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An older news item, but many people are still confused,  D’oh! More know Simpsons than Constitution - Study: America more familiar with cartoon family than First Amendment

CHICAGO - Americans apparently know more about “The Simpsons” than they do about the First Amendment.

Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

But more than half can name at least two members of the cartoon family, according to a survey.

The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just one in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.

Before reading further see if you can name the rights spelled out in the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Answer below photo.

five fundamental freedoms

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Report: U.S. Soldiers Did ‘Dirty Work’ for Chinese Interrogators

U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay allegedly softened up detainees at the request of Chinese intelligence officials who had come to the island facility to interrogate the men — or they allowed the Chinese to dole out the treatment themselves, according to claims in a new government report.

Buried in a Department of Justice report released Tuesday are new allegations about a 2002 arrangement between the United States and China, which allowed Chinese intelligence to visit Guantanamo and interrogate Chinese Uighurs held there.

According to the report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, an FBI agent reported a detainee belonging to China’s ethnic Uighur minority and a Uighur translator told him Uighur detainees were kept awake for long periods, deprived of food and forced to endure cold for hours on end, just prior to questioning by Chinese interrogators.

Susan Manning, a lawyer who represents several Uighurs still held at Guantanamo, said Tuesday the allegations are all too familiar.

Excepting the  people that seem to follow George W. Bush in an almost cult-like fashion many Americans see him as a morally vacant shell of a man. An alcoholic, a draft avoider, a rich man’s son that was bailed out of several failed business ventures by dad’s friends; a person that seems to think good governance and consideration of the common good are signs of weakness, a cold political authoritarian of the new century. Yet as we can see there is something almost sweet, one dare say sentimental, in a manly way of course about torturing people for his fellow authoritarians in China. Torture as a kind of locker room towel ass snapping symbol of international brotherhood.

liberal dog

An Iraqi Dog’s Life

I woke up before the sun the next morning. It has been a few months since I’ve been able to sleep for more than three hours at a time, something that - for better or for worse - seems to match our daily schedule. I grabbed a book out of my assault pack, found a group of ammo cans and old sandbags that served as a makeshift chair in this bizarro paradise, and fled the land of action for the land of words. Dawn’s light soon replaced my flashlight, and shortly after that, the unmistakable sound of a pup’s growl interrupted me. I looked up. Across the way, trotting down an empty ditch, the dog had discovered that it was not alone this morning.

“What do you want?” I asked.

My rhetorical question was all too obvious, and received an all too obvious answer. The dog perked up its ears and tilted its head to the side, and barked at me as if to say, “you know exactly what I want, you clown. I’ve been sent from the golden retriever gods to make you stop thinking for a few minutes. Grab a stick and let’s make this happen.” I threw the dog a stick for some minutes, and then I returned to my book. When I did, it curled up at my feet for an early morning nap. The sum result of the experience refreshed me mentally the way clean water can refresh physically - for a few minutes, I escaped the madness, the deadlines, the wars within the war. I escaped it all. I didn’t have to embrace the Suck, or wait around for it to embrace me first. I embraced the normal. My normal. There was nothing more normal in my reality than a book and a dog, and that still seemed be the case.

This is from a blog post by a soldier stationed in Iraq. There is a picture of the soldier and the real dog at the link. Nice bi-partisan story, a human story that one would think everyone could embrace. A commenter suggests that the soldier isn’t real because he is not wearing the proper combat patch. The most likely reason is that Phil Carter (attorney and former Army captain) who picked up the soldier’s post at his Washington Post blog, is a Democrat. Democrat posts nice human interest story about dog and soldier, in right-wing world that means fake soldier. What reasoning, if any is at work here. Or WTF is wrong with some people.

The soldier that wrote the original post writes his own blog from Iraq, Kaboom: A Soldier’s War Journal