Verity Falls

Bad Law

Mandatory sentencing is a symptom of legislating to mediocrity. We've taken discernment away from the judicial branch by encouraging moronic state legislatures to be tougher on crime. Unfortunately, in our frustration with a few incompetent idiots in the judiciary, we've handed over people's lives to uncompromising laws that don't necessarily apply to the crimes under consideration. This case is one of many that has gotten my fur up lately. Fry the bastards who've raped and molested kids, but don't sentence a a young man to life in prison who violated a mandatory address rule when he's already spent five years in prison for boinking his fifteen year old girlfriend when he was eighteen years old himself. That's a mockery of the intent of the laws that were passed to protect children and punish perpetrators.

I would like to see some common sense put into place on sex and drug crime legislation. We all know who the bad guys are, but wild eyed boys in their senior year smoothing a sophmore beauty out of her panties just doesn't qualify as evil or criminal. Teenagers will have sex, smoke some dope, get drunk, wreck the car and annoy the hell out of their parents. Should they be spanked, rebuked and curbed by their parents and society... absolutely! Should they they go to prison for life for following their natural jack assed tendencies, absolutely not.

In their zeal to pander to public outrage and fear, our local mouth-breathing lawmakers have abandoned all common sense and filled our prisons to the brim with non-violent drug offenders and petty lawbreakers. One of the consequences of mandatory sentencing is the early release of violent criminals. There is not enough space to hold everyone and those who punched the golden ticket for a lengthy mandatory prison term because of a dirty urine sample or transposed address numbers will serve every last day before drawing a free breath, while the beast who robbed and beat an old lady at gunpoint may be walking the streets after a five year stint.

Judges need some discretionary leeway in the handling of individual cases, mandatory sentencing is a one size fits all, simplistic band-aid that assumes our judiciary is grossly incapable of fashioning reasonable punishments within a proscribed set of legal options. As a result, we've turned our prisons into holding pens for drug addicts, alcoholics and the incurably stupid members of our society, while the truly unrepentant, violent criminals cut deals with the prosecutors and serve prison terms that are shortened by forced early release due to overcrowding.

4th of July

To be honest until i started bogging i never really thought about July 4. I mean why would i? Even with family in the US both from long term and more recent, it never came up.

But I hear Daphne won't be seeing any fireworks this year because it's too damn hot and dry. That can't be right. So here is a picture instead.

In honour of my new brother in law who is American with Icelandic roots, here is a display at Reykjavík harbour. Iceland is a stunning country, full of nutty drinkers too. Worth a visit! It is estimated that 90 thousand people were watching this culture night fireworks display (out of a population of 300 thousand). image c/o flickr

Enjoy your day.

Over here - Pub Philosopher has an interesting piece on monarchy here. I agree with the Moomintroll in the thread. I'd go one better and preempt the inevitable by saying as an EU citizen, it has not made a marked difference in my life other than to add to it. One of my favourite factual sites on Monarchy is here. Always an interesting read.

Jeans

On our first horseback ride of the trip, the husband mounted up last, after the wrangler had walked away, he muttered something about needing a schwantz patch since he'd quietly ripped the crotch out of his jeans getting on the horse. The seven year old boy, who's regular decibel level could wake the dead, overheard his daddy and quite loudly (yelled) asked "Daddy, what's a SCHWANTZ PATCH?!?! Without missing a beat, his dad very clearly replied, "It's what keeps your mamma restrained, son." About three seconds into the shocked silence around the corral, ten adults and twenty horses fell over laughing.

I was reminded of this when I pulled these out of the dryer today:

About five minutes later, I came across these over at Rachel Lucus' place - talk about the perfect pants for active men who carry a large package.

Bandera

Bandera is a scruffy little town that hasn't quite gotten the hang of tourism. A few junk shops passing themselves off as antique stores snicked up along side a handful of decrepit diners and a couple of rough plank bars on the mile long Main Street. There's only two reasons to head into town, the Medina river or the cowboy clothing store. The river park's free if you're in the mood to fish or swim and the store's a necessity if you didn't bring enough jeans or boots for your cowboy vacation.

The entire population of Bandera could fit in a phone booth. The locals were an odd mix of weathered old ranchers in hard pressed clothes, shiny faced wetbacks, rural white folks in cut off shorts herding passels of sticky children at the grocery store and lesbians. There were a helluva lot of lesbians walking around this backwater piece of redneck Texas. Solidly built, sleeveless t-shirts, doc martin wearing, wallet chained, short haired lesbians by the bucketful. It was a jarringly pleasant surprise. I love the unexpected twists life throws at my hardened preconceptions.

The surrounding hill country is a gorgeous feast for the eyes, unfortunately most of it's up for sale. The big ranches are being cut up and sold to developers - 3 acre ranchette cul-de-sacs are sprouting up all over the county. The owner of the ranch we were staying at southwest of town, told me the East and West coasters were driving the sales. They've discovered that our little corner of the world is nicer than Phoenix or Miami as a retirement haven. I think it's a damn shame. Once these hills are torn up and planted with houses, it will never be the same beautiful land these outsiders fell in love with and then proceeded to ruin with endless, crappy subdivisions. I wish they would just stay in their own states to play golf, grow old and die.

Week before Last

Night before my sister's wedding. Cafe del Mar Ibiza, famous sunset. My sister's new family from Iceland and America (foreground) and her mates from L.A (back left)

The "Running R" Ranch Rocked

I met a couple of real cowboys at the Running 'R' Ranch in Bandera, Texas over the past few days. Justin, pictured below, was one of our wranglers. This fine young man was born and raised right down the road from the ranch. He rode bulls in rodeos around the country before an injury caused him to come back home for awhile and herd tourists like me for Iris and Ralph on their beautiful ranch. Justin is a deep, wide pool of sweet hearted kindness. I found a quiet intelligence and an incredibly quick sense of humor once his shyness was brooked. Well mannered, he was always ready to make you feel less foolish about some absurdity you just committed on the back of a good horse and he worked his way into my heart pretty quickly when he didn't fall over laughing as I wobbled back to my cabin after a few short rides. If I had a daughter, I'd throw her at him.

Glastonbury

Awww I kind of still like Glasto.  Come rain, mudstorms, sunshine or too many pretentious bubbly swigging liberals. It USED to be better when you could break in over the fence and watch it for free of course but they've installed something like a 40 feet perimeter fence, dogs and uniformed men with automatic weapons to keep people out now. Okay im kidding to an extent - but it has become super high security and commercial in recent years which has taken the shine off it. But if you appreciate a real variety of live music and a hell of a lot of it, you could do worse than watch the BBCs broadcast from the comfort of your own living room.  You get to avoid the nasty camping toilet situation and the muddy quagmires when it rains then too :)

Curtain-twitching Politics

A 11-year-old rape victim has been flown to the UK for an abortion after she was refused a termination in her native Romania. The girl was just 10 years old when she was allegedly raped twice by a 19-year-old man while staying with his family at a village in Neamt in east of the country

Right so "Dress down Friday" came a day early having just read this horror story.

I am so so SO glad I live in a country where my body is legally my own. As a woman up until 24 weeks of pregnancy at least.

The number of curtain-twitching, moralizing, personally intrusive, overly fascinated and almost perverted wackos involved in determining whether this terrified 11 year old Romanian girl could proceed with an abortion in this case makes my stomach turn.

It should not matter whether or not she was raped, though the fascinating angle of proof being required as the clock ticks away for her throws further light on the consistent injustice of prosecuting rape cases when you cannot immediately whip out a bunch of semen and scars as proof.   She remains a terrified sentient 11 year old child inspite of Nature deciding her physically a child bearing woman.  Her decision and that of her immediate family (assuming they have her best interests at heart at all times), is always paramount and in the end uniquely hers. 

The idea that the State, or say, some grandiose pillock in a white cassock in the gold addled Vatican with his tentacles in politics, should determine what you can or cannot do with your own body in such permanent life altering circumstances is beyond abhorrent.  She should not be forced to endure a pregnancy and the subsequent bonding and separation for adoption or bonding and child rearing anymore than she should be forced to undertake a mandatory life sentence for the "crime" of becoming pregnant.

The girl's mother said: "Panel after panel, meeting after meeting. In the meantime, my poor girl gets more and more terrified. "The last thing she needs is more talk. Thank God for the Romanian woman in Britain who has come to her rescue,"

Those panels should get the fuck out of her life.  The Romanian woman who has footed the bill for her travel to Britain (now she is over 20 weeks pregnant and in need of a late termination), should be awarded some kind of humanity honour. 

And as for her going through with the burden in some saintly fashion accepting her fate, well if culpable daddy hadn’t issued the girl with threats and then done a runner perhaps he could have been saddled with the life long childcare in place of an abortion. But interestingly noone apart from the 11 year old girl’s father seemed in the slightest bit interested in pursuing him. And even then only to beat the shit out of him rather than get him to accept his share in the outcome of his lack of dudely restraint.

Cases such as this, the woman left to go half blind in Poland rather than be allowed to abort, or consistently in Nicaragua or anywhere in Central and South America, or even in the US where a pregnant child of 14 committed suicide last year rather than inform her devoutly religious parents in a state where abortion is virtually illegal, remind me how you only need to give an inch to such intrusively judgmental moralizers and they wield their fear mongering power with impunity and with an instinctive and meddling callousness no matter what the circumstances.

It is often rich then that anti abortion cabals accuse women generally of the same utter disdain for human life in reaching a decision to abort no matter that their circumstances will all be different.  Those who have no qualms about their decisions are the exceptions rather than the rule. In the moralizers case and worse where the law supports them (as they would so often like) it IS the rule. 

Celtic & Rangers

Last time i posted a joke up on ATW i got told girls cannot tell jokes.   Oh well, whatever, i still found this funny and I'm less likely to get panned at Verity.

:D

Blatantly knicked it off an ATW thread too:

A man was driving along and swerved to avoid hitting a kid in the road in Glasgow.  He hit the kid's dog, and the dog died. The guy in the car behind got out and told the driver, "That was a very brave thing you did there" and informed the local press. The next morning in the papers the headline was:

'Celtic Fan Saves Child'

The brave driver phoned the local paper and spoke to the journalist. "I'm not a Celtic fan" he said. "I'm a Rangers fan".

"Oh right" replied the journalist.  Next morning's headlines:-

'Mad Rangers Fan Kills Family Pet'

Here are some more usual Rangers fans headlines involving dogs

(& talking of football...good luck to Russia (playing Spain) tonight..)

A Happy Marriage

Because Mahons needs a nice story and Andrea Valdez wrote a good one.

NAMES: Melvin and Minnie Lou Scott | AGES: 101 and 100 | HOMETOWN: Frankston | QUALIFICATIONS: Married eighty years ago on November 11, 1927 / The first of five living generations (one son, three grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren)

• We married at a traveling marvel show. It was like vaudeville, in a tent. They wanted somebody to marry onstage, for the crowd, of course, and they were going to pay $25. We were gonna get married anyway, so we just got married like that. That’s how silly we were.

• With the $25 we bought our bedroom suite, our dishes, and a cabinet for the kitchen. We’re still eating out of the dishes we bought, and we’ve got the cabinet in our kitchen right now.

• We have biscuits and eggs and bacon just about every day. Sausage or whatever we want. Most people are on a diet or something like that. Even our son is, because he has high blood pressure. Neither one of us has stuff we can’t eat.

• We just never thought about anything else but staying married. We never did think about separating or anything just ’cause things weren’t perfect. All you can do is make the best of it.

There's more goodness if you follow the link up above.

Saran Wrapped PETA Meat

In Memphis,

Ashley Byrne, a Washington, D.C.-based campaign coordinator with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), talks with Memphis police officers during a recent demonstration outside City Hall that coincided with World Vegetarian Week. When officers inquired about the well-being of intern Shawn Herbold (bottom) and volunteer Thomas Olsen, a sweat-soaked Herbold replied that she was in pain and feeling nauseated from the heat after being wrapped in cellophane for 30 minutes, and also asked how much longer she needed to stay there. Byrne let her know it wouldn't be much longer and left her under the hot afternoon sun for 30 minutes more while debating with the officers. PETA would never treat a cow that way, but I guess it's OK for an intern. Many organizations that focus on extremes could take note that leading through example makes more impact than demonstrating with hypocrisy.

What a bunch of fucking retards.

Not Good People

I read a story in the L A Times over the weekend about two women, apparently in a relationship, who were arrested and charged with the torture of one of their children, a 5 year old boy. They withheld food, burned him on his genitals with cigarettes, and treated him in a manner that was reprehensible. It was hard to read, and difficult to comprehend how a mother could abuse her own child in such a horrible manner. And then I came across this story, linked by Crime Scene Kansas City.

A man stops his truck in the middle of a road. He walks around to the passenger side of his vehicle. Snatches a toddler out of the car seat, and proceeds to stomp and beat the child to death in the middle of the road. Witnesses say they attempted to stop the man but claim he was so intent on what he was doing that he didn't pay any attention to them. A sheriffs deputy in a helicopter was the first on the scene. They land, order the guy to stop, he ignores the deputy, the deputy shoots him dead. Take a minute to get your head around all of that, I know I had to.

After reading that report, I looked around and found this one. The paper says that people passing by called 911, apparently at least one of them, a fireman physically tried to stop the guy, but this was well in to the beating and probably too late. The thing is, several people apparently witnessed this and called it in, but did little to nothing to intervene. There is an often repeated line about how you never know how you will react in a situation unless you actually go through it. Bullshit. Some situations, like a baby getting stomped in the street, are no brainers. Any decent human being knows how they would react in this situation, you would stop it, at any cost. If it meant caving this animal's skull in with whatever you could pick up, or possibly being attacked yourself, how could anyone do less than that? The report doesn't say anyone ever attempted to get their hands on the child and run with him, the report doesn't say that these people calling 911 did much of anything.

Then we have the story of an old man hit by a car in Hartford Conn. The surveillance tape I posted earlier catches it all. Witnesses again do nothing. One guy circles him on his bike and continues on about his business. In the tape you see people walk by like the guy isn't laying in the middle of the street. Cars drive around him, people gawk from the sidewalk, but do nothing.

I know what you are thinking. Okay, you've depressed me and impressed upon me mans inhumanity to man, so what's your point?

We are a society of do gooders. We save the seals, we feed the children, we walk for breast cancer, we trick or treat for UNICEF, whatever, pick your cause. Now these are all good things to do, every single one of them is a noble cause, but,..........there is this other side to people. We don't want to get involved, when it really matters. We especially don't want to get involved if it means putting ourselves in harms way. Before anyone takes this as a personal assault on their character let me be clear, I'm not referring to anyone directly, but society in general. I hope and believe that many of us would do what's right, and not just turn their head the other way. But society as a whole, as evidenced by these two stories, is unwilling to really help, if helping means putting yourself in harms way.

The people who did little to nothing in these two stories are not good people. they can tithe to the church or go work in a soup kitchen, or do whatever passes for their definition of charity until the cows come home, but it doesn't change reality. The reality is this, when it really mattered, when they could have done something to make a difference, they did nothing. When all of these people were calling 911 as a man stomped a child to an unrecognizable pulp, not one of them stopped the guy. Nobody tackled him, nobody picked something up and split his head open, nobody tried to grab the child and run away, not one of these people did enough, until the fireman and police arrived. As an old man laid in the middle of a busy city street, nobody rushed out to check on him, or hold his hand to comfort him, nobody did enough. These were not good people, and that's all there is to it.

Alison's Bus Rides

Caption this............ the winner gets goddess smoochies and a flavored sticker.

Dog Days of Summer

We're getting hit with the big heat early this year. Rather than gorgeous days in the tolerable low 90's, we're dealing with temps that would scald Satan's ass. High 90's to low 100's by mid afternoon, it makes your teeth sweat when you open the back door. It's seriously hot outside in my neck of the woods and the dogs need some relief when they're not loafing in the a/c. Gaze on the Lab version of the mini-redneck pool!

Stupid Boy

I was laying on the couch Saturday afternoon nursing my post late night head and watching a rerun of a show called "Can You Duet". It's the country music version of American Idol with a better talent pool but the same format: singers, judges and an annoying host with bad hair. So I'm half paying attention until this man and woman come onstage and start to sing - sweet Jesus, they were good, better than good - they were fricking excellent. They made Keith Urban's original take on this song "Stupid Boy" sound like an pale echo. Plus I loved the fact that they didn't look a thing like Barbie and Ken. They won the show, by the way.

I like the Qeen

From a doodle on the back of my scrapbook on the Queen from when i was about 6. Put together for a school project. Today is the Queen's official birthday and Trooping the Colour.

For the first time, the King's Troops was led by a female commanding officer - Major Erica Bridge. I prefer women in the military only as the exception rather than a rule but she was pretty impressive nonetheless.

In an interview with the BBC, Prince Charles said Trooping the Colour was a "stirring and moving occasion".

"It's splendidly British and I hope it will go on for as long as possible because I think the world would be a sadder, drearier and greyer place without it," he said.

Well said.

Many of the soldiers involved in the event have either served in Iraq or Afghanistan or will be deployed there in the coming months.

Verity Falls Poll On Sexual Attractiveness

This poll is aimed at men, but women are welcome to give their two cents.

I'll assume it's a given that we all find the models and actresses covered in the glossies attractive. They represent the pinnacle of beauty in our current society. It doesn't matter if they're natural, photoshopped or surgically altered, these females mirror what we find to be most attractive at this moment in time. They also represent less than 1% of the population, so let's move on to the real world.

I want to know what makes you desire a particular woman. Tell me what it is that sends you over the edge of interest into desire.

I want you to tell me what you find attractive in a woman's shape and face. I want to know if more goes into your idea of sexy than just the outside frame. I want to know if you like wide hips and a narrow waist. I want to know if her smile and sense of humor make you rise as much as her bust line does. I want to know if her intelligence makes you hot. I want to know if chemistry has played a part in making you yearn for a woman who wasn't "your type". I want to know if blond hair and green eyes are the defining factors. I want you to tell me if her adoration and love is the clincher. Is how she makes you feel more important than how she looks?

I want to know what you find beautiful about us and makes you trip over the edge into love and passion.

To Dumb To Breed

We see one or two of these stories every year and each time I think the woman must be the dumbest box of rocks on the planet. It usually turns out to be some poor teenager who lied through her teeth to avoid getting in trouble or some grossly obese woman who hasn't had a normal menstrual cycle in years and could easily mistake the movements of a baby for gas pains under that layer of fat, if she felt anything at all. (I always wonder about the men who climb on top of all that flesh - the variety of male lust just floors me.)

But this woman is 30 years old and normal sized - how in the hell do you miss 6.5 months of not having your period? Didn't it register that her tampon purchase went to zero? Let me tell you, at 6 months you feel that baby moving, it doesn't even come close to resembling stomach troubles. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt about contraceptive failure, but you'd think a woman with half a clue would put two and two together and come up with the normal result.

"I haven't had a period in 6 months, my tummy is swelling, something's moving around in there and, oh yeah, I boinked Roger last Christmas at the office party!"

This woman is too stupid to parent a child.

Bush Is Mad

I believe President Bush has completely lost his mind.

Last month, while the American people were becoming the personal ATMs of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Saudi Arabia signing away an even more valuable gift: nuclear technology. In a ceremony little-noticed in this country, Ms. Rice volunteered the U.S. to assist Saudi Arabia in developing nuclear reactors, training nuclear engineers, and constructing nuclear infrastructure. While oil breaks records at $130 per barrel or more, the American consumer is footing the bill for Saudi Arabia's nuclear ambitions.

The Mutilation Of Children

Islamic law is unclear as to the morality of forcible excision of the clitoris:

After weeks of heated deliberations, the Egyptian parliament on Saturday passed new pieces of legislation that impose relatively harsh legal restrictions on female circumcision and allow women for the first time to register their babies even if the father’s identity is unknown.

One law imposes a sentence of a maximum of two years and a fine of a maximum of $1,000 for performing female genital mutilation. This issue has caused much stir in the people’s assembly, especially among the Muslim Brotherhood, which holds one-fifth of the parliamentary seats. Conservatives maintain that Islam condones the removal of a girl’s clitoris to tame her sexual desires and condemn the amendment as a western import.

Coercive clitoridectomy, which the press in its multiculturalist zeal sanitizes with the delicate, inoffensive, and outrageously inaccurate term "female circumcision," is so widely promoted by Muslim leaders in Egypt that an estimated 70% of girls have been so mutilated. It took great courage for the Egyptian parliament to impose new penalties to deter the practice. The fact that it took great courage -- and "weeks of heated deliberations" -- is outrageous and barbaric.

Western multiculturalists say they respect Islam. Sure, I understand that it might seem expedient to pretend to respect Islam, but I honestly do not understand how any self-respecting Westerner can actually defend a religion that is widely understood to condone and even mandate the mutilation of children.

Sick & Grouchy

I woke up with a monster head cold yesterday, at first I thought it was just a weird tequila hangover brought on by sucking down a few too many margaritas while dancing to Santana on the the coffee table in the back yard the previous night. (Yeah, my neighbors do hate me) No such luck. I'm ready to cut my snot filled, aching head off with a jagged knife.

Being sick with small kids at home is no picnic. You want to lay on the couch and watch endless reruns of Law & Order while spacing out on cold meds, they want to be as annoying and needy as humanly possible. They can't seem to wrap their little brains around the fact that MOMMY DOESN"T CARE if you're hungry, got kicked in the nads, ate a bug, spilled the pitcher of kool aid, got called penis breath, threw your shoes on the roof, lost a tooth, stopped up the toilet, and most of all, if you're bored.

The husband is out of town and we're out of food, so I'll be dragging my raggedy ass to the grocery shortly - but the only aisle I'm going down is Frozen Food. Maybe I'll hit the wine department too, the kids aren't going to let up and a nice bottle of red will alleviate my strong desire to duct tape their mouths shut and lock them in the closet for the rest of the day.

Been There

Mobile Manners

The excellent Maletti's pizza sandwich shop in Soho. And if you still haven't got the message, further inside:

via a great photo series at  Soho Food (not sure if i can post their photos so if i have to ill take 'em down!)

Other dress downs:

Turkey's constitutional court overturns a law allowing women to wear headscarves at universities, a decision which threatens the ruling party with closure for allegedly promoting Islam. Good for Turkey's secularists! All religion when it is manifestly political or overt for the sake of religiosity, with its dumb little rules and regulations on clothing in particular, is inherently wacko.  None more so than Islam.

One more: if you have one of Daphn'es margueritas at hand and fancy enjoying a very funny series of dress downs, have a read through the comments section of "How Sarkozy Seduced Me" by Carla Bruni in the Times.

Not Every Day...

...your commute is interrupted by a 1,000kg (2,200lb) unexploded World War 2 bomb. 

It's being detonated this afternoon.  Major Davis said it was "impossible" to say how many unexploded World War II bombs remained in London.  I think the last big one was 30 years ago according to the BBC article.

Personally I prefer it when they simply uncover Roman remains!

Blank Slates

An empty apartment returns to its original purpose right after the last box is carried to the car, nothing more than a blank slate with lives temporarily scribbled across it before being wiped clean. The remains of a broken ironing board leaning against one wall and a small stack of blankets piled in another corner were the only signs left that we had lived there for the past year. It was scrupulously clean and so, so quiet that afternoon. There was a hundred dollar bill sitting on the kitchen counter along with a note. My mother had moved in with her boyfriend, my little brother had been taken along, it was for the best that I not come too, so sorry, here's the phone number and address in case of emergencies.

I met adulthood that day after school, I had just turned fifteen.