When police attack

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This story in the Washington Post made me sick. In it, you'll hear the story of how the police delivered a box of marijuana to the doorstep of a town mayor, waited for it to be taken inside, and then smashed in his doors, shot his dogs, and held his mother-in-law on the floor with a gun against her head. A sting operation against a suspected drug dealer? No. A drug-sniffing dog found a package at Fed Ex that was addressed to the mayor's wife containing pot. Was she a pot dealer? No. Her Fed Ex driver was. If this can happen to a town mayor, and he doesn't even receive an apology for it, what can happen to you and me?

R.I.P. H.M.

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I heard on the radio today about the death of H.M., a man I first learned about in Psych 101 in college. His tale is fascinating and tragic, after having part of his brain removed in surgery, he was left unable to form new memories, and left behind in time, remembering nothing new since 1953. It's hard to fathom what that would be like, and he was subjected to endless tests which greatly increased knowledge of how our memory works. Of course, for him, each test was new, as he had no memory of any prior tests, so, in a way, his curse also benefited him in a situation most of us would have found intolerable.

Constitutionally Impaired

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I know she got her degree in Sports Journalism, and not Political Science, but Sarah Palin continues to display a grasp of the Constitution that absolutely perplexes me. Today's quote from her (which I saw at Andrew Sullivan's blog) just makes my head hurt.

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

The First Amendment, as well as all other Amendments, protect you from the GOVERNMENT, not from the media, not from corporations, and not from me, Seth the Blogger. In fact, the First Amendment guarantees me the right to call you, Sarah Palin, a fourth-class intellect that makes Dan Quayle look like William F. Buckley by comparison. Now I'm no great constitutional scholar, but I did pretty well in Political Science 320, aka Constitutional Law.

Personally, I gave her a pass on her "gaffe" that she said the Vice President is in charge of the U.S. Senate. While not, erm, true, you can legitimately argue that "presiding" over something rather sounds like you are in charge of it, and I don't see any reason to latch on to that as evidence of Constitutional ignorance.

However, this is a different matter. Even if she was, tragically, elected to office, how could she swear to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution when she seems to not even understand the very principles she'd be taking an oath to uphold? She seems to think that the First Amendment means you can say whatever crazy shit you want, and if (a non-governmental) someone points out that reality (which has a well-known liberal bias) differs with your batshit-crazy-conspiracy-theory-of-the-day regarding your opponent, then they are not, in fact, exercising their rights to free speech, but somehow infringing upon your own.