A little too much funn in this picture for my tastes.

A sting set up in Kansas netted a culprit way up in MINNESOTA, when his phone number was discovered in the notebook of a 15-YEAR-OLD GIRL. The 44-year-old man, a janitor at a middle school (HELLO!), sent explicit text messages to the girl, like this one:

I love you Julie!! U R my every thought these dayz. We will rule the water/funn park!! And have funn in the changing room!!! … Trust me u won’t be a virgin for long baby..!!

Home sweet home for that lucky 1%.

For the first time in American history, one out of every one hundred Americans is behind bars (I credit myself as at least tangentially responsible for 70-80% of those). This makes the United States the WORLD INCARCERATION LEADER, ahead of even China — though their numbers are deflated because they usually just round up their dissidents and troublemakers and shoot them in the head to be done with it.

This, like all things, is EXTRAORDINARILY FRIGHTENING. Take a moment to put these numbers into perspective. Look to the person sitting at your left. Now, look to your right. Repeat this 98 more times. One of the people you have just looked at is in prison right now.

In Bakersfield, California, a four-year-old girl snatched from a playground by a kidnapper in BROAD DAYLIGHT. Her father, who was nearby at the time, launches his own search and later tracks her down and PULLS HIS DAUGHTER out of the kidnapper’s car to safety. But in his haste to save his daughter from danger, the father lets the kidnapper (momentarily) get away.

There is no question that this father did a GREAT THING in finding his daughter without the help of law enforcement. And it is true that the kidnapper was found shortly after the rescue, hiding underneath a truck. But in complex, ambiguous moral situations like this one, I like to apply a simple standard: WHAT WOULD NANCY GRACE DO. Luckily, I am right here, so I can ask me.

All these people are dead.

A woman living in Tennessee has had her health insurance canceled, her IRS forms returned and loan applications rejected because a clerical error assigned her social security number to a DEAD PERSON. Not only has the government failed to fix the mistake — they have made NO PROGRESS in tracking down this living woman’s killer.

Let’s look at the facts of this case. This woman did not die of natural causes — how could she have if she’s STILL ALIVE? The government has still not launched an investigation into her suspicious declaration of death. I mean, at least question her husband for a while or throw her Spanish-speaking gardener in prison for a few days!

It should be noted that the WOMAN HERSELF has not made things easier for investigators:

Do you feel lucky, friend?

Imagine it, friends. You’re on the playground, watching your little daughter scream at your moron son for reasons indeterminable. A small child comes up to your bench, drawn to you perhaps by your magnanimous motherly glow or your glimmering blond hair.

She has a pink gun. “See my gun?” she asks.

“That’s a very nice toy, dear,” you say.

You see her finger tense on the trigger. Something is wrong.

You dive and roll, but she is already firing at you. You jump at her and try to hit her wrist, hoping to dislodge the weapon. But you slip and she steps on your neck. You’re staring down the barrel of a pretty pink glock.

“This case is dismissed,” she says. And then — BLAM BLAM. Two bullets straight through your brain. You’re dead.

And why?

JIM’S GUN SUPPLY MADE THIS HAPPEN.

via Flickr

Hello, friends. Did you have a nice Valentine’s Day? Did your significant other get you something nice? Did he or she come home from work with a box of chocolates and a bouquet of roses? Was it TICKING?

I ask not because I want to TERRIFY YOU WITHOUT REASON, but because a woman robbed a bank with a box of chocolates that she claimed contained a bomb. Only after a bomb squad used X-RAYS to examine the box did they realize that they had been had. Is this this kind of security we have in our banks? We clearly need some changes. First: no boxes of chocolates in any banks (this should be obvious). Second, no boxes of ANY KIND, ANYWHERE. If you can say a box of chocolates is a bomb, you can say a box of any thing is a bomb.

Joran Van der Sloot has CONFESSED TO DUMPING THE BODY OF NATALEE HOLLOWAY IN THE OCEAN. However, it was difficult for us to understand because he was jabbering away in some foreign language. As always, I have tried to reserve judgment on this issue until I could gather ALL THE FACTS and examine them in a RATIONAL, LEVEL-HEADED MANNER, and so I have spent the last couple of days poring over various translations to determine exactly what happened.

And then I figured, if Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky can just take some old book and update it to make a few QUICK BUCKS, why can’t I be a translator too? So without further ado, here is my translation of the Joran Van der Sloot tape.

Guilty of melting my cold prosecutorial heart

A two year-old Australian boy, mauled, by a vicious dog. The boy is now scarred for his life, and not just because of what the dog did to his face. His mother is BLAMING THE BOY instead of the dog.

The mother’s instinct here is correct — whenever something goes wrong, SOMEONE or SOMETHING must be blamed. The mother says that because her child was tugging on the dog’s ears, the dog was provoked. This kind of “blame the victim” mentality is exactly what’s wrong with this country (and apparently, Australia too). A person should be able to tug on whomever’s ears they please TO THEIR HEART’S CONTENT without fear of being bit in the face. Especially when we are dealing with an inferior life form — dogs, defense attorneys, brunettes — we CANNOT give them license to attack the rest of us!

Some frozen human remains were found in the woods in Chicago. Though members of the media victims’ families had hoped they would belong to high-profile murder victims Lisa Stebic or Stacy Peterson, it turns out they belonged to another woman, UNRELATED to the other two cases. And yet, DREW PETERSON REMAINS A FREE MAN.

This should be an open and shut case, but apparently, I have to guide these bone-headed detectives through the logic. See if you can follow this, CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT.

I. Drew Peterson married two of his wives.
II. Both of Drew Peterson’s wives were women.
III. ERGO, Drew Peterson murders women.

I. Drew Peterson murders women.
II. These remains belong to a woman.
III. ERGO, Drew Peterson murdered this woman.

DON’T BELIEVE ME? Observe my argument’s perfect circularity.