The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Let's play a game. I'm going to share with you a letter-to-the-editor I read in today's Columbus Dispatch , will then provide you some multiple-choice options on what the Dispatch titled the writing, and will then give readers the answer. Sound good? Okay, so first off, here is the letter-to-the-editor, which was written by Ray Cacchione of Columbus, Ohio: "I admire Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump for coming right out and saying that women who get abortions should get 'some form of punishment' as opposed to the usual manner of Republican legislators punishing women by curtailing their reproductive rights ('Trump talk on abortion shocks many,' Dispatch article, Thursday). He is wrong, but at least he's honest, which is more than I can say about Gov. John Kasich (who just cut Planned Parenthood funding in Ohio) or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz." So, having read that, what do you think the Dispatch decided to title the piece? A) Trump...

I thought I'd finally reached a point where no right-wing "religious liberty" argument would surprise me enough to feel the need to write about it. Sadly, Texas Senator Ted Cruz proved me wrong. In a recent interview with Newsmax 's Ed Berliner, Cruz said the following on the matter: "Imagine if this were inverted. Imagine if there weer a gay florist - now I know that's hard to imagine, a gay florist - but just go with the hypo[thetical] for a second. Imagine if two evangelical Christians came to a gay florist and they wanted to get married, and the florist said, 'You know what? I disagree with your faith. I have problems with your faith.' You have no entitlement to force that florist to provide flowers at the Christians' wedding. We are a pluralistic nation that tolerates diversity." Actually, history would showcase otherwise, Mr. Cruz, for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 says that, "All persons shall be entitled to the full and equa...

Fortunately, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed SB 1062 yesterday, which would have permitted Arizona professionals license to refuse service to homosexuals on religious grounds. However, the veto didn't occur before some Arizona Republicans decided to engage in what I like to call crazy-talk. With regard to the bill, Arizona State Senator Steve Yarbrough had the following to say to Randi Kaye of CNN: "The hypothetical that I think is the most useful is: let's assume that we have three gentlemen who are devout Jewish fellows who form a corporation and go in the catering business. And they're doing that and then I come to them and I say, 'I'd like for you to cater my event, but I would like for you to provide pork products.' And they say, 'Well, I'm sorry. Our sincerely held religious beliefs prevent us from doing that.' And my response is, 'Well then I sue you, and I get damages against you." If that was the most "useful" ...

I don't know if this is a new thing sweeping across conservative sites, but last night, I read a Facebook status from someone which said this: "Stepped on the scale the other day...noticed I gained some weight. I was looking for someone/thing to blame and decided it is clearly the fault of the eating utensils in my home....just as the violence our nation is blamed on guns. Please support me as I attempt to pass legislation that will ban forks and spoons (or at least limit who has access to them) to help cure our country's obesity problem..." Cute, isn't it? The individual is attempting to compare the link between guns and gun violence to the link between utensils and obesity. Forks and spoons are simply the tools we use to eat food, which can lead to obesity, just like a gun is the tool which can lead to gun violence. While the analogy is a nice try in a series of such attempts, it fails on multiple levels. One problem with it, is like I illustrated in my re...

Over the past couple days, the Mitt Romney secret video has dominated the news-cycle. In a sad attempt to divert the media's attention elsewhere, the Romney team released a video clip of Barack Obama saying this in a speech he gave in 1998 (yes - 14 years ago): "The trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure everybody's got a shot." Contrast this with what Mitt Romney said during his May fundraiser in Boca Raton: "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement...

Ever notice that most every time a person precedes a comment they're going to make by saying, "I'm not (a) (fill-in-the-blank, but...," they follow that by making a statement which seems to showcase they are in fact the fill-in-the-blank they just claimed they weren't? "I'm not a racist, but...(makes derogatory remark about a certain ethnicity)." Okay, if you're not a racist, why did you feel the need to say that and then follow it up with a racist remark? "I'm not a slut, but I like sleeping around." Eh, what? Okay, so define slut for me... "I'm not a sexist, but I think women are far inferior to men in every way." Uh huh. ...and I'm sure these women feel the same way about you. Congrats! You da man! I think a lot of people precede such comments with the ol' "I'm not a (fill-in-the-blank), but..." because they somehow feel that gives them a license to make any kind of comment, regar...

So, the most watched cable "news" network, the network whom claims to be "fair and balanced" and carry with them the slogan, "We report. You decide.," committed yet another error the other day. It wasn't their first and certainly won't be their last. Why then have I decided to write about it, since it seems to be so commonplace? Oh, because not only was Fox wrong in their reporting, the disparity between their numbers and the actual numbers is staggering. Fox "News" reported that the Wisconsin protests will cost up to $7.5 million dollars or to write the longer version, $7,500,000. It has since been reported that the total costs will be around $350,000. That's a difference of $7,150,000. $350,000 is just 4.7% of $7,150,000. In other words, Fox was off by, oh, just 95.3%. If I took an exam and received less than a 5%, keeping in mind that a failing grade in college is 59% or 54 percentage points higher than my hypothetical score, cha...