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Saturday, August 28, 2004

What Media Bias?

One out of over 2,000 delegates in the Republican Party decides to drop out of the convention and vote Democrat, and UPI deems it to be newsworthy.
It's Only Inappropriate When Conservatives or Republicans are Involved

"Billary" will be making a publicized appearance at the Riverside Church of New York. Not a peep from the Americans(?) United for the Separation of Church and State Brownshirts.
It May Be the State Capitol

But it seems to me that the scandal involving California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley is barely on the radar screens of anybody outside of Sacramento. Heck, I wonder if most people in California even know what the Secretary of State even does. Anyway, a summary of the situation by Sacto radio guy Eric Hogue:

Kevin Shelley was on course to become a major player for the Democrat Party in the next gubernatorial campaign. After a 'leak' to the San Fran Chronicle on Sunday, August 8th, Shelley is now facing a deep investigation from the FBI and may not finish his term in Sacramento.

Over the past month, Shelley is the target of illegal campaign contributions and practices, a charge of abuse behavior in his office and with co-workers...and today in the Sacramento Bee a charge that he is down right vulgar, if not perverted.

There are also reports of Shelley leaving his office for hours only to return looking tattered, carrying a toothbrush, toothpaste and mouthwash.

Friday, August 27, 2004

What's Really Sad is That I'm Not Even Surprised

From Jack Fowler at The Corner:

When I saw the name – Richard Casey – of the federal judge who struck down Congress’ ban on partial-birth abortion this week, I had a queasy feeling that he was a product of Catholic education. Is he ever: Casey (a Clinton appointee) graduated from the College of the Holy Cross (my alma mater too) in 1955 and Georgetown University Law School in 1958. The double-Jebbie grad is a mover amongst the hierarchy: According to the Fall 1999 issue of the Holy Cross Magazine, Casey received the “Blessed Hyacinth Cormier O.P. Medal at the Angelicum in Rome. ... The citation recognized his ‘outstanding leadership in the promotion of Gospel Values in the field of justice and ethics.’” His good buddy, Syracuse Bishop James Moynihan, wrote a gooey hosanna to Casey last year in the diocesan newspaper, referring to his being a daily communicant and having a special devotion to rosary. And Catholic New York reports that Casey and Cardinal Edward Egan “have been friends for years and have visited Lourdes together three times.”

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Would You Have Expected Anything Else From the Party of Clinton?

Rather than answering the charges on an issue that Scary Kerry himself raised, the 'Rats are scurrying about like cockroaches looking for dirt on the Swifties.

According to a report in the New York Daily News, one of the targets is veteran James Zumwalt, son of illustrious Adm. Elmo Zumwalt.

The paper says it has received part of the dossier on Zumwalt, which claims he "attempted to kill himself with an overdose of prescription drugs," after the murder of his ex-wife's fiance, John Kowalczyk, and was "convicted of reckless driving after chasing Kowalczyk at a high speed on the highway."

Zumwalt was one of the veterans who signed an initial letter opposing Kerry in May.

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Throw the Bum Out!

Floridians will be voting for state judges on Aug. 31, and the man who sentenced Terry Schiavo to death is being opposed by a local attorney named Jan Govan, whom I am presuming is against starving people simply because they are unable to move or orally communicate.
Res Ipsa Loquitur

Vincent Damon Furnier, aka Alice Cooper, on rock stars and politics:

"If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal."

Monday, August 23, 2004

Kerry's "Web of Connections"

You have to wonder if Kerry's lawyers, or even Kerry himself, took some time to think that someone might actually make this connection before filing their complaint about the Swift Boat ads with the FEC.
Public Schools Suck

And so do most of their lawyers. I can't believe the idiot quoted below is effectively categorizing Christian-based messages as "hate speech."

On April 22, sophomore Tyler Chase Harper, 16, wore a shirt with hand-written anti-gay phrases, including "Homosexuality is shameful." He wore it the day after a campus observance of tolerance of gay and lesbian people called "A Day of Silence."

A teacher told Chase, who prefers to go by his middle name, that the slogans violated the school's dress-code ban on "hate behavior." The teacher sent him to the administration office, where he remained for the rest of the day.

With the help of an Arizona-based Christian legal group, Chase filed a federal lawsuit in June, saying school officials violated his civil rights.

His lawyers, the Alliance Defense Fund, cited free-speech cases dating from the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement in asking a federal judge to order the school district not to censor student speech.

School officials encourage students to say homosexuality is acceptable but muzzle those who say it's dangerous, lawyer Robert Tyler wrote in court filings.

Poway Unified School District lawyer Daniel Shinoff said administrators have the authority to ban the T-shirt and cited cases allowing schools to outlaw Confederate flags and clothing depicting controversial musician Marilyn Manson.

He said hateful speech is not guaranteed protection by the First Amendment and is asking U.S. District Judge John A. Houston to throw out the case.

"Homosexuals and bisexuals have the right to go to school without being accosted by offensive words no differently than Jewish students have the right to be free from a symbol offensive to them, such as a swastika," he wrote.
The Truth Finally Pops Out

Drudge reports on the malfunctioning brain of Janet Jackson.
University of Atheist Geeks and Dweebs Sued for Religious Discrimination

If the employee's reported accounts of the incidents are true, I hope he takes MIT to the cleaners.

``Employees and/or supervisors at MIT Lincoln Lab have harassed Peterson because of his religious beliefs (Christian), including assaulting him with a chemical, vandalizing and stealing his property, tampering with the machines he was working on and making verbal threats,'' the suit says.

The nine-page lawsuit filed earlier this month also names Peterson's union, the Research Development and Technical Employees' Union, claiming leaders took part in the harassment and did not represent him properly in grievance procedures in 2003.

Peterson claims the trouble began in 1987 when he and another Christian employee began meeting during breaks to read and discuss the Bible. He says he was told not to bring his Bible to work again.

When he complained about workers playing radios in the lab in 1988, one man retaliated by placing a radio in front of him playing the Stones' song (incorrectly listed in the lawsuit as ``Symphony for the Devil'').

His own boss responded by turning up his own radio and later paraded around in a phony ``clergyman's collar,'' according to the lawsuit.

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Ahnuld Better Veto This Atrocity

As if it isn't bad enough that people can already be charged and convicted of a "hate crime," the liberal Brownshirts in the California Legislature are trying to further expand its definition.

A section of the proposed law reads as follows:

Speech alone is not sufficient to support an action brought [under this law] except upon a showing that the speech itself threatens violence against a specific person or group of persons; and the person or group of persons against whom the threat is directed reasonably fears that, because of the speech, violence will be committed against them or their property and that the person threatening violence had the apparent ability to carry out the threat.

Penalties for violating SB 1234 include criminal prosecution and fines of $25,000.

Sponsored by lesbian State Senator Sheila Kuehl, SB 1234 has already been passed by the Senate and could be voted on by the Assembly as soon as today (Wednesday). Opponents of the bill are not optimistic about the Assembly vote and expect the measure to move along to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk for his signature before the end of the month.
BK Court Finds Federal DOMA Constitutional

And of all courts, it's a 9th Circuit BK Court. You can bet this puppy is going to be appealed by the anti-family-ites.

Having concluded that DOMA does not require heightened scrutiny because it neither impairs a fundamental right to marry nor discriminates on the basis of sex (in that it applies equally to both sexes), Judge Snyder then addressed whether the law is supported by a rational basis. In finding that it was, Judge Snyder exercised an old-fashioned form of judicial restraint — trusting the legislature's motives. In enacting DOMA, both Congress and President Clinton sought to protect and encourage the role of a traditional family in procreation and child rearing. As President Clinton remarked at the time, "marriage is an institution between a man and a woman, that among other things, is used to bring children into the world." DOMA, Judge Snyder concluded, is reasonably related to that legitimate goal, whether or not it is a perfect fit. Unlike the decisions of Massachusetts's highest court, his opinion is not marked by the second-guessing of legislative reasoning that has become common in the recent trend of judge-made law.

Monday, August 16, 2004

Ethics? What Ethics, Eh?

Canadian lawyers reject two rules that basically would prohibit them from having nookie with clients.

Lawyers attending the Canadian Bar Association's annual meeting were passionate Sunday in their rejection of proposed new rules and guidelines governing sexual relationships with clients.

An overwhelming majority of delegates, including several of the association's provincial chapters, dismissed two resolutions on the delicate issue as paternalistic, stereotypical and vague.

"Who are we to impose a prohibition on falling in love?" Montreal lawyer Chantale Masse asked during the hour-long debate.

Most of the discussion centred on a resolution to completely ban sexual relationships between lawyers and clients.

Another motion, which was also soundly defeated, intended to serve more as a warning to lawyers to steer clear of any romances that could be influenced by an imbalance of power or exploitation.

Sunday, August 15, 2004

The Ongoing Battle

Between the adherants of manna and people of faith. No mention if this city council is aware of the Federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

CLOVER — Some leaders in this Bible Belt town are saying they’ve had enough of storefront churches popping up downtown and are pushing an ordinance to stop new churches from opening and keep others from expanding.

The town manager here says the churches don’t do much to help breathe life into the town six days a week.

“Storefront churches only generate foot traffic for a few hours on Sunday,” town manager Scott Moulder said.

The intent isn’t geared to restricting churches as much as it is to attracting a variety of businesses, Moulder said

“People are more likely to shop in a particular area where there’s more variety.”

Clover Town Council postponed making a decision on the issue earlier this week and will take the issue up later this year.


Thursday, August 12, 2004

Void

California Supremes void all the "marriages" authorized by San Francisco Dictator Mayor Gavin Newsome. Next up: whether California's Defense of Marriage Act law is consistent with the state constitution.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

People Who Obviously Have Plenty of Disposable Income and Time on Their Hands

Bay Area liberal leftists prepare to head to New York to protest the GOP convention.

On the night before the convention, some activists will don Mickey Mouse ears and confront Republican delegates as they head into the "Disneyfied" theater district. Throughout the week, others will be shadowing delegates as they party everywhere from the Tavern on the Green restaurant to Tiffany's to a luncheon honoring House Speaker Dennis Hastert's wife at the Central Park Boathouse.

What a bunch of freakin' losers.

Monday, August 09, 2004

Chief Justice Thomas?

I like it. I like it a lot. Thomas is "young" (56), a constitutional constructionist (more so than Scalia, who will occasionally traipse into libertarianism), and Catholic. A winning combination if ever there was one.

Clarence Thomas has been interviewed by White House lawyers as a possible choice to be the next chief justice of the United States, says the author of a new biography.

Thomas says he isn't interested but could find it hard to turn down an opportunity to be the first black man to lead the Supreme Court, said biographer Ken Foskett.

"Judging Thomas," out this week from William Morrow, traces Thomas' life from rough beginnings in rural Georgia, through Yale Law School to his life today.

Thomas initially refused Foskett's request for interviews, but later spoke to the author both on and off the record.

Thomas likes NASCAR and football, plays a fierce game of basketball and during the court's summer recess tours the nation in a 40-foot mobile home decorated with orange flames, Foskett wrote.

One of 2 Million Reasons Why I Despise the American Bar Association

And will never become a member of this organization as long as they keep doing garbage like this.

Judges are on the front line of battles over legal rights for same-sex couples and should never belong to an organization that discriminates against gays, supporters of a proposed change to American Bar Association ethics rules argued Friday.

Judges are already prohibited from joining clubs that discriminate based on race or sex. An ABA panel is debating whether to make groups that discriminate against gays off limits as well.

The ABA, the nation's largest lawyers' group with more than 400,000 members, writes conduct rules for judges and lawyers. States and federal courts generally adopt them, with some changes.

It is not known how many judges participate in groups such as the Boy Scouts that have policies against hiring gays or having homosexual leaders, or some veterans groups that restrict membership to heterosexuals.

The ABA held an all-day public hearing Friday on proposed judicial ethics changes during the association's summer meeting, which runs through Tuesday. Rules on gifts judges may accept and judges' involvement in fund-raisers may also be changed. The ABA is not expected to vote on any changes until next year. It would be the first overhaul of the rules in more than a decade, and any changes eventually could affect thousands of judges.

Update: Yet more ABA shenanigans. Now they want to support government sponsored discrimination against religious (i.e., Catholic) hospitals. Jerks.

Friday, August 06, 2004

What's in a (Last) Name?

So observes Rich Lowry on the declining number of women who retain their maiden name after getting married. I for one would be interested in seeing what the divorce rate is among couples where the wife chose not to take her husband's last name. To some extent, I would understand if my (hopfully) future wife didn't want to take my last name, especially if her first name was Heidi.

The number of women in the New York Times's wedding announcements keeping their surnames was 2 percent in 1975 and had reached 20 percent by the mid-1980s, according to the Journal study. Then the trend stalled. Among women in the Harvard class of 1980, 44 percent retained their surname, but in the class of 1990, only 32 percent did. According to Massachusetts records, the percentage of surname keepers among college graduates in that state was 23 percent in 1990, 20 percent in 1995 and 17 percent in 2000.

Why? The study's authors write: "Perhaps some women who 'kept' their surnames in the 1980s, during the rapid increase in 'keeping,' did so because of peer pressure, and their counterparts today are freer to make their own choices. Perhaps surname-keeping seems less salient as a way of publicly supporting equality for women than it did in the late 1970s and 1980s. Perhaps a general drift to more conservative social values has made surname-keeping less attractive."