'80s Montage

I'm afraid that some of the clips from this '80s montage will hit some of my readers a bit hard. Chin up BAR, Biobandit, and Bob.

And yes, I'm embarrassed that it must have originated on the Huffington Post.

Check out this great MSN Video: 'Lost' Spin-Off Featuring Dana Carvey

Check out this moderately funny MSN Video: 'Lost' Spin-Off Featuring Dana Carvey

Disingenuous Reactions to Rand Paul Comments on the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Now that Rand Paul is one step closer to the Senate, all of the media establishment (as if from nowhere) seems concerned with his ideas. However, their the media's sudden interest in Paul is disingenuous. Headlines are misleading, hoping (and probably knowing) that many folks will simply skim them on Google News and form an opinion without reading the article or further inquiring into the matter.

msnbc's headline and article "Paul admits political slip in civil rights remarks: Kentucky Republican Senate hopeful faces storm after questioning '64 law" (when did journalists stop capitalizing words in titles?) immediately implies (by the headline) that Paul spoke out against the act, but manages to make him look like a politician desperately trying to backtrack by opening the article with

In the wake of Rand Paul’s comments on MSNBC’s "Rachel Maddow Show" Wednesday night questioning provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Kentucky Republican Senate nominee said Thursday he supported the law and would not favor its repeal.

So what exactly did Paul say? According to the same article:

In his 15-minute interview with Maddow, Paul repeatedly declined or sidestepped opportunities to endorse the provisions of the 1964 law which require hotels, restaurants, and other businesses to accept all customers without discriminating on the basis of race or ethnicity.

He repeated several times that he opposes racial discrimination. “I’m not in favor of any discrimination of any form, I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race,” he said. At the end of the interview, Paul added, “I don’t believe that any private property (owner) should discriminate either.”

But he did not say whether he supported using federal law to enforce non-discrimination in privately owned businesses. He said “had I been around” in 1964 “I would have tried to modify that.”

He also said the debate over the civil right law’s limits on rights of private property owners “is still a valid discussion.”

So Paul repeatedly condemns racial discrimination, but he's obviously for repealing the Civil Right Act because "he did not say whether he supported using federal law to enforce non-discrimination in privately owned businesses" because he is wary of limiting property owners' rights?

He's for repealing the act because he did not say that he loved it? Or is it because he said that he "would have tried to modify" it? Since when does "modify" mean abolish?

Left out of the msnbc interview is this clarifying excerpt from the interview:

I`m not in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race," Paul responded. "What about freedom of speech? Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent? Should we limit racists from speaking? I don't want to be associated with those people, but I also don't want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that`s one of the things freedom requires is that we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn`t mean we approve of it. [source]

And yet the media is posting headlines like this gem from theAssociated Press "Ky. Senate candidate questions Civil Rights Act"

Or this one from dallasvoice.com "Rand Paul would turn back civil rights."

What's so ridiculous is that the media doesn't (because it can't) assail Paul for his opinions on race and racial discrimination. It attacks him for having a consistent belief in freedom, property rights, and federalism/limited government.

The real lesson is this: If you think that we've got too much freedom, that property rights are old hat, and that the federal government isn't strong or intrusive enough, then Rand Paul is certainly your enemy.

________________

Even if the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were to be repealed, which companies do you think would revive Jim Crow style policies?

Seriously.

Even the Drug Czar Knows that the War on Drugs Is a Failure

All quotes are from this article.

Here I abridge things a bit, make a few of my own points and ask a few questions:

According to U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, "In the grand scheme, it [the drug war] has not been successful. Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."

Taking exception, former drug czar John P. Walters said:

To say that all the things that have been done in the war on drugs haven't made any difference is ridiculous. It destroys everything we've done. It's saying all the people involved in law enforcement, treatment and prevention have been wasting their time. It's saying all these people's work is misguided.

So what really bothers Walters is simply admitting failure. That's about it. Let's continue spending billions each year, and let's sacrifice thousands of more lives each year. Just don't you dare ask us to admit that we failed to accomplish our objectives!

When President Nixon first declared a "War on Drugs" he spent $100 million. Under Obama's administration, the federal government will spend in excess of $15.1 billion. Adjusted for inflation, that amounts to 31 times more spending. So let's ask a couple of important questions: Is drug use down 31 times? Is there 31 times less violence? Are we 31 times better off in any way?

Of course we aren't. So what are we getting for our money?

Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, the AP tracked where that money went, and found that the United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did little to stop the flow of drugs [Insert sarcasm-laden gasp]. In 40 years, taxpayers spent more than:

- $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico - and the violence along with it.

- $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.

- $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.

- $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.

- $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.

At the same time, drug abuse is costing the nation in other ways. The Justice Department estimates the consequences of drug abuse - "an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction" - cost the United States $215 billion a year.

Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says the only sure thing taxpayers get for more spending on police and soldiers is more homicides.

"Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use," Miron said, "but it's costing the public a fortune."

The rest of the article discusses how Obama pays lip service to treating drug use as a public health issue rather than a criminal one, but it points out that he's spending twice as much on the criminal justice side.

Oh, and it ends with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano suggesting the equivalent to drug use is just so bad that we just have to do something!

Even if something doesn't work and costs an awful lot in money and lives lost?

I guess so.

Kenny "K-Strass" Strasser Strikes Again - Yo-Yo Master

It's an Epidemic of Pandemic Proportions!

Is it too much to ask that people stop calling things "epidemic" just because they are concerned?

I get that childhood obesity has increased, but it's not a damn epidemic. Such hyperbole is disingenuous and downright annoying--almost as pernicious as inappropriate use of the word "like."

Seriously, there's like an epidemic of misnomers here, and I'm like so tired of it. Seriously.

The Onion News Network: Semi-Literate Former Gold Prospector Given Own Cable News Show

Semi-Literate Former Gold Prospector Given Own Cable News Show

Landscapers find workers choosing jobless pay | detnews.com | The Detroit News

Landscapers find workers choosing jobless pay | detnews.com | The Detroit News

Racism is Racism

This article blew me away.

In a supposed attempt to reduce the achievement gap between black and white students, Mike Madison, principal of an Ann Arbor elementary school, arranged a special field trip in which some kids met with and listened to a presentation from a successful African-American rocket scientist.

And how might this reduce the achievement gap between black and white students? That's easy. Madison (himself an African-American) reasoned that this would get kids more interested in math and science, so he decided to exclude all white students from the field trip.

That's right. He hoped that black scores would go up and white scores would either go down, stay the same, or at least not go up as much. How else do you reduce the gap?

Of course, that's not Madison's stated reason. According to him, "[I]t gave the [black] kids an opportunity to see this type of achievement is possible for even them."

But why forbid white students from attending? If all students had been in attendance, the black students will still have seen a successful black man. Every benefit cited by Madison would have still been valid. The only difference is that white students would have benefited too.

There can be no reason for excluding the white students other than that the principal did not want them to benefit from the field trip.

Assailed by parents, Madison rose to his own defense, saying

The intent of our field trip was not to segregate or exclude students as has been reported, but rather to address the societal issues, roadblocks and challenges that our African American children will face as they pursue a successful academic education here in our community.

And yet he sought to accomplish this intent by segregating and excluding students. He basically said to black students, "You are black, so you get to go." And to white students, "You are white, so you do not get to go."

If you have trouble seeing the blatant racism at play in this scenario, try reversing the races. Imagine a white principal arranging an enrichment activity that he hoped desperately would lead to measurable improvement in achievement scores. Now imagine that white principal arranging the activity for white students only. If it helps you to picture it in the South back in the 1950s-60s, then go ahead. Also, while you're at it, imagine the principal's defenders dressed in white sheets.

Just remember that this crap is happening in Michigan as we speak, and it's promoters wear shirts and ties and vote democrat.

The Government Is Us?

While I take exception to several parts of Obama's recent speech to students at the University of Michigan, this one annoys me the most:

"What troubles me is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad . . . For when our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us."

Bullshit, Mr. Obama, Bullshit. If it was, then my taxes would be lower.

I am not your government, nor am I a part of it, or is it a part of me. I merely endure this government.

By the way, Mr. Obama: don't use the object pronoun "us" as a predicate noun. You would never say "Us is government."

Elton John--"Levon" (Live 1971)

Great song, great performance. A quintessential paring of songwriting and performance.

Brilliant Onion Article

All hail, The Onion!

Old Crow Medicine Show: "My Next Go Round"

A selection for your enjoyment. It's probably nothing that you've heard, but give it a shot if you trust me.

Murdock Hits the Jackpot

Over at Murdock's blog, he found some solid gold. Check out the two videos for a good laugh.

"Iran Strives for a Nuke Free World," and I've Got Some Oceanfront Property in Arizona for Sale

The headline reads Iran "Strives" for a Nuke Free World.

Yeah, maybe, but definitely not until its desire for an Israel Free World policy is complete.

C'mon, Iran. Seriously, who in the heck do think is going to buy this? Do you take us for morons, as if we're the kind of people who will hear and believe any given line of BS (e.g. Obamacare will decrease costs and improve health care; Iraq had weapons of mass-destruction; it's the Internal Revenue Service; Scientology is a religion; etc)?

On second thought, well played, Iran. Well played.

Cartoon posted from here.

Watergate Had Its Cover Up, Why Shouldn't Climategate?

Somewhere, behind closed doors, when the truth started to leak out in Climategate, a group of big wigs realized that they'd have to admit to something. They decided that they'd have to admit the most obvious problems with their so-called "science," so now they're conceding that the hockey-stick graph depicting the rise in global temperatures and threat regarding Himalayan glaciers are wrong.

But that's it. Everything else is kosher, right? We're good. Seriously, you can trust us.

So what have they really learned? Nothing. They knew that this garbage was false all along, and only now admit it because they have to do so. Do not expect a mea culpa. They don't think that you deserve one. They think that you're an idiot, and they're your knights in shining armor.

IRS=MF/SOB

Imagine if our federal taxes weren't withheld from paycheck to paycheck, and we instead had to "pay up" on April 15. You can bet that most people would be horrified by how much the government extorts.

Instead, as if by slight of hand, the feds make many grateful for this time of year: the season of the tax refund. As if it was some kind of gift and not your own damn money being returned because the grubbers took to much.

Link to Free Advice Post: Obama on the Pesky Constitution

Head on over to Free Advice and take a gander at Obama on the Pesky Constitution.

From the Mouths of "Terrorists"

According to Roland S. Martin, Confederates argued in the exact same words as Muslim terrorists. Let's see.

Here's how a former Confederate officer, Gen. John Gordon, framed the debate:

During the entire life of the Republic the respective rights and powers of the States and general government had furnished a question for endless controversy. In process of time this controversy assumed a somewhat sectional phase. The dominating thought of the North and of the South may be summarized in a few sentences.
The South maintained with the depth of religious conviction that the Union formed under the Constitution was a Union of consent and not of force; that the original States were not the creatures but the creators of the Union; that these States had gained their independence, their freedom, and their sovereignty from the mother country, and had not surrendered these on entering the Union; that by the express terms of the Constitution all rights and powers not delegated were reserved to the States; and the South challenged the North to find one trace of authority in that Constitution for invading and coercing a sovereign State.
The North, on the other hand, maintained with the utmost confidence in the correctness of her position that the Union formed under the Constitution was intended to be perpetual; that sovereignty was a unit and could not be divided; that whether or not there was any express power granted in the Constitution for invading a State, the right of self-preservation was inherent in all governments; that the life of the Union was essential to the life of liberty; or, in the words of Webster, "liberty and union are one and inseparable."

Or from the Virginian, Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter:

When this Union was originally formed, the United States embraced too many degrees of latitude and longitude, and too many varieties of climate and production, to make it practicable to establish and administer justly one common government which should take charge of all the interests of society. To the wise men who were entrusted with the formation of that union and common government, it was obvious enough that each separate society should be entrusted with the management of its own peculiar interests, and that the united government should take charge only of those interests which were common and general. To enforce this necessary distinction, it was provided that all powers, not specially granted, should be reserved to the people and the States, and a list of the granted powers was carefully and specifically made. But two parties soon arose in regard to these limitations. Those who wielded the powers thus granted became interested to remove these limitations as far as possible, whilst the minority, who belonged to the governed rather than the governing party, early learned to regard these limitations as the best and surest defences against the abuses and oppressions of a despotic majority. . . .
The contest between the two sections over the limitations in the constitution upon the governing party under it began with the commencement of its history, and ended only, as I shall presently show, with the revolution which destroyed the old form and established the despotism of a majority of numbers. It is in the history of this context we must look for the true causes of the war, and the use made of the victory by the winning party will show the object and nature of that contest. When it became obvious that the only protection of the rights of the minority against the encroachments of the majority was to be found in the limitations upon the power of the governing party, a death struggle arose between the two parties over the constitutional restraints upon this power. The struggle between the two parties commenced at the beginning of the government. These were respectively led by Hamilton and Jefferson, the one with an avowed preference for monarchy, the other the great apostle of democracy, men of signal abilities, and each conscious of what would be the consequence of complete and perfect victory on either side. The party of power showed a constant tendency to draw all important subjects of jurisdiction within the vortex of Federal control, and an equally persevering effort on the other to limit that control to the strict necessities of a common government.

Yep, sounds to me exactly like bin Laden and the ilk.

On an Utterly Asinine, Dishonest, Idiotic Article From CNN.com

I know. I know. That title covers an awful lot and has you asking, "Which one?"

But when a friend of mine decided to forward me this article--one of the worst (as in dumbest) interpretations/analyses of the Civil War--he had to know that it would get my goat. Way to go, Dan.

The author's thesis is that the secessionist movement in the South was pretty much the same as militant Islam today, and the Confederacy as an organization was akin to Al Quaeda.

The argument is one based entirely on analogy with such gems as

When you make the argument that the South was angry with the North for "invading" its "homeland," Osama bin Laden has said the same about U.S. soldiers being on Arab soil.

I guess this means that any people who resist an aggressive neighbor's unprovoked invasion are as vile as Al Queda.

Charles De Gaulle and the Free French resistance? They were a bunch of religious fanatics who unjustly opposed Nazi occupation.

Metacomet, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse--they had no reason whatsoever to resist the invasion of their homeland.

But the author is not being merely hyperbolic. "Same language; same cause; same effect," he says.

If a Confederate soldier was merely doing his job in defending his homeland, honor and heritage, what are we to say about young Muslim radicals who say the exact same thing as their rationale for strapping bombs on their bodies and blowing up cafes and buildings?

Did you catch that? The author actually claimed that Confederates and Al Quaeda's terrorists "say the exact same thing as their rationale." His exact words include "say the exact same thing." Remember Pickett's speech just before the charge at Gettysburg: "Up men, and to your posts. And let none of you forget that you are humble servants of Allah!"

The only analogy that can honestly be built here is that both Confederates and Muslim terrorists who have committed atrocities had grievances. This does not make them one and the same.

And then there's this bit of absurdity:

Just as radical Muslims have a warped sense of religion, Confederate supporters have a delusional view of what is honorable. The terrorists are willing to kill their own to prove their point, and the Confederates were just as willing in the Civil War to take up arms against their fellow Americans to justify their point.

This whole article is worse than an exaggeration. It is one of the most dishonest analogies that I have ever seen a serious so-called journalist make. If you want to know the Confederate rationale, take a look at each Confederate State's Declaration of Secession. You'll find that they are remarkably like the United States' Declaration of Independence. You know, the document written by Thomas "Osama bin" Jefferson.

Confederate soldiers were not taking arms against their fellow Americans to justify their point. Confederate soldiers were taking arms against an aggressive foreign power that was hell bent on conquest. In this respect they were (if we want to draw an analogy) most like the colonists who, under Yassir Washington, seceded from and fought Great Britain.

Reading this article from CNN.com makes me angry, baffled, and sad. Then again, it is CNN. Perhaps they're so desperate for ratings that they really are unabashedly "jumping the shark."

Next week on CNN.com: Parents who insist on good hygiene for their children are like Nazis.

(Hint: Both forced reluctant people into the showers).