Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Stop Boating off the Coast of Somalia

Next time just drop Anchor on their Dinghy

LA Weekly - Jean and Scott Adam, two outdoorsy Orange County missionaries who belong to Saint Monica Catholic Church in Santa Monica and the Del Rey Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey, decided in 2001 to take the Holy Word to the open seas, sailing to foreign lands on their custom-built "S/V Quest" and handing out Bibles to the natives. But on February 18, their mission took a turn into darkness. An adventurous detour through the Indian Ocean led the SoCal couple (and their passengers, Seattle couple Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle) straight into skull-and-crossbones territory:  Update: Jean and Scott Adam were fatally shot on their boat by pirates, authorities said today -- even as U.S. Navy ships trailed the vessel. Two pirates were then killed and 13 were captured, according to reports. Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle, fellow voyagers from Seattle, were also killed.

To the Navy, what hell man? What good does "trailing the vessell" do? These guys have them at gun point.  We don't have any sharp shooters or Navy SEALS that can just go and take back the frigen boat? All the technology in the world and all we can do is trail the boats from a safe distance.  That is insane.  These people were going to end up dead anyway, how about sending a message to the next pirate ship and just blowing it up as soon as it crosses international waters? Who's going to slap us on the wrist for that? These guys are lawless animals just raping and pillaging harmless millionaires at will, I don't think anyone's going to care if you blow up 2 or 3 pirates that used to be the Fly-babies you'd see on the Catholic Charities commercials. 

I mean look at that picture above, we're not exactly dealing with international criminal masterminds, its a couple of morons in a motor powered dinghy.  Look at the weapons, they got one rocket launcher and a fucking stick.  That's what they're hi-jacking mofo's with, one grenade and a stick, unless that's a magical Staff from the Lord of the Rings, I'd think your average Navy Cruiser could take them.

And note to rich people, stop boating off the coast of Somalia, in fact just stay away from East Africa altogether.  I know this is a bit tasteless given how fresh this story is, but what the hell is the matter with people.  Why are ships still navigating these waters?

That article above goes on to detail that as many as 685 sailors on 30 ships are currently being held hostage off the coast of Somalia.  Doesn't take a genius to realize that this might be an area to avoid. The earth is something like 75% water guys, you can sail anywhere you want except about a 1000 sq mile radius off East Africa and the middle east. Most sane people thank god every day that they aren't within 1,000 miles of that hell hole of an area.   Go be like normal rich people and float around in the Mediterranean for a while, or the South Pacific near Tahiti.  

Don't get me wrong, what happened to the Adam's is a horrible thing and in no way are they to blame for the actions of a few swashbucklers, but at the same time this was completely avoidable.  For starters, how about not Bible Thumping in the heart of Jihadist land. Seems like it would increase your safety 10 fold on its own.

But I'm sure we'll be hearing about the next couple who thinks they're Richard Branson in a month or so, lets just hope they have something on board they can fend off a vicious stick attack with.

Girl Scout Cookies Leading to Assaults All Over the Place

Same face CW has when he runs out of Carmel Delights


Fight Over Girl Scout Cookies Leads to Woman in Jail - First of all, everyone has to click this link. The story reads like one of those epic fights between Peter Griffin and the Chicken, just all out mayhem spilling from the bedroom, down stairs, and then outside, with various props used in the beating along the way, so lets take a second to appreciate a few of the highlights I've clipped together:



The brawl began when the 31-year-old cookie monster confronted her sleeping roommate and accused her of eating the box of treats, police said. The roommate told Howard she'd given the cookies to Howard's kids, who were awake and hungry around 1 a.m...According to a police report, Howard grabbed a pair of scissors and threatened the woman. When the woman started to run down some stairs, Howard allegedly dropped the scissors, picked up a board and hit the woman as she ran down the stairs...Howard caught up to the woman again and knocked her to the ground and started to hit her. When the roommate managed to get outside the house, Howard grabbed a sign and started hitting her again, police said.

Allright, moving on. The blame for this has to fall squarely with the Girl Scouts for running the absolute worst business model in the world.  You have a product that customers froth at the mouth over, and are literally willing to go to jail for assault with a deadly weapon over, yet you don't think it would be a good idea to sell these cookies year round? Like why hold out? 2 months of the year is not enough.  I want my mom to offer to buy me cookies every time I go home, not just January-March. WTF girls?

If you think this was just some isolated case of a crazy, you couldn't be more wrong.  Just this past weekend I was home to pick up my yearly supply of cookies and my brother and I nearly came to blows because my mother wasn't home and we didn't know how many boxes of each we were supposed to get (long story short I got screwed out of 4 boxes, and I'll get my revenge in the next couple of weeks). 

Beyond that, still the funniest altercation I've ever seen at work arose over a box of thin mints.  Two chics, each who had purchased a box of thin mints from a third co-worker nearly came to fisticuffs over the cookies when both girls began claiming that they both were eating from eachothers boxes.  Things got so heated right out in the open on the floor that the guy who would get fired like two weeks later for taking illegal perscription drugs and running a gambling ring at work was the voice of reason in trying to calm these two banshees down (we all figured they both went to town on their own box of cookies and were too ashamed to admit they housed an entire box each so they blamed eachother, seems reasonable enough). 

So moral of the story, someone needs to talk the Girl Scouts into selling these things year round, if only to keep a certain level of decency in our society.


MBTA gives $650 Bill to Girl Who Lost Snake on Subway

I'd rather find a snake on the subway than this woman spaying shrapnel.

BOSTON - It is a hefty cleaning bill for a Massachusetts woman whose 3-foot long boa constrictor slithered away from her on a Red Line subway car in Boston and hid in the car for nearly a month. Transit officials want 30-year-old Melissa Moorhouse of Allston to pay $650 to cover the costs of disinfecting and sanitizing the train to protect passengers from germs such as salmonella that may have been left by the Penelope the snake.


Who is the MBTA kidding here, anyone who's ever been on the subway is aware that $650 is probably the equivalent of their entire cleaning budget for the year.  I'm not siding with this girl, I still think anyone that needs the comfort of their pet snake with them when they're traveling on the subway  needs a mental eval, but $650 to clean up after a snake is an absolute joke.

On any given day 1 out of 5 subway cars in Boston smells like piss. You know why? Because someone pissed in them.  There are old food wrappers, half drank cups of soda and alcohol, countless newspapers, bums taking naps, junkies taking rides just to stay warm, and old Asian ladies carting around live produce from what I can tell.  You want to talk about Salmonella? Lets talk about the people who smell like they just got off their shift at the hen slaughtering house. 

And to top off the hypocrisy, dogs are allowed on the subway.  I have no problem with this, but it seems like an asshole move to charge one lady for cleanup of a pet snake and to just turn a blind eye towards the dog that earlier that day probably ate his own shit and is now just chumming it up in the seat, licking its surroundings.  That's gotta be a health violation.

Morning Show Discusses "Long Stabby Things" (Vid Inside)



Reporters are just killing it on the comedy scale lately, huh?  If you don't think so then you obviously didn't make it all the way to the 1:39 mark, because that is when the comedy gold arrives.  

By the way he completely knew what he was about to say.  "Jacking him off in the distance" isn't a euphemism for fighting or fending off a robber in any sense.  And for that I say bravo.  It took a bold step to throw that joke out there and he executed it perfectly.

Catfight in Brookline Breaks out over Fondu vs. Fondant

You know fondant tastes like plastic, right?

Brookline —A disagreement over the correct use of the word “fondue” led a Dorchester woman to threaten to kill a cake store clerk on Friday, according to Brookline police...Bogues and a friend visited the Party Favors Brookline store at 1356 Beacon St., where the friend spoke to a store clerk about cake ingredients, according to a police report. During the discussion, Bogues apparently took offense when the clerk corrected her friend’s usage of the word “fondue” when referring to “fondant icing.” “Fondue, fondant, who gives a f---. You’ve had an attitude the whole time,” Bogues told the employee, according to the police report. When an employee told Bogues “to relax,” Bogues put her hands on the counter and leaned forward toward the worker, and yelled, “I will kill you bitch,” according to the report. Bogue then swung her bag and knocked a plastic display case to the ground and scattered its contents, police reported.

I don't blame Ms. Bogues, here she is just trying to figure out how to bake a goddamn cake, presumably for her sons birthday, and you got this uppity broad behind the counter pointing out the subtleties between Fondu and Fondant

To quote Ms. Bogues "who gives a fuck?" This is why small American businesses are going under, they keep forgetting the customer is always right. With the 83 Cake related shows on the Foodnetwork right now does she honestly believe this woman didn't know the difference between Fondant and Fondu?  How the hell does the store clerk know that little Tyrone doesn't want a molten liquid cheese cake?  Or maybe she's normal and doesn't think eating eating pastry that is hard as cardboard is something her son enjoys?  Some of us just enjoy a normal, frosting based fondu cake. 

The clerk's second mistake was telling her to relax.  When are people going to learn, if you're in an illogical argument with a stranger and you say anything along the lines of "relax," 'calm down," "breath," or "chillax," you'd best be ready to throw down.   Nothing angers someone in the middle of a heated argument over petty bull shit more than being told to relax. You might as well have insulted her mother and thrown out the N-word, things wouldn't have gone any worse. Oh well, hope she learned her lesson.

Female Reporter Shits Pants During Interview



Just goes to show that a even with a language barrier, shitting your pants is still shitting your pants.
Like, I'd love to know what that guy was saying after she ran off, in fact I'm dying to know, but I'm pretty sure with 90% accuracy it went something like this:

White Shirt: Was that serious?
Camera Guy: What just happened exactly?
White Shirt: I think she just done crapped her pantaloons (because he's foreign)
Camera Guy: Whoa (in euro accent)
White Shirt: Am I being punked?

Seriously on that last one though, was he being punked or did she seriously just pull an Uta Pippig.