* If you are a UFO enthusiast, spending a good part of a radio interview on your book complaining about how the biggest problem you face is how nobody takes you seriously ("the giggle factor") really isn't helping your case. Nor is making statements like "Moses was just suffering from radiation poisoning" after seeing the Burning Bush, etc.
* The race is already on to define Romney as a radical conservative. For a guy whose main problem is how milquetoast he is, I have to wonder how much of the vitriol towards him by the progressive movement is leftover resentment over how active the Mormon church has been in the gay marriage debate for the opposite side. I suspect there's going to be more than a little anti-Mormon bigotry coming out from many progressives by the time the election finally rolls around.
* Being oppressed gives one no more moral high-ground than being the oppressor. From what I've read of history, the oppressed tend too often to prove themselves just as bad if not worse than the people they lost to, in cases where the tables are later turned. As one example, Mr. Mehanna cites Ho Chi Minh with approval, but ignores what his followers did in South Vietnam after they won. That's why I'm always skeptical of those who declare "comfort the afflicted, but afflict the comfortable, too." Usually, the 'comfortable' gets redefined as 'people I disagree with/oppose who I want to teach a lesson to, and also feel justified while doing it.' Violence prolongs hate, hate prolongs violence. It also goes along with the cite from Blackhawk Down I posted last year regarding trying to define groups as "good guys" and "bad guys," when its often just a matter of winners and losers rather than morals, and comes down to which tribes/sides are blessed through accidents of history, geography, and technology with better means of waging warfare. Only when a path of freedom, nonviolence, and the promotion of each person's unalienable rights is taken can one side actually be seen to be more morally justified. Mehanna's underlying equation of oppression=justification is fatally flawed, which makes his statement of justification all that more tragic since it is based on an incorrect foundation.
* There's a new meme that the real losers in the recession were women, at least in the last couple of years. The problem is that the recession in toto was so disproportionally devastating to men, specifically black males, prior to 2010:
...that the damage is still lopsided if you want to look at it by sex. And for black males, there's signs that things are getting no better. I think the difference is probably underlying discrepancies in educational levels (i.e. SES or class), rather than race per se, as the recession had disproportional effects depending on one's education:
I do have to wonder at the efficacy of the supposed "black leadership" that there hasn't been more of an organized reaction to how destructive the recession has been to black male employment - African Americans were mostly uninvolved in the "Occupy" protests, and there's been nothing like the "Million Man March" in response, either. I suspect a lot of it has to do with Obama's perceived race i.e. not wanting to do anything which might undermine the first black President, no matter how bad things get.