End of the month clearance sale

While everyone is focusing on Charlie Sheen’s rant and rage and often incoherent interview last week with Alex Jones, not enough people are focusing on the bigger question:  Who is Alex Jones?  Here is a sampler of what the syndicated radio talk show host espouses:
-        President Obama is an Indonesian
-        US Government was behind 9/11
-        US Government is giving its land to the United Nations
-        Water fluoridation is a government mind control program
-        Claims the government wants to merge the US with Mexico and Canada
-        Federal Reserve is owned by the Bank of England
And those are the least crazy of Jones’ theories.  Yep he is a great match for Sheen’s madness.
Speaking of nuts.  Louis Farrakhan has emerged from his self imposed exile.  “What you are looking at in Tunisia, in Egypt … Libya, in Bahrain … what you see happening there … you’d better prepare because it will be coming to your door.”   Farrakhan also called on President Obama to allow protesters to march, urging the president not to attack innocent people when they do. The 77-year-old said in reference to his friend Muammar Gaddafi no leader has been loved by 100 percent of his people.  One day your leading a million man march, the next day your getting your meds from Nurse Ratched. 

So the GOP has targeted the usual Democrat programs such as Pell Grants, heating oil subsidies for the poor, NPR, and OBS.  Meanwhile, racetrack owners received tax breaks worth $45 million in 2010 and 2011, aimed at helping them make improvements to their facilities.  So Bubba gets his subsidy and grandma freezes in New York.
Bill O’Reilly was trying to make the point that states with low unemployment rates are that way because they are also right-to-work states.  O’Reilly is correct in that the states with low unemployment rates are indeed right-to-work states.  The problem with his conclusion is something known as causation versus correlation.   If I tell you during the summer that consumption of ice cream goes up and the number deaths by drowning goes up, is it proper to conclude that increased ice cream consumption leads to increased drowning?  Of course not, there is no causal relationship here.  If I conclude that ice cream consumption and deaths by drowning go up together because both things are more common in hot summer months, I am saying these things correlate.  Big difference Bill’O.
Mike Huckabee is another Conservative who has difficulty in logical arguments.  One of his arguments against gay marriage is "There is a quantified impact of broken families, [There is a] $300 billion dad deficit in America every year...that's the amount of money that we spend as taxpayers to pick up the pieces because dads are derelict in their duties."  Huh?  You’re against gay marriage because of ‘traditional’ marriage deadbeat dads? 

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