Shoddy Execution

According to a new study, execution drugs apparently sometimes do not work. To clarify that a bit, they do work, in that they do their job and kill the guy. It's fairly hard to botch that part. However, lethal injections are supposed to put down the inmate without causing pain. From the article:

Most states use three drugs — thiopental, an anesthetic; pancuronium bromide, a nerve blocker and muscle paralyzer; and potassium chloride, a drug to stop the heart. Each is supposed to be capable of killing all by itself, but if not, the anesthetic is supposed to render the inmate unconscious while the other drugs do the job. Even when administered properly, the three-drug lethal injection method appears to have caused some inmates to suffocate while they were conscious and unable to move, instead of having their hearts stopped while they were sedated, scientists said... The study concluded that the typical “one-size-fits-all” doses of anesthetic do not take into account an inmate’s weight and other key factors. Some inmates got too little, and in some cases, the anesthetic wore off before the execution was complete, the authors found.

I don't really see how any of this matters. Sure, it may hurt for a few minutes. In the grand scheme of things, inflicting any amount of pain is small potatoes compared to killing them. Some anti-death penalty advocates claim that this shows lethal injection violates the 8th amendment's ban of "cruel and unusual punishment". Again, I'm not too concerned. Personally, I think the lone act of sentencing someone to death is much more cruel than anything else you can do to him. In the Idiot, Dostoevsky explains it better than I could.

“It’s a good thing there’s not much suffering,” he observed, “when the head flies off.”

“You know what?” the prince picked up hotly. “You’ve just observed that, and everybody makes the same observation as you, and this machine, the guillotine, was invented for that. But a thought occurred to me then: what if it’s even worse? To you it seems ridiculous, to you it seems wild, but with some imagination even a thought like that can pop into your head. Think: if there’s torture, for instance, then there’s suffering, wounds, bodily pain, and it means that all that distracts you from inner torment, so that you only suffer from the wounds until you die. And yet the chief, the strongest pain may not be in the wounds, but in knowing for certain that in an hour, then in ten minutes, then in half a minute, then now, this second—you soul will fly out of your body and you’ll no longer be a man, and it’s for certain—the main thing is that it’s for certain...

...To kill for killing is an immeasurably greater punishment than the crime itself. To be killed by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than to be killed by robbers. A man killed by robbers, stabbed at night, in the forest or however, certainly still hopes he’ll be saved till the very last minute. There have been examples when a man’s throat has already been cut, and he still hopes, or flees, or pleads. But here all this last hope, which makes it ten times easier to die, is taken away for certain; here there’s the sentence, and the whole torment lies in the certainty that there’s no escape, and there’s no greater torment in the world than that.

The only real 'humane' form of capital punishment would be to have all death row inmates fight each other to the death in gladiator combat. There would at least be the possibility of survival, and as I have said before, death in combat is better than death strapped to a table.

I don't care about how humane the execution is. I don't care about the deterrence argument. There has been nothing close to conclusive evidence for either side. I don't care about the cost argument. This is not an issue I want decided based on fiscal management. I don't care about the racial discrimination argument. That may be an issue with the legal system as a whole, but it is irrelevant here. I don't care if the murder has reformed and started writing children's books or not. I don't care if he can heal my urinary tract infection by grabbing my penis. There is only one reason to kill a criminal: retribution. If a private citizen does this, we call this 1st degree murder (punishable by death, in some states). As long as someone is in prison, and is no longer a threat to others, then killing him is murder.

Murder is a federal crime. Therefore, I would have the DoJ prosecute anyone involved with any future executions. I don't need to bother with calling a moritoreum so we can do more research into the issue.

Hodgepodge Tuesday

No Tuesday, All Hodgepodge!!!

Happy Earthday

From the VD archives: originally written 22.4.06-

Here’s your first problem, hippies. You have a terrible choice of heroes. How can anyone take this “Earth Day” seriously, when the guy who started it was named Gaylord. I mean, really. Couldn’t you find somebody with a name that wasn’t quite so, ahem, unmanly. You’ve got to find someone with a name like Dick. Dick Steel. Yeah, that’s the stuff. I knew a guy named Dick Steel. He would go on and on about his 60’s hippy music. But if you saw the guy, you would instantly notice the enormous amount of hair in his ears and you would know that this was a manly man.

Now, while I do not condone your aversion to showering, or to employment, I do still think environmentalism is a worthwhile issue. So I’ll do all of you a favor. I’m starting a new day for environmentalism. It will be April 22 (22.4). It will be easy for you pinkos to remember because it's Lenin's Birthday. I will call it Earth Day. Hey, I want to make things easy for you. And when you tell people about it, they’ll say “Steve started it? Well, that sounds cool.”

My brand of environmentalism is a little different, though. I don’t view Earth as our mother, or as something we have to protect. I don’t say “no one owns the land.” I own the land. It’s mine. Why is it mine? Because I can shoot an eagle. And I can run over a squirrel with my car. And I can club a baby seal to death. I live here. It is my home. I own it, and I can do what I want with it.

But it’s pretty stupid to trash your home if you still need to live there. It’s okay to paint a few walls a different color, but you don’t want to burn a hole in the floor of the back porch. If you run out of toilet paper, you need to restock it, because no one else will. And if you break a window, you get it fixed, or it will get awfully cold in the winter. And even if you don’t plan on being there much longer, it would be good to leave behind a nice place for your kids to inherit.

Yes, other people can be inconsiderate. Many are jerks. Many more are just idiots. They may leave trash on your front lawn. They may steal your chairs, get drunk, and burn them. And more than likely they don’t really care. I’d like to tell these morons what I think of them, and beat the crap out of them if they don’t pick up after themselves. But this is my home, and I do care, so I will do what I can to keep it clean.

The rest of you, you need to start changing how you think of the Earth. You live here too. Start having some pride in your home.

Thoughts on Va Tech

I was going to write a post giving my thoughts on the Virginia Tech shootings. I had it all written up and ready to post, but I held off. I had seen all the knee-jerk reactions flying around by everyone else, and so I kept mine to myself.

And then, some other writers published what I was going to say. Since they beat me to it, I'll just link to them here - TIME- Don't rush to judgments, Washington Post- A Moment of Silence. Here is a video version by a "ranting swearing bastard". Following is my original post, nearly unedited. I apologize for the rather long post. As a college student, this incident has bothered me somewhat. It is interesting that we don't react the same way when we read the news of what is going on around the world, although this type of massacre is almost commonplace in some parts. That's a valid point, but it is a discussion for another time.

The need to blame someone following something like this is understandable, but it is way too early at this point to blame anyone other than the shooter (who has now been identified). Yes, it was possible for the police to have put the entire university on lockdown after the first shooting, but should they have? Double homicides, perhaps resulting from a domestic dispute, are not that unusual. Typically, the shooter leaves. Could the university sent out mass emails, put a post on all university home pages, sent out news flashes, stating that a murder took place and the killer is still on the loose? That probably should have been done. Some were quick to blame violent video games, even before the shooter had been identified. It appears they were completely unfounded, although they would have been wrong no matter what.

Perhaps the worst I’ve come across so far have been those who have blamed the victims themselves. Those who say the students in the classroom should have tried to take down the shooter, and were cowards not to have. 5 or 6 guys can take down one guy with a gun, right? Of course, at least one of them is going to get shot and probably killed in the process. Some have brought up the pack/herd debate. In a situation like this, the response is going to be to duck/run. Just try to stay alive. Given the choice, most people will take a possible future death over a likely immediate death. (There were enough Jews in Auschwitz, they could have overwhelmed the guards, right?) If you want to call that cowardice, fine. But it’s what I would probably do. Imagining that if you were there, you would have charged the shooter, risking your life to save others, is a great fantasy. But unless you’ve ever actually been in a situation like that, it’s just a fantasy, and there is no way to know how you would react. For all we know now, a half dozen guys might have tried to take the shooter down, and gotten killed in the process. We don’t know. And whatever happened, not only is it inaccurate, not to mention distasteful, it is completely unnecessary to blame those who were shot, or had to watch their classmates get shot.

It is inevitable that a situation like this will spark debates about safety at schools and colleges, and about gun control. It is unfortunate that it takes a tragedy to break us out of our complacency. However, this one incident should not be used to shape policy. I am almost certain that neither stricter gun control nor CCW laws would have prevented this. This was one isolated incident, completely unlike almost every other violent crime.

Would concealed carry have prevented the Va Tech shooting? Impossible to prove. How many students would have brought their guns with them to their 9 am class? How many of those would have reacted any different? Might extending concealed carry to all college campuses result in 30+ people being killed over a 10 or so year period through mishaps and drunken altercations? Certainly possible.

Would tougher gun control laws prevented Cho from buying his handguns? Probably. Would they have forced him into buying illegal automatic rifles? Possible. More likely, he would have gotten bomb instructions off the Internet (I assume they are there, I've never checked myself).

The debate on gun control is not going to be solved anytime soon. I'd rather keep the focus on effective ways to respond to the rare emergency. Cell alerts, emails, warning sirens, won't hurt. Some people actually do turn their cell phones off during class, so I'll pitch the idea of some sort of digital signs spread throughout campus to give news in emergencies. The main problem, though seems to be the time it takes to evaluate threats.

Guns don't kill people. People found ways to kill long before guns were around. Guns are a tool to make killing easier. That said, I don’t like the idea of solving gun violence by throwing more guns at it. I do think everyone should have a right to protect themselves. Firearms aren’t the only way to do so. I see no reason we can’t just use non-lethal weapons. Equip everyone with an air tazer. Give every teacher a gun with rubber bullets. Install vomit rays in every classroom and run tear gas through the sprinklers. There would be a slightly less chance of someone overreacting and killing someone unnecessarily. I even think people would be more likely to use non-lethal weapons, knowing that it wouldn’t kill the person they were trying to stop.

The bottom line is this. Every time you are in a public place, you are not safe. The only way a free society such as ours can operate is if people are given freedom and trusted not to abuse it. It would be incredibly easy to go into any building on campus tomorrow and kill much more than 30 people. Guns would be the most efficient weapon, but it could be done with others. Heck, you could probably get quite a few with your car driving around campus. The opportunity to kill others is always there. Shootings like this and worse could happen every single day, but they don't. Cho Seung-Hui was an aberration. Thankfully, whatever breakdown in reasoning caused the shootings at Virginia Tech, it is a rare enough occurrence that it shocks us.

I am also disappointed by the coverage given to Cho and his videos he made. NBC has shown them, others have posted them; I will not link to them here. I see no good reason to glorify a mass murderer, or to fulfill his wishes. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist and ABC News consultant, explains why we shouldn't watch it better than I could. It is understandable that our society has a fascination with murderers. Cho is destined to make the list of the most famous ones. Personally, I'd rather just accept that he had some problems and move on.

I'd Rather be Fishing

The NFL has asked Wisconsin offensive tackle Joe Thomas to come to New York for the NFL draft next month. Thomas is expected to be drafted as one of the top 5 picks, and the NFL likes to have the premier draft picks at the event.

Thomas' repy: see above title. Thomas said he'll spend the day fishing for salmon off the shores near Milwaukee with his dad. I'd say that's the right decision. The NFL draft is an enormously overrated, overhyped spectacle. It is not something that needs to be a three day long televised live event. I can get the same information in less than a minute by reading the news after it's over.

Shooting at Virginia Tech

Full story at CNN, any other news source.

32 now reported dead, plus shooter.

Sad stuff. No comment from me on this.

Fallout from Imus-gate

Don Imus is irrelevant. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are terrorists.

I recently posted a link to an article by Jason Whitlock about the Don Imus fiasco. Here he is calling out Jackson and Sharpton.

Ht to The Big Lead via Digg.

Yes, I wish I could go on these types of rants myself without coming across as racist. Yes, I am just propping up Whitlock as my little black puppet. Yes, he looks like a giant sea monster. But while I thought Whitlock was bad on PTI and I cannot agree with his support of Jeff George, I think he is speaking the truth here.

Children of Women

German scientists have announced that they have created immature sperm cells from human bone marrow samples. They took adult stem cells from within the bone marrow are differentiated them into spermatagonial cells - cells found in the testes which would normally develop into mature sperm cells. The procedure would allow both lesbian couples, and men who are sterile or have lost their marbles, to have children that are their genetic offspring. If this technique is successful, testicles would no longer be necessary for sperm production, and therefore reproduction. It would mean the extinction of the human male.

You probably think that last line was a joke. After all, even if men were to become unnecessary for reproduction, that doesn't mean that women would wipe us out, right? And they wouldn't intentionally. But it will happen.

Let's have some fun with Punnett squares and statistics. Normal reproduction between a female (XX) and a male (XY) creates females half the time and males half the time. Reproduction between two females (XX and XX) would only create females. The next generation would have slightly more females then men. Assuming that the rate of homosexuality is constant, a slightly higher concentration of females would mean a slightly higher concentration of lesbians and more female-female reproduction. Each generation would have a higher concentration of females and a lower concentration of males. If the human population ever reaches a limit, then the number of men would eventually drop to zero.

Sure, men could just keep having children until they had a son, ensuring that men won't die out. But that son could die before he had his own son, or he could be gay. Sure, we could develop a way to make eggs from male bone marrow, allowing two males to reproduce. But that would create female offspring a third of the time, and the scales would still tip to the women.

The only way to prevent men from being wiped out would be to allow heterosexual couples to choose sons over daughters, or to not allow people to choose their mates. Of course both of these policies are currently in limited use today, and would likely increase if this scenario ever plays out, so the survival of the Y chromosome is safe for now and my crazy prediction of men dying out likely won't happen. But to any women reading this (and I suppose there could be one or two): I hope you appreciate having us around now to kill bugs and open jars, because we may not be around forever.

Friday the 13

Today is Friday the 13, a day that some people don't like because they think it is unlucky. I would just like to point out that in the metric calendar, The 13th of every month is always on a Wednesday (although Wednesday and Friday have different names).

The I-man Goeth

Today CBS announced that Imus in the Morning will be canceled. MSNBC had dropped the TV simulcast yesterday. Here at Vote Dorshorst, we enjoy a challenge every once in a while. So today, I am going to defend Don Imus.

Last week, the following was said during his radio show:
Imus: That's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos,
McGurk: Some hardcore hos.
Imus: That’s some nappy headed hos there, I’m going to tell you that.

1. Imus (the I-man) has been singled out because he is an old white man, otherwise known as 'the man.' He is hardly the only person who has ever said 'nappy' or 'hos'. I do not believe that there would have been any reaction had any black entertainer said what he did. Like it or not, rap music has brought 'pimps' and 'hos' into mainstream usage.

2. A minor point: Imus' initial comment simply called them 'rough'. It was his producer McGurk who brought the word 'ho' into the discussion, effectively putting the word into Imus' mouth. Of course, this does not excuse him.

3. I'm pretty sure Imus was joking and was not seriously trying to convince anyone that the Rutgers women are prostitutes with dirty unwashed hair.

4. The remark has been labeled a racial slur, but it is not. It was a cultural slur. Granted, nappy headed is generally used only for blacks, but the discussion was not about them being black. I seriously doubt blacks being on a basketball team was any surprise to Imus. The discussion was about their appearance, specifically their tattoos. Imus was calling them thuggish and ghetto. I'm not saying that is any better, but that's what he meant.

The fact that many African Americans chose the inner-city thug life as their identity is a serious issue, but not one that can be blamed on Imus.

5. Al Sharpton does not speak for all blacks. He has never been elected ambassador of black America.

6. The Rutgers women's team needs to stop playing the victim. Now, while I'll defend Imus' right to say what he did, it was still derogatory. No woman should be referred to as a 'ho'. But there is no reason to get hung up on. As Imus said before he got pressured into kissing Sharpton's ass, people needed to relax about "some idiot comment meant to be amusing." The team made it to the championship game of the NCAA tournament; they should be celebrating that. If they don't want this issue to tarnish their season, as their coach has said, then they probably shouldn't be giving this the attention that they are.

Side note: if it weren't for Imus, no one would even know or care who won the women's championship game, much less who lost it.

7. Imus has since said that "you can't make fun of everybody, because some people don't deserve it." I disagree completely. Everyone is human, imperfect, subject to ridicule. Expecting to never hear a single negative comment from someone else is a pipe dream (sitting in a bar talking about how nice it would be isn't going to make it happen). Rather than banning free speech I would rather see people get over themselves and not get offended any time someone makes a disparaging remark. I hope someone now calls me ignorant, racist, or something similar so I can prove my point.

That all from me. Time has another look at the incident that I think is worth reading.

*Jason Whitlock has an article on this subject (HT to Erik at Hippie Perspective) that I completely support (although he is still no substitute for Wilbon on PTI).

*Phil Taylor from SI gives his take on how this should have been handled.

*Snoop Dogg tries to explain why he can be misogynist and Imus can't.

*And the last link. David Carr explains how the incident got to be the big deal it became.

Holy Week

Starting on Palm Sunday, including the Last Supper, Good Friday, and extending to Easter, Holy Week is the most important week of Christianity, the most popular religion in this country. Coincidentally (or not, if you believe that God controls all), there have been an unusually large number of religious themed articles lately. Too many for just one post here. So I will be doing a full on Holy Week series here.

I realize that many will consider much of what follows to be controversial. I don't think that is a bad thing. If you are unable to defend your faith to criticism, then you really shouldn't be following it.

Since I earlier linked to the recent South Park episode that questioned what rabbits and eggs have to do with Easter, I thought it was only fair to provide this.

The History Channel explains Easter. Don't forget, the History Channel is only 90% war. The other 10% is religion. You can make your own snide comment about that.

James Cameron, director of Titanic and Terminator, thinks he's found the tomb of Jesus, and his family.

New scientific evidence, including DNA analysis conducted at one of the world's foremost molecular genetics laboratories, as well as studies by leading scholars, suggests a 2,000-year-old Jerusalem tomb could have once held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.

In addition to the "Judah son of Jesus" inscription, which is written in Aramaic on one of the ossuaries, another limestone burial box is labeled in Aramaic with "Jesus Son of Joseph." Another bears the Hebrew inscription "Maria," a Latin version of "Miriam," or, in English, "Mary." Yet another ossuary inscription, written in Hebrew, reads "Matia," the original Hebrew word for "Matthew." Only one of the inscriptions is written in Greek. It reads, "Mariamene e Mara," which can be translated as, "Mary known as the master."

Now if this were true, it could be a bit of a letdown to Christians. Almost as big a letdown as this.

Pope Benedict XVI at the Easter Vigil in Rome.

His Urbi et Orbi Easter message.

Newsweek poll results:

91% of Americans believe in God.
82% are Christian.
3% consider themselves Atheists.

Are Humans Hard-Wired for Faith?
CNN article
Digg comments

This may be an explanation for why belief in God is so popular and why atheism is not, as I had asked earlier. It seems that religious thinking comes from specific pathways in the brain. It is possible that this means that religion is simply a result of our brain's configuration, that religious thinking was an evolutionary advantage that helped humans to "survive, adapt and evolve in groups over the ages,... to cope with death, identify danger and finding mating partners." It is also possible that God created humans and designed the brain specifically to understand his presence. Either way, this study definitely proves that without a doubt, God either does or does not exist.

A student has been suspended from school in America for coming to class dressed as a pirate.

But the disciplinary action has provoked controversy – because the student says that the ban violates his rights, as the pirate costume is part of his religion.

Bryan Killian says that he follows the Pastafarian religion, and that as a crucial part of his faith, he must wear 'full pirate regalia' as prescribed in the holy texts of Pastafarianism.

The school, however, say that his pirate garb was disruptive.

Pastafarians follow the Flying Spaghetti Monster (pictured), and believe that the world was created by the touch of his noodly appendage. Furthermore, they acknowledge pirates as being 'absolute divine beings', and stress that the worldwide decline in the number of pirates has directly led to global warming.

The school, in North Buncombe, North Carolina, remains adamant that their decision to suspend Killian for a day has nothing to do with his religion, and quite a lot to do with his repeated refusal to heed warnings against wearing pirate outfits.

Full article on Metro.co.uk

Can a scientist believe in God?


Why are Geeks often Atheists?

Einstein and Faith
excerpts from an article in Time Magazine
giving excerpts from a new biography by Walter Isaacson

Who says you can't believe in God if you are intelligent?

"Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious."

"I'm not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws."

"The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."

"I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

"The fanatical atheists,are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who--in their grudge against traditional religion as the 'opium of the masses'-- cannot hear the music of the spheres."

"Science can be created only by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

"Human beings in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free but are as causally bound as the stars in their motions. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, 'A man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills,' has been a real inspiration to me since my youth; it has been a continual consolation in the face of life's hardships, my own and others', and an unfailing wellspring of tolerance."

"I am compelled to act as if free will existed,because if I wish to live in a civilized society I must act responsibly. I know that philosophically a murderer is not responsible for his crime, but I prefer not to take tea with him."

Does God Exist? (HT to OotM)

That was the question debated by atheist Sam Harris and Christian pastor Rick Warren in this weeks Newsweek.

Warren's main argument: [His] God exists. There can be no morality without God. Altruism comes out of knowing there is more than this life, that there is a sovereign God, that I am not God.

Harris's main argument: Christians don't believe in Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Greek mythology, Norse mythology, Raelism, Heaven's Gate... Atheists just don't see any more validity in Christianity. ...we're all atheists with respect to Zeus and the thousands of other dead gods whom now nobody worships.

I was disappointed that Harris, who had a good rational argument for every other question, dodged the question about why atheism is unappealing. For me, this is the only question that matters. If atheism is so simple, and transparent, and logical, why are only three percent of Americans atheists? I've always thought it obvious that fear of death is what makes religion so appealing. I've noticed that atheists don't get as excited talking about death as they do talking about evolution.

I did still think that Harris had the better argument. Of course, Warren does not speak for all Christians, much less all religious (there are other religions out there that think that they, too are the only correct religion). In a follow up provided by Newsweek, Rabbi Marc Gellman picks up where Warren dropped the ball.

Gellman's main argument: Science cannot explain everything. There can be no morality without God. Sam's response to the mystery of meaning is to try to hold onto the absolute moral judgments born of Rick's and my faith while not allowing the God who both birthed and sustained that moral truth.

The issue of morality seems to be a common argument. I think the rebuttal to that is this article in the NY Times on primate morality. Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days.

Roland Martin asks "What would Jesus Really Do?" The points raised in this article will be discussed tonight at 7 pm CST on CNN. His basic point is that Christians (specifically the religious right) are too focused on abortion and homosexuality and that Christianity should be more focused on issues like poverty, homelessness, divorce, global warming.

"As we celebrate Holy Week, our focus is on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But aren't we also to recommit ourselves to live more like Jesus? Did Jesus spend his time focusing on all that he didn't like, or did Jesus raise the consciousness of the people to understand love, compassion and teach them about following the will of God?"

I thought this weeks South Park episode explored this idea nicely (specifically William Donohue, of the Catholic League, although it was a bit over the top, as usual. I definitely recommend watching it. Viacom, which owns Comedy Central has been pretty effective at keeping South Park clips off YouTube, but this link to the end of the show should still work. Clips also available on Comedy Central's site.

I'm going to make an extra effort with this to give all sides on these issues, so here is Donohue's response.

“I have no idea why ‘South Park’ creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker caricature me as a heartless thug. In any event, I stand convicted and have no defense. Now I have to get back to business—I hear someone just took some liberties with the Easter Bunny.”

April Fools!

Tommy Thompson to seek Republican Nomination.

I know that the team that wins the NIT is the best team not good enough to make the NCAA tournament. Still, they deserve a bit more respect than this.