The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races.

It doesn't seem like they can quite get their story straight here. Black firefighters are upset because they aren't passing written exams as often as other races and therefore not getting as many promotions. First they claim that white firemen were given the questions ahead of time, basically claim intentional racist motives. I guess they didn't want to suggest the the black firemen just couldn't pass the test. The article doesn't go on the specify anything about those allegations, presumably there was no evidence of them, or it would have been mentioned. So now the federal government has stepped in alleging that the exams have "resulted in a disparate impact upon black candidates." So the exams are racists not because someone is helping white people pass them, but because black fireman simply can't pass them. Whatever happened to judging a man based on the content of his character and not the color of his skin. Whether or not this exam (or any other exam for that matter, SAT, LSAT, university finals, etc.) is an accurate judge of abilities is an open question, but the exam does not discriminate based on someone's skin color. A world free from racism means a world of equal opportunities, not a world of equal results. Black firemen don't have the right to an equal percentage of promotions just because of their skin color. By that logic i could argue the NBA is the most racist organization in the world. Their rules of play have a disparately negative effect on white players and anyone who claims otherwise is a racist. We simply have to adjust the rules of the game so the strengths of white players are more actively represented and their strengths are less actively demonstrated. That's what the firemen are doing they are claiming because they aren't as good at demonstrating competency under this system the system needs to be changed to reflect their strengths and not their weaknesses. If you want to argue that judging a fireman's competency for promotion by exam is foolish, feel free to make that argument, just don't bring race into it. Race has nothing to do with whether or not an exam is an accurate barometer.

Jimmy Carter?! He's history's greatest monster!

Thanks a lot to the Supreme Court for making it legal for police officers to strip search anybody they arrest without cause. I don't remember all the ridicoulos cases that were brought up where people were strip searched but it ranged from failure to use a turn signal to using a bycicle without a helmet. The man who brought the case was arrested and strip searched for failure to pay a $200, which he had in fact already paid. A clerical error by the town failed to credit him for the payment which he had made. As the article discussed only 1 out 25,000 prisoners are found to have something illicit through the use of strip searches, the purpose of the strip search is not to eliminate contraband, but the establish the power of the police officers. The sole reason for the searches is to prove to those who are arrested that police have complete control over you, to the extent of forcing you to strip naked and spread your butt cheeks for them. One problem with this is that the punishment of going through this humiliation is greater than the punishment for the crime. Therefor before a man is convicted of anything, and still presumed innocent, a punishment is meted out to him that is worse than the punishment should he actually be found guilty, which may be just a 50 dollar fine. I think most Americans would prefer to pay the 50 dollars than have to go through the strip search (it depends a little on how a person makes.) They claim there is no way to draw a line between who should get strip searched an who shouldn't. Of course there's a way, there are plenty of ways. How about if the punishment for a crime warrants a month in prison or more than the offense is considered serious enough that a strip search may be allowed. Or a year, or any number. Or how about if it's a felony. We already break crimes into categories of felonies and misdemeanors, lets continue along that path. And just to be clear this doesn't cover if police have a reasonable suspicion that a suspect might be hiding something, like he's a known drug dealer or something, we are only talking about cases where cops admit they don't have any suspicion that a person has hidden anything, but are going to conduct a strip search anyway. Luckily many states have taken the initiative to outlaw this themselves, and hopefully more will follow.

How could you? Of all the terrible things you've ever done in your life, this is the worst, the most despicable!

But Marge, I swear to you, I never thought you'd find out!

So NBC alters the tape of the 911 call between George Zimmerman to make him look like a racist. There's no other way to look at it, with something as serious as this case and with the importance of race nobody could cut the tape like that by accident. So after NBC gets caught having tried to deceive the public into thinking Zimmerman is a racist they vow and internal investigation and it turns out their investigation revealed, they never thought you'd find out. They thought nobody would bother to point out the race was only important to the 911 dispatcher so they could identify the suspect and not to Zimmerman. Any apology to Zimmerman? No. Anyone fired for this gross violation of journalistic ethics? No. Any consequences for anyone? No.

My Homer is not a communist. He may be a liar, a pig, an idiot, a communist, but he is *not* a porn star!

Not surprising that Obama would accuse Romney of living in the past of Russia, but in fact it is Russia that is living in the past. They have an ex KGB as the despot of their country, they have made alliances with all of the U.S. enemies, like Iran, and they have made repeated assaults against former soviet republicans that they feel should still be in their domain. An actual military assault in Georgia, and an internet assault against Latvia (it might have been Estonia.) It is Biden who shows his ignorance by claim Russia is united with us against Iran (they are not) and his naivity at thinking Russia and Putin see us as anything but enemies. Bush had the same flaw claiming he saw in Putin's soul or some such nonsense and saw someone he could work with. Putin will never work with the US he will use the US for his own purposes whenever possible and undermine the US and all western democracies at every opportunity he gets. What exactly is the difference between the Russian political system now, and the political system during the cold war that anyone should think there has been any change in Russia since 1990 or that their ex KGB leader would have anything but hatred for the West?