Sunday thus far

I woke up just before 9am, after a rather vegetative day yesterday. I got up, bounced around doing some laundry, kitchen cleanup, etc. Then I proceeded to my study to engage in some tomfoolery involving taking some screen shots from "A Clockwork Orange" and making an animated GIF for my amigo platostruth. I made him two. One of them is the icon you see here now. Of course, since I like this one so much, I added it to my icon list.

I guess it sums up my morning pretty well.

Alas, by the time I got this icon down small enough to fit as a live journal icon, the quality sucks grandly. Oh well.

I found Sin City's movie site and downloaded some desktops for use. They are quite striking. I'm looking forward to this movie.

I also managed to finish my PHP homework due tomorrow, and take care of some other tasks. And it's only 2pm!

Will I get anything else done that is of a practical variety? I'm not sure.

Oh please. People will use any excuse...

Ann Coulter weighed in on the Brian Nichols tragedy in Atlanta: " How many people have to die before the country stops humoring feminists?"

Yes, a number of publications are screaming that a 5'2" 51 year old Grandmother should not have been escorting the likes of Brian Nichols into the courtroom. Ms. Coulter storms through her article, citing studies that women just are not fit for that type of public service, and that feminists should just face reality that women are inferior in these types of situations.

Okay, I'm fine with acknowledging that men have more physical strength than women. However, in this case, it's important to note that the problem occurred because inadequate security measures were taken against the defendant. He escaped at a time when he was not shackled. Apparently it's common practice for defendents not to be restrained during certain parts of the trial process. Pardon me, but I think that regardless of gender, when you have a violent man not in shackles, that's your first problem, not the gender.

Let's take a situation where a male prison guard gets killed by a prisoner. Do we blame gender issues? No, and I don't see Ann Coulter suggesting we face reality that men are just not fit security officers because they are fundamentally too confident in their own manly abilities to walk into a dangerous situation without following basic security protocols.

We could probably go all night about how each individual has a number of different assets that might make them more or less likely to defeat any given foe. Gender or not. For example, a very competent and vigilant female cop could probably last longer than an incompetent but very brawny male.

Sure, there's a reason we don't put small females up against big strong men in boxing rings. No doubt about it. But in the world of law enforcement, the whole objective is to create a situation where the law has the strategic advantage over criminals so that a)violence does not break out, and b)the officer doesn't have the disadvantage. Knowing that the prisoner had a history of violence, and had previously attempted to smuggle shivs on his person suggests he was nuts and highly dangerous. The thoughtful being would have taken extra security measures, like not unshackling the prisoner. What we need to do, is allow our courts and law enforcement to make that call and take those precautions.

Ann Coulter making a judgment that women are unfit to be guards in law enforcement based on one bad situation would be like me claiming women can't think clearly based on reading only Ann Coulter's writing.

Don't worry, I'm not going to make that leap.