When Rush Limbaugh apologized to Sandra Fluke after calling her a ‘slut’ for daring to argue that the government should force health insurance plans to include medicinally beneficial birth control pills in their plans, I thought this was a good thing.  If there’s one thing I’m much in favor of, it’s civility in the political discourse. Rush was uncivil in his comments, period. And unlike what some of my conservative friends believe, I don’t think apologizing for a mistake like that makes you weak. I actually think it shows that Rush isn’t a coward; instead, he mans up to his mistake. This is how things are handled in the real world. You make a mistake, you apologize for it, and that’s the end of it.

Well, that should have been the end of it. Instead, Ms. Fluke rejected the apology, saying it only came after advertisers started pulling support. Fine, that’s her prerogative.| MORE ›

It’s a fairly common saying, at least in the Western world, that when you try to prohibit an activity on moral grounds ,the people will find a way to do it, anyway. This is usually made in reference to our current legal prohibitions on drinking for young people ages 18 to 21 and our legal (for pre-18s) and social (for 18 and above) prohibitions on casual sex. They don’t work.| MORE ›

Sometimes, it’s nice to be proven wrong, if only in part. Last week, I spent a lot of time writing about the TSA and other organizations like Homeland Security. I argued that we are seeing more and more security-state policies everyday, and that we risk slipping from security-state to police-state.| MORE ›

All of us armchair pundits can sit here and say what we like. Then someone like Zach Wals stands up and tells us how it really is.

This was originally going to be a longer post, but I need to collect my thoughts. So stay tuned for more later.

I’m geeking out over both the message AND the great video production (’cause it’s what I do in real life). It’s a short but powerful message:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqWd46O64zU[/youtube]

Michael Bloomberg thinks he knows best. Today New York City became the latest city to enact a ban on smoking in all parks, beaches, and Times Square.

As an asthmatic, this is something of a muted celebration. The asthmatic part of me is happy my next trip to Times Square will be with slightly cleaner air. The Crohn’s patient part of me is also happy that a irritant of my condition is now banned from Times Square.| MORE ›

In my last post, I shared a video by a young man named Zach Wals, who explained why he thought treating gay couples differently than straight couples was discrimination. He used his own experience as the child of a gay couple to highlight that he was not so different than other people.| MORE ›

TrogloPundit wrote an intriguing post over at Right Wing News about unions, collective bargaining and employees’ ability (or right) to individually negotiate with employers. The gist of the matter is this:| MORE ›

In my last post, I incorrectly described the California Senate race as shaping between Boxer and Fiorina. Because — mostly — my attention has been off the race, I had the wrong impression of what was going on. Fiorina still has a primary challenge and a tough campaign to mount against her competition if she’s to win. Tom Campbell, her main opponent, has consistently polled ahead of her.| MORE ›