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That’s Not A Steroid Problem…THIS is a Steroid Problem.

Reason brings up some excellent points about athletics, police, and steroid abuse.

Given that police officers carry guns, night sticks, and tasers, and that they have the power to use lethal force when necessary, one would think our politicians would be more concerned about illegal use of a drug known to contribute to fits of rage and violence among law enforcement than use by a bunch of baseball players.

One would think.  As far as I’m concerned, you can throw in football players, weight lifters, cage fighters, and especially professional wrestlers into the “who cares?” category.

This stems from a story in the New York Daily News was written after

…27 NYPD officers cropped up on the client lists of a Brooklyn pharmacy and three doctors linked to a pro sports steroid ring.

I’d never really thought about cops on steroids, but it seems like the type of job that would foster steroid use to me.  Of course, I haven’t been beaten down by a juicer with a badge recently either.  I just assume that there is a certain percentage of people in all lines of work who use steroids (and heroin, and meth, and marijuana, etc.).  Could it expain some instances of excessive use of force or brutality?  Possibly.  But I wouldn’t go jumping to those conclusions any more than I would for people in any other line of work.

It’s probably fair to say that I’ve known at least one person who was on the juice since I was 16 years old, but I’ve never seen what I’d call ‘roid rage.  The violent assholes I’ve known who were juicing had always been violent assholes and probably always will be.

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For All You Political Junkies

Kat Coble has posted a pretty good summary of present day politics in the United States.

But, really, the two major parties are very much the same now. They’ve both become interested solely in purchasing continued incumbancy, and any governance which may or may not occur is incidental.

Very true. This reminds me of an episode of The Wire I saw the other night–incredible show by the way. A Baltimore heroin operation is faced with the problem of taking an inferior product to the marketplace. Their solution? Split into two separate brands and manufacture some pretend competition between the two. The junkies end up buying the same crappy product either way, and the cash all flows to the same source.

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The 5th of November

If you didn’t think Ron Paul was a serious candidate, consider that his fund raising effort yesterday pulled in $4.07 $4.3 million. That is the second biggest fund raising day for any candidate ever. Only Hilly has raised more in one day. Ron Paul’s message is hitting home with a lot of people–people who can afford to contribute to a successful campaign. Many would argue that they can’t afford not to.

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Some People Are Never Satisfied

I was listening to Sean Hannity on my way home from work today. I know, I know. But I had such a great day at work that I needed to even it out. I couldn’t think of anything more irritating than Hannity that could accomplish my goal in a 23 minute commute.

Of course, he was talking about Ahmadinejad at Columbia, and of course, he didn’t give Lee Bollinger any credit for taking Ahmadinejad to task. Instead, he went on an incoherent rant the point of which (I think) was that the only reason Bollinger went after Ahmadinejad was that he’d received so much bad publicity and pressure.

Loyal readers of this blog can probably guess that I don’t agree with liberal academia about very much. But I hope that, in general, I call an ace and ace and a spade a shovel. Bollinger did exactly what he should have done in this situation. He took the opportunity to ask some very tough questions of Ahmadinejad that he looked like a fool for dodging and would have exposed himself as a turd if he’d answered.

Hannity’s stance on what happened is about as stupid as he is. This was a classic “damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation”. Nothing could have made him happy. I for one am glad these questions were directly asked, and I don’t care if it was only in order to spite some neo-cons, though I doubt that was the actual motivation.

In fact, spite is one of the best reasons I can think of.

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Constitution Day — Creating Solid C Students Nationwide

The KNS says that a study reports

51 percent of high school students questioned had not heard of the day when they are required by law to learn about the Constitution.

The occasion, created by Congress in 2004, usually is observed on or around Sept. 17, the day the document was adopted in 1787.

There’s some irony for you. Congress makes a federal law regarding public education (which by the way is covered nowhere in the Constitution) that students must learn about the Constitution. Doing what it does best, our public education system then strikes right at the meaty part of the bell curve and makes sure that a healthy 49% of students actually receive the education as mandated.

Sounds about right.

Personally, my favorite part of the Constitution is “Congress shall make no law”. Ever wonder if we’d be better off if they’d just stopped there?

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The Untouchable Jimmy Duncan

This week’s Metropulse wonders how Jimmy Duncan remains invincible even though he has voted against his party on several issues such as Iraq, the Patriot Act, and No Child Left Behind.

“I told them that if I could get past the traditional conservative positions against massive foreign aid, deficit spending, and being the policeman to the world, I could maybe side with them.

So basically, conservative East Tennessee loves Jimmy Duncan because he votes like a conservative? Interesting.

That, or it could be the hair.

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Electoral College Class of ’96

Justin Gardner at Donklephant asks if we should Get Rid of the Electoral College.

On Aug. 25, Democratic California senator Dianne Feinstein called for the abolition of the Electoral College, saying, “The current system enables a handful of states to become battleground states, and disenfranchises tens of millions of American voters in the most important election in the nation.

Yeah, but…
Wouldn’t eliminating the electoral college basically cause candidates to pander to campaign in areas that are densely populated and forget about people in less populated areas?

I think the real problem is that we’ve become a culture that, dangerously and wrongly, looks to The President as the person who is responsible for all of the woes and triumphs of our daily lives. The Presidency was meant to be of the States, not of the people, hence the electoral college. The President’s job was to be the executive officer of the group of States, while the States themselves were to be responsible for governing the people. That way people in California would be free to institue whatever wacky policies and programs they choose to implement locally while not affecting the people of New Hampshire, who would be free to choose a more conservative set of policies to govern their state.

The powers of the President and federal government are pretty clearly laid out in the Constitution and should be correctly limited. If they were, this wouldn’t be an issue.

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More To Love About Living In The United States

I love the anti-John Edwards post by Glen Dean.

Perhaps Edwards should promise to provide all “poor” households with Tivo or DVR. Maybe he could promise every poor family a $50 gift card to Applebees. It really must be difficult to be a poverty pimping populist these days.

I have to agree. This is the only country in the world where it is completely reasonable to expect that the day of a poor person can include all of the following activities:

1. Jumping into his car to go grab a pack of cigarettes and some cold beer
2. Stopping on the way home for a super value meal, complete with 32 ounces of sugar water (with free refills), a quarter pound (pre-cooked weight) of beef topped with fresh vegetables and a serving of potatoes that contains more calories than is needed for an entire day.
3. Placing the cold beer into his refrigerator so it will stay cold
4. Cracking open one of said cold beers and channel surfing three different football games on cable TV
5. Complaining between puffs on cigarettes that health care is too expensive and that the gov’ment should do something about it.

Let’s not forget this either:

Having said all of that, it is important to note that there are some people in this country who really are poor. Those are the ones we should all help out with our own private contributions and time spent volunteering.

Absolutely correct, and I think the average American would be much more likely to do so if they didn’t feel like they’d abdicated this responsibility (because that’s what it is) to the gov’ment by paying their taxes. Do I have too much faith in people?

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Democrat Has Some Great Advice For Republicans

Sharon Cobb offers some free advice that should be obvious to any thinking person, but obviously isn’t obvious to the GOP.

Y’all have got to get back to being Barry Goldwater Republicans and stay out of personal lives of consenting adults instead of trying to make what consenting adults do a political issue for you. It’s shortsighted.

Yep. You’d better believe that the GOP is missing out on a lot of folks in the late 20s and early 30s who would prefer to have the gov’ment out of our lives. Some are naive enough to opt for the liberal alternative to what is now being called conservative (although I don’t see the difference anymore) and giving up an equally important freedom by letting the gov’ment into their wallets. Big mistake.

Others, like me, are turned off by the whole situation and pushed into supporting third parties that have no chance of winning on principle.

Ron Paul has given me hope that the Republicans can actually turn this thing around and get back to basics. The longer he stays in the race, the more people will hear his message, and the further the Republicans will be pushed towards staying out of people’s lives. At the very least, they could finally have something to actually debate about when they face the Democrats. Hell, I may even finally vote for one.

Thanks to Michael Silence for pointing this one out.

** UPDATE **
A related comment in an unrelated post at TheLibertyPapers

They both believe in big government, they simply piss our money away on different issues. Both groups’ policies will eventually lead to economic disaster.

Well put by UCrawford