3395 Get the anger out, have some ice cream

Monday, November 14, 2011

To know what you don't know is the legacy of progress.
-- Howard Streicher --

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Pulled from comments here: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/11/11/jon-stewart-makes-a-point/

According to the grand jury, then, here is how McQueary’s eyewitness account became watered down at each stage:

McQueary: anal rape.
Paterno: something of a sexual nature.
Schultz: inappropriately grabbing of the young boy’s genitals.
Curley: inappropriate conduct or horsing around.
Spanier: conduct that made someone uncomfortable.
Raykovitz: a ban on bringing kids to the locker room.

Yeah, things get watered down. And

Nice article over at Scientific American talking about why the Penn State students behaved the way they did…mind you not a justification…just a good description of group membership.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=penn-state-students-rioted-defied-joe-paterno

The link is a good explanation of what I was talking about, where people will sacrifice individuals for the good of the group.

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I'm not sure, but it appears that in some parts of the country (here, for example) "60 Minutes" was only 30 minutes long last night. The missing chunk was a report on how members of Congress are allowed to trade on insider information - something that can get ordinary people 20 years in prison! Do you think it's ok that congressmen working on regulations that will affect a particular industry should be able to buy or sell stock in that industry just before the regulations go into effect? Or that they can buy up land around a to-be-announced government project? Ever wonder why politicians enter office sorta wealthy, and leave office multimillionaires? The pay isn't all that great, you know.

I wonder why 60 minutes skipped that story on the east coast, but played it in later time zones. Nah, it wasn't a late-running game. "60 Minutes" always runs late here when there's a game. "The Amazing Race" is often late because of that.

There's an excellent article on the issue at http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323527/congress-trading-stock-on-inside-information/?tag=pop;stories. This one you REALLY have to read. Remember when the market crashed? Heh. Didn't affect them....

This was an "exception" I hadn't known about; I'd always assumed that members of Congress had to keep investments in blind trusts, and were not allowed to influence the trustees.

Not so.

It really pisses me off. It isn't just insider trading. They make laws that affect all of us, but they exempt themselves from those laws.

I WANT TERM LIMITS! I want congress to have the same medical insurance options the rest of us have. I want them to have to travel the same way we have to. I want them to have retirement plans comparable to the rest of us. I WANT THE RULES TO APPLY TO THEM, TOO! ALL the rules! Every damn one of them with no special privileges or exceptions!
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