That's right, you're not from Texas.

Chicago Tribune: Old South racism lives in Texas town
"They picked up Billy Ray Johnson outside a convenience store in this East Texas bayou town, a place where Confederate flags fly in some front yards and a mural of barefoot slaves picking cotton greets patrons inside the local post office.

On a cool September night in 2003, they drove the 42-year-old mentally retarded black man to a cow pasture where a crowd of white youths was having a party. They got Johnson drunk, they made him dance, they jeered at him with racial epithets.

Then, according to court testimony, one of Johnson's assailants punched him in the face, knocking him out cold. They tossed his unconscious body into the back of a pickup and dumped him by the side of a dirt road, on top of a mound of stinging fire ants."

You're not gonna believe the sentence those good-old boys got. (click the link, read the article.)

Addendum: I'm told you have to register with the Tribune to see the article. Sorry about that; I must have done that a while ago and forgotten. The bottom line is, the 'boys' got off, it was decided, since the victim was retarded, not just black, that the Feds couldn't come after them with civil rights charges and the local town folk, interrupted during their banjo lessons, don't understand what the fuss is about.

Mark Felt; Hero

Ken Duberstein was a Reagan Chief of Staff and currently runs (we must assume) a conservative leaning Washington lobbying firm.

The Huffington Post: "Duberstein said that, in reading all the media reports of the last few days, he put himself back in his shoes as White House chief of staff. He thought, with the information Felt had in front of him, 'What options did he have?' 'He couldn't go to the White House Chief of Staff (Haldeman or Ehrlichman); he couldn't go to the Justice Department (John Mitchell); he couldn't go to the White House Counsel (John Dean). He did something responsible. The congressional committees hadn't been formed yet. What do you do? Felt put America first.'"

In case you are new to Watergate, all of the President's men mentioned in that paragraph went to prison for their various Watergate related deeds.

I don't watch news on TV (unless there is a natural disaster to learn up on), so this is second hand, but apparently the Nixon apologists are hard at Mark Felt, accusing him of traitorous behavior. Wait, I found a link.

It is just incredible.

He kind of looks like Hal Holbrook

via New Media Musings: "The Washington Post today confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a former number-two official at the FBI, was 'Deep Throat,' the secretive source who provided information that helped unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s and contributed to the resignation of president Richard M. Nixon."

As someone who, as a teenager, watched the hearings and followed Watergate fairly closely, this is huge.

Mao, Hitler, Kinsey and Betty Friedan went into a bar....

Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries: "HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Each panelist nominated a number of titles and then voted on a ballot including all books nominated. A title received a score of 10 points for being listed No. 1 by one of our panelists, 9 points for being listed No. 2, etc. Appropriately, The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, earned the highest aggregate score and the No. 1 listing."

That's right kids. Hitler and the guy who designed the foundations of the modern public school system are in the same category.

Uncle Sam Needs You.

Roger Ebert takes a few questions:
Q. I greatly enjoy your reviews and the thoughtful observations they contain. However, I get a little worried about the strength of your argument in your review of "Unleashed," when you make the case for women being able to stir a man's humanity by using Ann Coulter as your example. That is the same person who claimed women should bear arms but not be able to vote. - C. Perla, Miami

A. Wouldn't you sleep more soundly at night knowing Ann Coulter was in the Army and not in a voting booth?