Can I drop off a teenager?

You know how Japan has just recently opened a baby drop box? No?

Well, evidently some Japanese are tired of people being wasteful and just throwing their unwanted babies away, so they opened a drop-off box by the Catholic-run Jikei Hospital in the southern city of Kumamoto.

The folks who opened this felt that having a safe place to anonymously leave an unwanted baby would discourage abortions and the abandonment of children in unsafe public places.

On the very first day a three-year-old boy was found inside.

Some people just have to ruin things for everyone else.

He claimed his father brought him there. "I came with Daddy," he said.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, "Anonymously throwing out a child is unacceptable."

It has been decided that no crime was committed because the toddler was not left in a dangerous situation.

Mr. President, we must not allow a baby drop-off box gap!

What's been going on?

Well after a stint at another blog where I was told I was far too negative to represent Omaha, I told them to pound sand and find someone else to be Omaha's cheerleader.

Which they did.

And that's that!

The house construction is progressing nicely. I've been hearing rumors about there being framing materials on-site, so I'll head on over there tomorrow and take some pictures.

My parents have decided to sell their house in California and build a house here in Omaha. They've decided on the subdivision of Manchester Park, which looks like a very nice area. I'll follow the building of that house as well.

As a way of apology for my lack of updates, let me share this with you: Indian Thriller!

Quick! Eat more chicken!

Make your own KFC sign at KentuckyFriedCruelty.com

Evidently we aren't eating enough chicken in Omaha.

I, for one, will be heading to KFC tonight.

Yet another reason for Jamie to stay out of the water.

Those things are aliens. Intelligent, and fast. I want to learn how to communicate with them, so they don't come for me in the night.

There was a lab where marine biologists were studying octopuses and other marine animals. Naturally, different animals were kept in separate tanks. Every morning, when they would come in, the biologists would find a few fish missing from their tank. The only clue they had was that the floor was wet.

Puzzled, they set up security cameras. The next morning, when they watched the footage.

What they found out was: The octopuses waited for the humans to leave, then crawled out of their tanks, across the floor, up and into the fish tanks, ate some fish, then crawled back to their tanks so they humans wouldn't catch them the next morning being where they weren't supposed to be.

Octopi can survive out of water for several minutes at a time. They can squeeze through any hole as large as their beak (the only inflexible part of their bodies). They can and will open jars to get at the contents within. They are (kind of) jet-powered, able to move through water by jetting water out of themselves. Oh, and the main way they communicate? By rapidly changing their skin color. They use that ability both for camouflage and communication.

Good luck learning their language.

Amazing creatures. It's been suggested that the only reason they aren't as intelligent as dolphins is that so much of their brains are dedicated to keeping track of their eight arms

Great video if you have 15 minutes...

Via: VideoSift

This is a fantastic 15-minute video of Michael Shermer (the founder of Skeptic Magazine) speaking on the subject of why otherwise intelligent people believe in stupid things. He touches on the subject of UFO sightings, religious icon sightings (a favorite of mine) and how, by establishing an expectation beforehand, we tend to see or experience what we expect to see or experience. Good stuff!

Drinking.

I was reading a story today that suggested lowering the legal drinking age would possibly lower the troubles we are seeing with alcohol among teens. From the story:

McCardell, 57, president emeritus of Middlebury College in Vermont and professor of history there, says alcohol is and always will be a reality in the lives of 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds. Studies indicate that the number of college students who drink is slightly smaller than it was 10 years ago, largely because of increased interest in healthy living. But in the majority who choose to drink, there have been increases of binge drinking and other excesses. Hospitalizations of 18- to 20-year-olds for alcohol poisoning have risen in those 10 years. This, McCardell believes, is partly because the drinking age of 21 has moved drinking to settings away from parental instruction and supervision. Among college students, drinking has gone off campus and underground, increasing risks while decreasing institutions abilities to manage the risks.

I think that what Mr. McCardell has forgotten, or completely failed to realize, is that age is not important when it comes to responsible behavior. Either a person has the self-will and self-control to drink responsibly, or a person doesn't. Unfortunately, just as there are vast numbers of 18-year-olds that can't handle drinking responsibly, there are also vast numbers of 25-year-olds who can't handle it either. Not to mention the 35-year-olds. And the 45-year-olds.

If you haven't outgrown getting drunk by the time you're 35, then you're an alcoholic.

Setting an arbitrary number for inclusion into adult activities (entering a contract, drinking, entering the military, smoking, voting, renting a car) is foolish. It would be wiser for a society to allow individuals willing to conform to what is considered responsible behavior to somehow prove themselves able - at whatever age they can.

Perhaps we should take a page from the Australian Aborigines and their "walkabouts." At the age of thirteen they walk in the wilderness for six months as a rite of passage. They trace the passage of their ancestors, following their routes and re-enacting their heroic acts. Once this is done, they are accepted as an adult into their society.

The ancient greeks also had a good coming of age rite - the Dokimasia. When a young Athenian came of age to vote in Athens, he was brought before an assembly in his district and put to the question. His life and actions up to that point were brought up, talked about and examined. If a valid objection to his inclusion into adult society was found, the candidate had to find a way to overcome that objection and convince others that he could be treated as an adult.

These are unrealistic ideas for a society that is focused on handouts.

I'm going to go play with my kids now.

The Internet is for Porn

I do not play MMORPG's any longer. They're way too dangerous to my marriage...so I've never even tried World of Warcraft. This video had me rolling though, so I'll share it with my readers.

Please don't feed the homeless

Annoyed that the city's homeless population isn't dying off quickly enough, Lincoln today launched a new campaign encouraging residents and visitors to their fair town NOT to give money or food to "street people."

Giving money or food to "house people" is apparently still ok with Lincoln's leadership.

Posters, brochures and some "guerilla marketing pieces" will soon be seen around downtown Lincoln. The ads suggest that homeless folks will spend any money given them to satisfy their addictions, like their addiction to food.

I'd say this police department has some problems.

Story from the Daily Report - read on!

Police Sgt. Patrick Welles got a call for backup one night in 2004 and told the dispatcher he was busy but would be there shortly. It turned out he was busy having sex with a woman in his patrol car, investigators say. The 12-year veteran was fired for conduct unbecoming an officer and other departmental violations, including misuse of city property.

But now the black officer has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit, claiming white colleagues on the Chattanooga force did similar things — or worse — and were allowed to keep their jobs.

A federal investigator with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission agreed Welles was treated differently. The EEOC reported that the police department ''had knowledge of white officers who violated policy and committed sexual offenses such as rape, masturbation in public, sexual harassment, domestic assault and various of other terminable or egregious offenses, but followed progressive disciplinary procedures as well as resignation or reinstatement for those not of the charging party's race.''

Welles, in his April 9 lawsuit, is asking for reinstatement and back pay, or at least $100,000.
An assistant in the Chattanooga city attorney's office, Kenneth O. Fritz, declined to comment, as did the white police chief who fired Welles, Steve Parks, and Parks' successor, Freeman Cooper, who is black.

Welles told City Council members at an appeal hearing that he had gone to a bar around 2 a.m. for a business check and picked up a woman who had just been fired and was arguing with her employers at the bar. Welles said he drove her to a secluded area, where they had sex in his car.

He said it took less time than a lunch break.

An internal affairs investigation found that while Welles was with the woman, he failed to back up other officers when a dispatcher reported a disorder at a business.

Welles' attorney, Stuart James, said: ''Regardless of the offense, when you see a pattern where white officers are treated differently, it raises a suspicion there may be discrimination because of race.''The lawsuit cites other cases in which white officers were allowed to keep their jobs:

— One officer, charged with rape on city property while on duty, was given only a 28-day suspension and is still employed by the department, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit does not specify the outcome of the criminal charges.
— A lieutenant was disciplined for sexual harassment of an officer — using a city computer to mail sexually explicit material to a female employee. But he was restored to lieutenant after an appeal, the suit says.

Shelley Parker, an attorney for the police department, said the lawsuit would be vigorously defended. Parker said he could not recall some of the examples cited in the suit that involved white officers.

Leamon Pierce, a black city councilman who voted to uphold Welles' firing, said an officer having sex in a patrol car is ''totally out of character for a police officer. Everyone who would come before the council, we would take the same action.'' The councilman said of Welles' contention that he wasn't the only one to commit such an offense: ''You can't justify a wrong with another wrong.''

Google's new real estate tool is up...

Seriously. In a few years is the realtor profession going to have more than twelve members?

Google Housing

The site works for both rentals and sales listings.

Playing this game at the carnival always makes me feel sad

The dog whimpers and tries to scamper away, but the duct tape is too strong, and the dog usually hasn't been fed for a while.

Still, you can win a stuffed candy cane, so it's not like you can just walk away.

Shake it off!

Instead of mourning the passing of a once-funny (a long, long time ago) comic, let's take a moment to soak in a few examples of how an unfunny, crappy comic can be made funny and a pleasure to read! Courtesy of the Family Circuss!

Unfunny comics

So B.C. creator Johnny Hart died on Easter Weekend...

I came across a collection of his old work when I was a kid. Some of it was really funny.

Around the time Bush 43 got elected, Hart went all Zell Miller on us and I've resented him ever since. I am hoping his crappy, preachy, holier-than-thou, shove-Jebus-down-everyone's-throat comic strip will now disappear from my newspaper. The minute a funny person starts taking themselves and/or their religion seriously *in the context of their work* is the minute they stop being funny and just become plain obnoxious. He went from "comic strip" to "bully pulpit" about 8 years ago and would never have gotten published in the first place if he had been so sanctimonious at the start of his career. The only reason he got away with it in the end is because he was an old habit that died hard for a lot of newspapers and their audiences...

Not funny.

He was a skilled cartoonist, and he brought me a lot of laughs when he kept his observations to everyday topics. When he became "born-again" his cartoons simply stopped being funny. Any other cartoonist serious about their work instead of prosthelitizing could've gotten the Easter message across with a snarky comment about eggs or bunnies, but he had to get heavy-handed with the sacrifice issue. When I read his strip, I felt less that I was learning something through sarcasm or satire that made me laugh, and more that I was simply being preached to. That doesn't make for any kind of good comic, unless you're Jack Chick. His subtlety simply vanished, and it's a damned shame - he was good at one time.

Now all we need to do is to push the guy responsible for Marmaduke along with the guy responsible for Garfield off a nice, high cliff.

Special Ed is not for me.

My wife wants to go back to school to get a Masters degree in education. She is thinking that she wants to be a special ed teacher. My wife is a noble person. She is a much better person than myself. If someone asked ME to teach a special education class (or any class for that matter) this would be my response:



Yes that IS a picture of Neun.

From "Retardation, A Celebration" narrated by Wilford Brimley:

Wilford Brimley: First of all, the retarded don’t rule the night. They don’t rule it. Nobody does. And they don’t run in packs. While they may not be as strong as apes, don’t lock eyes with them. It puts them on edge. It might put them on bezerker mode. Come at you like a whirling dervish, all fists and elbows. You might be screaming "No, no, no" and all they hear is "Who wants cake."

For those of you unclear on the concept:

Remember kids, when you could care less, you sound like an idiot to those of us who know better.

Taco Bell breakfasts debut in Omaha.

According to KETV's story, Omaha's a test market for Taco Bell's new breakfast menu.

If I had to rank breakfast burritos from places in Omaha currently offering A) breakfast and B) breakfast burritos, it would look something like this:

a) Sonic's Breakfast Burrito

b) anything

c) anything

d) anything

e) McDonald's breakfast burrito

Sonic does the burrito right, although they've been slipping lately. I heard McDonald's has a new burrito, but I am unsure. I'll have to go look sometime when I have absolutely nothing to do.

I would hope that Taco Bell can put something together that's pretty decent - hopefully better than what McDonald's tries to pass off as a breakfast burrito.

My birthday

My birthday is on April 6th.

Feel free to join the crusade to get the day recognized as a national holiday.

Or perhaps you can buy me a present.

Order this now for thirty bucks and you can be sure it will arrive on that most holy of days.

Thirty dollars too rich for your blood? Order this instead!

Sick world.

I can see a future where children are born, raised, then cut up for their organs and skin at the age of 13. A healthy young teenager would be worth a lot of money in a world like that. Certainly more than six dollars.

Prisoners sentenced to death will be used as organ donors. After all, the state pays for your keep after your indiscretions, you repay the state with your vitals upon expiration. Simple.

People might think twice about committing capital crimes if they knew they'd be carved up like a 20 pound turkey after they die.

Yes, yes I know. What happens to the body after death wouldn't really deter criminals. And you'd have to monitor the system to ensure people aren't being sentenced just so their organs could be harvested.

Let's get on with it.

Blame Canada!

Can we please just make marijuana a legal substance and stop locking people up for possessing it?

From cbc.ca news:

A medical marijuana activist in Calgary was sentenced Tuesday to four months in jail for trafficking in marijuana, but the judge ruled that corrections officials must make sure he has access to the drug while behind bars.

Grant Krieger, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and has legal permission to smoke marijuana for medical purposes, had previously admitted to sending two packages of marijuana to Manitoba in 2003 and 2004.

Provincial court Judge William Pepler said Tuesday that incarceration is appropriate, but he is delaying Krieger's time behind bars until June to allow corrections officials to figure out how they will administer medical marijuana to him.

Pepler said although he recognizes that Krieger has a special constitutional right to receive marijuana to alleviate pain, the federal government has a program for people in Krieger's situation and Krieger must now comply with the law.

Judge whips it out in the courtroom.

From News For Jacksonville, Florida:

A pistol-packing judge made no apologies on Tuesday after pulling out a gun when a scuffle broke out in the middle of court proceedings.

Circuit Judge John Merrett said Friday began as just another normal day in courtroom two of the Duval County Courthouse until the father of an alleged child molestation victim decided to take the law into his own hands. He was there for a plea bargain hearing involving defendant 21-year-old Derrick McNeil, who has been charged with molesting a child.

However, in the middle of the hearing there was sudden chaos.

Merrett said he took out his gun when a brawl broke out near the bench. He said he never put his finger on the trigger or pointed the gun at anyone. He said he wanted to be prepared in case the fight between a child's father and a handcuffed defendant escalated.

"I had no idea what was going on," Merritt said. "I had just spoken to the father. I had just asked him if the plea agreement that the state had reached with the defendant was agreeable to him and he said yes, and I looked down and I see a blur and then there's all this going down there on the floor." He said the father was attacking the defendant. Bailiffs went to break up the fight, while the judge took action of his own.

"Since I didn't know what was going on or who was at risk, I thought it prudent to get my safety device out," Merrett said.

That safety device to which Merrett referred was his handgun. The judge said he kept it at his side and gave it to a clerk to lock up once the situation was under control. A police report said the father landed several punches and threatened to kill McNiel. It took five bailiffs to restore order. The reason Merritt said he became so concerned was that when the father of the victim jumped over the benches he ran and tackled the defendant in an area where the he couldn't see what was going on.

"Anytime someone's running towards the bench in a courtroom … it indicates they've had an emotional break of some sort," Merrett said.

Merret met with the father in his chambers and later ordered him released without bail, even though he was charged with a felony and two misdemeanors. Although Merrett, who has a license to carry a concealed weapon, and did not commit a crime, at least one attorney has called for a change in the rules that allows judges to carry firearms in the courthouse after what he said was a scary, real-life courtroom drama.

Duval County Public Defender Bill White questioned the safety of allowing judges to carry guns. He said he plans to talk to the chief judge about disarming the judges. However, several people at the courthouse on Friday told Channel 4 they believe judges should continue to be allowed to carry guns. "There's a lot of crazy people out there and crazy people are going to have guns, so why shouldn't judges have them? They are there because they are defenders of the law," said Arwen Bosico. "You never know who's going to show up in a courtroom and what they're going to do when they get there, so I believe it'd be OK," Len Taliferro said.