Jon Stewart's Poignant Speech on the Arizona Shooting

As everyone races to catch foot in mouth syndrome over the tragic Giffords shooting, Jon Stewart offers a dose of sanity. The rush to tack on motivations and ideologies to a clearly mentally ill man has been particularly disgusting, well done mainstream media.

"It would really be nice if the ramblings of crazy people didn't in any way resemble how we talk to each other on TV." -- Jon Stewart

Hispanics Abandoning Arizona

As Arizona prepares to put into effect its new immigation law, more Hispanics are abandoning the state.

Even though Arizona's fragile economy plays a crucial role in the local exodus of Hispanics, some indications also indicate that the  exodus is also out of fear for the Arizona's controversial immigration law. New anecdotal evidence suggests that both legal and illegal Hispanics are starting to leave.

A Great Critique of Arizona Immigration Law

It did my heart good to see Linda Chavez's recent comments at the National Review critiquing the recent Arizona immigration law.  As a staunch localist, my disdain for this law does not necessarily mean that I think federal action should be taken to dismantle it.  However, I still think that it is the duty of society to condemn the recent actions of the Arizona state government, and to ensure that other states do not make similar mistakes.

Chavez contends that, contrary to the stereotypical compassionate left vs heartless right debate being put in the spotlight, conservatives and advocates of the free market should be the harshest critics of the recent Arizona law.  She writes:

...the whole defense of racial preferences in college admissions and employment rests on the notion that race is simply one of many factors taken into account. But as the Center for Equal Opportunity’s studies on racial preferences in college admissions have definitively shown, whenever race is taken into account — even as one of many factors — it always becomes the deciding factor. And it will here as well. We conservatives can’t have it both ways: either we’re for race-neutral justice or we’re not. We can’t be against using race when it helps minorities but for it when it harms them — at least not without legitimate criticism as to our motives.