Missouri must issue "Choose Life" license plates

Anti-abortion folks in Missouri have seen to it that "Choose Life" license plates are available to the public. The court said the law regarding license plates is too vague to prohibit such a thing. So Missouri joins Florida, Louisiana, Arizona and Mississippi on the road to demagoguery via license plate.

If Neo-Nazis scraped up $10,000 (which was a requirement in one of the above states), could they make Missouri issue "Heil Hitler" license plates? If they can't raise the money, are they entitled by their "free speech" rights to force the issue?

How about any other controversial message, like "America is a Christian nation?" Which actually is not controversial. America is pointedly NOT a religion-based country. But if we're talking now about evaluating the veracity or plausibility of anyone's position, it opens up a whole other can of worms. Wiccans, want to give a "Worship Mother Earth" plate a try?

Court rules for "Choose Life" license plates
Posted: Thursday, 26 March 2009 1:09PM
KMOX - St. Louis, MO

Missouri must issue "Choose Life" license plates

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (AP) __ A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court's ruling that Missouri officials must issue license plates that read ``Choose Life.''

The Alliance Defense Fund sued in June 2006 on behalf of Choose Life of Missouri and the group's president.

The suit alleged lawmakers violated free speech, due process and equal protection rights by rejecting Choose Life's application for the specialty plate, while approving other proposals.

The plate was rejected after two abortion rights members of a state transportation committee objected.

U.S. District Judge Scott Wright last year ruled that the state law governing specialty plates was ``unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.''

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis on Thursday upheld Wright's decision.

Texas BOE: Ever seen a cat-dog? Evolution is wrong.

Pardon me if I chortle a bit at Texas. But this is really no chortling matter. Here in Kansas, we experienced much the same sideshow in 2000 with a Young-Earth Creationist-dominated Board of Education. The rest of the country is still poking fun at us for that. But be calm, Kansans. We have a moderate, rational Board now. At least 'til the next BOE election, in 2010.

No matter what state this ignorant nonsense pops up in, it always is "supported" by long-refuted claims from creationist sources, including (in Arkansas) Chick tracts. The views of real scientists are always disputed because science doesn't confirm the Genesis creation story. Actually, there are two different stories in Genesis, but never mind that. BOTH of them are TRUE! That is, according to creationist chuckleheads on the Texas BOE, who care more about Biblical literalism than educating public school students in real science, the kind they'll need to get jobs in the 21st Century. Will they ever learn? Probably not.

Board of Education evolves into sideshow
Houston Chronicle, March 23, 2009

Ever seen a cat-dog? Of course not! That just proves it’s impossible for one species to evolve into another.

The human brain seems not to have changed since homo sapiens first appeared 150,000 years ago. That means evolution is false.

We don’t have every bone, so the fossil record undercuts the theory of evolution.

A few scientists have fudged proof of evolution, so that calls into question all the other evidence.

These are the brilliant observations and insinuations of a particularly dangerous right-wing fringe group: the seven-member social conservative bloc of the State Board of Education. (The cat-dog example, if you must know, is the brainchild of Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, who seems to be incapable of understanding that it takes millions, if not billions of years for so-called macro-evolution to occur.)

If the Legislature is the circus, the Board of Education is the sideshow. And this week, they’re back in town.

[More at link above]

Barack Obama laughing at us?

Obama on"60 Minutes" laughed when he said he never would have anticipated that the war in Iraq would be the least of his Presidential problems. He said that the only thing less popular than giving money to banks was giving money to car companies. He found the irony amusing. So did anybody with a brain.

But that obviously didn't include David Shuster, the wholly inadequate stand-in on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" when Keith is away. He asked Fox-like questions like, "Was President Obama laughing at people standing in bread lines? Was he laughing at millions of Americans out of work?" Only to say, "No. He wasn't." So WHY raise the issue?

I'll tell you why: to make a mountain out of a molehill and feed the paranoia and hatred of the Right. Now, even people who (a) didn't see the "60 Minutes" interview or (b) didn't take offense at Obama's laughter are thinking about being offended by it. GREAT JOB, Shuster. Tomorrow, you ought to be Keith's "Worst Person in the World," or at least "Worse."

A shred of sanity slipped into Shuster's smear piece when E. J. Dionne of the Brookings Institution said he thought most people would appreciate the humorous irony of Obama's comments. I think he's wrong, since irony and satire seem to sail way over the heads of most of the American public. However, most people *should* appreciate the irony. Obama was laughing at his own predicament, not at the American people. In the rest of the interview, he was serious about serious topics like Afghanistan. I mean, give the guy a break. He explained that a kind of "gallows humor" was necessary to maintain sanity in the White House.

I understand what he means. When you move into a house and find that the previous tenants have left you a pile of manure in every room, which you now have to clean up, what is there to do but laugh and get to it?

David Shuster makes a mockery of TV journalism (if that's not an oxymoron in itself). He doesn't belong on Olbermann's show. Write to MSNBC and tell them so.

Bush a good president yet? Tom Toles cartoon