Random thoughts from recent trip to India

I recently returned from a 2 week trip to India. While I was very impressed with the cultural sites (temples, forts, mosques, etc.), there are several things which the Indian government needs to address immediately:

1. The violence towards women. I had already left India when the infamous New Delhi gang rape occurred, so I did not find out about it until after I had returned to the U.S. This needs to take priority over anything else.
2. It is so sad that among the many people hawking souvenirs everywhere tourists go, there are many young children, some as young as about 3, and young mothers carrying babies/toddlers in their arms. While some regions of India seem to have made education a priority, this needs to be a national priority.
3. Before I came to India, I had thought that making the country more clean should be a top priority, but eliminating the litter and the general unsanitariness in some areas of the country should be a lower priority than the first two.

 

Scumbag of the day

A Missouri man was arrested for attempting to hire a hitman to beat up his daughter because she would not let him see his granddaughter. And why did she not let him see the granddaughter? Because the scumbag had assaulted the woman years ago…

Popcorn man

Sacramento police recently arrested a man for burglary after they found a trail of popcorn kernels leading from the store he burglarized to his apartment.

I wonder if this idiot is related to the moron in Fresno who was arrested after leaving a trail of teriyaki chicken from the car he burglarized to his apartment. If not, maybe he is related to the idiots in Illinois (none of whom are the soon to be ex-governor) who robbed a pizza delivery person but left snow tracks for the police to track.

Idiotic newspaper writers and editors

Prosecutors recently blew an informant’s cover by having him testify in open court, where he was recognized by the defendant and some of the spectators.

The Sacramento Bee published an article today with the headline “Sacramento trial blows the cover of an informant” that gave all the details, but published his name! If you want to talk about blowing the informant’s cover, the Bee is the primary culprit. There were probably under a hundred people who knew his name before this article was published, but since it is now on the Internet, there could be tens of thousands of people who know his name (though 99% of those people are not likely to care.) The headline should be changed to “Sacramento Bee blows the cover of an informant.”

While the paper has the right to publish this information, they need to consider the effect that this will have on his life. It is likely that other gangs will try to have him eliminated (even though he is being relocated.) They should not be publishing information that can put someone’s life in jeopardy unless it is crucial for the public to know, which is certainly not the case here.  This newspaper ironically has the problem that they do not give vital information (the race of the suspect) in crime cases unless it is a Caucasian.

Idiotic pizza thieves

Four teenagers in Illinois were arrested for robbing a pizza delivery person because the police followed their snow tracks nearby. Hello, McFly! Anybody home?  Well, at least they’re not as dumb as the soon-to-be-ex governor of Illinois, but I wonder if they are related to this idiot in Fresno who got arrested because he left a trail of rice right to his apartment.

Looney Illinois governor

I didn’t think it was possible… we finally have a politician with more screws loose in his head than George W. Bush. Of course, I am talking about the (soon to be ex) governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich. How on earth could a man who knows that he is already under investigation for fraud be so careless to give investigators tons of ammunition to convict him. What a freakin’ nutcase.

I wonder what is in the Illinois governor’s house that causes governors to commit crime. There have already been three Illinois governors convicted in the last 35 years. My advice to the next governor is to not move into that house (and if you are going to get busted for something, do something fun like ex-New York governor Elliot Spitzer…)

Yet another risk of using Facebook

A man who dined and dashed his way out of a bill of about $340 in a restaurant in Australia got busted when the restaurant’s owner found him on Facebook (thanks to the help of a former waitress who the man had asked about). To make things worse for him, the restaurant owner contacted his employer, who promptly fired (or as the Aussies say, sacked) him.

People who are looking for jobs are always advised not to have anything embarassing or criminal in their Facebook profiles. Maybe it should also go the other way – people who are going to commit crimes should not have a Facebook page…

A very Black Friday

There were two reports of fatalities involved at Black Friday sales today.

In the first tragedy,  impatient shoppers broke down the door at a Wal-Mart in New York and trampled a Wal-Mart employee to death. Other employees trying to help the first victim were also trampled. There were at least four people sent to the hospital , including an eight-month pregnant woman. When shoppers were told that the store was closing because an employee was killed, the shoppers were complaining that they had been in line since Thursday morning.

Leaving aside the fact that people skipping time to celebrate and give thanks with their friends or family in order to line up to buy stuff are totally missing the point of Thanksgiving, how on earth can these idiots consider their convenience more important than someone’s life? Anyone who can be identified should be charged with manslaughter.

In the second tragedy, two men shot each other to death in a Toys ‘R’ Us in California. Their female companions were brawling, then one of the men pulled a gun. He put it back, but the second man had pulled his gun, and then all hell broke loose. This incident did not appear to be directly related to Black Friday, but tensions probably run a little higher on Black Friday, which may have caused the initial brawl.

It’s really pathetic that people would carry guns into a stores, especially a children’s store.  These idiots got what they deserved, and thankfully no one else got hurt.

IDIOT of the year

A woman in Oregon recently was a “victim” of the infamous Nigerian scam despite repeated warnings from her family, her bank, and law enforcement officials to keep sending more money. I put “victim” in quotes because she did not heed warnings from her family, her bank, and law enforcement officials not to send any more money. In fact, law enforcement has threatened to charge her with a crime if she sends any more money, and she admits that this is the only thing stopping her from doing so.

At first, Janella Spears was supposed to send $100. She did so. I can actually see some people falling for this, but what comes next is unbelievable.

Then they informed her (via official looking documents filled with spelling errors) that she needed to send $8,300 in order to claim $26 million. (Yeah, right.) She did so, but didn’t get the money. Then she got another letter… this kept going on for several years, during which she drained her family’s finances to send over $400,000 despite the repeated warnings.

I have absolutely no sympathy for this greedy woman, but I feel sorry for her husband, whose retirement funds were wiped out.

School district headed by idiots

The Dallas Independent School District can’t seem to do anything right. First they make it impossible for a student to fail, and now they have a very serious scandal.

The district was apparently in such a hurry to hire foreign nationals to teach bilingual classes that it assigned them “temporary” Social Security numbers (some of which were actual SSNs being used by someone else) so that they could start work as soon as possible. To make things worse, the district was informed in 2004 that this was illegal and they continued this practice until 2007! Have these damn morons never heard of the concept of “identity theft” and “employment under false pretenses”?