A Harris County grand jury has declined to indict Joe Horn for killing two guys robbing a neighbor's house.

A Harris County grand jury decided today that Joe Horn should not be charged with a crime for shooting two suspected burglars he confronted outside his neighbor's home in Pasadena last fall.

The decision to clear Horn of wrongdoing came two weeks after the grand jury began considering evidence in the case, including Horn's testimony last week.

Horn, a 62-year-old retiree, became the focus of an intense public debate after the Nov. 14 shootings. Many supporters praised him as a hero for using deadly force to protect property, while others dismissed him as a killer who should have heeded a 911 operator's instructions to stay in his house and wait for police.

One of the key details in the case?

Pasadena police Capt. A.H. "Bud" Corbett said a few weeks after the shooting that a plainclothes detective had parked in front of Horn's house in response to the 911 call. He said the detective saw the men between Horn's house and his neighbor's before they crossed into Horn's front yard.

It appeared that neither Horn nor the men knew a police officer was present, Corbett said.

"It was over within seconds. The detective never had time to say anything before the shots were fired," Corbett said. "At first, the officer was assessing the situation. Then he was worried Horn might mistake him for the 'wheel man' (getaway driver). He ducked at one point."

When Horn confronted the suspects in his yard, he raised his shotgun to his shoulder, Corbett said. However the men ignored his order to freeze.

Corbett said one man ran toward Horn, but had angled away from him toward the street when he was shot in the back just before reaching the curb.

"The detective confirmed that this suspect was actually closer to Horn after he initiated his run than at the time when first confronted," said Corbett. "Horn said he felt in jeopardy."

What really needs to be looked into here is why the cop sat in front of the house watching rather than confronting the robbers. The city council in Pasadena may need to investigate that -- and do a thorough housecleaning.

My hope is that the next move is a lawsuit against the families of Diego Ortiz and Hernando Riascos Torres, seeking recovery of all legal fees that have been incurred by Mr. Horn -- and restitution for the good ammunition that Joe Horn had to use on these thieving illegal aliens who died as a result of their own felonious conduct.

Great commentary on this decision here.

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It isn't quite the sort of departure that Andrew Carnegie did when he quit running his steel company to become a philanthropist, but Bill Gates is doing something similar at Microsoft.

On his final full day at Microsoft Corp., Bill Gates went on stage to reminisce with his longtime friend Steve Ballmer, and neither man could hold back tears as Ballmer handed Gates a large scrapbook as a farewell present.

Gates, who is stepping back to focus on his philanthropy, sat with CEO Ballmer in a Microsoft conference room and meandered through moments in Microsoft's history. They stopped to get in a few good digs at IBM Corp., whose first personal computers were loaded with Microsoft's DOS operating system before IBM adopted its own operating software and their relations strained.

Frankly, I see this as a good thing. After all, as long as Bill gates remains the driving force at Microsoft, there is really only a single ultimate source of the vision for the company. On the other hand, this change could spur more and better ideas from the company that now dominates the software world.

And let us have no doubt about the importance of Bill gates.

I'm sitting at a computer using a Microsoft operating system, a Microsoft office suite, and at least one peripheral that is a Microsoft product. There is literally nothing I do on this computer that does not intimately involve Microsoft products -- and that is true of most computers in the country. Not bad for a college drop-out.

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I've avoided engaging in the Tim Russert hagiography seen in the media over the last ten days, but I do want to comment on this decision by the folks at NBC News.

Tom Brokaw will replace Tim Russert as moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press” through the November presidential election, the network announced today.

Brokaw, 68, filled in for the first post-Russert week. “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams was the host today, and revealed Russert's interim successor during the broadcast.

NBC News President Steve Capus said: "A lot has been said in recent days about what 'Meet the Press' means to NBC News and to the nation. To have someone of Tom's stature step up and dedicate himself to ensuring its ongoing success is not only a testament to his loyalty to Tim, but his enduring commitment to NBC News and our viewers."

NBCÂ’s plans for a successor to Russert, who died two weeks ago after collapsing at the networkÂ’s Washington bureau, have been the subject of hot speculation. The interim plan gives network executives time to figure out how to preserve the showÂ’s prestige and profitability for the long run.

Frankly, it is the right choice. Love him or hate him, it was always hard not to respect Tom Brokaw. In retirement, he is a voice of reason and something approaching objectivity. In this time of crisis for the network (but not, as some would paint it, for America as a whole), the decision to make him the interim moderator of Meet the Press is a good one. As a known quantity, it signals that there will not be many changes during the run-up tot he presidential election.

There is another reason that this is a good choice. CBS really does not have a successor to Russert waiting in the wings. Chris Matthews? Keith Olbermann? Dan Abrams? Certainly not. Brian Williams? Maybe, but who would take the nightly newscast? By giving themselves six months or longer to consider the best direction, the network will likely be able to preserve the Meet the Press brand. In the end, that isn't just good journalism -- it is also good business.

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One of the venerable names in the free email business will be coming back -- and will be joined by a new domain, ymail.com -- under a new plan announced by Yahoo.

Rocketmail has been dormant since Yahoo purchased Four11 Corp in 1997, with no new registrations allowed once Yahoo began offering Yahoo email addresses. Ymail is a totally new domain.

Why the change? Because Yahoo has run out of desirable email addresses at its original domain. After all, to sign up now for a yahoo,com address is to get what you want with some random string of numbers attached to the end -- making the addresses difficult to remember. Yahoo clearly hopes that the newly available addresses will increase its share of the freemail market, with its lucrative advertising revenue.

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Or are you just glad to see me?

Police say a cook at a New York restaurant was arrested after coworkers allegedly caught him trying to hide 15 lobster tails in his pants.

Investigators said they found Raymundo Flores, 40, with 15 frozen lobster tails stuffed into his pants and bandages on his legs after two of Flores' coworkers at Junior's Restaurant in the city's Brooklyn borough caught him taking the tails and called 911, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

Two points.

1) Would you want to eat anything that had been stuffed down your pants to get it home?

2) I suppose he had to be satisfied with the lobster tails -- trying to smuggle live lobsters this way has its own punishment.

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I don't know about you, but I see a resemblance.

One of them is an Afghan warlord who hates America and denigrates the troops -- the other is a hack sports reporter turned television blowhard who does the same.

Separated at birth? You decide -- but it would help support the theory that Bush Derangement Syndrome is congenital.

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Are they out of their friggin' minds? I don't give a rat's hindquarters why this punk burned down the historic building -- the "young, politically-motivated male" -- burned down the Governor's mansion. Indeed, I denounce him and his motivation right now, without knowing a thing about it.

A young male may have been politically motivated when he set fire to the Governor's Mansion June 8, state officials speculated Monday.

State Fire Marshal Paul Maldonado issued two appeals Monday — one to the public with a Texas Crime Stoppers $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and another directly to the person responsible for the fire, which caused major damage to the 152-year-old mansion.

Maldonado said investigators figure the arsonist's actions conveyed a message and want him to contact them.

"We do feel that you have a message, and we would like to hear from you," Maldonado said. "We are not quite sure what that message is. But please contact us."

Maldonado promised the arsonist that state officials "will listen to your message."

You know, Tim McVeigh and Osama bin Ladin had messages, too. Neither deserved an audience, due to the methods by which they were communicated. Neither does this guy.

And as an aside, the official description of the arsonist eliminates my prime suspect. After all, despite his anger management problem and propensity to threaten political opponents with violence (as well as to violate federal law), he is certainly NOT young.

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Take agricultural and other organic waste and convert it to petroleum!

“Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d be doing this,” says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. “I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to – especially the ones coming out of business school – this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.”

He means bugs. To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs – very, very small ones – so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil.

Unbelievably, this is not science fiction. Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV next to us. Not that Mr Pal is willing to risk it just yet. He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls “renewable petroleum”. After that, he grins, “it’s a brave new world”.

Mr Pal is a senior director of LS9, one of several companies in or near Silicon Valley that have spurned traditional high-tech activities such as software and networking and embarked instead on an extraordinary race to make $140-a-barrel oil (£70) from Saudi Arabia obsolete. “All of us here – everyone in this company and in this industry, are aware of the urgency,” Mr Pal says.

Think about it -- stuff which goes to waste now will go into your gas tank. Heck, imagine if we could just get these critters to excrete the stuff already refined.

But one has to ask -- will the environmental scaremongers seek to block this method of petroleum creation with scare-stories about genetic engineering?

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And then revoke his passport.

Maybe he can harangue the Red Chinese dictators for being the biggest emitters of so-called "greenhouse gases" in the world!

China has now clearly overtaken the United States as the world's leading emitter of climate-warming gases, a new study has found. The increasing emissions from China - up 8 percent in the past year - accounted for two-thirds of the growth in global greenhouse gas emissions in 2007, the study found.

The report, released Friday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, is an annual study. Last year, for the first time, the researchers found that China had edged ahead of the United States as the world's leading emitter.

I suppose the only problem with my plan is that the rulers of Red China are even less tolerant of dissent than Gore is. I can only imagine their response to his efforts. It might look something like this.

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Shocking and sad.

Tim Russert, NBC News’ Washington bureau chief and the moderator of “Meet the Press,” died Friday after a sudden heart attack at the bureau, NBC News said Friday. He was 58.

Russert was recording voiceovers for Sunday’s “Meet the Press” program when he collapsed, the network said. No details were immediately available.

Let's be real honest here -- Russert generally tried to be fair. And regardless, it is impossible to see his death as anything other than tragic, given his relatively young age. Let our prayers go out to his family, friends, and co-workers, in particular to his wife, Maureen Orth (of Vanity Fair magazine) and son, Luke -- as well as his father, "Big Russ".

UPDATE: Tom Brokaw announces the death of Tim Russert.

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One more example of how environmentalism run wild is a threat to human needs.

Two conservation groups plan to sue to protect polar bears from petroleum exploration and drilling off Alaska's coast.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Environment gave the federal government formal notice Monday that they will sue under the Endangered Species Act to protect the bears, which were listed as threatened last month by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

Polar bears are threatened -- likely to become endangered -- because their sea ice habitat has melted dramatically and computer models predict further losses, Kempthorne said. Polar bears use sea ice for mating, denning and hunting.

Kempthorne said the best scientific judgments did not conclude that polar bears were threatened by oil and gas development.

The conservation groups do not agree.

Of course, there is no real threat to the polar bears, whose population has been expanding. But the willingness of the Bush Administration to make the faulty classification of the bears as threatened now threatens America's energy independence and national security.

After all, one group recently indicated its intent to start challenging projects it considers "global warming threats" ANYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY as threatening the polar bear's habitat in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

Two things need to happen here.

First, the Bush Administration needs to admit its error and remove the polar bear from the threatened list.

Second, the Endangered Species Act needs to be amended to put human needs first -- or better yet, it needs to be repealed completely.

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This is one of those stories that takes on a different hue because it is not just a national in scope, but also local -- after all Galveston is just a few miles down the road from where I type this post.

And so it is with sadness and admiration that I note the passing of Roger Stone, who saved two fellow sailors at the cost of his own life on a boat owned by Texas A&M at Galveston.

A college student who survived a boat sinking with four others said Monday that a safety officer who died on their boat was a hero for staying behind and pushing him out.

Steven Guy, a Texas A&M University sailor, said Roger Stone saved him and another sailor by helping them to safety.

"He is my hero," Guy said. "He saved me. If it wasn't for him, I would not be here."

The group never saw Stone after he pushed the two men out of a hatch in the boat, the mariners said. Stone, the boat's second safety officer, was found dead by the Coast Guard on Sunday afternoon.

The two men said they spent a day in open water after their vessel sank in the Gulf of Mexico.

The survivors -- four university students and a safety officer -- told the Coast Guard they were forced off their sailboat after it took on water and capsized early Saturday.

The five survivors were found and airlifted to land around 2 a.m. Sunday, the Coast Guard said.

Stone sacrificed himself so that the other sailors, students from the university, might live. But on a day to day basis, his job was to safeguard those others. By all accounts he did it well -- and in the end, without regard for his own life. May he rest in peace.

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One in four New Yorkers has herpes!

A city Health Department study finds that more than a fourth of adult New Yorkers are infected with the virus that causes genital herpes.

The study, released Monday, says about 26 percent of New York City adults have genital herpes, compared to about 19 percent nationwide.

The department says genital herpes can double a person's risk for contracting HIV.

Herpes can cause painful sores, but most people have no recognizable symptoms.

Among New Yorkers, the herpes rate is higher among women, black people and gay men.

You know what? There are some good reasons to engage in monogamous relationships with partners you know are not infected. Anyone familiar with the rates of multiple sex partners among the groups with the highest rates of infection? And want to bet we would find a correlation?

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No details yet, but what we do know is that the pre-Civil War structure was reported burning this morning around 1:45 AM Central Time and that it apparently has suffered "extraordinary, bordering on catastrophic," damage.

An early morning, four-alarm fire caused extensive damage to the Governor's Mansion today. But no one was in the building, which has been closed several months for renovation.

Gov. Rick Perry and his wife, Anita, are in Stockholm, Sweden, finishing up a weeklong, trade-related trip to Europe.

Damage to the 150-year-old historic structure is "extraordinary, bordering on catastrophic," including a partially collapsed roof, said Perry spokesman Robert Black.

Security officers staying on the grounds in a carriage house discovered the fire, and when the first firefighters arrived about 1:45 a.m., the fire already had spread to the second floor and the ceiling.

About 100 firefighters responded; none were injured, Black said.

The state Fire Marshal's office has begun an investigation, he said.

The building is in the midst of a $10 million renovation project, which raises the question of whether the fire is somehow related to the work in progress.

And the irony of it all.

Ironically, one of the purposes of the renovation project was to install a sprinkler system in the building, which had none. Before work began, the mansion had a fire alarm system on the first floor but none on the second floor, where the governor and his family lived.

UPDATE: Eyewitness report from YouTube.

Also, let me respond to a private email about this sad event: No, I don't think that delegates to the Texas Democrat Convention in Austin this weekend burned the Governor's Mansion -- even though I agree with the assessment that they are unlikely to have a member of their party win that office anytime in the next decade.

UPDATE 2: Now they say it is arson. Maybe that emailer was on to something after all.

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If AMD has its way, it just might.

A.M.D. has accused Intel of systematically giving its customers — the world’s leading personal computer makers — large discounts, at times below Intel’s own manufacturing costs, in exchange for commitments not to do business with competitors. Intel has responded that its discounts were legitimate incentives, not offered below cost, and benefiting customers who can buy computers at lower prices.

Intel has also maintained that A.M.D. tried to make up in the courts for its failures in the marketplace.

While Intel has denied the allegations, A.M.D. executives are hoping the case will present an easy opportunity for the next administration to take a noticeably more aggressive approach to competition issues. Technically independent of the White House, the trade commission is led by appointees of the president.

The charges, if true, would be indicative of a major violation of antitrust law. The possible result? Think about what was done to Ma Bell in the 198os..

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Could it be due to government actions that made hiring workers more expensive?

Especially since the number of jobs lost is relatively modest -- too modest to account for the jump in unemployment. It has to be because of the influx of new workers that happens in late spring and early summer each year, as teens and college students seek jobs.

Why have these new job seekers found it difficult to get jobs? One reason is that Congress made jobs costlier just in time for this economic slowdown. Congress raised the minimum wage last year by seventy cents an hour, from $5.15 to $5.85. It will rise again in July to $6.55 an hour, and next year will hit $7.25 per hour. That makes entry-level labor as much as 27% more expensive this summer, when consumers have already slowed down their spending. The natural loss of work from the slowdown amplifies the effect of the minimum-wage increase, because businesses now cannot afford to raise prices to maintain their entry-level positions.

When the minimum wage increase was under debate last year, many of us warned that it would have precisely this effect. Now we see it unfolding before our eyes. Will the Democrats acknowledge the error and take the blame for hundreds of thousands of jobs lost to their economic meddling — or will they try to shift the blame to the Bush administration for no good reason at all? (via Power Line)

I know I pointed this out in mid-February of last year.

Think about it -- increasing wages by 27%. Why wouldn't we have a decrease in low-wage entry-level jobs as a result? And how can anyone call the increase in unemployment that resulted an unforefeen consequence of the wage increase.

But don't worry -- the additional wage increases coming next summer is sure to make the situation much better. Won't it?

UPDATE: A great real-world example of the impact of the minimum wage increase on a real business over at Patterico's Pontifications-- one operated by the blogger's parents.

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Looks like there is a FIFTH tax warrant out against Emperor Keithius Smallpenius of the Olbermann Broadcast Empire.

Olbermann Watch has confirmed that the New York State Department of Labor filed an Industrial Commission Warrant against Olbermann Broadcasting Empire on April 1, 2008 for $1,039.15 with the New York County Clerk's office.

An Industrial Commission warrant is a remedy available to the Labor Department after all administrative procedures have been exhausted - the employer had been given notice of the claim, had an opportunity to contest it, and the time for all appeals has lapsed. It creates a lien on all property of the corporation within the county and gives the county sheriff the right to execute the warrant by, among other things, attaching and selling the employer's property within the county. There are various procedures that the sheriff has to go through before selling the property.

And if you don't like the source on that story, we can always give you the AP's confirmation of the initial report.

Here's my original post on the subject.

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Yeah, Dick Cheney made a stupid joke on the subject. But Slate asks the question of how West Virginia got its reputation for such things -- and then tries to answer it.

Exaggeration-prone outsiders. In the 1880s and 1890s, writers such as Mary Noailles Murfree and John Fox Jr. traveled across Appalachia, looking for "local color," and overstated the degree to which mountain populations lived in isolation. During the same time period, missionaries reported pervasive ignorance and poverty, with large families living together in ramshackle cabins. The notion of widespread inbreeding was at least in part the result of crude assumptions about how these isolated forest people might have been perpetuating their communities.

* * *

Stereotypes about West Virginian breeding practices have long been linked to the state's poverty. When Eleanor Roosevelt visited West Virginia mining towns in the 1930s, national newspapers ran pictures of rundown shacks and barefoot kids in rags, which left a lasting impression of the state as a backwater. West Virginians became the prototypical "hillbillies," and incest served as a crude "scientific" explanation for their downtrodden social condition.

Personally, I have a different explanation for that stereotype.

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With a May death toll more than twice the level of American casualties in Iraq, it is clear that the situation in New York City is untenable and the US should immediately withdraw to a more sustainable position -- perhaps New Jersey.

NYC had 43 murders in the month of May 2008.  ThatÂ’s over twice the US deaths in Iraq (19) for the month of May.

While the liberals and the mainstream media love to remind us (daily) of the death count in Iraq as a way to fuel their anti-war propaganda, they might want to consider focusing their attention to local US deaths as a healthy comparison to the job we are doing over in Iraq.

When we lose more Americans in a major city than we do in a war zone, it is clear that the we are winning that war. It may be disheartening to those who need a US defeat to shore up their electoral position, but that is a hard and fast reality.

H/T Ace

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A bit over a decade ago, my wife was the pastor of a small rural congregation of the United Church of Christ in southern Illinois, and I worked for the county mental health agency in the next county. We lived in the century old parsonage next to the church and a cemetery that dated back to the Civil War and half-a-mile from the nearest neighbor.

Neat as that was, we were also 10 miles from the nearest gas station. Even so, I would often play the "how low can you go" game with my car's gas gauge in the last few days before payday -- and inevitably lost the bet five miles from the nearest gas station. Fortunately, a county sheriff happened by a few minutes later and took me to town for gas. It never dawned upon me that there might be something newsworthy about my situation.

But the fine folks at the Washington Post seem to think there is.

Brent Saba had just dropped a church group off at Philadelphia International Airport on Sunday morning and was heading north on Interstate 95 when it happened: His 15-passenger van ran out of gas.

Saba, a 24-year-old church pastor, made it to the shoulder just past the Ben Franklin Bridge and waited more than 30 minutes for someone to stop and lend him a cell phone. Then he waited a while longer for AAA to arrive with fuel.

With gas prices hovering at $4 a gallon, motorists like Saba are putting less fuel in their tanks _ then coming up empty on the highway.

Though national statistics on out-of-gas motorists don't exist, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that drivers unwilling or unable to fill 'er up are gambling by keeping their tanks extremely low on fuel.

DUH! If you put less gas in the tank you run out sooner or need to fill up more often. If you run out of gas because you have tried to stretch enough fuel for 150 miles to drive 200 miles, you are not going to be successful unless you have gale force tail winds at all times.

And the MSM thinks this is news? I guess there aren't any serious issues to report on.

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And as far as I am concerned, he ought to obey it.

A Washington Times reporter has been subpoenaed by a federal judge who wants him to reveal the sources for a story he wrote about an engineer convicted of conspiracy to export U.S. defense technology to China.

National security reporter Bill Gertz was ordered to appear before U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney in June, the newspaper reported Saturday. The judge has also requested e-mail messages, files and correspondences.

Gertz cited U.S. government sources in a 2006 story saying that Justice Department officials approved an indictment against Tai Mak and that four of Mak's relatives would also be charged.

Mak's attorneys had objected to Gertz's story, contending the government violated a federal rule barring federal officials from giving information about grand jury proceedings to outsiders. Carney ordered an investigation to determine who leaked the information.

“We will be presenting our case to the judge and we remain hopeful that he will be receptive to the arguments we present to him in trying to preserve Bill's and the Times' First Amendment right to report the news and his other legal rights as well,” Times executive editor John F. Solomon said.

The four family members were eventually indicted. All have pleaded guilty to related offenses in exchange for leniency. Mak is serving a 24-year sentence in federal prison.

It is my profound hope that the judge is not at all receptive to the arguments put forward by the Washington Times and its attorneys. Members of the press are not royalty, and ought to be mandated to obey curt orders in exactly the same way other citizens. Given that Gertz may well be a witness to the criminal disclosure of grand jury testimony, he must be compelled to obey.

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Guess what rich liberal has skipped out on paying taxes like the rest of us?

It initially appeared to simply be a case of his tax-avoidance shell corporation failing to pay a relatively paltry amount -- $2269.50

New York State has issued a tax warrant against Keith Olbermann for failure to pay taxes on his humbly named personal corporation, Olbermann Broadcasting Empire, Inc. Olbermann is listed in legal records as the President of Olbermann Broadcasting Empire, Inc.

A call to the Albany County Clerk's Office in upstate New York confirmed that the warrant is still outstanding and that Olbermann has still failed to pay his back taxes. State records show that Olbermann's company failed to pay $2,269.50 in state taxes. A judgement was entered against Olbermann last summer (Docket Date: 8/21/2007), just weeks before Olbermann closed on a a luxurious $4.2 mm condo at Trump Palace, at 200 East 69th Street.

By the way -- you've just gotta love the name of the tax-dodging corporation -- Olbermann Broadcasting Empire, Inc.. I wonder, would that make him Emperor Keithius Smallpenius of the Olbermann Broadcasting Empire?

But it turns out that there may be a reason for setting up the corporation -- some personal tax issues that go back several years.

A search of records in New York State turned up another Judgement against Keith Olbermann - this one for Keith personally not his "Empire" shell corporation). The Judgement was filed on 7/27/2000 for $21,565.

California records show yet another judgement - this one for a whopping $77,425 - which was filed on 9/21/2001. I guess Keith's professed patriotic fervor in the wake of 9/11 had cooled by the time his tax bill was due. This one was filed in Los Angeles County. Records indicate that Keith was finally got around to resolving the matter four months later.

All together Keith's tax warrants and judgements now exceed $100,000.

How do you miss a $77K tax payment? That is more than most Americans make in a year. But at least he seems to have paid it. It remains unclear, though, whether Olbermann ever made good on that other $21K of money owed to the government. Makes me wonder if the Olbermann Media Empire is really nothing but a way of protecting his assets from those personal judgments.

UPDATE: While MSNBC tried to spin Olbermann out of this one, it now appears that Emperor Keithius Smallpenius has in fact had $150K in tax leans against him or his shell corporation over the last 9 years.

H/T Newsbusters

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