More support for Edwards’ rule of public nudity:
Two stories demonstrate the premise that we’re raising a nation of wussies.
Take what happened in Fredricksburg, Virginia recently. A woman was caught putting her kids in the trunk of her car to punish them. She was caught. They found the kids in the trunk. She admitted she did it. Was she arrested?
No.
Fredericksburg police said this week that because the children appeared more upset about the possibility of their mother being arrested than about having been locked in the trunk, the three were allowed to leave together, on Parker’s promise to turn herself in later to face charges.
Got that? Police allowed her to leave because the kids were upset about the prospect of Mom going to jail. In fact, not only did police let her leave, they LET HER TAKE THE KIDS WITH HER!!!!!!
You know you’re going to charge this woman with felony child abuse and yet you allow her to take the kids home because you don’t want the children to get upset?
This is a family friendly blog, so I’m having to resort to this: What the ^%@$ are you thinking?
Then there’s this story.
A judge Tuesday dismissed an involuntary manslaughter conviction for the Rancho Palos Verdes woman whose suicide attempt from a Torrance hotel balcony eight years ago resulted in the death of her 3-year-old daughter.
Farinoosh Dalili wiped tears from her face following the brief hearing in which Torrance Superior Court Judge William R. Hollingsworth Jr. also granted her request to reduce her 365-day house arrest sentence by one day so she does not lose her green card.
She threw herself and her three year old daughter off a balcony. She lived, the three year old died. Judge felt she she shouldn’t be punished so he dismisses the charge and reduces her sentence (which doesn’t make any sense, btw) so she doesn’t lose her green card?
SO SHE DOESN’T LOSE HER GREEN CARD???
Yes, we need MORE psychos in this country, Your Honor. If we have the chance to actually deport someone whose mental illness has led to the death of another, by all means let’s keep her here rather than send her home.
What are these people thinking?
In a victory for nudists everywhere, Elizabeth Book has won a court battle allowing her to go topless as a political protest.
Now before you go getting all excited, let me cite Edwards’ Rule of Public Nudity: those willing to go naked in public are the same people you are not wanting to see naked.
And just to be sure… here she is.
Not much to say about President Bush’s speech last night. I have a feeling that those who were against the war from the get-go found it absurd, and those that still support the war found it reassuring.
Since I’m not one who supported the war but now does not, I have no idea how it played to that segment of the public, nor will I pretend to know how it played.
For starters, I’d make sure the Florida Democratic Party paid what they owed.
I can’t remember what blog I found this on, so I apologize for the lack of attribution, but what a steaming pile of horse poop this story is.
The premise is that California is spending millions of dollars a year to incarcerate elderly inmates with serious health problems, when they could just… let them go!
It’s still dark when inmate No. 41465 wakes up to begin her day. The shrunken 82-year-old changes from her pajamas and pink house coat into jeans and a denim shirt labeled California Prisoner and begins her drill: breakfast at 6, sack lunch pickup at 6:30, infirmary at 7, where she acquires an ankle chain, belly chains and handcuffs. She then hobbles to a van for the 40-minute ride to Riverside Hospital for dialysis beginning at 8. Helen Loheac suffers from chronic renal failure, a condition that she figures costs the state $436,000 a year, not counting the two $24.75-an-hour armed corrections officers who guard her, all 5 feet and 90 pounds, for up to eight hours a day three times a week.
The financial toll of incarcerating senior citizens nationwide is staggering. Eyeglasses, hearing aids, medications and therapies, often for chronic or terminal conditions, compound the $30,929 annual average tab for housing a young, robust prisoner.
So what did Helen Loheac actually do?
Loheac entered the California Institution for Women 13 years ago, at age 69, upon being sentenced to 25 years to life for conspiracy to commit murder. She says she thought she was just doing her troubled son a favor in handing off a wad of cash to a man. That man was an undercover cop, as it turned out, and the money was for a hit.
I can’t believe this poor innocent woman was sentenced to 25 years to life just for handing a wad of cash to a guy.
Later, the author says that Helen wants to be set free.
She would live out her remaining time in a small room saved for her by the nuns at Crossroads in Claremont, who often reach out to inmates. Sister Terry Dodge has said she would take her in, and Medicare would pay for dialysis.
Oh, well that’s okay. Because we all know that Medicare doesn’t cost anyone a dime.
By the way, Helen Loheac first went on dialysis 12 years ago, or one year after she was convicted for hiring a hit man on behalf of her son. Should the state of California have let her go then?
Then there’s the case of 82-year old Claude Hoffman, who
sits on a bed covered with a patchwork quilt handmade by the ladies of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in nearby Vacaville and watches a small TV. Though most inmates in the eight-cell unit pass away within a few months, he arrived more than a year ago ready to die of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. His stay, not including medications, costs the state $1,500 a week, three times as much as a healthy prisoner.
Hoffman was sentenced to 15-to-life for killing his girlfriend about 18 years ago, an act he committed while drunk. Now a born-again Christian, he spends most of his time writing to and about Jesus:
“I used to struggle for power
An empty lonely thing
Now I am on a first-name basis
With the King of Kings.”
“Every day I ask Christ our Lord to take me off the state rolls and let me go home to die,” he whispers, using his inhaler to draw a breath before continuing. “I could get veterans benefits. Financially, I could take care of myself, instead of it costing the state to watch me die.”
Wow! VA benefits! That doesn’t cost anybody anything either! And he’s found Jesus! Surely 18 years behind bars is enough when you’ve found Jesus!
This is how the story ends.
Many advocates for the elderly in prison, including state Sen. Romero and The Sentencing Project’s King, believe three-strikes reform is the only long-term solution. “We need to look at our sentencing legislation and what’s putting those people there to begin with,” King says.
The governor’s administration disagrees. “There’s nothing wrong with the sentencing structure in California,” says Tremblay of the state Youth and Adult Correctional Agency. “And we’re certainly not emptying out our prisons to balance the budget.”
So Claude Hoffman waits. The Christmas tree gives way to chicks and bunnies as he marks his second Easter at the hospice. Baseball season opens. Hoffman dreamily recalls seeing Babe Ruth and Hank Greenberg play in Detroit, his hometown. He hopes to watch a game with his family, one last time.
I wonder… Claude Hoffman’s girlfriend. You know, the one he killed 18 years ago? I wonder what her “one last time” wish would be. If you could go back in time and ask her, I wonder what she’d say.
The always eloquent Perry Michael Simon has more, including this quote that I forgot about.
“She may have done some heinous or criminal act in her day, but at this point she’s not a risk to the state any longer—other than fiscally,” says state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), chairwoman of a select committee overseeing the correctional system. “We are locking up the elderly at the expense of building schools for students and keeping university fees down, and we can’t pretend that it’s not happening.”
Ma’am, with all due respect, you’re not “locking up the elderly.” No police officer is going to go to Grandma’s house and take her away because she’s reached the mandatory detention age of 75. You’re locking up murderers.
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Michael Dodson, in the comments to the post below, takes issue with Rep. Tom Davis sending a not-so subtle warning to Major League Baseball regarding George Soros and his attempt to buy part of the Washington Nationals.
It’s entirely up to MLB as to who they want running the Nats, and this is the organization that’s given us Marge Schott and George Steinbrenner, not to mention the disaster that is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays ownership. So if MLB wants George Soros as a part owner, I’ve got no problem with that.
Of course it means I won’t be attending any more Nationals games. I don’t have a problem with MLB picking Soros as an owner, but I have a problem putting any of my money in the pockets of George Soros. And MLB should probably be aware that I’m not the only one who feels that way.
Do you want such a polarizing political figure as an owner of the baseball team located in our nation’s capitol? I think that’s the real question MLB should be asking, not “Is Tom Davis going to take away our anti-trust exemption?”
If some Republicans in Washington think having George Soros as part of the ownership of the Nationals will hurt Major League Baseball’s image…wonder what they think about this?
I’m already annoyed with having to dodge all the vendors hawking credit cards (Diamondbacks Visa) and the local rag of a paper (whose parent company owns a piece of the local MLB team) just to get my hot dog and soda. But furniture? That’s not even remotely related to baseball. Makes the Devil Rays even more of a joke.
Methinks these Republicans wouldn’t care, unless of course Soros was selling furniture at the games.
Then I could go to the CSI inspired summer camp in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
There’s no marshmallow toasting or campfire songs at this summer camp.
The popularity of the CSI shows has led to camps with an emphasis on forensic science. The murder scenes are recreations and there are no corpses. But the kids get to learn about things like fingerprinting and collecting tiny bits of evidence with tweezers or cotton swabs.
My inner science nerd is drooling.
Lots of decisions by SCOTUS today, and great roundup over at SCOTUSblog.
Some highlights:
the Supreme Court upheld a federal court order against a display of the religious document on the wall of courthouses in two Kentucky counties.
The Court, in an opinion by Justice David H. Souter, said the ruling does not mean that a sacred text can never be integrated into a governmental display on law and history. It found, however, that the displays in Kentucky were motivated by a religious purpose, which did not change as the display was modified twice during court challenges.
Justice Antonin Scalia announced portions of his dissenting opinion. The case was McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky (03-1693).
Chief Justice Rehnquist announced the second decision on a religious display, finding no constitutional violation in the placement of a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the state capitol building in Austin, Texas. That decision was widely splintered. Announcing the votes of the various Justices, Rehnquist quipped — to widespread laughter in the courtroom — that he did not know there were so many Justices on the Court. The case was Van Orden v. Perry (03-1500).
In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled that local governments have no constitutional duty to protect from private violence an individual who is shielded by a court’s restraining order. Such individuals do not gain an enforceable interest in that protection, the Court declared in an opinion by Justice Scalia. The case was Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales (04-278).
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that developers of software violate federal copyright law when they provide computer users with the means to share music and movie files downloaded from the Internet, at least when the software companies take “affirmative steps to foster infringement.”
In a decision announced by Justice David H. Souter, the Court said: “We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties” — that is, computer users using free downloading software.
Not sure how I feel about the 10 Commandments rulings, I expected the Gonzalez ruling, and the file-sharing decision is yet another reason the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act needs to get passed.
Didnt’ take long.
On Friday, city of Phoenix officials filed condemnation notices in preparation to take 5 acres of prime downtown real estate for an additional campus location for Arizona State University. Nevermind that ASU already has a downtown campus, plus three other locations around the metro Phoenix area and an exellent on-line degree program. The new and improved ASU-Capital Center promises “15,000 new students - plus staff, faculty and anticipated private investment” from “private investors wanting to develop student housing”.
There’s not much these property owners can do to stop the city from taking their land. ASU is a public university. Any condemnation on ASU’s behalf would clearly fit the “public benefit” requirement of the 5th Ammendment. Property owers can’t even challenge the transfer of land to those promised, yet still unknown and illusive “private investors”. SCOTUS made sure of that on Thursday.
The only recourse these people have is to challenge the “just compensation” Phoenix is offering. And the the compensation is anything but just.
Phoenix has hired an outside firm to appraise each of the properties being condemned. According to records obtained Friday by The Arizona Republic, the city is offering anywhere from $35 to $115 per square foot for each property.
Some question whether those are fair prices.
Anthony Olivieri, for example, said he bought some land and a commercial building on Central Avenue for $490,000 back in 2003. On April 1, the city offered him about $440,000.
Seems a bit odd that Olivieri’s property value DECREASED in the past two years. I don’t pretend to be an expert in commercial real estate valuation. I don’t even play one on TV. But I do know that both the residential and commercial real estate markets in Phoenix are on fire. Commerical real estate values are increasing at approximately (and at least at) the same rate as residential values.
For example: I purchased my home in April of 2003 for $68 per square foot. I had it appraised again last month for insurance purposes and it’s now valued at over $110 per square foot. My rough math tells me that’s approximately a 70% increase in value. If a residential property increased that much, a commercial property in downtown should be expected to increase at least by that much.
Olivieri could spend thousands in legal fees arguing the city’s valuation of his property so he’ll probably end up accepting the cash the city is offering. He’ll take a $50,000 loss right now in lieu of paying attorneys and delaying his payout. How sad that any business owner is forced by the city government to make that decision. And Olivieri’s situation isn’t even the most outrageous.
Norman Fox owns a 7,250-square-foot parcel in a prime downtown location. Fox is having his property stolen from him. There’s no other way to say it. The city offered Fox $290,000 for his parcel. Yet when using comparable sales to value his property, it should be worth anywhere from $725,000 to well over $1,000,000.
…other landowners wouldn’t say specifically what they thought their land is worth. But they think a fair market rate is well over $100 a square foot. They cite recent sales of downtown property that netted $120 to $144 per square foot…..
The land is vacant, but Fox said he had wanted to partner with Olivieri to develop the site. The city has offered him $40 a square foot.
“I am willing to give up the high-rise for the progress,” he said. “But don’t steal it from me.”
If a property owner can get a price on the open market, shouldn’t that be the “just compensation” paid by the city? Not according to the city of Phoenix.
Phoenix officials contend that their offers are fair. They believe that all the announcements about downtown, from the university campus to a $600 million renovation of Phoenix Civic Plaza to light rail, have fueled rampant speculation. Officials don’t believe they should be victimized by the artificially inflated costs.
City officials are perfectly comforable to victimize property owners instead.
So let’s recap - we have a situation where a municipality can force property owners to sell their property, for whatever price the municipality wants to pay because they don’t want to be taken advantage of, and the municipality can then transfer the property to whomever the city wants. And it’s all perfectly legal. What country are we living in again?
Unfortunately I think this same scenario will play out in communities all over the country with increasing frequency. Thank you SCOTUS.
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Believe it or not, there is a political silver lining to the SCOTUS decision yesterday.
Those who smeared Justice Thomas will now have to defend their outrageous comments OR defend the outrageous decision in Kelo. Liberals painted themselves into quite the corner.
Remember Harry Reid back in December -
When asked to comment on Thomas as a possible replacement for Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Reid told NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court.
“I think that his opinions are poorly written. I just don’t think that he’s done a good job as a Supreme Court justice.”
This “embarrassment” issued a “poorly written” dissenting opinion that forces Harry Reid (and the rest of the lefties) to agree with him, or be forever linked to supporting this idea:
“Though citizens are safe from the government in their homes, the homes themselves are not.”
Perhaps Thomas is more politically astute than he is given credit for.
Siding with Thomas is political suicide for a lefty who has positioned themselves along side the MoveOn.org folks. Yet supporting the idea that a government can take your property and give it to someone else won’t fly with most reasonable folks. Oh quite the pickle.
I’m going to love watching Reid, and the rest of the liberals squirm their way out of this one.
….death and taxes. Every April 15th you know what your tax bill is. Ever wonder when you’re going to die? Would you want to know?
If you do, here’s a fun little website for you. Enter your birthdate, and lifestyle facts like your BMI and whether you’re a smoker/non-smoker, and it calculates the day of your death - right down to how many seconds you have left to live.
In case you’re wondering, I will die on Monday, November 30, 2054. Yikes! That’s only 49 years from now. I’d better get moving if I’d like to accomplish everything on my “100 Things To Do Before I Die” list.
I really don’t understand the Democrats. I know Dick Durbin has egg on his face and so you’re looking to find something, anything, that a Republican said to be outraged about.
But Karl Rove’s recent remarks are not the statement you should be attacking. It’s a statement you should have ignored.
For those who missed it, here’s what Rove said on Wednesday night.
Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.
Why on earth did the Democrats decide this was a slam on them? Are all Democrats liberal? No. Are all liberals Democrats? No. And the White House is reminding Democrats of that.
The only two people or groups specifically mentioned by Rove were Moveon.org and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin. Democrats could have easily ignored this statement by Rove, and the world wouldn’t have paid a bit of attention to it.
Now of course, the Democrats are once again sounding like whiny little children. We’re reminded again of what Dick Durbin said. And somewhere, Karl Rove is rubbing his hands together with glee.
I really cannot overstate how much I’ve come to admire and appreciate Clarence Thomas. Just read his dissent in the 5th Amendment case SCOTUS decided today.
Long ago, William Blackstone wrote that “the law of the land … postpone[s] even public necessity to the sacred and inviolable rights of private property.” 1 Commentaries on the Laws of England 134—135 (1765) (hereinafter Blackstone). The Framers embodied that principle in the Constitution, allowing the government to take property not for “public necessity,” but instead for “public use.” Amdt. 5. Defying this understanding, the Court replaces the Public Use Clause with a “ ‘[P]ublic [P]urpose’ ” Clause, ante, at 9—10 (or perhaps the “Diverse and Always Evolving Needs of Society” Clause, ante, at 8 (capitalization added)), a restriction that is satisfied, the Court instructs, so long as the purpose is “legitimate” and the means “not irrational,” ante, at 17 (internal quotation marks omitted). This deferential shift in phraseology enables the Court to hold, against all common sense, that a costly urban-renewal project whose stated purpose is a vague promise of new jobs and increased tax revenue, but which is also suspiciously agreeable to the Pfizer Corporation, is for a “public use.”I cannot agree. If such “economic development” takings are for a “public use,” any taking is, and the Court has erased the Public Use Clause from our Constitution, as Justice O’Connor powerfully argues in dissent. Ante, at 1—2, 8—13. I do not believe that this Court can eliminate liberties expressly enumerated in the Constitution and therefore join her dissenting opinion. Regrettably, however, the Court’s error runs deeper than this. Today’s decision is simply the latest in a string of our cases construing the Public Use Clause to be a virtual nullity, without the slightest nod to its original meaning. In my view, the Public Use Clause, originally understood, is a meaningful limit on the government’s eminent domain power. Our cases have strayed from the Clause’s original meaning, and I would reconsider them.
Great stuff. And thank goodness we have Thomas on the Supreme Court. Now we just need one more like him (although two wouldn’t hurt).
Goodbye individual property rights. What an unbelievably bad decision by SCOTUS today.
A Cleveland, OH heart surgeon gives up his practice to join the Army.
“It’s going to sound like flag-waving, but Sept. 11 really bothered me,” Stewart said. The son of a decorated World War II Army machine gunner asked himself what he had done for his country.
“I have benefited tremendously as a citizen, but I’ve never really given back,” he said.
Stewart, who has never been in the military, took his oath of service last week just around the corner from his sixth-floor offices at Lakeside Hospital, where he co-directs University Hospitals’ cardiothoracic surgery division. Previously, he set up heart transplant programs at UH as well as at the Cleveland Clinic.
Warm fuzzies.
I guess since Senator Dubin has “apologized” I should stop faxing this photo to his offices every hour.
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So Senator Dick has has apologized. Again. Sort of.
“Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line,” the Illinois Democrat said. “To them I extend my heartfelt apologies.”
The ideal politician. If you’re offended, I apologize. If you’re not offended, I don’t.
And what’s with all the crying in the Senate as of late?
His voice quaking and tears welling in his eyes, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate also apologized to any soldiers who felt insulted by his remarks.
“They’re the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them,” he said.
Between Durbin and Voinovich, Kleenex must be making a fortune on Capitol Hill.
And while I’m not advocating a return to Senators beating those they disagree with, it would be nice if his fellow Senators didn’t call this half-hearted apology courageous.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, took to the floor as well, accepting Durbin’s offering.“All of us, I believe, who have had the opportunity to serve in public life from time to time have said things that we deeply regret,” said McCain. “I know that I have … I would like to say to the senator from Illinois, he did the right thing, the courageous thing and I believe we can put this issue behind us.”
I believe John McCain knows a thing or two about courage, which is why his statement bugs me so much. Is it courageous to step up and apologize only after fellow Democrats demand it? No. It’s politically expedient (and I predicted it would happen on the show today), but it’s not courageous.
Courage is best used to describe the men and women who are fighting overseas, not a Senator who compares them to Nazis and backtracks only in the face of pressure from his own party.
I’m absolutely fascinated by what’s going on in Iran with their elections, and the various coverage here in the states. There was a ridiculous article about the election by the AP yesterday, in which they failed to even mention the allegations of vote-rigging.
California Yankee points to another story about a crackdown on campaign related text messages.
Can’t you just see Senator McCain taking notes?
Kids in Poughkeepsie might soon be eating their school lunches at a time when fast food restaurants are still serving breakfast.
This is asinine, and it’s not just happening in Poughkeepsie. My high schoolers get up at 5:45 in the morning in order to catch the bus at 6:30. School starts at 7:20 a.m. for middle and high schoolers. The reason they start so early is that the elementary school kids don’t start until 9 or so.
This is backwards, in my opinion. First off, a lot of parents can’t wait around until 8:15 or 8:30 to put their elementary school kids on the bus, so you now have a booming “before school babysitting” business. Secondly, little kids tend to naturally wake up earlier than older kids. This has already been discussed in at least one medical study.
Flip the schedule. Let the older kids start school later, with the elementary schools starting around 7:30 a.m. Then the teens wouldn’t have to eat lunch at 9:30 in the morning, and neither would the younger kids since the elementary schools typically serve a smaller population.
Either that or make sure the geniuses who are designing and building high schools start putting in TWO cafeterias to better serve the student population. As it is, my kids bring their lunch every day because by the time they get through the lunch line… lunch is over.
Here’s a new pic of the three youngest kids to enjoy.
It’s a little hectic at the day job, so no posting until this evening. Have fun in the comments.
Sean from the American Mind has tagged me with this book meme.
“Five books I liked enough as a teen/young adult to read again as an adult.”
Oh boy. Where to begin?
1- Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. I picked up this book over Thanksgiving vacation my senior year in high school. I was in Fort Collins, Colorado and looking at a 12-14 hour car ride home with nothing to read. This was the thickest novel I could find in the quirky little bookstore. Since then I’ve read this book at least 20 times. The story of a guy who is constantly striving for fame, and who ultimately finds contentment with quiet companionship really kind of spoke to me. At the time, I think I wanted to make sure I didn’t end up like Phillip, yet I can draw a lot of comparisons to my life now and his life at the end of the book. Strangely, when I first read the book I thought that would be horrible. Now it doesn’t seem bad at all.
2- On the Road by Jack Kerouac. My mom bought this for me when I was 12(!) but I couldn’t get into it until I was 16. It inspired a lot of bad beatnik songwriting on my part, but there is something to that vagabond freedom that still appeals to me.
3- Jaguars Ripped My Flesh by Tim Cahill. Bill Bryson’s a great travel writer, but there’s something about Tim Cahill that’s more appealing to me. At the time, this made me want to explore the world. There was a ill-fated (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to go to Alaska to work in a cannery in the summer before my senior year.
4- Warday by Whitley Streiber and James Kunetka. A literary exercise in Cold War fear-mongering. It was kind of like a highbrow(?) version of Red Dawn. Great fun. Wish it was still in print.
5- Skeleton Crew by Stephen King. My introduction to Stephen King came with the novella “The Mist”, which I still think would make an unbelievably cool movie. With all the crap Stephen King tv movies that have been made, why they haven’t tried to put this on the boob tube is beyond me.
So there you have it. I think I’m supposed to tag some other bloggers with this, so Monty, Chaz, and Jake… you’re on the clock.