Nobody's Business

Why ARE There so many Songs About Rainbows?

Remember that Kermit the Frog song?  I found out the answer!  Obviously, it is because homosexuals are trying to infest our brains with irresistible thoughts of gay sex! 

See I found out why there are so many songs about rainbows

Daughter Fails GED Exam, Dad Goes to Jail

USA Today reports:

Brian Gegner, who lives near Cincinnati, was sentenced last week to 180 days in jail for contributing to the unruliness or delinquency of a minor.

He was ordered months ago to make sure his 18-year-old daughter Brittany Gegner, who has a history of truancy, received the diploma known as GED — something that hasn't happened yet.

Brittany Gegner, who said Monday that she plans to take a required GED test this month, said her father shouldn't be blamed for her failure because she has been living with her mother.

"It was my wrongdoing, not his," said Brittany Gegner, whose fiance and 18-month-old daughter also live at her mother's home. "He shouldn't have to go to jail for something I did."

Now Mr. Gegner stands to lose his job.  To make things worse, some so-called "lawyers" think that this is just fine.  In this CNN.com video, former prosecutor Monica Lindstrom, argues that the judge was "well within his purview" to impose this punishment.  Lindstrom either has no idea what she is talking about, or didn't understand the question. 

Maryland Expands DNA Database

CNN reports:

On Tuesday, Maryland starts expanding its DNA database, collecting samples from people arrested for murder, rape, and assault instead of just collecting DNA from convicted criminals.

Maryland is joining a dozen other states in expanding its database, and walking straight into controversy. To supporters, building DNA databases with samples from the unconvicted is no different from collecting fingerprints. Critics say it's a complete violation of civil rights.

I'm as suspicious of government as anyone, and this plan gives me the creeps.  Someone accuses you of assault (which doesn't even require that you touched anyone, just that they were in fear that you might), and your DNA goes right into big brother's big DNA logbook.

The feds are implementing similar policies, but they assure us that the data will never be mis-used.  They will show us the data on that once they find the WMDs in Iraq.

The woman who pushed for this expansion is the victim of a serial rapist that would have been caught, had this measure been in place years ago.  As much as I want my civil liberties kept inviolate, how do I tell the next victim, or string of victims, that we could have caught the scumbag - but we thought that it was more important to protect our civil liberties?

Answer?  With more tact than I am capable of.  Anyone want to volunteer? 

Hillary Needs to Fire Her Speech Writer

I swear, I'm not making this up.

Hillary Clinton likened herself to a teabag yesterday when asked why she refuses to drop out of the Democrats' presidential nomination race. Quoting former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, she said: "A woman is like a teabag. You never know how strong she is until she's in hot water." (source)

Teabag... heh heh

More Drug War Stupidity

The Associated Press reports that a man died after being refused a liver transplant. 

Why was he refused?  Because he followed his doctor's advice and used marijuana to ease the symptoms of his Hepatitis C.

His death came a week after a doctor told him a University of Washington Medical Center committee had again denied him a spot on the liver transplant list. The team had previously told him it would not consider placing him on the list until he completed a 60-day drug-treatment class…

The Virginia-based United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation’s transplant system, leaves it to individual hospitals to develop criteria for transplant candidates.

At some, people who use “illicit substances”—including medical marijuana, even in the dozen states that allow it—are automatically rejected. At others, patients are given a chance to reapply if they stay clean for six months.

A Viable Libertarian Candidate

Former U.S. Rep. and Clinton gadfly, Bob Barr, threw his hat in the ring today for the 2008 presidential race.  Barr intends to seek, and is favored to win, the Libertarian nomination. 

Barr, 59, quit the Republican Party two years ago, saying he had grown disillusioned with its failure to shrink government and its willingness to scale back civil liberties in fighting terrorism. He has been particularly critical of President Bush over the war in Iraq and says the administration is ignoring constitutional protections on due process and privacy.

Hmmm, imagine that!

By "viable," I don't mean that he can win.  He can't.  But, given the fact that many libertarian leaning Republicans feel similarly disillusioned by the G.O.P., Barr could mobilize enough voters to take at least one state, like New Hampshire, with its traditionally libertarian bent.  Just as likely, Barr could make enough of an impact somewhere like Florida or Wisconsin to influence the outcome in that state on election night.

Just as importantly, Barr might be able to haul in enough votes for the Libertarian Party to get a seat at the table during the debates. 

I probably won't vote for him (unless Hillary manages to pull off the nomination), but I think that the more viable parties we have the better.  America's political spectrum is disappointingly duochromatic.  Whether it is a Libertarian, a Socialist, a Green or a Fascist-Anarchist, another voice is always healthy. 

Your Weapon of Choice? M&Ms!

The Associated Press reports:

DES MOINES, Iowa—A college student whose friend was being questioned in a hit and run found himself charged with assaulting an officer with a curious choice of weapons: M&Ms.

Sean McGuire was arrested early Sunday at a convenience store after Drake University security guards noticed the colored candies falling on the ground around the officer. When the officer turned around, an M&M hit his shoulder, according to a police report. (source)

Okay, throwing M&Ms at anyone is uncalled for.  Throwing them at a cop is just stupid.  But, this college student winding up in jail, and having to post a $1,000 bond for throwing candy?  What was this all about?  Was it really about "assault," or was it a case of "you must respect my authoritah!"

Land of the "Almost Free"

It is a sad day when former subjects of the Warsaw Pact deride American freedom as a farce. That day is here, and while this post is inspired by an anecdote, it is backed up by statistics.

According to Reporters Without Borders, Estonia currently ranks third in terms of press freedom, while the United States heaves its way to 48th. Nowadays, we are outpaced by Latvia, the Czech Republic, and Chile. Unfortunately, it is not just our press freedoms that have atrophied. Leonard Pitts wrote an editorial this weekend, centered around a conversation with an Estonian friend who said that "she didn't find this country to be especially free." See Correctness, control, The land of the almost free to speak up.

Americans, she said, love to trumpet their freedom. But it’s hard to square that with political correctness that straitjackets communication for fear of giving unintended offense, hair-trigger litigiousness that requires major corporations to treat customers (”Caution: Coffee is hot”) like idiots for fear of being sued, zero tolerance policies and mandatory sentencing guidelines that remove human judgment from human encounters for fear of rendering unequal justice.

Most people are reading Mr. Pitts' piece as an indictment of right-wing "security theater" and "tough on crime" initiatives.  It is easy to read it that way when we read this passage:

And if this impulse toward uniformity sounds noble in theory, what it leads to in practice is kids kicked out of school because Midol violates the zero-tolerance drug policy, or a parolee getting 25 to life because the pizza slice he stole violates the three-strike law.

However, I see Mr. Pitts' words as cutting both left and right.

[O]originality is anathema to uniformity and, make no mistake, uniformity is what we’re talking about here, the campaign to regulate language, law, culture and every other aspect of human intercourse in the hope of thereby removing from that intercourse every hint of risk or danger of unequal treatment.

I have never heard an analogy more appropriate than the "hall monitor".  Whether it is right-wing neo-fascists in government or left-wing neo-maoists in academia, both come to us with the overwhelming desire to stifle any sense of individuality or dissent.  To force us all into their pre-determined holes, no matter the shape or size of the peg. These people remind me of a character in one of my favorite movies, Happy Feet (yes, really!).  As Neil Cavuto lamented, that children's film is a scathing indictment of the right wing's closed-minded conservatism.  (source).  However, the uptight "Noah the Elder" character's most telling line is this: Dissent leads to division and division leads us to doom! You, Mumble Happyfeet, must go! It certainly is easy to imagine Dick Cheney grumbling these lines.  But, anyone who thinks that this mentality remains on the right hand side of the aisle is as foolish as those who believe that AIDS only strikes homosexuals.  You need only take a look at the comments to this post and this post to hear Noah the Elder speaking with a left-wing accent. It is no wonder that the attempted debate over "Intentional Sex Torts" spawned this (very insightful) blog post "If You Don't Already Agree, Get Lost!"  Nor is it any wonder that a Dartmouth professor is considering suing her students because they didn't kowtow to her orthodoxy, or BJ's won't let a guy fly his confederate flag, or that there are calls for government and tort lawyers to squeeze under our sheets. Mr. Pitts sums up the state of our freedom:

A nation of iconoclasts and originals seems hellbent on becoming a nation of hall monitors. A nation born in revolution has lived to see revolution neutered and co-opted.

Out there, somewhere, hall monitors on the left and the right are scowling down at us... because they just can't stand the thought of us making decisions for ourselves, having fun in our own way, or stepping out of their moralistic line. 

What are you going to do about it?  If I, for one, may be so bold as to ask that you do something about it, I'll not ask much.  I simply ask that you exercise the rights that you have left -- in particular, your right to free speech. 

Chile may have us beat in that department, but we still have enough left that we can stop the bleeding.   Perhaps we can work off our free speech beer gut by exercising our rights a little more often, a little more strenuously, with a little more passion.  Fill the air, and the blogosphere, with your rejection of the hall monitor mentality.  Don't let the hall monitors take one step without resistance.  Don't say "what's the sense?"  Don't wait for someone else to write about it.  And most importantly, don't doubt your ability to make a difference.  Get out there -- find the hall monitors, no matter where they hide, and drown them in the only cocktail that can destroy them:  Equal parts liberty, passion, and free speech — serve scathing hot.

I'm Splitting For a Couple of Weeks, But...

...it shouldn't matter, because my superior ideological twin will be in charge. Attorney and law professor Marc Randazza, of the Legal Satyricon blog, is a helluva writer. Proof positive that he's smarter than me is that, when we were both faced with a very real choice between journalism and law, he picked the latter.

Marc cares about the same things I do and writes about them unacademically — and that's a compliment. I love him because he's a red-meat, no-punches-pulled defender of liberty and choice whose musings on case law and constitutional issues are clear, accessible, engaging, and at times a touch profane. I'm proud to have him run the show here.

If you need a measure of how hardcore and dedicated Marc is, consider this: He's getting married next weekend, and in between the current and future attacks of nuptial bliss, he's still going to guestblog here — my sincere apologies to Jennifer, his beautiful bride. To help out on days that Jennifer would like to enjoy Marc's undivided attention for a while, he has lined up a couple of brave foot soldiers. They're students of his. If they're half as good as their professor, you'll be in fantastic hands.

Meanwhile, I'll be putting my big fat carbon footprint all over Europe for the next two weeks, in a classic Jensen Healey convertible that a friend and I will be driving from Holland to Northern Italy and back again in honor of the Mille Miglia. If and when I can, I'll check in here — but mostly, I'll be busy doing stuff like this, while trying not to soil my pants.

Chef Ramsay:"Ban Out-of-Season Vegetables"

For generations, parents have exhorted their kids to eat vegetables. Today's politically correct (though quite insane) amendment to that rule is: "Unless they're out of season, in which case it's a matter for the police."

Celebrity British chef Gordon Ramsay said restaurants should be fined if they serve out-of-season fruit and vegetables. "I don't want to see asparagus in the middle of December. I don't want to see strawberries from Kenya in the middle of March. I want to see it home-grown," he said after raising his concerns with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"Fruit and veg should be seasonal. Chefs should be fined if they don't have ingredients in season on their menu," he told the BBC on Friday.

Last year, this self-absorbed oaf was in the news because he

...lashed out at parents of obese children, calling for them to be taken to court and fined.

Now that smoking has been all but snuffed out — marginalized, forbidden, scoffed at — it's clearer all the time that anti-choice little fascists have turned their attention to food. Fight back now unless you want a world in which candy bars, cheeseburgers, and pastries are preposterously pricey and possibly illegal.

Think I'm too hotheaded, or just crying wolf? Then read the piece William Saletan published on Slate yesterday. This paragraph summarizes it:

[Some health nannies believe that] junk food, like cigarettes, is addictive and should be similarly regulated. Initially, this was just a metaphor. Now it's becoming more than that. Scientists are trying to show that food literally addicts you like drugs.

Whole thing here.

[hat tip: Martin Owens]