To the idiot on the internet who are WRONG

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IS NOT A LEGALLY BINDING DOCUMENT.

Citing it in a debate is roughly as worthwhile as citing the little trivia blurbs under the lid of your bottle of Snapple. Yes, it's a brilliantly written document of unprecedented importance, and yes it's full of good ideas like "all men are created equal" and the general idea that tyranny is bad and that if you're living under a tyrant you have not only the right but the absolute obligation to tell said tyrant to go to hell. That does not mean that it's valid as legal precedent, or that the words contained within that document are federal law, or anything of that sort.

This nearly made me put my fist through the table during seminar (Lincoln, I think) at St. John's and now I need to yell at the internet about it too.

So I'm joining the Coast Guard

(no, for real, I am.)

Apparently, when you take the ASVAB - the test you need to take to join any service - you can't wear earrings. Not even little tiny stud earrings.

For the sake of sanity I'm assuming the guy who made me remove them was joking when he said it was a safety issue, because I cannot for the life of me imagine a way that earrings could be a safety hazard while taking a computerized test.

Health care

Why is it that people are so eager to believe that a government-run insurance agency would cheerfully sentence Granny to death because her blood pressure meds cost a lot, but don't suspect for a second that the private, for-profit corporations currently providing health insurance would do so?

Let's review some basic facts

In case you've been living in a cave for the past three years, Barack Obama is half-black. His mother might have been whiter than freshly-fallen snow, but that does not change the fact that for all appearances, and somewhat culturally, Mr. Obama is black.

I think, given that Mr. Obama is not white, we can safely assume he's not a Nazi, given that a fundamental belief of the Nazi party by and large wasn't a tremendous fan of people who did not fit their specific definition of whiteness.

Some crazies apparently think that the logo for Obama's proposed health care program resembles the Eagle/swastika Nazi logo. To this I say:
1. Actually no it doesn't so do shut up.
2. Even if it did - which, again, it doesn't - here's some bad news: The Nazis had freaking awesome symbology. That's part of how the rose to power - they looked powerful, and unified, and overall pretty damn sharp. Their symbols and uniforms were brilliant, and so arguing that Obama's doodle looks like it...well, if it's true that would mean at most that it's a snappy looking logo.