What Part of “Illegal” Don’t I Understand? (Part I)

What part of “illegal” don’t I understand? Uh, the part where loudmouthed white assholes get to speed and smoke pot and cheat on their taxes, while American citizens of Hispanic descent have to prove they’re not breaking a law any time a cop looks at them sideways, and oh by the way while Mexicans, Hondurans, […]

Corporate Personhood

From my post of two days ago: “And I think corporate ownership of congress is going to get worse, not better.” Boy, I’ll say.  Yesterday the Supreme Court extended free speech rights to corporations, who will now be allowed to contribute unlimited amounts of money to political candidates and parties. Some say this’ll be the […]

Paul’s Grab Bag

Unconnected thoughts and observations which don’t rate separate blog posts, but when aggregated together might just amount to something: Tasers: This seems like good news, and it comes not a moment too soon: “Police need reasons to believe a suspect is dangerous before firing a Taser and can’t use their stun gun simply because the […]

Athiests in Foxholes

The media occasionally report on Christian evangelicalism and proselytization in the military services, particularly at the military academies.  One journalist who tracks stories about non-believing and minority religion servicemembers coerced into Christian worship is Ed Brayton, who blogs about this and other issues at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. Last week he published a letter […]

Thank-You-Sir-May-I-Have-Another?

My personal thoughts on the arrest of Henry Louis Gates?  You probably think I’m about to say I agree with President Obama that the Cambridge police acted stupidly.  No, actually, I think they acted predictably. Racism is a given in situations like this.  Whites know it; people of color know it . . . if […]

Chad 2 NTSB: u’ve been pwned

Pwn: internet slang term, derived from the verb “own,” meaning to appropriate or conquer, implying domination or humiliation of a rival.  — Wikipedia. From the New York Times, 21 July, 2009: Driven to Distraction U.S. Withheld Data on Risks of Distracted Driving By MATT RICHTEL Published: July 21, 2009 In 2003, researchers at a federal agency […]

Balanced News You Can Count On . . .

. . . to serve the corporate masters.  Warning: NPR kvetching ahead. I thought Diane Rehm’s show started off well this morning: she interviewed presidential science advisor Dr. John Holdren about the latest White House report on climate change.  And here’s the thing: she had him on by himself, not up against a panel of […]