Litmus test

Here's Chuck Blow in today's NYT:

Many crimes could have been prevented if the offenders had had the benefit of a competent educational system and a more expansive, better-financed social service system. Sure, some criminals are just bad people, but more are people who took a wrong turn, got lost and ended up on the wrong path. Those we can save.

This is the kind of sentiment that, upon reading it, causes you to 1) nod your head, sigh, and take another bite of your muffin, or 2) spit out your coffee and set your you hair on fire.

Or not.  

I called him Chuck like I'm familiar with him but I'm not; should I be?

Rush called Obama a Jackass

the other day.  I didn't hear it when he said it, but I did hear it the next day when he rected to some criticism.. He made a mistake in my view by comparing it to the time that Obama called the rapper ___   a  jackass.

I hated it when critcs called Bush names, and so did Rush.

Updated title: Some thugs did this

Precluding gay people from marrying ostracizes them and sends a message from the society as a whole that we all believe gay people are less than, thereby emboldening horrendous attacks like this: Update: I'm agreeing with Michael's point from his first Comment and striking this.

There were nine attackers, ranging from 16 to 23 years old and calling themselves the Latin King Goonies, the police said. Before setting upon their 30-year-old victim, they had snatched up two teenage boys whom they beat, the police said, until the boys — one of whom was sodomized with a plunger — admitted to having had sex with the man.

The attackers forced the man to strip to his underwear and tied him to a chair, the police said. One of the teenage victims was still there, and the “Goonies” ordered him to attack the man. The teenager hit him in the face and burned him with a cigarette on his nipple and penis as the others jeered and shouted gay slurs, the police said. Then the attackers whipped the man with a chain and sodomized him with a small baseball bat.

The beatings and robberies went on for hours.

NYTimes story here.

Update: BUT, I hold to this proposition, which is a reason to allow gay people to get married: there will be more bullying of gay people in a society that doesn't sanction gay marriage than in a society that does allow gay marriage. There is a correlation, I believe.

VDH teaches Anatomy

Here

Copyright question

Google links millions(?) of images.  Why I can't do the same?  In the Secretariat post, if I had posted an image of Secretariat I found on Google, and linked the image to its source, I've done the same thing Google does.  They're not getting sued for copyright violations, are they?

Secretariat's Secret

Secretariat had a secret that I'm inferring was not discovered until an autopsy:

WHY SECRETARIAT WAS SO FAST

First, he was a son of Bold Ruler, who fathered many thoroughbreds who were lightning on dirt.

But Secretariat also had something in common with the cheetah, whose heart and lung capacities help make him earth's fastest animal. Secretariat's heart weighed 22 pounds, or 2.5 times the average weight of a horse's heart.

The Roots of Obama's Rage - Fascinating

Picked up yesterday.  Fascinating. 

Simple and stunning all at the same time.

Here's Adam singing an acoustic version of Broken Open in Osaka, JP, last night: