After all, the decision to flee the police at high speed is one fraught with danger, and exclusively within the purview of the individual seeking to escape from the authorities. For the police to attempt to prevent their dangerous activity is not unreasonable.

The police did not violate a speeding driverÂ’s rights by ramming his car and causing an accident that left him permanently paralyzed, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday by a vote of 8 to 1.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that despite the fact that the 19-year-old driver was suspected of nothing more than speeding, the decision to force him off the road was reasonable in light of the need to protect pedestrians and other drivers from “a Hollywood-style car chase of the most frightening sort.”

The justices took the unusual step — a first for the court — of posting on the court’s Web site the 15-minute video of the chase, recorded by a camera mounted on the squad car’s dashboard. A link to the video in the case, Scott v. Harris, No. 05-1631, is at supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06slipopinion.html.

Are we perhaps beginning to see some common sense applied in cases of fleeing suspects, given that the jurisprudence of the last two decades has tended to approach making such behavior a constitutionally protected activity rather than a crime -- and reasonably tailored actions to stop such conduct a violation of the Constitution

Oh, and a side note about Stevens' comment about the other eight justices acting as the jury -- I'm much more concerned about Stevens' tendency to round up a slim majority to assume the role of unelected legislature.

Posted by: Greg at 09:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Google bought DoubleClick; now Yahoo is buying Right Media.

In the latest sign that small Internet advertising firms have become hot properties, Yahoo said yesterday that it plans to acquire online advertising company Right Media for about $680 million, a move to stake out its online turf against competitors such as Google.

Privately held Right Media, of New York, operates an online auction system that allows advertisers to bid on space on a Web site, the company said.

Yahoo, of Sunnyvale, Calif., acquired 20 percent of Right Media in October 2006 for $45 million.

Some technology analysts said the move is a response to Google's recent purchase of online ad firm DoubleClick for $3.1 billion after engaging in a bidding war with Microsoft and AOL.

"Clearly, this is an attempt to compete with what Google's been doing," said Jennifer Simpson, an analyst with Yankee Group. "Yahoo did grow last year, but Google has really been stepping away from the competition. . . . There will be a certain attention paid to Microsoft to see what they do next in this advertising chess game."

But will it be enough, given Google's control of a quarter of the internet advertising market? Or is Google the 800 pound gorilla in the room, which no one can overcome? Time will tell, I suppose.

Posted by: Greg at 09:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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How are we supposed to deal with the toxic waste that these bulbs will become – especially as we see jurisdictions trying to outlaw incandescent bulbs.

How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb? About US$4.28 for the bulb and labour -- unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about US$2,004.28, which doesn't include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health.

Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favour of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).

The problem with these bulbs? They contain mercury, which is a highly toxic substance. Are we exchanging an inefficient light source for a potentially much more serious problem?

And we wonÂ’t get into the question of domestic tranquility.

Posted by: Greg at 09:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And these are CNN reporters, not FoxNews correspondents.

On Thursday, two CNN correspondents just back from Iraq -- Kyra Phillips and Michael Ware -- were asked if it would help the situation in Iraq to withdraw U.S. troops.

Phillips responded: "There is no way U.S. troops could pull out. It would be a disaster."

Ware answered, "If you just want to look at it in terms of purely American national interest, if U.S. troops leave now, you're giving Iraq to Iran, a member of President Bush's axis of evil, and al-Qaida. That's who will own it. And so, coming back now, I'm struck by the nature of the debate on Capitol Hill, (by) how delusional it is. Whether you are for this war or against it, whether you've supported the way it's been executed or not, it does not matter. You broke it -- you've got to fix it now. You can't leave, or it's going to come and blow back on America."

And remember – Ware is the guy who took on John McCain not long ago over his comments about the safety of Baghdad – so he certainly is no GOP shill.

Somehow, though, these comments by liberal journalists who have been in Iraq will be ignored by the war opponents. Their agenda is cutting losses and surrendering to the enemy., and these observations just donÂ’t fit.

Posted by: Greg at 09:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Here in Houston and in San Francisco.

It must suck to be a Truther, and to have publicly claimed that such a thing couldn't have happened on 9/11.

H/t Malkin, America's North Shore Journal, Daily Pundit, Hot Air.

Posted by: Greg at 10:39 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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When boys are more desirable than girls, guess which gets aborted -- and what the long-term demographic consequences are.

It seems like an ordinary village school, deep in the farm hills of Hainan Island in southern China.

A red Chinese flag flutters in front of the white-tiled building on the village's main street. Outside are rice paddies, water buffaloes, banana trees and grass-roofed houses.

But look more closely at the school's Grade 6 class: row upon row upon row of boys. There are 34 of them in this classroom, and only 20 girls. The same is true across the entire school, where 180 boys vastly outnumber 105 girls.

“It's always a headache to keep order in this school,” said Xing Zhen, the principal of Sanbai Primary School. “The boys are always misbehaving. They run all over the place, climbing the trees and the walls.”

What he really fears is the restless intensity of boys who grow up to become unmarried men. There are already hundreds of single men in nearby villages, an army of unhappy bachelors. “They can't find wives, and it affects the social stability,” Mr. Xing says.

All across China, the dangerous combination of modern technology and traditional beliefs is creating a huge army of single men. By 2020, more than 30 million men of marriageable age will be unable to find wives. Ultrasound machines and selective abortions, combined with China's restrictive one-child policy, are helping parents to skew the gender ratio, with potentially disastrous consequences.

Well, this could go a long way towards reducing the Chinese population -- or make them more warlike, with "excess" men being bled off through wars of aggression.

Posted by: Greg at 01:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This is a personal peccadillo, not a professional one -- will the Democrats try to make a bid deal about it? After all, this is just about sex.

Randall L. Tobias, the deputy secretary of state responsible for U.S. foreign aid, abruptly resigned yesterday after he was asked about an upscale escort service allegedly involved in prostitution, U.S. government sources said.

Tobias resigned after ABC News contacted him with questions about the escort service, the sources said. ABC News released a statement last night saying Tobias acknowledged Thursday that he had used the service to provide massages, not sex.

Tobias has been Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in an ambitious effort to overhaul how the U.S. government manages foreign aid, a key part of her "transformational diplomacy" agenda. Just two days ago, President Bush lauded Tobias for his work in the administration leading "America's monumental effort to confront and deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the continent of Africa."

I hope the Democrats wait to pounce until Barney Frank can weigh in upon this matter.

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If you want to decrease dependence upon foreign oil, you must find domestic sources.

The Interior Department will announce a proposal Monday to allow oil and gas drilling in federal waters near Virginia that are currently off-limits and permit new exploration in Alaska's Bristol Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, according to people who have seen or been told about drafts of the plan.

The department issued a news release yesterday that was lacking details but said that it had finished a five-year plan that will include a "major proposal for expanded oil and natural gas development on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf." Department officials declined to describe the plan.

Congress would still have to agree to open areas currently off-limits before any drilling could take place off Virginia's coast. Every year since 1982, after an oil spill off Santa Barbara, Calif., Congress has reaffirmed a moratorium on drilling off the nation's Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Last year, after a vigorous push by drilling advocates, Congress opened new waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Interior Department might still go ahead with environmental and geological seismic studies off Virginia, but the plan does not envision drilling there before 2011, according to a congressional source who saw an earlier version of the proposal. The sources who described the plan spoke on the condition of anonymity because they didn't want to compromise relationships with people who showed them drafts.

So, what's it going to be -- more domestic production, or continued reliance on dictators in the Middle East and Latin America for our oil?

Posted by: Greg at 01:55 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Some headlines just leap out at you.

Polygamous lesbians flee Sharia

Uhhhh -- yeah.

Posted by: Greg at 11:19 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A bit of my childhood has died.

He does the "Monster Mash" no more. Bobby "Boris" Pickett, whose dead-on Boris Karloff impression propelled the Halloween anthem to the top of the charts in 1962, making him one of pop music's most enduring one-hit wonders, has died of leukemia. He was 69.

Pickett, dubbed "The Guy Lombardo of Halloween," died Wednesday night at the West Los Angeles Veterans Hospital, said his longtime manager, Stuart Hersh. His daughter, Nancy, and his sister, Lynda, were at Pickett's bedside.

"Monster Mash" hit the Billboard chart three times: when it debuted in 1962, reaching No. 1 the week before Halloween; again in August 1970, and for a third time in May 1973. The resurrections were appropriate for a song where Pickett gravely intoned the forever-stuck-in-your-head chorus: "He did the monster mash. ... It was a graveyard smash."

Rest in peace, and may your family be comforted.

Posted by: Greg at 10:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So now the rent assistance will be extended to three-and-a-half years.

Thousands of families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita will receive housing assistance for 18 additional months but must begin contributing to their rent next year, federal officials said Thursday.

Evacuees, their advocates and local officials welcomed the news as a realistic acknowledgment that many families still need help but must prepare to assume more responsibility for their own lives.

"I want the city of Houston to know that the majority of the people of New Orleans are trying as hard as they can," said evacuee Samuel Pollen, 63, who is taking classes for certification to work as a teacher. "They gave up on us too soon because of the bad ones."

Housing assistance for more than 120,000 displaced families, which was scheduled to end Aug. 31, will continue through March 1, 2009. Starting March 1, 2008, recipients will be required to make monthly payments starting at $50 and increasing to $600 by the time the assistance ends.

Oh, the horror! After 2-and-a-half years these folks will actually be expected to do something to provide for themselves!

Personally, I like this response from a fellow Houstonian.

Instead of endless Federal Emergency Management Agency's handouts, perhaps it's time for Katrina evacuees to take those jobs "Americans just won't do." This seems to be working well for illegal immigrants in this country.

Indeed -- but then again, the illegals haven't been raised with the expectation that the government will support them through some form of public dole, which many of them were on BEFORE the hurricane.

Posted by: Greg at 10:23 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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And i do condemn the actions of whoever attempted to engage in terrorism against this abortion clinic.

A package left at a women's clinic that performs abortions contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death, investigators said today.

"It was in fact an explosive device," said David Carter, assistant chief of the Austin Police Department. "It was configured in such a way to cause serious bodily injury or death."

The package was found Wednesday in a parking lot outside the Austin Women's Health Center, south of downtown Austin.

Nearby Interstate 35 was briefly closed, and a nearby apartment complex was evacuated while a bomb squad detonated the device.

Abortionists are among the scum of the scum of the earth in my book, a mere half-step above Osama. However, acts of violence are unacceptable in the pro-life cause, and I cannot remain silent when one occurs. I hope that the perp is caught, prosecuted, and given the maximum sentence.

Posted by: Greg at 09:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The words painted on the side of the house are offensive – but if a homeowner does not have the right to engage in free speech (as undeniably reprehensible as it is) on his own property, does the First Amendment mean anything anymore? That is my question for columnist Carol McAlice Currie.

The words "Go to F...... Hell Jew Bastard" drip in 3-foot-high letters along the side of a house in northeast Salem. Neighbors and passers-by can't miss the message any time they drive west along the rural road.

But getting Marion County to order the owner to paint over it is proving a chore because, despite its vulgar and violent message, it's protected free speech.
Well, here's some more free speech: Horse manure!

While county officials sit around considering their options, the sideshow gets more attention daily.

The county's legal eagles are correct about the First Amendment. Because there's a possibility that Chadwick Michaels himself wrote the words on his home at 4063 Hayesville Road NE (he refuses to say), they're protected free speech. As intolerant and offensive as they are, they apparently don't meet legal tests for presenting an "immediate and imminent danger."

* * *

As a journalist, the First Amendment is sacred to me. I don't take suppressing it well. So I accept that as miserable a message as it is, it's Michaels' right to say it.

Michaels is not shouting "fire" in a movie theater, so he shouldn't be muzzled. But he is advertising hatred on a big, two-story brown sign in a residential neighborhood of farms and fields.

Surely we can regulate that without trampling on the Bill of Rights.

Notice the hypocrisy, please. She acknowledges the theoretical right to speak – but demands censorship anyway. How liberal of her.

WARNING! PICTURE OF HOUSE BELOW FOLD.
more...

Posted by: Greg at 11:33 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Who says that the Japanese are smarter than Americans?

THOUSANDS of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.
Flocks of sheep were marketed as fashionable accessories - available at $1600 each - by a company called Poodles as Pets.

A real poodle retails for twice that much in Japan.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese film star Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.

Hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.

One couple said they became suspicious when they took their "dog" to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

Police believe there could be 2000 people affected by the scam.

One would have hoped that these people would have figured it out when the “dog” said “Baaaaaaaaaaaa!”

And I have to ask – was there an Aggie involved in this scam?

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Yep, I guess the economy really must suck -- not.

The Dow Jones industrial average surged past the 13,000 mark for the first time Wednesday, as U.S. stocks rallied on better-than-expected manufacturing data and strong corporate earnings.

The close, 13,089.89, comes less than two months after a late February plunge in world markets sent investors heading for safer ground. The broader market has been rising almost uninterrupted since late March. If the trend holds, U.S. stocks are on track to finish April with the biggest monthly gain in more than three years.

So I guess it would appear that the state of the US economy is quite sound -- at least according to those whose money makes the engine of capitalism run.

Posted by: Greg at 10:09 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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This looks good – and may well lead to a quickening of the pace towards the next generation of spacecraft and exploration vehicles.

The UK and the US have signed a memorandum of understanding that paves the way for closer collaboration on missions to explore our solar system, including robotic exploration of the moon and trials of technology that could one day be sent to Mars.

The deal was reached in Washington last Friday, after a series of meetings between officials.

It will give NASA wider access to the UK's expertise in robotic and small satellite technologies, and could mean UK participation in manned lunar missions.

Science and innovation minister Malcolm Wicks said: "During my recent meeting with Nasa's administrator Dr Michael Griffin, I was keen for the USA and UK to co-operate on exactly this sort of exciting endeavour."

Griffin recently suggested that the "level of participation would go so far as to include astronauts".

This will make for some interesting times down the street at JSC if true.

Posted by: Greg at 09:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Really – I’m serious. Do most of us find the notion that a murderer sentenced to death isn’t just whisked away into a dreamless sleep the least bit disturbing? I know it doesn’t trouble me at all.

The drugs used to execute prisoners in the United States sometimes fail to work as planned, causing slow and painful deaths that probably violate constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment, a new medical review of dozens of executions concludes.

Even when administered properly, the three-drug lethal injection method appears to have caused some inmates to suffocate while they were conscious and unable to move, instead of having their hearts stopped while they were sedated, scientists said in a report published Monday by the online journal PLoS Medicine.

No scientific groups have validated that lethal injection is humane, the authors write. Medical ethics bar doctors and other health professionals from taking part in executions.

The study concluded that the typical "one-size-fits-all" doses of anesthetic do not take into account an inmate's weight and other key factors.

The journal's editors call for abolishing the death penalty.

Personally, I’m all for replicating the sort of horror they perpetrated upon their victims – but if that troubles the squeamish, I’m all for bringing back the firing squad or the guillotine.

Posted by: Greg at 09:49 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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One a statesman, one a journalist.

First the statesman -- Boris Yeltsin.

Boris N. Yeltsin, the burly provincial politician who became a Soviet-era reformer and later a towering figure of his time as the first freely elected leader of Russia, presiding over the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the demise of the Communist Party, died yesterday in Moscow. He was 76.

His death, at a hospital, came at 3:45 p.m., the Kremlin said, making the announcement without ceremony, a reflection of the contradictory legacy of Mr. YeltsinÂ’s presidency in the view of many Russians, including his successor, the current leader, President Vladimir V. Putin.

Medical officials told Russian news agencies that Mr. Yeltsin had died of heart failure after being admitted to the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow. He had suffered heart problems for years, undergoing surgery shortly after his disputed re-election as Russian president in 1996.

Yeltsin's resignation eight years ago took him out of the political spotlight -- so much so that many had forgotten he was still alive. It also brought Valdimir Putin to power -- a move that has had dire consequences for Russian democracy.

And then there is the journalist, David Halberstam.

avid Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and tireless author of books on topics as varied as AmericaÂ’s military failings in Vietnam, the deaths of firefighters at the World Trade Center and the high-pressure world of professional basketball, was killed yesterday in a car crash south of San Francisco. He was 73, and lived in Manhattan.

Mr. Halberstam was a passenger in a car making a turn in Menlo Park, Calif., when it was hit broadside by another car and knocked into a third vehicle, said the San Mateo County coroner. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The man who was driving Mr. Halberstam, a journalism student at the University of California at Berkeley, was injured, as were the drivers of the other two vehicles. None of those injuries were called serious.

Mr. Halberstam was killed doing what he had done his entire adult life: reporting. He was on his way to interview Y. A. Tittle, the former New York Giants quarterback, for a book about the 1958 championship game between the Giants and the Baltimore Colts, considered by many to be the greatest football game ever played.

You didn't have to agree with Halberstam to respect his writing -- and personally, I feel a sense of loss that the book in progress may never be finished, because the topic intrigues me.

Two lives -- ended on one day. Two important figures gone from the world stage. Two of the many who died yesterday -- but two whose lives had impact far beyond their own circle of family and friends.

Posted by: Greg at 10:31 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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In fact, I think I've completely lost my appetite.

A man chopped off his penis with a knife in front of horrified diners at a busy restaurant.

Police were called to Zizzi, in The Strand, London, at 9pm on Sunday after reports of a man in possession of a knife.

Sales rep Stuart McMahon, who was eating at the restaurant with his girlfriend, told the SUN:

"This guy came running in then charged into the kitchen, got a massive knife and started waving it about.

"Everyone was screaming and running out as he jumped on a table, dropped his trousers and popped his penis out.

"Then he cut it off. I couldn't believe it."

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said a man aged between 30-40 was the only person injured and that his injuries were self-inflicted.

She said he was taken to a south London hospital where his condition was today described as stable.

Next time I may just order out for Chinese food.

MORE HERE

Posted by: Greg at 04:05 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Columnist Vin Suprynowicz points out that some folks who want more anti-gun legislation following the Hokie Horror are asking the wrong question.

America's hoplophobe press will follow Mr. Horwitz's lead and concentrate on "where he got his guns" -- which makes about as much sense as investigating the latest Baghdad truck bombing by asking, "Where on earth did that suicidal militant get his Toyota?"

Why don't they explain to us, just this once, why these chemically warped fruitcakes never attack police stations or Army bases? Could it be because, even in their madness, they know the armed people there might shoot back?

Bravo, Vin.

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Proving, of course, that the calls for more gun control in the wake of the Hokie Horror are as doomed to failure as the laws currently on the books.

Under federal law, the Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho should have been prohibited from buying a gun after a Virginia court declared him to be a danger to himself in late 2005 and sent him for psychiatric treatment, a state official and several legal experts said Friday.

Federal law prohibits anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective,” as well as those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, from buying a gun.

The special justiceÂ’s order in late 2005 that directed Mr. Cho to seek outpatient treatment and declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself fits the federal criteria and should have immediately disqualified him, said Richard J. Bonnie, chairman of the Supreme Court of VirginiaÂ’s Commission on Mental Health Law Reform.

A spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also said that if Mr. Cho had been found mentally defective by a court, he should have been denied the right to purchase a gun.

The federal law defines adjudication as a mental defective to include “determination by a court, board, commission or other lawful authority” that as a result of mental illness, the person is a “danger to himself or others.”

Mr. ChoÂ’s ability to buy two guns despite his history has brought new attention to the adequacy of background checks that scrutinize potential gun buyers. And since federal gun laws depend on states for enforcement, the failure of Virginia to flag Mr. Cho highlights the often incomplete information provided by states to federal authorities.

So the problem is not a lack of laws, it is the inadequacy of the enforcement of those laws (sounds rather like our border situation, doesn't it?). So our choice is to more stringently enforce the laws on the book -- or to round up the 250,000,000 to 300,000,000 guns that are in private hands in this country. The latter is a virtually impossible job -- if we cannot find and expel 12 million illegal aliens, how could we possibly round up and destroy 20-25 times as many guns -- as well as a betrayal of our constitutional heritage. So enforcement it must be, unless America is willing to wake up and see that fewer gun laws, rather than more limitations on a constitutional right, may just be the proper solution.

Posted by: Greg at 02:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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After all, Johnson Space Center is 10 minutes from my home -- and that is if I miss all the traffic lights. We spent a tense afternoon/evening here, waiting to see if any of our friends/neighbors were among those involved in this ugly situation.

A NASA contract worker barricaded himself inside a Johnson Space Center building Friday and killed one of two hostages before committing suicide.

William A. Phillips, a 60-year-old engineer, fatally shot co-worker David Beverly in the chest with a snub-nosed revolver at about 1:40 p.m., authorities said.

More than three hours later, with Houston police and JSC security officers inside the three-story Building 44, Phillips shot himself in the head. In the same room, police found a second hostage, Francelia Crenshaw, also a contract worker, bound to a chair with duct tape.

She was taken to Christus St. John Hospital near the center and later released.

It was not clear why Phillips — described as a model employee for 13 years by Mike Coats, JSC's director — went on the rampage. Police were unable to communicate with him during the standoff.

Now folks will want to know why security didn't stop this, because after all, JSC is supposed to be a secure facility. The reality is that it is -- or at least as secure as a military base, where one needs to have a sticker on the car and an ID to access certain areas of the facility. But short of every searching car and putting metal detectors in every building, there is no stopping someone from bringing a gun to this gun-free installation.

Indeed, as with the Virginia Tech case, the problem comes down to the fact that the gun-free policy worked almost perfectly. Nearly 100% of the employees in Building 44 were gun-free -- which is why the one who was not gun-free had such an easy time of it when he decided to act violently against close acquaintances/co-workers. In that respect, what happened yesterday is no different from what happens from time to time in workplaces and at schools around the country -- except that the location simply has a much more storied history than is usually the case.

And lest you start to wonder what the deal is with NASA (after all, we are not far from another unpleasant incident involving NASA personnel), please consider that your average NASA employee or contractor is, when it comes right down to it, an ordinary human being. I live around them and go to church with a number of them -- including folks who are honest-to-God rocket scientists. They have spouses, kids, hobbies, and everything else that ordinary people have. Some also have problems that lurk beneath the surface, or odd aspects to their lives. let's not forget -- Rusty Yates was (and I believe still is) employed at NASA, some six years after his strange family life came to light following the murder of his children by his wife, Andrea Yates.

Oh, and speaking of murders with a tie to NASA, I've got one more for you. Remember the Clara Harris case -- the one involving the dentists who ran over her cheating husband with an SUV in the parking lot of a hotel? That happened at the Hilton right across the street from Johnson Space Center, under a mile from the site of yesterday's incident -- at the corner of NASA Parkway and Space Center Boulevard.

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Well, given the amount of data that DoubleClick and Google gather on private individuals, some are arguing that it is.

Google's proposed $3.1 billion purchase of online ad firm DoubleClick would merge two powerful digital data gatherers that track people's online activities, raising serious privacy concerns that the Federal Trade Commission should investigate, consumer advocates allege in a complaint to be filed with the FTC today. The deal would create a firm with access to more information about consumers' Internet activities than any other company in the world, the Electronic Privacy Information Center said in its complaint.

"Google will operate with virtually no legal obligation to ensure the privacy, security and accuracy of the personal data that it collects. At this time, there is simply no consumer privacy issue more pressing for the commission to consider than Google's plan to combine the search histories and Web site visit records of Internet users," the complaint says.

Hopefully this matter will be closely scrutinized.

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Progress is being made in fixing the broken Texas Youth Commission.

The Texas Senate unanimously approved fundamental changes in the Texas Youth Commission on Thursday, supporting efforts to reduce the population at its facilities, improve staff-to-offender ratios and require enhanced training for guards.

Senate Bill 103, by Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, passed 30-0, and is part of the promised overhaul of an agency reeling from accusations that incarcerated youths have been sexually and physically abused by staff at many of the state's 15 correctional facilities.

The Senate is trying "to rebuild, restructure TYC from the bottom up," he said, adding that his bill would create "checks and balances, a wide open system that is transparent. It'll change the whole culture in the way we treat our young people."

Soon after the bill passed, agency officials announced the firing of a high-ranking official in Austin and the resignation of four of his colleagues. All but one had served on the agency's executive council, and all, said spokesman Jim Hurley, "were on board when the agency failed in a spectacular way on a national stage. All were running the agency when the wheels came off."

Now that the folks who let the agency get out of control are gone, there could be some hope. but whill any of the policians who let the situation get this bad pay a price?

Posted by: Greg at 10:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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How is the employment of the killer's sister relevant -- or newsworthy?

The sister of the gunman responsible for the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history works as a contractor for a State Department office that oversees billions of dollars in American aid for Iraq.

Sun-Kyung Cho is employed by the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office, according to U.S. officials and a State Department staff directory that says she works from an annex near the department's headquarters in Washington.

Messages left on her office voicemail, in which she identifies herself as "Sun Cho," were not immediately returned on Wednesday.

The Virginia Tech gunman was her brother, Cho Seung-Hui. Thirty-three people died in the rampage Monday, including the 23-year-old student, who committed suicide.

Spokesman Sean McCormack declined to discuss Sun Cho's status but told reporters "this person is not a direct-hire employee of the State Department." He declined to comment further, citing privacy concerns. Other U.S. officials confirmed she works for a contractor.

Nothing in the article ties Ms. Cho to her brother's evil deeds -- besides her name and parentage. Why do a profile on her at all -- unless one is seeking to discredit the Bush administration, or the mission to help Iraq become a stable democracy after decades of oppression. Is it possible that the media is so interested in doing so that the life, accomplishments, and reputation of a young woman must be sacrificed because of the evil done by her brother?

Ms. Cho needs to be held up as an example of hard work and accomplishment -- not made a sideshow freak at her brother's carnival of horrors. The AP owes her an apology.

H/T Malkin

Posted by: Greg at 10:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Interesting. I thought they told us that they had no idea who he was, and that campus police had never had any dealings with him. Could Virginia Tech have been lying to us? Or were they merely incompetent?

Campus authorities were aware 17 months ago of the troubled mental state of the student who shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech on Monday, an imbalance graphically on display in vengeful videos and a manifesto he mailed to NBC News in the time between the two sets of shootings.

* * *

The hostility in the videos was foreshadowed in 2005, when Mr. ChoÂ’s sullen and aggressive behavior culminated in an unsuccessful effort by the campus police to have him involuntarily committed to a mental institution in December.

For all the interventions by the police and faculty members, Mr. Cho was allowed to remain on campus and live with other students. There is no evidence that the police monitored him and no indication that the authorities or fellow students were aware of any incident that pushed him to his rampage.

Despite Mr. ChoÂ’s time in the mental health system, when an English professor was disturbed by his writings last fall and contacted the associate dean of students, the dean told the professor that there was no record of any problems and that nothing could be done, said the instructor, Lisa Norris.

The quest to have him committed, documented in court papers, was made after a female student complained of unwelcome telephone calls and in-person communication from Mr. Cho on Nov. 27, 2005. The woman declined to press charges, and the campus police referred the case to the disciplinary system of the university, Chief Wendell Flinchum said.

Mr. ChoÂ’s disciplinary record was not released because of privacy laws. The associate vice president for student affairs, Edward F. D. Spencer, said it would not be unusual if no disciplinary action had been taken in such a case. On Dec. 12, a second woman asked the police to put a stop to Mr. ChoÂ’s instant messages to her. She, too, declined to press charges.

The police said Mr. Cho did not threaten the women, who described the efforts at contact as “annoying.” But later on the day of the second complaint, an unidentified acquaintance of Mr. Cho notified the police that he might be suicidal.

Mr. Cho went voluntarily to the Police Department, which referred him to a mental health agency off campus, Chief Flinchum said. A counselor recommended involuntary commitment, and a judge signed an order saying that he “presents an imminent danger to self or others” and sent him to Carilion St. Albans Psychiatric Hospital in Radford for an evaluation.

“Affect is flat and mood is depressed,” a doctor there wrote. “He denies suicidal ideations. He does not acknowledge symptoms of a thought disorder. His insight and judgment are sound.”

The doctor determined that Mr. Cho was mentally ill, but not an imminent danger, and the judge declined to commit him, instead ordering outpatient treatment.

Officials said they did not know whether Mr. Cho had received subsequent counseling.

Which raises a different issue -- our society does not generally allow for the forcible treatment of metal illness, and has not done so since the compassionate liberal reforms of the 1960s threw open the gates of the nation's insane asylums and mental hospitals. Individual autonomy has been the rule for four decades, and the right to refuse treatment for mental illness has been viewed (quite properly, might I add) as a basic right of every citizen, just as it is for virtually any other medical condition. Unfortunately, that leaves a gaping hole through which the truly dangerous like Cho can walk.

And then there is federal and state education law, which further restricts what colleges and universities (not to mention public schools like the ones where I teach) can do when faced with a mentally ill student. They are liable if they don't act to protect the student and others from a mentally ill student's behavior -- but are also liable if they take any action deemed "discriminatory" against that same student. Small wonder, then, that Cho was allowed to remain at Virginia Tech.

Posted by: Greg at 10:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And if you are going to make yourself a cog in the repressive machinery of a human rights violating entity like Red China, expect to be sued.

A human rights group sued Yahoo on Wednesday, accusing the Internet giant of abetting the torture of pro-democracy writers by releasing data that allowed China's government to identify them.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, says the company was complicit in the arrests of 57-year-old Wang Xiaoning and other Chinese Internet activists. The suit is the latest development in a campaign by advocacy groups to spotlight the conduct of U.S. companies in China.

As they seek a slice of the booming Chinese market, Yahoo and other American companies have sometimes set aside core American values, such as free speech, to comply with the communist government's laws.

The suit, in trying to hold Yahoo accountable, could become an important test case. Advocacy groups are seeking to use a 217-year-old U.S. law to punish corporations for human rights violations abroad, an effort the Bush administration has opposed.

In 2003, Wang began serving a 10-year sentence on charges that he incited subversion with online treatises criticizing the government. He is named as a plaintiff in the Yahoo suit, which was filed with help from the World Organization for Human Rights USA, based in Washington.

Yahoo is guilty of "an act of corporate irresponsibility," said Morton Sklar, executive director of the group. "Yahoo had reason to know that if they provided China with identification information that those individuals would be arrested."

I'm ashamed of the Bush Administration for opposing this suit -- and wish that they would instead seek criminal penalties against Yahoo, Google, and other companies that seek to make money by turning democracy advocates over to oppressive regimes for their exercise of a right as fundamental as freedom of speech.

What next? Will Yahoo cooperate with Islamists in identifying targets for beheading due to their "Islamophobic" statements and sentiments?

Posted by: Greg at 10:18 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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No, not the material sent to NBC News by the evil bastard responsible for the Hokie Horror, nor even the fact that he sent it to some media outlet.

No, the shocking thing is their decision to turn it all over to the police.

Sometime after he killed two people in a Virginia university dormitory but before he slaughtered 30 more in a classroom building Monday morning, Cho Seung-Hui mailed NBC News a large package, including photographs and videos, lamenting that “I didn’t have to do this.”

Cho, 23, a senior English major at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, killed 32 people in two attacks before taking his own life.

NBC News President Steve Capus said the network received the package, which was not addressed to a specific person, in Tuesday afternoonÂ’s mail delivery, but it was not opened until Wednesday morning. The network immediately turned the materials over to FBI agents in New York.

But wait -- I thought that the press turning information over to the media is unethical and a threat to freedom of the press. You know, "making the press an investigative arm of the state" and all that crap we hear every time the news media wants to withhold evidence of a crime -- especially when they are the only folks who know the identity of the criminal, such as those who illegally leak classified national security information to them.

I guess that principle are only principles for these people when they disagree with the actions of the criminal -- and when they are not complicit in the crime.

Oh, and by the way -- this material does show how depraved that the murderer Cho really was.

Posted by: Greg at 11:35 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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What else would you expect from the New York Times?

Not much is known about the gunman, who killed himself, or about his motives or how he got his weapons, so it is premature to draw too many lessons from this tragedy. But it seems a safe bet that in one way or another, this will turn out to be another instance in which an unstable or criminally minded individual had no trouble arming himself and harming defenseless people.

* * *

Our hearts and the hearts of all Americans go out to the victims and their families. Sympathy was not enough at the time of Columbine, and eight years later it is not enough. What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage and such unbearable loss.

Which ignores, of course, that the problem is likely to be one of illegally obtained guns -- guns already banned under the statutes that exist -- and not legally obtained weapons. Indeed, as I've already noted, the laws and regulations in placed guaranteed that the stable and non-criminally-minded students lacked the means to stop this individual from continuing his rampage.

And, of course, there is the Houston Chronicle.

Proponents of unfettered access to firearms rely on the rallying cry, "Guns don't kill people; people kill people." That's true. The horrifying reality is that too many Americans — afflicted with mental illness, alienation or hatred — are ready and willing to take life. And they can arm themselves to the hilt without ever undergoing a background check.

While Virginia Tech police believe they know who was responsible for the shootings, his motives remain a mystery that might never be satisfactorily solved.

Meanwhile, the mass murderer is another in a series of American figures who combine a fascination with deadly weapons, easy access to them, a grudge against the world and an unexplained capacity for cruelty.

And given the description of the weapons used in this shooting, it appears that they were not legally obtained at all -- meaning that even the most stringent background checks would have been ineffective because buyers and sellers of illegal weapons, by definition, will ignore any law designed to limit gun sales.

At least the Washington Post showed a little moderation, asking questions rather than immediately urging that potential victims law-abiding citizens exercising their constitutional rights be further restricted and disarmed.

The atrocity at Virginia Tech sparked instant and fierce debates, online and elsewhere, even as survivors were fighting for their lives. Under what circumstances, and where, did the gunman obtain his weapons? Would the university have suffered the same tragedy if Virginia law did not prohibit the carrying of guns on campus? Should metal detectors be ubiquitous in American classrooms and dormitories? And why are gunmen so apt to carry out their lethal rampages at American schools?

So many questions -- and a same resistance to the siren call of the failed solution of limitation on gun rights.

I have to agree with the Post's conclusion as well.

As the debates rage and questions are raised, the mourning will go on. But the parents, relatives and friends of the victims at Virginia Tech will not mourn alone. Their tragedy is America's too.

Posted by: Greg at 10:49 PM | Comments (129) | Add Comment
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I reported on this case when it happened, and feel great compassion for this young man.

David Ritcheson had been a running back on the Klein Collins High School football team. He was homecoming prince as a freshman and had a girlfriend. He "hung out with the good crowd," he says, and had every reason to look forward to returning last fall.

But once classes resumed, Ritcheson was overwhelmed by the looks he got everywhere he went — in the halls, in the cafeteria, in classrooms.

The looks all said the same thing: You're a victim, how do you deal with it? Everybody knew what had happened to him, and the attack, he says, "was just so degrading."

In a case that drew national attention, Ritcheson, a Mexican-American, was severely assaulted last April 23 by two youths while partying in Spring. One of the attackers, a skinhead named David Tuck, yelled ethnic slurs and kicked a pipe up his rectum, severely damaging his internal organs and leaving Ritcheson in the hospital for three months and eight days — almost all of it in critical care.

In an hour-long interview at his home with his parents on Monday, Ritcheson agreed to be photographed and have his name made public. He reflected on his life before the attack, described the lengthy recovery that followed and looked forward to wresting something positive from the experience.

"How hasn't it changed me?" he asked, summing up the experience.

Today, Ritcheson will be in Washington, D.C., to testify before a congressional committee about why he feels federal hate crime laws need to be expanded. As much as he doesn't want to be a "poster child," Ritcheson is convinced he can do some good.

The problem with his position? The facts of his case show that a federal hate crime law is not necessary.

Tuck, 19, and Keith Turner, 18, both of Spring, eventually were convicted of aggravated sexual assault for attacking Ritcheson in the backyard. Tuck was given a life sentence, Turner 90 years.

Life in prison. Ninety years in prison. Excuse me, but it does not strike me that there is anything more that can be done, unless you simply want to take these two mutts out and put a bullet into the base of their skulls. It is rather like the call for a hate crime law here in Texas after the James Byrd dragging in Jasper -- where two of the three perps got the death penalty and the one who cooperated with authorities got life. How would you "enhance" those sentences?

Don't think perpetrators of hate crimes are getting punished sufficiently? Fine, I'll agree with you -- but the solution is not a hate crime law. The solution, instead, is to enhance the penalties for the underlying offenses, across the board, so that actions like theirs are punished harshly. Because after all, what is it we are out to punish -- the crime or the motive? The thoughts or the actions? I hope and pray that the answer is obvious.

Posted by: Greg at 10:30 PM | Comments (41) | Add Comment
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After all, the major media sought to destroy the Duke lacrosse players accused of rape and sexual assault -- because you know, that's what rich white boys do to black women. And when the case was shown to be built upon a thin tissue of lies and naked political ambition, the same media has been strangely silent about its responsibility -- and in some cases still seeks to question whether these young men are really innocent.

At least Howard Kurtz raises the question of what the media should do now.

The combination of race, crime, sports and a blue-chip university proved irresistible for a business that thrives on creating national soap operas. Did the indictments, as the team's lacrosse season was canceled, have to be covered? Of course. But media outlets framed the story as one of privilege vs. poverty, black vs. white, athletes above the law -- if, of course, it happened.

Television showed the homes of the players' parents. Newsweek put two of the defendants' mug shots on the cover. Sometimes the word "alleged" was dropped in the process. "I'm so glad they didn't miss a lacrosse game over a little thing like gang rape," Headline News host Nancy Grace said.

Once discrepancies surfaced in the accuser's account, some local and national outlets did a good job of bird-dogging the case. But by then the presumption of innocence had virtually vanished.

The three players were not choir boys -- the team had, after all, invited a pair of strippers to a midnight party -- but they hardly deserved the national scorn of being loudly trumpeted as accused rapists.

The accuser got to make her charges from behind a curtain of anonymity, which is entirely proper in sexual assault cases. But I'm not so sure the media should continue to shield her now that investigators have determined her to be a liar. The New York Post, Washington Times, and Raleigh News & Observer have all identified the woman.

How about an apology -- and a serious reexamination of the notion that accusers in sexual assault cases deserve anonymity while the names and faces of the accused are displayed for all to see and vilify?

And we won't get into the question of what so-called civil rights leaders owe these victims of racial injustice -- because after all, it was Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and others at the head of the lynch mob.

Posted by: Greg at 10:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The gall of these folks, insisting that Metro be required to build its light rail line where they said they would -- or that the matter be placed back before the voters for approval.

In what is shaping up as a repeat of an unsuccessful but expensive legal battle to stop the Main Street rail line, opponents of light rail on Richmond have gone to court. Perhaps preliminary to a full-blown lawsuit, a single business owner has asked a state district judge to compel Metro officials to answer questions about plans for the westward extension of the system.

The request raises a familiar issue often cited by rail opponents. In a 2003 referendum, Houston voters narrowly approved a plan authorizing Metro to expand the rail system with seven additional lines, including a route, labeled Westpark, running from Wheeler Station at Main to the Hillcroft Transit Center. Opponents of rail anywhere on Richmond argue that any route except one along Westpark requires fresh approval from the voters.

Metro officials correctly contend the names of the proposed routes were general and open to change. They point to additional wording on the ballot, repeated three times: "Final scope, length of rail segments or lines or other details, together with implementation schedule, will be based upon demand and completion of the project development process, including community input."

Interestingly enough, community input on the proposed Richmond line has been negative -- but that isn't slowing Metro down. Then again, every other claim made by Metro about the accident-prone train to nowhere has been demonstrated to be false -- so why not the routes we get as well?

Posted by: Greg at 10:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Am I the only one who has a problem with the conviction of a 17-year-old for having consensual sex with a 15-year-old?

The former football player, Genarlow Wilson, is serving 10 years without parole for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a New YearÂ’s Eve party, an offense that constituted aggravated child molesting even though he was 17 at the time.

The mandatory sentence shocked even the jury that convicted him. State law has since been changed to make most consensual sex between teenagers a misdemeanor.

But the courts have ruled that the new law does not apply to Mr. Wilson, and the district attorney in his case, David McDade of Douglas County, has opposed efforts this session to pass a law that would allow judges to review earlier cases and to revise sentences.

“Six young men basically gang-raped a 17-year-old and had repeated sex acts with a 15-year-old,” Mr. McDade, told Channel 11, the local NBC affiliate, in March. “There’s no member of the legislature that I think would condone that behavior.”

But the jury in Mr. WilsonÂ’s case disagreed with Mr. McDadeÂ’s depiction. After being repeatedly shown a home videotape of sex, drugs and alcohol at the New YearÂ’s Eve party in a hotel room in Douglas County, they acquitted Mr. Wilson of rape. The five other young men at the party have pleaded guilty to lesser charges. None have been convicted of rape.

“This is the same thing that happened in the Duke rape case, where some prosecutor exaggerated the facts out of self-interest,” said B. J. Bernstein, Mr. Wilson’s lawyer. The attorney general in North Carolina, Roy A. Cooper, called the prosecutor there, Michael B. Nifong, a “rogue.” Ms. Bernstein has called on Georgia’s attorney general, Thurbert E. Baker, to review the Wilson case and not to oppose a habeas corpus petition she filed last week.

I'm not saying that the activity that went on was right -- morally it wasn't -- but it clearly was not a felony that merits a decade in prison.

Posted by: Greg at 10:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, maybe -- but he may have been heading that way in any event.

PRINCE William's five-year romance with Kate Middleton was dramatically killed off at a secret royal summit when the Queen said: "Don't rush down the aisle—we don't want another Diana."

Her Majesty issued the shock advice around 10 days ago after William sensationally confessed his doubts at a top-level family conference.

The prince told other royals, including Prince Charles and the Duke of Edinburgh, that he didn't want to commit to marriage in the near future and preferred to put his Army and state duties first.

Of course, this all came after he indicated he was not ready to marry her -- and his grandfather, Prince Phillip, offered what may have been the best piece of advice out there.

The final death blow to Wills' relationship with his university sweetheart was delivered by grandfather Prince Philip.

He declared: "You can't string her along for ever."

And if you aren't ready to marry someone after five years, are you ever going to be ready to take that step?

Posted by: Greg at 02:26 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It is splits for Wills and Kate.

Prince William and his girlfriend Kate Middleton have ended their four-year relationship, dashing hopes of a royal wedding to rival that of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

The Sun newspaper reported Saturday that the couple had reached an "amicable agreement" to separate. Sources confirmed the split to the Press Association news agency.

William's Clarence House office refused to comment, saying it did not discuss the prince's private life, but royal sources did not deny the report, tacitly acknowledging it was true.

The newspaper said the split was caused by the huge pressures on the young couple and by William's career in the army. The second in line to the throne graduated from Sandhurst military academy in December and is undergoing further training at an army base in rural England.

News of the break-up took many royal-watchers by surprise. It was widely thought the couple would soon announce their engagement; one bookmaker was so certain of a royal wedding it had stopped taking bets on it.

Prince William has a military commitment, and his former girlfriend seems not to have been willing to share him with those duties.

Posted by: Greg at 01:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Too little, too late.

The Durham County district attorney apologized Thursday to the three former Duke University lacrosse players he had charged with sexually assaulting a stripper.

“To the extent that I made judgments that ultimately proved to be incorrect, I apologize to the three students that were wrongly accused,” the district attorney, Michael B. Nifong, wrote in a three-paragraph statement a day after the state attorney general, Roy A. Cooper, dismissed all the charges and called him a “rogue” prosecutor.

“I also understand that when someone has been wrongly accused, the harm caused by the accusations might not be immediately undone merely by dismissing them,” Mr. Nifong wrote. “It is my sincere desire that the actions of Attorney General Cooper will serve to remedy any remaining injury that has resulted from these cases.”

The apology was rebuffed by lawyers for the former students, whose families are seeking Mr. NifongÂ’s ouster and considering suing him for damages. The North Carolina State Bar has formally accused Mr. Nifong of numerous ethical violations.

“I still haven’t heard him admit he did anything wrong,” said James P. Cooney III, a lawyer for Reade W. Seligmann, one of the three. “I think the most concrete way he could apologize to everybody is to resign his office.”

No admission of wrong-doing, combined with an attempt to take credit for the dismissal of all charges by pointing out that he turned the case over to the NC attorney general -- but only after he was brought up on ethics charges. Add to that his efforts to intimidate the cabbie who helped clear one of the players and you see nothing but a corrupt prosecutor who would not know the truth if it walked up and bit him on the ass.

Mike Nifong needs to be in jail -- and so does Crystal Gail Mangum, the lying sack of crap whose false claims set off this entire tragedy. And both need to be sued into oblivion by the falsely accused and irresponsibly charged players.

Posted by: Greg at 10:41 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It’s one of those funny things about Mother Nature – she and her predators don’t give a bunny’s behind about whether a species is protected by environmental regulations or not.

Most of a group of 20 endangered rabbits that were reintroduced to the wild with great fanfare last month have been killed by predators, state officials said.

Only four of the rabbits released on March 13 remained at the Sagebrush Flat Wildlife Area as of Tuesday, said David Hays, pygmy rabbit coordinator for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Hays said two males were removed earlier this month and will be returned at the end of April. The other 14 rabbits are believed to have fallen victim to predators, mainly coyotes, but also hawks and owls, Hays said.

The rabbits, small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, eat sagebrush and are the only rabbits in the United States that dig their own burrows.

The Sagebrush Flat Wildlife Area, about 10 miles north of Ephrata, is considered the last native home of the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit. The rabbit was listed as a state endangered species in 1993 and federally protected in 2003.

Wouldn’t this be an example of the law of “survival of the fittest” at work?

Posted by: Greg at 11:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Charges in the Duke case have now been dropped due to a "tragic rush to accuse" – and the attack has been determined to have never happened.

Prosecutors dropped all charges Wednesday against the three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a stripper at a party, saying the athletes were innocent victims of a "tragic rush to accuse" by an overreaching district attorney.

"There were many points in the case where caution would have served justice better than bravado," North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said in a blistering assessment of Durham County District Mike Nifong's handling of the case.

Cooper, who took over the case after Nifong was charged with ethics violations that could get him disbarred, said his own investigation concluded not only that the evidence against the young men was insufficient, but that no attack took place.

If this determination does not give rise to some sort of civil rights action against Nifong and civil damages for the actual victims in this case, Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans, then justice will not have been done.

And we need criminal charges brought against the false accuser – and that includes an end to the media practice of not naming this liar whose criminal actions have forever harmed these three INNOCENT young men and their teammates.

CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM
LIAR

Posted by: Greg at 02:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Finally, and much too late, action is being taken against Texas Youth Commission employees who sexually preyed upon their charges.

A West Texas grand jury on Tuesday indicted two former administrators of a Texas Youth Commission lockup on multiple sex abuse charges, ending two years of inactivity in a case that has sparked an overhaul of the state's juvenile correctional system.

"It's about time," said Marc Slattery, a volunteer math teacher who first alerted a Texas Ranger to sex abuse complaints at the school.

The suspects, Ray Brookins and John Paul Hernandez, both 41, were indicted on charges of sexually abusing six youths, ages 16-19, who were incarcerated at the West Texas State School in Pyote in 2004 and 2005.

Brookins, the facility's former assistant superintendent, was arrested at his home in Austin and was being held in lieu of $100,000 bail. Hernandez, the facility's former principal, was arrested at his parents' home in Fort Stockton; his bail was set at $600,000.

My question -- why did it take so long, and why were these reports covered up for so long? Who will be held responsible for those delays?

If you read the article, you will see the scandal goes deeper still.

Posted by: Greg at 10:48 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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If there is any justice in North Carolina, that will happen today.

The three defendants in the Duke lacrosse sexual assault case and their families arrived in the area late Tuesday in expectation of an announcement from the state attorney general clearing them of all charges, one of the defense lawyers said.

“I am very comfortable what will happen when the attorney general makes the announcement,” said Joseph B. Cheshire, a lawyer for David F. Evans, one of three former Duke University students accused of sexual offense and kidnapping in a March 2006 lacrosse team party.

Another defense lawyer, James P. Cooney III, said the families were arriving so they would not have to travel at the last minute for an announcement. The lawyers declined to say if they had received assurances from the attorney generalÂ’s office.

The attorney general, Roy A. Cooper, and his spokeswoman could not be reached Tuesday night. Earlier, the spokeswoman, Noelle Talley, said it was possible the office would hold a news conference today culminating its three-month investigation.

Mr. Cheshire said the defendants and their families were all arriving and planned to hold a news conference of their own within an hour of the attorney generalÂ’s announcement.

On the other hand, the announcement -- if one is coming -- could be later this week.

The three men indicted in the Duke lacrosse sexual assault case could learn this week whether state prosecutors plan to bring them to trial or drop the charges, a person close to the case said Tuesday.

The attorney general's office, which has said for several weeks it was close to completing its investigation since taking the case from the district attorney, has wrapped up additional interviews, said the person, who spoke to The Associated Press on a condition of anonymity because a formal announcement has not been made.

A spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office said Tuesday no announcement in the case was scheduled. No motions or court papers were filed in the case on Tuesday.

Real justice won't happen, however, until the false accuser is charged, tried, and convicted for her lies, and the corrupt DA is disbarred and jailed for his violations of the civil rights of these young men -- yeah, that's right, wealthy white guys have civil rights too, folks.

Posted by: Greg at 10:37 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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