Monday Musings

Stand Your Ground is bad law.  Trayvon Martin could have justified his assault on George Zimmerman for Mr. Zimmerman's stalking and threatening him with a gun.  George Zimmerman was able to justify his shooting of Trayvon Martin because Trayvon assaulted him.  What Stand Your Ground creates is the Wild West and an absence of law in personal interaction involving violence.

I have read a lot of history on WWII including books on Russia's critical role in winning the war, but I never read anything about the female night bomber pilots until today.  I hope they get more play in Russian history.

Link to Story

Meanwhile, Paul Krugman sums up the absolute idiocy of farm subsidy politics in both parties (although his column is focused on the GOP).  Not sure why the copy and paste changed the font size below so much.

"To fully appreciate what just went down, listen to the rhetoric conservatives often use to justify eliminating safety-net programs. It goes something like this: “You’re personally free to help the poor. But the government has no right to take people’s money” — frequently, at this point, they add the words “at the point of a gun” — “and force them to give it to the poor.”

"It is, however, apparently perfectly O.K. to take people’s money at the point of a gun and force them to give it to agribusinesses and the wealthy."

"Now, some enemies of food stamps don’t quote libertarian philosophy; they quote the Bible instead. Representative Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, for example, cited the New Testament: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” Sure enough, it turns out that Mr. Fincher has personally received millions in farm subsidies."

I previously discussed Mr. Fincher's hypocrisy of being a fox in the henhouse when it comes to voting on federal agricultural subsidies which add to his personal income while voting to reduce the tax rate on that income.