Sometimes, when I read what professional athletes have to say, my suspicions are confirmed that their focus on athletic excellence was obtained at the expense of intellectual and emotional development. Confirmation of this comes via Roddy White of the Atlanta Falcons, whose bizarre answer to a Twitter question set him up for an increasingly ludicrous series of Twitter exchanges. The exchange may prove that Roddy White has an animus against gay people, but it is difficult to be sure, given the inarticulate nature of much of the exchanges. However, the track record of NFL players opening their mouths about social issues is not a good one (see Shockey, Jeremy and White, Reggie) - their utterances tend to perpetuate the image of a sport populated largely by bigots and/or macho jerks. Roddy needs to understand that freedom of speech confers with it the right to say what you like, but it also confers the right for you to end up looking and reading like an inarticulate ass.
GOP Representative, after proving that he is batshit insane, doubles down on the stupid, and further proves that he is not only batshit insane, he is also an idiot. If you were logical (like I tend to be) you would think that if you were a politician whose idea of useful contribution to political debate was to channel the ghost of Sen. Joe McCarthy by accusing every member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus of being a communist, which was greeted with a mixture of hilarity and contempt, it might be a good idea for you remember the old saying that it is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, rather than open it and remove all doubt. However, if your name is Rep. Allen West, none of that commonsensical stuff applies.
Updated data from the 2010 Census in Mother Jones today about the tendency for states that are the least progressive and most authoritarian (Translation: reliably republican) to also be the states taking more money from the Federal Government than they pay in. Note that one of the states that authoritarian regressives like to whine about the most, California, is still a net contributor to the Federal Government. Suggestions have been made elsewhere that this analysis should be broken down by county in addition to state. This Reason article from 2011 analyzed this paradox, with limited success; as the comment section shows, a lot of people engaged in rationalizations based on confirmation bias, and some occasionally bizarre hypothesizing on root causes.
Ed Brayton, in his usual pointed way, eviscerates the bloviating hypocrisy of opponents of President Obama's comments on the Supreme Court consideration of the Affordable Care Act (NOTE to lazy sloganeers - that is the right name for the legislation). As he notes, authoritarian ratchet-jaws in the GOP have been whining about "judicial activism" for decades. As a commenter points out in the blog posting, it is kind of difficult to intimidate 9 people who have lifetime appointments, although given that Pakistan is in the process of banning US drone usage over Pakistan, another commenter who suggested that the POTUS could use the drones on the Supreme Court made me laught out loud (NOTE to irony-impared readers: that last coment was a recording of a humorous reaction, not an endorsement of an idea).
The inventors of the "Girls Around Me" App, recently pulled from the iPhone store after complaints that it could enable stalkers, appear to have not thought much through beyond the original idea, to judge by this news article.