October 09, 2007
Change for a million? That's what a man was seeking Saturday when he handed a $1 million bill to a cashier at a Pittsburgh supermarket. But when the Giant Eagle employee refused and a manager confiscated the bogus bill, the man flew into a rage, police said.
Like your average clerk at your average grocery store -- or the store as a whole -- would be able to complete the transaction even if the bill were real.
And besides -- how are you going to carry the cash you get back in bills smaller than a twenty?
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The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences yesterday honored two scientists whose discovery revolutionized digital data storage, awarding the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics for work that allows millions to sway to music on their iPods and to store a lifetime's photographs on palm-size devices.Peter Gruenberg of Germany and Albert Fert of France were recognized for their independent discovery of giant magnetoresistance -- an exotic phenomenon whose practical applications became ubiquitous in everyday life in less than two decades.
Among the results: the palm-size external hard drive that can hold a good chunk of your local library. The iPod that allows you to carry a thousand songs in your pocket. The computing revolution that allows your laptop to hold more information than a 19th-century warehouse.
The Europeans will share about $1.5 million, a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars in wealth they have to helped create in Silicon Valley and around the world.
"It feels great," said Gruenberg in an interview after he won the prize. As usual, Nobel Prize winners were alerted yesterday half an hour ahead of the rest of the world by the academy in Stockholm. When the call came, Gruenberg said, the voice on the other end of the line was extremely faint. He strained to understand what he was being told.
"When I heard the word, 'Stockholm,' I thought, 'That's it! I have won the prize!' " he recalled. Gruenberg and Felt had long been tipped to become Nobelists.
Their discovery that ultra-thin slices of metal have different electrical properties in a magnetic field not only changed the musical and computing habits of the entire planet but also altered the very landscape of how people think about information, and the ways in which music, movies and ideas can be shared.
Now please understand, I'm not knocking previous winners of Nobel Prizes for science. But this discovery is one that we all can relate to because the discovery is one that changed daily lives and habits for many of us as we use its results in our daily lives. What was once cutting edge technology is now in our hands on a daily basic, making our lives more productive and enjoyable.
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Not only has high-stakes testing largely failed to magically swing open the gates to successful learning, it is questionable in many cases whether the tests themselves are anything more than a shell game.Daniel Koretz, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, told me in a recent interview that it’s important to ask “whether you can trust improvements in test scores when you are holding people accountable for the tests.”
The short answer, he said, is no.
If teachers, administrators, politicians and others have a stake in raising the test scores of students — as opposed to improving student learning, which is not the same thing — there are all kinds of incentives to raise those scores by any means necessary.
“We’ve now had four or five different waves of educational reform,” said Dr. Koretz, “that were based on the idea that if we can just get a good test in place and beat people up to raise scores, kids will learn more. That’s really what No Child Left Behind is.”
The problem is that you can raise scores the hard way by teaching more effectively and getting the students to work harder, or you can take shortcuts and start figuring out ways, as Dr. Koretz put it, to “game” the system.
Time and again I have been run through the latest fad training system designed to help me improve student test scores. The problem, though, is that some of these practices run directly contrary to encouraging the higher order thinking skills we ought to be encouraging. And what's worse, teaching everything that is (or could be) on the test for my students means short-changing them on what everyone agrees is more important material. That is why world history students in many districts get less than two weeks -- combined -- studying ancient Greece and Rome. And since my grade level test is 50% American history (and they haven't taken US History since 8th grade), I have to devote time going back and re-teaching that content, further short-changing mastery of the world history content my students ought to be learning.
I'm all for standards, but I just don't se our current system as working. And that isn't a Texas thing. It is a national problem.
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Diplomacy, not military action, "definitely" remains the best approach to dealing with Iran, former President Jimmy Carter said in a wide-ranging interview on The Early Show Tuesday."Even after the Shah (of Iran) was deposed," Carter told co-anchor Harry Smith, "I quickly restored diplomatic relations with Iran. As a matter of fact, that's been proven by the fact I had about 60 diplomats in Iran, and they had an equal number in Washington, so we were continuing to try to communicate with them and work with them. And I think that, now, with increasing evidence that Iran is a dangerous and unpredictable country, the best thing to do is to have a maximum diplomatic relationship.
Yeah, you peanut farming moron, you did -- and then allowed America to be humiliated for over a year as the Iranians took those diplomats hostage and you allowed the United States to flail around in impotence.
Why, exactly, is the worst president of my lifetime (indeed, of the entire twentieth century) even given the time of day on foreign affairs -- especially as related to policy regarding the nation where he suffered his (and America's) greatest humiliation.
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Rep. Henry Waxman has asked his investigative staff to begin compiling reports on Limbaugh, and fellow radio hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin based on transcripts from their shows, and to call in Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin to discuss the so-called "Fairness Doctrine.""Limbaugh isn't the only one who needs to be made uncomfortable about what he says on the radio," says a House leadership source. "We don't have as big a megaphone as these guys, but this all political, and we'll do what we can to gain the advantage. If we can take them off their game for a while, it will help our folks out there on the campaign trail."
Using public funds to conduct political witch hunts to silence media critics for partisan gains.
When Nixon did it, he kept it secret and was roundly condemned for his “enemies list”.
When Democrats do it, they proclaim it proudly to the world and call it “congressional oversight”.
I call it what it is – a step towards tyranny and censorship.
I can already hear the question asked of witnesses at the hearings:
"Are you now, or have you ever been, the host of a conservative talk radio show, or a listener or caller to such a show?
Others outraged at Wizbang, 186 KPS, Freedom Eden, Mark Levin Fan, Radio Equalizer, UCV, Second Hand Conjecture, Riehl World View, Violence Worker, QandO
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The tensions in the Middle East seem to have influenced the decision of Iranian-born German international soccer player Ashkan Dejagah's decision not to travel with the national Under-21 squad for a match in Israel.Dejagah, who plays for Bundesliga club VfB Wolfsburg, asked his national team managers to withdraw him from Germany's European Championship qualifier against Israel, to be played in Tel Aviv on Friday, citing "personal reasons."
"He came to us citing personal reasons that seemed very plausible," DFB spokesman Jens Grittner said in a statement.
Dejagah was quoted by mass-circulation tabloid daily Bild as saying his motive was cultural.
"I have more Iranian than German blood in my veins," he said in a report published Tuesday. "That should be respected, and besides I'm doing this out of respect. My parents are Iranian."
Dejagah was born in Tehran, but later moved with his parents to Germany. He holds a German passport.
The decision on his part is outrageous, and based upon the hateful tenets of the rogue regime of his homeland and the hateful tenets of the Islamist religious cult he follows. Given GermanyÂ’s history, it is incumbent upon the German government to boot this Islamo-Nazi from the national team -- and from the country, revoking his German passport in the process.
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October 08, 2007
The ethics law bars lobbyists from giving gifts to lawmakers or their aides. What happens, then, if a lobbyist wants to give a staffer a very special gift -- an engagement ring? Is that allowed?No, it's not, Nirenberg says. But that's not the end of the story. A senator can grant a waiver of the gift ban, subject to review by the ethics committee. In the House, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct can waive the rule, and does so routinely.
"So, if you want to give your girlfriend who works in the Senate an engagement ring, you are going to have to ask permission from not only her father, but also from her senator, and maybe from the ethics committee, too," Nirenberg says.
Given the cycle of staffers from Legislative branch to Executive branch to lobbying firms and back again, these relationships are inevitable. Banning them is neither practical nor desirable. Hopefully they can get a technical fix made to the legislation in the name of allowing human beings to be human beings.
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AL'S NOBEL PRIZE....Will Al Gore win the Nobel Peace Prize this Friday, as the London Times speculates? I certainly hope so.
This isn't because I think it will prompt him to run for president. It won't. It's not even because I think he's necessarily done the most for world peace in the past year. Rather, it's because this would be a huge prospective triumph. If Gore does win, I expect it to cause a massive collective seizure among the conservative crackpot brigade, and that would do more to advance the cause of world peace than anything else I can think of. So I'm rooting for you, Al.....
Of course, that comes from a liberal, so we certainly can't accuse him of being hateful, can we.
Too bad Kevin Drum is unwilling to come out in favor of someowne pushing for freedom in the face of a real threat to the world -- someone who has put her life on the line. You know, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose words on behalf of women's rights and against the oppressive practices of traditional Islam have painted a target on her back. Someone who has experienced the horrors of female genital mutilation and forced marriage only to fight back against the misogyny they represent.
But then again, what is her experience when compared to that of the guy who did the voice-over narration on a biased film and put his name on a ghost-written book of junk science?
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The people who own the networks may be conservative, but they don't run the news coverage (although they can influence it indirectly through budgets and the like). The book demonstrates that after an embarrassingly inadequate performance in the runup to the war -- along with the rest of the media -- the network newscasts took the lead in aggressive and skeptical coverage of the Iraq conflict in 2005 and 2006, both through the anchors and the reporting of folks like Lara Logan and Richard Engel.
Indeed, we have long seen that those in the decision-making loop about the content of the news are ovewhelmingly liberal/Democrat in their orientation. After all, the owners are more interested in the bottom line than the politics of the show, and would gladly broadcast a half-hour of propaganda by Kim Jong Il delivering political speeches if it could bing in sufficient advertising revenue.
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Two months after vowing to roll back broad new wiretapping powers won by the Bush administration, Congressional Democrats appear ready to make concessions that could extend some of the key powers granted to the National Security Agency.Bush administration officials say they are confident they will win approval of the broadened wiretapping authority that they secured temporarily in August as Congress rushed toward recess, and some Democratic officials admit that they may not come up with the votes to rein in the administration.
As the debate over the N.S.A.Â’s wiretapping powers begins anew this week, the emerging legislation reflects the political reality confronting the Democrats. While they are willing to oppose the White House on the conduct of the war in Iraq, they remain nervous that they will be labeled as soft on terrorism if they insist on strict curbs on intelligence gathering.
A Democratic bill to be proposed Tuesday in the House would maintain for several years the type of broad, blanket authority for N.S.A. wiretapping that the administration secured in August for just six months. But in an acknowledgment of civil liberties concerns, the measure would also require a more active role by the special foreign intelligence court that oversees the N.S.A.Â’s interception of foreign-based communications.
A competing proposal in the Senate, still being drafted, may be even closer in line with the administrationÂ’s demands, with the possibility of including retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that took part in the N.S.A.Â’s once-secret program to wiretap without court warrants.
Now watching the justification the Dems give for whatever bill comes out of the legislative Branch should be amusing. As one on the Right who believed that such powers were appropriate and historically precedented, I applaud the move -- but am sorry to see that the move may not be based upon a desire to make our country safe and strong, but rather to bolster Democrat national security credentials. Which would mean, of course, that they are willing to play politics with our national security and our Constitution, principle be damned.
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Republican lawmakers blasted Sen. Hillary Clinton Monday after learning that the campaign is taking advice from Sandy Berger, a former top aide to President Bill Clinton who admitted stealing classified documents and disposing them.
* * * Berger was Clinton's national security adviser from 1997 until 2001. In 2003, while preparing for the 9/11 commission hearings, he took copies of secret documents from the National Archives and later destroyed them. He was caught a few days after absconding with papers from the archive's College Park, Md., facility, and lied to investigators.
The New York Democrat's campaign downplayed the fact, saying Monday that Berger is an informal, unpaid adviser to the campaign, something ascribed to many people associated with the campaign. Berger has been a longtime friend of both Clintons.
"He has no official role in the campaign," spokesman Blake Zeff said.
Will the Democrats be so forgiving if Tom DeLay becomes an unpaid adviser to a GOP candidate -- especially since he has not been found guilty of anything, and certainly not of obstructing an investigation into how the Clinton Administration left America unprepared for 9/11 when it slithered out of Washington.
I'd be outraged at the lapse of judgment on Senator Clinton's part, were it not for the fact that we already were aware how poor her judgment really is. After all, she married -- and remains married to -- Bill Clinton.
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Public schools are public buildings, and school boards are local governments.
It therefore seems pretty clear that they may not restrict concealed carry by permit holders on school property.
That should settle this case very quickly.
High school English teacher Shirley Katz insists she needs to take her pistol to work because she fears her ex-husband could show up and try to harm her. SheÂ’s also worried about a Columbine-style attack.But KatzÂ’s district has barred teachers from bringing guns to school, so she is challenging the ban as unlawful, since Oregon is among states that allow people with a permit to carry concealed weapons into public buildings.
“This is primarily about my Second Amendment right and Oregon law and the simple fact that I know it is my right to carry that gun,” said Katz, 44, sitting at the kitchen table of her home outside this city of 74,000.
Oh, by the way, the Oregon legislature has considered, but failed to pass, legislation allowing for the restriction of concealed weapons carried by permit holders. That should make it quite clear what the status of Oregon law is on the matter.
As such, the Second Amendment issue need not even be broached by the courts. Simple statutory interpretation should do the trick.. And the only plausible interpretation of the statute is that put forth by Mrs. Katz.
The solution is for the legislature to change the law, not for the courts or the school board to ignore the clear statutory language.
Oh, and by the way -- I think that having armed teachers is a fine idea, if they can pass the concealed carry background check and the required training. We already have armed cops in schools, so wha is a few more guns in trusted hands?
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Oh -- I've just committed a felony according to the video. After all, I'm attempting to discredit the Truther Cult.
I guess that not all dissent is patriotism in their eyes.
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October 07, 2007
When schoolchildren turn to the chapter on Christopher ColumbusÂ’s humble origins as the son of a weaver in Genoa, they are not generally told that he might instead have been born out of wedlock to a Portuguese prince. Or that he might have been a Jew whose parents converted to escape the Spanish Inquisition. Or a rebel in the medieval kingdom of Catalonia.Yet with little evidence to support them, multiple theories of ColumbusÂ’s early years have long found devoted proponents among those who would claim alternative bragging rights to the explorer. And now, five centuries after he opened the door to the New World, ColumbusÂ’s revisionist biographers have found a new hope for vindication.
The Age of Discovery has discovered DNA.
In 2004, a Spanish geneticist, Dr. Jose A. Lorente, extracted genetic material from a cache of ColumbusÂ’s bones in Seville to settle a dispute about where he was buried. Ever since, he has been beset by amateur historians, government officials and self-styled Columbus relatives of multiple nationalities clamoring for a genetic retelling of the standard textbook tale.
Why the questions?
A Genoese Cristoforo Colombo almost certainly did exist. Archives record his birth and early life. But there is little to tie that man to the one who crossed the Atlantic in 1492. Snippets from ColumbusÂ’s life point all around the southern European coast. He kept books in Catalan and his handwriting has, according to some, a Catalonian flair. He married a Portuguese noblewoman. He wrote in Castilian. He decorated his letters with a Hebrew cartouche.
Intriguing issues, each of which contributes a bit of mystery to this complex man wh "discovered" America -- if one can ever truly be said to have discovered a land already inhabited by others.
In the end, though, one has to wonder what the significance of this debate really is? Yes, as a historian I would like to know the answer to these questions, but are the man's origins really more important than his explorations? Is this game of historical identity politics -- the same sort of issues that get raised when discussing Barack Obama and Tiger Woods -- really more than a sideshow? Whether Genoese or Jew, rebel knight or royal bastard, his voyages and their later impact must always be seen as outweighing his origins.
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Geoffrey Wheatcroft compares the nepotistic path used by Hillary Rodham Clinton to achieve power with the meritocratic efforts of a Thatcher or a Meir or a Merkel, actual rather than phony feminists, who never tried to wield power by marrying it. He also points out the lack of experience that Clinton has in governing anything:
Seven years ago, she turned up in New York, a state with which she had a somewhat tenuous connection, expecting to be made senator by acclamation (particularly once Rudy Giuliani decided not to run against her). Until that point, she had never won or even sought any elective office, not in the House or in a state legislature. Nor had she held any executive-branch position. The only political task with which she had ever been entrusted was her husband's health-care reforms, and she made a complete hash of that.She got that job through pure nepotism and cronyism. And her use of a man's power to fuel her own was a major setback for American feminism. But she continues, deploying her husband's presidency as a reason to vote for her.
Bravo, Andrew, for pointing out what many on the right wish to say but fear saying because of the possibility of being labeled misogynistic -- Hillary Clinton has no real qualifications for the presidency other than being a member of the non-exclusive club composed of women who have had sex with Bill Clinton. And while she does have the distinction of being the only one to be married to the former Gonad-in-Chief, that tells us of nothing other than her lack of judgment.
There are women on both sides of the political divide who ought to be given serious consideration for the presidency. These include Condi Rice, Kay Baily Hutchison, Nancy Pelosi, and both senators from California, to name a few who spring to my mind. Each has a record of accomplishment and has achieved office based upon her own merits. That cannot be said of the Democrat front-runner.
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Msnbc.com is diving into citizen journalism and social media by acquiring Newsvine.com, a small but innovative player in what is known as “participatory journalism.”It is msnbc.com’s first acquisition in its 11-year history.
Neither of the companies would disclose terms of the all-cash transaction, which was announced Sunday, but deals for other social media sites have ranged as high as the $75 million that eBay was reported to have spent for StumbleUpon.com, which claims about 3½ times the number of users as Newsvine.
And I'm sure that the MSNBC employees involved in covering this story pressed really hard to get answers to that question, and engaged in serious investigative techniques to find uncover the answers of the spokespeople who were stonewalling them.
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,
Intruders broke into the Musée d’Orsay early Sunday and one of them damaged a work by the Impressionist painter Claude Monet, the latest in a series of acts of vandalism and thefts at cultural sites in France.Christine Albanel, the minister of culture, said the intruders left a tear close to four inches long in the painting “The Argenteuil Bridge,” from 1874.
The break-in was “an attack against our memory and our heritage,” Ms. Albanel told French radio France Info. She said the intruders, believed to be four men and a woman, appeared drunk and “left various bits of filth” before “one of them stuck a fist into the magnificent masterpiece by Monet.”
The alarms sounded and museum personnel arrived quickly, but the intruders were able to flee, Ms. Albanel said. The painting can be restored, she said.
No arrests had been made by late Sunday evening, according to news reports.
Acts like this one make no sense to me. Why destroy a painting? Works of art should be held sacred and protected, much as a child ought to be. And to simply engage in vandalism for vandalism's sake is senseless.
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Kris Brown kicked a 57-yard field goal with one second left — his third of at least 54 yards — to help the Texans escape with a 22-19 victory over Miami at Reliant Stadium.Brown had kicked four field goals of 54, 43, 54 and 20 yards to keep the Texans in the game when the offense bogged down. He tied an NFL record with three field goals of at least 50 yards.
The Texans' offense was limited to one touchdown for the second game in a row against a winless team.
The Texans are now 3-2 and Miami 0-5. It feels like the Texans lost because they played so poorly against a terrible team.
The defense finally forced a turnover, but the offense capitalized with a field goal, not a touchdown. The defense couldn't stop Ronnie Brown. It couldn't contain Cleo Lemon, the backup quarterback who replaced the injured Trent Green.
Green left the game after suffering a concussion when he blocked Travis Johnson on a reverse. Green went low on a reverse by Ted Ginn Jr. His head hit Johnson's knee, and he didn't get up. Green, who was able to move his legs, suffered a concussion. He was taken off the field on a stretcher and was taken to the hospital.
Other than Kris Brown, there are only to bits of good news coming out of this game -- we will hopefully have both Ahman Green and Andre Johnson back next week, and Trent Green was reported back in the Dolphin's locker room after going off that field in a fashion reminiscent of Cedric Killings' departure against Indianapolis.
I'll take the win -- but this one was sadly reminiscent of the 2004 and 2006 seasons. God grant that I never have to compare this team's play to 2005 season.
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They were both children more than 25 years ago when Sona Gandhi and her neighbor had the encounters that she would later call sexual abuse. They were certainly adults the day Gandhi confronted the man in a Rockville courtroom last winter.But the man, now 40, was charged as a juvenile because of his age at the time of the alleged offenses, in a type of case that is becoming more common as women increasingly report being molested as children.
"I deal with this every day of my life," Gandhi, 33, told the man in court, according to a copy of her prepared remarks. "I hope that's something you think about every day of yours."
Cases such as the one prompted by Gandhi's report to police last year have ignited a legal debate about whether adults can and should be tried in juvenile court and whether labeling adults as sex offenders for things they did as teenagers is fair and necessary.
I wonder about this. And I don't have an answer. Should we be going back a quarter century and charging folks with acting out sexually? And if we do, what is the appropriate forum to handle these charges? For that matter, does sexual acting out by teens merit the same treatment as adult sex offenses?
I especially wonder about these questions given the claims of a colleague of mine. A 13-year-old neighbor touched him inappropriately when he was 8. Now, a quarter century later, the neighbor is a respected professional in the community. No hint of improper conduct has been associated with him in the years since. Should he be charged with a crime for something that happened in 1984? And does it belong in adult court, when the boy who actd out has grown into a very different man?
These questions especially matter when you consider these facts.
Research on juvenile sex offenders shows they are more likely than adults to respond to treatment. And experts say many juveniles who commit sex offenses don't do so as adults.
Again, I do not know the answer -- but would love to hear some reactions from others.
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Lotteries have raised billions of dollars, and of the 42 states that have them, 23 earmark all or some of the money for education.For years, those states have heard complaints that not enough of their lottery revenue is used for education. Now, a New York Times examination of lottery documents, as well as interviews with lottery administrators and analysts, finds that lotteries accounted for less than 1 percent to 5 percent of the total revenue for K-12 education last year in the states that use this money for schools.
In reality, most of the money raised by lotteries is used simply to sustain the games themselves, including marketing, prizes and vendor commissions. And as lotteries compete for a small number of core players and try to persuade occasional customers to play more, nearly every state has increased, or is considering increasing, the size of its prizes — further shrinking the percentage of each dollar going to education and other programs.
In some states, lottery dollars have merely replaced money for education. Also, states eager for more players are introducing games that emphasize instant gratification and more potentially addictive forms of gambling.
I'll set aside the moral issues of gambling, because I do not believe gambling to be, per se, immoral. What i will point to instead is that little bit you may have missed in that last paragraph. The lottery dollars haven't supplemented the education budget -- they have simply changed the source of those dollars. This legislature appropriates those dollars for education and then shouts "Hallelujah! Look how generous we are being with the schools and the children." What they leave out is that they then shift an equal amount away from education and use it for other state expenditures, meaning that the schools in Texas really get a big nothing burger. And that is the case in many other states as well. When voters approved the lottery in those states, they were sold a bill of goods.
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October 06, 2007
After all, you are responsible for what happens when you aren't there, too.
ome parents in Fort Bend County are outraged after their children said they witnessed a pair of eighth-graders engaged in a sex act, right in the middle of class.Parents told KPRC Local 2 that they received the unsettling news about an incident at Crockett Middle School in a letter that went home on Friday.
"My mouth flew open when you told me just a few minutes ago," Lubergha Munson said. "I didn't expect you to say anything like that. I thought you were going to say they were fighting or something."
The principal sent letters home with some students explaining a situation that was reported to campus administrators last week.
The principal reported that the students, a boy and a girl, made inappropriate sexual contact with each other while other students watched.
The kids have been given appropriate discipline. I can only imagine the impact of this incident on the teachers present employment and future career.
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Not the sort of person I’d like to tailgate with, listen to Marvin Gaye with, share Ripple or a Scotch and Drambuie or a blackberry brandy with — if I were still drinking.
and
I know it wasnÂ’t what my hero Atticus Finch would have done. But having the power to carjack the presidency and control the fate of the country did give me that old X-rated tingle.
Because after all, black men are just carjackers who hang out drinking Ripple in their spare time. Right, Ms. Dowd?
What's more, Maureen Dowd explicitly accuses Justice Thomas of subverting justice. It is time for her to put up or shut up. Prove the accusations or resign in disgrace.
H/T Reformed Chicks Babbling, The Revolutionary Political/Sports Blog, Narcissistic Views
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| Votes | Council link |
|---|---|
| 3 | Gratefully Not Dead: Iraq Civilian and US Military Deaths Plummet Big Lizards |
| 2 | Man Without a Party Right Wing Nut House |
| 1 2/3 | Reporter-God Sy Hersh's Dixie Chick Moment Cheat Seeking Missiles |
| 1 | Carrots, Sticks, Poisoned Apples Done With Mirrors |
| 2/3 | Can American Culture Survive the Constant MSM Onslaught? ‘Okie’ on the Lam |
| 2/3 | Boondoggle Chronicles: Public Housing for the Affluent The Education Wonks |
| 2/3 | Oh No! Dearth of Gays on Network Tube! The Colossus of Rhodey |
| 2/3 | The Unraveling Narrative Soccer Dad |
| Votes | Non-council link |
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| 3 | That's Propa-tainment! Pajamas Media |
| 2 | The Hollywood Surge Is Failing Seraphic Secret |
| 1 | Traitors and Liberals Israel Matzav |
| 1 | Hillary 1993: Nationalize Health Care Through the Kids Captain's Quarters |
| 2/3 | Shiite Militias vs. al Qaeda Terrorists in Iraq Back Talk |
| 2/3 | Safe Abortions? Blogs for Bush |
| 2/3 | The Last of Zimbawe's White Farmers Are Forced Off Their Land Today Say Anything |
| 2/3 | Our Dead Are Our Fault National Review Online |
| 2/3 | Keeping the Memory of Shiri Negari Alive Michelle Malkin |
| 2/3 | NYC anti-Ahmadinejad Protests Kesher Talk |
| 1/3 | Goodbye AHA Spinning Clio: Where History and Politics Meet |
| 1/3 | Fake War Hero Tom Harkin Smears Rush Limbaugh Michelle Malkin (2) |
| 1/3 | Democrats and Board Games Varifrank |
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After all, why else would the New York Times make so much of this criticism of the chief investigator of the so-called "war crimes" at Haditha -- which now appear to not have been crimes at all.
“When you have an investigating officer like Ware, who says ‘don’t go there if you can’t prove,’” your case, Mr. Solis said, “we’re left with what appear to be very reduced charges.” He added: “He’s aggressive, and he seems to make his judgments without regard for anything but the law. He must know that people — civilians, primarily — are going to howl about this, but that doesn’t seem to be a concern.”
I'm curious why this criticism would be made in the first place by Georgetown Law professor and former marine judge Gary D. Solis. After all, shouldn't the decision to bring or dismiss charges -- as well as the outcome of the case more generally -- be based upon the law and nothing but the law?
Is Mr. Solis suggesting that these trials should move forward anyway, despite the fact that it is obvious that the charges cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt? Does he really believe that we should put these American fighting men through a political show trial to please those who would use that trial to discredit the war? Such a position is disgraceful, and should result in the immediate reexamination of every case that Solis was involved with during his military service to determine whether or not justice was truly done.
And Lt. Col. Paul J. Ware, the investigator, gets it exactly right when he rejects holding such sham proceedings.
In an unusual departure from the analysis of the facts in Lance Corporal Sharratt’s case, Colonel Ware warned that putting marines on trial for murder without having the evidence to prove it could “erode public support of the Marine Corps and mission in Iraq.”
More than that, it would legitimately call into question the military justice system -- and, for that matter, the entire criminal justice system in the United States. If we are going to begin to hold trials knowing there is insufficient evidence in order to satisfy the political agenda of a screaming mob, then we no longer have a criminal justice system.
Solis should be ashamed of himself -- but he won't be, because he has been pushing a rush to judgment since the Haditha charges were first made -- as should the New York Times, which included his comments in an article intended to sway readers to believe that respecting the due process rights of our servicemen is illegitimate.
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Under federal investigation for embellishing his Army service in Vietnam, a groggy-sounding Mayor Robert Levy called in sick at City Hall, climbed into his city-issued Dodge Durango and seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth.A spokesman issued a 36-word statement saying the mayor was going on indefinite medical leave. That was a week and a half ago. Aides say he is in a hospital, but they won't say where, why or for how long.
The mystery and the gathering scandal over Levy's military record have worried civic leaders in this seaside casino resort, which has a long history of corruption, with four of the last eight mayors busted on graft charges and one-third of last year's nine-member City Council in prison or under house arrest.
Given the charges and the admission from the mayor of the inaccurate information that Levy has been putting out about his military service, I wonder if the Democrats will permit us to call him a "phony soldier".
Interestingly enough, in this story the mayor's party affiliation is as MIA as the Mayor Levy himself. You know that wouldn't happen if he were a Republican, either.
But I do wonder one thing -- is there any chance of making Larry Craig do the same thing?
MORE AT STACLU
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With the nation’s incarcerated population at 2.1 million and growing — and corrections costs topping $60 billion a year — states are rightly looking for ways to keep people from coming back to prison once they get out. Programs that help ex-offenders find jobs, housing, mental health care and drug treatment are part of the solution. States must also end the Dickensian practice of saddling ex-offenders with crushing debt that they can never hope to pay off and that drives many of them right back to prison.
Yeah -- how dare they make the punishments meted out by the criminal justice system so punitive!
Why should criminals be expected to pay their back child support from when they are in prison? The taxpayers should do that for them!
Why should criminals be expected to pay the costs of their incarceration? The taxpayers should do that!
Why should criminals be expected to pay the costs of the special services and monitoring required of them as a part of their sentences? The taxpayers should do that!
And while they are at it, the taxpayers should provide all sorts of special programs for them, free of charge, that the get simply for having committed a crime! Jobs, housing, and medical care, all for the small cost of a year or two behind bars!
They say that crime doesn't pay -- but the New York Times clearly thinks it should.
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A jury awarded $6.1 million Friday to a woman who was forced to strip for a search in a McDonald's back office after someone called the restaurant posing as a police officer reporting a theft.Louise Ogborn, who was 18 during the 3 1/2-hour ordeal, was forced to undress and perform sexual acts with the boyfriend of a former assistant manager at the restaurant while the man was on the phone with the bogus caller, according to a surveillance video shown to jurors during the four-week trial.
After all, it seems like the bad actors were the assistant manager, her boyfriend, and the caller.
Then I read this piece. (H/T Radosh.net)
Why weren't restaurant managers warned about this? Why was this not a part of training?
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The fugitive couple had been waiting on their porch for nearly eight months for law enforcement officials to make their move. "The word is 'poised,' " Ed Brown said recently, handgun wedged in his jeans, AK-47 assault rifle behind the door, as he stared at a yard of cut grass and bags of explosives hanging from trees. His wife, Elaine, kept her pistol inside a pouch with her reading glasses.Ed Brown, 65, a retired exterminator who was involved in the "patriot" militia in the 1990s, and Elaine, 67, a dentist, do not believe that the federal government has the authority to tax income. In January, after a decade of not paying tax on nearly $1.9 million in earnings, a judge found them guilty of tax evasion and, four months later, they were sentenced in absentia to 63 months in prison.
Refusing to "surrender," in February they barricaded themselves in their estate in this New Hampshire town of 2,200, warning that any attempts to arrest them would end in bloodshed. They said they could sustain themselves "indefinitely" with solar and wind electricity generators, after federal agents cut their power and phone lines.
But, in the end the authorities got them, not by a full frontal assault but by trickery.
Late Thursday, U.S. marshals posing as supporters entered the Browns' property and arrested them on their porch without incident. "They invited us in, and we escorted them out," U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier told the Associated Press.
Just remember what the lunatic fringe think about these folks.
"I compare them to people like Gandhi, who's willing to speak out and try to bring about change in a peaceful manner; Martin Luther King fought laws that were unfair and unjust, and he suffered, too." -- Congressman Ron Paul
One more reason that Ron Paul is unfit for any office.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Il called himself an "Internet expert" during summit talks with South Korea's president this week, a news report said Friday.The reclusive leader made the remark after South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun asked that South Korean companies operating at an industrial park in the North Korean city of Kaesong be allowed to use the Internet, Yonhap news agency reported, without citing any source.
"I'm an Internet expert too. It's all right to wire the industrial zone only, but there are many problems if other regions of the North are wired," Kim told Roh, according to Yonhap.
"If that problem is addressed, there is no reason not to open" the Internet, Kim said.
Yeah if only Dear Internet Expert could figure out how to block out all that stuff about freedom -- and plentiful food -- from the staring North Korean masses.
But I think I've got this one figured out.
Asian dictator seeks SWF for bondage
and hegemonistic exchanges
involving short-range NorK missle.
No F.A.G.s!
I wonder, too, how many of these folks were engaged in fraternal photographic exchanges with a user located in Pyongyang.
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Which is why the Democrats will be upset. They want to harm national security for their own political purposes.
The head of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission declined to investigate reports that phone companies turned over customer records to the National Security Agency, citing national security concerns, according to documents released on Friday.FCC Chairman Kevin Martin turned down a congressional request for an investigation as a top intelligence official concluded it would "pose an unnecessary risk of damage to the national security," according to a letter National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell sent to Martin on Tuesday.
After all, we have already seen public disclosures of sensitive information in the press that have aided the terrorists. The NY Times and Washington Post are required reading for Osama's intelligence assets. Al-Qaeda doesn't need to penetrate and subvert our nation's intelligence agencies, because the US media already has.
But I will agree with Democrat Ed Markey on one point.
"I believe the agency could conduct its own examination of such reports in a way that safeguards national security," Markey said in a statement.
And he is right -- the FCC could do so. the problem is that Markey and his fellow Democrats, or their staffs, would be quick to leak the report to the media, again allowing al-Qaeda to receive aid and comfort from the opponents of the war.
But let's be real clear about one point. The US government today is doing the exact sorts of things that the Roosevelt Administration did in the 1940s to defeat the Nazi menace. The difference is that the press and the Democrats are no longer on the side of the United States.
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A new group at Roosevelt High School discusses socialism every Thursday morning. Not everyone is comfortable with the Young Socialist Club's views, but federal law says school districts must allow all student organizations.The Young Socialists Club at Roosevelt High School is looking for new members. Their flyer asks for students to quote "Come explore the vast realm that is socialism." But also on the flyer is a picture of Karl Marx, who is best known as a revolutionary communist. One of his famous quotes, "Workers of the World Unite," is printed boldly on the handout. But Roosevelt Principal Don Ryswyk says those references do not concern him.
He says, “At Roosevelt we have young Democrats club, we have the young Republicans club and they were asking for a young Socialists club and so I saw it as an equity issue and the students talked to me about some of the things they were going to research and I also saw it as an educational club.”
Under the Equal Access Act passed in 1984, no school administrator can pass judgment on school clubs.
I’m just curious – will the Young Socialists make a point of studying Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot? How about the Cultural Revolution? And let’s not forget the glories of national Socialism, while they are at it.
And IÂ’m rather curious about this statement.
But he says if a club harms students, or is based on hate, it will not be accepted.Ryswyk says, “I'm not going to allow a club into my school that's gonna be harmful or hateful or anything like that and there needs to be some good.”
So I guess this means that Ryswyk considers socialism to be a harmless thing, despite the many ills it has caused. And I wonder who gets to set the standard of what is harmful or hateful? Does he have an objective standard, or will it be his own personal opinions?
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October 05, 2007
I disagree, but feel I must reiterate my previous suggestion for accomplishing such a goal. After all, it will enable the Palestinians to have their own homeland, free from the Jews they so obviously want out of the Middle East.
And it will free the rest of the world from the dangers of a nuclear Iran.
What do you think?
Seems like a doable option to me.
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Most conservatives are more careful than Mr. Kristol. They try to preserve the appearance that they really do care about those less fortunate than themselves. But the truth is that they arenÂ’t bothered by the fact that almost nine million children in America lack health insurance. They donÂ’t think itÂ’s a problem.
Actually, Paul, most of us do think it is a problem. Indeed, I’d argue that all of us agree that it is a problem. Where we depart company with you and your fellow socialists is on the solution to the problem. You think that government is the one-size-fits-all solution to this and every other “crisis” that you and your fellow left-wingers discover in the world. We recognize that the private sector, either through business or private charity, can solve these problems easier and more efficiently – and often has in the past.
As one example, consider the fact that most of the hospitals in most communities around the country have (or had) religious ties. They were, at their outset, hospitals designed to provide care to both paying customers and to charity cases who could not afford treatment. What happened? Government happened, and with the advent of Medicare and Medicaid these hospitals were relegated to government contractor status that undercut that charitable mission. After all, government imposed regulations imposed great limits on free and reduced-price care for private individuals – because that discount given to a poor family would become the benchmark from which all payments from government would be determined. As the 800-pound gorilla in the room, Big Government is able to demand – and legislatively enforce – the most favorable terms on its own behalf, and if that means that St. Miscellaneous Hospital is no longer able to engage in the sort of charity it used to, that is just too bad. And if the cost in red-tape and paperwork increases the cost of medical care for all of us, to the liberal that just proves how badly government needs to be involved in a field where it had no business in the first place.
Krugman, of course, isnÂ’t content to merely disagree with his opponents, or even to misrepresent their ideology. Instead, he ascribes moral and psychological deficits.
What’s happening, presumably, is that modern movement conservatism attracts a certain personality type. If you identify with the downtrodden, even a little, you don’t belong. If you think ridicule is an appropriate response to other peoples’ woes, you fit right in.And Republican disillusionment with Mr. Bush does not appear to signal any change in that regard. On the contrary, the leading candidates for the Republican nomination have gone out of their way to condemn “socialism,” which is G.O.P.-speak for any attempt to help the less fortunate.
So once again, if youÂ’re poor or youÂ’re sick or you donÂ’t have health insurance, remember this: these people think your problems are funny.
As, opposed, to the Left, which tends to attract megalomaniacs who believe they should control the lives and destinies of others, and weak, dependent personalities who are psychologically inclined to accept such domination. So if you are poor, or sick, or without insurance, remember this: these people think you are children to be coddled and slaves to be controlled.
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October 04, 2007
Would conservatives and Republicans support the war in Iraq if they had to pay for it?That is the immensely useful question that Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, put on the table this week by calling for a temporary war tax to cover President Bush's request for $145 billion in supplemental spending for Iraq.
Uh, Mr. Dionne, we already are paying for it. Unlike large parts of the Democrat constituency, we actually do pay taxes.
The proposal is a magnificent way to test the seriousness of those who claim that the Iraq war is an essential part of the "global war on terror." If the war's backers believe in it so much, it should be easy for them to ask taxpayers to put up the money for such an important endeavor.
See the point above -- we are already paying taxes to support the military and to fight the war in Iraq.
Obey makes the case pointedly. "Some people are being asked to pay with their lives or their faces or their hands or their arms or their legs," he said in an interview this week. "If you're going to ask for that, it doesn't seem too much to ask an average taxpayer to pay 30 bucks for the cost of the war so we don't have to shove it off on our kids."Or as Obey said in a statement, "I'm tired of seeing that only military families are asked to sacrifice in this war."
Senator -- some people volunteered to be a member of the military. It isn't like they were shanghaied off the streets of America, only to wake up with a drug-induced hangover to find themselves in desert camos in the middle of a desert with a weapon in their hand. Using your argument, though, we should actually be adopting THAT as policy as well -- or a draft, which morally amounts to the same thing. You ready to advocate for the draft, Senator? Or better yet, mandatory military service for every adult, no exceptions permitted?
And i remind you, Senator, we taxpayers are already paying for the war. Maybe you could cover the cost of the war by undoing the Bush tax cut that took the percentage of Americans paying income taxes to under 50%. But you won't do that -- after all, those net consumers of government largesse are more likely to be Democrats, and you certainly wouldn't want to expect them to shoulder any of the citizenship obligation to pay for national defense.
And as one who grew up as a part of one of those military families, I find your statements of concern for military families today to be uninspiring. After all, I remember being told my father was a war criminal when I was a kid because he was off in Vietnam -- and your side of the debate on the war continues to make such claims today.
Unfortunately, the Democratic leadership ran away from this idea as fast as you can say the words "Republican majority." That, of course, is what Democrats are afraid of. "Just as I have opposed the war from the outset," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "I am opposed to a war surtax."Obey doesn't hold this against his leadership. "They don't want to be demagogued by the White House when they have other fish to fry," he said.
Well that was a wise decision on their part. It would be really bad to argue that we need to impose an extra tax to pay for national security and defense -- a core function of the federal government under the US Constitution -- so we don't have to scrimp on entitlement programs and transfer payments that would cause the authors of that document to whirl dervishly in their mausoleums.
I mean it does seem rather freakish to argue that we need to pay an extra tax for the military so that we can continue farm subsidies that jack up food prices and create an entitlement program for middle class and wealthy children out of general revenues. Why not impose a surtax for those programs instead -- how many Americans would be prepare to pay extra for those programs?
But it's a shame that Democrats remain so defensive on the tax issue that they aren't willing to bring this proposal to the floor. What if the price for passing President Bush's supplemental appropriation were a tax to cover its costs? What if opponents of the war voted no because they are against Bush's policy and Republicans voted no because they think low taxes are more important than national security as they define it?That's an aggressive way to frame any such antitax "no" votes, but it's also accurate. If a war appropriations bill with a tax included went down to overwhelming defeat, wouldn't that tell us something about the depth of commitment to this war?
Again, this could be argues with any social program. Why not a surtax for AFDC or WIC? Why not a surtax to pay for the subprime mortgage bailout program Democrats want? Why not one for Medicaid? Why not one for the Earned Income Credit that gives a refund to Americans of withholding taxes they never paid? And since you folks now oppose the Bush tax cuts, why not recover that money by repealing the elements of those cuts that took Americans off the tax rolls, on the grounds that national defense and national security mandate that more Americans begin paying taxes. Indeed, why not require every American earning above the poverty line begin paying taxes -- especially since they are the net consumers of the social services that you want to pay for with general revenue instead of defense and national security?
The Obey surtax, co-sponsored by Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and John Murtha (D-Pa.), envisions a sliding scale running from roughly 2 percent on the taxes paid by lower-income Americans to 15 percent on upper-income Americans. Since wars are waged, in principle, on behalf of the entire country, this is the rare Democratic tax proposal that does not put the entire burden on the rich.
But yes it does, EJ -- it puts the burden on less than 50% of Americans. Why not advocate placing that burden of taxes upon every single American?
The plan does not ask for a tax to cover the $45 billion in Bush's supplemental request to pay for the war in Afghanistan. "There are legitimate expenditures on which we don't mind sharing the costs with future generations," Obey says, noting that there is a broad consensus that the fight in Afghanistan is in the long-term interest of the country. It might be less gimmicky to pay for both wars now, but some revenue is better than none.
Well let's pay for it now -- tax the untaxed now!
Ah, you say, but this is just symbolic politics. I don't think so, but let's assume it is. This idea is far more serious than the utterly empty fight Bush is about to pick with Congress over a $21 billion to $23 billion difference in spending in a federal budget that totals some $2.7 trillion.
But EJ -- are you and the Democrats saying that we have money for additional discretionary spending in all these other areas, but not for national security and national defense? And why are you trying to shift the burden for these unnecessary programs on to future generations? Why not a surcharge to pay for them? Could it be that this plan to treat the core federal function of national security and defense as the equivalent of supersizing a fast food value meal is simply a gimmick intended to abandon our troops in the field or snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for political purposes?
Here is a president who signed one bloated spending bill after another -- as long as they were passed by a Republican Congress -- posing as a fiscal conservative now that Democrats are in the majority. He's so tough and determined that he's also drawn the line on . . . children's health care.Bush has often let it be known that he hates "small ball" politics. But there is nothing smaller or more trivial than a budget fight over a difference that any responsible president could easily resolve in negotiations with Congress. War spending aside, Obey says it would take no more than a week to reach a reasonable compromise on the overall budget if the White House would just engage.
And if the president believes in this war so much and doesn't want to raise taxes, let him propose the deep spending cuts it would take to cover the costs. Then Bush would show how much of a priority he believes this war is -- and he wouldn't be playing small ball.
Hey, I'm all for big cuts in spending -- and I find it interesting that you and the Demcrats don't find a single dollar to trim anywhere, but instead propose a new surtax.
But then again, we know from experience what happens to such surtaxes. Americans were paying one imposed to cover the costs of the Spanish-American War, which occurred at the end of the 19th century, into the early years of the 1st century. This is really a stealth permanent increase in taxes, disguised as an anti-war measure. I'm sure that you already have your column written offering proposals on how to spend the money it raises once the Democrats have forced a withdrawal after the surtax has been collected.
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And look at what they were trying to cover up.
Autopsies on two Boston firefighters who were killed while battling a restaurant blaze in August revealed that one had a blood alcohol content more than three times the legal limit and the other had cocaine in his system, newspapers here reported Thursday.The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald reported that autopsies showed that one of the firefighters, Paul Cahill, had a blood alcohol content of 0.27 and that the other, Warren Payne, had traces of cocaine in his system. The legal blood alcohol limit in Massachusetts is 0.08.
Even if one accepts the contention that decomposition could produce a false reading of up to .10, it is clear that Cahill was at twice the legal intoxication limit. And Payne was quite obviously coming to work with illegal drugs in his system. but Boston firefighters are not subject to any drug or alcohol testing unless reported as being suspected of being drunk or drugged on duty. Does public safety require a change?
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Idaho Sen. Larry Craig defiantly vowed to serve out his term in office on Thursday despite losing a court attempt to rescind his guilty plea in a men's room sex sting."I have seen that it is possible for me to work here effectively," Craig said in a written statement certain to disappoint fellow Republicans who have long urged him to step down.
Craig had earlier announced he would resign his seat by Sept. 30, but had wavered when he went to court in hopes of withdrawing his plea.
The third-term lawmaker issued his statement not long after Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter relayed word he has selected a replacement for Craig in the event of a resignation.
"He is ready to act should we receive a letter of resignation," said Jon Hanian, Otter's spokesman in Boise, in what seemed like a calculated signal that home-state Republicans want Craig to surrender the seat he has held for 17 years.
In his statement, Craig said he will not run for a new term next year.
But in the meantime, he said: "I will continue my effort to clear my name in the Senate Ethics Committee — something that is not possible if I am not serving in the Senate."
Now I still contend that the charges in Craig's case were legally insufficient -- but that guilty plea made the issue irrelevant and led to the court taking the action it did. And given Craig's announcement of his plans to resign, he ought to go now -- if he really has the contrition he claimed.
And I will point out a stark difference here.
Democrats such as Patrick Kennedy can commit more serious offenses which endanger others and still be embraced by their party. Republicans set a higher bar.
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You know, since Texas voters capped non-economic damages in malpractice cases.
In Texas, it can be a long wait for a doctor: up to six months.That is not for an appointment. That is the time it can take the Texas Medical Board to process applications to practice.
Four years after Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting awards in medical malpractice lawsuits, doctors are responding as supporters predicted, arriving from all parts of the country to swell the ranks of specialists at Texas hospitals and bring professional health care to some long-underserved rural areas.
The influx, raising the stateÂ’s abysmally low ranking in physicians per capita, has flooded the medical boardÂ’s offices in Austin with applications for licenses, close to 2,500 at last count.
“It was hard to believe at first; we thought it was a spike,” said Dr. Donald W. Patrick, executive director of the medical board and a neurosurgeon and lawyer. But Dr. Patrick said the trend — licenses up 18 percent since 2003, when the damage caps were enacted — has held, with an even sharper jump of 30 percent in the last fiscal year, compared with the year before.
“Doctors are coming to Texas because they sense a friendlier malpractice climate,” he said.
You can still recover every penalty of your actual damages here in Texas -- the law didn't change that. But you can no longer get a multi-million dollar payout for "pain and suffering" or punitive damages in a case with $150,000 in actual damages. Sounds like a reasonable trade-off to me.
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Microsoft is starting its long-anticipated drive into the consumer health care market by offering free personal health records on the Web and pursuing a strategy that borrows from the companyÂ’s successful formula in personal computer software.The move by Microsoft, which is called HealthVault and was announced today in Washington, comes after two years spent building its team, expertise and technology. In recent months, Microsoft managers have met with many potential partners including hospitals, disease-prevention organizations and health care companies.
The organizations that have signed up for HealthVault projects with Microsoft include the American Heart Association, Johnson & Johnson LifeScan, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, the Mayo Clinic and MedStar Health, a network of seven hospitals in the Baltimore-Washington region.The partner strategy is a page from MicrosoftÂ’s old playbook. Convincing other companies to build upon its technology, and then helping them do it, was a major reason Windows became the dominant personal computer operating system.
“The value of what we’re doing will go up rapidly as we get more partners,” said Peter Neupert, the vice president in charge of Microsoft’s health group.
I don't think so -- there is simply too much potential for unauthorized access to my personal data.
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It’s “very unusual” for a judge to issue an order preventing news organizations from running or publishing stories, a Boston civil rights attorney said yesterday.“They should have been allowed to run the story,” attorney Howard Friedman said of WHDH-TV (Ch. 7), which was banned by a judge from airing a story yesterday on the autopsy results of two Boston firefighters killed in August.
“In our system with the First Amendment, in almost all instances, you can run with the story but suffer the consequences,” Friedman added. “Obviously, they publish at their peril. If it’s inaccurate, if there’s some damage caused . . . there could be lawsuits.”
Why? Because the autopsy records they gained access to are not public records, even though they reveal misconduct y public employees on the job which certainly endanged public safety and may have contributed to their own deaths.
In court, Paul Hynes, the attorney representing the Boston firefightersÂ’ Local 718, argued that it was a privacy issue and pointed to a 1989 decision by the state Supreme Judicial Court that said medical examinersÂ’ autopsy reports are not public because they are medical records.That decision reversed a lower court ruling that said autopsies were public record after the Boston Globe sued the stateÂ’s chief medical examinerÂ’s office for the autopsies of three patients who died at Bridgewater State Hospital.
Hopkins, who was sworn in as a judge in August 2006, is Boston Mayor Thomas M. MeninoÂ’s former chief of staff and was his legal counsel for more than a decade.
Last night, the Herald published an online report detailing the autopsy results, which found that one of two hero firefighters who died fighting a West Roxbury blaze was legally drunk at the fire while the other had traces of illegal drugs in his bloodstream.
During its 11 p.m. newscast last night, WHDH reported that it had the information, but was blocked by the judge from reporting it.
Looks like a political hack of a judge is covering up for her former employers union thug supporters.
This is sort of interesting. If it stands, it means that the press can publish our nation's most sensitive secrets on the front page during time of war without legal jeopardy, but is subject to prior restraint when reporting on a matter of public concern and safety on the theory that dead men have privacy rights.
What a screwed up notion.
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October 03, 2007
Well, now we have more details -- and I come down on the side of the school here.
A Texas high school sophomore's parents might sue after the school booted the student from campus for wearing a John Edwards for 2008 president T-shirt.Pete Palmer, a sophomore at Waxahachie High School, says he didnÂ’t think he was doing anything wrong wearing the political shirt to school.
But according to the Waxahachie Independent School District dress code, students can't wear shirts with political slogans.
“T-shirts, other than WISD clubs, organizations, sports, or spirit t-shirts, college or university t-shirts or solid-colored t-shirts, are prohibited," according to the policy.
Peter and his folks, however, claim the regs interfere with free speech -- and they are correct. The problem, however, is that it does not IMPERMISSIBLY interfere with free speech.
You see, dress codes -- even school uniforms -- are generally acceptable, provided that they are applied in an even-handed manner. In a case like this, where we have a school creating a rule that bans all but school-related t-shirts and college/university t-shirts with writing on them, you have a clearly defined policy. Assuming that it is consistently applied in an even-handed fashion, there can be no argument made that the speech ban that results was content-based, and so the regulation would pass constitutional muster.
It would be nice if Palmer's dad, a lawyer, actually cited more extensive precedent to support his position. Instead, we get only this shallow reasoning that is based more on emotion than the law.
“It’s a first amendment constitutional right that people have fought and died for and I don’t know why he should give it up just because Waxahachie thinks it would be okay or neat for him to do so,” Paul Palmer said.Paul referenced a recent Vermont case where a student wore an anti-Bush shirt to school and the courts ruled in his favor.
Well, if the school were arguing that it is "ok or neat" for kids to surrender their rights, that would be one thing -- but that isn't the argument. Instead, the argument is that for valid disciplinary and academic reasons, the school restricts dress to promote student safety and academic performance. Such regulations of student dress are regularly upheld by the courts.
But what about Tinker and all the other cases I cite on a regular basis? Well, all of them note that schools may impose content-neutral restrictions upon student speech so as to maintain order and discipline in a school setting. None of them goes so far as to suggest that any regulation that impinges upon student speech is inherently invalid. Based upon this, I would expect any suit to be dismissed on its merits before trial.
This is not to say that I think the policy is everything it should be. If the Palmer family has a problem with it, I'd suggest running for the school board on a platform that calls for the elimination or modification of the dress code.
And then there is always this neat suggestion from Capitol Annex, which I think is the perfect way to creatively comply with the policy and still get your message across. Heck, as I read the policy I see nothing to prohibit the young man from wearing a polo shirt with an Edwards logo on it, or from wearing a campaign button on his shirt and a bumper sticker on his backpack. In short, it isn't the message that is the problem here, it is the means he is choosing to communicate it. That fact will certainly doom any litigation.
Others blogging include The Right Side, Right Voices, Austinist, Right on the Left Coast, Dallas Blog, Stop The ACLU
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