A daily blog in defense of liberal ideas and the President.
I want to congratulate Seth McFarlane for an outrageously funny, and I hope controversial, Family Guy last night. I think he brought just the right amount of information and humor to the ridiculousness that is our nation’s war on marijuana, and hopefully will spark some actual intelligent debate about finally ending the prohibition on pot once and for all. There is no reason in a free society why consenting adults are not allowed to make their own decisions on what they want to consume and put in their bodies, hell I would argue that McDonalds is far more dangerous to Americans and their health than pot will ever be, though when smoking pot you might end up thankful that there is a McDonalds across the street. So, kudos to Seth for a funny episode that pokes fun at power and speaks the truth; let’s just hope that more people will begin to listen.
I saw where Newt Gingrich criticized the President for shaking hands with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela saying it was a sign of weakness. I guess that is what is fundamentally wrong with the right wing in this nation. They confuse strength with non-compromising power and forget that in a civilized world peace begins with a handshake and a willingness to sit and talk and listen to the other side. In Newt’s world I guess you just keep the status quo, and instead of sitting down to talk with your neighbors you threaten them and make sure they have valid reasons to hate and distrust the United States. Newt said it reminded him of Jimmy Carter and his weakness. I guess because for a Republican peace is a four letter word and God forbid we salute the man who brought peace between Israel and Egypt.
I read on Yahoo News this morning that 2 of the 9/11 suspects that the United States captured were waterboarded 266 times. I cannot believe there are people at the CIA who are angry with the President and Attorney General for releasing the memos detailing the "harsh investigating techniques" used to torture suspects because as General Hayden former director of the CIA said," that the descriptions gave Al Qaeda a tactical advantage by allowing them to prepare for specific practices used by the C.I.A., even if those practices are not in use now." These people ought to shut up and be thankful that they are not being prosecuted for torture instead of justifying their actions. We didn’t allow the Nazis the use the "just following orders" defense and we shouldn’t protect our own war criminals either. A war crime is a crime no matter who commits it, and to allow those who where clad in the U.S. flag to go unpunished says to the rest of the world that America has a different standard than everyone else, and our policy toward the world is "Do as we say not as we do, or well bomb YOU!" My hope is President Obama will decide to do the right thing and bring these criminals to justice starting with those at the top, but I’m not holding my breath because he doesn’t want to fracture the American politic any further than it already is. I do have one half-assed solution to the problem, if George Bush and Dick Cheney both undergo waterboarding for say 266 times and afterward still think it is not torture then I am ok with dropping the whole matter.
So, Ashton Kutcher was the first person to have 1,000,000 followers on Twitter. I am glad he beat CNN just because. Even though I have a Twitter account I can’t say I completely know what to do with it. I have decided though that I absolutely hate the term "following". Sounds to much like a sheep being lead to slaughter or some kind of cult-like thing, and I am not a cult-like kind of guy, and I don’t follow anyone so I find the term following to be a bit like mind control. How about they change it to "readers" or something like that.
I thought about who should be the Philosopher of the Week and decided that I had only scratched the surface of great material from James Madison, so because our 4th President was a genius and is totally under-appreciated here are some more quotes. Madison wrote, "Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government." Oh you got to love the separation of church and state. He also said, "The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money." To bad we can’t get him to be our Secretary of the Treasury! Well I hope you all enjoy the quotes and until tomorrow goodbye...