First it was smoking bans, seat-belt laws and a myriad of seemingly benign legislation bent on controlling society at the cost of your personal freedom.  Now it is baggy pants.  Yep, baggy pants.  Are you serious?  As if there isn’t enough going on in our world, let alone our communities, that baggy pants are an issue.  All across the country these types of legislation are either in place now or in the proposal phase.  The elected officials are attempting to make a positive correlation between baggy pants and crime.  Here a couple of blurbs from a recent ABCnews.com article on the subject:

“If we have kids going around wearing pants below their butts, it’s not nice, not decent,” says Timothy Holmes, a city commissioner in Opa-locka, Fla.

In Atlanta, City Councilman C.T. Martin says he’s trying to raise standards and instill values in today’s youth.

“Bill Cosby started this conversation, and we let him down,” Martin says, referring to the comedian’s controversial criticism of the parenting skills, grammar and values of poor blacks.

Laws like this are extremely dangerous, I agree with Cosby, it goes back to parenting, you can’t legislate your way out of this.  Just because you wear a mini-skirt, it doesn’t make you a whore, the same goes with baggy pants (the crime part that is, not your inclination to be a whore).

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Ann Coulter made the news again Friday with her comments that “we want Jews to be perfected”.  Ann has increasingly said and has been quoted with absurd cartoon-like radical right wing sentiments.  Her latest can be seen in a CNN.com article quoted:

Asked by CNBC host Donny Deutsch what the U.S. looks like in her dreams, Coulter said it would look like the Republican National Convention in 2004

“People were happy,” she said, according to a transcript provided to CNN by CNBC. “They’re Christian. They’re tolerant. They defend America.” When Deutsch responded, “It would be better if we were all Christian?” Coulter said “Yeah.”

Deutsch, himself Jewish, continued to press Coulter on her remarks, asking, “We should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians then?”

“Yeah,” Coulter responded, adding “Well, it’s a lot easier. It’s kind of a fast track.”

“You can’t possibly believe that,” Deutsch responded. “You can’t possibly. You’re too educated.”

“Do you know what Christianity is?” Coulter replied. “See, we believe your religion, but you have to obey. We have the fast track program.”

In my opinion, Coulter is now officially playing a character, she is a satire of her former self.  Coulter knows her place and it is a niche that plays to the extreme right wing, and she knows this caricature that she is playing will make the press and sell books.  And, like Howard Stern, make enough controversy and the people that hate you will buy your books too.  I liken it to Jessica Simpson on her former reality show, she played up the ditsy blond thing for the cameras because it worked and made it popular.

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Relationships with Turkey have been strained due to a House resolution to label the World War I massacre of Armenians by Turkey “genocide”.  According to a CNN.com article regarding this matter, Turkey has recalled its ambassador to the US, and Turkey has not allowed France to fly over it’s airspace since a similar resolution was passed there last year.   Turkey’s response to the resolution was:

A top Turkish official warned Thursday that consequences “won’t be pleasant” if the full House approves the resolution.

Why are we so stupid?  The US was not involved in the Armenian-Turkey conflict during WWI and Turkey is currently a NATO ally and critical access point for the US in the middle east.  There is little good to be gleaned from this resolution, why doesn’t the House of Reps just fly over to Turkey and take a big stinking shit on the Prime Minister’s lawn, it would probably be less offensive.  The issue here isn’t whether there was actual genocide or not, but rather why are we getting involved now after 90 years… we need a better foreign policy in this country.

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This story had a lot of potential, the mayor of Atlantic City goes missing?  Thoughts of mob assassinations, kidnapping, terrorists, or general intrigue were dancing through my head, but alas, he was just in rehab.  What a downer, I was dreaming of a movie starring Pacino, De Niro, and Pesci… and all we got was a mental health issue and maybe a substance control problem.  This was the quote from an ABCnews.com article:

The mayor of this gambling resort resigned Wednesday after a two-week absence from office during which he sought help at a clinic known for treatment of substance abuse and mental health issues, his lawyer said.

Oh well, at least there is still potential that Trump will totally implode, here’s hoping for that…

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Democrat pinup boy Barack Obama was quoted in the following CNN.com article:

“I think it’s important, particularly for those of us in the Democratic Party, to not cede values and faith to any one party,”

Well I think it’s important that you shut the F up about religion, we’re not electing a religious leader, we’re electing the leader of our country.  Quit pandering and stick to the issues pretty-boy, besides, you are waaaay out of your league if you think you can jump on the religious right bandwagon.

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I’ve been following this story and the expected media hype and have held my tongue until it played out.  The following excerpt from a CNN.com article today explains the schools verdict on the situation:

“We see the editorial as an opinion which is protected by the First Amendment,” Landers read.

However, Landers said the board found that the editor had violated the school’s ethical standards.

“We feel that it caused harm to The Collegian and to student media. It is our judgment that his actions were unethical and unprofessional,” Landers said.

This is a surprisingly well thought out judgement, typically free speech issues are very emotionally charged.  In my opinion, the FB guy intended a free speech dialog/debate as a reaction to the “article”, he succeeded.  However, he could have picked a better topic or even A topic, the FB guy really wasted a golden opportunity here to take a real stand on a real issue, he still could have told Bush to Fuck-off, but for Christ-sake make it count.

On the other hand, he did cause harm to the paper in terms of advertisers pulling out, this should have been planned for as a negative reaction was inevitable.  The FB guy and the paper could have mitigated this by lining up advertisers that are pro free-speech.  Again, all he had to do was pick a real issue to make a stand on.

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As a gross generalization, we Americans have become numb to the erosion of our civil liberties.  One of my biggest pet peeves are the passing of legislation put in place to “protect” us from ourselves.  The simplest example of this are the seat-belt laws.  On the surface this makes sense because everybody knows it is safer wearing a seat-belt.  But, do we really want the government to dictate safety to us via legislation?  What’s next, getting a ticket for being a dumb-ass?  (Which is basically what the seat-belt law is about).  There is no crime here and there is no victim.  If I want to be a dumb-ass, why can’t I? (I have plenty of practice)  This is a slippery slope that we are on and the government is slowly but surely chopping away at the remaining liberties we possess.

 Another example of this are the smoking bans.  There are some interesting comments from Hear ItFrom.Us regarding the recent legislation in Tennessee.

Finally, popular opinion has won out over individual property rights, and people no longer have the power to decide what types of otherwise legal activities they will allow on their own property. What a great day for individual liberty!!!

I’m not sure what the answer here is, but maybe it starts with everyday people asking the right questions, like “why?”….

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I caught most of the 60 Minutes interview of Clarence Thomas this evening between screaming fits of rage from my children.  I was impressed with his candor and at how well spoken he was.  Check out his wikipedia page here for more info.  I agree with some of his stances (free speech for the most part) and disagree with others (his stance on the executive).  I still love the term “we’re going to Bork him” used in reference to the nomination hearings, our Congressmen and Senators are dirty dirty people.  And, it’s a damn shame that the Anita Hill pubic hair thing will follow him to the grave and beyond.

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Letting kids drink early reduces binging…. Where was this shit when I was growing up?  I learned to drink like the rest of us, puking on grain punch at a college party in 8th grade (that’s normal right?).  On the surface this seems to make sense as many You’re-a-peein nations subscribe to this philosophy with some success, Germany doesn’t count.  On the other hand, can you imagine the “cool” parents that will abuse this philosophy?  (I’m looking at you West Virginia and Mississippi).

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