I’m, for one — I know it’s not politically correct to say it — I believe in racial and ethnic profiling. I think if you’re looking at people getting on an airplane and you have X amount of resources to get into it, you get at the targets, and not my wife. And I just think it’s something that should be looked into. The statement that’s made, it’s probably 90 percent true with some exceptions like the Murrah federal office building in my state, Oklahoma. Those people, they were not Muslims, they were not Middle Easterners. But when you hear that not all Middle Easterners or Muslims between the age of 20 and 35 are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims or Middle Easterners between the age of 20 and 35, that’s by and large true. –Senator James Inhofe, (R-OK)

When I was in the tenth grade, I had a friend who attended a catholic high school about two miles from my public school.  On occasion, several of my other friends and I used to walk the distance to go meet up with him.  We thought nothing of the trek, other than the fact that we wished he’s gone to our school instead.  One particular day, three of us made the journey to meet him for a game of basketball.  We walked right up to the front gates, as we normally did, and waited for him.  This time, one of the nuns came out of the front office to meet us.  This was an unusual occurrence.  Of the countless trips I’d made to see my friend, none of the nuns ever deigned to set foot outside for any reason.

The nun, all four feet of her– clenched her fists nervously– and said in a rather standoffish tone that the three of us needed to wait across the street.  I told her that we were waiting for a friend.  Again, she told us to wait across the street for him.  Rather than get into a bizarre argument over something quite minor, the three of us walked the 50 yards across the busy street.  As soon as my foot met the cracked curb, three police cars– lights flashing and sirens blaring–rolled up right behind us.  Six police officers hurriedly jumped out of their vehicles, and proceeded to throw us all against them.  Trying to discern the reason why we were all being treated as if we had just robbed a bank, was a secondary thought to the sheer terror pulsing through my body.  Was I going to jail? Why? What were we guilty of?

As it turned out, there were a few break-ins in the well kept neighborhood the school resided in.  I reasoned that the nuns called the police as soon as we made our approach onto school grounds.  After a few minutes of telling police who we were and why we were there, they let us go with a warning:  Don’t come into this area until the suspects are apprehended.

I left, without my two friends, visibly shaken and angry.  The was the first time I was profiled.  As a 15 year old kid,  just for going to see a friend of mine.  For those who don’t know, there is this degrading sense of shame and anger in being profiled.  Your rights as an American citizen are challenged, based upon some supposed method model of criminal activity.  You fit the profile because you may be the same color– or speak the same language, or pray to the same God– as the intended targets.  But you are a model citizen.  You don’t have a criminal record.  You do all of the right things.  And you are still the target of some ill-conceived, comprehensive model of criminal behavior  It made me sick.  It makes me sick today.

My story is intended to illustrate a point.  Last week Colleen Larose, better known now as “Jihad Jane” –was apprehended by authorities on suspicion of recruiting for terror organizations, and plotting to kill an artist in Sweden.  Ms. Larose is a white woman with blond hair and blue eyes, far from the norm of what our perceived conception is of a terrorist.

Does this change the dynamic of profiling in the eyes of those wanting to do it?  It should.  Believe me, I want our country to be as safe as humanly possible.  I don’t want to have to worry about nut jobs high-jacking airplanes, or exploding bombs on city buses.  But in an unpredictable world where things are never what they seem, racial profiling is emblematic of our false attempts at weeding out true criminals and terrorists. It not only infringes upon our civil rights, it does not work nearly as well as its proponents believe. I could ask all of my readers what their idea of a terrorist looks like, and I’m sure I won’t get Colleen Larose.  But that is the reality right now.  So was Tim McVeigh.  So was Ted Kaczynski.  So was Adam Pearlman.  So was Richard Reid.  Maybe we should just profile everyone Senator Inhofe?  I wonder how that would make some Americans feel?  Would it make then feel as I did back in high school?

Racial profiling doesn’t catch criminals, it generates assumptions and spreads grievous generalities that in the long run, harm our society far more than terrorist ever could.

UPDATE: As this post hits the interwebs, a second white woman has been arrested and charged in the Islamist conspiracy.  “Jihad Jamie’s” arrest further buffers the points I make in my post.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Andrew Sullivan

MEEP MEEP– December 23rd, 2009:

I will freely admit that I am in the tank for Barack Obama.  I believe his combination of pragmatism, measured cool, intelligence, and willingness to find the common ground–were exactly what this country needed after eight years of the Bush administration’s feckless policies, and unilateral bullishness.  I am not in the lot of folks who believe that 2009 has been a terrible first year for the new president.  This piece by Andrew Sullivan validates my thinking.  If you delve deeply into the muck and mire of combative partisan politics, you can extract some very important victories achieved by this administration.  One such example:

The substantive record is clear enough. Torture is ended, if Gitmo remains enormously difficult to close and rendition extremely hard to police. The unitary executive, claiming vast, dictatorial powers over American citizens, has been unwound. The legal inquiries that may well convict former Bush officials for war crimes are underway, and the trial of KSM will reveal the lawless sadism of the Cheney regime that did so much to sabotage our war on Jihadism. Military force against al Qaeda in Pakistan has been ratcheted up considerably, even at a civilian cost that remains morally troubling. The US has given notice that it intends to leave Afghanistan with a bang – a big surge, a shift in tactics, and a heavy batch of new troops. Iraq remains dodgy in the extreme, but at least March elections have been finally nailed down.

Example two:

Domestically, the new president has rescued the banks in a bail-out that has come in at $200 billion under budget; the economy has shifted from a tailspin to stablilization and some prospect of job growth next year; the Dow is at 10,500 a level no one would have predicted this time last year. A stimulus package has helped undergird infrastructure and probably did more to advance non-carbon energy than anything that might have emerged from Copenhagen. Universal health insurance (with promised deficit reduction!) is imminent – a goal sought by Democrats (and Nixon) for decades, impossible under the centrist Clinton, but won finally by a black liberal president…

Folks, we are on the precipice of MAJOR health care reform  This has NEVER been accomplished before.  Whether you agree or not with the president’s agenda, you must not discount what he has already achieved in his first year in office.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This just keeps getting sadder and sadder.  Watch the clip:

Are you kidding me?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

From the Confederate Yankee:

Robert Byrd has been around a very long time, and his many decades of service have made West Virginia a wonderful state in which to manufacture methamphetamine or frame the locals for murder. But it’s time for Senator to do the right thing, and expire. It isn’t too much to ask for Byrd to step off for that great klavern in the sky before the Senate vote that may force this nation to accept government-rationed health care. Even a nice coma would do. Without his frail, Gollum-like body being wheeled into the Senate’s chambers to cast the deciding vote, the Senate cannot curse our children and grandchildren with crushing debt and rationed, substandard health care.

Sad. Wishing ill on someone, to avoid putting practical solutions to work for the betterment of your country.  It really didn’t have to come to this.  Conservatives decided to use their time to obstruct and forego any real dialogue that would have potentially led to a bipartisan solution to health care reform.  Wanna know why?  Because they didn’t care one wit about it.  They’ve had years to come up with a free market, less government answer to our health care dilemma.  They had an opportunity to shape this debate.  Instead it they let it linger, and the ultimate solution was decided ostensibly without them.

Perhaps the next time major policy issues are weighed, they should take a page from the campaign of John McCain, and put “country before self and party.”

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This isn’t quite that funny.  It’s more amusing, in a David Cronenberg sort of way (He’s not really amusing).  I’ve often wondered why some conservatives believe that God and religion are the sole province of their party.  Does God love Republicans more than Independents and Democrats?  Anyone with half a brain cell would say no, but that’s not what some conservatives would lead you to believe.  Here’s a crystal clear example of God-usurping led by (who else), Congresswoman Michele Bachmann:

Yes, Michele Bachmann. The savior of mankind. And mutantkind.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’ve written very little about the Tiger Woods’ imbroglio, but I never considered it significant–  thus, I wrote about it with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek– refusing to prattle on like the rest of the civilized world is.  Then I came across this article by Kevin McCullough of Townhall, a conservative political and media site.  Keeping things honest here, I will readily admit that I am not a fan of Townhall. McCullough’s piece really got my dander up though. It’s entitled Why Obama Is Worse Than Tiger.  Okay, I thought.  Let’s find out why the president is “worse” (whatever that means) than the world’s number one golfer.  I was expecting to be taken aback by an unshakable core of new facts and ideas, to prove his point, and lessen mine.  Epic fail on this count.

I’m going to forget for the moment, this self-aggrandizing, pompous windbag’s sermonizing regarding what Tiger should do about his failing relationship with his wife.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my brief time on this earth; it’s that moral crusaders such as Mr. McCullough– fall the hardest on their pointy swords– because their judgments usually reflect their own imperfections.  It’s much easier to point out imperfections in others, and McCullough just can’t wait to regale his readers with his preachy dictums.

Sorry.  I tried to forget.  First example:

Tiger’s only chance at redeeming his psyche, his life, and somewhere far down the road his game, is to ultimately choose to be a different person. He must volitionally make better choices, better friends, and cling to the real love of one woman. I personally believe that those tasks are made easier if he also couples those choices with a genuine belief, faith, and trust in God

Here’s another:

If Tiger puts into practice a principle from my newest book (The Kind of Man Every Man Should Be) and pursues reconciliation, forgiveness, and healthy life choices from this point on–all while agreeing to absolute accountability–he may very well lose his wife and children anyway. Yet at the very least, by making such choices, and by adopting a different path than the one that took him down the road of danger…

Is he serious?

What  would make  this self-righteous prig think that Tiger doesn’t have genuine belief, faith, and trust in God?   Why would Tiger deign to follow the principles of a hack writer, trying to drum up sales for a book?  Clearly he presumes to know Eldrick Woods better than Eldrick knows himself.  There is more.  So much more.  Let’s get to the meat of McCullough’s argument:  Obama as the Anti-Christ.  Here’s a sample of the president being a danger to the future of our youth, and the great deceiver of all mankind:

President Obama, from all appearances, will refuse to admit that his statist view of the world has any flaws in it whatsoever. He will dig in. He will give more speeches. He will possibly even accept more absurd awards on the world stage, even while insulting the host nation who is silly enough to honor him with such acclaim. President Obama refuses to see, what everyone else easily does, that his actions are damaging the future of millions of people, but his stubborn refusal to pivot may damage generations of descendants of those people.

Indeed.  His “statist” view of the world surely does not represent anyone in America does it?  Not the nearly 50 million Americans– apparently all socialist elitists– who voted to elect the man.  I guess they didn’t realize he was going to drive them over a financial cliff in a Moskvitch.  I’m amused by McCullough’s plea for the president to “stop being stubborn.”  He is writing out of clear frustration, because the man won a resounding victory, and he refuses to do things the way conservatives want him to.  Obama: the uppity, duplicitous president.

Kevin McCullough’s entire piece failed on every imaginable level.  His overbearing, condescending tone toward Tiger Woods was enough to make me want to shank the back of my head with a four-iron.  He then compounds his erroneous take by adding in the president, as if the two have any correlation whatsoever.  It’s sloppy writing, and a lazy angle to take.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The days of humility and decency are gone, ascending in a plume of wildfire smoke:

“I had a dream we were married and I was leading the tournament,” Woods reportedly wrote. “I came home, excited to see you, and there you were in the bedroom getting f–ked by Derek and David [Boreanaz]. Some part of me thinks you would like that.”

That gem of a quote was from Tiger Woods, about a dream he shared with one of his mistresses. Do I care?  Nope.  Does it make one shred of difference in how I live my life?  Not in the least.  Is it his personal business?  Absolutely.  So, why are we privy to it?  Because this tabloid tale whets the appetites of those pushing the boundaries of good taste.  It scores high ratings and huge page views.  And it feeds our appetites for the destruction of real journalism.

There are no benefits to letting psychos and characters dominate the twenty-four hour news cycle, yet we let them do it.  We relinquish our grasp on pertinent issues that affect hundreds of millions of lives–  to indulge in the babbling and misanthropic antics of those wishing for their moment of clarity.  What the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour had done to elevate intelligent dialogue– and provide pivotal information– shows such as Tila Tequila’s One Shot at Love has torn those notions from the fabric of our consciousness.

What do I care about Jon and Kate?  They’re paid millions of dollars to preen, and expose their children to the horrors of their own demented egos.  Shouldn’t we all be focused on real problems, faced by real people?  Real people who’ll never have the pleasure of depositing a check from the Learning Channel.

We are an immediate gratification society.  I realize I’m breaking no new ground with that statement, but it always bears repeating in these instances.  We are torture porn voyeurs, thirsty for any juicy tidbit in the strewn about garbage cans of Tiger Woods and the Octomom.  Is it even possible to quantify the  energy it must take checking anything Perez Hilton conjures up with his porcine fingers?

We are approaching DefCon five here people.  When the top google searches after President Obama’s speech on Afghanistan last Tuesday were Meridith Baxter coming out of the closet, and Tiger Woods– you know we have serious problems.  Nobody seems to care about our men and women going off to war.  They care more about Tiger’s wood.  Shameless.

(Editor’s note: That last sentence was pretty shameless, as well as easy.  I apologize.  It seemed like a good way to end though.)

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Kasim Reed is the new mayor of Atlanta! Although a recount is in the offing, the former state senator is already preparing his transition team to tackle the major issues the city faces. First on his agenda: Finding a new police chief.

Here are the election results from last night:

Candidate Votes %
Kasim Reed 41,901 51%
Mary Norwood 41,143 49%

100% reporting (170 of 170 precincts)

Congratulations to mayor-elect Reed, as well as councilwoman Norwood. She ran a fine campaign, and distinguished herself as a leader. Her love of this city is unrivaled in my eyes.

UPDATE: Councilwoman Norwood has not officially conceded.

UPDATE II: We have an official recount!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Andrew Sullivan thinks Cheney is speaking treason:

“Here’s a guy without much experience, who campaigned against much of what we put in place … and who now travels around the world apologizing,” Cheney said. “I think our adversaries — especially when that’s preceded by a deep bow … — see that as a sign of weakness.”

Specifically, Cheney said the Justice Department decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, in New York City is “great” for Al Qaeda.

“One of their top people will be given the opportunity — courtesy of the United States government and the Obama administration — to have a platform from which they can espouse this hateful ideology that they adhere to,” he said. “I think it’s likely to give encouragement — aid and comfort — to the enemy.”

Aside from the haughty tone– completely lacking in respect for a sitting president– Cheney’s argument is devoid of all rational thought.  It’s not a sign of weakness to deliberate.  To the contrary. The moral imperative to contemplate war policies is the coda by which real leadership follows.  Cheney’s rationale doesn’t reflect his own failed policy toward Afghanistan.  It was on his watch the Taliban regained its hold on the country, while Cheney’s preoccupation with continuing a strategically flawed conflict in Iraq eroded our ability to clearly define objectives elsewhere.  How does he explain ignoring what turned out to be the true front in the war on terror? Why does he not question his policy of ill-equipping our soldiers in the field in Baghdad? Here’s more Sullivan:

Accusing the president of giving aid and comfort to the enemy is such a disgusting charge, such a deeply divisive, unAmerican tactic, it would be excoriated if it came from some far right blogger. That it comes from a former vice-president, violating every conceivable protocol (as he did in office), reminds me of why Cheney and Cheneyism remain such a threat to core American and Western values

Cheney’s agenda is clear:  His disdain for Obama reflects his complete hatred for peace and solidarity.  To accuse the President of treason is appalling–to do so with the bully pulpit of the vice president’s office even more so.  Even in the KSM case, Cheney only points to the fact that Mohammad may use the stage to advance his nihilistic propaganda.  Never once does Cheney say he believes in our nation’s ability to apply strict, severe justice.  He is consumed by fear and loathing.

What is even more laughable is Cheney’s suggested psychological bond with our military.  Only a man like Cheney, full of hubris and arrogance, can claim some sort of kinship with soldiers– when he ducked and dodged military service as much as humanly possible.  It seems boundless nerve and gall now substitute for statesmanship nowadays.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This is a comment from my boy Ta-nehisi Coates’ blog:

If she didn’t have a good chance you liberals would not keep running stories daily headlines about her not being qualified, nor would your supporters spend most of their time responding or commenting on how she doesn’t have a chance.  Funny how an attractive, intelligent republican female scares you guys so much. Must be because she not the average female liberal, A mullet wearing, PETA supporting lesbian member of NOW. Poor libs cant sleep at night worring about her.  GO SARAH!!

I don’t have any issues with Sarah Palin’s attractiveness or her “intelligence” –though the latter to me is debatable– I have issues with her dedication to her role as the “savior” of the American dream.

Just the sheer volume of responses confirm my suspicions, the liberals are scared to death of Sara Palin because she stands for freedom, honesty, decency and motherhood. Not afraid to speak her mind and not afraid to confront critics. Her message rings true to much of America, remember Obama did not win in a landslide. Quote polls all you want in your rants. Will she run for President? Are her qualifications less than a community organizer? If she runs, she will win.

What’s the point of discussing the previous election in this context?  Whether it was a landslide or not, the margin was significant enough to warrant the blanket of scrutiny the former governor is wrapped under.  Her wow factor wasn’t enough to dissuade voters from ignoring her anemic record and empty policy knowledge.  It’s nice to trot out the flowery adjectives like she’s decent and honest–as if those folks serving up the platitudes know the woman intimately enough to qualify them.

The issue in my mind is not fear of Mrs. Palin, not for liberals at least.  It’s desperation.  Desperation on the part of conservatives trumpeting her as the new-age Reagan.  Hardly.  She lacks the charismatic gravitas Reagan displayed.   Worse, she believes that her conservative appeal trumps her real lack of policy credentials.  She does not take the power given her by her enthused base seriously– to become a more effective communicator– and a more credible political figure.  If there is any fear here, the good governor wields it like a sword.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.