First, Orac at Respectful Insolence points out some anti-evolutionary posturing from history professor William D. Rubinstein.
Then, S J Masty pops up claiming Hollywood is to blame for Abu Ghraib and for rampant police brutality in the US - seems it all started with "Death Wish".
The abuses carried out by US soldiers in Abu Ghraib are not a one-off. Such abuses are widespread and are a product of the culture fostered by American movies and cop shows, which glorify law breaking by the "righteous" in order to achieve "justice".Focussing on police brutality in the US, Masty says he knows of "no American who denies that a nasty, unnecessarily authoritarian and bullying cop-culture is afoot across America". (Really? Not one?) And...
My elderly relatives, retired to Florida, [...] now complain that every 82-year-old, retired gynaecologist pulled over for a burned-out tail-light on his Oldsmobile is handcuffed, manhandled, hit or kicked, and occasionally knocked to the ground once or twice for good measure. Once noticed by the police, he becomes a "perp" and forfeits his rights."Accurate or not"!? Is he kidding? Read it all - it's the worst piece of schlock I've come across in a long time.
Staid, middle-aged doctors in Michigan are afraid to write letters to newspapers complaining about local government for fear of being persecuted by the state, mostly by police or regulatory investigators. Accurate or not, their fear is genuine.
I don't know where I got the idea, but I thought the Social Affairs Unit was a think tank. Obviously not.
