Oh No He Didn't

There's no way he really said this is there? I mean did he think no one would see this interview? Couldn't he have come up with language that wasn't exactly opposite to everything else he says to Americans? How hard is that, right? And in the exact same context that he always says the exact opposite thing?

Mr. President: Are you fucking with me?

He's got to be smarter than that, right? This strikes me as so strange from a what is going on inside your bean standpoint that I almost can't grasp it. Is this one of those moments like when George Bush used to say things and you just knew that he knew that what he was saying would piss off his critics - like make them want to rip their hair out - to no end, and that he kind of enjoyed doing this? Remember those times? Is this like that?

The alternative is that the President truly believes that America is exempt from its own laws when it comes to prosecuting human rights violations. Like that scene in Super Troopers where the heroes favorably compare their shenanigans to the bad guys' shenanigans: Our human rights violations are totally different, and understandable, people do crazy stuff some times....crazy. Oh well. Can't prosecute them for that. Moving on!

Actually, I'm pretty sure this is what the President really thinks. Dammit!

Yes! Someone Finally Cares About Limiting Government using the Commerce Clause!!

Oh..... ohhhh.... wait a second. It's just disingenuous Republicans advancing absurd legal arguments for purely partisan gain and political theatrics. Ahhhh. That's disappointing. But don't count out the media's ability to treat it like a serious effort with a burning legal question. Good Grief!

Let me first say, that I agree substantively that requiring individuals to buy a product from a private company is unconstitutional. But this is apart of a coherent and honest philosophy I subscribe to which would also strike down a ton of currently standing, and uncontroverisal, laws on the same grounds. It is so crushingly obvious that these Attorneys General are only advancing these legal arguments because they are on Team "Hate-Healthcare-Reform" that it should immediately disqualify all of them from the class of serious legal minds.

How the fuck can someone with a law degree write a fucking sentence like this, and put this tripe bullshit in front of a court: "The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage." You can not be SERIOUS!!!

The Constitution doesn't authorize a lot of things, I mean I could literally fill-in-the-blank for the next 7 years with things advanced by Republicans, yet "nowhere" authorized by the Constitution. Let's try 5 minutes:

The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to:

-Dictate specifically what should be taught in schools and what tests students should take

- Criminally punish someone for possessing an item that they manufactured and consumed themselves for medical reasons in compliance with a doctor's recommendation and applicable state law.

- Discard or exempt portions of the Bill of Rights for American citizens without a declaration of war, or even under a declaration of war.

- Force citizens to pay taxes into a system that reinvests that money into private corporations.

- Pay states for changing the blood alcohol content at which criminal culpability is defined.

The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to do about 95% of the things it does. Some of those things are totally, and unquestionably Constitutional. Some are not so clear. That's because the Document is vague, and because politicians and judges, including Republicans no less than Democrats, have expanded the role of federal government and shoe-horned powers into the Document to suit their political ends. Someone who truly believes in a very limited federal government, confined by Section 8 of Article I, regardless of political outcomes, would pretty much have to agree with the first 3 examples I provided - that those are not ok. Others might even agree with the last two examples. But Republicans have consistently disagreed with ALL OF THEM over time. It's a little late in the game to start holding up the commerce clause as a limitation, and these arguments and lawsuits surely would not be advanced if the politics were different.

As for the substance, yes the mandate is unconstitutional, in my view. Congress can regulate commerce amongst the several states, and health insurance is commerce at its essence. The Supreme Court has held that Congress can even regulate non-commercial activity (no transaction, no money, no commerce) that is somewhat related to commerce because of some fucking bullshit about how non-commercial activity can effect commerce and so regulations need to extend to even non-commercial stuff. These dumbfuck arguments can be found in cases called Gonzalez v. Raich and Wickard v. Filburn. Again, true disciples of the limited fed philosophy consider those cases utter abominations, especially - and certainly not coincidentally - the one ruthlessly prosecuted by the Bush Administration.

Those rulings notwithstanding, a legitimate argument could be made that requiring private citizens to buy a product from a private company, to enter into a contract, is just beyond anything the commerce clause can be said to authorize and runs up against many fundamental freedoms such as freedom of contract. Indeed, the argument continues, the power to force people to buy products, if bestowed onto Congress, would create an absurd slippery slope that would be ripe for corruption and abuse and turn our traditional economic freedoms on their heads. What is to stop another powerful lobby from mandating all Americans, say, have savings accounts with a $25 minimum balance?

(Thus, a well-argued lawsuit would either dispassionately outline the argument and plainly state "The Constitution does not authorize this type of Congressional behavior." OR it would present an argument that doesn't drip with the snarky wonderment of a pre-law sophomore who just read the Constitution for the first time, and say something like "This mandate goes beyond the appropriate powers of Congress to regulate commerce, by unprecedentedly requiring private parties to enter into contracts...." etc.)

Sadly, there is little doubt, and rightfully so, among legal experts that the government will prevail by emphasizing that this law is just a different type of regulation on an activity that literally epitomizes commercial activity. The Solicitor General could just robotically repeat "The Government is regulating a commercial activity" for his entire 30 minutes of argument and the Supreme Court will side with her.

The unlikelihood of success doesn't make these suits illegitimate, but the people making them probably hadn't even considered the commerce clause since their second semester of law school.

Moreover, an interesting wrinkle that no one has reported on is that these lawsuits are very likely to be dismissed immediately on grounds of mootness. That is to say there is no controversy before the court because the mandate does not kick in until 2014, and so no one has standing to sue under law that has not gone into effect. This is something the Constitution is pretty specific on, and these lawyers have to know this, which really makes these suits a publicity stunt.

My prediction: These suits get tossed for mootness, and Republicans do their normal chicken dance about "judicial activism" (which would be the most dishonest use of that term ever - which is to say a lot) and some other bullshit that the courts wouldn't even consider the merits of the case and that Americans deserve to have their courts hear the merits blah blah blah! Yes, get some goggles and a wetsuit, it's about to become a complete bullshit-fest.

I Propose a Constitutional Amendmendt Outlawing the Act of Generally Being a Douche, Generally Speaking

Bullshit Alert!

And by that I mean classical Bullshit, whereby the writer just spews a bunch of smart sounding shit that actually means nothing upon even casual analysis. This is a doozy.

Look at what Lessig is actually saying here. Shorter Lessig:

So the Citizens United case was decided basically correctly and in-line with precedent. Those who have been criticizing it are way off base in a manner that raises doubts as to whether they a) read the opinion b) understand the issues and/or c) care about free speech. BUT the opinion is still problematic because of... uh.... foreigners!! Foreigners are even worse than corporations, who aren't that bad really, except maybe they are also really bad. Citizens get to choose who governs citizens. Sure there are millions of non-citizens and corporations who find themselves inside America's borders, and they get governed by the same government, but I love to type the word 'citizens' so don't stop me now. We should be able to keep the debate to citizens exclusively, except that the constitution says we can't - but I will now blame the Supreme Court for that. So in response I propose that we not get crazy and do something drastic... instead we should just amend the frickin' Constitution! But we should make sure this Amendment is a legendary masterstroke (sublime really) of arbitrary technicalities immediately abutting ripe-for-abuse-argument-and-a-whole-new-line-of-controversial-court-rulings vaguenesses that, I myself concede, will probably do nothing and should hardly ever be effectuated, like ever.

Seriously, that's basically what that column says. Look at it and tell me I'm wrong! I mean what the fuck!?

This guy hates the idea of foreign entities influencing our elections, he also dislikes corporations influencing our elections. But he doesn't a give a fuck-all about them doing this as long as it's outside of 60 days from an actual election!? Well whats the point in that exactly? Like 60 days is some magic window where people can no longer decipher bullshit? Also look at the Amendment he proposes. I'm pretty sure he didn't even write it correctly:

Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to restrict the power to limit, though not to ban, campaign expenditures of non-citizens of the United States during the last 60 days before an election.

So, this means that non-citizens can still speak during the last 60 days since his proposed Amendment specifically prohibits "banning" of speech, even by non-citizens. In other words any rule that says "non-citizens may not do any campaigning within 60 days" would remain unconstitutional, even with this amendment. But perhaps we'd get a rule that non-citizens could only air ads between 9 and 5, or could only give $XX.XX in money to any one candidate. Whoop-dee-dam-doo!!

Plainly, even under this proposed Amendment the court would still have had to decide in favor of the plaintiff in the Citizens United case, and would still have had to strike down a good chunk of campaign finance laws. So....???

But the money quote is here: "My own view is that we should encourage the broadest range of free speech, including speech by corporations, Canadians, and curious dolphins." Hmm if only we had a law that already provided that? Perhaps the founders could have written such a law down in an important place and it could be taught to school children everywhere, and our courts could uphold this principle even when the consequences were undesirable. If only such a law existed!

No, Mr. Lessig, that is decidedly not your view.

Michelle Obama = Your Crazy Aunt

It's one thing for the creepy lady in your office, your annoying neighbor, or your conspiracy theorist family member to harp on about childhood obesity, and how it reflects a decline in our moral vaues as a society AND is very harmful healthwise, economy-wise etc. etc. But when the first lady makes a big deal out of it, and spews out a bunch of scary ass statistics you might expect that the things she's discussing not be complete fucking horseshit.

I mean, your neighbor or your cooky aunt can't be expected to do more than read headlines in the latest issue of O Magazine, or the pick up a few of the key words that scroll across the news ticker during the Today Show, but the first lady? Surely she has access to all the actual scientific data; surely she has staff people who can boil this down and give her the facts; surely she could consult with actual scientists and doctors who know what the fuck is up. But apparently not.

It's not that the first lady shouldn't care about making fat kids less fat, or that being fat isn't, generally and vaguely speaking, a potential contributor to health problems. But the problem lies in scaring people by talking about terrible diseases and death, and throwing around the word "epidemic." That's just dishonest, and it can be costly.

One recent study shows that the higher a patient’s body mass, the less respect doctors express for that patient. And the less respect a doctor has for a patient, says Dr. Mary Huizinga, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the less time the doctor spends with the patient and the less information he or she offers.

On the flipside of the health problems fatness actually creates is the stigma that fat people and parents of fat children have to live with. When we act as though fat people have a fucking problem, or are actually costing us money and time and resources, then we're making ourselves into a shittier society in general. And for what? Some might argue that social pressure is good and it's easy to imagine that it might be in some situations, but it also might have the exact opposite effect, by causing people to feel worse, and therefore eat more ice cream or avoid the gym or the doctor.

Fear-mongering over the effects of obesity - combined with liberally applying that term to people that do not fit within conventional or colloquial meanings of it - is not unlike the lies told about the safety of tobacco products: just because you can find someone who smokes 2 packs a day and lived to be 99 years old doesn't prove cigarettes are healthy. People deserve to have accurate information regardless, and inflating, conflating, twisting and spinning of facts shouldn't become acceptable because it's source is an apolitical national figure with wonderful intentions, instead of an industry baron looking to profit off your illness.

If being fat is a matter of personal responsibility - and it is - then that also, by definition, means it's none of your (or the government's) fucking business.

Sam Goldsmith: Clownboy

In response to this shitty shitty article, I wrote this email to the "reporter" leading with a line from said article, one of the laziest things any "journalist" has ever written.

Subject: Shitty Journalism

"There's little argument that too much salt causes high blood pressure, which can lead to heart attacks - but even hardcore salt haters say banning it outright is a pinch too much."

Oh really, chief? There is actually no scientific evidence of this at all. Why don't you actually talk to a scientist or a doctor before you make up this utter bullshit based on nothing. NOTHING. Salt is bad for you when you already have high blood pressure or heart disease. There's a huge difference, unless you think we should all undergo chemo to avoid cancer. Why not talk about the studies that show that low salt actually increases risk of those problems while high salt does not. EVEN IF this was true, why not help your readers understand what the actual risks are, and how significant? Does everyone who has high salt intake get high blood pressure, does everyone with high blood pressure have heart attacks? Nice job keeping your readers misinformed. I am genuinely asking you if you felt it important to advance Felix Ortiz's ridiculous agenda when you wrote this article: was that your actual intention? Do you have a problem with salt? Are you just lazy and gullible?

Keep up the shit work, clownboy!

UPDATE:

Mr. Goldsmith responded by saying this:

Re: Shitty Journalism

I take it you're one of the few who disagree. Anyway, thanks for the kind note. Its always heart warming to hear from fans!

To which I replied:

I'm shocked your not asking for a cite for how I know that salt is harmless!? Hm, that must be because you already have all the information, you just decided to leave it out of your article. That's it!
Or are you just drawing facts based on how many people agree and disagree. I must be wrong if I'm in the "few," fuck actual facts and science. You're gonna go far as a journalist! Especially since journalistic quality and integrity is measured by how many "fans" you have. Yay!!

Andrew Sullivan Gets it Right - Except for Being Completely Wrong

Andrew Sullivan's Letter to George Bush is easily the best and most powerful case, both in terms of factual thoroughness and moral clarity, anyone has laid out against the stain and atrocity that was the War Crimes of the Bush Administration. Anyone tossing out propanda-fueled opinions about "non-uniformed enemies" and "9-11 changed everything" should be required to read every word of Sullivan's remarkable letter.

I say all this while not agreeing with Sullivan's overall thesis: that Bush just apologize, the country enjoys a bit of a moral colon cleanse and then we "move forward" while the machinations of our criminal justice system never swing into action. Sullivan's bottom line can be best summed up with this passage:

President Obama’s decision thus far to avoid such prosecutions is a pragmatic and bipartisan one in a time of war, as is your principled refusal to criticize him publicly in his first months. But moving on without actually confronting or addressing the very grave evidence of systematic abuse and torture under your administration poses profound future dangers. It gives the impression that nothing immoral or illegal took place.

What a bunch of total fucking bullshit-oozing nonsense.

"Pragmatism" and "Bipartisanship" are words devoid of any real meaning, and are being applied here, just as they often are by Bush's apologists, to completely whitewash Obama's - essentially - after-the-fact complicity in the same crimes Sullivan goes on to eloquently denounce.

Granted, Sullivan is writing a letter to the former President, so he's going to playdown Obama's mistakes for persuasive effect. He's also made clear in countless blogposts over the last year that he's whole-hartedly in favor of prosecutions, and generally disgusted with Obama's cowardice on his issue. So, I can grant him some leeway as a guy who is grasping for anything, any scenario whereby someone stands up and says what happened, what we did as a nation, was a disgusting crime.

But, one could easily write a letter to Obama using almost all of the same facts and arguments: the torture was systematic, bruatal and atrocious, blatantly illegal, immoral, rejected by the entire civilized world for decades, and that President's job is not to be "pragmatic" and "bipartisan" but to uphold the Constitution, and thereby the rule of law. Sullivan could have lavishly quoted Obama's statements about the importance of the rule of law, accountability and transparency. He could make an argument that "Looking Forward and Not Backwards" is an Orwellian euphamism, on par with "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", used to cover up a descent into lawlessness with the stablishment of this awful precedent Obama has set.

In the end, Sullivan is rather plainly calling on a courageous act, an admission of criminal guilt, from a man who could generously be referred to as "Captain Fuck-Up" for all of eternity, and yet couldn't even admit to any wrongdoing other than trading a very good baseball player!! Meanwhile, he deflects all blame (with the understandings noted above) from a man he regards as morally decent, and, more importantly, a man who is obligated by the same laws and lofty ideals, to which Sullivan is appealling, to actually step in and do something.

Crimes will happen. People with power will abuse that power. We're not defined as a country by how often or whether or not that happens, but by how we respond. If we're left to hoping the criminals (murderers, in this case) come forward and admit to their wrongs, then we are truly and utterly fucked.

Best. Video. Ever.

This video is simply awesome. "Fucking sweet" is an often over-used expression, but not here. OKGo is a really good band that has put out 3 outstanding albums (their self-title is one of my favorite albums ever). But they are great when it comes to putting together kick-ass videos.

Of course all bands are trying to capitalize on the internet, but while most are content to make MP3's available for download, recruit fans over facebook, or update their nifty websites, no band has really harnessed the internet the way OKGo has: by tapping into the viral video phenomenon.

While I don't know what's going on in the minds of Damian and the rest of the guys, I get a strong feeling they know exactly what they are doing. That is to say, that these videos are more than just the creative by-products of inspired artists, musicians and film-makers, like videos from the pre-internet age were. These videos (at least the one above and the "treadmill video") were designed to go viral. The payoff for a rock band is obvious: while people are checking out the video, they're also hearing the music, and then likely buying things like MP3s, albums and concert tickets.

In a meta-youtubism moment, OKGo winkingly acknowledges this in an "apology" video to the website that had scorned them:



Obviously, OKGo has gotten out of youtube's doghouse right quick with 3 and a half million views of the new video in just under a week.

But this makes me wonder what effect this has on how OKGo is perceived artistically. As I said, I love the crap out of this band. Videos or no videos, I'd be a huge fan because their music is excellent and incredibly fun to listen to. But when I tell my friends they should consider picking up the new disc, they respond hesitantly and suggest that they view OKGo as "that video band" or "that treadmill band." Granted, my friends are ridiculous music snobs, but I don't think that's the only thing at play here.

I have heard my less snobby friends say things like "I listened to their whole album and it's actually really good stuff." See what I mean?

The viral videos are, when you get down to it, gimmicky. They are brilliant, entertaining and they truly enrich the aesthetic fabric of our world by offering excellent art that's also quirky and eye-catching enough to be shared amongst millions of people. Further, they are perfectly in line with OKGo's clear approach of being the-band-you-want-on-at-your-next-keg-party rockers. But, they are still gimmicky. And as with any gimmick, observers will always wonder whether the substance behind it is actually any good.

Luckily OKGo is more than good enough to overcome that. Plus they are famous and probably rich as fuck, so bully for them.

Your Money AND Your Life

So let's say a handful corporations who make safety equipment, all decided - independent of one another - that they were going to start using less expensive materials in these safety products. Cheaper plastics and rubbers and textiles etc., because, after all, they are trying to make a profit. And, they figure cheaper materials will help them do this. Then let's say some research was out there that these cheaper materials would make the equipment less safe - in some cases drastically - but these companies simply ignored this research or didn't bother to make themselves aware of it. THEN, let's say the industry in which these companies operate was completely unregulated, and companies were not even required to tell anyone that they changed their materials, or what materials they were using in their products at all. AND, let's say the average consumer, upon inspecting the equipment, would rightfully assume the materials were the same materials that had always been used in the equipment, and that they had grown quite accustomed to. Finally, let's say people started getting seriously hurt, and even killed, due to these changes in materials, until finally folks in the press uncovered this plot and shared this information with the public. What then?

Though it's impossible to know it's awfully easy to assume that the outrage would spread from coast to coast, and grow deep into the earth at how these greedy corporations were putting lives at risk for the sake of higher stock prices and bigger executive bonuses; that they needed to be regulated and that these practices had to stop immediately. Congress would convene hearings, and the news would be all abuzz.

Well, something remarkably similar to that has happened in recent years: People have died because other people decided to create dangerous and life-threatening conditions for the simple reason of bringing in extra cash. Only this time, the people do the life-risking-for-cash are government bureaucrats, not corporate managers.

It's amazing really: states and towns are so desperate for cash after horrible fiscal mismanagement, that they have decided to shorten yellow lights,and then set up cameras to catch and ticket anyone who runs a (early) red light. You don't need studies and research to understand that shortening yellow lights is dangerous. But see if that mattered to the bureaucrats and politicians who had shortfalls to cover.

Greed is greed. Even when the money doesn't go into their own pockets, people, if given the power, will try to remove it from the pockets of others. Like the city that starts aggressively enforcing meter violations within minutes of the time expiring, or towns that set artificially low speed limits and have a cop car off in the bushes ready to pounce, governments are greedy, even to the point of putting lives at risk. The yellow light example might be extreme, but it's also wide-spread and not because of some nationwide conspiracy. The common thread? Greed... and government.

Incompetence?

So the fact that the DEA has seized twice as much weed in 2009 than it did under the last year of the most merciless, and intrusive President probably ever, GWB, makes me wonder: What the fuck is up with our fucking President!? And also: Why can't he getting his fucking shit together?!

The guy who called the war on drugs "an utter failure" and supported marijuana decriminalization when he was running for the Senate, and who promised to call off the DEA's medical marijuana raids when he was running for president, has sought an increase in funding for that utter failure, ridiculed the very notion of marijuana decriminalization, presided over a doubling in marijuana seizures, nominated a hard-line Bush administration holdover to head the DEA, and continued to let the DEA raid medical marijuana dispensaries and grow operations without regard to whether they are following state law, despite a written Justice Department policy to the contrary.

The author leaves out the fact that this is the same guy who joked about his own marijuana use like it was no big deal.

But this startling statistic really raises a bigger issue of whether or not Obama is truly competent. This was the big knock on Bush, and the evidence certain supported the concern: the guy fucked up everything he touched, and his bad decisions were made worse by a lack of preparation, and ideological blindness (see Iraq, the War in). But no one has seemed to raise that at all about Obama... yet. This might be the most tangible example so far, but it's a fair question as to how exactly the President could fail to implement his agenda in an area like this where he has essentially total control over who the leaders are at the DEA and what they are going to prioritize.

Alternative explanations abound: a) Obama doesn't give a fuck about draconian and unjust drug laws; b) Obama doesn't want to open himself up to being "soft on drugs" in an election year, c) Obama was lying to get elected like he was apparently lying about a host of other issues. These make sense superficially, and may all be true in small parts, but all of them have their own problems. With a) of course Obama isn't getting daily updates on the tonage of marijuana being seized, but he is asking for a bigger DEA budget, and surely he must have had a discussion with his new Drug Czar about what he wanted the priorities to be and these stats to look like? If not, then that goes to competence. For b) the problem here is that a moderately-skilled politician would realize that no one gives a fuck about marijuana, politically speaking. Polls show people favor it being decriminalized, or available for sick peopel, if not downright legalized, by significant margins. Surely a modest decrease in enforcement statistics as compared with the Bush admin wouldn't have provided much in terms of Republican ammo. On the flip side, Obama's base will be pretty pissed at doubling down. And c), well that sort of ties into a) and b) in that Obama believes what he campaigned on only to the point that he's willing to put effort into it and doesn't find it too politically costly (see Liberties, Civil). c) is only different to the extent we believe Obama "lied" in the sense that he actually believes the exact oppositie of what he campaigned on - that he truly believes we need to do more to get weed off our streets. That's just too silly, and dishonest even for a craven and calculating politician such as the President.

So, these explanations hardly eliminate the question of competence. Can Obama get his people to do what he wants, and/or does he know how to get what he wants? The lack of overall accomplishments that don't involve throwing money at the problem, the contantly changing tunes out of the DoJ on terrorist trials and other War on Terror issues, and the total failure to get Congress to pass anything with even a slight bit of controversy help to paint a larger picture of a guy who might be out of his depths. Of course Obama is not the C-grade brain, or intellectual sloth that Bush was, but that's not the only measure of incompetence. Indeed, it was the rare occassion that Bush's people were not doing what he wanted, and executing his priorities. Say what you will (I'll probably agree) about Bush, but his people marched in pretty straight fucking lines. And, Say what you will about Obama, but his people seem to serpentine... a lot.

"You can never have too much firepower"

When I read a story about police officers barrelling into a home in full-on body-armor-riot-gear with assault rifles at the ready, I think back to the hilarious (though thankfully fictitious) Detective Billy Rosewood, from the Beverly Hills Cop Movies, played excellently by Judge Reinhold (who, holy fuck!, is 53!!).

Remember, Rosewood? He had an arsenal expansive enough to arm a militia of African freedom-fighters ceremoniously scattered around his small apartment. The dude liked guns. He was good-natured and honest, but he loved the shit out of some guns.

When I see stories like the one above out of Missouri, it makes Rosewood appear less like a caricature in a buddy-action-comedy-cop flick, and more like a character study in police behavior patterns.

I mean how else do you explain this type of conduct by cops? Given that this type of crap happens all the time , can anyone honestly say this is a matter of sound policy judgments? Anyone? Or is it far more likely that instead of Rosewood being the weirdo who's "gotta talk" to his fellow officers, Taggart and Foley, many cops love guns and gear and awesome stuff even more than Reinhold's Billy.

Granted: Guns are fucking cool. I have a little bee-bee gun from when I was like 12 years old (long story) and sometimes I just hold it and point it at my tv. It's harmless, and kinda fun - a good way to de-stress. A bad-ass assault rifle, combined with head-to-toe body armor?! I get it. I get the fuck out of it. But christ on a bike, killing dogs!? Smashing into homes with kids inside!? I don't get that. And even if I did, it's not smart, safe, or anywhere in the ballpark of rational thinking.

This story, and its non-aberrational nature, should truly make every American meditate on the question of exactly what kind of society we are living in, and whether or not we "gotta talk" with the Billy Rosewood that is our regime of law enforcement policies.