And This All Has What in Common? Umm....

I've had a crazy summer. I finally got the magazine done that I've been working on. But I've still got a hundred other things to do this week before our students come back to campus. There's been a lot of stuff keeping me busy at work; and during most of our weekends this summer my wife and I haven't really had a whole lot of spare time to just relax. To top it all off, I've wanted to blog this past week - but haven't really been inspired by any particular topics of interest.

So I'll kind of hit a few random topics:

• The Olympics. Our swimming team is on a tear. Michael Phelps and the crew definitely went in with their game on. Of our 21 athletes so far to receive medals, 17 are on our swimming team. But I'm really not too into the Olympics this year for some reason. I tend to like the Winter Olympics more -- ice hockey, luge, bobsled, snowboarding, snow skiing, and especially ice skating.
• Election 2008. Is anyone else just sick of this election season? It's been going on for nearly 2 years now. And neither one of the candidates are at all exciting. I'm truly at a loss for words with these clowns. Not that I would want Paris Hilton in office, but at least she'd keep things interesting. I'm about at the point where I think I'm going to write Ted Nugent in as who I want to be elected president. Seriously.
• On sort of that note .... John Edwards. Okay, so it is now five days now since he admitted he had an affair. As of right now, he is currently in the 7th headline on MSNBC.com, below the 4 featured articles; he is not even in the headlines on CNN.com. However, he is the 2nd featured article currently on FoxNews.com. So what does this say? If the situation were to be reversed and, say, Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee admitted that they had an affair, conversely, their placement in the annoying over-liberal general media would be higher most eveywhere, most likely in that No. 2 slot on nearly every news Web site, and you'd find the article buried on the FoxNews Web site (arguably, the best news outlet in the world).
  
  • A. That just goes to show you that there is no such thing as unbiased journalism. I should know. I've been the reporter and I've written the articles.
  • B. Liberal media let their people slide. So what if a democratic Senator had an affair? So what if he had an affair on his wife who was going through an ordeal with cancer? No biggie. WRONG. That is a big deal. For anyone. No matter what your political affiliation. However, I can't help wonder if this had happened with a former Republican candidate for president that the media would crucify them and this would be the story of the day for three weeks.
• Russia Invades Georgia ... I'm not really sure where I am on this. That last thing we need is another civil war going on in this world and another conflict to keep from spewing over into other countries. The Security Council needs to act quickly on this. We don't want another situation like what happened when Yugoslavia broke apart and drove the entire region into war for a decade.
  
• Barbecue ... We watched a show on the food network last night about the "three big barbecue states" in the U.S., those 'supposedly' being North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Not to deny those states' influences on one of the best foods on Earth, but South Carolinians know how to smoke some good pig too. I've been to too many barbecue restaurants and pig pickins around this area to put up with people denying South Carolina its rightful place on the barbecue map. By the way, if anyone is looking for some dang good barbecue, try Just More Barbecue in Pendleton, SC.
  
• Facebook ... I've been on Facebook for about a year now. I like it. It's fun - and provides a good tool for catching up with people you haven't talked to in a while or just as something fun to do with your friends. Facebook is implementing a redesign right now. I don't like it. Most people don't like change. I don't really care for it myself in a lot of cases. But when it totally confuses people and doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, why do it? The new design is very confusing. The old one was pretty straightforward. There are a lot of websites that use a redesign as an excuse to make things overcomplicated. Case in point, a company I used to work for manages I think upwards of 100 television stations' websites now - when they redesigned a few years ago from the initial designs, it was just really ugly. Still is. This all gets back to if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
  
  

So goes my ramblings for the time being. I may expand on any one or more of these posts in the near future. So until then, stay tuned.

Person John Edwards

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Mom! It's Not Right!

ROTFLMAO!!!!

My hat is off to LA. Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer for throwing Paris Hilton back in jail!

I shook my head in disgust yesterday when she was released from jail for supposedly having some sort of medical condition. Now to see today that pompous, self-righteous Paris Hilton's bubble burst and she wasn't able to circumvent the justice system is a flicker of hope for those who are tired of seeing celebrities get away with things.

Celebrities need to know that acting like a spoiled brat and thinking they can get away with anything they want is not acceptable. What is especially not acceptable is for the justice sytem not to do something about people defying the law three times. One time should be enough for someone to be arrested and charged for their crime. Allowing her to slide through two warnings and only be arrested on the third is completely unacceptable. People, regardless of their status, should have to face the ultimate consequences for every instance of every crime they commit. There should be no leeway for people who commit crimes.

Of course, there have been countless instances where people of status and celebrity have gotten away with infractions, crimes, and the disrespect of the justice system and/or people of lower socioeconomic status. O.J. Simpson is probably one of the most famous examples of this -- a murderer never convicted of the crime just because he could afford the very best attorneys possible.

I am so tired of celebrities and the status in which popular culture holds them. I am tired of wealthy people as a whole thinking they are better than people who don't have much money, of them holding their nose up in the air, of them showing off their money by buying the expensive cars and houses and throwing it in people's face.

I hope this will be a sign to celebrities and wealthy people that there is justice in this country. Having money may help, but thankfully there are judges like Judge Sauer who will put their foot down against celebrities, socialites, and wealthy people who commit crimes and make sure that the rules do apply to them.

People who commit crimes, regardless of the crime and their own personal status, deserve to serve the maximum sentence applicable under the law. There are many cases in which I feel maximum sentences are too light. But as long as law-abiding citizens have the power to influence the judicial system, we need to make sure that we keep judges like this gentleman in office and push for more stringent laws and criminal justice procedures.

Yes, the criminal justice system in America is drastically underfunded. Yes, our prisons are overcrowded. And I understand that those are two of the major reasons why the justice system as a whole lets people slide sometimes. We need to seriously address those respective areas. But at the same time, we need to address rampant leniency in the justice system.

Enjoy being in jail Paris. You deserve it.