Too Much Leisure, Not Enough Gas

As strange as this story is, you have to understand one thing--there is no such thing as common sense when you live in Maryland. It's like Florida with most of the heat and almost none of the birds.

Yesterday, I watched a man use a gas can to put gas in the car that he had left in the turning lane of an intersection. When he was done putting gas in his car, he drove off, leaving the gas can in the middle of the road.

Rihanna is Going After Topshop

This is not just about money or a street vendor selling a few knockoffs. This is a major retailer in Great Britain that is, essentially, telling an artist to go to hell.

The copyright laws that allow this practice are out of date. I think Rihanna should be celebrated for going after this company based on the need to win some sort of control for artists. You could make the case that there are no winners here and that everyone is being greedy. Rihanna has spent a lot of her own money doing this; if it were to benefit a struggling artist in the future, then it would definitely be worth it.

The Democrats That Were Denied Tax Exempt Status by the IRS

Meet the group the IRS actually denied: Democrats!

Joan Walsh talks about another aspect of the IRS scandal that should be played up considerably. This is a manufactured scandal and the Obama Administration should have defended itself better.

The Republican/Tea Party line of consensus comes down to one simple thing: OMG! They Made Me Fill Out Forms After I Got Caught Not Paying My Taxes!

This is true--a Republican Tea Party group, which rakes in $100,000 a year, was granted tax exempt status AFTER it paid $43,000 in unpaid taxes and fines. The main complaint? The woman running the group HAD TO FILL OUT SOME FORMS!

We are well and truly fucked as a country.

Holder Responds to Congressman Issa

Holder scolds Issa for ’shameful’ demeanor

Another day, another opportunity for the Republican Party to be held accountable for politicizing the oversight and compliance process.

Yeah, I don't see that happening, either.

"Race is a Social Construct"

Ta-Nehesi Coates for the win: 

[...] Most of the honest writing I've seen on "race and intelligence" focuses on critiquing the idea of "intelligence." So there's lot of good literature on whether it can be measured, its relevance in modern society, whether intelligence changes across generations, whether it changes with environment, and what we mean when we say IQ. As Freddie mentions here, I had a mathematician stop past to tell me I needed to stop studying French, and immediately start studying statistics -- otherwise I can't possibly understand this debate.

It's a fair critique. My response is that he should stop studying math and start studying history.

I am not being flip or coy. If you tell me that you plan to study "race and intelligence" then it is only fair that I ask you, "What do you mean by race?" It's true I don't always do math so well, but I understand the need to define the terms of your study. If you're a math guy, perhaps your instinct is to point out the problems in the interpretation of the data. My instinct is to point out that your entire experiment proceeds from a basic flaw -- no coherent, fixed definition of race actually exists.

There is no such thing as race. There is such a thing as the need for one tribe to dominate another tribe. That's not science. That's human behavior, and it is no different than using a shin bone to crush another person's skull in order to take away his watering hole. 

Race scientists and scholars are wrong about everything but they refuse to accept one of the most basic foundations of human biology. We are a species.