Friday, December 05, 2008

But Now, Who'll Find Nicole and Ron's Real Killer?

O.J. Simpson gets at least 15 years in prison - CNN.com
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) -- A Las Vegas judge sentenced fallen gridiron great O.J. Simpson to at least 15 years in prison for leading an armed confrontation last year at a Las Vegas hotel room over sports memorabilia.

Here's my favorite bit from OJ:

"I just wanted my personal things. I was stupid. I'm sorry. I didn't know I was doing anything illegal. I thought I was confronting friends. I thought I was retrieving my things. I didn't mean to hurt anybody and I didn't mean to steal anything," Simpson said.


You didn't mean to hurt anybody? Really? That why you took guns with you? You didn't know that doing that was illegal? Please.

Sorry, dude, you were caught on tape taking stuff at gunpoint. Makes no difference that you claim it was your stuff. Even in Vegas.

And I actually believe the judge when he says it wasn't payback for the murder acquittal. He could have given OJ life if he was going to play it that way. 15 years for armed robbery, kidnapping and assault, with parole possible in nine, is not an unusual sentence.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Concentrated Essence of Awesome

Bruce Lee playing Ping Pong.

With nunchucks.

Need I say more?



Hat tip to Ain't It Cool News.

Yeah, it's probably CGI. Still.

No Retreat, No Surrender

Latest Newspaper Column:

Well, friends, I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving. I hope you had a fine time and good fellowship with friends and family, and that you had occasion to reflect upon all of the things for which we should be truly thankful.

And I hope you got some rest.

Because, dear readers, we are faced with desperate times. We have a great battle upon us, and I hope you won't think I'm overstating the case when I tell you it's a battle more desperate than the Alamo, the Siege of Khe Sanh, Stalingrad and the stand of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae combined.

I'm speaking, of course, of the War On Christmas.

You know the one I'm talking about. It's the battle fought every year against the forces of secular socialist progressive liberalism and their fiendish campaign to replace the word "Christmas" with the word "Holiday" in our commercial discourse. Because, as we know, any time someone says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," a little bit of America dies.

Don't just take my word for it. No less an authority than Wall Street Journal Deputy Editor Daniel Henninger has warned us that the current collapse of the financial sector has its real roots, not in years of failed Bush financial policies, but in the disappearance of "Merry Christmas."

"What really went missing through the subprime mortgage years," Henninger writes, "were the three Rs: responsibility, restraint and remorse. ... Responsibility and restraint are moral sentiments. Remorse is a product of conscience. None of these grow on trees. Each must be learned, taught, passed down. And so we come back to the disappearance of 'Merry Christmas.'"

If Christmas, Henninger cautions, becomes the holiday "that dare not speak its name," then "we are erasing the chalk lines. ... Go ahead. Banish Merry Christmas. Get ready for Mad Max."

Now this might sound like insane gibberish to some, especially if, like me, you've never in your entire life met a single person of any religious persuasion who claims to be offended or insulted by the words "Merry Christmas."

But let's not forget, this man is a deputy editor of one of the nation's most prestigious newspapers. And if he says that the use of "Happy Holidays" is going to lead to the collapse of civilization and leave us all running around in the desert driving souped-up vehicles, wearing leather bondage gear, and fighting to the death over a few drops of gasoline, then perhaps we should listen. I'm betting that it's the forces of secular socialist progressive liberalism (hereinafter referred to as the FOSSPL) that have kept him from being a full editor. Those guys are everywhere.

So, in these dark times, where is our champion? Where is our leader in the fight to save Christmas? Our General Patton, our Lone Ranger, our Gandalf?

Where is Bill O'Reilly?

I did some more research on the Internet (and by "research," I mean "idly wasting time while pretending to be working on this column"), trying to find out what Mr. O'Reilly has been up to in his valiant battle against the anti-Christmas hordes.

My friends, what I saw shocked me. Appalled me. I was aghast. I was agog. It seems that Bill O'Reilly, sworn enemy of the word "holiday" in regard to the Yuletide celebration, had been co-opted by the FOSSPL. There, big as life on the O'Reilly.com Web site, was Bill's -- I
shudder to even say it -- "Holiday" reading list.

Say it ain't so, Bill-o!

And the news gets worse. Focus on the Family, the religious group that's provided such a valuable early-warning system for "Holiday"-based threats to America's Christmas, announced recently it was laying off more than 200 staffers, citing "the faltering economy and a decline in donations."

So is the traditional American Christmas, in which we celebrate the birth of Our Lord with paranoia, a chronic persecution complex, and bullying people over imagined slights, a thing of the past? Is this a world in which fear-mongering is no longer profitable?

I can't believe it. I won't believe it! We are going to carry on the fight. We shall fight them in the malls. We shall fight them in the Walmarts. We shall fight them in the PetSmarts and Best Buys. We shall never surrender. We will bring the true spirit of Christmas back to this country if we have to cram it down the throat of every man, woman and child in it.

God bless us, every one.


Dusty Rhoades lives, writes, practices law, and celebrates Christmas in Carthage.