Do planes have cockpits or gun turrets?

I am not anti-gun, but when the Transportation Security Administration initiated a program in 2003 that permitted pilots to carry guns, I felt this was a bad idea. I think a pilot's job is to fly the plane, not participate in firefights on it. Moreover, given the security at airports, I was uncertain what benefit gun-toting pilots offered compared to the risk.

The first accident occurred over the weekend. A pilot's gun accidentally discharged in the cockpit on a US Airways flight from Denver to Charlotte. There were 124 passengers, two pilots and three flight attendants on board the flight at the time. No one was injured.

So thus far, the number of passengers saved by armed pilots has been zero, but the number of passengers whose lives were threatened has been 124. Can't we leave the weapons to the air marshals who get extensive and ongoing training in handling armed confrontations rather than to pilots who get one week of training?

As a passenger, I actually don't feel safer with armed pilots. What do you think?

Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger's Love Child -- Heidi Fleiss

OtherCrap.com thought Heidi Fleiss' mug shot looked like a cross between Carly Simon and The Cheshire Cat. Personally, I think she looks like Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger's love child. What do you think?

Fleiss, BTW, was picked up for driving without a license, possession of dangerous drugs without a prescription, under the influence of a controlled substance and driving under the influence of a controlled substance.

Way to get to Hell #2: Protect your children

I won't pretend to understand how or if people go one place or another after death, but if there is a Hell, I am pretty sure Tina Williams of Florida will find herself there.

On Super Bowl Sunday, Tina was arrested for Driving Under the Influence. Now, that alone isn't enough to send one's soul to everlasting damnation, but it's not a very good idea, either.

Tina's real offense was that in her car she had a one-year old child and a case of beer. One was secured with a seat belt, and the other wasn't. (Do I need to tell you which was which?)

And to put the icing on her "Bon Voyage to Hell" cake, Tina was protecting--are you ready for this--a case of Busch beer! That's right--not an import; not a premium brand, not even Miller Lite (winner of four Beer Cup awards as Best American-Style Light Lager).

I submit to you that Tina has some irreparably messed up priorities. [Via Other Crap]

Did they check for fingerprints?

A Dutch teenager has been arrested for stealing virtual furniture in a 3D social networking web site. The 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4,000 euros worth of virtual furniture, bought with real money.

Kinda makes you wonder how they got the police interested in the crime, doesn't it? I agree it's a crime, but when you dial 911 and say, "Help. A theft is underway. Someone is stealing my furniture in World of Warcraft," I suspect the police will be more interested in you than the avatar you're reporting.

It's also a dumb crime. This sorta stuff is easy to track in the databases of social networking sites and virtual worlds.

Check out the article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7094764.stm. Thanks to Ben for sharing this!

Dumb Criminal of the Day

This brilliant criminal mastermind walked into a bank, stepped up to a teller sitting about 15 feet from a uniformed officer, and tried to rob the place. Needless to say the cop intervened and the guy was eventually caught.

But while the crook is clearly a couple cards short of a full deck, I'm not sure the cop is much brighter. Entering a dangerous situation with a larger, younger, possibly armed perpetrator, the cop gives up his only advantage--surprise--by sauntering up and touching the guy on the arm. It looks more like he's asking the robber to dance, not trying to arrest him.

Jodie Foster's Not Nearly as Smart as I Thought She Was

I've been a fan of Jodie Foster for years. Who else has a filmography as interesting as this: Freaky Friday, Taxi Driver, The Accused, Contact, and Silence of the Lambs?

But I think I was deceived by the smart women she tends to play. In this week's Entertainment Weekly, she makes one of those sweeping, shallow, judgmental assessments of our country of the type that drives me crazy. Jodie, talking about the social context of her latest movie, said "Americans are by nature filled with rage-slash-fear."

While I appreciate Ms. Foster's assessment based on her many years of sociological studies and research, I'd like to ask her to back that up. I think she is spending too much time in her characters, who of late (The Brave One, Flightplan, and Panic Room) seem to be threatened and beaten more than a character in your average Lifetime movie.

There is no question the crime rate in the United States is too high, but here are some stats that would probably surprise Jodie.

First of all, the U.S. Firearm homicide rate is less than four people per 100,000 of population. Too high? Absolutely, but Jodie may need to get out of Hollywood and meet some normal Americans to appreciate we're not all gun-toting maniacs.

Her latest film is one of those movies where innocent people are attacked by a gang as part of gang initiation rite--an occurrence that I'll bet has happened more in movies and on TV than in real life. Reality is actually quite different: Recent studies have shown that a huge majority of crime victims themselves have criminal arrest records. As the USA Today put it, "Criminals target each other."

And here's something Jodie doesn't seem to know about we violent Americans--we're not nearly as violent as we used to be. The homicide rate is almost half what it was in the 70s and early 80s, and is, in fact, pretty similar to what the US had in the Ozzie and Harriet 1950s. And Total Violent crime is less than half of what it was just 15 years ago.

Maybe Jodie meant to say that Americans were slashing fear and rage and not filled with fear-slash-rage. Or, maybe she's just another shallow actress trying to sell her Death-Wish-like, revenge fantasy by callously casting aspersions. I think it's a pretty poor reflection on Jodie that she'd try to raise fear to sell a movie while at the same time appearing to criticize that very same fear.

I think it's time she started seeking out some comedies rather than all these victim-porn movies she's been doing recently. Maybe Mel Gibson wants to do Maverick II?

Find a Sex Offender in Your Neighborhood

Here is a site that allows you to see a map of your neighborhood complete with the home and work addresses of sex offenders. You can click on map icons to see photos and read conviction records of offenders. There may be more nearby than you think!

http://www.familywatchdog.us/search.asp

Interesting note about this post: Finding and posting this link caused me to think deeply about my last post where I suggested we're all more alike than different. How do I square my "we are the world" outlook with a map that graphically represents neighbors who've done terrible, unforgivable things?

First of all, I never said we were all identical! And while you and I may not care to knock on their door to get to know them, my guess is that we'd find other than the truly mentally ill, these people may not be that different than we are--except for one very important character flaw, an inability to tell right from wrong, and/or an inability to empathize with others. Big differences, to be sure; but the uncomfortable truth is that criminals aren't all the wild-eyed, scary-looking monsters of film and TV. Crime happens from people more like you and I than we might care to admit.

Why Hilary Duff Will Be Around for a While and Lindsay Won't

If you should get big and famous at some point in your life, here is a piece of advice: Find someone who can say "no" to you, and listen.

Celebs who flame out seem to suffer from a problem: They think because they are famous, that means they are entitled to fulfill every wish and desire, no matter how senseless, dangerous, or ill conceived.

Take Lindsay Lohan and her "mother" and "manager" Dina. At every turn, Dina has backed her daughter no matter how reckless or damaging her daughter's behavior has become. I know it's hard to keep track, but here is Lindsay's 2007 track record:

• In May, Lindsay caused a car accident, was arrested, and pleaded guilty to two charges of being under the influence of a controlled substance (cocaine), and no contest to two counts of driving with a blood-alcohol level above .08 percent and one count of reckless driving.
• In July, Lindsay commandeered a car with three people in it and conducted a drunken chase. She was booked on felony charges of possession of cocaine and transportation of a narcotic.
• Lindsay has been in rehab three times this year alone (and it's only August)!
• Recently, Lindsay told TMZ.com, "It is clear to me that my life has become completely unmanageable because I am addicted to alcohol and drugs."

Things sound pretty bleak for Lindsay. You'd think that Lindsay's "mom" and "manager" might be concerned more with her daughter's life and career than her own image. You'd think that Dina--who frequently seemed more interested in partying with her daughter than raising her--might actually be humbled by the terrible turn her daughter's life has taken. You'd think wrong. Says Dina, "My children and I are in a wonderful place in our lives" (which might be true if you find addiction, arrests, rehab and career suicide a wonderful place.)

But, it could be different. Take Hilary Duff. I've never to my knowledge heard a song of hers nor have I seen one of her movies, but I believe she will still be making movies and music years from now.

How do I know this? Because of this story from Digital Spy. Hilary wanted a 500-horsepower, quad-overhead-cam, 4.8-liter, twin-turbo V-8 Porsche Cayenne Turbo. Her manager vetoed the purchase, telling Hilary she wasn't a good enough driver, and get this--she listened! "He says that I'm a terrible driver and don't need that kind of car," says the starlet.

It may be too late for Lindsay, but if she ever wanted to get serious about salvaging her career, she might start by dumping her party-girl, apologist, enabling mother and finding someone who knows the word, "no."

How to Deal with Door-to-Door Salespeople and Jehovah's Witnesses

While there's nothing funny about what this guy is accused of doing (assaulting his 79-year-old mother), you gotta admit he finds a direct, quick, and foolproof way of getting the reporter off his front porch. I'm sure this will work for any unwelcome visitors. Give it a try and post here with your results!

A Legal Way to Keep Violent Video Games from Minors

Politicians love to make statements. Most of the times, they make those statements with their mouths. Sometimes, they make them by passing bills that they know are unconstitutional but will help them pander to their constituency and get re-elected.

Such is the case of the laws many states and cities have passed preventing the sale of violent video games to minors. On the surface, it sounds like a swell idea, since we all have the vague and nagging feeling certain games are inappropriate for children.

But on a deeper level, these laws suck. And not just because they're unconstitutional (as evidenced by the complete and uniform rejection of these laws by Federal judges across the country.) These laws suck because they're "feel good" laws with dubious basis in fact or research.

Whether we wish to acknowledge it or not, violence is part of childhood. It always has been. The bough breaks and cradle will fall with baby and all. Hansel and Gretel are abandoned in the woods by their parents and threatened with being cooked alive by a cannibalistic witch. The witch poisons Snow White with a fatal apple. Bambi's mother is shot by a hunter. Scar murders Mufasa. And the number of murders and acts of violence in the Harry Potter series are countless.

Kids see violence all around them, so why should video game violence freak us out? Proponents of the violent game laws like to point out that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were avid players of games like Doom, but that's a little like saying they wore shoes--it's true, but it also doesn't distinguish them in any way from any of their peers.

Besides, games are just one form of media to which people are exposed, and that means anything can inspire the mentally ill to violence. John Hinckley, Jr. saw "Taxi Driver" fifteen times before attempting to assassinate President Reagan; David (Son of Sam) Berkowitz claimed the Hall & Oates song "Rich Girl" motivated his murders; and Mark David Chapman, who shot and killed John Lennon, was carrying the book "Catcher in the Rye" when he was arrested and referred to it in his statement to police.

Don't get me wrong--there are all sorts of violent media to which children should not have access. I'm totally in support of violent and useless games such as Postal being kept out of the hands of kids not old enough to understand or critique the intended humor of the game. I just don't think that's the job of the government.

Which leads me to an ironclad, legal, foolproof way to keep violent games out of the hands of children: Parents, don't buy violent games for your kids. If your kids have so much access to cash and so little monitoring of their computer usage, that's a problem; it's just not a problem the government should solve.

If mom and dad would exercise their parental obligations and rights, then lawmakers could use your tax dollars to solve real problems rather than focusing on passing laws they know will get struck down but will make them look and feel good.

Things are Different in France

I accidentally typed Amazone.com instead of Amazon.com, and I found myself at the French version of Amazon. I was about to move off the site when a couple products at the top of the home page caught my eye.

My French isn't too good, but I'm pretty sure I can figure out what these books are about. Can you possibly see these products appearing on the top page of the American version of Amazon.com?

Funny thing is, despite our puritanical obsession with anything sexual, the country where these products topped the home page for anyone to see has a lower rate of rape, murder , and total crime. Maybe we should worry a little less about what people see and a little more about what people do?

Not sure what I'll learn from these books, but I think I ought to order Osez... la sodomie and Osez... tout savoir sur la fellation.

Your tax dollars at work: $998,798 for Two Washers

A small company in South Carolina found a loophole in an automated Defense Department purchasing system. Exploiting this system flaw, they were able to charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for shipping tiny items, and because the items were going to combat areas or U.S. bases, payments were labeled "priority" and paid automatically.

How bad did it get? This sleazy little company collected $998,798 of your tax dollars for sending two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas. The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Iraq and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Florida.

All told, over a six year period, the company charged $20.5 million to ship $68,000 worth of merchandise to the military.

The company and its owner pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to launder money. The owner faces a fine of $750,000 and a prison sentence of 20 years on each count.

The idea that this could happen boggles the mind, doesn't it? How could any accounting system be built without the kind of checks and balances that would flag a million dollars of shipping charges for 38 cents worth of product?

Where is William Proxmire when you need him?

Read more at Bloomberg.com.

Deion Sanders is a Sad, Pathetic, Dimwit

I am guilty of giving athletes too much credit. I'm a sports fan, and when I see a guy like Deion Sanders instantly read and react to the myriad of inputs and nuances as a play develops, I think, "That guy has brains."

I was wrong. Deion Sanders isn't smart. He's not even average. He may, in fact, be mentally defective. This is evident when reading the vile, shallow, callous column he wrote in defense of Michael Vick.

It's not merely that Deion mounts a defense of Vick. While personally I don't find there to be any room for support for Vick given the evidence, he is innocent until proven guilty (or until he pleads guilty, which could happen within days.)

I question if Deion has a cognitive issue because of the unbelievably vulgar and ignorant manner in which he wrote about Vick's alleged offenses. A person who is merely cold-blooded might still recognize how his lack of empathy might offend others. But Deion is apparently too dense to even appreciate that his ramblings are patently nauseating. His thought process says volumes more about Deion than it does about Vick, and what it reveals is that Deion is a feeble-minded and indifferent human being.

Michael Vick's arrest for dog fighting is well known, but let's review the facts quickly to set the stage for the pile of bullshit Deion Sanders heaped on top of this horror:

• A federal grand jury indicted Vick for "knowingly sponsoring... an animal fighting venture" over the course of six years.
• Based on reports from those involved in his illegal operation, Vick is alleged to have participated in illegal gambling, personally handling cash settlements with purses as high as $26,000 for single match.
  
• The indictment included specifics of the extensive violence against dogs, including executions by electrocution, hanging, drowning, shooting, and other brutality.
• His partners in crime reported Vick direct participated in executing "8 dogs in or about April 2007" at his Virginia property.
• At least one dog was killed by being "slammed to the ground."
• Federal authorities took possession of animals who were recovered alive but had to be destroyed because of their training as fighting animals.

Any normal person would know this behavior is so abhorrent and the crimes so egregious that even the hint of support for Vick would create a knee-jerk reaction. Not Deion! Here are some of his unbelievable comments:

• "What a dog means to Vick might be a lot different than what he means to you or I." True, a dog to me is a living being with feelings, emotions, and the capacity for great caring. To Michael Vick they're living pieces of meat whose torture, pain, and death are cause for a good time.
  
  
• "Some people kiss their dogs on the mouth. Some people let their dogs eat from their plate. Some people dress their dogs in suits more expensive than mine, if you can believe that. And some people enjoy proving they have the biggest, toughest dog on the street." Just to be clear, Deion believes all of the following fall into the same classification: Kissing dogs on the mouth, eating with dogs, dressing dogs, and forcing two dogs to rip, tear, and crush each other until one of them through blood loss, shock, brain damage, or trauma is dead. The fact he asks if you can believe some people dress their dogs while finding it perfectly normal that others take pleasure in seeing dogs tormented and vivisected says an awful lot about what goes on in Deion's brain (or, point in fact, doesn't go on in there).
  
  
• "You're probably not going to believe this, but I bet Vick loves the dogs that were the biggest and the baddest." Yes, I believe Vick "loved" the dogs that were the biggest and baddest. Those were the ones that lived. The others? If Vick didn't drag their still warm carcasses out of the ring, he drowned, electrocuted, hung, shot, and crushed them to death. But Deion is fine with that provided Vick loves the ones that win.
  
  
• "I believe Vick had a passion for dogfighting. I know many athletes who share his passion. The allure is the intensity and the challenge of a dog fighting to the death. It's like ultimate fighting, but the dog doesn't tap out when he knows he can't win." One hardly knows where to start to sort out the layers of wrongness in this statement. What's the worst part? The fact Deion acknowledges "many athletes" share the "passion" of animal cruelty? Or is it that he seems to feel Vick should be held less accountable because all the other kids are doing it? No, I think the most offensive part of this statement is the implication that dogfighting is so much better and more enjoyable because the dogs fight to the death unlike, apparently, wimpy human fighters who expect and are provided an opportunity to live, even after losing a match.
  
  
• "It reminds me of when I wore a lot of jewelry back in the day because I always wanted to have the biggest chain or the biggest, baddest car. It gives you status." Did he just compare the painful slaughter of animals to wearing jewelry? Is he implying that Vick--one of the highest-paid and best known men in sports today--has a need to earn "status"? And did he really just claim that there are people who think better of man after finding they torment animals for hobby? Sadly, the answers to those questions are yes, yes, and yes.
  

I don't know why you'd want to read more, but to see Deion Sanders prove his ignorance, you can read the entire text here.

Mug Shots of the Rich and Famous

At some point in the legal process, it helps to have money, power, and influence. That point is not when your mug shot is being snapped. Thanks to the The Smoking Gun, you can enjoy the mug shots of folks famous and not. This site includes arrest photos of everyone from Paris and Lindsay to gangsters to icons such as Rosa Parks. (Really, is it proper to have Rosa Parks' name on the same page with Paris and Lindsay? I think not!)

Can you guess which of these criminals is now the richest person in the world? (That's a gimme.)


Check out http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/index.html.

Michael Jackson's Thriller in Prison

One of the most random things I've seen in a long time: 1,500 inmates from a prison in the Philippines reenact Michael Jackson's "Thriller." No seriously. For real. Why? I have no idea--maybe this helps with their rehabilitation since someday they may need to dance to Thriller at a wedding.



Apparently this prison has a lot of rhythm. Here is the Algorithm March performed by 967 inmates at the same prison: