Legal Commentary

On the Banning, Censorship, and Challenging of Books

Posted on November 06, 2010
?We must teach students about their First Amendment rights rather than restrict their use of particular books and materials. As educators, we must encourage students to express their own opinions while respecting the views of others.??Protect Our Freedom of Speech, Teach  It, Pat Scales ?Damn all expurgated books; the dirtiest book of all is the [...

On Piety & Politics: A Video Post About the Separation of Church and State

Posted on November 06, 2010
Rev. Barry Lynn: What’s Wrong With ‘The Family’ And The National Prayer Breakfast   JFK on the Separation of Church and State Piety and Politics: A Discussion Between Bill O?Reilly & Rev. Barry Lynn Rev. C. Welton Gaddy: Separating Church and State Benefits Both First Freedom First – Separation of Church and State Lou Dobbs [...

Woman Sexually Assaulted By Intruder While Asleep In Bed With Another Man

Posted on November 06, 2010
 A man from Rockport, Massachusetts, has been charged with rape and released on $25,000 bail after a ?dangerousness? assessment hearing. Michaels S. Burbank has been ordered to have no contact with his victim, to undergo random alcohol and drug testing, and to wear a location tracking bracelet...

Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn

Posted on November 06, 2010
This is a case before SCOTUS wherein Arizona distributes taxpayer funds for student scholarships to religious schools. Right wing organizations spin this as a “donation” but it’s simply a distribution of tax dollars. The Obama Administration joined with Arizona in arguing that Arizona residents who oppose this funding do not have standing to bring the [...

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Small is a Relative Term

Posted on November 05, 2010
In the debate over the Bush tax cuts, the Republicans claim that keeping the tax cuts will benefit “small businesses”. However, only 3% of “small businesses” will be affected by the expiration of the tax cuts, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan committee of the United States Congress...

Let?s Play: ID That Mug Shot

Posted on November 05, 2010
He was arrested in November 2010 by the Florida Highway Patrol for DUI. He had a tested blood alcohol content at 0.139 and 0.141 ? greater than the state’s 0.08 legal limit. Troopers also found a half-empty (half-full?) bottle of bourbon in his vehicle...

Animals 2fer

Posted on November 05, 2010
Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood It’s My Life Because of the popularity of these posts, I thought I’d treat your ears to two Animals favorites in glorious STEREO. Enjoy. -David Drumm (Nal)

Black People in Great Britain Six Times More Likely to Face Arrest for Drug Offenses Than White People

Posted on November 05, 2010
 According to an article in The Observer, new research has shown that black people are six times more likely to be arrested for drug offences than white people. They are also eleven times more likely to be imprisoned. This, all despite the fact, that there is no evidence that proves that black people are more [...

Olbermann Suspended!

Posted on November 05, 2010
Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s primetime firebrand host, has been suspended indefinitely for violating the ethics policies of his employer earlier this year when he donated to three Democrats seeking federal office, MSNBC announced Friday. WTF! MSNBC TV President Phil Griffin: ?I became aware of Keith’s political contributions late last night...

Twelve Year Old Swallows Scissors: Did Not Realize Danger

Posted on November 05, 2010
Twelve year old Curtis Francis is one lucky kid. Not realizing that sharp scissors can cut one’s internal organs the precocious pre-teen decided to test the limits of  steel and human tissue. Fortunately, his mother sensed a problem and alerted emergency personnel who transported our blossoming oral surgeon to the hospital...

Poetry, Politics, and War

Posted on November 05, 2010
I have three poems for you from the Favorite Poem Project, which was established by Robert Pinsky when he was the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. In 2001, I was one of fifty educators who participated in The First Annual Summer Poetry Institute at Boston University...

Every Day Heroes: Anna Del Rio

Posted on November 04, 2010
Anna Del Rio has lost a daughter to crime and is now being harassed by a street gang because of her job as a dispatcher for Crime Stoppers. Think the L.A. resident is intimidated? Not Hardly. Del Rio, whose 20-year-old daughter was murdered a decade ago, awoke to find her garage door spray-painted with profanity [...

Never Too Early to Cave?

Posted on November 04, 2010
Obama signals he may allow rich to keep their tax breaks. Is this some special negotiating strategy that I’m unfamiliar with? Admit willingness to compromise before negotiations even begin. What idiot came up with that idea? This is one of the best issues for Democrats...

Personhood

Posted on November 04, 2010
Personhood USA is a group that is trying to get abortions banned by passing state constitutional amendments that declare a fertilized egg is legally a person. Such an amendment was on the ballot in Colorado yesterday. It was defeated by a 3-to-1 margin, getting only 28% of the vote...

Good Vibrations

Posted on November 04, 2010
Good Vibrations Another Beach Boys treat for both ears. Best enjoyed with headphones/earbuds. The Beach Boys multi-tracks are out there, somewhere, just waiting to be mixed into glorious STEREO. Until then, enjoy this version. -David Drumm (Nal)

Not His Cup of Tea

Posted on November 04, 2010
The dust hasn?t yet settled from Tuesday?s midterm elections?and conservative blogger Erick Erikson, the managing editor of Red State, has already compiled a list of ?potential tea party targets? he?d like to see swept from the Senate. The REPUBLICANS on Erickson?s hit list are all up for re-election in 2012...

Shooting Yourself In The Foot: NRA Candidate Loses in NRA Home District

Posted on November 04, 2010
Virginia’s 11th is an odd-shaped Congressional District stretching from the rural Virginia horse country near Warrenton, then meandering east through the battlefields at Bull Run, and finally racing north headlong towards the uber-metropolian suburbs of  Fairfax and Arlington...

A Bachmann Concerto

Posted on November 04, 2010
Step into my time machine. I?ll take you back to March of 2009 when Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota said the following: ?I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back...

Holy Heil! Women Bishops Verboten

Posted on November 04, 2010
Wallace Benn, Bishop of Lewes, really riled some folks in England when he likened the debate over allowing female bishops to the ?serious threat? of warfare posed by ”someone” months before the beginning of World War II. Lewes was explaining his view of women bishops to a conference of conservative Anglicans when he told his audience: “I’m [...

Do You Want Alli® With That II: Frisco Bans Toys in Happy Meals

Posted on November 04, 2010
Brazil’s got nothing on San Francisco. Come December 1st, the City by the Bay will be without those nasty Hamburglars and the Avatar avatars. A new city ordinance requires that restaurants meet certain nutritional standards before including toys in the packaging...

Don?t Let the Door Hit You ?

Posted on November 03, 2010
Retired military chaplains are claiming that it will be impossible to serve both the armed forces and God if they can’t preach that homosexuality is a sin. It is the retired chaplains that are speaking out because, they claim, their active duty brethren would be open to charges of insubordination if they went public...

Impossible Puzzle

Posted on November 03, 2010
My idea below the fold. The a small gap around the larger pieces. When these pieces are rearranged, that small gap is accumulated into one condensed area. Note the alignment of the center line with the smaller pieces he removes first. After rearrangement the center line doesn’t quite line up the the right side of [...

96 Tears

Posted on November 03, 2010
96 Tears It’s time for the headphones/earbuds. Today we have 96 Tears by ? and the Mysterians in glorious STEREO. Enjoy.

Citizens United Ruling Brings on ?Tsunami of Sewer Money?

Posted on November 03, 2010
In the subtitle of his Salon article ?The Predictable Tsunami of Sewer Money,? Joe Conason asks the following: ?Was the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United naively mistaken–or cynically partisan?? Good question. In January, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote: “With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information [...

More Rumble Than Earthquake: Very Little To Party About

Posted on November 03, 2010
The Tea Party made lots of noise and woke the neighbors, but precious few in-roads into the political system. True, Marc Rubio and Rand Paul were big winners but each benefited from some peculiar circumstances.  Rubio won in a three way race punctuated by former spurned Repub Governor Crist’s independent bid along with a Democratic [...

Parisian Baby Falls Seven Stories Into Arms of Passer-by: Where Is JT Staying By The Way?

Posted on November 03, 2010
Paris officials report that an 18-month-old girl fell seven stories from an apartment window into the waiting arms of a Good Samaritan. The child, who was briefly left unattended, fell from an open window. A young boy seeing the tragedy about to unfold alerted his father who made the circus catch...

Nothing Succeeds Like ? Failure

Posted on November 02, 2010
Insurance giant AIG was the poster child for corporate greed and a government bailout program run amok. Now in their self-reliant efforts to turn things around and restructure, the insurer needs just one more thing – 22 billion more in taxpayer dollars...

Traffic Stop

Posted on November 02, 2010
Pastor Stephen Anderson, the radical leader of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz., had a video camera rolling during a routine traffic stop. His confrontational attitude suggests that he was looking to provoke the officers into more dramatic reactions...

Update

Posted on November 02, 2010
We have previously discussed Mary Bale, the cat dumper, here. She sparked an international outrage when a CCTV camera caught her dumping a loving kitteh, named Lola, in a rubbish bin. Although she faced a maximum fine of £20,000 ($32,036) and six months in jail, she was fined only £265 ($400) and banned from keeping animals [...

He?s a Rebel

Posted on November 02, 2010
He’s A Rebel Break out your headphones/earbuds for He’s a Rebel by The Crystals (left) in glorious STEREO. Written by the late, great Gene Pitney and produced by Phil Spector who’s serving 19 to life (legal tie-in). Stereo turns Phil’s “wall of sound” into a “room of sound”...

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