Offendedness is the new national pastime
“Offendedness” is the new national pastime
Forget about baseball, Americans have found their new favorite pastime: becoming offended at the drop of a hat and demanding futile, insincere apologies. Why have Americans forsaken the tradition of free thinking, rejected reason, and turned the basic acts of criticizing or lampooning public officials, individuals, or groups within our society into the acts of shame, humiliation, and disgrace?
On the morning of July 14, Yahoo News readers were treated to a headline about the Obama campaign’s outrage over the New Yorker’s satirical cover cartoon which included a turban-laden Barack Obama “fist-bumping” his machine-gun toting wife in front of a portrait of Osama bin Laden. An American flag burns in the fire place below the bin Laden picture while the couple stands in the Oval Office.
The sufficiently enlightened among us are quick to realize that the New Yorker, a magazine which occasionally dabbles in the art of satire, is simply doing what good periodicals are supposed to do: make us think by unconventionally pointing out the various bogus attacks against the Obamas. The cartoon in question is previewing this issue’s cover story, “The Politics of Fear,” a serious look at the absurd nature of those assailing Obama with claims that he and his wife detest America, are clandestinely Muslims, or harbor animosity towards whites.
America’s thought police, whom I dissected in great detail on April 12, 2007 following their sacking of Don Imus, again failed to act rationally, which would have required reading the article and placing the image in context prior to throwing a tantrum worthy of a four year old with a sweet tooth whose mother will not permit him a Hershey’s bar for breakfast.
It is, of course, time for outrage. To quote Claude Rains’ Captain Renault character in Casablanca: “Major Strasser has been shot …Round up the usual suspects!” And we shall.
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Sheriff Jack Parker’s Inaccurate OffenderWatch
Leave it to a blogger to do the job of the press, who reportedly have been provided but have chosen not to report the following information.
Brevard County Sheriff Jack Parker –currently seeking re-election–has made a new online tool available for citizens seeking information about sex offenders living in the neighborhood.
The BCSO website describes OffenderWatch as “the nation’s leading sex offender management and community notification tool… (which) provides the most accurate and timely information…”.
I guess it’s all in how one defines accurate.
A comparison of the corporately owned OffenderWatch and the Florida Sex Offender Registry revealed misrepresentations of public records by OffenderWatch, specifically regarding the legal description of criminal convictions.
In several randomly selected offenders, the nature of the conviction is documented incorrectly by OffenderWatch, particularly so for lewd or lascivious solicitation convictions, i.e. online sting operations with no travel, no physical contact.
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Obama ditches ‘CHANGE’ for lukewarm can of Bush-Lite
Saddled with a 23 percent approval rating, perhaps the lowest in polling history, President George W. Bush has all the trappings of a president in over his head. Plagued by an economic downturn, a gloomy international scene, and a party in disarray, Bush has become the quintessential punching bag for the left, the right, and the mass media.
Who would have guessed that by Independence Day weekend, Democrat Barack Obama would be lining up with the most unpopular president since the inception of polling on a host of critical issues?
As you may recall, Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the rest of the Democrat primary field spent the past 12 months traveling the nation talking about how they differ from Bush, never hesitating to point out how George W. Bush is the most heinous scourge on civilization since the Bubonic Plague ripped through Europe.
You may also recall Senator Obama’s frequent attempts to characterize Senator Clinton as “Bush-Lite,” accusing her of supporting Bush on the war, on wiretapping, and on other issues that would make her less attractive in the eyes of the predominately liberal primary electorate. Invoking an empty term as the catch-all for his policies, Obama promised to bring “change” to the White House. Now the only “change” the electorate is seeing is Obama’s frequently shifting issue positions, making even John McCain look like a piker.
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PA Smoking Ban Highlights Need for Part Time, Citizen Legislature
Back in the 1950s entertainer Louis Prima did a song about his “confused Italian greyhound” that would bark at him instead of at strangers and howl until Prima took his own albums off the turntable and put Sam Butera records on.
The Pennsylvania General Assembly is starting to look more and more like Prima’s confused Italian greyhound with each passing moment.
June 10, 2008 saw the latest in the decline of Penn’s Woods. The state Senate—with little fanfare—voted by a lopsided 41 to 9 margin to enact a statewide smoking ban, referred to as (no joke) The Smoke Free Pennsylvania Act. The House voted on June 4 to pass the bill by a margin of 163 to 38. The result is the further advance of the government-knows-best, nanny state model of governance in the Keystone State.
Voters elect legislators to serve as pit bulls to guard against corruption and to attack serious economic and political problems such as Pennsylvania’s high tax rate, the dysfunctional full-time legislature, out-of-control spending, and a citizenry that has all but given up on anything other than the Steelers and Eagles. Instead, the state legislature acts more like Prima’s bamboozled greyhound, barking at irrelevant, nonsensical issues like smoking rather than addressing the legitimate problems and solutions.
Smoking ban proponents are quick to buttress their position with bogus, inane theories about how people who work in bars and restaurants are dying from smoke inhalation. They ignore the fact that these hard working waiters, waitresses, and barkeeps can do what anyone else does if they don’t like their jobs: quit and get another one. It is called the free market and it is a beautiful thing.
Senate Bill 246 also creates loopholes allowing the state’s casino racket to be partially exempt from the ban and permitting smoking in cigar bars, tobacco shops, and bars that have 20 percent or less in annual sales of food. This number was concocted arbitrarily. Senator Stewart “Nanny State Stew” Greenleaf (R-Montgomery) and his cadre of cradle-to-grave coddlers were kind enough to “exempt” people who choose to smoke in their own cars or their own homes! I hope someone remembers to send him a thank you note and a pack of Swisher Sweets.
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