Bits & Pieces
Articles with unfiltered opinions
Latest Politics
Teach Jazz!
A well-intentioned George W. Bush mistakenly championed the No Child Left Behind Act. Teachers throughout the nation had to spend a lot of time preparing students for standardized tests in reading and math. These determined not only if students could be promoted but also which teachers could keep their jobs. Much to my dismay, classes...
Who’s the Traitor?
Thanks to the patriotic courage of Edward Snowden and the once-secret documents he leaked to the media, we now know in frightening detail the danger posed to our freedom by the new information-age technology combined with the hysteria of the post-9/11 surveillance state. If I communicate the rough draft of these thoughts that I am...
Topple the King
“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Since becoming America’s 44th President, Barack Obama has repeatedly scorned that sacred oath. Our Founding Fathers risked their very lives...
The Colossal Suckout
Here’s how it works: In America the so-called free market is a joke. What you have is a bunch of big-money types making out like bandits, hustling the government to cover their bad bets while the suckers they swindle with impunity are forced to go broke. Call it Crony Capitalism or State Socialism. The labels...
Asshole of the Month: Reince Priebus
Let’s face it, the GOP is where charisma goes to die. Not in recent memory has the Republican Party been so overpopulated with smarmy, unelectable attention whores. So it makes sense that the super-pimp driving the clown car is Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. Sure, we could make fun of that sleaze-oozing name all...
Asshole of the Month: James Taranto
We could hurl our usual shit-related epithets at The Wall Street Journal’s hack columnist, but that would be letting him off too easy. Instead, we’ll take a shot at doing what James Taranto says Gabrielle Giffords can’t: write “900 publishable words.” Giffords, an ex-congresswoman from Arizona, was shot in the head by a rampage shooter...
Privacy R.I.P.
While the media and even Congress were outraged about the Obama Administration’s eavesdropping on the personal phone calls of Associated Press reporters and editors, I’m also outraged about We the People’s apathy. Most of us have become so conditioned to the government and corporations databasing our personal communications, I expect there will be little commotion...
Data Rape
Give me bargain or give me liberty. Do Americans love shopping more than they value their individual freedom, or is buying stuff the only freedom we cherish? Think about it. Why in the past decade have we squandered our legacy of privacy, the Constitutionally protected right to personal space, to be left alone with our...
Making Enemies
In the wake of the Boston bombings, a disturbing fact is being obscured: The FBI actually creates more terror plots than it cracks. You may not see it much on the news, but the FBI doesn’t only get involved in major terrorist events after they happen—in many cases it’s there at the very beginning. Government...
Asshole of the Month: Justin Bieber
The time has come to celebrate. The international nightmare known as Justin Bieber has entered self-destruction mode. By the time you read this, there’s at least a 50-50 chance this talentless pile of wuss will be dead, maimed, jailed, held in a basement by crazed adolescent lesbians or crucified by hordes of Beliebers for changing...
They Can Follow You Everywhere
I’ve previously mentioned my gratitude to Google for its swift and verifiable answers to my research questions. But the Silicon Valley leviathan is increasingly a menace to what’s left of our privacy. Now being developed is Google Glass, a controversial glasses-like device that “allows users to access the Internet, take photos and film short snippets,”...
Dangerous Powers
Finally, even that old hawk John McCain woke up to the fact that Congress had betrayed its Constitutional obligation after 9/11 by granting President George W. Bush and those who’d come after him unlimited executive power to take the nation to war. In panic over the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon,...
Asshole of the Month: Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee sees the world through the lens of a bizarre horror flick. Demons are everywhere, tempting him with buckets of deep-fried sin that only he and his band of white, male Christian warriors have the strength to resist. Some days the demons are whiny liberals who want equal rights for everyone. Other days they’re...
Fukushima Radiation Slams Our Shores
On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami triggered a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. An enormous amount of radiation was discharged by the calamity and continues to endanger mankind around the world. Now it’s been acknowledged that human error is to blame. In July 2012 a...
Asshole of the Month: Darrell Issa
They say it takes a crook to catch a crook. Maybe that’s why the GOP chose Representative Darrell Issa (R-California) to head the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. This powerful committee is charged with investigating government operations (and looking for bad guys). You’re aware, no doubt, that Issa’s most recent target—having already chalked up...
Military’s Invasion of Privacy
With more and more unmanned drones flying overhead, has the President or Congress told you that the U.S. Air Force, like the CIA, does not have the authority to conduct domestic “nonconsensual surveillance” unless the spying (so it says) is “accidental”? Secrecy scholar Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists dug up an Air...
Selling Out to Big Brother
The most sacred principle of American life, honored in our Constitution and throughout our history, is that of privacy—or as Larry Flynt puts it, “the right to be left alone.” But thanks to the information revolution, the government’s assault on privacy is now more pervasive, though largely invisible, than ever under any preexisting totalitarian government....
Inside the Koch Brothers’ War Room
A thank-you card seems like the appropriate response for having reaped a cool $18 billion under the administration of President Barack Obama, especially during the worst economy in nearly a century. But that’s not the Koch brothers’ style. Because Obama, no matter how Republican he acts, is actually a Democrat. And, dammit, being two of...
Asshole of the Month: Ann Coulter
When the name Ann Coulter is mentioned, a flood of words comes to mind: mean, angry, extremist, conservative, inflammatory, hideous, arrogant, male. Regarding that last adjective, we are speaking specifically of a male who is angry because he looks like a woman—sort of. You could throw the adjective ugly into the mix, but that’s probably...
