Most people disagree with you, STUPID!

 

By Joseph Walther

 

In my opinion, the only thing dumber than making sweeping generalizations is making wide-sweeping generalizations. Relative to the number of people I’ve dealt with during my adult life, it seems to be a common thread for many. Early this past week, I listened as a man tried to make his case about illegal immigration. In fact, that conversation intrigued me so much that I spent much of the remainder of the week listening for other conversations revolving around generalizations. Here are a couple of them.

 

            First, I think illegal immigration is a serious problem in the United States. We have to solve it soon; so, I’m not trying to minimize it. However, having used the term, “illegal immigration,” even several times during a conversation, does not necessarily mean the discussion was about illegal immigration. This man proved it.

 

            “We have to do something about all the Mexicans running around this country.” These were the man’s exact words. He continued, “The stupid politicians are letting the illegal immigrants take over this country.” I acknowledged his concern for the problems we face as the result of illegal immigration. However, I wanted to know why he chose to single out the Mexicans. “Because the Mexicans are the ones causing all the trouble,” he said. I asked him to be more specific.

 

            “Ok, first they take jobs away from Americans. They live ten to fifteen in a room. When they are paid, they send their money back to their families and friends in Mexico. They don’t pay any taxes here, either. They have it made, they get all the benefits and none of the costs. They commit most of the crimes in the areas they live in, too. In fact, a friend of my daughter was raped by one three years ago.”

 

            I nodded and said, “I see. I just wanted you to clarify your position.” I walked away. This man was not worth the effort it would have taken to engage him in any kind of meaningful dialog about illegal immigration. This individual’s problem has nothing to do with illegal immigration; his problem is racism. He uses illegal immigration as a convenient excuse for venting it.

 

            Those who hate others merely because of their race are racists. And, it does not make a bit of difference whether it comes from Klu Klux Kan members, the NAACP, or any one of thousands of self-proclaimed racial supremists. Aside from a possibly factual exception that a Mexican raped his daughter’s friend, his statements constituted wide-sweeping, generalized, hate-filled bullshit! I’d feel much safer living next door to an illegal immigrant any day, than I would living next door to the likes of him.

 

            Moving on, the next incident occurred on Thursday, late afternoon. I had stopped at a local KFC—that’s a Kentucky Fried Chicken joint in case you’ve been in a comma for several years. I took my 3-piece, all white meat dinner, including sides of mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, an extra side of macaroni and cheese, my medium-sized Pepsi, and sat at one of the three open tables in the center of the restaurant.

 

            Within about 3-minutes, two middle-aged women (mid-40s to mid-50s) sat at the table next to mine. Each had also purchased 3-piece meals. However, their conversation got my attention, not their meals. It’s impossible, by the way, to ignore what people seated less than 3-feet from you have to say. On top of this, these women were not exactly whispering.

 

            Less than five-minutes after they started talking, I reached inside my pants pocket and turned on my highly sensitive video recorder. I sensed a classic in the making! Greta (about 5ft, 5in and about 190 pounds) and Bonnie (no more than 5ft, 2in, and weighing in at a lovable 220 pounds or more) were voicing their general disdain for men. Neither of them said one positive thing about men, either specifically or generally. Here’s some of their verbatim conversation, with the exception of a few minor edits for some profanity.

 

Greta: So how’s yer new boss?

Bonnie: He a shithead! I know he wants to have sex with me. He ain’t come out and said it, but I know it’s what he wants. It’s what all them assholes want!

Greta: Yeah, that’s all most men think about. You need to nip this stuff right in the bud, ya know. When I was married, I made my man work for his sex.

Bonnie: My ex was the same damn way. We weren’t married more ‘n two months before he was after the bitch upstairs.

Bonnie: We don’t need no f*!k’n men. I gotta vibrator that’s better’n any man I’ve ever slept with.

Greta: Most men think they’re God’s gift to women.

 

            This went on for another 2 or 3-minutes as I finished my meal. Finally, I stood up, smiled at them, and excused myself saying, “ a male chauvinist pig is now leaving the building.” Clueless, they looked at each other somewhat puzzled. They had no idea how silly their comments made them sound. And stupid to boot! Their entire conversation was comprised of sweeping, generalized crap. Although, there was one thing they said that is generally true to some extent. Keep reading to find out what.

 

            Men and women who generalize about “disgusting” opposite-sex behavior would do well to contemplate the source of the burrs buried deep inside their respective butts. They may well have created their own. Yes, men and women have some legitimate gripes about each other’s conduct some of the time. Many times, however, they are critical of each other’s gender differences. As a species, we didn’t provide these for ourselves; Mother Nature did it.

 

            As such, women do have a point relative to the male sex drive, though. However, it’s a gender difference. Men, compliments of Mother Nature, are wired for this. While it does not legitimize infidelity, it does explain some seemingly incessant need for sex. In fact, having known this all of these years, has made me stick, unyieldingly, to a sound sexual philosophy. I NEVER do anything I’d be embarrassed to explain to paramedics!

 

            Oh, this is for Bonnie and it’s critically important. Whatever you do, don’t take your vibrator to Alabama. One of my readers sent me a legitimate news article about it.

 

            The Alabama General Assembly banned sex toys in 1998 in the interest of preserving public morality—they mentioned vibrators specifically. Of course, the sex toy sellers appealed; but they lost. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ban and released its ruling on… get this… VALENTINE’s Day.

 

            Oh, Alabamians I fear y’all may not yet have suffered the worst. Possibly, your state leaders underestimated how artificially low the vibrator has kept the divorce rate down therein ole’ Bamma. The rest of us await the outcome with anxious anticipation.

 

            Of course, Alabama’s teen pregnancy rate is still 25% higher than the rest of the nation, but they don’t mention this as a threat to public morality. Nor, I’m led to conclude, did several other serious social failings involving women’s health issues make the list, especially the ones concerning matters of sex education. Can you believe it? It’s OK to sell guns, but NOT dildos! It seems that Yahoo! is not just the name of an Internet search engine.

 

            I know I’m going to receive emails from a few man-hating, angry women. There’s nothing new about that. I’m also going to receive email from people against consuming fast food. This, too, has happened before. Mostly, they’re emaciated-looking health food freaks who are simply too frail to pick up something as heavy as a McDonalds Quarter Pounder. So let me conclude with this.

 

            Speaking for myself, if you’re a member of the female minority who find men to be generally disgusting, leave us men the hell alone, if humanly possible. I’ve never felt a compulsion to apologize for being born a male and I’m not going to start now.

 

            For all of you men AND women, who count yourselves among those who feel that fast food is disgustingly bad for you, I agree. It is. I don’t care, though. Any wimp can give up trans fat, but it takes a MAN to stand up to hopelessly clogged coronary arteries! Besides, KFC is tasty; it does not matter to me if it’s the nutritional equivalent of crack cocaine. Let me kill myself in peace. That is, after one last great romp in the hay, if you get my drift.

 

Have a great week. Be safe.

 

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Copyright laws apply to all material on this site. Send your comments. Just click here.

Give the idiot a fair trial then hang him!

 

By: Joseph Walther

 

There’s a capital murder trial going on in Wilmington, Delaware. The State is trying 36-year-old James E. Cooke with the 2005 rape and murder of Lindsey Bonistall, a 20-year-old University of Delaware Student. The evidence against Cooke is voluminous and horrific. It shows that before leaving her apartment, he poured bleach over her body to wash away evidence, moved the body from the bedroom, placing it in the bathroom tub, tossed in her clothes and guitar, and set the works on fire.

 

            Two eyewitnesses, who live in the same apartment building as Bonistall did, positively identified him as the one who broke into each of their apartments, stealing personal items, including a credit card of one of the victims. He also told that victim to take her clothes off, but her screams scared him off. A picture taken from a bank ATM showed Cooke using the stolen credit card. Later, the same night, he raped and murdered Lindsey, inside her apartment.

 

            DNA samples taken from her body did not match samples taken from eight “people of interest;” but they did match DNA taken from James Cooke. The results were unambiguous. The likelihood of Cooke’s DNA sample coming from another black person—Cooke is black—is 1 in 676 quintillion. That’s 676 followed by 18-zeros! The DNA analyst later reduced the chances to 1 in 64-billion because the samples beneath Lindsey’s fingernails matched both, her’s and Cooke’s.

 

            So, why haven’t they given this scumbag a lethal injection already? Many of the Journal’s readers want to know. Concisely, the answer is that he has Sixth Amendment rights: a speedy trial, confronting the witnesses against him, subpoena power to gather evidence on his own behalf, and the right to effective legal counsel. Damn! That pesky Constitution always seems to get in the way of righteousness. Nevertheless, it brings me to my main point.

 

            The News Journal carries a daily account of the trial. In addition, the editors post it to the paper’s website at www.delawareonline.com, which, in turn, permits readers to post their opinions on the matter. Herein we find the crux of the dilemma. I rarely participate in the forums. Just click on the link above, click on any news item, and read the comments. You’ll only have to read a couple of them to understand why. I did comment on the Cooke trial, though, because I know one of the public defenders involved.

 

            Most of the opinions support killing the bum as painfully as possible; bringing him back to life, and killing him over again for good measure. They’re advocating the same fate for his defense lawyers. They’re none too happy with the trial judge, either. The consensus is that the defense team and trial judge have turned the proceedings into a circus, subjecting the Bonistall family to unadulterated grief. It all makes me wonder if any of the respondents have ever read the Sixth Amendment.

 

            First, James Cooke has seriously disrupted the trial each day with his rants of innocence. Some people seem to think that his lawyers have put him up to it. Second, because the trial judge refuses to bar Cooke from the courtroom permanently, the same people believe that he’s an old liberal softie, pampering a poor misguided youth. Third, several people think the defense lawyers are slime balls for defending Cooke. Of course, they’re wrong on all counts.

 

            I’ve seen judges lodge disciplinary complaints against trial lawyers—at times resulting in severe disciplinary action, including disbarment—for far less than disrupting a trial, especially a capital murder trial. Criminal defendants have a Sixth Amendment right to confront all witnesses against them via their presence in the courtroom. While continuous disruptions by defendants tend to waive this right, at least in terms of their presence within the courtroom during the trail, judges run the risk of appellate reversals or remands by baring defendants from the room. So, they do so only as a last resort.

 

            Finally, excluding any conflicts of interest, public defenders cannot refuse to represent an indigent defendant. They don’t get to beg off because they think a defendant is some stinking, lowlife scumbag. They can’t refuse to defend an accused, even if they believe they can’t win the case. A defense lawyer’s job is not to get someone “off.” It’s to make sure that the State proves its case beyond a reasonable doubt, in accordance with long-established rules of evidence.

 

            James E. Cooke is not crazy. He’s probably not even mentally ill. He’s possibly on the short end of the IQ scale, somewhere between a 90 and 95. He’s a classic sociopathic narcissist, only mucho stupido. The DNA evidence, alone, gives the jury ample justification to convict him. Even though he’s too intellectually unremarkable to realize it, his lawyers aren’t. Given this fact, the least he will receive is a life sentence with no chance of parole.

 

            I realize that this has devastated the Bonistall family. Had it been my child, I’d be a raging lunatic. The nature of the crime is so repulsive that it enrages the emotions of even the clinically rational. So, it’s easy for me to understand the impetus for what people are posting to the forum. Just his picture triggers MY gag reflex.

 

            However, permitting rage-driven hatred to intensify already acute tunnel vision is not going to accomplish anything. Thankfully, the trial judge, prosecutors, and defense lawyers know how to remain self-controlled. Having a verdict overturned or remanded on appeal because of some stupid, impulsive legal mistake would constitute an unforgivable and acutely demoralizing slap in the Bonistall family face.

 

            The trial will be over in a few more days. The posts will surely start all over again if Cooke doesn’t receive the death penalty. It will make for some interesting reading, but it will be fodder for another column. I can’t wait! In the meantime, I’ll be back again next week. Stay safe.

 

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Copyright laws apply to all material on this site. Send your comments. Just click here.

What's with all this Muska Linnaeus excrement?

 

By Joseph Walther

 

Since Tuesday of this past week, I have listened in amazement while several young lawyers bantered around such age-old terms as, free will, rights, spirit of the law, letter of the law, and reasonable doubt as though EVERYONE has a clue as to what they actually mean. Yes, everyone—with the exception of most of the non-lawyers in attendance—clearly demonstrated an understanding of these terms as defined by the academicians. However, when a person’s life is at stake, or at the very least, an individual’s freedom and/or financial well-being, I think we need to spend less time on adhering to process for its own sake and more time on factual substance.

 

            Lawyers specialize in separating Muska Linnaeus excrement out of cubeb. Like me, you’re all probably more familiar with the technical term: flicking fly shit out of pepper. It’s a primary requirement for successful obfuscation; though, we’re all more familiar with its technical meaning, which is making something unnecessarily complicated.

 

            Lawyers can spend days, weeks, months, years, and in some cases, a decade arguing the difference between the “spirit” of a law and its “letter.” It stands to reason, too. After all, lawyers typically charge by the hour. Actually, with the sophisticated billing software that many lawyers use today, they bill by the minute. I’m not going to dwell on this, because I do not want people to accuse me of separating Muska Linnaeus excrement out of cubeb! You have your definition of “is” and I have mine. Let’s leave it at that.

 

            It hasn’t always been like this. Back in my post-collegiate beginnings—shortly after the Romans crucified Jesus—lawyers got to the point quicker, and about more important things, than they do today. There were fewer of them because it took actual brains to get into law schools; and, it took even more brains to graduate. For the most part, it was an honorable profession. This is not altogether true today, thanks to a proliferation of second and third-tier law schools bent on admitting and graduating people, as long as they can anti-up the tuition and breathe independent of resuscitators.

 

            Judges deserve some criticism, too. I don’t mean all of them, not even most of them; but there are enough of them to clog the system to a virtual halt on occasion. It seems to me that the judges of yesteryear, on average, were of a more stoic caliber. They were less nervous about appellate rulings and more concerned with common sense legal application. Some of them would have crucified lawyers for many of the things they routinely get away with today.

 

            While judges have always been verbose in terms of their written opinions, it seemed to be so only to an extent dictated by minimal legal necessity. Today, however, rampant verbosity is the rule and it has nothing to do with necessity, either. Unlike many of today’s lawyers, some present-day judges don’t obfuscate. Instead, lots of them have raised the intellectualization of simplicity—um, mental masturbation—to new art form. Perhaps they think this is necessary for consideration to an appointment or election to a higher court. Or, maybe they just like to hear themselves talk. My guess is that it’s a combination of the two.

 

            This would all be laughable were it not for the fact that so many people find themselves caught in the middle of it all. What aroused my interest in all of this and the reason I even bring it up, was my introduction to a nineteen-year-old pregnant woman undergoing drug rehabilitation in a level four prison facility.

 

            From the age of 14-years, this kid had lived with a crack-cocaine addicted mother who had a history of four arrests and convictions for possession and use. Each time a judge sent her to a level four drug rehabilitation program. Her recidivism rate was 100%; but each time she regained custody of her child. The last time ended with her mother’s incredibly caring boyfriend raping the daughter a month after her 18^th birthday. Her own mother, high on crack, helped hold her down.

 

            The point of this is not how hideous a mother can be. Both she and the boyfriend are in prison for what they did. They’ll be lucky if someone doesn’t kill them while they are there. The criminal justice system made short work of dispensing justice where they were concerned. The daughter, however, is another story.

 

            She began using methamphetamines, one of the most powerfully addictive substances in existence, after she found out she was pregnant from the rape. She refused an abortion because she said that it was against her religion. About three months ago, the police arrested her for possession and use. A judge sent her to a mandatory level four drug rehabilitation program because of her pregnancy. She’s been there four months.

 

            No one has come to visit her. No one writes to her. She has no means of monetary support. Consequently, she can’t even buy stamps or so much as a bottle of water from the common room vending machines. She’s been suffering from a rash that seems to be spreading all over her body. She’s afraid it’s going to affect the baby. Yet, they have not let a doctor check it out. I assure you that this young woman will not forget this.

 

            Perhaps if the lawyers were not so busy separating Muska Linnaeus excrement out of cubeb and the judges were not as consumed with intellectualizing simplicity, they’d have the time to kick some serious ass over at the Department of Corrections. It shouldn’t take this long to get this young woman the help she needs. She’s NOT an isolated case, either.

 

I’ll be back next week.[flick][flick][flick]…

 

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Copyright laws apply to all material on this site. Send your comments. Just click here.

We're almost sure of... something or other!

By Joseph Walther

 

A bold, black, 5/8^th inch headline screamed at me from the top, right panel, front page of The News Journal last Friday, February 2, 2007.

 

“Panel: Man to blame for global warming.

Report says it’s 90% certain humans harm planet.”

 

Yep, there it was in black and white, except that the scientists didn’t actually use a percentage. A scientific group called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the report and what they said was that global warming is “very likely” man-made. So, did the Associated Press pull the “90%” chance out of its collective butt? No!

 

            I wrote a column last year concerning global warming. I’m not going to rehash it here. However, I based that column on chemical reactions, not my gut feelings. Gut feelings, no matter how educated, are subjective. Chemistry and chemical reactions are not. Let me reiterate some basic chemistry as it applies to global warming.

 

            Humans breathe air. It’s all around us. The air we breathe consists of about 20% oxygen. The atom, oxygen, uses the symbol, O. We don’t breathe this. We humans breathe molecular oxygen. Its symbol is O₂, which means two oxygen atoms bound together.

 

            Ozone is nothing more than another way for oxygen atoms to bind together. When three oxygen atoms (O) bind together, they change into Ozone, which is O₃. Now, the thing about oxygen atoms (O) is that they are chemical predators, always looking for some molecules to hook up with, which they find in abundance in the chemical singles bar we call the air around us. But, they can’t just sashay up to a hot-looking molecule and get it on. They need a third party to sort of introduce them and pave the way. This third party, called a catalyst, doesn’t get to share in the binding “fun,” at least not in a “threesome” sense, but they’ll be NO binding “fun” without a third-party introduction.

 

            By far, the most popular third-party introducer is molecular nitrogen; but others exist. The scientific symbol for any catalyst is (M). So, chemically, what happens is that an (O) combines with an (O₂), made possible by a catalyst (M), and changes into an (O₃), only the catalyst (M) is now hanging out with the O₃. If you were taking a basic chemistry course, you’d show it this way: O + O₂ + M à O₃ + M (The arrow means becomes.)

 

            The process keeps repeating down here on Earth’s surface. It comes from automobile engines, a myriad other industrial/human processes, and Nature, herself—an erupting volcano is a prime example. Ozone (O₃) surrounds us down here at Earth’s surface. When it gets too bad, we find ways to reduce it. Too much ozone is not a catastrophic problem at Earth’s surface. But, too little of it, way up there in Earth’s atmosphere, IS. So, what’s causing all of the commotion up there?

 

            CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), that’s what. About 80-years ago, well-intentioned scientists discovered that if they took some Carbon (C) atoms and attached some chlorine (Cl) and some fluorine (F) atoms, we’d be able to do all sorts of things to make ourselves more comfortable, not to mention more socially confident in the BO sense, if you get my drift.

 

            First, we built refrigerators. We then began building air-conditioners. Now we have aerosol-spray underarm deodorants so we don’t offend others, aerosol-spray hair products so the wind doesn’t destroy our hairdos, making us look like dorks during our PowerPoint presentations at business meetings. We’ve added aerosol-spray medicine, aerosol-spray breath fresheners, and a host of other things we humans find convenient and neat. But, it has all come at a price.

 

            The chemical process is both simple and nasty. On the simple side, about 16 or so miles up in our atmosphere, nature produces, AND destroys ozone. However, ultraviolet light (UV) from the our Sun then breaks O₂ molecules down into Oxygen (O) atoms, which then combine to reform more Ozone (O₃). It’s so simple, and we members of the human race don’t have to do a thing to help, either.

 

            On the nasty side, particularly over the past 50-years, we’ve been sending up tons of CFC molecules—we created these, NOT Mother Nature. They can survive up there for about 100-years. Chlorine, like molecular nitrogen is a catalyst. It’s the hit man, so to speak, for ozone; except this hit man never misses. After the killing, it hangs around up there for about 100-years or more before the Sun’s ultraviolet light forces it back down into the lower atmosphere and the rain washes it out of our climatic system.

 

            Absent human restraint, it’s a devastating chemical reaction. A SINGLE chlorine atom can destroy around 110,000 ozone molecules. For each occurrence, a CFC molecule destroys two ozone molecules and creates three oxygen molecules. Meanwhile, the catalytic chlorine atoms just keep hanging around, repeating the reactions on and on. Don’t doubt it; we’ve contributed to the process in a big way over the past 50-years.

 

Humans love to define things. However, we need to be very careful that we do not assume that our definitions are absolute. To us, a minute consists of 60-seconds, but only because we’ve agreed on this way of measuring the passage of time.

 

This agreement has nothing to do with a cosmic definition of time, however. In cosmic terms, time exists with or without us. Entropy gives birth to time in both its reality and direction. Entropy means less distinctive, less separate. It’s what scientist call disordered, in the uniform sense of the term. In other words, time comes from energy moving from where there is more of it to where there is less of it. Our universe’s propensity toward balance and uniformity is what creates time, not our clocks!

 

Our definitions concerning climate are no different. We define things to suit ourselves. In fact, the difference between an every-day citizen and an astute politician is the fact that the politician has learned how to redefine definitions to suit a particular bias or prejudice regarding a point of contention. This is what’s happened with the entire global warming issue.

 

            It’s become a pissing contest between the extremes. Being right and proving the other side wrong has become the prime directive and there is no shortage of pseudo-scientists willing to join either side of an issue for the right price.

 

            There are many eminently qualified scientists attached to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. However, like all large organizations, plenty of pseudo-scientific whackos have managed to infiltrate its ranks. So, there now must be an “acceptable” code to describe potential disaster. One that’s a bit obfuscating relative to simple facts. Here’s a little insight into that code.

 

            When this group states that something is “likely” to have been caused by humans, it translates to a 60% certainty. Their use of, “very likely,” translates to a 90% certainty. The ever-rare term, “virtually certain,” translates to a 99% certainty. Linguistically, it’s semantic bullshit, designed to appease morons and confuse the rest of us. Humans have contributed greatly to global warming over the past 50-years. PERIOD!

 

            We’re not going to cut our living standards, nor do we have to. We do have to find more ecologically suitable ways of making ourselves comfortable though. And business has to redefine its long-term profitability cycle from next week to a significantly longer period.

 

            The universe, more specifically our own solar system, does not give a flying damn about our human definitions. To Mother Nature, global warming is the result of chemical reactions. To her, there’s nothing particularly special about the human race. If we don’t find a way to solve the problem, she’ll do it for us. It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature. In fact, it’s impossible over the long run. I’m 100% certain of this, as opposed to the Intergovernmental Panel’s impotent “likely”, “very likely”, or “virtually certain.”

 

            Remember, time will continue to carry on with or without humans. It will continue to carry on until the universe reaches that ultimate level of entropy, if it ever does. If it does, though, who knows what’s going to happen then. Maybe another CABLAM! And, the entire process begins again. Then again, maybe not.

 

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Copyright laws apply to all material on this site. Send your comments. Just click here.