched her and did cavity searches but found no evidence of drugs, court documents said. But the woman was transported in handcuffs to the University Medical Center of El Paso, the lawsuit said, where doctors subjected her to an observed bowel movement, a CT scan and other exams without a warrant.

Nothing was found. Then the hospital billed her $5,000.

I hope she wins her suit.

Much more at the link.

Via Thoreau.

In the words of Frank Zappa:

What’s the dirtiest part of your body?
Some say your nose. Some say your toes
But I think it’s your mind.

Any fool can call himself a “Christian.”

Many fools do, even as they know not of what they speak.

It’s late. I’m tired. I’m old, and my outrage meter red-lined more years ago than I care to remember.

As my two or three regular readers know, I was raised Christian, Southern Baptist before Texans took over* and turned the Southern Baptist Convention into something I do not recognize.

This is no Christianity that I know.

I shall shut up now. I do not trust myself to still my rage.

________________

*Texas is one messed-up place.

On the streets of New York, and probably everywhere else.

. . . is apparently suspicious in and of itself.

Post-racial my anatomy.

I’m torn.

Should this be classified “too stupid for words” or “one born every minute”?

You’ve heard of MscAdamized roads.

Meet Perryfied roads:

The oil and gas boom in Texas has produced an unintended effect: The state plans to covert some roads to gravel to save money.

The oversized vehicles and overweight loads used by energy companies has had a devastating impact on many roads, but the state has not appropriated enough money to fix them.

The Texas Department of Transportation began converting more than 80 miles of paved roads to gravel on Monday, according to the Texas Tribune. The speed limit on the new gravel roads will be reduced to 30 mph.

Based on annual statistical trends, well over 10,000 persons were born yesterday, of which it appears that only one mattered.

Addendum, the Next Morning:

The resident curmudgeon at my local rag gets one right.

Don’t do it in Florida, where it’s okay to stalk and kill someone because you don’t like his looks.

I’m not surprised.

Hell, I grew up under Jim Crow; I know that, in the eyes of some, black lives don’t matter.

It ain’t right, but it is.

And, as long as it is, it soils us all. It is America’s original sin, and it lives on.

I’m not surprised.

But I am disgusted.

This is just strange.

Afterthought:

I think it is a rather unreasonable condition of employment.

I know that, when the Amtrak Police Department first got Tasers, the training involved being Tased, so that officers carrying Tasers would know what they felt like. The idea was that they would use them more wisely if they understood the effects first-hand.

I know this because some of the classes took place in the training center where I was based.

I don’t think the same reasoning can extend to this.

Tales of horror.

A few years ago, Ellen and her husband hosted a christening party for 50 people honoring the new child of her brother and that sister-in-law. The visiting family’s contribution? A few dozen ears of sweet corn. “They drank all our liquor and replaced nothing,” Ellen said. “They never opened their pocketbooks.” When it was time to leave, the relatives wrapped up all the leftover food and put it in their suitcases. Then they asked Ellen and her husband to please mail their gifts and clothing to them. At least they said please.

More guest appearances at the link.

Your tax dollars on patrol in Lakeland, Florida, as the police diligently search for contraband (video below the fold because it autoplays).

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