Tea Parties

The Tea Party Protests are stupid. There I’ve said it. It’s short, sweet and to the point.

I’m not saying that people are wrong to be unhappy with the amount of taxes they pay. And I’m not saying that people don’t have a right to protest. But teabags? Just plain dumb.

Remember that the reason for the Boston Tea Party was to protest a TAX on TEA. The colonists were dumping tea into the harbor causing economic damage and refusing to allow anyone to pay a tax they felt was unfair. They were destroying the offensive product.  How do these tea parties to day do any of that? If you don’t like paying taxes, then don’t. Go outside and burn a tax return. Or determine how much of your tax bill goes towards spending you disapprove of and deduct that from your return, don’t pay it and then go publicly announce what you’ve done.

If you want to protest unfair taxes, TAKE A RISK. The protesters in the Boston Tea Party did, and Henry David Thoreau did when he refused to pay taxes to support a war he opposed. Your tea bags mean nothing today.

Why I Love Stephen Colbert

Stephen gets emotional about Obama's inauguration.

You can watch the clip if you want, but really–this picture says it all.

I have been wondering, though, how Stephen is going to fare with the new Obama administration. It’s one thing to mock support someone, but to mock oppose someone seems to me like it will be a much greater challenge. So far we’re two days in and it’s been pretty good!  Keep up the good work!

Inaugural annoyances

There will be thousands of blogs and opinion pieces analyzing Barack Obama’s Inauguration, so I won’t take time doing that here. I just want to point my own little observations.

1. President Obama said “Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath.” While he is the 44th President, only 43 have taken the oath. Grover Cleveland took it twice (22nd and 24th president). Did Pres. Obama overlook this, did he not know, or did he just think Americans would be too confused if he said “43″ since he is #44?  

2. As part of ABC’s coverage, they occasionally panned the crowd. Only once did they label a person they showed: Caroline Kennedy. They did not however label Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who is not only a congressman, but was also a prominent Civil Rights Activist.  I find that not only annoying but an insult to Rep. Lewis. Who else did the cameras focus on that didn’t get identified for us?

3. Really Chief Justice Roberts? You couldn’t write the Oath of Office down? That was a ridiculous spectacle.

I realize that in the grand scheme of things, these aren’t big deals really, but still…

Illinois – Laughingstock

Dear Illinois House Impeachment Committee,

Nice work. Your inaction over the last month has allowed your state to become, in the words of Illinois Representative Mary Flowers, “the laughingstock of the country.”  Now, she wasn’t calling you that because you failed to act appropriately in the last month. She claims that Gov. Blagojevich is the cause.  She’s wrong.

You are all supposed to be leaders, and hopefully make wise decisions. How is it possible that the Illinois House, after meeting in December to discuss impeachment, thought the right thing to do was to delay that action. Who among you seriously thought that Blagojevich would resign? He took no action at any time that indicated he would relinguish his office. This was where you were supposed to step in and fulfill your role. Instead, you decided to take your holiday break.

I’ll admit, that most of the country was generally stunned that Blagojevich appointed someone to fill Obama’s Senate seat, and possibly surprised that anyone would accept the appointment, but guess what?