Gun control

Now is the time to stand up against the NRA and all their lies about how having guns protects us.  They say "carrying concealed" would stop the mass killings- do they now think 6 year olds should be carrying guns?  Even an adult couldn't stop a killer- once they reached for their gun the killer would shoot them before they could get it out. Remember the trained FBI agent who was killed with her own gun in the District Building?  And guns in homes almost always end up killing a family member, not an intruder.  Outlaw all automatic and semi-automatic weapons- none of them are used for hunting and are not needed for "protection."  Require background checks for ALL gun sales, even private ones. Require registration and gun locks. 

U Maryland moves to Big 10

So one of the Post's sports commentators discussed the money UMD had to pay to switch football conferences.  None of the other stories seemed to mention it. The solution to the whole problem is much simpler- if varsity sports, especially football, are costing too much, drop them.  Or at least stop paying the coaches more than the professors.  Stop the athletic scholarships.  Stop being a farm team for the pro sports and do it like baseball- let the sports run their own farm teams.  Think colleges have to have big athletic scholarships to attract students?  Ask the Ivys- they don't.  Ask U Chicago if you have to have Div 1 varsity football to attract students- they don't.  Maybe if colleges and universities paid more attention to their academics they wouldn't get as many jocks but they might just get better behaved students.  UMD basketball fans are disgusting and I decided after they rioted back in 2005 was it when they lost in March Madness that I didn't want my kid going to any school where sports were more important than education. 

Black Friday Blues?

A lady complained in today's Post about the earlier start times of stores for "Black Friday" (namely starting on Thursday, Thanksgiving day) "I think it's unfair and unjust.  It's infringing on your quality time with your family."  Huh?  Is someone MAKING her go shopping on Thanksgiving day?  Is she buying something that she/her family absolutey need to survive, like drugs or food she can only get then?  I seriously doubt it.  If she doesn't want to leave her family to go shopping, don't go shopping.  It's that simple.  And if people don't fall for this trap the stores will stop doing it.  Think about the poor employees who have no choice.  Stay home.

Affirmative Action

The letter in last Sunday's Post intitled "Base college admissions on merit. Period." had a title I agree with but that is not exactly what the writer said.  He merely said we should get rid of race-based admission.  Unfortunately people who rail against affirmative action as race/ethnic based only are missing all the other forms of "affirmative action" colleges practice.  All colleges aim at diversity based on location of the student's home- private schools because they want their students to come from all over the country, public schools because they must admit a certain percentage of in-state students but want out-of-state tuition money.  Universities with big sports programs and sports scholarships will favor a star athelete over a star academic.  Private universities give prefence to legacies.  All colleges like foreign students because they pay full tuition and don't qualify for scholarships.  Unless all these forms of  "affirmative action" are also eliminated it doesn't bother me that colleges also look at someone's race when determining admissions; it's only one factor of many.

 

It is also difficult to prove that someone was admitted instead of you because of race as the woman from Texas is claiming.  Even if one is admitted based on merit only other factors are used to determine admission besides one's high school grades and SAT scores.  Extracurriculars, leadership positions, volunteer work and your admissions essay are all factors.  Someone who started a charity and raised thousands of dollars to help orphans in Africa is going to get admitted over someone with slightly better grades for instance.  Only if your rejection letter specificly says that we admitted the Hispanic student or the basketball player instead of you can you know if that is the reason for your rejection.

 

Conservative vs. Liberal Judges?

Saturday's op-ed contained a piece by a conservative writer bemoaning the terrible "mistakes" conservatives have had in appointing properly conservative judges to the Supreme Court, citing Scalia and Thomas as the only ones recently that have remained properly conservative.  Maybe the problem is not that they have not remained "conservative" enough (since when are judges supposed to be political anyhow?) but that they are merely following the Constitution, the laws and precedent and this just isn't the alternative reality conservatives have set up for themselves.  Their "reality" is that only "liberal" judges are activists and Scalia is a strict constructionist, following the Constitution to the letter.  Only someone with an alternative reality or a contortionist could rule that the Second Amendment contains no reference to the ownership of guns being tied to being in the militia.

Of course the biggest irony of the whole thing is that the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act was a Republican, conservative idea, asked for by that holy of holies to conservatives, private industry.  It only became an evil government thing when it was adopted by Democrats and that evil black president.

Bishop's view on religious freedom hypocritcal

Saturday's Post had an op-ed in the religion section by a Catholic bishop that supposedly was about religious freedom.  In it he accused all cases of mass murder as having been done by atheists, specifically referencing by alusion Hitler.  Stalin and the Chinese may be declared atheists but I don't belive Hitler was.  And any group that makes these accusations must be clean of blood themselves and the Catholics certainly aren't.  Think of the "Holy Wars" and the Inquisition.  Also the fact that while individual priests in Germany may have protested Hitler and helped Jews, the Pope did absolutely nothing against Hitler and nothing to help Jews.

He also conveniently forgets that religious freedom includes allowing other people to have freedom to worship- or not- as they please.

ignorance of the electorate

Fox news got a teacher to equate unions with communism in China.  She said it wasn't quite that bad- but I bet she didn't talk to any Chinese workers at the electronics, shoe, etc. factories in China.  She might have been surprised to find that the Communists don't allow unions.  They are too pro-democracy. She also should not be teaching our children if she is so ignorant of this- and of the history of unions and what they have done for her and all workers.  Maybe she's never heard of the Triangle Shirtwaist  fire? That is what working conditions are still like in China and how they would be here without unions.  Without unions (and women's lib) she wouldn't even be teaching if she was married. She would be working a 12 hour day, 6 days a week in a factory where there is no minimum wage, and there is unhealthy air, dangerous machines and not enough exits if there is a fire.  Oh wait, didn't that happen fairly recently in North Carolina in a chicken processing plant?  Darn those unions and government regulations- if that factory had been obeying those bothersome union rules and government regulations the workers killed in that fire would still be alive.