On Overreacting

Today's post about the Palm Beach Butt Crack Patrol reminded me of something my oldest son and I caught yesterday while flipping channels during Twilight Zone marathon commercials: another "To Catch a Predator" with Chris Hansen.

My concerns about the blurring between "Only Ones" and "Authorized Journalists" notwithstanding, we do generally find the show good for a few laughs at the loser idiot scumbags, and yesterday was no exception. But they've started doing something I don't remember from earlier shows: Now, in addition to the bellowing horde of weapons-ready tacklers, they've started having some guy in a ghillie suit emerge from the bushes to make first contact.

For some reason, it struck us as really funny, maybe because we weren't expecting it, and our first reaction was to wonder why Chewbacca was making a cameo on Dateline NBC. Then we started laughing and extrapolating fantasy scenarios about other ways to scare the hell out of people, for instance, jumping out of the bushes roaring like a monster while wearing a team mascot costume, or as the Mugato from Star Trek...

But that was just stupid boys having stupid fun, and the larger point was not lost: Here's Chris Hansen confronting these guys alone but for a hidden camera crew that emerges at the finale, possibly unwisely for being unarmed, and then the amount of force present to make the arrest just really stands out starkly against that.

Maybe I'm the one overreacting here, but I remember a time when these kinds of deployments were reserved for murderers, bank robbers, desperados...

Ah well. It's all just entertainment anyway, right?

CeaseFire PA Director's Watch

No biggie--it's a holiday. Probably tomorrow, right?

We're the Only Ones in Full Force Enough

"No one goes to the mall and wants to see the crack of someone's butt."

Probably true in general. But for God's sake, Palm Beach "Only Ones" needed "20 deputies, two canine units and a police helicopter" to deal with it?

Are they truly that afraid? And is that the kind of mentality we want running around confronting people while armed to the teeth with "weapons of war"?

[Via Mack]

Biggest Story of 2007

A comment that I think deserves wider attention was added last night to an older post.

[Via Waste Waste Waste]

This Day in History: January 1