We received a number of replies to Jack Lessenberry's column "How about a financial offender list?" Harry Palmer commented:
I was just thinking on the way into work this morning, how utterly useless this current crop of political miscreants running Lansing really is. The roads are crumbling, and now even a medium-sized downpour floods the expressway because the pumps don't work any longer. There's "no money" to fix it.
In the meantime, Attorney General Bill Schuette is fighting to keep a ban on straight-ticket voting, and we're paying Gov. Rick Snyder's legal bills for Flint, which his emergency manager caused after he reinstated the emergency manager law that we voted down!
White-collar crime is not really a crime to the GOP. It's why Taubman got a party when he was released from prison, and Rauwerdink is still a member in good standing of the GOP, but some kid who got caught selling weed is rotting in a cell somewhere, and a shoddily slapped-together "Sex Offenders List" (as ill-conceived and half-assed as everything the GOP does) is their idea of protecting kids.
And Joey Etymology commented:
Ever since Nixon and his 1968 "landslide," many lawmakers have jumped on the "Law and Order" bandwagon. Now some 50 years later, our laws cover all the bases of crime, to such a degree, that if all the laws were enforced all the time, all would be in jail all the time. And now child support, or peeing on a bush, are punished to a degree nearing far greater crimes.
And nobsartist posted:
The Constitution specifically states that once the government no longer works for the people, it is our duty to dissolve it if necessary. The fact that the scumbags in Lansing have allowed Gov. Snyder to spend $3.4 million on a legal defense, although he has not been charged with anything, is proof enough that these people need to go as soon as possible before they do even more financial damage to this state. The fact that the state cannot provide a method for paying the amount owed for "entitlements" alone is reason enough to dissolve this state government.
Where are the feds? Starting with the DOJ?
The male circumcision controversy reared its head on our blog and touched more than a few nerves online, prompting dozens of comments. Michael commented:
A lot of people hold the common misconception that female circumcision is dramatically worse than male circumcision. But, once you look at the facts, you find they are actually extremely similar.
Female circumcision removes the labia minora and a significant portion of the clitoris. There are 8,000 nerve endings in the clitoris, 11,500 nerve endings in the labia minora and 23,000 nerve endings in the vagina as a whole. Removing both the clitoris and labia minora results in an 80 percent reduction of total nerve endings.
There are 20,000 nerve endings in the frenulum and foreskin (including the highly pleasurable ridged band at the end of the foreskin — the most innervated part of the human body), both of which are completely removed during circumcision. By comparison, there are only 2,000 nerve endings in the shaft and 4,000 in the glans. Thus, male circumcision removes 80 percent of the total nerve endings from a male's genitals, exactly like female circumcision. Not only that, but male circumcision also leaves a man's glans and head exposed, which causes it to dry up and become less sensitive.
And Norm commented:
Michigan has one of the highest rates of circumcision in the United States and in the Western world. Fully 82 percent of newborns (51,000 babies a year) in Michigan have the most sensitive part of their body removed without their consent and often without effective anesthesia. This tissue would have provided lifelong protective and sexual functions that are irreplaceable.
Circumcision is the only routine surgery performed without a diagnosis and the only routine surgery claimed to prevent disease.
And Bilbo Baggins commented:
Like bees to honey, watch the fringe cult of Foreskin Fascists descend on this site to spread their exaggerations, self-pity and downright lies. The 20,000 nerve endings in the foreskin and 4,000 in the glans that Michael claims, for example. Made up by an intactivist. The number of nerve endings has never been counted! I wonder whether Michael would prefer to stick a pin in his foreskin or in his glans? That would tell him which is more sensitive!
