"Sex and the City" Upsets Indy at Box Office

This is one example proving that women have plenty of disposable money to burn or crap, and thus should pay for their share on dates. "Sex and the City" beat expectations by doing better than the latest Indiana Jones film during one box office reporting period.

The Importance of Memorial Day

I don’t care what you think about any particular war – it is extremely important for us to remember our fallen soldiers. Memorial Day doesn’t discriminate between reluctant soldiers who were drafted, and those who volunteered. It remembers those who are no longer with us, whenever they served.

There are those who blame our soldiers for war. If we didn’t have a military, there would be no war. That’s a little like saying that without coroners, police, and firefighters, there would be no death, crime, or fires, respectively.

If we didn’t have a military, our fate would be enslavement and destruction by those who hate human liberty.

Without our military, all of the arguments we have about religion, marriage, privacy, bioethics, gender roles, government spending, taxes, public schools, immigration, entertainment content, and environmental protection would be completely trivial because we wouldn’t be free to debate them, if we were even still alive. Rising gas prices would be the least of our troubles.

I remember the soldiers in my own family who have passed on, and I offer my sincerest grattitude to the families who have lost soldiers. I will not forget their sacrifice.

New EHarmony.com Commercials

I've noticed some new commercials for EHarmony.com, ones that don't feature Dr. Warren. They seemed to be geared towards catching the eye of some of the audience that might automatically switch into "ignore" mode when they see the familiar look or hear the familiar voice of the longstanding ad campaign for which the business is famous.

I think these ones may be a little hard to spoof, at least until they establish a new common feel.

I Have a Right to Force Others to Give Me a License

After hearing some very good news this last week, I went down to my local DMV office here in California and asked for driver’s license.

Those mean, bigoted DMV workers wanted me to take a driving test. Actually, I’m sure they weren’t all bigots, but were just doing that the mean bigots in authority had told them to do – kind of like Nazi soldiers.

Anyway, they wanted me to take a driver’s test. Well phooey on that. I have known since I was a little boy that I don’t like driving. It just doesn’t appeal to me. The first time I rode a bike, though… wow… bells went off in my head. I knew I was bicyclist.

I was able to join a bicycling club at school, and that helped me feel better about myself. I got picked on and teased by those guys with those souped up cars. They just don’t understand anyone different from them.

So there I was – I wanted my driver’s license, and these DMV employees wanted me to drive. I told them I didn’t want to drive. I had no desire to drive. But I’ve had the same bicycle and have been committed to taking care of it for a long time now. Other people get driver’s licenses. I should be able to get one, too. After all, my love for my bicycle was no different than someone else's love for their car.

They offered me a California I.D. card. They told me it will get me many of the same things as a driver’s license.

What?!? Separate but equal??? I was being treated like a second-class citizen, simply because of my love of bicycles. Why should I have to drive a car to get a driver’s license?

The told me driving was a privilege, not a right. But I’ve seen all of these car drivers getting driver’s licenses. Why should I be denied one just because I don’t like cars?

The good thing is, I know the California Supreme Court is on my side. Someday soon I will be able to get a driver’s license from the people of California, even though those people don't approve, for me and my bicycle.

My next stop will be to get my licenses to practice law and medicine, though I have an aversion to taking tests and blood. Why should I be denied the same respect that doctors get? I will also be stopping at the VA to get some veteran's benefits. Why should be I be denied those, just because I am a pacficist? That one might be tough, seeing as how it is a federal thing. I will also be applying for grants for ovarian cancer research for men. I mean, they can't discriminate on the basis of sex, can they?

Was a Dr. Laura Caller Being Elitist?

I usually think Dr. Laura is right, and I get why she does her show the way she does.

She had a caller at the start of the of the final half-hour today who said her family (the one she was raised in, not the one she has now with her husband) was leaving her out of family functions since she left their "elitist" religion.

Dr. Laura turned it around on her and called her elitist and suggested (insisted) that she had been hurtful towards her family.

Perhaps there was some information on Dr. Laura's computer screen that she wasn't sharing with her listeners, but the impression I got as a listener was that it was entirely possible that this woman had left one of the many cults that exist. By "cult" I'm not addressing theology, but sociology. Not all cults live in gated compounds, stockpile weapons in anticipation with of a battle with the government, and commit mass suicide or set dates for the end of the world.

There ARE actual cults out there who shun those who leave their group, even if those people still keep most of the same theological beliefs, practices, morals, etc. It gets so bad that family members are strongly encouraged to shun other family members who leave the group. That could have been what was going on with this woman.

It's good that Dr. Laura gets people think about what they might have done wrong and how they can accept or fix things, but in this case it sounded like she was scolding someone who could have been making a very healthy decision to leave a cult.

Cults are a very real problem and highly intelligent people can be slowly absorbed into one (in her case, she grew up with this group). In some cases, a person's entire life gets wrapped up in the same tightly contolled monolithic group - their family, their job, their friends, even their possessions (home, car, etc.) and leaving becomes very difficult because it means having to start an entirely new life.

I'm glad that I knew enough about cults and how they work to avoid being recruited into one. I was approached no less than five times by the same cult in a short span of time. It got to the point that I could someone was a member before they reached the end of the first sentence of their pitch.

Anyway, this was one instance where I thought Dr. Laura could have been way off.

Congratulations, Sir Paul McCartney

You’re now free to pick another woman to make famous, share your secrets with, and pay a ridiculous amount of money to when you break up.

Tracy Denise Roberson of Texas: Why Men Should Protect Themselves

I'm sure there is a reason why this whole thing was entirely the fault of men, but it is Texas, so a woman did get some blame.

A Texas woman who caused her lover's shooting death by falsely crying rape was convicted Friday of involuntary manslaughter.

By “caused” they mean that it wasn’t unreasonable for her to think that her husband would shoot the guy as a result.

In late 2006, Darrell Roberson came home from a late-night card game to find his scantily clad wife with another man in a pickup truck in the driveway.

So while he was out with the boys, she’s also out with the boys. Why did he prefer card games to sex with his wife? Could it be that she was running cold for him, only hot for another man? I suppose it is possible that her husband was neglectful, or that this was his reasonable amount of “guy time”. Either way, his actions indicate he cared about protecting his wife.

Tracy Roberson was with her lover but cried rape, and her husband fired four shots into the truck as Devin LaSalle drove off, killing him.

As he drove off – so presumably he was no longer an immediate threat. Not that I’m saying Mr. Roberson shouldn’t have shot him.

Darrell Roberson initially was arrested, but a murder charge was later dropped and a grand jury indicted Tracy Roberson instead.

During her three-day trial, defense attorneys called no witnesses but blamed LaSalle's death on Darrell Roberson's jealousy and rage.

Yeah, funny that man has rage when someone is supposedly raping his wife.

But prosecutors placed all the blame on Tracy Roberson, showing evidence of the affair with LaSalle, 32, and a text message in which she invited him to her house that evening.

If LaSalle knew she was married, he chose to put himself in a dangerous situation. That doesn’t excuse what happened to him, no more than a woman is to blame if she goes to a guy’s bedroom, takes off her clothes, fondles the guy, and is subsequently raped by him. Even if people make stupid decisions, they should still be protected by law from another person’s force.

So her defense wasn’t able to successfully argue that she wasn’t to blame for her actions because of some hormonal problems? Sheesh. Defense lawyers are losing their touch.

Has this been copied by “Law & Order: SVU” yet?