The Harris County grand jury investigating Joe Horn voted today not to indict Pasadena, Texas resident Joe Horn for shooting to men he witnessed burglarizing his neighbor's house.
Justice prevails still here in Texas!!!
Here's the Houston Chronicles report:
Joe Horn cleared by grand jury in Pasadena shootings Panel issues no-bill after two weeks of testimony
By BRIAN ROGERS and RUTH RENDON June 30, 2008, 1:08PM Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
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.
AUSTIN – The Texas Public Policy Foundation announced that it had created a new website, www.TexasHigherEd.com, to promote goals and specific reforms that will establish Texas as the outright leader in 21st century higher education.
“Texas can be the nation’s leader in higher education reform and provide a home to the best teachers, researchers, and students from around Texas and the nation,” Foundation president Brooke Rollins said. “This ambitious goal, however, requires a fundamental shift in higher education policy that puts students first.”
To support state elected policymakers, university system regents, and campus leaders in reform efforts, the Texas Public Policy Foundation created www.TexasHigherEd.com to provide important information about the cost and quality of higher education in Texas. It attempts to dispel the many myths that prevent our institutions of higher education from becoming the student-focused centers of learning that Texans should all demand.
Last month, the Foundation facilitated the Governor’s Higher Education Summit, an unprecedented dialogue between the regents from Texas’ public university systems and top education reformers from around the country. www.TexasHigherEd.com highlights the goals for improving Texas higher education that were discussed at the Summit:
• Measuring teacher efficiency and effectiveness through student evaluations; • Requiring evidence of teaching skill for a majority of new tenure appointments; • Supporting the creation of a new accrediting agency with results based on student learning and workforce readiness versus the number of books in a library or tenured professors with PhD’s; • Recognizing and rewarding extraordinary teachers; • Splitting teaching and research budgets to reward exceptional individuals in each area; • Using “results-based” contracts with students to measure academic quality; and • Putting state funding directly in the hands of the students through scholarships.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin, Texas.
Supreme Court Rules 5-4 in favor of Heller and Against Washington D.C.
Will Malven June 26, 2008
In a very narrowly worded decision the Supreme Court, in a disturbingly slim 5-4 majority decision confirmed what any half-witted reader of the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights could have told them from the beginning, the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects the right of the individual to keep and bear arms.
Having this giant leap of imagination and comprehension (somehow complex pharases like "shall not be infringed," that most people find very straight forward, they find perplexing) they went on the limit the breadth of their decision by back pedaling as fast as they could.
Apparently even Chief Justice Roberts and his fellow Conservative Justices Alito, Thomas, Scalia (who wrote the majority opinion) can't bear the concept of a civilian population which would actually be capable of standing in battle against the military of an oppressive government, which is, with no ambiguity whatsoever, precisely what our founding fathers envisioned.
Being neither fish nor fowl, this decision, while important for its establishment of the right to keep and bear arms (RTKB) as an individual right, is not a great decision, rather it is a frightening decision.
It is frightening to me that four of the nine justices are so willing to ignore our constitution and the inescapable intent, as made clear both in the phrasing of the Second Amendment (using the imperative "shall not be infringed") and in the extensive writings of the framers, to pursue their own political agenda.
Stevens in his comment:
"[The majority decision] would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."
And his further comment that that evidence for such a limit (on the tools available to elected officials to regulate civilian uses of weapons)
"is nowhere to be found."
If those two statements weren't so bone-chilling in their portent and so ominous in their implication of a desire to strip us of our God given, inherent rights, they would be laughable.
Here's a clue for Justice Stevens, our forefathers provided no such tools...anywhere.Our forefathers preserved for all posterity our right to protect ourselves against any and all threats whether it involves a matter of self-defense or a matter of the tyranny of the state.
Breyer's comment:
"In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas."
is at least consistent with his Kelo (Kelo v. City of New London) vote. Apparently Breyer doesn't believe any right of the people is an absolute right.
Unfortunately the five most Liberal Justices (the Foul Four, Breyer, Gisburg, Souter, and Stevens, + Kennedy) are all amenable to the abrogation of any right of the American People as protected by the Bill or Rights, even the right of property, which our forefathers believed to be the primary and most fundamental right.
As for Heller, Justice Kennedy doesn't get it write very often, but at least this time he managed to muddle his very mediocre way to a correct decision.
What part of the word "right" don't these "scholars of law" understand? Far from finding this decision reassuring, it frightens the heck out of me.
It frightens me that the American people were one president away from having "the right which protects all other rights" stripped away from them. Had Albert Gore, Jr. rather than George Walker Bush won the election in 2000, what Heller has barely preserved, would have been lost forever.
It is unimaginable to me today that there are so many citizens in our society who are so blasé about their rights as protected by the Bill of Rights.
We are as near to becomming a society of sheep as we can without losing outright all of our freedoms.
Dr. James McHenry (a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention) tells us that When the Constitutional Convention ended on September 18, 1787, "a lady asked Dr. Franklin, 'Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy? "A republic.' the doctor replied, 'if you can keep it.'"
Unfortunately, it appears that we are all too near losing that which Messrs. Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, and McHenry attempted to leave us.
Well, at least they got this one partially right and realized that the RTKBA is an indvidual right.
Long Live Our American Republic!!!
What do you think?
To leave your opinion click on the word "COMMENT(S)" below
Last month, the Texas Public Policy Foundation released the report, "A History of Lawsuit Reform in Texas," authored by TPPF Senior Fellow, The Honorable Joe Nixon. Besides being an accomplished litigator, Nixon served six terms in the Texas House of Representatives, the last two as Chairman of its Civil Practices Committee. In this two-part interview, we look at the evolution of Texas' civil justice system and the actions taken in recent years to strike a fairer balance between plaintiffs and defendants.
The Texas PolicyCast is the weekly audio magazine of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. A new edition is posted each Thursday morning. To listen to the current or previous editions online, please visit the Texas PolicyCast page at www.TexasPolicy.com. You can also subscribe using your RSS reader or iTunes.
Earlier this week, Comptroller Susan Combs issued preliminary estimates on the first batch of receipts from Texas' new margins tax. While the elected officials wring their hands over whether the tax brings in as much revenue as expected, TPPF Senior Fellow William Murchison writes in this week's commentary that they ought to also concern themselves with how the tax affects its long-standing positive relationship with businesses.
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The importance of business friendliness
By William Murchison
We understand desirability well enough in human terms. Don’t we?
Want a friend, be a friend, is the rule. Figure out the relationship in terms of mutual satisfactions. OK?
Why is it so hard, in that case, to apply the rule of thumb to governments and the ways they order, or disorder, their relationships with businesses whose job-creating, tax-paying potential they can’t live without? A state (or a city or a county or a country) that wants to be loved, economically speaking, must make itself lovable, by implementation of business policies that business loves.
Which brings us, with some satisfaction but just a bit of trepidation, to the question of how we’re doing in Texas along those lines.
So far, so good, is the immediate answer. But there’s the future to think about.
Texas likes business. Its fiscal and regulatory policies generally inspire business to like Texas in return. Forbes magazine calls modern Texas the fourth-best state for business. Not bad – except a year earlier, it was second best; falling this year behind No. 1 Virginia, No. 2 Utah, and No. 3 North Carolina. Hmmm.
Let’s see what the Washington, D. C.-based Tax Foundation has to say, based on its analysis of our state’s tax policies. Yes, again, we’re doing reasonably well: No. 8 in the country for “tax climate.”
The top three – Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nevada – aren’t strictly comparable to a semi-industrialized state with 24.1 million people and 254 counties, so let’s not start getting jealous. Let us note instead that Texans pay only 9.3 percent of their income to state and local government, compared with a national average of 11 percent. No small reason for our standing, as practically all Texans know, is the absence of a state income tax. Only six other states enjoy that blessing.
So what’s the problem here? Is there a problem?
A new feature of life called the Margins Tax – a 1 percent gross receipts tax – has begun to haunt those who ponder the state’s economic future. Enactment of the Margins Tax, in 2006, as replacement for Robin Hood property tax reductions, caused Texas’ drop to eighth place in tax climate from a consistent sixth dating back to 2003.
Where’s this thing going? That’s the question we have to ask with intensity and persistence. The last thing Texas should want at this stage is the inadvertent shaping of tax policies that undermine its relationship with business – that make our state not a more, but rather a less, desirable place to set up shop and hire people and send goods to market.
As the Tax Foundation observes, “The modern market is characterized by mobile capital and labor. Therefore, companies will locate where they have the greatest competitive advantage. States with the best tax system will be the most competitive in attracting new businesses and most effective at generating economic and employment growth.”
Whining and sniveling – the “don’t they love us anymore?” stuff – won’t help a bit. A relationship of mutual satisfactions entails projection of those satisfactions in both directions. When, for one reason or another, those satisfactions wane, new considerations take over. Suddenly the friends, the pals, the running mates, see each other as strangers.
A “business friendly” environment depends directly on acts of friendship: like saying, through specific tax policies, hey, we want you here. It’s harder than it sounds. A state growing as fast and as unpredictably as Texas finds itself challenged to expand essential services at prudent cost. What has to drive budgeting in Texas, at all governmental levels, is scrupulous consideration not of what we might want if we had all the money in the world, but rather of what we need most, and how we might most prudently pay for it.
We’ll never quit wrangling over taxes. No society does. We’ll know we’re getting somewhere when our political leaders signal with one heart and one accord their understanding of tax policy as a two-way street: as even and well-paved for those who pay the taxes as for those who consume the services.
William Murchison is a Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.
It seems to be happening with dazzling regularity...Obama promises one thing and delivers another.
Now we have his reversal on public financing. This man has the audacity to speak against private funding for our elections, supports the McCain-Feingold (constitutionally suspect) Campaign Finance restrictions...right up until it becomes politically expedient to tosses it aside.
Typical of Democrats, he is congenitally incapable of telling the truth. He saw the dollar signs in front of his eyes, to the tune of an estimated $300 million in potential contributions from his big money buddies and their bundling corporate friends like George Soros, and his morals, what few he can lay claim to, go right out the window.
Let's see now:
Obama pledged to "take public financing in the general election if the Republican nominee agreed to do so as well."
A pledge you can believe in?
Earlier this month, Obama agreed to holding a series of "town-hall" style debates in various venues around the nation.
Obama has now abandoned that agreement.
A man of his word?
He denied ever having heard any of Wright's egregious sermons even though he was a member of the church for 23 years and a regular attendee.
The truth?
He dumped Wright from giving the invocation only hours before he took the stage to announce his candidacy because he believed him to be controversial for comfort.
He then denounced Wright's statements after videos of his fiery, anti-American speeches became public, declaring that Wrights Afro-centric, black separatist statements,"in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country."
Are we to believe this from the same man who wrongly claimed that there are more young black males in our prison than in our colleges.
He described Pastor Wright as being"like an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with,"but that he would"not repudiate the man...who I have known for 17 years. He helped bring me to Jesus and helped bring me to church."
Telling the truth?
He then severed Pastor Wright's involvement with his campaign's African American Religious Leadership Committee.
Less than a month later, he unceremoniously dumped the "good" Reverend Wright.
A truthful man, or a calculating, lying, African-American Democrat trying to have it both ways?
Want more? How about this?
Obama stated in no uncertain terms, during one of the Democrat Party debates, that he would meet with the leaders of Iran, Cuba, Syria, Venezuela, and North Korea, in the first year of his administration, without preconditions.
Obama has now "clarified" that position (as he has so very, very many), saying that those meeting would only occur"if we had done sufficient preparations for that meeting."
A man of consistent, strong character?
Now we have Obama lying again, this time by omission, saying that he would agree to more drilling if it would lower the price of gasoline for people this summer...a claim that no one has ever made.
It is his way of saying that he favors higher gasoline prices as a means of restricting our use of our automobiles. He as much as admitted this when he slipped up the other day and said"the adjustment [in gasoline prices] "came too rapidly."
He, like all Liberals see it as his duty to save us from ourselves by imposing restrictions on freedoms.
Conservation by starvation...what a novel concept.
His arguments on his opposition to drilling are as dishonest as he is. Democrats are playing a shell game (no pun intended) on drilling for new oil. They claim that the "Big Oil Companies" already have over 5000 leases in their possession but they aren't drilling on them, so why should they be given more?
What is not being said is that those leases have been tested and will not produce enough oil and gas to make them worthwhile exploiting. The mere existence of leases does not mean that they have oil and gas beneath them, it only means that the oil companies have the right to drill on them should they turn out to be viable.
About 80% of the leases held by oil companies are being exploited, but many are never going to be productive. The arguments of the Democrats and Obama are intellectually dishonest.
Obama repeats the same old line we've been hearing for well over a decade (a very interesting length of time as you will see) about drilling in ANWR and offshore Florida and California that, paraphrasing now, "even if we began drilling today, Americans would not see any relief from the production at ANWR for (you guessed it) 10 years...a decade.
So like doesn't that mean that if Democrats had approved exploration and exploitation of the ANWR oil fields when it was first suggested and slapped down by congress, we would be completely free of the need to import oil from Saudi Arabia?
These Obamalies are becoming awfully commonplace now aren't they.
A truthful, honest broker who offers hope for America, or a slick shyster lawyer/politician scamming the country with some slick patter and an empty suit?
I think maybe the latter. Seems "A change you can believe in,"has become"the same old Democrat socialist with a new face."
Obama is honest, no really, don't make me laugh. My sides are already splitting from the gullibility of so many of his empty headed supporters.
P.T. Barnum said it first, "There's a sucker born every minute." Seems Obama has hit the mother lode.
Puck:
"Captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand, And the youth, mistook by me, Pleading for a lover's fee. Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
-Shakespeare A Midsummer Nights Dream Act 3, scene 2, 110–115
...and the Democrats playing mischievous (some might say malevolent), destructive Puck to the Republican's Oberon.
Long Live Our American Republic!!!
What do you think?
To leave your opinion click on the word "COMMENT(S)" below
Today is the third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s egregious Kelo vs. New London decision, in which a 5-4 majority expanded the ability of governments to use the power of eminent domain to include "economic development." The ruling dealt a tremendous blow to individual property rights and has drawn sharp rebuke from across the philosophical spectrum.
Over the last three years, the Texas Public Policy Foundation has extensively researched the question of how the state can preserve individual property rights in a post-Kelo world. Last month, Bill Peacock and Drew Thornley testified before a House committee on eminent domain and condemnation compensation, respectively. And last fall, Bill Peacock gave a presentation on how eminent domain harms those in need of affordable housing.
Texas has made some progress to protecting Texas landowners from eminent domain abuse, but much more needs to be done.
Last year, our friends at the Tennessee Center for Policy Research obtained the energy bills from Academy Award-winning documentarian Al Gore’s Nashville mansion. They found, among other things, that Gore’s electricity usage in August 2006 was more than twice what the average American household uses in an entire year.
Gore family spokesman Kalee Kreider responded that, “the bottom line is that every family has a different carbon footprint. And what Vice President Gore has asked is for families to calculate that footprint and take steps to reduce and offset it.”
So TCPR just took another look at Nobel laureate Al Gore’s energy bills to see how their “reducing and offsetting” was going. What they found: Even after a “green” retrofit in June 2007 that included new solar panels, a geothermal heating system, lighting upgrades, and an overhaul of the windows and ductwork, Gore’s home energy usage in the 12 months following the renovations was more than 10% higher than the 12 months before.
The average American household consumes 11,040 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per year. Gore’s Nashville mansion uses an average of 17,768 kWh per month.
And that doesn’t include the carbon footprint from Al Gore’s private jet and Lincoln Town Car transport, his Live Earth concerts, or his 2007 book and arena tours.
“Actions speak louder than words, and Al Gore’s actions prove that he views climate change not as a serious problem, but as a money-making opportunity,” Johnson said. Al Gore is exploiting the public’s concern about the environment to line his pockets and enhance his profile.”
Even after all of his mansion renovations, Al Gore has quite a bit of work to do to get his proverbial carbon house in order.
This is too stupid for words...straight from Democrats.Senate.gov:
June 18, 2008
Reid: Bush And McCain Still Don't Get It - We Cannot Drill Our Way Out Of This Energy Crisis
Washington, DC—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the following statement today in response to President Bush’s proposal to drill offshore for oil:
“This week’s flip-flop on offshore oil drilling by President Bush and Senator John McCain is nothing more than a cynical campaign ploy that will do nothing to lower energy prices and represents another big giveaway to oil companies already making billions in profits.
“The facts are clear: Oil companies have already had ample opportunity to increase supply, but they have sat on their hands. They aren’t even using more than half of the public lands they already have leased for drilling. And despite the huge tax breaks President Bush and Republican Congresses have given oil and gas companies to invest in refineries, domestic production has actually dropped.
“Despite what President Bush, John McCain and their friends in the oil industry claim, we cannot drill our way out of this problem. The math is simple: America has just three percent of the world’s oil reserves, but Americans use a quarter of its oil. And the Energy Information Administration says that even if we do open the coasts to oil drilling, prices wouldn’t drop until 2030.
“President Bush and John McCain are not serious about addressing gas prices. If they were, they would stop offering the same old ideas meant to pad the pockets of Big Oil and work with Democrats to reduce our dependence on oil, invest in the renewable energy sources, crack down on excessive speculation and stand up to countries colluding to shake down American consumers.
“Bush-McCain Republicans just don’t get it. Their commitment to the failed policies of yesterday is why we have energy, economic and national security crises today. They want to feed our addiction to oil; Democrats want to end it.”
Democrats just don't get it, you CAN'T TAX YOUR WAY OUT OF THIS ENERGY CRISIS.
Democrats know this, they simply want the American people to pay high prices for gasoline. Al Gore is on record as suggesting radically higher gasoline prices as a means of forcing the American people to reduce their "carbon footprints."
The truth is that if Congress would act, senators, our nation could be completely energy independent within 10 years.
FACT: Estimated oil reserves in the United States contained in the oil shale formations in Colorado and Wyoming are about 3 1/2 Trillion (yes that's TRILLION) barrels. That's roughly 10 times the known oil reserves in all of Saudi Arabia.
The technology to extract that oil exists, is environmentally friendly, and is financially viable at less than half the current price for oil.
So why don't we exploit those resources? Democrats don't want to. That's it in a nutshell. Democrats want super high gasoline prices so that they can gain a political advantage...at the expense of voters.
They don't care about your needs, my needs, or about the national security implications of an energy independent America...they only want to win in November.
Should Obama win in November, you will see Democrats falling all over themselves to increase domestic exploration. The clamor from the citizens for lower prices will spark a panic in these Democrat weasels.
I predict that they will be completely deaf to all complaints by the Greens, the Global warming alarmists and the enviro-mental-ists as they expand domestic drilling...that is if they can prevent our nations destruction by the enemies they think they can negotiate with sans pre-conditions.
That naivete is also the reason that I predict that Iran will succeed in their efforts to become a fully operational nuclear weaponed nation shoulc Obama be elected.
Long Live Our American Republic!!!
What do you think?
To leave your opinion click on the word "COMMENT(S)" below
Look for Richard Danzig's name to be added to the "Thrown under the Obama Campaign Bus" list.
Who is Richard Danzig? Danzig is a foreign policy advisor for the Obama Presidential campaign. He served as Secretary of the Navy under President William Jefferson "Bubba" Clinton from November 16, 1998 through the end of the Clinton debacle (AKA the Clinton Presidency).
He is reported to be on the short list for National Security Advisor in an Obama-nation...perhaps I should say was. Like all Democrats on the Left, Danzig has brilliant ideas.
Perhaps the pinnacle of his brilliance shone forth yesterday June 17, 2008 in a speech he gave to the Center for New American Security, wheh he is quoted in an article in the Daily Telegraph as saying:
“Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”
By Tim Shipman in Washington Last Updated: 2:04AM BST 17/06/2008
Winnie the Pooh, Luke Skywalker and British football hooligans could shape the foreign policy of Barack Obama if he becomes US President, according to a key adviser.
Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if it is causing you too much pain, try something else.
Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”
He apparently then went on to quote from A.A. Milne's wonderful children's book:
“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming down stairs. But sometimes he thinks there really is another way if only he could stop bumping a minute and think about it.”
Now don't get me wrong, I believe that Winnie the Pooh is an excellent series of tales for little boys and girls to read or be read to from; It may even be an excellent philosophical lesson in facing the difficulties of life with aplomb, as described in Benjamin Hoff's book, The Tao of Pooh, but I hardly think that I would recommend it as an instructive for how to deal with our international and philosophical enemies.
If it is too painful then find a different path? This is the path that Obama would take on conducting foreign policy? I hardly thing Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, or George Washington would concur.
This is typical Liberal "vision." So simplistic and inane that Danzig should have been laughed off the stage, but for Liberals, it is a profound statement that plucks the strings of their inner desire to be "well thought of."
Being "nice" to one's enemies is a basic tenet of those on the Left...unless those enemies are political opponents here in America, in which case no perjorative is outside the bounds of good taste.
Unfortunately for Mr. Danzig, he made a fatal flaw that will cost him his position as trusted advisor to the Obama campaign and the possible nomination as Nation Security Advisor, he told the truth about that which Liberals believe. He exposed the naivete of Liberal foreign policy.
For that crime, I suspect that Richard Danzigs name will soon be added to the growing list of those who have been "thrown under the bus" by Barack Hussein Obama.
With advisors like Danzig around him, no wonder Liberals are so enamored of his candidacy, he lives in the same fantasy world in which they live.
Long Live Our American Republic!!!
What do you think?
To leave your opinion click on the word "COMMENT(S)" below
When writing a blog or editorial, I often lift limited quotations from my news sources to reinforce a given point.
In quoting a news item for commentary, my normal restriction is to limit my quotations to no more than four (4) paragraphs - this usually means about four sentences as most news outlets make a new paragraph for each sentence. I have felt that this limit is normally sufficient to prove any point I wish to make, or provide my reader with enough of the targeted article so that they may get the "feel" of the author's tone while keeping my lifting of quotations within the spirit of the "fair use doctrine" as provided by the courts in copyright infringment cases.
No more!
Last week AP sent a letter to the parody web site " The Drudge Retort" asking that seven articles containing quotations from A.P. stories be removed from their website. The offending quotations contained 39 to 79 words each.
It appears that The Associated Press doesn't want bloggers to use their news stories as references in their own postings.
I say, "Fine. You want it, you got it!"
I will oblige them in their fondest wish. There are a large number of news sources on the web and in the conventional media; more than enough to supply the information I require to write my blogs without using A.P. as a source, and therefore without including a reference to their news story.
Since organizations like A.P live and breathe by the readership they receive, and every quotation used by every blogger normally contains a link to the original material, to my mind they are cutting their own throats, but if that is their wish, so be it.
I will no longer be referencing any Associated Press articles in my editorials nor will I excerpt them in my blogs.
It appears that I am no alone in my reaction to A.P.'s activity. The website TechCrunch has just released the following on their website.
The stories over the weekend werebad enough- the Associated Press, with a long history of suing over quotations from their articles, went afterDrudge Retortfor having the audacity to link to their stories along with short quotations via reader submissions. Drudge Retort is doing nothing different than what Digg, TechMeme, Mixx and dozens of other sites do, and frankly the fact that they are being linked to should be consideredafavor.
After heavy criticism over the last few days, the A.P. is in damage control mode, says the NYTimes, andretreatingfrom their earlier position. But from what I read, they’re justpushingtheir case further.
————————snip——————–
The A.P. doesn’t get to make it’s own rules around how its content is used, if those rules are stricter than the law allows. So even thought they say they are making these new guidelines in the spirit of cooperation, it’s clear that, like the RIAA and MPAA, they are trying to claw their way to a set of property rights that don’t exist today and that they are not legally entitled to. And like the RIAA and MPAA, this is done to protect a dying business model - paid content.
So here’s our new policy on A.P. stories: they don’t exist. We don’t see them, we don’t quote them, we don’t link to them. They’re banned until they abandon this new strategy, and I encourage others to do the same until they back down from these ridiculous attempts to stop the spread of information around the Internet.
The arrogant jerks at A.P. believe they can bully those of us in the so-called pajamas media without consequences. I've got news for them, it is they who are going to feel the crunch.
The Arrogant Press has always been a Left leaning biased and quite often anti-American operation. Attacking our troops, our president, and our values with impunity. With this push on their part to oppress their primary competition, it is time for all bloggers to take the boycott pledge - it is the smart thing to do - it is the legally shrewed thing to do - it is what I am doing.
Hey A.P. you've got your wish, I hope you choke on it…have a nice slow, painful, death.
Long Live Our American Republic!!!
...Of course there is a more cynical take on AP's actions, it has occurred to me that by banning direct copy or quotation, any claimed summary of their reports can be denounced as false with the simple act of withdrawing the offending content from their web pages.
Any blogger without the documentation of a direct copy and quote then suddenly becomes vulnerable to charges of manufacturing a story with intent of harming AP...of course that is just a cynical take and no such policy decision would be in the least conceivable to such an august member of the Paleo-media...would it?
The muzzling of free speech and of the "pajamas media" will occur with a whimper, not a bang. Rights are generally removed from the people gradually, by stages, rarely are they stripped away wholesale.
BOYCOTT THE ASSOCIATED PRESS!!!
What do you think?
To leave your opinion click on the word "COMMENT(S)" below
Barack Obama doesn't like lobbyists (unless they remain undiscovered on his advisory committees).
“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists – and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not get a job in my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president.” -- Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA, November 10, 2007
John Broder and Leslie Wayne in Chicago June 13, 2008
JAMES JOHNSON, the consummate Washington insider who Barack Obama tapped to head his vice-presidential search, has resigned abruptly to try to silence a growing furore over his business activities.
His departure deprives Senator Obama of decades of experience and access to Washington's power elite.
Mr Johnson has been a fixture in political and legal circles for three decades, and he led the vice-presidential search team for Senator John Kerry, the Democrats' presidential nominee in 2004.
His resignation came after days of intense scrutiny from the news media and attacks from Senator John McCain and Republican Party officials over mortgages Mr Johnson, a former chief executive of the home mortgage financier Fannie Mae, received on favourable terms from the Countrywide Financial Corporation, the mortgage company that was a central player in the subprime lending crisis."
Whoops! Hey, who knew? Hint: Obama knew and dismissed this conflict of interest. Coming soon to a bus near you, "Throw Eric Holder Under the Bus."
We may see this pattern repeated soon. The more problematic appointment to his vice presidential search committee may be Eric Holder, deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration. Mr. Holder was a key figure in the last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose ex-wife, Denise, was a major contributor to Clinton campaigns and to the Clinton library fund.
Mr. Rich, who fled to Switzerland to avoid prosecution on 51 counts of tax fraud, was not eligible for a pardon under Justice Department guidelines. But Mr. Holder circumvented normal procedures and kept other Justice Department lawyers in the dark. A congressional committee described his conduct as "unconscionable."
Keep watching folks. The Obama express is slowly but surely destroying itself as the inevitable conflicts of interest, lies, and corruption inherent in his campaign begin to unravel and are revealed to the public.
Obama is as corrupt as any politician coming from Chicago can be. He's Daily's man and he learned his politics on the South Side of Chicago...what else could you expect?
Long Live Our American Republic!!!
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How far should the state of Texas go to help high-school dropouts return to school and complete their diplomas? The Texas Education Agency wants to provide grants for a variety of dropout recovery pilot programs, but the public school lobby objects because non-government schools would be eligible to participate. In this week's commentary, Foundation education policy analyst Brooke Dollens Terry argues that Texas' dropout problem is so severe that any option that meets the needs of the students and helps them to complete their education is worth supporting.
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Denying Dropouts a Second Chance?
By Brooke Dollens Terry
Albert Einstein once said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. This sounds oddly familiar in the world of education policy. Throw more money at it and expect different results.
The public school establishment clings to the notion that schools can only get better if they get more money. Yet per student spending in Texas has almost doubled in the past ten years – growing from $5,282 per student in 1995-1996 to $9,629 in 2005-2006 – with little to show for it in student achievement on top of the thousands of students dropping out of school entirely.
In fact, more than 131,000 Texas students did not graduate with their class in 2006. This statistic is even more appalling considering the fact that African-American and Hispanic students are much more likely to dropout. Broken down by ethnicity, 57.7 percent of African-American students, 54.6 percent of Hispanic students, and 75.9 percent of white students graduated with their class in 2006.
A recent proposal from the Texas Education Agency to provide grants for dropout recovery pilot programs has drawn fire from the public school lobby. Under TEA’s proposal, the grants would provide funds to a variety of educational settings including public schools, charter schools, universities, and some private schools, if they do one thing: get dropouts, or those at risk of dropping out, back into school to work on their diploma. This arrangement would not divert funds from public schools, but establishes a bounty for bringing kids back to complete their education.
The fundamental question, then, is should the state put a priority on getting dropouts back into school by paying any educational institution that can convince the student to return?
For the public school establishment it seems the answer is a resounding “no!” These education groups show their true colors as they wield political power to protect their self-interest rather than meet the needs of students that public schools have failed to reach. Most disappointingly, many in the public school lobby seem satisfied if they lose funding due to a student dropping out of school, but object to allowing those funds to follow a student to their classroom setting that rescues them from dropping out.
As Texas struggles with a dropout crisis, policymakers should also explore new solutions to catch those students who continue to fall through the cracks. Dropouts desperately need a second chance at an education and should be given a variety of options – be it in a public, charter, virtual or private school – that meets their individual needs.
The public should demand that the state do something to address the dropout crisis and reject those who defend and protect the status quo that has so obviously failed to meet this need. Instead of dismissing dropouts as impossible to serve, we hope dropouts will be given the opportunity for this second chance through a variety of innovative approaches, and we hope public schools step up to the plate along with other educational settings as they compete to bring these students back to school.
If experience has taught us anything, it is that doing the same thing just isn’t good enough.
Brooke Dollens Terry is an education policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin. She can be contacted at bterry@texaspolicy.com.
If AGW (anthropogenic global warming) was as much a fait accompli as those in the green movement would have the rest of us believe, then those who promulgate this theory wouldn't be forced to use dishonesty to promote their point of view.
Case in point, The Register is reporting that NASA's chief climate expert and his network of propagandists have been caught "cherry-picking" temperature data to make it appear as though the planet is warming up at a much greater pace than they originally claimed.
They have released a new graphic in which their chosen base-line centers around the cooling spell of the 1970's thus skewing the later temperature data to make it appear that change is occurring at a much greater rate than the overall data would imply.
Painting by numbers: NASA's peculiar thermometer
By Steven Goddard Published Thursday 5th June 2008 12:11 GMT
Analysis: The story is that the world is heating up - fast. Prominent people at NASA warn us that unless we change our carbon producing ways, civilisation as we know it will come to an end. At the same time, there are new scientific studies showing that the earth is in a 20 year long cooling period. Which view is correct? Temperature data should be simple enough to record and analyze. We all know how to read a thermometer - it is not rocket science.
Previously we looked at how US temperature data sets have been adjusted - with more recent versions of historical data sets showing a steeper rise in temperature than they used to. Here, we'll be looking at current NASA data and why their temperature maps appear hot-red, even when others are cool-blue.
To recap the earlier article, the graph below shows additional adjustments to the data set since the big "correction" in 2000.
We observe that the data has been consistently adjusted towards a bias of greater warming. The years prior to the 1970s have again been adjusted to lower temperatures, and recent years have been adjusted towards higher temperatures.
NASA's published data is largely based on data from the US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN), which derives its data from thermometer readings across the country. According to USHCN literature, the raw temperature data is adjusted to compensate for geographical movements in the weather stations, changes in the 24-hour start/end times when the readings are taken, and other factors. USHCN is directly affiliated with the Oak Ridge National Laboratories' Carbon DioxideInformation Analysis Center, an organisation which exists primarily to promote the idea of a link between CO2 and climate.
Perhaps Mr. Goddard could have more accurately entitled his article "Painting the Numbers."
It's not enough that the so-called "scientist" who are in the forefront of the war against reason and for the religion of Anthropogenic Global Warming "force data" in an attempt to make their highly biased and severely flawed computer models appear predictive and authoratative, now these same scientists are playing games with the data itself.
Once more we who are skeptics are confronted by "authorities" who wish us to believe in the religion of AGW and who attempt to convince us by "cooking the books."
I have commented on the dishonesty of those on the Left who are trying to force global warming dogma down our collective throats. If their "scientific evidence" is so compelling, why do they always find it necessary to misrepresent what their data show?
IN fact, the most compelling evidence they provide is that they themselves don't believe what they are finding and therefore must "fudge" their numbers in order to reassure themselves that theirs is the right path.
Real science does not have to "cook the books," or as I said, "Paint the numbers." Real science can stand on its own. The data speak for the scientist. They don't even have to make any case, either something is fact or it is not.
It is indeed unfortunate that so many people in this society are so gullible. They are blinded by the alphabet of letters following some "expert's" name that they leave the critical thinking portion of their brains behind in making decisions.
This information, as reported in the Register is a devastating endictment of one of AGW's most revered champions. This information ought to finish James Hansen as a scientist, and should ruin his career. In a sane world, it would, but in this alternate reality where Liberals accept dogma over hard science, Hansen's gross transgression will only serve to elevate his status as a cult figure in the religion of AGW.
It's a sad day for science when rigorous scientific examination is replaced by the religious AGW dogma of the Left.
Long Live Our American Republic!!!
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An Open Letter To Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
Dear Senator McConnell,
Thank you and your colleagues for forcing the reading of Senator Boxer's substitute amendment. Although your stated reason for this request concerned the Democrat Senators efforts to delay votes on judicial nominees, your actions served the American citizens in a much greater way.
This Global Warming bill is an anathema to all Americans who are concerned with the effect such a sweeping reform of the energy sector of our economy would have on our national security, our economy and the already onerous tax-burden we citizens bear.
To you and your colleagues like Senator Jeff Sessions, Pete Dominici, and Robert Corker I offer my gratitude and I suggest that further efforts to force the reading of each amendment to this bad legislation would be a good thing.
Hooray for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for demonstrating the courage to fight this corrupt and dishonest Democrat Party gaming of the Senate rules.
Please keep up the great work you and your colleagues are doing and know that there are millions of Americans out here who understand the seriousness of what the Liberals in Congress are attempting to do with this legislation and appreciate what you and your colleagues are doing to prevent this economic disaster posing as environmental legislation from becoming law.
At this juncture in our nation's history, we need men like you.
I don't know if you folks are paying attention, but debate on the senate floor over the Lieberman/Warner Global Warming Bill has come to a screeching halt.
It appears that those mean old Republicans have forced the reading, word for word, of the entire Bpxer substitue Amendment. They are doing so apparently in protest of the slow processing, by Senate Democrat Leadership, of judicial nominees.
This from RedState.com:
Mitch McConnell shut down the floor today by forcing the clerk to read all 500 or so pages of Barbara Boxer’s climate change bill, making it essentially impossible for anything to happen in the Senate all day (or, technically, until the reading is complete).
In addition to stopping all progress on the legislation currently on the floor, this action will have the effect of throwing off Reid’s entire legislative calendar (yes, the same one he somehow "forgot" to add those promised pre-Memorial Day confirmation votes to).
There are few things the minority can do in the Senate more disruptive to the Majority than removing their ability to manage the floor. Reid and Boxer (D-CA) have been seen very agitatedly conversing on the floor during the reading (clearly, Boxer neither wants to hear, nor wants anybody else to hear, her bill read in so public a location as the Senate chamber). McConnell's action is designed to send a very specific message to Reid, Boxer, Leahy, and the rest of the Senate Democrats that Republicans will not stand by while they hedge, obstruct, and otherwise refuse to move on the nominations of qualified judges to the bench.
This is really, really boring television, but it is entertaining as a tool to block any progress on the Global Warming Bill without invoking a filibuster and it's not subject to a cloture vote.
Of course like all actions of goverment, the people who really suffer are the workers in the Senate chambers who are forced to sit and listen to the endless drone about section this, paragraph number that, subsection the other and the poor clerks who are forced to read all of the drivel that Boxer's brigade of lawyers dreamed up in writing this 500 page exercise in vanity.
The Democrats have got to be really steamed at this inactivity. I missed the opening this morning but I am certain that Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer and their partners in crime were eloquent in their expression of self-righteous indignation at being forced to have the entire text read aloud into the record.
The really cool thing is that the only statements that can be made from the floor is to request a unanimous consent to dispense with the reading, something McConnel and his fellows are unlikely to allow.
Thus this massive attempt at government takeover of the entire energy sector of the economy will be exposed and can be closely examined by the public.
To quote Little Richard, "We're havin' some fun tonight (or today)."
You know the thought occurs to me that this should be standard operating procedure in the Senate...just think of all the legislative interference that could be stymied and how few bills would ever get passed.
Long Live Our American Republic!!!
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For Hillary: "It Ain't Over 'til the Fat Lady Sings"
Never let it be said that Hillary doesn't have grit (some might call it blind ambition or stubbornness).
The Obama propaganda machine, better known as the Mainstream Media, or the Paleo-Media, has been calling on Hillary Clinton to give up, go home, call it a day, surrender, face the facts, and quit since she first hit a speed bump in the Ohio Caucuses back in January.
Following each pronouncement of the end of her campaign from the know-it-all elitist MSM, and rumors of her imminent demise as a viable candidate, Senator Mrs. William J. "Bubba" Clinton has refused to listen to the "all-knowing" idiots like Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and the entire staff of the New York Lies Times and staged a Phoenix-like comeback.
Again and again Hillary has defied the experts, pundits, and Liberal elite within her own party. She has dared to defy the will of the very people who first lionized her and who subsequently demanded she end her campaign "for the good of the Party."
Well one thing we Conservatives have known for a long time is that the leaders of the Democrat Party are more concerned with the welfare of their party than they are the needs of the people, or the good of this nation.
We saw it in (then Senate leader) Tom Daschle's choice to launch an attack against Republicans rather than ask Bill Clinton to resign the Presidency for the good of the nation during Monica-gate. This self-admitted decision by the former Senator from South Dakota, set the "slash and burn," "take no prisoners" tone of the Democrat Party for the following decade and has, to a great extent, resulted in the unwillingness of Democrats in Congress to work with the President or with Republicans in Congress all the while blaming Republicans for this stalemate.
We who pay attention know better, and have known better for over 10 years. So it comes as no surprise that the Elite Leaders of the Democrat Party Left would expend so much effort to stop the "Hillary Express."
Problem is, they failed to take into account the fact that the sheer, brazen, uncontrolled lust for power, which burns in their breasts also resides within the heart of Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton has been the primary driving force behind one of the most ruthless, take-no-prisoners, political machines in modern history. For her to give up, simply because the odds were stacked against her, is so alien of a concept as to be incomprehensible to her.
As a result of Hillary's sheer determination to win the American Presidency, the Democrat Party has been forced to expend a large portion of what should have been anti-Bush momentum in an internecine war of historic proportions.
Liberals have been fighting with the "Even More Liberals." The Left against the Extreme Left.
The net result of this war within the Democrat Party is a rift that may be too great to overcome in November...especially with the "most Liberal man in the Senate" being their annointed candidate.
Democrats, caught in a trap of their own devising, have backed themselves into a corner so far Left, so far out of the mainstream that their selected candidate, Barack Hussein Obama, makes Hillary appear to be a centrist.
We have been here before. In 1968, the level heads within the Democrat Party beat back a relentless assault from the Left and nominated Hubert Humphrey to be their Presidential candidate. This so outraged the extreme Left of the Party, that it lead to a narrow victory for Republicans and put Richard Nixon in the White House.
As a result of this war, the extreme Left of the Democrat Party built a political coalition that ended in the nomination of Leftist Extremist George McGovern. McGovern was the 1972 equivalent of Barack Hussein Obama. He was the ultimate anti-war, Leftist-socialist candidate and he lost in a landslide defeat of epic proportions.
Obama's stand against the troops and the war in Iraq, and his words of defeatism are eerily reminiscent of those of George McGovern, who, as reported in the Time Magazine article "The Plight of The Doves," once said on the floor of the Senate:
"Every Senator in this chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This chamber reeks of blood.
Scathingly, McGovern argued that "it does not take any courage at all for a Congressman or a Senator or a President to wrap himself in the flag and say we are staying in Viet Nam—because it is not our blood that is being shed." But, he predicted, the young men who are sent to fight "will some day curse us for our pitiful willingness to let the Executive carry the burden that the Constitution places on us." McGovern claimed that his fellow Senators had contributed to "that human wreckage all across our land—young men without legs or arms or genitals or faces—or hopes."
The entire debate over Iraq is eerily reminiscent of the debate over Viet Nam, as that same article goes on to say:
A prevailing argument was voiced by Kansas Republican Robert Dole, who dismissed the measure as "a shallow appeal to the emotions and anxieties of good Americans, who are weary of seven years of war." He contended that the Senate ought to express its confidence that President Nixon was moving toward "peace with honor, rather than retreat and defeat." Some antiwar critics of the Administration cast negative votes in the belief that a withdrawal deadline would hinder rather than help peace negotiations.
The words of then freshman Senator Robert Dole ring as true today as they did in 1970.
In 2008, Americans are again faced with the choice between an extreme Left-wing radical whose number one goal is "retreat and defeat" in Iraq, and a moderate Republican who believes in our nation, our military and in the honor of doing what is right rather than what is expeditious. In forcing Hillary to the Middle, Obama has wrapped himself in the robes of the extremists in the Left-wing moonbat portion of the Democrat Party.
This is the opportunity that Hillary still sees. The Democrats have locked themselves into a carbon-copy path of that they took in 1972 and which led them to an historic landslide defeat.
If Hillary can keep her candidacy alive, even in apparent defeat, then it always remains possible that she could convince a sufficient number of Democrat "super-delegates" of that argument. That, on the cusp of what should have been a resoundingly good year for Democrats and their party, could end up in a stinging rebuke, very reminiscent of the 1972 landslide Republican victory.
As opposed to Obama, a freshmen Senator with less than 3 years of experience in the Senate, McGovern was a seasoned Senator with 9 years of experience and a previous presidential campaign under his belt. On the other hand, it appears that Obama has adopted more from the McGovern Campaign than just his anti-war stance.
In 1972 McGovern too offered to give every American citizen a $1000 "demo-grant..." hmmm, $1000, sounds vaguely familiar. Of course in 1972 $1000 would have been a large sum of money, closer to $3-4000 in today's dollars. I guess Democrat votes have gotten cheaper over the years.
Anyway, look for Hillary to persist in this campaign, at least until the vote at the Democrat Convention. Believe me she sees all of these things I have mentioned and continues to work the phones in an effort to sway those less than sanguine super-delegate Obama supporters.
We may yet see a "Hillary for President" bumper sticker in November.
Long Live Our American Republic!!!
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