Crazy People & Guns

My "what the fuck are they thinking" moment of the week came last night when I was watching an episode of '60 Minutes' from 2 weeks ago.

I the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, 60 Minutes was investigating the current laws preventing mentally ill folks from obtaining firearms. One might think that there's a decent system in place to keep the crazies and the guns separated... You'd be wrong.

The problem is that currently the law that restricts people with mental illnesses from buying guns has really no solid way of checking to see if that guy at the Wal-mart or at the pawn shop has a mental illness. The law doesn't require the release of records about someone's mental illness. So, there's only about a 1 in 10 chance that the law will prevent a disturbed person from buying a gun.

After realizing this loophole, you'd think that everyone would be on board with getting this fixed, right? Again, you'd be wrong. Check out this excerpt from 60 Minutes where anchor Steve Kroft is interviewing Gun Owners of America Executive Director, Larry Pratt.

The most vocal (opponent) is Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, which has 375,000 members and sees nothing wrong with the mentally ill buying guns.

"We think this is simply another way of eliminating another large group of people from gun ownership in this country," Pratt argues.

"That large group, two million-plus...are people who have been involuntarily committed," Kroft remarks.

"We think those are two million people who you can't say that, you know anything about what their future behavior is going to be," Pratt says.

WHAT? Did you say 'this is another way of eliminating a large group of people from gun ownership'? ... Uh, yeah! CRAZY FUCKING PEOPLE! What the fuck is this guy thinking?

And his second quote is even more priceless... You don't know what their 'future behavior' might be? Isn't that that the exact fucking reason we don't let FELONS have firearms, asshole?

Of course, Mr. Pratt is the same crazy bastard who immediately after the Virginia Tech shootings made a press release saying:

"The latest school shooting demands an immediate end to the gun-free zone law which leaves the nation's schools at the mercy of madmen. It is irresponsibly dangerous to tell citizens that they may not have guns at schools. The Virginia Tech shooting shows that killers have no concern about a gun ban when murder is in their hearts.

Holy Christ... you just can't argue with crazy. This guy is obviously a couple of beers short of a six pack. I guess that's why he's so opposed to banning nut-jobs from having access to guns.

BREAKING NEWS: CHARTER SUCKS!

For years, I have insisted that Charter Cable is the devil incarnate. Charter is quite possibly the company with the absolute worst customer service policies that is still in operation. If most companies treated their customers as shitty as Charter has over the years, they would be out of business. Luckily for Charter, many customers have no option other than to use Charter to receive more than the standard 4 networks via the rabbit ear antennae.

Well, recently Charter has come under increased scrutiny, including from the Better Business Bureau for their poor treatment and outright abuse of their paying customers.

Last Friday, an article in the Post Dispatch featured a former Charter call center representative and her claims of straight out lying to customers.

"The No. 1 complaint," she says, "was why didn't the technician show up for my appointment?" A simple question, you'd think. But one Gates says call center employees can't answer.

She says call center reps have no idea when installers are supposed to show up, where they are at the time, or when — or if — they might arrive.

"We had nothing in our system that told us anything about where Charter's technicians were," Gates says.

So what do call center reps tell callers?

"We lie to them," Gates says. "We tell them, 'Absolutely, the technician will be there.' " Customers who persist are given another Charter phone number to call, Gates says.

Many of those customers call back to say that second number didn't work.

Gates says reps at the call center know that might happen. "The number doesn't work half the time," she says.

If the call center can't answer these questions, why not just transfer customers to someone who can?

"We were not allowed to transfer calls," Gates says. "Even though we had no training in technical support, we were supposed to answer the customers' questions and sell them new services."

Selling new services was the highest priority, she says.

Call center reps were allowed to transfer only 7 percent of their calls. More than that and they were written up and disciplined, Gates says.

Lovely. So Charter isn't only shitty to its customers, it's shitty to its employees.

AVOID CHARTER AT ALL COSTS, FOLKS! Do what I did and go with DirecTV. Been a happy customer for nearly 8 years. I think I've had to call their customer service line 4 times in those 8 years, and was very satisfied with the service every time.

You've been warned.

Vocabulary Fun

My new word is 'Fucktard'.

I'm going to be slowly working this into my vocabulary to replace the overused 'douchebag'.

I came across 'fucktard' while reading a recent article in Details magazine.

While a douchebag is easy to spot, I believe a fucktard is more encompassing.

This first guy is a douchebag. The second two photos are examples of what I consider fucktards. Consider yourself warned.

Paris Goes to Jail

Let the outrage begin at the miscarriage of justice in California where Paris Hilton has been sentenced to 45 days in county jail for violating her probation.

During the hearing, Paris plead stupidity in defense of her actions.

"I'm very sorry, and from now on I'm going to pay complete attention to everything. I'm sorry, and I did not do it on purpose at all," she told the judge before he announced the sentence.

She said that when an officer who stopped her in January made her sign a document stating her license was suspended, she thought he was mistaken and did not actually look at the document.

Her spokesman, Eliot Mintz, said at the time Hilton wasn't aware her license was suspended. A copy of the document Hilton signed on January 15 was found in the car's glove compartment, court papers say.

Hilton was also required to enroll in an alcohol education program by February 12. As of April 17, she had not enrolled, prosecutors said.

I'm sure Paris was just too burdened with the high-pressure of her many jobs as a "handbad designer," reality TV and film "star", fragrance namesake, and all-around socialite. She doesn't have time to read silly pieces of paper insignificant people like police officers give her! Come on!

And it's obvious that she was not raised this way. Her mother has complete respect for the law.

As a city prosecutor said during closing arguments that Hilton deserved jail time, Hilton's mother, Kathy, laughed. When the judge ruled, Kathy Hilton then blurted out: "May I have your autograph?"

(Upon leaving the courtroom) when a reporter asked what she thought of the judge's decision, a visibly angry Kathy Hilton responded: "What do you think? This is pathetic and disgusting, a waste of taxpayer money with all this nonsense. This is a joke."

I'm sure Paris just made a simple mistake. It's good to see she stood up like a responsible 26 year old and handled this herself.

Hilton had arrived at the Metropolitan Courthouse 10 minutes late and ignored screams of photographers as she swept in with her attorneys, mother and father, Rick Hilton.

Oh well, at least she's got her looks...