The Right To Say The Unpopular

We set a heat record today and my tomato plants are wilting. I think they are done for the year (By June the heat and humidity here kills tomato plants) . I have one pumpkin to cut from the vine in my garden and that's going to conclude the edibles for the summer.
There is more controversy about statements the Queen of Mean conservative political writer Anne Coulter made. This one refers to Anne's comments that the widows of 911 airplane victims are opportunists who use their husband's deaths for political gain. I dislike Ann's views on most everything, but think she is a symbol of the intolerance toward dissenters that the Bush administration has encouraged since it took office.
Coulter called 9/11 widows witches" and accused them of using their husbands deaths for their own political and financial gain. "These broads are millionaires (the government gave them millions for their "suffering", though the real reason was to discourage law suits from them, after 911), lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzies. I've never seen people enjoying their husband's deaths so much." Now I do agree with her that in a few cases the 9/11 widows have behaved just that way. However, the majority are innocent of the charges and do not deserve Ann's wrath. What's really troubling though is the intolerance of the reaction toward Coulter. It seems that now we are quick to imitate the Islamic intolerance here when anyone says what is unpopular or disagreeable, for Coulter is being vilified for speaking her mind.
There have been calls to ban Coulter's books, and to make or forbid her to speak her sometimes off the mark comments. Any Islamic Fundamentalist Mullah would love the reaction, but this is the U.S., not a society of enslaved sheep. I find it more offensive to try to censor free speech than to listen to mean spirited and what I consider unfair remarks. Pre Bush such reactions toward the kind of comments Coulter made would have been tame if non existent. Isn't it ironic that the Bush fear mongering tactics are creating an era of intolerance in the U.S. while Bush proclaims he must fight for "freedom" in Iraq and Afghanistan? I so hope we are not becoming what we say we despise.
This has been a big week for crimes worldwide, so I have two of the more bizarre ones to tell you about that illustrate that we will in an "interesting age". The first was a case of the "Killer Sausage". In Frankfort, Germany a man was arrested for suspicion of killing a woman with a sausage. Er......he kind of helped her eat it though, by forcing it down her throat. Police there say the 50 year old sausage killer was arrested after the dead woman's body was found in an apartment.
At first the sausage killer said the lady choked while eating, but later relented and admitted "helping" her munch those tasty German treats. How about the best speeding excuse ever? You'll never guess what a 27 year old Dutch speeder said when police apprehended him for racing 110 kph in downtown Amsterdam. The fast and furious driver said he wasn't really speeding, just trying to "dry my car after I washed it".
Police didn't buy that novel excuse, confiscated his car and ordered he surrender his driver's license. As the arresting officer summed it up, "Because he did not have his driver's license with him, his clean car was confiscated until he produces it."