The Snarky Files - Euripides' Views on the Week (March 18)

The AIG bonus scandel has everyone up in arms. Even Code Pink showed up to protest.

Introducing my new feature, The Snarky Files. Snarky means several things. I prefer the definition of "sharply critical." Here's my take on some news stories this past week. No real news here, just snark.

Oversight
The $700,000,000,000 bank spending package that Nancy Pelosi's and Harry Reid's Congress hurriedly passed last year has come back to haunt them. Apparently Congress gave big bucks to banks without any oversight or mandate to use the bucks to bail out the beleaguered mortgage industry. Now we find out that AIG Financial used the money to pay bonuses to its top executives. Oh the shame. Oh the horror. Yes, AIG should be made to account for its money. But shouldn't we expect the same accounting out of Congress? That's your money, fellow taxpayers, that Congress threw at the banks with the hope that the banks, at least, would act with some common sense. Instead, the banks acted like Congress.

Taxing Solution
Democrats, shamed into feeling that something was wrong with the bank bailout, have decided on their next plan of action against companies like AIG. They will create special confiscatory taxes to impose on bank executives. True to party ideals, instead of preventing the problem in the first place (oversight and penalties), democrats create a new tax. How about bringing up the whole lot on charges of corruption and mismanagement? Then, after we've gotten rid of Congress, we can go after the bank executives.

Cutting-Edge
Vermont holds legislative hearings this week to determine how long before they destroy marriage by redefining it out of existence. The last time the legislature tried this tomfoolery, they blindsided their voters by passing civil union laws. The voters, in turn, threw out more than a dozen legislators for it. What part of democracy don't you get, Vermont? It's the Vermont families I feel sorry for. The family institution suffers when marriage comes under attack.

Babies
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics released statistics that show that single mother birth rate is on the rise. Anti-male and anti-family feminism is taking its toll. The institution of the family is decaying before our eyes. Startling is that nearly 40% of total births are to single moms. Shameful is the statistic of 71.6 percent of black babies and 51.3 percent of Hispanic babies born to unwed mothers. Where are the dads and what's happened to the responsibility of fatherhood? Isn't anyone else alarmed by these numbers? Children have a right to be raised by a mother and a father.

Epidemic
The US capital struggles with an increasing AIDS epidemic. Why-oh-why is there a continuing epidemic of AIDS in cities such as DC (30.5 per 100,000), Miami (33.1 per 100,000), Baltimore (29.6 per 100,000), New York (27.1 per 100,000), or San Franscisco (26 per 100,000)? And why is the epidemic so prevalent among blacks (76% of total DC infections) and gays (37% of total DC infections)? Beats me since everyone keeps assuring me that AIDS is not related.

Painful
The national debt topped $11,000,000,000,000. Eleven trillion. If you traveled in a space ship to the edge of the universe and back, you would have to make the trip 803 times to travel 11 trillion light years.

Oh Those Kids
I can't make this stuff up. Regarding singer Rihanna getting beat up by her "boyfriend" singer Chris Brown.

According to a survey of 200 Boston area kids between the ages of 12 and 19, 46 percent think Rihanna was at fault for her own assault, while 52 percent say both parties were to blame -- despite knowing at the time that Rihanna had been beaten badly enough to require hospital treatment.

When a thug can beat the tar out of a woman and have today's kids say that it was the woman's fault, that, fellow citizens, is precisely what's wrong with American society. I don't care who Rihanna is. I could care even less who Chris Brown is. But Chris Brown needs to be taken behind the woodshed and taught a few lessons in respect for women. And the surveyed kids? Something's definitely broken in the system. Perhaps they needed a mom and a dad after all.