Arrogant Jerk

My apologies in advance: I would rather have kept my public thoughts out of the election process, but I simply cannot resist any more. Here goes:

Mike Huckabee is more and more frequently referred to as ‘The Huckster’ in comments I am reading around the Web, and for good reason. According to the dictionary built into my MacBook Pro, a ‘huckster’ is ‘a mercenary person eager to make a profit out of anything‘. I was further pleased to discover that a ‘mercenary’ is ‘a person or behavior primarily concerned with making money at the expense of ethics‘. Beautiful.

When hearing ‘huckster’, the deceitful car salesman portrayed by Danny DeVito in Matilda always comes to mind. You may recall he was a lying, cheating salesman who would try anything to get ahead. Let it be known that I have hereafter mentally replaced DeVito’s character (Matilda is among my favorite movies) with Mike ‘The Huckster’ Huckabee. Allow me to explain…

It all started for me just before December 16th, when the Web was abuzz about Huckabee’s comment in a New York Times Magazine article about Mitt Romney. The Huckster, a seasoned Baptist minister, posed a seemingly innocent question about Romney’s Mormonism: ‘Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?’, he asked. Sheepishly.

Give me a break. Huckabee was here in my own state, condemning Mormons and leveling educated insults at every turn, nearly ten years ago at the Baptist convention in 1998. Even the likes of Matt Lauer could see through this deception, and called him out for it in a question to Mit Romney. For those of you not ‘in the know’; Baptists consider themselves the spiritual enemies of Mormons, and take it upon themselves to be conversationally familiar with every LDS shortcoming. Huckabee, as a ordained minister, was certainly more than just a little familiar with every ounce of controversial Mormon theology.

Huckabee knew exactly what he was saying, and tried to toss a religious grenade from behind a silk curtain. Too bad the sun was shining brightly behind him; we got to see a full silhouette of his deception.

Next was his ridiculous Christmas message. In it a well-placed and professionally lit box-shelf presents itself as a Christian cross and softly creeps across the screen. It disappears behind Huckabee’s head as he finishes his touching message about being nice during the holidays and bringing Jesus into our lives. Why a candidate would boldly place a pro-Christian ad on the air during a political campaign is terrifying to me, but that isn’t what bristled by neck hairs; when called on the carpet, Huckabee expressed ignorance about the ‘floating cross’. Wow.

As a professional marketer, I have been involved in the production of professional commercials and high-end professional photography. With this experience in hand, I can assure you that every element of a photo shoot is planned and controlled. There is absolutely no possible way that ‘floating cross’ was an accident. Notice the special lighting. Watch it float across and draw your attention to the candidate in the final shot. Huckabee was flat out lying when he said he had no knowledge of the floating cross. It is rather Arrogant of him to assume we are all so stupid.

Click Here to see Mike Huckabee deny there is a floating cross in his ad.

Huckabee’s latest stunt is what pushed me over the edge and forced my hands to start typing this post. Today he held a press conference to announce a new negative ad. Apparently, and at the last minute, he decided to pull the ad and take the high road. ‘Enough is enough’, he said. He apparently doesn’t want to mar his campaign with negative ads about his competition. Baloney

Only moments after explaining that he doesn’t want to release negative campaign ads, he showed it to the press. You know; to prove that the ad existed in the first place, and to assure them that he was legitimately taking the high road and not releasing the ad… to the press.

What an Arrogant stunt. Don’t believe me? Just look at the backdrop that was professionally printed on what looks like foam-core backing, and professionally hung behind The Huckster while he made the announcement of his ‘last minute change of heart’. ‘Enough is Enough’, it reads. Trust me; you don’t get those printed up in just a few minutes. This thing was planned, and planned well in advance.

Mike Huckabee truly is a huckster. He is showing me, and the rest of the nation, that he is willing to go to deceptive lengths while pretending to be innocent. Unfortunately for him, it comes off as looking like he is out of touch, out of control, and out of his mind.

Hey Mike: If a man’s dishonest trying to get the job, will he be dishonest on the job? Don’t worry about giving an answer, you Arrogant Jerk; We already know.

UPDATE: Mike Huckabee, the presidential candidate, gave a sermon at a local church in New Hampshire on Sunday. In the sermon he is quoted by The Washington Post as having said “When you give yourself to Christ, some relationships have to go,” and “It’s no longer your life; you’ve signed it over.”

While I think that is all fine and nice, I do not believe we need a president who feels that he has signed over control to Jesus. Mike Huckabee appears to be a religious fanatic. Religious extremism is just around the corner, and we only need to look back to 9/11 to see where that can lead.

UPDATE: According to an article on FoxNews.com, Mike Huckabee recently said “I’m more into miracles than math,… miracles, I understand; math is a little harder.”

What troubles me most is that nearly a third of the conservative voters out there don’t interpret this as dangerous thinking. Huckabee may be a great faith healer, but I am not sure a faith healer is presidential material. Don’t we need someone who is better at math, and who doesn’t wait for miracles?

I was trying to keep this site out of the slasher side of life, but the smug look on convicted serial killer Robert Pickton’s face in his latest public photo tells me this guy is proud to be a Smug Arrogant Jerk. And he is…

If you have been following the story, you have already experienced that queasy feeling as you read the stories about how this outback Canadian pig farmer would advertise wild parties at his remote farm in hopes of luring drug addicts and prostitutes. After he selected his target from the eclectic group of partygoers, he would isolate the individual, have his way with them, and then murder them in horrible, torturous ways. This guy is a real ‘piece of work’, as they say.

Recently convicted of six murders, the Canadian authorities feel they have good evidence to try him for an additional 20 murders. Reports indicate that Pickton bragged to an undercover cellmate that he was upset they caught him before he could kill one more person, bringing his total to ‘an even 50′. How’s that for Smug Arrogant Jerkiness?

Police are investigating his possible connection to as many as 30 additional unresolved murders in the area. There are a total of 61 women unaccounted for in the area over the last 20 years.

What struck me as particularly Arrogant about Robert Pickton is that he had the gall to announce via letters that he felt it was his god-assigned duty to rid the world of bad people. To justify killing anyone for anything other than imminent threat is ultimate Arrogance, but I suspect this is merely a red herring justification; I am convinced that Robert Pickton enjoyed doing very bad things to undeserving people for his own pleasure. What a Jerk.

Today Robert Pickton was sentenced to life in prison, with no eligibility for parole for at least 25 years. This came as a relief to trial attendees who were worried that he would receive a lighter sentence because the jury only convicted him of ’second degree murder’ instead of ‘first’.

How the jury had any trouble figuring this one out is beyond me (it took them 10 days). And why they couldn’t come together at ‘first degree’ brings up disturbing memories of the OJ trial. I am clenching my teeth right now. However, and nevertheless, the judge came shining through in a moment of wisdom and threw the entire book at this guy. Thanks, Your Honor, you won’t be featured on my blog any time soon.

At times like these, I am certain there are those in Canada who are rethinking their position on capital punishment. I, for one, do not believe Robert Pickton deserves to share another single breath of our precious air. In consolation, I suppose I can at least be happy that the air he does get will never be accompanied by the sweet smell of freedom.

Enjoy your miserable, small, and stinky cell, you Arrogant Jerk.

Evel Knievel died yesterday at the age of 69. And somehow a small part of my childhood will go with him.

Evel Knievel was a famous daredevil who jumped his motorcycle over everything he could think of. Busses, flaming lakes of fire, and parts of the Grand Canyon. Wow!

I grew up with Evel on the TV, and always considered him to be one of the good guys. I begged my mom to drive me to the cinema so me and my buddies could watch Evel on the big screen in Viva Knievel (1977). We spent the rest of the day building ramps and measuring the distance we could jump our bicycles. We even dared jump over each other. Those were the days.

I remember, too, watching his failed Snake River jump on pins and needles. As a young boy in Florida I didn’t comprehend the size of the Snake River until I saw it on TV. ‘Is he really going to do that?’ I asked in disbelief. ‘I don’t think so’, answered my father. And then we watched in amazement.

I am not sure what the actual total was, but I grew up hearing that Evel Knievel had broken every bone in his body, twice. For this reason I am sure yesterday’s news was met with more than a few people questioning ‘He’s still alive?!’.

I am not sure the world will miss him, necessarily. He was one of the largest characters in the public eye, but most people regarded him as more crazy than super hero. But we sure enjoyed him while he was here.

He was Arrogant, but not really a Jerk. Here’s to you, Evel. May you Rest in Peace.

It’s true; I believe we have rustled up another Arrogant Jerk DA. I don’t mean to play to a stereotype here, but the job seems to attract a certain kind of person who enjoys casting the first stone, despite all the rules about ‘casting the first stone’.

David McDade is the district attorney for Georgia’s Douglas County, and it seems to me that he is so Arrogant, and such a Jerk, that he can’t recall what it’s like to be a young-and-dumb teenager. Neither can he understand that sex among teenagers is one of our nation’s most popular pastimes, and that a punishment of ten years in prison for doing such a thing might be just a little over the top. I can’t imagine what our overcrowding problem would look like if we followed this guy’s lead.

What ever happened to a swift smack on the head and a sternly-pointed finger while shouting something like ‘I brought you into this world, and I can take you out,… so help me, If I ever catch you with that girl again…’ No; the courts have displaced Mama as sex counselor, and apparently the DA thinks ‘He’ knows best.

Enter Genarlow Wilson, a 17-year-old teenager out on New Year’s Eve with a 15-year-old female schoolmate and, unfortunately, a video camera. Genarlow somehow thought it would be a good idea to have himself filmed while engaged in sex with the girl and subsequently found himself embroiled in a sexual crime case. Charges against him as a rapist were apparently dropped, but he was convicted of something akin to ’sex with a minor’, and now has the words ’sex offender’ stamped on his permanent record. Young Genarlow gets to register his place of residence with the state for the rest of his life, and will be shunned by every cautious parent and employer at every turn. For having sex with a minor, as a minor.

Now, I am not here to argue for young Genarlow’s moral aptitude or his wariness in film making. We could be here all day arguing to and fro about whether he made the right decision. But isn’t that the point? Teenagers are deemed ‘too stupid to make good decisions’ by society already, so why are we leveling serious punishment against this guy when he makes a bad decision? Mind you; I am working with the difference here between ‘having sex’, and something I would regard as severally punishable, such as a thoughtfully executed plan to shoot up a local high school. There is a huge difference.

The sex between two consensual minors, while morally sticky, is not causing anyone harm.

You may argue that point, too. Teenage pregnancy, disease, and ‘going to hell’ aside; do you really think we should take a kid (a high achiever, by the way: a school athlete with outstanding GPA), and throw them away for 10 years for foolin’ around? Come on; bring in Mama, slap him silly, and let’s get back to work.

We don’t let teenagers drink because we know they won’t be thinking clearly before, or after, the first sip. We don’t let teenagers vote, because we are certain they don’t have all the facts when it comes to choosing our public leadership. We make teenagers wait until age 16 to drive a car, and would wait even longer if us parents didn’t have to accommodate their increasingly painful social schedule with cab services. We don’t let teenagers do a lot of things because we know they are not good decision makers, yet.

Despite our imposed restrictions, teenagers are at that critical age of expanding interest and experimentation. They don’t know enough to be afraid, and are ready and willing to experiment with the mysteries of the world. Sex being one of the more attractive and attainable ones, for obvious reasons. This is common knowledge, and is supported by every study we have conducted since the time of Adam and Eve. And probably earlier, if anyone cared before then.

David McDade apparently fails to grasp this basic understanding, and thinks ten years up the river is adequate punishment. What an Arrogant Jerk. It makes me curious what he would do with the five-year-old who’s teacher last week filed a sexual harassment complaint against the boy for giving her a hug. Ridiculous. I have a five year old boy, and I guarantee he has absolutely no ’sexual’ motivations, no matter how he hugs you. A five year old is simply incapable of comprehending sexual motive, and a teenager does not deserve a single day in jail for fooling around with a girlfriend. I’ll say it again: Ridiculous.

Last year I was appalled to learn that an Iraqi father took part in his daughter’s stoning-to-death for similar reasons. David McDade thinks the same way as that ignorant father, and is an Arrogant Jerk for doing so.

Genarlow Wilson has served two years in prison for having sex. What is this world coming to?

Genarlow is set to become a celebrity, having been featured on the cover page of Fox’s website, and is getting full coverage by CNN. I’ll bet there are more than a few people looking at this sideways and saying ‘what an Arrogant Jerk’ that DA must be.

So, I understand the 15th of October is ‘Blog Action Day‘. A day designated for all bloggers on the web to participate in a single-topic barrage to get the word out about something really important. This year’s topic: The Environment.

OK. Here it goes…

I am all for the environment. I live in it, after all. And if you have been following along you will note that I was particularly disgruntled when I witnessed a smoker trashing up my local convenience store. I really do care.

I want my world to be clean, and generally free of trash, crying indians, and used vacuum cleaner shops that display their wares along the street corner near my home. Carry out what you carry in. Go easy on the water, and let’s ease back on some of those emissions where we can.

At the same time; let’s not all get worked up into a frenzy and start a global panic. I am ever more convinced we don’t need to start making laws and putting more people into jail because we think the sky is falling. And this brings me to my point:

Is it just me, or does anyone else get the feeling this was all coordinated by Al Gore as a gigantic publicity stunt?

As you have heard, Al just won the Nobel Peace Prize. An award specifically designated for those who generate or promote peace in some fashion or another. Never mind that Gore’s actions did nothing in particular to ‘promote peace’, and have otherwise been rather divisive, his take on the planet’s impending doom has been declared ‘questionable’ by most, and outright deceitful by others.

For the most part, I like Al Gore. He was our Vice President, and certainly deserves a certain amount of respect for being willing to spend his time running the country against all odds. He is also a board member over at Apple, my favorite computer outfit. He can’t be all bad. But I have been a bit annoyed lately. It seems to me that most of what he does is extremely self serving.

His documentary, for instance; An Inconvenient Truth, should rather be titled ‘A Somewhat Lenient Truth‘. Global warming is the result of man, is the message. I am certain he couldn’t be farther from the truth. Science is showing that our Earth has been in a constant warming pattern since the ice age, and that we also happen to be in a 15-30 year swing pattern that has us in an opposite panic every other decade. In fact, prominent meteorologist Dr. William Gray is inclined to think that in 15 years or so we will be worried about Global Cooling. I have already seen some headlines stating so.

In what I am certain was a well timed counter punch, angry father Stewart Dimmock sued his local school for showing An Inconvenient Truth without a ‘bias warning’. He won; a judge ordered that the film be accompanied by a flyer containing nine points on which the film could be misleading. The fact that this news hit the streets just days before Al was awarded The Prize makes this whole week look like one big conspiracy.

Apple surprised me this week. Not by their show of support for boardmember Al, but for the language they allowed to creep onto their site on his behalf (or perhaps at his behest?). They said ‘…put his heart and soul… into alerting… us all on the climate crisis.’ Their reference to ‘climate crisis’ was a little too definitive for me, and caught my eye. I thought it would have been more appropriate to say something like ‘alerting us all to the importance of climate awareness.’

The Nobel Peace Prize committee has taken their hits this week, too. And not just because of Al Gore, but rather because the award to Al Gore has reminded us again that the Nobel Peace Prize has less to do with peace, and more to do with political lobbying. Al has done a lot to raise awareness of climate issues, but many of them have been debunked. How does that relate to ‘peace’?

Anyway, I wanted to throw in my two cents today, in somewhat of a counter measure to all the hype there will no doubt be for the ‘climate crisis’. We could certainly stand to clean this place up a bit, but I think Al Gore deserves a light hearted Arrogant Jerk award for playing it up like some kind of doomsday message, and ignoring many of the facts in order to promote his own aspirations of popularity. We’ll see what he does with it later (I really cannot imagine he will try to run against Hillary. Does anyone really want to just throw away their money like that?).

If you want some non-political information about ‘global warming’, check out http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse

Have a nice Blog Action Day.

In a surprise find, I discovered today a follow-up story to my earlier posting about the Orem City police department and the old lady they arrested for having a ‘brown lawn’.

In today’s news, I learned that the City of Orem, my home town, chose to pursue charges against Betty Perry, who pleaded ‘innocent’ to the charges yesterday in court.

To add to the black eye my town has already endured over this strange matter, Gloria Allred jumped in the ring and assured us all that…

“Today, law enforcement in Orem has enshrined itself as the laughing stock of our country by prosecuting a 70-year-old great-grandmother for allegedly not watering her lawn,…” She apparently summarized her statement with this stinging statement: “This ill-conceived action ensures Orem’s law enforcement authorities first place in the [Guinness World Records] for stupidity.”

Don’t worry about a thing, Gloria, I’ve got you covered. Our Orem Police Department has already been fingered as Arrogant Jerks. You can read all about it here.

By virtue of this update post, I would like to include the unspecified ‘Orem City Officials’ who continued to press charges against Betty as Arrogant Jerks By Extension, to the original post.

Read the news story posted by the Salt Lake Tribune, here.

By the way, the region has come alive with color as smell of fall blows through the valley. It is truly beautiful, but doesn’t hide the fact that the field across from my office window, maintained by the city, has remained a crispy brown color for the entire summer.

What’s more: everything in Orem will be brown by the time Betty has to appear in court again, adding to the ridiculous nature of this entire situation. I hope she points out the window and asks if the ‘Orem City Officials’ are planning to ticket us all for letting our lawns go brown in the extreme October environment of the high mountains.