Everyone knows Miley Cyrus. Even if you don’t listen to her music, the MileyGate photos surely got you.

Anyway, the past few weeks I kept hearing this song on the radio, Shake It, and had no idea who sang it. And at first, it was mildly annoying. OK, a lot annoying. But I kept hearing it. And it grew on me. Every time I heard it, it would be stuck in my head for hours. And then I discovered that it was Miley’s brother’s band, Metro Station (Trace Cyrus is the really skinny guy with all the tattoos).

I don’t know if this band will ever be anything but a one-hit wonder, but oh well. This song is infectious and will probably drive the little wanna-be punk/EMO teenage girls crazy, so don’t expect it to go away any time soon. I’m mildly ashamed to admit that I finally gave in, and have admitted to myself that yes, I actually like this song. This is one of those songs that you’ll sing along to in your car but never, EVER admit to your friends that you like. It’s one of those songs where you’ll be humming it accidentally and then get all kinds of crap from your friends because you like it (kind of like admitting that you liked the Backstreet Boys in middle school).

So, here’s the music video. I’m posting it here for no reason at all really, but it’s Sunday and I’m coming out of the teenage girl EMO closet and admitting that I like it. Real blogging to resume shortly.

I guess we really should be celebrating Barack Obama’s pick of Joe Biden for VP. It was a not-too-bright decision on his part, but hey, it works for me. The Obamamessiah and Mr. Gaffetastic will give us lots of fun soundbites over the next few months. I mean, come on — Obama already introduced Biden as “the next President - Vice President - of the United States… “. But hey, today we’re going to have fun with Joe Biden instead.

Check out this video where Biden was talking about AIDS:

I think the money shot was the look on Al Sharpton’s face. It made me laugh. A lot.

Joe Biden is just going to be so much fun. Ace does the best job of summing up just who Biden is:

Joe Biden is a scatterbrained and socially awkward guy. He’s the guy at the party who announces, out of nowhere, “I just had some subcutaneous fat injected into my penis to increase its girth, so that’s pretty good.”

And then… the uncomfortable silence as everyone takes keen regard of their shoes and watches.

Oh, man… we’re gonna have a lot of fun over the next few months.

Hat Tip: Ace of Spades

… we’ve got Obama’s Presidential seal, volume two. It’s under images:

Did he not learn the last time? Did the selection of Joe Biden just heap more arrogance into the campaign? Or does he simply still feel like the Presidency is an inevitability for him?

Then again, the normal rules about controlling your ego and arrogance don’t apply to the Obamamessiah. He’s a savior and all, so I guess he can create his own seal. As rdbrewer commented at Ace of Spades,

Oh, look, the seal of the United States of Heaven.

That’s right. Bow down to your Savior, and submit to the will of the Audacity Twins!

Hat Tip: Alice H at Ace of Spades

There was a shooting at a school in Tennessee, where a 15-year-old freshman walked calmly up to another student, and shot him in the chest. He then walked away. This is a horrible tragedy, obviously, but a blogger, Katie Allison Granju (never heard of her until now) has figured out why this happened. It’s because teenage boys are stupid!

Teenage boys are idiots. And today’s American teenage boys - whom our culture holds in a sort of manchild limbo long past the age they need to be doing some sort of hard work and earning their keep - are even bigger idiots.

By the time a male is about 16 years old, he has the body of an adult male, an adult male with a brain under assault by a dramatic rush of hormones the likes of which he’ll never again see during any other period of his lifetime. Teenage boys are more impulsive and aggressive than any other group. WItness their penchant for crashing cars, diving headfirst into rock quarries, experimenting with drugs, and deciding to “play chicken” by draping themselves across dark country roads in an attempt to prove something to their similarly stupid peers.They are driven by sexual curiosity to the point of insanity, and they hold a misguided sense of immortality.

Yes, I’m generalizing. Many teenage boys are polite, respectful, accomplished individuals, but those of them who are are pulling this off are doing so by fighting the natural impulses to be idiots that threaten to overtake them every day.

There is, perhaps, no other single group in American life less suited to have access to handguns than teenage boys. Which leads me to the primary question I have yet to see answered regarding yesterday’s tragic shooting at Central High School. Where did the boy get that gun? I want to know the provenance of that gun, and if evidence is found that any adult knowingly or very negligently allowed that kid to get his hands on that gun, that adult deserves to be sitting behind bars this morning along with the boy who fired the shot.

Teenage boys are stupid.

So are the adults who allow them to get their hands on guns.

I’ll admit it, I pretty much wanted to smack this blogger. Hard.

These kinds of people — mostly women — bother the hell out of me. OMIGOD! Teenage boys are, like, SO stupid! They’re irresponsible! They’re reckless! YEARRGHH!

Can the people who come up with this crap, just once, come up with an original thought? Please?

Yes, teenage boys tend to be more of the daredevil type. Yes, they do stupid things sometimes and take stupid risks. They also tend to be exceedingly loyal and I’ve found them to be rather considerate and great friends. Unlike teenage girls, may I point out.

I had many more guy friends in high school than girl friends. Part of this was because I participated in a male-dominated sport (crew), but another part of it was that I wasn’t interested in having a lot of girlfriends. I had a few, but by and large I didn’t get along with a lot of girls. Why? Because girls are vicious, jealous, backstabbing bitches in high school. They’re two-faced and evil and mean. Hell hath no fury like a teenage girl. Teenage boys, at least, stick with their friends through and through. Even when they get into a fight, they’ll duke it out and then ten minutes later, be best friends again. So simple. So uncomplicated. No three hour conversations about who screwed who over first or why such-and-such’s boyfriend was MY boyfriend first and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Piss off a teenage girl and it’s never a ten minute fight. She won’t try to kick your ass, but she will try to ruin your life. She will poison every well, spread as many rumors as possible, and in general try to make your life as miserable as possible. I don’t care if saying this pisses people off, because it’s the truth. Sure, there are exceptions, but teenage girls simply tend to be not very nice people.

Let me give you an example of how vicious girls can be. I was going to play in my high school’s annual Powderpuff football game. Every year, it’s the junior girls vs. the senior girls, and every year the seniors win. Well, my senior year rolled around and the junior girls were making a lot of noise about how the game had been fixed all this time, and this year they were finally going to win. It got the entire school talking. So, in our next senior girls planning meeting, what was decided? That the juniors needed to be taught a lesson. A pot was passed around, and everyone was asked to throw in money. The senior girl who drew the most blood from the juniors would win the entire pot.

I promptly quit.

Teenage guys, while reckless and daring, are by far less cruel than girls are.

My brother is a good example for this. He was definitely one of the stupider kids on the block when it came to doing dumb shit. You could dare him to do anything, and he would. He had scars all over his body from getting hurt, but usually after he got hurt he’d just pop back up and do it again. He did a lot of BMX in high school, was pretty good at it, and even built his own ramps in a sandlot behind a church for him and his friends. They were constantly falling down, breaking bones, bleeding, bruising, and in general hurting themselves. But they were boys. And that’s how boys are.

Although, I will say, I didn’t know of a whole lot of diving headfirst into rock quarries. That one, I think, must be some kind of phenomenon that only happens to teenage boys the author knows, because I sure as hell have never heard of it.

Anyway, my brother was also one of the sweetest, kindest people you ever could meet. He treated his girlfriend, Becky, like a princess. He was one of the most loyal people I ever knew. And he volunteered every summer at Camp I Am Special, a summer camp for disabled children, even taking a lifeguard position there so he could spend more time with the kids there. He had a big heart. And he wasn’t an anomaly.

Of course, according to Ms. Boys Are Stupid over there, that meant he was fighting the natural impulse all boys have to be stupid tooth and nail. I guess according to her, teenager boys are idiotic creatures with very few things running through their pathetic little minds (sex, drugs, and do dumb shit). I really, really hope this woman doesn’t have any male offspring. How would she explain this to them when they become teenagers?

And of course, there’s the whole “access to guns” schtick thrown in there, too. Because, you know, once the gun was put into this reckless and stupid boy’s hands, he suddenly was a man possessed and completely not in control of his actions. If only he hadn’t have had access to a gun, he never would’ve had the will to murder.

Christ almighty. Why is it that liberals are so anxious to blame the gun? Or society? Or anything beyond the sick individual who pulled the trigger? That gun did not cause the murder of an innocent teenger, a sick twisted screw-up of a human being did. But oh, no. Teenage boys must never, EVER have access to guns because if they did, they’d all go on murderous rampages!

Of course, I guess giving them access to guns in a safe environment, under strict supervision, where they can learn to use them properly and respect the danger of weapons would just be terrible. TERRIBLE. It’s far better to just keep them away from them altogether.

I mean, seriously — no one wants teenagers to have unlimited access to guns. That’s why you have to be over a certain age to buy a gun. That’s why there are regulations as to who can own a gun. I don’t disagree with that. But, you know, it’s pretty ridiculous to say that parents shouldn’t allow their kids to touch a gun with a ten-foot-pole is a good idea.

Let’s just call this tragedy what it really is. Some asshole had problems with an innocent kid, and because he’s twisted in the head, he murdered him. It’s not the gun’s fault. And it isn’t yet another example of how stupid teenage boys are. Sure, teenage boys act like idiots sometimes, but everyone does. It doesn’t mean they are idiots. Saying that teenage boys who are polite, decent, courteous, kind, and caring people are abnormal and weird is rude and wrong. Very, very wrong.

But this kind of hyperbole from women is accepted now, isn’t it? It’s OK for women to bash men left and right. It’s OK for women to talk about how horrible the male gender is. Not enough women stand up and say how wrong it is, and not enough men defend themselves. Too many of us, male and female, let this kind of thing just happen without complaint. Well, not me. I won’t just sit there and let these women think they’re speaking in my name.

Yes, there are some teenage boys who do awful things like this. There are also some teenage girls who do terrible things (remember the YouTube fighting incident?). And hey, guess what? There are adult men and women who do terrible things. Whaddya know? There are crappy people in the world. Saying it’s normal for a certain demographic is wrong and offensive. These kinds of people are in the minority, regardless of their age or gender. To say otherwise, as this idiot blogger did, is wrong and irresponsible at the absolute least. But of course, you’re allowed to put down boys and men. Substitute “teenage boys” with “girls”, “blacks”, “gays”, “muslims”, or any other minority, and the backlash would be unbelievable. She’d be fired, no doubt about it. And it’d be just as wrong as her thesis that all teenage boys are stupid is.

How much longer will we tolerate hateful women like this one putting down boys and men? It isn’t OK. It has an impact. And it needs to stop. We should be just as offended. We should be just as outraged. There’s no place for this kind of thing in our society today, and we shouldn’t let this happen anymore. Unfortunately, we just sit there and meekly take it. Ladies, these are your husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers that are being slandered. We need to let our voices be louder than those of the screeching hate harpies.

But hey, this author need not fear. If Maureen Dowd ever retires, there’s surely a position open for her at the New York Times.

Hat Tip: InstaPundit

The non-news story of the day: Barack Obama has selected Joe Biden to be his running mate. Yawn.

Sen. Barack Obama has selected Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate, according to his official Web site and a text message the campaign sent to supporters on Saturday.

“Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee,” the text message, sent at around 3 a.m. ET, said.

“Joe and I will appear for the first time as running mates this afternoon in Springfield, Illinois — the same place this campaign began more than 19 months ago,” Obama said in an e-mail sent to supporters Saturday morning.

“I’m excited about hitting the campaign trail with Joe, but the two of us can’t do this alone,” he wrote. ” We need your help to keep building this movement for change.”

Before the text messages were distributed, multiple Democratic sources confirmed to CNN early Saturday that Obama wanted the Delaware senator as his vice president.

…

Sen. John McCain’s campaign quickly reacted to word that Biden would be Obama’s running mate, calling attention to Biden’s past comments about Obama’s experience.

“There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama’s lack of experience than Joe Biden,” McCain campaign spokesman Ben Porritt said in a written statement.

“Biden has denounced Barack Obama’s poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing — that Barack Obama is not ready to be president.”

Biden sure did argue against Barack. The CNN article itself has a few examples, as well as Flopping Aces:

“Who among us is going to be able on day one to step in an end the war? Who among us understands what to do about Pakistan? Who among us is going to pick up the phone and immediately interface with Putin and tell him to lay off Georgia because Saakashvili is in real trouble. Who among us knows what they’re doing? I have 35 years of experience.”

“You were asked, ‘Is he ready?’ You said, ‘I think he can be ready, but right now, I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training,’” Stephanopoulos said.

“I think I stand by that statement,” Biden replied.

“Having talking points on foreign policy doesn’t get you there.”

“It’s a well-intended notion he has, but it’s a very naive way of thinking how you’re going to conduct foreign policy. … [T]he way to deal with it is not to announce it, but to do it. The last thing you want to do is telegraph to the folks in Pakistan that we are about to violate - quote - ‘their sovereignty.’”

There’s more of that — Biden slammed Obama left and right during the primary — but it isn’t really important. There’s a lot more in the goodie bag when it comes to Joe Biden. I mean, who could forget this?

“I mean, you’ve got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a story-book, man,” Biden said.

Mm-hmm. There’s also the Indian comment:

Charming, eh? Then there was the bragging about his state being a slave state, because, you know, that will help win over South Carolina residents:

Because, you know, Southerners are just dying to get back to the good ‘ole days when we still kept slaves. For those who don’t live in reality, let me just clue you in. No southerner is proud of slavery. We don’t, however, pretend it was an exclusively Southern phenomenon, which infuriates me. But that’s another issue.

Biden also has a little problem with lying about his background and plagiarism.

Then there was also the little issue of him making the huge mistake of, well, actually telling the truth about what Democrats think of voters:

“We’ve got to trust the American people more,” Biden said.

“I think they’ve really lost faith in the American people in terms of leveling with them,” he said of his leading rivals.

When he asks groups of Democrats if they think the American people are stupid because they elected George W. Bush twice, most respond that, yes, they do, he said. He said he thinks that attitude is a real problem for the Democrats, who fail to understand how smart and pragmatic the American people really are.

Asked if he thinks, as he suggested recently in another interview, that the other candidates tend to think the American people are stupid or easily fooled, he said, “Well, I do.”

“It’s not even so much they don’t trust, which is a piece of it,” he said. It’s that they think that “the way to win is the Bill Clinton triangulation and the Karl Rove angering.”

“It’s the thesis that you go to your base because people don’t vote. Well, why don’t they vote?” he asked. He said he thinks people don’t vote because they’re tired of the way politicians treat them.

He said Democrats would do better if they stopped dividing the electorate by playing to their base and instead brought people together. He criticized the left wing of his party for demonizing the rich and Republicans.

“Rich folks are as patriotic as poor folks, but we don’t talk that way,” he said.

John McCain’s already striking with a campaign ad:

I can’t help but wonder if this was really the best choice for Barack Obama. Yes, Republicans will have a field day with this guy (he’s incredibly gaffe-prone, not to mention narcissistic), but that’s beyond the point. The Obama camp has been trying to hype up the announcement for weeks now, but they’ve waited so long that whoever they picked would’ve been a non-story. What were they thinking, making the announcement at 5:00am on a Saturday? My only guess is that they either wanted to lessen the impact or make it be the news everyone woke up to. Given the arrogance of both politicians, I’d go with the latter. There’s also going to be a noticeable lack of enthusiasm surrounding Joe Biden. He’s not a pick that gets the base fired up. He’s a safe pick, a non-threatening one, and given that Obama’s been lagging lately, you’d think that he’d want to go with someone exciting. There’s also the small problem of Biden being a major player in Washington for quite some time now. Doesn’t that contradict Obama’s meme of “not the usual politics”? I mean, it’s empty rhetoric and all, but you’d think Obama would want to go with someone who wouldn’t fit so easily into the label of politician.

Ed also makes a good point:

In fact, one has to wonder whether Obama really had made up his mind, or whether his first or even second choice didn’t turn him down. That would explain the delays in the announcement, and the apparent disorganization of Team Obama in handling an event that should have underscored the seriousness of their candidate. After all, they set the expectation that the running mate announcement would come this week, and they missed their own target.

Not only has Obama turned this into a game show, he has also now built up expectations to the point where almost any selection would be a letdown. The two rumored picks, Joe Biden and Evan Bayh, do not scream excitement. They don’t have the kind of star status that would justify this kind of NFL Draft Day engineering. Only Hillary Clinton or Al Gore might approach that kind of celebrity. Hillary would be better announced at the convention than on a Saturday afternoon, and Gore has already done the VP gig for eight years.

Obama has made a mess out of this announcement, and blown a natural opportunity to demonstrate his leadership. He also has given John McCain a wide opening to handle his own running-mate announcement in a manner which will demonstrate the Gravitas Gap which has widened considerably this month between the two candidates.

If the guy can’t even handle his own campaign, how can he handle the country?

My take is that Biden is definitely not the best pick Obama could’ve come up with.

So right now, Michael Phelps is America’s golden boy (and rightfully so). He’s the American hero of the Olympics, and what do Olympic heroes get? Endorsement deals! But uh-oh, Michael Phelps didn’t stick with the approved Wheaties brand, and he’s angered the obesity police.

You better eat your . . . Frosted Flakes?

Olympic legend Michael Phelps will appear on boxes of the Kellogg’s brand sugar cereal, drawing sharp criticism from health experts worried about the message he’ll be sending to children across America.

“I would not consider Frosted Flakes the food of an Olympian,” said nutritionist Rebecca Solomon of Mount Sinai Medical Center.

“I would rather see him promoting Fiber One. I would rather see him promoting oatmeal. I would even rather see him promoting Cheerios.”

The announcement yesterday that Phelps, 23, winner of a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, would grace Frosted Flakes and Corn Flakes boxes instead of the traditional athlete’s choice of Wheaties left many perplexed.

Frosted Flakes has three times the amount of sugar as Wheaties and 1/3rd the fiber.

This doesn’t matter much to a virtuoso swimmer who consumes 12,000 calories a day.

Still, in a country where childhood obesity is an alarming issue, Phelps’ iconic image sharing space with Tony the Tiger sends the wrong message, experts say.

“For a guy like Michael Phelps who isn’t worried about obesity because he’s burning thousands of calories as an athlete…eating Corn Flakes and Frosted Flakes every so often is not an issue,” Solomon said.

The Phelps-emblazoned cereal boxes hit supermarket shelves in mid-September.

This lady has so hit the nail on the head. The problem is not about how kids are too often sitting around playing video games all day, piling junk food into their mouths and getting zero exercise. The problem is that people like Michael Phelps and Tony the Tiger are luring these poor, innocent kids into these bad decisions! Doesn’t Michael Phelps realize he has a responsibility to the children?!

Look, I’m all for celebrities and famous athletes being good role models. But criticizing them over something as inane as which brand of cereal they choose to hawk is beyond ridiculous. Are these people really so stupid as to think that Michael Phelps will make normally thin kids stampede to the cereal aisles and gulp down bowl after bowl of Frosted Flakes, causing them to be suddenly obese? When I was a kid, my favorite cereals were not Fiber One or Wheaties (and especially not Wheaties), no matter who was on the box. I always heard about some famous athlete being on the Wheaties box, but it never made me actually want to eat Wheaties. I think the closest I got to something like that was when Cheerios came out with some kind of promotional “Olympic Team Cheerios”, with like… different kinds of Cheerios in there. Or something. But in any case, as a kid, I liked the sugary cereals best. You know… Cookie Crisp, and Count Chocula, and Fruit Loops, and stuff that would make this Rebecca Soloman have a heart attack. It didn’t matter to me one bit who was on the cover. And in any case, I’d have one bowl. What does she think is going to happen? That the Frosted Flakes is sprinkled with crack, making the kids greedily gulp down fifteen bowls at a time? Come on.

And since when do kids buy their own cereal anyway? It’s the parents who buy the food for their household, so if your little darling is breaking the scale in your bathroom, maybe you should try using that magic word no. Maybe you should try telling them to go do something active. Playing on their Wii does not count as active. I guess I don’t see the big deal, because while, yes, Frosted Flakes probably has tons of empty calories, if your kids are active and getting plenty of exercise, then it won’t matter. An Olympic champion can eat any kind of cereal they want, because they work their butts off (literally!). So you tell your kid that. “Yes, sweetie, Michael Phelps can eat Frosted Flakes, because he works really, really hard. If you work really, really hard, you can eat whatever you want, too.” And that would be because their going into a pool and swimming, or playing baseball, or ballet, or whatever, will be burning off those empty calories. What a novel idea!

And did the nutrition nazis ever stop the think that maybe endorsing a popular cereal with the kiddos might inspire more kids to be active than endorsing a cereal that kids don’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole? I mean, forcing your kids to eat Fiber One is like punishment. Going with Frosted Flakes gets Michael Phelps into the mainstream a lot more, very possibly inspiring more kids.

What these complaining idiots need to realize more than anything is that, ultimately, it isn’t Michael Phelps’ responsibility to ensure the proper eating and exercise habits of children. It’s up to the parents to make sure their kids are eating right and getting proper exercise. The obesity epidemic isn’t as complicated as a lot of people like to pretend it is. It’s really quite simple. Stop overanalyzing, and tell your kids to shut their mouths and get some exercise. The end.

Hat Tip: Melissa Clouthier

There’s a few oddities in here, but look for yourself:

Former New York City mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani will be the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention, which begins Monday, September 1st. His Tuesday night address will follow primetime speeches from Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who are seen as two of the most likely candidates to become John McCain’s running mate, were not granted primetime speaking slots. Romney is currently slated to speak on Wednesday, Sept 3rd, while Pawlenty is scheduled to join Charlie Crist, Sam Brownback and Mel Martinez to address the convention on Thursday, Sept. 4th, before McCain’s convention-closing address.(The schedule could change.)

Whomever McCain selects as his running mate will give an address in primetime on Wednesday, along with Cindy McCain and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindel.

Former Democrat Joe Lieberman and Vice President Dick Cheney will speak on the convention’s first day. They will be followed in primetime by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush.

Am I missing something? Whose idea was it to make Rudy Giuliani the keynote speaker? Yeah, that’ll energize the base. And then there’s the question of timing on Wednesday night. The schedule says that Bobby Jindal will speak after the VP, whereas Ed says his copy of the schedule says before. Which is it? Weird.

Like Allah, I’m a little unsure as to why exactly Rudy and the Governator are getting prime-time speaking slots over people like Mitt Romney, Carly Fiorina, and Tim Pawlenty. Neither one of them are real conservatives — hell, they’re barely Republicans. And they aren’t the rising stars in the party. Their stars are getting dimmer.

I’m glad to see that Sarah Palin will have a prime-time appearance. I think I’m more excited to hear what she has to say, and Bobby Jindal as well, than anyone else at the convention.

This certainly doesn’t shine any light on who McCain’s VP pick will be, either. I’ve stayed mum on that subject because speculating over and over again seems to be an exercise in futility in my opinion. I just want them both to make the damn announcement and get it over with.

The convention is supposed to fire up the base, and I hope they’re able to do that. With Giuliani as the keynote speaker, though… we’ll have to see.

In New Mexico, Obama had this to say about illegal immigrants:

“We are a nation of immigrants,” Obama answers.

“The only people can say that they aren’t immigrants are the people sitting right here,” the Presidential candidate says and points to the tribal leaders.

“There are some families who have been here for 4 or 500 years. They didn’t cross the border, the border crossed them.”

The border crossed them. Nice, Obama. Real nice. How about siding with your own country?

So, does this mean that my relatives in South Carolina whose ancestors had land granted to them by the King of England when Europeans first started settling here don’t count as natives? And in any case, I certainly don’t see myself or anyone else in my immediate family as immigrants. I was born here, my parents were born here. Some of my grandparents were immigrants but are now citizens, and some of my grandparents were born here as well. But I guess because I have European origins, it means that I’m automatically an “immigrant”, whereas illegal immigrant Mexicans are the real “natives”. So I guess this means we should just open the floodgates and let them in, eh?

And also, what does Barack Obama hope to achieve by bringing up this issue? Going all reconquista doesn’t help achieve any unity or redress any grievances. It opens old wounds; it deepens rifts. It gives Mexican reconquistas a sense of legitimacy. I mean, really, is that the goal? I’m sure it wasn’t — the goal was likely to pander to Hispanics in New Mexico — but is it worth it? Is picking up a few extra votes worth the votes he’ll lose from — yes, I’m going to say it — the white Europeans who will be offended over this? How can he say that we’re immigrants but Mexicans are not, when my family, and many other people’s families, have been living in the United States for hundreds of years? And in any case, having an ancient ancestry that you can trace back to this land before it was the United States does not automatically guarantee you citizenship. Does my Italian ancestry guarantee me Italian citizenship? Uh, no. It’s the most idiotic concept I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Squabbling over who was here first is a futile exercise, and it’s immature and moronic to boot.

And at the very least, Obama should be siding with the country he wants to run, not the country who wants to dismantle the country he wants to run so that they can reclaim it and settle a hundred year grudge. As President, shouldn’t that just be a given? For Obama, I guess not.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

Just imagine what might have happened if she hadn’t had a gun:

An 85-year-old woman boldly went for her gun and busted a would-be burglar inside her home, then forced him to call police while she kept him in her sights, police said.

“I just walked right on past him to the bedroom and got my gun,” Leda Smith said.

Smith heard someone break into her home Monday afternoon and grabbed the .22-caliber revolver she had been keeping by her bed since a neighbor’s home was burglarized a few weeks ago.

“I said ‘What are you doing in my house?’ He just kept saying he didn’t do it,” Smith said.

After the 17-year-old boy called 911, Smith kept holding the gun on him until state police arrived at her home in Springhill Township, about 45 miles south of Pittsburgh.

The boy will be charged with attempted burglary and related offenses in juvenile court, Trooper Christian Lieberum said. He was not identified because of his age.

“It was exciting,” Smith said. “I just hope I broke up the (burglary) ring because they have been hitting a lot of places around here.”

Good thing she had a weapon in the house. If not, this boy could have done God knows what to her, and possibly been free to keep on going, burglarizing other houses.

This is why banning guns is a bad thing. Banning guns means that defenseless women like Leda Smith, and other law-abiding citizens, are able to defend themselves when someone breaks into their home. Criminals do not care if there is a ban on weapons, because they are criminals. They will still get weapons, and the only people who won’t have them are the people who obey the law. Brilliant reasoning there. That boy could’ve easily overpowered Leda Smith, but with a gun, she was able to control what happened. Good for her.

Or so the California Supreme Court seems to be saying with their latest ruling. A lesbian went to a fertility specialist to try to get pregnant. The two Christian doctors treated her with fertility drugs, and told her how to artificially inseminate herself at home. They told her that inseminating her themselves would violate their religious beliefs. So, they referred her to another doctor, who inseminated her, and she now has three children. Happy ending, right? Nope. According to the woman, this was discrimination (of course). And the Supreme Court agreed. Shocka.

Justice Joyce Kennard wrote that two Christian fertility doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian have neither a free speech right nor a religious exemption from the state’s law, which “imposes on business establishments certain antidiscrimination obligations.”

In the lawsuit that led to the ruling, Guadalupe Benitez, 36, of Oceanside said that the doctors treated her with fertility drugs and instructed her how to inseminate herself at home but told her their beliefs prevented them from inseminating her. One of the doctors referred her to another fertility specialist without moral objections, and Benitez has since given birth to three children.

Nevertheless, Benitez in 2001 sued the Vista-based North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group. She and her lawyers successfully argued that a state law prohibiting businesses from discriminating based on sexual orientation applies to doctors.

The law was originally designed to prevent hotels, restaurants and other public services from refusing to serve patrons because of their race. The Legislature has since expanded it to cover characteristics such as age and sexual orientation.

“It was an awful thing to go through,” Benitez said. “It was very painful - the fact that you have someone telling you they will not help you because of who you are, that they will deny your right to be a mother and have a family.”

Benitez has given birth to three children through artificial insemination - Gabriel, 6, and twin daughters, Sophia and Shane, who turn 3 this weekend. She is raising them in Oceanside with her longtime partner, Joanne Clark.

Jennifer Pizer, Benitez’s attorney, said that the ruling was “a victory for public health” and that she expected it to have nationwide influence.

“It was clear and emphatic that discrimination has no place in doctors’ offices,” Pizer said.

The ruling was unanimous and a succinct 18 pages, a contrast to the state Supreme Court’s 4-3 schism in May legalizing marriage between same-sex couples.

Jeez. The way these people are carrying on, you’d think that these doctors threw Benitez out screaming, “NO HOMOS ALLOWED!!!” rather than do everything they could to help her without going against their religious beliefs. And how funny is it that Muslims are allowed to get anything they want when it comes to their religious beliefs, but oh no, not the Christians. The lawyer representing the Christian doctors, though, hit the nail on the head with this one:

“The Supreme Court’s desire to promote the homosexual lifestyle at the risk of infringing upon the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion is what the public needs to learn about,” said Tyler, who leads the nonprofit Advocates for Faith and Freedom in Murrieta, Calif.

So I guess the Supreme Court feels that free citizens should be forced to provide services to anyone, no matter what. At what point is someone allowed to turn someone away based on moral objections? If they’re a crack dealer? A child molestor? A rapist? A murderer? These doctors did all they could to help this woman, and when they had gone as far as they felt they could go, they referred her to another doctor and the woman got the result she wanted: children. It should’ve been the end of the story. But no. The woman still sued, and why? Because her poor little feewings got hurt? This is not a legitimate case of discrimination. The Christian doctors didn’t refuse all treatment, and they didn’t even refuse to help her. They gave her fertility treatments and even instructed the woman on how to artificially inseminate herself at home. The treatment wasn’t even something the doctors needed to do! She could have done it herself! So the doctors referred her elsewhere. But like I said, the way this woman is carrying on you’d think they branded her a dirty queer and told her she didn’t deserve children, not do everything they could to help her achieve her goal.

And no one is required to go to a certain doctor. It isn’t as if her life depended on these two doctors giving her the artificial insemination. She’s free to go to any doctor she likes. If the Christian doctors had refused to treat her at all on the basis of her homosexuality, then I’d be all for a lawsuit. That is discrimination. But the doctors treated her. That’s the big “but”. So how is this even a case? I guess the California Supreme Court feels that this woman’s hurt feelings over being — GASP!! — treated by Christian doctors and referred to another doctor and then getting what she wants takes precedence over religious freedom. Isn’t this all kind of much ado about nothing?

I mean, come on. At what point do we say enough? If we stand for nothing, we’ll fall for anything. And eventually, we need to take a stand.

Hat Tip: Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades