Hmmmm….who should get the blame for today’s massacre at Virginia Tech? Should it be video games? A lack of guns? Not enough Jesus?

I blame the shooter.

He seemed like a normal kid…

The oldest of three brothers raised on South L Street in Lake Worth, Florida, [Charles] Whitman attended St. Ann’s High School in Palm Beach, where he was a pitcher on the school’s baseball team. Charles and his brothers all served as altar boys at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, and he chose the Confirmation name “Joseph” for himself.

At the age of 6, he had scored 138 on an IQ test. Six years later, he was among the youngest to ever achieve Eagle Scout, to his father’s delight. He took five years of piano lessons.

When Whitman was 14, and still serving as an altar boy, his Scout leader Joseph Leduc completed seminary and served as the priest of Sacred Heart for a month. Leduc was a family friend, who had accompanied Whitman and his father on several hunting trips. This was also the year that he finally overcame his habit of nervously biting his nails. At the age of 16, Whitman underwent a routine appendectomy. The same year, he was hospitalized following a motorcycle accident.

When he graduated high school, he joined the Marines…

At first Whitman did quite well in the Corps, earning a Good Conduct Medal and the Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal at Guantanomo Naval Base in Cuba. He also scored an eye opening 215 out of a possible 250 points on the shooting range, receiving a Sharpshooters Badge. Trying to prove his father wrong and be successful, Whitman applied for a Naval Enlisted Science Education Program scholarship, which would help him earn an engineering degree at a selected school. Whitman got the award, and was expected to enter Officer’s Candidate School upon the completion of his degree. In September of 1961 he enrolled at the University of Texas.

But despite all that promise, something awful happened five years later :

It’s a story that’s too familiar. Someone disturbed through emotional or physical trauma loses control and acts out a violent fantasy. It’s not because they play video games or listen to aggressive music or watch violent movies or don’t go to church. Oppressive security measures and an obsessive push to rid our culture of unpleasant imagery won’t make us safer. Despite what those desperate to finding an easy fix to a complicated (and probably unsolvable) problem would have you believe, sometimes people just snap.

Since moving to WordPress, I’ve played with the font size, adjusted a few margins, and fixed the RSS feed (I think). How’s everything looking? I’m looking into bringing back the comments pop-up, but I’ll need to dig a little deeper into the PHP. Also, click on the link in the header to see the new “About” page. I think you’ll like it.

I was called in for jury duty yesterday and was placed in the jury pool for a class action lawsuit against AAA. Based on what both sides said, it looks like our friends at the Auto Club are pulling the “exempt/non-exempt” trick to screw their employees out of overtime pay. As I was hearing the charges of employees being forced to work late nights and weekends without even as much as a meal break, I couldn’t help but think to myself “I hope they take those bastards down”. Unlike the last time I got called in to do my civic duty, it’s probably for the best that I wasn’t chosen for this trial.

If I were a presidential candidate, I would be doing everything I could to get American troops out of Iraq before Nov. 2008. Binding resolutions that demand withdrawal, cutting off funding, you name it. Because whoever ends up taking over the presidency from Junior is going to end up getting blamed for this damnned thing. The Bushies are trying to pass the buck to the next “decider” and the natural result of that will be every war supporter (not just the neocons) will insist that the war could have been won if we’d just stayed just a little longer. If you’re afraid of being branded a “defeatist” now, it’s nothing compared to the insults you’ll face being the first commander in chief in recent memory with enough humility and honesty to admit a mistake. Or to put things another way, if you win next year’s election and get stuck cleaning up George Bush’s mess, don’t kid yourself into thinking you’ll get a second term.

Here’s an interesting map I saw on an environmental blog the other day that I can’t stop thinking about :

“Solar power systems installed in the areas defined by the dark disks could provide a little more than the world’s current total primary energy demand (assuming a conversion efficiency of 8%). That is, all energy currently consumed, including heat, electricity, fossil fuels, etc., would be produced in the form of electricity by solar cells.”

On the surface, this seems like one of those fun little activist infographics that makes it seem as if we’re one giant leap away from solving all of our troubles. Obviously this approach would have problems since these tiny dots are still hundreds of square miles in size, but considering the advancements in solar technology over the last few years and the fact that the area represented by these dots could be dispersed on roofs and other wasted space, I wonder how well an investment in solar energy would pay off. Would the costs (monetary and energy-wise) required to replace our energy needs with solar panels be worth it? Is the technology efficient enough yet to justify this sort of investment? What do you guys think?

This is funny. In an attempt to downplay anti-occupation protests throughout Iraq yesterday, conservative bloggers have been cherry-picking news about the protests to describe the turnout as “underwhelming” and “weak” while using this photo as proof that the demonstrations fell far short of their 3,000,000 person goal (via ThinkProgress):

To put this protest in perspective, however, let’s look at the same location four years and two days ago when the statue of Saddam Hussein was brought down :



President Bush once said of this photo-op :

“The toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad will be recorded, alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall, as one of the great moments in the history of liberty.”

That’s odd. From the photo it seems a little underwhelming to me.

So, first there was Project Runway, a show that was surprisingly good because it was actually a merit-based competition about talented (and entertaining) people designing clothes. It was entertaining, creative, and gave you a real appreciation for the art of clothing design. Then came Top Chef, which was for all practical purposes “Project Kitchen”. While not quite as successful as Runway, replacing designers with chefs was a formula that mostly worked.

Now there’s Top Design, a show that should be great - after all, it’s Project Runway meets HGTV - but is only remarkable for how unengaging it is. The show’s challenges have lacked the creativity from the previous shows, not that it would help considering that the first episode’s obvious kitsch-centric challenge went over the head of every contestant. Not that it really matters, though, since the designers haven’t really made themselves stick out as much as the contestants on Bravo’s other shows.

The worst part of the show by a mile is the camera presence of Todd Oldham, who seems to have learned everything he knows about hosting from Mr. Show’s “Blind House” sketch :

Also, it should be pointed out that there’s a special level in Hell for people who come up with catch phrases like Top Design’s “See ya later, decorator”.

So, with Top Design stumbling towards its finale, I can’t help but dread Bravo’s next attempt to cash in on the Project Runway formula, Shear Genius. Is there really an entire season’s worth of challenges to be made out of hair styling? Compared to the other three shows, it seems sorta limited.

If Bravo insists on beating the Project Runway formula to death, I hope they do a series set in the fine arts world next. I’d love to see painters struggle with a sculpture challenge. Or see some jerk-off insist that they don’t have to have any technique because their work is “conceptual”. Or a challenge that takes everyone to the Crayola factory. Or one in which they have to paint something that’s meaningful to them, only to find out the real challenge is to see who can sell the most t-shirts of their painting. Or a commercial illustration challenge in which the contestants have to redesign a corporate logo or redesign the packaging for some product they find abhorrent. Get a dozen pretentious assholes together like that and you know it’s gonna be a good show. The winner gets a gallery show and a feature in Juxtapoz magazine, the loser has to pack his brushes and go.

All of the hypocrisy swirling around the Don Imus “controversy” is driving me nuts. The media as a whole (especially CNN & Fox) have no place to criticize Imus for the offensive things he said. That’s why they hire loudmouths like Imus in the first place. We’ve seen this same cycle repeat itself ad infinitum and if it’s not Imus, it’s Glenn Beck, or Nancy Grace, or Howard Stern, or those pinheads at Fox News. When all of the forced apologizes have been doled out and the boycotts lose steam, everyone knows this is a net positive for the entertainment news industry because people are going to tune in just to see what the racist asshole in the cowboy hat says next.

Atrios is sooo right with his description of “The Compromise Shuffle”

Democrats loudly proclaim their willingness to negotiate and compromise, even after they’ve already compromised with themselves. The Bush administration loudly proclaims its unwillingness to do so. Broderesque columnists loudly wail about the fact that both sides are unwilling to sit down over tea and negotiate and compromise.

Republicans sneak in with what they call a “compromise” which, magically, will be exactly what Bush wants, and won’t involve actually compromising with the people who run Congress.

At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is who gets results. When the Democrats are willing to compromise and get nothing, it just reinforces the notion that they’re a bunch of gutless weasels. “Sorry guys, we tried” isn’t the best message to send to voters. In an interview Salon, John Edwards gets it exactly right :

Are you confident that if the Democrats stood firm, Bush, who is certainly the most stubborn president of our lifetime, would back down? or would it just ratchet up into a confrontation?

Why should we presume that he won’t back down, and therefore we must back down? That’s not what we should do. We should be strong for the troops, for America and for the entire world. The Democrats need to be strong. That’s what we ought to do. That’s what I’d do.

Exactly. Even if the eventual plan is to strip out the withdrawal language and give the President the money he’s asking for don’t talk about it to the press. Are you people stupid?? Any power that the Democrats think they might have gained in getting a pro-withdrawal bill through Congress is negated when the dumbass leaders tell reporters “Yeah, we’re probably gonna back down”. Fools.

UPDATE : The President’s spokesperson shows the kind of guts that the Democrats seem to lack (via TPM):

“This is not a meeting in order to compromise” Heh, guess which side is gonna win this battle? If the Democrats wanted to be savvy, they’d say something like this :

We’ve tried to be conciliatory and work with the executive branch, but the President’s patronizing attitude is unacceptable. If you insist on talking to your colleagues like children, then let me make one thing clear to you.

You don’t get to write legislation. That’s our job. You’re not in charge. You don’t get a blank check. You asked for money and we’re providing it. Take it or leave it, Mr. President. If you veto this bill, then you’re the one blocking funding to our troops. If you want to stand between our military and the funding that we’ve given them, then that’s your choice.

At this point, we’re getting into Mr. Smith territory since the Democrats already signaled their intention to back down before the President has even had a chance to use his veto pen.