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Thanks, suckers

This woman won a million dollars in the lottery. She still collects $200 a month in food stamps. According to her:

Clayton says it’s okay to remain on food stamps because she doesn’t have a source of income and has bills to pay. She also believes she’s entitled to it because she’s “still struggling” and has two homes to run.

What I don’t understand is how she has money for lottery tickets, but is on welfare. If you are so broke that you need to steal other people’s money to survive, how can you have money for gambling? To top it off, you get a half million after taxes, and still need to steal other people’s money.

So remember Ms. Clayton when you are doing your taxes this year. This is what your tax money pays for.

By Divemedic, ago

African Americans

Can you spot the African Americans in the following pictures?

The first picture is Charlize Theron, born in South Africa. The second is Oprah Winfrey, born in Mississippi. The third is Richard Dawkins, born in Kenya, and the last is Morgan Freeman, who was born in Tennessee. 3 of them are American citizens, two are African. Only one is an African American. Stop saying African American when what you really mean is black.

By Divemedic, ago

A serious question

One thing that I always try to do is be morally consistent. That is, do I apply the same rules in the same way every time. To do otherwise is to be a hypocrite. Most humans largely try to do the same thing. Of course, this results in people trying to justify heinous and immoral acts in order to assuage their own guilt of the hypocrisy. This is where today’s question comes from.

I can have camera footage of a crime. I can possess cell phone video of a fight, a murder, theft, or any other crimes and it is not illegal to possess that footage. There are even television shows that center around showing videos of crimes in progress. Most people do not have a problem with that.

Until the crime being filmed changes. Let me explain:
It is always a crime for an adult to knowingly have sex with a child. I don’t care how or what anyone says, I think that we can all agree with that one. Now, there could be a legitimate argument over what age a person ceases being a child, or what constitutes knowingly, but let’s leave that aside for now. The reason it is wrong and a crime is that a child cannot give consent. This is the reason why children can’t consent to any number of things from marriage, to contracts, medical care, and many others. This is also why it is a crime to have sex with certain adults with reduced mental capacity.

So with child pornography, what is going on here is that a pornographer is committing a crime in taking the picture in the first place, since that child is incapable of granting consent.

That is where my dilemma enters. The crime is the sexual act with a person who is victimizing a child. I am not trying to claim that child pornography should be legal, but I am trying to understand why it should be illegal to have a picture of one crime and not another, while still remaining logically consistent. Any ideas?

By Divemedic, ago

Irony

The government, through the Department of Agriculture, is distributing more food stamps than at any other time in history.
Meanwhile, the Park Service, another branch of the government, tells us not to feed the wild animals in the park, because they will become dependent and lose the ability to fend for themselves.

By Divemedic, ago

Small scare

So I was sitting in my living room yesterday, quietly studying my books, when I heard the door handle begin to jiggle. I live alone, so there is no reason for anyone to be entering my apartment. I grab my M&P 40, and while I am doing so, I hear a key slide into the lock. While covering the door (finger not on the trigger, thank you) a dozen thoughts run through my mind at 100 miles an hour: Is it an apartment maintenance man coming to repair something? A home invader? What is my plan if the door opens? Should I try to hold the bad guy at gunpoint and risk letting him get the first shot? Or just shoot as soon as he enters the apartment? What if there are more than one of them? Is the wall I am behind good cover? Or just concealment? Why didn’t I grab something heavier, like an AR or a shotgun?

The person on the other side of the door continues to jiggle the key in the lock, and jiggle the door handle. By this point, this has been going on for a good 30 seconds. I cautiously approach the door, and look out of the peephole, to see a youngish (maybe in her 20s) woman trying to open my door. She leaves. I still don’t know what was up with that.

By Divemedic, ago

Random Quote of the day

There are more molecules in a glass of water than there are glasses of water in the ocean.

(If you doubt this, consider Avogadro’s number: 6.02 x 10^23. This means that for every 18 grams of water, there are 602 billion billion molecules. A liter of water weighs 1,000 grams, meaning that a 1 liter bottle of water contains  3.31 x 10^25 molecules.

The volume of the Earth’s oceans is about 1.4 x 10^9 cubic kilometers. That works out to 1.4 x 10^21 liters, meaning that there are more than 2,000 times as many molecules in a glass of water than there are glasses of water in the ocean..)

Hope I got all of the math correct.

By Divemedic, ago

Officer Discretion

My brother was in a car accident twice in a two week period. The first time, he was driving down a 4 lane divided highway in the right turn lane. Traffic was slow, and the vehicles in the other two lanes waved a vehicle across the highway. My brother T-boned him. The cop didn’t want to write a ticket, and said that due to officer discretion, wouldn’t. As a result, the insurance company claimed that my brother was 50% at fault, and would only pay half of the damage. So he had to fork out $2,000 to repair his car.

Having had his car back for just four days, my brother was sitting at a red light when a car rear ended him. The cops again used officer discretion to not write a ticket. Same story, the insurance company again refused to pay more than half. Another $1800 later, the body shop bought him a steak dinner for being a “good” customer, and bringing nearly $8,000 into the shop within a week or so.

So he complained to the police department and was told that there is no way that they can force cops to write tickets. The worst part? All of this happened during the same week that the city entered talks to install red light cameras at all of the intersections.

By Divemedic, ago