An interesting thought occured to me the other day.  Many people are dismayed and frustrated that no one in the financial world has been brought to trial, why none of them has been imprisoned yet.  They were at the epicenter of the housing bouble's collapse, and the subsequent recession.  So why haven't they been punished for their clear malfeanse.  Well, I have a theory about that.

There is ample evidence that it was goverment policies that led to Great Recession.  So if the government attempted to try any of the leaders in the financial world, then those government policies would be the forefront of the defendants' defense.  It would finally be on the record that government caused the recession and that would destroy Obama's and the Democrat's vision for American governance.  That is why no financial leader will ever be arrested and tryed. 

Now tell me you will vote for a second Obama term come November. 

There's one thing I find real interesting with the whole obesity crisis the country is confronting.  The thing is, I remember 10 or 15 years ago when the concern was with eating disorders such as Bulimia and anorexia.  I remember that the Barbie doll and all those superthin models and actresses were singled out as the destroyers of young girls, because they were examples of unattainable and unhealthy weight goals.  But now obesity is the real destroyer of young people.

What happened?  Where are all these superthin models and actors that we were supposed to emulate in order to become unhealtily thin.  Now we're all fat.  What happened?

After a while of seeing it in the news for so long, I have decided to weigh in on the controversy.  As many of you may know, Rush Limbaugh is in hot water over over comments he made about Sandra Fluke.  Now I have never listened to Rush in my life and I don't plan too, but what is being done to him should outrage all who make a living, or simply spread their ideas, through mass communication.  He made a poor choice of words.  It happens.  It happens to all of us at some point in time.  And he apologized for it (which is more than can be said for other people) so lets all just move on.  

But we haven't, and that is why I'm writing now.  In fact I am responding to what Bill Maher recently said.   He said that what he said about Sarah Palin is fine because she is a public figure, but what Rush said abut Sandra Fluke is bad because she is a private cititzen.  That is bullshit!  The minute Fluke testified before Congress she became a public figure, her private citizen status evaporated, and she became fair game for all professional (and amateur) commentators.  Claiming Fluke is a private citizen is just a cover not only for their own foul language, but to hide essence of her testimony, which was that a religious educational institution must be forced to buy constrceptives for their student regardless of stated religious doctrine. 

And that's the rub.  This whole controversy is noting more than a smokescreen designed to distract us from the mandate forcing religious institutions to go against their beliefs.  That is the real issue, and that is what people should be focusing on.  Not Rush's misogymy.  Not even other people's misogymy.  While is shoud be addressed, rampant misogymy in communications should take a backseat while the religious mandate is solved.

As for Rush's comment.  He called her a slut.  So what?  I have hear plenty of women call each other slut and laugh!  I remember Kim Kardashian call her sisters sluts and all three women were laughing at it.  Lots of women in Sitcoms and in real life call each other sluts, and are proud of being sluts let alone being called a slut.  There was a freaking SlutWalk not too long ago (April 3, 2011 (hey almost the anniversary, wonder if they'll have a second one on that date with the controversy so fresh)) where women were told to be proud of being called sluts.  So is 'slut' such a bad word anymore?  And if anyone says that only women may now call each other sluts, that it is their word, you may go to Hell!  I hate that belief, it needs to end!  And soon.

And done.  That's my two cents.

Yesterday was the largest Internet based protest in history.  Thousands of websites were protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act.  I agree with the protesters that these two acts go to far in attempting to combat internet piracy, and I hope you do too.

Yesterday, several websites shutdown for 24 hours starting midnight 1/18/2012 to midnight 1/19/2012.  I did not participate in that shutdown protest because it would have been moot; I just don't have the traffic necessary to make any kind of impact.  I did, however, use the form e-mails available to write my Congressman, and Senators.  My voice has been heard. 

Still, both Acts are still going through Congress as we speak, so there's still work to be done.

Today is the day that World War I ended, the so-called War to End All Wars.  We in America take the time to honor those that have fought in wars that our country have fought, as well as those that have worn the uniform.  So as you go out today and see a veteran, shake his hand, he defended your freedom after all.

Also, I am no loger as busy as I once was, so I am even now transcribing the rough draft of  the latest story.  I hope to get publish it just before December, but we'll have to see.

This past Thursday, Obama gave a press conference where he scolded Republicans in Congress for not passing this bill.  He said that if they were to pass this bill, then he would be unable to "run against a do-nothing Congress."  Well that might be possible, if OBAMA'S OWN PARTY DIDN'T CONTROL THE SENATE.  And the Senate won't even pass the bill.  Senate Majority leader Harry Reid refuses to let Obama's Jobs Bill come to a vote precisely because not enough Democrats will vote for it.  He even had to change Senate Rules in order to make sure that it would not be put to a vote.

This is why I maintain that Obama is an idiot.  He seems to think that just because the Republicans control half of Congress that the American people will believe that they control all of Congress.  Or does he think that the American people will absolve the Democrats of their part in not passing the bill. 

So this past monday, I was staying up late and wanted to watch something.  Nothing was really on, so I settled on watching the second half of the Lifetime original movie Girl Fight.  There really wasn't anything on, and I am a sucker for Legal Dramas.  Girl Fight is based on a true event where a group of teenage girls brutally assault another teenage girl and video record the attack.   They are criminally charged and facing many charges, including attempted murder, since they were facing life in prison.  But when we were told that they were facing life, I came to a rather dreadful conclusion: if those girls were Black instead of White, they would have never had been facing those kinds of charges. 

Now before you jump up and down thinking I'm some sort of fanatical Tea Partier and accuse me of racsim, try to remember the Jena Six.  The Jena Six is a rather complicated event.  But it really got started when six black high school students beat up a white high school student.  The victim went to the hospital, but was released the same day, and I think went back to school.  The six attackers; they were chared with assault with a deadly weapon.  The prosecuter believed that the shoes the attackers were wearing qualified as a weapon.  The howls of protestations accusing the District Attorneys office of racism could be heard from coast to coast.  Eventually all of the six plead to a simple charge of battery and avoided jail time. 

I do not believe that racism played a part in any of the events of Jena Six.  But charging those students with assault with a weapon when there was on real weapon present, and the victim was not hospitalized for very long, was over the top by itself.  How does this play into the movie Girl Fight.  Over the course of the movied, the actions of the girls (the attackers) were said to be reprehensible and unconsciencable.  While true, no one, NO ONE, was on their side saying that they are being over-charge, as in the Jena Six situation.  I didn't see if the victim had to stay in the hospital for a lengthy time, but I did see that she was physically healthy with no loss of higher brain function, but the girls were still being charged with attempted murder (I think).  And all I could think was, that wouldn't be happening if they were black. 

That points to the real racism of it all.  We expect black people to act violently, so we shrug our shoulders when we hear that they assaulted, or murded, someone.  We then move on with or lives.  It is a more extreme version of the soft bigotry of low expectation. 

But what those white girls did was unfathomable to our conscience, because white people, and white girls in particular, just aren't so violent.  In order to alleviate ourselves of realization that white people can be brutally violent, society, in the form of the District Attorney Office, piles on the criminal charges on those white girls, satisfying both our own bloodlust and our sense of high expections for the white race. 

It's what happened with Casey Anthony.  The whole world knows what happened, and that American are horrified by what transpired.  In contrast, hundreds of black people are murdered every year, mostly by black people.  But does anyone really care?  The answer can be found by what the news media says is a virtual crime against humanity, a white prepetrated crime, or a black one.