Free Speech: It should protect you from crazies like Tom Tancredo and the RIAA

• I'm delighted by this article. Free speech is only helpful if it's getting used, and it does no one any good if one side or another just keeps shouting the other down to stop them from getting heard. The outrage over Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia was preposterous: it was as if by hearing him out, we would all be infected by some hysterical desire to annihilate America and launch a global crusade for Islam that would erase civilization from the planet earth. It's as if we're that gullible, that easily swayed. By hearing him out, we get to laugh in his face. It's not giving him more power, it's letting him relinquish it freely through his own folly. Suppressing speech just gives it more power: when you push it, it just pushes back harder. Right now, the political discourse is largely one side blaming the other for things that don't matter, and getting incensed that they have the gall to speak their mind. Go back to the Constitution, go back to the Federalist Papers. Learn to love your free speech, America, even if you don't love what people are saying.
  
  
• For example. If you don't want Tom Tancredo to be president, make sure everyone hears what he has to say, because he's a total fucking lunatic.
  
  
• Furthermore, this is why I'm not going to say anything about the Republicans going after the little kid.
  

• The mafia will not be driving Nissan.
  
  
• Harry Reid just need to be replaced.
  

  “Iraq has always been the 800-pound gorilla in the room, but there are other issues to deal with,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “We did well with our initial agenda. Now we need to move on to a broader agenda.”

  
  If you've got a major problem to get out of the way before you can get to your "broader agenda," you have to deal with that major problem. Reid hasn't done that, he's just talked a lot about Iraq and not accomplished anything. He didn't "do well with [his] initial agenda," he didn't do anything with it except give up fight after fight. That doesn't mean it's time to move on, that means it's time to dig in harder. (P.S. -- He isn't even winning on the broader agenda.)
  
  
• Mitt Romney: "Sorry you have a horrible debilitating disease, son, and yes, there is a treatment, but Jesus, Joseph Smith, and the FDA formed a commission which has deemed it immoral, so you'll just have to deal with the suffering. It sucks now, but remember: the federal government is here to make sure you don't damn your immortal soul."
  
  
• Calling it "intelligence" is really a stretch.
  
  
• Why Obama isn't winning, even though he should be.
  
  
• Hillary Clinton: the only major Democratic candidate smart enough to realize that she's going to have to go to Michigan if she wins the primaries, and it's going to help her if she hasn't treated them like pariahs. I'd love to be touting Chris Dodd's name in that article, but I've given up on the fact that, despite his being awesome, no one but me and Kos give a damn about Chris Dodd.
  
  
• John McCain doesn't care about haberdashers. No, really, he talks about haberdashers. And buggies!
  
  
• Sam Brownback and Joe Biden are campaigning together. Is this the new accidental face of Unity08? Seriously? The best thing these guys could do for each other's campaigns is beat each other up on camera.
  
  
• This is funny, but I'm more entertained by the fact that there's a Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology. It begs the question: could principles of quantum mechanics, namely uncertainty and predictability, be applied to economics to make an economic model that would account for erratic human behavior?
  
  
• Once more on the RIAA being awarded $222,000 for some poor woman filesharing 24 (mainly awful) songs. Jammie Thomas only makes $36,000 a year, and has two kids. Let's say she's filing as head of household, so she's paying 15% income tax. That leaves her with $30,600 a year. The poverty line in America currently for a family of three is $17,170 a year. Let's say that the RIAA is going to be charitable and give Jammie a few extra bucks in her pocket, just to keep afloat. Let's say they garnish her down to an even $20,000 a year in take-home pay. Paying them out $10,600 a year, Jammie Thomas will be done paying the RIAA in 21 years. Thomas' life will effectively be ruined, her kids won't be able to go to college, and all so fucking Destiny's Child can get paid for singing about "Bills, Bills, Bills." If you want to, though, you can help her out.
  
  
• Could we be watching the record industry choke on its own bile? Oh, how lovely that would be.