Don Imus has uttering insults and ignorance across America’s radio waves for 30 years. There is a reason why people like him, Howard Stern, and others are referred to as “Shock Jocks”. This is what they get paid to do and this is why they have a large audience that tunes in to listen. He has made disparaging comments about blacks before, Jews, women, Christians, everyone. He is an equal opportunity offender.

I don’t know why after all these years “nappy headed hos” has suddenly sparked all of this controversy when he has said far, far worse in the past, but I fully agree with this opinion in yesterday’s New York Daily News:

Imus hosts a radio show and a lot of people listen to it. During a few seconds last week he said something tacky. The show went on, as did life. Black people continued to constitute most new AIDS cases, black men continued to come out of prison unsupervised. And we’re supposed to be most interested in Imus saying “nappy-headed ho’s”?

What creates that hypersensitivity is a poor racial self-image. Where, after all, did Imus pick up the very terminology he used? Rap music and the language young black people use themselves on the street to refer to one another.

What Imus said is lowdown indeed, but so is the way blacks refer to each other. And life goes on.

Street theater is not strength. It saps energy better put to other uses. The focus we’ll be dedicating to the next gaffe sometime in (this time I’ll give myself a little more wiggle room) May will mean that much less commitment to addressing black people’s real problems.

New York Daily News

Today, Senator Arlen Specter, the senior senator of Pennsylvania, introduced legislation that would scrap the 17,000 pages of current IRS code in favor of a 20 percent flat tax for all individuals and businesses. The revenue-neutral legislation would allow tax-payers to file returns on a postcard that could be completed in 15 minutes.

U.S. Senate

Specter has been a long time supporter of a flat tax, going back to the mid 90s. As much as I applaud his effort in trying to make sense out of our absurd Federal Income Tax code, Specter’s Flat Tax rate is far too high. A 20% Income Tax rate is outrageous for the vast majority of Americans particularly when you add on the 7% FICA withholding and any state and local income tax rates. This would put a severe dent in the lifestyles of just about anyone making under $100,000 a year.

A much better alternative would a much lower flat tax rate, in the realm of 5 to 10% with a significant reduction in the Federal Government budget, or the implementation of a national sales tax in lieu of an income tax.

In all reality, however, with a Democrat controlled Congress there is no such chance of any simplification in the near future. Even for the past four years with complete Republican control tax code simplification went nowhere.

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter today called for the federal government to vastly expand funding for embryonic stem cell research, while Sen. Bob Casey has said he won’t support a bill coming up before the Senate for a vote this week.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Ironically, our Republican Senator in Pennsylvania fully supports Federal funding of stem cell research while our Democrat Senator in Pennsylvania is opposed. Then again, Specter has never been much of a Republican so it may not be that ironic.

I am glad to see Casey fulfilling his campaign promise to vote against this. Federal funding of embryonic stem cell research is an unconstitutional use of our Federal tax dollars. If this research had such promise as the Left always claims, private companies would be investing in this hand over fist. This is nothing but a ploy for a small group of lobbyists to leach off of our tax dollars.