Friday, April 27, 2007

Going too far... (Part 2)

More details about the essay have come out.

Article 1, Article 2

Excerpt:

"Blood, sex and booze," "Drugs, drugs, drugs are fun. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, s ... t ... a ... b ..., puke."

"So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P 90s and started shooting everyone, then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did."
For those who care... the P90 is a submachine gun made by FN, and is popular in a lot of video games.

Here are the instructions for the “free writing” exercise:

“Write nonstop for a set period of time.”

• “Do not make corrections as you write.”

• “Keep writing, even if you have to write something like, ‘I don’t know what to write.’ ”

• “Write whatever comes into your mind.”

• “Do not judge or censor what you are writing.”

The assignment included additional guidelines such as, “If your free writing is neat and coherent, you probably haven’t loosened up enough.”
While his writings of sex with dead bodies may offend some... “Write whatever comes into your mind.” and “Do not judge or censor what you are writing.” pretty much explain it all. There ARE some twisted minds out there. Hell look at James Wan... he wrote and directed Saw. It's take a seriously fucked up mind to create that! But that doesn't automatically make him a psycho.

He didn't threaten anyone in his essay so basically he was arrested and charged with Disorderly Conduct for being twisted. That... is going too far!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling

Publisher Summary:

Harry Potter has never been the star of a Quidditch team, scoring points while riding a broom far above the ground. He knows no spells, has never helped to hatch a dragon, and has never worn a cloak of invisibility.

All he knows is a miserable life with the Dursleys, his horrible aunt and uncle, and their abominable son, Dudley — a great big swollen spoiled bully. Harry lives in a cupboard under the stairs, and he hasn't had a birthday party in eleven years.

But all that is about to change when a mysterious letter arrives by owl messenger: a letter with an invitation to an incredible place that Harry — and anyone who reads about him — will find unforgettable.

For it's there that he finds not only friends, aerial sports, and magic in everything from classes to meals, but a great destiny that's been waiting for him... if Harry can survive the encounter.


I think this is my 7th time through this book. After over a year gap in Harry (for me) it was like sitting down with an old friend again. My goal is to have all 6 books finished about a week or so before the release of the final book in July. Even in my 7th time through, I can still pick up on little things I didn't remember.

This is where it all starts. You can tell it's more or less geared for kids but it's certainly written well enough that adults will find it entertaining as well.

If you haven't gotten into Harry Potter yet, I strongly urge you to do so!

Author: J.K. Rowling
Narrator: Jim Dale
Running Time: 8 hours 18 min.
Book Rating: *****
Production: *****
(out of 5 stars)

Audiobook
Hard Cover

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Going too far...

Before I turned into an asshole, (everyone I know will agree that I am one.) I was a high school freshman.

Turning back the clock a bit... I was a freshman a couple of years after Red Dawn came out on video. (a wonderfully pro-gun movie) This wasn't THAT long ago but it was back when schools actually had bullies. (imagine that)

I didn't get bullied much... Hell by my Junior year I had been suspended from school 3 times for fighting! ...But there were those who did. My buddy Pete for instance. He was your typical comic book geek. Bullies used to give him shit. He didn't grab grandpa's rifle and start blowing people away though. At least for real anyway.

More in a bit... but the reason I bring this up is because of an article I just read on the Northwest Herald's website...

Essay lands Cary teen in hot water

By NICK SWEDBERG

CARY – A Cary-Grove High School senior was arrested Tuesday on a disorderly conduct charge after his English teacher notified police that an essay he wrote contained nonspecific references to violence.

Allen W. Lee, 18, of Cary was charged Tuesday morning after police determined that essay references to shootings were alarming. He posted $75 bond and is set to appear in court June 18.

“The writing assignment depicted violence, was disturbing and inappropriate, but did not contain any specific locations or names,” Cary Police Chief Ron Delelio said.

Allen Lee was unavailable for comment Tuesday. His father, Albert Lee, said his son was a “straight-A” student and likely wrote the essay as a prank.

“I think it’s a high school prank turned sour,” Albert Lee said.

Lee has been removed indefinitely from the school and is facing disciplinary action, District 155 spokesman Jeff Puma said.

Puma declined to elaborate further about what actions might be taken against the student.

Police declined to release a copy of the essay Tuesday. Thomas Carroll, first assistant for the McHenry County state’s attorney’s office, said prosecutors had not yet reviewed the essay.

An English teacher read the essay while grading creative writing assignments at the school after hours Monday, school officials and police said.

“She was concerned based on things that have transpired recently,” Puma said. “It raised some flags. I think, in this case, the teacher chose to err on the side of caution and, I think, rightly so.”

They said it contained no references to any students or the school and did not reference the recent killings at the Virginia Tech campus.

Officials at Crystal Lake Central High School determined last week that threatening graffiti left on a bathroom wall was a prank. Also, rumors of someone planning to bring a gun to South Elgin High School on April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine shooting, were proven untrue.

“You can never be overly cautious with any type of these situations,” Delelio said.

A spokesman for the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said he was surprised that police would choose to arrest the student despite no direct threats being made against anyone or anything.

“It’s not clear where the threat is here,” Ed Yohnka said, although he said it was difficult to specifically comment without seeing the material.

Disorderly conduct, which is a misdemeanor that carries up to 30 days in jail and a fine, can be charged if someone feels alarmed or disturbed by another’s actions.

Albert Lee said he was not sure what the assignment was but said his son was told by his teacher that he was allowed to use foul language in the essay.

District 155 officials have not released the name of the English teacher. They also have declined to comment on the student’s disciplinary or academic histories.

By the way, read some of the comments users have posted on that article (scroll to the bottom of that article)

I continue...

Pete was much more creative than I was in high school. That combined with his love for comics and a flair for the written word made for an excellent story. I don't recall the name of his story. I think it was something like "Russian Busters" or similar. But I do remember the basic gist of it...

It was very Red Dawn. Russians came down ala Red Dawn and sought to invade the school and the rest of the town. Pete was the hero of the tale and most of his friends ended up helping his cause (and dying).

The story was violent! Real violent! It's no surprise that every student who gave him shit or that he didn't like was killed by the Russians in a most violent (and humorous to me) way. The same went for teachers he didn't like or that didn't like him. They too, met a violent end.

The story used real names, real locations in the school, real cliques, etc.

Granted, he didn't write this for a school assignment but it certainly made the rounds in the school.

I am absolutely convinced that if a high schooler wrote that exact story today not only would he be arrested and expelled from school, it would make the NATIONAL news!

Oh how times have changed.... and not for the better!

I have no idea what the student in that article wrote but it's got to be a far fucking cry from what was written back in my high school days.

"Thought Police" and "Zero Tolerance" come to mind. Give me a fucking break! He made 'references' to violence and he gets arrested? Thank god my kids aren't going that that fucking school!

Monday, April 23, 2007

NRA: The Untold Story of Gun Confiscation After Katrina

A video every American should see...

... scary, scary stuff!

Friday, April 20, 2007

I haven't talked about the tragedy at Virginia Tech...

...mainly because this week has been all about catching up. We were in St. Louis at the time and missed all of the 'breaking news' (That may actually be a good thing).

Read this article here... http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/19/commentary.nugent/index.html

Nugent: Gun-free zones are recipe for disaster

By Ted Nugent
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Rock guitarist Ted Nugent has sold more than 30 million albums. He's also a gun rights activist and serves on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association. His program, "Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild," can be seen on the Outdoor Channel.

WACO, Texas (CNN) -- Zero tolerance, huh? Gun-free zones, huh? Try this on for size: Columbine gun-free zone, New York City pizza shop gun-free zone, Luby's Cafeteria gun-free zone, Amish school in Pennsylvania gun-free zone and now Virginia Tech gun-free zone.

Anybody see what the evil Brady Campaign and other anti-gun cults have created? I personally have zero tolerance for evil and denial. And America had best wake up real fast that the brain-dead celebration of unarmed helplessness will get you killed every time, and I've about had enough of it.

Nearly a decade ago, a Springfield, Oregon, high schooler, a hunter familiar with firearms, was able to bring an unfolding rampage to an abrupt end when he identified a gunman attempting to reload his .22-caliber rifle, made the tactical decision to make a move and tackled the shooter.

A few years back, an assistant principal at Pearl High School in Mississippi, which was a gun-free zone, retrieved his legally owned Colt .45 from his car and stopped a Columbine wannabe from continuing his massacre at another school after he had killed two and wounded more at Pearl.

At an eighth-grade school dance in Pennsylvania, a boy fatally shot a teacher and wounded two students before the owner of the dance hall brought the killing to a halt with his own gun.

More recently, just a few miles up the road from Virginia Tech, two law school students ran to fetch their legally owned firearm to stop a madman from slaughtering anybody and everybody he pleased. These brave, average, armed citizens neutralized him pronto.

My hero, Dr. Suzanne Gratia Hupp, was not allowed by Texas law to carry her handgun into Luby's Cafeteria that fateful day in 1991, when due to bureaucrat-forced unarmed helplessness she could do nothing to stop satanic George Hennard from killing 23 people and wounding more than 20 others before he shot himself. Hupp was unarmed for no other reason than denial-ridden "feel good" politics.

She has since led the charge for concealed weapon upgrade in Texas, where we can now stop evil. Yet, there are still the mindless puppets of the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun organizations insisting on continuing the gun-free zone insanity by which innocents are forced into unarmed helplessness. Shame on them. Shame on America. Shame on the anti-gunners all.

No one was foolish enough to debate Ryder truck regulations or ammonia nitrate restrictions or a "cult of agriculture fertilizer" following the unabashed evil of Timothy McVeigh's heinous crime against America on that fateful day in Oklahoma City. No one faulted kitchen utensils or other hardware of choice after Jeffrey Dahmer was caught drugging, mutilating, raping, murdering and cannibalizing his victims. Nobody wanted "steak knife control" as they autopsied the dead nurses in Chicago, Illinois, as Richard Speck went on trial for mass murder.

Evil is as evil does, and laws disarming guaranteed victims make evil people very, very happy. Shame on us.

Already spineless gun control advocates are squawking like chickens with their tiny-brained heads chopped off, making political hay over this most recent, devastating Virginia Tech massacre, when in fact it is their own forced gun-free zone policy that enabled the unchallenged methodical murder of 32 people.

Thirty-two people dead on a U.S. college campus pursuing their American Dream, mowed-down over an extended period of time by a lone, non-American gunman in illegal possession of a firearm on campus in defiance of a zero-tolerance gun law. Feel better yet? Didn't think so.

Who doesn't get this? Who has the audacity to demand unarmed helplessness? Who likes dead good guys?

I'll tell you who. People who tramp on the Second Amendment, that's who. People who refuse to accept the self-evident truth that free people have the God-given right to keep and bear arms, to defend themselves and their loved ones. People who are so desperate in their drive to control others, so mindless in their denial that they pretend access to gas causes arson, Ryder trucks and fertilizer cause terrorism, water causes drowning, forks and spoons cause obesity, dialing 911 will somehow save your life, and that their greedy clamoring to "feel good" is more important than admitting that armed citizens are much better equipped to stop evil than unarmed, helpless ones.

Pray for the families of victims everywhere, America. Study the methodology of evil. It has a profile, a system, a preferred environment where victims cannot fight back. Embrace the facts, demand upgrade and be certain that your children's school has a better plan than Virginia Tech or Columbine. Eliminate the insanity of gun-free zones, which will never, ever be gun-free zones. They will only be good guy gun-free zones, and that is a recipe for disaster written in blood on the altar of denial. I, for one, refuse to genuflect there.
Ted makes some excellent points in this article. What happened was a tragedy but I can't help but think that the outcome could have been different if the professors or students actually had the ability to defend themselves and others if they weren't forced into a state of disarmament by the school.

Borrowing from Tom Gresham's article (link)...
According to the school’s “Campus and Workplace Violence Prevention Policy”:
“The university’s employees, students, and volunteers, or any visitor or other third party attending a sporting, entertainment, or educational event, or visiting an academic or administrative office building or residence hall, are further prohibited from carrying, maintaining, or storing a firearm or weapon on any university facility, even if the owner has a valid permit, when it is not required by the individual’s job, or in accordance with the relevant University Student Life Policies.

Any such individual who is reported or discovered to possess a firearm or weapon on university property will be asked to remove it immediately. Failure to comply may result in a student judicial referral and/or arrest, or an employee disciplinary action and/or arrest.”
(Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Policy 5616, Campus and Workplace Violence Prevention Policy, http://www.policies.vt.edu/5616.pdf)
Now I'm not saying carrying a concealed handgun is right for everybody or even most people, but those who have gone through the process to obtain a concealed carry permit (training, background check, etc.) and would have otherwise been carrying their concealed handguns were prevented in doing so by University Policy and that policy may very well have allowed the killing spree to continue instead of the killer being stopped in his tracks by a law abiding student/teacher.

Far fetched you say? Well it has ALREADY happened! Ted cites a few examples of how that has worked in the past... Pearl High School in Mississippi, the eighth-grade school dance in Pennsylvania, the Appalachian Law School in Virginia.

And a few more where because of the "gun free zone" no one could defend themselves or others... Columbine, New York City pizza shop, Luby's Cafeteria, Amish school in Pennsylvania and now Virginia Tech.

More gun control is NOT the answer! Murder is already illegal and the University policy didn't deter this killer from bringing his gun on campus.

It's no surprise that the cities with the most restrictive gun laws also have the highest crime rates. Washington DC, New York, LA, Chicago.... if you were a criminal, would you rather 'work'... in an area where your potential victims could be carrying a handgun with the potential to defend themselves or in an area where the 'good guys' are legislated out of self-defense. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why the crime rates have dropped in EVERY single area where concealed carry laws have passed.

It amazes me how anyone could think that if someone is determined to murder people (already illegal) that they would even give a shit about breaking gun control laws on their way to the murder. A criminal (by definition) will not follow those laws. All they do is restrict the ability of the law abiding the right to carry a handgun for lawful defense.

I have gone through the process of obtaining a concealed carry permit multiple times. I have a carry permit that allows me to carry concealed in 30 states! But, sadly, while I can carry concealed in over 1/2 of this great Country, in my own State of Illinois, I'd be arrested and charged with a felony if I was caught carrying a concealed firearm.

There are over 250,000,000 guns in America. There are around 300,000,000 people. Do the math... Guns aren't going anywhere in the USA. They banned guns in England and gun crime still exists.. but now knife crime is at an all time high. Now they are passing laws restricting the type of knives they can eat a steak dinner with! Next up will be a spike in blunt instrument crimes.

As I'm typing this CNN is reporting a shooting at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Very little details are available but I should point out that NASA security rules do not allow weapons on the property.

Evil will always find a way.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

I took "The Ultimate Star Wars Personality Test"...



I'm Boba Fett.... Who are you?

Friday, April 13, 2007

One of the coolest things I've ever seen...

This IS one of the coolest things I've ever seen! Governor Matt Blunt signed the Katrina Bill into law right in front of us at the Opening Ceremony of the NRA Convention in St. Louis!!! And I mean RIGHT in front of us... as you can see by this pic, Nick and I were VERY close!!

Click to enlarge image...


I only wish we could get this guy to win the Governorship of Illinois!

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Da Arch...

Click to see larger view...

Just a couple minutes from our hotel room, the Gateway Arch is the "icon" of St. Louis.

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Next Resident Evil Movie Trailer Online...

A couple of weeks late but what the hell...

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/residentevilextinction/


...not sure I like the direction they're going with this franchise, but hell... there are some elements of this trailer that are kick ass and even my brother Darren will enjoy!


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