Burnettiquette

In the double standards for us and them category: Wachovia launders drug dough

My colleague Jay Weaver at the Miami Herald reports this evening that federal authorities in Miami have busted Wachovia Bank for laundering $110 million for a Mexican drug cartel.

By agreeing to pay a $50 million fine and forfeit their Tony Montana money, Wachovia will avoid criminal prosecution.

I have just one thing to say about this deal: You try this. Go ahead. Times are tight. Try to launder your neighborhood drug dealer's loot through your Wachovia checking or savings accounts. And when you're caught, offer to pay a fine worth roughly 45.5% of the value of the dirty profits.

Let me know how that goes. And make sure to include the address of the federal prison where you'll be living for the next few years. I'll send flowers and ointment.

PS. Follow me at twitter.com/jamesburnett.

MLK & Politics

Contrary to what pro pundits would have you believe, if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was alive today he wouldn't be a Republican or a Democrat.

Both sides, via some political séance that the rest of us aren't privy to, have cited his speeches and social stances as evidence that he'd be one of them today.

He wouldn't. King was to-the-point with all of his goals and didn't waste time obfuscating, making stuff up about his opponents, or beating around the bush for fear of offending people. His message? Simple: voting & civil rights, safety, fairly administered criminal justice system, judgment of character, not looks. Nothing more, nothing less.

He would be an Independent today. Not a tea party independent or a tea cup independent, but a real independent. And all he would have to offer the extremists in both of the two major fading parties (and the extremists who pretend to be independents) is a giant backhand to smack 'em all with.

R.I.P. MLK.

PS. Follow me, please, at twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Six Thoughts to settle into 2010 with: Tiger, Tequila, Arenas, Utopia, & Sand

• TV media personalities and tabloid types have done you a disservice on the Tiger Woods "story," by reporting a dozen-plus mistresses as though that number has been confirmed as fact, when, in reality, two or three mistresses have been confirmed. The rest were "confirmed" only by the credibility challenged women who've come out of the woodwork to claim affairs with Woods. Keep in mind, these are the same media figures who now refer to Woods as a "black" athlete, although they praised him as a multicultural "CaublAsian" when they thought he was husband/father/athlete of the century. So he's solely on Team Black Folks now? Great.
• The ignorant and sometimes dangerous antics of professional athletes across the various sports disciplines could be nearly eliminated if the National Basketball Association would pull a Pete Rose on the Washington Wizards' Gilbert Arenas & Javaris Crittenton and ban them from the league for life for bringing guns into the Wizards' arena. How stupid do you have to be to bring guns to work when your employer was forced to change its name from "Bullets" to "Wizards" to avoid the bad PR? Sure Arenas' guns were unloaded. But reportedly Crittenton's wasn't. Besides, Arenas is a numbnut. Who knows whether he just forgot to bring the ammo? The threat of no pay or Average Joe pay will cure these guys of what ails them.
• We are not in a "post-racial" America. That is a damnable myth perpetuated by political consultants from both sides of the aisle who are planning their next election heists. That very name - "post racial" - suggests that a majority of us have become so enlightened as to not notice or give serious consideration to other people's ethnic physical characteristics. Baloney. I'm the most "post-racial" guy I know. Seriously, Bill Cosby should be breaking bread Jello Pudding Pops with me. But even I can't ignore what people look like. It would be nuts to even try. We think it's neat when we see different-colored birds at the zoo. So there's no reason pretend we don't each have some kind of unique look too. A more credible theory might be that we're approaching a "post-racist" America, in which we can acknowledge other people's ethnic physical characteristics but not judge their character by their skin color. That would be a more credible philosophy, but I have my doubts we're there yet, either.
• News organizations everywhere should band together and make this the year we stop covering the likes of Tila Tequila in pages and on air once meant for useful information. Scratch that. I was dreaming. We're gonna have to cover her and her ilk as long as readers and viewers who shake righteously indignant fists at us in the morning continue to sneak back at night to get their gossip fill. Where information consumption is concerned, face it: You get what you want.
• This should go without saying, but if the cast of Jersey Shore consisted of eight Puerto Rican kids who relished calling themselves a racial slur that rhymes with "hick," MTV would not have even considered airing the show.
• Invest in silicone. You read it here first.

Gotta run. Till tomorrow, peace and hair grease.

PS. Follow me please at twitter.com/jamesburnett.

More than 1/3 of people lie about their weight

According to a study by AOL, 42% of people surveyed said they absolutely would not tell the truth about their weight if asked.

Thirty-seven percent said they'd lie to a spouse about their weight.

And 39% said they'd be willing to shave up to 10% off their weight in order to deceive someone.

What I was most curious about but didn't see in the survey was who lied more about their weight, men or women.

At risk of getting boycotted, I'm gonna guess it's women...but just barely.

I think it's a myth that women are so much more self-conscious than men about their weight.

Sure, women I've known are really sensitive about such questions. I even had an ex-girlfriend back in the day nearly break down in tears and walk out of a department store when a sales clerk gently but adamantly told my ex that there was just no way she was going to squeeze herself into a size 2, unless she placed a 1 before the two.

Not nice, I know.

But of all the guys I know (not all of them beautifully sculpted like me), while I can only think of two who ever got that stressed out about their weight (and those two were morbidly obese), most guys I know stressed over their weight during their single days. They just stressed behind closed doors and banked on the fact that other guys just wouldn't query them on weight.

Here's the difference I noticed between men and women. Both worry about their weight in terms of their outward appearance. But men don't sweat the actual number as much as women, because they know that women who aren't in some sort of fitness or health-related line of work really have no idea what guys want to weigh, or should weigh.

An overweight guy with enough self-confidence can get away with walking around, sucking in his gut, and pretending that big automatically translates to muscular.

It may be 'cause society in general has been so much more biased toward them, but I just can't imagine an overweight woman attempting to pull off the same stunt as the overweight guy.

Who knows - maybe I'm reading too much into the study.

Follow me, please: http://twitter.com/jamesburnett.

The dog pool ate got my me homework pregnant

A woman from Poland is claiming her daughter was recently impregnated in a situation akin to immaculate conception, so she is suing the place where the apparent miracle took place.

Magdalena Kwiatkowska and her 13-year-old daughter recently vacationed in Egypt. When they returned home, the daughter told Kwiatkowska that she was pregnant. But Kwiatkowska says her daughter didn't meet boys on the trip, so the girl must've been the victim of "stray sperm" in the hotel pool.

That's right. Stray sperm.

I'm not sure whether I think this is an old-fashioned hustle, or if Kwiatkowska is just naive.

Maybe it's neither. But there's no way that kid is carrying Jesus or anything. Possibly the Antichrist.

Whatever. If the mom is right about the cause of her daughter's spermination, I'll never get in a hotel pool again.

Need I remind you? Stray sperm. They don't make hot enough showers for that.

Speaking of bodily fluids and swimming pools, when I was a little kid floundering about the neighborhood pool, there was an urban legend - at least I think it was just legend - that if you peed in the swimming pool you'd be caught 'cause there was invisible ink in the water that would have a chemical reaction with the urine, and create a cloud of black or blue ink around you.

If that ink pee thing wasn't legend and Kwiatkowska isn't a total headcase, you'd think they could put something in pools to alert other swimmers to "stray sperm."

Ha! I couldn't even write that last sentence with a straight face.

http://twitter.com/jamesburnett

Swine Flu the key to peace in the Middle East?

An Israeli health official yesterday called for world health officials to change the name of "Swine Flu" to "Mexican Flu," since Mexico is where the new flu strange allegedly originated because pigs are offensive to both Jews and Muslims.

Really? Really?

I'm not incredulous about the offensive nature of pork in either religion. I understand the nature of that offense. I'm just saying I find it hard to believe that a disease named after a forbidden (for some people) food source is offensive because of that name.

I'd find it offensive if it was called Christian Flu, or Muslim Flu, or Jew Flu, or Really Good Looking Black Man Flu. But Swine Flu? How's that religiously offensive?

Seriously, with all the people freaking out over this flu, does it really matter what we call it? Pig flu, dog, flu, cat flu - catching it or fearing it is not gonna make anyone abandon his faith.

Miss California, Perez Hilton, Gay Marriage & Honesty

If you were one of the 295 million Americans who did not watch the Miss USA Pageant on NBC Sunday night, then you missed a sparkler of an incident that has since been blown up to a full fireworks show.

Celebrity-gossip blogger Perez Hilton, a pageant judge, was tasked with asking a question of one of the five finalists. He drew Carrie Prejean, Miss California.

Hilton's question was "Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?

Prejean's answer was "I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage and, you know what, in my country and my family I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anyone out there but that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be between a man and a woman."

Hilton was clearly disappointed in Prejean's answer. Some members of the audience even booed (shame on them). And Prejean ultimately was runner up to Miss North Carolina who won the pageant.

Later Hilton referred to Prejean as "a dumb bitch" for her answer and said that had she won the Miss USA title he'd have stormed the stage and ripped the tiara from her head.

I'm gonna say this several times, so pay attention: This spat is not about gay marriage or any other civil rights debate.

In a softball interview with Larry King tonight, Hilton insisted he had no regrets, insisted that Prejean's was the dumbest answer in pageant history, insisted that Prejean's answer was the wrong answer, insisted that he didn't want Prejean's opinion but rather the answer a representative of all Americans would have given, and tried to spin the controversy into a referendum on gay marriage and civil rights.

News Flash: Several News Flashes:

• When you ask someone an opinion, there is no right or wrong answer to the question. Unless you ask the question with pre-conditions on the answer then you risk receiving an answer that you might not like.
• Miss California did absolutely nothing wrong. She gave an honest answer to a straight-forward question. Whether her answer was popular or not is a different issue altogether.
• Hilton told Larry King how he would have answered the question. But Hilton wasn't a Miss USA contestant, so how he would have answered the question doesn't matter.

Again, this isn't about gay marriage rights. Beneath the hype the reaction to Prejean's answer by Hilton and the numbnuts in the audience who booed her is the latest example of dishonesty by some folks who say they want an open dialogue with people who are different than them.

Hilton's logic to Larry King was that Miss USA represents the whole USA and that Prejean's answer made it clear she wouldn't have represented gay people if she'd won. The Miss USA Pageant is a for profit business. So had she won, Prejean would have been representing the entity paying her bills: the pageant.

Hilton's logic in this case makes him no different from the yahoos who insist that Barack Obama isn't their president because they didn't vote for him. Al Gore supporters said the same about George Bush. But I digress.

One more time: this Miss USA mess is not about gay marriage.

It's about being able to swallow the fact that sometimes no matter how strongly you feel about something, some folks just are not going to agree with you.

But let's not think this sort of passive aggressiveness is limited to debates about sexual orientation. I've seen people on all sides of race relations debates say they want to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk...until the person they're listening to offers an opinion different than their own. Then they want to flip out.

Same goes for "national conversations" about religion, abortion, and capital punishment, to name a few topics.

After Hilton's harsh words for Miss California, who uttered not one negative word to or about him or gay people in general, he later apologized for calling her "a dumb bitch," explaining that he was so angry 'cause he felt she was so wrong...for having her opinion. He also invited her to coffee, presumably to explain to Prejean the error of her ways.

If you want something advocate for it. Make a case. You're either gonna convince the majority and/or the authorities, or you're not.

In the meantime, it's been my experience that the best way to convince someone that your opinion counts more than theirs is not to call them "a dumb bitch." If I ask a stranger if he approves of me being ebony and Mrs. B being ivory and he answers "no," I can't get mad at the answer. I can get angry over my belief that the stranger is closed-minded. But calling him a Nazi or something and berating him for being stupid pretty much guarantees that he will never hear me out and will never give consideration to my opinion.

So let this be a lesson: don't ask questions of strangers if you've already made up your mind what their answer should be.

That's not to say that you can't try to persuade those strangers that you're right and they're wrong. But that's another post on another day. For now, let's turn this "national conversation" into a real multi-directional chat, and not a pout fest.

Oh, and the real dumbest pageant answer ever? A tie between the following:

• Miss Arizona's response Sunday night to being asked if universal healthcare should be a right of citizenship in the U.S. - "I think this is an issue of integrity, regardless of which end of the political spectrum I stand on. I've been raised in a family to know right from wrong, and politics, whether or not you fall in the middle, the left, or the right, it's an issue of integrity - whatever your opinion is. And I say that with the utmost conviction."
• and Miss Teen South Carolina 2007's response to being asked why she thought a fifth of Americans couldn't locate the U.S. on a map - "I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so… because… uh…some … people out there in our nation don’t have maps and…. uh, I believe that our, ah, education like such as… in South Africa, and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like…such as… and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., or should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries… so we will be able to build up our future…for our children.”

BTW, follow me at http://twitter.com/jamesburnett. 

Nadya Suleman Pt. 2

OK, now that it's abundantly clear that Nadya Suleman AKA the octuplet mom receives public assistance (commonly called welfare when used in reference to recipients that politicians and talk show hosts find distasteful), I just have one question:

Where are all the extreme political pundits who've buttered their bread social commentary for years with harsh critiques of welfare moms, the guys who in the past were big proponents of the notion of forced sterilization of clueless, broke, repeat single moms?

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but "Booooooo! You suck!" to say to anyone who can help himself and won't, supplementing his income or lack of income with tax dollars. I'm not a fan of anyone who willingly digs himself into a deeper hole and then gets public money to help him live in that hole.

But given the collective boogieman single moms have evolved into over the past 25 years or so, I'm surprised that we haven't heard from the so-called serious big name pundits, the intellectuals, the society wonks.

Sure they've called Suleman out for being irresponsible and generally wacky. But I'm talking about hitting her with that label: "welfare mom," slapping her with a bag full of food stamps, tackling her with that boogieman imagery that was crafted during those 1980s presidential campaign trail warnings about welfare moms eventually dooming this country.

Seriously, the only national name I've seen or heard call her out repeatedly for abusing public assistance has been Perez Hilton. What gives?

What, does "welfare mom" seem like too big a slam at Suleman? Or do we not use that one anymore, now that its parameters increasingly include people who live in the 'burbs?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Take that, Classmates.com!

Have you ever opened your email inbox and seen one of those Classmates.com messages, claiming that someone you went to high school with was looking for you?

How about everyday? I've lost count of the number of emails I've received saying things like "19 classmates looked up your name."

I have said for at least a year now that if I had the time and disposable income I'd try to take a court-sanctioned bite out of Classmates.com's arse, not as part of a get rich quick scheme, but on principle. Those emails are annoying at best, and fraudulent at worst.

Anyway, after a while you should gather that those messages are very likely fake. But if you don't figure that out, then you become San Diego resident Anthony Michaels, who after receiving an email from Classmates.com that old school mates were searching for him, whipped out the plastic and upgraded his Classmates.com account from the free version that lots of folks - including me - signed up for a few years ago, to the premium paid version.

Naturally, after he'd paid and gained access to the "premium" site, he learned that no one was looking for him at all, least of all his high school classmates. And so Michaels has filed a federal lawsuit against Classmates.com for bending him over and blowing smoke...you get the picture.

So while I'd love to snicker at Michaels for looking under the wrong coconut shell in his hunt for the card Classmates.com had apparently hidden, I'll save my laughs for that site.

Mr. Michaels, if you want to find old classmates, or better yet if you'd like to know if they want to find you, then open Facebook and MySpace accounts...for free. Then sit back and wait. If your old buddies want to find you they will.

As for you, Classmates.com? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Bout time!