Legal & GNF & WAAGNFNP Posted by Kiera, 21 Sep 2007 06:42 am

Crime and Punishment - Ministry of Justice Style

[Note: The Ministry of Justice had long been seeking a handy, portable, and effective means of “correction” and to aid in the re-education process. Bringing offenders only in need of modest correction all the way to MOJ HQ was neither cost nor time effective. We were therefore ecstatic when Party Patriot, Kiera, stepped forward a few months back and introduced The Trunk.
- Oaktown Girl, Minister of Justice.]

Howdy, folks. It’s your MOJ Sheriff Kiera, here to give you the lowdown on the criminal justice system – WAAGNFNP-style.

Basically, a crime in our community is whatever the Minister of Justice says it is. Since she is personally guided by Gojira and advised by 3Tops, I’m not going to question that (and I strongly suggest that you don’t either). Now, we all know that in an ideal blog, if you do the crime, you do the time. Here in WAAGNFNP land, “time” consists of being put in THE TRUNK, or in the case of repeat offenders, being RETRUNKED. In the case of someone the Minister of Justice thinks might be about to commit a crime (or for general attitudinal adjustments): PRE-TRUNKED.

Now, what is THE TRUNK, you ask? Well, it’s a trunk, of course, on a mid-sized car…at the moment, a Kia Optima. Why is this punishment? After all, a Kia’s trunk is fairly roomy so far as car trunks go. Sure. But you have to share that space with the Sheriff’s “stuff” (and sometimes a few rather large eggs – more on that later). Okay, so it’s a little crowded, big deal, you say. Ah…but that’s only half the punishment. The other half is the location of THE TRUNK.

kia.jpg

THE TRUNK, and the car that it’s attached to, is normally parked almost dead center in the State of California. When people think California, they usually think palm trees, cool breezes, and surfing. But that’s only on the coast. This is the Central Valley, also called the San Joaquin Valley, which, before a massive irrigation system made it agriculture central, was divided between a desert (low desert) and the snow covered mountains (high desert) of the Sierra Nevadas…the range that ends in “Death Valley”. In the Sheriff’s part of the Central Valley, only 15 minutes of travel separate the two, making it very convenient for all-season correctional TRUNKING.

What does this mean to WAAGNFNP criminals? It means that their time in THE TRUNK will be passed in either the 100+ degree Fahrenheit weather on the valley floor if they are sentenced in the summer, or in the close to zero degree weather in the mountains of the Sierra Nevadas (or in also relatively close Yosemite) during the winter months. THE TRUNK does little to protect from the lower extreme, and as for the higher? It magnifies it. During the summer months (we really only have two seasons here, summer and winter, as our spring and fall last maybe a week each), temperatures in THE TRUNK start at 100 degrees. Then they begin to rise. On the average, the temperature in THE TRUNK during the summer is 15 to 20 degrees higher than the temperature outside of it. Thus, if you’re having a somewhat chilly day of only 90 degrees, it’s a comfy (if stuffy) 105 in THE TRUNK. Average mid-summer outside temperatures of 105 bring a TRUNK reading of 125. And what if the temperature is higher than average? The difference between the trunk and outside temperature rises…exponentially. Last week we exceeded 112 degrees for several days. It was so high that my outdoor thermometer was incapable of measuring the temperature in THE TRUNK. Did it max out, you ask? No. It melted. Literally. At this reading, it was 114 outside. The needle passed 120 degrees, then kept on going for another 40 degrees before it gave up the ghost. You should have felt the blast of hot air when I opened the lid - ’twas like the Breath of Gojira, it was! It was worse than opening my propane grill after we’d been roasting potatoes for an hour or so.

temp.JPG

In the Old South, prisoners that got on the wrong side of the warden were often locked in perforated steel boxes, without water, and said boxes were left in the sun all day. Depending on their state of health going in, those prisoners did not always survive their time in the hot box. A stint in THE TRUNK is comparable.

As Sheriff, it is my duty to see that miscreants are appropriately punished. No one, but NO ONE escapes justice. Your MOJ’s Sheriff will go to any length to see that the guilty receive their just desserts, risking even the wrath of the bushco goon squads to see justice served.

                                                                                                                 

prez.jpg

                                                                                                                             

Now, as to the aforementioned Eggs. Gojira and 3Tops came down to examine THE TRUNK prior to approving it for use as the official WAAGNFNP criminal punishment device. Despite it being our sole week of spring, the temperature in THE TRUNK was already warming up quite nicely, and the pair decided that it would make an ideal incubator/hatchery. They each deposited an egg, patted me on the head hard enough to drive my feet down into the sandy soil of our front yard (originally a desert, remember?), and returned to the cooler climes of The Bay. I’m not sure of the incubation period as these eggs had apparently been laid prior to their trip (you should have seen the adorable egg slings Gojira and 3Tops were wearing that cradled the not so little darlings against their chests). But shortly before the melting of the thermometer, the eggs began to crack. Pass out the chocolate cigars! It’s a baby…times two!

                                                                                                                        

The WAAGNFNP now boasts a baby Gojira and a baby 3Tops, ready to grow and promote the glory of the Giant Nuclear Fireball to the next generation!

                                                                                                                                               

eggs.JPG

                                                                                                                                            

In service to all Party Patriots,

                                                                                                      

Kiera
She of the Plenary Powers in Regard to All Matters of Trunking, Pre-Trunking, Re-Trunking, Retro-Trunking, and the Hysterical Indifference to the Plight of Those Who Have Been Trunked.
WAAGNFNP

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Responses to “Crime and Punishment - Ministry of Justice Style”

  1. on 21 Sep 2007 at 9:02 am 1. JP Stormcrow said …

    I am not feeling particularly deserving of The Trunk today given that I live in a world where folks like Blackwater Security and all of the other Iraq war-profiteer criminals are running around free.
    In addition to the recent convoy incident, it appears that they may be performing some other extra-legal services as well:

    a Defense Ministry spokesman told Leila Fadel of McClatchy that Blackwater, in December, broke former Electricity Minister Ahyam al-Samarrai out of prison in the Green Zone, where he was awaiting sentencing for embezzling $2.5 billion in reconstruction money.

    … gee, would love to see that contract.

    And this on a day when the Pentagon reveals that $6 Billion in contracts are under criminal review.

    All of this comes as a total surprise since noted tenacious identifier of corruption, L. Jean Lewis (of Whitewater infamy), is the chief of staff of the Pentagon Inspector General’s office.

  2. on 21 Sep 2007 at 9:20 am 2. Oaktown Girl said …

    Sweet Lord Astaroth, don’t get me started on Blackwater (although I’m sure a Blackwater rant is coming later today when I get a chance…we’ll just morph into open thread Friday Night/Weekend at 5pm MOJ time.)

    Fortunately today, when I get too overheated thinking about Blackwater and other sordid debacles of the Bush Crime Family, I can just scroll up a little bit to get a therapeutic, soothing, cute and cuddly fix from Baby Gojira and Baby 3Tops.

    {Mmmm…snuggly!}

    [MVP Bill - I hope you’ll show this to your niece(s)!]

  3. on 21 Sep 2007 at 9:37 am 3. JP Stormcrow said …

    … cute and cuddly fix from Baby Gojira and Baby 3Tops

    Yeah right, so then why are they in The Trunk?

    And a little more rant. So this freaking Senate of ours or whatever the hell it is, takes the time to censure a freaking advertisement, when they have not done a thing for years with solid, indisputable evidence of criminal graft and corruption in the prosecution of this miserable war…. oh, right, I forgot, that is one of the reasons we really went in there. We are governed by a criminal syndicate. I hear The Trunk in the afterlife is like freaking scary big and hot. I am converting right here and now to some fire and brimstone non-denominational form of Christianity so that I can righteously believe that Cheneyco and pals will get their just desserts in the afterlife.

    Wow! It’s as easy as that? Hallelujah! Bring it on Jehovah baby! Second Coming, mark of the beast, all that shit - I’m on your side now. This is great!!

  4. on 21 Sep 2007 at 9:47 am 4. Kiera PSI said …

    Yeah right, so then why are they in The Trunk?

    Um, because that’s where they hatched?

    Gojira and 3Tops…decided it would make an ideal incubator/hatchery. They each deposited an egg…

  5. on 21 Sep 2007 at 10:20 am 5. JP Stormcrow said …

    Um, because that’s where they hatched?

    I’ll take Reading Comprehension for $200, Alex….

    The dog ate that part of my computer screen …

    Guess who skipped throught the end of the text while just looking at the pictures… I’ll go quietly MOJ, no need to even say it.

  6. on 21 Sep 2007 at 10:38 am 6. Kiera PSI said …

    I just love it when a TRUNKING comes together!

  7. on 21 Sep 2007 at 12:51 pm 7. James Killus said …

    Oh, uh, sorry. I thought… never mind.

  8. on 21 Sep 2007 at 1:37 pm 8. Oaktown Girl said …

    Very nice photo, Brother James. Indeed, the coming together of the Trunking proceeds apace.

    Um…is that humongous Trunk photo hosted at another site (like ImageShack) by the way?

  9. on 21 Sep 2007 at 1:49 pm 9. James Killus said …

    It’s at wikimedia commons:

    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Asian_elephant_trunk.jpg

  10. on 21 Sep 2007 at 2:08 pm 10. Bill Benzon said …

    I hear that Gojira has agreed to take pity on those trunked in the winter and has agreed to warm the detention cavity with her atomic breath.

  11. on 21 Sep 2007 at 3:04 pm 11. Seattle said …

    Speaking of Blackwater, NPR did an article on the founder of this group this morning:

    http://www.aegisworld.com/

    British based and bigger than Blackwater.

    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14586525

  12. on 21 Sep 2007 at 3:09 pm 12. JP Stormcrow said …

    Discussion with my son last night:

    If we humans do manage to take ourselves out of the running existence-wise without also doing in elephants, are elephant’s trunks capable of enough fine motor control that they might serve as hands did for early hominids (and eventually for an evolved “intelligent” symbol-manipulating elephantine species)? Only having one is a bit of a drawback versus two hands was one point raised - but I think they could get there - they have a better start than the dolphins and whales anyway.

    The conversation then evolved into: Given an army of “intelligent” elephants with comparable numbers (but no weaponry), what would be the first human army that they could not defeat - when does human technology overcome the stomping, rushing and goring advantages of elephants? We could definitely take them by World War I - use gas if nothing else - but I think them against the Romans would be a stompfest. But when in the next 2000 years can we hold our own. Remember these are smart, talking, strategizing elephants just without weapons. (hmmm… if they are that smart I guess you have to give them that they would figure out picking up heavy things and whaling away with them - plus humans would have developed different tactics, this is harder than I thought.) I think by Napoleon’s time it would be gruesome mass elephant charges against massed artillery, we would probably develop trench warfare and foxholes earlier as well.

  13. on 21 Sep 2007 at 3:51 pm 13. Oaktown Girl said …

    James - wiki commons is new to me so you’ll have to explain a little. What I’m asking is who’s carrying the bandwidth for that photo - us, or them? Because ideally, we want another site like ImageShack or Flickr to “host” it. Especially such a large image.
    It’s easy to set up an account.

    Seattle - well, perhaps if you’d remembered to feed Baby Gojira, Baby Gojira would not have eaten your comment. And yes, I’ve heard about that British Cabal. I’ve also been hearing interviews with Jeremy Scahill on his new book about Blackwater. What’s scarier about Blackwater for us here in the US is that there are moves to privatize municipal police forces, which would be replaced by Blackwater and the like. This is neither a conspiracy theory, nor a joke.

  14. on 21 Sep 2007 at 3:53 pm 14. spyder said …

    Yeah right, so then why are they in The Trunk? Um, because that’s where they hatched?
    Now may it also be that the Kia Optima is the optimum environment for maintaining the precious youth, conceived as they were from GNF related materials probably from, but not yet demonstrated, use of various laser-based “ray” like systems????? They got be some very very heat needy critters, yes??

    As for Senatory stupidity and hypocrisy, matched by that of da Cum Man Door in Chef (”Mandela is dead”) i suggest you read the transcript of Countdown with Keith Olbermann: Your hypocrisy is so vast! from the link.

    First off, it’s “Democrat-ic” party.

    You keep pretending you’re not a politician, so stop using words your party made up. Show a little respect.

    Secondly, you could say this seriously after the advertising/mugging of Senator Max Cleland? After the swift-boating of John Kerry?

    But most importantly, making that the last question?

    So that there was no chance at a follow-up?

    So nobody could point out, as Chris Matthews so incisively did, a week ago tonight, that you were the one who inappropriately interjected General Petraeus into the political dialogue of this nation in the first place!

    Deliberately, premeditatedly, and virtually without precedent, you shanghaied a military man as your personal spokesman and now you’re complaining about the outcome, and then running away from the microphone?

  15. on 21 Sep 2007 at 3:57 pm 15. Seattle said …

    That’s the ultimate form of “outsourcing”. How much control do you have over a country using temps, ur, contractors for such a large percentage of key duties? And who is actually in control? If I turn all of a certain duty over to someone else because they’re cheaper and it reduces my overhead, I’ve handed them enough control to say demand a higher cut, among other things.

  16. on 21 Sep 2007 at 4:28 pm 16. Bill Benzon said …

    Well, bush has outsourced his brains to a vat of Jack Daniels.

  17. on 21 Sep 2007 at 4:59 pm 17. Oaktown Girl said …

    A Message from the Minister of Justice: Open Thread Begins Now.

    Official Launch of Open Threadness. All topics, including (desperately needed escapist) sports chat, Blackwater and other rants, supplications for the GNF, Baby Gojira and Baby 3Tops stories, etc.

    Special request for Seattle to show up sometime over the weekend, because it’s always a special occasion if Seattle shows up on the weekend.

  18. on 21 Sep 2007 at 5:35 pm 18. James Killus said …

    Oaktown Girl,
    The elephant url is the one I posted, so it resides on the other server and should not count on ours. When a browser is downloading that photo, it is comming from commons.wikimedia.org.

  19. on 21 Sep 2007 at 6:59 pm 19. christian h. said …

    …staggers in…

    Well, that’s enough work for today. I no longer can say anything meaningful due to too much fruitless thinking. And I have no booze, damn it. Lucky that Baby3Tops and BabyGojira are around, who can resist cuteness?

    Cubs won today, but Cheeseheads are winning, too, it seems. Still, it looks like the Cubs have a good chance to actually go to the postseason for the fifth time in 60 years or so.

  20. on 22 Sep 2007 at 8:59 am 20. Bill Benzon said …

    From Dorothy:

  21. on 22 Sep 2007 at 9:15 am 21. Bill Benzon said …

    From the Rove-Norquist Laboratory for Advanced Research in Dirty Tricks, Disaster, and Campaign Comedy, their latest in bureaucratic obfuscation and crowd control:

  22. on 22 Sep 2007 at 4:15 pm 22. JP Stormcrow said …

    Just a quick note to say that the hits keep coming with Blackwater. Now they are being investigated for smuggling guns into Iraq that ended up in the hands of insurgents. Of course the media, Fox News and the wingnuts are all hyperventilating over this …..Hah! got you to look!

  23. on 22 Sep 2007 at 4:17 pm 23. JP Stormcrow said …

    including (desperately needed escapist) sports chat

    Hey christian! How ’bout them ‘cats!!

  24. on 22 Sep 2007 at 4:27 pm 24. christian h. said …

    Ha ha, JP. Very funny. Go Gators!

  25. on 22 Sep 2007 at 5:39 pm 25. JP Stormcrow said …

    Go Gators!
    Yes, they stomped perennial powerhouse Mississippi 30-24.

    Looks like the Cubs might actually do it … win the worst division in baseball. Pirates were looking to finish relatively respectably and then they went on an 8-game bender (helping the Cubbies along the way.) The Tribe look to be interesting … but I must say I hardly know the players anymore.

  26. on 22 Sep 2007 at 6:22 pm 26. christian h. said …

    Oh, I don’t like the Gators at all. Merely pointing out that a Ohio State University received an all-around asskicking from them last year.

    Yeah, the Cubs might make it. And then who knows? Cardinals won 83 last year and swept the Tigers in the series.

  27. on 22 Sep 2007 at 7:54 pm 27. spyder said …

    Gosh Bill, we had a case of those in Missouri. Somewhere in my gear, in storage in Portland are a few of them left. And yes, they do shoot flaming balls that contain M-80’s that explode in a huge bang. Fun stuff.

    Sports chat?? I have been pretty out of the loop this season, and that includes all sports. I did catch some football last week, and a bit today, to see which way the Pac 10 turns. It is my uninformed humble opinion that with only a few days/ games of the regular season left i shall make my predictions for the MLB: ALS will be Los Angeles Angels versus Boston Red Sox with Angels to Series; NLS Chicago Cubs versus New York Mets with Mets going to Series.. Angels in five.

    NCAA womens volleyball will pit Nebraska versus Michigan up against Pac10 perennials Stanford and (wait for it) Washington….

    NCAA cross country other than Colorado it will be the Big 12 vs. Pac10 sort of year.

  28. on 22 Sep 2007 at 8:02 pm 28. Bill Benzon said …

    Here’s a less biased view of the phenomenon in question. Notice the iron jaw and the steely determination:

  29. on 23 Sep 2007 at 6:18 am 29. Bill Benzon said …

    Something that deserves to be on every WAAGNFNP members shelf of honor, Eduardo Paolozzi’s The Gay Atomic Coloring Book:

    http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen7/gayAtomic.html

  30. on 23 Sep 2007 at 8:41 am 30. JP Stormcrow said …

    Bill,
    Thanks for that link, I had no idea that Aspen had made it onto the ‘net. In fact the whole UbuWeb is a revelation (to me at least). Great stuff. From the few things I’ve looked at so far, I highly recommend this interview with UbuWeb founder Kennteh Goldsmith on Archinet.

  31. on 23 Sep 2007 at 10:46 am 31. Bill Benzon said …

    I just bumped into UbuWeb this morning. Matthew Allen over at The Valve pointed me to another Kenneth Goldsmith project:

    http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Goldsmith.html

    Would you believe the words of Sigmund Freud sung to The Who’s Tommy? Barthes to the Allman Brothers? Derrida to Webern? Jameson to Coltrane? Brings back those glorious Theory Tuesdays, but more tuneful if you can believe it.

  32. on 23 Sep 2007 at 7:52 pm 32. James Killus said …

    Well, it’s sorta late in the open thread, but I’ll mention to those what might be interested that I’ve started posting a novel, in old pulp magazine serial style (probably a chapter a week, but I might do more if I get impatient) at the following url:

    http://dark-underbelly.blogspot.com/

    It’s happy fun time here at sci-fi central.

  33. on 23 Sep 2007 at 7:55 pm 33. Oaktown Girl said …

    Well, today (Sunday) was a total bust. I had big plans for getting a lot done around the (disastrously messy) apartment, but took ill suddenly about 11am. Feeling a little better now, but far from back to normal. So, nothing accomplished. I’m feeling just well enough to gets things together for Monday morning. What fun!

    Well, at least Cal (football) won yesterday. And the new season of The Simpsons and Family Guy starts tonight. So, hopefully that will be a pleasant diversion at least.

    Great. More bad news: Family Guy clips (of which I was going to insert one here) are being purged from YouTube. Well, Adult Swim’s been advertising Family Guy clips. Let’s see what I can find. OK, well, there’s plenty of clips, but the search function sucks. But at least I found this, which is one of my favorites:

  34. on 24 Sep 2007 at 1:51 pm 34. spyder said …

    Family Guy clips now proliferate MySpace videos because, well, Rupert owns both of them. Such is the world as we know it, caught in this vast war of attrition between i got mine and you got yours, so Google/YouTube challenges Fox/Myspace in a no-holds barred tagteam match to determine the outcome of what gets launched on iPods and iPhones…

    And as mirth and serendipity would have it, i started tutoring yet one more rich kid; this one happens to be a massive consumpter of sci/fi and even reads James’ books. Damn, now i will have to email him the link for the new serial, pulpish or not.

  35. on 24 Sep 2007 at 7:50 pm 35. JP Stormcrow said …

    Would you believe the words of Sigmund Freud sung to The Who’s Tommy? Barthes to the Allman Brothers?

    Listened to a few of them with my 16-year old son. (I also recommend the talk on “being boring”.) He did get bored and we did not complete them (need the Ramone equivalent for these kids - short 2 minute segments -The Allman’s is In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, I recall my daughter being bored by the same song when we heard it live at a Blues festival.) But even just the beginnings did stimulate some conversations with him that I don’t think I would have been able to gin up via other means.