Live, from Stink-Water, Colorado!
The 2009 New Years Eve-Eve Show!
Be the first on your block to say GOOD RIDDANCE to the last decade!
Gosh, that last decade sure was a huge fucking turd laid upon all of us, wasn't it!?
And I fear the next decade could in some ways be EVEN WORSE!
Happy New Years, everyone!!!
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[Warning! Politics alert! Warning! Politics alert!]
I thought I would try some reverse psychology with this bumper-sticker I designed:
I am only half-joking, too. But you know what is scary? Many conservatives would read this bumper-sticker and take it as LITERALLY GOOD advice!
Want war (possibly global full-scale nuclear) for its own sake? Want ethnic cleansing here in America? Want total environmental destruction, again for its own sake? Want the poor to just all die, literally?
Yes, we do! they say.
Then vote, vote, vote!
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You know what is sick? Now that that asshole has tried to blow up a plane on X-mas (THANKFULLY, NO ONE WAS KILLED!), the Republicans and some Dems, from Sarah Palin to Fox News talkers, are saying that, yes, America needs ethnic profiling at airports. Yes, we need to single out ALL Muslims for the crimes of a couple jackasses.
The internet (even on liberal sites) is filled with calls for profiling and with denouncements of Islam. But let me say this. Those BIGOTS who are saying that Islam is the most evil and violent force in the world today -- even if they are right (although Christianity and Judaism also share some of the blame for the world's violence) -- are missing the point.
NO single group of people -- whether it be Muslims, right-wingers, or punk rockers -- should be treated so unfairly as Muslims have been by the US lately: detained on flimsy or lacking evidence, held without fair trial incommunicado, and sometimes tortured and killed -- and basically just because those mistreated people belong to a particular group, and not because of any specific criminal activities.
It doesn't matter is Islam is corrupt or not. The point is, many Muslims have been treated evilly (as part of this CRUSADE) based not on anything those Muslims actually did. If the US -- a beacon of freedom, supposedly -- can do this to Muslims, it can do this to ANYBODY!
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Related: It should be noted what mathematics has to say about ethnic-profiling.
Basically, according to statistics, it makes sense to profile a little, very little. If Muslims, or whatever group, are, say, x times more likely to commit a crime than non-group-members, then it is most efficient to profile by the square-root of x.
Doing more than this (Let me be clear, the bigots want WAY MORE profiling than squareroot of x) would waste resources as many innocent people are caught in the dragnet.
And, here is the key -- the squareroot of x is usually such a small amount greater than 1 that:
1) Subconscious prejudice by security officias MORE than makes up for the difference between squareroot of x and 1, ANYWAY;
and
2) The difference between 1 and squareroot of x is so small that the US would GAIN VERY LITTLE from profiling, but would LOSE A LOT if this was done, in terms of our freedoms and values.
In other words, as the Nazi's might say,
ethnic-profiling isn't efficient.
Sorry for the politics.
Leroy
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