Functionally ReTodded

I had planned to be writing my preview and prediction of the Auburn-Alabama game right now, but my train of thought was broken. When I came into work this morning at 6:10am, I found that our network was down and I can launch neither email nor access to the internet, so I am knocking this post out old school using Word and the cut and paste magic it contains.

For those of you that don’t know the story, DeKalb County Sheriff-elect Derwin Brown was killed in a contract style hit a few years ago. The assassination was planned and arranged by former DeKalb County Sheriff Sidney Dorsey. Dorsey and an associate, Patrick Cuffey, were convicted in criminal court and sentenced to life or worse…I can’t recall.

Recently, there was concern that these two knuckleheads would profit from their crime thru book and movie deals, so Brown’s widow sued the two guys in civil court. Obviously, if the guys were guilty in criminal court, they were going to get convicted in civil court.

Anyway, on my way into the building today, I picked up the Gwinnett Post and noticed the headline “Slain Sheriff’s family awarded $776M.”

Read that again. It said Seven Hundred and Seventy Six MILLION DOLLARS!!

Now, I know what happened was wrong, but I thought the point was to figure what the decedent’s life was “worth” (i.e. earning power times earning years, etc).

Juries delivering verdicts like this is what has driven the court system into the ground. Again, I know this was a preventive (not preventative…I hate that word) measure to ensure that the killers never profited, but was someone really concerned that these two dimwits would somehow NET three quarters of a billion dollars on a manuscript or a treatment?

It started with the idiotic tobacco verdicts where some dumbass smoked filter-less camels for forty years, then felt wronged when he got sick. Yet juries returned awards in the hundreds of millions. I smoked for twenty years, and never once did I blame anyone other than the person in the mirror. I think people suing big tobacco should be counter sued for filing ridiculous lawsuits.

Wow…I just defended big tobacco. Somebody help me.

Point two of the day is the deal with the FCC now far overstepping the purpose and boundaries of their collective office and becoming the nation’s thought and morals police.

For years, the FCC has been hassling Howard Stern and other “shock jocks” for their antics. Often times, the FCC would cite that it received “complaints” from citizens. It turns out that it only takes one complaint for the modern day SS to go into action.

The Superbowl was where this all started, and even THAT was bullshit. A view of a boob for a fraction of a second after 8pm suddenly meant that any time a single citizen was offended by anything they heard on television, radio or anywhere else became the FCC’s responsibility.

Recently, ABC wanted to air “Saving Private Ryan” uncut for Veteran’s Day. Do you know what happened? Many ABC affiliates (including my local ABC affiliate) refused to air the movie, fearing reprisals from the FCC.

Can someone tell me how we got to this point? Is this some bastardized off-shoot of the Patriot Act or Homeland Security or something?

The FCC’s job is to police the usage of airwaves and to regulate usage of technologies for television, radio and other media. Their job is NOT to decide what it’s okay for us to watch. We do that. If we don’t like what we see on TV, guess what we should do.

SHUT THE FUCKING THING OFF!!

One example of the FCC’s ACTUAL job is to protect, defend, and sell rights to certain frequencies for wireless communications. Buying the rights to those frequencies through open “auctions” is a great and legal way for the government to get money from the corporations that use the frequencies.

Recently, Nextel had a problem because one of their frequencies was interfering with emergency communications. At that point, Nextel requested access to another frequency. Instead of holding an auction for that frequency (which they are supposed to do), the FCC gave the access away to Nextel. What could an auction have brought for those frequencies? Estimate run from a conservative three billion to widely accepted five billion dollars!!

That’s right. While Michael Powell and his committee of ass-hats were fining a local DJ for saying “pubes” on the radio, they were giving out FIVE BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS to a publicly traded company at the expense of other publicly traded companies in the same field.

Of course, I am sure I’ll be branded as un-American for this. But it’s important for the citizens of this country to understand what’s happening. Every time we let the government decide what’s right for us, it’s one more inch down the slippery slope to “We Don’t Get To Decide ANYTHING-Land.”

I just hope you’ve all brought your headsets. The thought police will be starting the re-education movie in about five minutes…

One of my favorite quotes about the government came from the late Bill Hicks. He said:

Go back to bed, America, your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed America, your government is in control. Here, here’s American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up, go back to bed America, here is American Gladiators; here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on the living in the land of freedom. Here you go America - you are free to do what well tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!