Well, no one’s cutting the heads off the stationary cameras DPS (Department of Public Safety) has rigged around the state to catch you going 10mph over the speed limit or more, but someone is sabotaging these sinister speed traps in a most ingenious way — by blocking the window in front of the camera with yellow Post-it notes.

I am rather amused by this protest in some ways.  As a guy who drives the speed limit because he believes in following the law and someone who lost way to many friends to traffic accidents, the notion of speeding pisses me off.  Stupid law or not the speed limit isn’t a mere suggestion for drivers it is the law. When we as citizens won’t follow the law, we have very little right to get pissed off at politicians who don’t either.  Frankly I would much rather going the speed limit than give up my righteous anger at W for ass fucking  America the last eight years.

DPS flack Lt. James Warriner, and he confirmed that Post-it note ninjas are at work in the Valley, with at least five incidents having occurred over the last few days on SR 51, I-10, and the Loop 101. Warriner says DPS has an investigator assigned to catch the plucky roadside rebels, though DPS isn’t exactly sure what the Post-it note perps would be prosecuted for, if and when they’re nabbed.

There are probably plenty of charges that could be leveled, but finding the right one is always a good idea before going forward with these sorts of things.  While I don’t like Big Brother anymore than any other Liberal the feds no doubt have an interest in keeping an eye on, I actually like traffic cameras.  That could be because I don’t speed and have good driving habits.

Warriner related that DPS may have to stake out the cameras’ locations, which are listed on DPS’ Web site, here. Perhaps even install hidden cameras to watch the devices. That’s right, cameras to watch the cameras.

This notion however, I don’t like.  It is a little too Big Brother for me.  Who is watching the watchmen?  A camera that catches someone for speeding is one thing.  Those cameras provide scientifically measured data and a photo of a scene where sticking a human being in a cruiser would be dangerous and disruptive.  Placing a camera to watch what can likely be watched by a human seems to devalue the notion we need police officers in the field.

Update:

I saw a really cool idea that might actually make people like traffic cameras a bit more.  What if good drivers were paid an incentive, out of the fines bad drivers pay.  It couldn’t be the entire fine, but what if you received a discount on your car registration or drivers license fee, or if the DMV sent a voucher that could be redeemed by your insurance carrier, for say $25.00 to $50.00 towards your payment.  Better yet what if good drivers were randomly sent $20.00 checks paid for by 60% of the fines.

The Modesto Bee | Modesto woman sentenced to life in prison for kidnap, torture of teen

Modesto woman sentenced to life in prison for kidnap, torture of teen

By Emilie Raguso , eraguso@modbee.com

A Modesto woman was sentenced to life in prison today for torturing a teenage girl after the teenager stole the woman’s truck, the district attorney’s office said.

After being held for two nights in June 2007, the girl escaped as her captors were driving her to Stockton where they said she would be forced to perform sex acts for money, officials said.

According to authorities, Graciela Elmira Cervantes, 27, was “bent on revenge” after the girl, described as a runaway, took the woman’s truck without permission.

The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department reported that Cervantes held the victim captive for two days, starting June 24, at Cervantes’ home in the 2300 block of La Paz Court near Memorial Medical Center. Sheriff’s spokesman deputy Royjindar Singh said last year that Cervantes stabbed the victim several times before locking her in a bedroom closet.

Cervantes, prosecutors said, held the teenager for two nights, subjecting her to a range of torture: beating her; cutting her long hair to her scalp; burning her with cigarettes; cutting the web of her hand with scissors; and making her lick her own blood from the floor.

On June 26, Cervantes and her boyfriend put the victim in a car to drive her to Stockton, “where they told her she would be prostituted out for money,” according to the district attorney’s office.

During the ride, the driver pulled over near Gallo Glass, 605 South Santa Cruz Ave., and the girl jumped out of the car and ran toward the guard station, authorities said. Security personnel called law enforcement as Cervantes and her driver sped off.

Several members of Cervantes’ household, present during the torture, testified at the preliminary hearing, which spanned three days over two months, according to the district attorney’s office. Cervantes also pleaded to a robbery in September 2006 where, officials said, she held a knife to the victim’s neck and demanded her bank card and PIN.

“Both charges are serious and violent felonies which require the defendant to serve 85 percent of her time in prison,” according to information released by the district attorney’s office.

Cervantes will not be eligible for a parole hearing for 10 years.

Bee staff writer Emilie Raguso can be reached at eraguso@modbee.com or 578-2235.

What’s next? With temporary slut marks for your young ones available in vending machines is it possible the next step play tampons or maybe temporary popped cherries? Wait tiny battery operated cocks for your daughter dearest…

When did we lose ourselves? When was it a mark of a good parenting to have a kid grown up long before time? The problem is it isn’t a sign of good parenting. The fact is trying to make your children more adult is simply another way not take responsibility for them. In the end, yes, your kids need to be responsible, but so do you as a parent.

read more | digg story

There was a proclamation from Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, speeches by friends and family, TV cameras and a roomful of well-wishers.

read more | digg story

As I read by this little blip from Digg, I knew I had to say something more than the tiny comment area warranted. At a 114 I am sure this woman was important to her friends and family, but I want to know what she did to help society the last 30 years or more. What did she contribute to the world? Why are we celebrating, and more importantly why should we be? Is living a long time reason enough to be happy? Or does a person have to do something other than breath and use resources to be worth celebrating?

As we live longer and longer, the question because what is the point? We retire in our mid sixties from a job, then live another twenty or thirty years to do what. What do old people really contribute to our society once they retire. Sure some of them provide childcare for their children and grandchildren so they can work or go to school, and that is a great help to the economy. Some people work long past the age of retirement or get a job even after their official retirement. However why should we get excited about those who don’t? What benefit do people who sit around and just wait to die provide?

Should we allow people to keep living after they quit being useful? Congress is in fact full of useless people, and by no means do I advocate killing them, so I can’t advocate euthanizing old people just because they quit contributing. However, I do think that there comes a time as a society when we must start putting the financial burden of living just for the sake of living on the the person and their family if they wish to keep living. Our planetary resources are limited so the smaller the population we have the better off the world is. We need to start thinking about the reality of that or one day not many generations from now all these kids we have to make our life feel complete will be killing each other over food and water rather than oil and ideals…

Because we are dealing a racist, a holocaust denier, and the Jews, we seem to care an extraordinary amount about this situation.  This is a large part of what is wrong with this country.   Yesterday, Holocaust Museum Security Guard Stephen T. Johns was just one of roughly forty five people murdered in the country. It was only news because of where it happened. While tragic for the family of Mr Johns, I am sure they would rather you remember him because he was a good guy doing his job to support his family rather than as the victim of a Jew hater.

Take a moment and think before you make a big deal about the wrong parts of this story. Every day 45 murders, 261 rapes, and 1153 robberies are committed. Each one of those crimes has a victim who is just trying to make it through their day. It is fine to take a moment to regret the death of one security guard. However, if you can’t take a moment to ask yourself what you can do for every other victim who didn’t make the news or to prevent future crimes then you are as unenlightened as James von Brunn.

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This is an image that is getting passed around quite a lot today on Twitter. In fact according it has been on Twiturls since I woke up very early this morning, at the very least.  There are those who are disparaging the disappearance of these which I find laughable since these are the same people who by their very actions are causing them to disappear.

• First the analog clock has been on its way out long before computers were common place in every workplace, much less the home. In the world of digital technology, teaching children to read an analog face serves no purpose other than to tether them to the past.   While analog designs look cool and are very green products they serve little purpose for more people, much less school children who could spend their time learning something useful, like why it is important to be on time.  We have clocks on nearly everything we own these days and they are all digital.  Watches have been relegated to old people or those who wish to make a fashion statement.
• Cursive handwriting is a skill that should have been tossed out at least two decades ago.  The fact we actually grade school kids on it and use it as a measure of achievement  is absolutely ridiculous.  While there are some potential benefits such as learning fine motor control and some kids actually write neater and faster in it, the fact that we look at it as a matter of academics is way out of line with the real world.  There is only one time in which a person in the real world must actually use cursive writing and that is with their legal signature.  Since children can not legally sign for anything, is it really necessary to foist not only the skill but the admonishment that comes from performing poorly on kids a decade before their signature is of any use?  The real world is text based mostly in Ariel, Courier, or  Times New Roman but for some reason most districts haven’t go it through their heads that kids need to learn to type with more than their thumbs.
• With most if not all television broadcasts ending up on the internet in either streaming or downloadable forms viewable on everything from your phone to your computer and heaven forbid even your old analog TV, why should our grandkids understand the antiquated technology of VCR’s?  Neither setting the digital clock much less programming the VCR is  much of a usable skill set these days.
• I am sure the grandkids of those of us in our young thirties will still have paper edition newspapers available to them, but they will not be what they are today, much less what they were when I was delivering an afternoon edition as ten year old.  Gone are the days where you can improve your kids pitching arm by making them deliver newspapers as well, but that is a different story all together.  My grandkids, assuming Liam has as much brains as I did about not getting girls knocked up or puts off having sex for quite a while, will know newspapers only as expensive pieces of paper that cater to a small audience of dedicated people with an affectation for words they can hold in their hands.  Gone will be the days of Sunday coupons or thick classified advertising sections.  Gone will be the days where the only news reported is the news editors want you to see.  Gone are the days when you have to pay someone for commentary that should be free.  I say good riddance to those days, especially the part about paying for worthless commentary.

In the end, our grandkids will never understand a lot of things that us thirty-somethings do, and there is no reason that they should.  It isn’t important that they understand the eighties, or grunge, or know that MTV once played music videos.  It isn’t important that they understand we traded music via cassette tapes or how hard it was to make custom playlists mix tapes for your special someone.  It isn’t important that they understand many of us were media starved and most kids only saw Challenger blow the one time they played it for us at school.  What is important is that they learn their grandkids won’t understand half of what they grew up with.

Gertrude Baines told CNN two years ago that she has taken good care of herself, “the way (God) wanted me to.”

The previous oldest woman was Maria de Jesus, who died this week in Portugal at age 115, Guinness World Records said.

It has come to my attention that some people care about being old.  What is so special about not dying?  Even more important is what is so special about not dying when it is the care of others that keeps you alive.  When Gertrude Baines dies they will say she lived a long life.  When the next old living person croaks, they will say the same thing.  So I ask you what is so special about living a long time without something to show for it that you did last year, last week, or even in the last twenty four hours of it?

Old people should serve as a reminder that we all die eventually.  We should look to them as examples of what can be accomplished with one’s life.  We should not look at them and think, “Damn that’s old! I wonder how old I can get?”

Simply put being old is not special.  Simply put being a live isn’t special.  The only thing that really matters is what you accomplished with that live while you were actively living it.

In all fairness there are a number of white republicans who are denouncing Chip Saltsman for being a despicable racist and I applaud them.  Of course what I can’t stand is the ones who say nothing or say

“I don’t think he intended it as any kind of racial slur. I think he intended it as a humor gift,” said Oklahoma committeewoman Carolyn McClarty. “I think it was innocently done by Chip.”

Didn’t intend it as a racial slur?  Just because Chip Saltsman didn’t say nigger, doesn’t mean Chip saltsman didn’t mean nigger.  Chip Saltman is a racist and any that defend his actions are just as racist as he is.  Carolyn McClarty don’t dance around the subject admit you are a racist too.  Hell it might even do you some good in Oklahoma to say nigger.  While you are at it Ms McClarty make sure everyone on the reservation knows you mean prairie niggers too.  Carolyn McClarty let your voters know exactly what you mean when you say it was supposed to be funny, let them know you are nothing but a racist bitch unworthy of even common courtesy from ordinary folk.  You make me sick.

Mike Huckabee, for whom Saltsman served as campaign manager, has chimed in to defend Saltsman against the charge of racism, while at the same time acknowledging that “Chip should have been more careful” in picking the CD. “It shouldn’t be the main factor in the RNC race,” Huckabee wrote on his blog.

More careful how Mr Huckabee?  Could he have possible just hid the fact he is a stupid racist so everyday average Republicans who aren’t racists would still vote for him?  Instead of republicans coming out and denouncing Saltsman and the ilk that support him republicans are trying to say he made a mistake or this was a bit insensitive.  I disagree this isn’t a man who made a bad choice this is a racist who has been outed and he is being defended by republicans still in the closet.  It is time the Republican Party split between those who know right from wrong and those of you who they thought would protect their interests.

I call out to my republican colleagues to not only denounce Chip Saltsman and those that defend him having a bit of fun, but to string them up just as I would do with any democrat who was outed as a racist.  While I may disagree with many of my republican friends on political issues, I hope that you are all decent enough human beings to know racism no matter who is promoting is wrong and should be stamped out by all those with scruples.

Calm down

been getting a lot of furious emails regarding my blog on prop 8 because I apparently offended some animal lovers. um, really people? i love animals as much as anyone, i don’t eat pork- so for those of you fighting that good fight against me… shut up! i was all for prop 2, however i was just pointing out the fact that people in california seem to care more about animal rights than human rights. that’s all. i’m not running around killing chickens for fun or firing a slingshot at a squirrel, nor was i promoting any such behavior, i was simply venting…. much like I am now.

p.s. if you don’t like what i have to say, don’t read my blogs. it’s that simple!

Tell it like it is Sam!  It is your blog and you can say whatever you damned well please, but as bloggers who say the unpopular we do have to accept we are going to catch shit over the things we say, why because they are bullies and we stand up to them.  Keep fighting the good fight, don’t shrink from letting them know they are hypocrites, and while it is nice to explain yourself when you feel you are truly misunderstood, it isn’t always necessary.  I like you for speaking your mind Samantha Ronson, you have a voice that could change the face of the political world if that is what you wanted to do. I suggest holding your ground and telling these animal rights lunatics who honestly do care about the emotional state of veal than they do the hapiness and well being of thier fellow human beings to get bent.

Latest Florida & National News

LAND O’ LAKES, Fla. (AP) — A nudist community on Florida’s west coast wants to be allowed a clothing-optional polling site.

The Caliente Resorts, located in Pasco County north of Tampa, has approached election officials about the idea.

Nothing in state law would prohibit it, but the supervisor of elections says he is opposed to creating any new precincts before redistricting in 2010.