The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

In light of the tragic elementary school shooting, which ended with twenty-six casualties (excluding the shooter) - twenty of which were 6- and 7-year old kids - most of the country has tried figuring out who or what to blame. This is extremely common when tragedies strike. When the Columbine school shootings occurred, the media was quick to blame violent video games and musician Marilyn Manson. There was little to no evidence to suggest this, especially with regard to Manson, since it was later discovered the two shooters didn't even like his music. However, it made the nation feel some sense of collective relief, in being able to solve the riddle, as well as push responsibility as far away from themselves as was possible. Following the Friday shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, there have been three main areas of blame: 1) Lack of mental health services/funding 2) Lack of gun regulation 3) Violent video games Those have been the main three areas of focus, especially for liber...

Missouri Republican Senatorial candidate - Todd Akin - most well known for his "legitimate rape" comments, appears to have had a long-running history of making outlandish statements regarding abortion. On the House floor in 2008, he said the following: "It is no big surprise that we fight the terrorists because they are fundamentally un-American, and yet we have terrorists in our own culture called abortionists. One of the good pieces of news why we are winning this war is because there are not enough heartless doctors being graduated from medical schools. There is a real shortage of abortionists. Who wants to be at the very bottom of the food chain of medical profession? And what sort of places do these bottom-of-the-food-chain doctors work in? Places that are really a pit. You find that along with the culture of death go all kinds of other law-breaking: not following good sanitary procedure, giving abortions to women who are not actually pregnant, cheating on taxes...