unCommonSense: The Missing Link or Marketing Ploy?

“Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilized skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution.” – Sky News

This amazing fossil discovery, dubbed “Ida”, has been described by experts as the “eighth wonder of the world” and on par with the famous unearthing of the Rosetta Stone which allowed the world to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.  It’s impact on paleontology has also been described as “somewhat like an asteroid falling down to earth”.  In other words, its a big deal.  This is the one, the holy grail of Darwinism.  The fossil that proves without a shadow of a doubt that humans evolved from apes. Sky Net summed up this crushing blow to skeptics of evolution in the final paragraph of their article:

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Week-end Wrap-up: What you might have missed last week.

The week is over; here is what you might have missed, with commentary from the left and right.

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Arlen Specter forgets which team he is on?

Last week in an interview with the New York Times, new democrat Specter says:

This is very interesting because most people think it was a gaffe, and even Specter himself admitted, “I misspoke”.  The problem with the gaffe explanation is Specter’s off-the-cuff remarks clearly show that he really does think Coleman should be seated, and not just because that’s who he supports, but because it would be “justice”.  It highlights the fact that this argument should not be a case of who you support; it’s a case of who got the most votes.  If someone looks at the facts and thinks Coleman should be seated, that shouldn’t change simply because the person changes parties.  It demonstrates a serious problem with our current political system, specifically how politicians tend to blindly support their own, rather than forming independent opinions, for fear of party retribution.

Commentary from the right: HotAir

Commentary from the left: Huffington Post
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Where is the political lampooning of President Obama?

The Media Begins to notice:

Lots of people, including myself, have been wondering for some time why there has been so little political lampooning of Barack Obama or his administration by the “usual suspects” in late night or political comedy shows.  Surely there has been no lack of material, with everything from $350,000 photo-terrorism to teleprompter reliance.  Last week the Washington Times addresses this trend in a great article, here.

First White House Correspondent Dinner: Sykes roasts… Rush?

Over the weekend, the comedic treatment was made even more obvious by Wanda Sykes in Obama’s first White House Correspondents Dinner.  Traditionally, this is an event for a comedian to lampoon the current administration, and some will remember Stephen Colbert’s no-holds-barred roasting of Bush last year.  (If you don’t remember, feel free to review with NewsBuster’s list of some of the strongest jokes, here.)

Syke’s jokes speak for themselves, and the entire routine clearly focuses on Obama’s opponents rather than Obama.   Check out this short video for the personal attack on Rush, and then tell me we don’t have a problem with bias.

HotAir echo’s Jim Treacher’s sentiments from Twitter:

Commentary from the right: Newsbusters

Commentary from the left: Huffington Post
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Hannity: Obama’s newest problem? He likes spicy mustard.

In this week’s most ridiculous news story, Hannity actually makes a big deal about how Obama likes his burger. I hate to say it, but this is why the left hates Hannity, and in this case, I think they have a point. This kind of nit-picking has no place in politics. A must watch:

I happen to love spicy mustard, so I know exactly what Obama was saying. (plain yellow is so… bland) In general, to criticize someone for their condiment choices doesn’t make any sense, but to do so on national TV demonstrates an extreme lack of common sense, earning Hannity’s hard hitting report the Common Sense Loss of the Week award.

Commentary from the right: HotAir

Commentary from the left: Huffington Post
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Nancy Pelosi is (re)accused of lying about knowledge of Waterboarding.

Multiple major media outlets reported last week that Nancy Pelosi knew more about waterboarding than she let on.  This obviously contradicts her current statements, making her… well, a liar.

Commentary from the right: Michelle Malkin

Commentary from the left: DailyKos

Common Sense Take: This whole waterboarding witch-hunt shouldn’t be a left vs right issue, nor should it be about prosecuting people in leadership (including Pelosi) who made tough decisions in good faith.   Forget about the relative and difficult to define term “torture”. This is simply a case of drawing the line on what is considered acceptable tactics of persuasion and what is considered non-acceptable tactics of persuasion.  My conscience tells me waterboarding is acceptable, simply because if someone is willing to subject themselves to something to prove a point, it must not be seriously damaging.  (Code Pink waterboards their members regularly and multiple journalists have subjected themselves to it over the past few years)  I don’t see anyone protesting any of the Al-qaeda’s torture techniques found in their captured how-to guide back in 2007, here.

I don’t think anyone, anywhere would be willing to take a blowtorch to the skin or be suspended from the ceiling and electrocuted, no matter how upset they were about the torture techniques which are actually being used on people captured by Al-qaeda.

Bottom line: If people willingly subject themselves to waterboarding, its can’t be THAT bad. Code Pink kills their entire point just by doing it in the first place.

Top 5 Al-qaeda Torture Techniques I am waiting to see protested right next to waterboarding:

5. The Head Vice.
4. The hot clothing iron to the skin.
3. Drilling through the hand.
2. Eye Removal.
1. Dragging victim behind a car.

Of course, how could the extreme left care about what Al-qaeda does to our troops, when they are so busy making sure Al-qaeda prisoners have the most comfortable stay possible at Hotel Obama?

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Quick Headlines

More acorn voter registration fraud:

On Monday, officials in Nevada charged ACORN with voter registration fraud.  The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article on the implications of all these allegations: here.

Glenn Beck had an ACORN spokesman on his show for an interview, in which the spokesman offers up some of the most inane arguments ever presented in defense of an organization: here.
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The Air Force One Drama finally concludes (we hope):

Last week, the Obama administration accepted the resignation of the staffer who authorized the photo-op, and they finally released the $357,000 photo.  Here it is, in all of its expensive glory.

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More Attacks on Pro-family advocate, Miss California:

Miss California was subjected to new character attacks this past week, now with a scandalous photo released from her modeling days.  Over at HotAir, Allahpundit says:

“and yet NBC, the network that aired photos and video of the Virginia Tech killer glorifying himself, has decided that the pic’s simply too hot for the Peacock to handle. A cynic might wonder if they want viewers to imagine that it’s worse than it is. Good thing I’m not a cynic.”

Too scandalous for NBC? Decide for yourself: here.

Even Huffpo analyst Earl Hutchinson says “Miss California is right to scream foul”, saying the pictures are part of an attempt to smear her character.  Bravo Huffington Post, bravo.
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And that’s the Week-end Wrap-up

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ACORN Spokesman Offers Proof ACORN is Run by Idiots.

Many of you have seen ACORN in the news recently for allegedly offering incentives to employees to sign up voters, resulting in voter registration fraud by over-zealous community organizers. (not to mention the 19,000 fake registrations, according to this Gateway Pundit article)  In this great clip, Glenn Beck takes on a forgettable ACORN spokesman, who was reminding me a little bit of Nick Naylor in “Thank You for Smoking” as the chief spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies – They are both employed to defend the indefensible, they both really try to do their jobs properly, but they both are fighting a losing battle.  In this case, the official ACORN spokesman (from here on referred to as “ACORN”) seemingly concedes that Beck’s 20+ documented cases of fraud are accurate and was actually trying to defend the organization: he was specifically referencing multiple instances in multiple states of “rogue” employees committing voter registration fraud, saying that ACORN had no knowledge of the illegal acts.

In the hilarious exchange, Beck actually comes up with a fantastic analogy that isn’t too over the top (starts at 5:20).  Does anyone remember the kid who bathed in the Burger King sink on camera?  What about the more recent Domino’s employees who used the pizza kitchen to add disgusting ingredients to some food?  Glenn’s analogy was this:  what if there had been 20 or so cases of this behavior across BKs or Dominos worldwide?  Surely we wouldn’t think that the problem is the kids.  It would be the management.  The company.  Duh.  Well not so fast…

ACORN starts tap dancing and at first complains about the parallel.  Then he moves on to this real gem of a defense:

Is this guy a complete idiot?  Is he saying that the management is not to blame because of the low percentage of “rogue” / “illegal” / “cheating” employees?  Is this even a valid argument for a responsible company?  Does this make ANY sense?  Less than you might realize…

Lets do the math.

ACORN: 13,000 workers

ACORN’s “rogue” employee percentage: .15%.

Sure, that DOES seem pretty small… but is it? Lets look at these two examples:

Burger King: 41,000 workers

Dominos: 145,000 workers

How would that percentage stack up to BK and Dominos?  I guess if ACORN was running a pizza joint and they had a whopping 217 employees across the company (over a period of say, 1 or 2 years) all get caught sneaking “nose berries” into customer’s food, this is what their spokesperson would say:

“Folks, yes, we have had a small percentage of rogue employees, but they are in no way reflective of our wonderful management team.  The good news is that just .15% of our workers soiled your food in the last two years, which means the problem is only a few hundred rogue employees out of thousands.  Rest assured that it will not happen again.  We are on it.  This time for reals….”

Guess what, No one would eat at Domino’s until every single corporate officer, board member, and VP was fired.  Absolutely no one would think that Domino’s high school workers were solely to blame!  Shareholders would laugh in the spokesman’s face as they kicked management to the curb.  That’s because of a little thing called corporate responsibility.  It is the reason companies and large organizations continue to work well (staying efficient, profitable, ethical, etc) even as they grow very large in size.  It says one of two things about ACORN:  the organization is guilty of knowingly turning a blind eye to fraud and should be shut down, or they have the worst corporate management team ever (as demonstrated by allowing illegal activities to continually happen) and they should be shut down.

How many people think that Burger King would be in business today if 67 people had been caught bathing in their sinks over the last two years? How many people think that if BK didn’t go out of business from lack of customers the FDA would have shut them down in less than 9 months, after the first 20 infractions? Of course the government would not let a company operate with such poor leadership, especially if the “rogue employees” were doing something illegal. Now, I’m not saying ACORN members or community organizers are evil (the title picture is just a joke), but there is no doubt that there are some people running ACORN with an agenda, and they let their desire to achieve that agenda compromise their ethical responsibility by offering incentives that could potentially encourage employee impropriety (which it did). All the fuzzy math and tap dancing in the world will not be able to hide that fact from the public eye.

Get real ACORN, and stop making stupid excuses.

Ok, so I know that request is unrealistic…  But if you must make stupid excuses, at least back them up with semi-plausible arguments.

Unfortunately, after putting the spokesman up against the ropes, Beck completely misses the knockout punch, and simply moves on to some equally silly attack based on how many republican politicians ACORN has backed throughout history.  How many democratic candidates has, oh say… James Dobson of Focus on the Family backed?  Of course the answer is none, because his organization’s political ideology is closely aligned with the conservative right.  Same thing goes for ACORN (with the left).  I don’t care if they campaign and promote their ideas, just follow the law or suffer the consequences.

Glenn made a great point overall, but finishes it off with more arguments that just don’t make sense. (come to think of it, how many Democrats have you supported Mr. Beck?)

Good idea, but next time stick to your big guns.   Common Sense is always available and free of charge, you just have to use it.

For more details on ACORN’s shady inner workings, how they are even able to endorse political candidates as a non-profit entity, and how they are structured to avoid public scrutiny please see this excellent article.

UPDATE: In a new fishy twist, Michelle Malkin is reporting that Dem John Conyers is now backing down on his pledge to investigate ACORN… something stinks!

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Related Post: Week-end Wrap-up, What you might have missed last week.

CSL of the Week: Unwittingly greenlighting a simulated terrorist attack on NYC, no April Fools.

Only this past week could a sitting Vice President pull a gaffe like publicly recommending that all Americans avoid going “anywhere in confined places now” due to a potentially dangerous flu virus, and NOT win the Common Sense Loss of the Week Award.  Veep Joe Biden, well known for speaking his mind, was really doing just that (and hey, we have all thought the same thing as swine flu cases rise), the problem is that in a time of crisis a leader just cant say such things.

But say it he did, setting off a fancy tap dance routine by Press Secretary Gibbs. In any other week that common sense lapse would certainly earn top billing, but last week was an unusual week.  For those of you hiding under a rock or recovering from the flu, someone in the government hierarchy had the brilliant idea for a top secret photo-op to update the pictures of “Bush’s Air Force One” to “Obama’s Air Force One” (Like there is a difference…)  To top it all off, the photo-op was to take place a few hundred feet above New York city skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty, in what would turn out to be a 9/11 flashback for many locals.   One has to wonder what the real reason could be  for such an insensitive operation… perhaps the presidential visitor’s brochure or “mug shot” was out of date, or maybe someone thought the Air Force One picture on Whitehouse.gov would look “sweet” with the New York City skyline in the backdrop.  Either way, the bottom line is that the whole thing was a silly idea in the first place.  Surprisingly, polarized blogs HuffingtonPost.com and MichelleMalkin.com both reacted strongly with articles demonstrating how the government could have avoided the $300k+ spent on the photo-op, not to mention the publicity nightmare, by using Photoshop for 5 minutes. (here and here).  And yes, it is possible…

Besides the ridiculous costs involved, the whole scare could have been completely avoided if someone, anyone, would have simply announced the operation 2 weeks in advance.  The Times reported that an FAA memo was released prior to the flight saying that information about the fly-by “should only be shared with persons with a need to know” and “shall not be released to the public or the media.”  So we can only assume it was classified “top secret” for some unknown reason which will probably defy common sense(HotAir). Sure, if it would have been publicized people would have almost certainly complained and called it insensitive, but at least no one would have feared for their lives.

Finding out for sure who was ultimately responsible for pushing the big green button (or coming up with the idea for that matter) is all but impossible, but Obama’s Director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, did release the following semi-apology, which I can accept as an adequate response:

The statement triggered a flurry of speculation regarding President Obama’s knowledge of the event.  What do the conspiracy theorists think, really?  That President Obama had a board meeting in mid March and said… “Now… I’m on such a roll here folks and Ive, uh… got all this public support going.  I think…uh, we should really capitalize on it.  Why don’t we, um… pull a massive prank on oh, NYC.  I feel that um, if we do it on April Fools Day, everyone will love it.  It will be a great, uh, you know… joke.“  Of course Rahm must have thought it was such a hilarious idea that they should keep it in the circle of friends as an inside joke, and push the date back to April 27th.

Come on, isn’t it silly to think any sane person would knowingly (and therefore intentionally) scare the living daylights out of the city that has already shouldered the brunt of the nation’s pain from 9/11?  I  just don’t think it is as important to crucify a person who has  already shot his career in the foot… let’s just make sure nothing like this ever happens again.  The truth is, no matter who the buck really stops with, they aren’t the only ones who lacked some common sense.  There was a whole chain of people involved, and all it takes is one responsible person, even if it comes down to the pilot of the fighter jet.  He can say to his supervisor at any time: “Hey, so… isn’t this whole thing kinda… cruel?” or maybe even simply “do New Yorkers realize we are going to be doing this, because it could look pretty bad…“  And I think there probably were a few people who saw the big picture and had some doubts.  Its too bad that no one had the guts to speak up, because believe me, if you were the link in the chain who pulled the plug on this public relations nightmare you would be getting a nice pat on the back from Obama right now, just for saving his butt.  It is worth mentioning that Obama has initiated a review to find out who was responsible, so he appears to be genuinely concerned.  At the end of the day, It  turned out to be a mostly harmless, albeit cruel and insensitive, mistake. (It really could have been worse – fortunately those New Yorkers are a resilient and level-headed bunch, they knew what to do).

Basically,  some people at the top in Government suffered a severe brain fart, and the people who may have paused to think of the negative results… well, they kept their mouths shut.  After virtually no deliberation, the Common Sense Loss of the Week Award goes to whoever actually authorized the photo-op (tba), because lets face it, it was an extreme lapse of judgment and good sense.

Moral of the Story: When planning any high profile government exercise, like say; having a fighter jet chase the Air Force One just above one of the most populous city in the world,  remember that everyone is going to know about it… so you have to use your head.

The Grey Republic: A Look at What Divides Us

Within our modern society there is very little that we can classify as cut and dry, non-negotiable, agreed upon by everyone, black and white.  Most of us have never met a person that we agreed with on each and every issue.  As such we all have a few options when it comes to social interaction…  Sure, you could carefully structure your life so that you only spent time with a few select people. (where’s the fun in that?) You could of course choose to opt-out of people all together, an option being popularized by hermits everywhere. Or you could simply refrain from ever taking a position on anything.  Generally speaking though, at some point in our lives, we all must come to terms with the realization that part of what makes us unique is that every single member of our species is different, both internally and externally.

So how is any progress ever made?  Well, through one of our greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses.  Despite our differences, we naturally group with like-minded people.  It really is as simple as that, and yet another thing that makes the human race unique.  We see the results of this phenomenon around us literally every day from the moment we enter grade school to the day we die.  Despite it’s petty nature, our cliquey nature has yielded some impressive results over the years, from the golf foursome to Bill Gates not getting picked in dodge ball, only to build a computer and found Microsoft. (or was that bad?)  Our country first started breathing when a small group of people decided that there was enough common ground to break off from the most powerful and tyrannical nation on earth, in order to create their own, more perfect, union.

The difficulty is that the very same phenomena, if left unchecked, can cause serious problems as our country matures.  Within an established society, this “group with like-minded people” habit slowly starts to morph into permanent cultural and ideological divides.  The reason for this is diversity.  Don’t get me wrong, diversity is a great thing, a GREAT thing.  The problem comes into play when we let our diversity and our tendency to group with like-minded people get out of control.  We essentially let our diversity divide us. People stop worrying about the non-negotiables; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and start focusing on what divides them, which in turn breeds a sense of separation and indignation directed at those across the divide.

We see this everywhere, and its only encouraged by the media which is portraying politicians as “blasting” their opponents left and right. (pun intended)  I’m not here to name names, Olbermann, or point fingers, Limbaugh, but you know it’s true.  We are conditioned to have zero respect for the “enemy”, which only serves to widen the divides.  This is a slow process, a disease, which is helping to bring an extremely advanced democracy to its knees on a massive scale.

For example, how many have read this post and wondered which way this blog “slants”?  It makes sense that we naturally prefer to read things we agree with, because it is easier to agree.  And lets be honest, most folks (including me) love to get a pat on the back now and again.  Some more than others… again, no names, Janeane Garofalo.  But in order to move forward as a whole, as a country, we must let go of the team mentality, this us vs. them thing.

So what is the answer?  This much I know: No one will ever agree with everyone on every issue, therefore it is essential to discuss and understand a position from every represented side in order to establish a mutual respect.  Not that it wont be a heated process, (if you are as passionate as I am, a very heated process) but in the end, a well-thought out argument/opinion/idea should foster a respect born out of common sense.  Once a mutual respect is found, a natural focus on what we have in common will evolve into compromise, while what divides us slips into the background.

If we never get back to the basics and try to understand each other, we will never respect each other; if we never respect each other we have no hope for any compromise.  Understanding, Respect, Compromise,  only in that order.

So, to that end, for every issue that cannot be considered cut and dry or black and white, there is the Grey Republic, putting what divides us under the light of independent thought and common sense.

The Constitution

The Constitution:

We, the slightly sarcastic people of The Common Sense Republic, may have created this forum to promote free thinking and general good sense through humor and social/political commentary. It may have also been designed to demonstrate, even prove, that opposing viewpoints can still be presented with logical argument in a respectful way. We might hope that everyone holds their views as passionately as we do, and we probably feel that every well thought out idea deserves respect and fair consideration. (The same might not be said for ideas or opinions that exhibit an obvious lack of independent thought and/or common sense.)

At the end of the day, we are probably right in the understanding that there are a few key elements that are helpful, if not essential, to achieving effective political and social progress, resulting in increased general knowledge and the ability to compromise.

• A mutual (and often grudging) respect for the independent thinker’s ideas.
• A sense of humor.
• A desire for greater personal understanding.
• A platform to promote general awareness and common sense.

* We will probably just go ahead and leave this up to interpretation and reinterpretation, and fully expect it to change with time.

The Amendments

The Amendments for the Comedic Minded

• We believe in Humor. We believe in Common Sense. Therefore we are not afraid to promote Common Sense through exposing those who demonstrate a lack of it. Please do not take it personally, and feel free to present your defense, no matter how silly it may seem.
• Every established institution and ideology has “champions” who will inevitably make exceptionally ironic mistakes at one point or another. We will be waiting.
• Social and Political extremists on both sides of every issue are perfect for lampooning, and often demonstrate extreme cases of C.S.L. (Common Sense Loss) in defending their various points of view.
• Desperation may be a stinky perfume, but rankest cologne is still made of pure panther condescension.  “80% percent of the time, it looks stupid every time”
• Sometimes the best way to be open minded about a hotly disputed topic is to look for the humor in the situation.