The Station Night Club

The sentence for the owners of the Station night club (Jeffrey and Michael Derderian) was handed down. A plea bargain was reach in which Michael Derderian would server 4 years and jail and Jeffrey Derderian would server no time behind bars.

Today the victims' families had their chance to speak. "Lady Justice in Rhode Island is blind, but she's also deaf," Jay McLaughlin, the brother-in-law of two of the victims, told the judge. "Before I read my statement, I'd like to just say I will address you, but I will not say "Your Honor." I don't think you're an honorable man. I don't respect you," said Annmarie Swidwa, the mother of 25-year-old Bridget Sanetti.

The vicitms' families were understandably angry. Judge Francis Darigan admonished the victims' relatives not to try to talk him out of the plea bargain. This only infuriated speakers more. At one point the Judge had to call a recess to stop the hearings so that tensions in the room could cool.

While I don't understand what the families are feeling first hand I too am disappointed with this plea bargain. There is no closure for these families. There is no justice. The Judicial system is there to protect, and to administer punishment those who need it. With the plea bargain that was negotiated, neither is taking place.

The Pope's Comments on Islam

Recently the Pope made some comments about Islam. He quoted a mi devil text that says that some of the teachings of Muhammad, the Islamic profit, are evil and inhumane. The Pope says that he was trying to illustrate compassion I'm not exactly sure how the Pope was trying to conjure up thought of compassion by insulting a profit.

Here's a little history lesson. Christianity has some skeletons in it's closet. The Crusades were a Holy War that was waged so that Christians could be in control of the lands that they believe to be holy. The Spanish Inquisition, was a tribunal set up to try the crime of heresy. The problem was, that not being Christian was heresy. So Jews, Muslims, and all other faiths were prosecuted.

I'm not saying that Islam is perfect, far from it. 911 was done in the name of Allah. It doesn't get much more imperfect than that. There is an old saying. It's something my Mom and Dad used to tell me. It's "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones". The Pope lives in one of the biggest glass houses in the world, and he just hurled a boulder!

Why people hate the T

I never really understood why some many people would consistently complain about the service of the T. After riding the T all summer to and from work, I can now start to understand the frustration that many of the commuters have.

A perfect example of the incompetence that T riders must put up with, is my ride to work this morning. My wife and I left to go to work as we always do. We were not running late (although I did get to work a half hour late). We reached the T station and proceeded to wait for the train, and waited, and waited, and waited. Finally the train came. By this time there were so many people waiting to get on the train, that my wife and I decided that we should just wait for the next one.

Now, being that we get on the T in Malden to go to Downtown, we had the distinct advantage to hope on the train going in the opposite direction to the last stop. Once at the last stop the train turns around and heads back in the direction that we wanted to go. It's a small diversion of about 3 minutes (not the 30 that I was late for work).

Not only was the train late, but then the train operators are completely insensitive. Once we were on the train we had no problems. But at every station there were people trying to get on, I can only assume that they also were late, and the train operator, in the most piss ass voice imaginable, would yell "you all can't possibly fit, wait for the next train. Wait for the next train! I mean come on. The train was already 15 minutes late and their telling people to wait! Can you imagine that.

The T is trying to make riders happy by upgrading the interior of the trains. Well, with the fair hike eminent, and services like the one's described, the T would be better off getting trains to run on time more frequently. If they really want to make their riders happy that's what they need to do, not decorate.

Mexico's Government

Mexico had elections to elect their new president on July 2, 2006. Mexico still does not have a president elect. Apparently, there have been accusations of corruption in the election process. Today, the Mexican Supreme Court is going to hand down a ruling as to who the president elect is. The problem lies in the fact that everyone knows that it will be Calderone. What the real issue is, his opponent has vowed to start a parallel government. I don't understand how anyone could think that is a good idea. Look around the world and one will see that every time political rivals run parallel governments nothing but problems arise. Somalia and The Congo are prime examples. There's an old saying "Those who fail to learn history are destined to repeat it". Well, it looks like Mexico is well on it's way to repeating history.