Don't worry, Carrie- you're not alone

Carrie Prejean's impassioned speech at her recent press conference with Donald Trump brought up a disconcerting issue into the spotlight: Americans don't understand their Constitution. Prejean claimed to have exercised her freedom of speech, and when she did that, she was punished. Keith Olbermann had some commentary on that last night:


Though it is enjoyable to poke a little fun at Prejean for the preposterous situation she's in that continues to blow up, she is not alone in her misconceptions about what rights are guaranteed by our Constitution.

Back in 2006, the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum published a study about how well Americans know the Constitution. The results were not promising. Almost 20% believed that owning a pet was constitutionally protected, and 38% thought that the right against self-incrimination was guaranteed by the First Amendment.

A recent survey by Rasmussen Reports showed that only 75% of those asked thought that the Constitution protected a right to own a gun; 14% said that gun ownership was not protected, and 11% were not sure. Another survey by Rasmussen Reports showed that when asked about how the Constitution "in terms of how it impacts life in our country today," 63% thought it was good to excellent; 21% thought fair, and 12% thought poor.

So the lesson of today is that even when people think that the Constitution is doing ok for them, they really don't know what that means. And how can we expect people to be outraged by the injustices inherent in the system when they don't understand the system?

Obama on swine flu: Don't call us, we'll call you

In his speech at the National Academy of Sciences this morning, Obama talked about what the G is doing so far for the outbreak of swine flu that's killing people in Mexico. So far that includes telling people not to panic, telling people to wash their hands, and breaking into the "federal stockpile" of flu vaccines (the conspiracy theorist in me thinks, what else do they have in that stockpile?) to send to affected states.

And now, in the possibly inappropriate words of Michael from "10 Things I Hate About You," "the shit hath hitteth the fan."

The WHO has rated the outbreak at Phase 3, which is right at the end of "few human infections." The EU's Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou has warned Europeans against traveling to the US and Mexico, and the acting head of the CDC, Dr. Richard Besser says it's not as bad as all that. In a disconcerting turn of events, we're the ones that people are staying away from. While swine flu hasn't killed anyone in the States yet, possibly due to better standards of medical care, and possibly due to a lesser severity of the strain, there is a potential for it to get worse.

Of course, before we panic, let's remember that 63,000 died in 2005 of the flu- in America alone. And whatever happened with that avian flu "epidemic?" Only 257 people have died since it was discovered. The West Nile virus? Ok, that one's a little worse, at 1131 deaths, but that's the amount of deaths in the past 10 years. So it's good to put things into perspective before donning the haz-mat garb.

Another requisite consequence of this outbreak is the finger-pointing. The Dems are gleefully pointing out that Republicans lopped off millions of dollars from the stimulus package that would be allotted to "pandemic preparation." And while we're blaming the GOP for the downturn in the market due to investors' fear of a worldwide epidemic, let's blame them for that volcano eruption that happened after they cut out funding for "volcano monitoring." After all, that's what happens when you cut funding for something- it inevitably comes back to bite you. (That must be the entire reasoning behind Obama's stimulus package.)

On another note, I am a little curious as to why the DHS is getting so involved in the situation. While it's nice to see Janet Napolitano dealing with something actually inside US borders, shouldn't she be out violating someone's fourth amendment rights?

Update: I was meeting with a vendor today at work who plugged antibacterial spray with commenting about swine flu. Ha.