by

Another case for the Birthers

You know those Birther people – the ones who claim that Obama can’t be a legitimate President because his father wasn’t an American? This despite the fact that he was born in America, and his mother was an American from Kansas (and as we know any child born of an American is a “natural born” American)?

Donald Trump and a bunch of others won’t let the issue go, convinced that this should have kept him from being President.

Well, now there’s another person thinking of running for President. Get this — we have absolute proof that he was born in Canada, and he doesn’t even deny it! Worse yet, his father was a non-citizen from Cuba! Clearly, all the Birthers are falling over themselves to prevent him from being President, using the exact same logic they use against Obama!

Oh, wait. This person, Ted Cruz, is a Republican. And a conservative. And white (well, Latino white, so that’s close enough.)

That makes all the difference in the world.

Editorial cartoon of the day

by

World’s easiest law school exam question

You don’t even have to go to law school to get this one right:

Is it Constitutional for the police to randomly stop people on the street and search them?

I mean, duh, you’d have to be really stupid to get that one wrong, wouldn’t you?

Well, I suppose you could be the Mayor of New York. Or a bunch of people who apparently have never taken the time to read the Constitution.

But a court recently ruled in a “No, duh” decision, that New York city’s policy of randomly stopping young black men and searching them for no reason was not allowed.

Sadly, I wish they’d go farther. The 4th Amendment says “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”police car

Requires a warrant. Clear and plain as day. No exceptions listed.

The courts, of course, have found exceptions to this all over the place, the most obvious one being that police can search if they have “reasonable suspicion” that a crime is being committed or that the suspect is armed and so on. The general idea of “reasonable suspicion” is not bad — I don’t mind letting police search someone for their own safety after an arrest — don’t want to waste time getting a warrant in every single instance. But that has been defined in such a way lately that they can search in almost every instance. The next logical step was, of course, a policy like New York city’s, which, for quite some time, was perfectly legal.

Mayor Bloomberg, meanwhile, said he’d appeal, so this isn’t over. Your tax dollars at work.

Editorial cartoon of the day

by

He’s not the Messiah!

Some people just name their kids really stupid things that can haunt them for lives.

But when someone in Tennessee named their kid “Messiah,” that was too much for a judge. “The word Messiah is a title and it’s a title that has only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ,” she said.

Good thing that judge wasn’t around in 1958 when Madonna’s parents were deciding on a name.

So the judge, over the parent’s objection, changed the child’s name, like a magical fairy.

I mean, while I certainly don’t want parents naming their kids “Hitler” or “Asshole,” I also don’t like the idea of the government coming in and deciding for the parents what the child’s name should be.

And it’s especially true here, where the reason for the name change was religion. That judge just didn’t want her personal religion made fun of, apparently.

Hey, wait, wasn’t there a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting this sort of thing? Like, the very first one?

Editorial cartoon of the day

Editorial cartoon of the day

by

Smoke and Mirrors

Smoking is fast becoming as unacceptable in proper society as spittoons were at the turn of the previous century. And that’s a good thing — peer pressure will do more to curb smoking than all the laws a government could write.

Some smokers complain, however, that their rights are being violated. Well, no. There’s no “right to smoke” in the Constitution. The government could make tobacco completely illegal, like they have done for other drugs and substances that give you cancer. After all, that worked with marijuana, right? They made it illegal and no one smokes that!

Anyway, sarcasm aside, while I support laws prohibiting smoking in public places, there are still some gray areas with which I am uncomfortable.

For instance, when I was hiring a new secretary, I said “no smokers need apply.” Smokers smell up the office, need more sick days, and cause health care insurance rates to rise. It seemed like a reasonable request to me, and one many businesses now do (especially jobs where being healthy and in shape are important, like for police officers).

But there is a worrisome slippery slope there. After all, if the worry is about health care and sick days, should an employer also be allowed to say “No one who is overweight will be hired” or “only vegetarians need apply” or “no soda drinkers”? How much of our personal decisions should an employer be able to use when deciding whether to hire us?

I don’t really have an answer to that one.

Editorial cartoon of the day

by

Life Lessons #3: Being healthy

It’s always nice when people say that I do not look my age. When they ask me why, I say, “no children.”

While there is a grain of truth in that, I think the real reason is slightly more complicated.

First: Genetics. Never underestimate the power of your parents. Whether you are short, tall, fat, slim, good-looking or ugly has an awful lot to do with your genes. Those people in the commercials who tell you that if you just followed their exercise regimen or ate their health food that you would look just like them are lying. In many ways, you can no more control these things than you can control whether you are male or female, straight or gay.

My grandmother on my mother’s side lived to be almost 99 years old, and my mother is currently doing fine in her 80s. There must be something there that has benefited me. Now if only I could have been tall and handsome…

So let’s look to the second factor: exercise. This is very important, and is something I just don’t do. I know, I know, these are supposed to be my advice columns, my life lessons. Just because I have these life lessons doesn’t mean I’m very good at following them. I really should exercise more. Like any.

The third factor, though, is something else: diet. What you put into your body can affect your body greatly. People who would never consider putting kerosene in their car have no problem downing greasy hamburgers washed down with a soda …

I’ve been a pescatarian since 1976, but I never heard the term pescatarian until a few years ago (that’s someone who eats fish but no other meat). The reason is two-fold: First, as a kind of boycott against factory farms and the cruel treatment of the animals there; but also for my health.

My wife and I try to never buy food in cans. We have salad about every other day, fish twice a week, and buy fresh fruit and vegetables for our meals.

The problem with eating well, though, is that it is expensive. Because of subsidies, the bad food is cheaper than the good food, which is one of the reasons there are so many overweight people in America today; the bad food is also fattening.

Taking care of what you put in your body also includes things like sodas, which have no nutritional value at all and are very bad for you, and of course all sorts of unwanted drugs.

You have to be an informed consumer for this to work well. Never trust any packaging; they all lie. There are so many things that advertise themselves as being healthy that are anything but, and you’ll be paying more for this packaging because what you get is still crap. Read the ingredients and compare and you may be shocked at how the package with the happy farmer is actually just as full of chemicals as the brand name product (and, if you look real close, you’ll discover that it’s probably made by the brand name company, too).

And “natural” doesn’t mean “good for you”. Arsenic is “natural.”

I’ve rambled a bit here, but I think the life lesson from this is “take care of your body; It’s the only one you have.”