Gay People Come From China

(Conspiracy Theory II)
You heard me last time! I’m in the mood to pretend to be pissy! Let’s create our own conspiracy theory!

Making conspiracy theories from scratch is surprisingly easy. All you need is four simple ingredients.

1) A group of people whom you hate for some reason.
2) Something in the world that is either changing or has changed.
3) Some path through the “common knowledge” folklore connecting the first two items.
4) A feeling of group pride for your followers.

You can do this for practically anything. Let’s start easy by proving that homosexuality is a vicious plot engineered by the Chinese.

We’ve already taken care of the first ingredient: “Those damned Chinese peoples and their booming industry have slighted us for too long! How dare the Chinese people give us loans to cover our rapidly-expanding deficit! It’s like saying we owe them! We will not be oppressed! Their slanty-eyes and rice paddy sandals will never be able to spot us or hold us down!”

See?! It’s easy! Just like that, I’ve decided to hate Chinese people on the grounds that all of them are rice farmers, which I object to because… Well, let’s not get bogged down in the details.

As a second ingredient, we need to find something about the world that’s changing. We decided that too, in the title: “Have you looked around lately! It seems like you can’t hock your chewing tobacco at the spittoon anymore without hitting a homosexual spitting something else into a tissue! And that doesn’t even count the three others who think tissues ‘aren’t intimate.’” Clearly, based on the fact that we’ve decided to dislike both the Chinese and booming homosexuality, there must be some connection.

The third ingredient is simply to add stream of consciousness writing until we make that connection. This is the fun part. Stream of consciousness writing is notoriously difficult to read on account of the fact that it sounds exactly like conspiracy theories. That’s not a coincidence! Allow me to forget rules of grammar and cause and effect while I pinch out a steaming mound of ingredient number three:

“Damned Chinese bastards and their rice paddies all turning a profit and taking jobs from tax paying Americans need to stop walking on those rickety platform shoe things they have and stop making babies what with freaking five trillion Chinese people already or whatever you’d think the bastards don’t know how to do anything but hump like the bunnies in the noodles I heard about that the chop suey place on state and Madison used and also had dogs in their food when they ran out of bunnies and no one could tell the difference cuz of all the MSG they use with all that chemical in their food next they’ll be stir-frying babies if they’re not already because I heard that Chinese people can’t have more than one baby without paying a huge tax so I bet that’s what they do cuz I also heard that the Chinese or Indians or whatever (savages) only like boy babies because women are too whiney so they sometimes kill girl babies and put them in the food so as not to waste still all that whining has to go somewhere since God made whiney women on the sixth day so you gotta realize all that extra whining must be going into some men since there aren’t enough women to hold it all but men can’t be whiney like that without becoming girls so the extra whining from the dead Chinese girl babies must be making some boy babies really gay.”

See how easy that was! We’ve managed to blame the Chinese people for making gay babies around the world without once stopping to waste time on punctuation. The resulting mess has enough stereotypes and bigotry in it to have a huge appeal for racists, misogynists, homophobes, and religious nuts alike. That’s pretty much something for everyone, so we know we’ve done a good job. Plus, that “paragraph” will give pretty much any intellectual a headache, ensuring that it won’t be targeted for too many scholarly rebuttals. What’s best, though, is that our premise can’t be argued without some attempt to rephrase or quote sections for clarity. That means we can conclude ahead of time that any and all debate we do encounter will be “taken out of context.” Since it’s additionally almost impossible to separate the thoughts in our premise, we can be confident that even if someone manages to disprove some assumed premise, it will be possible to reply that having done so was to “miss our point.”

Step four is really just for bookkeeping. As I’ve said, anyone can create their own conspiracy theory. But it takes real talent to make one that will stand the test of time. Our fourth ingredient is just to make sure that the theory collects enough followers to “keep it real.” If you did your stream of consciousness writing properly, this step is easy. All you have to do is read over what you wrote and highlight all the things that you hated on accident. The people who also hate those things will be your followers. Looking above, we see that this conspiracy theory will appeal to blue-collar conservative workers, women-haters, steak-and-potatoes lovers, and manly men. That’s a pretty solid group, so we’ve got ourselves a winner!

There you have it folks! Gay babies are a Chinese plot!

Conspiracy Theory I

This post is planned as the “prologue” to what I hope will become an ongoing segment in which I confuse popular correlations with causations for fun. Let’s begin by letting you all get pissed at me BEFORE I start with the real jokes, just so everyone can relax and have fun when they start later!

I’ll bet you, like me, love a good conspiracy theory. Nothing quite starts my day with a smile like glancing at the headlines and seeing, “Fringe Group Declares 9/11 A Jewish Plot.” Some of my other favorites include such gems as, “Global Warming a Democratic Scare Tactic,” “Illegal Aliens Slow Down American Economy,” and “Israel Lauded as a Peacelike Nation, Yet Again!”

After that list, I’m sure I’ve pissed off 100% of all readers. Before you conclude that I’m an Anti-Semite-hating Democrat with a boner for Hispanic laborers who curiously is himself an Anti-Semite, let’s take a moment to figure out what the hell I’m up to this time.

To begin, in lieu of an apology for my list above, I’m going to take a second to point out why I picked that list, despite not being an acknowledged expert in any of those areas.

--9/11 Was a Jewish Plot
Have you heard this one? The theory is that all the people of Jewish faith and heritage called in sick on the day of the World Trade Center attacks. The goal, it is then inferred, was to destabilize the world economy to help the Jewish bankers who control everything.

Do I have any special evidence either way? No. So why do I feel this is a crackpot theory? Because if the Jewish people DID organize and plan a huge disaster for economic gain, New York is just about the least likely place on Earth that they’d target. This notion strikes me as about as likely as a hypothetical retired wealthy socialite setting his own house on fire in order to spite his neighborhood.

--Global Warming Is a Democratic Scare Tactic
I think everyone has heard all about this, so I won’t go into the backstory.

Why do I think this is a crackpot theory? Because every single person I’ve heard claim it cites evidence that is either incorrect or wrong. Seriously. If you think that current average temperatures have been seen in the past seven ice/hot age cycles, you’re in error. I know there’s a pretty video online that says exactly the opposite. Its data is both omissive and incorrect. To be fair, NO ONE HAS CONCLUDED A PERFECT PLAN FOR WHAT SHOULD BE DONE ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING AND WHEN, but if you think Earth is not getting warmer, you’re just saying you have trouble counting.

--Illegal Aliens Slow Down The American Economy
Again, everybody knows what this is.

Why do I call it a conspiracy theory? Because the USA has a minimum wage. Illegal aliens are doing free-market capitalism a major favor by circumventing that policy. Does that mean that it’s legal? No. Does that mean you have to like Hispanic people? No. Does that mean that you have to like ethnic looking children in public schools? No. But are they slowing down the economy? Hell no. You show me a Gringo who wants to do the work that most of these people do for peanuts and I’ll show you a prison inmate, a convicted sex-offender, a “special needs” individual, or some hybrid of the three. We only have so many people like that. And they won’t be happy about their new careers. I’m frankly flattered that the seasonal workforce we do have is willing to put up with us so cheerfully.

-- Israel Lauded as a Peacelike Nation, Yet Again!
Western Media has this thing where Israel is our ally and its neighbors are not.

But let’s face it folks, Israel is a scrapper. Rounding a bit for comic effect, Israel has had about three major conflicts for every one experienced by the other nations in that region. That’s because Israel keeps beating the crap out of all its neighbors. The question of whether or not they deserved it is a tad more open for debate, but calling Israel peace-like without extreme qualification is a bit like saying rapists are really just friendly hippies trying to spread some free love.

Get your indignation out of your systems now. The real fun will come in the sequels, where you WILL find an answer to the question of, "Is he high!?"

Cartography

As the only engineer for my building, one of my jobs includes updating all of the electrical, piping, equipment, and other drawings whenever someone (like me) changes something. This is not generally a big deal. Most changes in a well-established building just attach to things that were already there. The hard part is in sizing and selecting what you want, not drawing a picture of where it goes.

Recently, I had the pleasure of unearthing a drawing of my building’s steam boiler systems. We currently have two large boilers cranking out a steady stream of 150lb steam. Back in the early days (before an explosion), we had three smaller, somewhat less quality boilers in an entirely different place.

It took me a few seconds of staring at the drawing and wondering why it didn’t make any sense to notice something. Three boilers.

This may not seem like a big deal to you. It’s certainly fair to say that it was simply a case of some previous engineer not finishing a job he started.

But this is akin to working as a cartographer and being handed the 2007 atlas of the United States with the instructions to: “Update any of the little changes that have gone through since the last revision.”

You reply, “No sweat!” cheerfully sit down at your desk, open to page one, and discover this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:United_States_1789-08-1790.png

Suddenly, you don’t like your job so much.

One-Man Bureaucracy

Over the course of my life, a large number of people have (somewhat oddly) informed me that they wonder what the world looks like from my point of view. This is almost always driven by the belief that everything must be a constant struggle to tread water, on the grounds that I keep everything so amazingly complicated, espouse atypical philosophies galore, and only seem to start things that seem hard.

Ok, I can see how that might appear to be the case.

From my point of view though, things look a little different. I usually wonder why everyone else spends so much time stressing out about how complicated their lives are just because they didn’t bother to set things up properly in the first place. My life feels pretty effortless. I spend a lot of time as if on auto-pilot.

Let me tell a little story that highlights just how odd and easy my little systems can be. I’m hoping it will be funny, on the grounds that the only reason I’m thinking about this is that I messed one up.

The stage of this little drama is how I handle my finances. I’m going to try to keep most real numbers out of it for a number of reasons, politeness being high on the list. Basically, my finances take care of themselves. The general cycle looks like this:

1) Payday arrives once every two weeks, and direct deposits money into my checking account. My checking account earns interest. I keep enough money in there to never worry about overdraft fees.
2) My company automatically subtracts enough money out of my paycheck to max out my 401(k) over the course of the year. The funds go into a side account that I set up at the start of my employment.
3) All of my recurring bills come due monthly. They charge themselves to my credit cards automatically.
4) My credit card bills email themselves to me once per month. When I get such an email, I pay I pay it in full, minus the considerable cash back that’s racked up from paying all my bills.
5) A brokerage account automatically pulls frequent withdrawals from my checking account and deposits into a variety of funds I set up years ago, including a Roth IRA, my nephew’s college savings fund (which I manage), and some index funds I chose ages ago and rarely think about.
6) An online savings account automatically deposits money into my checking account to offset my nephew’s college investments, and will continue to do so until it’s empty.
7) Repeat.

In summary, every time I actively pay my credit card bills, I also passively:
--Pay all my other bills too
--Max out my 401(k)
--Max out a Roth Ira
--Manage my nephew’s college savings
--Buy stock
--Earn cash back and interest

My checkbook also balances itself, so once a month I just go make sure that all the numbers match what the various organizations sent me notice of. This requires about as much thought as falling asleep.

Thought went into making the initial choices of what does what, but these days, my money dances a constant, carefree dance that I rarely bother to critique.

However, this hit a slight snag when I went to pay my last tuition bill. That’s an exercise in ridiculousness itself, because my company pays for my classes. But I enroll, pay the bill, give a copy of this bill to my company, who then reimburse me for the expense. I went to write the check to cover this, since NU refuses to allow me to bill college to my credit card. (Bastards!) I looked at the “buffer” cash in my checking account, which should have been more than enough to loan myself the tuition bill until reimbursement came. Oddly, it wasn’t.

Suddenly, I faced the question of, “Why is there less money here than I was expecting?” I was a good $3000 short of what it should have been.

I quickly scanned my self-balancing checkbook. Oddly, my cash buffer had been slowly dropping for almost a year. There was clearly no one event that accounted for the missing cash. And all the events were accounted for and approved.

I concluded I was overspending. It wasn’t a major problem. I just wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before.

Then my eye caught on one of the payments made from my account. $134.62. An odd number. Odd because it was being pulled into one of my stock accounts. I buy raw stock in nice round numbers. So what was this?

A little further down, there it was again. And again.

I turned to my notes page that explains what my money is doing and why. Sure enough, there was my answer. My jaw dropped slightly in disbelief.

I have to break here to give you some back-story. About eight months ago, I traded cars with my sister. I used to drive a ’98 Hyundai Accent. It was a good solid car, but I knew I’d have to replace it eventually. So I saved up enough money to do just that. And I kept most of that money earning 5% interest in my checking account buffer, since at one point I thought I might be getting a new car fast. Instead, the Hyundai turned out to be working fine. Shortly after, I agreed to swap cars with my sister to help her out with a difficulty, and got the new Prius. In exchange, I have been sending her regular checks for the bluebook value of the car.

That’s the story I remembered until just recently. It omits one key event. Before the exchange, when I realized that it would likely be years before I needed a new car, I set up an automatic stock investment schedule for all that saved money. Once a week for two years, $134.62 worth of my “new car fund” would get moved into stock. The reasoning was, that way, the amount of money I had on hand for a new car would be directly proportional to the eventually-revealed reliability of my car. Plus, I’d be dollar-cost averaging a nice bit of cash. It was a win-win.

That was exactly fifty-three weeks ago. Just slightly before I bought my sister’s car.

I forgot that I was investing that money. So once a month, I’d send my sister about 10% of the car’s value, and four times per week I’d invest another 1% in stock. So at this point, I have “bought” 90% of my car, and invested 55% of the money required to buy it again. Whoops.

What’s funny is that I thought that $3,000 had gone missing from my checking account. Actually, $7134.86 went missing, but it only looks like $3,000 because I’ve been well under budget most months ever since.

Everything was going so according to plan that I managed to invest $134.62 a week for over a year before I noticed I wasn’t supposed to be doing that.

That brings us back to the people who insist that I make my life too complicated. When people tell me that my life must be a never-ending fight against my own overly-complicated schemes, I generally laugh and say, “Not really!” I’m a one-man bureaucracy, but that that also means I’m the one who made up all the forms.

“Scrabble” Extortion

Has anyone else noticed that Facebook’s latest gift options are four “Scrabble” tiles? That’s right! The tiles “L,” “O,” “V,” and “E” are available to be purchased at the low cost of $1.00 each.

Presumably, the thought is that people will be likely to buy a bunch of them as a set in order to send cute messages to sweethearts. It’s like they’re extorting money from cutesy gullible types.

But have you noticed that “LOVE” is worth a measly seven points in “Scrabble?” I mean, really. It’s like they’re subliminally suggesting that if you’re the kind of person who’d do that, you’re a huge loser (at “Scrabble”).

I say that it’s pretty clear that a real winner (at “Scrabble,” relative to the romantic above) would be the person who sends “EVOLVE” to all his or her tweaked out fundamentalist friends. That’s got a base score of twelve points off the bat, and it’s long enough that I bet you could hit a triple word score for a cool thirty-six.

Plus, you could explain to them that you’re just trying to win at “Scrabble.” You could highlight that, in “Scrabble,” “love” doesn’t even remotely conquer all. Fundamentalists typically love math, so they’ll understand.

HAVE SEX!

This morning reminded me why I hate video news. If you’re having trouble finding that apex of retardation in your written news, turn to video news feeds for sweet, sweet stupidity.

To paraphrase the video caption, a Texas lawmaker has his panties in a bunch because the local university’s student health center is giving away free condoms to the students. Here are some fun facts about these condoms:
--They’re donated at no cost to students or the university from various safe-sex advocacy groups.
--They’re available to be taken if (and only if) desired, from a relatively tasteful little basket.
--They’re available at the same location you can get a presentation on safe sex practices and other STD information. Again, only if you want to hear it.
--Said location is the student health center. A reasonable place to start if an STD needs to be corrected or avoided, in my mind.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2007/10/17/lane.tx.clinic.condom.controversy.kltv

The lawmaker in question feels that these condoms send a clear message to students. That message is, “HAVE SEX! SEXXXXXX! HAVE IT NOW!!!!!”

I’m afraid I seem to be less attuned to the subtext than our beloved elected official here. I thought the message was something more like, “If you know what these are for, you probably also have a pretty good idea if they’re in your particular best interest. If you don’t know, we can help you become better informed to make that decision. If you think these are for you but don’t have any, please, help yourself.”

For contrast, I have edited some images to show what a clear message of “HAVE SEX!” coming from a university or peer pressure might look like to me. Enjoy!

http://www.lakewaterontap.com/Misc/HaveSex1.JPG
http://www.lakewaterontap.com/Misc/HaveSex2.JPG
http://www.lakewaterontap.com/Misc/HaveSex3.JPG

Night of the Not-So-Living Crickets

A few weekends ago, I opened my apartment door to do laundry. This is not unusual. What was unusual was that about seven steps from my door (which is on the second floor), I encountered an orgy of death.

Let me take a moment to point out that before the morning in question, I had seen a cricket inside my apartment complex once. It was alive, right next to the front door, and delighted when I let it outside. That is the extent of the cricket problem in my building.

And yet on this particular morning, the mangled remains of about twenty crickets lay tangled and strewn across the carpeting ten feet from my door, ending only at the top of the staircase leading down. I retreated briefly to my apartment to get some shoes. An armful of laundry has a way of obscuring the gory aftermath of what appeared to be a full tournament of cricket “Mortal Combat.”

As I reached the landing of the staircase (steps punctuated by the occasional crunch of a weakened exoskeleton) I looked down only to discover added carnage. Clinging to the vertical folds in the carpeting, strewn carelessly across the horizontal steps, and clinging while-in-death to the cliffs defining the borders of the two, perhaps fifty more crickets had reached the ends of their mortal sufferings.

Somewhat baffled, yet ever-persistent, I pushed forward. The washer and dryer were but a few steps from the foot of those stairs. Naturally, I arrived at these utilities only to encounter further carnage. The entire first floor hallway was spotted with what appeared to be the end result of a cricket/paper shredder orgy. I took care of the laundry, then pushed forward down the corridor, out of sheer morbid curiosity. Sure enough, crickets lay strewn about the entire hallway, turned the corner to the staircase leading to my door, then stopped halfway up.

Allow me to draw a picture then, of the layout and what I describe here:


Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall
_____________________________________________________________________
(2nd Floor)
Dead Crickets Dead Crick… …Dead Crickets
Dead Crickets Dead Crick… …Dead Crickets
Dead Crickets Dead Crick… My Door …Dead Crickets
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dead Crickets Dead Crickets Dead Crickets Dead Crickets Laundry Machines Dead Cr
Dead Crickets Dead Crickets Dead Crickets Dead Crickets Dead Crickets Dead Crickets Dead Crickets Dead Crickets Dead Crickets Dead Crickets Dead Crickets Dead Crickets
(1st Floor)
___________________________________________________________________
Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall Wall

Now I’m not saying that I DEFINITELY have the power to ward off invading armies of zombie crickets with my aura alone. I’m just saying that the mangled corpses of about 600 of them made it look that way.

I have no explanation to account for why there were 600 dead crickets in my building that morning. I have no idea what killed them so enthusiastically. I don’t know who cleaned them up the following Monday (though I have a good guess on that one).

All I know is that it looked like an invisible force field circling my door kept the invading armies at bay.

I don’t know what else it can ward off, but I think I like it there.

How to Catch a Pedophile II

I had not intended for this particular entry to be a two part-er, but David’s comments, which I generally agree with, highlight an aspect of my latest entry that I want to correct.

Please read David’s comment, which was:
"I agree with you entirely. However, there is a reason INTERPOL's step was unprecedented. And while I too like to blame the media, it's actually not their fault. Releasing the photo of the victim was an attempt to find the victim to gather evidence. I will say that releasing such a photo is a very rare thing, but it puts them on the trail. In other cases where the victim's identity is released, there is usually a reason for it and/or the victim is involved. Remember my armed robbery? They didn't identify me--standard procedure, unless, in a case like the girl, they need to find them.

"The suspect is another story. Note how I use that term. For a news station to release a photo--not a sketch or something, but an actual photo--of a suspect can put them on the hook for a lot. Same with the cops. Something goes wrong in the investigation, or trial, or something, and now you have an innocent or "innocent" person who has just has their face splashed across the airwaves as a pedophile. The lawsuit the bad guy has becomes very, very costly. Its a risky move to take, and is rarely done because usually it won't help. Furthermore, to release a photo in the context of we're looking for this person because we have proof that he did it is not talking about that person as a suspect, but as the actual criminal. In the US case, releasing his photo out of the rape video does not give him the "benefit of the doubt" required. In the EU case, I believe his photo was not taken out of actual, but rather circumstancial evidence. There's a big difference there, technically speaking, even if, yes, you are absolutely right that practically speaking it's a stupid way to tie their hands.

"So, in conclusion, the law protects the criminals more than it protects the victims. Welcome to the 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th amendments ;) (or in INTERPOL's case, similar principles) and journalism ethics."

There. In a nutshell, the reason to get your legal advice from a lawyer, not an eccentric engineer. Again, I generally agree with everything said. Except that he posits that I shouldn’t blame the media here. Oh no. I disagree. But the reason we arrive at opposite conclusion on that one point is telling.

Please recall two things:
1) I write this blog to entertain more than to persuade.
2) This is -- though less clearly labeled than usual -- part seven in my continuing series on why I find the current pedophilia “crisis” an abomination.

If you go back to my original post about the Nevada case, you’ll notice that I have a large “But all I have to go on is what they tell me” clause which was intended to mean, “I do not feel fully comfortable drawing conclusions about what the police are doing from this horrible, retarded article.” As a result, though I was accusing the media and the police of working together to commit the same crime (ruining a little girl’s life), I gave the police a slap on the wrist and the media a full out spanking.

I tried to do the same thing in the Cambodia post, but less clearly. There, I gave Interpol credit for a more logical technique, while accusing the journalist of masturbating to kiddie porn and creating typos in a worthless article. Again, my fury was over the fact that, while the article strongly hinted that the law enforcement efforts were about as logical as a lard weight-loss shake, I felt I couldn’t trust my sources.

So to be clear: I suspect that the law enforcement agencies are actually working much better than the media is telling me. An example: I tore the Nevada police department a new asshole for “not checking” to see if the suspect who turned himself in was part of the established sex offender database. I’ll bet you they tried to check, but didn’t have enough information to place him in it. But the articles I’m reading SUGGEST that Nevada police were stumped as to how to turn on their PC’s. That pisses me off. So when I appeared to make fun of the Nevada police, I actually INTENDED to be making fun only of their ironic caricature, as presented to me by the media. Since the basis for this was established several posts prior, it’s my fault that this clarity is lost.

So let’s redefine my premise. Why, exactly, am I violently upset each time I see a front page article about pedophiles? Because I don’t think I should be seeing this news AT ALL.

Let me try to explain. In previous posts, I argue that the definition of statutory rape is an abomination in terms of ethical justice. I am extremely opposed to rape, but I object to an arbitrary age defining what constitutes it. Rape is easy to spot. You go up to the alleged victim and you ask them if they’ve been raped. If they say “Yes,” or if they’re not worldly enough to understand your question, that’s a rape. If you go up to a thirteen year old and ask them if they’ve been raped and they reply with, “Best sex I ever had!,” that’s not rape. Many of these articles are furious at that thirteen year old’s lover. I’m not, and I don’t want to hear about the witch hunt that will destroy their lover’s life.

In these last two cases, I agree that there was real rape committed. I don’t approve of those rapes at all. But I still don’t want them on the front page of my international news, for one simple, shared reason. I hinted at it in my original posts, but only subtly. Let me try to highlight that reason now.

The two most recent posts are being portrayed as the major news right now in Nebraska and Cambodia. Again, Nebraska. And Cambodia. Ok, so maybe they are the big stories from those regions right now. But humor me real quick. Tell me any PRIOR major news story from either Nebraska or Cambodia. Either one. Go.

…

…

…

Did you manage to think of anything? Anything at all? Do you even know where Cambodia is?

Maybe you do. And maybe you managed to think of some news too. If you did, that’s great. But I’ll bet most people didn’t. So when I see stories like this, I see three things:
1) The media has created an international witch hunt for pedophiles. You can run whole stories about them, without even a picture to back them up. They are the devils of our era. The news has taught us that they must be EVERYWHERE. They’re the modern Communists. Everyone is a suspect, and even being accused of the crime will destroy a person’s reputation forever. I would like to know how many there REALLY are. And I mean real ones. Not people who had consensual sex with an adoring lover. When each story gets front page international news, it tells me that they’re VERY rare. And thus shock news. Shock news hurts society.
2) These articles SUCK. They contradict themselves, make the police look like retarded chimpanzees, don’t back anything up with evidence, posit questionable ethical assumptions, and show up with alarming frequency.
3) They subtly teach us that places with no news have nothing but sinister news. Now, in the back of our minds, we have been taught that Cambodia and Nebraska are havens of pedophilia. Most of us can’t think of anything else interesting about them. So we are left to assume that both places are so boring, that every fifth neighbor in them stalks vulnerable children. By extension, we subconsciously learn that even rural places are havens of filthy crimes.

That’s why I blog about this. I can find nothing redeeming about these articles. They’re misleading, shocking, ethically indefensible, and make people a little dumber with each exposure.

It really is the media’s fault. There may be other parties at fault in these stories, but I (as a reader of them) am certainly not qualified to say who they are.

How to Catch a Pedophile

[Originally Posted 10/16/07]
Many of you will remember that I got hopping mad when the news media and Nevada police teamed up to bring kiddie porn featuring a three year old girl to national audiences. I questioned the logic of showing pictures of a little girl to the world -- taken from her rape tape -- when the alleged goal was to find the person raping her (who was not shown in the pictures). This did not strike me as “the direct approach,” and I went so far as to hint that it might be the most immoral thing I have heard in quite some time.

Today, I opened up to the news and discovered that her rapist was caught!

…

Guess how!

…

He turned himself in when he was pulled over for driving without a license plate! Then the pressure of being questioned about why he (as a black-haired, brown-eyed man) was using the driver’s license of a blonde-haired, green-eyed woman caused him to crack. Yes, I can see why this criminal mastermind was on the lam for so long. Thank goodness that we showed that rape tape to the world! It certainly helped in his capture! http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/16/rape.tape/index.html

…

Ok, in all fairness, seeing his victim on national television might have shamed and embarrassed him into confessing. But isn’t that shame and embarrassment (for the girl) exactly why I was objecting in the first place?

On the other hand, since police wanted this man -- this man specifically -- for similar charges with an older but still illegal girl, is anyone with me on this in wondering exactly how the ball got dropped? Is the database of wanted pedophiles really so large in Nevada that the inspired technique of “show the tapes to everyone and let it work itself out” is really considered good? Since the major question in the three year old’s case was “Is this guy hurting other little girls?,” did no one think to just go check? I guess not.

Let’s compare this case to today’s OTHER front page pedophile news story. (WTF?) It too is a sequel of one of my other “favorites.” Specifically, the one in which police (Interpol) took the “unprecedented” step of releasing pictures of the rapist instead of the victims.

Oh look, they figured out who he is! How completely unexpected! It would seem that if you look for the criminal, you might actually find him. This is truly a new era in police work. http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/16/childsex.suspect.ap/index.html

I hate the media. And I hate these retarded pedophile stories. I really doubt I’m alone on this. So why do they seem to be coming faster and faster?

Plant Metaphor III

Continuing another topic that readers have expressed little to no interest in, let’s revisit the topic of the plants in my office. I have posted on this topic twice before. The action-oriented summaries of those posts are as follows:

“Plant Metaphor”
I refused to throw an Easter lily away after it had died, because I know they’re perennials. It has grown back under my care, and is now a huge monster.

“Plant Metaphor Update”
The lily became so large that it toppled over due to the force of its own weight. I propped it up against the window to avoid this becoming a recurring problem.

[Author’s Note: I’m setting myself up to be questioned on this topic. Most people do not think Easter lilies can grow to be as tall as people. If you feel the urge to question me on this one, please go to my Facebook profile and search through the pictures of my office. There is at least one picture of the thing in there – from about six months ago.]

Now that everyone has been reminded of my freakish efforts in botany, let’s continue with the latest developments surrounding this fascinating potted plant.

There are none. It’s still getting taller, but it’s still leaning on things. That’s it.

The fun comes in because of how unrecognizable it has become.

Recently, I had two visitors come to my office in the same week. This is far from unusual, but generally the small talk I get as an engineer seems chosen for its ability to put congress to sleep. And congress can listen to ANYTHING.

The first visitor was the building procurement rep, whose cubicle is right outside my office. She and I talk all the time, but it’s pretty rare that she comes and actually visits me IN my office. It must have been a casual moment in the administration area though, because there she was.

Early on in the conversation, she casually declared, “That tree is getting huge!” while looking out the window over my shoulder. This confused me, because outside of my window there is, in the following order: shrubbery, lawn, a blacktop roadway, A/C and building utilities for the Packaging III building, the Packaging III building. Note the absence of trees. I turned to try to figure out what she was talking about. Still no trees.

Clever readers long ago figured out where I am going with this. Humor me though, because at the time, I did not have a half page of context clues to help me out. I had to resort to some grilling, in which I discovered that, sure enough, my Easter lily was being mistaken for a tree.

Here’s why this is funny. She thought it was a palm tree. She asked me if I thought I could get it to grow fruit. She had visions of little coconuts dangling beneath the fronds. My efforts to explain that it was an Easter lily were largely rebuffed, due to the fact that is was so clearly a tree.

A few days later, a very similar conversation occurred with another coworker.

So here I am, again kicking the dead horse of an unpopular metaphor that I ironically refuse to let die. (By my count, that makes it a zombie equine lily, or perhaps just a Jesus lily, which is basically what it is anyway.)

I figure this third effort to make a metaphor out of the plant will be as follows. Everyone is waiting expectantly for an Easter Lily to bear fruit. Maybe I can get it to turn some water into wine while its at it.

The world is funny like that.

I’m Defending Ann Coulter Now

Ann Coulter is making headlines again. Normally, I’d assume she had a book coming out soon, but the past several times she pulled a stunt like this, I turned out to be wrong on that.

To see her latest shit cloud, take a look at this charming little bit of religious diplomacy that she managed on national television: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/10/12/coulter-we-want-jews-to-be-perfected/

First of all, because this is Ann Coulter, I want to do both her and myself the obligatory favor and open with a pot shot. If you don’t begin a conversation with Ann with a death threat or hero worship, I’m pretty sure she realizes it’s not worth her time to pay attention. I agree with her conclusion, for her very special case. I don't, however, encourage others to emulate that special case.

Below is as close as I can bring myself to come to threatening the life of a lady who looks so charming in a leather corset (see the cover of her second to last book), but it’s necessary:

“Miss Coulter, in your interview, you are reported to have engaged in the following exchange of philosophical pleasantries:
----‘Asked by CNBC host Donny Deutsch
----what the U.S. looks like in her dreams,
----Coulter said it would look like the
----Republican National Convention in 2004.
----"People were happy,” she said,
----according to a transcript provided to
----CNN by CNBC. “They're Christian.
----They're tolerant. They defend America."
“Miss Coulter, first, surely you must realize that the Republican National Convention was a bigger stage show than anything Britney Spears has ever done. Don’t get me wrong. The DNC was a stage show too. The RNC was better and more effective (though I won’t comment on how or what I mean by that). But to claim that the people there were all happy is akin to saying that Britney looks like she does without having to put on makeup or fake hair. People complained that Britney looked “fat” at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards. I would like to point out that some scientists have successfully argued that she might have simply forgotten to peel off the previous night’s makeup before applying fresh stuff for her performance. Either way, everyone agrees she was a good 15 pounds heavier than usual. The 2004 RNC was like that. Those people might have been happy, but you’d have to peel off 15 pounds of makeup each to find out.
“Second, you highlight that everyone there was Christian. I would like to remind you that the RNC itself spends a small fortune trying to make that statement appear as false as possible. They do so for the express purpose of wanting to appear tolerant, which was your follow-up ‘already accomplished’ claim. Your joining of this modified pair of ideas -- where everyone started off the same to begin with and was thus tolerant -- is vexing.
“Third, you state that everyone there was defending America. I will grant you that I do recall a small military presence at the RNC. However, as they spoke, they were not actively defending America. In contrast, most of the people there would just as soon take a bullet as defend America, because they feel the two concepts are the same. Again, I will throw out there that I feel this was also true at the DNC. But the RNC was mostly a forum for making the case to attack people overseas. That’s not defending America. That’s playing offense.”

That’s as close as I can come to threatening Ann Coulter’s life. I fail. But having tried, let’s return to my original intent, which was to defend her position.

You read right. I’m going to be defending Ann Coulter here.

She states as the foundation of her main argument (not what I was joking about above) that, “[Christians] believe the Old Testament [and thus by, definition, accept the Jewish faith by logical extension]. As you know from the Old Testament, God was constantly getting fed up with humans for not being able to live up to all the laws. What Christians believe — this is just a statement of what the New Testament is — is that that's why Christ came and died for our sins. Christians believe the Old Testament. [Jewish people] don't believe [the New T]estament.” She follows this up with very reasonable observations about the shared aspects of the two religions. Further, she concludes that practicing Jews are welcomed into the Christian heaven. In fact, she jokes that since the laws demanded of both Christians and Jews are the same, the Jewish tradition of following said laws rather than letting Jesus pick up the slack is a lot harder.

In that respect, she is arguably less theologically correct. But that actually makes her seem almost uncharacteristically generous.

Unfortunately, in two key areas, her choice of words is just horrible. I had to carve this turkey pretty carefully to avoid them while quoting above. Let’s take a look at one of the problem areas: “[That] is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews.” (You know. Just like Jews, but infinitely better.) From the context clues that she provides, I feel that she was probably referring to religious simplicity, not superiority. But God damn. She just HAD to use the word “perfected” and repeat it several times, thus inviting the path-of-least-resistance interpretation.

Second, in response to, "It would be better if we were all Christian?" she said, "Yeah." No, Anne. Even if you plan to make a somewhat-more-reasonable-than-usual case in which you basically argue in the affirmative, you need to answer a question like that with more than one word. That’s not the answer your previously-more-friendly Jewish interviewer was looking for.

And by the way, Anne, it is possible to use your exact argument to conclude that the Islamic peoples are nothing more than perfected Christians and/or super-perfected Jews. Watch yourself on these little details. They’re killers in broader contexts.

But still, thanks for arguably trying to be nice on this one. I've got your back for that.

Cambodia's Finest Export: Little Boys

Regular readers will recall that I recently posted a long, frothing rant about the media. Specifically, that they thought it was a great idea to air pictures of a sexually abused little girl until literally thousands of people called in to tell them that they thought they knew who she was.

I asked the non-obvious question of, “Wouldn’t it have made a lot more sense to look for the child rapist? Something about outing a preschooler as having been used as a sex toy to the entire U.S.A. sound a little, oh, demonic and unnecessary.”

And this omits the flipside of that coin. Recall that CNN reported that they got “thousands” of tips from people who replied to the request for an ID of the little girl (not the rapist). Since it is phenomenally unlikely that thousands of people were CORRECT about who the little girl was, that means that there are thousands of people in the U.S.A. (probably more, including those who were just too lazy to call in) who now incorrectly believe that their neighbor’s young daughter has been trained in the arts of the Kama Sutra. I’m sure that won’t cause any trouble for anyone down the road.

I concluded that the only reasonable explanation for these stories being constantly on the front pages of most newspapers -- starring the children, not the criminals -- is that most journalists secretly think pedophilia is the hottest kink fetish ever. I did not argue that I thought this was a good thing.

That brings us to today’s front page news article about pedophilia. (It’s been what, a week? We’re overdue.) Check this one out: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/08/childsex.suspect/index.html

This article is fascinating for two reasons. First, apparently this guy was bright enough to blot out his face from the pictures he took of himself having sex with little boys. Since most articles like this imply (but do not show) that the pictures of the child abusers themselves are costume dramas in which the abusers put on cowboy hats and give grinning thumbs-up to the camera, we have to conclude that -- as far as pedophiles getting media attention are concerned -- this guy is a criminal mastermind. Note that I’m taking guesses here. Having never seen the media show me edited images featuring the rapists, I really can’t be sure. I can only tell you that the readily-available looks on the children’s faces don’t make them look like they’re enjoying the rodeo.

Second, the whole point of this article was to provide us with a picture of the guy having sex with the children, while giving hints to help find him (probably in Cambodia or Vietnam). Let’s take a look at one sentence in particular: “Interpol on Monday took the unprecendented [sic] step of making a global appeal for help to identify a man from digitally reconstructed photos…” Clearly the journalist was so upset at having to look at pictures of the rapist (instead of the little boys) that he or she forgot to run spell check. But doesn’t it seem a little odd that this move is being described as ‘unprecedented’? And this article is remarkably free of links to cropped images of child pornography. It’s almost as if the point of the article WASN’T to act as soft-core pornography for real pedophiles. Or perhaps the children were just too ethnic looking to seem interesting. Regardless of the reasons, I find this ‘unprecedented’ new technique refreshing.

Oh, but lest my pedophile readers get TOO worried, the article DOES make clear that, “[the full, original child porn images] have been on the the [sic] Internet for several years…” Maybe they’re just too easy to Google to bother with a full link. Please don’t read that as a suggestion to go find out for me. Rather than proofreading, I think the author of this article is finding out for us as I type.

Boring People to Giggles

Some people have asked me why I pick my topics for this blog the way that I do. Inexplicable topics have included a two (soon to be three) part series on a potted plant, a two part series on a freezer, a wiring proposal, a bowl of candy, how I wore my shirt one day, and hose connectors. (This list was chosen to be amusing, but is literally correct.)

This is an abbreviated list of the many and diverse soporific topics I’ve used.

People have suggested that it is only logical that future posts will include such topics as paints and how they dry differently, detailed descriptions of lawn growth rates, and descriptions of scenes taken from rural highways.

The irony, of course, is that these people are avid readers.

Let’s humor the question: “What the hell am I thinking?”

My answer: “Lots, actually.”

The unexpected (yet glaringly-obvious) line linking these seemingly random blog posts together is the fact that they are all things that I casually came up with as I wandered around in a typically “boring” world. Boredom is not a state of mind I was ever very good at embracing. I’m that guy that everyone thinks is crazy, because you’ll find him alone someplace laughing like crazy. I have some of my most amusing conversations… with myself. I have a cup of coffee and decide to start a cartoon strip that the ACLU would be hesitant to describe as “justifiably-free speech.”

It’s just something I do.

There is a certain philosophical note to it though. If you ignore the fact that I not-so-secretly write this thing because I laugh myself silly when I do (other artists need fans?), you can make a case that my underlying theme is that existence itself is funny. I find it blissful when the mundane makes me laugh. If I can make other people feel the same way, I figure I’m doing the word a favor. Trust me, given the choice between “sitting in a room with nothing to do is really boring” and “sitting in a room with nothing to do is a laugh riot,” I think my way is better.

Love Crimes

Today’s post will center on a recent trial that made headlines for being… what’s the word… ah yes. Insane.

As is typical of reading a news article about an ongoing trial, the facts reported seem selected to prevent the readers from having the slightest clue what happened, let alone why. If you’re so inclined, plow through the following article as it trips over itself trying to settle on a topic: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/10/04/hatecrime.trial.ap/index.html

As near as I can tell, four guys were sitting around one day with nothing to do. Suddenly, one of them sat bolt upright and declared, “Hey! Let’s rob somebody!” A murmer of assent and a round of nods followed, as none of the other three could come up with any reason that might be a bad idea.

One of the others followed this up with, “We should rob a gay guy! There must be hundreds of weak, vulnerable, ripe, sensuous male bodies in one of the dozens of chat rooms bookmarked on my computer here. Chat rooms which I, a straight male, bookmarked expressly for the purpose of selecting someone to rob -- which I have never done before!”

This outburst was similarly greeted with nods and murmurs of, “Well that makes sense!”

With that rock solid premise, our chat rooming defendant easily cruised the gay sex forum and selected a gay black man. Apparently because, as a black man, he would obviously have lots of pot and drug money to steal.

Later that night, one of the remaining two buddies got a little confused as to what “robbery” meant, and decided to chase their unfortunate victim into traffic, ultimately killing him. This act of idiocy earned him the privilege of his own trial.

But let’s return to our chat room friend. Having ever-so-wisely selected a black homosexual to target for criminal victimization well in advance of the crime -- on the grounds that as a black man he’d have lots of pot and drug money to steal and as a gay man he'd be too weak to defend himself -- he is now confused that the term “hate crime” has come up at his trial.

In a move calculated to confuse everyone and help his case none, he takes the bold stance of admitting to possibly having some homosexual tendencies which he has not before chosen to make a part of his identity. Except for all the men he met up with and had sex with.

His lawyer, realizing that his client was obviously confused, the jury was now confused also, the judge would be up all night confused and deciding what to define “hate crime” as, and that his client’s retarded friends were the most confused of all, came up with a brilliant course of action. He subpoenaed a bunch of gay men whom his client had seduced via said chat rooms.

Think of the subtle genius of it. Imagine a subpoena implying something along the lines of, “You are hereby summoned to court at the following date and time to give witness as to whether or not you meet men on the internet and then have mad-style lifestyle-affirming gay sex with them.”

The defense lawyer thus accomplishes the following:
1) Client = confused and stupid
2) Client’s friends = confused and upset
3) Judge = confused and annoyed
4) Jury = confused and amazed
5) Prosecution = confused and bewildered
6) Witnesses = confused, scared, and embarrassed beyond all reason

The end result of this move? It attracts national media attention and raises the question of, “Can you really commit a hate crime if you’re just… this… stupid?”

It’s a question for the philosophers all right.

Gay Bomb! II

Previously in this blog, I had a blast teasing the U.S. Air Force for it’s plan to develop a weapon to turn enemy combatants into gay nymphomaniacs. Fueled by the groundbreaking philosophy of “make ass-love, not war,” I developed a full plan to develop the weapon myself, since the military never got the project off the ground.

Since I feel this objectively makes me the head of this aborted project, I was very disappointed to see that the scientific community overlooked me when trying to give the Air Force an Ig Nobel award for the idea.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/10/04/ig.nobels.ap/index.html

It seems that no one in the military, active service or retired, would be willing to accept the award from the decorated scientists.

Then again, as head of the project, I can see why the (undoubtedly) rigorous scientific minds at the Air Force who first proposed this idea might feel it lacks the polish to accept awards. Here’s why. The project is inherently two-fold. To develop the weapon successfully, it must simultaneously:
1) Inspire the targeted soldiers to become insanely horny.
2) Inspire the targeted soldiers to target each other, as opposed to, say, their duffle bags.

See, if the two requirements aren’t properly balanced, it’s just not as cool. Let’s assume that the bomb only managed to turn a stadium full of soldiers into insanely horny rhesus monkeys. All this would really accomplish would be something of a laundry emergency, and the need to dispose of every box of popcorn in the stadium due to a sudden massive distrust of the exact composition of the buttery topping. Not really a decisive military victory.

By contrast, if the weapon managed to turn all the soldiers gay, but didn’t really prime their pumps (so to speak), well, I suppose we’d just find the barracks in a fashion crisis as all the soldiers tried desperately to trade in their uniforms for one size smaller. The bathrooms would be full of men trying to give themselves frosted tips with cleaning solvents. Suddenly, curtains would go up on all the windows. Vague and arguably meaningless poetry would be produced in large amounts. But again, not a military victory.

At this point, you’re probably thinking, “But Lake! If frosted tips and candy corn don’t constitute military victories, what would?” Simple! We can tell by the fact that the military wanted to develop a weapon to make large crowds of men horny for each other, paired with the results of all military conflicts to date, that a military victory is defined as follows:
Military victory -- anything that results in large numbers of philosophically opposed men piled physically on top of each other with bodily fluids seeping from recently sealed orifices.

Who wouldn’t want to accept an award for finding a way to accomplish that without all the death?

Update to "Best News Day In Years"

In my recent post "Best News Day In Years," my final paragraph -- in which a man was arrested for flying to the Midwest to buy sex from a housewife's five year old daughter -- took a credibility hit when I discovered that all trace of the article I was making fun of had been purged from the web before I posted.

Well, it's back. Apparently the suicide of the suspect cleared up whatever was blocking it after its initial publication.

Find that article here: http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/14278705/detail.html

The Friendliest Nazi

Earlier this week, I made arrangements to take my newish car in for its first big servicing. I drive a 2006 Toyota Prius. There’s nothing wrong with it. It just hit the point in the manual where they suggest that you take it in for a full physical. So I did. Because this apparently is going to take a while, I dropped it off at 7:30 and took a loaner car back to work. That’s the summary of this post. The devil is in the details.

I’ll skip over all the parts that aren’t funny. With my car checked in and the paperwork for the loaner car complete, I was ushered to the lobby to meet the guy who would give me my temporary ride. He was a skinny light blond guy who looks like his last career was as a kindergarten teacher. I had the faint impression that I could go to his house, tie him up, and brutally slaughter his family members in front of him and receive nothing more than a mildly disappointed -- yet forgiving -- request that I not do that any more.

We walked outside to the lot and he said, “We’re giving you an ’89 Chevy Astro. Sound good?” As his joke sailed past me (to be hunted down and noticed about 15 minutes later), I replied “So long as it can drive 10 miles, works for me!” Astonishingly, despite my complete failure to notice his jest, I’m actually pleased with my answer. I think it works even better in the joking context than it did as the literal truth I meant it to be. (Can you tell that I’m not a car person?) He laughed, incorrectly registering the joke I had not intended to make, and said, “Well shoot! That one is gone. Guess you’ll have to settle for the Toyota Tundra.”

I had no idea what a Toyota Tundra was. For those of you who might be with me on that boat, please take a second to look at the following picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:%2704-%2706_Toyota_Tundra_Double_Cab_TRD.jpg

Since we were clearly walking towards an area of the lot with only one enormous vehicle in it, I was able fake pre-knowledge. I replied, “What a coincidence! I parked my Prius under this exact truck not ten minutes ago to keep it out of the sun!”

Due to his pause, choke, and subsequent giggle fit, I have to assume that my reply was somewhat original. It also highlights a peculiar contrast that I invariably face in this sort of situation. To date, I have owned two cars. I think both of them were perfect for my situation at the time. First, I had a tiny 1998 Hyundai Accent. Excellent college car. Second, the Prius. My dream car would have two special features. First, it would get 1000 miles per gallon (of water). Second, it would fold up and slide comfortably into rain gutters when not needed, thus making parking a breeze and eliminate the need for me to stop and refuel it. Generally speaking, if you look at a guy like me and he’s driving a Hyundai Accent or a Prius, you come away thinking that he is not a car person. Troubling hints that he’s an economist, an environmentalist, or an alarming hybrid of the two might cross your mind. But not a car person.

Despite these subtle hints, every time I get a loaner car, the same thing happens. The guy goes into the room of available cars, scans over the compacts, sedans, four doors, and vans and instead decides, “I think I’ll give him our brand new, experimental military assault vehicle prototype! He’ll like that!” I’m not making this up. On the side of my Tundra, someone has painted a graphic reading “Toyota Tundra: Off-Road Racing Vehicle.” I think that’s supposed to make me feel cool. Instead, I just end up being annoyed that I have to get out of the monster because my arm isn’t long enough to reach down to the security keypad on my work’s gate from the driver’s seat. Generally people reach UP to enter the code. But not me on loaner car days!

As he went around my vehicle, making notes of the scratches in the armor plating, I noticed something that seemed out of place. On the back of his left hand, between his thumb and index finger, someone had drawn a dime-sized swastika with what looked like a ballpoint pen. Two letters were similarly drawn onto his knuckles, but they did not mean anything to me and I have since forgotten them. It appeared as though he had attempted to wash off both the letters and the swastika, but had not met with great success.

This left some questions in my mind. I wondered if my perky ex-kindergarten teacher friend had drawn the swastika himself. I would consider that a troubling sign. I usually hope that my (sometimes accidental) social graces stem from an odd form of wit. I do not find myself quite so happy if I notice that instead I am popular because I’m a tall, blonde, muscular guy who (inexplicably) gives off an aura of loving military assault vehicles.

However, since I’m in Sheboygan, I can’t rule out the possibility that, just like every Tuesday night, this guy went out drinking with his buddies until he passed out, at which point they helpfully provides him with assorted body graffiti to help him out at work the next day. Even if that was the case, that still left this guy’s taste in friends somewhat in question.

I drove away from the friendliest Nazi with these questions unanswered.

Kiddie Porn From God

Yes, once again child sex is making an appearance in my blog. Before you start accusing me of having fetishes for this sort of thing, I’d like to deflect blame for this. 100% of the time, when I write a post about this sort of thing, it’s peppered with links to newspaper articles that set me off. It’s the media who has a boner for this sort of thing, not me. I just read these retarded (FRONT PAGE NEWS!) articles, shake my head, and get ready for another round of:

“Making fun of Morons!”

Before I begin, I would like to restate the two positions I have on this topic that make me a repulsive degenerate in the eyes of society. This will help you keep a clear head, because if you want to yell at me for being a degenerate in some other way, you’re probably misreading something I said. My two controversial opinions are:
1) It is illogical to assign a minimum age for legal sex based on geography (such as state laws). I have known (rare) pre-teens who were fully qualified to have sex and have also known (not so rare) people in their fifties who, despite having done it a few times, are still not ready.
2) Statutory rape is a heinous concept. While it is CERTAINLY possible and reprehensible to hurt a child (or fifty year old) by subjecting them to the psychological or physical damages of forced or manipulative sex, this damage does not always correlate to the age of the victim. A young nymphomaniac was not raped if he or she loved every minute of it, even if his or her parents would rather call the lover a criminal than their child a whore. (I’d actually vote that the parents shut up in this case, unless it was impacting schoolwork or something.) The victim is the only person who is qualified to tell you if he or she was raped.

Anyway, that’s not even that relevant this time, because in this case, I’d like to give a big old shout out of “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?” to the accused adult in the article.

This rant is sponsored by CNN. Find this week’s reading here: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/30/rape.tape.girl/index.html

The laundry list of reasons this guy is a moron is truly glorious to behold. First, he is making news because he apparently voluntarily wandered into a police station. Where he was well known for being an unpleasant criminal. And then he declared, “I brought kiddie porn!” Then he showed the very-interested officers videotape proof that, yes, yes, he did indeed come bearing gifts of kiddie porn.

Second, the tape was not ambiguous like my examples above. This tape was of some freak raping a three year old. This does not fall under the umbrella of “things Lake might call gray areas.” This falls under the umbrella of, “things Lake would not recommend taking anywhere, let alone into police stations.”

Third, when asked where he obtained graphic kiddie porn, the guy declared that he found it in the desert. Yes, in the desert. You know, those huge wastelands of sand where you can’t take five steps without being attacked by a rattlesnake, stuck by a cactus, or tripping over the mounds of VHS tapes of recent child pornography. Much as Moses climbed the mountain to get the Ten Commandments, Darren Tucker followed the voice of God into the Nevada desert where he was provided with child rape tapes from on high. Truly that is an open and shut case there.

Fourth, when asked how long it took him to voluntarily turn in his sacred child pornography to the kind and understanding police officers, it slips out that he might have spent four or five months studying it in depth before he realized what it was. I sympathize with him here. I remember I thought I had watched “A.I.” about fifteen times before I caught on that I was not actually viewing the oft-reviled Spielburg film. Rather, I was actually watching an older film entitled “Sex Kittens. No Really. Kittens With Whom I Have Sex On Camera.” Blockbuster apparently got the two movies switched in their cases.

Fifth, apparently confused by the subtle nuances of the child rape scene, he invited over his buddies to view the tape with him in what is being described as “showing the tape to others” and “exhibiting pornography.” That’s a bit vague, bit I have images of a beer and pizza night where this tape is on TV instead of a football game. [Author’s note: I, in a near unprecedented act of reserve, have removed a joke I originally wrote here on the grounds that I deemed it too inappropriate. If you appreciate off-color humor, I am willing to send it privately to anyone who asks what it was.]

********OMITTED JOKE: Unless you're a fan of watching Northwestern football games, I have to imagine it would take a lot of beer to confuse a football game with a three year old girl getting raped. ********

Now, in a follow up section, I’d like to send a flaming shout out of “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” to CNN. This is more speculative, but the quotes CNN itself is providing here makes me feel I am justified. Let’s begin:

First, CNN reports, “Now seven, the girl [in the video] was found Friday with family in Las Vegas after thousands of tips poured in to police, thanks to an appeal by police to the news media to show the girl's picture.” Let’s assume the following:
1) Given the glaring video evidence, this girl was raped.
2) Since there are no hints of it in the article, presumably the girl was not declared missing or known to be abused otherwise.
3) Given that police were apparently running out of clues, the evidence suggesting the sexual abuse was ongoing was completely speculative.

In response to these three assumptions, I would like to offer a viewpoint that was apparently non-obvious to police and the news media. It goes a little something like this:
“The only thing that would suck worse than being raped as a child would be if police got hold of a tape of it. And asked for clips of it featuring me to be run on national television. Until the whole friggin world got an eyeful and managed to trace it back to me. Since apparently tracing it back to the rapist would be harder.”

I would like to state for the record that this girl has my deepest sympathy. I’d also like to state that I don’t know exactly why the police and CNN chose to handle this the way that they did. Maybe it really was driven out of well-founded and rational concern for the safety of the girl and a complete lack of other options to move forward. But given what I DO know, I am left thinking, “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?”

And that's about all I manage to get out of this.