I’ll be honest – I find it galling that prosecutorial misconduct was the likely deciding factor in the 2008 Alaska Senate race. I even called upon Ted Stevens to resign so that there could be a replacement candidate in the race. But even now that the dirty tricks of certain prosecutors have come to light, I find this idea unacceptable.

Alaska GOP Chairman Randy Ruedrich said a special election should be held "so Alaskans may have the chance to vote for a senator without the improper influence of the corrupt Department of Justice."

"The only reason Mark Begich won the election in November is because a few thousand Alaskans thought that Senator Ted Stevens was guilty of seven felonies. Senator Stevens has maintained his innocence and now, even the Department of Justice acknowledges its wrongdoing," Ruedrich said in a statement.

Sorry, friends, that isnÂ’t how it works, even in a race as close as this one was. The reality is that we could point to some injustice or untruth that was the deciding factor in a great many races. Do we really believe that there should be do-overs for that reason? Of course not. So while conduct that ought to lead to criminal charges against and/or the disbarment of the Stevens prosecution team (or at least of some members of that team) has been conclusively demonstrated and implicitly acknowledged by the Attorney General, that is not a sufficient reason for overturning the results of an election.

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After all, the Second Amendment is as much a part of the Bill of Rights as the First Amendment.

An effort to limit the number of guns people can buy has failed again in the Illinois House.

The measure would have capped gun purchases at one a month, although the state police would have been authorized to grant exemptions.

Violations of the one-a-month limit would have been punishable by up to a year in prison.

Call me an extremist on the matter, but I find this sort of legislation every bit as repulsive as legislation that would limit Americans to buying one book or attending one church service a month. Any legislator who supported this bill needs to be removed from office for violating their oath of office – or at least tar-and-feathered by their constituents.

Posted by: Greg at 11:32 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I’ve always enjoyed BBC shows – especially classic comedy like Are You Being Served and Keeping Up Appearances, not to mention some of the current stuff that turns up on BBC America. One reason is that there is a level of freedom with humor – including somewhat risqué humor – that you just don’t find here in the USA. Unfortunately, as Mark Steyn notes, there may be a move to clamp down on “offensive humor” – and that is a bad thing.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, then criminalizing words is a way of disarming potential opposition, of inculcating a reflexive self-censorship in the citizenry. And, after all, self-suppression is the most cost-effective of tyranny. Political correctness isn’t merely the blasphemy law of our time. It makes communication impossible. It renders a people literally illiterate: the conventions of language used by functioning societies throughout human history—irony, indirect quotation, period evocation, and, yes, even comic stereotype—are all suddenly suspect. What a strange fate to embrace. In London, the Lord Chamberlain’s power to censor West End plays was finally abolished in 1968: it was widely accepted by then that there was something absurd in a palace courtier ruling that your script could have three “Bastards!” but not four, and that two specific references to sodomy had to be replaced with one vague allusion to heavy petting. Yet, four decades on, Britons now think it entirely normal for police constables and time-serving bureaucrats to function as literary critics determining the “intent” behind a throwaway jest.

To hell with it, and to hell with “sensitivity training.” The only way a multicultural society can live in freedom is with what the Toronto blogger Kathy Shaidle calls “insensitivity training”: we all need to develop thicker skin and rub along—without government monitoring. “CSI Catskills” is a totalitarian concept, and only a bunch of fairies would fall for it.

And just to clarify: IÂ’m not saying youÂ’re a fairy if you have sex with other men.
I am saying youÂ’re a fairy if you think the state should police our jokes.

Indeed, I wonder if any of the favorite shows mentioned above could really meet the standard set by the new law. And having seen PC sensitivities ratcheted up in this country in recent years, I know that this has diminished our entertainment as well as our ability to confront prejudice through humor. After all, could All In The Family be made today? I doubt it, even though the humor that would be forbidden is the sort of stuff that actually ridiculed the insensitive rather than their targets. After all, mockery has its place – and it is not the place of government to decide whose views are correct and may therefore be expressed (and conversely, wrong and not to be expressed) on social and political issues.

For that matter, I wonder if Elton John -- himself a proud gay man – could possibly get away with making this classic song.

After all, not only wonÂ’t people be allowed to laugh, even making the joke in the first place would be a violation of the law.

Posted by: Greg at 11:27 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Here is a piece of legislation I support, and which I think ought to be quickly passed by the Texas legislature. It rectifies a situation which I and many others view as an unacceptable distinction in how our students are now permitted to compete in interscholastic activities.

For the last 14 years, a handful of private schools have been asking the Legislature for a chance to participate in the league for public school sports and academic competitions.

And each session lawmakers have sent a clear message to those private schools by killing any related legislation — in most cases while the bills were still in committee.

But lawmakers championing the proposal think this could finally be the session they force the University Interscholastic League to accept private schools for district competition. A legislative panel could vote today to send the bill to the full Senate for debate. A similar bill is being carried in the House by Frank Corte, R-San Antonio.

“The private schools are making a simple request: Let our kids compete on a broader playing field in academics and sports,” said State Sen. Dan Patrick, who authored the Senate proposal. “I think that’s perfectly reasonable.”

Currently, two Jesuit schools — one in Dallas and another in Houston — are allowed to compete in the UIL because the league they belonged to was disbanded and deemed too large for the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, or TAPPS.

I spent my high school career in Illinois. And for the record, I attended a Catholic school. My schoolÂ’s football team played in the old East Suburban Catholic Conference, and except for a couple non-conference games played exclusively Catholic schools. During basketball season, our team played a mix of public, Catholic, and private schools. For non-athletic events, we competed with everybody else. All of it was regulated by the Illinois High School Association (IHSA), which was the Illinois counterpart to TexasÂ’ University Interscholastic League (UIL). And to deal with the selectivity/recruiting issue, private schools were ranked one level higher in terms of their size classification, with 1A size private schools competing at 2A, 2A size private schools competing at 3A, etc.

Why do I think this is a good idea, other than the fact that I have seen such a system work well elsewhere? First is the fact that the UIL has already allowed two schools to join because they had nowhere else to turn because of their size, so there is no longer a legitimate basis to say that the UIL is exclusively a public school league. Second, it will enable private schools in less densely populated parts of the state (ever been to west Texas or the Panhandle?) to compete with local public schools rather than force students to endure bus trips of significantly over 100 miles EACH WAY in order to have an event with another private school. Third, a number of districts in Texas have gone to open enrollment systems in which they even accept students who do not live within the district (not to mention the question of magnet and charter schools within public school districts), negating the argument about attendance zones and unfair advantages. The only down side I see is that some perennial powerhouse schools might find themselves facing new competition that could keep them from their annual trip to the playoffs or interfere with their winning yet another championship – which isn’t really a reasonable argument at all.

Posted by: Greg at 11:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I enjoyed playing bingo when I was younger -- there was a girl I dated, and when she went to play with her grandmother I would tag. I grew to enjoy the game mostly because I enjoyed the presence of the young lady. And since my girl and her grandmother played a couple of nights a week, I spent more than a little time playing.

With the coming of the internet, you can play online in your spare time. There are many sites where you can play, and others where you can learn about fun places to play. Take BingoPort.co.uk as an example. It offers a good list of online sites where you can play bingo and a comparison of bingo sites as well.
You can find lists of different sorts of sites, such as a section on free bingo sites. You can also find out about some of the more unusual bingo sites, too.

When one considers the various other features and connections to articles and sites where you can play bingo, you'll discover that it is a quite valuable site for those who are interested in playing online bingo. Check it out to learn more -- you won't be sorry.

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Since Barack Obama and his minions seem unable to use clear language to describe terrorists and our ongoing fight against them, country music great Charlie Daniels has a few suggestions for other euphemisms for him to use for things which normal folks would consider to be a threat.

have some suggestions for your vocabulary:

Rattlesnake - triangle-headed surface crawler

Black Widow Spider - red dotted black circle

Shark - fish with a toothy smile

Grizzly Bear - big cuddly fuzzball

Dynamite - stringed red stick

Ted Bundy - homo sapien with a slight attitude

Jeffrey Dahmer - peculiarly-appetited loner

Hey, they make as much sense as "man caused disasters" and "overseas contingency operations" for terrorism and the War on Terrorism (which really ought to be the Crusade Against Juhadi Swine).

Posted by: Greg at 03:24 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I hate smoking. I find it a disgusting, dirty habit – and one that has taken the lives of many family and friends over the years. I would not be terribly upset to see the possession and use of tobacco banned for health reasons. That is not going to happen.

The state of Texas, though, is about to take a step that I oppose – raising the age for tobacco use to 19.

Though they are legally considered adults and can serve in the military, 18-year-old Texans would be considered minors when it comes to smoking under a bill passed unanimously through a Senate committee Tuesday.

The measure would increase the legal age for buying tobacco products to 19, and would cut off an estimated $12.5 million in tax revenue for the state over the next two years.

San Antonio Democrat Sen. Carlos Uresti pushed the same measure in 2007, but after winning approval in the Senate it fizzled out in an end of session backlog of bills in the House.

Supporters say raising the legal age will prevent teens from smoking an extra year and keep cigarettes out of high schools, where they can be passed along to younger students.

Let’s see – you can drive a car at 15 in this state. You can get married without parental permission at 18. You can join the military – even be drafted – at that age as well. Heck, you can vote. But we are not going to let you smoke? This is even more asinine than the law restricting alcohol to those over 21, because tobacco use does not raise the safety issue that alcohol does.

So it is really simple – ban tobacco, or let all adults buy and use it. And do the same for alcohol s well.

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It seems like someone was out to get Ted Stevens – and was even open to suborning perjury and hiding evidence to get a conviction.

The Justice Department moved to dismiss former Sen. Ted Stevens' indictment this morning, effectively voiding his Oct. 27 conviction on seven counts of filing false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms.

The decision by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder comes after a new prosecution team discovered a previously undocumented interview with the star witness in the case that sharply contradicted the most dramatic testimony in the four-week trial. The information had never been turned over to the defense, the Justice Department said in its motion.

"After careful review, I have concluded that certain information should have been provided to the defense for use at trial, Holder said in a statement released this morning. "In light of this conclusion, and in consideration of the totality of the circumstances of this particular case, I have determined that it is in the interest of justice to dismiss the indictment and not proceed with a new trial."

The government is seeking dismissal of the charges "with prejudice," meaning that they cannot be filed again.

Personally, I’m not sorry to see Ted Stevens out of public life. I think he was one of the things that has been wrong with the GOP in recent years. However, the method used – with the obvious impact on the 2008 senatorial election in Alaska – is most disturbing. It appears that there was a rogue element in the Justice Department that was more interested in scalps than in justice.

In the end, Stevens was convicted of trying to hide illegal gifts from political supporters and friends. What the evidence shows is that Stevens made serious efforts to get bills so that he could pay for the gifts. We now know that the Justice Department attorneys attempted to hide that from the court. Unfortunately, the Obama Justice Department has not committed to taking serious actions against those who perpetrated this manifest injustice.

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Because, you know, they didnÂ’t say what he wanted to hear on the issue of representation of the District of Columbia in the House of Representatives.

Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the historic D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional, according to sources briefed on the issue. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who supports the measure, ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster.

* * *

In deciding that the measure is unconstitutional, lawyers in the departmentÂ’s Office of Legal Counsel matched a conclusion reached by their Bush administration counterparts nearly two years ago, when a lawyer there testified that a similar bill would not withstand legal attack.
Holder rejected the advice and sought the opinion of the solicitor generalÂ’s office, where lawyers told him that they could defend the legislation if it were challenged after its enactment.

Quite a different standard between the two positions by the two sets of lawyers. One is examining it from the standard of “is it constitutional?” The other gave an answer based on the standard “is it defensible?” That is a big difference, friends – and that Holder would reject the advice of those he calls the best and the brightest in the Justice Department on the matter is rather telling. Especially since this has been the consistent opinion of the OLC dating back to roughly the Kennedy Administration. After all, the District of Columbia is, self-evidently, not a state, for if it were there would never have been a need to amend the Constitution to grant it electoral votes in a presidential election.

There are three ways to proceed here that are in keeping with the Constitution:

1) Pass an amendment giving the District representation in Congress.

2) Include the population of the District with Maryland for representation purposes, and give it representation in that manner (the territory of the District was granted to the Federal Government by Maryland over two centuries ago).

3) With the approval of Maryland, admit Washington, DC as a state.

And for those who argue that Congress should grant voting representation to the District, IÂ’d like to ask why the same should not be granted to inhabitants of Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and every other territory in which US citizens are denied the right to vote?

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Years ago, I had a car that I loved. Believe it or not, it was a Mercury Lynx. What made me give that car up? Steering problems. No matter what we did to try to fix the problem, we just never quite managed to get the vehicle to steer right after I was hit by another driver -- and the cost of doing the job right was prohibitive.. This was pre-Internet, so I could have gotten my steering components at CarSteering.com. They have all the parts you could need at good prices, including things like steering rack s that are key to making sure that your car steers correctly.

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Good grief! What were members of ObamaÂ’s staff thinking? Like the Queen of England doesnÂ’t have an iPod?

An Obama aide reports that Mr. Obama gave the queen an iPod loaded with video and photos of her 2007 trip to the United States, as well as other songs and accessories, and a rare songbook signed by Richard Rodgers, of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame.

According to reports, the queen gave the Obamas a silver framed signed photograph — a gift she gives to all visiting dignitaries.

Well, perhaps a bit better than the faux pas with the Browns, especially the Richard Rodgers songbook – but I’m sure that the BBC can readily supply Her Majesty with all the video of that 2007 visit that she could ever want – and we know that she probably has an iPod. Would someone get him to beef up his protocol staff so as to avoid any future such embarrassments?

H/T HotAir

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Marriage ain't easy. I mean, getting married is simple -- pay for a license, get someone to officiate and you are married. But it is the "happily ever after" part that is the difficult part. After all, you are looking to stay with someone for the rest of your life -- someone who you have believed you love and who you believed loves you. But there are some rough patches that come along in any marriage, and it is easy to start doubting that. Even the most loving of couples can drift in different directions without realizing it -- and some couples find themselves facing serious trouble over issues like infidelity. When such things happen, there may be a need for help from outside the marriage -- professional help from a trained counselor.

One of the problems that folks face in these situations is the issue of low self-esteem. After all, when you feel like the central relationship in your life is going to hell in a hand basket, your ego really takes a beating. Indeed, that is often the major issue that couples in counseling need to work on -- the low self-esteem of one or both members of the the relationship. That is why it is so important that in any marriage counseling situation that there is counseling for low self-esteem in marriages.

Posted by: Greg at 11:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, on this one point, anyway.

You’ll note that Michelle Obama failed to curtsey when she met the Queen. Dare I say “Good for you, Michelle!” Or perhaps “You go, girl!” We are Americans. We do not have royalty, nor do we engage in subservient rituals towards foreign royalty – we are not subjects. As such, I’d argue that Mrs. Obama took just the right approach here, behaving with grace and dignity – a point on which I disagree with at least one prominent conservative blogger who I generally admire.

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Let's be honest -- there are some jobs around the house that a lot of folks don't feel comfortable doing. In my case, it would have to be plumbing work. I can do a little bit of basic carpentry, most anything that involves a screwdriver, and even some basic electrical work. But mess with the pipes? You must be kidding! Maybe it comes from having lived in a house that operated on a septic system that got overloaded one summer and repeatedly backed up the toilet into the room I was living in -- like after every rinse cycle of the washing machine.

That's why i like sites like this one helping to hook folks up with a well-qualified San Antonio plumber. Enter your name, address, and phone number and you will be contacted by one of the affiliated plumbers who will offer a bid for your plumbing work. If you are new in town, or if you just don't have a plumber with whom you have done business in the past, this is a great way of finding someone who will do the work you need with competence at a price you can afford. I wonder -- is there such a site for my neck of the woods?

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