Archive for the ‘Sarcasm’ Category

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My latest batch of million dollar ideas.

Monday, March 18th, 2024

1. I figure this one will hold up until the estate of Frank Herbert sues me. But then again, with a sufficiently good lawyer, I’m sure we can argue a parody exemption on this one:

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Fremen.

So far, I’ve got three. I’m thinking of recruiting a collaborator to help me flesh out the book a little.

  1. Walk without rhythm, to avoid attracting the worm.
  2. Never turn your back to the opposition.
  3. Don’t get high on your own (spice) supply.

(Yes, I did see “Dune Part 2” yesterday. Why do you ask?)

2. This one may be more of a $100,000 idea than a million dollar one, as there may be geographic limitations:

Vicious Australian Animal as a Service. (VAAaaS).

For s small fee to cover animal wrangling, packaging, shipping, and our profit, we’ll send a vicious Australian animal to your “favorite” person in the world. Message optional. We’ll maintain anonymity, and you can pay in cryptocurrency.

Let’s face it. Wouldn’t you love to send that “special person” who’s been acting like a rude (word that rhymes with “glass bowl”) a box jellyfish? Or a Sydney funnel-web spider? It sends a pretty clear message, and seems to me to be much more effective than a box of fecal matter.

There may be some issues with shipping marine life, like the box jellyfish or blue-ringed octopus, but spiders should be relatively easy. It would just be a small matter of finding animal wranglers and appropriate packaging. And lawyers.

We’d probably operate on a sliding scale, based on the size of the animal. Spiders and snakes should be small and easy to ship, while koalas and drop bears would be more expensive, as they would require special handling and packaging.

(I do have some morals. For that reason, VAAaaS will not ship Tasmanian devils, as they are endangered.)

Posted in Bagatelle, Books, Leadership, Movies, Sarcasm | 1 Comment »

Bagatelle (#94)

Wednesday, September 6th, 2023

Shot:

Chaser:

A retired doctor was arrested Tuesday after police allegedly discovered guns, drugs and prostitutes on his 70-foot yacht in Nantucket — following reports a distressed woman had possibly overdosed and “did not feel safe” onboard.
Scott Anthony Burke, 69, was slapped with drug trafficking and weapons charges after cops raided his luxury vessel — Jess Conn – and uncovered the trove of guns, cocaine and ketamine, court records obtained by The Boston Globe allege.

First, it was “no personal watercraft on Lake Austin during the holiday”.

Then, they put up big electronic signs telling us not to “drag chains” or “toss lit cigarettes” because of “wildfire risk”.

And now, it appears you can’t even have hookers, blow, and guns on your yacht. What am I supposed to do with my weekends now? And what’s the point of even having a yacht these days?

Joyless fun-suckers, sucking the fun out of everything.

Posted in Bagatelle, Boats, Guns, Law, Sarcasm | 1 Comment »

Important safety tip (#22 in a series)

Wednesday, January 19th, 2022

Lawrence brought up an important safety tip the other night, based on two documentaries the Saturday Movie Group has watched. (“Barry Lyndon” and “Gone With the Wind”.)

Don’t buy a horse for your child.

It never ends well.

(Did you know IMDB has a “riding accident” keyword?)

Posted in Horses, Safety, Sarcasm | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 231

Monday, November 16th, 2020

I’ve got an eye doctor’s appointment today, so I’m being a little lazy again. I thought I’d dabble a bit in true crime.

This is an odd one, as it is from that Canadian program “The Fifth Estate”, but deals with a case in the United States: Dixon Illinois, to be exact, which is a little far south to be considered Southern Canada.

The town’s Comptroller, Rita Crundwell, embezzled an estimated $53 million between approximately 1990 and 2012 (when she was indicted). That seems to me to be an astonishing amount of money, especially for a town with a population of about 15,000. (That’s close to $2.5 million a year.)

And did she spend it on moving to a country without an extradition treaty? Nope. She spent it on…quarter horses. Supposedly, she became one of the leading quarter horse breeders in the US: at least, until she was indicted, tried, and sentenced to 19 1/2 years in prison.

I personally am kind of baffled by this: there’s nothing wrong with raising horses (though stealing money from taxpayers is objectionable) but if you’re going to do it, why not raise whole horses? Why raise just a quarter of a horse? What can you do with a quarter horse?

(Yes, I will be here all week.)

Bonus: True confession, I have not watched this yet, but “All the Queen’s Horses” is a longer documentary about Rita Crundwell and the Dixon fraud.

Posted in History, Horses, Law, Sarcasm | Comments Closed

Railroaded.

Monday, October 5th, 2020

In a just society, this would be considered “justifiable homicide”.

A 35-year-old Arkansas man was sentenced to more than 100 years for fatally shooting a woman and wounding his brother over a fast-food order last year, KTHV reported.

…

According to FOX13, a neighbor heard Crocket say, “B—-, you know I don’t like mayonnaise on my hamburger,” when he received his meal order. According to the local news outlet, Crockett struck Aldrige once and Thomas three. Crockett turned himself in to police custody days after the shooting, according to the report.
FOX13 reported that a jury found Crockett guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree battery. Circuit Judge Ralph Wilson sentenced Crocket to up to 130 years in prison, due to his multiple counts including 75 years for first-degree murder, 40 years for first-degree battery, and an additional 15 years for possession of a firearm as a felon, the report said.

(Hattip: my mother.)

Posted in Food, Law, Sarcasm | Comments Closed

Things I enthusiastically and wholeheartedly agree with.

Wednesday, August 26th, 2020

The first two panels of today’s “Dinosaur Comics”. Having extensively studied listened to the first 112 or so episodes of “The History Of Rome”, I am confident in stating that the decline and fall of the Roman Empire began when the Empire proscribed setting off fireworks whenever you felt like it.

All of this Babylon Bee op-ed. (Hattip: MtM.) Yes, I am aware that they are a satire site, but everything in that piece is correct: everything did start going downhill when men stopped wearing hats.

“The best thing about kids’ soccer being canceled this year”. Although I quibble slightly with this: the best thing about kids soccer being cancelled isn’t the renewed socialization, it is the fact that kids aren’t playing soccer.

Posted in Bagatelle, Explosives, Hats, Sarcasm, Sports | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 36

Tuesday, May 5th, 2020

Here’s something on the shorter side. This is also animated, so you can share it with your children. After all, everyone knows that anything animated is for kids.

From 1962, and also from the Bell System: “A Missile Named Mac”. Nice short little animated video about how ballistic missile guidance systems worked at the time.

I’m not exactly sure who is doing the talking here. I’d figure once “Mac” hits the target at 300 miles puer minute, he’s pretty much obliterated. Does “Mac” transfer his consciousness from missile to missile? Does this open up a whole weird can of metaphysical worms?

Bonus: “Biography of a Titan”.

The Titan Missile Museum in Arizona.

Posted in History, Sarcasm | 1 Comment »

Pop quiz, hotshot.

Monday, July 22nd, 2019

Is this headline from The Babylon Bee or the New York Times?

How ‘The Lion King’ Gets Real-Life Lion Family Dynamics Wrong

Answer after the jump. No fair playing if you already know the answer…

(more…)

Posted in Mammals, Media, Movies, Sarcasm | Comments Closed

Because he got high.

Monday, December 18th, 2017

Because he got high, Ryan Boehle threatened to shoot cops.

Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration: “he planned to celebrate his 50th birthday by shooting police because he was upset about a drunken driving arrest in which his blood test came back negative for alcohol”.

Mr. Boehle was arrested. The police seized a total of 13 guns, “1,110 bullets” (sorry, I’m quoting the Statesman here) and 6.3 grams of marijuana.

Mr. Boehle was never actually charged for the threats. The judge in the case is quoted as calling his writings “marijuana-induced gibberish.” It sounds like this is one of those true threat/not a true threat sort of legal distinctions that Ken White keeps trying to explain to myself and other people, and I keep not understanding, but that’s getting off topic.

(Also, “Marijuana-Induced Gibberish” would be a great name for a band.)

But we have to throw him in jail for something, right?

(“Why?” Hey, that’s not the kind of question you should be asking.)

I know! We’ll get him for “making a false statement in connection with the attempted acquisition of a firearm”! Mr. Boehle has a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction from 1993 in Connecticut: he allegedly “slapped, choked and bit his girlfriend”. As a result of this, he apparently failed the background check at three Austin area gun shops (again, per the Statesman).

However, during pretrial litigation the charge was determined to be insufficient to prohibit gun possession.

Oh, dear. Now what is the state going to do?

Wait: there’s that devil’s lettuce they found!

With their case weakening, prosecutors held tight to the gun-and-weed charge, using it to successfully to argue that Boehle should be denied bond and kept in jail pending the resolution of the case. Characterizing Boehle as a habitual marijuana user took little effort from the government, which not only had the pot found in his home but also test results from the DWI arrest that showed the presence of the drug.

Cutting closer to the end of the story, Mr. Boehle pled out to a charge of “owning a gun as a prohibited person”. You see, pot is still federally illegal, and the law says it is illegal for a pot smoker to own guns.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals established the definition of an unlawful drug user who is unable to own guns in 1999, when it affirmed the conviction of a Midland man who had been arrested several times with marijuana. He argued on appeal that the law fails to establish a time frame for when a person must use a controlled substance in connection with the possession of a firearm. The court ruled that an ordinary person could determine the man was a drug user. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

This doesn’t happen a lot. The Statesman quotes one California attorney who specializes in pot law as saying he’s never seen this in 50 years of practice. On the other hand, though, the Honolulu PD famously recently sent out letters to people with medical marijuana cards: “Give up your guns, or else.” (They apparently haven’t followed through on the “or else” part yet.)

Mr. Boehle was sentenced to five years of probation, and will be drug tested as part of that. The twist at the end is: he has a form of epilepsy, and wants to use a low THC marijuana extract to treat it. But he’s going to have to get his probation terms modified to allow this treatment. Texas has only recently legalized the use of the extract to treat epilepsy (“…only after a patient has tried at least two other treatments”) so Mr. Boehle will be venturing into uncharted territory.

Posted in Austin, Cops, Guns, Law, Politics, Sarcasm, Travis County | Comments Closed

This is intended to enrage you. (#8 in a series)

Friday, September 1st, 2017

I don’t post every “bad cop, no doughnut” incident here because I just don’t have time. There’s only 24 hours in the day, and I have to work to pay bills and sleep so I can go to work to pay bills and then there’s all that time I spend in the opium den. (Heroin is déclassé. The true gentleman smokes opium.)

But this one set my teeth on edge.

Utah cop wants to draw blood from a hospital patient who was badly injured in an accident. Patient is not under arrest, is not a suspect (his truck was hit head-on by a fleeing suspect who died in the crash), police officer has no warrant, and patient is unconscious so he can’t provide consent.

Nurse says, “I’m sorry, but you can’t do that. It’s against hospital policy, and it’s against the law.”

Cop arrests nurse.

“So why don’t we just write a search warrant,” the officer wearing the body camera says to Payne.
“They don’t have PC,” Payne responds, using the abbreviation for probable cause, which police must have to get a warrant for search and seizure. He adds that he plans to arrest the nurse if she doesn’t allow him to draw blood. “I’ve never gone this far,” he says.

After the arrest:

Another officer arrives and tells her she should have allowed Payne to collect the samples he asked for. He says she obstructed justice and prevented Payne from doing his job.
“I’m also obligated to my patients,” she tells the officer. “It’s not up to me.”

This is one of those things I hear a lot in my CPA classes and on the Internet: “Even if you think the officer is wrong, go ahead and comply. You’re not going to win the argument in the field.” And I can kind of agree with that. Sometimes.

But there are cases like this one where you have to take a stand. Even if it means being handcuffed. Even if it means going to jail. Even if it means a beating. Maybe this is part of your oath as a health care professional. Or just simply a matter of taking a stand when somebody else can’t.

And it wasn’t just a matter of hospital policy conflicting with the law:

In Thursday’s news conference, Wubbels’s attorney Karra Porter said that Payne believed he was authorized to collect the blood under “implied consent,” according to the Tribune. But Porter said “implied consent” law changed in Utah a decade ago. And in 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that warrantless blood tests were illegal. Porter called Wubbels’s arrest unlawful.
“The law is well-established. And it’s not what we were hearing in the video,” she said. “I don’t know what was driving this situation.”

The officer in question is Detective Jeff Payne. Remember that name: Detective Jeff Payne.

Salt Lake police spokesman Sgt. Brandon Shearer told local media that Payne had been suspended from the department’s blood draw unit but remained on active duty. Shearer said Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown had seen the video and called it “very alarming,” according to the Deseret News.

According to Reason:

Payne also said it was his watch commander, Lt. James Tracy, who told him to arrest Wubbels if she refused to draw blood.

Remember that name, too. Lt. James Tracy. (And Payne doesn’t get a pass because his watch commander said to do this: “I was just following orders” hasn’t flown since Nuremberg.)

Alex Wubbels, the nurse, is actually taking a more moderate position than I would.

For now, Wubbels is not taking any legal action against police. But she’s not ruling it out.
“I want to see people do the right thing first and I want to see this be a civil discourse,” she said Thursday, according to the Deseret News. “If that’s not something that’s going to happen and there is refusal to acknowledge the need for growth and the need for re-education, then we will likely be forced to take that type of step. But people need to know that this is out there.”

I hope she does sue. I hope she sues the department and Lt. James Tracy and Detective Jeff Payne in their individual capacities. I hope Lt. James Tracy and Detective Jeff Payne are stripped of their qualified immunity. I hope they are bankrupted and fired from the Salt Lake City police force. I would like to see them criminally prosecuted and stripped of their law enforcement licenses, though I’m not sure what charges could be brought against them. (Federal civil rights violations?)

Posted in Cops, Law, Rage, Sarcasm | 3 Comments »

TMQ Watch: August 29, 2017.

Wednesday, August 30th, 2017

Week two. Gesundheit.

Our count is roughly 9,400 words. Will TMQ join the 10,000 Club this season? We would not be surprised.

(And this is why we’re running behind: we do plan to try to get these up on Tuesday, but if the Weekly Standard is going to let Easterbrook run on as long as he wants, without apparent editing or restrictions, we can’t promise that.)

After the jump, this week’s column…

(more…)

Posted in Music, NFL, Sarcasm, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

I, for one, welcome our New World Order overlords.

Tuesday, August 1st, 2017

See, I knew the NWO was good for something.

“We were chanting, ‘Death to the New World Order’ about 10 years ago after watching all of your documentaries, and then about a week later, we were no longer on television and haven’t had a consistent TV gig since then,” Pratt said. “So if the New World Order is watching, you know, we still will not accept chips, but, you know, we will take a gig in the established media because we have a baby and we have some bills to pay so, you know, New World Order, we’re available.”

Posted in Sarcasm, TV | Comments Closed

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