Archive for June, 2006
Dumb “Research” Claim: Cell Phone Use More Dangerous than Drunk Driving
Jun 30th
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/14934246.htm
This is absurd. No way talking on a hands-free cell phone is more dangerous than drunk driving. I found a few problems with the study, if it was actually done as described in the above piece.
As mentioned in the article, those in the study were tested on a driving simulator in the morning when they were well rested. Also, there alcohol levels were barely above the legal limit, so they weren’t “drunk” in the conventional sense only “drunk” in the legal sense- these are two very different things.
Next, there’s the fact that the people involved KNEW they were being put right above the legal limit of drunkenness. They were directly aware of this fact, and would obviously do all they could to compensate for it. A regular person driving, who has no idea what his blood alcohol level is isn’t necessarily doing all he can to counteract this. He might leave a restaurant after many hours of dinner and drinks with family or friends and have no idea he is impaired at all…so he takes no extra precautions.
On a simpler level- MANY things distract drivers. They want to single out cell phone use because of an agenda. Let’s face it- when driving, there are hundreds of distractions…the radio, other passengers in the car, cars painted odd colors, bumper stickers, massive billboards with long sentences on them, other cars speeding past you, smoking, lighting a cigarette to smoke, changing the radio station, looking down to check the time on the radio or your watch, thinking of other things, being upset (driving after an argument, a death in the family, a traumatic event, etc)…
There are literally a hundred different things that can distract a person while driving.
What’s different from talking hands-free on a cell phone than talking to a person sitting next to you? If there are no buttons to push, nothing to hold onto, etc- then common sense tells us that people merely sitting next to you having a conversation is definitely going to take up some of your concentration. We know it takes up some of our concentration- or else we wouldn’t have any comprehension of what the other person in the car was saying.
It’s just patently absurd to proclaim that driving drunk is safer than cell phone use…in the end, that IS what they are saying, tho they’re saying it with different words. When someone says that cell phone use is more dangerous than drunk driving, they ARE saying that drunk driving is, in comparison to cell phone use, less dangerous (read ‘safer’). If this is the case, then we need laws banning people in the passenger seat, because if it’s hand free- I assure you- talking is talking. There’s no logical reason to suppose that a voice on a phone and a voice in the seat next to you amount to much of a difference at all.
UPDATE: Here’s a quote from John Wells, from the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Assoc. Of course, it’s his job to put the best image on cell phone as possible, but this is what I’ve got so far. No doubt, we should take his position into consideration, but we shouldn’t automatically discount it.
“We understand that talking on a phone is a distraction while driving, and we encourage cell phone users to use safe behaviors, but changing the radio station, talking with a passenger, or eating a sandwich are worse,” said John Walls, a spokesperson for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
My main reason for posting this quote was, if he’s accurate in that a passenger conversing with you is more dangerous on a scale of dangers than cell phone use, than cell phone use bans are pointless, as no one would consider a ban on passengers…and if passengers cause more danger, than no way could you reasonably ban cell phone use.
UPDATE 2: According to a 2002 Wired.com article, much of the research done in this area doesn’t compare cell phone use to other distractions and one large study showed that changing the radio station or putting in a CD caused a higher level of accidents. This new study, according to one more report I saw claims that there were no accidents while messing the radio. And, unless I’m reading it wrong, the accidents with cell phone use totalled 3 STUDENTS (18-25 yr olds at the University in Utah where they did the study) hitting a ‘pace car’ in front of them while driving 40 miles talking to another student on a hands-free cell phone.
One problem I have with this is the fact that they used students, undergrads- which makes it safe to assume most of them were under 22 years of age…studies have shown that younger drivers in this age group are, in general, not as good on the road.
I just don’t think such a small study sample that neglects to take many real-world situations into consideration can be used to cover the real world situations. That, and from what I’m seeing online of various studies, there are contradictory data. One study found that cell phone use only resulted in around 1.5% of accidents, while messing with the radio was much higher…this new study claims radio distraction was basically nothing.
UPDATE 3: A 2004 American Enterprise Institute/Brookings Institution study dispute similar claims. I think they actually, in the full paper, deal with a study from the same researcher, Frank Drews.
Here’s the Wired.com article I mentioned…they make the same point I did. No one is planning on banning kids from the backseat, even tho they pose a much more serious danger!
UPDATE 4: The lead researcher in this study, Frank Drews, makes this absurd statement:
Drews, meanwhile, contends that while roughly 10 percent of drivers are talking on their phones, the fact that the number of accidents has not increased might be attributed to other drivers being more cautious.
Okay…so, we have a 10% increase in drivers talking on their cell phones, so we should see a 10% increase in accidents if cell phone use is truly the danger he claims it is. But, he waves away the facts- ‘ummm, errr, well, maybe other drivers are just more cautious now and eventually the rate will level out and the cell phone-using drivers will eventually overcome the more cautious drivers.’
Sounds like an agenda to me. He takes a major fact, tosses it aside and says, ‘ahh, who cares, I’m right- cell phone use is as dangerous as “drunk” driving, end of story.’ If you search online, you’ll see Drews also did similar studies in 2001, 2002, and 2003 according to the dates on the many stories I found. He made the same claims of “drunk” driving in those studies as well. Remember, as I said before, .08 is the level at which they claim the driver was “drunk.” But, this is the LEGAL level, not necessarily the level at which a person is impaired. That fact alone makes this study worthless. VERY FEW people who are at .08% would be considered “impaired” in any practical manner at all, only in a legal sense due to overzealous lawmakers.
The Rage In Placid Lake (Movie Review)
Jun 29th
I saw the Aussie film, The Rage In Placid Lake about an hour ago, and I have to say that I’m not all that impressed. There were a few funny lines, but overall it wasn’t very funny. I read many reviews, and people are saying it’s a brilliant social commentary, but it just wasn’t. I mean, come on- weirdo guy has weirdo parents and a weird best friend who is a girl, and her dad is a weirdo. They do weirdo things, he doesn’t fit in, no one else likes him, so he decides he much change his entire way of life…
Yet, he doesn’t change much of anything. He gets a haircut, buys a suit, and right out of high school somehow gets a cushy job with an insurance firm by doing what seems to be stacking papers into a folder and nothing else.
He keeps saying that the old Placid (the character’s name) is behind him…the girl (Gemma) has an insane dad who is pressuring her nonstop to be the next great scientist. They have terrible, clueless parents…they’re weird. Big deal. That doesn’t automatically equal brilliant satire and social commentary…especially when not much of anything at all happens. I mean, can we get a storyline or even a bit of a storyline- ya know, something more concrete than a bunch of supposedly witty lines thrown together? The film is so over the top in it’s attempt to be witty, it’s fake. It’s too fake. You won’t watch this film and be fooled into thinking you’re watching a real story play out, but rather a script that tries way too hard, jokes that fall on their face, and a nonexistant story that wants too badly to be smart.
I had high hopes from the trailer, but I was definitely disappointed. There was nothing here that spoke any meaning to me- weirdo parents with weirdo kids who need to learn who they are isn’t a wonderful revelation- it’s common sense. Social commentary on the societies we have built for ourselves? Hardly…I have a feeling the people who claim this is the case just want to pretend this film included that to make themselves sound smart. Or maybe they find fairly mundane items in life full of meaning. Not I. 2 thumbs down.
Supreme Court to Terrorists- Hire OJ’s Attorneys!
Jun 29th
SCOTUS has ruled today on the issue of military tribunals and whether terrorist suspects in Guantanamo (and I assume elsewhere) can be tried in US courts. I haven’t read the opinion, but Justice Thomas wasn’t too happy with the ruling. I don’t know the rundown on who voted which way or the vote count yet either, but will look into it.
I will have more on this later.
For now, it seems like a terrible decision. I can’t imagine what this would mean for the average American on a jury trying a terrorist! Can you imagine sitting on a jury deciding the fate of Bin Laden’s personal driver?! You’re just a sitting duck, waiting to be offed be radical cells already in this country. At least it seems that way to me! Who knows, more later…
UPDATE: According to Fox News’ Judge Andrew Napalitano, SCOTUS went much further then it had to in this case and proclaimed that the Geneva Conventions cover ALL of the war on terror, which is absurd. Fact is- terrorists aren’t covered under the Conventions, but SCOTUS appears to disagree with this fact. I assume that’s what the ruling proclaimed. If the ruling states that we must follow the Conventions in regards to this particular case and that it covers ALL the military tribunals at Gitmo, then that is what they said. It’s all a bit confusing from the limited info. I’ve gathered.
It turns out that in his opinion, Breyer claimed that the ruling only applied to this particular case, but in fact the decision from the entire court ruled that it covered ALL cases, so maybe he ruled with the majority even tho he has no idea what they actually ruled?!
More later…
New Study Claims Men with Older Brothers More Likely to be Gay
Jun 29th
A new Canadian study claims that men with older brothers have a higher chance of becoming gay, and that it doesn’t matter if they were raised with the brothers or not, suggesting that it’s all biological and nature…not nurture at all.
I doubt these findings. Dean Hamer claimed he found a genetic link to homosexuality and others tried to reproduce his findings and couldn’t, summarily refuting his claimed work (Hamer is a gay man who seemed to me to have an agenda.)
Another study looked at identical male twins who share 100% of their genes…thus, if homosexuality IS genetic, it should mean that all those who share 100% of their genes should all be gay…but, that wasn’t the case at all. It was near 50% and lower. But, even these numbers are suspect, as those who did the study didn’t get their subjects via random means, instead they found them by advertising in a gay magazine!
These are two most well known attempts to show that homosexuality is genetic.
This new study just came out and I think was (or soon will be) published in PNAS. The researchers claim that maybe the mother, when having many male children, has an immune response and that each child born after the first has a higher chance due to this immune response basically messing something up in the brain.
I don’t buy it. Sounds look horse hockey to me. They claim that a male with an older brother has a 3% higher chance of being gay and a next child a 6% chance. Does that mean, since I have an older brother- I’m 3% more likely to be gay, and my younger brother is 6% more likely to be gay? None of us are gay, so I’m not even sure what the numbers mean- they make little sense in general, and I suspect that they pulled them out of thin air.
The downside for homosexuals who want to claim this study supports the idea they were born gay? If it’s truly genetic, then we’d have to label it a disorder, as it’s obvious that homosexuality is certainly not the intended nature of humans. I saw one story on this study, and one of those involved said that this doesn’t mean that homosexuality is normal for humans, which I assume means one thing- if it’s not normal, per se, it’s abnormal.
If this study holds up, which I can’t see how it will, then the psychological associations would have to reinstate it as a mental disorder. I doubt that will fly with the gay community! Double edged sword for most of them, in that they want so badly to show that they were born this way, but if they do this- they put themselves into a situation where we have little choice but to call it a biological (therefore, psychiactric) disorder. Then again, I haven’t seen the study outside of the reports, and it’s possible that it’s being misrepresented, just as the recent study on lesbians was distorted to make the claim that lesbians are born that way. In that case, even the researcher said that the study was being distorted by the media.
In the end, since we know that not all identical twins who share 100% of their DNA are not gay- that should tell us all we need to know right there…it’s clearly not genetic. MAYBE, just maybe biology plays SOME role in the urges or makes one somewhat more likely to swing one way or another, but this nonsense I see from most stories citing the study that this shows gays are “born this way” or gays are “created in the womb” is nonsense. Try a google news search and look at the story titles to get a feel of what I mean- most of them trumpet this claim as proof that men are born gay. Nonsense, as even the study says no such thing.
Furthermore- what of gay women? If homosexuality is biological and determined before birth, it would surely be the same issue with lesbians, yet the study doesn’t cover women and no study I have seen shows this…
UPDATE (June 29, 2006/ 3 PM): I E-Mailed two experts on this, and I have a reply from one of them who mentioned something I completely forgot to take into consideration. Clearly, there are gay males without ANY older brothers or brothers at all. So, this theory, even if valid on any level, couldn’t account for but 14% of gay males total. This number comes directly from the study itself…it’s a detail that I see most news organizations are leaving out of their reporting!
I looked up the numbers for concordance between identical twins and only 3 out of 27 (11%) identical twin pairs (males) have both twins being gay. They were raised together, so this doesn’t tell us if it’s biological (even in part) or environment. The number for lesbians with identical twins was 14%…concordance levels of height with identical twins is nearly 92% from what I have found…which means that 92% of identical twins are the same height, while only a bit over 10% of males in twin pairs like this share homosexuality, and since they grew up together, we cannot say if it’s nature or nurture at work.
Finally- it turns out that this theory has been around for a while, but this study wanted to look specifically at non-environmental factors where the siblings were raised apart. It was a small study sample- around 1, 000 men in one region in Canada, and I also neglected to remember that correlation doesn’t equal causation.
I’m on the side that there are MANY issues at play in forming a person’s sexual identity. I believe that some choose their lifestyles- if you search google, you can actually find gay organizations that pride themselves on CHOOSING homosexuality. I believe that some small biological affects must come into play, but that alcoholism also runs in families in a biological manner, but no one says that it’s okay to give into urges to drink. I say that, because I believe that the lifestyle itself is wrong. I also believe the well documented cases of gays who have turned from their lifestyle and are now happily married to different sex people.
I’m looking at this from a Christian viewpoint, as I am a Christian of course, but I’m also looking at the facts and see that it’s not a black and white issue and never will be. Black and white in the sense that what causes it varies and is neither ALL nature or ALL nurture, tho I still believe that even if one is born predisposed to a behavior doesn’t make it right, nor does it mean that that person cannot overcome that biological factor, as it’s well documented that many can, some aren’t willing, and others try but give up…tho I can’t read the minds of any of these people, for sure.
Showtime Cancels “Huff”
Jun 29th
I watched the last 2 episodes of the season for HUFF, the brillianty written and acted showtime drama series. I thought there was actually one episode left in the season, but I looked on tv.com and the last I watched was indeed the final of the season. It was a cliffhanger, as was the case with the season 1 finale episode.
SO many questions for next season…so many things that happened- explosive things that could go any number of ways.
But, there won’t be another season. Showtime has quietly pulled the plug on the series, and has just notified the cast of their decision.
Why oh why do TV suits do this sort of thing nonstop? They order a series…it’s brilliant, they spend millions on producing the episodes, paying the actors, writers, producers…they pay out big money to advertise the show. Fans get hooked, they get pulled totally in, then the network cans the series altogether. Oh the misery, it gets so old.
Huff was a genius series in my mind. Kind of like Arrested Development was too smart for TV, Huff might have been in the same category. The same deal with the ABC series Sports Night- one of the most smartest shows in the history of television in my book.
So, Huff is no more…we will never find out what happens to Tupper or Huff…will the marriage be saved? Will Bird get his act together and start acting sane again? Is Izzy on the path to change her life completely? Is Teddy doomed to being locked up again, or worse? Is there ANY hope left for the Huffstodts?
We shall never learn any of these secrets. It’s really too bad. This is the way most of TV works these days- run very poorly, too obsessed with the ratings, leaving the fans out in the cold in no time flat. Let’s pray this changes. I don’t think it will, but we can always hope, right?
MORE:
New Episodes of Futurama Headed to Comedy Central!
Jun 29th
One of my favorite shows, Futurama, is heading to Comedy Central with all new episodes. According to TV.com Comedy Central has ordered 13 new episodes of the series to start airing in 2008.
The cast will return to reprise their roles for the series.
This brings to mind the cancelled series, Family Guy that was restarted by Fox this past year due to huge sales of the show on DVD. Futurama was cancelled by Fox as well and has sold very well on DVD, but the new series didn’t get enough of a boost from the DVD sales to come back to Fox apparently. No matter- it’s coming back somewhere, and that’s all the matters.
The Hills Have Eyes: A Look Into an Effects Shot
Jun 28th
[WARNING- this post contains images from the horror film, The Hills Have Eyes (2005), and the scene discussed might spoil the plot. If you don't want to spoil any of the plot, don't read this post...if you're upset by semi-graphic images in a horror film, you might want to stop reading as well, tho I don't think this scene is particularly gory at all, you might disagree]
I have the unrated DVD version of The Hills Have Eyes (2005) here, and I wanted to take a second to share one of the effects shot to show you how simple it is to make and how they did it.
It’s not at all a complicated effects scene, but it’s an effects scene nonetheless, and it comes off well in the film.
This is a horror film, and the effects scene itself is somewhat gory (I don’t find it all that gory, but others might). So, in case you’re grossed out by this sort of thing, or you haven’t seen the movie and this might spoil the plot, I will put the rest of the post behind a cut.
Click ‘more’ to read the rest and see the videos.
More >
Riding the Disease Train to Social Anxiety-ville
Jun 28th
I saw the following quote from Fiona Apple:
• “I spend most of my day holed up in my hotel room, in silence, boring myself to death.”
– Fiona Apple, on suffering from social anxiety while on tour, to Time
As someone who has suffered from social anxiety for as long as I can remember- I have a hard time buying that Fiona Apple who is ON TOUR/ON STAGE IN FRONT OF THOUSANDS suffers from social anxiety herself.
Just as I have a feeling that Donny Osmond wasn’t suffering from it while he was on stage doing a Broadway musical.
I’m sorry, but my feeling on this issue is this- too many people suffer from normal anxiety, or bouts of anxiety that may seem over the top for them, but to equate these issues with social anxiety disorder is, in my mind, absolutely ludicrous.
How can you get on stage in front of thousands day after day and then say you have social anxiety? You sure as hell don’t have it that bad if you can go on stage and perform!! When you can’t go to the grocery store without being in a panic, THEN call it social anxiety.
I get the odd feeling that all the commercials for prescription drugs and all these new “disorders” that are created everyday have something to do with this fetish of famous people proclaiming they suffer from this or that. We have normal kids who act like normal kids, and we “diagnose” them with ADD or some other disorder and think that pumping them full of pills will make them better.
I have news for you- popping pills is almost never the answer. Let me rephrase that- medication ALONE is never the answer.
You just cannot reduce emotions, a personality, a person in general to some chemical happenings in the brain…there’s much more than that, and the fact that most social anxiety sufferers get better NOT thru medicine but by behavioral modification via “talk therapy” and the like tells me that the pills are NOT what’s doing it. That and it tells me that the reduction to chemicals is a failed attempt at explaining a human being. But that’s a whole philosophical discussion for another day.
Any doctor I’ve ever talked to has always told me- the drugs will take the edge off, but the real stuff is going to happen when you change your mind, the way you think, and much more through deliberately modifying your thought patterns, and the medicine doesn’t help you do that, experience and self discipline do that.
From personal experience, the relief, for me, has never come from any medicine, and I’ve been on a number of them- it’s how the deal works- you experiment with different combinations of medicines to see if they have any effect…people who suffer from social anxiety usually suffer also from depression. This makes sense- if you suffer from a disorder that causes you to fear meeting new people, making friends, dating, etc. then it makes sense that this would cause you to be depressed. So, in general, you’re prescribed an anti-anxiety drug along with an anti-depressant. There are so many on the market, and they work somewhat differently that you use one of each, and then play around with the dosage…then, if you have NO relief at all from ANY of the symptoms, you try a different combo- stay with the same anti-anxiety drug, but combo it with a different anti-depressant or the other way around.
In the end- the medicine might help calm you a bit, but it’s not going to be the answer, and it’s not going to utlimately lead you out of the valley you find yourself in with these issues.
Back to the particular aspect of this subject…
No offense to any of them (Osmond, Apple, and others), and I can’t know what goes on in anyone’s mind but my own, but to me- this just screams the illness mentality. I can’t imagine that someone can suffer from social anxiety and perform on Broadway or on a nationwide tour at the same time. Call it something else, but if you can do these things, you better not call it social anxiety in front of me!
Drum Corps Show Review
Jun 27th
A quick review of tonight’s DCI show in Evansville, Indiana (Drums On the Ohio).
Bluecoats had the best show…the audience thought so it seemed. They got a standing ovation…as did the Spirit of JSU! Guess who didn’t get a standing ovation? That’s right, the amp-obsessed, confusing “story” show Cadets! And worse for the Cadets- check out the scores! This early in this season, when you’re less than half a point in front of Bluecoats, you know you’re doing something VERY wrong.
(DCI Central) Drums on the Ohio, Evansville, IN
June 27, 2006
Place Corps Score
DIVISION I
1 The Cadets 79.050
2 Bluecoats 78.800
3 Spirit from JSU 74.750
4 Capital Regiment 66.500
5 Southwind 63.250
DIVISION II
1 Memphis Sound 62.550
The Bluecoats lost by .250 of a point! That’s just awesome. Their show didn’t knock my socks off, but it was the best show of the night in my view…The Cadets had a VERY weird show. And for the love of God, CADETS- PLEASE STOP USING AMPS SO MUCH!! They started their show off with a girl in a black dress singing into a mic- unfortunately, this corps still has no idea how to work a damned amplifier, as most of her song was sung with NO SOUND at all. The Cadets screwed up many times last year with their amps- I wonder if the guys running the equipment have the following names- Larry, Curly, and Moe? Get your stuff together guys!
The music was okay…nothing very memorable to me. The story built into the show was just plain incomprehensible…same deal as last year. They had Alice from Through the Looking Glass. She was joined by some scary super hero looking characters who just walked around with her. They had the door, but it wasn’t used except for her opening it at the very end and going into it. Hopkins and the show creators seem to want to stick with this weird avantgarde stuff- putting a confusing story into their shows from now on. These past two years, in my book, have totally changed my view of the corps, and it’s not a positive thing.
In the middle of the show, they had that weird Japanese sounding high pitched voice from the pit saying something, but you couldn’t make any of it out. Also- there was some narration about Alice, but you couldn’t hear what was said here either. Not from my seat, you couldn’t. The audience didn’t seem to love it- as they didn’t clap too much at the end. They LOVED Bluecoats show tho, and they seemed to really like JSU as well.
I just can’t believe the scores were so close…there was a very loud gasp by the audience when they heard the Cadets score! I loved it. For some reason, I was yelling “blooooooo” for the Coats, but people looked at me like I was crazy. Damned audiences who don’t know the traditional Bluecoats chant! I’d say ingrates, but that’s just too strong a word…or is it? 
I mean, you don’t know the “bloooo” call? Next, someone will look at me confused, asking what splooey means! Or maybe someone will question what You’ll Never Walk Alone has to do with the Scouts! Anyhow…
They did the mini-retreat. Only the corps’ drum majors came out to get their awards, and JSU and Bluecoats did the fanfare. They didn’t play the traditional America the Beautiful/O’ Canada tune but rather some “corps fanfare” with some different tunes. I made out Appalachian Springs (a Cadets favorite from the 1980′s), but no idea what it was in general. I hate how they got rid of full retreat and America/Canada! That was the most moving part of the night hearing all 6 corps hit that high note in the interlude between America and the melody to O’ Canada!
Also- the Bluecoats did the encore, but they didn’t play their show! They played a few different songs…I like it the way it was before much better. I want to hear the show in a louder concert arc, with the corps right there gathered in front of you.
They’ve changed drum corps too much for me.
In the end- I liked JSU and Memphis Sound had a nice show. Cadets I didn’t care for, and being a big fan of the corps, it’s actually peeving me off big time. Bluecoats, thank God, pulled it out in the end and nearly beat the Cadets! I love both corps, but I always had a soft spot for the Coats and their funny arching plumes…cool ass hats, beautiful blue unis, and they’re one of the closest corps in regards to distance, so I almost went to their camp one year to audition. Never did tho. Stuck with Marion Cadets and Cincinatti Glory.
A good show, but one big problem- they changed the intermission for some unknown reason and it was over an hour long! It was way too long to wait around doing nothing. That and the $3.50 chicken sandwich I bought was- get this, and I kid you not on this, undercooked! Part of it was actually pink…if I pass on tonight, you can blame the food poisoning from the chicken!
One more time, all together now- STOP AMPING DRUM CORPS!
Dick Durbin Hates the US Flag
Jun 27th
There’s an Amendment on the floor of the Senate to put an Amendment into the US Constitution to desecrate the US flag.
And now why Democratic Senator Dick ‘Turbin’ Drubin hates this nation and the flag that represents it…
Durbin can deny he hates the flag…but I think he DOES hate the flag. I don’t think flag burning should be turned into a political issue, but that’s precisely what Turbin Durbin is doing right now.
His arguments on the Senate floor (CSPAN 2 is covering it) are absurd. Durbin is, as I type this, arguing that Republicans want to rewrite the Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, for Durbin, many Democrats support this proposal as well, yet he conveniently ignore this fact to make it political.
Now, the Bill of Rights gives us freedom of speech/expression, but it’s a leap to say that the B. Of R. gives us an explicit right to burn the US flag- as he seems to be implying. There are MANY limits on free speech- you can’t scream fire in a theatre, you can’t walk down the street and curse at strangers, you can’t say anything you want just anywhere you want to.
There are limits in place, and there will always be limits. Durbin, like far too many others, want to turn EVERYTHING into a political issue. This isn’t about right vs left, and it’s not about politics at all- it’s about protecting the symbol of our nation from desecration by those who hate this nation and all it stands for. Durbin can make silly claims that Thomas Jefferson would have never wanted this, and he can claim Republians are trying to rewrite the Bill of Rights, but of course both arguments fall when seen with some common sense. Limits are already in place to what is free speech and what isn’t…Durbin clearly missed this small little fact.
The facts often get in the way of Durbin- remember, he’s the guy who compared US soldiers to nazis, the communist soviets, and pol pot’s regime. That’s why I suspect he hates the nation…his silly arguments of Republicans attempting to rewrite the Bill of Rights today makes me think he hates the flag as well. Soldier-hating, US-hating, flag-hating Turbin Durbin. It ALMOST rolls of the tongue…
I should point out (again) that many Democrats support this proposed action, which makes Durbin’s actions even worse. Trying to turn this into a right vs left issue when it’s not that way at all makes no sense.
Recent Comments