Don't Kiss in India... they might arrest you.

This is an old story but still worth commenting on. It is safe to say that Richard Gere will not be invited back to India anytime soon after he kissed actress Shilpa Shettyat an awards ceremony. It, of course, caused cries of outrage from many Indians because such public displays of affection are frowned upon. Gere has apologized for offending those who watched the awards ceremony. One Indian province actually issued an arrest warrant for both Gere and Shilpa! This incident makes India the laughing stock of the western world for sure since FOX broadcast two women kissing here in the states and no one got arrested. I take offense to this sort of behavior coming from a supposedly civilized democracy. It is ridiculous and to put it mildly, impolite to arrest guests of your country for making social gaffes. Gere, like most Americans, I’m sure had no clue about the no kissing in public taboo of India. On top of that he apologized, yet they went ahead and issued a warrant anyway, though a higher court canceled it later. Punishing someone from a foreign land who clearly is unaware of certain cultural niceties is horribly unfair. Heck, I think punishing someone who is unaware of a law in general should be unconstitutional. Such laws place the entire burden on the individual to know everything about the law, or in this case society, no mater how obscure or face punishment. Society has a duty to be understanding to the circumstances of the individual. We do not execute our mentally challenged individuals for murder in this country because they are unaware of the wrongness of their actions. I have problems with the court ruling that decided this since I feel the level of incapacity of the individual in that case wasn’t enough to justify commuting his sentence but I still feel the general principle of forgiving those who know no better holds true. The Indian courts and public have certainly been less than understanding to the circumstances of Ms. Shetty. While Mr. Gere has been somewhat forgiven, at least enough to not face further legal action, Ms. Shetty still has a court battle ahead of her. Amazingly, the geniuses behind issuing the arrest warrants think that just because she got kissed by Mr. Gere the offense to there overly sensitive sensibilities is her fault. I’ve seen the video footage, she was as surprised as everyone else. These officials should be ashamed of themselves blaming this on the poor woman when it was Richard Gere who did the grabbing and kissing. All I see from this fiasco are a bunch of vindictive and by American standards prudish individuals who are trying to punish whoever they can to save face because they can’t punish who they really want, Richard Gere. If anyone knows anything about the evolution of Indian culture I would sincerely like to know how kissing in public came to be considered public indecency. Please post up in comments if you have them.

MySpace Police

For some reason I have a difficult time coming up with titles for my articles on the stupidity and deplorable behavior of others. Every time I try to write a good one I end up thinking of titles involving what I would like to do to the ignorant jerks. Usually, these involve various forms of telling them to do anatomically impossible things combined with veiled threats that they should suffer physical or mental harm. I have another article to write on that later but suffice it to say I'm going to keep my titles rather bland so as not to risk disturbing people at first. Hopefully, they might care to read further and discover why I would want to write such titles. If so maybe they'll be convinced my feelings would make better titles than what I'm using.

Stacy Snyder a 25 year old woman who attended Millersville University was allegedly refused her bachelor of science in education degree and a teaching certificate after the University administration found a picture called "Druken Pirate" on her MySpace. She has filed suit in federal court.

You will notice the picture below:



She was apparently accused by the University of promoting underage drinking. In my opinion, the University's actions against Ms. Snyder are ridiculous. Not only is she of legal drinking age(25) but they can't even prove there was an alcoholic beverage in the cup! I'd really like to know how these bloody Nazis of University officials can get off saying someone is promoting underage drinking by wearing a party hat!

To the best of my knowledge the majority of individuals on my freshmen hall drank underage at least once. With the exception of myself and a couple other nerds I'd say around 90% had done so at least once and 50% had done so multiple times. Guess what folks? People drink. Its bound to happen at any University because access to alcohol at Universities is open door.

Millersville should be happy she was well over the legal drinking age and stayed the hell out of her private life. I'd bet half those jerks that denied her her degree drank underage at least once. From all indications Ms. Snyder had completed all her coursework with a good GPA. If drinking legally is encouraging underage drinking then we should probably fire most University professors staff and elementary through high school teachers. I know dang well most of them have consumed alcohol at least once and I'm sure there are more than a few of them who have been in a picture while their blood alcohol content was higher than normal. Eggnog at Christmas anyone?

Getting a degree is about grades not one's personal life. The fact these people make it about that is disgusting. I've seen far too many of these social police actions by employers and schools in the news not to be angered by the pettiness of people in power. So I hope you'll forgive me for suggesting the anatomically impossible in this case.

Source 1
Source 2
Source 2 continued

What can you expect from people who threw perfectly good tea overboard?

Its amazing to me just how stupid people can be when they are fed propaganda day and night instilling an unreasonable fear of terrorism. Take a look at the things that caused all the problems in Boston this week. Link

It doesn't look like a bomb to me. Besides, what terrorist is stupid enough to put flashing lights on his IED (Improvised Explosive Device) to attract attention to it? Surely, any good terrorist wouldn't want people to notice that he's placed a bomb so that no one tries to escape it. On a more interesting not the media is editing the image of the cartoon in the pictures so as to make it more presentable to the public. I find this highly unethical. If you show an image it should be as it originally was or you are distorting how the public sees reality. Its just wrong to do that. If you'd prefer not to show it period thats fine but if you show it it better be unchanged.

The supposed "bombs" were placed two to three weeks ago in ten cities including Boston and only just late this week got noticed as suspicious. Obviously, no one thought they were a problem for a few weeks and the other cities didn't consider them a threat at all. This whole mess is a result of overactive imaginations on the part of Boston officials. They should just admit they made a bad judgment call and leave the poor guys who set up the cartoon billboards alone. Its really nice that Turner Broadcasting offered to pay for the city's expenses since I don't think they are liable for a public official's stupidity.

The lesson to take out of this is cartoons do not equal bombs. Stop being paranoid, accept your mistakes, and move on. Good Luck to Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, in getting the charges dropped. This whole thing is ridiculous.

Link

Anyone ever wish the Senate was comprised of pregnant school girls?

What a wonderful day it is today that we should see the senate pass a bill which would throw a person in jail for helping a girl escape abusive parents. This crap abortion bill passed in the senate fails to provide any exemption for anyone helping a girl get an abortion whose parents have abused her. This would stop a girl's grandparents from helping her. The bill does provide a means by which a girl could petition a court to allow her to have an abortion without notifying her parents but this is utterly ridiculous. How is a girl of 13-14 going to get to a courthouse to file any sort of petition? Even if she could walk there in a small town odds are her bloody parents would find out about it. All this bill does is stop anyone from helping someone who has been abused by her bastard of a father/other relative. Who do you think is going to be better at deciding whether or not a girl has abusive parents and should be allowed anonymity? A judge who has never seen her or her grandparents who actually are around at least some of the time? The exemption that was drafted to protect those who help abused girls in these cases was shut down because of evil people who know that since the Judge has no clue what is going on he/she will always decide the parents should be informed. Adults have an unerring propensity for believing in other adults over whatever children have to say. There is simply no good reason why people who help others should have to face criminal charges for doing so.

Reference

What is it worth to you not to have bombs dropped on your head?

People never cease to amaze me with their idiotic behavior. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that when you hold two people capitive that their government is going to do everything it can to release them. Most likely this involves beating you into submission by any means possible. Hezbollah are a bunch of idiots and should be looked upon with disgust. They could end this war in Lebonan right now if they'd hand over the two soldiers they took prisoner. Instead they still keep the soldiers prisoner and kill Israeli civilians while letting lebanese civilians die because their hideouts are mixed right into populated areas. I sincerely hope people supporting them figure out that it really does more harm than good. It'd save a lot of lives.

No... Not Embarrassing At All...

"The Energy Department said it has come up with $5 million to immediately restore jobs cut at a renewable energy laboratory President George W. Bush will visit on Tuesday, avoiding a potentially embarrassing moment as the president promotes his energy plan." - Jobs cut at energy lab restored before Bush visit By Tom Doggett Reuters Monday, February 20, 2006

No that isn't embarrassing at all except that they were caught restoring cut funding and it has been published. I think this shows exactly how seriously George W. Bush believes in cutting our energy dependence on oil.

Just as a note to everyone: Articles like this don't usually make it to the front page of Google News. Sometimes you have to click on the U.S. button on the sidebar to find something interesting.

Source